Today, I want to talk about the passing of Jo Lindner. It's been about a week since he passed
away, tragically at the age of 30. Many people have chimed in and made videos about the topic.
I've been asked for my opinion on this. I've been hesitant to make a video. I wanted to take my time
to formulate my thoughts, to be respectful of his family and his loved ones. To potentially look for
a message of hope in such a dire situation. And I think there's one. You see in these situations,
normally when I do cover the loss of one of the people in our industry, I know them.
John Meadows is a dear friend of mine. Somebody that was part of my own direct community and
team Athlean, passed away in his early 40s from cancer, I made a video on him as well.
And these are tough videos to make. In this situation, I did not know Jo Lindner.
I never met him. I never spoke to him. I never had a text message conversation with him. Nothing.
I knew who he was, I think everybody did. He was, by all accounts, an incredibly positive man,
somebody who inspired a lot of people. Somebody who seemed to be a giver in this industry. Kind,
wanted others to succeed, already making him an anomaly in this industry. Sadly, but truthfully.
He was 30 years old, born in 1993, the year that I graduated high school.
The year that Jesse, who works here at Athlean-X, was born. To me, Jesse's a kid.
Jo Lindner s also a kid. Whenever a kid passes away at an early age, it's tragic.
My thoughts and prayers go out to those whose lives will be changed forever by his passing.
His girlfriend who will no longer be able to experience the dreams that she had of living
a long life together with Joe. It's tragic. His mother and father who no longer be able to share
in any of those moments with Jo and will forever have to live with the fact that they lost a son
at likely half of their age. It's tragic. And there's so much speculation, so much desire
to try to find some potential cause of death and what actually led to his death.
Is that really, at this point in time, the most necessary thing? I think the most necessary thing
is to is to provide the comfort, if possible, to those that were most deeply affected by his loss,
to be able to provide that for them in some way, shape or form. Making videos that speak about
what he provided to the community. Making comments on his previous Instagram posts
showing your love and appreciation for what he did. That, I think, makes people feel better.
That being said, in watching a lot of the videos that were made about Joe, I thought there was
something that I observed that really provided a wakeup call that I think is necessary for us
all to face. And that is why I decided to make a video about Jo Lindner s passing, because I
think that there's an opportunity here. To take this industry in a very different direction.
So, when I watch these videos, yes, I saw the same charismatic, fun loving, caring, helpful
person that everyone else did that endeared him to allow him to get eight plus million, nine million
followers on Instagram alone. However, I also saw some struggle. I saw some pain.
I don't know if you saw that, I did. I've been in this industry a long time,
I've been around a lot of athletes, I saw it. There are some instances where he even just
discussed like a mini war he was waging because of his PED use against gynecomastia and having to
use an aromatase inhibitor to combat the gyno, but having the side effect of lowering libido.
Which of course was an undesirable side effect, so in order to combat that, he'd come off the AI
and then he'd have his gyno return. And of course, not being able to live with that because of his
presence on social media, he'd have to go back on the aromatase inhibitor and then of course, his
libido would go down. Again, this mini battle, and it's one of many, unfortunately, that are going to
step squarely in your path if you decide to go down the road of performance enhancing drugs.
And that's a reality. And it's one of many, because these things don't just happen in
isolation. There's a lot of things that happen as a result of PED use. And when you have to
start taking other drugs to combat side effects that happen from the other drugs that you're on,
it becomes a really, really nasty war that becomes, I think, very much a psychological
struggle as well. And you could hear it and you could see the pain in these interviews.
Likewise, he talked about when you get off of steroids, the psychological downflow that happens
when you are left with less of the gains that you became accustomed to having and feeling less than
because of it. And then what happens? There's this desire to go back to become the person you were
even weeks ago. And that starts to weigh on your head and that becomes a struggle inside. Again,
not something that's probably shared publicly every second, but a private war that's waged
every single day that can lead to a state that's not necessarily the same person that you saw
in your Instagram feed or Facebook feed or whatever on YouTube. That's tragic to
me. That's tragic. Because the people in this industry are good at hiding pain.
Let me ask you. If you're regularly lifting weights and you have done so for a very long time,
have you had pain in your life? Because I could tell you I have.
I could tell you that the very reason that I got into this is probably the very reason that
98% of us have in the first place. And it was to combat some inner pain or struggle that we had
as younger kids or teenagers. Right? Trying to build up an external defense
mechanism against whatever's hurting us. Maybe it's just being insecure about your height.
There s been a lot of short bodybuilders. It's a way to sort of overcome whatever
limitations you think you have. Oftentimes, again, created by your own mind.
What about the people who have been abused? We're told that they were worth nothing. Made to feel
that way. Lifting weights was our great escape, the opportunity to do something and under our
own control to prove to ourselves that we're able to do something to make ourselves better in some
way. Never addressing necessarily what was painful inside but giving us that external appearance that
made us feel better about ourselves that one day we hope our insides could catch up with,
so that we felt about ourselves as good as we looked on the outside as to everybody else.
This community is incredibly supportive. Social media is incredibly negative.
People that get to hide behind their keyboards and type like this and say nasty comments are not
part of the community that I'm talking about. Those that have actually gone to the gym in
that inferior position in our minds and bettered ourselves did so, requiring a lot of courage. And
every single one of us that did the same thing, acknowledges that courage and looks to lift them
up. Think about the first time you were in a gym, and you didn't know how to use a machine.
Did people make fun of you, or did they come over and help you? I can guaran-damn-tee you in almost
99.9% of situations that someone came over and they helped you and they were eager to do it.
This community can be incredibly positive. Don't get swayed by the many haters in the
community that, again, pretend to be part of it. But instead, just like to drag people down
by pointing out the things that they don't like about you.
Not doing a damn thing about fixing what's wrong with them.
But making those that are in that limelight feel that pressure. It s that internal drive that's
forged out of this potential hurt or pain or sorrow that we carry from earlier ages that also
can become an external pressure later on. Because that drive allows us to become great in many ways.
Allows us to become anomalies in our own industry. Let's face it, Jo was an anomaly.
He makes me look fat. Okay? He s one of the most shredded men I've ever seen. His body
was ridiculous. Not to mention his ability to do that thing with his chest. Ridiculous. Obviously,
that was linked to a muscle disorder, but he was an anomaly. He was-he was a one of one.
When you're in that position as a one of one, though,
there's a lot of attention that comes your way. eight million, nine million followers is
an example of that. And with that, potentially becomes that external pressure that starts to
push you towards things you may not want to do. Now, Jo had talked about openly his use of PEDs.
It's not a speculative cause of what's happened to him or why he died. It's something he did.
Something he openly discussed. And we all know that the use of PEDs is going to increase your
risk over no use of PEDs. When it comes to maintaining your health. How much is
a risk? We don't know. How much did that risk play in this direct death here? We
don't know. We won't. And we shouldn't again speculate until we have all the answers.
But there's a slippery slope here and I think this is very dangerous. The same
way we wouldn't want to speculate on the exact cause of what's happened here. You don't want to
attribute your hopes and dreams to one that fits your narrative. There are going to be people out
there, no matter what people attribute the actual cause of death to, who will relate to
whatever the thing is that's most convenient for them. What I'm talking about is they'll look for
something that is convenient rather than the confirmation of what actually happened.
If you're someone that abuses steroids and you are worried, you stopped in your tracks when
you saw Jo die at the age of 30. And you were worried that you might be on a similar path,
like, man, I better rea -- I've got to readdress why I'm doing this and what I'm doing right now.
And then someone comes along and says, no family history of aneurysm.
I'm good. You might take that convenient out to say, Great, that's all it was. I'm going
to go right back to what I'm doing because I don't believe that I have the same risk factor
or family history of aneurysm. That's a giant mistake. That's a missed opportunity here.
And in-and in-and in-and in such a morbid situation of yet another young man dying,
the fact that there's an opportunity alone is something that you need to sort of face facts
with and realize that, yes, the opportunity is to assess the potential risk for yourself. And
if you believe those risks are too high, then stop what you're doing. Change course. I can guarantee
you if that was what led to his death and he was here, he would tell you, Dude, stop it. It's not
worth it. I want to be here for my girlfriend and my family. I can guarantee you that. No matter how
amazing his physique was, I can guarantee you that what his sentiment would be.
Back to that pressure I was talking about. Social media has changed everything.
It's changed everything. If you look back in the day, the guys that got really, really big
and got attention for it, it was a local guy at the gym. The big guy at the gym. That's it.
That same big guy now has an opportunity to take himself and put himself on social media,
on Instagram, wherever, on TikTok, and amass millions and millions of followers.
He is now waging this bodybuilding competition internationally 24/7 against every single other
influencer out there. Things have changed. The pressures have mounted considerably.
I don't know what led to Jo Lindner s death. All I know is what is available information for us.
And all I'm saying is that this culture of fitness is in bad shape. It's in bad shape.
The normalization of steroids is not helping anybody. It's not. You might argue that the
many videos that are made explaining people's cycles and what they do and how much they take,
that it's helping people to understand how to do it responsibly. How about this? How
about responsibly learning how to train hard and applying the nutrition basics and the fundamentals
that have worked for many a natural person for years and years and years and years.
I'm not interested in the proper education of how to use steroids. I'm not. I'm sorry. I want the
education to focus on how to improve yourself the right way. How to improve yourself so that, again,
that inner hurt has one day an opportunity to catch up with what you've created on the
outside. And knowing that what you have created on the outside is all a result of your own efforts
all by yourself. No external help. Believe me, the pride that you will get
from knowing that alone is going to improve that hurting inside of yours
immensely more than carrying around the thought, I did this, but I did this with additional help.
I can't stand the normalization of that topic. I can't. And as someone who sits
in a very significant position here in this industry, I want that to change.
Let's not normalize this. I went back into in-in-in my days when I was training,
I didn't even know who the guy was who was selling steroids. There was a guy there I never knew.
These days you go into a gym, 70% of the people in there are using something.
Talking openly about it, discussing their stacks. What is this?
What is this? I mentioned in a video a few months back searching for the term chest
workout has been eclipsed by TRT in terms of search popularity. Why? Why are we looking for
the alternative solution to the-the-the hard work that's actually required to get there?
I'm not saying that people that are on PEDs are not also training hard,
they may be training their asses off. But there are risk factors that come along with that.
And if ultimately that is what is determined to be the cause of Jo Lindner's death,
we need to stop looking for the convenient alternative. Face the facts, look in the
mirror and say to yourself, another one of us has passed away at 30 years old.
And if that is the case that it is due to PED use, another one of us has passed away at the age of 30
in a way that was completely preventable. That's a choice.
Listen, guys, this culture, this community of fitness can be incredibly positive.
If we look to the people inside this community, the support of people I discussed before,
we realize that there is an opportunity here to-to come together when something like this happens
and to look for something we can do to honor Jo's passing that makes this at least something
positive. Something that we can take from this rather than just yet another loss,
yet another guy. Because if we don't, there's going to be another one and another one and
another one and another one. And the frequency with which they happen, we'll
start to become closer and closer together. Is that the direction that we want to go in? No,
that's certainly not the direction that I think we need to go in. I think we need to go into
the direction of educating people on the proper way to do this, realizing they may never be the
biggest guy or the most shredded guy, the next Jo Lindner, the next guy that could do all the
crazy things. They may never be that guy. They may never have a single follower on Instagram.
They might be healthy. They might be able to combat that inner doubt that they had
and effectively become stronger human beings as they get older.
That might be a very important purpose for doing it in the first place. That might be,
in my book, far more important a reason to do it than any of the other reasons I just said.
Utilize fitness as a way to get yourself to a better place. But I'm asking you to
probably do it in a way that sets you up for the best long-term health and success
every step of the way, sacrificing whatever additional gains you may get in the process.
All right, guys, thank you for letting me speak about this. Again, my deepest condolences to Jo's
family. I think he'll be severely missed. I think it's tragic that yet another young,
young man has passed away. And again, my prayers and thoughts out to his family,
his followers, his friends, everyone who cared about him. Again, from my observations,
a guy who looked to be -- will be incredibly missed. Thank you.