Mike Israetel

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1,094 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard May 2025

Mike Israetel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth · 2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content) · 12 May 2025 podcast
that excuse doesn't work anymore at least you can tell yourself you're hard working american you pay taxes well he's a degenerate that lives in the gym and the reality is like you can have most of what he has and spend two or three hours at gym a week a lot of people want to hear that a lot of people don't want to hear that yeah i think the other the other part of it too mike and i'd love your input on this is a lot of us we don't do what's optimal we just push what's what we can tolerate and so we're in the gym more than is necessary
Yeah, there's no way to figure out how you're going to get your best gains unless you experiment with training much less than you typically do, around the amount that you typically do, and much more than you typically do. And you do each one of these for weeks and weeks and even months if you can, and you very objectively analyze the result. In some cases, doing way less is the best.
In some cases, what you figured out over the years probably works really well. And in many cases, good news or bad news, is like, well, the more you do, uh, the better you get. Um, I have a friend who just, uh, he's, he's in his, um, uh, fuck it. It's Eric Helms. I don't know if you guys know who he is. He's a natural pro bodybuilder. He's in his early forties.
And he just kind of discovered that like the more volume he adds to his program, the better he gets. And he's making objectively the best gains ever in his fucking early forties. And he's like, man, it's like low key. I Cause I didn't want to have to do this, but I love training and it's great news. It's kind of like, damn, I really do have to do 35 sets for my biceps every week.
But for, for many people, they are 100% to your point, pushing it way too far. And it's just a matter of figuring out, I guess through mindfulness, if that sounds kind of lame, why, Why am I doing this? Like, do I really believe that throwing up after every leg day is my best path to success? Logically, like I have to talk to chat GPT and justify how I train.
Could I do it in a way that makes sense? Or am I doing this shit for vibes? And because, you know, my dad didn't love me when I was between the ages of seven and 10 or some shit like that. I made, I didn't make the class one Peewee football team. I made the class two team and I never fucking let that down. I'm never going to fucking hang my head down in front of another man.
So you bet I'm doing nine cents of hack squats today. I don't care if I have a Rabido every fucking workout, I'm a goddamn human adult nail and I will be granted my respect. If that's where the shit is coming from, like listen on vibes, dope, 100% dying on fucking hack squat. What a goddamn honor. But I'm like optimality and getting the best results. Yeah. then it's a different question.
You have to experiment with yourself. It could be more, it could be less, it could be way less. And I always get a bunch of shit, you know, in the comments, like with as many, it was a fucking ego move with as many followers as I have, you know, once you hit a certain level of bullshit, fake social media fame, the number of comments you get is like intractably large. And it's so many people.
And I say like, Hey, here's a way to train. Here's a volume. that you can do that science seems to show is kind of probably the best way to do it, I get a lot of people real fucking butt hurt. And number one reason they're butt hurt is they're doing some shit that's not bad, but they're really fucking emotionally attached to it.
Like it matters to them that they get to like, I often say like training all the way to failure is typically unnecessary for your best gains. And in many cases, a few reps shy of failure is even better long-term sustainability wise. And like I almost never hear a technical refutation And I almost always hear, like, you fucking pussy.
Like, you fucking, I was going to use another F word that might get you guys canceled. You know, so that's a derogatory term for homosexuals. And, like, they, you know, they say this shit, and I'm just like, oh, I get it. Like, you just have a lot of feelings.
And for me, it really helped to do Brazilian jiu-jitsu because all the bullshit feelings I had about being a man or whatever got real sorted out on my fifth time getting me unbellied by the fucking local blue belt. I had no more ego after that. But if you don't have that fucking combat sport outlet, I get it.
Like you go to the gym and you fight your demons, which again is dope, but it's a very different question than what is optimal. And optimal could be a lot less and a lot less glorious than you want. And so those are questions you have to ask yourself.
Maybe he was paid for it. So, man, fuck, that's a hell of a great question. You know, so I don't actually have body dysmorphia on the technical qualifications. And I'm not saying I'm defending myself here. I am a fucking lunatic cocksucker with 50 trillion flaws. I am not anyone's hero. Do not look up to me. I will disappoint you inevitably.
But when people say, oh, you have body dysmorphia, they forget that body dysmorphic disorder is like A diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders, diagnosable disorders, you have to meet certain conditions. We just don't. So here's a really good start to how to figure out if you have body dysmorphia.
If you are objectively way bigger and leaner than the average person, let's say in your age group, and you don't think that you are objectively bigger and leaner and you resist accepting that, you might have some body dysmorphia. Now, this might come off cocky, whatever. I know I'm jacked for the love of God. Look at my head shape. It's ridiculous.
I typically walk around at like five, six, 230 pounds with like faint glutes, striations. I would be fucking insane to think that's not like tank shit. Of course it's tank shit. I actually had a fucking, this one guy who worked at a gym, um, a security guard when I was a professor at temple is only, only black people have certain phrasings that are just fucking unbelievable.
He looks me up and down. He's like, man, you want some tank shit, huh? I was like, I am on tank shit, sir. Thank you so much. So, you know, I don't actually think I'm not jacked. However, there are parts of my look I do not like. The love handles, fucking lifetime of combat against that. I finally was like, fuck it, I'm getting cut out. That's going to be a big deal.
And I have another like one really big demon. I have yet to put a physique on the bodybuilding stage that I think is like – And that's it right there. That is appropriately shredded and has all the things I like in a physique. I'm not trying to look like Dexter Jackson or some shit, Phil Heath. That's never going to happen. But have I reached my best look that I could? No.
Do I have a hang up about that? Yeah, I'd like to do it. And so I'm still fighting the good fight. I'll be competing again almost certainly in 2026. Okay. I think I could have bigger arms. I think I could have bigger shoulders, but is it more of like, I already know I'm jacked and lean and this is just looking for like that extra extra. Yeah. Do I love my physique all the time?
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