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
The Art of Motivation Without Pushy Advice
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am 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. Hence the name. There is a a method to the madness.
Speaker 1:Before I get to today's show, I want to 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 figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, rob, here to talk about some fitness today. Hope everybody's doing well.
Speaker 1:I want to remind everybody to please subscribe when you get these podcasts. You know, maybe somebody sends them to you, maybe I send them to you, but if you'd hit the subscribe button in the top right-hand corner, whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify or something else, it is greatly appreciated. And if you hear something you really like, if you want to try to maybe help somebody get motivated to exercise, you know, send it to them. I just got off the phone FaceTime with a remote client that I have and we finished up our session talking about that, how it really is. Just so much about the accountability, the accountability partner. You know so many people just need somebody to help them, to help them to do it. So sometimes passing stuff on is a way that we can do that All right. So, speaking of that, there is this balance between trying to help but also realizing that if we try to help too much we can kind of move somebody away from their motivation. So let's talk about that a little bit today, because you know, when we tend to get motivated, when we tend to become like into it ourselves which is a good thing we carry that passion around and then we want everybody to feel it too. So it comes out of good place.
Speaker 1:But the problem is it doesn't always work. One of my favorite quotes by President John F Kennedy is the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. I mean, isn't that pretty cool and isn't that so true? I mean, god, that hits home for us here in Florida with the hurricanes, right. So I mean we can just picture that now, man Trying to repair something when the storm is still going is not going to happen.
Speaker 1:But what does that mean in the exercise world? So sarcopenia is age-related muscle mass loss and it begins to happen in the 30s for most people. It really accelerates as we get older. In our 50s it takes a big jump, in our 60s an even bigger jump. I mean, basically what it means is that if we don't use it, we're going to lose it. I mean, that's all sarcopenia really is, because studies have also found that if you maintain your exercise program or maybe you never had one in your teens because you didn't need it, because you were maybe playing baseball or playing volleyball or you were surfing, or you're riding your bike to school or you're doing all these things you did I mean, we all know those people that never really technically exercised in high school, maybe they played sports and maybe in their 20s.
Speaker 1:There was those that hit the gym a lot and worked out in college, or those that you know hit the gym after work in their 20s and there were some people that didn't do much of anything but they just naturally stayed fit. Well, you know, those are the 20s and got hormones on your side, you got youth on your side, you got all these great things on your side and then you know, something happens to a lot of people around that age. They begin to get into their full time jobs, their adult jobs, so to say. Start having families, maybe. Jobs, so to say, start having families maybe. And a lot of the self-care. And maybe there never was self-care, maybe you just had youth on your side, as I said, but a lot of that just gets pushed aside. I mean, I was a big workout guy in college because I loved it, but I know a lot of people were not and a lot of people didn't come to it till afterwards. I mean, we've all heard of the famous freshman 15 or freshman 20.
Speaker 1:And I guess nowadays people are saying freshman 30 because people are putting more weight on than they used to, which may or may not be true, but you know why does this happen? Well, I mean people start moving less for the first time in their lives. I mean people start moving less for the first time in their lives Most of them, not everybody and people start eating more, whether it just be because there's more available, maybe where you go to college has cafeterias with a lot of food, maybe there is some anxiety issues going on that force people, not force. But, you know, help people to eat more, assist in people eating more. You know, maybe there's social pressure, maybe there's depression, who the heck knows? But a lot of people do gain weight during their college time, right, and people are not exercising as much. So, you know, fast forward into more of the adult life.
Speaker 1:When people then come out of college or come out of trade school or come out of whatever they're doing and start their jobs, that becomes the big focus. It's kind of like the trend we've been on, essentially just before World War II. It's like, well, that's the age of go to work, you work for 20 or 30 years, 30, 40 years, whatever, and then you retire. Now what happens is a lot of people quit their physical movement. I mean, it's just very natural, and what we're seeing now is the epidemic of that. We've been seeing it for a while. This is not anything new. The obesity crisis is worse now than ever, but as far as we seeing people not really exercise and losing their muscle mass, I mean I'd have to look at the statistics to be sure, but I would imagine it might actually be a little bit better now because people are going to the gym now, later in life, far more than they ever have. Thank God, I mean, we see such a motivated clientele with people over 60. They're really, really, really anxious to keep all the muscle on their body that they can. So that's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:But what happens in between is a lot of people don't do it right. So go back to Kennedy's words it's like you know, the time to fix that roof is before it rains, unfortunately. How do we get that message to people that are just approaching that adulthood, right? How do we get them to understand that this is the time to start making sure that that roof doesn't leak? Because, again, sarcopenia is age-related muscle mass loss and mostly because we don't use the muscles anymore. Use it or lose it.
Speaker 1:Studies have shown that if we strength train, we will maintain almost all of our muscle mass Not complete all of it, but most of it. And then, if we even pick up working out, we're going to regain muscle mass. All right, so we definitely can do it. So we know strength training is the way to do this and other forms of exercise cycling, walking which will also increase the musculature of the lower body as well. So we know that exercise will keep muscle on the body and it will keep muscle from atrophying. So that's very, very critical.
Speaker 1:How do you get a population of people that don't necessarily believe that yet to do it? How do you get a population of people that really need to start working on that roof when they're looking at themselves and going, I'm absolutely fine? Well, you know, that's the age old question and it's really, really hard and I'm going to do the best to try to give you some answers. You know I had a discussion with the client today, you know, as he was leaving and he was talking about, you know, I just starting to see, you know, a friend of mine, super motivated, because I'm getting motivated, and you know I want to jump in and like start like telling them what they should start to do, but I'm afraid if I push too hard, you know it's no longer going to be their idea and they're not going to do it. And I looked at him. I said you are absolutely right. I mean, that is what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:So for those of us that are like motivated and see the way and understand the way, it's extremely frustrating to watch other people not get it Right. It is. It's very hard and you can imagine in my industry. You know, with what I do, and I see it, you know, I mean gosh, I could. I could walk around Publix all day and be like you know, with what I do and I see it, you know, I mean gosh, I could. I could walk around Publix all day and be like you know, if you just did some posterior deltoid work, you wouldn't have those rounded shoulders when you're pushing that golf cart yeah, they're pushing their golf cart in Publix. You wouldn't have that issue if you're pushing your shopping cart. If you actually trained your rhomboids at the gym, I mean that would go over so well, right, I mean, that's one of my benign examples, right there. I mean you can imagine how I can come up with worse scenarios where I end up like getting arrested in public, right, so can't do it, right.
Speaker 1:And when I see like Facebook friends, you know we all have Facebook friends and probably only 5% of them are really friends. But we have these acquaintances, these people we see every day maybe, and they do nothing but complain about their health and these kinds of problems. And you know, oh man, you know. No, I don't think I was ever dumb enough to make a reply comment to somebody telling them what they should do. I think I've had enough common sense not to do that. But I see other people do it and man does it. Just it's like smacking a hornet's nest.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know why people do it Like. I don't really know why people complain on social media. I think people really, really think that people are more interested than they are. I don't know why they do it, I don't. But I also know that me giving them solutions number one isn't really what they're looking for. Most of the time people are looking for attention, and number two it's not going to do any good. So you can imagine in my field how tough it is right, and it's even hard for me when it's a legitimate ask of me which is hey, do you think you can talk to my son? He's at the University of Florida and I think now's the time he needs to get busy and I'm always like, oh God, you know no. And so there's your answer right there no, like, the best we can do is be good examples. That's the best example we can do.
Speaker 1:I mean, I do a podcast, so you know, maybe an interested kid might be coming across a health and fitness podcast. Because he sees one of the titles that you know, a clickbait title that I rarely ever use, and when I do it's kind of a joke and I do it on purpose. And a friend of mine who works in that industry will say, oh nice, clickbait. Hardly ever do it, but a clickbait would be. I think you probably understand, but it would be something like great. But now you know one of those titles and people will be like, oh man, let me click on that, or better sex tomorrow. You know people will be like, oh man, let me hear this. You know, so that's clickbait, right, but let's just say I have one on there that says something like great arms, now, okay.
Speaker 1:So maybe there's this 25 year old scrolling through the health and fitness section of podcasts and that one pops up and he listens to it. Then he starts listening to it, then he hears about preventative medicine and how to take care of himself now, so when he's 60, he can enjoy more of his life, and so on, and so on. I mean that's the only thing we can do. That's what I do. I send the message out there for the general population to understand and then hopefully, you know, the universe will deliver it where it is needed to go, but I can't control the rest and neither can you. We cannot make younger people, older people or whatever people do anything that we think they should do. It is not going to happen.
Speaker 1:You know, for anybody that's had any experience themselves or with friends that have belonged to different 12-step groups like AA or NA or FA or OA or whatever workaholics I know actually a couple of people that have done that too. I mean, they always say that they're a program of attraction versus promotion, and I just think that's so true number one, you know. And I just think that's so true number one, you know, because we also know those recovery people sometimes that are recently recovered, and they you know. But there are people that relapse frequently and then when they're not drinking they're kind of like trying to convert everybody else, and so many people with more experience of sobriety would say, hey, take a step back. There's anonymity for reason, which means keep all of that to yourself, and it's not because you're embarrassed, it's because it's the better way to go through things, cause then if you relapse and everybody knows what you've been doing now, they're going to fault the program. So that's really what anonymity is.
Speaker 1:I just maybe taught you something, but promoting it, pushing it as a way never works. You have to be the example that you want others to be. You just have to be that example. And then, if and when somebody's ready you know, maybe they are 30 and maybe they are starting to see how this is going to go for them in four or five years, you know 10 years, 11, 20 years, whatever Maybe they'll say, hey, I've noticed, you've always stayed in shape.
Speaker 1:What do you do? I mean, that is the very best thing we can do. We can be role models. You can't make anybody do something that they're not ready to do. You can only be a role model for exactly what you believe in, what you love. You can just practice it every day, be it.
Speaker 1:If somebody comes up to you and asks you questions, that's what I. I mean that's what I do. I mean I don't say a word to anybody online. If somebody asks me a specific question, I'll absolutely answer them. I like that actually.
Speaker 1:You know, if somebody does happen to get to know me a little bit, I use Publix a lot as an example, just because my daughter works there. So you know, if somebody does happen to get to know me a little bit. I use Publix a lot as an example, just because my daughter works there. So you know I'm one of those dads that likes to go where your kid is, you know. So I'll go in there sometimes. So I get to know a lot of different people. Plus, I, you know, work there when I was younger too. So I think it's a good story.
Speaker 1:But that's neither here nor there. But if some of the kids you know college kids get to know me some of my daughter's friends, you know and they'll say hey, you know, mr Maxwell, you know how do I get arms like that, you know? I mean, I'll sit there and talk to him because that's an invitation, but if I haven't been invited, I'm not going to insert my opinion. I can have an opinion about whatever I want, but you know what? It doesn't mean I get to express it right, or I can express it and it's going to not go over very well. So you know, we all have to remember that, you know. So what do we do about the roof? Well, here's the deal If the roof is leaking and somebody comes in and asks you to help them, well then help them fix the roof. But until then, you just got to be the example.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and please select automatic download, because that really helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product. They have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
