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 Fitness Basics You're Ignoring
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 method to the madness. 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. 386-451-2412. Hello everybody, coach Rob here Getting ready to hopefully give you some wisdom or something to think about, perhaps some motivation, something to get everybody doing what I think we should be doing physically, and that is the heart of the matter this morning I'm going to talk about basically how simple it is.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to reiterate the message because oftentimes we get in the weeds and we try to look for complicated solutions, or complicated solutions are thrown at us left and right and we see a lot of good influencers or good content creators on social media or writing books or on podcasts or doing interviews that will talk about the three or four or five or so key simple principles and people kind of like, oh, is poo, poo that or I don't know there's a sense of, even if they don't like negatively, say something. There's always this sort of vibe around it, with at least some people that think, some people that think, well, it's more than that and it really isn't. So I'm going to talk about just two of those things and the other ones. So let me give them to you the simple things that we have to do physically on a regular basis if we want improved health outcomes, if we want to feel better, if we want to look better, if we want better labs when we go to our physician on a yearly basis, if we want to get up out of the chair, we have to do some form of strength training. And those are going to be the two that I'm going to focus on this morning, very briefly and very simply.
Speaker 1:And then the other ones are just, you need to eat right, which means nutrient-dense foods, not eat too much, eating a good variety of healthy foods, as I've said before, get proper amount of sleep and control your stress. So those are like the big five that we always need to focus on and I'll add a caveat to the sleep is rest. So we need to get proper rest along with the sleep. But there's really not a lot of other things you have to do. You don't necessarily have to eat supplements or take supplements If you're eating a nutritious diet. You don't need to do cold plunges and saunas and all that stuff if you're getting adequate recovery via good nutrition, sleep, rest, you know, which basically just means sometimes reading, just sitting around reading. So we don't have to do all these things. We don't have to take cold showers. You know that's the same thing as the cold plunge, I guess. I mean, if you're into it, great, but these are things you don't have to do. You don't have to go get prescribed different types of drugs for your physical fitness, and I'm not talking about the people that have to take the weight loss drugs. I'm talking about people that are trying to supplement things. I'm not talking about medical need things. I mean, it really is just a matter of always keeping those simple things in mind. So let me focus on the first two. All right, so cardiorespiratory exercise and strength training I mean, we have to do it. And if you walked every day, or most every day, let's say, five out of the seven days per week, at a moderate, brisk pace, yes, that is enough. If we get up, or whatever time of day you want to do it, if we do it, it is enough.
Speaker 1:Let me quickly talk about the difference between walking and running and why this debate really doesn't have to happen. All right, both of them, of course, occur when you're on your feet, so both of them are considered either low impact or higher impact. All right, non-impact would be swimming and cycling, because your feet never hit the ground. They basically stay in a um off the ground position. Okay, so high impact shouldn't be a scary word or a scary sentence or a scary phrase.
Speaker 1:High impact just means that at one point during the gait analysis, both feet are off the ground. So when you jog or run, at one point it might be a very brief point and when I look at my pictures in 5Ks now that the race organizations send you, I notice my feet don't come off the ground like they used to. I don't have that really good leg kick anymore or butt kick. Those are things I can improve upon, but we do lose some of that with age. So there's a matter of how much it comes off the ground, and that doesn't matter. If both feet come off the ground at the same time, that's considered higher impact. It doesn't mean it's bad, it doesn't mean it's going to hurt you, that's all that it means.
Speaker 1:So low impact and really the only low impact activity, when we use the formal definition of what it is, which is one foot is on the ground at the entire time, is walking. That's it. So you got low impact walking, you got high impact cardio, and we're talking about bipedal movements, meaning movements on your feet, that is, jogging and or running. Here is the big deal with this, not the big deal. People make it into a big deal. If you walk longer, okay, like, let's say, you do a 45 minute walk at a brisk pace. If you run 20 minutes, say, at a vigorous pace, they're equal. So instead of saying one is better than the other, for the most part they're equal. You're probably going to get your heart rate up higher with running, so that may improve your cardiorespiratory endurance to an extent. There's a lot of variables in that, but you are going to get enough cardio to improve your cardiovascular system if you walk at a brisk pace and you do it longer. Walking for 20 minutes depending on your situation, how long you've been doing it and how fit you are, or whatever, may not get it done for you, but walking for 40 minutes will. Walking for 45 minutes will All right.
Speaker 1:So the real thing that people need to understand regarding cardio and I've said this for decades now you can go long or you can go hard. Those are subjective words. You can go long or you can go hard. You don't need to go long and hard. So, in other words, if you're more into vigorous cardiorespiratory intensity because it works better for you, that would mean more like running and jogging versus walking. That would mean more high intensity spin classes versus a casual beach bike. I mean use common sense, vigorous, moderate, if you're into that. If you're into going harder, you don't have to go as long. You are going to reap cardiorespiratory benefits. If you run on a treadmill for 15 minutes, you are going to get roughly the same benefits as if you walked on the treadmill for 45. What do you like better? That is up to you. You just got to freaking do it.
Speaker 1:And all these arguments all the time and people just don't do the simple things. All right. Now let's take strength training. Now I will say people are getting better. When I say people, I mean influencers and creators and people writing books, all the you know, people that have an influence over cardio or fitness in general. They are getting better with giving the proper information. I mean most people know now that there are a lot of good ways to work out and most people do know that they don't have to go to the gym every day to strength train, to do some kind of a bro split, meaning they don't have to go to the gym and just do glutes and quads one day and then the next day pecs and triceps. You know right out of, say, muscle Beach in California when the bodybuilders were making that famous in the 70s and 80s. Is there anything wrong with it? No, but you don't have to do it.
Speaker 1:And when we look at the statistical analysis of strength training, it has been found over and over and over again the two to three days per week of strength training getting in all of your major muscle groups is equal to or greater than, if you spent more time at the gym different days doing strength training. All right, can you do it? Sure, I do it sometimes. I mean, when I'm at my gym here, I usually always take the early shift here and I'm here till about noon before I go home for lunch. So I usually get here a little bit after five. Five thirty, I mean there's sometimes a little bit of time in the day when my work is done Done. What's better? Sit there and play on the internet and get depressed? Sit there and go on social media and get angry? No, I mean, obviously that's a pretty dumb use of my time. Go out and do some strength exercises, right. So if we're doing it for that reason, great, but we don't have to. We just have to keep it simple, stupid, but do it.
Speaker 1:Too many people are not getting in the minimum of two days per week for strength training and you're not going to get the benefits unless you do. And getting back to what I was saying, the creators, the influencers, the professionals are doing a better job of telling people the movements we have to focus on. That has been pushed out there and thankfully people are starting to get it Not everybody. I still see people doing ridiculous exercises on the internet and the other day a client and myself were kind of joking around how people are inventing different exercises to do on machines that are not meant to be doing that particular exercise, when there is a very basic exercise that they're trying to replicate. I mean that stuff is silly. That still goes on. I still see people trying to do glute kicks off of a leg curl machine lying on their back when all they have to do is the leg curl or stiff-legged deadlifts for their glutes, whatever. People are still doing silly things like that. But for the most part it's this simple and you hear me say it all the time.
Speaker 1:One of our I guess let's just call it locally famous workouts is the squat push-p pull, where we do a circuit. If we are doing some form of squatting during the week, if we are doing some form of upper body pushing during the week, if we are doing some form of upper body pulling during the week, some form of upper body pulling during the week, and then we throw in a little bit of hinge and a little bit of lunge, guess what you are strength training appropriately, because if you think that your individual muscles understand the difference with some of these very, very, very small changes in angles or range of motion or machines, you are very wrong. All right, we used to kid all the time. You know, you see people doing concentration curls and then they're going to do hammer curls, and then they're going to do curls, and then they're going to do hammer curls, and then they're going to do say what else? Let's say preacher curls, let's say standing barbell curls, let's say reverse curls. So I just named six exercises for the biceps alone. Great, if you want variety, knock yourself out. If you want to do different versions of them when you strength train, I do that with clients, I do that with myself. If I get bored doing a certain bicep exercise, then I'll do another one, whatever. Oh, here's another thing that's going to blow you away and I'll get back to that point.
Speaker 1:You don't necessarily have to individually train your biceps. If you are doing proper pulling movements like rowing, pull-ups, pull-downs, you are training your biceps, all right. But anyway, back to this other thing. There's nothing wrong with training your biceps, by the way. It's just we have to make sure that we are getting in the hardcore basics, which I will say again squat, push, pull, hinge, lunge. If we are doing those things, we are strength training appropriately. But if you think that your biceps can tell the difference between a preacher curl and a reverse curl or a machine curl. You really don't understand science, nor do you need to, but you should trust the professionals, such as myself, that's telling you. You're wasting your time with that form of micromanaging your fitness plan. Do the basics, that's all that we have to do. The biceps cannot tell the difference.
Speaker 1:The biceps function is elbow flexion and wrist supination. Every muscle group has a function. Good trainers, good strength coaches, understand that. They know the functions of the muscle. They will show you the exercise to do the function.
Speaker 1:For example, if you're doing a row correctly a seated row, a cable row, a dumbbell row you are doing some form of elbow flexion. I want to hit that one last. That's why I got a little bit tongue tied right there. You are doing some form of shoulder extension for the upper back. Okay, absolutely when you're rowing, but in this instance that's not the important part you are also doing elbow flexion, which works the bicep. So if you're rowing, you are doing, or pull-downs, you are doing some form of shoulder extension which works the lats. You are also doing some form of elbow flexion If you are rowing correctly, which it's really hard not to row correctly. In this instance, you are doing the biceps. By doing that, if you're doing a bicep curl, you are doing elbow flexion all by itself Great, but if you're rowing properly, you've already done it.
Speaker 1:So when people say I haven't worked biceps, yes you have, you row rode. Or if they say I haven't worked triceps, yes we have. We have done chest press, we have done pushups, it is covered. And if people will just understand that and not overthink it. But, most importantly, get to the gym at least two times per week and people are not doing it Only 22% of our population in the United States is doing the amount of cardio and strength training that they need to do to get benefits. All right. So this is just another brief shout out to make sure that you understand me on this Monday morning for me that it is very, very simple, but we have to do it.
