Let's Say Hello

[00:02:00.830] – Allan
Hey Raz, how are things going?

[00:02:02.240] – Rachel
Good, Allan, how are you today?

[00:02:05.000] – Allan
I'm on a mend, I'm starting to feel a little bit better, still have almost a whole nother week of quarantine. The way they do it here is, you if you test negative, I mean, test positive, then, yeah, I passed. Then you have to spend two weeks going through quarantine. So, I mean, I have been pretty much locked upstairs at the bed breakfast for a little over a week and a half now. So we're on kind of the wind down days.

[00:02:37.010] – Allan
We're recording this on a Monday and so on Thursday, technically, I think she can go in and get tested. And then Friday would be my day to go back in and get tested. So I'm not sure if we're going to try to go together or how exactly that's going to work out. But anyway, we'll go back and get tested and hopefully everything will be negative then. And we can resume our lives. But yeah, feeling better and slowly getting back on my feet.

[00:03:02.990] – Rachel
Good.

[00:03:03.530] – Allan
Getting things done. Fell way behind on everything.

[00:03:08.210] – Rachel
For sure.

[00:03:08.990] – Allan
But you know, because you can't sleep 20 hours, 16 hours a day and be productive.

[00:03:14.810] – Rachel
Right.

[00:03:17.630] – Allan
I was eating or sleeping. That was pretty much it for about three or four days there, so.

[00:03:24.430] – Rachel
Wow. Well, I'm glad you're feeling a little bit better, and that's good.

[00:03:28.550] – Allan
How are things up there?

[00:03:29.870] – Rachel
Oh, good. We're finally getting some good weather. I'm he acclimating getting ready. I'm looking at my taper now for my fifty miler will be coming up in a couple of weeks. It'll probably be very close to when this airs. So I'm kind of looking at the taper phase right now, just taking it down a notch and getting used to running in the heat so that it's been good.

[00:03:51.050] – Allan
Hydrate.

[00:03:52.220] – Rachel
Yes, lots and lots.

[00:03:55.010] – Allan
Hydrate. Hydrate. And if you need to go back and listen to the last couple episodes, because, you know, there's a couple out there and hydration is one of the keys for making sure that you're in a good state to get your fifty in.

[00:04:08.180] – Rachel
That's for sure. Yeah. Thanks so much.

Interview

[00:04:48.290] – Allan
Sal, welcome to the 40+ Fitness.

[00:04:50.900] – Sal
Awesome. Thanks for having me on.

[00:04:52.250] – Allan
Yeah. You know your book, The Resistance Training Revolution. I think if we stopped right there, you'd lose a lot of people. But then you had this subtitle, so really cool subtitle that says The No Cardio Way to Burn Fat and Age-Proof Your Body in Only 60 Minutes Per Week.

[00:05:08.660] – Sal
Yes.

[00:05:09.230] – Allan
That rings a bell.

[00:05:11.120] – Sal
Yeah. You know, it's funny, the publisher, actually the publisher really wanted that in on the cover. And I was slightly, no pun intended, resistant to it because it sounds a little bit like a lot of the stuff we hear from the fitness space whenever they're trying to market a new diet or new workout plan. But I knew I could back it up with the information in the book. And you're right, resistance training, you know, to people like us in fitness, we know what that means.

[00:05:39.140] – Sal
But the average person. Probably doesn't have an idea, or if they do, it's not the right idea in terms of what I'm talking about. So, we put the whole thing there. So it made sense to people who had it who didn't know.

[00:05:51.190] – Allan
Yeah. And when you get into the book, it'll make a ton of sense to you. Why he put it that way and exactly what we're after here. But let's just kind of dive right on it. You know, a lot of people will hear terms like weightlifting and workout and, you know, they walk into a weight room and honest truth, most of them never make it past the treadmills. You've run a gym. So, you know, the treadmills are always in the front of the gym because that's about as deep as three quarters of the people are going to make it.

[00:06:20.380] – Allan
And they don't really see changes in their body or their health or their fitness over the course of even maybe years of only going that deep into the gym. Why is resistance training so good for us?

[00:06:33.280] – Sal
Well, resistance training, first off, to define it right. It's utilizing resistance in a specific way to build strength and muscle. So it's not just using resistance. Right. It's using it in a way designed to build specifically strength and muscle. So you could, you know, walking uses resistance because you're using your body. So does running, so does swimming. But none of those are done in a fashion to really focus on building strength and muscle. So resistance training, that's kind of the umbrella term.

[00:07:05.830] – Sal
And there's lots of different ways to perform resistance training. In that way, you can use just your body weight, just your body weight can provide most people with sufficient resistance, especially with the right workout plan to elicit those types of things that talk about strength and muscle. You could also use, of course, weights, dumbbells and barbells. You could use machines and resistance bands and pretty much anything that'll give you resistance that you can use in the ways that I outlined can be classified as resistance training.

[00:07:37.570] – Sal
Now, why is it so valuable? Resistance training elicits an adaptation response in the body that is extremely protective and directly counters all of the chronic health issues that are result of the modern lives that we live in. So if you look at modern societies, and especially if you were to compare modern societies to pre modern societies, you would see that we have some pretty unique chronic health issues. The most obvious being obesity. Obesity was largely a non-issue for most of human history.

[00:08:16.930] – Sal
It wasn't a problem. We didn't die from eating too much or having too much body fat just didn't happen. But because we've made food so easily accessible and palatable and because our lives are so extremely sedentary and because and I talk about this in the book, we've become very weak with very little strength and muscle. Obesity now is a reality for a majority of people that live in modern societies. And obesity contributes to quite a few chronic health issues. Diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's, heart disease, the list goes on.

[00:08:56.080] – Sal
And then even without obesity, dementia, Alzheimer's, diabetes, there is a significant portion of people who will suffer from those things who are not obese, but they are also oftentimes the result of modern life. And so understanding this and there's much more that goes into this, right. So modern life is very busy at sedentary. Most people will not dedicate more than two or three days a week of exercise in their schedule. It just doesn't work for most people.

[00:09:24.250] – Sal
I've learned this through decades of training people. When you consider all these factors, there's only one form of exercise that really is effective at helping us. And it's not the one that most people do or the one that most people pick or even the one that most doctors have recommended in the past. The one form of exercise that's best for all of this is resistance training. And of course, a lot of people, when they hear that, especially when I say lifting weights, they picture bodybuilders or people with extreme bodies.

[00:09:54.430] – Sal
And that's unfortunate. And really, that's the result of a lot of misinformation, stereotypes and stigma that are almost entirely false, that really don't apply to the average person. So the goal with the book was to illuminate that to change, to get the average person to understand the value of resistance training and to pick up some weights or do some form of that exercise in pursuit of improving their health or even just to look better.

[00:10:21.820] – Allan
Yeah, and being over 40, you know, you brought this up in the book as well. There's things happening in our body that weight training, resistance training is going to specifically address, such as hormone imbalances, particularly with testosterone. It's going to address some other issues like osteopenia. Can you go a little bit into those benefits,

[00:10:41.900] – Sal
yeah, so let's start with bone loss or bone weakening, which is actually quite a big problem, even it affects men, affects more women, but it also affects men.

[00:10:51.070] – Sal
So this is the weakening of bone, osteopenia. And then, of course, when it gets real bad, it becomes osteoporosis and this can become quite a big problem. Resistance training, remember the the the primary adaptation that resistance training causes in the body. And this is, by the way, a good conversation that we can get into a little later in terms of when you view exercise, you want to look at the workout and then understand the adaptations that the exercise or workout is causing in the body, rather than just looking at the calories burned while performing the exercise.

[00:11:24.640] – Sal
So when we look at the adaptations, which are to build strength and muscle, it also directly does that to bone because muscle anchors at bone. So studies will show that most forms of exercise have some positive effect on bone, but usually it's very little. For example, people with osteopenia, if they run or walk or cycle, they'll notice a little bit of an increase in bone mass in the lower extremities, not much in the upper extremities swimming you'll see really small incremental changes with resistance training.

[00:11:59.860] – Sal
It's like, night and day, like nothing comes close to the bone strengthening effects of resistance training. Now, you mentioned hormones. A lot of people like to hear about this one because, you know, as we get older, we start to feel differently. Maybe libido drops a little bit. It's not as easy for us to burn body fat our skin. Does it look the same? We don't have the same vigor. And some of that is a result of just getting older.

[00:12:25.570] – Sal
And some of that as a result of changes in hormones, for example, and men, testosterone levels start to decline right around in our thirties. And it just continues that way until the day we die. Men and women, aside from menopause, they still get imbalances with estrogen, progesterone. They also have issues with their own testosterone, both men and women. Growth hormone, which some doctors will call the youth hormone, will decline as we get older.

[00:12:55.300] – Sal
And so a lot of people are interested in ways to naturally improve our hormone profile because it makes us feel good, right? If you give an older man testosterone, he starts to feel amazing and younger and has more vigor. If you balance out a woman's hormones artificially through either utilizing estrogen, progesterone or even growth hormone, she'll feel the same way. She'll feel more vigor, younger, more energy. So a lot of people are interested. How can I do that naturally?

[00:13:25.630] – Sal
Well, improving your health generally well can positively affect those, but it's not a huge effect. In fact, some forms of exercise tend to have a negative effect on hormones. For example, cardiovascular activity has been shown in some studies to lower testosterone quite reliably in men, in my experience. And women, especially when women are already present with some hormone imbalances or symptoms of hormone imbalances, cardiovascular activity can actually make that much worse. Resistance training is the only form of exercise that has been shown to reliably raise testosterone in all men.

[00:14:03.190] – Sal
So whether your testosterone is low in the middle or even high, you'll get a raising of testosterone. Not only that, but it also increases the density of androgen receptors in the body. So these are the receptors that testosterone attaches to. So you want to think of testosterone. It's like a key and the receptor is a lock. And if you have a lot of testosterone but you don't have very many of these locks, it's not going to do much in your body.

[00:14:26.890] – Sal
So more androgen receptors makes your testosterone just more effective. Well, resistance training not only raises testosterone, but also increases androgen receptor density. In women, It's been shown to balance out estrogen and progesterone. In both men and women, It raises growth hormone levels, brings them up to more youthful levels. In both men and women, muscle is by far the most effective way to improve insulin sensitivity, which is a very important thing, right? Insensitivity is insulin or insulin resistance ultimately causes things like diabetes.

[00:15:04.060] – Sal
It leads to cognitive dysfunction, excess body fat storage, especially in places that may be in store body fat before. So if you notice, as you get older, you as you gain weight, you notice your body fat is kind of being stored a little bit differently, could be result of hormone imbalances or insulin resistance. And so resistance training positively affects all these things. And so you might wonder why why does why does lifting weights or using resistance bands or doing body weight exercises to build muscle strength, why does that have such a positive effect on our hormones.

[00:15:38.620] – Sal
Again, it has to do with the specific adaptations that it asked the body to do so resistance training really is the only form of exercise that we could categorize as being pro tissue. So pro tissue in the body. Most other forms of exercise and in particular cardiovascular exercise, which includes running, swimming, cycling and those kinds of workouts. Those are anti-tissue. They tend to be, they want your body to get rid of active tissue. So let's start with that for a second.

[00:16:14.530] – Sal
So what does that mean? When you do lots of cardiovascular activity, when do you do any form of exercise? Your body aims at becoming better at that form of exercise. And so it adapts. That's an adaptation process, right. So if you go running and it's your first time, it's really challenging. A half a mile is very exhausting to you. Your muscles burn, your lungs burns really hard. Your body senses this. It's a stress.

[00:16:40.180] – Sal
It's a stress on the body. And everybody says, OK, we need to get better at doing this so that next time the same insult, the same stress won't bother us as much. And so you become more fit. You get better at that type of exercise. That's what adaptation is. Now, what does specifically speaking, what does what happens to the body when your body is trying to get better at endurance type activity, which is what cardiovascular exercise is, whether you're on an elliptical or running or riding a bike.

[00:17:13.050] – Sal
In order to get better at endurance exercise, it does a few different things. One is it learns to become more efficient with energy or more efficient with calories, OK, because cardiovascular activity burns a lot of calories during the time that you're doing it. So during an hour of cardio, you're going to burn more calories than doing an hour of other forms of exercise. So within that hour of exercise, you're burning all these calories. Your body's like, OK, we need to get better at being efficient with calories, not unlike a car that could adapt to your driving habits, becoming more of a hybrid or a one cylinder engine trying to burn less gasoline.

[00:17:52.980] – Sal
Also simultaneously, your body says we need stamina, but we also don't need strength. We just don't need much strength at all. We just need endurance. And so what your body does is it actually reduces muscle mass. Studies are very, they show this very clearly that if you lose weight through diet and cardio, so if that's your formula, that roughly half of the weight that you lose will be muscle mass. So in other words, if you lose 10 pounds, five of it will be body fat.

[00:18:25.950] – Sal
Five of it will be muscle. And what this does is it slows down the metabolism, makes you more efficient with your calorie burn, and it makes you better at cardiovascular activity. And so over time, your body burns less calories. You'll notice at first you lost weight and then you stop losing weight and you plateaus how people experience cardio with diet when it comes to weight loss and they end up with a slower metabolism. But nonetheless, one of the primary adaptations is even right out the gates is to reduce muscle mass to make you better and more efficient at this particular activity.

[00:19:00.190] – Sal
So it's anti tissue. OK, now think of the hormones that are involved with reducing muscle mass or at the very least, what hormones would combat muscle loss. Right. What hormones get in the way of losing muscle? Well, testosterone. Testosterone makes your body want to keep muscle. So this may be why cardiovascular exercise or endurance exercise in men has been shown to reliably lower testosterone. Your body wants to get rid of muscle so it can't have all this testosterone floating around.

[00:19:30.360] – Sal
Growth hormone is another one. You start to see over time a reduction in growth hormone. In women, you see a spike in cortisol. Cortisol is great for energy, but it's terrible for muscle. So when your cortisol goes up, you get a little bit hyped and energy. This is the fight or flight hormone, but over time it burns away muscle, making you more efficient at your activity. So anti tissue. OK, now let's look at resistance training, resistance training while you're performing, you don't burn a ton of calories, at least not in comparison to other forms of exercise.

[00:19:58.140] – Sal
But that's OK because we're not worried about the calories we're burning in that hour of workout. In fact, even with cardio, it's still insignificant, even though it's more still not that big of a deal. Well, we want to look at is how is this telling my body to change? What are the signals that it's sending to my body? So with resistance training, my body's sensing we need strength and we need muscle. That's what we need right now.

[00:20:19.800] – Sal
We're not worried about being efficient with calories. We're not worried about tons of endurance. We need strength and muscle. And so you end up building muscle as a result. Now, studies show that resistance training in combination with diet. So a lot of these are the same studies you see on cardio. And so we'll compare the two resistance training and diet results in all fat loss or in some cases, you'll see fat loss with a little bit of muscle gain.

[00:20:47.610] – Sal
So if you lose ten pounds doing resistance training, it's all body fat or you might actually gain some muscle in the process. Right. Now, think of the hormones that are involved with building muscle. You need testosterone. You need growth hormone. You need to be sensitive to insulin. Insulin can actually build muscle or when you utilize it efficiently, effectively. We can't have cortisol levels that are too high all the time. And in women, we need a balance of estrogen and progesterone.

[00:21:19.830] – Sal
So through the the adaptation signal, the direct adaptation that resistance training is asking the body to engage in, your body optimizes its own hormones in order to adapt. So resistance training from a hormonal standpoint is incredible. It's superior. So if you want if you're getting older and you want to feel younger through the method of having more youthful levels of hormones, resistance training stands head and shoulders above any other form of exercise.

[00:21:55.140] – Allan
Yeah. Now as we get into this, for someone that hasn't lifted before, I think basic terms can be really important. But beyond that, you had some specific thoughts on pretty much each of the terms that I'm going to bring up. Can you talk a little bit about reps and sets? And why those are important or how we would use those?

[00:22:15.580] – Sal
Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up, too, because I did write the book for there's a few different people that I thought of when I wrote the book, a few avatars. One of them are the coaches and trainers as a way to arm them, because this is something that we're constantly having to communicate and battle with whenever we're talking to potential clients. So it's a great tool. I also thought about primarily the average person, the average person who, when they think of exercise, if their doctor tells them to workout or whatever, they don't think of resistance training.

[00:22:45.130] – Sal
They think of going for a walk or running, swimming or cycling. So they don't know what these terms are. They might have heard reps and sets, but they don't know what they are. So a repetition is when you perform one full motion of the exercise. So let's say I'm doing a curl, right. This would be a curl, like a rep would be bringing it up and then bringing it down. So that's one. So one repetition.

[00:23:06.670] – Sal
A set is a number of repetitions that are performed together before I rest to perform another set. So let's say my workout today consists of 10 reps of the curl. So then I'll do my ten reps. Once I'm done with my 10th rep, I put the weight down. That is a set. So if your workout says, do you know three sets of ten reps of bicep curls, you know, you're supposed to perform this exercise with four, ten reps rest and that's one set.

[00:23:39.790] – Sal
And then repeat that two more times.

[00:23:42.010] – Allan
OK, another phrase you got into was range of motion. And I think this is an area that's really, really important because using proper range of motion can be huge. And I see so many people in the gym that they don't. And so can you talk a little bit about what range of motion is within the doing the exercise and how that's important to us?

[00:24:04.330] – Sal
Yeah, so range of motion really just refers to when you're doing the rep, you know how far you go down, how far you go up. So just to put it quite plainly, right. So again, to do the curl all the way down, all the way up, that's my range of motion. Now, range of motion, there is an ideal range of motion for every exercise, but there's also a range of motion that's individual to the person when they're working out. The best way to get the best results, to gain the best results, the best benefits, all the benefits of resistance training,

[00:24:39.370] – Sal
You want to train in a full range of motion that you own for your body. In other words, the range of motion that you have control and stability over. OK, so if I'm doing a squat, for example, and I can go all the way down and go all the way up, but with good control, good stability, I have you know, I'm connected to my muscles and I feel like I'm in control in the entire rep, then that's the best range of motion for.

[00:25:06.550] – Sal
Now, let's say you're doing a squat and I could go all the way down and all the way up. But at the bottom, my low back rounds and my knees cave in a little bit and I just don't have lots of stability at the bottom. Well, that's a range of motion. You shouldn't train and we're going to stop you and have you trained above that. So essentially, you want to train within your fullest range of motion to the fullest range of motion that you have the most control and stability in.

[00:25:30.820] – Allan
now doing so, you'll gain strength within that range of motion. And if you find that you can't perform a full range of motion because you don't have the control and stability over time, challenging yourself again within reason will elongate your range of motion and will increase the range of motion. So there's a common myth around resistance training that it is not a good form of exercise for flexibility. It's not a good form of exercise for mobility. And it makes us tight.

[00:26:02.860] – Sal
Right. People say, oh, if you lift weights or you do lots of resistance training, it's going to make you really stiff and tight. In that myth. And it is a myth. It's a complete myth. Probably comes from the extreme bodybuilders that work out and they move around like they can't move very well. And in popular media probably doesn't help when bodybuilders or people with big muscles are depicted in movies, are typically depicted as being very stiff and very tight.

[00:26:28.750] – Sal
The truth is, resistance training is one of the best forms of exercise for functional flexibility. OK. So functional flexibility is the flexibility that you have strength and control over. Right. So flexibility is just range of motion. Functional flexibility is, do I own that range of motion? Am I strong in that range of motion? So to give you an example, I have a six month old baby at home. Right. So new baby, six months old.

[00:26:58.870] – Sal
He's very flexible, like most babies. I mean, I could take his legs and I can put them up by his head and put them in the splits. And it's no problem. But he has very little functional flexibility. In fact, he's very unstable. So although I can take his legs and bend them all over the place, he would be prone to injury if you were to try to move within those ranges of motion or even with load, right.

[00:27:19.310] – Sal
He's got very little control. Resistance training because you're training with resistance to strengthen your body as you train within your ranges of motion and as those ranges of motion improve and increase, you own them, you control them and you're strong within them. So it's the difference between somebody who can sit in a squat versus someone who can sit in a squat and their kid can jump on them and it doesn't hurt them or they can jump out of the squat and it doesn't bother them or they can hold something or they can do it with load.

[00:27:49.970] – Sal
So functional flexibility, which is the kind of flexibility that you need when none of us need extreme ranges of motion, you know it's not doing the splits is cool. But the average person, there's really not a lot of value in doing the splits, but there is a lot of value in being able to twist and turn and bend over and lift a box and move the couch and play with your kids. And, you know, you step off a curb and catch yourself.

[00:28:15.650] – Sal
Those are all functional flexibility. And that's what resistance training provides that other forms of exercise really don't. They don't provide resistance within ranges of motion, or at least not in a way that builds strength within those ranges of motion.

[00:28:28.670] – Allan
Yeah, the way I like to put it is I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105, you know, which is a twist and it's a stand up from a seated position all on my own without a bar, without assistance. So and I think that's really important because as we look at strength training through the full range of motion means every rep, you're going to get more value out of it.

[00:28:51.230] – Sal
Right.

[00:28:51.520] – Allan
Not wasting energy, going in there, doing half motions.

[00:28:54.380] – Allan
You're actually getting the most out of that exercise. Another term that I think is really important when we're talking about the value of a rep is tempo. Can you talk about tempo?

[00:29:05.390] – Sal
Tempo is just refers to the speed that you perform the repetition, really. So back to the curl, right, if it takes me three seconds to go down, three seconds to go up and maybe a one second pause at the top or whatever, that would be referred to as a three one three tempo or whatever, we don't get that complicated. The average person does, it's not that not super important. What's important is to know that you want a controlled tempo.

[00:29:32.790] – Sal
When you do resistance training, OK, so there are definitely cases where a fast tempo is valuable, but really that's relegated to athletes who need speed and power. The average person, there's not a ton of value in doing fast repetitions. They tend to increase risk and oftentimes decrease what's called the tension on the muscles of someone not as good a results. Right. So you want a controlled tempo. I tend to tell people you want to take at least three seconds on the way down and at least three seconds on the way up.

[00:30:08.290] – Sal
Just you want to be controlled. So if I'm doing an overhead press, I'm pressing like this and then coming down, rather than throwing it up and down and having kind of this loose tempo and tempo is important. Like I said, it reduces risk and it stimulates the muscle and the body in a more effective way. So generally speaking, for most people, for most people's results, especially if your goal is fat loss, health, sculpting your body, you want a controlled tempo.

[00:30:35.350] – Allan
Yeah. Because otherwise momentum's doing a lot of the work for you and you're not really in control of that weight, which is kind of dangerous. And then the final one where I think people really struggle is the concepts of intensity and failure. And I kind of lump those two a little bit more together. But you talked about them separately in the book. Can you talk a little bit about intensity and failure and why we've got to find the right mix of those and why failure isn't really the goal?

[00:31:03.550] – Allan
Like you would have heard this in the past. No, no pain, no gain. You know, you've got to train to failure if you want to grow. All those were kind of mantras in the gym 40 years, 30 years ago. And I still hear them today. And so that's kind of what's kind of scary is even in my 40s and 50s, there's still people training that way.

[00:31:23.800] – Sal
Yeah, intensity is an important factor in your workout, right. Because it needs to be hard enough. So that your body thinks that it needs to adapt in order to get better, otherwise your body has no reason to adapt and adaptation takes energy, it changes your body. And your body doesn't do that for no reason, especially not building muscle. Muscles are expensive tissue. You're only ever going to have as much muscle and strength as your body thinks you need.

[00:31:51.490] – Sal
You'll never have more than it thinks you need. It costs calories. It takes up energy. Remember, we evolved for the most part in environments where calories are very difficult to come by. So your body doesn't want to just make you burn more calories for no reason. It's going to need a reason to. So intensity is important because I have to give my body a reason and intensity is part of the formula in order to change. OK, so that's true.

[00:32:19.420] – Sal
So there's a vein of truth in the no pain, no gain slogan. Now, the problem is people take it way too far. And the problem is that the intensity is quite individual. And what I mean by that is if I take somebody who's never worked out, it takes very little intensity to get their body to change. Their body is used to doing nothing. And so a few sets of body weight squats at a moderate intensity where they can feel it a little bit, they can feel their legs burn a little bit.

[00:32:48.130] – Sal
That's about it. That's enough. That's enough to get their body to change. Now, somebody who's extremely advanced, who's been training for years, who's very strong or very fit and gotten their body to a very high level, to get their body to change even more, they're probably going to have to train much harder than the person I talked about earlier, because their bodies again, it needs a reason. It's already adapted to a certain level of intensity and whatever.

[00:33:14.590] – Sal
To go any further, I need to find ways to train harder or to send a different signal. By the way, and this is true for intensity, but also for how long you work out, how many exercises you do and all that stuff. The right dose for your body is going to get you there the fastest. More than that won't get you there faster. In fact, it'll get you there slower. And sometimes you won't get there at all.

[00:33:40.680] – Sal
And less than that will get you there slower. So it's the right dose. More not good, less not good. And the right dose is different from person to person. And it's different for you as your fitness improves, as you start to get better at the workout. So remember that. So the when you go into workout or you're working out your training, think about what have I done before, oh, I'm just getting started. It's not going to take much.

[00:34:08.280] – Sal
Now, some people have trouble with this. And they said, well, how do I gauge, you know, the right intensity? One way to know that you might have gone too hard is by if you're sore, if you get muscle soreness. Now, most people think muscle soreness indicates that they had a good workout. So if I get really saw that was a great workout. I worked out my legs and I can barely walk today. That means I must have had a great workout.

[00:34:33.690] – Sal
It's actually the opposite. You should you should feel no to little soreness after your workout. In fact, my goal with people is to have them feel no soreness when they're training. Now, that's pretty hard because once you're kind of testing the intensity, you might go over a little bit and get a little sore. And that's OK to get a little sore. But if your soreness lasts longer than a day, you went too hard. You need to back off a little bit.

[00:34:56.050] – Sal
Now, you mentioned failure. Failure is a term that's used in fitness and resistance training to mean that you lifted a weight or didn't exercise until you could no longer perform another repetition of that exercise. Right. So back to Curls, right. If I did Curls to failure, well, I'm just going to keep going until I can't curl the dumbbell with good form anymore. And so now I've hit failure. And so the value that has been preached around failure is well, if you're trying to figure out what the right intensity is, then, you know, you've at least hit it if you've gone to failure because there's nothing beyond that.

[00:35:32.560] – Sal
And so you're going to be OK. But remember what I said. If you go too hard, you'll get there a little slower. Now, studies also show that failure, even for people who train at an advanced level, is usually too much intensity. In fact, it stresses the body too much and it results in this prioritization of healing rather than adaptation. So what are those two things? Healing is recovery. OK, so let's step away from exercise for a second and let's just talk about skin.

[00:36:04.330] – Sal
So let's say I handle a rough object and I, I scratch my skin or I make my skin a little raw on my hand so my body will heal the skin. That's the healing part. That's the recovery part. And then when it's done with that, my body may say, let's make this skin tougher so that next time it's not going to cause the same damage. And so then I start to develop a callus. Right. The callus is adaptation.

[00:36:34.360] – Sal
The healing was just getting me back to where I was before. Well, if you train with too much intensity or too long or too hard for your body, your body will only prioritize healing because that's what it has to do. It has to heal. And it can't even think about getting resources to add new tissue, to add muscle or to get you to adapt. And so what ends up happening when you do this is you end up getting really sore or tired and then you heal and then you go back to the gym again and do the same thing over and over again and you never improve.

[00:37:07.360] – Sal
So it's like I get sore, my soreness goes away, I work out, I get sore, soreness goes away. Nothing changes. I don't get stronger. I don't really build any muscle. I don't really burn body fat. I'm just cause it's like, again, like the skin. I'm just constantly waiting for it to heal and then I mess with it again, never allowing my skin to develop a callus. So that's why it's very important to be judicious with your intensity and to apply the right intensity.

[00:37:34.840] – Sal
If your goal is to get your body to change and adapt, then do it smart. Don't just do it hard.

[00:37:42.710] – Allan
Now, I want to get into one more concept before we get into the actual what the workouts are kind of about in this, I thought I thought this was brilliant in talking about why people don't follow through. You know, they'll start a training program. They'll say they want to lose weight. And then they don't necessarily follow through. In the first day, you know, they sign that gym membership and they buy the 12 lessons and, you know, they're ready to go.

[00:38:08.330] – Allan
And they make the first lessons and then they're ready to quit three weeks. You called this motivation versus discipline. I mean, you know, the two concepts of why motivation doesn't serve us, but discipline does. Can you talk about those two concepts and how we can put that and get the right mindset going into the gym or in our home gym?

[00:38:27.710] – Sal
Yeah. We're especially when it comes to fitness, we are obsessed. The average person is obsessed with motivation and the fitness industry doesn't help this. It promotes motivation is the key to long term fitness success. So everything is market around that. It's exciting. It's fun. It's motivating. We're here to inspire you and all that stuff. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with motivation. I love feeling motivated like anybody else. It's an incredible feeling.

[00:39:01.760] – Sal
But like any other state of mind, it's fleeting, OK? It doesn't exist permanently. You can't permanently stay motivated. So the challenge is never, how do I stay consistent with my workout? How do I stay consistent with my nutrition when I'm motivated? That's never an issue. Never. That's not a problem. Never had to convince a motivated client to workout or to eat right? Right. The challenge is when that state of mind goes away like it always does.

[00:39:35.120] – Sal
It always will. It's inevitable. OK, so how do we maintain long-term success? Well, it's not through focusing on motivation. Now, you can welcome motivation when it comes. Have fun with it. That might be when you push a little harder. That might be when you get a little bit more dedicated. That's probably when you can have the most fun doing what you're doing. But really, we want to focus on how do we stay consistent when that goes away.

[00:40:03.830] – Sal
And the way to do that is through developing the skill of discipline. So the good news is that what will keep you consistent is the skill. It's called discipline. And like any skill, you can work on it and make it better. You can actually develop it so that you can have a tremendous sense and skill of discipline. So someone might ask, how the heck do I do that? How do I develop the skill of discipline? Well, to put it plainly, when you're ready to get started and there's a little bit more complexity to this, but I'm going to simplify it. When you're ready to get started on working out, when you're ready to get started with, you know, looking at your diet and maybe cleaning it up, ask yourself the following.

[00:40:51.860] – Sal
What is one step or change I can make now that I know I can maintain forever? And you want to use the context of forever. It's the only way to do this. And you have to be very honest with yourself. OK, remember, by the way, when you're doing this, you're probably in a motivated state of mind. So when people start to do this, they're in that motivated state of mind. Remember that you're in that motivated state of mind.

[00:41:16.880] – Sal
OK, if you ask somebody what their goals are when they're motivated, they're always different than when they're not so motivated. I'm super hyped and, you know, I want to build a business. And what's your goal? I want to be a Millionaire in the next year. And then you ask him five months later on, the motivation goes away and you find that it's much different. Same thing with fitness. Right. So you might remember that you might be motivated state of mind.

[00:41:38.330] – Sal
So talk to your normal self and ask yourself what's one step I can take that I know I can maintain forever now? It still needs to be challenging. So it can't be like an easy step for you because otherwise it doesn't have any meaning. It has to have some kind of meaning, but it does need to be something, you know, you can maintain forever. Start there once you do that consistently and once that becomes something that is now easy and doesn't really require you to utilize your skill of discipline, then you move on to the next step.

[00:42:13.700] – Sal
And this looks very different from person to person. You know, I've had clients where the first step that we took was to have them drink an extra two glasses of water a day. Like that's the first step that we took where I've had clients, where the first step was to read one page from a nutrition book or to do fifteen minutes once a week of exercise. That's the first step that they had. But as you work on this, you actually start to get this kind of

[00:42:41.410] – Sal
a snowball effect, and it starts to happen faster and faster, and what you'll find is, although you won't get those fast initial results like you might when you're hyper motivated and you throw everything at yourself but the kitchen sink, what you'll find is the results have a snowball effect. So although initially you might have seen this with your results, like, oh, I lost 10 pounds and then I plateaued and then, five months later gained it back and then some with this you might start real slow, but then it starts to accelerate, accelerate as if it's fallen off a cliff and then it's permanent and then it becomes permanent.

[00:43:16.720] – Sal
And I know people when they hear me say it takes a little longer initially to think, oh, my gosh, I don't want to wait any longer. I'm ready right now. You know, it's not as long as you think. It's definitely not as long as you think. Little changes, boy, do they add up over a period of time. You know, if I took two parallel lines that were perfectly parallel and I moved one a half a degree away from the other one just a half a degree, you wouldn't even be able to tell by looking at the lines with the naked eye.

[00:43:44.260] – Sal
But if you followed them for a mile or two miles, boy, the distance would start to become quite massive. So that's how you develop the skill of discipline. Slowly pick one thing at a time, wait for it to stick. Oh, that feels good. I think I'm ready for the next step. And by the way, again, this is the only way that I have ever seen as a trainer, and I've trained people for four decades,

[00:44:07.600] – Sal
This is the only permanent way for success. All the other hyper motivated. Let's do this and crush it and whatever. I'm that's it, I'm starting five days a week and I'm doing this crazy diet. That approach has a 90 something percent plus fail rate. OK, everybody fails doing it the other way. So it's a guarantee. So even if you you're thinking yourself like, oh, you know what? I just want to get those quick results, you'll fail.

[00:44:37.040] – Sal
So it's a waste of your time. It's complete waste your time. And I'll even add that when you fail, each time you fail doing it that way, you set your body up for more challenges in the future through slower metabolisms, less muscle, more hormone issues. And psychologically, if you failed at losing weight four times through that old method, at some point you're just going to want to give up. I don't want to do that anymore.

[00:45:04.130] – Sal
I know what happens every time I do it, it sucks and I disappoint myself. So I'm not doing it. Develop a skill of discipline. Take your time. And again, there's a little more to this than what I'm saying. But this is very simple explanation. And your chances of success are significantly higher.

[00:45:21.910] – Allan
Absolutely. Now, the resistance training revolution workouts, you have three kind of different levels there. One of them is body weight. Only one of them is body weight with dumbbell. And then the third one is with a little bit more equipment, like a squat rack and a bar and so a little bit more advanced. But something I think that's really cool because someone can get started with pretty much just themselves and a few little implements that you can pick up practically anywhere.

[00:45:50.470] – Allan
Amazon will have it at your door tomorrow kind of stuff. And I think one of the cool things I liked about the exercise is that I want you to kind of get into as you get into it, is you use this concept called priming. This is not like they go warm up or go stretch before you do these exercises. But we're going to do some specific work before we do the work to make sure that we're in the right posture and right range of motion and all of it to be able to perform this work safely.

[00:46:18.850] – Allan
Can you talk a little bit about the workouts and in particular why priming would be so important?

[00:46:23.610] – Sal
Yes, all the workouts are traditional resistance training. They're all designed to give you those benefits that I talked about earlier. Right. Speeding up the metabolism, making your body more efficient, fat burning machine so you burn more calories, balancing your hormones, shaping sculpting your body. You're all designed to do that. But I gave three workouts because I wanted to make sure that people who had no equipment had a workout that they could perform. And then I did workouts with basic equipment because as you become stronger and more advanced, you may want to utilize weights to augment your workouts.

[00:47:01.000] – Sal
And free weights in particular are extremely versatile. They fit and mold any body, whether you're young or old or whatever. And again, they're very, very inexpensive and effective. So I gave three workouts so people have those options. Now, and by the way, dumbbells and barbells, very inexpensive pieces of equipment. It's incredible how much money people spend on ineffective, crappy pieces of equipment and how inexpensive a pair of dumbbells is. I mean, I used to tell my clients, this as a trainer.

[00:47:32.860] – Sal
You know, I'd say you can have the most fancy gym in the world. Give me a pair of dumbbells and a bench and I'll train anybody and I'll get them in phenomenal shape. And any good trainer will know exactly what or will agree with me and they'll know exactly what I'm talking about. All right. So let's talk about priming. So priming is another term for warm up. Now, the reason why I don't say warm up is because it's different.

[00:47:54.640] – Sal
Now, the goal of a warm up in a lot of people don't know this, right? People think when you're warming up, what you're doing is you're making the muscles warm. Therefore, it makes them more elastic or more pliable so I won't hurt myself. That's really not what's happening. Your muscles are not made out of rubber, so they don't become more elastic or less elastic because of hot or cold. Unless you froze your muscles, you went in subzero temperatures, actually froze your body.

[00:48:23.290] – Sal
If you're if you're alive, you're that's not what's happening to your muscles. What actually happens, and the reason why when you get warm or warm up, your body feels looser. And when you're not warmed up, you feel tired or whatever. Really what's happening has very little to do with your muscle and has everything to do with your central nervous system. So the central nervous system, which includes your brain, really is the control center for your muscles.

[00:48:49.330] – Sal
So any time you move a muscle, it's the central nervous system that's telling the muscle to do something. And warming up is trying to get the central nervous system to be ready for exercise. Priming just does this in a superior way. So we'll talk about, for example, the more common way that the average person probably tries to warm up, which is just static stretching. Right. So in classes do this still to this day. Right.

[00:49:19.660] – Sal
So I'm going to work out or I'm going to run or whatever. Let me do some hamstring stretches. Let me, so I touch my toes, let me stretch my quads. So I'll grab my ankle, pull it back and let me stretch my calves and I'm going to be warmed up or whatever. Well, first off, not a great way to warm up, but you may be wondering. Well, I do get more flexible. I know when I stretch my hamstrings, I all of a sudden can if I hold that position, I can touch my toes more after about thirty seconds.

[00:49:49.990] – Sal
Well, what that's doing is it's sending a signal to the central nervous system that's telling central nervous system to kind of relax that muscle and allow it to elongate a little bit. OK, so now you have muscles that allow themselves to elongate more. You increase the range of motion. Why this is not a good thing before you exercise, and studies actually show static stretching increases risk of injury is because you don't want a larger range of motion that your central nervous system isn't entirely connected to.

[00:50:21.430] – Sal
So the reason why you get more flexible as you're holding that stretch is because the central nervous system is to put, I guess, to it's not entirely working this way, but this will explain a little bit. It's disconnecting a little bit or relaxing. It's signal is turning off and allowing that muscle to stretch. You don't want your central nervous system to be turned off when you're exercising. You want it to be on, because if you move in that range of motion or you have to do something quick or you're lifting a weight or whatever, you want it to be connected, because if it's not connected, that's how you hurt yourself.

[00:50:53.500] – Sal
That's how you end up injuring yourself. Like the example of my baby son, like I told you about earlier in this podcast. So the best way to warm up really is to prime your central nervous system. To turn it on and to turn it on in ranges of motion and larger range of motion so that when you exercise, it's safer, so that when you exercise, you're connected to the exercise so you can activate the muscles that you're really trying to target so that when you're squatting, if you want to feel it in your glutes, you can feel it in your glutes.

[00:51:29.110] – Sal
If I'm shoulder pressing, I want to feel it in my shoulders. If I'm doing an overhead press, my back doesn't hurt because my core is active in my central nervous system's telling my core to stabilize my body. Priming does this. OK, so what is priming look like? There's lots of there's an almost infinite number of priming exercises. I put some of my favorite ones in the book in the workouts. But to give you like a simple example, we'll use the example of, like, the hamstring stretch.

[00:52:03.530] – Sal
Right. So let's say you sit on the floor, you put your hamstring straight or your legs straight out in front of you and you go to touch your foot rather than sitting in that position, what I'm going to do is I'm going to stretch in that position and then I'm going to push down with my leg to activate my hamstring, and then I'm going to pull up with my leg to activate my hip flexor all while holding that stretch will give an example.

[00:52:25.820] – Sal
So what I'm doing is I'm although I'm stretching the muscle, I'm telling central nervous system to connect to this new range of motion, not to relax, but rather to allow me to stretch, but then also to connect to this range of motion. So priming does this. And I gave an example of I didn't even put that movement in the book because that's a silly priming exercise. There's much better ones. Ninety ninety is a good example of one.

[00:52:50.710] – Sal
There's Frager's and lots of other exercises that are excellent. So in the workouts, what's included are your 5 to 10 minute priming sessions that then prepare you for your workout and they make the workout safer and more effective.

[00:53:05.800] – Allan
OK, Sal, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:53:15.230] – Sal
OK, so wellness requires balance, it requires balance, you can be too extreme with fitness and nutrition, and that's dysfunctional and unhealthy and you can also be too extreme in the opposite direction. So for me, wellness is always meant balance. OK, so one step to achieve balance is to enter into an exercise program or nutrition program from the mindset of self care and self-love. So I'm doing this workout not because I hate my body, not because I think I'm fat and I'm gross or whatever, but rather I want to take care of my body.

[00:53:53.910] – Sal
I want to take care of myself because I'm someone that deserves those things. Now, why does that provide balance? Because taking care of myself most times means I'm exercising. Most times it means I'm eating pretty healthy. I'm not eating lots of junk food. I'm not drinking less alcohol. But sometimes taking care of myself means I'm not exercising. Sometimes taking care of myself means I'm enjoying some pizza with some beer or I'm enjoying some time with my friends not being active and having some drinks or whatever.

[00:54:29.360] – Sal
So when you go from the state of mind to self care, then you naturally start to find some balance which leads to wellness. What's another thing that I think another step for wellness? Remember that wellness is a sphere that includes much more than just exercise and diet. Wellness includes the relationships that you have with the people around you. It includes the relationship you have with yourself. How do you feel about yourself? How do you treat yourself?

[00:54:57.140] – Sal
It includes a spiritual practice which can look like organized religion. It can look like meditation. Essentially, it's a forty thousand view of forty thousand foot view of the world and life. And what is the meaning behind why and what I'm doing and that'll get you through the tough parts of things. And then the third thing is to remember that challenge actually is what gives our lives meaning. And challenge is actually a component of happiness. If you look at the studies on happiness, you'll find that we need to be challenged in order to be happy.

[00:55:38.750] – Sal
And that just frames our lives. That just puts us in a different position because life is hard for everybody. And if you accept challenge, it's still hard. So I'm not going to say it makes it easy, but accept it and understand that it brings you meaning and purpose and it's a component of happiness, then you might not add a layer of resistance to it.

[00:56:02.640] – Allan
Thank you. So if someone wanted to learn more about you or the book, The Resistance Training Revolution, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:56:10.730] – Sal
So the book you can find any bookstore, you can find it anywhere they sell books or you can go to the resistancetrainingrevolution dotcom. You can find me on my podcast that I host with my two co-hosts, Mind Pump, and that's on all podcast platforms. And you can also find me on Instagram.

[00:56:28.520] – Sal
That's the social media of choice that I use. And my name on Instagram is Mind Pump Sal.

[00:56:34.630] – Allan
awesome. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/489 and I'll be sure to have the links there. Sal, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:56:44.330] – Sal
I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

Post Show/Recap

[00:56:50.770] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:56:52.430] – Rachel
Hey, Alan, you know, I am the first one to say that resistance training is super important, but this is the first time I think that I've ever heard it being better than cardio or anything else, for that matter.

[00:57:06.850] – Allan
Well, I think where a lot of people kind of lose the math on this and it can go both ways as one. Yes. If you have more muscle mass, your body is going to burn more calories at rest. It's going to burn more calories in everything you do because your body is supporting more mass. In mass times distance is power. I mean, that's where all the stuff's coming from. All this energy is going is moving you around, keeping you there, keeping that mass on.

[00:57:36.490] – Allan
Now, if you were to try to use just weight lifting and I'm just going to lift weights and try to lose weight, that's probably not actually going to happen. So there's still some nutritional things that you have to focus on. The weight loss is going to happen in the kitchen. It's not going to happen in the gym. And I think that's really the message of all this. Now, what type of exercise would be best for reducing body fat?

[00:58:06.310] – Allan
OK, not weight, not weight, fat.

[00:58:10.630] – Allan
And I think it's it's pretty simple to see that, yes, you can run. And if you're taking care of your nutrition, you're going to lose weight and you're going to lose some fat, but you're also going to lose muscle mass. There's not a marathoner out there, you look at the professional marathoners and they are bone thin. They have just enough muscle to run.

[00:58:37.570] – Rachel
Yeah.

[00:58:38.320] – Allan
And if you sat down and put them on a bench press, probably not one of them could bench press their weight because they've never been asked to do that. That's not a part of who they are. Whereas you can look at a sprinter and you can look at them and say, OK, that individuals carrying a lot of muscle mass because they're going shorter distances and they're sprinting and they're getting that done. And so that's a different type of work and it requires a different body type to be good at it.

[00:59:05.390] – Allan
OK, you could take a marathoner and have them run a sprint and they'd be OK. Or you could have someone who's a sprinter and they could probably run a marathon. But again, they're just going to be OK, the body type to do those things. And sometimes that's self-selecting. If there's a lot of conversations out there about how yoga, all these, you know, long lean women and men are doing yoga.

[00:59:33.190] – Allan
And the reality is most of them are self-selecting to do yoga because they're they're lean and thin and long limbed. And they're just naturally moved towards things you're good at. Everybody does that. You know, if you're good at lifting weights, you're going to want to lift more weights. If you're good at running, you're going to want to run. That's just natural. But when we start talking about your body's ability to burn fat, if you have more muscle mass, you're going to burn more fat in general.

[01:00:03.280] – Allan
So there is some math to it from that perspective. But the amount of muscle mass and the amount of calories that muscle mass burns is not this huge, huge number, but it's a little number over a long period of time. So if you're working to maintain muscle mass, you're putting yourself in a good position to burn fat. So you're retaining muscle mass and you're burning fat. So you've got to find that balance of those two. And that means your nutrition has to be spot on.

[01:00:34.300] – Allan
You have to be getting adequate protein to maintain muscle mass. And you've got to be lifting, you've got to be lifting heavy stuff to have that muscle mass. Otherwise your body is going to say you're a runner. You really don't need this extra muscle on your torso. It's not helping you run and your body will start to get rid of that. If you're not doing other side to side stuff and doing other lifting, certain leg muscles are going to atrophy over time.

[01:01:04.420] – Allan
And, the muscles that you use to run are going to be really strong and lean. And they're going to do what you want them to do for the running you're trying to do. And that's where your optimization is, at least from an athletic perspective.

[01:01:18.850] – Rachel
Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of any sport that doesn't spend some amount of time in a weight room lifting weights or doing or body weight training, doing some sort of resistance training. And even runners, especially when you reach my age bracket. Forty plus it's important because by doing these types of resistance training, you're putting more, I guess, focus different muscle groups, which support that sport for me, it's running, but I'm sure baseball players, football players, you know, everybody spend some amount of time in the gym.

[01:01:56.390] – Allan
Yeah, they do. But you'll notice, OK, you're not going to see this hugely muscular guy playing tennis. Right. You know, they're going to have some muscle definition, but they're not going to be a bodybuilder look, they're not going to have that look because that's not conducive to their sport. And so, you know, if you're going to do this, you're going to do come across training, you are going to do resistance training.

[01:02:24.320] – Allan
You just have to think of it in those lines. If you're naturally inclined to add a lot of muscle mass for certain sports, it's not going to make you better. I was, generally I have the frame and the musculature of a sprinter, not very fast, but so I'm a very slow sprinter. But I basically have that musculature. So when I was running marathons, I was this weirdo. You know, I didn't look like them.

[01:02:53.390] – Allan
They were all pencil thin, lean guys. And I'm coming up, and they're like, OK, you should be, you know, Body-building, you shouldn't be running Ultra's. And I agree with them, I was getting way too much muscle mass to be good at marathons.

[01:03:12.110] – Rachel
yeah, there's probably a point of diminishing returns, but I think it's still definitely important to spend some time in the gym somehow doing some body weight or weight training.

[01:03:23.000] – Allan
Yeah. And I think that's really the message I'd like to get to is unfortunately or fortunately, because, you know, this is the way gym life goes, is people will buy a gym membership, OK. And a percentage of those people will go in and they'll find themselves at the treadmills because they're the most commonly used piece of equipment. We put those in the front. OK, and then the next layer is going to be machines and then the final layer is going to be the free weights.

[01:03:51.680] – Allan
Now, that's that's in most gyms. If they have the capacity to structure their gym, that's how they're going to structure it, because they know that 80 percent of the people are never going to make it past the treadmills and ellipticals that they're going to walk in and that's their workout. Now, the other side of what we also know is after three weeks of not seeing any benefit from being on the treadmill, 45 minutes to an hour every day, five days a week, they stop coming. They just signed a contract.

[01:04:21.060] – Allan
So you're making that payment. That money keeps coming out of your checking account. And then because you get comfortable with that money coming out of your checking account, you never even bother to cancel when the year's over. And so they have a constant supply of money coming into the gym for you to not use their equipment. And so that's how most gyms are structured financially. That's how they make it. That's how they're successful is by you coming in, getting on the treadmill, not seeing results and then leaving and not coming back.

[01:04:51.780] – Allan
And well, what Sal's trying to say, what I'm trying to say is if you work for yourself a little bit deeper into the gym and start doing some other exercises, you're going to see not just an advantage for weight loss. You're going to see other general advantages in your life when you're strong enough to do things that you couldn't do before. Now, you're not dependent on someone else. And so if you've had to have someone else open a jar of pickles for you, that's a clear indication your grip strength wasn't strong enough and you lost and you're losing independence.

[01:05:30.110] – Allan
You're now dependent on someone to open jars for you. And that's just one indication that you could be stronger and you could be independent, you could do those things for yourself. You just have to focus on realizing that strength training is a very important dynamic. It's one of the first dynamics that causes people to lose independence.

[01:05:54.050] – Rachel
Yeah, that makes total sense.

[01:05:55.700] – Allan
You know, you lose strengthen your muscles and bones. You fall, you break something. And for a lot of people done and I don't really have a nice way to say it, but, you know, for a lot of people, breaking a hip in their 60s is really the end. They've literally just written the script for the last chapter of their life with that fall. So taking some time, getting yourself stronger. Look, working on those modalities that aren't calorie burning, you know, because, it can't all be about weight loss, you know, your whole life, your whole fitness and health and cannot all be about weight loss.

[01:06:39.370] – Allan
When you get into that mindset, you're kind of losing, you're losing so much of what this whole formula is about that, you know, you win or lose on one bet, you know, I'm all in on weight loss and then the weight loss doesn't come, we've lost that. Whereas if you can sit down and say, well, my goal was to get stronger, lose some body fat and feel better. Aand you do get stronger and you know, you're lifting more weight and you find yourself in an everyday situation using that strength.

[01:07:16.680] – Allan
that's that wins. Maybe you didn't lose the weight you wanted. Maybe you wanted to be down at one hundred and twenty pounds or a hundred thirty pounds. And, you know, you're stuck at 150. You're you're still stronger. More capable. You have all of these other wins and things. You've got more energy. You know, energy is life. And so, you know, yes, weight loss can be important factor for a lot of people.

[01:07:44.250] – Allan
And also I was really trying to say is don't stop at the treadmills.

[01:07:49.430] – Rachel
Right.

[01:07:49.500] – Allan
Go a little deeper into the gym. There's no reason for you to feel intimidated by that. And if you are, message me and we can have some conversations about how to feel more comfortable in that part of the gym, because, you know, a lot of that is you've never done this. You don't know how that machine works. You don't know how that equipment can be used.

[01:08:09.840] – Allan
You don't have a workout. You don't have all these things. But the reality is that's the easy part. The hard part is literally walking past that treadmill and going a little deeper. That's the hard part. Once you get that done, you can learn everything else.

[01:08:25.650] – Rachel
Well, for sure. You know, I've been that person, though. I've been that person who has had a gym membership, walks in the gym and like, you know, everything just escapes my head. I don't even know where to start. What do I do with this? But, you know, if there's personal trainers like yourself and myself and I'm sure the gym has personal trainers on staff, but if you go in there with some sort of a goal in mind or, you know, something purposeful and you can learn, learn how to lift weights and emotion that makes your arm stronger or legs stronger or core stronger, I mean, if you have a plan would be helpful and then seek strengths from that or with that in mind.

[01:09:03.300] – Allan
Yeah, and that is important is the plan. And then the other side of it is, I will say this for weightlifting and this weightlifting is probably one of the few things that where you shouldn't just play to your strengths.

[01:09:15.630] – Rachel
Good points.

[01:09:16.560] – Allan
So many people will go in there and, you know, you'll see the pictures of the guy who's really muscular upper body and has bird legs. That's a thing. That's what actually happens because people get to where they're focused on what one part of them, their strengths are.

[01:09:33.750] – Allan
Or maybe they're always doing like, I know I went to the YMCA when I was in my 20s and there was this one guy I'd come in and he was an older guy. And like, I was just he was so, so freakin strong in the bench press. But that's all he ever did. He really came in the gym and he did bench press and then he would skip a day and he'd be back in the next time.

[01:09:58.070] – Allan
Bench press and they need to skip a day and then the next day he'd be in. Bench press. And don't get me wrong, at the time, the guy could bench press as much as I could squat, but I doubt he could squat as much as I could bench press because he never used his legs. He never lifted. He only did bench press. And it looked you could see it. I mean, literally, he came and he looked worked.

[01:10:19.750] – Allan
He looked deformed a little bit. And I know, unfortunately, you know, at his age and a little bit older, he probably started having back problems, started having some issues where those imbalances are going to start playing against you. So, you know, I will just say is have a plan, please. Have a plan. Don't just go in there and start throwing things around. Right. Feels good. Don't get me wrong.

[01:10:40.720] – Allan
Throwing ahead and planning around feels great. Just get in there and start throwing stuff around and you feel like you're accomplishing something. Maybe sore as crap the next day, you know, and you're going to feel like you did something which is one of the cool things about weightlifting is one of the ways of working out where after doing the workout, not only are you tired then, but three days later you're still feeling it. Most other ways of working out don't give you that feedback, not necessarily the right feedback, but it is feedback.

[01:11:12.280] – Allan
So I'm just saying, have a plan, find a simple program, go in. If you don't know how to use a certain piece of equipment or don't know how to use a particular exercise, take some time to talk to somebody. Who knows, it can be an online trainer like Rachel or myself. It can be someone at the gym that's scheduled to do that. And, is there available to show you? But learn the form, learn how to do the exercises and know which exercises you need to do which days and and how that works for getting the work done, getting the recovery.

[01:11:46.030] – Allan
But yeah, Sal's not wrong and saying that the treadmill is not your friend for weight loss.

[01:11:53.020] – Rachel
Sure.

[01:11:53.560] – Allan
Because again you're sending signals everything you do, everything you eat, everything every movement you do, every thought you have is a piece of information for your body. OK, and so if you're giving your body the wrong information, you're going to get the wrong result. It's quite literally it works that way. So if you're training your body that you have to run every day, that's cool.

[01:12:18.040] – Allan
Your body is going to adapt to be a runner's body. And if you like, the look of the marathoner. And that's the body shape you want to have and you feel good doing it then, Run. Do it outside, though, you know. Treadmill's fine, but, you know, come on, get outside, have some fun, get some sunshine. There's other health benefits to being out in nature, in the sun and all those things.

[01:12:45.330] – Allan
Plus running outdoors is different than running on a treadmill. Very, very different. So, being a good treadmill runner does not make you a good runner at all. It can help. It can help build endurance. But it's not making you an overall better, more balanced runner. So just realize the treadmill is going to send signals to your body and it's not going to retain muscle because that's not the signal. That's not what you're telling your body.

[01:13:11.490] – Allan
So the information you put in, which is the work you do or the food you're eating or the thoughts that you have is the starting of the conversation. And then your hormones are going to pick up that messaging and their balance and everything that they're doing is going to work around that to get you where the message is sending it. So, yes, your testosterone will probably go down if you're just a chronic runner. That's because you don't need the testosterone, because you're not building muscle.

[01:13:45.060] – Allan
If you're lifting heavy weights, the signal in to your muscles are bigger and testosterone has to ratchet up a little bit to make that happen. Now we're over 40, so our testosterone is not going to be like a 20 year olds and therefore our musculature is not going to be like a 20 year old unless we're doing something in the middle to affect that signaling like testosterone therapy, steroids, his arms, those types of things. There are things you can do to disrupt that chain, put something in the middle of it, but in a general sense,

[01:14:27.100] – Allan
You're not going to get big and muscular if you're a runner, you're not necessarily going to signal to your body to lose body fat either, because there's a reason there's a term called Tofi. Which is thin on the outside, fat on the inside. You know that there's a signaling there. And so if you're chronically running, your body's getting signaling to potentially be a Tofi if you're not focused on your nutrition and other health aspects as well.

[01:15:00.380] – Rachel
Well, for sure. I totally tell everybody that resistance training is important to be a good runner. But I think it's also important for just aging and having the strength to just to live an active lifestyle as we do get older. So I think everyone should spend some time doing some sort of resistance training of some sort.

[01:15:20.090] – Allan
I obviously agree. And I would also say, if you're not working on if you're just lifting and you're not working on your stamina, you're also leaving something off the table that you should have. So you find that balance, find that thing that's going to make you the balanced person that you really want to be. And that's the strength, the bone and muscle density and thickness and mass and also having some stamina, you know, to be able to move that mass of where you needed to be when you need it to be there because, you know, you never know.

[01:15:57.500] – Allan
And have to go and do something that's going to require a lot more stamina. So building all of those to be the person that you need to be is really where all of this comes together. So don't necessarily listen to Sal or me or Rachel about what we want for ourselves. You need to have all of it. You need to have it in the right proportion to who you want to be, because fitness is not a look. Fitness is fit for tasks.

[01:16:25.760] – Allan
So decide who you need to be and then build your fitness programming around that.

[01:16:32.310] – Rachel
That's perfect. Yeah, that's very individualized.

[01:16:36.620] – Allan
Absolutely. All right, Rachel, we can talk next week.

[01:16:40.130] – Rachel
All right. Take care.

[01:16:41.570] – Allan
Bye

[01:16:42.320] – Rachel
bye now.

Patreons

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

– Anne Lynch	– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner
– Deb Scarlett	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
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Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Warrior | Theresa Larsen

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SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

Let's Say Hello

Rachel Discussion

Interview

Text

Post Show/Recap

Post show with Rachel.

Patreons

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

– Anne Lynch	– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner
– Deb Scarlett	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Less...

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

Let's Say Hello

Rachel Discussion

Interview

Text

Post Show/Recap

Post show with Rachel.

Patreons

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

– Anne Lynch	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Deb Scarlett	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Debbie Ralston	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander
– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

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SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

Let's Say Hello

Rachel Discussion

Interview

Text

Post Show/Recap

Post show with Rachel.

Patreons

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

– Anne Lynch	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Deb Scarlett	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Debbie Ralston	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander
– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

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SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

Let's Say Hello

[00:03:33.160] – Allan
Hey Raz, how are things going?

[00:03:35.380] – Rachel
Good. How are you today, Allan?

[00:03:37.480] – Allan
I'm doing okay.

[00:03:38.440] – Allan
It's, it's been a really weird week here.

[00:03:41.200] – Allan
We, I was supposed to interview Dr. Bubbs again. I've had him on the show before and he has a really interesting book out. So, I'm supposed to interview him. And then, you know, our power company announces to turn the power off on Wednesday, the whole day.

[00:03:56.710] – Rachel
Oh, no.

[00:03:57.700] – Allan
I was like, Okay, so I have to cancel with him. I'd cancel a couple different appointments because if I don't have power, I don't have Internet, if I don't have Internet, anything. So I cancel all this stuff. And then we had this really bad rainstorm. And the rainstorm the night the day before knocked out my my phone, so I was trying to have a call with the client and then I lost phone signal in a place that I always have phone signal.

[00:04:21.130] – Allan
It's pouring down rain. I'm standing out in the rain and walking around trying to find a signal, you know, can you hear me now? The whole thing. And then, so then, yeah, the next day I'm thinking they're going to turn off all the power. But because it was raining, they didn't turn off the power. And then there was a strike on the mainland by the banana workers. You know, the workers work on the banana farms because they don't like how management's doing things.

[00:04:43.870] – Allan
They decided to cut off the ferry to the island and therefore they couldn't bring diesel to the island for the power plant. And therefore, they were going to have to cut power.

[00:04:54.690] – Rachel
Oh, my goodness, that's so crazy.

[00:04:56.190] – Allan
This time, this time it was like we were going to have to cut it and they said, we're going to cut it at six o'clock. And of course, the merchants on the island were like six o'clock on a Saturday night. You're going to cut power to a whole island.

[00:05:07.890] – Allan
And they're like, yeah, we're going to do that. Like, No, no, can't you wait till six o'clock in the morning and then cut it then. Yeah, you'll be lower in fuel, but then you cut it and we cut it till we get fuel. So they agreed to do that. And then it turned out about midnight, they negotiated a deal and they let the ferry come over. So they never had to cut the power.

[00:05:26.730] – Allan
But it was just kind of one of those. Power is going to go out because they're going to do some maintenance and the power is going to go out because there's a strike. And it's just been a very interesting third-world living on an island.

[00:05:39.750] – Rachel
That is quite an adventure. My goodness, how crazy.

[00:05:44.070] – Allan
So slightly uncomfortable.

[00:05:46.410] – Rachel
I would say so.

[00:05:48.780] – Allan
So how have you been up there in Michigan?

[00:05:51.570] – Rachel
Oh, good, good.

[00:05:52.920] – Rachel
It's been beautiful up here. We actually did a whole lot of yard work over the weekend, expanding some garden space and put down some new mulch and making it nice for the time we spend outdoors. So it's it's been really nice.

[00:06:08.370] – Allan
Heated, heated running trail.

[00:06:10.240] – Rachel
Not yet, but it's on my list. It's on my list.

[00:06:14.790] – Allan
Don't forget, winter is going to come back around. Don't forget. You know, now now that the ground's thawed

[00:06:21.060] – Rachel
Actually, we're supposed to get snow tomorrow, actually.

[00:06:25.470] – Allan
Oh okay. But that's nothing. That's nothing. Just the normal, normal load of snow shower in April. Late April.

[00:06:30.870] – Rachel
That's right. Spring springs, snow showers hopefully won't be that bad.

[00:06:36.660] – Allan
Yeah, but I saw a picture on your Facebook. You and Mike got to spend some time with family that you haven't had the opportunity to spend some time with.

[00:06:46.410] – Rachel
That's right.

[00:06:47.250] – Rachel
Yeah. Mike and I are both fully vaccinated and passed the two-week timeline post vax. That's the second vaccination for him. And my parents have been vaccinated for some time now. So we were able to meet them and have lunch. And I even got a hug. And it's important because I haven't hugged my parents since over a year ago before the lockdown. So, you know, I've been nervous to give them covid or to make them sick in some way.

[00:07:16.660] – Rachel
So we've been very careful this whole time. And and now that we're vaccinated, it's just a little bit, it's a little bit more comfortable, you know, getting in close proximity again. So it was really wonderful to be able to hug my parents again.

[00:07:30.630] – Allan
That's really cool. That's really cool. So let's go ahead and talk to Michael Easter.

[00:07:36.330] – Rachel
Yes.

Interview

[00:08:01.010] – Allan
Michael, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:08:03.950] – Michael
Thank you so much for having me.

[00:08:05.990] – Allan
You know, your book is called The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self. And the stories that you, you tell in this book could have left you well, obviously wild, probably unhealthy and unhappy had had things happened in a different way. Fortunately, yes. It's a happy ending. And Michael's still here to tell us the stories, but you've had some pretty interesting adventures.

[00:08:35.040] – Michael
I have. Yes. And I luckily, yeah, I am here to talk about them. So in reporting the book, the main arc of the book is this,

[00:08:43.460] – Michael
Thirty-three days that I spent in the Arctic backcountry, it's one of the most remote places in the world, one of arguably the most uncomfortable places in the world. So we faced a lot of crazy temperature swings and blizzards and encounters with wild animals. And it was a way to really put myself into these, I guess I'd call them evolutionary discomforts that we as humans used to face every single day of our lives. And because of this, we developed these drives always want to be comfortable, because when the world is uncomfortable, if I'm always seeking comfort, well, that helps me survive things like I don't want to put physical effort into my days because that wastes energy.

[00:09:26.930] – Michael
Right. So that's why we don't like to exercise all these all these different things.

[00:09:30.860] – Michael
And we now live in this really comfortable world. I mean, everything our daily lives have become so comfortable, everything from, you know, temperature control to our food system to the fact that we've engineered effort out of our days. Everything is easy. And so now we have these these evolutionary mechanisms that no longer serve us, because when I'm trying to always be comfortable in a world that's comfortable, you know, it can backfire on people.

[00:10:01.250] – Allan
Yeah. You know, my wife and I, we moved to Panama and some people would say that that would definitely make them uncomfortable to just sell everything they own and move to a foreign country, particularly one where they didn't actually speak the language. And, you know, my wife had only seen it for like four days when we made the decision to just sell our house and move here. So we've done some things to make ourselves uncomfortable, but not anything like what you've experienced.

[00:10:27.620] – Allan
So you've done some pretty cool things around this topic. And I'm really glad to have this conversation to to talk to you. Now, you kind of got into the fact that because we kind of have this desire to seek comfort, being comfortable is not always a really good thing for us. Can you can you talk about the price of comfort?

[00:10:50.340] – Michael
Yes. Well, I think what's interesting to think about is just how long humans lived in this uncomfortable environment.

[00:10:58.880] – Michael
When you do the math, we've spent ninety nine point nine, six percent of our time in these uncomfortable environments, over two point five million years. The comforts that now most affect my daily life, your daily life, they're all just a hundred years old. And by pushing ourselves into comfort all the time, we've lost a lot with our health, our happiness and just the feeling of being alive. So, for example, with our health, I used to be that food,

[00:11:30.590] – Michael
We didn't really have comfort food. It wasn't ultra processed. Food was also harder to come by. We actually had to put effort into getting food. Now we live in this sea of ultra processed food, but we still have these internal drives to eat sugar, salt, fat and eat too much of it. They used to keep us alive because it would help us on board fat. And then when we had lean times, we would have something to draw from to stay alive.

[00:11:53.870] – Michael
But now these drives are sort of causing obesity. They tell us to not move as much as we would as we should to burn it away. In terms of happiness, we humans tend to do well when we're challenged because it gives us a sense of accomplishment. And so as we evolved, we face challenges all the time. These could be from something like a hunt, having to having to migrate something like this. Nowadays, our challenges are often something like I have to give a PowerPoint presentation or whatever it is, right.

[00:12:31.760] – Michael
And there's just not as much reward in the challenges we face. And this is associated with decreasing levels of happiness, increases in anxiety, because if you think about the most dangerous, treacherous thing you face is that your boss might give you a bad look because you messed up on a PowerPoint. Well, you know, you're going to be anxious about a lot of things. And in terms of just the feeling of being alive, I mean, we evolved in nature for example.

[00:13:00.970] – Michael
And like I said, we would do these challenging things in nature all the time, and that's really woven into our to our DNA look at the work of someone like Joseph Campbell with the hero's journey. It's every culture from around the world has these stories about people doing interesting, sort of epic things in nature and that being a real turning point for them internally. Well, we've lost a lot of that nowadays that we've made everything as safe and comfortable as possible.

[00:13:28.990] – Michael
And I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to go up to Alaska at all. But what I am suggesting is that adding a little bit of discomfort back into your everyday life in a variety of forms can really move the dial on your health and happiness. And it's and it's about meeting people where they're at. So something that is comfortable or uncomfortable for one person, maybe totally comfortable for another, it's just slowly pushing your comfort zone. And by doing that, I think you can you can find a lot out about yourself and also move the dial on your health and happiness.

[00:14:02.170] – Allan
Donnie and Tom don't have enough space on their airplane to take us all up there.

[00:14:07.270] – Michael
Exactly.

[00:14:08.980] – Allan
But, you know, there is some value to being uncomfortable. You know, one that kind of comes to mind for me was if we were always comfortable with we came up with inventions, we came up with fire, we came up with riding a horse. We came up with a lot of different things that we do. And there's just we call it progress. So in many cases, adding comfort has been progress. And so there is a value to to comfort or seeking comfort. But there's a point, like you say, because we passed that line.

[00:14:46.110] – Michael
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's it's really about balance, so if you look at all the data on how the world is doing, I mean, I think the world right now is better than it's ever been. People live longer. Child mortality rates are down. Hunger and starvation is down across the world. I mean, just every marker, we're doing better off, but we don't we never offset that with the discomforts we need to be healthy and happy.

[00:15:14.700] – Michael
So if you ask, you know, if you ask the average person they've done polls, do you think the world is getting better? Only six percent say that they think the world is getting better, which to me suggests we're missing something that makes us happy, right? And I think it is that challenge, those elemental discomforts that we sort of evolved to face.

[00:15:35.920] – Allan
Well, I think we can all kind of agree that the best stories are the ones where there's a chance of failure. The chance of really screwing up. You know, that that hold my beer moment. Those are the best stories because there's that element of discomfort. There's that element of, in some cases, even danger. Can you kind of talk about the value of making yourself uncomfortable, but then, of course, not dying in the process?

[00:16:03.480] – Michael
Well, I think I think the nice thing, too, about the the modern comfortable world is it's a lot harder to die nowadays, right? And so I think that I think we have a lot of fears that we built as we evolved because those used to keep us safe. But nowadays, there's a lot of safety nets in life and we we even have technologies that can keep us safer. So, for example, when I was in Alaska, I had this little GPS thing that kind of had this orange button you press that things go south and hopefully, you know, it alerts someone to come pick you up.

[00:16:35.610] – Michael
Now, apparently, it takes a handful of days for them to arrive, but it's still what you know, it's know, I wouldn't have had that even 20 years ago. Twenty five years ago, like I was mentioning the work of Joseph Campbell, we know that when we challenge ourselves and put ourselves in a position where there's a high degree of failure, that when we come out on the other side of that, we are better for it.

[00:16:57.840] – Michael
It can help with a lot of fears fading away. So, for example, we get up to the Arctic. We're in Kotzebue, Alaska. It's the town that we we left out of. And I'm standing on this runway, the wind is gusting, and the guy that I was up in the Arctic with, Donny, he leans over to me. We're looking at these planes that we're going to take up there. And these planes are about the size of a pack of gum.

[00:17:22.290] – Michael
I mean, to people fair to them.

[00:17:24.570] – Michael
And I hate flying, especially when it's in a plane like that. And Donny leans over to me and goes, hey, you know. I got the best pilots that I could. I'm not saying we're not going to crash and die, that is a high probability. But but I got the best pilot I could. I'm like, thanks a lot. So, I mean, I'm terrified of getting in this plane, right? So I get in and we fly.

[00:17:47.800] – Michael
And the whole time I'm just like, oh, man, this is this is terrible. And then they drop us off in the Arctic and and in the Arctic over thirty-three days. I face all these challenges that I've just never faced in my life. Having to cover this rough terrain with no safety net, you know, seeing wild, wild animals being exposed to hurricane force winds and blizzards and just all these things that are are real challenges that have a high degree of risk.

[00:18:16.150] – Michael
When that plane came back and picked me up thirty-three days later, I wasn't afraid to get into it, you know, because now I can put in perspective that, oh wow, this is actually not that, you know, there's a pilot here who's 50 years old. He's been doing this for for 30 years. But when when your challenges in your daily life and the things that you have to encounter really are very safe, I think it can throw off your perspective on on what makes you afraid.

[00:18:43.480] – Michael
And so by putting yourself in positions of failure, you're going to learn something about fear and how a lot of our modern day fears are sort of unfounded and how those can hold us back from the things we really want to do in our lives.

[00:18:57.460] – Allan
You talked a lot in the story about, you know, that one gets a one time you were they of course, they had to shuttle you guys out there. So they just sort of left you out there at one spot where they said, well, we will be back and pick you up. You know, it's like, how well do I know these guys? You know how much I already paid them the deposit. So, you know, I'm going to make it.

[00:19:22.030] – Allan
And so you had those kind of things where you're kind of afraid to be alone. But I think the deeper thing for me was that you noticed at points in time during the hunt and, you know, having hunted when I was a kid, you're just sitting there looking at me as a pine forest in south Mississippi. But ninety nine percent of the time that you're on a hunt, there's absolutely nothing happening. And so you get really, really bored unless you've conditioned yourself to kind of go with it.

[00:19:53.650] – Allan
And I think, you know, one of the core things you brought up in the book that it was just kind of critical is we don't even know the value of actually being bored. We we want something to entertain us all the time. It's like we get in the car, we turn on the radio or a podcast, maybe this one, but we don't turn this stuff off and actually just sit there and stop and just so tired of hearing our heartbeat, because we're that bored, that we're like counting heartbeats and, you know, watching watching a blade of grass and saying, you know, I think I saw it twitch, you know.

[00:20:31.330] – Allan
Yeah. That kind of thing. Can you talk about the kind of being bored and why being bored is not actually a bad thing and why maybe we should actually lean into it?

[00:20:41.480] – Michael
Yeah, so to your point about being in the woods in Mississippi and you just kind of waiting, hunting is a lot of waiting sometimes, and that's something that I was not used to. So we in the Arctic, we would sit on these hills and we were hunting caribou.

[00:20:56.750] – Michael
So we would have to wait for these caribou to they're migrating. So you're trying to catch them as they're moving into their to their wintering grounds.

[00:21:05.450] – Michael
So you'd sit on this hill and my cell phone does not work up there.

[00:21:09.830] – Michael
There is not a lick of service within one hundred miles. So the thing is essentially useless. I didn't bring a book. I didn't bring magazines. I sure I surely didn't have a TV. So what I'm left with is I would start to read labels on my energy bars. I would start to read the labels on the clothes I was wearing. And then when that gets boring, I start thinking of ideas and I start thinking of all these other things.

[00:21:33.680] – Michael
And it was really interesting because nowadays, any time we feel bored, we have this constant ability to kill our boredom, the discomfort of boredom. Any time you feel a twinge of that, I mean, think if you ever look at a supermarket line, what is everyone doing there on their cell phones? Even 20 years ago, you would have to sort of stand there and be with yourself and with your thoughts. The brain essentially has two different ways of two different modes.

[00:22:02.270] – Michael
And in the book, I simplify it and I call them focus mode and unfocused mode. Focus mode is any time that you are focusing on anything in the outside world. So your cell phone, as you're listening to this podcast, you're having to process information from the outside world. And this is like an active it's almost like a workout for your brain. The other mode is unfocused mode. Now, this is internal mind wandering. So this is the mode that I was in when I'm sitting on the Arctic tundra trying to think of ideas and just having thoughts come into my brain.

[00:22:31.820] – Michael
And this is essentially a rest state. It rests and restores your brain. Now, we've totally tipped the balance. Modern life has tipped the balance. So we're always in this focused mode and it's just like constantly trying to work and work and work our brains. We never experience boredom this time where we have to go inward and be with that little bit of discomfort and then send our minds down different ways of mind wandering, which restores our thinking and creativity.

[00:22:59.150] – Michael
So the benefits of boredom, you know, research shows that it revives your brain not being bored enough is actually associated with high rates of anxiety because it's you know, you're just really taxing your outward system. It's associated with more creativity. And I think part of that is because nowadays, when we're bored, if we just pull out Instagram and Twitter or whatever it is, we're focusing on the exact same type of media that everyone else is. And we're not having time to come up with ideas in our own mind that are our own ideas.

[00:23:31.520] – Michael
Experience boredom is associated with more focus and productivity. But I think one thing that that is key is you hear so much today, you need to be, you know, get on your phone. Get on your phone less. If you look at the data, people actually spend a lot more time engaging with all different kinds of media, like people watch twice as much TV as they do have screen time on their phones. We've inserted essentially eleven hours, I think is the average, 11 hours and six minutes to be exact, digital media in our day.

[00:24:02.570] – Michael
That's how much time we're spending engaging with digital media. So I tend to think about it instead of less phone. I tend to think about it more as more boredom. How can I just find these spaces where I can just have no outside stimulation and allow my mind to go inward and sort of revive and reset? And if we can do that, even though it's uncomfortable, I mean, it's much easier to just go on Instagram. I think we're going to move the dial a lot on our mental health.

[00:24:26.660] – Michael
And you'll find often with with a lot of these discomforts that I'm talking about, there's an initial period where you're like, man, this really sucks. I don't like this. This is uncomfortable. But after a certain time, once you sort of get through that rough patch, you're like, oh, I see what I'm doing this for.

[00:24:45.980] – Michael
And you start to really see those rewards. I mean, nothing in life, whether it be something very simple, like not being not defaulting to TV or your computer or your phone or whether it be like a massive, massive workout or challenge is ever going to be easy. So just accepting that there is going to be that hard part and going through it anyways, you'll see that benefit.

[00:25:09.950] – Allan
Yeah, I was, I took it. I took what you put to heart and I was going for my my normal little walk around here on the island. I like walking out by the beach and I was on my way out there. Normally what I would do is I put on the podcast or an audio book and then I'd have my runkeeper that would tell me my my my split's every five minutes, you know, that's chiming in and telling me what my splits are. I just got to thinking myself, Okay, I'm still going to keep my runkeeper on, but I'm going to I'm going to turn the volume all the way down so I don't hear my splits.

[00:25:40.750] – Allan
But the pocket I put the phone in my pocket and I'm not going to pay any attention until I get to a certain point, and then I'll just want to check my time to make sure that I can get back in time for what I've got to get done for the day. And yeah, it's like where first you're going and you're kind of like just you start becoming hyper sensitive to everything around, you start paying a lot more attention and so on this walk beyond just having a good walk and enjoying some warm weather, you know, heat shock proteins, I, I noticed a lot more.

[00:26:15.930] – Allan
You know, I just I noticed, like a line of leafcutter ants walking down the side of the road with me. You know, I was about to step on them and I said, oh, leafcutters. And I'm just walking along and I'm seeing leaves and I'm like, Okay, you know, just it was a long, long trail, like maybe about quarter of a mile. These guys were traveling. And so it's just kind of one of those things where I thought, yeah, I'm opening up.

[00:26:36.420] – Allan
I'm noticing more about the world around me. I'm noticing more about myself, like how how my legs feel, how my feet feel, you know, just just the whole bit of it. And it just gives you a lot more time to actually get it. Get in your head and think versus at times we try to turn that inner voice off. And I think a lot of times it's we just don't like that guy.

[00:27:02.190] – Allan
Yeah. And then you're like, well, no, I'm going to get to know that person.

[00:27:07.260] – Allan
And only way I can do that is to be alone with them.

[00:27:11.370] – Michael
Yeah, I love that story that's so great, because the thing about those leafcutter ants, you're going to remember them for next year, five years, 10 years, I was here and I saw that rove leafcutter ants doing their thing, moving through the world. That's going to create an impression in your mind and isn't I mean, this is the stuff that we're really going to remember.

[00:27:29.850] – Michael
I mean, I think that the media is obviously amazing. It's incredible.

[00:27:35.190] – Allan
Yeah.

[00:27:35.640] – Michael
It's so fun to see what people are doing on Instagram and getting cool ideas and listening to podcasts like yours. I mean, there's a ton of value in the stuff there really is. But I think it's figuring out the balance. If our we are programed to default to always being stimulated, never wanting to be bored, and we just have the easiest out for that.

[00:27:55.540] – Michael
So I think we need to reinsert boredom into our lives because when we are evolving, we had long periods of boredom and these helped these helped us be productive and, you know, effective humans. And we've sort of removed them. And there's been some serious downsides. But but I love what you say about that. And and I think that you're smart because you're you're doing it in a way where you can still use the technology. You're just figuring out, well, how do I use the smarter so I can sort of balance it.

[00:28:22.470] – Michael
I can get benefits of boredom, but also this super cool technology that we have access to. You know, the answer isn't like we don't want to live like Luddites. That's yeah, that sounds terrible to me. But it's it's the balance.

[00:28:36.020] – Allan
Yeah, and the worst part of it was I was sitting there saying I should pull my phone out and take a picture of these ants and I'm like, no, know, that whole purpose was to to not interact with my phone this whole two hours and

[00:28:47.240] – Michael
Yeah, those ants are yours.

[00:28:50.150] – Allan
I could post it on Facebook. That's so cool. I get those likes and and retweeted all that stuff and I was like, no, no. That that breaks the whole purpose of why I'm here. I'm not here to to do a documentary on leafcutter ants. I'm here to enjoy some time with myself.

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[00:30:52.500] – Allan
I think another thing that you got into that was really important, and it was it was thrust upon you because 33 days and I think people would say, Okay, sure, there's there's not a McDonald's up there or even a Tim Hortons or anything for you to just say, Okay, you know, let's pop in and have some breakfast and then we'll go hunting or after the breakfast, you know, we'll go by the room, take a shower, get ourselves cleaned up and have a really nice dinner tonight.

[00:31:20.060] – Allan
I mean, I hope they had that wine we had last time. That's not life. You had to carry all your food with you short of what you actually were going to then be able to get on that hunt.

[00:31:31.350] – Allan
So you started doing the math and realizing, Okay, I'm not going to be able to carry enough calories.

[00:31:39.210] – Michael
Yeah.

[00:31:39.810] – Allan
For the whole trip. And that meant at some point along the way and I don't think it was that far into the trip, you started experiencing hunger. And it's not the hunger of, you know, gee, I wish I had some Doritos. It was like real real in a hunger. Could you could you talk about being hungry and why that is important?

[00:32:01.320] – Michael
Sure. So when we did when you in the numbers, you know, we're carrying these heavy 80, 90 pound backpacks all over the place. The landscape is, you know, hilly and treacherous and we're probably burning somewhere between 4000, 6000 calories a day.

[00:32:18.240] – Michael
But if we were to bring enough food to fuel that, I mean, our packs would be it would not fit in the pack. All we would have is just a bunch of food. So we had to pare down and figure out, Okay, how much is enough reasonably to stay alive? More or less. And that was we could figure that would be about two thousand calories. So that's what we pack. So every day we're digging ourself into this hole and there's just never enough food.

[00:32:41.190] – Michael
And what happens over time, it's fascinating is you start to feel hungry and your mind starts to really focus on food. And these are these evolutionary mechanisms that we've developed to force us to find food that really compels you to find food. But feeling that hunger was fascinating because. No, my average day I eat for reasons that often have nothing to do with hunger. It could be that I woke up and it's breakfast, I got to eat breakfast.

[00:33:10.570] – Michael
So essentially the clock is telling me that I should eat, right. Or maybe I get stressed and I'm like, oh, man, I hate that email. I just received and hand goes into the m&m's and I shove them into my face.

[00:33:21.150] – Michael
You know, a lot of the data shows that as much as 80 percent of the times we eat aren't driven by actual physiological hunger. It's just because, like I said, it's a clock or stress or whatever. So re-engaging with with actual core deep hunger was fascinating because I'm like, man, I have never felt this before.

[00:33:43.860] – Michael
And I learned a lot of interesting things about hunger. And one of them, too, is that. You know, over time, it's not it's not going to kill you, you know, out there, it's like I lost 10 pounds over the thirty three months or whatever it was.

[00:34:01.050] – Michael
But I realized re-engaging with hunger is actually a good thing, because if you can figure out when this is true hunger versus this is just me wanting food, that can really move the dial. Because, I mean, right now it's I think in the US it's seventy two percent of Americans are overweight or obese. I mean, we're clearly suffering from a crisis where we're just eating too much. And that suggests to me that probably, you know, re-engaging with hunger and learning about what do I actually need food versus when do I want food can be really important in moving the dial on our health through weight loss.

[00:34:37.830] – Michael
So I would say that it just when I came back from the Arctic, I realized that a lot of times, like I said, it's just I just want food or it's a clock that tells me I want food and feeling that hunger can lead a lot of internal physical change. So I think, you know, embracing hunger is important. And, you know, I know people get really.

[00:34:59.880] – Michael
I guess I would say ideological, I don't know if that's the right word about certain diets and all that. My own opinion is that if you look at all the research, that weight loss is primarily driven by calorie balance. And so just figuring out a way that you can you can eat that will control your hunger, but you're not eating too much is important. And so in the book, I talk about ways of certain foods that research suggests tend to help us fight hunger, but also control our calories.

[00:35:28.810] – Michael
So these tend to be foods that we've often heard are not good for us, like potatoes or different forms of carbs that are unprocessed, that actually are good because they can help us control hunger and keep our calories low. It's this concept called calorie density, which is kind of a science way of saying they fill you up without having as many calories as other foods.

[00:35:50.870] – Allan
Yeah, and I think one of the things that kind of came out of it is that just as soon as you killed the Cariboo, you ate like a king. And it was one of the best meals you'd had in a long time and you even started liking the the instant meals, you know, just the reconstituted meals. You're like, it's fine. I love it. It's it's still delicious because I'm that hungry that you were truly tasting your food.

[00:36:17.530] – Michael
Yeah.

[00:36:17.870] – Allan
And and the. Go ahead.

[00:36:19.760] – Michael
I was going to say hunger is the best sauce.

[00:36:23.540] – Allan
Yes.

[00:36:24.050] – Michael
You know that if you are a person who thinks that vegetables are disgusting, that's probably because you're only eating things like Doritos that are engineered to be just like so amazing. And if you take yourself away from that for a little while, you realize that vegetables have a lot of amazing nuances that are that are great, you know.

[00:36:43.100] – Allan
Yeah. And I think that's what we miss is that, you know, like you said, we're eating all the time. We're eating things that are designed to make us eat more. We're not giving our body an opportunity to actually understand the hunger signals. And then when food is available, which here it's always available, it's everywhere.

[00:37:05.750] – Allan
We tend to overeat. And, you know, the dietitians though warn you, don't let yourself get hungry and then the food companies will take advantage of it and someone will be upset, not feeling good because they're hungry and they're going to tell them, oh, you need a Snickers. And so that's the solution to your your hunger problem. And it's not even true hunger because you haven't gone without food long enough or you've had enough food to not need that food.

[00:37:33.050] – Allan
But we haven't turned on those hunger signals. And obviously, you being out there for thirty three days, you turned on some hunger signals.

[00:37:41.310] – Michael
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways food has become a widget for a way to solve for other problems.

[00:37:48.590] – Michael
I'm stressed, I'm going to eat, I'm bored, I'll eat. And I just said boredom is good so don't just eat f you're bored. Find other ways to go.

[00:37:58.430] – Michael
But yeah, you know, we developed these evolutionary mechanisms that favor us to eat foods that are as calorie dense as possible. Now in nature as we evolved, you really don't find that many foods that are really calorie dense. I would think honey is the most calorie dense of the food you find.

[00:38:16.100] – Michael
But now we have foods that are engineered to be these, you know, globs of sugar, salt and fat that are amazing. And I'm not saying don't ever eat those, but it's they need to be balanced. You know, we need to to engage with hunger a little bit, learn that hunger and hunger is actually a good thing. Like you said, we've we've been told that, oh, don't ever feel hungry. You know, you're hungry or whatever it is. Oh, it's a good thing.

[00:38:40.640] – Allan
Yeah. And I think if you had to take several bee stings to get that high calorie dense food instead of buying it and like you said, a cute little jar that's shaped like a little bear, we probably wouldn't do it as much, but yeah.

[00:38:57.890] – Allan
So it's okay to be hungry, you know, like you said, I mean, we use the term starving, but that's not the right word. And even in your situation here, you knew you'd brought enough food to probably not starve. Yeah, but it also heightened your desire to do something. So it kept you motivated and driving rather than just saying, I'm going to go cuddle in the teepee for the next twenty days and hope I don't burn more calories.

[00:39:24.170] – Michael
Yeah

[00:39:24.830] – Allan
it got you moving. I got you guys doing more so that you could get that back, could get some food and that's that's actually a good thing. If you can find the waste are going to drive you to a better behavior, you've got to be hungry for it. And that's whether that's eating the right foods or getting your food. You've got to think of it in those terms.

[00:39:44.450] – Michael
Yeah. Yep, exactly.

[00:39:47.000] – Allan
Michael, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:39:56.630] – Michael
Well, we just talked about one of them, I think re-engaging with hunger can be important. I mean, I think that our food, how we eat today is one of the number one drivers of our health problems because people just eat too much and and they don't move enough. And I think figuring out ways to lose weight if you're currently overweight is going to be the number one thing you can do from your health, assuming you're not smoking or something like that.

[00:40:23.990] – Michael
I mean, look at the data and it's pretty overwhelming. And, you know, yes, there are people who are overweight, who are metabolically healthy, and that's that's great. But I do think if you look at most people, most of the time, some some ground can be gained by losing a little weight. And I think that food is one of the best ways to do that.

[00:40:42.710] – Michael
Number two, I would say. Is that I would love it if people would start thinking about how can I do epic things in my life? So for me it was this thirty three days in the Alaskan backcountry. I go out there, I experience all these different forms of discomfort. I'm in nature. For a long time, I experienced some hunger I have to put physical effort in. And I think that doing that can really move the dial on our health and happiness, but more importantly, it can change us internally.

[00:41:16.840] – Michael
So, as I mentioned before, it's like when I was on that runway first about to head up there. I mean, I'm just like overstressed guy. I'm afraid to get on this plane. I'm like, you got to be kidding me. We're going in that little thing. And at the end of that sort of going on this journey of having to face all these discomforts, I learned a lot about myself and it really transformed me and I would say moved the dial on a lot of things in my life, just stress levels.

[00:41:42.760] – Michael
You know, when I got back, I could see, oh, like waiting in a line is not a big deal, you know, because I had all these true dangers and things happen to me. And so I think for four people, it's, you know, what is something that you can do, get outside, exercise some way to challenge yourself that will help put all these things in perspective and also get you out and moving. So maybe that, oh, there's this mountain near my house that I've never climbed and I've never climbed a mountain before.

[00:42:12.580] – Michael
You know, it could be like a five, ten mile hike. But if you've never done that before, I think picking something that has sort of a chance of failure, chance you may not make it where you put yourself in a position where you have to dig deep physically and psychologically and emotionally. When you complete that, it's like a massive, massive confidence boost and just move your life in the right direction. And let's see, number three, let me think on this.

[00:42:39.130] – Michael
Oh, I would say to think about your death each day, which I realize that seems somewhat morbid when people hear it. But, you know, as we evolve, we really engage with the life cycle.

[00:42:51.070] – Michael
So I know for me, I went up to Alaska, we're hunting and we look for these caribou for like fifteen days and we finally get a chance where we, you know, I'm going to potentially be able to kill one. And I have the gun and I am super reticent about hunting this whole time because I'm coming from this world where our meat is presented to us. Totally, perfectly manicured death is death and the life cycle is totally removed from our lives, everything from our funeral system to how we react when someone dies and we're told to keep our mind off it.

[00:43:27.880] – Michael
So we're, you know, crawling out there and I get in this position where the animal is close enough within shooting distance. And I'm kind of hesitating, you know, because I'm like, oh, man, this is a beautiful creature. Don't ever engage with this kind of stuff. And began with Donny says, look, if you don't want to shoot, you don't got to shoot. But if you're going to shoot, you got to do it now.

[00:43:49.450] – Michael
And I pulled the trigger and the animal goes down. And my initial reaction is, oh my God, what have I done? It was this just sinking feeling. We go out and see the animal. It's down. And I just feel terrible. It's like, what what has happened here?

[00:44:05.680] – Michael
What have I done? And then we began to break the animal down to field, dress it to bring it back to camp. And my mind started to shift because you start to see that this living creature is going to provide life for me, for my family to give us food. And that death is ultimately part of the life cycle. Like it is a it is a clear realization for me that happened that, oh, you know, death is part of the life cycle.

[00:44:35.290] – Michael
And I started to research this when I when I got back from Alaska and I ended up going to doing some traveling around this and a lot of research. And when you look at the research people who think about death, which is something, you know, we're not we're told, oh, don't do that because that's morbid and that'll make you sad. When you look at the research, it actually makes people happier because it cuts out a lot, cuts a lot of the fat out of your life.

[00:44:55.930] – Michael
Right. If you just think once a day, oh, I'm going to die at one point, you're not going to get hung up on these stupid little things that we tend to get so anxious and hung up on every day, right. You start to see people start to focus on the things that are really going to make them truly happier. So I think the three things that I just named are kind of like this holistic system that can help with your mind, body and spirit more or less.

[00:45:20.200] – Allan
And I agree with all of those. Thank you. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book, The Comfort Crisis, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:45:29.020] – Michael
You can go to Easter Michael dot com, if you want to learn more about me, I'm active on Instagram as well: Michael_Easter. I try not to be too active on it because that boredom thing. But yeah, those are probably the two best ways to find it in the books available anywhere you get books. So

[00:45:44.470] – Allan
Okay. You can go to 40 plus fitness podcast dot com forward slash four eight five, and I'll be sure to have links there.

[00:45:51.370] – Allan
Michael, thank you so much for being a part of 40 plus fitness.

[00:45:54.610] – Michael
Hey, thank you for having me.

Post Show/Recap

[00:46:01.090] – Allan
Raz, welcome back.

[00:46:03.160] – Rachel
Hey, Alan, what a wonderful story from Michael and his adventure in the Arctic. My gosh, talk about discomfort. He had a lot of it.

[00:46:13.640] – Allan
He did. You know. Well, one first, we probably didn't dive into it enough in the conversation, but he was terrified to get on that little plane.

[00:46:21.850] – Allan
He was a little bit just a little bitty planes where he kind of felt like he was straddling the the pilot while he was sitting in that airplane with his equipment. And the plane he was on couldn't go and land where they needed to. So they dropped the two of them off in the middle of freakin nowhere, Alaska, and then take off to nowhere Alaska to basically shuttle these guys. And then they leave him out there. And I'm like, no, no, I would have been the second person on the plane.

[00:46:50.440] – Allan
So I'm not sitting out in the middle of nowhere by myself alone. That would have kind of got me. I mean, and I I've had some moments in my life where I was outside my comfort zone, did some things like, you know, look back on and say, well, some people would call that foolish, but, you know, damn, it makes a good story.

[00:47:12.040] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:47:12.940] – Allan
You know, like walking down into the basement with four Koreans, two of them in front of me, two of them behind me. And I'm there to catch them committing fraud, thinking I might not actually come out of this basement again. So you have those stories. And that's one of the cool things about this book, is not just that Michael sharing the stories, but he's sharing lessons about how being outside your comfort zone makes for a better life across the world, whether you're looking at your career, your relationships, your health, your fitness, everything great happens outside the comfort zone.

[00:47:49.210] – Rachel
Oh, my gosh, it's so true.

[00:47:51.070] – Rachel
He even drew a line. Right, towards adding discomfort to your life can give you health and happiness, happiness through discomfort. It's kind of a mind blowing concept right there.

[00:48:03.880] – Allan
Well, you've experienced it, so.

[00:48:05.920] – Rachel
Oh, yeah.

[00:48:06.310] – Allan
Let's talk about your first marathon.

[00:48:08.350] – Allan
How painful was that run? I mean, you know, at the end, you're that you know, you're you're at that that twenty two mile mark.

[00:48:17.520] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:48:18.400] – Allan
And you're watching other runners around. You quit. You're saying medical attention being given to people on the side of the road. And you're seeing also seeing people cheering you on.

[00:48:29.830] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:48:30.550] – Allan
But it's uncomfortable and there is be no shame in quitting.

[00:48:35.710] – Rachel
Right. Well, I'll even take it a step back and and say my first five K was out of my comfort zone, so as my first 10K, my first half marathon was in a Florida hurricane situation and my first marathon was just as difficult, although it was at the happiest place on Earth with this, which is Disney.

[00:48:58.860] – Rachel
My first full marathon was Disney. But but yeah, every single step of the way in my running career has been taking that one step outside what I know I could do, what I'm comfortable doing and seeing what can I accomplish, what can I do and and how crazy is that? And and then every time I accomplish something, I'm I'm stronger for it and more confident and and more confident when I want to try something new, like my first 50 miles, I'll be doing the summer.

[00:49:34.470] – Rachel
So that's one of the reasons why I embraced running and just share it with the world so much because it can give you so much back. It's hard and it's scary, but it gives you so much back.

[00:49:46.830] – Allan
Yeah. And we've become too comfortable to the point of, you know, we, we go for the convenience and so beyond just comfort, there's convenience and you'll hear the word comfort foods and comfort foods. Yeah. Typically are high in fat, high in salt and high in sugar, high in everything and all put together. And they make you feel good, they give you the feel good, comfortable feeling, you know, chicken and dumplings is one just comes to mind for me is they call that a comfort food and you know it's like okay, cool.

[00:50:23.070] – Allan
Occasionally having a little bit of comfort, not a problem, having it every single day, having the convenience of driving up and ordering a donut and a coffee on your way to work and then getting something from the vending machine because you're starving two hours later. And for the record, you're not actually starving.

[00:50:43.170] – Allan
You're just having a little bit of a sugar rush and a sugar crash. And that's what you're having. And it's not you're not starving. And so I think the recognition that if once we start seeing the comfort that's in our lives and we start challenging that and saying, is that comfort serving me? Or is that comfort holding me back?

[00:51:06.430] – Rachel
Hmm, good question.

[00:51:07.270] – Allan
We're almost blind to it because we're in it and it's just so easy and this is just the way it is.

[00:51:12.670] – Allan
And so, you know, the more you sit there and say, is this the right comfort for me to be in? So, you know, granted, I want my room cool at night so I can sleep better. So we have an air conditioner in our bedroom. We don't have an air conditioner in the living space of the bed and breakfast and so on. A hot day like today is probably somewhere in the 90s and it's really, really humid.

[00:51:37.090] – Allan
And so sitting in the living room with the fans going is right on that edge of comfortable. You know, I'm sitting in my living room sweating. Most people don't want to be sweating when they're sitting in their living room. You know, they're going to have the AC on. There can be very comfortable. They're not going to want to walk outside. I'll check the mail on my way to work tomorrow. You know, that kind of comfort.

[00:52:00.130] – Allan
And it's like, get out, you know, move around. Don't be afraid of it. So you sweat a little to shower before bed,

[00:52:07.570] – Rachel
Right.

[00:52:08.260] – Allan
So look at the comfort that's in your life and just say, is this this is serving me? Is just making me a better person? And there are times when comfort will there, you know, I sleep better when the room temperature is cooler. If we didn't have an air conditioner, then I wouldn't sleep as well.

[00:52:27.350] – Allan
We have a we have an air fryer. And the air fryer can do, you know, the toasting, the grilling in the baking, the the air frying, the broiling. And so it's very convenient, comfortable device to have sitting on our counter.

[00:52:42.720] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:52:43.310] – Allan
I don't use it to make Pop Tarts.

[00:52:47.510] – Allan
I use it to bake chicken or broil steak or do those types of things. So I don't get don't think that all comfort is bad. It's not it's just a function of saying, am I using comfort where where it matters.

[00:53:05.810] – Rachel
Sure.

[00:53:06.380] – Allan
You know, a good massage is comfortable. Having a comfortable bed is comfortable. Those are important things for your wellness. But, you know, having complete access to all this food, calling Uber eats every night because you can never, never getting hot, never getting cold.

[00:53:29.060] – Allan
You know, that's not how we were intended to to be. We were intended to be a little uncomfortable most of the time and really uncomfortable some of the time.

[00:53:40.070] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:53:41.060] – Rachel
I think we've lost a little of that satisfaction of doing certain things for ourselves. Like you mentioned, cooking a proper meal from scratch versus ordering uber eats or something. You know, if you can gather fresh ingredients and make this wonderful meal for your family all on your own, just think of the pride that you'll have, not even to mention the taste will be so much better than running out to a restaurant and getting some fat laden food. But you've got pride in your food.

[00:54:10.760] – Rachel
You've got a tasty meal. Plus it contributes to your health instead of taking away from your health. So it's just these little things like if you can allow yourself the extra time to take the time to get the good food to to prepare a nice meal, to take a walk to the store instead of a drive to the store, if you can just take a minute to reassess and maybe give you that little extra time to do these things by hand from scratch, just think of the satisfaction you'll have having accomplished all that.

[00:54:40.010] – Allan
Yeah. And I would even take it a step further and say, Okay, so so imagine you do this. You set up a plant bed in your backyard or a patio garden and you plant some plants if you have the space and in your city allows it, you raise some chickens.

[00:54:58.940] – Rachel
Oh, man, you know, that would be fun.

[00:55:01.850] – Allan
And maybe you go ahead in a co-op and you know, you can share in a buying a cow. You know, sometimes they'll do that like a local farm and you all go in together and say, Okay, so I'm buying half a cow and they're buying. So we all contribute our money and we buy the calves and we've paid for the food. And we have a responsibility to go out there on our days and feed the cow.

[00:55:25.430] – Rachel
Sure.

[00:55:25.760] – Allan
Take care of it. It's a co-op. We're all involved. We're all working together or we're doing it at home, raising the chickens, getting the eggs, growing the vegetables. So you're growing spinach and you've got the eggs.

[00:55:38.690] – Allan
And so, you know, you make yourself an omelet with the spinach in the eggs that you grew, that, you know, you took the little chick and you took the little seedling and you made yourself that meal from not just scratch, but from actual dirt, you know.

[00:55:59.220] – Rachel
How how amazing and how satisfying that is. That would be wonderful.

[00:56:03.810] – Allan
And it's not even just you. I mean, this was a part of your family. This is like how we spend a Saturday. You know, we spend the Saturday at my brother. They raise chickens. And so his little girls, they know how to care for the chickens. And they named all their so they have no intention of eating the chickens, but they eat eggs.

[00:56:22.330] – Rachel
That's awesome.

[00:56:23.550] – Allan
Yeah. Except for the the Fox incident. But we don't want to talk.

[00:56:27.430] – Rachel
Oh no, no.

[00:56:31.440] – Allan
But, you know, it's just kind of one of those things of this is a learning experience for them to be able to see where their food is coming from and recognize, Okay, this is you know, this is where all this stuff comes from. And it's not you don't just go to the grocery store to buy stuff.

[00:56:46.350] – Rachel
Oh, yeah.

[00:56:47.480] – Allan
You can you can do it yourself. And it's uncomfortable. It's extra work. It means, you know, a weekend where you're building something, you're putting, you know, dealing with soil and all the other stuff.

[00:56:58.950] – Allan
You're learning new things, teaching kids new things, but spending that quality time together.

[00:57:04.230] – Allan
And that's again, the value of discomfort can be the value of learning. It's a value of relationship. It's the value of better quality of pretty much everything in your life. And so that's what this book was really about. He's a fabulous writer. It's a really interesting story if you're anti-hunting while there is hunting in the book. But I want you to recognize the the concepts of it. He does talk about that because he had never hunted before.

[00:57:32.130] – Allan
So he's not pro hunting even now. But he wanted the experience. And he went out and did it while he doesn't know if he'll do it again.

[00:57:43.490] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:57:44.150] – Allan
But it was just an experience that he wanted to have. All of the meat from that animal was consumed by him and his family. So he did bring that meat home. So it was not just an unethical trophy kill that you see the pictures and you know that this was those were legitimate hunts for food when controlled by the wild life stuff.

[00:58:07.850] – Allan
But just recognize that he made himself very, very uncomfortable for thirty-three days, experienced a lot of things, has a lot of stories to tell. And he's a really good storyteller. So it's a really good book from that perspective too.

[00:58:20.750] – Rachel
Wonderful. It sounds wonderful. What an adventure he had for sure.

[00:58:24.620] – Allan
All right, Rachel. Well, I will talk to you next week.

[00:58:27.230] – Rachel
All right. Take care.

[00:58:28.230] – Allan
You too.

[00:58:29.540] – Rachel
Thanks.

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Let's Say Hello

[00:01:26.870] – Allan
Hey, Raz. How are things going?

[00:01:28.970] – Rachel
Good. Allan, how are you today?

[00:01:31.190] – Allan
I'm doing okay. It's been a busy week, but not nearly as busy as your week. You've got some pretty exciting news.

[00:01:38.340] – Rachel
Yeah. I just got my RRCA running coach certification. So now I am officially a running coach and I'm pretty excited about it.

[00:01:48.320] – Allan
Congratulations!

[00:01:49.400] – Rachel
Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:01:51.080] – Allan
That's pretty cool.

[00:01:52.170] – Rachel
It is. It was a great class. I learned a lot and of course I knew a lot because I've been running for 20 years. But it was really a good class and very informative. And so now I feel very ready to be able to coach somebody.

[00:02:06.710] – Allan
Perfect. All right. Well, let's get into our conversation today, which is also about your favorite topic running.

[00:02:13.790] – Rachel
Yay, okay!

Interview

[00:02:38.210] – Allan
Bryan, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:02:40.880] – Bryan
Thank you. How are you, Allan?

[00:02:42.410] – Allan
I'm doing great. I just finished reading your book, The Ultimate Guide to Running with Your Dog: Tips and Techniques for Understanding Your Canine's Fitness and Running Temperament. And I got this book. I sought this book. When I saw it, I was like, okay, there we go. One is I know that I need to start building up my own cardiovascular fitness. I love going into the gym and lifting heavy weights.

[00:03:07.760] – Allan
My dog can't do that with me. He can hang out and watch. But I love lifting weights. I need to do some more cardio and I have this new dog I'm going to talk about. We're going to talk about him a little bit. But he has all this energy. He's he's just about a year old. And so I'm like, I need to go do something with him. I need to keep him busy because he's a chewer and he's a little destructive. And so there's some behavior, things I want to deal with.

[00:03:36.230] – Allan
But just also the energy. He's obviously a fit dog but needs to be active. And so I would give him that opportunity, but rather than me, go out and do my runs and then come back and do something active with him. I just thought it would make sense if we could do it together. So when I saw your book on running with your dog, I was like, yeah, this is this is something I want to get into

[00:03:56.570] – Bryan
Awesome man! I think you found the right spot then. I think that's a that's an interesting thing. We've run dogs for people who are marathons and it is a different kind of running so that you've already sort of made that observation that it is going to be a little bit different because there is a preference to kind of go want to run on your own and for whatever reason, people like to run, whether it's to check out, to listen to a podcast or listen to music and get ampped. Whatever that is, it is different because it is about the relationship between you and the dog on top of being healthy and physically fit.

[00:04:26.020] – Allan
Yeah. I kind of brushed on the topic of reasons that you want to run with your dog. Could you dove into that a little bit more? I mean, dogs need structure and they need something and running can be a part of that. Can you give us kind of the lay of the land? What what benefits is our dog going to get from a running regime with us?

[00:04:48.100] – Bryan
Of course. There are a number of reasons that people kind of contact us or contact us to run their dogs. And they usually fall into two categories. It's the physical side. They're overweight. Maybe they just had an injury. They're recovering from something like that or sort of the mental side. And that's why you see it manifest as anxiety, destructive tendencies, hyperactivity. Those are the two basic camps that it kind of falls between.

[00:05:14.920] – Bryan
But, I think going out and going for a run is a solution for a lot of dogs, but I'm very clear to say that it is not the solution for everyone. So there is a bit of understanding who you are as a runner, what your goals are as a runner, and if that links up and fits with what your dog's capacity for that is and really checking your ego. I know you talked about lifting a lot of weight. There are days when, you know, you can push it just like runners and dogs are just like humans. There are days you have good days running, you have bad days running. And being able to be self-aware, identify those things is going to put you in the best position to do that successfully long term.

[00:05:53.620] – Allan
OK, so when we I mean, I kind of get, because it's it's kind of a mantra in the fitness environment. By burning some energy, you're burning some calories and, you know, for managing the calories we're giving our dog and we're running our dog a little bit. You know, they're staying healthy. They're they're maintaining the appropriate weight. And we can talk to our veterinarian about what our actual foods should be and how often and how much they should eat.

[00:06:19.650] – Allan
But on the behavioral side, can we dove a little deeper there? Because in the book I was like, you know, this this solves a lot of problems. People will get a puppy and it's cute and then it's destructive. And then it's doing other things that we don't necessarily want it to do. And you can train the dog. Obviously, with enough work and effort, you can train a dog. But running is going to do some things that make that whole effort much better.

[00:06:46.050] – Bryan
Yeah, I think it helps to step back a little bit and think about sort of what was the purpose for dogs when they originally kind of became companions for people. Right. Originally they were useful on farms or doing work. They had jobs and that was sort of the they earned their keep. Right? And it wasn't just like what it's become over the last sort of like 50 years where we just kind of take care of them and love them. And it's our job to provide the things for them.

[00:07:12.180] – Bryan
Like people didn't have maybe the funds there were, I think in the book somewhere I wrote as well about. And if I didn't, I meant to. Dogs like leisure dogs that were for sort of the the upper class people and people that had dogs that were sort of middle class. They needed them to do work. You couldn't just afford to feed a dog. They needed to go out there and help you round up cattle. And they needed to help running out with the what the firefighters or they had jobs and slowly over time, that's kind of gone away.

[00:07:45.330] – Bryan
But that instinct and that desire to work, it's still within them. So what we've noticed is when they do go for a structured run and might say that unleashed with you intentionally for 30 or 60 Minutes, and you can go further than that. But that's sort of for the purposes of the conversation, within the context of what our company does 30 to 60 Minutes, we can see a change in them sort of on the run and you can see the anxiety or whatever is manifesting that that they are not getting they're not getting enough exercise, they're not getting whatever it is you can see it on the run switch in them from, okay, we're out here having fun.

[00:08:25.140] – Bryan
I'm zooming across left and right, trying to sniff every tree, trying to bark at everything. And they get so laser focused on the run because that is their work to them. And I think it's calling to that like internal like bygone era of what they used to do. So it's really phenomenal to see when you can get into a groove with your dog and then just like how effortless they can really bang out those miles once they have sort of gotten trained up.

[00:08:49.590] – Allan
Yeah. It's funny, in the book, you talked about how dalmatians were used to basically run in front of the firemen so people knew they were coming in and clear out of the way. You know, every picture I've ever seen of a dalmatian, they're sitting in a fire truck. So, yeah, they kind of lost their job somewhere along the way. And now we need to give them some structure, some function, and then that kind of just becomes their their job. And they begin to identify as though this is this is my duty. This is my thing. I do. And that gives them that purpose. And therefore they can burn off the energy. Feeling productive.

[00:09:27.100] – Bryan
Right.

[00:09:29.310] – Allan
Now there are some breeds that you don't want to run. And there are also some times when you might not want to run a dog or any dog or even or maybe just some breeds. Can you kind of get into a bit of which dogs should not run? And then again, if there's times and weather and things like that that where we don't want them to run, that we understand that as well.

[00:09:52.830] – Bryan
Yes. And there are three general groups that have sort of broken it down to and they're all with their own qualifiers. I think to set the tone off the top, I would say all dogs can run. It's just a matter of how us finding out how we can do that safely and for how long and how fast. Right?

[00:10:10.380] – Bryan
So the first group that is sort of a full stop under twelve months. Which is actually very sort of a tricky conversation to have, because that puppy energy is real, man, and they got the dogs want to get after they start they're super cute in the beginning and then they get a little destructive and then they just need to amp up to go. And the idea is like, well, I'll just take the dog out. We'll get them tired. Like running seems to be able to do that. But the letting them out to go and run around a dog park and taking them out and throwing the ball is a very different activity and running style than going out on a sustained run for 30 minutes, where you're pounding the pavement. It's that repetitive activity. And that's because for the pups especially, their growth plates is still growing, their muscle is still being packed on, their ligaments are being stretched out in their joints are actually really susceptible to being misshapen if you do that kind of impactful running.

[00:11:04.340] – Bryan
So if you take your dog out on a run one time for a couple miles, not going to do any harm. But if you're going to do that, if it's a part of your lifestyle, that's when things become problematic. So, Bryan, the person says, yeah, you can take your dog out and take them on a short little trot around the block and just introduce it. I think that's more than fine and healthy. But to do the kind of running that Bryan, the business owner does, that's a bad fit and we will not do that.

[00:11:27.860] – Bryan
The second group are dogs that are called braciaphalic. The best way to picture that is smoshed noses. Most of those dogs are like pugs and bulldogs and things like that. And those people sort of like self select out. They're not really looking to run their own dogs. They just kind of tell, like this dog doesn't want to run. And any time I do, it looks like he's just like had it because of that snorting and chortling and all that sounds.

[00:11:52.370] – Bryan
But the one we have conversations about are boxers. And I know we talked about this a little bit. Boxers are incredible athletes, physical specimens. They are super athletic, but they also have the smushed noses. And I think, again, this is where I answer sort of in two ways back to the original point where it does determining how fast and how far boxers have a need to have such specific attention paid to them while you're running that it's not good for us as a company to run them.

[00:12:24.350] – Bryan
So our decision has been it's not the best fit for us. And it's not that they're not a good fit for us is that we're not a good fit for them. Actually, we can't get them. Give them the individualized attention, because everything that we do is on leash here in Washington, DC. Those are just the laws. And we do pack-style running just as a function of business. So going out for a run with your boxer is more than fine.

[00:12:50.330] – Bryan
I think what you need to look at are the extremities are going to be sort of a little tighter. So you're not going to get above, you know, sort of that eighty, eighty five degrees. Like you want to make sure that the temperature is like sort of perfect. You want to be in that like 40 degree to like 70-75 degree range. And then you're also going to be making sure that you are paying attention to the non-verbal cues, because everything that we're doing with these guys is nonverbal.

[00:13:13.940] – Bryan
You want to make sure that you're watching their tongue. The tongue is the first indicator. If they are in control of that thing, you're fine. Keep going. When there even if it's out of the mouth and it's darting back and forth, the moment you see it sort of lagging and out to the side and you can tell they're just trying to move that tongue out of the way so that they can bring air in. That's when you have to slow down, start the walk and maybe call it a run.

[00:13:35.420] – Bryan
And that can come a lot sooner because that's the function, the mechanism by which they don't call themselves. So what we can do, what we can't do on the on the business side of things, we can't sacrifice the run for the other dogs. And because it's not fair to them to cut their run short because one of the others can't keep up. And it's not that physically boxers can't keep up, it's that we just can't take them out solo. So I think Buster a fantastic run and I think that's one that I get questions for a lot.

[00:14:04.370] – Bryan
And then the last one or the geriatric dogs. And that one is actually really interesting to see because there are some dogs that have come to us in the eight and nine year old range that a lot of families are like I think is kind of had a shot. He's got a gimp, he's got a limp or whatever, and there's some that have been active their entire lives and have started running with us when they were six or something. And they're still running with us until they're twelve, thirteen years old and obviously slowed down a little bit. Or maybe you don't go quite as often, but they can still do it. And it's sort of like how we are as humans. If you spent a lifetime taking care of yourself, eating well, resting, building your body so that it is strong as you age, you're only going to be able to continue doing those things in some capacity, right?

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[00:16:26.490] – Allan
Basically, if I have a dog and I have two, and so the first one I'll talk about is, is Angel. OK, so Angel is a German shepherd. She's about nine years old. We got her as a rescue. And when we first got her, she already had some problems with her knees. So we went through knee surgeries with her. She also has a spinal problem in the bottom of her spine. So some nerve damage there. So she's got some issues. And I wouldn't see her running for some of those reasons, plus like I said, she's nine years old. So not something that I feel like… Obviously I could walk her more spend more time on the beach with her. She won't chase the ball to save her life. She just looks at you like why you throw that, know what you're doing. But another dog gets a ball and suddenly she wants to take the ball from the other dog so she can play. She can have some fun.

[00:17:18.030] – Allan
And we just recently got a another rescue. Didn't really intend to have another dog, but he needed a home and so he has a home and he's about a year old. Best we can tell. He's probably a mix of a maybe a boxer and a pit bull. So it's not a complete smashed nose of a boxer, but it's kind of in the middle of that build of a good, strong, muscular dog right at about a year old. And he just has more energy than the sun. And I know I've got to do something with him. He will chew things up. I've already lost a pair of water shoes and my wife has lost some things. So we need to give him some deal. So he's short hair, but we live in Panama. So, you know, warning runs would probably put us in that 70 degree weather.

[00:18:11.700] – Bryan
Yeah.

[00:18:12.170] – Allan
But obviously, I couldn't stay out too long with him because that would start to warm up. And I just have to be very careful and watch him. So I appreciate that. So all that kind of makes sense to me now as we went through this.

[00:18:22.400] – Allan
Now, the other thing I liked in the book was, one you give you, give a lot of practical advice. So, you know, you're going to want to kit up, you're going to have the right leash. You're going to want to have some supplies and things brought with you, water for you or for the dog, different things. And then just the skill of running with the dog, which is a whole new thing for me to learn, which I love. But the core thing I got in the book and I was like, OK, so now I want to do this run. You even include guidelines. Over the next six weeks, let's let's get your dog ready to go from, as you said, doggy couch to 5K. And in looking at the program, it kind of fits almost exactly how I would train someone, albeit I think the dog will accelerate through this a little bit faster than than we might. Could you talk about your your prep that it's like a six-week program to kind of get your dog into running shape?

[00:19:18.620] – Bryan
Of course. And I think you nailed it. You nailed it on the head there. It is sort of based on what we have done as runners and getting to 5K for us to definitely what I modeled it after. And I've found that a lot of the things work into and you are also right that dogs pick this up so much quicker and they can bounce back a lot quicker than you. So I think it's so deliberate. I thought it was better to write it sort of in this way where it's maybe a little long for most sort of as to not discourage those that weren't seeing the results of like a four-week program.

[00:19:52.400] – Bryan
Right? So I thought people can look at their dog and modify it and sort of scale it up if they needed to, because they're going to have those sort of next steps. If they're saying, like, actually, my dog is sort of chewing up this two-minute walk four-minute run in week three, like Tic Tacs, I think we can sort of maybe bump it up a little bit quicker. So that's kind of why I modeled it after, like a six-week thing, which is like, OK, that's a reasonable amount of time that you're going to commit to doing this. But if you need to, you can always bump it up a little bit quicker because you're going to have that written there. Whereas if I had written it over like a four-week, you know, maybe somebody said, well, what do I do in between here? This is a big jump. My dog is not ready, but it seems like perfectly capable of doing what's here. So I think that's why I ended up doing it sort of that extended out.

[00:20:36.950] – Bryan
Was there anything specific about sort of the plan? I'd be happy to flush that out for you?

[00:20:41.750] – Allan
Well, what I thought was really good about it was you committed a given amount of time to each workout, so spent 30 minutes. You go out with your dog. It's a walk, run, walk kind of program, which is very common in the couch to 5K. It's what Jeff Galloway did his one of his major programs for running. And so as I was because I was kind of looking through it, I was like, OK, this is a little bit more ambitious than I think a person would want.

[00:21:11.120] – Allan
But that's actually part of maybe the coolness of all this is knowing that your dog has that resilience, you could do your own 5K for a human. And do the half-hour and then that becomes your structured half-hour now, once you get your fitness up to a point with your dogs, the dogs can be able to keep up with you. The dog is going to be able to recover as fast, if not faster than we do, especially those of us over 40.

[00:21:36.320] – Allan
So I just thought it was a really good program in the book to be able to go through and say, OK, here's some structure. If I'm just not quite sure. But then you did touch on something. I think that's also equally important. Pay attention. Your dog's going to be giving you some nonverbal cues that we're going too fast. Or it might be telling you, hey, ratcheted up, dude, we've got miles to cover.

[00:22:00.560] – Bryan
Yeah. Something you brought up there. Why I did it in time increments as opposed to mileage. I know there's a few others out there and there's no shortage of basic information about sort of things like this as well. Why I did it for a duration as opposed to a mileage is when like us, if we can institute routines and sort of make things follow up, plan for them, they're only going to benefit from that because they know, hey, we're going to be out here for this amount of time every other day or three times a week or whatever it is that you decide is the best start for you guys. Right?

[00:22:35.780] – Bryan
And I think instituting that commitment to the routine is also going to help them mentally prepare for what they're about to go do. So I think it twofold. If you go out and we're just going to do it for a mile and the dog is not going to actually make it a mile, well, that's bad news and you're going to feel like fighter. So it's almost like hacking your systems inside of you internally that can help you stay committed to the plan.

[00:23:00.380] – Allan
Yeah, well, because if I told Buster, hey, we're going to run for a mile and we're going to walk for a mile, the buster is not going to have any idea what I'm talking about. But if I go out there with Buster and I'm walking for, you know, for my two minutes and Buster's cool with that, then I'm like, OK, Buster, let's go. And then we run for two minutes. Then he knows that's what we've done and we make that cycle. So for that whole week, that's my three runs. He gets comfortable.

[00:23:24.450] – Bryan
Exactly.

[00:23:24.950] – Allan
And then it's like, OK, we walk for two minutes now, we're going to run for three. He figures out, OK, we went for three. Now if I had a big fast dog, maybe and I'm a big fast runner. If I was, maybe I'm covering, you know, a mile or more, you know, in that in that time that I'm running, maybe I'm not maybe I have a smaller dog or slower dog or the dog that needs a little bit more patience and pace. And so we're not quite putting in the miles the way you would think. But a good 30-minute workout three times a week is going to be beneficial to you and obviously now beneficial to your dog.

[00:24:03.470] – Bryan
Exactly.

[00:24:05.500] – Allan
Bryan, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay?

[00:24:13.480] – Bryan
Well, one's self-awareness, listening to your body. Finding out what like a long-term ache and pain is. Sometimes we're not always feeling our best when we get out there. And I get that. And listening to something barking at you continuously, go get it looked at. There's no sense in sort of beating yourself down and making it a longer-term problem.

[00:24:32.680] – Bryan
Second is getting rest. I think that's one of those ones that everybody kind of says, it's sort of like when people talk about eating and gains are made in that in the gym. Right? For your stomach or in the kitchen for your stomach. Right Everybody wants those abs.

[00:24:45.790] – Bryan
And then especially given what we do, drinking plenty of water, staying hydrated for both you and the pup, honestly.

[00:24:52.090] – Bryan
So drinking water, getting rest, having the self-awareness to just listen to your body, I think are the best thing you can do for your health.

[00:24:58.330] – Allan
All right. Well, Bryan, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book, The Ultimate Guide to Running with your Dog or DC Dog Runner, your dog running company, where would you like for me to send them

[00:25:12.430] – Bryan
They can find the book. It's on Amazon. It's at Target, it's Barnes Noble. I think it'll be in a number of pet stores as well. And then dcdogrunner.com is a great resource. I'm always happy to just have conversations with people about dog running. If you like pictures of very cute dogs on runs, DC Dog Runner, I guess it's DC_dog_ runner on Instagram, actually. So any of those places are great and just connecting with people is something that I enjoy doing. So any questions? I've answered many questions in the comment sections or indirect messages. I'm always happy to sort of give my opinion. I talk about being a generalist and I haven't run with your dog necessarily. But I can definitely give you all the tips and techniques for understanding your canine fitness and running temperament.

[00:25:59.920] – Allan
The book is definitely a really good resource. It's something that I'm going to pay attention to as I start trying to put together a program for Buster and myself. So thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:26:12.820] – Bryan
Of course. Thank you for having me on.

Post Show/Recap

[00:26:19.240] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:26:20.440] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, what a fun conversation you had, and that sounds like a really good book.

[00:26:25.780] – Allan
It is a good book. He talks about some of the tools and things that you would have and he talks about just how to get your dog, get to know your dog so you can run with your dog. And just some of the things that we discussed before and after the conversation there, he I still don't feel confident that I can run with my dog.

[00:26:48.040] – Rachel
Oh, no.

[00:26:48.940] – Allan
It's not the book's fault is is this the dog's fault? He has no understanding of most anything. And while I know he's trainable. It's just. I know he's going to cut in front of me. I know he's going to see a cat or a bird and want to take off. And so I would just say if you're and you've got some experience with this, but if you're going to start running with your dog, it's a slow process. And I know he puts a kind of a couch to 5K for doggies version in there. That's if you're already a pretty strong runner.

[00:27:26.120] – Allan
You've got good balance, everything's optimal and you have a good place to train your dog. Around here, I really wouldn't have anything that I would feel confident other than running up and down the beach would be about the only place I would feel safe. And then it would be a trial and error of trying different leashes and just doing different things to a point where I would feel comfortable that he wasn't going to take me for a spill.

[00:27:52.310] – Rachel
Right. And that actually probably would be a good place to start training him. And I do have a little bit of experience. When I first got my dog, Stella, she was about a year old. She was a rescue and she was picked up as a stray, which means she had no manners, no commands, no behaviors, and certainly no experience on a leash. So when I hooked her up to at leash for the first couple of times, she pulled like a fish on a line. It was awful, a lot like fishing. She would be in front of me a couple of feet and zigzagging all over the road, smelling it things, looking at things. And then she would come to an abrupt stop. And I did a couple of Supermans over her with getting a little bit of road rash. She tripped me a few times and that's when I started to do some research.

[00:28:40.130]
We put her on a gentle leader collar, which I really recommend for new time, dogs that need to get used to walking and running on a leash because that puts all of the control on you. Their neck muscles are really weak and a gentle leader goes around their nose and above the upper part of their head, like behind their ears and their neck muscles are really weak. So if you want to start change direction, stop any commands, they'll feel it. They'll feel it really quickly. You'll have a lot of command that way. And we use that with Stella. We went on a lot of walks and it took a lot of practice and a lot of commands and they're learning how to walk on a leash and the command for walking and Stella knows the command for run. So she knows a different way to behave when we have her on a leash.

[00:29:36.140] – Allan
Yeah, that that took considerable patience. This was not a I'm going to go out and start running with my dog tomorrow. This is we're going to go out and we're going to we're going to do a little bit of running here and I'm going to teach that and a good tip on that leash because I've I've got one of those retractable, which is something you definitely recommends you don't have if you're trying to run with a dog.

[00:29:57.110] – Allan
He will see something and forget that he has this leash on and just take off and a dead run. And unfortunately, when he gets two to three steps in, he's already full speed and I'm not going to let go of the leash. So he does a 360 and then looks back at me like what just happened? And I'm like, still on the leash, dude.

[00:30:21.980] – Rachel
Yeah. And that takes total practice. And I and I retractable leashes can be really dangerous for you and the dog because it's easy to lose grip of that plastic handle. So now with Stella, I have her walking on my left. That way I'm facing traffic and I'm on the road and she's on my left side. So she would be and the inside of the shoulder that way she can't dart in front of a car or into traffic, which she wouldn't. But because I've trained her. But I'm on the side facing the traffic. And so I have her directly on my left. I want her head where my knee is. That way she won't dart in front of me and trip me like she has in the past. And that way I have a tighter rein. On her leash is a shorter leash and I have a little bit more control over it as well. So they can't dart out in front of you. And like you said, the leash goes the full length and then they get a rude awakening and you have your arm ripped out of your shoulder.

[00:31:23.960] – Rachel
So if you have a shorter leash on your left, that would be one thing to try. Although I know a lot of dogs out there who can run ahead of a runner and they'll stay ahead of a runner without stopping and without pulling. But it just depends on the personality of the dog and their relationship with the owner.

[00:31:42.350]
Yeah, no, Buster, I'm going to say we're not into the best of terms right now. He's not been the best dog. Likes to tear up Tammy's plants and she gets angry and unhappy wife, unhappy life. So. Yeah I definitely know, I need to get him out there and get some exercise. It might just be and this is another thing that Bryan talked about, which sometimes just running your dog is quite literally what everybody else does, and it's just playing fetch and let the dog get out and just free run and play fetch with it, because that's the temperament of the dog and how that dog's going to get healthy, stay healthy and be active.

[00:32:27.700] – Allan
And what I found with dogs is if you start running down the beach on your own, the dog's going to run along with you. So, if you can and make sure you're obeying any kind of leash laws and things like that. But basically giving that dog the freedom to kind of play with you, if you will, might be a better choice for me than trying to be a road racer with him right now, because he's just too rambunctious. And I wouldn't feel comfortable looking out for taxis, looking out for him and all of that. So, yeah.

[00:33:01.240] – Allan
It's a good book if you're interested in learning how to run with your dog or learning if your dog is the right kind of dog to be run because not all dogs are. It's a really good book for basically knowing your dog well enough to know if he or she could be a runner. And if they are, it gives you kind of some guidelines on equipment and things like that. So you can do it safely. But as always, anything you're going to do running wise or otherwise outdoors is know your environment, be safe, bring water for the dog. You got to carry your water and maybe the dog needs to carry some water and figure that out.

[00:33:44.500] – Allan
Just as you're going to do this like any new thing, go slow, have patience and now patience for two, because it's not just you, but you also have to have patience that the dog is going to get where you need them to be so that you can have safe and productive runs.

[00:33:59.920] – Rachel
Yeah, that sounds great. Sounds like a great book. Very helpful tips in there.

[00:34:04.150] – Allan
All right. Well, Rachel, I will talk to you next week.

[00:34:07.210] – Rachel
Sounds great. Take care.

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Let's Say Hello

[00:02:03.700] – Allan
Hey, Raz, how are things going?

[00:02:05.890] – Rachel
Good, how are you today, Allan?

[00:02:08.800] – Allan
I'm doing great. We're not really going to have much of a preamble for this one because I want to get right into the meat of this. I'm going to have my favorite running coach on the show, Rachel Everett.

[00:02:21.070] – Rachel
Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me back.

Interview

[00:02:25.840] – Allan
So, yeah, to the last time you were on, we talked about training for running, just getting started running. And for most people, that's going to take the form of something like a couch to 5K type program, where they're just building up some basic endurance to be able to do a little over three miles, probably not in the overall training. They might not make it to three miles, but in a race, they would feel confident that they could keep going and complete the 5K, which is a 3.1 miles.

[00:02:55.390] – Allan
Today we're going to talk about running longer distances after 40, which is a different beast.

[00:03:03.550] – Rachel
A little bit.

[00:03:05.890] – Allan
A little bit. It's something that a lot of us do because we we we master the 5K at least, you know, we realize that we're not going to be able to run any faster than we are. So we forget PRs in the 5K and we start looking to longer distances as that next challenge that's going to keep us excited about running. So, you know, we'll talk about some of the basic distances when someone saying, OK, I've run the 5K, what's kind of the things that they could see coming up and training for that, they would be in a really good position to to reach out and do?

[00:03:45.040] – Rachel
Well after the 5K is the 10K and then the half marathon. And I lump those two together because they have very similar key points in training that we can talk about today.

[00:03:57.070] – Rachel
But before we get to the 10K, I want to celebrate the 5K, in that you've made it this far and you should celebrate your accomplishments because not very many people run 5Ks, but the 5K is actually a special kind of race in and of itself. It's a challenging distance. You can improve your time. You can find different races to support. You can do them all the time. You can do one or two a month or three or four a month if you're so inclined. So the 5K is really kind of like a perfect distance for running in that it will maintain your weight, it'll improve your health. And there's still a lot of joy that you can get out of the 5K for sure.

[00:04:38.530] – Rachel
But when you're ready to run longer distances after 40, the 10k I fully recommend is the next step.

[00:04:45.250] – Allan
Yeah, and the other thing that I think is really cool about the 5K is when you're in 10k or even marathon shape, the 5K can still be a fun run. It can be a part of the training. So, you take you do a 5K and you use that as your speed or you run. That is an interval set. So you're trying to run faster and then, trying to use that as that.

[00:05:08.350] – Allan
Or, when I ran my first marathon, it was the Blue Angels Marathon. The Sunday after that, they had a 5K over the bridge into Pensacola Beach. So since I was already in town, I didn't live in Pensacola at the time. I was like, I'll just stay over one more night. And instead of just getting up in the morning and driving, I will go ahead and get up and I will do a slow 5K as a way to get my muscles moving because I was pretty certain with the first one I was going to be I was hurting. And I kind of was.

[00:05:45.040] – Allan
But it was good to get out there and kind of do that that short distance. I mean, at the time, relative to a marathon, the shorter distance just do it casually. In fact, I was running along at one point this woman passed me, she was pushing a stroller. So, yeah, I wasn't in any hurry. And I did it. And then then I was good to go for my five-hour drive home.

[00:06:07.840] – Rachel
Oh, wow!

[00:06:09.610] – Allan
If I had just gotten in the car right after the marathon and tried to do that drive, I wouldn't have recovered as well. And we're going to talk a little bit about recovery later. But to me it was a good way to flush the legs, get some more blood going through what we call active rest. So you can take these 5Ks and make them really cool.

[00:06:32.740] – Allan
And the other thing that's really interesting about most 5Ks is there's usually a pretty cool charity associated with the 5K. A lot of the 10Ks is do too. And sometimes there's 5Ks and 10Ks in the same race or at least the same day. And sometimes there's even marathons, half-marathons, all kind of paired together. It's just a pick your distance kind of deal. And a lot of times they do have charities. But what you'll find with the 5Ks is that there's a lot more participants. And as a result, those can raise quite a bit of money for charity. They're typically not that much I mean, you pay something like I guess right now it's probably somewhere but 30 to 40 bucks in that range for most of the 5Ks.

[00:07:16.970] – Rachel
Yeah.

[00:07:17.240] – Allan
You get into some of the longer races because of the costs associated with the time distance that you're covering, they can get a little bit more expensive. Plus, for most people who are doing marathons, there's not five or six marathons going on a month in your general location. You're going to be traveling to many of these. So and that's also a big cool part of the whole half-marathon, 10K is to go someplace you've never been and make a weekend of it.

[00:07:42.080] – Rachel
Oh, absolutely. I do love to play in races around vacations or maybe vacations around races. Either way, it is nice to get out of town, that's for sure.

[00:07:51.320] – Allan
Or even work trips, because that for me that was a big part of it, me saying, okay, I happen to be working in Washington, D.C. when the Marine Corps marathon was going on. I also did I also did a 10K there. And so, yeah, I just happened to be there and I'm like, okay, I'm flying in already. I'll just fly in a day or two early and I'll just do this little race.

[00:08:13.870] – Rachel
Awesome. That's wonderful.

[00:08:16.040] – Allan
So yeah, there's lots of opportunities to do these, these runs. And so, Rachel, if someone is considering running longer distances after 40, what are some of the key things that they should consider?

[00:08:30.170] – Rachel
Well, right off the bat, I would suggest you talk to your spouse and your family and friends and share your goal to run a 10K or a half-marathon. Like I said, we're going to lump both these two distances together. And the reason why I say that is because you're going to be spending a little bit more time on training for this longer distance than you had done for the 5K. And what that means is there's going to be a slight disruption of the balance of responsibilities at home.

[00:08:57.800] – Rachel
You're going to have to balance your responsibilities at work and you may not have as much time to spend with your friends and social engagement. So you're going to be spending some time on training and that might kind of disrupt the balance of your normal daily life. So share your plans with your friends and family for sure. Yeah, I know.

[00:09:19.430] – Allan
When I started training, I basically had a membership at a gym. I couldn't run around D.C. because it was just all concrete. And I didn't feel good running on concrete ever. I never have. I've never liked running concrete, but so I just went to the gym and I'm like, okay, I'll do, you know. 20 minutes on the treadmill. They limit me to 20 minutes on the machine. So I go to machine and do 20 minutes and then I've moved to a different machine somewhere else and do something else. And so I was doing elliptical, I was doing stepper, I was doing all kinds of stuff and so up about 20 minutes at a time and I built up to a point where I was doing that for four hours and the only way I could really do that was to leave work at six o'clock. And so to be able to do that, I had to be at work at eight o'clock and work my ten hours and not take a lunch to get my training in.

[00:10:09.890] – Allan
And so I had to talk. I even had to talk to my boss because it impacted my work schedule if I wanted to get that training in. And so that's basically what I would do. I would do four hours for three days of the week and then Friday would Thursday be my day off. And then Friday would be another kind of medium speed day. And then Saturday and Sunday were my long runs. But I had to do my Sunday run early in the morning. My Saturday was kind of free. I could do it when I want to. But yeah, I had to have a conversation with my significant other at the time and say, hey, I'm going to be doing this run. And that means I'm not going to be at the house for potentially three or four hours on a Sunday.

[00:10:54.080] – Rachel
That's right. Yeah.

[00:10:55.550] – Allan
While I'm going and doing this thing and what's your schedule look like and just trying to make all that fit.

[00:11:00.650] – Rachel
Yes. And when you have kids and school and other outside responsibilities, it does get kind of tricky. That's why you want to have the buy-in of all the important people in your life.

[00:11:13.040] – Allan
Now, the second one you have on here is is pretty interesting because I think a lot of people think to run longer distances after 40, you just run more.

[00:11:23.120] – Rachel
Yes. And most runners like that. Most runners like to run more, but there's actually more to it. And when you're moving up to a 10K or a half-marathon, many of the training plans you'll find will include specific drills like speed drills, hill repeats. They will also include cross training. You don't want to spend all of your time running and and hurting all your joints and just damaging your body. You just need to give your running muscles a break every now and then. So that's why there's cross training built into plans as well as rest days.

[00:11:58.190] – Rachel
So a lot of training plans will have you bike or swim and a rest day is not necessarily sitting on the couch and binge watching TV all day, they might have to do some act of rest and that could be just taking your dogs for a walk or just getting around the house, doing chores around the house, yard work, whatever. As long as you're staying busy, you don't want to sit too long.

[00:12:19.930] – Allan
Yeah, I know. When I was doing my training, it was it was kind of one of those cross training things where I was like for a marathon distance. I needed to be able to move for four hours. That was kind of my target time was to finish the race within four hours. And that's how I trained. I trained to keep my body going. I recognized that there would be hills. And so you got to run some hills, although I was in Pensacola, so there actually weren't that many hills for my first one. Big Sur was an entirely different matter.

[00:12:54.220] – Allan
But, you know, you you know the course, particularly if you know the course, that you're going to be trying to run understanding, okay, there's a hill and this is you know, this is what people are doing. And so if you're talking to people that know the race, they'll be able to tell you, yeah, there's actually a section of it that's in sand and that's really, really hard to run in.

[00:13:16.840] – Allan
And you have to do that for a period of time that's going to really where your legs out if they're not stronger than you would think you would need to be to run on asphalt.

[00:13:25.880] – Rachel
Oh, so true. Yeah. If you do have a goal race in mind, if you've picked the place where you want to run your first 10K or first half-marathon, it is good to check out some of the race reports and see a description of the race to see if there's a lot of vertical gain. If if there is a trail or like you said, sand. I've run a couple of races in the sand. So if you know what to expect on race day, those are things that you can practice during your training to make sure that you get some extra hill repeats in there or practice on the trails in the parks around your home or something.

[00:13:58.780] – Rachel
So that type of specificity is important as you do get closer to race day and at the other cross training things are other ways that you can build up your muscle, strength and endurance as well as your cardiovascular system without beating up your legs by running day in and day out.

[00:14:16.870] – Allan
Absolutely. So now the third one you have here on our list is clothing. One I would say with clothing, I think we're actually going to talk about this a little bit later. But there's a there's a lot of options out there, some that are very bright and shiny, fluorescent so people can see, which is important. And while people will tell you and it's true, running can be the cheapest sport there is because you literally have all the equipment right there with you right now, you don't even have to buy shoes. You can run barefoot if you want. Most people will buy shoes. And I advise people to invest in at least one good pair of shoes to start with. But let's talk a little bit about what should people be considering with apparel, particularly when they're trying to run longer distances after 40?

[00:15:13.870] – Rachel
Well, I'm going to start with the shoes again, because the proper fitting shoes is probably the most important gear that you can possibly have. So take a look at the bottom of the running shoes that you've been wearing and see if you can see signs of wear and you'll see the lugs, the little knobs on the bottom of your shoe. They'll wear down in certain places. After some time, you'll feel the foam on the inside or the insole that you have in the shoe just doesn't feel quite as bouncy and cushiony as you had felt when you had first put them on.

[00:15:44.380] – Rachel
And that means the shoes have worn. There's kind of a rule of thumb. Your shoes can last anywhere between three and five hundred miles, which sounds like a lot to a new runner. But you'd be surprised if you're wearing them and walking the dog or walks in the park as well as during training. The shoes get beat up pretty fast and even the foam needs about 24 days to recover after you pound them down on a run. So shoes are so critical.

[00:16:11.710] – Rachel
I know that they are expensive because I buy a lot of them myself. But I can tell you too that they are a lot cheaper than visiting the doctor and rehabbing an injury because you stuck in the same shoes. So make sure you invest in the proper fitting shoes.

[00:16:26.980] – Allan
Yeah, I'm a pronator and so the outside of my feet, that part of my shoe will wear down when I'm running. I went to a running store when I was training for the marathon. I said, okay, I'm going to be doing some running and training for it. And this I was getting into it and the guy goes on, he says, okay, I want you to run down the street here and then run back to me.

[00:16:50.830] – Allan
And then he kind of sized me up and you said, okay, you're a pronator. And so he he kind of he said to measure my foot. You've got very wide toe set. So you to. I Toback's and you need something that's going to provide stability, and so he recommended a couple of different brands of shoes, I tried them on and found one that I liked that I didn't have to mortgage my house for.

[00:17:18.650] – Allan
And I think the other two things I would add with shoes is one. One is more expensive. Doesn't necessarily mean better.

[00:17:26.670] – Rachel
Right.

[00:17:27.330] – Allan
OK, that's one thing is, you know, just get just look for better and you can pretty much go online to the running magazines are running really good running sites and they'll review the shoes every year. So you can go in there and kind of get an idea because they'll tell you, this is an overpriced shoe. Don't pay $500 for this running shoe, $120 is probably about as much as you would have to spend to have a really good running shoe, maybe even less than that in some cases.

[00:17:55.410] – Allan
And the other thing is, I would say wear the shoes that you're going to run in to train it. Don't have a race pair and a training pair. Replace your shoes regularly, but have shoes that you break in and feel good with in training because the things you do in training will reflect how you do in the race as long as what you're doing in the race is the same thing you did in training.

[00:18:23.490] – Rachel
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And don't pick out shoes by color. They're all kind of crazy colors these days. And that's okay because then people will see you.

[00:18:33.600] – Rachel
And similarly with their apparel, with your dry-fit shirts and shorts and socks and everything. This is where you're going to want to pay a little bit closer attention to what you're wearing. Now, when you were training in the 5K, you might have been running for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. And now as you're training for a 10K or half, that might extend into maybe 30 or 40 minutes at a time. And you might also even have a little bit of a walking warm-up and maybe walking cool down.

[00:19:06.810] – Rachel
So you're going to be spending a lot of time in these clothes. And what you're going to want to watch for would be chafing and blisters on your after your socks and your shoes. So with chafing a lot of the tags and the neck of your shirt or in the back of your shorts that can irritate the skin around your neck and on your back, the seams that go around your shoulders or around the bottoms of your shorts or even on your waistband, they can get irritating as well and really irritate your skin causing chafing, which hurts a lot. You don't want that.

[00:19:42.900] – Rachel
And you won't recognize that when you're training, when you're only running for maybe 20 minutes at a time, you may not notice. But when you're wearing that same shirt or that same pair of shorts for 30 or 40 minutes, you'll start to feel this friction, which is why you want to have clothes that fit well and that have that dry wicking quality so that when they do get wet, they can dry a little bit faster and not irritate your skin quite as much.

[00:20:08.310] – Allan
Yeah, I had all kinds of blister problems. And I can just I can you know, it took them longer distances and really I didn't have a solution that got a lot better stuff today than they had when I was running. But moleskin is your friend. So if you do find that you're doing some training and you get a hot spot on your foot, go out and invest in some moleskin that will save your skin and keep you from blistering.

[00:20:31.530] – Allan
So if your shoes giving you a hot spot, just be aware of that and you might have the wrong size shoes, as we mentioned before. So you might need to be fitted with another pair of shoes. But beyond that, moleskin can be your friend. If you just start noticing the hot spot and you notice it early enough, a little bit of moleskin can go a long way. And then the other thing I'd put out there, just as a general advice, don't wear a tutu.

[00:20:56.508] – Rachel
Tutu's are fun. Skirts are fun.

[00:20:59.640] – Allan
Skirts are probably fine. I don't know. I don't have any experience running. But we were doing a we were doing it but run it was a warrior dash. And the guys, we were kind of joking around about different things are going to wear. So we were going to wear these football jerseys. The girls wanted pink and they voted pink. And so they got pink. And then they also wanted us wearing tutus. So we were all wearing tutus. And I'll try to find a picture of that and put it in the show notes you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/480 and I'll see if I can have a picture of us in the tutus. But yes, chafing I didn't have I couldn't carry my arms high enough to not shave on the on the tutu. So I don't advise running with a tutu.

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[00:23:17.190] – Allan
So, Rachel, then you talk about we talked I talked a little bit about this, the optional gear, the other things that you would potentially want to have with you or be have on you to help you while you're going through and doing your runs.

[00:23:31.530] – Rachel
Yes. So when you're spending more time on the road, chances are you're going to be getting up early at the crack of dawn, maybe running later at night and reflective gear and lighted vests, any sorts of lights that you can put on your shoes, your visor, a vest. Those are all going to be really important, especially if you are spending any time on the roads or where there's traffic. There's no shortage of lights that you can get from any sort of running or a big box athletic store. That's super important.

[00:24:03.120] – Rachel
But the second thing is, is that, again, now that you're spending more time outside at all, different times of the year, you want to have clothes that are going to be weather appropriate and comfortable. You never know if it's going to rain on race day. So you want to make sure that you have the running the rain gear, that you want to have to keep you as comfortable as possible while you're running in the rain or in the snow like I do up here. Go through the apparel section of your local running store and ask for input from the salespeople for maybe what type of gear that you can get for these different types of scenarios.

[00:24:40.800] – Allan
One of the things that I think is really important, if you have any form of medical condition or things like that, make sure you have something on you that's going to tell someone that that's there. So like, if you're allergic to certain medications or just anything else that someone should know about you, if they find you. Just have that on you. So some ID so someone can contact someone. If they find you and they're taking you to the hospital, you're going to want that on you if you're not conscious and not that that's going to happen to you. But you're going on this run. You don't necessarily want to carry a bunch of stuff. So you're not running with your purse or maybe not running with your wallet, but you need some identification and maybe some taxi fare in case you just got a little too far out of and have to take a taxi back, but just kind of be situationally aware of what your needs are.

[00:25:38.070] – Allan
If you're doing an out and back run as you're trying training run, you do have to make that back. And so just kind of being aware of that and having with you what you need is going to make that a much safer run

[00:25:50.250] – Rachel
For sure. And when I when I personally run long, I actually do carry my driver's license and maybe a few dollars just in case I need to buy a water at the gas station or something. So I'll stick that in a Ziploc bag so that I don't sweat all over it and stick it in one of my pockets somewhere. Yeah, there's a lot of road ID type bracelets, medical bracelets. If you do have a serious allergy or something, have your stuff with you and as well as ID.

[00:26:18.900] – Rachel
The other part of the gear that you might consider too, is some sort of a hydration item. When you're running a 10K and definitely a half-marathon, you're going to be spending a lot of time on the road. And although races have aid stations, in training you're not going to find those same aid stations quite as handy. So there are handheld water bottles, which I have plenty. And there's and I also frequently wear a hydration vest where I have a bladder in a backpack for longer distances and more water. So it's a point where especially in the summer when you get dehydrated, you're going to want to have water or electrolytes with you. So this would be one other item that I think would be very handy.

[00:27:00.030] – Allan
Yeah, one of the things I used to do was I would set up my own aid stations before I did my run so I would drive the route that I was going to run, in particular, if it was going be an out and back or something like that. And I would set up my own laide stations and I'd have water sitting there, you know, at each just a little, you know, little bottle of water.

[00:27:19.770] – Allan
And so I guess I came up on a location. I have that bottle of water. I'd scrunch it up and stick it in my pocket to keep going and not leave the plastic behind. But, yeah, I created my own aid stations. And, that's why I actually encourage people, if you're going to do some training, training on a loop other than when you're trying to do, you know, maybe hills or repeats or something. But if you can try to find a lap, you know what you're doing shorter laps of. Let's say you wanted to go do a 5 mile training run. If those can be half mile or one mile laps, that's going to give you an opportunity to have that regular aid station right there where you started.

[00:27:59.610] – Rachel
Oh, absolutely. That would be ideal. That would be perfect.

[00:28:03.150] – Allan
So let's dove a little bit deeper into nutrition and hydration.

[00:28:08.070] – Rachel
This is a good topic, Allan, and I really think that we could spend probably a whole podcast talking about it, because, as you know, there are going to be carb-burners out there as well as the fat burners, which I am. I follow the keto-type of eating. Nutrition is still a really highly individualized situation that really you just have to experiment with and see what your body needs to run long distances or fast, as well as what you can tolerate, whether what your stomach will tolerate. Because as you're out there for longer, your stomach may not like the things that you've been eating and you might have a problem. So this is a big topic.

[00:28:55.190] – Rachel
Let's start with hydration, you're going to want definitely water and or electrolytes with you, especially in the summer. If you find that you're that you sweat a lot and you're a salty sweater and that that little white grip is left on your face or on your arms, you're sweating out a lot of salt.

[00:29:12.140] – Rachel
So in that case, you're going to want some electrolyte products, Nuun and Ucan are really great electrolyte products. Even Pedialyte is a proper electrolyte product. And you want to mix that up with water on occasion just so that your stomach doesn't feel like you just had the sugar bomb dropped on it. Although there's no not a lot of sugar in Nuun or Ucan, just the sweetness of it can irritate your stomach. So alternating that with water is very helpful.

[00:29:41.960] – Allan
Yeah. You know, I think that that was that was one of the big wake up calls for me is I was running my first marathon, I think it was in the spring. And then by the time I was running my third or fourth, we were getting into the winter months and. I was running this, and it was it was in Mississippi, it was a long flat course, but it was cold, really, really cold. And I actually got more dehydrated running that race in the cold than I did running the marathon in Pensacola in the spring.

[00:30:19.110] – Allan
And so, you know, it was warm and humid for that first one. And then for this other one, it was really cold. I wasn't expecting it. I occasionally ran by an aid station thinking, I'm not thirsty. But I realized after the run that I didn't hydrate properly. And so, you know, making sure that you're staying hydrated and in your training runs, there's no one there to look after you.

[00:30:45.230] – Allan
So you're responsible for you, making sure that you have what you need and what you do and what you do in your training, again, must be something that you consider doing in the race. So don't change up your fuel. Don't change up your hydration. Find something that works for you. That's why you're training so you can learn your body and learn what you're capable of. And then in the race, that's when you're going to try to push yourself. You want to be doing the same thing so that you have a base for what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:31:17.570] – Rachel
Yeah. And this is a good point to add. Again, maybe having a hand-held hydration water bottle of some sort is also a reminder for you to drink periodically. It's really interesting between heat and cold running, your body is just as thirsty on both occasions. However, in the summertime, it's obvious that you're you're sweating, you're feeling thirsty. The air is dry and it's almost as much of a habit as it is a physical need to drink in the summertime, whereas in the winter you don't feel quite as thirsty, just like you had experienced.

[00:31:52.370] – Rachel
But your body is thirsty. It's just not recognizing that the same kind of sensations as you feel in the summer. So it is important to drink whether you're on a hot day or a cold day. And if you had that handheld water bottle, that might have been a good reminder to sip at every mile or a couple of miles or something.

[00:32:12.830] – Allan
Absolutely. So, Rachel, number six on your list, I think, is maybe one of, if not the most important thing for people who are running longer distances after 40. That's recovery.

[00:32:26.900] – Rachel
Yes, more recovery. And then when you think you've done enough recovery, do some more recovery. This would be a good time to really prioritize foam rolling and stretching after your run. I mean, mark that on your calendar and make it an item on your calendar that you do foam rolling and stretching after your run. It's really important to loosen up those tight muscles, especially as you're adding more miles to your training program. And then if you add strength training, biking, swimming, and other activities or on a day that you did speed work or hill repeats, you want to do more foam rolling and stretching to loosen all those muscles that you just tightened on a run.

[00:33:08.690] – Rachel
And in addition to foam rolling and stretching, this might be a time to experiment with some compression gear, like there are calf sleeves and arm sleeves that can help promote circulation. There are socks that go all the way up to your knee that help promote circulation and ice baths and water baths are another recovery tool that you can experiment with.

[00:33:33.980] – Allan
A lot of times people will not listen to their body and they'll push and they'll push and they'll be like, well, this is what my plan is. And so they had a plan and the plan was, okay, it's Sunday, it's my long day. But they're not really recovered from what the work they've done that week. And they get out there on their long run. And the next thing they know, they're hurting in a way that they can't run anymore.

[00:34:05.420] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:34:08.870] – Allan
Your body is incredible. It's capable of doing so many incredible things. But if you don't let it recover. The way it needs to that wear and tear, and that's one of the things that a lot of people struggle with running is it is a repetitive activity.

[00:34:28.490] – Allan
If you're doing it on concrete, I hated that because when I was heavier as a runner. So every impact on concrete for me was just huge. And I would run as litefoot as I could, but at one 195 pounds, there's a lot of hitting on my legs. And so I just had to be really, really careful to make sure that I wasn't overdoing it, or else I would have injured myself and potentially been out.

[00:34:58.640] – Rachel
Well, that's a good point. And, you know, we've been raised with the no pain, no gain mantra. If it's not hurting, it's not working. But this is the time to really put that aside, especially after 40 when we are getting into these longer distances, pain becomes a different kind of signal. And, you know, your body is adapting as you're doing more miles and cross training and doing all these different things.

[00:35:21.740] – Rachel
Your body is going to have the DOMS, the delayed onset muscle soreness that you often feel when you're doing a new activity. That's fine. A little bit of ache or soreness that's normal because you're doing all these new things, then pushing your body in a way you haven't done before. However, there's a really fine line where that becomes a pain and that is a signal to take a minute and reassess the situation. I have seen a lot of runners have a pain, which is very subjective, but it shows a stress fracture. And that stress fracture, if you don't listen to it, will become a real fracture and then you'll be spending a lot more time on the couch than you'd ever wanted to before.

[00:36:03.080] – Rachel
So there could be muscle tears, you could have tendon injuries, and it could be just inflammation. But you don't have an x-ray machine or an MRI. So this would be the point where you go to a doctor and get a proper diagnosis. And the sooner you get to the doctor, even if it's a minor pain, you'll get one, the reassurance that it's nothing more than DOMS or a muscle ache that you need a day or two off or you'll get the treatment for a more serious condition and you'll get treated faster so that you can get back on the road faster.

[00:36:33.470] – Rachel
So pain is a signal that something is wrong and you need to do something about it.

[00:36:38.060] – Allan
Yeah, there's another version of recovery I kind of want to get into, because for a lot of people, particularly when they start trying to run longer distances, they'll find that they get this little ache right under their ribs. I would typically get it right on my right side, right up under my ribs. We called it a stitch. And for me, there was a particular strategy as I was. It was because I didn't want to not finish the run. And that was not enough. I was in pain and I didn't like it, but it was not a kind of pain that I knew I should quit running. So if someone gets something like a stitch or something like that, what's what's the recovery method for them to to be able to still complete the run and get and not and know they're not hurting themselves.

[00:37:23.630] – Rachel
Sure. I've got inside stitches before. It's been a while, but I would I would stop and walk it off and do some deep breathing techniques, try and stretch out your abdomen, do some stretches, try and loosen up those muscles, practice some breathing, deep breathing to calm down a minute and then see how that responds. But what was your technique?

[00:37:45.530] – Allan
It was it was basically just slow down the core of it. What I knew was that my diaphragm was not aligned with the way I was running and so it's just creating kind of a for lack of a better word, a cramp in there because things were getting tight and I just needed to slow down and let my breathing resume. You've got to get past the ego. You know, we're over 40 now. I had way too much ego back then. It was always just to me, devastating that I'm like, I've got to slow down and let this go. But I just knew it was not something that was going to go away on its own. I needed to slow down and let my body recover and kind of get its mojo back for lack of a better word so that I could complete the run.

[00:38:36.080] – Rachel
That's absolutely perfect. And it's actually a bigger point there, Allan, because running longer distances after 40 means you do need to slow down your 5K pace will not be the same case that your pace that you run a 10K or a half-marathon. So pacing yourself slowing down is a good way to to run safely and injury free, especially over 40.

[00:39:00.590] – Allan
Yeah. One of the things I like about the longer distances is that they become a thousand times more social.

[00:39:09.740] – Rachel
Oh yeah.

[00:39:10.640] – Allan
You know when you run a 5K for some reason or another, most people that want to have a good time, they're just running all out. There's like no conversations in the first two-thirds of the pack of a 5K. The walkers in the backyard or they're having a blast.

[00:39:28.080] – Allan
But when you get into the longer distances, people kind of let go of the fact that we're racing something and it's more about completing the distance than it is about beating yourself or beating someone else. So it becomes a much more social thing as you start doing longer and longer distances. But you have one on here that I think's actually really, really cool, because a lot of times when we're trying to train running seems like a really lonely thing. And it's kind of hard to explain. It's like, no, you'll have more conversations on a marathon because you're running for four, maybe five, maybe six hours.

[00:40:07.020] – Allan
That's one of the most social days of your year because you're making all kinds of friends as people are running slower or faster, walking or whatever is going on in that race. But you you recommend that people join a run club?

[00:40:19.890] – Rachel
I do. And there are run clubs probably associated with the running shoe store. There could be just groups of people in your in your city or town that you live in. And the RRCA has a listing of run clubs. That's rrca.org, where you could look up different run clubs in your area. And the best thing about a run club is that you're going to find like-minded people trying to do the exact same thing you are. You're going to find other people trying to get faster at the 5K or maybe doing their first 10K or first half-marathon.

[00:40:53.850] – Rachel
And you will find people that are at your pace. And it would be so much fun to meet people at the run club nights or different days depending on your schedule. And running with people at a similar pace is really fun. It's entertaining is a great way to meet people.

[00:41:10.260] – Allan
And I think that you just touched on something that's really, really important is the longer runs are really are about pacing. To finish a longer runm you have to understand a pace and understand the pace, you have to practice the pace. So having someone else, maybe somebody who's even a little bit more experienced than you and you go into a run and you're like, okay, we're going to do an 11-minute mile for four miles.

[00:41:36.720] – Allan
And so having someone who understands how to to do that versus we're going to say sprint out and leave you there and then you'll see him at the finish line, you know, later, you know, having someone there. I think one of the coolest things is, you know, if you and Michael couldn't find a run club, you started what we did.

[00:41:58.950] – Rachel
Yeah, we did. Because everywhere that we have moved so far, there's always somebody who also likes to run. And so why not get together and run together and enjoy some conversation and the scenery at the same time while also getting fit. Run clubs are a great way to meet people and also push your speed because there's going to be somebody faster than you. There's also going to be somebody slower than you. But it'll be a good way to be pushed and see what other people can do.

[00:42:27.810] – Allan
Yeah, and it's actually really cool to have people that are fast or news. So when you do the race, they're there to cheer you when you finish.

[00:42:33.860] – Rachel
Yes, yes, yes.

[00:42:37.380] – Allan
That was what was so cool. And I ran with was Redbud. Yeah. You guys are Redbud. You were Pea Ridge in Florida. That was so cool. I ran with you guys on that one run and everybody finished before me I guess because so many people stand at the finish line yelling my name. That's so cool.

[00:43:00.510] – Rachel
Yeah. It's nice to have a bunch of people supporting what you're doing. It's just so encouraging and very motivating. Cool.

[00:43:07.710] – Allan
All right, Rachel, so now that someone's considering running longer distance after 40, can you kind of just go over a quick recap of the seven things that they should be paying attention to?

[00:43:18.330] – Rachel
Absolutely.

[00:43:19.350] – Rachel
First of all, share your plans with your friends and family and get their Buy-In and support because you're going to be spending a lot of time on the road. Make sure you find a training plan that works for you. There's a ton of training plans out there from the couch to 5K, which they have the 10K. Jeff Galloway, Hal Higdon, if you're having problems finding a training plan, hit me up. I could probably give you some advice on how to choose a training plan for your abilities.

[00:43:44.520]
Proper apparel shoes will always rein king. You need to have good shoes so that you can stay healthy and start to look at the shirts and shorts and other apparel that will keep you comfortable for these longer distances. As far as optional gear goes, reflective gear, lighted gear, weather-appropriate apparel as well as hydration items would be nice to have as soon as you can afford that or find a need for it.

[00:44:09.180]
And nutrition and hydration is very individualized. We could have a whole podcast that talks about this. The best thing you can do is experiment with the products, the food products and drink products that agree with your stomach and training days always try and training and don't forget to do recovery and then maybe some more recovery. Prioritize foam rolling and stretching, just like you do every other training session. Make sure you take your rest days when you're training plan says to take a rest day, but that's an act of rest, not a sitting on the couch all day kind of a day.

[00:44:43.520] – Rachel
And lastly, find a run club, get inspired and motivated by other people in your town and join other people in the same goals that you're trying to accomplish as well.

[00:44:55.220] – Allan
All right. Well, if you have a run that you want to do and you see it on the horizon, you want to start training for that, I'd strongly encourage you to reach out to Rachel. Rachel, your site is strong-soles.com. And you have a strength training course there that will help someone with their cross-training as they're trying to get to these longer distances.

[00:45:20.540] – Rachel
Yep. On the first page of my program on my website, strong-soles.com, scroll down to the runners' workout that'll be emailed to you directly. And if you have any other questions, there's a contact page on the website as well.

[00:45:35.550] – Allan
Awesome. So you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/480, and I'll be sure to have the links there. All right, Rachel, this was a great conversation. I hope you have a great week and we'll talk next week.

[00:45:49.790] – Rachel
Thanks, Allan. Thanks for having me on again. Take care.

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