There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Gina Millar And The Legacy Left
What if starting a fitness journey in your 70s could transform not just your health, but your entire community? Join us as we celebrate the incredible legacy of Gina Millar, who embarked on her fitness adventure at 74 and became a beacon of strength and perseverance. We'll explore how Gina and her husband, Gordon, committed to their thrice-weekly workout routine, and discover the secrets behind her inspiring vitality that lasted all the way to 99. Her story is not just about staying fit; it’s about the profound impact of dedication and the lessons she imparted to all those around her.
Gina was more than just a fitness enthusiast; she was the heart and soul of our gym culture. Her outspoken nature and unwavering principles birthed the beloved mantra "WWGD"—a testament to her fearless spirit. We’ll reflect on her ability to stand up against rudeness and maintain her authenticity, leaving an indelible mark on everyone she met. As we recount stories and memories, we honor not only Gina’s inspiring life but also the powerful legacy she and Gordon left behind. Join us in celebrating a truly remarkable woman whose influence continues to resonate within our community.
Welcome to. There's a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I'm the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work and, most importantly, why things work.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do my next two episodes I would say they're special episodes on two clients who have passed this past month and they've meant a lot to us over the years and I just think they have a ton of wisdom. I have a ton of information to share on what I believe is their wisdom, what I witnessed through the years, and I think it's very valuable to listen to that. Their names are Gina Millar and Jerry Johnson and I'm going to start with Gina today. Before I get to that, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and find out how much your house is worth? 386-451-2412. So, as I said, I'm going to begin with Ms Gina Millar, who passed this past month after battling some illness, and Gina was 99 years of age when she passed and she began working out with me, I believe somewhere around the same time Jerry did, which was in 1999. We looked in Jerry's chart yesterday and saw that, ironically, it was October of 1999. And this podcast is being taped in October of 2024. So Gina is right around there, I think a short time before Jerry. It's when I was located in the Spruce Creek fly-in and she was one of my first clients that started from out there. When I moved to that location I already had a clientele that followed me, but she was one of the first to sign up out there and she came in with her wonderful husband, gordon, who trained with us for many, many, many years. And Gordon passed around four years ago or so. I think it's been four or five years and they came together as a couple for many, many, many years. So I cannot speak about Gina without speaking about Gordon. They were wonderful individuals.
Speaker 1:When Gina first came into the gym, she was well, what would she have been? I mean, she would have been let's see if she was 99. So, gosh, 69. So maybe just turning 70 years of age. So you know, it's so hard to think that because she was already, you know, 70, right, and yet that seems like she was a baby when I think about all the time I've spent with her through the years.
Speaker 1:She played tennis, she walked. I don't think she really was big on any resistance training, so that wasn't a big part of her life. She wanted to get into it, gordon as well, and Gordon played tennis and he walked and I think they bicycled in and around the fly-in. They were healthy, obviously. They were fit, you know, and again her goal was to get into some strength training. So Gina was just an amazing person from the perspective of just really had her wits about her. She knew exactly what she wanted. She communicated very, very well and what a trooper I mean.
Speaker 1:Through the years what we did was we just worked on strike training. Her and Gordon came three times a week Monday, wednesday and Friday, and they originally started training with me and trained with me probably for quite some time. You know it's always funny when people say to me now, oh, I've been training with you a long time, like a year, and I know, like to them that seems like a really long time. But like with people like Gina, I mean we're talking, we're going back, you know, 25 years, you know. So yeah, I'd have to switch what I said about 94. So she must've been gosh 74 when she started. That's what it was. So I began in 94, but I didn't start seeing them until 99. So anyway, doing my math correctly this time, so she trained for three times a week with me for a couple of years and then I believe, she started working with Kelly, who is my ex-wife, and she worked with me for many, many years in the flying and then many years here where I am now on Airport Road, and she trained with them, with Kelly, for a long time and then she switched to another and another and then back with me.
Speaker 1:When I say that, I always want to make it clear that they're always training with me, like it's always my program. I'm always writing the charts, everybody's checking in with me. But the point is is she was so consistent for so many years Like we're talking Monday, wednesday and Friday and for the most part her spot was 10 to 11. That was their spot. Her and Gordon would come in and again, so consistent, she did not like to miss. She always would make a little bit of a joke near the end of her workout and say, well, one more time, one more time. Like that was just what she said and she'd always come in. I mean, after a while, when she got to know us better and she knew that she could feel safe to be more open and stuff, she'd always come in and go. Oh Robert, I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know why I'm doing this. Like this was a 20 year deal.
Speaker 1:When she started saying that she knew she didn't absolutely love to get up and go to the gym. I mean, they could have done what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. They were very comfortably retired, they could have done whatever they wanted to do, but she knew the importance of it and ultimately she did like it. She did enjoy it. She was human and just would admit oh, why am I doing this today? She always did her exercises as instructed. She never liked to wuss out, so to say, on certain things.
Speaker 1:We would have to get her to tell us what was going on. Gordon was a little worse that way in that regard, like he would hide things because he didn't want us to back off on him. So we would both of them would have to say are you sure this isn't hurting? Are you sure We'd have to read their body language? We would have to read their facial expressions, because we weren't always sure if they're going to tell us if something was bothering them. I mean, they communicated in a very, very good way. At the same time, they always had the attitude that they can work through things and I often say to people there's a happy medium. I'm not telling people to hide things and I'm not telling people to not communicate because they should.
Speaker 1:At the same time, I am saying there is something to be said and I'm going to speak about that when I do the podcast on Mr Johnson, on Jerry as well with being tough, like understanding that we are going to have aches and pains, we are going to have some issues come up and they're not all the end of the world and not all little bits of a tendon being sore is going to lean into or lead into a tendon rupture. Like you know, there is something to be said for understanding that we're not going to feel perfect, we're not going to feel awesome every time we work out. There are going to be aches and pains Again. She started with me when she was 74 years of age somewhere in that ballpark there's going to be aches and pains, for goodness sake.
Speaker 1:As she got older and into her 90s, of course there were more issues, but I can remember taking a picture and a video of her maybe three or four years ago. So she's mid to upper 90s now and she's doing a single leg glute bridge off of an inclined dumbbell bench Because that's basically where she fit very well. Like it just worked out good. She was a pretty small lady so she was able to get on there and do that, but that's like amazing. There were some shoulder issues we had to work around, but you know, gina was doing squats into her late 90s. I mean, we're talking somebody who didn't always love to work out and did it anyway. Like there's things she liked more. She liked socializing with her friends, she liked eating, she liked going out, she liked her wine here or there. She never gave that up. She didn't need to give it up. She didn't have a problem with it. She didn't have a weight problem.
Speaker 1:We often said WWGD, what would Gina do? And it was funny whenever she'd be picking my brain on maybe some nutritional facts or nutritional science or ways to eat, I would always laugh and say I need to be asking you. You're in your 90s, you obviously know things, you obviously know how to do things and I think if more people modeled their life after her, everybody would be so much healthier and probably happier. Everything with Gina was in moderation, you know, when she came to the gym she didn't kill it. She wasn't one of those that just you push to gut, busting failure and we need to break down sets on and super sets and you know you smoked her and you got her heart rate up to 90%. No, she wasn't one of those types of people, nor does really anybody need to be one of those types of people.
Speaker 1:What Gina modeled year in and year out, as did Gordon, was consistency. She showed up, she did what she needed to do and she went home. Her workouts were never over the top. They were the standard workouts that I always recommend, which is roughly around 10 to 11 exercises covering all of the major muscle groups, working with the best resistance you can work with, with good form, and we move on. And that was her workout. She did a little bit of cardio in the beginning treadmill, bike, whatever and then would do a little bit of stretching at the very end and that was it Like. It was just consistent, consistent, consistent and that's how she ate, that's how she drank, that's how she slept, that's how she read. Like all of her hobbies and habits were moderation and consistency. She didn't eat a plant-based diet, she didn't eat paleo, she didn't eat what are all the silly things we talk about all the time. She wasn't on South Beach. She wasn't on any of these things. She was on Gina diet, common sense, eat a little bit of this. That seems to be healthy food. Don't eat too much. I don't know if the woman ever binged in her life. Just eat enough.
Speaker 1:I mean, we got to know Gina really well through the years. We became friends with Gina. You know we had a common love of baseball, so when we would go to a baseball game we would bring Gina something back because she loved the Rays, tampa Bay Rays, as did Gordon. One of our last photos we have of her I just hung up here in the Maxwell's Hall of Fame. It's a great picture of her with her bright, beautiful smile, with her Tampa Bay Rays shirt on that we got her, and you know, looking all happy. So we got to know Gina and you know, normally we don't socialize with clients. That's the rule of thumb. But when you know somebody for close to 30 years, you know you kind of break that rule a little bit. But we would have lunch with Gina, here or there. I mean she would eat a normal lunch, you know, nothing special. I mean if there was a special she'd probably just order it Like it didn't matter what it was.
Speaker 1:But the key was she never over ate, she didn't skip breakfast, she didn't do intermittent fasting, she didn't do ice baths, she didn't do any of these things people do today to try to increase longevity or quality of life. She just lived her life in such a consistent, moderate manner. She loved to walk. One of the things that really caused some decline in her cognitive function and body is the fact when she couldn't go on her longer walks anymore for safety reasons, that really impacted her. It impacted her mentally and physically. But when she walked she just walked. She didn't wear a garment or an Apple watch to determine her ideal pace, to determine her ideal heart rate, to see how many steps she got at the end of the day. All these things that we do to try to become Gina, gina did it. Naturally she just walked. She went for a walk. My guess is, for the most part, when she's a little bit younger, she would do the lap around the Spruce Creek line, which was roughly four miles. She would just do that, go in most likely, have a glass of water, quick shower and eat breakfast. She just did everything moderately. She was on the Spruce Creek Creekettes and she loved doing that. So she loved to do physical, healthy things, showing off her fantastic legs. I mean Gina always just looked fantastic.
Speaker 1:She loved to read and she would spend a lot of time reading during the day. I mean you could already guess, just based on listening to this or if you knew her, that she was not on social media. I mean we helped her a couple of times. I believe her daughter got her an account but she never used it whatsoever. We would help her get into her tablet at times because she would use it for different things. So you know she was definitely old school in that way. So her way of getting away from the world wasn't by getting into the world by looking on social media and doom scrolling.
Speaker 1:It was picking up a very well thought out book, her I, ellen, we would trade books back and forth. If Gina thought something was really good, she'd tell us and we'd read it, and vice versa. And what was really funny about her is, you know, not every book that we all read all of us can agree is great. I would read a book and you know, I would think, hey, it's okay, I'd give it to Gina and Gina would read it. And she might even say to me you know it's really tough to get through, but I'm going to get through it. Like for her quitting on a book, even if it was a bad book, just wasn't in her way of doing things. Me, I'll quit on a book sometimes, but with her it was like well, I'm going to finish it because you read it and gave it to me and I'm like, okay, so everything she did, she just did with such consistency.
Speaker 1:Again, wwgd, we used to say it all the time. It's like so this scenario has come up. What would Gina do? Gina was outspoken. She was not going to be bullied in the room. You would think, well, who would do that in a gym? Well, look, you know, I've been doing this a long time and I can tell you, you know, we have had some obnoxious clients. We still have some obnoxious clients, meaning they just don't know how to play well with others in the sandbox. I mean there are some and if you're listening, yeah, this could be you that we can't put others in at the same time because they can only get along with their trainer. That's kind of sad in many ways. But anyway, we wouldn't worry so much about that with Gina, because Gina could fend for herself.
Speaker 1:If somebody was saying something that she thought was rude, she would flat out say it. If somebody told an off color joke you know a bad taste joke she would say I don't find that to be very funny. So you know, gina could hold her own Absolutely. So we miss you, gina, we absolutely love you Absolutely. So we miss you, gina, we absolutely love you. And the world lost a great one, and I really want everybody to kind of think about WWGD. Whatever Gina would do, I can tell you this, it would be moderate, it would be consistent and it would be authentic. She is not going to people, please, and I just think she was a fantastic woman, as her wonderful husband gordon was as well. Now let me thank overhead door of daytona beach, their premier garage door company.
