A Powerful Reason Why - Max Shank

That's why if you sit in a chair all day, your brain gets that message and goes, Okay, we're gonna turn you into a chair. Apparently, this is really important to you. And and you know, you keep sitting in the chair and your brain's like, Are you sure this is what you want? And then you keep sitting in the fucking chair, and the brain's like, okay, let's shorten up those hip flexors, let's tighten those text. We're gonna make it as easy and efficient as possible for you to be some sort of odd like T-Rex monster who only has thumbs.

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back to the future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 77. Uh Sevens happens to be my lucky number. So this is double lucky because I have Max Chank on the show. So we had a very in-depth conversation. I wouldn't say you're gonna get a lot of exact granular things on what to do in your life, but you're gonna get a ton on how to approach life, how to approach business, uh, how to define success, uh, which is really, really important uh in what we do because we have the opportunity as fitness professionals to make tremendous impact on uh on the people that we work with. So um it's just an all-around awesome, awesome conversation, in my opinion, of course, uh, because I'm part of it. But uh you'll get a lot out of it. And uh Max has seen a tremendous amount of success um at a relatively young age within the fitness profession, and uh it's well deserved. The guy is uh smart cat, very, very much so. So um without further ado, let's get into it. Um, one call to action for you is if you are on Facebook and you want to be part of a conversation um that is modernizing the industry, uh go check out our closed Facebook group. It's free. It's called the Modern Fit Pro. Um great network of over 2,000 professionals from all over the world. Uh go check it out. Um, there's an application for it. So once you fill it out, I'll check it out. And I will uh most likely let you in if you fill it out completely and honestly. And that's it. So without further ado, let's go ahead on to Max Shank, number 77. Enjoy the show. Max Shank. Welcome to the show, man. Hey man, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, we just uh it's funny because we just had an amazing conversation and I didn't hit record. So we're gonna do it all over again, but we're gonna do it better.

Yeah, no one will ever hear all that magic that we have. Yeah.

So here's uh I'm actually gonna start with a story. I know I'm interviewing you, but I'm gonna start with the story. Um Do I have to listen?

No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

You're fine. I'll mute you actually while I talk and I'll let you know when it's your turn. And so I was, I think it was 2014 circa. Um I was in a um uh Strength Matters summit, right? And I was sitting there and I was I basically James Fitzgerald was presenting. I follow that guy everywhere he goes. And I was sitting there, I was sitting next to a young guy who's kind of a kettlebell guy. And then, you know, this guy walks in the back of the room and it was you, you know, I'm not gonna spoil the story. This guy's like, holy shit, it's Max Shank, right? I'm like, and so I, you know, this is like I just started Googling on my phone. I'm like, Max Shank. I'm like, oh, and I was pointing the story is I was very impressed. I didn't know at that point who you were, but then I started following, and then I started listening. I started seeing your name pop up on podcasts. Obviously, I'm a big podcast fan. Um so you've done a lot, man. And I'm I'm impressed that you know, just talking to you now, you know, 13 years in the industry, which is you know, not uh unsubstantial, but not super long. And you know, nine years of facility management ownership. You've done so you've made such a great impact, man. I mean, it just seems like you you've seen you've I'm amazed just in our conversations how enlightened you seemed with life, right? And I'm curious, like where did that come from, man? Because you know, you don't you don't seem like a relatively older guy, right? Right. You have a lot of life experience. And what what's up with that, man? Where does that come from? Where do you get any reason for that?

Um, you know, I'm really glad we started with a softball question like this. So I I think it comes down to probably just a couple points. Number one, my mission in life, if you want to call it that, is to help other people live a little bit better. So everything I do is basically related to that. I think life is already a total blast as it is. I don't need to go try to like double my money trying to do uh just figuratively. I mean, I'll I'll double my actual money. That's always a fun time. But just generally speaking, I get so much enjoyment from helping people improve their ability to communicate with their surroundings. Because communication, it's verbal like you and I are doing, it's nonverbal like posture, and it's also even more nonverbal like how you actually interact with the ground, how you interact with other objects in your life. And your physical capacity is going to be the thing that determines that. So as someone who has gone from fat to very athletic to so broken, I was actually bedridden and back, it showed me uh from a firsthand perspective the the drain that it can have on your soul when you don't feel physically capable. You know, you you have got a lot of people right now who are essentially prisoners in their own bodies. And I like that I can influence that in a positive way with really simple things. So I really enjoy that. So I have like a strong uh and powerful reason why. As far as the uh let's call it wisdom, perhaps. Yeah, I got a job when I was 12, and I've always had some sort of job. And I think one of the most important things a human being can do is provide value that is congruent with their consumption. So I have this idea or this theory that uh you need to have a balance between your contribution and your consumption. And right now, a vast majority of the population live in a hyperconsumption imbalance and they're not contributing. And social media can um influence this a little bit as well. But I think at the end of the day, whatever you're doing, you have to contribute a little bit more than you consume. Otherwise, not only are you a literal drain on the society, but also you kind of tend to feel like shit. Yeah. Like like it's not that fun. Uh the other thing is I have given myself permission to spend a lot of time alone in contemplation of things and and really sitting back and reflecting because there's not there's no quick fix to meditation, right? You just you just gotta sit down or lay down or balance on a beam and do the thing. You know, one of the things I did recently is I took myself on a silent retreat and it it was brilliant. I did three days in the woods, uh, no electricity, no phone, no reading, no writing, no music, like literally zero stimulus, but me out in nature, and you know, every night I just you know make a fire. It's that simple. Uh and I didn't I didn't go bananas. I I I rented an Airbnb, like out in the middle of nowhere. So it was still, I didn't have to necessarily worry about like, oh, where am I gonna stay? It was just like, no, you you wake up, you move around, you walk, you think. And it was especially important because I wanted to not because I'm I've done a lot of writing, like I was telling you before, I've written three books at this point, and uh, you know, we'll see when another one kicks out here. Uh that's always the funny thing, too, right? But I didn't want to give myself that out of turning this three-day retreat into just me writing. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts 100%. And rather than be like, ooh, I thought of this, write it down, I wanted to come away with what was the actual most important thing. Because if you come away with like a general sense of what's most important, you have something really tangible there. But if I had spent three days like scrawling notes out, how am I gonna prioritize? So I think a lot of it is just you know honoring yourself and giving the gift, the biggest gift you have is your time and your attention. And so often we take our time and our attention and we piss it away and give it to other people. And I think it's really good to give your time and attention to someone in a caring and constructive way, but I think once again, we go back to the contribution and consumption, yeah. And um, you know, I guess I guess that's basically it. You know, I've seen I've seen the whole spectrum of what physical and mental health can do or uh destroy in a person. Yeah, and I think you know, my life philosophy is really simple. Enjoy the ride and help people help other people enjoy the ride better, and that's it. I don't I don't I don't think anything else makes sense.

Yeah, and and simple's the best. And you know, I was telling you earlier too, you know, my wife and I have been on the road in one way or another for 12 months, you know. We picked up and left Santa Barbara. And one of the things I didn't really expect was the amount of time I have to think, which is there's just a lot, you know, because there's no like I I don't have any I where I go, I I make friends easily, so I'll pick up a friend there or something like that. But most of the time, it's just thinking. And man, the shit that you you start to like, the clarity that you get if you just take some time from the grind, right? And just do any nature is like the most amazing shit ever, right? I mean it's the most amazing thing ever.

It's a really great TV show. Nature is the best TV show.

It is it is. You know, it's interesting too. I uh my my old business partner when I own the gym, Traver Bohm, uh, he went through a very difficult time. And then for reasons really, probably only Traver knows, he decided to do a uh a dark retreat. Are you familiar with these? So 21 days he went to Guatemala and uh he did 21 days in a dark room spice. And you know, he What what other stimulus? That's it, man. He had he had a notepad where he could write. They would feed him, they would slide him a meal under a door, right? Like twice a day. And when I talked to him about it, he's like, Yeah, I just started writing like none of the stuff I was writing really made sense. And uh I still haven't got out of him like, what did you get out of it? You know, I want to know, but I don't think there's a point to it. I think he just went in there and and dealt with his shit and then came back out. Let it go. I don't know.

There are a lot of ways that you can uh give yourself therapy. I think that that's one of the biggest problems that we have in this country is people go looking to other people for help. Uh I think it's important to feel comfortable asking for help. That's kind of a separate problem. But there are but there are so many awesome options available to help you deal with any kind of trauma that you're dealing with. And trauma comes in many forms too, right? It doesn't have to be like something physically horrific happened to you. It doesn't have to be like, you know, your parents never hugged you. I mean, there are so many different levels, you know what I mean? And you can deal with those in such a wide variety of ways. Maybe all you need to do is exercise every day for 30 minutes and you'll feel 10 times better. Maybe all you need to do is get rid of your TV and stop watching cable all the time. Maybe all you need to do is stop watching the news because it's fucking depressing.

It's awful. Yeah. But do you think when we talk about people's trauma, and this is one thing I've noticed in my contemplations, right? Is that when we have a major trauma, we we ask for help, right? We there's all these traumas, sometimes, right? I think you're more likely to, but we have all these little traumas that we deal with, whether it's like you know, being in a relationship where it's stressful, right? Right. Just micro little things that build over time. Totally. Yeah, it still counts. No one asks for that. It still counts. Yeah, exactly. What you need to do is like if people listen to this, you're like, yeah, I kind of I got that going on. It's okay. Like you can still get help for little shit that you don't think is worth it. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Um so anyway, that's totally my thoughts on trauma. So, you know, I'm people listening to this are are most likely fitness professionals, I would imagine. And they they look at someone, you know, we were talking before about how you know you've you've worked, you got yourself to a point where you can do you have a lot more freedom in your lifestyle, right?

Oh, yeah, it's great. I got uh, you know, my measure of success right now is do you have an open calendar and how much time do you have to spend in front of a screen? Right. And and for me, like I don't really have appointments in my calendar unless I want them, and I don't look at a screen unless I want to, and that's my measure of success. And I feel really liberating because it gives you that opportunity to start thinking, like what we're talking about, you know, the top of the pyramid, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is self-actualization. So the only way you can get there is spending a lot of time with yourself actually focused on that. It's incredible.

Yeah. So how long did it take you to get that? Because I, you know, the your own personal definition of success is huge, right? If you can find out what that is, and it's probably gonna like five years from now, if I call it max, you know, he may be like, yeah, I can split it up a little bit or a month.

Who knows? The definition I had forever was if you're not complaining, you're successful. It's that easy.

I think it still works.

It does.

Yeah, I always like to say I I my definition of success is a life um not needing vacation. Right? Like if I feel like, you know, piercing, I'm like, I just gotta get away. Well then some something's off balance, right? You're just you're pushing too hard in one direction.

Big time. It kind of relates back to what we were talking about before, how people are always racing towards some imaginary finish line. Right. You know, whether that's the finish line being the end of your workout, whether that finish line is Friday afternoon, whether that finish line is retirement, uh, or you know, even all those children's books that end and they lived happily ever after. Everything is kind of like pushing people toward this uh ethereal idea of some finish line that doesn't even fucking exist. And it's kind of what I think keeps people going. It probably is kind of similar to the idea of heaven, right? You you have people, you have people who are, let's say, tolerating what under normal circumstances would be like, oh, this is stupid bullshit. Why am I tolerating this? But they're like, oh, I just got just until Friday afternoon, you know, if I can just make it to Friday. And they're like, oh, well, I fucking hate this job, but it pays the bills, so if I can just make it for another 40 years and then retire, just I'll I'll hit, you know, so it's all these like, you know, uh dot dot dot, and then I'll be happy. And and you know, the more you start doing that instead of enjoying the process of what you're doing, I think you die a little bit inside every time. Yeah.

Yeah. So here's here's what I'm thinking. If I'm uh, you know, I'm a fitness professional who's who's out there and um you know, I'm like, well, I'm I'm not Max Shank, right? I haven't written three books, I don't have a successful, you know, gym and online practice and all that. I can't afford those luxuries. What do you say to that cat?

Neither neither could I. Neither could I. When I was uh 21 years old and I started my business, I had no money.

Yeah.

Like uh what I would say though is when it comes to finances, you're in one of two categories. Either you have enough money that you can start saving and investing, or you don't have enough money that you can start saving and investing. And if you don't have enough, you need to get realistic with yourself about what your actual bills are that are necessities versus luxuries. And then if you're a trainer, you gotta fall in love with the process and you gotta be training people. Like I still train people not because I have to, but because I want to. And I probably do an even better job than I did before because now it's not even I love this and I need money, it's just I love this. So I think if you're a coach out there, make sure you actually love coaching. You know, I see a lot of people who are coaches who they just like exercising. So just fall in love with the process of coaching, and that's already the reward. You know, that's one of the advantages of being in the fitness industry, and that's why I have such a high amount of respect for the field that we're in, because I think it's a really important field. I think it's a very important profession because the difference you can make in a person's life by helping them become more physically free, feel like less of a prisoner in their own body, it that will make you feel good.

Yeah.

You know, I I heard somewhere that the only way to reduce your own suffering is to uh assist the suffering of others. I heard that somewhere, I can't remember what it was. I think it was like uh I think it was a friend of mine, oh I know what it was. There's a book with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. And I haven't read the book, my friend read the book, and he told me that story from the book. And they were saying, yeah, like basically the only way you can eat truly ease your own suffering is to help others with their suffering. And that's kind of the whole process. And you know, you can take that with a grain of salt, but it does point back to enjoy the ride and help out everybody else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. And it's it's interesting. I mean, I'll just give a personal anecdote today because it's so fresh in my mind, is my mom will be 80 in August. Um, so next month or a month from now. And she's she's been pretty inactive, right? And she's had a couple of things now that have made her really sedentary. She's you know, had a cast on her leg, and that's dude, for an 80-year-old, that's brutal, right? Um and you know, when she has all these, when I talk to her, she's like, Eric, I want to travel, I want to do these things. I'm like, Mom, you gotta like you gotta do, you gotta physically be active. Like you'll take you, I will take you to Italy, right? You gotta start doing some things and getting, and my dad called me today, he's like, Eric, the strangest thing happened. Your mom got on the exercise bike. He's like, I've never seen her in 50 plus years of marriage get on an exercise bike. I was like, oh, how amazing is that, right? It's and yeah, you know, that there's beautiful point, except that it's not too late, even at eight, to to start like really moving towards some action, you know.

Oh my god, it's wonderful. And it actually proves what we were talking about earlier. If you want to do something, you gotta start with a powerful reason why. So she before you uh you know teased her with the idea of Italy, she's like, uh yeah, exercise is important, but she didn't really believe exercise was important because it wasn't important to her. Right, and when it comes to goal setting, I have this great phrase that helps me cut through my own bullshit that works so well. Yes. So so I go through this process, right? Dan Gable, Olympic gold medal wrestler, total stud, said, if it's important, you do it every day. And I'm like, I like that. That's a good idea. That's why you do a five-minute flow every day, right? Right. Now, if I say that something's important, but I'm not doing it every day, then I have to tell myself the phrase, it's not important enough yet. Now, the reason this is so powerful is it doesn't punish me for being a bad person. It's not like, oh, I guess I just suck, you know, like it's not it's not that. It's very constructive, and actually, there's a great talk if you search YouTube on the power of yet, and it's this great thing by Angela Duckworth, and she talks about how they changed the grade of fail in these uh very low-performing urban schools to not yet, and all of their abilities skyrocketed. So they just changed fail to not yet, literally, just substitute out the word fail for not yet, because not yet gives you possibility. Not yet also reinforces the idea that things take time. Yeah, it takes time. So when I say to myself, and I do this um with my uh mastermind group also that I have for business, and I go, you know, like okay, what what's important? They're like this. I'm like, are you doing it every day? They're like, no. So well, it's not important enough yet, but it can be. You just have to choose to make it important enough.

Yeah.

And it's not there yet. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Yeah, it's really uh, I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with Carol Dweck mindset.

Oh, yeah, that's actually um, I think where Angela Duckworth got that idea about uh a grit, right? She talks about grit.

Yeah, I mean her particular thing is is a fixed versus a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, right? Yes, that's what it is. And if you like, for example, you know, if if you are a parent, uh, I'm not, but I would, you know, if if someone um, you know, your your kid has a shitty baseball game, right? Or even better, your kid has an amazing baseball game. Instead of saying to them, you know, you're so talented, you're amazing.

Oh, man, that's the worst thing you can do.

Congratulations, you worked so hard for that.

It's so true. And actually, man, I was thinking about that and talking about that with someone just this afternoon before I hopped on the phone. With you, there's nothing worse you can do to a kid than to tell them that they're smart and strong and fast and all these things. Because as soon as that natural ability runs out, they're gonna have to rely on grit. And if they haven't been taught and re and positively reinforced with the time they invest into it instead of being uh positively reinforced for the state that they are in, they're they're gonna be totally uh they're gonna be total pussies when it comes to any difficult thing in life. Yeah. I'm telling you. I mean, that's one of the reasons I think it would be, I think it is a good idea to make kids learn some music when they're young. You know, and and make is a really weird word. I probably wouldn't even say it that way, but music is one of those things where you can't fake it. You either can play it or you can't play it. You know, doing pull-ups is something you either can or you can't. And I I really like things like that. That's why I like fitness and music so much, is because they're very honest. You know, you don't just you don't just stumble upon being able to uh do a handstand, typically. You don't just stumble upon being able to play Moonlight Sonata, for example. It takes time and energy investment. And until a person sees the direct correlation between the amount of time and energy they invest and the result that they get, you're not gonna get anywhere.

Yeah. You know, it's this interesting observation. So I've in the last 10 months, nine months actually, I've interviewed over 200 different fitness professionals from all different Oh man, nice job, dude. Crazy. Yeah, it's crazy how much I learn, and people say thank you. I'm like, no, thank you. I just learned so much, right? Um I've noticed this thing is like people who were fat kids seem to have something about them, right? Like they went through this, they realized like, you know, it just their body wasn't just gifted to them, right? This is the aesthetics or the function, right? Yep. There's this, yeah, I can't, I can't I should probably I should probably write a book on why being a fat kid is cool, right? At least not anymore, like you know what I'm saying.

Like there's something like challenge at an early age.

It's really interesting to me.

I think that if you're fat or ugly or awkward or whatever when you're young, it forces you to develop other characteristics. And that and that's that's kind of the plain and simple thing. I mean, when I was in high school, I had uh, you know, teeth pointing every which way and bad acne, and I didn't know how to talk to girls and all that stuff, you know, the standard thing. So I was like, let me be funny. Yeah, let me let me develop a personality that people like.

Yeah.

So you you end up, you know, you flow. You find you find your way into something else really constructive. And and that's I think maybe the one one of the most important keys to life is you don't you don't beat yourself up or you don't feel like lament, you don't lament the situation you're in. You just go, okay, good, now what?

Yeah. And that's it. Good, now what? Yeah, I love it. You know, and and when I was young in eighth grade, I got two, we had a yearbook, right? I had two awards that I got. One was, and I was chubby. Um, I was the kid they put in center, you know, in the goal in soccer because they couldn't be mobile. And uh yeah, so I got I got best personality, which I was like, okay, well that makes sense because I was a chubby kid. Second one we got was was best dressed, which is really funny because we all wore uniforms, right?

That's hilarious. That's really funny that they even give that award at a school with uniforms. Yeah. That what what what message are they trying to convey with that? That's hilarious. Who wore it best?

Yeah.

Like literally, who wore it best? Because it's all the same thing.

It was the Trumack underneath in the winter, and I think that was that was the one. Uh anyway, that's I gotta I gotta you know a big question. I mean, this this uh this podcast is called Future of Fitness, right? So we talk about that. Normally I get into tech, and we can get into that if you want. Um but I think you have a really interesting view of like the core of of what fitness and health should look like and hopefully is progressing towards. You know, do you understand what I'm saying? I like to think so. What's that? I like to think so. Yeah. You know, where where is this whole thing heading? Like, what is the evolution of the fitness professional going towards? Because in my opinion, and just just from where I sit and what I see, it's an industry that's so undervalued for the most part, right? I mean, we're we're really at the front front lines of all the fucking major issues, chronic disease, obesity. Totally. You know, people still walk into our facilities and be like, hey, you know, can I get a 20% discount? Or of course, you know, um and I don't see that happening at doctor's offices, right? I don't see that happening. You know, any very, very people don't do that to attorneys. Um so I'm curious, you know, when you look at the role of the fitness professional, how do you how do you see that evolving? How do you hope it's gonna evolve?

I hope that the future of the profit fitness professional is one that's highly interactive with the people that they're coaching, especially in a one-on-one situation. I think there's gonna be hopefully a resurgence of uh, and there has been already, of one-on-one coaching. You know, everything went really heavy into group classes, and there are a lot of advantages with the group classes, like the sense of community and accountability that you get from that. But you also get the uh side benefit of having potentially too many people in a class, instructors who don't know what they're doing. Uh, you know, there are a lot of gyms that spend more time teaching their instructors to be uh motivational actors than actual coaches.

Yeah.

And uh it's kind of an interesting situation. But I think the future of fitness really comes down to um, giving people simple little things they can do throughout the day to make it so there's less of a negative stigma associated with moving around just generally throughout the day. It's uh I heard this great uh joke from Jerry Seinfeld. He goes, uh, being an adult is the ability to be totally bored and remain perfectly still. And and so when I'm when I'm out in public and I see all the everyone's just sitting quietly or they're standing quietly, and I'm doing, you know, I'm doing calf raises, I'm balancing on one leg, I'm moving around a little bit, and people think I'm a total nut job, but I think they're way crazier for not like moving around. It's kind of like you have a total underappreciation for your physical body by just letting it sit stagnant forever. I think the most important things from a fitness perspective to focus on are to um have fun and be safe. So if you enjoy the process, that's what we come back to, right? If you enjoy the process and you don't hurt yourself, those are the two biggest barriers. I see everything uh in terms of like behavioral psychology at this point. It's all about habit formation. How do you get people to remain safe? Or how do you get people to remain consistent, I should say? Because consistency is where results come from. Despite what you read in the magazines, like you know, add 12 inches to your arms in seven minutes or lose 50 pounds of fat in one day. Yeah. And, you know, unless you're a surgeon, that shit's just not gonna happen. You gotta be in it for the long game. And the only way to stay in it for the long game is don't get bored and don't get injured. It's really that simple. Yeah. If you can, if you have fun and you're not hurt, you're gonna continue doing the thing. That's all. So everything I do related to fitness is building that base where everything is safe and then making it fun. And that's what it needs to come back to. You know, more partner exercises, more human interaction. I was talking about this with someone today. Uh adults don't really touch each other that much unless it's sexual, especially guys. And I think that makes us a lot less uh close to one another. That's why everyone's acting all tough all the time. I mean, I did the same thing when I was 20. I was like, I just wanted people to think I was like tough and strong. I'd like to stand with my freaking arms crossed and show people how big my forearms are and be like, oh, yeah, don't fuck with me. I'm tough. I do, they're gigantic. I train grip like all the time. It's great. But the whole idea of like just being like this tough person, it it's like killing men inside. I mean, I avoided anything artistic because me and my peer group believed that art and music and dancing were for fairies. Now I sing and dance and play music and you know paint my tips off every single day, and it's a blast. And just something like that, where you can get people laughing and playing, that that's gonna be huge. So whoever can really like nail down making the experience really enriching and rewarding is who's gonna win. Because there are so many things that sort of work. Here's the cool thing: everything works. Everything works. Whatever you do, your body's gonna be like, okay, I got the message. Oh, we're gonna do a lot of this? Okay, we'll we'll adapt you to get better at that. That's why if you sit in a chair all day, your brain gets that message and goes, okay, we're gonna turn you into a chair. Apparently, this is really important to you. And and you know, you keep sitting in the chair and your brain's like, Are you sure that's what you want? And then you keep sitting in the fucking chair, and the brain's like, okay, let's shorten up those hip flexors, let's tighten those pecs. We're gonna make it as easy and efficient as possible for you to be some sort of odd like T-Rex monster who only has thumbs.

Right.

And whatever you do, your body will adapt to it. This is like neuroscience 101, neuroplasticity. Your brain will hear whatever you do loud and clear, and it will adapt you to it. And that's why I think it's so important to do things daily instead of, I mean, there are there are all these clever fucking ways that people come up with to split up exercises. And really all it comes down to is can you manage your energy levels well? Right? I mean, you don't do does it matter if you do uh you know five sets of seven or six sets of seven, like that much, really? And no, no, it doesn't. And there are so many examples of people who just keep it really simple and do well. You know, Herschel Walker just eating push-ups and sit-ups for breakfast every freaking day, running up hills every day. Now, he most likely also is a just ridiculous athlete naturally, but he is working every day on those basics. And I noticed in myself that I was becoming a fitness snob. I was like, I would like basically, I was at a point where I wasn't doing any simple exercises. It was like Olympic lifts, heavy deadlifts, heavy bottom-up presses, heavy pull, like everything had to be like advanced, because that's where I was at. I was like, oh, I'm advanced now.

Yeah.

Doing 10 push-ups isn't gonna do anything for me. Guess what? It absolutely does something for you. And the more often you can do 10 push-ups, even if you can do frickin' 100 of them, the better off you're gonna be. So there's this whole idea that exercise needs to be inside of a workout, too. And, you know, I do less workouts than I have in my entire life, and I'm in better shape than I've been in my entire life because I just choose to take advantage of the little moments between moments, like those little in-betweens. Bang out a set of push-ups, you know. Um, and you come up with these little games and rules for yourself. You know, if I if I start to get a little bit cold and I think, oh, I'm gonna put a shirt on, I almost never wear a shirt. You caught me like one of the rare times where I'm wearing a shirt. Uh I would say that 90% of every day, 90% of the time I go an entire day without putting a shirt on, which I think is also a good measure of success. Yeah, man. Congratulations for doing that.

Thank you for making that.

Oh, dude.

Tremendous, yeah. It's wonderful. It's great. Um so if I just to let you know, I never.

You know what?

Any pants right now.

I don't want to try to be a know-it-all, but I had a feeling. So I have this rule: if I start to get cold, instead of putting a shirt on, I will vigorously shake out a really big blanket for one minute and see if I'm actually cold or if I'm just really sedentary right now.

Yeah.

So while something like that doesn't seem that significant, maybe at the end of a year I've done 100 extra minutes of high intensity, essentially battling ropes.

Right.

Um that's got that's gotta factor in somewhere. You know, all that all that stuff adds up. So I think getting out of the idea of like fitness snobbery and going back to just getting those basics really consistent, people ask me all the time, do you warm up much? And I'm like, yeah, I warm up, but I don't have to very much because I just move more throughout the day. Yeah. You know, a lot of a lot of the warm-up exercises require no equipment whatsoever. So you just kind of start to make those a part of your life, and that's that big secret, right? Where you go from fitness needing to be as efficient as possible, like, okay, what's what's the five-minute workout that I can do that's gonna get me great results? Or what's the 20-minute workout that I can do that'll get me great results? That's not it. The holy grail is when you're like, I don't care how long it takes, I just enjoy this. Like, this is just fun. It's like you were saying with skiing. You know, I bought a I bought a one-wheel. Have you ever seen those?

No.

It's the it's a it's a it's an electric skateboard with one fat wheel in the center and a gyroscope.

Yeah.

And so it's got a motor in it, the thing goes 20 miles an hour. Oh and yeah, it's dangerous. Uh so it's got a little gyroscope in it. You lean forward, it goes faster, you lean back, it slows down. And I ride that thing every day. It's so much fun. It requires no willpower whatsoever. Right. And, you know, there are some people out there in the world who can do stuff that they only kind of want to do because they have really strong willpower, but man, that that's not gonna work for most people. Like, I I listen, uh, you know who Jocko Willink is? Yeah. Navy SEAL guy. Uh extremorship. That guy. Yeah. Yeah. Great, great book. I think he's a really awesome dude. I know some of his friends. I've never met the guy personally, but I like his stuff. And I also think that there are a lot of people out there who have no business trying to emulate that way of being. Yes. Because it'll just destroy them. Yeah.

He's the 4 a.m. wake up at 4 a.m. every day a guy, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And wait waking up early definitely works. If you feel like rushed, wake up a little earlier. Yeah. It it works. Yeah. However, if you're relying on willpower for something like your workout, you're doing the wrong workout.

Yeah. And I think you just touched on something so powerful too, at least impactful to me. If it takes a lot of willpower, some something's going on, right? Right. I think the the best thing I've done for my fitness in the last six months is actually, and it's gonna sound strange to most, but it won't to you, is I cancel my gym membership. Cool. All I have is a kettlebell. That's it. And I have a kettlebell and I have a beautiful green lawn. And when I feel like, you know, when I have a half hour, 45 minutes, I go out there and I just make shit up. But you know what I do all the time? I do the basics. I do squats, right? Do some I make shit up, right? I don't know what I'm doing. That's the beauty of the five-minute flow.

Let's talk about that for a second because I think that's something five-minute flow is all about uh habit formation, behavioral psychology. And also, you know, one of the things I love about Bruce Lee is his idea of expressing yourself honestly. He has that idea, you know, if you can express yourself honestly, it's it's a really hard thing to do. But if you give yourself a five-minute canvas and you just let your you let your energy flow out, and you kind of just go with the flow. You enter in that different state. You you don't you don't like worry about what you look like to other people, you know? That plus drinking water in the morning builds you not only something like powerful in your own heart, but it also starts up some actual momentum. You know, I I I really um taken to studying physics recently because all of the um equations about uh force, inertia, momentum, friction, speed, you know, all that stuff, all of those apply to the behavioral sciences too. You know, you experience inertia when you're still when you're still.

Right.

And inertia, physical and mental, have a feedback loop between one another. So if you can build some physical momentum in the morning, and you know, people people worry about doing exercises right, and there is an optimal way to like contact more joint surfaces to increase your proprioception. So there are things you can do, and I have a product that you can buy that will help make that like automatic for you, but just move. It doesn't have to be perfect, you just gotta you just gotta move your stuff and you build that momentum, and then uh every step you take after that is gonna be like corrective exercise. Versus if you didn't do something like that and you've just been totally still, maybe every step you take is just reinforcing some bad patterns that you haven't addressed. So the movement part is huge just for you know getting your joints healthier and also building some uh physical and mental momentum for your day. And the second piece of that puzzle is drinking water. It's it's one of those like silly things. I I call it low-hanging fitness fruit, you know? We are much more like plants than we are like machines, but for some reason we treat human beings like machines. No. You need you need to make sure it has enough water, you need to make sure it has enough sunshine, yeah, and uh positive attention. You know, they they've done, I actually did uh a science project when I was in school uh on the effect of magnets around plants, and the ones with the magnets around them grew a little bit more. And I I didn't really have any conclusive findings, but then it uh as an adult, I looked at all the research where they say nice things to plants and they grow more, and then they're like assholes to the plants and then they die. It's like that's kind of weird. So thoughts are definitely things, but you know, you've got to get those basics first, like staying hydrated. My God, it's it's one of the easiest things a person can do, and some people still just don't do it. So if you make that part of a habit, if if you make it part of a habit, it doesn't have to be hard anymore. So everything uh I talk about with habit formation, ideally you want it to be anchored onto something that you already do. So if you anchor it onto something you already do, it's already got something, some substance there. Yes. And the idea is you want to have it be automatic. And I've actually started coming up with these uh like little codes you say to yourself, like, every time I blank, I blank. Because blank. And it's this perfect little formula. So like every time I turn on the stove, I do dips or L sits or handstands on the countertop. Every time. Because I appreciate how easy it is to make fire, and I appreciate my body enough to give it the nutrients it needs. So you have you start coming up with these phrases that will hone you in on not only what a good habit will be attached to something you already do, but also a powerful reason why, just like what we were talking about before. You need like your your mom needs that powerful reason why. Why is she gonna exercise? Well, do you want to go to Italy? Uh yeah, I do. I'm gonna exercise. Like it really is that simple.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. And uh, you know, I I heard you talking about the five-minute flow on Bledsoe's podcast, Mike Bledsoe's. Um I'm like, I I YouTube it like probably a lot of people are right now, right? And uh so I watch you do it and I watch you explain it. And here's here's what I here's my experience of the five minute flow. First of all, fucking love it, right? It's just it what I do is I wake up in the morning. Um, I usually I usually wake up a good hour before my wife, so it gives me that quiet time. I go prep the coffee, turn on the coffee, I do my five minute flow, right? And what I found that struggle for me is I Still want to fall into a routine in my five minute flow. I'm like, oh no, I missed stuff. And then and I'm like, oh no, fuck it. Like, just we'll just go with it, right? Just start doing some stuff. And the best is when my wife walks out and she's like, Wow, wow, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm just I'm just flowing, you know, I'm just doing stuff. She's like, okay, I'm going back to bed. I'm like, okay, great. But the challenge for me was like, in just because I come from such a structure structured environment growing up, right? Like I played, I swam, played water polo. I literally followed a black line up and down a pool for you know 15 years, 20 years, right? Oh yeah. Um, so I'm just so used to that structure and having to break free from that, just even if it's only in five minutes. And five minute flow always goes for 10, right? That's the beauty of it. Momentum. Yeah. Momentum. It's great, man. And it's so simple. Like the the more time I spend on the planet, the more I get to talk to successful coaches or anybody who really is truly understands something. It's that it all comes down to being able to boil it down to something simple that you can pass on.

Occam's razor. The simplest answer is always the best one. Yeah, man. I told I'm totally with you. You know, the the whole idea of five-minute flow for me was how can I help people the most in the shortest amount of time? So you gotta you gotta make it something you do in the morning because that's where you can overcome that inertia the best.

Yeah.

Hyd hydration's gotta be a part of it. And actually, it follows the um ideal structure of a habit. You want to have a trigger, in this case, waking up. Right. Hat habit, five-minute flow, reward is the glass of water. So you want to bookend habits between a trigger and award to make it a little bit more automatic.

Yeah.

Essentially, you're programming yourself. Right. Yeah, it's uh it's quite interesting. I wonder what people did before other people told them what to do. Whatever did we do before someone told us what to do?

I I imagine it was just it was uh food, play, uh water, sex.

Basically.

Right? I mean, what else would you do?

I guess that's kind of like what my life is like now most of the time. I would just try to simplify it down. That's basically all you can do. Yeah. Uh that's just it's fascinating. Things are complicated somehow, right? They don't actually need to be too complicated. Uh and I would I would be wary of anyone who tries to complicate things too far and split hairs over logistical details. Now, there are definitely optimal ways to lift a barbell over your head, do a handstand, things like that. And it would make sense to continue to refine your skills in those areas. But more importantly, like when I'm writing programs for people, which I don't even really do anymore, I'm just telling them how much time I want them to spend on what things. You know, okay, you do a five-minute flow, you do, you you're gonna be on that hill, you're gonna do this for 20 minutes. You're gonna go get a barbell, and you're gonna do this and this for 15 minutes. And the, you know, the three sets of the three, or the seven sets of three, or the three sets of seven, or the fifteen sets of twenty, or all that stuff, you know, you want to vary it. Sometimes do low reps, sometimes do high reps, sometimes do it slowly, sometimes do it quickly. And the most important thing is what are you doing every day? What are you actually doing every day? I mean, I think uh Arnold Schwarzenegger probably had more of an impact with exercise just telling people that the pump was like coming all the time than any of the actual exercises he taught people how to do in his book. Because if you get people excited about the idea of getting a pump, that's kind of enough. Does it really matter if their forearm was supinated 45 degrees or 90? Right. Not really. If you just have this idea in your head that the pump is good, hey, we could we can do something with that.

Yeah.

And it it really falls into line with the idea of um just like uh water will get stagnant if it doesn't move. Your blood's kind of the same way. So a lot of what I do is how do I boil this back down to the most simple form of common sense possible where it makes it silly to not do it. You know, if I tell someone like, yeah, you know, your blood is like a river, and the more you let it pool, the more stagnant and toxic it's going to be. Right. Plain and simple. So if you want to move stuff around, guess what? You need to get a pump everywhere. Get a pump every day. It's as simple as that. How you do that, go f go nuts. You know, put put uh occlusion bands on your arms and do 18 different curl variations. Like curls are great. Have fun with it. But it's it's much more about the logistics first, and then you know, once you're actually doing a five-minute flow every day for a month, then we can talk about things like going into my ultimate athleticism program or you know, kettlebell essentials, or any of these uh more advanced uh training methodologies where you're specifically trying to be like, okay, I'm gonna get really strong now, I'm gonna get super athletic now. And that's kind of the next level. Because, you know, if if you're just doing fitness for the sake of fitness, it's probably not gonna uh work out long term. But if you take like the ultimate athleticism route and go, okay, I want to give myself the physical capacity so that I can fearlessly try any athletic endeavor for the rest of my life. That's something worthwhile. Because I'll tell you what, there's no chance that I would be able to do my uh daily hoverboarding if it wasn't for the very solid foundation before that. So, really, my idea of fitness is you want to just open doors for yourself to the maximum number of possibilities.

Yes. That's you just summed up my whole new definition of success or fitness right there. Yeah. Like that's it, man. I just want, I don't want possible, I don't want opportunities, physical opportunities, life opportunities to pass me by because I wasn't physically able. And that, you know, and I think coming from, you know, I did a lot of program design, you know, coming from CrossFit World, um, athletes, non-athletes, non-athletes, whatever you want to call, and this this need and this desire for coaches, especially younger ones, to make it so complex because you feel like I just want to show off what I know, right?

Dude, you should have seen the programs I used to write. I needed like three legal pads just to put my program together. I'm like, okay, you gotta activate this, you gotta move this, and you gotta do three reps of this followed by five reps of this, then you gotta do seven reps of this contrast training, and then uh, you know, this set of exercises you're gonna do in the sauna, and this set of exercises you're gonna do in the steamer. It's like, it's it's like, come on. But you know that you know they're not doing that. Who are we bullshitting?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, like compliance. It's like, oh yeah, like we I would use Fitbot and they'd be like, You you did all that? Because you checked all these boxes, and then it becomes compliance issue, right? And then it becomes like compliance, which I've always that word always freaked me out. It's like, were they compliant with their workouts? Yeah. Like if you're not, if compliant, if the term compliance comes up, you miss the boat somewhere early on.

I give people three things and no more now. Yeah. My first meeting with someone, if someone's like, hey, I want you to help me with a plan, cool. Here's your three things. And guess what? I'm really disappointed with the amount of people who actually do all three.

Yeah.

You know, that's that's the reality. And the people who do those three, they get three more.

Yeah.

And they make tons of progress just with those three things.

Yeah.

You know, that that's it's like the biggest lie is you need to do all this stuff, and it has to be inside of a workout. No, no, no. Yeah, you just gotta do the thing and show up every day.

Yeah.

And and get like a really powerful meaning for it and make it a habit by having a clear trigger and a clear reward and trying to remove as many barriers as possible. Part of the reason five-minute flow is so successful is I didn't require anyone to get equipment and I didn't require anyone to learn anything.

Yeah.

I it wasn't like I'm hoarding some secret information that you need. I'm like, no, man, like here's the truth. Yes, there are some exercises that you might not know that I know, which would help you more. Who cares? Go express yourself through movement and do it every day. And five minutes, you can do a lot in five minutes.

Tons.

I mean, I think I've I think I've probably done like a hundred burpees in five minutes, for example. So you can take that idea of five minute blocks and be like, okay, I did my five-minute flow in the morning. I did uh one of my favorite drills to do is I grab a heavy sandbag and I do five squats, carry, five squats, carry for a total of five rounds. So I end up walking about like 500 feet and doing 25 squats all in one set. And it takes a few minutes. Yeah. And when I'm done with that, I'm done. I've done a lot of hard work. And if I come back and do that tomorrow, I'm good. So you could conceivably do like five-minute flow in the morning. You do your sandbag squat and carry, and then maybe in the evening before you get in the shower, you do some like push-ups and pull-ups or something like that, or push-ups and rows, and uh, you know, get it done. It doesn't take much.

Yeah, it doesn't. And you know, all everyone who's been in the game for a long time, like I don't know if you know Andy Patronic, but we're friends, and I follow him on social media. And you know, he works out.

I think I've met him.

I think I've met Andy. Yeah, he originally started CFLA. Um does a whole life challenge now, but he's been around, he's got a podcast. Cool. Great on the show. Um he uh yeah, he just link us up, that'd be great. And they're like 12, they're like 12 minutes. He's like, Yeah, I had 12 minutes, so I did this. And you know what? Like, you can fuck, you can kick someone's ass in three minutes. The hardest workout I've done that it would still, when I think about it, makes me a little nauseous. Is three three minutes as many as many rounds you can do in Amrap of three chest bar pull-ups and three burpees. Totally. As fast as you can go. And tell me you don't want to just like you don't feel accomplished after that, right? Sure. Yeah, it's amazing. I love it.

Yeah, the simple stuff works, man. I love it. This is great. I feel like we could just go on forever.

Yeah, I can talk about this stuff all day. And you know, I'm because we were talking about it, and uh, you know, what what does the future look like for for Max? Like, what is Max Shank? What do you what do you see in the next two years, or have you or are you just taking it day by day? Like, do you have a you know vision for where where everything's going for you?

Man, I do. Um, you know, and all I can say is that uh I've got an invention coming that's pretty uh powerful stuff that's taken a lot of my focus for the last uh year or so. And I'm gonna continue doing the uh physical freedom mentorship retreats. It's a really powerful experience, and I love uh connecting with people. And then I'm I'm really just gonna continue to practice what I preach and put out that good quality information about you know the five-minute flow, simple shoulder solution, ultimate athleticism, these these ideas that are based on such simple concepts and really just helping people cut through the bullshit that they've been uh lied to. I mean, it's it's the same reason that in school you're fed this uh total BS about how everything needs to be really complicated. And none of it actually is complicated. You know, life is really simple. You just need to be a little bit more valuable than the amount you consume.

Yeah.

That's it. You know, if you if if you if you take like if I were gonna talk to any uh younger people, like between 12 and 20, I would say, listen, it's really simple. Just make yourself extremely useful to someone older, smarter, and richer than you. That's all you gotta do. They'll tell you everything you need to know. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Man, it's yeah, it's that's so true. And I had a um the podcast that'll release before this one, it was with Joe Bauer, and he's um he's got a podcast and all these things, and we're just he's homeschooled. And uh, you know, it's amazing. Like, I don't know about you. Did you go to college? Did you go to university? I did. I stopped, uh I dropped out with three classes left. Okay, okay, that's nice. Um I you know, I look back, I'm like, God, I would have rather spent that time going and just being finding out how to be useful from someone older, richer, and more experienced.

Preferably happier, also.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, if if I what I what I do now is I I make it really simple. I look for people who are older than me, and if there are versions of myself that I would feel comfortable with, like, do I like how that guy is generally? You know what I mean? Right. Uh, because you you you know, like, for example, I don't I I'm I'm super into like business and I I like the idea of business, but you know, I don't I don't want to live like a Gary Vaynerchuk or something like that, who's just like like this all the time. And you know what? Good for him, everyone should do exactly what they want. But when you're selecting who you want to follow, who you want to learn from, who you want to emulate, because that's all we can do, right? We can pretty much just emulate stuff that we see. You gotta choose very carefully who you want to emulate.

I think one point that I I want to, you know, inter interact there too, is I think when we talk about people that we we follow and we're seeking mentorship and and all this, I've really opened up my thoughts of not necessarily looking for people who are physically older than me. You know, there's so many people. I talked to Greg Justice, right? If you know that name, he's been in the industry forever. And I mean it's such an interesting point of like, you know, he doesn't care how old someone is, as long as they have something he can learn, you know. Right. And uh I think that's um, you know, I always look at like, okay, who's a little farther along the path? The path, not further along the timeline. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I knew I know you meant that, and I think that's an interesting clarification for people because people are.

I think that's really important. Yeah, you you don't necessarily have to look for someone old, you gotta look for someone who's happy and successful and you know, comfortable in their own skin and experiencing the things that you want to experience.

Yep.

Yep, totally.

Well, dude, Max, man, this has been fun, dude. And I have to say, you know, once again, just personally thank you for the five-minute flow because I can't like people go check it out. Just start doing it. And then email Max. Hell yeah. It's so great.

It's uh I I get people emailing me still. I got someone email me the other day. They go, I have been doing five-minute flow every single day for two and a half years.

Um, it must make you feel amazing.

Dude, are you kidding me? I spent so much more time putting together my other programs. Yeah. And that people don't do them that long. Nobody does a program for two and a half straight years. It's incredible. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's amazing.

I mean, I couldn't even ski for two and a half years straight, you know? I think I would get bored eventually. So kudos to you, man, for making something that really because I know you set out to make truly make an impact on humanity. And it seems like, you know, you boil down something so simple and you really kind of hit you hit a home run, right? Dude, thanks, man. I really appreciate that. Yeah, it's cool. So, Max, where do people find you, man? Where do you send them right nowadays?

Uh MaxShank.com has all the good stuff. And then uh, I guess there aren't a lot of people with my name. So on social media, it's just at MaxShank uh on Facebook and Instagram, I guess, uh and YouTube also. Uh you can find me everywhere, man. You uh search MaxShank into Google and it's three pages of me, and then everything else is a drill bit. Because that's what that's what a Max Shank is after a person. It's like uh Home Depot ads for these like gigantic drill bits. It's so funny.

Good for you. I wish Eric Malzone had something cool like that, but it doesn't. So maybe it does. Um yeah, man. Thanks for putting on, it's been great. You guys everyone go check out his five-minute flow, go check out Max's stuff. It's uh it's all it's all good. It's all real.

Thanks, brother. Appreciate what you do. Keep it up.

Appreciate it.

Hey Fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh, it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And when we put a lot of work into these episodes, uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for the show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh, if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness Marketing Alliance.com.