The Dad Bods and Dumbbells Podcast
The hosts Mitch and Bart discuss fitness, fatherhood, and guy stuff to help men live a great life, have fun, laugh, and get a little more fit in this weekly Podcast.
The Dad Bods and Dumbbells Podcast
What are People Asking Chat GPT about Fitness in 2026
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We swap quick fixes for steady wins and answer the internet’s top fitness questions with simple, durable strategies. From two-day strength splits to real motivation and better form, we map out a plan you can keep without chasing deadlines.
• sponsor highlight and monthly $50 discount at Optimize Health and Performance
• why people start then quit: external vs intrinsic motivation
• consistency beats intensity and event-driven goals
• how many days to train: two full-body sessions as a minimum
• simple programming: push, pull, squat, hinge, lunge, core
• adding cardio without overtraining
• motivation tactics: community, non-negotiable schedule, start with what you enjoy
• why results stall: time, form, protein, stress, recovery
• simplest plan that works and how to progress
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Welcome to Dab Bods and Dumbbells. My name is Mitch.
SPEAKER_00Hey, I'm Bart.
Optimize Health & Discount Details
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening, liking, subscribing, and sharing. We're so happy that you listened to us. We're thankful for your support. We got some really awesome things happening with our newest sponsor, Optimize Health and Performance. I want Bart to tell you a little bit more about how amazing partnership we have coming.
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SPEAKER_01Yeah. Be a better you, enjoy this show.
Setting Up The New Year Topic
SPEAKER_00All right, guys. Today's we are talking about really, you know, what people are thinking about, what frustrations or solutions they're looking for in the new year with fitness and and getting on track. And so we decided, Mitch and I decided to use ChatGPT, ask ChatGPT what are kind of the main things that people are asking ChatGPT about to help them with their fitness goals and that kind of stuff. ChatGPT has given us some interesting answers, and we're gonna discuss those today.
Why We Start And Quit Programs
SPEAKER_01So well, the crazy thing about as we start to understand what AI is and how it involves our life, uh, ChatGPT has become basically Google for me. So uh when we started talking about it and I put up uh the questions, it kind of you gotta it's all about prompts. How are you prompting it? And finally came up with like really interesting five questions that the internet or the people of the world are asking AI about. The first one, the number one question that is being asked is why do I keep starting fitness programs and quitting?
SPEAKER_00Because you suck. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do better, just do it.
SPEAKER_00Do it, do it. And and so as somebody who's more of a layman in this in this space, you've probably had some really great momentum at times and then kind of fallen off and fallen off and stopped.
SPEAKER_01I think the main thing that I've learned from this experience from from starting and stopping, whatever fitness experience, uh is that it doesn't really matter, just keep going. You know, like my uh that sounds terrible, like it's not a great motivation, other than well, stop beating yourself up for not running for the last week, run, just get it done. And that's what I've started to realize is a lot of times it's just me going, stop feeling bad or not doing enough or anything like that, and just just start. Right. Because we spend so much time mentally thinking about it and dealing with it and struggling with it, like, oh, it's gonna hurt, oh, it's gonna feel this way. And that's at least what I do, and you it's better just do it. What what are you waiting for?
SPEAKER_00Just do it. That seems like a slogan we should somebody should do. We might be onto something. Um, yeah, this is this is interesting because I mean, for those of you out there listening who just work out all the time and you're this is not an issue with you. It's uh I think it's different for the people that struggle with this. Yeah, it's usually based on the fact from my experience is that they have an external objective. Hey, you're going to Cancun in March, you know, for spring break, gotta lose weight, gotta get in shape. Boom. External motivator, it creates a motivation for them to go to the gym and eat better and like kind of lock in for you know two months, and then that event happens, and then all of a sudden that motivation's gone. You know, this so that's summer is the same way. There's just like we use these external things like, oh, I don't want to be fat in a bathing suit or whatever to motivate us to get into shape for that thing, instead of what the hardest thing, which is the internal intrinsic motivation of like, this is who I am, this is this is the type of person I want to be. I want to be healthy, I want to be fit, I want to be strong, I want to be, you know, in good shape, and and kind of living that. And that's a harder thing to figure out. And I think that's why people, because January 1st is the exact time when people come up with this, like, hey, new year, new me, I'm gonna get in shape, I'm gonna do this program. Yeah, and it's usually externally motivated instead of intrinsically internally motivated. And so for those who struggle with that, I said the the answer is truly you're not looking for something to motivate you. I've I'll be Mitch and I doing the powerlifting show last year. Awesome. Yeah, so externally motivating to have a show, a date, uh like a competition to do the work towards, and then all of a sudden that was over, and then it was like, oh, I'm just gonna work out again. I'm just gonna kind of go back to like regular workouts. And you know, that's it's different. It's just a different feeling when you're not like on a program and four weeks left, and holy crap, what's gonna happen? And like you just it was so much momentum momentum around that. So I don't think the answer is just to like put a bunch of goals out there to reach because then you're kind of constantly seeking this like dopamine hit of like reaching goals, reaching goals, and putting you know goalposts out there farther and farther. It's finding a way that it's a part of your lifestyle, it's a part of your daily thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think simplifying is gonna be key. I think the other thing that that I struggle more with isn't the oh, I'm working towards this goal, so I'm gonna be look good in a bathing suit at Cancun because most of the time what it happens is like, all right, I got six months till swimsuit season. All right, I'm gonna start working out and I'm gonna get fit, and then it's a month before the wedding or the the swimsuit time, and and you haven't done anything. And I think it it's just so overwhelming. The consistency is more important. How do you make fitness, how do you make activity a lifestyle? I think that's more important, isn't it? About getting ready for that marathon or getting ready for those things, is like how do you maintain some semblance of health? And for me, I think there's been a few things practically that I came up with where I've started to see results. So that's been helpful. You start to see your muscles grow, you start to look better in the mirror, and you go, Oh, I'm on to something. And so now it's more of like, well, if I don't, I don't want to go back to where I was. And so that is a motivation piece. But I think people are too worried about that one thing, like you said. It rather than that, why don't you just consistently focus on less? Do less consistently, and I think that would help a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that's one of the other things coming up is the idea of like how much to do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Let's jump to the next uh Yeah, the next question uh that is the top two question is how many days a week do I really need to work out?
Consistency Over Events And Goals
How Many Days Should You Train
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and this is of course, there's so many different answers that could be true for this. I mean, it really depends on what type of workout. I don't know. Somebody made an analogy of like strength training is like going into like imagine getting in a car accident and like needing to recover from a car accident. That's strength training. Like you you you you work out hard, your nervous system, you need several days to like let the body recover from that before you come back to the same muscle groups or the same movements to do them again. Whereas, like in uh with cardiovascular training, you really can do it almost every day. Like you're not like going out for a three-mile run is not gonna like crush your nervous system to the next day. Yeah, like it's it's something you can do on a daily basis. So the answer to that is really what type of training are you doing? I'll stick from the uh from the strength side of it. Um, for the average person, two total body workouts a week is fine. Two total body workouts a week is fine. And what I mean by total body workouts is like you are doing push movements, upper body push, upper body pull, squat, lunges, maybe some RDLs or some deadlifts. You're kind of hitting all the muscle groups in some way twice a week. If you're gonna do it twice a week, better to do like Monday, Thursday, or Tuesday, Friday, something like that, so you're getting enough recovery time in between. And then since you're only working out twice a week in the gym, probably need to do some cardiovascular training on other days. But as far as strength training, the minimum like recommended dose is twice a week. And if you're gonna do twice a week only, make sure it's total body. Yeah. Now you can get into the bros splits and like you know, push-pull legs, yeah, you know, back and bys, chest and tries, shoulders and arms, or you know, leg, you know, whatever there's those those are are other options. Some people love to be at the gym, so they're trying to get five, six days in there. And those for those people, just be careful that you're not over-training. Maybe find a light day, maybe find a yoga workout at some point to like give your body a little bit of recovery. But I think it's you know, you got to think about what common how much time do I have? How many you know, do I have a family that I'm leaving to go to the gym? Or you know, is there is there an issue with time? If there is, just get there twice a week to do your strength training, and then any kind of cardiovascular training out after that is good.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the funny thing about what you just described is you described two total body workouts. It's basically the reason people do four days a week, right? They don't have to do legs and arms the same day or the push or the pull. So that's why there's like four days a week. So in some cases, it actually might be more conducive for schedules to do less multiple days. So you have you're spending less time in the gym. Because what you just described is an hour at least in a gym somewhere trying to get all the workouts in to just try to tack it into a two-day a week workout.
Building A Simple Two-Day Program
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think it it if for me, if if somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I need to start working out, I need to do strength training. What do you recommend? And I would I would tell them because I understand it going from zero to four days a week is probably not gonna happen. Yeah, I would tell them go to the gym, do two total body workouts. And I would let's say it's Monday, Thursday, I'd say Monday, let's do you know, dumbbell incline press for your push. All right, get that done. A little easier on the rotator cuff, doesn't it require a lot of skill to bench press and they can just do dumbbell incline, bam, check that. If you do a row or a pull down, boom, you got your your back. We're doing some sort of squat or leg press, boom, you got your quads and glutes, bam, you're doing hamstring curls, boom, you got your hamstrings. All right, and then a little bit of core. That could be 30 to 45 minutes if you did a couple of supersets and did warm-up set plus two or three sets of each. That could be a great place to start. Do that twice a week. Yeah. And after a couple of weeks, maybe up your weights a little bit or up your reps a little bit. That's bare minimum. Yeah, you know, but you're right, like most people don't do that because man, if I can come to the gym and do, you know, all my back, all my pull muscles, great. And then next day, all my push muscles and then legs and then break and whatever. That that's why people do that, and they also get to the gym more often, that kind of stuff. If you but you get some better results when you do things twice a week versus once a week. Yeah. Generally, too, which helps.
SPEAKER_01It's good. Okay, the top third question, number three, is how do I get motivated to work out?
SPEAKER_00How do I get motivated? Everyone's different. Yeah. You know, you know, why don't you answer that question? How do you get motivated to work out?
SPEAKER_01Well, there's there's a few things I think I surround myself with people that do. So my buddy Jesse, uh, shout out to Jesse. I'm wearing his rebuilt gear right now.
SPEAKER_00I saw that looking good.
Finding Real Motivation
SPEAKER_01It's one of my favorites. It's the cursive version of it. Um, I love his hoodies. Anyway, uh, he texted me in the morning, he works out like two, three hours a day. I mean, he's a maniac. And so he'll text me in the morning, he's like, do hard shit today. Like, did you lift today? You know, what are you lifting? It's like even assumptive, it's like, he's like, So what's the workout look like today? Yeah, like that is freaking motivating. That gets me excited. That my wife does these workouts with her friends, their group of friends in our in our garage at 5 a.m. So they're there three days a week. Today I woke up a little late. I was gonna go for a run, but it was balls cold, so I didn't. Uh, but I hung out with them, worked out a little bit. Like, that's the type of stuff that motivates me. Is and at work, all the people that I work with, they all they all work out at Los Comp. And so they're talking about their workout they're gonna do, or they're at the they're going after work. It's like, why can't I go to my house gym after work? Like, am I really that tired? So I think it really has a lot to do with the people you surround yourself with and that type of motivation. I think that's why the the the Instagram stuff where you follow those motivational people that are talking about never give up, go get your work in. Like that's a supplement to that, but it's better to have people in your life that are trying to better themselves because I know when I'm around people that don't have the same goals as me in life in general, not just necessarily their physical life, uh, I tend to be, I tend to follow their lead rather than be the leader, you know. So that's kind of my big thing how do you motivate. I think uh you've also taught me how to um just start with what you love first. Because I'm like, I love doing bench press. And so like I use to get myself motivated to work out, I would always just, you know what, I'm just gonna do bench today. And so I'd start doing bench. I'm like, well, since I'm here, right, you know, like that's the trick. And so I found little ways to trick myself along the way too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, man. I think for me, I just really make it like a non-negotiable. I, you know, I figure out what days I'm gonna take off first, kind of like based on my my family schedule. Yeah. You know, either a Saturday or a Sunday, and maybe like a Tuesday or Wednesday. What is someday during midweek? What I try to do is like two on, one off, three on, one off, right? Kind of that schedule. Uh, but then once I figure that out, then it's like like yesterday, I was like, Val, it's it I gotta today's squat day. Like, let's just figure out when when we're gonna when I'm gonna go that works best for the family. Yeah, and you know, so it was like because I just it has to be something that I'm not like looking for motivation to do. Like, oh, I wonder if I'll feel motivated at 3 p.m. I guarantee I will not, yeah, right? Especially the cold weather, all like you're walking to get to lifetime fitness, you're just sledging through like you know, slippery gr ground and everything. Like it's so I just make it a non-negotiable, but it's also for me. I mean, I'm a little different than a lot of people, like I just love the gym, and so there is there is a kind of therapy sense like aspect of being like just like putting myself through hard work that I think works for me.
SPEAKER_01Because you can't work out what you're training people, right?
SPEAKER_00Nope.
SPEAKER_01Is that like a no-no professionally or what?
SPEAKER_00It's just I mean, every once in a while, like a client and I will go to the gym together. Like my client, uh Kevin and I will just like go to uh Los or to uh lift ATX and just like work out together on a nice training scheme, but not in like a training relationship, yeah. It's just because it's not about I mean they're paying me a lot of money to like teach, like motivate them, teach them stuff, yeah, make sure they get results, and so this is not it has nothing to do with me. That's not about my time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So all right, number four. Why am I working out but not seeing results? The age-old question.
SPEAKER_00And look, that's a tough one because you gotta ask about 10 more questions to figure out you know, if they're 50, maybe it's hormone related. If they're you know, if they've if they have a really stressful job or lifestyle, maybe it's stress related. Uh, but uh well, let's start with just like the obvious stuff. Uh, it just takes longer than we want it to. Yeah. You know, the cool thing about strength training is you go to the gym and you if you do chest or arms or you know, even legs, you will feel that temporary pump. Yeah. You know, where your your muscles are swollen or you kind of you know got that, you look a little more jacked than you did when you walked in. You feel a little like you got more muscles. But that is just kind of a little peak window, like you're looking through the window of like who you're gonna be three months from now. And so you just have to stay disciplined. And like you said earlier, I think less you know, less time in the gym, more consistency is probably better off than like you know, going to the gym and just like hammering out an hour and a half and then not getting back to the gym for four or five days.
Not Seeing Results And Why
SPEAKER_01Inconsistent. Uh the funny thing about this is I my wife and I talk about this all the time is I think for the first time in our life, we're starting to see real results in the gym. But the reason is is because we're doing it consistently every day. So what I find is most people aren't actually putting in the time as much as they think they are enough to make those changes. You said earlier about people with goals and they they you know they're going to Cancun and they want to look good in their bathing suit, they work really hard, they get that look and that feel, and then afterwards they have no motivation. I think it's the opposite. I think most people never achieve the look that they want anyway, and so they get discouraged and they can't do it instead of putting in the work to eventually get to where you're at. Because once you're there, you see the you're like, I don't want to go, I don't want to not be here, and it's a lot easier to keep it than it is to get it. And so I think a lot of the times people just aren't doing as much as they think they're doing, and most of the time the feeling of, well, I don't look any different, it a lot of ways is exactly what you always told me is like it's not always just a workout, you know, you also have to look at your nutrition, you have to look at all the different pieces. So you're right. The questions you have to ask beyond that, and I don't know if if chat GBT does a good enough job to really inquire uh enough to get the right answer.
SPEAKER_00So this but I think it it just it's a good way to kind of start a conversation. Yeah my my thing, you know, you mentioned nutrition, which could be a uh you know, if somebody's trying to crash diet and build muscle of good luck, you know, so ca protein levels like things like that. But I think the other thing You know, it is cool to start with the things we like to do in the gym. Yeah. But the caveat to that is if you know if we if some if it's a guy who's 45, let's say, and he's kind of benched his whole life and and you know, kind of didn't do a lot of upper back training specifically, or has probably done a more a little more chest and arms workouts over the course of 20 years than he did, you know, back and rear adults. He might be running into a plateau because some of those other muscles that need to be strong and stable are not as strong as they need to be. And so he's plateauing, he's not getting results. Or there's just a you're not, you're not the form's not right. Yeah. You know, you I see a lot of I mean men and women, but like women doing way too much weight on like glute bridges, like where they're putting the bar across three or four plates, yeah. And you know, just like why you're you can't even lift your hips all the way, you're not getting glute activation. Like, let's find a weight that we can feel and and do you know, so the appropriate weight where you're pushing yourself towards failure and you're really feeling the muscle is gonna win 10 times out of 10 over like just putting as much weight on the bar and bouncing it off your chest or throwing your hips as high as they'll go, hoping that that's gonna group grow your I've actually changed a lot of that technique too.
SPEAKER_01Is now I just I'm a lot slower in my reps, I do less weight, but I've been feeling stronger in that where now it's not a it doesn't matter how much it is, it's a struggle and it it drives me forward. So that's good. So the last question is actually very interesting to me because uh it is a question that I'm sure comes around a lot. It is what is the simplest fitness plan that actually works? So, in other words, what's the bare minimum I can do that's gonna help see results and hit a plan? What's the bare minimum?
SPEAKER_00Well, results in equals results out, or you know, working the amount of effort you put into working out is gonna determine the amount of results you get back. So I think the it the seems like the core of this question is like, what's the minimum I can do and feel positive results?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The first answer is always like anything is better than sitting on the couch and watching TV or or staying on your phone all day. Like, so you know, if somebody is trying to figure out like what what's enough, like I need to get off the couch, I need to lose weight, like getting up and going for a two-mile walk, you know, or a 30-minute, 45-minute walk every day is way better than than not, right? But if we're talking about strength training, then I would say, like I said earlier, two times a week. And and it can be like pick your five favorite machines in the gym, you know, a push machine, a pull machine, a squat, a leg press machine, some sort of single leg lunge or or or or extension, and a hamstring machine, yeah. Curl or whatever. Like if you start there and do that consistently twice a week for a couple months, you're gonna get some results. Yeah, you're gonna feel stronger. You're you're gonna see the weights increase. You may not shape your body into the type of physique that you want, but that has more to do with nutrition and and other factors.
Closing And Listener Questions
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of other things that go along with that. Yeah, I think if you're not doing something now, do that because there's been many times recently where if I wasn't lifting on a consistent basis or doing some type of strength training, I know I would have been injured doing something or jumping out of my or slipping on the ice or like all the different things that happen that give you tweaks and moves, like they can really put you down, uh especially at our age. So you we need to be doing something. So do that. I love it. Well, that was the top five fitness questions that are being asked to ChatGPT this year. Uh, if you guys had a question yourself that you don't want to go to ChatGPT, uh hit us up, email Bart, put it in the comments. We'd love to get some feedback on what you guys are dealing with in your fitness journey. Uh, but thanks so much listening for that to dab odds and dumbbells.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great uh great conversation today. We'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_01See you next time.