[00:02:34.380] – Allan
Rocky, welcome to 40+ Fitness. 

[00:02:38.300] – Rocky
Great to be on your show. I really appreciate the time. Thank you.

[00:02:41.550] – Allan
I actually lived in the San Jose area during my career as I was there for about a year before they promoted me and forced me to move to Massachusetts. So I took your route backwards. 

[00:02:55.470] – Rocky
Well, that's fantastic! Now San Jose, yeah we're right over the hill in the Santa Cruz Mountains on the coast here, Central Coast in Santa Cruz. But where did you move to in Massachusetts? 

[00:03:06.200] – Allan
Well, we our offices were in Marlborough. And so I rented a house in Groton and, you know, I would do that drive. But, you know, I I loved, loved, loved going down to Santa Cruz.  That Mountain Pass driving was a little scary, especially sometimes coming back when I was driving and depending on who was drinking? Beautiful, beautiful coastline. Beautiful, beautiful place. And like every time I went down there, I had a good time. So I think you're in a really, really sweet spot there.

[00:03:34.320] – Rocky
We are. You know, Chuck Yeager was the test pilot and fighter pilot who is the first to break the sound barrier. So he was going up in these machines not knowing if they were going to stay together or anything. And the story goes that when he was asked what was the scariest ride he ever took and he said the drive over Highway 17 from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz.

[00:03:55.120] – Allan
 I can believe it. 

[00:03:56.990] – Rocky
I don't know if it's true or not but I'm not going to doubt it. 

[00:04:00.220] – Allan
I can, I can attest to that. It's definitely the scariest ride I've ever done. And I did a 763 foot bungee jump, so, you know. But anyway, your book is called, Return to Center: Strength Training to Realign the Body, Recover from Pain, and Achieve Optimal Performance. And I think everyone here will kind of resonate with the word pain when you're over the age of 40. In many cases, that becomes a regular daily occurrence or a daily part of our lives, unfortunately. And then, you know, when we talk about performance, I was trying to say on here, it's not that we're asking you to run a 100-yard dash or pole vault or run a marathon or anything, but performance is just being the best you you can be. And in many cases, the things we've done in our lives structurally have made us unsound.

[00:04:52.710] – Allan
And your book is basically designed to help us somewhat self diagnose that a little bit and do some exercises that are going to return us to center. So its a really cool book and I was telling you earlier before we got on the call, I was reading the book and I was just thinking the other day I was in my gym, it was  empty because there's no one working out. But I was I was looking in the mirror and I looked at myself for a minute. I said, OK, but after reading your book, I was thinking, damn, he's right. I've got some work to do. 

[00:05:24.690] – Rocky
Well, I think that's the case for everyone in our culture and society. We have evolved so far with technology that it's taken away purposeful physical activity of the human form. And if you don't use it, you lose it. And combine that with maybe surgeries or accidents, illnesses, whatnot. It just draws the body into these places subconsciously that we're adapting into to be the most efficient we can be at any given moment with whatever we're dealing with.

[00:05:57.260] – Rocky
But there's no magic reset button when that experience is all over. Like, you sprain an ankle and you learn subconsciously how to limp around to avoid the pain. And before you know it, that gets normalized. And now the way in which you promote movement and support your body weight has shifted. But the exercise in the gym don't necessarily take that into consideration because most of them were built with the understanding that we're perfectly symmetrical when that actually isn't the case.

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[00:08:00.740] – Allan
So like I'll go into the gym and I'll say, okay, let's load up the deadlift bar and I'll get down and I'll, I'll do a good deadlift with good solid form and then, you know, unlike, crossfit athletes, I'll actually set the bar back down, you know, but I don't think of it in terms, and you kind of brought this up and it's something I don't think about is if I were actually trying to use that in any functional way, let's say like, you know, my wife wants to buy a refrigerator and I want to be able to help bring the refrigerator up a flight of stairs to get it into our apartment.

[00:08:34.700] – Allan
I'm not just lifting the refrigerator up and setting it back down. I'm now going to lift it up and actually start taking some steps with that load and if my structure, you know, it's easy for me to keep my structure intact when I'm just standing still, or at least I think it's easy. It's easier for sure but then I do that lift, but because I'm not necessarily properly aligned, because you know, I've had issues that have happened in the past.

[00:09:02.750] – Allan
I'm so much more prone to injury. And it's not through strength and as you said in the book, it's actually not even really, if you think about it, a true functional strength for me to be able to do a deadlift.

[00:09:13.850] – Rocky
No, in fact, you're doing a deadlift with a compromise structure, repeating the pattern of movement you've developed over the course of that time, which is going to favor the body to bring certain muscles into play, but not others. And then what happens over time is not only does a wear pattern occur probably in joints or tissue like ligaments or tendons, but an imbalance in the levels of forced production that the muscles are generating. So now it's not actually self-correcting in bringing you back into a more balanced align place, but further taking you out of alignment, compromising your structure to a greater degree.

[00:09:55.190] – Rocky
But the interesting thing is now you can generate more force and heavier loads, but your structure is more compromised. So it's just piling more and more weight onto a structure that is weakening over time. And you continue to do that and something has got to give. Whether it's the lower back or a knee or a hip or or headaches or migraines or irritable bowel syndrome, it can manifest in a whole bunch of different ways. It doesn't necessarily have to mean joint pain.

[00:10:22.400] – Rocky
You know, we have so many wonderful approaches in our culture these days that have mainstreamed in to our way of health and fitness, such as chiropractic medicine. It's 125 years old today. It's not today, but this year. And its primary focus is to bring the body back into alignment where joints are properly spaced, where muscles have a proper balance, where internal organs are in their proper position and the nervous system flows unimpeded.

[00:10:53.540] – Rocky
The same thing with acupuncture. If people will go to an acupuncturist, they have a different philosophy. But the fundamental approach or the philosophy is the same. But the approach is different. So they're trying to get the energy to flow unimpeded. And then even massage therapy or yoga. These are all approaches that are all about restoring the body back to a central place. Unfortunately, our culture has created a fitness movement that is based upon the aesthetics of bodybuilding, the explosiveness of Olympic style weightlifting, and the brute force of power lifting, all of which do not take into consideration trying to restore the body back into a more balanced form.

[00:11:40.310] – Rocky
So the whole thought behind the book was, well, can't we take these movements that we're familiar with and create a way in which we can use them as tools to guide us back to a more balanced place where joints have their best spacing, where nerves can actually conduct proper messages to the muscles to produce even greater amounts of force. So we have greater amounts of balance with less wear and tear on the body. And these movements can actually benefit us over the long run and create an enhanced longevity rather than diminish us. That's that's the whole goal within the book.

[00:12:17.470] – Allan
Yeah. Now you put something in the book, and when the first time I read it, I said, OK, I know I obviously misread that. I then I read it again. And then I read it again, like. He just said what I thought he said. And then I read it a third time and like, OK, I'm going to have to keep reading, but I'm also going to use this as a question and ask, you said something in the book that was, the joints move and then the muscles react. 

[00:12:49.780] – Rocky
That's right. Joints act, muscles react. It's one of the laws of motion. According to one of my mentors, Gary Ward, who is the author of What the Foot and an incredible education course for physical therapists, movement specialists, chiropractors and medical doctors even have taken this course, called Anatomy and Motion. And essentially, it's this joints move where joints act and muscles react. Imagine this, Allan. You're standing up and you want to sit down in your chair. Are the muscles pulling you into the chair? 

[00:13:23.870] – Allan
Well, no. In that instance, I'm definitely allowing gravity at the moment.

[00:13:29.190] – Rocky
Gravity, Yes. And therefore, the joints must move. And just moments before the muscles kick in, because the joints move into a falling position and then the muscles control the deceleration of your body into that chair. So the joints act followed by a muscular reaction. That's one way in which we move. The other way is that muscles must lengthen before they shorten. And that would be maybe getting out of the chair as you get out of the chair, you need to lean forward and load tissue, muscle tissue into a lengthened position in order for the nerves to understand that they need to actually now start shortening to lift you out of the chair.

[00:14:12.030] – Rocky
So joints act, muscles react. And then muscles lengthen before they contract and using those those governing laws of human motion, now we can start to look or filter through that how exercises are planned out or even just looking at the common exercises in a gym. Most of them don't really abide by that. Such as just a simple bicep curl that everyone loves or bench press. You know, we focus on the shortening of the muscle, but not necessarily lengthening and loading into the tissue all that much.

[00:14:47.610] – Rocky
It will lengthen, as you say, lower the bar down. But it lengthens back to just the neutral point before shortening back up again. So how we move through space is actually we we elongate the muscle tissue, followed by a very short concentric contraction to propel us forward. Most of the time, it's all about controlling the fall of landing on planet Earth with a very short kind of powerful contraction to leave planet Earth. Then in biomechanics, we call that pronation landing on the planet and supination driving off the planet. 

[00:15:21.350] – Rocky
Those are really our two options when we consider movement. And then it's just variations of pronation or supination. If you do it properly, then all the joints move the way they should. All the muscles react the way they should. Whether you're landing or leaving. But so many people don't do that properly. And so we take that that understanding of biomechanics and apply it to strength and conditioning so that we're not only getting a person stronger and building a more aesthetically pleasing frame, that's those are byproducts. It's really can we get the efficiency of movement re-established, balance better created a posture, restoration occurring. And and just overall, the organic function like organ function, actually restoring if we bring the body back in balance. It's more than just, you know, lifting weights and putting them down.

[00:16:11.040] – Allan
Yeah. And you were in one part of the book. You were talking about this hairdresser, hairstylist. And I think that that one was where it kind of all resonated with me because it was like there was there was one kink in the armor. You know, we'll talk about chains and other bodies, a chain, and if you mess up one little bit and we do, that is a part of corrective exercise. We'll talk about. 

[00:16:33.150] – Allan
We have to deal with this imbalance or this problem or that. But taking it to that level of the joint before the muscle, you had the situation with his hairdresser. And it was a big toe. 

[00:16:45.680] – Rocky
Yeah. You know, the hardest thing for me to unlearn doing what I do is to not go to the muscle or soft tissue first because we're trained as trainers to know what muscle does what. But we're not trained in terms so much of what the joints do. And when we talk about joints now, I'll tell you about the hairstyle, the story a second. But when we talk about joints, we've got three hundred and sixty joints in the body and those joints are surrounded by a whole bunch of muscles, not just one muscle or one big muscle, but dozens of muscles around most joints like the big ones, especially like the hip and pelvis, had fifty seven muscles that cross over the pelvis.

[00:17:25.950] – Rocky
Some go down the legs, some go up to the spine, a rib cage or a couple go to the arms. You know, we've got all these muscles that cross a joint and conventionally we've been blaming one particular muscle that being weak or using the word inhibited in trying to get that one muscle to turn on and all the world's problems will be solved because we get the glute medias to fire. But in truth, maybe it's just the way in which the joints are moving that are shutting that muscle off.

[00:17:53.390] – Rocky
Maybe if we got the joints to properly move through three dimensional space that we awaken and restore all the soft tissue so that it's not just the glute that's turning on that we need. What about turning off other tissue? So in the case of the hairstylists, this neighboring salon a person came over from and she could not lift her arm beyond shoulder height and without excruciating pain. And she had worked pretty well with the physical therapist to get her arm, at least up to that point over the course of weeks or months. 

[00:18:27.610] – Rocky
And she just came over and say, is there anything you can do to help me? I had to go home yesterday. I couldn't even cut. I'm in so much pain, I can barely lift my arm. I can't even hold scissors right now. So we just went through a history of what her life had been like. What has she experience? And maybe it was something really recent. Like she had fallen and landed on her shoulder.

[00:18:48.140] – Rocky
That could have been it. But it wasn't she didn't have anything wrong with her shoulder. She didn't hit it or hurt it in any way. It's something that developed over time. We found out she had a hysterectomy. She told me about you shared that information, which could very well the scar could have pulled her out of alignment  and put strain on her frame and made it harder for her to lift her shoulder. She had broken her big toe, and actually had surgery where she had pins in the base of her foot had to be implanted or inserted so that they could create, I guess, a better position for the foot. Whatever the orthopedic thought was the the way of doing it. That's what they did. And there was some other kind of things going on. What we found out, was well, I honestly, I just asked her to lift her big toes off the floor with her feet on the ground just to see what kind of movement those toes might have.

[00:19:41.840] – Rocky
And she couldn't lift her injured foot, the toes of that foot off the ground at all, which to me, knowing how joints have a relationship with one another was something I really wanted to explore. And so we started looking at that. She said, oh, you know what? I had this this fall and when a few years after I had that surgery on the foot and actually the pins dislodged through the surface of my soul and they had to remove them.

[00:20:10.750] – Rocky
I'm like,  Wow. Well, that's pretty significant information. What do you think the likelihood of her brain is thinking about putting weight on a foot where the last time that happened, like pins shot out the base of it? Chances are no one's going to want to put some weight on that area. So we started to get some weight onto her foot and get her to load weight properly over that injured site, which is no longer painful because the injury was so long ago.

[00:20:40.040] – Rocky
But the brain doesn't know that it's still on this feedback loop of doing the same pattern over and over to try and survive that injury and surgery and so on. So once we got weight over that foot, I asked her just to check in with her range of motion on that shoulder and she was able to raise it up over shoulder height, not quite overhead, but without any pain. And she was just kind of like, wow, that's OK, I didn't do anything for your shoulder. 

[00:21:07.460] – Rocky
We didn't do any stretches or rubber band exercises. All we did was put weight on the front of your foot. And now your shoulder moves better. Well, isn't that something worth exploring? So we did a little bit more loading onto that that foot loading into the leg, getting the joints to behave in a way that they should. The knee should go this way. The hips should go that way. The pelvis should tilt this way.

[00:21:29.420] – Rocky
The rib cage should tilt this way and so on, and just get her to feel these movements. And then she checked in with her shoulder again and her arm shot clear up to the ceiling. No pain. She was able to reach back behind her as if she was like sitting in a chair and reaching back for her purse. No pain. She was just dumbstruck. And really, it just shows you that symptom based approach. When somebody, if somebody goes into a doctor or some type of professional and says, I have shoulder pain. The first thing they're gonna do is look at the shoulder. 

[00:21:59.540] – Rocky
If there's inflammation, they're going to tell them, take anti inflammatories and rest it. When the inflammation is just saying, I'm using this maybe too much or I'm using it in a way that it's not meant to use. Maybe there's some other areas that aren't doing their fair share in life. Maybe we should hunt down those. They don't do that. They just look at the symptom. They may give them some type of shoulder action and then send them on their way.

[00:22:23.900] – Rocky
And the problem wasn't there at all. It was just the problem was really the foot and how she managed the mass of her body standing at work and walking through space. And that opposite shoulder was taking its toll because of it. 

[00:22:39.560] – Allan
Yeah. Now, we touched on this before. And I think it's. I think it's. First, a circle back around and actually go through them, but you said your mentor came up with this anatomy of emotion. In the book, you shared five rules. Could you go through those five rules, which we touched on one of them? Could you go through the rest of them?

[00:22:57.200] – Rocky
Certainly. So joints act, muscles react, which is a very hard one for a lot of people to get their head around. Once you do, it opens up a greater understanding of human movement. In essence, muscles lengthen before they shorten. So we have to like a rubber band, we have to cool back before we let it go flying. That's just how muscles will work. We lengthen and load before we explode. Then we're also hardwired for perfection.

[00:23:24.200] – Rocky
So if we think about the brain's primary purpose, it's first primary goal is to survive. And in order for that brain to survive, it must have oxygen. Fuel. Blood flow. And that means that anything that takes away from its primary purpose is going to be not as efficient as it needs to be. So the brain is constantly adjusting on a subconscious autonomic level, the way in which the body is moving and existing in the most efficient way it can.

[00:23:59.120] – Rocky
And that means that say you sprain your ankle. Now, what way are you going to move? Well, the brain is going to say, well, we've got to shift the weight a little bit over more onto this leg. We'll let the person push off their toes. But we're not going to come striking down on the heel because that's going to be painful. So we need to adjust it. No, it's not the most efficient way, but it's the next most efficient way that we can do it.

[00:24:22.460] – Rocky
You don't sprain your ankle and suddenly the brain says, you know what? Let's start by doing handsprings or walking on your hands. That would not make sense. So we are hard wired for perfection. On the flip side of that, if we give the body or the brain an efficient, a more efficient way of moving than what it currently is doing, then the brain is going to say, oh, that's actually a better way. It's reducing the need to expend excess energy.

[00:24:49.910] – Rocky
So that means better survival for me. Let's reinforce that movement pattern more. So if we can put somebody into a place where they are moving more efficiently, the brain is going to reinforce that, especially if that movement is reinforced physically over time, the brain will just continually try and strive for that. And so there's three we orbit around a center, meaning that as you stand still, you're not really standing still. Your breath is bringing the rib cage in and out.

[00:25:23.360] – Rocky
The food that you digested is moving through your body. Blood is coursing throughout your body and your mass is constantly shifting over your feet to try and keep you from falling down. So we're always orbiting around this ideal center. And the further we travel from center, the more compromised our structure and the weaker we typically are. So when the chiropractor adjusts your spine or hips or whatever, and pulls you back into better alignment, you're actually in a much more balanced place.

[00:25:55.790] – Rocky
And you have a center that is closer to the ideal from which you can orbit. And so that's that's a big part of what we look for, as is where is a person's mass and where is their center? Can we restore it into a more efficient manner and halfway between both feet, halfway between forward and back, where ideally, no matter where you go, you're starting from a central place. And then the other one is your your movements are dictated by your perceived center.

[00:26:28.530] – Rocky
So not the the true ideal. But wherever you find yourself shifting your body, that normalizes. And the further away you get from center, the less you are going to move optimally. You will, there are plenty of athletes out there that are not properly aligned and they are some of the best ones to get around their imbalances and their restrictions and still be world class athletes. But just imagine if we were to take that world class athlete and actually bring them back into a much more centrated place. What might their potential be from there? 

[00:27:05.600] – Rocky
So those are the five rules of movement. And so we're for a motion that I will not only abide by, but I use as a governing kind of compass to help direct the programs we design in our studio to be the most effective they can be for all people that come in here. And I've had NFL players, NHL, NBA,  Santa Cruz isn't the hub for those sports, but they wander through here and they'll train with me.

[00:27:37.230] – Rocky
I've got some World-Class surfers, of course, being in Santa Cruz, but then we've also got grandparents and little kids. Everybody can really abide by the philosophy of restoring a person back to a central place for optimal movement and performance compared to the conventional way that it's been going on for four decades now.

[00:28:00.950] – Allan
And the conventional way, which is the way we were brought up, you know, muscle fitness and the whole bit. And we always thought about movement. And, you know, you talked about the pillars of human movement when you got into this strength part of the book, and I thought it was fascinating because I got into there and it was you know, we talked about level changing the push and the pool, which I think any fundamental exercise program is really going to focus on those three things.

[00:28:28.380] – Allan
They just always have and always will. It's the rotation and the locomotion, which are the other two that seem to get ignored in the strength formula. Can you talk a little bit about the pillars of human movement and how we can utilize those to optimize the work that we are doing? Because we're going to do some strength training. We need to know how we can optimize it using those fillers.

[00:28:52.080] – Rocky
Well, the interesting thing about the first three level change, which is examples, the four major examples would be a squat, a deadlift, a lunge and a step up. Two of those, more often than not, are are performed bilaterally, meaning that both legs are doing the exact hopefully the exact same thing. At the same time, when you're doing a squat, both legs should be flexing at the hips and knees and ankles on the lowering down and then reverse directions as you come up.

[00:29:21.180] – Rocky
And the deadlift we're hinging at the hips and we're tilting in the pelvis and so on. But if. The same thing is kind of holding true when we think about push and pull more often, when somebody thinks about pushing exercise, they're going to think of push ups and bench press. When they think of pulling, they're going to think of some type of inverted pull up or a pull up itself or a seated row. All of these are bilateral movements.

[00:29:46.930] – Rocky
And so the interesting thing I find, Allan, is that the majority of programs that that I see sometimes from other trainers, from professional sports teams even, is that they are so heavily biased toward these bilateral movements that all they're concerned with is this forward and backward action. In fact, most every exercise I've just listed, the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, push ups, pull ups, they can all be performed inside a doorway. So there's no real lateral movement and there's no rotational movement.

[00:30:19.990] – Rocky
And yet we're trying to train maybe athletes with these programs, say, a basketball player or a tennis player where a lot of their movement is three dimensional. They are shifting side to side covering the court. They're having to spin or turn to return a ball or to pass it or to pivot around a defender. And yet they're doing the majority of their strength and conditioning is all forward and back. So what happens is if it hampers or or dampens their ability to move in three dimensions.

[00:30:50.650] – Rocky
So when it comes to rotation, there's many ways that we can create rotation. In fact, if you looked at an anatomy chart, you'll find that most muscles attach not in a complete vertical or horizontal manner, but they're diagonal that the striations are attaching in one area in either going up or down in a slanting action before attaching somewhere else to the body. So when those muscles shorten, they actually cause rotation. And when we run, we've got to have one leg swing forward while the other pushes off from behind or the opposite arm is swinging forward while the other one is driving back, creating rotation through the rib cage and the pelvis.

[00:31:28.930] – Rocky
And there's even rotation occurring down into our ankles and our knees, our neck, our elbows. And yet, if we're not incorporating some kind of maybe a reeducation or a renaissance of movement with rotation, then chances are they're not going to be doing it properly and only areas that are really willing to rotate are going to take on the role of that. And unfortunately, one of the most common places that's not really designed for rotation, but take on the rotation when the hips or mid back or locked up is the lower back.

[00:32:03.260] – Rocky
And 80% of the people that we come into contact with sometime in our life are going to have a lower back issue, some greater than others. But the the amount of sitting that we do as a nation and the amount of standing in place without purposefully moving through space are going to lock down the hips and lock down the middle back. And the place in between that. That link in between is going to wreak havoc on our whole existence because the back is only meant to maybe rotate five or six degrees left and right, not as much as, say, it is asked to on a regular basis.

[00:32:36.520] – Rocky
And then when it comes to locomotion. Well, I mean, we've been we've been on our feet for two million years being hominids, you know, on contralateral bipeds, meaning that one arm swings opposite with a leg. And we do that. Hopefully the average American does five thousand steps a day. But ideally, we want to do 10000 steps a day like the average Europeans, I guess. So we wear those little Fitbit to let us know that we're not moving enough.

[00:33:03.310] – Rocky
Right. So even if you did the math, if we were to ideally do 10000 steps a day, that's three million six hundred fifty thousand repetitions over the course of a year. And if you're not doing it well, if you're not actually landing properly, then you're going to do that for almost four million repetitions, almost two million times on each leg improperly.

[00:33:26.320] – Rocky
So if you land not so well on your foot, that's going to have an effect on how the knee has to behave in the hip and the spine. So much so that then people want to go and run. So now you've taken improper gait mechanics, people that are compromised in the way of moving, whether great or small, and now you're going to apply more force and activity to it. It's no wonder that we're going to see a lot of Covid related running injuries already, if not over the next few months, because that's one of the things people can do while they're sheltered in place, is just go outside and go for a jog.

[00:34:02.560] – Rocky
Well, if you've been sedentary for a prolonged period of time, there's no magic reset button you can hit when you walk out the door. It's just going to restore it. So it's probably a good idea to get a sense of where your missing movement, what's moving too much. Can I create a program that helps to address those issues and balance things out? 

[00:34:24.180] – Allan
And you've got some great guidelines and exercises in the book. So someone can actually physically look at themselves in the mirror or have someone else look at them and kind of give them somewhat of a diagnosis of saying, OK, there's an issue here that we want to we want to drill down a little bit more into.

[00:34:40.430] – Rocky
Yeah. Exactly. There's three assessment tools that we put in the book. One is simply an easy way, a quick kind of resources. Where is the weight in your feet? Because by knowing that we can have somewhat of an educated guess what might be going on with the rest of your structure. Just where your mass is migrating toward. If you have more weight on one heel and the opposite forefoot, that's telling us you've got some torsion or rotation in your frame somewhere.

[00:35:08.970] – Rocky
And we can kind of just map it out where it might be and get a sense of. OK, well, these these movements these drills may be good for you to start to explore and see if you benefit from them. Then you can do, like you say, a posture assessment standing in the mirror where my shoulders  relative to my head or where is my pelvis? Is one slightly higher on one side than the other. Do I tilt forward into my hips or do they tuck under.

[00:35:34.650] – Rocky
And so on. And then the third way of assessing is the breakdown of gait mechanics to a very basic degree, like can my hips and pelvis tilt forward and backwards? Can they sway evenly side to side? Can they tilt evenly unrestricted side to side? And can they rotate left or right? And you can do the same thing with the rib cage and the shoulders. And once you understand what's missing in these are where you struggle. It tells you, well these are the movements that you should have at your disposal every time you take a step across the room. 

[00:36:08.200] – Rocky
And if you struggle with these basic movements, then, you know, you're compromising  your whole way of moving and compensating and asking areas to do more than they should. So you can take the gait mechanics and this movement kind of assessment. You can do a static posture assessment or you can do foot pressure. Any of those will lead you down the same trail to get to where maybe you might want to explore in terms of movement, flexibility and what now?

[00:36:34.260] – Allan
A lot of times when we're not moving well and we do that for a number of times, we could be three million, it could be one hundred million, because we've been doing it for decades. We're going to invariably end up with a side effect. And that side effect we typically call pain because we want to groove. And that's not the kind of groove we want to have. So we have to deal with pain. And in the book, you share some guidelines for pain. Could you share those with us? I think this is I think this is really important for us to know, because really, I think this brings forward something that most of us are looking for help with pain. And I think many cases when a recognized movement can actually be part of the solution. 

[00:37:13.140] – Rocky
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. First, I mean, pain pain is a wonderful thing. It may not feel great in the moment, but pain as it is, is  the subconscious brain's way of trying to communicate with a conscious mind and letting you know that whatever you're doing in this moment is not necessarily what we need to do.

[00:37:37.200] – Rocky
It's stressing us and it's creating a threat within those, you know, ultimately the survival of the brain. So the brain is going to send a threat signal to the conscious minds to let it know whatever is going on right now. Can we change that a little bit? It doesn't mean that we have to stop necessarily moving and rest and ice compression elevation. That may be the case for some things, but it could be that your brain is saying, you know, when you do this, let's take the squat for an example. When you do the squat and your knee is creating some pain. It doesn't mean that there's something going on in the knee. It could just mean that the mechanics that you're creating here are not the most ideal and it's putting strain in a place that isn't ready to handle so much. 

[00:38:25.830] – Rocky
So pain can come on many levels. A low level of pain might be simply itching.  And a high level of pain is obviously something so excruciating that your frozen can't move or you've got to find a place where you can get out of it.

[00:38:41.580] – Rocky
So there are some guidelines. Like one thing is don't try and move into pain. And this is the whole, can we smash the no pain, no gain mentality that we've been brought up with generation after generation? In essence, I want to quote Gary Gray with the Gray Institute. He's out in Michigan, a phenomenal physical therapist who has done remarkable work for the entire fitness industry and physical therapy world as far as I'm concerned. He once said, I want the body to sing, not scream.

[00:39:13.230] – Rocky
And I've used that as a guiding light to to know what movements I really want my clients and for that matter myself to try and explore. The body shouldn't be burning, burning, burning. Like, I'm really just trying to get the burn going, because that's not really truly what I need. I want to feel that the body is after a workout that I am almost floating, that I am springing almost weightless, that I'm feeling taller in my body, that I have better alignment, that my movements are not something that I have to premeditate in regards to how am I going to climb these stairs or how am I going to bend over? 

[00:39:56.350] – Rocky
You shouldn't have to think how to move. The body should naturally wanted to. But so many people are hesitant to move because the pain response has been something that has been reinforced over time. So don't move into pain. Recognize pain for what it is in that it's your brain's way of telling you we might need to look at this, maybe modify the movement.

[00:40:21.220] – Rocky
Maybe you're going too far and you need to just shorten it a little bit to a point where you can accommodate the movement and then start to explore the ranges a little bit more. Those those are basically the guidelines that that I encourage people here. And I'm constantly saying, how does that feel after every movement? Go ahead and walk around, use even simple walking as your assessment. Does that feel better? Where do you feel this? There's a whole bunch of ways we can assess after every movement.

[00:40:50.030] – Rocky
But simply put, walking is a great way, especially for me doing gait analysis. I can see an immediate effect following an exercise on anybody that does it more often than not and go, OK that's that's what they need right now. That is actually drawing them back into a more comfortable swing with their arms, their bodies more lined, whatever the case may be.

[00:41:10.930] – Allan
And I think I appreciate you saying that. No pain, no gain, because I just think that mantra is going to take us a long, long time to kill that one. But, you know, one of the key things that I came out of this with as we were talking, you know, the whole strength part was fascinating, was that we don't often think about the value of efficiency. We think about the brute force of big, strong and moving big things, particularly guys, you know, the egos of how much can you bench mindset. 

[00:41:39.100] – Allan
But if you can move more efficiently. Then you're moving more weight without that additional muscle mass or effort. And I think that's a key thing that a lot of people miss, is that,  you'll see them.  We used to call them Grandpa strong or farm boy strong where they're wiry and thin. But somehow they're a lot stronger than you would ever give them credit for. And it's just because they have good movement patterns.

[00:42:07.380] – Allan
They work outdoors, they they do their things and they've just developed good movement. And they're efficient. They're very efficient with the way they're using strength.

[00:42:15.870] – Rocky
And the brain itself, the brain is the governing wire here in terms of the ability to shrink levels or force production. However, you'd like to consider it, if your body is in a compromised position, the brain is going to lower the level of forced production as a protective mechanism so that you don't get injured more often than not. So if you bring yourself back into a more structurally integrated place, that is balance where the joints can communicate and they have this beautiful, connected, integrative relationship with each other, then the brain is going to say, hey, we're good.

[00:42:52.830] – Rocky
Let's let's go for it. Let's let's exert more force. So that brings into question what strength really, what is strength? Is strength just your ability to produce force? If so, I can actually get somebody stronger in just a matter of seconds. Like, for instance, just have them do some particular exercise where they're challenging their strength level and then give them a movement that draws them back into better alignment, whether it be a mobility drill or actually strength exercise or maybe it's honestly just using the foam roll and hitting some target spots that have been drawing them out of alignment and then have them try that same movement again and reassess their strength levels.

[00:43:36.210] – Rocky
And I can easily make it so that their strength levels elevate then compared to the initial time or, you know, opposite in the spectrum, I give them the wrong thing and their strength levels decrease because it's pulled them further out of alignment. We're constantly in flux. And the other thing I'll say is that everyone is has a tendency to do the movements they are good at and not necessarily the movements that they need to improve upon. We focus on our strengths and neglect the areas where our bodies struggle to move into and out of.

[00:44:12.840] – Rocky
So everyone that goes to the gym has a certain program that they follow. And if they change the program around, they're still going to be a couple of exercises they'd like to do. And that's good to some degree, we have certain movement. So and then we reinforce that. So we never ask the question, well, where is it that I'm weak? Where where do I need to actually move my body? Where do I not go? Because  the less we go there, the more likely the brain is just going to negate that movement entirely. So we're not going to know how to experience it. So a key here to get the body to be more efficient is to explore all movements that we can create. And  that takes time. But it's a nice process nonetheless.

[00:45:00.810] – Allan
And that's why I appreciate the self realisation as I thought back of looking at myself in the mirror, because I do think there's there's a lot of improvement that I now see in myself that I think I was a little bit blind to before. If you're hitting your numbers, you know, I've got that deadlift down to about where I want it for this age. I've got that squat and now my bench press is OK, but it could be better, you know, kind of thing. But the bilateral Push-Pull level stuff that was always been out there and I just see a huge opportunity for for me to improve. 

[00:45:33.990] – Rocky
Yeah. Well, I love the fact that your listening audience at the 40 Plus Fitness podcast, obviously you might have some under 40, but that's about the cutoff point for those that have been exercising all their life in the conventional way.

[00:45:48.210] – Rocky
And and repetitive action, shoulder impingement could be considered repetitive stress syndrome for bench pressing repetitively over time. Right. It's not just carpal tunnel, but somewhere along the way, in the forties, we start to realize, oh, OK, this I got to think of my future in longevity and do I want to go through surgery after surgery of replacing this joint or that joint and so on. Now we have to rethink the way in which we exercise. And it's not just about the mating ritual of life in the 20s and trying to find your significant other in a bikini on the beach or whatever it is.

[00:46:24.570] – Rocky
We actually have to think about what true fitness and health is for me as I go into my 50s, 60s and beyond. So  the routines that we've been following, bodybuilding based circuit machines in the gym and those type of things have had their time in the sun, I guess. Now it's time to rethink how it is we want to treat our bodies as we go into the summer of our life in the autumn and so on. 

[00:46:50.390] – Allan
Now, Rocky, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:47:00.860] – Rocky
Wow, that's a great way of defining wellness. You know, I don't give a lot of recommendations on nutrition because that is a science unto itself that would require an entire lifetime to focus on. There are certain things that I have a tendency to lean toward, and that is food not made by man. So those that are found in nature and hopefully those that are grown in that manner are the things we might want to put into our body that we're working with. Staying away from from processed issues.

[00:47:38.720] – Rocky
So the fittest. Well. I guess would have to think about what fit is fit for me is the ability to have the ability physically to pursue whichever activity I so desire. Now, it may need some conditioning. For instance, I enjoy surfing and mountain biking. But if I were to start to change my enjoyment towards, say, oh, maybe running or basketball, well, I'm not in running or basketball shape. I am in surfing and mountain biking shape. So I might have to create a kind of a different approach to that in order to get there.

[00:48:25.100] – Rocky
And happiest. Happiest. All right. Happiest is we're talking a mood that can change at any point in time that actually can shift much more readily and more quick than, say, healthy and fit. But happiest for me is community service, because getting outside the self. Anything that's self-serving. I guess healthy and fit would be more the self. Focused the centric way of of helping to create wellness within.

[00:48:57.460] – Rocky
But then we have to think of the other aspect, the duality of nature and how I find happiness is going outside of myself, doing things for others without being found out and not telling anything to anybody about it. That's that's a huge one for me. OR just offering things out to the community. For instance, since we've been in sheltered in place March 16th, we've just opened up online exercise for the community at large, senior fitness classes, kids, P.E. classes, Spanish speaking classes, webinars for health and wellness  and asking nothing in return, just simply putting it out there for the community free of charge and whatnot, because that's hopefully that's what we do, is we help each other out and and we we grow as a society and help one another. So I think those for me, those are strategies and tactics that I would take. 

[00:49:55.700] – Allan
Thank you, Rocky. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about what you're doing and your book, Return to Center, where would you like me to send them? 

[00:50:05.950] – Rocky
Rockysnyder.com.  You can go to rockysnyder.com. You can also go to YouTube, because the one thing I didn't mention about the book is within the book we have embedded these little QR codes. So as you're reading through the book or the e-book, which will soon be released, probably by the end of July, if not right about now, you'll take that QR code with your phone and just scan over it with your camera.

[00:50:32.470] – Rocky
And instantly, a YouTube video pertaining to that drill or concept or exercise will appear on your phone to give you even more insight and it'll be maybe two to four minute video. So it's hopefully going to be more like a pocket personal trainer, which will give you even more information than the written word would. So they can they can go to the YouTube channel that all the videos are housed on, which you can just search my name, Rocky Snyder, CSCS, which is certified strength conditioning specialist.

[00:51:03.160] – Rocky
And we've got hundreds, literally hundreds. I think I'm up to about 400 videos on there. And some of them are the ones I spoke of earlier about the community service where if you are, say, 60 plus or more and you want some movements for you or your say 40 and you want to learn how you can get a workout just using a backpack only, there's a whole bunch of different things you can check out.

[00:51:28.030] – Allan
Cool. Rocky, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness. 

[00:51:32.970] – Rocky
It's been my pleasure. And I just appreciate the opportunity to come on in and share and and I hope that somebody finds some good within the pages of the book. And if you do, I'd love to hear about it. You can email me rocky@rockysfitnesscenter.com. I'd love to get feedback whether you think it was a good book or not. Let me know. I take criticism, I guess. No, I don't take criticism very well. I'd like to say I do, but I'm not that big of a person. 

[00:52:00.730] – Allan
It was a good book.

[00:52:02.080] – Rocky
Thank you.

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Allan (02:30):
Tom, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

Tom (02:33):
Oh, great to be with you.

Allan (02:35):
You know, as trainers, we know the number one reason that most people give us that, you know, I can't work out. I don't have time to work out. That's the reasons. I just don't have enough time in the day. I think with a lot of people idled during the pandemic stuff, they had a lot more time. But then they didn't have a gym.

Tom (02:54):
Right.

Allan (02:54):
And so, you know, there's a second reason and I actually struggle with that too. Cause I'm one of those guys that become a gym rat, I love going in the gym and pushing bigger weights can and still do this at home. But your book, but The Micro Workout Plan: Get the Body You Want Without the Gym in 15 Minutes or Less a Day, is really, really cool. I think this solves both problems pretty quickly. And you've got like 30 workouts in there. They give a lot of variety and a lot of opportunity and they're all things that we can do basically with nothing more than bodyweight and dumbbells.

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Tom (03:31):
Yeah. And you know, I'm like you, Allan, I still go to the gym. I love going to the gym. I've been, you know, spent the better part of my life in a gym, but you know, it's an adjunct, right? So as you know, it's what we do outside the gym that really matters as well. It's both that are important. So yeah, this new book really excited just came out a couple of weeks ago, and it's to help those people that, you know, as well will say, Hey, you know, I don't always want to go to the gym or I don't want to go to the gym and I just want to feel better. I want to look a little better on a, lose a couple pounds. I don't want to be in pain. I want to be able to go golf or do whatever I do without pain. So, you know, I know a lot of people will hear micro workouts in 15 minutes, but if you think about it you know, we're generally, even if you go to the gym, you're doing like five minutes of abs, and five minutes of arms and five minutes of chest, which kind of just breaks it down into manageable chunks and you can do five, you can do 25. It's just making it accessible and easier for the average person.

Allan (04:28):
Yeah. You know, I train online as well as in the gym. And you know, most of my clients that are online are online because they don't want to go to the gym so you don't have to go to the gym. And that's what's I think is really good about all this is, these are all things that you can do in your garage, in your living room. Really, really simple but effective exercises. I really liked the workouts that you have in here. Now in the book you, you go through and identify the five components of fitness. Would you mind going through those?

Tom (04:59):
Yeah. So, you know, back when I was studying for all this, the certifications and then went on to get a master's degree and they talk about constantly these five components of fitness. And, you know, most people, I would argue, Allan are doing one, right. And it's what they generally love to do and what they're genetically predisposed to do. But for those people who don't know, it's you know, muscular strength, you know, lifting heavy things, muscular endurance, being able to do it for a longer period of time, cardiovascular endurance, so basic heart health. And then you have flexibility and there's a lot of debate about that. I'm sure you've done numerous shows and you know, constantly we're talking about importance or, you know, when and where about flexibility and then the steps would be body composition so that, you know, the amount of body fat you have and just your body composition as far as body mass and body fat. So all five of those things are important Allan. And most people again do one, maybe two consistently, and we need to do all five.

Allan (06:01):
Yes, I agree. And I would throw a sixth in there if you don't mind. I put balance, you know, as we get older and you've mentioned this in the book, you know, if we're building strength we're more resilient for the fall, but you can also train some balance in there too. So I always throw in balance because.

Tom (06:18):
We are totally aligned Allan. I just did a show myself about that very thing. There should be a sixth component. So I'm a hundred percent with you and I'm surprised that they didn't include it. And I think they should going forward. Absolutely.

Allan (06:32):
Yeah. Well, you know I guess what, you know, 20 years ago, no one over the age of 40 would have even thought about working out. And so now it's, you know, as we have the baby boomers coming through, you know, there's a larger and larger contingent of people that are over 50, over 60, over 70 and even though we're 80, that are still training and active. So, yeah, that's all going to come about. And all of these are really important for us to train. And you have workouts across the board that do those, which is really cool. Now I liked one thing that you put in the book because this is the way we use our words, you know, when I was an auditor I always knew the way I wrote an audit report was really, really important. The words I used in that audit report, how they would affect the audit committee, how they would affect management. And so you spend a lot of time working on the words that you use in report. And then when I started training people, I realized, wait, it's, this is kind of the same thing. If, if I'm using the wrong words, then that doesn't work. If they're using the wrong words, I kind of have to pick up on that. But you list two words in the book that are really, really important for people to avoid.

Tom (07:45):
Yeah. It's ONLY, and JUST. And, you know, I even find myself slipping occasionally and using them obviously in a different way but in the wrong way. So when people say Allan, you know, I only walked two miles today, or I just did, you know, three minutes of stretching. My response is you have to take those words out of your vocabulary because science just contradicts it. So, you know, I always use the example of three, 10 minutes, bouts of exercise, use cardio, as an example, has the exact same benefit as one continuous 30 minute bout. And I would say, and I'm sure you'd agree to it. Actually, if you do three 10 minute bouts, you can actually push yourself a little harder, depending on what you're doing. So there is no workout that is too short and, you know, minutes literally matter when it comes to overall health and wellness and you don't have to do an hour, you don't have to do a half an hour. And it's what you do throughout the day. Again, that truly, that all adds up.

Allan (08:48):
Yeah. As you put in the book, the government guidelines, you know, they're going to say we should do 150 minutes at, or 75 minutes at, you know, extreme or intense. But there's no magic to that. There's no, it doesn't all have to be done in one workout. You know, it's not like you, you need to put that two and a half hours in, in one hour increments or even half hour increments at that point. Your book in the exercise you have in there, there are five minute blocks. And they allow you to pick and choose so that you're getting across all those different components of fitness we talked about. And then with that, this now kind of defines your fitness perspective, philosophy that you call excessive moderation. Could you describe that for us?

Tom (09:37):
Yeah. I love talking about this. It's just over the years, what I've found is, you know, the secret to talking to TV soundbites is not doing most people do a lot of exercise a little, right? New Years rolls around, you get all motivated. You go to the gym, we all know we're all guilty of that at some point in our lives. And you do a lot for a short amount of time and either get burnt out, injured, or generally both. And then you don't do anything. And the true secret, if there is one, and I don't even like using that term, but it's doing a little bit, a lot. So that's where the whole philosophy of excessive moderation and shorter workouts done throughout the day it's being consistent. And you and I talked about that, you know, before the show even started, it's about consistency. That is my most important metric. And was back when I was a trainer, is just show up. That's the most important thing is how many times you exercise, then we can talk about, you know, what you're doing, but showing up, not just in fitness in life is one of the major keys to success.

Allan (10:40):
Oh yeah. Showing up is 90%. If you're there, you know, that's what I tell some clients, you know, they'll tell me they're just not quite motivated. And I'm like, okay, go to go get on the elliptical. If that's what you got in your basement, get on that elliptical, get on the rower and go for five minutes.

Tom (10:57):
Sure.

Allan (10:57):
And after five minutes, if you're not feeling it any more, cool, just wrap it up, go take a shower and go to work. But most people find is they get in there for that five minutes. Like I said, if they did a five minute block of one of your workouts, then immediately, they're probably gonna, you know if they have the time they're gonna want to go ahead and say, well, I did that. I did that cardio work, I'll go ahead and do a stretching block.

Tom (11:19):
Yes. Yeah. It leads to more, it's a snowball effect. And that's why you just have to get out the door right back when I was doing iron man, I still do them, but you know, truly racing and you know, we're not motivated all the time. You and I, and you go, I just have to get out the door. I know that in three, four, 15 minutes, it's going to start feeling really good.

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Allan (13:58):
Yeah. When I was training for a marathon, and I was in Washington, DC and the gym I went to, they had a limit of 20 minutes on any 1 machine. So I'm like, I need to train for time. And so I just say, okay, well, I'm going to do this 20 minute block. And so I put my name on the list and then I do my 20 minute block. And then as soon as I finished the 20 minutes, I just looked for another machine that was open. And then I go do a 20 minute block there and another 20 minute block there and another. And so as a cross training that was happening because there's just different types of machines, you know, climber, rower, all kinds of stuff. And what I found was that, you know, I do a 20 minute block and I'd say, okay, well, I could just quit right now. But it just kinda got into my blood. It's like, no, I can, I've got 20 minutes. I can go do another block until they kicked me out of the gym, which happened.

Tom (14:46):
Well, let me give you a funny story about that is back, you know, I started as a trainer for many years and then working for different fitness equipment companies that consultant, and I learned that all of those machines have codes. Cheat codes, where you can hack into the machine. And you know, if it's set for 20 minutes, you could hack into it and make it go continuous. So back when I was training and you know, occasionally you do like a 20 minute or 20 mile run at the gym. Now, obviously, you know, someone could come up and kick you off, but I would hack into the machine so that it would go, cause I wanted full credit. Allan, I didn't want to do like a 10 mile, 15 mile run and not see 15. It's a mental thing, right?

Allan (15:23):
Yeah, it is. It is. Well, what they did was they had a sign up sheet and yeah, the machine only went to 20 minutes. So they had all 20 minute blocks. And so they told you that you go on you write your name and then you do the 20 minute block and you set your time. And people would be walking over, looking over your shoulder, employees and other people that wanted to use the machine because they were on the list and it was a very busy gym. There was a reason that they only gave us 20 minutes, but I was just like, okay, I'll go off of this machine, go there. And for me again, I was looking at, it was time. I was not training for distance because I said, you know, for me to be able to do something, it's really building that endurance to just be able to keep going.

Tom (16:06):
Yeah, that goes both ways Allan. And now I have to chunk it. So if you think, if you are doing a longer day, you go, Oh, I gotta be on this for an extended period of time. He say, well, no, I'm going to break it down into three 20 minute chunks or whatever that makes it. So there's so much of the mental game that is involved in what we're talking about. And you have to figure out those tips and tricks that work for you.

Allan (16:26):
Yeah. So we talked about consistency, but there are two other, I guess, what I would call attributes of excessive moderation and that's quality and intensity. Could you talk about why those are so important?

Tom (16:39):
Yeah. You know, I just did, I was talking, I talk frequently about like, you know, there's new thing as many reps as possible and things like that. I don't care how many pushups I do. I don't care how much weight I lift. Oftentimes when I am in the gym, people will come up to me and say, are you hurt the last, because I'm doing dumbbell curls with 20 or 25 pounds, but I'm about quality. You know, if the goal is to activate muscle fibers, you actually want to make it challenging. Right? So if I can do a hundred really bad pushups or I can do 30 really good ones. And if my goal is to change my body and to be healthy, I don't care about the number. So that goes to the quality of the exercise. You know, form is everything to me. And then intensity, we need to vary those things as well. Whether you have your easy day or your hard day. And that's why if you're doing a 5, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, with a cardio blast, if you're doing true tabata, that's four minutes of brutal anaerobic work. So the shorter we go, if your goal is to maximize your time, then the intensity goes up, but we need variation in that as well.

Allan (17:47):
Yeah. For a lot of people, they would think that quality and intensity kind of contradict each other. But if you watched the CrossFit workout where AMRAP, people just flopping around and you know, I'm like, okay, that's great until you break, so you got to have the quality of the movement. And then yeah, we've got to go to an intensity where we're pushing ourselves. But we're not going to change, you know, we need that stimulus to change. So that's enough if you don't do it right, you're risking hurting yourself and you know, over 40 you hurt yourself. That's a setback, that's a setback you don't want to have.

Tom (18:23):
Absolutely. And that is the secret to, you know, there's the top three things that I'm all about. It's the access of moderation, but it's also not getting injured. You know, our job in the fitness industry are threefold it's to get people the greatest results in the shortest amount of time with the least likelihood of injury. And that third component is oftentimes left out. A, because you know, the fitness professional doesn't know or B, they're just, you know, they're falling prey to their ego and what the client wants, but, you know, I've done an insane number of races in my life, but I'm injury free because it's about quality over quantity. There are exercises I just won't do because the cost benefit doesn't make any sense to me. I go, why would I do that? You know, when the risk of hurting myself is so high and the benefit is really not there either. So, you know, there's too many exercises to choose from Allan.

Allan (19:14):
Yeah. And that's why that's one of the areas I've, I guess I'd say I've always struggled. I'm not going to say I'll ever get over this, but it's that ego over capacity. And so, you know, I tore a rotator cuff training for a Spartan because I just wanted to get really, really strong. And as I got really, really strong working with my trainer and you start moving heavier weights and heavier dumbbells, and I was like, I'm just going to do overhead press with heavy, heavy dumbbells and pop there goes that arm.

Tom (19:46):
Yeah. And we all have those moments and hopefully we learn from them sooner rather than later. And it just happens. We're going to have those obstacles and it's human nature, right. To compete.

Allan (19:57):
Yeah. Which is why when you were talking about your timing, your tempo of your lifts. You know, the concentric is fast and the eccentric is slow. So you're doing a two to four count. And I'll tell you, when you take half of the weight that you would normally use on any kind of work and you go two seconds up and four seconds back, that's intense.

Tom (20:26):
Yes. And you know, it's so crazy. Allan is my first true fitness job back when I was about 18, 19 years old was a summer job at a Nautilus facility. And it was the old school, you know, I'm 51 going way back, but it was the old school machines that Arthur Jones came up with. And we were taught, I was taught for the two, four second counts. And to this day, I still do this. And the crazy thing you talk about coming full circle is now I'm the fitness advisor for Nautilus, but from, you know, age 18, it was just it made sense to me to have that slower repetition. Isn't that to be perfectly six seconds, but just contracting and controlling that movement throughout the entire range of motion.

Allan (21:08):
Yeah. Now another way that we can get excessive moderation is just looking at ways that we wouldn't necessarily call a workout. And that might mean, you know, parking the car a little bit further away from the building, using a flight of stairs or two flights of stairs rather than the elevator. And I think with the social distancing, that's probably gonna be happening a lot more. But the term is called NEAT. It's an acronym. Could you kind of go into NEAT what it is and why it's important?

Tom (21:39):
Yeah. And I think it's, so it needs to be talked about so much more so as we are doing the show, I am walking around, I have a standing desk and I am always moving and that adds up. So it does come down to simple math. Let's assume a person goes to the gym three times a week for an hour, and is on the cardio machine for 30 minutes out of that, you know, they're going to burn 10 thousand calories or what the number is so it matters. And that helps, but it's what happens outside the gym, as we were talking about earlier, that adds up enormously as well. So, you know, non-exercise activity, thermogenesis is what that acronym stands for. And it's basically the calories we burn while fidgeting, while you know, just the movement we do throughout the day. That seems so insignificant, but it goes down to Allan, we all have those friends who you go, how is that person? So skinny, you know, I see what they eat and they might not be going to the gym as much, or if at all, but they are moving and burning hundreds, if not a thousand calories or more per day than someone who is not doing those things. So just that movement that we may consider to be insignificant really matters. And, you know, the modern day environment has taken almost all of that out, which is a huge problem, as we know.

Allan (22:55):
Yeah, there's a term called eating like a bird. And its that you're not eating at all, but birds eat a lot, but they're moving so much. It's kind of, they used it backwards if you're eating like a bird, which we are, you need to move around a lot to burn off that food. And unfortunately we're eating like, we're actually eating like birds, but not eating like birds.

Tom (23:16):
That's a perfect analogy. That's so, yeah, exactly. Right.

Allan (23:20):
Tom, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

Tom (23:32):
Three tactics to stay well. So I would say, and start with what I start my new book with, is that you have to believe you have control. You know, we have to start from that. You know, so many people due to bad information and bad articles and bad science is the belief that their genetics and their situation has predetermined them. And they'll never be the healthy weight. They'll never be able to achieve what they want. And my lifetime has shown, you know, clients who have so far exceeded expectations. So it's that first belief that, Hey, you know, you have control, there are three things we control. How much we move, what we put into our mouth and our state of mind. And that's amazing. So you have to start with that, and then you just have to experiment, you know, when people say to us Allan that they don't like exercise you.

Tom (24:18):
And I both know that that means they haven't found what they enjoy yet. And it just takes, you know, trial and error to get there. And then finally, and that goes for food too, by the way, healthy food, healthy exercise, you just have to experiment. There's so many options for everybody. There's no one way. And then finally we don't, unfortunately, you know, success in exercise has been two-fold. It's the number on the scale. And it's what you see in the mirror. And if today's pandemic, doesn't teach us completely how important being healthy is eating healthy, you know, our immune system, exercise. So you don't judge the success of your fitness program based on a number on a scale. And it's about, as you said, feeling good, being happy and living a long, healthy life. And we're going to be 60, 70, 80, 90 years old. I want those years to be quality years and enjoying everything that I want to. So that's what it comes down to.

Allan (25:14):
Cool. Thank you for sharing that, Tom, if someone wanted to learn more about you, more about the book, The Micro Workout Plan, where would you like for me to send them?

Tom (25:23):
TeamHolland.com is the website. and then TomHfit is basically my Instagram, TomHfit is my Twitter. And they can learn all about that too at teamholland.com.

Allan (25:38):
Great. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/438, and I'll be sure to have the links there. So Tom, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Tom (25:47):
So great to speak with you. And I'm very jealous that you're in Panama to say you figured it out fitness and Panama. So, congrats. That's awesome.

Allan (25:56):
Thank you.

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Allan (02:18):
Krista, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

Krista (02:20):
Thank you so much for having me.

Allan (02:23):
Now your book is called the 12 Minute Athlete: Get Fitter, Faster and Stronger using HIIT and Your Body Weight. And you said something at the very beginning of the book that I need to start adapting to, adopting, I guess for lack of a better word is calling people athletes. And I think too many times we think of athletes as guys, guys and gals we see on TV and we don't often think of ourselves as athletes.

Krista (02:51):
It's true. I definitely never considered myself an athlete, until you know, five years ago or so. It's just this kind of belief in our society that we look at these people on TV and we think they're the athletes and they can train hard and do these amazing, impossible seeming things, but you know, we're more mere mortals and we could never do hard things like that. And I really like to kind of help bring out everyone's inner athlete because I really do believe that everyone can have some sort of movement that gives them joy and that we all really are athletes.

Allan (03:36):
Yeah. When I first got started into all of this, it was, it was actually a tough Mudder that I wanted to do with my daughter because she was getting into the CrossFit and doing, you know, these mud obstacle races and really enjoying herself. And I was thinking, you know, I don't want to be the father that when my daughter says, Hey, I'm going to go do this thing, that I'm the spectator. I'm like, no, I want to be there with her. I want to cross the finish line with her, I want to do those things. And at the point where I made the decision and then the commitment that that's what I was going to do. I was nowhere near being able to do a tough Mudder. Eight months later, because I had that mindset of getting there and being there with my daughter. I did it! Now that was fairly athletic. When I was younger I did a lot of athletic things, but it doesn't have to be tough Mudder. You know, as you put in the book, it's like you just be an awesome grandmother that keeps up with the grandkids when they run from the monkeys to the lions, you know, being an athlete just means performing very well at the things that you want to do in your life.

Krista (04:39):
Exactly. So well said.

Allan (04:42):
Now, many of us don't have access to a gym or periods of time when we don't have access to a gym. You know, and when I was traveling a good bit for work, you know, sometimes you staying in a hotel and the gym they have isn't really equipped to do the things that I wanted to do. So we, we go to using body weight and I think a lot of people miss out on how effective body weight can be. Can you talk about some of the benefits of body weight exercises?

Krista (05:09):
Yes. I am a huge, huge fan of body weight exercises for so many reasons. Like you said, one of the main reasons is that you can really do them anywhere. So if you're traveling, if you're sick at home, if you're, you know, in a park outside, you can still work out and really, really get an effective workout that way. Another thing that I really love about body weight type training is that you can really scale it to make it either much easier if you're starting at beginner level or much harder if you're more advanced. And so you look at something like a basic pushup, it seems pretty simple, but a lot of people, I'm sure you know, can't do a proper pushup. So The way to work at that, if you break it down into steps. So the way I like to do is with the hands elevated push up because you can really gauge that progress. You start out on something higher, like a wall or a counter top, work your way down eventually to the floor. And now if that gets too easy, then there's so many ways to make it more challenging. You can work for the one arm push up, you can do explosive variations. Bodyweight training is just so cool because there are always ways to bump up the level or to break it down if you need to build up more strength in order to get that full exercise.

Allan (06:42):
Yeah, I was, you know, I trained various people even though we're all over the age of 40, I have some that are relatively fit and some that are just getting started. And so yes, the counter at the countertop, the countertop pushup is kind of a staple for me for most people that are just getting started, make sure you're wearing skid resistant shoes cause the tile floor can get slippery. But yeah, the countertop is an excellent way for you to start getting stronger in the chest and get that pushup. Whereas then I have other folks that are a little bit more athletic and been doing this a bit longer and you know the dive bomber, which you demonstrate in the book, you know, I'm like here, here's a pushup. This is going to be hard. And they'd do it. They'd go do it in the workout and the next time I hear from him it's like, Oh God never had me do that again please. And of course it's in the next workout cause that's what a family wants to hear. But it's with body weight and you just, all you've really done is taken your body weight and by changing the leverage and changing things up, you've made it much more difficult or much easier depending on what a trainee needs, which you need.

Krista (07:46):
Exactly.

Allan (07:47):
And then I think one of the other ones you talked about this a little bit in the book is that you know, with body weight, the likelihood of you actually hurting yourself is lower.

Krista (07:55):
It's so true because you don't have heavy weight around. And I'm going to drop something on your foot. You're not going to do some crazy thing with the overhead squat and tweak your shoulders. There's so much less likelihood of injury or body weight training. It's very cool. And it's super functional. So usually what I see with people who start training body weight exercises more there, their whole body starts to work together better. And so any nagging injuries and stuff, they might just go away, which is amazing.

Allan (08:30):
Yeah. And that is probably what I would say it'd be my favorite part of body weight exercises is almost every one of them that you would be doing theirs. There's a functional aspect to your life. So if we're talking about, you know, body weight squats will we squat sit every day and the ability to have that leg strength to do that is very, very important. And because we don't have a huge load on our shoulders, particularly early on, you know, with just doing body weight squats, you know, we're less likely to hurt our knees because again, if we're doing the squat poorly, we won't be able to do it very well with body weight. But if we put load on there, then the likelihood of injuring ourself is so much higher.

Krista (09:09):
It's so true. It makes me cringe every time I go on a gym and someone's doing heavy squat and their squat form is so bad. I just want to help them get them to do body weight squats. But people don't, people don't always know about the things to do.

Allan (09:26):
Yeah. And, and you know, with, with the gym that I run, you know, I actually have to go say something. I used to when I was training, when I was training, he was training people in up and I was like, if they're not my client and you know, I'm not going to butt in that I'm doing my workout. They're doing theirs and I'm just watching them from the side of my eyes so that they don't kill themselves. But it's okay. I gotta be ready to go grab a weight if someone starts to fall. But other than that, I'm going to ignore them. But now running a gym, it's like I see someone, I was like, I need to go. I need to go talk to this person. We'll have a little conversation. They may or may not listen to me, but you know, I just don't, I don't want someone to get hurt. So, but body weight exercises are kind of cool thing about them is it's very difficult to hurt yourself. The progressions there.

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Allan (12:29):
I'd like to talk about progression. I talked about, you know, two kinds of extremes: the counter push-ups versus the dive bomber is two different levels, but there are lots of different ways that you can make these exercises more progressive.

Krista (12:43):
So many ways. So if you, like I said, if you can do the basic kind of full version of what you think of the exercise, then you can start, there's a couple of ways to make it more challenging. You can work at unilaterally so you can take a bit bodyweight spot. Well instead of going down on two legs, do a one legged squat or pistol squat and that will make it significantly harder. So that's one way. And from there, you know, you don't typically go from that body weight squats straight to the pistol squat, you do the progressions of the pistol squat to help build up that strength. Or you can add, apply a metric aspect to this. So that means jumping, explosiveness, all that. It's going to make it much more challenging. And see the typical athletes, when you think of track athletes and basketball players and they're doing all that stuff, they're not doing heavy weights. They're doing a lot of body weight training, a lot of plyometrics training to build up, you know, maximum strength and explosiveness. So this stuff really works.

Allan (13:51):
Yeah, and another one I like to use a lot is tempo. You know if you using, you know, one of the cool things about plyometrics is you're applying power and it does build explosive power. But if you really want to see how strong you are, particularly when we're talking about body weights, slow down, can you slow down the movement where there's no momentum and you're having to hold yourself under that tension for a longer period of time. It gets a lot harder.

Krista (14:20):
Yeah. Like to actually, one of the ways that I love to help people build up strength for things like pull-ups is those really slow negatives. They're brutal, but they really weren't. And you can do that with so many different things if you know,

Allan (14:34):
once you've gotten yourself to a point. Absolutely. I mean, so you want to have some base level and then once you start really trying to work the pull ups and then yeah, then doing the negatives is really good because you're kind of at that point, if you're close to being able to do the pull-ups, you kind of reached almost, I'm not gonna say an intermediate, but you're at a higher level of training because you've been doing some other pulling movements. So I really do like how you take someone through each of these progressions to help them build out their strength until they're able to do the exercise properly.

Krista (15:05):
Yeah. And it's also helpful for your mindset. A lot of people look at something like a pull-up if they've never been able to do it before and they just can't even picture themselves doing it. It seems so hard and impossible. But if you just break it down into these little steps and then every time, you know, every couple of weeks or so, depending on how fast you're making progress, you bump it up just a little bit more. It just becomes so much more doable in your mind. And it just helps people like really accomplish big scary seeming things that they never would've have done if they were to just go towards that higher level thing to begin with.

Allan (15:50):
Yeah. Now in the book you also get into, HIIT training, which is high intensity interval training. Can you talk about some of the benefits of HIIT what it is and how it helps us?

Krista (16:02):
Yeah, so HIIT training, it's a style of train that basically your training or working as hard as he possibly can for a very short amount of time and then you rest. And so there a differnt kind of intervals that you've been set up. I tend to like doing like 30 seconds, anywhere between 10 seconds or 30 seconds. Yes. And what you thinking about during a HIIT workout is essentially, I like to tell people like, think about it. Like you're sprinting during that work period. You really want to give it your absolute all. You want to feel like you're not really holding back. And the, one of the huge benefits of HITT training is like very short. So a lot of people think that they need, you know, 45 minutes to an hour to get in a good workout. Especially like a cardio workout. The HIIT training, for like 12 minutes and people to try them.

Krista (17:05):
If they're really pushing themselves and their at the level that they are able to push themselves that hard. You know, they walk away just like spent afterwards and that's the, that's what a good HIIT workout does. And the type of like you can add so many types of different exercises for this, for HIIT workouts. But one of the things like I like said, do jump roping exercises or like we're talking about plyometric exercises, burpees, things like that where you really feel like you can just push really hard during that workout and yeah, it's kinda, it's going to really, really help your overall stamina helps your VO two max. It was all these scientific studies that show that a HIIT workout, between 10 and 20 minutes, has the same cardio benefits as a moderate intensity workout. That's more like 45 minutes or so. Or a HIIT workout might actually have more benefits, which is super cool.

Allan (18:10):
Yeah. For the record, I do have a jump ropes at my gym. So little bitty gym, but I do, I did buy some jump ropes. And so you know, a couple of different things that you said there that I want to emphasize because you know, a lot of people misconstrue just interval training with HIIT training. And I think that that's kind of, you know, when I hear someone say, yeah, I did a 45 minute HIIT training, I'm like you can't do a 45 minute HIIT training. He's wiped. And so I think, you know, one is the intensity. And the way I like to describe it is imagine you're walking through the woods with your baby granddaughter and your arms, and you see a bear and you have to run from that bear.

Allan (18:59):
And if your work sessions, 30 seconds, if you stop, if you slow down, that bear is going to get you and your grandbaby. So you're going to run with every bit of energy that you have, like there's nowhere else for you to go, nothing else for you to worry about. You're just going to run as hard as you possibly can. That's that intensity. There's a set period of time and then you're gonna have a recovery, you know, so now that you've read the bear stopped chasing you and you're walking through the woods when your rest is over, if it's 10 seconds or 30 seconds or whatever your rest interval is, oops, there's another bear take off. And typically for most people, you know, six, eight, maybe, maybe 10 of these rounds. It was about all the work you really need at that point. You're not recovering and you're just spent.

Allan (19:44):
And I think if you're really doing HIIT right, it is, it's very short. It's very intense. And then it's done. And you know, one of the, one of the styles that I want to talk about this in just a second, is a style called Tabata. And that quite literally can be done in four minutes. And it's really, really cool. But there are all these different intervals that you can set of how you want to go about doing the work, doing the recovery and training yourself to, cause it's working, your cardiovascular, whatever work you're doing, you're getting some work. There it balance or endurance or strength cause I've seen all kinds of different exercises that can be done in the form of HIIT.

Allan (20:25):
But I would caution if you're going to do HIIT training, do it with body weight. Don't, don't try HIIT training with equipment. You know, sometimes I've seen people try to do things like some barbell movements and things like that and the form just breaks down and the likelihood of hurting yourself does too. So you do not need equipment. This is a HIIT, should be a body weight training period. And that's just how I feel about it. And that's also very important. And then the other point is, and I'd like to talk a little bit about this is the recovery, because it is so intense that for most of us it's not something we want to do every day.

Krista (21:03):
Yeah. For, for most people, you know, even two or three times a week is corny. I definitely try and recommend it at least twice a week and you could do it, you know, anywhere up to four times him to week would be ideal or if you're at a really high level, but you really don't even need that.

Allan (21:22):
And so to me it's just making sure that you're giving your body the opportunity to fully recover before you try to do this again and you'll know it, you'll know if you're not doing it because your performance won't be nearly what it was before you are doing jump rope and you know, you realize, okay, I can basically, do you know whether you're doing the double unders or the singles, if you're counting, you'll start to realize, okay, the first interval I did this many, and then the second interval was a little ass and then a little less and a little less, but you come into that next workout. If you haven't really recovered, you're not hitting those same numbers. So pay attention to your recovery and you can get a lot of benefit out of HIIT.

Krista (22:01):
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's one of the reasons, one of many reasons, I really encourage people to track their reps. And as annoying as it can be to count during an interval. You'll know whether you're not recovered, whether you're feeling sluggish that they, and you'll know whether you're making progress or not. So if, you know, the first week you sit there and you're only able to do six, burpees in 30 seconds, and then a few weeks later you're able to do eight. That's awesome. But you wouldn't know that unless you turned it.

Allan (22:32):
Yeah, absolutely. Now, I mentioned earlier about Tabatas, I love Tabatas because they answer the question, well, I just really don't have that much time. Tabata solves that problem. can you talk about what it's about is the kind of the origin story and then just, you know, it's the structure and some basic examples of, of how we can use that structure.

Krista (22:56):
Yeah. So Tabata was developed by, you know that persons name, they are good friends. His name, he was, he's from Japan, I'm blanking on the his name.

Allan (23:04):
Yeah I blank on his name all the time too. Don't ask me. The Japanese guy.

Krista (23:12):
Yeah, it's definitely super cool. Anyway, he found that this specific structure where it's 10 seconds reps and 20 seconds work. So for eight rounds is incredibly effective. But the key is with those 20 seconds, like think of it like I liked your bear analogy. You have to go as hard as you possibly can for this to be effective. You can't just breeze through tabata workout and think that it's going to give you great results. You have to go super, super hard. And so like you said, with the interval workouts or HIIT workouts, body weight training is perfect for that. So it's classic bottle workout is sprinting. 20 seconds sprints, 10 seconds rest, eight rounds and like believe me you will be. You can also do it with various other body weight exercises, jump roping, burpees, all those types of fun things. It's not super fun, its really hard, but it's four minutes and you're literally done. So they're amazing.

Allan (24:26):
Yeah. I've, I've structured workouts with using the Tabata and you know, it's like just something as simple as the body weight squat and I've seen, you know, people that I've been training and if I'm doing a group training, I'll tell someone if you're really, really fit and you want to make this kind of exciting, add little plyometric jump at the end. So you do jump squats if you're really, really, if you're, if you're less so than, than just just do the body weight squats, but just keep moving, keep moving. And invariably, after about round four, we start finding out who you know, was really what they thought. And anyone that started with jump squats is typically typically, slowing down and now just doing squats, body weight squats, and they get a great workout. And that's why they were hugely fit.

Allan (25:09):
But it's again, the intensity of this and the short recovery periods, it's just something that's really, really gonna tax you. And there's one you had in the book that I really liked, an example of a way to adapt to a tabata because the original Tabata basically had four set exercises that you have to go through and we've adapted that now using different exercises. But the burpee mountain climber, is one good example you gave him. Could you explain how we can, we can basically do a Tabata using the burpee and the mountain climber as the exercises.

Krista (25:39):
I don't know if that one in the book was the tabata, was it the alternate with the rest?

Allan (25:45):
Yeah, you alternate. Yeah. You alternate. It was not the rest. The mountain climber was not the rest. It's just, yeah, it was just an alternating of the two exercises.

Krista (25:52):
So all you're going to do with that one is start with 20 seconds of burpees, take your 10 seconds of rest and then 20 seconds of mountain climbers. And so you're going to end up going four of each and it's gonna feel a little brutal, but it's going to be really, really effective. And the other cool thing that I think about this type of training is it never gets any easier no matter how fit you get. It will never be easy because of it is, it just means you're not pushing yourself hard enough. So it's a way to constantly improve and progressing as an athlete.

Allan (26:29):
And as you mentioned earlier, if you're counting your reps, then at the end, you know, okay, when I first started doing this burpee mountain climber Tabata, you know, I was maybe doing six, like I said, maybe in the 20 seconds, maybe four burpees, and maybe eight mountain climbers and now, you know, I noticed when I started, I'm actually getting the sixth one and you know, or the 12th one in and then I'm still doing more at the end because my stamina has improved so much. So yeah, it is something that, you know, when you're, when you're training and even training with someone else. So if you've got someone else you're training with and there maybe you're maybe more fit than they are or they're a lot more fit than you are, it doesn't matter because you're, you're in your own battle, you're in your own head and soon enough you're not paying attention to anybody. But just trying to catch your breath.

Krista (27:17):
Yeah. You don't care what the other persons doing.

Allan (27:20):
Not at all. Yes.

Krista (27:24):
People of all levels can train together, its great.

Allan (27:27):
And I think that's what's really cool. You know, like I said, we all train together or we can train at home. And we're using our body weight and we're using the benefits of HIIT training to basically come away with being better athletes. And by athlete as we mentioned earlier, its just being able to perform better in everything we want to do.

Krista (27:45):
Yes,

Allan (27:46):
I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

Krista (27:55):
I liked that definition of wellness. I mean I guess my obvious first answer is movement. So move a little every single day and you know, do some sort of workout on a regular basis. Whether it's you just try to figure out what works for you. So if you start out with a couple of HIIT workouts a week and then maybe do some slower body weight movements and walks the other days, whatever it is, just really make sure that movement is built into your life cause it's going to make everything better.

Krista (28:29):
And another thing that I really highly recommend, especially for people who maybe be struggling with anxiety or overwhelm or things like that, is paying attention to breathing. So I really like this style of breathing called box breathing. And that's essentially where you're breathing in through your diaphragm and out with an exhale for you can start with an inhale, a four and an exhale, a four. Do it for five minutes or something. You don't have to do it for very long. And it's gonna really help calm the anxiety, calm your nerves, reset your nervous system. It's a great thing to start your day with. I highly recommend it for people who haven't tried it. It feels a little weird at first, especially the diaphragm style breathing because it's like you're breathing through your stomach more than your chest, but it makes a big difference.

Krista (29:32):
The other thing that I recommend is kind of, I consider wellness but to always be learning something. So whether that's learning a physical skill or you know, training for something like a tough Mudder, or taking an online class of something that you've always wanted to learn, reading a cool new book that you're excited about. Having something like that going on at all times. It's really great for your mental health and all of this is great for your physical health too. So all of the physical, mental well being. So it's in my mind it's all connected.

Allan (30:16):
Great. The book is called the 12 Minute Athlete. And what I really like about it is that it is bodyweight. It is something you can do at home. You've put the progressions there. They're images. And I can say this, I train, I train a lot of blind individuals with my online training. In fact, they now a large percentage of my clients are vision impaired and you do a really good job of explaining each exercise, each movement along with the images, but just the explanation itself is really, really good to learn each of these exercises and their progressions. If someone wanted to learn more about you and more about the book, Krista, where would you like for me to send them?

Krista (30:55):
You can find 12-Minute Athlete pretty much by searching anywhere these days, which is great, but you can go to 12minuteathlete.com or an app or at 12-minute athlete on social media, the book you can find on any online retailer, Amazon, all those good places. So it's pretty easy to find now.

Allan (31:17):
Okay, well you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/435 and I'll be sure to have links there. Krista, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Krista (31:27):
Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.

This episode of 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Let's Get Checked. Use code Allan20 and get 20% Off!

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The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
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Thank you!

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Allan (00:59):
Robb, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

Robb (01:02):
Thanks so much, Allan.

Allan (01:03):
You know when I saw your book Body by Starfleet: A Fitness Guide, I had to get you on the show. There's just no way. I'm a science fiction fan, I would not say as far as fanatic, you know, I'm not the convention or I'm not the, and the person that's going to collect a lot of things. Uh, but I really, really do enjoy just sitting down and watching something like star Trek. Because it kind of, it expands my mind. It makes me think things differently as you kind of go through these stories. Uh, and it just gives them so much creative opportunity that I just, I really enjoy science fiction. So when you kind of pair up, uh, that with, you know, my love for fitness and like, okay, yeah, this is, this is really, really cool.

Robb (01:42):
It's like two great tastes that taste great together for you.

Allan (01:44):
And they do, you know, this is, yeah, this is not two great things you put together and tastes like crap. This, this actually works, you know? And so, uh, as I got into the book, uh, you know, basically it was just really cool. You obviously you used the series, and kind of put that all together to say, you know, how do I get myself fit? What are some exercises I can do? You often paired them up with a character sure. Or characters, from the series just to really make it fun. And then, you know, the artwork, you got a guy that was doing some art for you to draw these exercises out. So there's, there's visual interpretations of what it would look like, which is also really, really good.

Robb (02:25):
Yeah. The artists whose name is Jason Kaiser did an amazing, amazing job illustrating all of the different steps for all the exercises.

Allan (02:32):
Okay. So, you know, I guess I'll come off with the first question and, I kind of have an idea, but, I wanted to hear from you. Why is fitness important to members of Starfleet?

Robb (02:43):
You know, I think with any, any organization, regardless of the size, you're only as strong as your quote unquote weakest member. You know, Starfleet has always had each other's backs, whether it's in the dominion war or any other large scale conflict or just on the bridge of, uh, of the enterprise. Everyone is all rooting for each other. It's, you know, they're not gonna leave anybody behind. So part of that is being as physically fit as you can. I mean, obviously there are people who have different fitness levels who are differently abled, but at least everyone tries their hardest to pull their own weight.

Allan (03:17):
Yeah. And you're not the red shirt that's gonna disappear after the first three minutes of the episode. You know, you're, you're meant to be on this earth for a long, long time. And so being fit for task I think is really, really important. And that's what you kind of saw. Uh, most of the, most of the characters on there were, we're generally fit. There were some characters typically on the wrong side of the things that weren't all that fit. They were, they were effectively like a military style unit. We did things, we went by rank. And so, you know, yeah, fitness has always been an important thing for the military.

Allan (03:53):
Anything you want to do in life, you're going to need the fitness do so. So I'm excited to kind of get into some of the things that we can do as, uh, we are members of our own Starfleet. Our body is our spaceship and what can we do to make it as fit as possible?

Robb (04:08):
Thats very philosophical. I like it!

Allan (04:11):
Well, we're just flying through space. Right. And it's boldly go. And I think a lot of people when I hear the term workout or you know, they hear train or they hear exercise easy to get overwhelmed and I like how you approach this and thinking this is not something that you have to go to a full service, big box gym to have all the different implements because you know, of course everywhere else and you know, and then Starfleet they had access to, you know, try quarters and all these other tools and gadgets and phasers and tractors and all this stuff. We don't have to have that much to do what you're having us do in this workout or these exercise.

Robb (04:54):
Yeah, no, not really. I mean it definitely helps if you've got standard gravity. You know when I started working out, I was extraordinarily intimidated and I didn't like working out. And quite honestly, it's still not my favorite thing in the world, but I noticed that if I was able to have fun with it, if I was able to “engage” pun sort of intended with the people around me or even just sort of internally I was, the workouts were going faster, they were a little bit easier. My mind was a little bit occupied. You know, when I was consulting with Chris Tutela, who was my trainer on the book, I wanted to make sure that the vast majority of these exercises, we're accessible for people of all different fitness levels and especially for people who didn't necessarily have a gym membership. So I think probably 80 85% of these exercises are just body weight. And then, as you progress, there's ways to increase the strength level on things. You can incorporate dumbbells or resistance bands or you know, some moderate pieces of equipment like benches and things like that. But for the most part it's, it's really bodyweight and very accessible for people of all different fitness levels.

Allan (06:19):
Yeah. I liked the way that you scaled these, you know, you can go from being an incent to a Lieutenant, to a captain on some of these exercises. So there is a progressive model here for many of them. And there are a lot of them are pretty much compound movements. Good focus on core, a lot of cardiovascular work. Yeah. Good balance of exercises. And you know, as I kind of went through it, I'm like, you know, this, this is going to cover everything. And these are, some of these are, I wouldn't say redundant, they're just different ways to approach, kind of the same thing. But you can piece these together if someone were going to go through, like, you know, they get it and there's all these different exercises and you know, there's some Spock stuff. There's Tribbles, there's O'Hare

Robb (07:03):
You know you stayed away from a lot of the captains, but you got into Riker and some of the other first lieutenants he got, he got into a lot of it. You know, there wasn't a lot of, I want to work out like captain Kirk or you know. But you know you got into them. There's a lot of exercises, a lot of opportunity for us to do. And I liked what you said. It's important. It's fun. Yeah, there's a way to go about this. It's not a go do all of them or here's a workout, kill yourself. You've set this up very, very holistically for us. Can you kind of talk how someone should go through the book and use it as a tool?

Robb (07:35):
Yeah, I think to your first point, I try to pair up the exercises, all of which are actual real exercises with characters or situations that felt organic to it. I didn't necessarily want to shoehorn in a character just to have them in the book. So Rikers leg extensions made sense because you're sort of mimicking the, the very unique way that Ryker sat in his chair or you know, Tillys sprints. makes sense because there were a couple of scenes of Tilly sprinting around discovery. The book is organized with stretches and warmups and conditioning, then powering up your warp core and exercises for your upper body, lower body. And we ended it with special exercises for non humanoid species because even a Horton needs to work out every once in a while. So I always recommend that everyone start with the stretchers and the warmups regardless of what you're doing.

Robb (08:31):
And you don't have to do all of them. These are just sort of simple movements just to get your body ready and get your blood pumping a little bit. And then we didn't want to make this a one size fits all book. So we wanted people to consult with their own trainers, consult with their own doctors, really think about their individual needs and goals and fitness levels and sort of pick and choose which upper body core and lower body exercises they want it to do. There's about 30 or 35 exercises and we certainly don't want everyone to do every exercise all the time. That would be a little bit much. But you know, sort of pick and choose. And then you can sort of gradually build on that for half an hour or an hour. You know, the conditioning workouts are really supplemental to the upper body, lower body and core. So if you wanted to do conditioning's on, let's say Tuesdays and Thursdays and then work your upper body on Mondays or lower body on Tuesdays, we really wanted to give something for everybody and a little bit of a smorgasbord for people to choose from.

Allan (09:35):
Yeah. And each exercise in addition to the picture that kind of displaying it, you go through a very cool way of explaining how to do each exercise. You know, your starting position and then the movement pattern. Uh, so it's real fun. And again, I've said that several times. I think that's it. If anyone, if you like Star Trek even remotely like Star Trek and you're looking for, uh, some exercises you can do just about anywhere, which, you know, I don't usually talk about the timing of us recording, but we are, uh, we are right now in a lockdown. I had to close my gym. And so everybody that was going to the gym now doesn't have access to that. But this is something you can do on your own and you can do it still complying with the distancing that you need because you can do it in your living room, you can go out and you know, if it's a sidewalk or a set of stairs and around you, you can go up those. So there's a lot of variety here and a lot of opportunity. Like I said, for you to stay active during a time when it's probably going to be pretty good to get away from the press and think about something fun like this. So really, like I said, it's, it's a cool little setup. I like the way it's, everything's structured. Yeah. I might have to have you explain how some of those non-humanoid weight exercises work because I had a hard time, hard time visualizing some of them, but for the most part all of them are really easy to follow. You go through it. Each movement's well-described. So again, pretty, pretty cool little book.

Robb (11:00):
Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, I want it to get people laughing while they were doing squats. So, for the casual Star Trek fan, there's plenty to enjoy. But I also inserted lots of different Easter eggs within some of the exercises for the real hardcore people to get to.

Allan (11:17):
Well I like I said, not exactly hardcore, but I got a lot of them and I thought, okay, this is this again, this is a fun, fun book. I define wellness as being the healthiest, fitest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

Robb (11:34):
You know, I think for me at least, they're mostly mental, you know, making the decision to embark on a fitness routine. That was key for me. It was feeling lethargic and tired and not very healthy and my clothes were fitting a little weird and just didn't feel mentally on my game and I just decided I'm going to make a change. So I started going to this gym, so that was step one for me. Step two was being consistent and keeping at it and know I was, I'm not a morning workout person, I'm just not that awake enough for it. So my workouts have always been after work in the evenings. And you know, sometimes the commute home isn't very good, but I made a promise to myself just to get off that bus and do what I needed to do and then get to the gym and do it. And remembering that that hour or an hour and a half at the gym was just for me. And that I was, I was working toward a goal and you know.

New Speaker (12:36):
I think third for me, there has always been remembering why I started this in the first place. It wasn't to be the thinnest or the most muscular or the past is, it was just to make positive choices and positive changes in my life, which could then effect change for me, but then change for everybody else too. And I think I tried to make it clear in the book that this isn't about being the fastest or the skinniest or the best basketball player. It's just about making those small little changes that could lead to bigger changes and bigger changes and have a ripple effect on that.

Allan (13:14):
I really liked those. Robb, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book, Body by Starfleet a fitness guide. Yeah. Where would you like for me to send them?

Robb (13:24):
I think the best place is just my website. It's Robbperlman.com and there you'll see Body by Starfleet, the other Star Trek books I've written and a bunch of the other books I've written as well.

Allan (13:38):
and you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/432 and I'll be sure to have a link there. So Rob, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness and live long and prosper.

Robb (13:50):
Thank you. Allan talk to you soon.

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The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Barbara Costello	– Judy Murphy	– Melissa Cardinali
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Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

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Allan (02:48):
Joyce, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

Joyce (02:50):
Thanks Allan. I'm thrilled to be here with you.

Allan (02:53):
Now. I am a huge fan of walking. I think it is one of the most underutilized ways of serving our body. And I say that that way because we're going to get into depth of walking is not just a fitness thing. And I really liked your approach to that. The name of your book is Walk Your Way to Better. And you know, as I was reading through the title I was like, Oh better. You know? And so you know, the words are in your head, health and all and wellness and fitness. And so I think there's a reason you stopped right there after the word better and didn't put the rest of it there.

Joyce (03:32):
Absolutely. So I agree with you. Walking is so simple and so incredibly powerful and I just don't think that we recognize or give it the emphasis that we should. So walking has been shown to improve your mind, your mood, and your body in really, really profound ways. So as you say, it's not just your physical, it's your mental and your emotional.

Allan (04:00):
You know, as you look at things like the blue zones that they're doing studies on and you kind of think about ancestral health and the way people were before we had access to cars and bikes and planes and motorcycles and everything else. We used to have to walk to do most of the things. We walk to go get our water, we would walk to go forage, we'd walk to hunt and we may even migrate. And so there were days of walking to get to a better area for hunting and gathering and doing things. We don't do as much walking now as we did that.

Joyce (04:35):
Absolutely. And I believe, and there are a whole lot of people that agree with me, we were just not meant to sit as long and as much as we're sitting, we're built to move.

Allan (04:47):
Yeah. And you were an attorney at one point. I was an accountant.

Joyce (04:51):
We sat a lot. Right?

Allan (04:54):
Sorry you didn't like accounting. But you know, it's just as we think about that, it's like, yeah, we take these jobs because they're going to give us what we need to take care of our families. But then at the same time, we're not necessarily taking care of ourselves, therefore we're not in a position to always take care of our families. That's kind of a bad, bad paradox to be in.

Joyce (05:16):
Exactly right.

Allan (05:18):
So why is walking so valuable?

Joyce (05:21):
So there's boatloads of research on walking on all of the benefits of walking. So I'll just hit sort of some of the top lines when you talk about walking. And I'm gonna leave the body and physical to last because, while it's super important, it's not even where I want to start. So walking has been proven to have a really great impact on your mood. It's been shown to be a valuable tool in combating depression and warding off depression. It's been shown to have an immediate impact on boosting and improving your mood and mindset. So great for your mind. Great for your mood and then for your mind walking has been shown to improve your decision-making ability, help give you energy. And there's a really interesting study that shows that a regular walking practice literally makes your brain bigger. And then just a couple of years ago, fascinating research out of Stanford University shows that a walk can improve your creativity, your ability to create new ideas and have fresh thoughts by up to 60%. It's incredibly powerful.

Allan (06:35):
Yeah. I know you said in the book you were talking about jobs and some of the other people we would think were these great minds and thinkers. They used walking as their creativity space.

Joyce (06:45):
Absolutely. Uh, Aristotle, Socrates, Benjamin Franklin was a big Walker. Darwin was a big Walker. Uh, so people who are under the kind of pressure to constantly be creating new ideas, processing new ideas, innovating. It's the most effective way you can do that.

Allan (07:08):
And then there are the physical aspects.

Joyce (07:11):
Yup. So a regular walking practice has been shown to reduce your risk of dementia, diabetes, osteoporosis, several types of cancers. There's one study that shows that a regular walking practice can add up to seven years to your life.

Allan (07:28):
That's huge. That's huge.

Joyce (07:30):
It's incredible.

Allan (07:31):
You know, I've seen a study before that said, if you just, you walk just five to 10 minutes after a meal, it helps you regulate your blood sugar.

Joyce (07:40):
We're meant to move. We are not meant to finish a big meal and sit in front of the television or in front of social media. We're just not.

Allan (07:49):
And then beyond that, you had a, I mean, I've seen this other stat out there, well at least another aspect that you've talked about, how walking should kind of get rid of those emotional toxins. It also helps us get rid of physical toxins. Our lymphatic system is, it doesn't have its own pump system. It relies on our muscles or skeletal muscles to actually cause that lymph to move around. And that's flushing toxins out of our body. So if we're sitting still, we're letting ourselves get toxic.

Joyce (08:17):
And you know what's so interesting to me when you look at the last many years, remember the days when people would go in for surgery and then they would be told by their doctors to rest, right? Lie around. And all of that has changed. Practically, regardless of what the nature of the surgery is, as soon as they can get people up and walking, even little bits, they're getting them moving.

Allan (08:44):
Yeah. I had a friend recently, uh, he had a hip replacement and within a day they want him up walking on that hip, you know, just the thought of having them sawing through the bone, applying this metal apparatus, you know, this metal apparatus to your body. And then the next day they're not like, just lay there for six weeks and heal. They're like, nope, you have to be moving.

Joyce (09:05):
Right. And, and 20, 30 years ago they would've had that guy in bed for days.

Allan (09:17):
Yeah, or the wheelchair rest of his life. Yeah. So, you know, walking is something that we must do. It's not should, I mean, we've got to get past the should, the walking is a must. But when you start this conversation of, okay, we've got to walk, and then someone sits there and says, well you know, this is a very busy week for me. I've got to pull an extra shift, I had to you know, I took on extra training time. I've got extra the interviews and things to do this week. I've got, you know, of course my, my other regular stuff that's going on, you know, and I've got to read these three books. And so you kind of pile those and then you say, well where am I going to fit the time to do this walking? Why, why do we have difficulty with that, whereas if you said, okay, you need to take your kid to little league practice, that's a non negotiable. We just, we just do it, but we don't take the time for self care. Why? Why is that?

Joyce (10:10):
You know, there are so many reasons that keep us from taking good care of ourselves. And the first is something that you mentioned just a couple of minutes ago, which is around this paradox of us feeling like we have to do for other people and not take care of ourselves. The paradox of that is if we don't take care of ourselves, we are not capable of taking the best care of the people we love. So that's kind of counterintuitive you want to do for other people and you think that that's the way to do the best you can. The second is we're all just too busy. We have filled our plates to overflowing and we need to take some responsibility and some ownership around that and it's something that I'm working on personally to really try to grab hold of my calendar on a day to day basis and be sure that I am not filling it with things that are just making me busy. Busy is like a badge of honor now. Right. When you say to, when you see somebody you haven't seen for a while and you say to them, how are you the knee jerk? Everybody says, Oh, I'm so busy. And I think the last piece of it, especially for women is we're still being sent the message that taking care of ourselves is selfish and I just think we have to continue to work to try to change that message and change that paradigm.

Allan (11:33):
Yeah, I'm reading the Daily Stoic now. I went, I went through all of that last year. I was really proud of myself for doing that because it was, I've had this book for over three years and each year I get to a certain point and then I stop and I lose it. Last year was the first year I made it through the entire year and I'm reading through it again this year. It's called the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, And the funny thing is yesterday's lesson was to not be busy. To be aware of where you're spending your time and what is a a true obligation and what are those things that we just put on ourselves out of guilt and other means. And that's what I really liked about the structure of your book as you break it into 99 walks in each walk is not just a let's get out and walk today and that's your goal.

Allan (12:17):
And then tell me how it went. You're really diving into mindset and one of the things that you got into there that I'd like to kind of get into after you tell me about the structure, the 99 walks and why you put it that way was the making of time, you know, you actually have one of the walks where it's dedicated specifically to making time for this self care. So can you talk through the walks of how you put this together and how this is helpful. And then, you know, some of these that are lessons that you think are pretty valuable for us to go as we're, as we're looking at having a walking practice.

Joyce (12:50):
Absolutely. So the book, as you say, is broken into 99 short sections. Thought starters, research stories, all designed to give people something to contemplate, to think about, to percolate on. One of the things that I see in my own life and in the lives of my friends and the people I talk to all the time is there is a lot of really interesting information and content out there. And I think we're getting better at identifying it and reading it, but I don't think we're giving our selves the chance to really absorb and process it. And because I know how powerful walking is for the way your mind works and the way your mood improves. And of course all the physical, I thought, wouldn't it be amazing if I can share 99 things that I think are important for people to think about and encourage them to then take a couple of minutes to give themselves the chance to percolate and really absorb those messages. So that's, that's my goal. That's my hope.

Allan (13:52):
Well, I think you've accomplished that. That's why I was saying, you know, that's why I brought up the book, the Daily Stoic is because that's kind of my daily sit down, have something to ponder and then I'll meditate on it. I haven't turned that into a walking practice. But you got me, you got me really thinking about that. That's maybe that's how I go about this. But this is a similar structure of here's your daily lesson, give it some thought. And I really like a lot of the things that you get into. Like I said, finding time and then I actually, I quoted a quote out of you. Let me, let me look it up real quick. I've got it. I put it on my Facebook page because, my Facebook group, because I, it was kinda one of those things as I was reading it, I'm like, somebody needs to hear this today. I know someone needs to hear this today. And it was, you deserve your dreams. You deserve your dreams. And so that was one of the lessons as you're kind of going through is have big dreams and then realize you deserve them and should still be working toward them.

Joyce (14:51):
You just can never give up. You can't abandon your dreams, you can't abandon your sense of self. But I do want to talk for a minute. Let's circle back and talk a little bit about, making time.

Allan (15:04):
Yes.

Joyce (15:04):
Can we dig into that a little bit?

Allan (15:06):
Absolutely. Please.

Joyce (15:07):
So I do talk about that a fair bit in the book in a couple of different contexts, even because we are all so busy that we think we don't have time and a lot of people refer to it as finding time. How am I going to find time for the things that are important? And the first thing I always say to people is, it's not about finding time, it's about making time. It's about saying, this is important for me, therefore it's important for my family. If you need that to encourage you to actually take those steps forward and then you have to make the time.

Joyce (15:44):
So one of the stories I tell, and I won't, I don't want to belabor it, but my daughter was doing gymnastics and I would go and she really wanted me to watch her entire class. And I thought, this is being a good mom. I'm going to sit and I'm going to watch it. I'm going to support her. And then at some point I realized she was sort of performing for me. And that's not what that experience was about for her. That's not what I wanted that experience to be for her. So I started taking 30 minutes and going for a walk. So I would drop her off, get her settled, leave and go take my walk, come back and watch the last 15 minutes and all of a sudden I found 30 minutes in my day, twice a week.

Allan (16:23):
Yes, I've heard, I've heard of moms doing that, you know, taking their child to soccer practice and then just walking around the field.

Joyce (16:28):
You don't have to watch them.

Allan (16:33):
They're awesome. But yeah. And I think one of the keys of what you put forward there, is about the prioritization. You know, what are those things that we are doing that really aren't serving us. You know, sitting there watching really wasn't serving you or your daughter, whereas you going for the walk, you're going to come back at the end of her practice with so much more energy. She's going to be energized because of what she did. You're going to be energized for what she did and then the drive home is a much, I think probably it was a much more joyful experience.

Joyce (17:08):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because to your point earlier, you are better able to show up for the people you love when you are in a better space, when you are taking care of yourself.

Allan (17:19):
And that's one of the things I really like about the 99 Walks in each one is you're going through a, you're sharing a lot of personal stories yourself and your stories included and it's really just kind of one of those times for you to wrap your mind around something, kind of let go, be mindful of what you're doing. Go out there with some intention and solve some problems and as you said in the book, there might only be a couple dozen of these that really resonate. There might be some that just completely don't apply. You know, as a guy reading the book, I was like, well, you know, a lot of these lessons, if I just read them out, right, wouldn't necessarily apply to me. But if I think about what the underlying purpose of that discussion is about, it applies to all of us at some point.

Joyce (18:03):
For sure. We're all suffering from decision fatigue, even if we don't know it. We all need to be mindful of the people we're surrounding ourselves with. We all have to be intentional about how we're spending our time so much.

Allan (18:20):
Now you've, you've put together this organization, it's called 99 Walks and it's, I went to the website. It's actually really cool. You're doing monthly challenges. You're building community. In a lot of sense. It's, it's more than getting people to walk more. I mean that's, it's awesome, but it's about connection. It's about eliminating some of that isolation and loneliness. We have, you know, you might have a thousand friends on Facebook or Instagram, but you still can feel very lonely. Can you talk about what your organization 99 Walks is doing and how it, how it's, how it's put together and how it's benefited you.

Joyce (18:55):
Yeah, you're so right about the loneliness piece. We have some proprietary research that 73% of American women experience loneliness and that dovetails with some national research around both women and men who put that number right about 70% so there really is a loneliness crisis going on, a very quiet crisis going on in this country because people don't want to talk about that. People don't want to raise their hand and say I am lonely because it makes you feel bad. It's something people are super self conscious about. But the reality is most people are wrestling with that. So I thought if we can create community and encourage people to get out and move in what is this incredibly simple but effective and powerful way. Just by lacing up your sneakers and walking out the door, we could really start to effectuate change. So 99 Walks is a movement to get, we are very focused on women in 99 Walks. So our mission is to get a million women walking. And we do that with a wonderful walk tracker and these monthly challenges. And we reward our members with what we call wearable inspiration, which is a tangible reminder of the goals that you have accomplished at the end of the month. Uh, and building this very powerful, supportive and wonderful community. And along the way we're trying to educate people as well.

Allan (20:26):
Yeah. And I think that's one of the key things here is this is about being, you know, kind of a healthier, better, happier person. Not because you're out there, you know, speed walking for three hours. But you're just getting out and you're in a community, rather you're walking particularly with people around you in your local area or you know, virtually by having friends online that you know, are going through similar things. It's just getting out for that, you know, that 5, 10, 15 maybe 30 minutes each day as a part of, or at least several times during the month as you set your goals to just trying to do that for yourself. That self care that we struggle with.

Joyce (21:04):
It's always, and you know this from the fitness world, it always starts with the mindset and the mood because when people start moving, you don't see physical changes or physical benefits for some period of time if that's your goal. But if you are really tapped in and paying attention to how you feel and how your brain is working, you'll realize that you feel better from day one of getting yourself moving. I assume you've seen this with clients and with other people, right?

Allan (21:34):
Oh yeah. Yeah. I have some clients here that prior to working with me had like zero exercise at all. You know they might walk around a little bit here over around town, but really not a lot. Um, and you get them into a program and the first day they're just, you know, they're just dad on their feet. They're struggling to do any of the exercises and then you're, you're sitting with them, you know, a month later, yeah, they're pumping out reps, you know, they're not getting winded. They're, they're smiling while they're doing some of the work. They're joking while we're going through some of the exercises and um, you know, so there is this kind of boost and it's not just a physical thing. It's really this emotional, they leave feeling better, not just about themselves, but just feeling better in general. There's a, just a wellness that comes out of movement. It's just really hard to explain until you've experienced it.

Joyce (22:28):
Exactly. That's exactly it. And then with 99 Walks, my hope is that we can encourage people who, who haven't had that feeling, who don't know how much better they can feel simply by moving their body and connecting with other people.

Allan (22:44):
And so start with the first walk. Just get that first one done? But by the time you get the 99 Walks in, I do believe that they're going to see some exceptional change in their lives from a mental perspective and a physical perspective. I define wellness as being the healthiest fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

Joyce (23:06):
Oh just three.

Allan (23:08):
We have to start somewhere and then we can add on later. But yeah, just three please.

Joyce (23:12):
Yeah, the first, and forgive me cause I'm repeating or I'm repeating myself and I'm repeating what we've been talking about, but it's being willing to invest in yourself and that means investing the time and making your wellness in that broad definition a priority. And the second I think is being willing to do the work. One of the things that I've come to really accept in my life over the last many years of hard work is that everything takes work. Whether it's happiness, people think that happiness is a destination and you can get there and you can just hang out. But the truth is happiness takes ongoing, consistent work to do the things that lead to happiness. Fitness, wellness, those things take work. It's a lot easier to pick up the fast food than it is to go home and wash the kale. It just takes work. And the third is, and this is really important, is surrounding yourself with people who are like minded in that way. I have a section in the book called people are like bananas, which is one of my favorite expressions, but it goes to the fact that you will inevitably take on some of the characteristics of the people with whom you surround yourself. So if you are surrounding yourself with people who don't take care of themselves with people who are not happy with people who don't prioritize wellness, you're going to take on some of those characteristics to your own detriment. Well, thank you Joyce.

Allan (24:50):
If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book and what you're doing over at 99 Walks, where would you like me to send them?

Joyce (24:58):
Well, the book is available on Amazon so you can just head over to Amazon and search, Walk Your Way to Better. I am available on social media and all the channels that Joyce R Shullman, and to learn more about 99 Walks and our movement, you can find us online 99walks.fit and the 99 Walks app is available both Amazon and Android.

Allan (25:20):
So they can get the book, they can contact a local friend and say, Hey friend, I bought you a copy too. We're going to do this. And when they get their book they can, they can start their 99 Walks. So Joyce, thank you so much for being a part of 40 plus fitness. Uh, if you guys want to get the links, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/429. So Joyce again, sorry. Thank you so much for being a part of 40 plus fitness.

Joyce (25:43):
Absolutely. My pleasure. Allan, thanks so much.

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The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Barbara Costello	– Judy Murphy	– Melissa Cardinali
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Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Barbara Costello	– Judy Murphy	– Melissa Cardinali
– Bill Gioftsidis	– Leigh Tanner	– Tim Alexander
– Debbie Ralston	– Margaret Bakalian	– Wendy Selman

Thank you!

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Hello and welcome to today's podcast. I am so glad you're here. Thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to talk about 9 keys to being fit after 40. You know, there's a lot of folks out there that you'll see and they, they seem really, really fit and they're over 40. You know, you have to ask yourself, what are these people doing that's allowing them to accomplish this? I was having a conversation with a guy at the gym, you know, we're both over 40. He's an excellent shape. He does the CrossFit style type workouts. And so I was, I was just asking him about it and what he was doing in his training and where he was getting his training materials from. They're always varied, different workouts.

And, he enjoys doing them and that's cool. And he's really good at it and he enjoys it and it's a different kind of fit than I am. I'm more of this strong, slow, I can carry heavy stuff. I can do all the things I want to do. And so we have a different mindset of what fitness is. And we get to talking about that a little bit because he was thinking he might want to get into competition. Now if you're not familiar with the CrossFit competitions, they're quite intense. Uh, and I was explaining to them, I said, you know, the last time I saw one of the, uh, the big ones, uh, the guys that were over 40, the masters level athletes, they were just in tremendous shape. I mean, the things they were doing was just actually quite insane. And we even got into that, why are they doing all of these insane things, over the age of 40, over the age of 50, that, you know, I would say even 20 years ago, no one would've dreamed someone over that age would be doing things.

And we see this every day and I do like sharing these in the Facebook group. If you're not a member, you should go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group. I share all kinds of information, and if I see a 72-year-old woman doing a deadlift that's over her body weight. Yeah, I'm going to probably share that because it's pretty cool. But there's different looks and feels to fitness and I said it in the book, The Wellness Roadmap, and I'll say it again. Fitness is not a look. Fitness is about you being fit to task. So I think that's the first key for you to pick up on as we kind of go through this whole view of fitness is that fitness is not a look. A fit grandmother is someone who's able to be a great grandmother to her children.

She's able to do the things that they want to do. She's able to get out and be with them. She's able to provide for them. She's able to be the person she needs to be, that's her fitness. For someone like my friend Glen who wants to compete in CrossFit games, he is going to push himself a lot harder and that might not be entirely healthy, which is another whole other conversation we could be having. Being fit doesn't necessarily mean you're healthy. And that's why I call it wellness of having all three. So fitness is not necessarily a look, it's a way you feel, the way you're able to do the things you want to do. And to this point, I am there and will I always be there? I don't know. You know, like I said, I want to be the a hundred guy who is 105 who can wipe his own butt.

I want to be independent. I want to be able to take care of and help my family and my wife. I don't want to be dependent on others. And so my fitness regime is based around those things. So one of the big things when I go into fitness is do no harm. So as I'm lifting, I'm trying to make sure that I'm not hurting myself. I'm only making myself stronger or maintaining strength in certain areas. The other work that I do is about just trying to avoid injury and staying fit. So that's one thing. People who are fit are doing, they're not evaluating themselves relative to other people. They're not trying to compete against their 20 year old selves. They're doing what's necessary to be fit to task. The second thing is they have a focus. It's very easy for people to get into a kind of a routine, a habit, or they show up at the gym or they do their morning thing.

They do their run, they do their, maybe there's some lifting, but they just are kind of putting it all together. They walk into a gym or they walk into a workout either doing the same exact thing they do almost every time, or they come into the gym and they really don't have a plan at all. You'll see a lot of this now, it's a lot more common to go into a gym and see that half the people are sitting there looking at their phones. Now, if they're looking at their phones because they're trying to figure out what their next set is, or they've got a timer, then that's cool. But most of the time we know that's not what they're doing. They're texting their friend, they're doing this. Real fitness is going to come from application. It's going to come from being engaged in what you're doing.

Your muscles will improve better if you're focused on the movements that you're doing. So if you are a runner looking and feeling about your form and making sure that it's not breaking down versus just a mindless run, you're going to do better in fitness if you're focused on the form and the feel and the things that are going on in your body then if you're listening to a podcast or doing something else, listening to music. Sometimes that lack of focus is preventing you from reaching a level of fitness that you're interested in reaching. You know, when I go in the gym to work out, I actually like to go in there and when there's no one else there because otherwise my full introvertness comes out. And, you know, I don't talk to anybody during my workout. I don't like to talk to people during my sets.

I don't like to talk to people during my breaks. I don't like to talk at all during that time when I'm lifting. If I'm in there lifting, I'm lifting. So I actually go into my gym when no one else is there and do my own lifting. That allows me to have just complete focus on task. I don't have to do anything else. So that's the second key, focus. The third key is intensity. If you're not pushing yourself and being intense and purposeful and it's a little bit different than focus. Focus is staying engaged in what you're doing. The intensity means that while you're doing work, there's some effort to it. There's some, there's some push to it. You're finding that that line of discomfort, you're going outside of your comfort zone. So people who are really building good fitness are always right at the edge.

So there's an intensity to the work they're doing. Now they don't always stay at that edge and we'll talk a little bit about that. Then the next point. But they do have that edge, you know, they're the ones that are actually going to be very kind of happy about having a PR. Now when we talk about PR, that's a personal record. It doesn't have to be something huge and massive. But cutting 10 seconds off of your one mile walk can be great. That means you maybe, you extended your gate a little bit, you extended your speed, your pace, taking a different route and going up a, a route that has a Hill that makes that walk a little bit more difficult. There's an intensity to that purpose. So finding that opportunity to incorporate intensity into your work is going to make things a lot better when I'm working out with clients.

Now, you know, I'll get them in there and I'll add more weight and I'll be kind of pushing them while they're doing it. You know, a lot of folks they'll get in and it's hard. And they'll want to stop right at that line where it starts getting uncomfortable. And that's actually where some of the best stuff is happening. So having a little bit of intensity in the work you're doing is really, really important. The fourth point is balance. When you go into a work deal that you're going to do a workout, just, just recognizing that your, your body is an organism that can break. And it is an organism that needs to recover and rest and it's an organism that's capable of a lot of different things. But if you go in and do the same work, the same type of work all the time, you're not going to have balance in your fitness.

So if you're just going out and doing running, that's great. If you love cardiovascular training, perfect. If cardiovascular or stamina is something that's very, very important to you as a, what's your fitness should mean, perfect. But you still need to be working on those other things. You need be working on strength. You need to be working on balance. You need to be working on your mobility and flexibility. Those are very important as well. And if you're not putting balance into your fitness regime, you're getting very one sided. And that's, that's an opportunity for injury. And also means you're probably not going to be as fit as you could be because you really weren't focused on the other aspects of training. One really good way to make sure that you're getting balance is for you to kind of look at periodization. And what I mean by that is where you'll take time to say, okay, this is my running season and then I'm not going to run during my off season and give my body a time to recover.

All professional athletes do that. They have their season when they're on and they're working really, really hard. They play their season and then after their season's over, they have a recovery period. They have a time when they're doing something else. They're probably working on repairing injuries or probably working on, you know, mobility and flexibility. They're training other aspects of what they do. Not necessarily that directly in relationship to the athletic event that they're involved in. So making sure that you have balance in your training is also very important. Okay the next one, which I guess is number five is going to be patients. You've gotta be patient in this game for fitness. Our bodies will respond to stimulus. If you stimulate a muscle and you give it adequate nutrition and adequate rest, it will get stronger. But you've got to have the patients to know that that's not necessarily going to happen in a linear fashion and it won't always go up and it won't always be large increments.

You know, one of the, one of the difficulties in running a gym and working with people is that, you know, at first they're using smaller dumbbells and that's, you know, okay, cool. It makes sense. But the difference between say a five and an eight is significant in percentage wise. It doesn't seem like a lot that extra three pounds, but when you look at it from a, what you can do with five pounds versus what you can do with eight, it's a pretty big jump. And even when you get up to weights, like we're dealing with, uh, you know, 10 and 15 and 20, those are still huge, huge jumps in volume of work. And so it's really hard. A lot of times for new trainees or trainings that haven't been around to recognize that those jumps from 15 to 20 are huge and to have the patience to keep working through.

And sometimes you're not necessarily gonna get all the reps you want to get, but just kind of working through that process of saying, I'm going to get there. Maybe you're doing a body weight squat and you'd really like to start adding some resistance. Have the patients to really get the form down on the body weight squat, have the patients to get your strength up and to keep your form. And once you've built that strength, once you've built that mind body connection, that neuromuscular connection and your body's moving the way it's supposed to, all that's going to happen. But you have to have the patience to work through this process and then recognize again, strength gains, speed gains, distance gains, all the gains that you would see in the fitness game are not linear. You're not going to get better in a linear fashion.

There's going to be really great periods of time when things are going really good. There's going to be times when things level out. And that's just the normal state of the human body. We never function in a straight line. You don't lose weight and straight line, you don't get stronger in a straight line. None of that works that way. It's always going to be kind of up and down. You want to look at basic trends and you want to be smart about it. So have the patients. The next item is also very important as part of the three P's that I talk about in the book. The Wellness Roadmap. It's the persistence and consistency. So a lot of people will come in the gym, uh, in January, you know, new year's resolutions and they'll hop on that treadmill and they'll go for 45 minutes.

They're exhausted, they go to work, they come back the next day, they come back the next day, they come back the next day. Well, there are about three weeks in and they really haven't seen a move on the scale. You know, they give themselves an excuse to skip a day and they skip that day. And then by skipping that day, they didn't maybe skip the next day. And so they're, they're not persistent. They're not consistent, so they're not going to see improvement because they really haven't done anything long enough to give their body the stimulus to say, Oh, I'm a runner, or Oh, I need to be ready to do this energy output each day and manage that. All our people will go in and they'll lift weights and they'll get delayed onset muscle soreness. We call that Dom's for short. They'll get DOMS, it hurts. It hurts a lot. And that'll be enough for a lot of people to just quit.

They'll say, Oh, I don't like the pain, that hurt. Or worst case, you get a small injury, little tweak to a hamstring or you know, your shoulder starting to feel a little wonky. And rather than having the persistence and consistency to work around that injury, you know, you still can work your legs if you have a trouble with your shoulder, you can still probably work your back and maybe your arms, maybe your chest, but you don't, you know, you can work around a lot of these things if you're smart about it, but you still have to stick in there and do the work. Even if it's a situation where, okay, yeah, you kinda tweaked your shoulder or you're feeling a little bit sore in the elbow, maybe we avoid the weights for a period of time when we focused on a different modality.

Maybe it's time for you to do some high intensity interval training with a little more sprint work. We can do that on the exercise bike. We can do that on the elliptical. And we do that for a few weeks to kind of build some stamina while we're waiting for the elbow to recover. But that's persistence and that's consistency. That's still showing up for your fitness and you have to do that or you're not going to be fit over 40. Number seven is the third P in that I have in the wellness roadmap and that's progression. We want to make sure that what we're doing is adding value and there's going to be a point when your body gets to a given strength and you can go do a given weight. I see this in circuit training a lot. People will go up to the circuit training machines and they're always on the third peg for this machine, the fourth peg for that machine and the first peg for this one and the seventh peg for this machine.

And they go around and they set their pegs in the same hole every single time they do that machine. That's great that they're getting the exercise. I'm really happy to see them in the gym working, but the majority of the people that are doing this aren't getting any stronger in the initial peg hole that they put themselves in is not going to be the level of fitness that they really want. They're going through the motions. I don't mean any disrespect for this, but we used to call these Barbie workouts and that's where you'd see the young girls come in and they'd pick up the three pound weights and start doing curls. Number one, biceps of smallest muscle you could possibly want to work for any duration, and because they're not going to do much value for you. And number two, the amount of weight then resistance they were using wasn't going to do anything.

And their concern was that they were going to get big and bulky, not gonna happen, not gonna happen for a woman. And definitely probably not even going to happen for a man over the age of 40, unless you really put in some intense work and focus on muscle building. It's not easy for us to gain muscle over the age of 40. So don't be afraid that you're going to get bulky, uh, put some progression in there. Get stronger. This is only going to help you as you get older if you're working on runs, be smart about how you do your long runs in your short runs. So that you're building a slow progression to get yourself ready for the running season. I use the term gentle nudges and I mean that your progressions should be these normal little small increments. As I said earlier, we're talking about smaller dumbbells that can actually be very difficult to do.

So it's a function of recognizing I do some sets at 20, maybe I drop back to my fifteens for my second and third set. That's cool. You're still giving yourself those gentle nudges to allow your body to get stronger. If you're doing your runs, you're looking at adding some volume to a run, but never adding much more than 10%. Uh, that's kind of a rule of thumb. Your long runs should never be more than 10% more than any other time that you were doing. And we kind of use that in bodybuilding, weightlifting resistance training as well. But in a general sense, you want these gentle nudges that are going to allow your body to have the stimulus that it needs to get stronger. A gentle nudge of progression tells your body, Hey, there's more requirement here. We're going to have to work harder next time and your body responds positively to that by getting stronger.

The eighth one is recovery, and this is one that's really hard for a lot of people. More is not better. You know, I have a workout program that I do with some group trainings and we do a full body workout twice a week, and invariably every time I talk to somebody about twice a week, they're like, Oh, well I should do this program on the days I'm not training with you. No, you should not do this program. This is a strength program that requires the stimulus, the nutrition, and then of course, the recovery. The recovery is as important, if not more important than the work. If you could imagine that you did a whole bunch of work, say you were setting a foundation for a home and you spent all this time laying the concrete and you didn't let the concrete set before you started building on top of it, obviously your foundation is not going to be there because you didn't allow it to set.

And so when you're working, you're building muscle, you're cutting muscle down. You need to give it time to recover and to rebuild. So recovery time is very, very important overall across your workouts, making sure that you do the work and you have the recovery time. Two other functions of recovery are as you're doing work, recognizing that there's times when breaks are important. We see this in high intensity interval training where there is a break period that's allowing your body to basically recover a little bit. We see this in resistance training where we'll do a set and then we'll have a little rest period. It could be for a minute, two minutes. It's really just time to let your energy systems reset and be ready to give you maximum output for the next set. So those little bits of recovery.

And then the final one I want to talk about is sleep. Sleep is hugely important to balancing your hormones, making sure you're giving your body what it wants. Most of the good stuff that happens in our body happens when we're asleep. Our brain refreshes, our body refreshes. All these things are really, really good for us. So recovery and sleep, hugely important if you want to remain fit. If you push yourself and you don't allow yourself to recover, you're going to start dealing with cortisol problems. You're gonna start dealing with other things and you're not going to reach your fitness goals. You're just not. Recovery is as important as the work. And then you see, we just had, uh, seven points that were all built around work. And I'm giving you the one recovery, but want to be very clear. Recovery is hugely, hugely important. It's as important as those others. You have to make sure you're doing the work, but you have to make sure that you're getting the recovery your body needs. So listen to your body. Uh, never should it tell you to quit, quit, and never come back. But if it's telling you you need an extra day, if its telling you you need a little bit extra sleep, the sleep, the recovery are important. So listen to your body when that's what you're hearing.

So the final point is to wellness. As I mentioned before, a lot of people will really push fitness goals and they'll push themselves to a point where they're being unhealthy. They'll push themselves to a point where they're being unhappy. If you find yourself in the gym comparing yourself to other people, you're never going to be happy with that result. You just aren't, we, we are all built on our bell curve. There's going to be a percentage of us that are outliers. You know, I see it on Facebook all the time. You know, these guys going out there and bench pressing 450 pounds, they're older than me and you know, if I sat there and said, “Oh, I have to be bench pressing 450 pounds.” I would never make it. I'll never bench press 450 pounds. I know physically it's probably outside the means of what I ever was capable of doing. But even if I took the time to do the training, I'm pretty sure soon as I found someone who is doing 450 like me and I got past 450, there'd be someone else doing 500. And so the comparisons to other people are really going to break down your happiness. And so I want you to start comparing yourself to the person you were yesterday or last year. Those are better comparisons. Maintaining your strength as we get older is a win.

We're dealing with sarcopenia, we're dealing with osteopenia. Uh, we are losing strength every single year unless we're doing something to prevent that. So if you are maintaining or getting stronger in your lifts, that's a huge, huge plus. If you're getting better times on your runs or at least maintaining your runs, that's a win. There's a natural aging curve. And if we're doing things to break down that, that aging curve, that's a fitness win and we should be very happy about that. So don't compare yourself with others. Compare yourself with who you are, who you know you should be. And then as far as the health aspects of it, you should never let your push to fitness break down your push to health. They're both equally important. They're all happiness, health and fitness, all three legs of a stool. And we have to have all of them in equal proportion or just not going to be whole.

We're not going to be well. So don't let fitness overrule those other two. You need to make sure there's balance in your life as well as balance in your work. So as you'd go through the process here, I'm going to recap just a little bit, but you know the keys to being fit after 40, they're not hard. It's just a function of saying you've got to do the work, you've got to get the recovery and you got to make sure it fits within the paradigm of who you are as a person.

So going through them really quickly. Fitness is not a look. Fitness is about being fit to tasks and case in point being 105 and being able to wipe my own butt. That's a good look for me cause I don't want to be the guy who needs help going to the restroom, but I'm not going to look like maybe someone else that you would say was fit. I'm going to be fit for task.

Second is focus. When you do work, focus on the muscles you're working. Focus on the form of what you're doing that's going to help you prevent injuries. That's going to help you get better results. The mind muscle is a huge, huge proponent of making sure that you're building fitness as fast as possible.

Intensity. You need to work hard, you need to make sure you're pushing yourself in a way that when you're doing the work, you're really engaged in that work and you're getting the most out of that work. So focusing on what you're there to do, making sure that you're engaged in it. And then the third one is intensity. You know, this, this is fitness is a push. It's taking you outside of your comfort zone. So there should be some intensity to what you're doing. It's great to do some casual walking here and there. That's great for overall health. It's great for potentially weight loss and other goals that you might have. But slow walking without really putting some intensity to it is not going to improve your fitness. It's going to just basically allow you to age on a standard aging curve.

The third is balance. You know, don't just train one dimensional. Don't just say I'm a strength person, which I could very easily say, I've got to do some balance work. I've got to do some stamina work and I've got to kind of keep those in balance to meet the goals of what I think I should be as, as a fit person. Okay.

The next is patience. Fitness does not just happen and it's not something that you're going to always have. There'll be an injury if you injure yourself, you need to be patient about the recovery. You need to be patient about the time it takes. You need to be doing the, the physical therapy that's necessary and not going out there and immediately trying to get back into the workouts you were doing. Have the patience to listen to your body and do what's right for you.

The next is persistence and consistency. We have to keep showing up. We have to keep working. We can't rest on past. You know, this is not a situation where we, we built up a nest egg that we can now live off for the rest of our lives. Fitness doesn't just stay with us. We have to keep paying in so we have to keep showing up and we have to keep doing the work. Uh, progression. Uh, if we're not progressing, if we're not pushing ourselves toward progression, we're very likely more to regress. That's the aging curve. So making sure you're working towards progression is very important.

The eighth, again, is recovery. And I can't stress this enough if you're working hard, if you're doing the focus, if you're doing the intensity, you're doing all these things you need. Also let your body recover when it's time to recover. So being smart about recovery is really, really important. And then the final is don't let fitness over. Well overdue wellness. Wellness is health, happiness, and fitness. So you want to have all three in your life, so take time for all of them and don't let fitness push you out of those other two.

before you get outta here, I wanted to take just a moment to invite you to our Facebook Group. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group we have weekly challenges. I share all kinds of information there. It's sort of like a way to keep conversation that we have on this podcast going, so if you'll go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group you can join the 40+ Fitness Podcast Group and be a part of a like-minded community. We help each other get where we want to be. We celebrate our wins. We have a good time. I hope you'll come join us. 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch	– John Somsky	– Melissa Cardinali
– Barbara Costello	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander
– Bill Gioftsidis	– Leigh Tanner	– Wendy Selman
– Debbie Ralston	– Melissa Ball

Thank you!

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