Redefining Manhood: The Holistic Path to Health and Purpose

[00:00:00] By the end of this episode of the Fallen Man Podcast with Hollywood trainer, Ajax Cortez, we'll have answered, what is a man? You'll know what the four pillars of health are. You'll know the intricate piece that most men miss in their lives for staying healthy and fit. And you'll know what two common traits all successful people seem to share.

Now, if you want to skip through the get to know you segment with Ajax, timestamps are in the description or the show notes, whatever platform you're on. And Ajax wanted you to hear this one thing. If nothing else, then we'll get on with the show. Check it out. Yeah, I would say for every man listening. That if you want to be your highest self and live the life that you could dream of having, you know, the highest level of achievement and success, put your health first, always maintain that, and that will be your foundation for the rest of your life.

You have just that one thing. It can in fact be that simple. There's only two [00:01:00] things that I, of everyone I've ever worked with, that's successful. There's only two things in common. Number one, they follow a schedule. They prioritize their time. They value their time. That's what that represents. And number two, they exercise.

Those are two things every man has in common. The guidance are admirable, schedule priorities, exercise. You do that. You have that everything else, as I said, sky's the limit.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working and living? Being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves. Well, that's the big question in this podcast. We'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the fallible man podcast.

Welcome to the fallible man podcast. You're home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout out to fallible nation. That's our [00:02:00] private community and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. Hey, I know there's a lot out there competing for your attention. So it means a lot to us that you've given us a chance.

I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to reach out to me at the fallible man on Instagram or any other social media. Let me know. And if you really enjoy it, share the show with somebody or leave us review on Apple podcast. That helps out a lot. My special guest today is entrepreneur and trainer, Alexander Cortez, Alex.

Welcome to the fallible man podcast. How you doing Brent? Man, I I'm excited for today's show. I think we're gonna have a great conversation, Alex. We like to start out pretty, pretty light here. So how's your trivia skills? Trivia. Trivia. Uh, you know, probably lacking at this point. There was, there was a time I used to, you ever read the bathroom reader series?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like there, there was a point in my life where I read the entire series up to that point, like it was like 35 books and I, after that, like I did this like in my twenties and I was just like, it's like a jeopardy. You know, I'm kind of a contestant. I just, I can answer anything. Like, this is useless [00:03:00] facts.

That was over a decade ago. So, uh, it might not be so sharp now, but let's find out. We'll see. It's, it's really, you know, I pick random questions. I generally try and avoid of like, if I know one of my guests has a specialty, I actually purposely try and avoid those, but I was being nice today. So it was at least a sports based question.

How's that? That's gonna be a bloodbath. Go for it. What sport is Steve Redgrave known for? Is it A, swimming, B, rowing, C, football, or D, basketball? I'm just going to guess rowing. All right. Now guys, you know, the rules don't cheat. Don't look it up. Don't mess around. And for God's sake, if you're driving, please don't write it down while you're driving.

We'll come back to that a little bit later. Now, Alex, we'll get into what you do and your backstory. But today in this moment, in your own words, who is Alexander Cortez? Uh, [00:04:00] Alexander Cortez, Alexander Juan Antonio Cortez. I use his full name. So father, uh, entrepreneur, personal trainer, uh, educator, teacher, right?

Most of all, or how the world knows me on a public level. Is that how you see you? Yes. Yeah. I've, I've always, I divide my life into, you have two spirits. You have your personal private life, which is how people know you, you know, individually, people you have relationships with. Which that, you know, this could be as a husband, as a father, as a friend.

And then you have the life that you lead externally, which that's going to be more of your profession, your job. How, like I said, the world knows you within the external domain. You know, the way most people know me externally, I'm a teacher for them. I'm a teacher, paternal figure in that way. Perhaps a brotherly, fatherly kind of figure.

Uh, and then, you know, within my individual life, obviously I'm married, I have a wife, I have kids. And they know me [00:05:00] very differently. And you're married and a father. So congratulations on both those aspects, right? Thanks. Uh, you know, it's amazing how much of our lives that becomes as we go, right? The world changed drastically when I got married and changed even more drastically when I had kids.

It's, uh, It's not more or less, it's just different. Oh. You know, usually, um, like I haven't been a dad that long. My son was born like a year and a half ago, little more than that. Like, whatever, 20 months. But, uh, you know, being married and then I'll see, yeah. I've been having children. You, it puts far more demands on you.

It's like what you actually are, who you are and what you're made of. And, uh, I don't miss being a single man. But, you know, there is like a, you know, as you know, you're obviously. Married yourself, you have kids, but like there's a dramatic difference in your definition, um, is how you see your being, [00:06:00] you know, before being single than after having, you know, being responsible for people.

It's just, it's just a shift, um, you know, and life's, life's never the same again. You can never, you still have gifts, you can never go back. Not that you'd want to, but it's also interesting when you talk to younger men who are, you know, single, right, like in their 20s where it's, You know, whether you want to or not, you sort of have this dad energy, where it's like, you're just, you're just older than them, like, you're older than them, you're, you're going to be a bit more mature, uh, and, uh, you see, uh, I think of like my parents now, it's like, I kind of, yeah, like, you understand you're also like your father for the first time as well, where it's like, you see, and you don't, you just don't have that until you're there, so it's, it's been cool, like, I've really enjoyed the journey of it.

And, uh, it's pretty, I've written about as well, but I think it's actually maybe a nicer person the last few years. You just become, become more sympathetic to people since you can kind of see a lot of their individual progress issues that they have or just bad parents. They were younger. [00:07:00] I think it's very real.

So coffee, tea, energy, drinks, soda, or something else. All of them. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a great, uh, proponent of beverage maxing. I'm one of those guys who always likes to be drinking something different. I like novelty. So like all of a sudden I'll have coffee in the morning. Yeah. Right now I'm having energy drinks, which is just, it's faster.

Then I'll have like an afternoon. Yeah, there you go. Coffee, I'll have coffee in the morning. Then sometimes I'll have tea. Then I'll switch like sparkling water. In the evening I'll do like a tea again, like, you know, non caffeinated. Like I drink a lot of Topo Chico. Um, it's, it's just fun. Yeah. And also I think doing beverages, it's sort of a, it can act as a state change.

So you might have something where you drink, you know, during the morning, it's coffee, puts you in a certain mood. And then afternoon, you know, maybe you're doing, uh, work, excuse me. [00:08:00] And maybe you're, you're reflecting on your work and planning for the next day. So it's like, okay, that's, that's at whatever tea time, you know, like Topo Chico and late at night.

It's something else for us. Okay. The day's winding down. I'm going to do like the hot chocolate. Um, so, I mean, that's how I am. I'm not one of those people. I can drink the same thing all day. I also drink water too, right? I just have straight water, of course. But it always makes my wife laugh. It's always just having these different things.

I'm always drinking for a few hours. She, she got used to it of course. Oh yeah. There, there's something always in my hand. It doesn't, there's something right. Well, there's the energy drink of the coffee. I'm the same way. Uh, have you tried the liquid death? I'm starting to dig that. I like the lime. Yeah. I haven't tried the flavor ones.

I tried them like three or four years ago when first came out, it was just water. Yeah. I thought it was something else when I opened it up. I was like, look at that. Maybe that's a, I don't know. It's like a flavored water, mineral water. I just realized it was just regular [00:09:00] water with a cool can. Right, right.

Yeah. Yeah. And then in a sparking version of flat version, I was like, okay, this is not what I was expecting. And then, you know, now they just got a flavored version. Yeah. But also the company's doing, I think, hundreds of millions in sales right now with a billion dollar valuation. So that ironic, uh, I don't even know what you'd call that market.

Like the meta irony market of just drinking water in a death head can is, uh, caught on. Well, that was, uh, I read the company's statement at one point. There's like making water cool again or something. Uh, the, the CEO, the founder was inspired because not everybody realizes this, uh, human monster actually makes Turing drinks and it's just water in a can.

He was at like a big all day comp, uh, what do you call it? A concert, right? Big, uh, multi band concert, whatever you call those. And he was just watching the [00:10:00] singers and stuff, just down these cans. He's like, They're going to die of a heart attack drinking that much monster on stage. And then he found out that they have monster puts out Turing drinks, which is water in a can for bands.

So they're not just drinking a water bottle on stage. That way they're branded water on stage. Okay. Makes sense. Right. So he decided to go after that market, but I mean, Austin's a great idea. Like when I saw it, you never know what's going to make money. I've always been struck by, I've seen some, I've seen people, Make, get this, make bags, get rich in the most absurd kind of niches or with these products.

They just like, really? Like people buy this? Yes, they do. You know, like water, monster water, for example, I was consulting with a beverage company like a few years ago for potentially sort of launching new water. And they wanted to call it like Cobra water and the market research like tested well and all it was was just water with a Cobra on it.

But you know, but like, you know, it ended up [00:11:00] working out because you know, like the investors fell through and all that. But yes, I'll think about that. I'm like, I shouldn't have to like a hip product would be unique, right? I'm like, it's a spring water with Cobra. Yeah. Yeah. That's all it was. A kiss kiss nailed that years ago.

Kiss came up with the concept. I mean, are you familiar with the story of kiss was formed? Yes. Right. That this is what kiss went to prove. All you got to have is a really great gimmick. You don't have to be. Dollar. You don't have to be the best. You just have to have a really good gimmick and you can sell stuff.

So I think I read, I think there's Gene Simmons. He has like an autobiography about making a kiss. It was, it's just interesting guy and said, right. Business mind where it's like, okay, we're going to have a look and we're going to have merchandise, like, you know, very, you know, if you, you probably write yourself, but like, you know, very early on, like the process for me, the band was like, we're going to do t shirts.

We're going to, you're going to take the, you know, all the face panel that we're going to, it's going to put everything you can to sell that stuff. Becoming hyper successful because of it, whether the music was good or not. It was like, Hey, you [00:12:00] know, we're okay. Oh, he taught them all to how to play their instruments.

He was, he was a music teacher. And so he taught them all how to play their instruments because it started as a bet in the teacher's lounge. He's like, Oh yeah, you know, give me a couple of guys who can play their instruments and I can give me again, you don't have to be good. And then they're like, yeah, right.

It started as a very bro conversation. Very super bro. And then, uh, I mean, they became, yeah, he started like one of the successful bands at their time, all time, right. Not about merchandise and money they made. What is your favorite childhood memory?

Go back in time here.

I, I [00:13:00] don't reflect that childhood much.

I, I don't know if this would count as childhood memory, but, uh, when I did graduate high school, that was, I guess you should say, you call that childhood since I was 18. But I, I was ecstatic because I, I never wanted, I was one of those kids where I never liked being a kid. Mm-Hmm. . Um, like I had great parents.

My parents were wonderful people, awesome father, awesome mother. But, uh, I just, I just resented the whole schooling system, like a very, very young age. I always felt like a massive waste of time, it was inefficient, a lot of just pointless bullshit, honestly, which will leave it. So like from probably around like second, third grade, I was just always fantasizing about being an adult and being older.

I was always also a racist reader from like elementary school on, so I'd be reading like great novels, reading about adults having adventures. Or I'd be like a kid, sort of like the orphan archetype, they're having an [00:14:00] adventure. Getting to go to the adult world, but I was stuck in this damn school system until my kids were 12.

So I finally turned 18. I'm like, okay, like this is over. It's done. I never have to go back to this. Like life can actually begin. So like that was, you know, grad graduating high school. I just remember walking up the stage and like, that was the happiest I'd ever felt at that point in my life. I'm a real boy now.

Right? Life, life can begin. Oh, then I had to go to college, which was also a waste of time, but you know, at least I had more freedom over my time, which versus having to Compulsory schooling. So what's your go to weapon for the zombie apocalypse? Go to weapon? Uh,

yeah, I mean, I mean, surviving a zombie apocalypse, I think is really more about just maintaining distance. So if you have this like a good sniper rifle, that's really all you need. [00:15:00] All right. I like it. Yeah. What's something everyone should know about you before we dig into to the subject today?

No,

I mean this is a perhaps petty but I go by the two names. I could go by Alexander Ajak. I've never got my Alex That's all good. That's it. That's it. I know I'm normally as a host right there. I've never introduced myself as Alex. I just don't use Alex's name at all. That's a total fail on my part as a host guys.

I blew that one entirely. Totally. Okay. Normally I ask like for the show starts, like, do you have a preference on what I call you? Uh, But I've shortened Alexander to Alec my whole life. I didn't even think about it. Oh, failure, failure. Guys, we begin to know Ajax just a [00:16:00] little bit. And the next part of the show, we're going to dive into what he does.

And the question, what is a man? We're going to roll our sponsor and we'll be right back with more from Alexander Cortez. Are you tired of tossing and turning at night? Searching for that elusive perfect pillow or just better bedding in general? Well, look no further. Our podcast is proudly sponsored by MyPillow, the renowned American pillow manufacturer.

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That's 800 796 9775 to order. Now, you can't be your best without a good night's sleep. And my pillow delivers guys. Welcome back in the first part of the show. We spent some time getting to know who Alexander Cortez is in this part of the show, we're going to dig into a little bit of what Alex does actually, and the question, what is a man?

Because Alex's answer. Just really stuck out of my head and I want to have that conversation. So Alex, before we dig into that, though, we need to know a little more about you. So you've had an incredibly distinguished career in fitness. [00:18:00] We talked a little bit before we started, uh, before we actually started recording and just blew my mind even more from what I already knew about you, but you've gone from working in box gyms all the way to Hollywood and everything in between, tell us a little bit about you.

So fitness career, um, so I guess I'll kind of start from the beginning. So I'm, I'm 35 now. I've been a personal trainer since I was 20. So I'm one of the few people who has just done one thing, essentially their entire adult life in terms of building a skillset, a talent stack, fitness has like a very high dropout rate, but about 90 percent of trainers.

Just quit in the first year. So if you meet any, if you meet anyone in fitness that's been doing it longer than five years, they're probably pretty good. You know, and for myself, it's the only career I've had in my entire adult professional life. It started when I was 20. My original career plan, if you could call it that, I wanted to be a [00:19:00] professional ballet dancer.

That's actually what I went to college for was a dance performance and choreography degree. This is like back in 2007, eight, nine. And that didn't work out. I got very injured the first year. I tore off sort of part of my left hamstring, essentially. So my left leg never worked right after that. Still doesn't, but works pretty well, mostly.

So that kind of killed that pretty young. And so I was in college. I was getting a liberal arts degree. I realized this was a worthless degree. I got very red pilled as we call it now on a sort of state of society, state of education. And I didn't know what to do. And I was having to do my rehab of my leg and I found out that I really, I really enjoyed fitness.

I liked working out. I liked learning about the process. And as I got closer to graduating, I saw that personal training, you could get certified in a weekend, unfortunately, uh, very, you know, very little barrier to entry, [00:20:00] but you got paid more than minimum wage. So I thought, you know what, I'll do this job and maybe it will turn into something, but at least I'll get paid.

So I was 20 started personal training and essentially just never stopped and so that was like I said That was quite a few years ago. And I originally started off in big box gyms. I worked at a 24 hour fitness crunch I had a big breakthrough that happened

2014 was a while ago 2014 is like over a decade ago. Basically. I had a client that was a Bollywood actor and went with him to India for six months And I trained him there. It's dogs who visit a foreign country. India is a very different United States. It's an Eastern civilization. And at the same time I was training him, I started writing for a couple of magazines as well.

Uh, former editor of Muscle Fitness, Bobby Elmfeld, who unfortunately passed away. [00:21:00] Many years ago, but he had a scouted me essentially from just reading my posts on Facebook at the time. I kind of have sort of like a Facebook following and, uh, reading my column on leave TS. So I hit this position when I was very young rush.

Wasn't making that much money, but I was, I was writing for magazines. I was writing articles online. I started sort of accruing what we now call a personal brand. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was interesting. I was seeing the internet change in real time where this digital economy was taking hold. And this exploding and I saw then in the 2010s that that was probably going to be the future of fitness, which it was now personal training when I started it was just a Deadly kind of career.

Uh, there's a lot of jokes made about how dumb personal trainers were and there still are but The internet just changed everything instagram youtube The ability to reach millions of people and educate them And that's also when the blogging era was really big and a lot of my early You Personal training education.

So I've [00:22:00] been reading textbooks was just trying to find other personal trainers who had more experience than I did, or were they saying about training, uh, you know, about fitness, about biology, you know, what were their strategies and it all eventually converged together when I finally launched my own brand in 2017, which it took off, you know, I've always been very consistent with, uh, content creation and everything that entails.

And it allowed me to create this digital brand, this online brand where I can live anywhere. I've traveled the world. Uh, a couple of times over and I've also been able to expand to other things, but the core of the business is still to this day. Well, I consider just fitness, health, education, health is an infinite market.

Everybody wants to be healthy. If you don't have your health, what do you have? And so it's never going away.

I was trying not to laugh when you were, uh, mocking how easy it is to become a trainer. I, [00:23:00] I, it took me a little longer to read the textbook, but I was just blown away. By the lack of knowledge in training involved in getting that certification. And I won't call them out, but I, I was just like, I know nothing more about actually training people.

I learned more about the business of training people and, uh, you know, CYA. But I was like, how does this make me a better trainer? Cause I've been doing it on this side for years, but this didn't teach me anything about training techniques or actual, you know, so I was, I was trying not to laugh really hard when you said that cause like, yeah.

Uh, but you, you managed to just take your brand to a whole nother level of training people and succeed. Like I, I was blown away when I started reading your background. I was like, how have you [00:24:00] stayed in this industry this long? Like, It just doesn't happen. It's, it's pretty uncommon. Like I think you're saying with training, the barrier to entry is so low.

I couldn't tell you even with the textbooks, I remember they had basic anatomy in them. Yeah. There's some useful information, obviously, but you can get certified in a weekend. Yeah. Yeah. I know if I'm being honest, like anyone in the business industry will tell you this, the push to training, like it typically selects for like a pretty bottom tier individual.

Unfortunately, most people quit. They, they get, they get certified to get into it and they realize like, wow, this is like, A very complex involved job. And you know, when you think about like qualifications, you become a trainer, just like all you need is what, uh, CPR certification. That's it. And you can, you're taking people through this environment in the gym, right?

Where you can very easily injure somebody because previous bodily harm, uh, they're spending money like on a hypothetical product of hopefully getting results. [00:25:00] You don't know what the hell you're doing. Nobody learns anything first principles at all. And I mean, that's why people drop out, but for my sake, I was always, that's always good at studying.

I was very studious and I wanted to help people. It was just, uh, those first like four or five years of training, if you aren't dedicated to it, it's an absolute grind. You just realize you don't know anything. There's sort of, and you're all, oftentimes I'm doing negative knowledge, a lot of myth making, a lot of, there's a lot of trends and fitness and stuff We believe for a period of time either gets disproven later Oh, maybe that wasn't the best process for that But I just kept at it.

I kept at it and it gave me a very good education Certainly in human biology, but also like psychology as well. You have to understand people. It's a talk job Very often you're just talking to somebody for an hour and you're they just want a friend, right? They hired you to get them in shape. But also as Humans being human beings if you spend an hour You're probably going to get to know them pretty well and I, [00:26:00] I, I love training clients.

Loved it. Yeah. But at the same time, it's not like a scalable career, obviously it's just, it's our, I had the period of years where I was getting up at five to work at six. I'd go to like sometimes eight, nine o'clock at night with my last AP client. And you're just tired at that point. You talk to so many people, client one, two, three, four, five, six, sometimes eight plus clients a day.

And it's full time talking. You have to, you have to be on for all those people. You can't be, you can't be tired. I don't feel like, I don't feel like speaking to you today when they show up. Uh, you know, luckily I have some big extrovert personality, but eventually after a few years of doing that, I was like, okay, like what's next?

And I saw the internet was growing then. Yeah. I mean, it's been around a long time, but with the advent of YouTube, Instagram, uh, you know, blogging, you know, blogging's kind of dead now, but at the time, 2010 was very relevant. I realized a lot of content online is just how to do stuff. It's just, it's educational content.[00:27:00]

Yeah, maybe it's entertaining and you like personality, great stories, they're funny, but every day people get in line. They're just looking stuff up all the time, you know, and certainly for like the fitness career, like, you know, how am I going to make money doing this? Yeah, I realized the vast majority of people, certainly men, it's assuming they do go to the gym at all.

They're just looking for workouts, looking for a program. I guess that basics like, all right, I'm here. What am I going to do? And, you know, like they just go up on their phone or bring a magazine with them, at least they did then. They're just looking stuff up, chest workout on YouTube, crazy chest workout.

And, uh, I, I knew from working with Bob Ildefeld, muscle fitness editor, he had been the editor on five, three, one, that program should Wendler. So I don't know if we have maybe your audience doesn't know what that is, but in 2010, five, three, one was like the first ebook that like hit it big in fitness. It was a power team model program.

[00:28:00] Uh, it was super popular like in early 2010, 2015. It still sells today. And I knew from talking with Bob, since Bob and I had hung out, like, you know, on a one to one basis, we were, I remember talking with him at the Arnold Classic, like 2014, I think, but 531 had sold like, I think at that point, like over a hundred thousand copies.

And, uh, it was a 30 ebook and I know it's sold more than big. Look, I think it's like over 250, 000 sales now, but at the time he told me, he's like sold a hundred thousand copies. Three dollars each that's you know, do the math. Okay, three million dollars. I was like, yeah So i'm hearing tell me that I was 24 and I was a stunned right?

It's like the book sold three million Didn't compute. Uh, yeah, but I realized i'm like wait like people people just want good information That's that's you know, fundamentally if someone wants to get healthy fit They're just looking for some type of [00:29:00] plan. They hope will deliver results and that program certainly works 100 percent does And they had no competition at all like, you know, fitness ebooks were a smaller market But there was you know less competition in the market So I had that idea and then later on worked for john meadows for a period of time He was a very famous bodybuilder.

He of course passed away as well from a heart attack But he was selling these like very comprehensive 12 week bodybuilding programs for like three four hundred dollars And I when you're on when you're on the opposite side of business, you know, not the public facing side But like the back end I was seeing sales and traffic conversion rates and everybody's like, people just want good information.

They want plans, they want programs. They want something, they want something to follow, they want a guide. And I knew, okay, if I can get good enough, you know, eventually, like in a few years, I should be able to do this myself. And then that's what I eventually did. My business is predominantly built on information products.

And you know, they're cheap and they're very affordable. Yeah, but people love them. People love them [00:30:00] and it makes me You know, very grateful that people do them. It's like hey, man, like I said, that was the best 50 bucks I ever spent You know, like I bought that product. I called it four months. I could change my body It dispelled all the bullshit around fitness.

I've done it four times I you know, i've had clients that have bought, you know at this point like 10 20 programs They buy everything but they always buy it knowing like i'm gonna learn something You know, I could spend a couple thousand dollars on a trainer in person or I could just Follow you spend, you know, maybe a hundred bucks a month at most, you know, for like your training group.

And I'm going to get so much more, you know, now their health, you know, their bodily health, it's not something you have to be concerned about anymore. It's all kind of on autopilot at this point. I'm sitting here trying to keep my mouth shut and just not fanboy because you're dropping names, just like.

The gods of, you know, strength, actual intelligent lifting to me, uh, talking about Jim Wendler. I I've definitely done five through one, such a solid program. [00:31:00] Still to this day, it's still worth the 30 or whatever. Now you can get them in paperback. Uh, but I love that program. I can't count how many times I've actually recommended that program to people.

It's like, this is just whether you're seasoned or starting, this was just a good program. Um, John Meadows gave away so much of it. His YouTube channel was so incredible because just give away so much powerful information. That was just such high quality. Uh, I remember filming those early videos with him.

Some of them, um, yeah, I guess I did. It's, it's, it still hurts me. He's not, he's gone, but, uh, I remember it's like very early videos. This is over a decade ago and it was just, it was, you know, it was exercise demonstrations, exercise index, how to do this, how to do that. But that's what people need like so often, like we need.

Now, I've seen so many people in fitness over the years where they move into a, this is kind of a running joke in the fitness industry, like if you're around long enough, like you eventually become a life coach. Like you sort of ascend fitness, [00:32:00] like I'm going to coach you in life now. Like, and I've never done that where like my core business is still fitness.

It's health. If you can get someone healthy, they're fit, they're strong, they're muscular, they feel good about their body, you got the energy and motivation to do whatever else you want. But you know, that's, that's sort of your base. That's always gonna be value valuable to people. Yeah. I saw that with John where it's like a lot of the early content, it was really rough.

It didn't have production value the people came to expect later. Yeah. But it was just, you know, he had a great . He was just a guy and he was just, he was just showing you how to be exercise. Right? Oh yeah. And you know, sometimes there were uncommon movement stuff he'd kind of come up with and it's like, okay, here's how you do like the, you know, the pinwheel style hammer CRO likes.

Crossbody hammer curl. Oh my God. The Meadows Row changed my back. Meadows Row, Meadows Row. Oh my God. Like it totally changed my back development entirely. Uh, and I, I just never, but man, the difference. Yeah. I, I, I laugh when they actually name an exercise after you, [00:33:00] it's probably worth paying attention because enough people thought it was good enough that.

It became your signature moves, right? No, like I said, I, we get off on this all day, guys, but that's actually not what we're going to talk about today. No Ajax in our correspondence before the show, you said something, uh, and I wrote it down because I wanted to get it right. So this is a direct quote from our correspondence.

Being a man has depth and breath that is lost in the current consumer cycle, bite sized content and superficial points. So. I really, I really want to have that conversation, but let's start with the conversation. I don't know if you saw the document, the documentary they did. What is a woman? Uh, Matt Walsh.

Yeah. Matt Walsh did you, you obviously very much have an opinion. What is a man, what it takes to be a man. So what is a man? Yeah. So this is, [00:34:00] this is the thing with like the question, there's multiple, there's multiple definitions of this. It's like the reason why I we, like the modern. Information environment that we all live in, which is skipping online.

Everything has to be reduced down to sound bites is constant, like a very pithy viral sounding statement. You know, being a woman is this big man is this, and that's valuable. That's good. You know, it's not a bad thing, but it also betrays the fact that human experience is vast and infinite. And if you are a man, that means something that means a lot of things.

Like on a, I would say the most basic fundamental social level, being a man requires competency. There's an expectation for all men over the course of your life, whether you are a good man or a bad man, whether you're a father, whether you're single, whatever your role is, that you at least be competent.

You are good enough at something where you can take care of your own existence. I always tell this to the younger guys, that's just the [00:35:00] minimum expectation. A lot of the negative stereotypes we have, it's been, a lot of the negative stereotypes we have towards men as they get older is when they're just helpless.

It's going to become a time in your life. Where you can no longer be a child, you have to put away childish things. So you can be a little boy, you can be a young boy, you can be adolescent. And it's like, okay, you're going to be a man now. What does that mean? Well, that means you go through a collective process, process of experiences where you're just independent, and people can trust that you can take care of yourself.

Just very basic. Now, that's not necessarily aspirational. You know, that's not, you know, it's not like, wow, you've hit the apex of achievement. But can you take care of yourself? It's a yes no question. It's You know, then as you ascend towards higher levels, like you want to become more of a powerful kind of archetype You know, then it becomes like what kind of effects can you have in the world?

You know, so it's like well, what is a man like? Okay Well, maybe it can be you can be a heroic figure. You can be a paternal figure You can be someone that moves the [00:36:00] world. You can be someone that's responsible for people And I always like the kind of model like the king King warrior just lover kind of model where it's not perfectly accurate But it just divides out sort of uh categorizes masculinity into there's kind of four generic characteristics You know, some men are very inclined towards leadership You know, they want to be responsible for people And some men are very physical, you know in their bodies or sort of primary instrument as to how they Show up in the world with their skillset is and then you have the guys who are extremely intellectual They're just their mind.

They got the mind power that way and then you you have the people and you know You have men who are you know? You know, more relationship driven, you know, not necessarily a lover in the sense of women, but just a lover in a sense like they are about people and everything they do is going to involve the relationships of people.

Yeah. And these things are not, you're not separate. It's not as if like you're only one thing you're going to inhabit all these roles at the same time, but there's going to be something that you lead with. There's going to be something, [00:37:00] you know, there's going to be a richness to that experience. And then, you know, beyond all that, there's also people in the father, which is okay.

You're going to become father, husband, or paternal figure to people. Now you actually have to take care of people, and that's going to test your ability to love, your ability to lead, and your own, you know, your own strength and character, and your ability to produce, and your ability to provide, and that sort of encompasses everything at once.

And that doesn't get talked about at all, you know, that very rarely gets talked about, because it's actually, there's complexity to it, there's nuance, there's depth, uh, you know, it's much easier to say just, a man needs to be strong. Like, yes, absolutely. Okay. Okay. What does that mean? I love that once you got past the basic company's competency of being able to take care of yourself, because I've met a lot of guys who can't, uh, the next thing you led into was how you want to impact the world because we live in such a self centered [00:38:00] society a lot of times that we skip over one of the big roles of men is we're built to carry more weight than that we're meant to have an impact that that's at the base of our design.

And you're, you're right. The archetypes aren't perfect, but there is no perfect explanation, right? You can't, I was told at the beginning of the show, I had a professional. YouTube coach tell me my show would fail entirely because it was not niche enough. Now I will say my YouTube channel is not the biggest because most of my listeners are audio base, but that's fine.

My show is a podcast. The video is actually kind of a side note, but. I told him, I was like, I can't get more niche than this because I'm not just a girl, dad, that's not the only part of my life. Right. I have two daughters. This is [00:39:00] not a girl. Dad is not the only description of who I am, right? No one is that two dimensional men are not two dimensional.

No one is. And so I love that you jumped into how, with every single one of those archetypes, you went back to how are you impacting the world with those archetypes? How are you leading? We don't hear a lot of men talk about that these days. Oh, we, we live, uh, I think it's fair to say we live in a very self serving society.

You see that a lot with male content today, especially the stuff market towards young guys. It's, yeah. What would you even call it? Sort of like, it's just like the, like the, like the hose and money kind of marketing where it's like, all right, like you have, if you can get bitches, get women, like, you know, that, that it's supposed to mean something.

Like, okay, I've, I've sexual access to the opposite sex. Like, cool. That's really cool. I've told guys just like if you're still struggling with sex women by the age 25, like you have some inner work to do [00:40:00] That's not impressive Having having sex is not impressive Yeah, but when you're you know, if you if you're when you're 15, maybe it is when you're 18 Like if that's your if that's you know where you're mentally at in life Okay, like i'm not condemning of it, but i'm like there is more to existence than just that And there's there's certainly money like it's like, you know, like andrew tate.

He's actually a good friend of mine. Where's your bugatti? Like, yes, like having money and, you know, being able to show status is very important. Is that all you live for? Like there has to be something beyond that is just status. Uh, you know, but so the, the, the unguided content that gets produced a lot, but it's just, it appeals to sort of like our basic desires, sex, money, you know, maybe sort of the appearance of power without having power.

Uh, but yeah, and then, then if you are a bit older, you're like 30 plus, you're a father, if you actually like own a business for actually responsible for people, you realize a lot of it's just hedonism marketing. You know, how much money can I spend, you know, how, how much status can I be shown to have, [00:41:00] uh, none of that really means anything as you age.

Now, maybe it's meaningful to you, but that's a very shallow existence. You know, most of what gives her life meaning, I'd say largely what gives her life meaning is having a sense of duty towards something. You know, whether that's other men because we're part of a team, whether that's our business, whether that's our work, whether that's our family, you know, living solely for yourself and nothing else.

That it will become empty eventually there's something impressive about that. Yeah, I was uh, You know years and years ago I remember seeing like kind of what's called the early manasphere It was this very dating focus like how to get laid is what the content was. Okay, like yeah Again, I get it like lots of guys struggle with women.

I get it. Are you gonna you know, let's you know Let's assume you overcome that are you really going to be a 45 year old guy trying to pick up chicks? Yeah, there's a scene from the uh, you ever see the 1990s movie the wedding singer? You Yeah, yeah. Okay. There's actually this great scene in like the middle of it.

It's funny, but I thought [00:42:00] about it now recently where, uh, yeah, I guess Adam Sandler, he broke it off with his ex girlfriend. Didn't work out with Drew Barrymore. So he's with his buddy. He's like, I'm just, I'm just going to be like you, you and me just picking up women and not caring about tomorrow. Like that's, that's going to be my life.

And his friend tells him, he's like, I'm not happy. I'm miserable because no one wants to see a picture of a guy picking up chicks. I just, I wish I had someone that actually loved me. Like, yeah, I wish I had an actual human relationship. That meant something. I'm like, yeah, I thought about that scene the other day.

I was having this conversation with friends of mine about like, you know, how the manosphere is involved. I'm like, you know, that, not that that was a manosphere movie. I'm like, that was a good scene. It's like, I've, and I've seen that happen with certain people within the movement, when they get to their forties, fifties, like you're, you're a 50 year old man talking about trying to get girls.

Like is this it you've had three decades of your life to create something like this is really it for you. Okay All right. I'm like, I don't think you've evolved much personally. [00:43:00] Yeah, and then you meet guys like Eric Prince I think it's a good example recently of like, you know, very impressive figure where it's like, okay the guy came from super successful company He's got like a dozen children something like that.

He's got tons of kids You know, built like a, you know, multinational company, you know, Blackwater is like working in government and like work at the highest level, you know, I have to say like actually having real power, you know, now he's sort of like somewhere retired from it. Like, you know, talk about a guy with like breadth and depth, right?

Super educated, has been a leader, has led teams. Also like, you know, prides himself on being a father, was present for all his kids, has done all these things and is so quiet about all of it. Just talks about, but he talks about his life with absolutely no pretense. Yeah, no, no sense of arrogance at all, just like this is life I've had, this is what I've done, you know, this is what I think about, you know, the state of things, like he gives his opinion, he's very qualified, obviously, like that's an impressive figure, you know, again, depth of breath, there's so much you can do with your life with the time that you have, you know, so focusing [00:44:00] only on one thing, yeah, especially something that I consider to be immature, or just like, yeah, like a young man's struggle.

There's so much more. There's so much more. I've been very excited in the last several years since I, since I started the show, when I started the show, part of it was, I wanted to add another voice besides the, what I saw with it. Rah, rah, beat the chest. Hi, you know, scream, eat raw meat hose. You know, it's like, I saw all this in men's the mint world of man.

And it's like, okay, I want to be a different voice in that. Right. I don't think that's healthy. And I've been very excited the last couple of years. As I'm seeing that conversation across multiple platforms, start to change more and more, and it's less rah, rah, rah. I, I'm, I'm the MGTOW movement seems to be dying out, which I'm grateful for because that was just some of the stupidest nonsense I've ever seen.

Uh, [00:45:00] but I'm seeing the conversation change and more men talking about, you know what, there's a lot deeper, more meaningful things to life. There's bigger purposes than this. It's, it's exciting at this moment for me. It's like really exciting to see that direction. We're starting to move as more and more men are going, Hey, maybe there's something bigger in life, right?

Maybe it's not just chasing chicks or chasing money. So it's evolved. And like, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's the, I think that what the life cycle, man, like you will go through arcs. There's certain like, you know, that's, that's really what the EO5 is being a man, part of being a man is just going through different stages of existence, where your priorities and your beliefs, like they're going to change as you change, as you, as you grow, you know, when you're 15 to 20, a lot of the struggles that we have are just popularity, girls, you know, feeling, just [00:46:00] feeling self confident, you get to 2025, now you hopefully you're out in the world, you're some degree of independent, it's like, okay, you're going to have to start building the talent stack, you're going to have to start developing some kind of personality.

Hopefully by 25, your social skills have solidified where you feel confident speaking to people, speaking to the opposite sex. Like these are very fundamental things. And I know that some men struggle with them throughout their whole life, right? You can be 40 and struggling to take care of yourself, but like hopefully you nail that down when you're young.

And then you have this 25, 30 year old window where again, hopefully you've, you've found something that you're good at. You can take seriously, you're developing your talents in it and you're building towards having some sort of professional, you know, basis where it's going to take you into your thirties.

And then I 30s I say it's like that becomes a dividing line for men Uh, not that it's too late to change yourself if you hit 30 and you're still not good at anything You're still struggling with confidence. Like you are in fact, you're going to be behind you're going to see yours You're going to be seeing men who are the same age [00:47:00] as you who are in fact ahead of you And it will become relevant for you.

So you want to get married? You want to meet a woman or just you want you want self respect like all men desire self respect Okay, you're going to have to do more change things dramatically And then, you know, you hit 35, you know, now I'm at the stage where a lot of men I've grown up with, or I've got relationships with, they've become fathers, you know, they're married, you know, they have a business now that's taken off.

So you see the fruits of your labor, of your labors. And then you get, you see the guys who are 40 and maybe they're not retired, but now they've had 20 years, perhaps they've put in something. And they have that satisfaction that comes with, okay, I have kids, I have family, I have a business, and I've done well, I'm proud of the work in my life.

And then, you know, then what's next? Well, you have to challenge yourself in different ways. You have to, you know, sort of see like, what am I actually weak at? Or what's something that maybe I'm curious about that I want to be explorative and adventurous and just kind of go do? Just to sort of keep my edge.

And then, of course, there's stages beyond that, too. [00:48:00] When you become a grandfather, or if you do stay in business for a long time, you try to build that empire. And that's where, like, the meat of the male experience is. You talk to guys that are older than you, and they have so much wisdom they've built up over the course of their life.

You contrast that with being a younger guy, obviously. You just don't know anything. And so much of, like, young masculinity, I want to say that it's performative. It's not, you know, they're not faking it. It's a lesson to get the young guys get into. It's like, you know, the Romney being super macho, like, yeah, but like, you know, machismo is real, but also there's an element of it where you're doing this because you want other people to see you doing it because you're, you're hoping that it gives you something.

You know, some, some look at me, I'm a man too. Okay. Okay. Like that's fine. You know, that's, that's okay. Hopefully when you're 35, you're still not having to add to grow out of it. Yeah. Masculinity on the most basic levels. It's just, it's just action. Are you, are you taking action? Are you, are you demonstrating [00:49:00] competency?

You know, is your ambition being a parent through your day to day habits? It's yes. No question. I like it. I like it guys. We've been discussing the question. What is a man? And the next part of the show, Alex is going to help us out a little bit with one of the things that some of us struggle with as we get a little bit older in our lives and start to develop these skills and get into business or into our jobs.

And that's taking care of our own health because as men, it's actually one of the first things we tend to neglect, like just across the board. I have seen it and maybe that's just my experience, but that's what I've seen across the board. It's one of the first things men will forsake as they start to grow bigger aspirations, whether it's work or family.

We sacrifice our health. So Alex is going to help us out with that a little bit, and I'm going to keep butchering his name. Sorry about that. Ajax. We're going to our sponsor. We'll be right back more with Alexander Cortez. Struggling to catch quality Z's at night. It's time to change [00:50:00] that narrative. Sleep isn't just a luxury.

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for listening to the Fallible Man podcast. Don't wait any longer to upgrade your sleep quality. Let's make tonight the start of a better sleep and a better day is ahead. Now, let's dive back into the show. Guys, welcome back. In the last part of this go of the show, we talked a little bit about what Ajax does personally as a [00:51:00] business and his brand.

And we discussed the question of what is a man in this part of the show. We're going to dive into your health because a lot of guys tend to let that go. bod, right? It's one of the things we tend to let go as we progress in our life. And I would be absolutely remiss to have a trainer of Ajax's caliber on here without getting you guys some tidbits of how to take better care of yourself.

Ajax, one of the things I like about your approach is it's very holistic. Uh, you, you understand that there is a lot more than just going to the gym. So let's basically touch on the four pillars of health and how those work together, if you would. Yeah. So with health, like for men, I'd like, if you were to consider that there's one foremost quality you have to have as a man, you gotta be strong.

You have to be healthy. If you're not healthy, your capacity to do anything is going to be just the reality of it. I consider that [00:52:00] very axiomatic. It's not really arguable. So how do we stay healthy? How do we be healthy? Being healthy is not compartmentalized from most of your life, obviously. To have energy, to have vitality, to have the enthusiasm and motivation to get up every day and do anything, that's going to be based upon your metabolism, durability.

So what does that entail? There's four things. The way I set it up. These are basic things, but they need to be in place. Number one is you have your circadian rhythm. You have sleep. If you're not sleeping well, if your wake up time is dysregulated, if you're going to bed at super late at 2 a. m, you are going to suffer for it.

You can get away with that when you're young, maybe. You're 22, getting no sleep. Okay. If you are 42, getting no sleep, that is going to have some very debilitarious effects, you know, quite immediately as well. Having high blood pressure, having heart arrhythmia, [00:53:00] being overweight, that all comes from lack of sleep, that comes from dysregulated circadian rhythm.

You have to nail that down. And guys, men love to blow this off. Guys love to blow this off. Especially, again, especially when you're young. I don't need sleep. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Okay, you're going to be dead for at least that point where you can enjoy sleep. I can tell you right now, if that's your attitude, you know, I've seen, I'm 35 now, and you get into your mid 30s, you get into your 40s especially, you will start seeing guys in your peer group drop off because they didn't take care of themselves.

And the ones who are super high stress and overwork themselves on purpose because they just need the cortisol rush and sleep really lousy, they die. I had a friend of mine contact me last week, where his father had a heart attack scare. Had a mini heart attack, basically. He's in his late fifties, overweight, very hard worker, but just never took care of himself.

Chronic stimulant drinker, junkie, one of those guys. Just be [00:54:00] selling coffee all day, thousand milligrams of caffeine a day. Had a heart attack, goes to the hospital, had to be hospitalized for three days, gets out, and the doctor had leveled him, like, you're gonna be dead in five years if you don't get your health right.

That's your future. Guy's freaked out, like, oh my god, like, I can't believe it happened to me. You're not going to be the exception, you know, bidding that you'll be the exception to all your bad habits is a stupid bet. So, you know, sleep Uh, you can get god fix your sleep sleep as you're getting with them And then you know following that you have nutrition.

I don't subscribe to a diet philosophy with nutrition with diet You need to eat this way. The best diet is a balanced diet. If you're a very physically active guy You're going to need more calories. You're going to need more carbohydrates. Probably if you are very inactive You know, maybe you've been obese, you've got metabolic syndrome, you've got food addiction issues, going zero carb, very low carb, that would probably be better for you.

You know, so that's a big [00:55:00] expanse of options there. Could be higher carbohydrate, could be no carbohydrate. Protein intake is fundamental. One gram per pound of lean mass, one gram per pound of body weight. Your body's made out of protein. You're made out of amino acids. You need to eat amino acids again This is very axiomatic stuff.

This is Ideological like you just you need to eat food to not die They need to eat certain amounts of protein carbohydrates and fat to be healthy You know the exact amounts that's that's going to vary a bit you can get to the numbers specificity of the numbers But these things need to be in place for you to be functional for the day.

So you have your circadian rhythm, you have sleep, you have exercise. I'm sorry, circadian rhythm, sleep, you have diet, and you have exercise, which is okay. What are you going to do on a week to week basis that keeps you physically robust? And again, I don't have an ideological position. This is the best way to train.

The best way to train is the way that works for you. I can tell you from an objective, data driven standpoint, if you have higher muscle [00:56:00] mass, higher lean body mass, And you have a reasonably high VO2 max. You have good cardiovascular health. You should live a long time You should maximize your lifespan, you know have a degree of vitality Whether that's riding the assault bike whether that's running whether that's doing jiu jitsu four days a week You know whether that's you know Maybe you love to bodybuild and you want to be in the gym five days a week lifting on a pro split Cool, like it all it all works.

Everything works in the end. It's just it's finding a system that works for you I mean, I have a trading circle of guys High energy entrepreneur that's what I call it, but Uh the guys in that group like these they have different options, you know, some guys train two days a week It's total body that could work, you know, the minimum effective dose for strength training is about four sets a week That's not that much.

That's like, you know, that's that could be done in one workout You could be doing four sets a week for your major muscle groups. You could be doing 20 plus sets. What's best? What's actually practical, reasonable, like what are your actual goals? [00:57:00] If you want to be one of those guys and be a bodybuilder, I've worked with those guys.

You're that older guy. You're super fit. Maybe you compete. Awesome. Like you're over on that side, you're doing the higher volume stuff. Like you've built your life around that kind of bodybuilding lifestyle. If you just want to be reasonably fit where you know, like that's not your priority, your priorities, your businesses, your family.

Okay. Go over here, train two to three days a week with a solid science based program. You know, that's going to work great as well. And your, your results might be comparable to the other guy, depending upon genetics, but you just, you find a system that's nailed down on those fundamental principles, volume, intensity, progressive overload, recovery, you know, finding a volume of training that works for yourself or the schedule, and you just keep doing that.

You know, like I say, you know, anyone can get into the weeds with exercises, you know, whether, whether a movement works, you know, this, you know, whether this, whether this type of bicep curl works the outer half of the bicep versus the air head, like. That's a very granular conversation from some of the [00:58:00] stuff.

What do you think of, yeah, I get asked a lot, like, you know, like barbell movements. Like some people think I'm anti barbell. I love the barbell. You know, but if you're an older guy, maybe you've had lumbar spine issues. You had spinal fusion, like. You don't necessarily need to go to a bar. You just need to do something that works your legs heavy.

Whether that's a barbell squat, or a boy grain split squat, or a leg press, or a pendulum leg press, or lunges, like, I don't care. I care about what you care about. So let's find what works for you, and you just, you stick with that thing, you nail it down, you find your key, exercise your movements. And you just keep doing them and if you can do that over a long enough period of time You build enough muscle mass where you're reasonably strong.

You can do pulse chips You can hopefully jog a little bit without having your heart, you know rate get too high Uh, we can test all this stuff obviously with a body comp test like this is all testable stuff You know, like that's always I try to always demystify fitness for people like this isn't This guy's thinking stuff up, like, I wonder if this is [00:59:00] true or not.

Who cares? I'm just going to say it. Like, we can measure heart rate. We can measure blood pressure. We can measure your fat mass, lean body mass. We can do basic strength tests. Like I said, it's very data driven. So if we hit these key areas, and we have a system for that, then you should be good to go. You should be healthy.

And then whatever your real aspirations are in life, go attack those things. Like I've seen my, my career is built on fitness. I've made fitness my thing. I know that's not most people, you know, like I'm not the average broker. I decided that I wanted to make fitness my life. I don't expect that for anyone else.

Whatever your highest purposes in life, go do that, but have that baseline where you have your health. If you've got that foundation in place, sky's the limit for you. Guys, I don't generally recommend trainers very often, but after doing my research, I would absolutely recommend Ajax to you. If you guys are looking for online coaching, uh, and his programs, because of this conversation right [01:00:00] here, I've talked to a lot of people in the fitness industry, having somebody who Understands is a holistic approach and is wanting to address what you actually want to achieve in real life, as opposed to this is the program I do.

I I've met so many trainers over the years who were like, this is their program. I, there was this one guy I saw at a gym. I won't call him out big box gym. And I watched him pick up a new client, right? I literally watched the first interaction of him meet a new client that Jim has scheduled this guy with new member with him.

He shook his hand. They walked over and started, he's put him right into one of his programs. No evaluation, no conversation, no communication. You have no idea what this guy wants from you, but he took him straight over to an incline bench and I was like, what, what are you doing? Do you, do you know he wants to use an incline bench?

Do you know if he safely [01:01:00] can? I have one client who we went through some just basic range of motion test. And he found out he had a shoulder impingement. He had no idea. His right side, he couldn't bring it above parallel at all, and he had no idea until we just walked through some motions, right? And I'm watching this guy do putting straight into incline press with weight.

I'm like, what are you doing? So I love that you have this, Hey, my client, the person I'm working with has these goals. This is his life. This is who he is. There is not a right. This is the prescribed how to do it. I've met way too many guys who are hard up on, this is the diet. This is the split. Yeah. I mean, it's the dual box guys.

That's that's super common industry. And yeah, one aspect, like a level, I get it. Yeah. From a business standpoint, it's very easy. If you, if you brand yourself as having like the distinct method, a distinct training style, distinct diet like that, that can work great for business. Yeah. [01:02:00] Mm hmm, but at the same time like I just you know, my background was training actual people I didn't become a trainer to get famous online in 2020 I started training in 2010 because I wanted to educate people and help them get in shape.

And you realize that so many different things can work. There's so many different styles of training. And you know, also, genetic individuality is real. There are those guys where, you know, like, I always like sort of like the better your genetics are, the more generic and sort of this brain dead your training can be.

There are those men, you can just have them touch weights, just do literally anything. It's like, all right, I'm just gonna do five by five. And it works and they love it. It's like, cool. Like this, just keep doing that. I'm not going to, I'm not going to try and fix what's not broken. Just keep doing that. You know, if you want to add an exercise for biceps, like go ahead.

Yeah. Then you have the opposite side of the spectrum. You have those guys who are generally like genuinely unathletic. They were never the fit guy in high school. Like they were the guy that like avoided the gym, avoided [01:03:00] sports. Basically they're bad at it. And what works for them, it might be kind of weird.

You know, I have seen things, you know, especially the people who are genetically Maybe you do need to do just like really high reps. Yeah. I mean, if you, if you look at the body of research, like, you know, it's a bell curve effect, right? Well, you can pull out averages of course, and say, okay, 10 sets a week is you know, optimal for muscle growth or, you know, whatever the five, 10 rep range is the best for, you know, uh, strength and muscle gains, because, you know, you have to account for the fatigue.

If you do high reps, it's kind of sufficient, like guys to toss, like I'm going to say, say toss all of it out, but. You're looking at a chart. You're looking at an average. If you look at the actual data, you got people on this side that respond to this. There are, you know, low volume guys, or the guys who respond really well to hybrid, you know, heavy height percentages.

Then you got the opposite perspective. You got the guys who barely grow from anything, super low rate of muscle strength gain. But of course, if you average it, like, yeah, you can pull out that middle number. That doesn't mean it's going to [01:04:00] work best for the individual. You don't know that until you work with them It's like I said, a lot of different things can work and fundamentally what does it break down to it's just like it's so basic It's like all right.

Is are they actually building muscle strength like measurably because that can only be done with a few movements You can you can measure the stuff. Yeah, and so no two programs are going to look exactly alike Yeah, you can certainly make generic style programs, which can work really well, you know, potentially like there's nothing wrong with a program You know, but if you are going to try to customize your fitness to your life, you're going to have to, you have to, you have to account for your own body, you know, biology, um, you know, just copying what someone does.

Well, they look like that, so I'll, I'll take that and look like, I'll look like that too. I'm like, I, maybe, maybe not. That's, that's the biggest, like, you know, fallacy everybody makes. It's like, you know, drone population. You see a guy, great physique, all his copies work out. Yeah, that could be awesome. That could be a total disaster.

How, how many times have you heard? [01:05:00] Well, it worked for Arnold. I've seen so many guys try Arnold work out Ronnie, but like you look at those guys when they're like, Arnold at 16 had a bare physique that most men will after 20 years of lifting. He was a Mr. Li, you know, like Mm-Hmm. . I worked with Bible for a long time.

When you worked with guys who were genuine freaks, it's, it's, I mean, it's not like the, the principles of training don't change that. You can get away with so much dumb stuff. You know, or you might have a guy, but it's just, it's just not comparable. You have a guy where he lives for his body. He's a pro bodybuilder.

I've worked with a few pros. His whole life is designed around the gym. You know, he gets nine to 10 hours sleep a day. He's got an afternoon nap. He's eating six and six meals. He's also got incredible snacks. They can handle absurd volumes of training. It's like, okay, that's really cool. That's awesome. Yes.

And this diet is strict and on point. Super strict. Perfect. Cardio. Everything's done. Yeah. They don't ever get away from that diet either, man. It was just, just [01:06:00] those, those guys, that kind of dedication. They're eating better than you. I promise. Ultra bro diet. Yeah. And then you have a guy like, you know, one of my clients, he's, he's Indian, South Asian phenotype.

This guy's is naturally skinny, slim. It's not naturally strong. It's like, we're just, you know, it's worth the training is obviously that we're starting off at a very basic level. Uh, he can train about three days a week. He works for an apartment of defense. Uh has a very demanding schedule i'm like, okay train that guy like get him results What bodybuilder does what he does are going to be dramatically different, you know principles are going to be the same Well, they're both limited.

Yes. They both need to be high protein. Yes, but make a program that works for him That's adaptable, you know and make him give him enough confidence He knows he's going to see results if he has to travel or something else when he gets sick or whatever Or he's super struggling out first of the week like make that work.

Yeah, that's like that's why I like People that's far more challenging They also, it reveals to you really actually, you have to actually know the truth training. What is axiomatically [01:07:00] biological true in a human body? It can't just be bro bullshit. I, I always liked clients who were working around an injury or recovering from an injury.

Those are always my favorite people to get to work with. Just, just because it's like, okay, let's dial this in because you have goals and right. Ultimately the goal is for you to be healthy and live a life you want to. So you're working around this, right? You've done this to your body. There are still ways to train this.

We'll just, you know, figure out how that works. And, uh, but I loved working with those people because they want it more and are, are willing to make the necessary changes over the people I ran into or just like, Oh, I want to be in better shape. I actually got into training to repair my body. Likewise, right?

Uh, I, I broke my spine at 23. I told you about my neck earlier. I [01:08:00] fell 22 feet and landed on a church. Church pew. You didn't work in the church or? Yeah. Yeah. I was up by the ceiling and I fell and I hit one church pew in my head. I had this massive scar in the back of my head and I hit one in the middle of my back.

One of my ankles has spent three days in neuro ICU. Um, they missed the fracture of my spine. There was so much swelling around it. They missed the fracture in my spine. It was like three years later when the chiropractor caught it in an X ray because it was still fractured. Wow. One of the pexels off one, like my L2 or L3, right?

One of the pexels off the back is actually vertically fractured and it's just stayed that way. And so my back slips out of place easier than it should. But it was because of that I got in training. It's like, okay, this, this is an insane amount of pain to live with. How do I start strengthening and stabilizing and making my life work again?

[01:09:00] And so that's where I went from. I like to go to the gym, too. I actually want to know something about this. So helping other people get that back always is fun for me. You know, work around that. But Alex, you've, I mean, you've worked with the criminal, the crim. And then you got guys who are just average Joes who just want to make their life good again.

And I love that. I love that passion. Uh, I think there's a lot of us men out there who can appreciate that because having access to someone who genuinely wants us to be healthy and take care of us and help us get our lives in order is huge. So I appreciate, I appreciate that. Like, like I said, this strength is really it's like, you know, strength, just being healthy.

If you don't have that, like I said, you get older, you just see guys pay for it. And then it's not just you suffering. It's going to be your family, going to be your business, going to be your employees, like your, your network of relationships that you have, like all those people who depend upon you, like you [01:10:00] need to be fit.

If you don't ever want to be in that position where you're in your thirties or forties, having health care. I'm like, what are you going to come? I'm not going to see my kids grow up. I'm like, am I going to die? What about all the people who depend upon me? Like, that's a horrible feeling to have. I've seen guys go through it.

You can just tell it's absolutely psychologically devastating. I was talking about this, but like, don't wait for a crisis to change. If you, if you know that you're unhealthy right now, like start now, start today. And it starts with the most basic of habits, you know, like I was gonna say, like sleep, educate rhythm, waking up at the same time, getting up and going for a walk, you know, making it, you know, a bitch war.

It's like, okay, I'm going to get my desk every two hours and take a stroll. I'm going to eat the same thing in the morning. That's actually protein and not, you know, whatever the Dunkin Godowns coffee. We live in a more sedentary world than ever. So many more guys sitting at a desk all day or staying in one place all day.

It's just crushing our health as men. [01:11:00] Yeah. I mean, that's a lifestyle. I was talking with a client last night where he's like, he was his company. And so he's just like been in the office and he wasn't able to train. So he's also was sick. He's like, I got really, he got really sick. He also still had to work.

I'm like, I might just, the gym's not happening right now. He's like, what can I do? I was like, go for a walk, dude. That's it. I'm like, yeah, like I said, getting healthy doesn't have to be this profound process. Like so much of it is just, can you go, can you get from the desk and take like a 15 minute walk every two hours?

Yeah. Just go do that is if you do that at least, you know, four or five, maybe six times in the course of the day, you'll get enough steps in. You'll certainly keep yourself in a better mood. You'll probably find a bit of energizing and it can in fact, this be that simple. Not all health is most of what makes us healthy.

It's not the gym itself. It's just, you know, likely on a daily basis. Yeah. You know, part of it's just, it's just activity. It's just having momentum, it's having movement. If you don't move a lot, if you are very sedentary, you feel stuck because you are stuck. [01:12:00] It's, it's like a child. If you have a, if you have a boy and you make him sit in a chair for four hours, he's going to be slumped over and unhappy at a certain point.

It's how can he not be? But, you know, we grow up as adult men and we somehow think that it's dramatically different. It's not. So it's paradoxical. Like I don't have the energy to work out because it'll work out. Like I know, but you're going to have to break that limit at some point. Yeah. And it might start with just getting the chair and go away.

Alex, you you've built a successful business model as an entrepreneur, uh, in a space where people. Like I said, don't last, uh, and you've changed with, I love that you've developed right from being an in person trainer to information online and training that way you you've done this very successfully. And I feel like we've barely skimmed the surface on that you've.

Worked with people from every walk of life. You've got so much going on. What's next for Alexander Cortez? Any, any big projects or [01:13:00] I keep saying Cortez, I'm saying that wrong, right? No, you're fine. Oh, yeah. Cortez. No. What, what is the next big project? What are you working on? Uh, next big thing. I have been writing a book finally about like health fitness, you know, sort of like this philosophy of it.

So we, uh, have a. Yeah, how to take care of yourself, how to make your life better that way. Um, you know, that won't be done until next year, but that's, that's been my big thing. I think my audience has been asking me for years, you should write a book, you should write a book. I've told myself, I'm not writing any book at all until at least like a 10 year mark, which we're already past at this point.

And I've had enough, you know, not professional success, but like client success where I can say like with a strong degree of certainty, like this is what works, this is what doesn't. And also you like, you need the experience to still have your own beliefs. I finally started working on that. So, you know, next year it'll be 2025.

And that money gets released. It's like trying to put, I'm putting my soul into that one. Yeah. As of [01:14:00] currently newest things came out, I have, I have a few other businesses, uh, an operator helping to launch, I have a coffee coming out in the summer in June, Pistos Cafe, uh, my business partner. So there'll be a coffee brand that we're launching.

I love coffee. So this is a natural evolution. Offer coffee, uh, and uh, so there's that and then I have a training group which I launched the beginning of this year You know the high energy entrepreneur group Which that's just for men who if you're a father you're a business owner 30 plus Need accountability and coaching and that social accountability social group dynamic enforcement go join that And you know, that's where like I said, that's the group model that I do Yeah, I've worked with clients one on one and I enjoy that.

I realize for most men They just need a group of guys that just keep them on point. It's very fundamental to the milk mission You know trying to be a soloist trying to be by [01:15:00] yourself and like, uh, You're gonna be an island, uh, you know by yourself. It doesn't really work like that there's a huge myth of that like the idea of the what would you call it like the Young guys use sigma male, you know, like like the lone alpha wolf like Bro, that doesn't exist once you get older you meet anyone that's successful that you admire you look up to It's an older man at 30 plus he Number one he had help really number two or maybe foremost.

He has relationships with people. You know, no one hits the peak of life solely Living your own existence, you know as a hedonist You're going to have relationships. You're going to have people that depend upon you You're going to have those along you those one alongside you from journey Like your life is connection that way, you know, a little bit of alpha bullshit.

It's just that day appeals to guys that are 20, uh, when you're 30, it's just, it's just a funny idea. Uh, but you know, relative to the group coaching, I'm sidetracking myself, relative like the group coaching. It's like [01:16:00] entrepreneur guys, I'm like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like you guys need support and if you can check in with a group every single day, Ask questions and talk to people and everyone, you know shows their physique on friday or monday Whatever it states their goals and you have a resource to draw upon you build you make some online friends.

That's huge That's absolutely unnecessary for most guys because most men today are lonely by themselves. Yeah male loneliness is at an all time high Yeah, that's where that's a real epidemic. It doesn't get talked about because the world at large doesn't care about male suffering at all You This is the reality of it.

Hey Jax, where's the best place for people to connect with you? Uh, best place is actually on X, uh, on Twitter. Uh, that's, that's where I'm like most socially active directly deeply there. A J a underscore Cortez, C O R T E S. Uh, and I also have Instagram. I have a weekly newsletter that I've published for the last seven years.

Right. So now at least, you know, minimum two newsletters a week, [01:17:00] sort of like science, science, uh, Like, you know, scientific breakdowns of just useful studies, like science being useful is what I call it. Science based points, you know, strategies for being healthy. And then like a Friday newsletter of just health upgrades.

Just useful stuff to use, you know, tactically. Um, and then I have my various products, programs. I make myself pretty available, you know, through social media. But usually X is the best place to reach me since I can sort of respond live, uh, for my call. Like, I can respond any time because, you know, I'm always there.

So guys, of course, we'll have all of his contact points down in the description and the show notes, whatever platform you're checking this out on. That way you can connect with Ajax. I feel like we've barely scratched the surface on so many things. I think I could spend another hour and a half just picking your brain on in business.

So guys, if you've got something about the, out of this one and you want to have Ajax [01:18:00] back, you need to let me know. Uh, I think that he, we could have a wholly different conversation just on entrepreneurship alone and his experiences there. So please let me know, give me that feedback. I'd love to hear if you want to hear him back now.

I know you're all just dying to know what Steve Grave Redgrave is known for. It's been weighing on you this entire time. We were talking, you guessed rowing and the answer is actually rowing. Congratulations. I'm not too shabby for someone who was unsure about a little trivia. Yeah. Not, not bad at all.

Ajax, we've, we've talked kind of around some areas today. If our listeners today took nothing else out of this conversation, it doesn't have to be what we talked about. If they took nothing else out of today's conversation, what do you want them to hear before you go?

Yeah, I, I would say for every man listening [01:19:00] that if you want to be your highest self and live the life that you could dream of having, you know, the highest level of achievement, success puts your health first, always maintain And that will be your foundation for the rest of your life. You have just that one thing.

It can in fact be that simple. There's only two things that I, of everyone I've ever worked with, it's successful. There's only two things in common. Number one, they follow a schedule. They prioritize their time. They value their time. That's what that represents. And number two, they exercise. Those are two things every man has in common.

They're admirable. Schedule, priorities, exercise. You do that, you have that, everything else, as I said, sky's the limit. You Guys for myself for Ajax. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Be better tomorrow because what you do today and we'll see you on the next one. This has been the fallible man podcast your home for everything man, husband and father.

Be sure to subscribe so [01:20:00] you don't miss a show head over to www. thefallibleman. com For more content and get your own fallible man gear