Choose Your Hard

Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Transcript

Welcome And Sponsor Thanks

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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 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 Magnets. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilden of the Gilden 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. Choose your hard. That is what I'm going to open with today, and that's going to be the theme of this podcast today. Choose your hard. All right. Let me give you a little foundation as to what I'm talking about right now. So in my book, Train for Life, Why Personal Coaching is the real fitness solution, I talk about how few of our people of our population of the United States are actually exercising enough to get benefits. And I talk about the reasons, the main reasons that are given. One of them, of course, is, you know, to paraphrase all of these together, it's hard, right? All right, but but get this. All right. So in my book, I did a lot of research. And that part I'm really, really proud of. I mean, I'm proud of the whole book, but I mean, I really did a lot of research on um going way, way back. And it was pretty cool to see the statistics. But one of the things I came up with when we added everything up was if you exercise enough, according to the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine, that's only going to be about 150 minutes a week of moderate activity. 150 minutes per week of regular, moderate physical activity. So, in other words, the statistics show that if you do that, you will be getting some serious benefits from exercise. All right, now if we add in two days of resistance training, we're getting even more benefits. So when I did the math and calculated in 150 minutes a week of physical activity, and in this case, it could have been any kind of cardiorespiratory or say sports like tennis, pickleball, whatever. And I calculated in two days a week of strength training. So if we're doing the bare minimum, that's about 60 minutes a week with 30 minutes per workout. That is only 1.5% of your week. That's it. 1.5%. Now that's a very low number when you look at it, right? I mean, that is a very low number. I don't think that's a very high benchmark to try to hit, right? And yet people don't do it. Many of the reasons listed was, and these are the ones I focused more on my in my book, was time. Time was the number one reason people gave for not exercising enough. The second one was travel. People felt like they needed to travel to exercise appropriately. That one always kind of like confused me a little bit. And like I said, I really broke all this down in my book and gave a chapter to each talking about that myth, because that is a myth, the travel myth. Um, you know, you can work out at home. I mean, you can go for a walk. I mean, there are some areas I get that aren't so safe. So, I mean, that is a factor, but man, to me, that seems like such a small factor. But it is a myth. Not the safety part, I'm not being uh, you know, funny there. I understand that some neighborhoods maybe don't feel as safe. I get that part. But we don't have to go anywhere to work out, is the main point. But that's a myth, but that is a big reason given. All right. Another one is misinformation. So I get that. There's a lot of misinformation out there. I totally get it. I fight against it. That's one of the reasons why I have this podcast is to give you the straight dope, the facts on everything, so you're not wondering. I mean, I'm an exercise physiologist. I've been doing this for 31 years as a profession. Add on another 10 just working out and it being my lifestyle. And so I get it, but then I don't get it because, you know, people know, you know, like I get it when we really start dialing in things that there's some misinformation. I talked to a friend of mine last night. She's a client, she's a friend, she's she's very fit, she's athletic, she does trathlons, and she's like, some of my friends really think they shouldn't be eating carbs. And these are like fit people in, you know, the endurance world. So they're fit. And so, you know, we're dialing it in there. And so I get it that there's misinformation out there, right? But like when we're trying to get moving, when we're trying to achieve that 150 minutes per week, you know, I mean, I think everybody knows going for a walk is better than drinking a beer and laying on the couch. I mean, I don't know how many people don't know that. I uh sometimes get in arguments with people because they're gonna say, no, people really don't know. And I go back to this story I tell often when I was teaching college for sports medicine. One of the things I would do in one of the classes I taught, I can't remember which class it was, but it was a class pertaining to this type of information. I told my students, a couple of them, to go out and get some random people in the hallways, you know, out basically in the food area. And I said, you know, be be sensitive. Don't grab anybody that's overweight, might be sensitive, you know, but find somebody with a soda, coke, whatever, and find somebody with a bag of chips and bring them on in. Don't tell them anything. And the students didn't know anything, what I was doing. I'd do it with the new class every time. So they'd go get these uh couple folks, and uh I'd bring them to the center of the room, and uh I'd simply ask them a simple question. Both of them, I'd say, so do you know that soda you're drinking is not good for you? And of course they would say, Yeah, I do. I mean, of course it's not. And I'd ask the same of the guy with the chips or the gal with the chips. And they'd say, Yeah, you know, it's garbage. I know, I know. You know, and then they start to justify, like we all do. Well, didn't have a lot of time, you don't have a lot of good options. I mean, all that's true, but the point I'm trying to make is that people know right from wrong, essentially, and often choose not to do right by them. I mean, that's just the bottom line. Yeah, we can nitpick and say, well, I'm not really sure if I should be doing one set or three sets of strength training. I hear that one a lot. And, you know, I might look at that person and go, but you're doing one or the other. Well, yeah, okay, then don't worry about it. Like, we're not worried about those folks. We're worried about the 20% or the 80% that won't get moving. So if you're asking those questions, you're good, man. You're doing it. There's no perfect way. Taught my students all the time, know what not to do. There are many right ways to exercise. All right, so misinformation is an issue, but I think it's overstated. And that one goes with number four, ignorance. It's really the same thing. But I would add to the ignorance thing is not everybody understands the benefits, maybe. Maybe they don't believe it. Because everybody's got an Uncle Bobby that lived in '98 and went through four packs of Marlborough's a day, a bottle of Jim Beam, and maybe even snorted cocaine on the way to football games. Okay, we all have that Uncle Bobby. All right. Maybe you are Uncle Bobby. And you're telling people you don't have to do this stuff. All right. Yeah, those freaks of nature do exist. We know that, but can everybody please understand that they're not the norm? All right. They're really freaking genetically lucky, all right? And probably lucky in many other ways, right? Follow them along. If they buy a lottery ticket, steal it from them because you're going to be rich. All right. But that's not the norm. All right. Another one is confidence, reason for not exercising. So I get that. I do. I mean, we used to teach in sports medicine that competence leads to confidence and confidence leads to competence. And so what I'm talking about right there is self-efficacy. And what we try to establish with our clients is self-efficacy. We want people to have the confidence to go to the gyms and do what they need to do. You know, I say it all the time, I'm the opposite of a lot of gyms. My model is very, very different. You know, my goal is to teach you to not need me. Now, ironically, through doing that, I keep clients a very, very long time, but it's always an honest relationship. Meaning they say, you know, I really do know what I'm doing. You've helped me a lot. You've helped me tremendously, but I really need the accountability and the push. So I just want to keep doing personal training. I'm like, yeah, we're good. You know, we great. But I teach people the right way to do it so they can go to the gym. And once they build that confidence, they are going to be able to do what they need to do. So I do get the confidence problem. I do, but there are solutions. And by the way, you know, the whole theme of this podcast is choose your hard. So sometimes building our confidence is hard. It's not easy. But you know what? We don't build it staying at home either. Like we're not going to become better at working with people by staying home. So all of these things there are solutions for, and all of them are probably going to be slightly hard. Finally, motivation. You know, motivation kind of drives me nuts because motivation, um, you know, I try to be real on this podcast. Motivation is bullshit. All right. Like, I hate when I hear people say I'm not motivated. It's like, okay, well, nobody stays motivated forever. Like, motivation is kind of a feeling. So discipline eats motivation for lunch. Meaning, if you get discipline, no matter how you frickin', they say that a lot in recovery programs. You know, nobody cares how you feel, you know, in a sense, meaning you share your feelings and everything. But the bottom line is nobody judges you for how you feel. You're judged by your actions. So we all feel crummy, and I'm not discounting depression. All that stuff is real, but we can't rely on good days to get us out to exercise. We have to have discipline. All right. So last night I played a doubleheader in softball, which isn't a big deal. It's not a very vigorous activity by any means, but it's late. And I didn't sleep overly good because I get home, I wanted to eat something, then I had to wind down. I got up this morning around, oh, I got up early, 4:30, like normal. And I got to the gym by 5 30. I worked out. So I didn't feel like it. I didn't want to do it. I mean, we are not always gonna rely, we can't rely on motivation. It's not going to work. So we have to get disciplined, we have to rethink motivation. All right. Motivation is very fleeting, it's not consistent. So that one you just kind of have to learn. It's the only one we can do. That's the only thing we can do with number six is go, okay, motivation is BS. I need to be disciplined. If I want to get better, I need to be disciplined. Alright. So let's get to the main point. All of this stuff is hard. Alright? Finding the time to exercise, number one myth, is hard. I get it. I mean, I have clients that work nine to five jobs or longer, eight to four, whatever. Overtime, whatever. And they have kids, they have responsibilities, and they still make time to exercise. What do they give up? Well, you are gonna give up something. I mean, we don't get anything in life by not giving something up. Maybe you are giving up that extra 30 minutes of sleep. Maybe you are giving up that, you know, scrolling on the internet when you first wake up in the morning. You know, I don't know. Maybe you're giving up that third cup of coffee or going through Starbucks to get that latte. I don't know. But I know if you worked out for 15 minutes, you'd feel a hell of a lot better. And in some cases, a couple of clients I'm thinking of that have working schedules, that's what they do. They'll do a quick homework thing. And that's great. They get benefits. So finding the time can be hard. I already went over the travel myth, but yeah, I mean, let's say that you don't live in the greatest neighborhood and you don't have a gym inside your building. Okay, so going somewhere, um I mean the other side of it is too, like if you're in a city like that where you feel that way, there probably is something within a few blocks. By the way, in most cities, there's a gym within every mile walking block. So it's like, you know, they're they're out there. But anyway, finding a place if you really need to find a place, if you do, which I I think that's very rare, can be difficult, can be hard, but it's worth it. All right. The misinformation ignorance myth. Okay, so doing your due diligence and finding the appropriate help can be hard. Not that hard. I mean, my God, we live in the internet age. I mean, some of my newest clients, I mean, forever I relied only on referrals. Like people who know me through working out with me tell their friends, that still happens. But you know, since the podcast has come out and a little bit before that, some of my calls that have been some of my best clients, the ones I really enjoy working with because of their enthusiasm and their work ethic and their drive, you know, did Google searches on appropriate personal trainers in the Volusia County area and they put in certified, educated, blah, blah, blah. And thankfully, I come up because I am. I'm not the only one, though, but I come up. So it's not that hard to find appropriate help. I mean, it, you know, there's no free lunches in life. So if like you give it kind of a half-assed effort and you ask your neighbor, Bobby Sue, to kind of give you a workout routine because you know she does aerobics and stuff at her house, and and you know, she's she's got to kill her body and all this kind of stuff, and she tells you about her her power bar recipes, you know. I mean, you know the stereotype. Okay, so they're out there, and you rely on her to give you an exercise program. Well, shame on you. I mean, what does she know? I mean, she knows how to maybe make herself fit, but anyway, we can get through that. We're in the internet age now, you know, and if you're falling for that crap on social media, where have you been? Have you been listening to this podcast? I mean, in my book, you know, and and I'm gonna say it again until you buy a copy, then I'll quit saying it. Train for Life, why personal coaching is the real fitness solution. I go over the statistics on social media. Only 20% of the physical fitness influencers have the proper credentials to be telling you what to do. Something weird about this 20% number, isn't it? Well, it's true. 80% of the crap you see are people just simply that are good in front of a camera, look good, and like to tell you bullshit. And they're either telling you that because they want to sell you something or they don't know better. But shame on you, you should know better. Look for their credentials. One of my long-term clients, Casey, who is now one of my personal trainers, she is so good about that. She'll see stuff on the internet because she's done a physique competition, so she kind of likes to, you know, see what some of that is going on, see what some of the ladies are doing, whatever. And she'll see like post comments, advice, blah, blah, blah. And she tells me she always scrolls to the bottom to see what their credentials are. She's learned very smartly not to make comments or ask because no reason to get in a fight with people. Just learn to not follow them. And I think every time they have no credentials. So it's like if you hear somebody spewing some stuff out there, check them out. And if they don't list any credentials, there's a reason, right? Confidence, confidence, confidence. Yeah, I already said it. Gaining confidence can be hard. It's it's not easy. I have to work on confidence in different areas of my life. In some areas of my life, I'm very, very confident. In other areas, I'm not. So we're, I don't think we're born confident. We learn confidence, we learn it. You know, confidence is basically being willing to fail, being willing to try, being willing to put yourself out there. Like I said, go to the gym. You know, I mean, start. Don't get hurt. Start. Start with things you know how to do. I mean, that's huge. You don't have to stay home because you want the perfect routine. There's not a perfect routine. Get started, seek people out to help you get further. You'll get more confident by showing up. It's the only way. All right. So, like, again, in 12-step programs, because they work. So, I quote them a lot. One of the things you'll hear them tell people who are new in recovery, they'll say, suit up and show up. Just show up. You'll learn. Just don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Suit up and show up. Oh, I don't know what to do. Get dressed and go to work. All right. I mean, that stuff helps. I'm not going to go back on motivation. I already told you. If you're waiting to get motivated, forget it. Quit. Instead, work on your discipline. And working on discipline is hard. It's not going to happen overnight. You're not going to get extremely disciplined in a month. It's not going to happen. All right. So, guys that go in the military, they learn discipline, but they didn't learn it through boot camp. That's that's a great start, but they continue to learn discipline through their entire military career. And yes, they come out, they're disciplined. Because they do, they suit up and show up. They have to. They get up, they do their job. So they learn it. You're not born with it. You can learn it. All right. Choose your hard. So why should we do all this? Because you know why? Because not doing it is harder. And I promise you that. It is harder. Now, there are situations in life, I totally get it, where things happen out of your control. I get it. Like things happen. People get sick, things happen out of your control to where like you're not able to move as much or whatever. I get it. Things happen. But also things happen that are within your control that you're choosing not to do that make your life much harder later. Like it's gonna happen. I mean, it's gonna happen. If you don't take care of yourself when you're younger, when you're middle-aged, by the time you hit older age, it's gonna be far harder to get out of chairs, it's gonna be far harder to walk across parking lots, it's gonna be far harder to lift your foot over curbs. It's gonna be far harder to play the sports that you like to play. And you're not only impacting yourself, you're impacting your loved ones. And I've been doing this, as I said, for 31 years. So I've seen both sides of it. I've seen the people that have come in. And have said, you know, at 70, who are a little bit banged up from life, you know, but at least they're trying. They're 70. They're a little banged up. And they always say, you know what? I wish I would have started this five years ago. And this is after a few, you know, a year or so of working out, they feel so much better. And I always say, Well, yeah, I mean, the best time we should have started was yesterday. The second best time is now, and you did it. So that's absolutely true. But they always say that. I wish I started earlier because I maybe wouldn't have this arthritic knee or I wouldn't have this shoulder that gives out, or you know, you know, whatever. Again, sometimes those things happen with exercise. I get it. Sometimes people get overuse injuries. But you know, the number one cause of arthritis, the two number one causes, does that make sense? Is that a yogiism? The two causes of arthritis is sedentary behavior and obesity. One and two. One and two. Not working out, not running. No, no, no, no, no. Sedentary behavior and obesity cause osteoarthritis. I'm not talking about rheumatoid arthritis. That's a whole different situation, kind of put in that camp of things that are most likely out of your control. All right. And that's the number one reason people can't move later on, right there, is arthritis and obesity. That's like the problem. Choose your hard. I play in a softball league, an over 50 league. And uh, you know, I mean, don't take it personal if if you play in my league and you're listening to the podcast, but like there are guys that when they told me how old they were, I was shocked they were eight years younger than me. I mean, it looks like life's been rough. And again, there are situations to where things are out of our control. I totally get it. And I'm not trying to, you know, hurt anybody's feelings, but I'm trying to get people to understand that there are also situations that were totally in the control. And some of these guys cannot get up and down the bases. They have to get runners. I mean, sometimes people get hurt, I get it. But oftentimes it's a collection. The same guys can't run the bases. I don't even just mean fast, I mean period. Because they're too banged up. They're too banged up, and a lot of times they're too overweight. I mean, that is hard. I mean, maybe not to them. I don't know. I mean, it's hard. I mean, asking for a runner is hard. I mean, you know, smacking the heck out of the ball and getting thrown out because it took you forever to get the third base first base is hard. You know, I mean, I wish I could smack the hell out of the ball. I can get the first base, though, and I'd rather be healthy. So, like, I'm using that as an example. I see it in other sports too. People wish they can move better on the court. It's hard for them. Some of them have to give it up. And so I give the softball guys credit because they're still out there, but then sometimes I worry, I'm like, man, this dude is like one pothole away from never playing this sport again because he's so immobile. And that's hard. And I think about people that like have really, you know, they like to do these things. They like to, maybe they're not like exercisers. I mean, I think obviously they're not in a lot of cases, but they like to be active. So there's a difference between structured exercise and activity. And I love physical activity, so I'm not knocking that. My point is though, if you don't take care of yourself, you're not going to be able to do it. And then that's hard. I mean, what if somebody's entire life was based around tennis, softball, or pickleball, volleyball, pickup basketball, I don't know, whatever sport they like. Running, but then they can't do it anymore because their body gave out. And their body gave out not because of time, not because of how old they are, but because when they were 35 years old, they decided to not really worry too much about their diet, so they put on weight. And when everybody was saying, hey man, you should go to the gym or go for a runner or whatever, they're like, eh, eh, I don't need to do that. You know, and unfortunately, sometimes the most athletic, mostly men, you know, not to be gender specific, but it's pretty true, kind of like grew up athletic and so they don't do anything later. You know, women are a little bit better. Sorry, guys, but it's true for taking care of their health for the sake of taking care of their health. Women are far better. I don't remember the statistic, but it's something like 70% better. You know, guys kind of like rest on the laurels a lot. But man, dudes, the laurels are gonna catch up, you know, and there are things you can do to prevent that. There are things you can do to prevent that. So I'll just close with saying, like, both of these are hard. But let me ask you this: a very simple, straightforward question. What is harder? Squeezing in 150 minutes a week of physical activity with two days of strength training, or not being able to get out of your chair, relying on help to get out of your chairs, not playing your sports anymore, not going to theme parks with your grandkids because you can't keep up, you can't be out on your feet that long. What's harder? Both are hard. I get it. What is harder? And if you can look me in the eyes and tell me it's making time for exercise, well, I don't know what I do. You know, I was gonna say something like give you a hundred dollars, I'm not gonna pay you for that, but uh you get the point. Obviously, it's a lot harder to live a harder life than it is to put in the time. I always say pay your dues early, and it will really benefit you. All right, so I hope this helps. Share this with people. If you have any feedback, hit me up. There's a text number you can text, an email you can get a hold of me, get a hold of me on Facebook. And until next time, be max fit and be max well. All right, thank you everybody for listening to today's show. I really appreciate it. I want to remind you to please hit automatic download. It really helps me and it helps the show. And now I'd like to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product and the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great, they're going to get you exactly what you need. So if you have any garage door needs, give them a shout at 386-222-3165. And now I'm very excited to add another sponsor. ProCharge Liquid Protein Enhancer has joined the team. And let me tell you, they are a great product. I pop one after a workout. Each container has 40 grams of protein, so that's two servings. I take 20 grams after I work out. What's really cool about them is it's portable. You can throw them in your suitcase. You don't have to worry about mixing powders and making a mess. At least that's an issue I've had with some of the protein powders through the years. And you know what? They taste really, really good. So you can check them out on my website, fit to themax.net, or you can go right to them at prochargeprotein.com.