Why Cold Plunges WON'T Save Your Health | Don Saladino DSH #648

Now we're accumulating an extra 30 minutes and then you're going to start looking down at your watch saying, oh wow, maybe that 42 became 5,200.

Is that still a number we want to be at?

Maybe, maybe not.

I mean, you got a tall, lean frame on you, right?

It's like you're in a good place to begin with here.

But I think moving as you get older is going to keep that back from getting stiff.

It's going to keep those knees feeling a little bit better.

It's going to keep those joints lubricated.

And I think that's really important.

All right, guys, to celebrity fitness trainer Don Saladino in the building.

My man, thanks for watching.

I'm excited to be here.

Thanks, man.

Yeah, and you brought a little gift.

Thank you for this.

No worries.

So happy.

I mean, I've been wearing that for a while.

It's helping me with my sleep, and I'm able to quantify through aura.

So everything helps.

Any little thing that helps, I'm going to kind of lean on.

Yeah, and you mentioned it's vibrational, right?

That's how it gets you to bed.

It's something called smart wave.

So it's going to recognize when you're waking up and it's going to actually put you back to sleep.

So my wife, who can't sleep, like puts that thing on and she can't make it through a movie anymore.

So it's pretty awesome.

It's very addicting.

Yeah.

That's cool, man.

Did you have sleep issues also?

Not really, but it's just something where, you know, I was always an early riser because of work, you know, owning gyms in the city and, you know, being in New York City, I had to be in there at 3.30, 3.45.

So when you start waking up at that hour, yeah, it messes you up a little bit, but I'll sleep hard.

And then, you know, you wake up to use the bathroom once and you have a stressful day, something's on your mind, and then you're thinking about it.

So, you know, typically I try and get seven to nine hours a night, but any way that I can help improve that even a little bit, I'm going to look into.

It's amazing.

So you were waking up at 3 a.m.

for 15 years?

Long time, man.

That is crazy.

Do people go to the gym that early out there in New York?

Some of the Wall Street guys were a little fanatical.

And I think when you're starting a business and you're going through some struggles early on, you're going to take clients at any hour to keep the doors open.

I mean, our rent every year was, I mean, my rent was close to a million dollars a year in one of my clubs.

Yeah, it was nuts.

Damn.

My taxes were 15 grand a month.

I mean, it's bananas in the city.

So

I did that for a long time and then took my business, but mainly digital, which I got into in about 2010.

And, you know, so working with the celebrity, that celebrity piece is a very small part of my business now, but I still am fortunate enough to work with, you know, guys like Rahim Reynolds or Blake Lively.

And I prep them for roles and they become like family.

They're amazing people.

That's huge.

Switching to digital in 2010, that was early.

I feel like a lot of people switched on later than that.

Yeah.

So I partnered with professional athletes, Adrian Peterson, Dwayne Wade, and Ernie Els.

And we started this app company.

I started this app company called Driven.

I went in, I raised some capital, and we started this MTV cribs of apps in 2010, and they crushed it out of the gate.

And then, you know, after a while, like they're just, you weren't getting that engagement piece and you didn't really understand it.

Like you're sitting here going, well, we have all this great content, but why isn't it working?

And then you're realizing, well, it's getting old.

And then the celeb piece of it, you know, you aren't getting that engagement from them because their agents are negotiating deals and they, you know, maybe give up one post a month or maybe they want to come in.

And rightfully so, they only have so much time in the day, but you start realizing that what's going to drive all of this, everything that we're doing now digitally is, you know, how are you engaging with your audience?

And that was a good lesson for me to learn early on because then I was able to kind of push that off into my business and have had a, you know, a little bit of success doing it now.

Nice.

So who was was that first big client you landed?

Hugh Jackman.

Wow, that's a big

name for your first one.

Yeah.

So I was back, I want to say it was probably 16, 17 years ago when he came out with Wolverine and that movie Australia.

Yeah.

It was right around the same time.

And he was working with a buddy of mine.

My buddy was moving and came to me and he knew I was on a few covers and he knew I could move some weight and he saw me in the gym.

So he said, you know, would love to work with you.

I said, great.

My buddy was moving anyway.

So I started working with him.

And there was really no social media back then.

I remember one time he came to me and he's like, well, we're going to do something for men's Vogue.

And I'm like, you know what, man, let's not.

I was stupid back then.

But in a way, I was smart because what I was trying to say was, let's just focus on you.

And I'm not in this for the marketing piece.

I'm in this to get you in shape.

And I think that really opened the floodgates for me.

And it's what it's allowed me to work with more celebs in Hollywood than almost any coach.

Yeah, anyone I've seen at least, man.

But it's been good to me.

And why do you think your success rate's so high with training clients compared to other trainers?

One, there's always the knowledge for training, right?

And I think it's understanding and being able to adjust to the client coming in, not forcing things for people that may not, you know, either want to do it or may not have the ability to do it.

So I think sometimes coaches come in and they're just so set in their ways and they want to force that.

When if you're a good enough coach, you should be able to go to many tools in your toolbox and lean on that.

And the one thing I think I'm better at than most.

any coach I've ever met is reading people.

Like the second they walk in, I'll be like, oh boy,

we're dealing with this today.

And you could tell if they're in a mood or you could tell if they're having having a bad day, you know, the normal people like the rest of us.

So how as a coach am I going to be able to adapt to that individual?

And how am I going to be able to adjust to complement their mood for that day?

And I think that's what's allowed me not to annoy many clients, you know, throughout my career.

And I think it's a really important lesson.

You could be the best coach in the world.

I'm sorry, you can be the best trainer in the world, but being a great coach is something that I think is very different.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because some people are having bad days and you're giving them the same regimen as always.

Or also just leaning on them too much.

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We've all been there, right?

Like you're just, you're in a work mode or you might be.

things going on with your family or there's things weighing on you and you're just getting in you want to go and someone's like that that that that that that and you're like let me work right and i think that's an important lesson to learn as a coach it's like are you that person that someone's someone's going to want to go out and have dinner with?

Right.

Or, you know, are you going to be annoying them 15 minutes in?

Like, it's regardless.

You'd be the best trainer on the planet.

It's not going to matter if you're not able to deliver that, you know, message in a way that they're going to absorb it.

Interesting approach because some people keep the business part, business, and they try not to mix in friendship, but you're willing to get involved in their personal stuff.

Well, a little bit.

I mean, to an extent, I also have to understand that.

And

one thing that I remember is that I am expendable.

So like at any point, I can be replaced.

And I think that's a really valuable lesson to know as a coach.

Like, yeah, you're becoming friendly with them.

Yes, you're traveling with them.

But if I'm not delivering or if I'm getting too personal and I'm making it about me, like, yeah, I should be replaced.

That's a, that's a, that's a huge problem.

And I see a lot of coaches, you know, that's where they cross that line.

So, um, you know, that's something I've done a good job of.

But I think knowing that I'm expendable is something that allows you to stay humble.

And probably why I've been doing this a long time already.

Yeah.

What was the goal with Reynolds?

Was that for Deadpool?

No, it was originally, God, I mean, I started training him when he was doing indie films.

So we're together now 15 years.

I mean, I remember going through Green Lantern with him and going to gymnastic school with him, and we're doing backflips together.

I mean, he's incredibly athletic.

I mean, a guy that tall to be able to throw a backflip, I think, is pretty impressive.

But he's a unit, man.

He's just,

he's geared a little bit differently than most people.

I mean, suddenly it's time for him to start dieting.

And it's just like, boom, like needs minimal coaching.

We make.

some adjustments here.

And if there's one thing I change, he dives into and does it.

I mean, he's like a dream to work with.

And he's a beast in the gym.

But, you know, I think he also, he understands that each role he does, you know, there's a little bit of a different package that you have to go in there with.

And that's what's interesting about working with these actors is that it's not like they're always trying to put muscle on or always trying to get in better shape.

There's roles that they're going to do where if they came in looking all yoked up, it's not going to be believable.

So I think that's watching these actors where they have to live in this very neutral place and be able to move a different direction and adapt is something that most people don't think about.

Dwayne Johnson, he's always walking around yoked.

He's always playing that role, right?

But when you're working working with different types of actors that have to be a little bit more,

not to insult DJ, but they have to be a little bit more versatile in the characters that they're playing.

We, you know, we have to be careful.

Yeah.

The one that sticks out to me is Zach Efron with a Bay Watch.

Oh, my God.

He got in killer shape on that.

That was crazy.

And you only have a few months, right?

So you got to.

Some of them do.

I mean, you know, and

it can get tricky because there's only so much someone's going to do with their physique in a short period of time.

Like I've gotten calls from production companies and they're like, Oh, I'm like, How much time do I have?

They're like, Two weeks.

Oh, really?

And then the clients, and then they're turned to me and they're like, What do I do?

I'm like, get a tan, stop drinking vodka for the next two weeks.

We're going to tighten up your eating.

We're going to get you in here six, seven days a week.

And you know, we're going to go on with what we have and no cheat meals.

And they're like, Okay.

And then you're able to tighten someone up in a period of time, but you're not going to take, you know, an actor that's 260 pounds and move them to 215, 220 pounds in that period of time.

It's just not going to happen.

Absolutely.

So you don't drink any alcohol?

I do like it on occasions, but not now.

Maybe With me, I might have a couple beers every few months.

But when I start drinking, I get a little bit of anxiety.

Yeah, this is my sleep.

My heart rate elevates.

I'll wake up at 2-3 in the morning.

I'm laying in bed.

My resting heart rate's up.

So that's something where, like, when my wife and I, with our kids, go snowboarding and, you know, we'll have a couple of beers on the mountain.

That to me is cool.

But, you know, otherwise, it's not really cool.

I'm the same way.

I feel like it's not worth it anymore.

At least a pound.

Yeah.

What would you drink?

Vodka in college.

Then I switched to tequila.

But nah, these days, I I mean, it's not worth it.

I was a rum and dye guy.

I used to drink like Captain Morgan.

And I used to come out to Vegas all the time and we would hit that because, you know, the caffeine and it wouldn't bloat you.

And it kind of made you, it was, it was tasty, but I just, I mean, man, it puts me in a bad place.

I feel that.

Yeah.

There's this debate about like diet and lifting and like what's more important.

Where do you stand on that side of things?

Depends on the goals, right?

I mean, my, my wife, you know, doesn't really train much and she eats really well and she's got a great, you know, build on her and she's lean and she had two kids, and her health markers are good.

So that just shows right there by getting your steps in, you can do a have a lot of good progress.

If you're trying to get on a cover of a magazine, or if you got to get yoked up for a role, naturally, we're going to have to train.

But there's so many different types of training, and there's so many different ways we can train.

And that's why there's not this like set template on the shelf.

Like, I've had clients have gotten ready for roles doing three days a week.

It's all their body can handle.

It's all their schedule allows them to do.

And they've had incredible progress off that, on that.

So I think that nutrition piece piece is incredibly important but some type of tension some type of resistance whether you're doing with bands dumbbells kettlebells barbell i mean as a b2b marketer you know how noisy the ad space can be if your message isn't targeted to the right audience it just disappears into the noise with linkedin ads you could precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant with linkedin targeting capabilities you can reach them by job title industry company and more stand out with linkedin ads and start converting your b2b audience into high quality leads today linkedin ads allows you to build the right relationships relationships, drive results, and reach your customers in a respectful environment.

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Just create some tension, get your steps in, hydrate, get some sleep, keep your protein up to about a gram per pound like Dr.

Gabrielle Line always talks about.

You're going to check a lot of boxes.

Wow.

So I just had Dave Asprey on last week.

He only works out 20 minutes a week.

Yeah, I actually heard that.

He was on Mind Pump with a couple of my buddies over there.

And he said that, yeah, I mean, Dave's, what, 50 years old?

I mean, he looks good, though.

He looks good.

He got into good shape.

He's also very smart.

And I think he does a lot of, you know, good things when it comes to rest and recovery and that nutrition piece.

So I enjoy training.

Training makes me feel good.

It's something that I have different goals than Dave.

Like I want to hold

a decent amount of muscle and I want to be able to run a mile time in a certain period of time.

And there's things that are important to me.

Um, I was on the cover of muscle and fitness a few months ago again, so those things are important to me, but it's more important that internally my body's responding a certain way.

Hormonally, my body's doing what it needs to be doing, and I'm and I'm healthy.

Turning 47 next month, so you know, we're all getting, you know, we're all getting older, but there's things with training that we have to really pay attention to and we have to adjust while we age.

So, Dave totally respected, heard what he said.

But again,

the fact that I can go in and change my physiology in an hour or change my mood in a short period of time by a training session, it makes me feel good.

Makes me look the way I want to look.

And I'm going to continue to do it.

Dude, I would have guessed you were like 34.

Oh, my God.

It's making me blessed.

47 is impressive.

Thank you, man.

I got to learn some secrets here.

You take a lot of supplements or something?

Supplements, a small part of it.

You know, I got a contract with Thorne.

I've been working with them for a while.

It's a great company.

Yeah, they just sponsored the show, actually.

They're awesome people, by the way.

I think, and they sponsor UFC, which is right down the road.

But, you know, their whey protein's great.

They've got a great, you know, they've got a great supplement uh store uh but again if that nutrition piece you know it needs to be at a certain point i'm not saying you got to be 100 but i you know i tell people getting started you know if you follow that 80 20 rule if you're going in there 80 of the time and you're eating well and you know 20 of the time you know if you're leaving it to travel or if you want to go have a p like that's fine pizza or whatever it is like you should be able to do that stuff but like i said if someone's getting ready for a roll like we got to dial things in a little bit differently that makes sense where are you at with this cold plunge wave it seems to be all over i i see some doctors talk really bad about it.

Gary Breca hypes it up.

Where are you at?

I like it.

So I happen to cold plunge, you know, two, three days a week, three minutes, you know, during the wintertime.

And I feel great doing it.

I have seen a significant change on clients with cold therapy through cryotherapy or cold plunging.

When it comes down to recovery,

you know, I think there's some research that's starting to come out now on, you know, whether it's going to actually burn fat or not.

But there's so many variables.

It's almost impossible to be able to even do research on that stuff because how are they eating?

How are they training?

You know, are they going to keep the same crappy diet and start cold plunging and then burn fat?

Then, all right, are you going to be able to actually monitor that over the next couple of months?

I mean, that to me, it's very tough to be able to gauge, but I have no problem with it.

I think it's something where if you're getting into a cold tank for, you know, one to three minutes.

How could someone, you know, how could someone talk down to that?

It's like Lane Norton is not a fan.

I don't know if you've seen that.

Well, Lane Norton's also, you know, and I think Lane's brilliant, right?

But, you know, Lane's also, I'm agreeing with what he's saying that like, it's not the be all end all.

And this is not like, you know, the fact that cold plunging is going to suddenly take the place of all these other things.

I completely agree with.

But, you know, if Lane's turning around and he's eating well, which he does, and he's training really well, which he does, one of the better guys in the industry, and he's going to throw cold therapy in a couple of days a week.

I don't know.

Things are going to start going bad on Lane's body.

Has he seen that?

I'm curious to find out.

But from the people I've worked with and the

and the way that I apply it to myself, it is just a small element to everything I do.

Lane and I will get annoyed with the fact that people are like, they're putting so much weight on it.

Like cold plunging is all you need.

And oh, God, and I'm going to do this for the next 500 days.

Suddenly it's going to cure a disease.

Like, no, it's not going to do that.

But I have seen some great things from people jumping into cold therapy at three o'clock in the afternoon.

If they're wanting that cup of coffee and they're suddenly changing their physiology a little bit and getting their body a little bit sympathetic and they're you know waking up and then going into a few zoom calls like great like it's it's i've used it i've had two hour zooms at 5 p.m where i'm jumping in it at 4 30 hopping in a shower and then i'm completely a different i'm a completely different person for the next couple hours so i completely i i totally agree with what lane says because i did see that but um i also think that how you're relying on cold plunging you know if you're relying on the way i'm relying on it i think it's a good thing if you're putting all your eggs into that i think you really need to rethink it totally makes sense What else are you doing for recovery other than that?

Well, sleep.

Sleep to me is everything.

You know, do I meditate?

I'm just not a meditation type person.

Like that Apollo there I've been using a lot.

Like even when I'm flying home today, I'll throw that on.

And am I seeing a little bit of an improvement from things like HRV on my aura ring?

Sure.

Am I feeling better from it?

Great.

Again, not the be all end all.

And I'm not going to tell, oh, this is going to fix everyone's problems.

That's not what I believe in.

But recovery for me is, you know, walking around outside, getting some sunlight in, getting some steps in, removing a lot of toxic people in my life, which I've had to do over the life.

But it is.

It's like, you know, early on, you have friends or you have family and they're just, you know, they're, they're negative.

Negative.

And out of nowhere, you start walking around and you're feeling this level of tension.

The stress for me is, can be healthy, but when you overexceed the level of stress that you should be taking in and you're overreaching and you're always in that red, I think that becomes a big problem.

Right.

Yeah.

You keep mentioning steps and they're saying now sitting is like the new smoking.

So how many steps per day are you?

You know, I still don't have a set number on that yet.

Everyone's on that 10,000 number.

And, you know, I just think, you know, increasing it from a low number is important.

So I had a guy two years ago who came to me.

He was 525 pounds and he couldn't walk four to 600 steps a day.

Yeah, he was pretty heavy and he was up.

He was in really bad shape.

But now we're probably religiously getting him in that six to seven thousand step range.

I mean, he hit 52,000 steps last week, which, you know, he was doing like six to seven thousand a week.

So to be up that number, fantastic.

Now, is that where he needs to be?

I would think in time I'd like to get him a little bit higher.

But I know people who are walking, you know, 15, 20 a day.

And I know people are yesterday, I got 10 in, right?

It was a travel day, and I was just happy that I was able to get 10 in.

So I don't know if I have a set number on that yet.

I think I would normally like to look at how someone's living, their lifestyle, their body composition, their blood markers, and then from there, you know, see how their digestion?

How's their sleep quality?

Are there periods during the day where they're sitting too much?

Can we throw in a 10-minute walk, right?

It's throwing that in

periodically throughout the day, I think, is really beneficial.

Yeah, I definitely want to raise mine.

I'm at 4,200, which I think is low, especially for my age.

But as a podcaster and I'm on the desk like eight, 10 hours a day, it's very difficult.

I mean, what I would recommend is maybe after lunch, go for a 10-minute walk.

Maybe after breakfast, 10-minute walk.

After dinner, 10-minute walks.

Now we're accumulating an extra 30 minutes.

And then you're going to start looking down at your watch saying, oh, wow, maybe that 42 became 5,200.

Is that still a number we want to be at?

Maybe, maybe not.

I mean, you got a tall, lean frame on you, right?

It's like you're in a good place to begin with here.

But I think moving as you get older is going to keep that back from getting stiff.

It's going to keep those knees feeling a little bit better.

It's going to keep those joints lubricated.

And I think that's really important.

Nice.

How are you measuring and tracking all your health results?

Well, I go in for blood work.

So I go with Dr.

Gabrielle Lynne once a year, which I know she was been a guest for you.

So we keep our eye on that pretty closely.

I also go to a general practitioner once a year just for

the general guidelines, insurance purposes, and then to have that in the book.

Physical.

Yeah, just the basics.

I feel like those don't measure that much.

No, they don't, but I just do it anyway.

Insurance covers it.

It's like, I just want to make sure I have it in the book, whether that's important or not.

It's, I'll do that, and I'll do Dr.

G for more of the deep dive.

That's how I measure my bloods.

But, you know, I use Aura for sleep.

Really, really like them.

It's where I measure my, you know,

it's where I measure my steps.

I got to get one of those.

Yeah, these are fantastic.

We can get you one of these.

So, you know, we are able to measure steps here, but also looking at sleep quality, I'm not going to say any sleep device is 100%

accurate, but we can determine behavioral change.

So I think if you're looking at your REM or your deep or your total sleep and you're seeing that number down and you start making change in your activity, like getting away from monitors late at night, or maybe you're eating too heavy of a dinner late at night and you start, or maybe too close to bed and you start backing off and making some change and you see those numbers improve.

I think changing those trends, I think, are really beneficial.

Yeah, Yeah, of course.

Talk to me about the barn.

Oh, man.

So I owned gyms in the city for 15 years.

My

15-year lease expired at 495 Broadway May 31st of 2020.

It was great.

Wait, the lease was 15 years?

Yeah, so I had a 15-year lease at 495 Broadway, and then I had like a shorter, I want to say it was like an eight-year lease at 443 Parkway.

It really lock you in there, man.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, a little of it was stupidity on my end, but it was also,

you know, I was kind of a gunslinger when it comes to business.

And I was like, like, at a young age, I was like, let's go for it and let's make this happen.

I knew there was a lot of work that had to go into it.

So I know when I was starting my clubs in the city, which mainly revolved around golf fitness early on, and then I started working with a lot of these superheroes for roles, there were things with the space that I just didn't like.

There were relationships with the landlord that you're never going to like.

And I said, man, I always dreamt about building this commercial grade facility in my backyard and not training anyone there, but shooting content, kind of like my own studio and having guests out there, training them out there, cold therapy, saunas, all this stuff, outdoor jungle gym.

And that's what I created.

So I built this like million dollar facility that's, you know, 60 feet from my back porch.

It's multi-floored and you've got everything that you can imagine in there.

And it's just like a big Shangri-La for me.

It's pretty awesome to be able to work and have my podcast every day out there and just invite guests, you know, and just have a good time.

I love that, man.

Gyms are slept on.

If you pay for a nice gym, man, it leads to so many opportunities.

Oh, my God.

I mean, it's just, I never understood, like, it's so important to me.

So

that environment is, is so important.

If you're going into a facility and it's got a poor environment, they got poor equipment, or I just think it's that much more difficult to go in and do what you need to do.

But if you're in a place with high energy and good equipment and you want to be there and they're good people, man, sky's the limit.

Absolutely.

And I'm not trying to hate on any gyms, but I used to go to Elvac out here.

Oh, Las Vegas, out of that.

That's like 20 bucks a month.

Yeah.

But they're like big.

Those are big kids.

They're huge gyms.

They're everywhere.

But like, it just wasn't quality.

And then I joined Lifetime.

Lifetime's nice.

And I love it, dude.

And I've met some great people i've had people on the podcast that i met in the sauna um in both the basketball leagues there and i just have a great time they have a lifetime out um a couple towns over from me and it's oh yeah you know indoor pools in new york yeah so they have a few in the city but they have some in long island they're great i mean they're they're enormous like in long island it's like a city it's one of the best ros i've ever made even though it's like 250 a month which is a lot for some people just the people you meet in the health it's great i heard that was more of a real estate investment though on a lot on those owners i wasn't really sure i i never knew how well the gyms did i was always saying oh my god like this has got to be a crazy overhead knowing where yeah i wonder if they're actually profitable that's a good question who knows because bring the owners on yeah the amount of i know right the amount of pools they have and all that other stuff well that's why i would go use it because i was training yeah i was doing some um open water swimming and oh yeah yeah there were certain times during the year i couldn't train for it so i had to go to an indoor pool and they i was showing up to this indoor pool it was like a full lap pool there was no one there i got my own lane it's nuts i'm like sitting there like this is amazing but how's this place going to stay open but they've been they've been expanding it seems like they're doing great you know yeah i used to be a runner and when when you get injured, you would have to train in the pool.

And I remember doing that in high school.

You mentioned what type of running?

I'm just curious.

Distance.

Yeah, I know you mentioned the mile earlier.

What's your best mile?

452.

440.

Got you beat.

But that was in high school.

I was in college.

Okay.

Oh, my God.

How tall are you?

Like 6'6?

6'6.

Yeah, you ran a 440 at 6'6?

134 pounds in high school.

I was a twig.

Oh, my God.

I ran the 452.

I was like 219.

I was trucking, man.

My 800 was my best, though.

800 meters.

What was your 800?

159.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I was a beast, dude.

I was literally a twig.

I'll show you photos after.

That's under a 60-second.

Yeah, it's under.

It would have been a four-minute mile if I kept it up for two.

Well, let's be clear.

I almost died after that.

Yeah, same.

After the 452, like that wasn't something I was repeating.

I don't understand how these marathon runners are like holding 420s or 430s.

For 26 miles.

It's insane.

One of my friends just ran 100 miles this last week.

Oh, my gosh.

And she's an amateur runner.

And she actually didn't finish her first

time because she had a sprained ankle.

And

she had to bag out at like 60 miles.

But to see someone go through 100 miles like that is

one of the most impressive people.

But I got injured so much as a runner, man.

And I think a lot of it was diet.

I was eating terrible in high school.

You were eating just fast food.

Just the school lunch, which is a whole nother topic.

I mean, that's so bad for you.

That's terrible.

It's like, have you eaten that or did you pack lunch growing up?

Man, I didn't like the food and I didn't really pack lunch.

Buddies of mine were like going out when I couldn't drive and bringing me in McDonald's.

And then when I was even worse.

It's even worse.

And then when I said, I was in high school, I was four-sport athlete.

I'm going out and eating Taco Bell, McDonald's.

I remember some lunches.

We were eating terrible.

We were eating basket robbins for lunch, but like you didn't think a nutrition, but you know, in high school, 180 pounds, lean.

And then like you just.

you start it was weird because as i gotten a nutrition i'm like oh egg whites are important i'm gonna eat egg whites this is just how long ago that was and then you find out the yolk is good then you're incorporating the yolk and oh protein's important and you're paying attention to that like we just did it because we didn't know any better than when we were 14, 15 years old.

Nor were we really like, I wasn't lifting weights until I was 16.

Yeah, coaches never talked about it.

You really had no idea.

And I look back at it now, dude.

We could have been running even faster times.

Could you imagine?

If you were fueled properly and you were actually paying attention to, I mean, who knows how your sleep was back then?

Terrible.

I was sleeping four hours a day in high school.

Because you got to get up at six.

I can't believe you ran 440 at 6.6.

Yeah, dude.

That's not awesome.

What are you doing now for training?

Are you just...

I don't run anymore.

I might want to start, but I see mixed things about how it affects your joints if you run a lot of distance.

Yeah, I mean, have you thought about maybe getting into some shorter distances or maybe some intervals?

Yeah, so Dave Askby talked about sprinting and how that's really good.

So that interests me.

And I play basketball, so it's important to be quick.

That stop go is important.

But you know what I love about sprinting?

And I even incorporate it in my programs now is sometimes we'll just set it up at like 10 seconds on where we're just trying to get that body to be elastic, almost like

your feet are on pogo sticks.

So we'll run on like a motorless treadmill and we're just trying to be kind of poppy off the belt.

Nice.

And allowing that body to establish that um you know that speed and that that athleticism you know you get your heart rate up you get your body moving fast and you maintain that running quality and actually nine out of ten times i go into a workout and i'm like you know hitting a you know a specific pr maybe i wouldn't have hit because i feel like my body's awake wow and um it's really it's allowed my body at 46 years old to feel great but i bet there were times where like you're squatting and you're going out running five miles and then like your back's sore and your hips are sore so i think you could still do it but i think you have to really look at you know how you're balancing everything else out.

Yeah.

My main thing right now is increasing vertical.

Have you trained any clients in that regard?

Not much.

Basketball was something that, you know, I didn't work with a lot of guys on.

I mean, that's other guys in my team focus more on that.

I worked with athletes.

I worked with more rotational athletes, like golfers.

I worked with a lot of golfers.

They're doing a lot of back workouts, legs.

Yeah, a lot of legs, a lot of separation drills between upper and lower half.

It's interesting with golfers because you have this X factor where the lower body starts rotating in one direction, but that upper body is still rotating back.

So you're getting this like bow and arrow effect.

So if you look at guys like Rory McElroy that aren't big guys

and you look at his swing in slow motion, his lower body will actually start rotating towards the target and you'll still see his upper body rotating back.

So it's

getting this bow and arrow effect.

That's called X factor.

So we had to really pay attention to having a strong foundation, but making sure they had good separation.

And most importantly with golfers, there's good resiliency.

Yeah, so many of them get injured.

Yeah, but I mean, think about it.

I always got a kick out of how Tiger Woods, everyone was blaming his injuries to, you know, oh, well, he runs with work boots on.

I'm like, the guy swung a golf club 10 million times.

Like, think about it.

If you sat there like rotating 10 million times or whatever it was in his lifetime, like, you're going to have some issues.

Dude, I get sore after top golf.

And that's only how great is that, by the way?

It's fun, but I get sore.

It's only like 50 swings.

I mean, my form's probably terrible.

But just swinging hard too.

Yeah, I'm just swinging as hard as I can.

And I have no form.

It's so much fun.

It was such a brilliant model, too, by the way.

It's like they really, I think Taylor Maid still owns that, or I'm not even sure.

I don't even know, but they're crushing him.

They were smart, they made golf fun.

I mean, golf, I love golf, I play a lot of golf, but it's also a very expensive, very time-consuming sport.

And some clubs just have these rules where it's like, all right, like, this isn't what a young kid wants to go and do.

And like, you know, going to a public course and spending five, six hours out on a course being doing something that you suck at.

It's too slow for me.

It's too slow.

Top golf is great because, yeah, short period of time.

Yep.

Top golf and and mini golf.

You haven't done mini golf.

You haven't done mini golf?

No, no.

I've done it.

I just haven't done it in a while.

Oh, yeah.

I'm competitive and I can't play actual golf.

So that for me is like good middle ground, you know.

They have good mini golf in Vegas or what?

Decent.

Nothing crazy.

Yeah.

I just go to compete.

I went to the top golf here, though.

Yeah.

It's on the strip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's nice.

Really, really nice.

Yeah.

You said four-sport athlete in high school, right?

Were you trying to go professional in any of those?

Baseball was the sport.

I played Division I baseball.

So I played at Sacred Heart University for four years.

I had a grade four years, captain for two years.

It was a experience for me.

But it was interesting because as I was playing,

you know, at a certain point, I think that whole fitness focus started taking over a bit and decided to be a coach when I graduated.

I didn't even really know what I was going to do when I was in college.

I was studying business because I had this business bug and I wanted to.

be an entrepreneur.

It was something I think I always wanted to do.

But I didn't even really know about trainers back then.

It was just something that it's interesting now because even like doing what I do now, if you went back to me in 1999, you said, all right, you're going to be opening a facility in your backyard and no one's going to be training there.

I'm like, well, how's that possible?

Like, you're going to be online.

What's online?

It's like, you're going to have this global business.

You're going to be in over 100 countries, but you're not going to have to travel much.

Well, how's that going to happen?

Like, everything that is even now with what you're doing, like, just didn't exist 20 years ago.

So it's pretty difficult for a lot of these young kids to have to sit there and predict what they're going to do over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years.

It's like, follow your passion and purpose.

It feels right and you really want to do it.

Get after it.

Like, don't worry about the money piece of it.

You, you, you got to feel it in here.

And if you, and if you do, I think that's going to pay dividends.

But, you know, get ready, man.

This is not, uh, this isn't something that happens overnight, as, you know, as we all know.

Yeah.

The professional athlete route is, it's got to be the lowest percentage of 100%.

It's got to be under like 0.1% of people that actually get there.

Right.

But even podcasts, I mean, look at what you're doing here.

I mean, this isn't something that anyone can just turn around and start.

Like, you have a team.

There's a lot of time.

There's a lot of effort.

Money.

There's a lot of things going in.

And I'm sure it didn't just start out of the gate, right?

No, it took years.

People call it, because they see it now and they were like oh that happened fast but it took me like seven years to build up my network it's a lot yeah just to like have people that will come on the show and that's the hardest part i think for a lot of podcasts getting good guests was there a time when you when you actually doubted it or what uh yeah i started a show five years ago total flop so i i doubted it for five years that i can make it work this time to be honest but uh that was interesting i mean looking at guys like even garyvee and seeing how he started that wine tv and he did like hundreds of episodes.

Yeah.

And it was like the most low budget thing.

And you just, you look at a lot of these successful people, even the ones that I trained, and they, um, you know, it wasn't this instantaneous.

I mean, Ryan Reynolds will be the first to tell you.

He said he was like almost unhireable at one point.

Like this was years ago.

It's like a couple movies flop and, you know, he was like begging to get Deadpool done.

And then now look at him.

I mean, he's

just sold Mint Mobile for

a billion dollar billion dollars.

A billion dollars.

And I mean, he probably didn't think 10 years ago he was going to own a European football team.

It's like, but think about that.

Think about how life takes you and you just got to go.

He was passionate about it and he loves that city.

And I just went over to Wrexham with him.

It was incredible just to see what he's great at that.

You also trained his wife, too, right?

Yeah,

she's been like my rock.

Gossip girl, man.

That was my show back in the day.

Did you really?

That's hysterical.

All the girls watched it.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

So funny.

Chuck Bass is coming on the show.

Ed Westwick, I think his name is.

Okay.

I work with actually one of my really good buddies is Sebastian Stan.

He was on gossip, wasn't he?

Was he Dan, the curly-haired guy, or someone else?

I didn't know what role he was playing.

I mean, Chase Crawford, I worked with.

He was a gossip girl.

I think Seb was on.

I think Sebastian.

Seb now is he's playing Donald Trump and the new Donald Trump.

Oh, wow.

He's crazy.

He looks like him?

No, not at all.

But he was also, do you see Itanya?

Itanya, no.

Okay, that was with

Margot Robbie.

Okay.

And she was playing the Olympic skater.

Interesting.

But he was in it also.

He's been like a very versatile, up-and-coming actor where he plays all these roles.

I'm actually really impressed with how he's able.

He's a perfect example of someone who's, you know, is playing an Avenger, right?

He's Bucky in the Avengers, and then he's playing Donald Trump.

Wow, yeah, that's a wide range.

Yeah, pretty personal.

Damn, the accident's going to be tough.

Yeah, we'll see.

Don, it's been fun, man.

Where can people find you?

Thank you, man.

You know, Instagram, Don Saladino, DonSaladino.com.

I give away a free program on there if anyone wants access to it.

Take advantage of it.

Cool.

We'll link it in the video.

Thanks, bro.

Yeah, thanks, man.

Appreciate it, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you next time.

Thanks, Don.