June 21, 2023

Vanity vs. Health: How It Impacts Your Exercise Routine As You Age With Steve Washuta [Ep. 48]

Whether you work out to improve your appearance or for your health, they aren’t actually separate. Steve Washuta is my guest today. He is a personal trainer with 30,000 hours of experience. He has worked with women of all ages and he says this:

“When people are only focused on vanity, and they don't focus on their long-term health. I compare it to money. So ultimately, what do you want with your money? Of course you wanna make money now and spend it, but you wanna save for retirement because, You know, having money into old age matters.

“Well, you also want to save your body into old age. So if you're burning through your money too fast, or in my case, if you're wearing down joints and ligaments and you're pushing your body too hard at a young age, you're gonna deal with that later on in life. You're not saving your body later on.

“So there are more proper ways to work out for overall health and wellness. That's being concerned with flexibility and mobility and making sure you're not doing too much high intensity and making sure it's not just vanity based. Asking yourself, taking a step back and saying, is this making me feel better? Do I actually feel great doing this?”

We also talk about some ideal training schedules for just getting started and for the more established exerciser!

I hope you found this conversation with Steve insightful and valuable. If you are enjoying the show, don’t forget to rate and review!

More from Well with Lisa:

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Transcript

WEBVTT

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this is the eat.

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Well, think.

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LivWell podcast.

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I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury.

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And this is episode 48 vanity versus health.

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How it impacts your exercise routine as you age with Steve or shoot up.

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This was a fantastic conversation.

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I was on Steve's podcast in may, and we wanted to do a podcast swap and he is so knowledgeable.

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Like he says, over 30,000 hours of experience in the gym as a personal trainer with several certifications.

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He's going to really talk us through how we want to construct our exercise routines right now in your twenties, your thirties, your forties.

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For longevity, you guys know this is important to me, living long, living to a hundred and making that health span match your lifespan.

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So we want to be able to have function all the way through.

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The end of our lives and exercising properly now.

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Is really, really key to do that.

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So you're going to hear how we want to pull back on some aspects and emphasize others.

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And Steve will really walk us through some of the ideal things we can do.

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And near the end, we're going to even talk about an ideal schedule, whether you are currently exercising or you are new to exercise, this is going to be fabulous information for you.

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Okay, so let's go.

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Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food.

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I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury.

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I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter.

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I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating.

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back to the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.

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I have Steve Wasta here with me today, and I'm gonna let him introduce himself first, and then we'll jump into our conversation.

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So give us a little rundown of what you do and who you help.

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Certainly first, Lisa, thank you so much for having me on.

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I'm excited to, uh, talk to you.

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I had you on my podcast and I'm sure we'll both be sharing that content, uh, in, in both directions here, but I'm a personal trainer by trade.

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I have about 30,000 hours experience.

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I have a ton of certifications, corrective exercise specialist, three different TRX certifications.

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I have a background in Pilates.

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You name it, I've done it.

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In the fitness industry.

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Now I sort of focus on helping young fitness professionals, personal trainers, better their business.

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I wrote a book called Fitness Business 1 0 1.

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What the certifications don't teach you to kind of let young fitness professionals understand that there's a lot more than just getting a certification.

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You have to really understand what I consider client relations, which I know you're big on how to work with people individually, kind of assess them and what they need.

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And understand the mental and psychological side to help people get to their goals is very important.

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And then on a day-to-day basis, I'd say I help the general population get healthier.

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If you're somebody who has a very specific goal, I typically don't work with you.

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I'm looking for people who are looking for long-term health and wellness.

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How do I make myself a little bit healthier every day?

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I have principles that I abide by, but I don't have an ideology.

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I'm not someone that says You have to do CrossFit.

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You have to lift heavy.

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You have to go.

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I, I need you to adhere to the program, so I'm gonna assess you individually and then build that program around you.

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Yeah, for sure.

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Bioindividuality, it's with exercise as well as with food and nutrition.

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I always say the best.

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The best nutritional study you will ever read is your own food journal because you can learn way more from that about nutrition that works for you than you can by reading any other study

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Yeah, Touche.

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Also think about it.

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Think about adherence, right?

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So let's go ahead and say, you know, what's best for you is whatever, to eat more vegetables.

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But for whatever reason, you can't really control your taste buds.

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You hate the taste of three or four different vegetables.

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Then, then you, you find other vegetables to eat, right?

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You just, you can't force yourself to do the things that you know for a fact you are never gonna do.

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You have to adhere to that plan.

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So both in the nutrition world and the fitness world, we have to find things that our clients are actually gonna stick to.

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Cuz if they don't stick to them, they're not gonna work.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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No.

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Doesn't matter what exercise is the best for you if you hate it and you don't wanna do it, ever?

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Yeah.

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I, I mean, I do have an episode, you know, easy doesn't make you better.

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We still have to do the hard things.

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It's, uncomfortable to go to failure on a lift, but it's enjoyable enough for me that I keep going back to lifting.

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Exactly.

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You shouldn't dread it every day.

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And ju just, you know, food and fitness have so many things in common.

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There's gonna be some things on your plate or some things throughout your day you eat that aren't as exciting as other things.

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That's normal.

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And there's gonna be some fitness routines you do where they're your absolute favorite and some are a little bit more.

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Torturous to use a, an awkward adjective.

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And they're, they're more difficult.

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And, and you need that balance.

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You need to challenge yourself sometimes maybe when you're at full energy, but maybe one day, you know, uh, Lisa only gets four hours of sleep and you know, she didn't get to eat the food that she wanted to that day, and she still wants to do a workout.

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Well then maybe she just goes on a two mile walk because she doesn't have the energy that day.

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There's still things to do.

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It doesn't always have to be pushing herself to the.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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A lot of times when we talk about weight loss and changing your body, exercising, especially lifting weights, tends to be about body recomposition.

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It always kind of comes back to, well, is it just about the way you look?

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And this is one of the things we wanted to talk about today is how does vanity play a role here is working out for vanity always a bad thing, and I've struggled this with this on and off with my profession is saying like promoting weight loss, which I mean, that's what I coach.

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So essentially that is what I'm, what I'm promoting.

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I talk about the health of it.

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I talk about the idea of being able to move around.

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I, I love my one client who's just like, I just get up now, like without making a noise.

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I love that he's just, I just like get up out of a chair and just clients that have told me like, I can get up off the floor now without trouble, like, that's the main reason why a lot of my clients come to me is for function.

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But I have had several that have come for what they probably would consider vanity.

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I just wanna look better.

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I'm all, I'm all in on either one, because I think it's fun to look better naked.

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And I, I don't think that that is, is a bad thing.

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But tell me how you, um, you know, how this works for you and why this probably is the bigger motivator for a lot of people.

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Sure.

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First preemptively, I wanna say I'm not like holier than thou.

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I look in the mirror.

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I'm, I'm worried about what I look like.

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uh, you know, there, there's a reason why there's mirror in mirrors in weight rooms.

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People do wanna see what they look like.

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Vanity is what I consider a positive gateway drug.

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Into fitness and health.

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So maybe it's a 16 year old boy who wants to get the girl next door and thinks she needs a bigger chest and bigger arms and decides to go to the weight room.

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Maybe it's a 19 year old girl who's in college and sees all these guys around her.

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She's interested in, maybe wants to, you know, she feels like she wants to tone up or something, right?

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Th these are fine, these are normal things.

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To be somewhat concerned with your vanity.

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It's a sort of, from an biological evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense.

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But what I warn people is there's a line of diminishing returns.

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There are a lot of exercise that long term could be doing damage, let's say, to joints and ligaments.

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And not necessarily the healthiest thing that you could possibly do.

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And people, when they're only focused on vanity, don't focus on their long-term health.

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I compare it to money.

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So ultimately, what do you want with your money?

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Of course you wanna make money now and spend it, but you wanna save for retirement because, You know, having money into old age matters.

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Well, you also want to save your body into old age.

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So if you're burning through your money too fast, or in my case, if you're wearing down joints and ligaments and you're pushing your body too hard at a young age, you're gonna deal with that later on in life.

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You're not saving your body later on.

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So there are more proper ways to work out.

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Overall health and wellness.

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That's being concerned with flexibility and mobility and making sure you're not doing too much high intensity and making sure it's not just vanity based.

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Asking yourself, taking a step back and saying, is this making me feel better?

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Does this exercise, do I actually feel great doing this?

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And there's the other side of this.

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There's some people who get a high from working out and that's all they're chasing is the high.

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And they go, oh, I just ran six miles.

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I feel fantastic.

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Yeah, of course you do, right?

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Because we know all the things that are going on in the background between the cortisol and the, the dopamine and the endorphins.

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But you know that constant wear on the pavement that pounding on your ankles and knees and.

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There's a lot of diminishing returns where maybe if you were riding a recumbent bike that's a bike where your feet are, are in, and you're leaning up against the seat, well, maybe that would've been a little bit easier for you as far as the wear on your joints.

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So I think it's just assessing, again, you and I have talked about this beforehand, having a professional audit, your program, and.

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What is your, what is your ultimate goal?

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If it is health and wellness, if it's not just getting on stage, we can't just worry about you and how you look.

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We also have to think about your long-term health and build a plan accordingly to make sure that we're not overdoing it.

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I think the other aspect of the vanity here in how we look is people often think that, well, I want to lose weight, so I'm going to exercise, and they disregard.

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The amount of effect that their nutrition has, and they think, well, if I'm, if I just exercise enough, that's how I'm gonna lose weight.

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And I just think there's, so the reasons for exercise are vast and very, very, very few of'em is for weight loss.

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It's just not actually the most effective modality if, if your nutrition is not dialed in.

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Right.

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Uh, yeah, I agree.

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And some people will, uh, especially you'll see those, uh, busy professionals who they think they can outwork their diet.

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So I'm, talking, you're very successful, nine to five ERs who, uh, you know, maybe they're well educated, they have a secondary degree.

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And they have the money to go, you know, hire a, you know, a personal trainer and do whatever, but you know, they're eating very poorly because they're so busy.

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So you, you know, the deal they get, they're starving by the time lunch comes around, they forgot to eat breakfast.

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So they eat whatever's in front of them, the, the closest fast food, and then they go, no big deal because we're not gonna do, is run six miles at the end of the day as fast as I can.

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And they think they can out.

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A bad diet and I think they can outwork, you know, bad lifestyle habits.

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But ultimately you can't do that and you, you have to again, Take a step back and sort of audit your program and say, what's best for me long term?

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Because a lot of these things are not best long term, but they may work in the short term.

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And that's the problem with the vanity is you may do things in the gym that seem to be working for you at 24 and 25, but what is that doing to you at 45 and 55 and 65?

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I work with that population, the older senior population, and I see what go through.

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And some of these things you have to explain to people.

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They're inevit.

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You're gonna face these things whether you want to or not.

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You're gonna start having injuries, you're gonna start having joint pain, and you want to kind of prepare for that moving forward by working out and eating in a, in a proper manner.

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So just like you're saving your money for retirement, again, you're saving your body for old age.

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I love this conversation because my clients and my listeners probably know that one of my goals is to live to a hundred and.

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People think that's ridiculous.

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Like how can you have, like, you don't have control over that.

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But I'm like, but I'm gonna do everything I can to do that.

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But it's not just the living, it's the making my healthspan match that lifespan.

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It's the continuing to be active, continuing to be able and.

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Definitely what we're talking about here is the way I work out now has to match that.

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It has to allow for me to be able to do it long term.

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And I'm curious, I often say as far as nutrition goes, if we can't eat like this for the rest of our lives, like then let's, let's not do it.

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If I teach my clients how to eat in such a way that they want to eat that.

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Very, very, very long term.

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So would that be the case with exercise as well, or is there going to need to be more shifts with exercise as we get older?

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That's a great question.

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Yeah, I would say the latter.

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So it's just adapting your training style as you get older.

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And typically that could just be something as simple as less load.

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So load in my world is just weight.

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So maybe you're doing things like.

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Squats and lunges and chest presses and shoulder presses with heavier weights.

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Doing low rep ranges, six to eight rep ranges cuz your goal is to build muscle.

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But as you get older, that sort of has to change.

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It has to be more about the efficiency of the motion.

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I always say you should become a better, a better exerciser.

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Your form should look better, it should look smoother.

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When I, when I look at you from afar, I should know that Lisa has done a thousand of these things, 10,000 of these things, and it's about the mobility of the joint.

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And it's not about just increasing load and weight, and that's typically what happens from, let's say, the vanity perspective or from a strength perspective in the weight room, right?

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People have number of goals they're trying to reach, Hey, I deadlifted this weight.

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Hey, I benched this weight.

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I want to go to a heavier weight.

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Hey, I ran four miles at this time.

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I wanna run four miles in.

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30 seconds less.

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Right?

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There's always this sort of competitive nature that we have to look at numbers and beat those numbers, but at some point you have to say, I need to dial back that competitive nature, focus on my form and focus on just getting to the gym, doing something.

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I enjoy moving around and knowing that this is helping my overall health and wellness.

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It doesn't have to be so competitive and dialed in.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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So let's talk about just the idea of exercising for our overall health.

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So we've got people that don't exercise at all, so we need to know where to start and.

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I have had clients who I would consider over exercisers people that are, you know, waking up at four or five in the morning to get that exercise in.

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And, you know, and not just one thing, but several things, a cardio and a weightlifting workout every single day.

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I've had clients like that.

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So from every, you know, aspect, what do people need to understand?

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about exercise and their overall?

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I'll start in reverse here.

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You know, there's a big trend in push for.

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Really challenging yourself.

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Jumping in these cold ice baths.

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You know, waking up at 4:00 AM and running 20 miles.

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You see the, you know, a big sort of celebrity trainer, uh, fitness guru is David Goggins.

00:15:21.270 --> 00:15:30.091
And he was basically this, you know, someone who was extremely overweight, lost a ton of weight, you know, became a Navy Seal, and he's just a motivator.

00:15:30.091 --> 00:15:31.081
Push it, push it, push it.

00:15:31.410 --> 00:15:34.650
You know what, what you don't hear is that David Goggins now has had knee replacements.

00:15:35.025 --> 00:15:39.105
he's probably on the verge of getting hip replacements right, because he pushed it too much.

00:15:39.346 --> 00:15:49.035
There's a point, again, a line of diminishing returns where our joints and our ligaments don't work the same way our muscles do and they're gonna wear out and we have to take care of that.

00:15:49.035 --> 00:15:52.125
And we have to know that there's a point which we have to dial it back.

00:15:52.130 --> 00:16:06.096
So I will say, If you're somebody who does thrive off that kind of like we talked about, those nine to five busy professionals who kind of love that stress, they love having deadlines and waking up and pushing themselves, you may need to dial it back.

00:16:06.245 --> 00:16:09.875
And again, you're hiring a professional to kind of audit your program may be the thing you need to do.

00:16:10.115 --> 00:16:17.081
And from the other side, Of the spectrum, the people who are not working out at all, but somehow convince themselves like, oh, I can just have a clean diet and not work out.

00:16:17.081 --> 00:16:21.581
Well, no, it's not just about fat loss and calories, it's about heart health.

00:16:21.880 --> 00:16:23.681
It's about maintaining strong bones.

00:16:23.711 --> 00:16:25.600
You can't just do these things with food, right?

00:16:25.750 --> 00:16:29.860
Our muscles pull on those bones, which in turn make them stronger, so you, you need.

00:16:30.086 --> 00:16:33.086
The weightlifting, you need the weights to push you.

00:16:33.086 --> 00:16:33.235
Right?

00:16:33.235 --> 00:16:41.576
Especially as we see when women get closer to their mid fifties, there's such a high percentage who have, you know, osteopenia, which leads to osteoporosis.

00:16:42.291 --> 00:16:43.535
And, and how do we battle that?

00:16:43.535 --> 00:16:46.446
Well, it's much easier to start before we get that.

00:16:46.890 --> 00:16:47.826
That's the first thing you wanna do.

00:16:47.826 --> 00:16:49.505
You don't wanna get it in the first place.

00:16:49.655 --> 00:16:53.495
You wanna start lifting in your thirties and forties so that you can stave that off.

00:16:53.495 --> 00:16:59.346
But if you already do have that, you're gonna have to start working out with a professional to make sure that it doesn't get worse.

00:16:59.676 --> 00:17:03.005
And I think that's, uh, you know, we, we can't lie to ourselves.

00:17:03.005 --> 00:17:04.596
It's, it, it's, it's needed.

00:17:05.016 --> 00:17:06.155
And if you struggle with.

00:17:06.971 --> 00:17:10.455
It's not going zero to 60, just like in the nutrition world.

00:17:10.455 --> 00:17:13.685
I'm sure Lisa wouldn't start someone off to say, Hey, listen.

00:17:14.461 --> 00:17:21.935
We're gonna, we're gonna totally revamp everything you do, and all you're gonna do is eat, you know, 1500 calories of broccoli and grilled chicken.

00:17:21.965 --> 00:17:27.605
No, she makes small changes and works your way up until you feel comfortable, and then she adds something in.

00:17:27.846 --> 00:17:31.836
Once you've sort of mastered that change, and that's the same thing in the fitness world.

00:17:31.840 --> 00:17:36.665
Maybe it's one day a week at first, and then once that's easy, maybe it's two days and so on and so forth.

00:17:36.665 --> 00:17:38.885
You, you don't have to become a master at it right away.

00:17:38.885 --> 00:17:39.425
You just have to.

00:17:40.566 --> 00:17:43.645
I'm sure you've heard this saying We don't stop moving because we get old.

00:17:43.645 --> 00:17:45.266
We get old because we stop moving.

00:17:45.340 --> 00:17:45.830
Yeah.

00:17:45.830 --> 00:17:46.270
Yeah.

00:17:46.391 --> 00:17:46.931
I love it.

00:17:47.830 --> 00:17:48.070
That's the

00:17:49.256 --> 00:17:52.842
yeah, it's, it's just the idea that we only get old.

00:17:53.436 --> 00:18:11.287
if we just stop moving our bodies around and, and by getting old, I just mean just the idea of, you know, sitting in our rocking chair and kind of giving up sort of, and I just, you know, you see the videos on Instagram of, this is my 91 year old mom and look at what she can do.

00:18:11.287 --> 00:18:15.037
And I'm like, yeah, that's, that's totally what I want.

00:18:15.037 --> 00:18:18.936
And my husband saw that and he's like, well, someone won the d N A lottery.

00:18:19.297 --> 00:18:20.196
And I'm like, yeah.

00:18:20.707 --> 00:18:30.606
That, that may be true, but she also still is in the gym and she's not lifting as heavy as I'm lifting right now, as as she shouldn't be.

00:18:31.267 --> 00:18:31.686
Right.

00:18:31.686 --> 00:18:42.576
And so it's just that dialing back on the, the weights that she is lifting and yet still she's challenging herself and really been able to stay young.

00:18:42.576 --> 00:18:46.416
And I don't know how many people are out there like her because.

00:18:46.836 --> 00:18:56.707
You know, like we've said, you know, you have the world open to you when you're looking at social media, so there might not be anybody in your gym that's that age.

00:18:57.173 --> 00:19:01.958
My sister tells me about the woman that is almost 80 that rides her bike to her.

00:19:02.678 --> 00:19:07.238
And then does the bar class, the same bar class my sister does, and then rides her bike home.

00:19:07.238 --> 00:19:09.008
And she's like, she's amazing.

00:19:09.008 --> 00:19:10.627
So we all wanna be that.

00:19:10.627 --> 00:19:14.077
We see those people that are so functional in their older life.

00:19:14.077 --> 00:19:26.688
So for those that are in their thirties and forties right now, I think what's probably my typical listener, maybe fifties, what would the ideal if we were just like generally speaking, a person who.

00:19:26.721 --> 00:19:29.330
doesn't have current injuries, right?

00:19:29.601 --> 00:19:35.480
Obviously everybody is different, but what would be kind of that ideal workout routine for the week?

00:19:35.948 --> 00:19:36.307
Sure.

00:19:36.548 --> 00:19:38.738
For me it's about, there's different planes of motion.

00:19:38.742 --> 00:19:40.542
I'll try not to be too technical here.

00:19:40.962 --> 00:19:45.252
Uh, there's different planes of motion and then there's different, I, I call'em the seven central movements.

00:19:45.643 --> 00:19:48.823
And for me, it's important to move in all of these directions and do these things.

00:19:48.823 --> 00:19:51.012
And most people know these a squat.

00:19:51.863 --> 00:19:56.242
A lunge, a plank, and then we have push and pull.

00:19:56.242 --> 00:19:58.282
A push movement would be something like a pushup.

00:19:58.702 --> 00:20:00.772
A pull movement would be something like a pullup.

00:20:00.772 --> 00:20:08.722
Now most people can't do pull up, so you could do back rows, which is pulling dumbbells towards your ribcage, squeezing your shoulder blades together, that works for back muscles

00:20:09.653 --> 00:20:12.173
pull down, would that be a

00:20:12.847 --> 00:20:15.337
Lap pull down, and then you have rotational movements, right?

00:20:15.337 --> 00:20:19.837
Something where you're moving what we call through the spine to the thoracic spine, the mid part of your spine.

00:20:20.198 --> 00:20:24.577
Moving in all those directions is very important because it activates all these different muscle groups.

00:20:24.607 --> 00:20:32.258
And also from a joint perspective, like your hips and your shoulders are built in ball and socket, which means they move around in a circular fashion.

00:20:32.528 --> 00:20:35.468
So we wanna move around our joints in all planes of motion.

00:20:35.768 --> 00:20:38.077
So what's really important is that we don't just go to the.

00:20:38.857 --> 00:20:42.397
Sit on a machine, push it forward, push it backwards, right?

00:20:42.698 --> 00:20:45.637
Or lift up a weight straight up to our arm and leave it down.

00:20:45.968 --> 00:20:52.448
We wanna make sure that we're also thinking about our joints and how they move and move in different planes of motion.

00:20:52.807 --> 00:20:54.397
I think that's, that's really important.

00:20:54.397 --> 00:20:58.897
So I love something like the T R X suspension trainer, which really helps do that, right?

00:20:59.107 --> 00:21:02.407
Other forms of resistance training like cable machines, which are great.

00:21:02.948 --> 00:21:07.117
Um, the traditional Olympic weightlifting movements, let's say.

00:21:07.458 --> 00:21:20.478
A deadlift or these things where you're using a straight barbell, you're talking about people who spend their whole life perfecting this form and then, you know, other people just go in the gym and they assume they can go do it.

00:21:20.897 --> 00:21:28.157
And it's, you know, the risk reward from what it's doing to you, to your potential for injury to me is just not worth it most of the time.

00:21:28.157 --> 00:21:31.667
Now, if you lighten the load, like we talked about, focus more on your.

00:21:32.857 --> 00:21:33.442
That's great.

00:21:33.593 --> 00:21:38.542
You have to build efficiency in the motions, and how you do that is forget about the weight.

00:21:38.932 --> 00:21:41.722
Focus on doing the form properly.

00:21:42.113 --> 00:21:49.972
That's what I would say first to build sort of the infrastructure right of your body, the architecture of your body, and then you could start to add weight and do things.

00:21:49.972 --> 00:21:54.712
But ultimately, yes, I would really focus on those different movements.

00:21:54.772 --> 00:21:55.343
You're squat.

00:21:55.948 --> 00:22:02.758
At certain points, you're lunging, you're doing a pushing exercise, you're doing a pulling exercise, you're doing a rotation exercise.

00:22:03.028 --> 00:22:07.917
If you're moving in all of those planes of motion and all those exercises, typically you're hitting all those muscle groups.

00:22:08.218 --> 00:22:09.667
The tool in which you use.

00:22:10.542 --> 00:22:15.218
It's just that it, it's just that it's a tool in which you use to get your body there, right?

00:22:15.218 --> 00:22:18.428
To help those muscles contract Your body is the ultimate tool.

00:22:18.968 --> 00:22:27.278
All of these different fitness toys, whether you're using a band or a slam ball, or a weights or a bar belt, they're just assisting in it.

00:22:27.278 --> 00:22:29.708
It's more about the motion that your body's moving through.

00:22:30.373 --> 00:22:43.482
I tend to pick up different things just for interest, just to keep it, keep, like choose a you know, sometimes a slam ball and sometimes a band, and sometimes dumbbells just just because it keeps it more interesting.

00:22:44.423 --> 00:22:49.073
Well, it also challenges your body more, so ultimately you can do the same exact movement.

00:22:49.073 --> 00:22:58.163
Let's, let's take a, a shoulder press, which is for those who don't know, it's, let's say I'm holding a ball, uh, underneath my chin and I'm pressing that ball straight into the air.

00:22:58.462 --> 00:23:03.053
If I do that with a ball, that's not the same as if I do that with two individual weights.

00:23:03.428 --> 00:23:06.278
That's also not the same as if I do that with a straight barbell.

00:23:06.278 --> 00:23:06.728
Why?

00:23:06.998 --> 00:23:13.748
Well, I have different smaller stabilizer muscles that are all firing dependent upon small things like in a ball.

00:23:13.778 --> 00:23:15.877
You're not squeezing the ball because you can't.

00:23:16.178 --> 00:23:20.498
So my palm is open, which means I'm not working my forearms in a bar.

00:23:20.498 --> 00:23:23.198
I'm gripping it this way and dumbbells, I might be gripping it this way.

00:23:23.198 --> 00:23:28.417
Even small things like that challenge your body in different ways, and the more we can challenge our.

00:23:29.438 --> 00:23:30.817
And make it less efficient.

00:23:30.817 --> 00:23:35.317
I know that sounds sort of counterintuitive, the harder our body is working.

00:23:35.857 --> 00:23:38.738
So for anybody who's, who has perfected something, right?

00:23:38.738 --> 00:23:45.397
Whether you're a swimmer or a runner or maybe there's a weight room technique you've perfected, it's so easy for you now, right?

00:23:45.403 --> 00:23:49.028
Your, when you do the motion, your body sends signals up to your brain.

00:23:49.448 --> 00:23:50.317
Afro neurons.

00:23:50.317 --> 00:23:56.288
Afro neurons come back from your brain, back to your body, and you can do that with no problem, cuz you've done'em thousands of times.

00:23:56.438 --> 00:24:09.452
But when you try something, Whatever that is, you're a little bit shaky and wobbly, and that also in turn burns more calories cuz your body's working harder to try to work through that new process and learn that new process.

00:24:09.452 --> 00:24:14.222
So it's also an advantage to doing new things and trying new ways like you just talked about, Lisa.

00:24:14.982 --> 00:24:30.923
The other thing too, I noticed is when you say like overhead press, that kind of bothers my shoulders and I've learned that I can do, I can actually do a landmine press though, and so it's just like a slightly different bar path, a slightly different movement, but.

00:24:31.387 --> 00:24:36.557
I'm still getting that overhead movement without it actually hurting the joint there.

00:24:36.617 --> 00:24:42.768
So just trying different ways to get those movements in is also really helpful.

00:24:42.768 --> 00:24:45.768
So we're mostly talking about resistance training here.

00:24:45.768 --> 00:24:49.188
So how many days a week do you like to see resistance training?

00:24:50.403 --> 00:24:54.673
It always depends on goals, but I think three days a week is more than enough.

00:24:55.185 --> 00:24:56.016
Of resistance training.

00:24:56.046 --> 00:25:00.006
If you're working in that 45 minute to an hour, I think three days a week is more than enough.

00:25:00.006 --> 00:25:09.516
Now that doesn't mean you can't do anything else on the other days, in my opinion, you should be doing something five or six days a week, even if that's just again, moving your body, going out for walks.

00:25:09.756 --> 00:25:11.705
The problem is the average person, right?

00:25:11.711 --> 00:25:12.576
This is not everybody.

00:25:12.576 --> 00:25:14.826
I, you know, I, I work with individuals that.

00:25:15.250 --> 00:25:16.840
Dependent upon their lifestyle, this can change.

00:25:16.840 --> 00:25:20.471
But most people, I wake up from bed, which I was just sleeping in eight hours.

00:25:20.560 --> 00:25:24.911
Then I sit down on my breakfast nook and, and I eat breakfast, and then I go sit in my car.

00:25:24.911 --> 00:25:26.111
I drive to work for 30 minutes.

00:25:26.111 --> 00:25:27.851
Then I go sit down for eight hours at work.

00:25:27.911 --> 00:25:29.381
Then I go back into my car and sit down.

00:25:29.471 --> 00:25:31.060
Then I go back home and sit down and eat dinner.

00:25:31.121 --> 00:25:32.381
Then I go on my couch and watch Netflix.

00:25:32.381 --> 00:25:33.340
Then I go back into bed.

00:25:33.701 --> 00:25:37.486
So that whole day, You've been sitting down or laying down, right?

00:25:37.486 --> 00:25:41.115
So there, there wasn't a lot of mo movement or action in that average person's day.

00:25:41.115 --> 00:25:57.786
So I'd say do something, whether that's go for a two mile walk, hop on the treadmill, the elliptical, ride a bike, do something, but resistance training weights wise, I think three days a week is more than enough If you're, let's say a woman between the ages of 35 and 60, and you're trying to stave off osteopenia and osteo oppor.

00:25:58.415 --> 00:25:58.631
Yeah.

00:25:58.770 --> 00:26:04.441
so that's like for the health when we were, you know, back to the beginning of vanity versus health, that's really going to.

00:26:05.115 --> 00:26:18.020
Enough for both, Yeah, so I find what works for me is a couple days of resistance training, a couple days of low intensity, steady state cardio, which is like that walk.

00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:25.191
Um, I do yoga occasionally, usually about once a week, and then I do a more high intense cardio.

00:26:25.365 --> 00:26:30.586
I have a stationary bike that I use, and so I, I personally like to change it all up.

00:26:30.806 --> 00:26:34.965
It's like sometimes high intense cardio, sometimes low, and then making the base.

00:26:34.996 --> 00:26:39.135
The resistance training, is that kinda like what you like to see with clients?

00:26:39.721 --> 00:26:45.540
Yeah, I mean ultimately, like we've talked about before, it comes down in the beginning of the conversation, it comes down to adherence.

00:26:45.570 --> 00:26:48.661
So there might be some clients who say, I absolutely hate.

00:26:49.026 --> 00:26:50.766
Doing seven different things.

00:26:50.796 --> 00:26:51.665
I just need two.

00:26:51.816 --> 00:26:52.205
Okay.

00:26:52.205 --> 00:26:54.576
Well then I'll build you the program around two different things.

00:26:54.905 --> 00:26:56.316
What's best for your body?

00:26:56.375 --> 00:26:56.885
Yes.

00:26:56.915 --> 00:26:58.925
What Lisa's doing best for your body.

00:26:58.925 --> 00:27:03.516
Ultimately, you want to challenge your body in different ways, not only from an energy perspective.

00:27:03.516 --> 00:27:07.746
So let's go ahead and say, We use different energy systems, depended upon how hard we're working.

00:27:07.986 --> 00:27:12.875
So if I'm doing, let's say, uh, Lisa's doing a shoulder press, although you shouldn't be doing them cuz they hurt your shoulder.

00:27:12.875 --> 00:27:13.236
I know.

00:27:13.476 --> 00:27:18.935
But shoulder presses and you're doing heavy weights for you that might be 15 pound dumbbells.

00:27:19.115 --> 00:27:20.586
You can only get six of them up.

00:27:20.885 --> 00:27:27.816
You're using a different energy system, an a t p, uh, glycolysis system over if you are going on a slow 20.

00:27:28.586 --> 00:27:31.826
Mile and a half jog, that's a different energy system, right?

00:27:31.826 --> 00:27:40.016
So not only do we want to challenge ourselves by using different exercises, different weights, but the energy systems, meaning do we do low and slow?

00:27:40.020 --> 00:27:42.655
Like you talked about, do we do high intensity?

00:27:42.685 --> 00:27:44.336
Do I do heavy weights, low reps?

00:27:44.395 --> 00:27:50.246
All of these various things challenge our bodies in different ways, which ultimately is going to be better provided we're doing them safely.

00:27:50.246 --> 00:27:52.796
But I just wanna go quickly back to that vanity aspect you mention.

00:27:53.471 --> 00:27:57.830
Would three days a week be enough from a vanity perspective as opposed to a health perspective.

00:27:58.371 --> 00:28:03.141
I think it would be way more advantageous from a health perspective.

00:28:03.560 --> 00:28:10.280
And I think ultimately that's, that's the problem because with the vanity, you probably wanna up that to four or five or six sometimes.

00:28:11.226 --> 00:28:14.855
Uh, especially because the best way for vanity is called muscle separation.

00:28:14.855 --> 00:28:20.316
So maybe I just focus on arms one day, and then I do core and back the next day, and then I do legs one day.

00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:20.556
Right?

00:28:20.556 --> 00:28:28.476
I'm really focusing on just destroying, for lack of a better term, the muscle fibers in one area and then letting them rebuild.

00:28:28.506 --> 00:28:32.915
But like we said, You know that there's a line of diminishing returns.

00:28:32.915 --> 00:28:34.836
What is that doing to my joints long term?

00:28:35.465 --> 00:28:41.526
And, you know, is, is this a, am I paying in the long run for this manatee based training?

00:28:41.526 --> 00:28:51.596
And I think that's something not in the twenties we have to worry about, but as you start to creep closer to 40 and beyond, that's, that's not exactly the training style your body's built for at.

00:28:52.476 --> 00:28:54.846
And that's where adherence gets to be a real problem for me.

00:28:55.115 --> 00:28:58.955
Like I, I have zero desire to go in the gym and just work arms.

00:28:59.375 --> 00:29:01.236
I'm just like, no, no thanks.

00:29:02.976 --> 00:29:03.965
I just, I don't know.

00:29:03.965 --> 00:29:12.786
I love a, I, when I'm in, when I do resistance, I often do like full body, which is why I tend to just do two or three days a week, but

00:29:13.625 --> 00:29:15.846
Well, we all love what we're good at too, right?

00:29:15.846 --> 00:29:21.816
There's a lot of people who will clinging to some sort of fitness modality in which they're naturally better at.

00:29:21.820 --> 00:29:25.056
So whatever that is, if you have stronger legs, you're gonna like leg exercises.

00:29:25.355 --> 00:29:33.816
If you're really fast and you have good, let's say, hand eye coordination, maybe you like boxing, but you don't like to do traditional lifting, and that's, that comes natural.

00:29:33.816 --> 00:29:40.086
And I think a good trainer will find ways to get the client to do things like we talked about, using tools.

00:29:40.786 --> 00:29:42.405
Not tricks, but tools.

00:29:42.465 --> 00:29:49.726
I call them tricks, uh, to make you think that you're not necessarily working arms, but you are actually hitting those arm muscles in, in different ways.

00:29:49.726 --> 00:29:52.996
And think that's, that, that's a way around it for people who don't like those things.

00:29:53.026 --> 00:29:57.316
Hiring a good trainer who can trick you, or excuse me, use the tools to get you into

00:29:59.395 --> 00:29:59.846
Yeah.

00:29:59.846 --> 00:30:05.365
And you know, maybe for you too, the, um, group exercise is the thing that gets you to the gym.

00:30:05.796 --> 00:30:08.191
right now, I work out in my garage, but.

00:30:08.871 --> 00:30:12.050
I used to do a lot of group exercise, and I do miss that.

00:30:12.050 --> 00:30:30.471
I don't miss having to like fix my hair to go out in public, but I, you know, I'm always look a fright when I'm out in the garage, but I think that there's a lot to be said for the aspect of being in a group and experiencing the same thing together, and just the accountability that that provides.

00:30:30.471 --> 00:30:35.721
If, if, for example, hiring a one-on-one personal trainer for every single workout isn't.

00:30:36.276 --> 00:30:42.476

Steve Washuta

Author, Certified Personal Trainer, Corrective Exercise Specialist

Steve has over 30,000 in the Fitness Industry and is dedicated to helping the general population stay healthy into old age. Additionally, he authored, Fitness Business 101, to help young personal trainers and health professionals expedite their success in the industry. He hosts, The TrulyFit Podcast, and is a co-owner of a fitness software company under the same name.

Vanity vs. Health: How It Impacts Your Exercise Routine As You Age With Steve Washuta [Ep. 48]

Steve Washuta

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