There Is A Method to the Madness

If You’ll Drive For Coffee, You Can Squat

• Rob Maxwell, M.A.

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SPEAKER_00:

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 Program, and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really worked and most importantly why things work. Hence the name, there is a method to the magnet. Before I get started today, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gilding Group 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. What's happening, everybody? Rob here. We're going to talk about some fitness as usual. I'm going to talk a little bit today about one of the reasons that is given for people not exercising to the amount that they need to exercise. In my new book, I start out by listing all these reasons why people don't exercise. And I talk about like what the statistics say about that. For example, the first reason given is time. And uh I've really dissected that. But essentially, if we do what we need to do, that's only 1.8% of the hours and time in our week. So that's not a lot. So I kind of debunk that and I talk about how if people understood they don't have to do as much as they think that they have to do, then they will do it more. And that's my whole goal. I want more people exercising. I mean, exercise absolutely changed my life. I think it changed the direction of my life. When I started working out as a late teen, I mean, I got this identity. I was able to burn stress. I was able to make myself better. I mean, trust me, I have not had a uh, you know, perfect time of it. I've gone through problems like everybody else. But man, exercising, helping me through different times, getting through college, you know, really, really pushing hard in college, wanting to make good grades. Also, uh, you know, enjoying a little bit too much of the extra curricular activity. That was a fun one to say uh on the spot here in college, you know. So, like I said, I mean, it helped with everything. It always got me re-grounded. And it's given me such a tremendous life, a tremendous career. And uh I'm just passionate about it, as I think everybody probably knows that knows me. Like, I don't like missing workouts. I never see workouts as an obligation. To me, it's something I really, really enjoy doing. I mean, it's hard. There's different exercises I don't always enjoy. There's different intensities I don't always enjoy. But man, I wouldn't miss it. And I hate to miss it. I've said before that I've had friends who kind of just don't get it joke with me and say something like, you know, you're on vacation. Why do you feel the need to exercise? And I'm like, it's not like it's a bad thing to me. Like, I don't ever view exercise as punishment at all. Like, I don't know. Like, I'm the opposite of what they're saying. I'm thinking, why do you look at it so negatively? To me, I love checking out new places to exercise when I travel. I was just in uh a town outside of Austin, Texas, where uh Ellen's sister has a beautiful ranch out there. And uh man, it it was so pretty. The property's pretty, you know. And um, I was visiting with Ellen, and uh, you know, every morning we did something a little bit different. We went down the long, long driveway, you know, the dirt driveway, went out to the road, an old country road, and we did some walking. Sometimes we walked the dogs, sometimes we ran. And then we went into their uh garage area and they had a little bit of free weights, so we did some uh free weights in there. You know, nothing, nothing crazy. Just started the day with some exercise. And, you know, it was fun. We looked forward to it. We finished up, we cooled down a little bit, we made a you know, a little shake to recover, got cleaned up, start the day. And let me tell you, I just love to do that wherever I go. It's it's not an obligation. So these podcasts are supposed to be encouraging people to get into exercise. Like that's what I want to do. So when I talk about the myths of exercise, you know, the the people that think they have to do so much or they're fooled by these influencers who really don't have any credentials at all, thinking that they have to do these crazy workouts or these dangerous workouts. It's like, no, man, it can be so simple. So I'm going to take the second reason, and I'm being kind here. I'm not calling them excuses today, you know, but they kind of are. When people say I don't have time, a couple great quotes, you know, have said, well, it's really not about time, it's that you don't have priorities. I would agree, right? But I'm not trying to shame anybody here. I want to instead make this more of an attraction thing versus a have-to-do thing because I can tell you, it's altered my life. It's altered so many of the clients that I've had's life. And you know, this isn't just about weight loss. You know, everybody thinks it's gotten a little bit better. I had a good conversation with one of my clients yesterday who's a long timer, uh, real into it. She's a fitness fanatic herself loves it. That doesn't mean that like she's obsessed. It means that she's very healthy with it, actually. And she's done a physique competition. I've trained her for that. And she was telling me that she's excited to see that more and more women are focusing on getting stronger and not just losing weight. And I agree. I see us trending in that direction with that as a country, probably as a world. Um, and that is a really, really good thing. So exercise isn't just about weight loss. But 20 years ago, you kind of had two types of exercisers. You had your guys that wanted to get bigger, and you had your ladies most of the time that wanted to get smaller. Like it came down to that. Now we know that there's so many more benefits. In my book, as I put in the newsletter the other day, I listed like 30 different benefits of exercise. Only one of them was about body composition. So 29 things are about everything else. So there's so much to it. And I just want people to really get into it. Okay. So, reason or excuse number two that people give for not exercising consistently enough to get the benefits is how long they have to travel to get to the gym, or how far, I should say. Now, that one really caught me off guard because I'm reading this and I'm looking at the statistics and I'm going, well, number one, you don't have to go to a gym. And number two, so what? I mean, how far are you going to go to get a Starbucks coffee when you travel? I mean, I've been guilty of that before. I'm like, God, I want a Starbucks, a reliable, you know, and I fall for it and pay like six or seven dollars for a stupid coffee. You know, I mean, how far are we willing to go for some of these other things, but yet the gym is too far? And get this. The responders to the poll said that they're willing to go 3.7 miles. Anything more than that was too far. 3.7 miles takes you less than five minutes to travel to your gym, depending on where you live. I mean, maybe if you live in New York City, that's gonna take a little bit longer, but you don't have to go 3.7 miles to find a gym in New York City, right? So, anyway, that's what the statistics say. Isn't that crazy? I mean, to me, that's just crazy. So let's take number one. You don't have to go to a gym. I mean, there's two things going on right now. One of them's bad and one of them's good. So the bad thing is, yes, there's a lot of influencers out there on Instagram and TikTok and everything else on Facebook, and they're selling bogus programs. Like they're selling dangerous, expensive programs that make you think you have to do all these high-intensity things and all this long duration things, and they sell you these big packages. And even if you don't buy it, you're seeing this stuff left and right, and you think, well, I don't have time for that, or I don't have those tools, or I don't know what the hell they're doing. And even if I saw a video on this, I'm not really sure that I'm gonna be able to do it. So that's the bad thing. But the good thing is there's a lot more people out there with the right certifications and degrees helping you. When I broke into this field 30 years ago, I think I was the only person around that had a master's degree in exercise physiology. So that uniqueness really helped build my business pretty quick. But now there's a lot more. There's a lot of students now that I've taught, that I put out there, that are out there with degrees and the proper certification. And there are four different certifications that are accredited that are really hard to get. They're not easy. The ACSM CPT certified personal training uh certification that both I have, Ellen Hyes, and Angelica have, that's got a 30-something percent pass rate. That means, you know, 60 to 70% fail the first time. So that's not easy. That's a pretty hard test. So it's, you know, if if you're doing that stuff, you really are getting credential. There's other things you have to do, sure, but we are turning the corner on that. So that's the good news. So you can find the right programming. It is out there. You just have to do the right kind of searches, but you don't have to necessarily go to a gym. Look, I think it's good to go. I've talked before about social facilitation. And that means if you go somewhere where people are around, you're more likely to work harder. I mean, they found that you can have a 40% increase in the amount of repetitions you get with just somebody watching you. I mean, human beings are like that. You know, we just like to show people what we're doing, good or bad, that's what we do. You can make it for the good if you're doing the right thing. So I do think there's a good socialization. I also think that people are very lonely. I think after COVID, people stayed home, they quit going places. So I do think it's good to go to a gym, and I'll pick that up in part two of this. But for now, if you just can't, you don't have time, you know, to leave and go somewhere else, whatever. You work from home and you have a home gym, then you do that. You can work out at home. Like I said, when I was just on my trip at the beautiful ranch outside in Texas, there, I mean, outside of Austin and Texas, I mean, we had a few kettlebells and some dumbbells, and we had our body weight, and that's what we used. And we made it work just fine. So you can get the resources to figure out a few basic exercises. I mean, I don't want to get technical here, but the body has essentially three main movements and a couple more. It needs to squat, it needs to pull with the upper body, it needs to push with the upper body, and if we really want to get fancy, it needs to lunge and it needs to hinge. So basically, all the muscles can be worked with mostly those three first movements I mentioned, and definitely all five. And you can do all that with your body or light dumbbells. So it can happen at home. And naturally, you can walk from home, you can jog from home, you can ride your bike, you can get an exercise bike. So there's plenty of ways that you can exercise at home. So I don't get that, you know, poll that that's why a lot of people say they weren't going because they had to travel too far to the gym. But you know, that kind of exposes that myth. Now, part two of it is is it really that big of a deal? I mean, I honestly believe if everybody really saw the research on exercise, they would make it more of a freaking priority. I mean, they just would. You're not too busy, you're not too important, you need to take care of yourself, you know. It's the old famous saying about you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help other people. I mean, it fits right along with that, but so many people think they're so busy and so important that they can't make time to go to the gym or to go exercise. I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, it is just a BS excuse. You don't understand what exercise does for you. I mean, it is the number one thing you can do for your health. It is the number one thing that you can actively or proactively do for your health is to exercise on a regular basis. You have control over it, you can do it. There's not a perfect way to do it. There are good ways, there are better ways, there's not a perfect way. You just need to get out and do it. I don't understand that you're too busy or too important you think that you are. I mean, that just a little bit rubs me the wrong way because I don't know anybody that really falls into that classification. Years ago, I mean, God, this has to be going back late 90s. I had a gym at another location. I was in with uh Dr. Fulton. I was renting a place from him. He's the uh he's a great orthopedic in my area. He was the medical director for Nautilus, and I rented uh one of his Nautilus gyms, and I paid him for using it. Uh, and uh I had a client, and actually this client ended up following me to the next location and then the next. So he kind of went with me where I went. He he passed. Um, but anyway, his name is Reed Hughes, and he was a uh kind of a local legend, a local celebrity. He had uh um made a lot a lot of money doing a lot of good things, and then he became an environmentalist. He ran for some different positions politically. He was just very, very, very important. Um, and he never acted like he was. He never like pretended that he was, even though he was. I mean, uh, no offense to any of my clients that listen or whatever, but you know, he probably was the most connected, wealthiest client I've ever had. Um and I'm not saying that to brag at all because like he was the opposite of that. Like he wore workout clothes, sweatpants. I mean, almost every place he went. He drove an older car. He never wore fancy clothes. I mean, you would never know with this man. And, you know, he he did so many great things for people. He had an office on Beach Street here in Daytona, and there was a couple different people that he would take once a week to go get haircuts for them because they couldn't afford to. I mean, there's story after story of the money that he poured into Serenity House, a local rehab here, money that he poured into scholarships for kids that couldn't afford different private schools. I mean, he was just a giving man and he did so much of this anonymously. And um, you know, I I knew I found out later all of the things that he did. So by no means am I saying this to puff him up that way. I puff him up because of his character, not his money. That's for sure. Um, but anyway, yeah, I'll finish with this story and I hope it makes the point. He one day was running a few minutes late for his workout when I was out at Dr. Fulton's place. And uh it wasn't like him. He loved to work out. He strength trained with me two times per week, every week, and he ran on his own. He actually set the record for most continuous Easter beach run runs. He ran that thing over 50 times, which is really, really cool before he passed. And um he shows up late, maybe 10 minutes. I was a little concerned and surprised. And uh, it was before cell phones, people, at least before I had one, I believe. So he comes rolling in, he looked a little disheveled, and he always looked a little disheveled, but he looked even more disheveled. He was like, I'm sorry, Rob. I had to leave. I had a meeting with the governor. He was going on and on and wouldn't shut up. And I told him, I said, I gotta go. And uh I looked at him, I said, What? He, I gotta go. I told my secretary, I said he, you know, gotta let him out. He's just you know in there, you know, I don't know, looking for money, looking for something. You know, he wanted my advice, da da da da. And I just told him, I said, look, I've got my appointment time, I gotta go. So I got up and I left, and I'm sorry I'm late. True story, people. So he left the governor, it doesn't matter who it was at the time, sitting in his office for his secretary to show out. And he got in his car and he came to work out. I mean, I hope I never forget that story because for everybody that thinks they're like way too important or busy to exercise, here's a man that leaves the governor of the state of Florida sitting in his office in Beach Street and tells him he's got to go, showing him his priorities. This is my priority. I've got a standing appointment, I've got a role. And he felt bad he was 10 minutes late. And he gave me a priceless story forever. And, you know, he meant it. So, you know, Reed lived a very long life. He lived a very long, healthy life. And I know he would tell you it's from his dedication to exercise, proper diet, maintaining a healthy weight his whole life. You know, he did not miss exercising. And, you know, he only had a stop as his health took a serious, sharp decline towards the end. But he was able to go almost right up. So whenever you think you're too busy or you don't have the time, I want you to remember that story. You can do it anywhere, anytime. It helps to have somebody like me to keep you going. It helps to go to the gym to have other people get you going. But worst case scenario, do it from home and make it happen. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening to today's show. I want to ask you to please hit automatic download from wherever you get your podcast from. It really helps me and it really helps the show. Now I'd like to take a second to thank our sponsors. Without them, we would not be able to have the podcast. First overhead door of Daytona Beach, they are the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product and the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk. They are great people. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a call. 386-222-3165. Now I'm very, very happy and excited to announce we have a new sponsor, Procharge Liquid Protein Enhancer. Each container has 40 grams of protein. And what's really cool about this is it's very portable. You can throw the tiny little containers into a suitcase, take it wherever you go. Now you don't have to worry about spilling. And you know what? It tastes really, really good. Just open up the cap, suck down the protein. It's that easy. If you want to try it out, you can check it out at my website, fit to themax.net, and click on Procharge Liquid Protein Enhancer, or you can go directly to their website at www.prochargeprotein.com.

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Rob Maxwell

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