Category: Fitness Candor Podcast

Transcript taken from Fitness Candor Podcast episode 136

00:03 Eric:Record. Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitness Candor podcast. Simon Shawcross from hituni.com joined us again today, and we’re gonna talk a little bit more shop geared towards the fitness professional again, but hopefully maybe if you’re not a fitness professional, you’re working with a trainer, maybe this can be of some benefit to you. But I’ve spoken on the podcast a couple times to other people about, there’s a gap that needs to be bridged between the fitness professional and the health professional, health professionals being a general practitioner, doctor, any kind of physician, chiropractor, physical therapist, you name it. Because I don’t know, Simon, about you, but… Well first of all, welcome to the show, before I keep rambling on.

00:54 Simon Shawcross:[00:54] ____. [laughter] But yeah, I was happy to just jump straight in, it’s fantastic. Always a pleasure to catch up, Eric.

00:58 Eric:Awesome. So anyway, my experiences have been, I would say 70/30, to the point where it’s like, someone who’s working with a trainer, specifically me, either they won’t bring up to their physician, let’s say if they have a nagging back injury or maybe they’re just coming off of surgery, they won’t bring up that they’re working with a personal trainer, because either they don’t find it relevant, or if they do say they’re working with a trainer, the person that they’re talking to, the health professional in the medical field, they get kind of like this weird, they do the eye roll like, “Oh, you’re working with a trainer. Great, whoop-de-doo.” So I don’t know if you’ve… What kind of experiences you’ve had with your clients in relationship to health professionals, but if you do I’d like to hear some of that.

01:53 Simon Shawcross:By and large I’ve had really positive experiences. One of the challenges as a personal trainer is sometimes the way in broader society how a personal trainer can be perceived, unfortunately, sometimes is as a little bit dumb, or not necessarily somebody who understands health concerns and issues. Now, I think, for a start, that’s quite an unfair perspective in general. There are great fantastic trainers who really know their stuff, even into the health realm of the spectrum, but people who I would say could probably rehabilitate an injury or musculotendonal issue as well as a physical therapist, or maybe even better in some circumstances. So it’s a little bit of an unfair label, but sometimes that’s a label you might have to deal with from a health professional. Their perception in their mind of what a personal trainer is might be something… A career or an individual that they would typically look down upon, which then puts you in a challenging position, because you’re looking to do good work with your client and to help them on their road to recovery.

03:07 Simon Shawcross:So one thing I found just super beneficial from the outset is to create an open and frank dialogue with that individual’s medical professional, and I would look to get the client on board with giving you their GP, or whatever the medical practitioner is, their specialist, giving you their contact details so you make first contact with the doctor, with the osteopath. One of the things when I first started out that I found pretty quickly is that doctors would… If a client mentioned their personal training to a doctor, almost the default position would be “Oh, that’s a bad thing, the trainer’s probably not gonna know what they’re doing and could make something worse for you.”

03:54 Simon Shawcross:And what I found was that’s sort of the health professional’s defensive position. You can blast that preconceived notion of who and what you are away by making the effort to make first contact. A lot of the times, the health practitioner is gonna just drop their preconceived notion of you the moment they realize they’re speaking to an intelligent individual. So if you make the effort… ‘Cause trainers who don’t really care about their clients are not gonna bother to make that effort. So if you’re the one who picks up the phone, fires off the first email, whatever it is, whichever mode of contact you’re gonna use, and gets in touch with that person to say, “Look, I really value your opinion. I’m working with Mrs. X, and I wanna make sure it’s the best possible journey towards health she can have. What advice do you have for me as a trainer? And this is what I intend to do with the client.”

04:49 Simon Shawcross:And then you’re creating this open, frank and honest dialog from the outset. And you might actually find you end up with a doctor or a health practitioner who completely ends up respecting you, and maybe even as your relationship grows, starts to forward clients to you down the road, and that’s happened to me in many circumstances with osteopaths and doctors. Once they’ve become comfortable and confident in who I am and what I do, and that Mrs. X is fine, she’s okay; in fact, she’s getting better coming to see me, and he’s seeing that during their appointments, then you can open up a great referral networking chain as well.

05:25 Eric:Yeah, that’s big, that’s really important. I think a lot of people don’t realize that that is an avenue, if you’re getting started in the fitness industry, to use doctors and people in the health profession or the medical profession as reliable sources, because that only creates a better system for you, and you become more respected and you’re looked at as not just like a… Not just like someone who, like we talked about right before we pressed record, just runs somebody through a workout willy-nilly, who cares. You’re in, you’re out, go do your PT on your own. So I like what you said about if you make first contact, you reach the person and let them know that you’re on board with what their outcomes should be, I think that’s really important what you said about, obviously creating the dialogue, make the first contact and ask them what advice do they have for you, instead of saying, “Hey doc, here’s my plan. How do you fit into it?”

06:31 Simon Shawcross:A doctor is rarely gonna be liked to be talked down to like that.

06:34 Eric:Right. [chuckle]

06:34 Simon Shawcross:They’re gonna be used to be in the position of power and talking down to the patient. And in your situation as a personal trainer, it’s wise to listen to what they have to say first. And look, doctors usually are not great at exercise prescription. They don’t know this stuff like a great personal trainer does. So ultimately you are the expert in this position, but you need to get them on board with you, and to get their professional medical opinion on the situation that that particular client is currently facing.

07:12 Eric:Right. Do you have a… What’s your most recent story of somebody going into… Maybe a coming out of the doctor’s office, or maybe post-surgery that you’ve had to deal with that you… Anything pop into your head right away?

07:27 Simon Shawcross:One of the super beneficial ones which tracks the whole sort of process was somebody who’s having cruciate ligament surgery. And before the surgery, they knew… It was something that happened from a tennis injury during their youth as a tennis player, and they knew that they were gonna need this operation, or decided that they wanted to for the upshot or the upside, potential upside of the surgery. And so I was in a really lucky position to be told that this surgery was coming. So let’s take 12 weeks to make this joint as strong and resilient as possible. You’re gonna have a period of time post-operation and post-op where training is not gonna be recommended. And then you’re gonna have post-rehabilitation. So really, that chain followed that whole gamut of from rehabilitation to a couple of weeks off to full rehabilitation. And I was using a really good device which has medical grade cams on it so that the knee extension and knee flexion exercises were possible and were safe to do.

08:53 Simon Shawcross:And we got that joint and the muscles and tendons and cartilage of that joint as strong as we possibly could during that 12 weeks pre the surgery. My client then went and had the surgery, and this was all with the agreement of the doctor. It’s like, “Yeah, you need to be doing this stuff.” We had the surgery. Within I think it was a week and a half of it, ten days after the surgery, he was back doing the exercises with me again. And for the sake of safety, I lopped off at probably about, I don’t know, 30% of the load first session back, but we were back up to full strength within three or four weeks post-surgery, and then began exceeding the levels of strength that had been pre-surgery within five, six weeks afterwards. And therefore, you have a situation there where what we did really supported the surgery and the physical issue that client was going through at that time. And the value that I was able to add as personal trainer meant that this guy was strong going into surgery, recovered quickly because he was metabolically was super active in those tissues, and then we could pick up almost where we left off and get him back up and back to full health and full strength really quickly. And that stuff is really practical and can be done if you’re prescribing exercise appropriately around surgery.

10:48 Eric:Yeah, and then…

10:49 Simon Shawcross:And then if we just… Sorry, yeah, go on.

10:51 Eric:I was just gonna say then you have data and feedback that you can send to the physician if they’re open to that kind of information, and that also creates that feedback loop.

11:04 Simon Shawcross:Yeah, yeah. And an absolute favorite of mine, just to touch on this while we are on the subject, was, and I may well have mentioned this before on the podcast, but I had a client that I worked with for about 10 years who had Parkinson’s disease. Year on year he had to go in every… He saw a specialist every couple of months, but then year on year he’d go in for a full medical testing of his strength and cardiovascular ability at a hospital. And when I worked with him for the first seven years of that, year on year we increased his strength in his… His quadricep strength, which was the main measure of strength that they took, and I emailed back and forth with his doctor during that process. And they were blown away by that progress over the first seven years. So it’s always worth having that open channel of communication. And what you’ll find is, if you’re doing a good job or a great job with the client, is the medical staff can be blown away by what is possible, because you need to remember that most of their clients do not take this proactive stance on their health to that degree. They don’t necessarily hire a personal trainer. They may consider, “I go for a walk around the block every day for half an hour, and so therefore, I’m looking after my health.”

12:31 Eric:Good point.

12:31 Simon Shawcross:But far fewer people really look to strengthen their muscle tissue and keep themselves strong during that kind of disease process. So you can seriously impress medical professionals by the work you can do with clients across a whole range of conditions.

12:49 Eric:And that kind of brings me to my next concern about this whole situation, is that I think being a personal trainer is not the same as being like a physical therapist, or someone with that skill set. Is it hard for a PT to learn physical therapy, or maybe some prehab moves for people? No, absolutely not. I don’t think that should be a strict standard. I think that’s why we have people that we can refer out to. We build our network and if somebody does need physical therapy, then we can have people we trust to send people to, and I…

13:27 Simon Shawcross:Yeah, a physical therapist plays a really important role, yeah.

13:31 Eric:A huge, huge role. Good physical therapist, just like a good trainer, ’cause there’s different levels in the whole spectrum of the profession. But what I was gonna… What I was trying to get to is that I have been looked at by clients as a physical therapist. They come off of a surgery, and they’ll say, “Well, I don’t need to go to physical therapy ’cause I work with a trainer.” And I have to sit, seriously, sit down with them and have a conversation and say, “You do need to go to physical therapy because this is not in my wheelhouse, and here’s why, X, Y and Z.” A lot of trainers out there might completely disagree with that. I don’t. I think it’s very wise to stay in your lane. So if I’m a strength training specialist, I’m going to stick in that lane. I’m not gonna veer out and claim to know how to appropriately rehab someone, at the same time try to strength train them also. I think there’s a fine line that we have to walk, as…

14:36 Simon Shawcross:I think… Yeah.

14:37 Eric:As trainers.

14:38 Simon Shawcross:One of the first things I think you need to do when you’ve got anybody coming to you as a new… Let’s say, for example, as a new client, and they say, “I’ve got this issue, and I want you to help me work around it, or fix it, or help me with this issue that I have.” First thing that I think you need to consider is, is it within your capabilities to help that individual with that particular issue? Do you have the knowledge, do you have the skillset, and are you confident to do that? If you’re not, you have to back away. You have to recommend somebody else straight away. If you are capable, and it falls within your remit, and it falls within legally in your jurisdiction, what you’re capable of doing and are allowed to promote and sell and teach, and you feel completely confident at that, great. If not, always best to refer out. Refer them back even to their GP so they can get a referral onwards to a specialist, or to a physical therapist that you trust. Always better to do that than to plough on thinking, “Well, I kind of know how to work with this. I worked with Mrs. Jones two years ago and kind of resolved that for her.” It may not be the same scenario at all. And you’re far better, both from your own conscience perspective, [chuckle] and for helping the individual in front of you to make sure that they get treated appropriately. So, yeah, I thoroughly agree with what you were saying there.

16:11 Eric:And it’s tough on our part, at least I want to be that person that can be, I can be the accountability partner for my client, especially if they’re during PT, during that process, and set a reminder for me to remind that person, “Hey, make sure you do your PT today because X, Y, and Z. Not just because you’re being told to, but because it’s gonna help you.” And I’ve done PT on my own shoulder. I’ve gone to physical therapy for my shoulder, and then was able to maintain that. And I’ve worked with a physical therapist to rehab myself. I didn’t wanna do those exercises. It was hard enough for me, even having the knowledge, “Alright, I know why I need to do this, because six months from now, I don’t wanna have frozen shoulder, or my labrum to go even further into a tear.” But people get the little piece of paper with stick figures on it, and they look at this thing, they’re like, “Well, I’ll do this like once or twice a week and I should be fine.” But those things need to be done as prescribed, two to three times a day. And we, as trainers, if we want to maintain that client-trainer relationship, we need to make sure that they are doing everything outside of the gym, in that case, in that case.

17:35 Simon Shawcross:Yeah, yeah.

17:36 Eric:Everything outside of the gym that they need to be doing.

17:39 Simon Shawcross:And that’s the difference, because what they’re doing with the exercises that are prescribed by their PT, and that they’re required to be done multiple times a day, is they’re not specifically looking to build strength back up, per se. They’re looking to build mobility back up, and that has to precede the real strengthening process. So there is a path that it is beneficial to follow, but you’re absolutely spot-on. Most people get those sheets of paper with the stick man on and they might have a go day one, maybe day two, but then that’s pretty much it. And as you say, it is important to do, and it is an essential part of the recovery process. So if we can, as personal trainers, be there to support, encourage, and help foster that habit that the PT has prescribed, then we’re really, really assisting that client.

18:34 Eric:Yeah, I think you’re ahead of the game. So how do you go about finding the person that you’re going to refer to or to make the connection to? Have you ever shadowed physical therapists in your area? Or maybe spent some time with physicians and really tried to sit down with them and describe what you do? Or is this like on a case-by-case as it comes to you scenario?

19:01 Simon Shawcross:The way I did it as a personal trainer when I started out was pretty much on a case-by-case basis. I suppose when I first started I had… And this may be something common that happens with trainers who are new, when people know that you’ve only been doing this for a year or two, they tend to be more insecure about your ability to work with them around those type of issues. So what I noticed at the start of my career, I would have far more people saying, “Oh, my doctor says I shouldn’t do X or I shouldn’t do Y,” or, “My osteopath says I need you to get in touch with them.” So then for me what happened was there is this very organic process of what I found was I wanted to do the best for these people, they’re telling me this information, the best way for me to move forward is, like I said at the start of this, is to get in touch with that health professional directly, so I can start a conversation, start a two-way dialogue with that health professional, and then organically that just grew a network.

20:03 Eric:Yeah.

20:04 Simon Shawcross:And then by the end, I was getting so many referrals from health professional… People who weren’t personal trainers, so other health professionals, sending me clients, that I couldn’t take on all the clients that I was being sent by health professionals, because they knew that they were sending their client to a safe pair of hands. And that’s really valuable as a personal trainer, to have that as health professionals’ perspective of you. If you can become a relied on, trusted individual to help people, then you’re gonna find you’re gonna have no shortage of clients. Now, whether you wanna work with people who have higher levels of dysfunction is another question.

20:46 Eric:Sure, yeah.

20:46 Simon Shawcross:Maybe you wanna train studs and that’s what you wanna do.

[laughter]

20:50 Simon Shawcross:But what I’ve found is there’s a lot more people who need a lot more specialist help out there, and it can be very rewarding indeed to work with those types of clients.

21:01 Eric:Yeah, absolutely. I’ve gone into places where I know that some of my clients maybe have been to physical therapists specifically, and asked if I could just shadow for a day.

21:15 Simon Shawcross:Yeah.

21:15 Eric:I actually haven’t done that in quite some time. And now that we’re talking about it it might be a good idea to do that.

21:20 Simon Shawcross:Was the response you got good in general? Were they happy for that to happen?

21:24 Eric:They were extremely surprised, and I think if you get a hold of… If you just talk to… And I don’t know all the terms, I know they have interns and things like that. Obviously, you’re gonna bypass that person, but if you’re talking to someone at the front desk, like the manager of the facility, they might not be as adept to say, “Yeah, come on in, let’s do this.” But if you can get them to really talk to the head therapist, the leading person in charge, that person is usually very open to having someone come in. I’m not sure it happens very often, so it brings a level of excitement as well, but also shows respect. And again, to your point, you’re building that network, that relationship. And I know I said I’m all about staying in my lane, but there’s nothing wrong with learning how to do different things for external and internal rotation and shoulder mobility and things like that because they do those things so often, which I think in turn can benefit your clients moving forward.

22:37 Simon Shawcross:And there’s gonna come a point during the rehabilitation where there is this handing off, where they’re ending their physical therapy and going to be with you from now on. So using some of that stuff through the transitional period and to keep them strong in, for example, the rotator cuffs, is pretty valuable.

23:00 Eric:Yeah, very much. But for the most part, yeah, I’ve gotten some very good feedback from it. As long as you talk to the right person, don’t give up. If you leave a message for somebody and you don’t hear back in a week, then you need to call again because you will get lost. If you’re not bringing in income for them, you will get lost in the shuffle, because it’s such a high demanding… They’re dealing with insurance and everything else, which is thankfully something that we don’t have to do, at least in the States, but that’s a whole other topic we could get into. I’ve had people ask me, “Well, how come trainers don’t deal with them?” Well, there’s a lot of different reasons. And maybe we’ll just leave that in the pocket for now.

23:41 Eric:But yeah, Simon, I think this is very valuable conversation, and especially if you are a trainer that is in a position where you’re not really sure how to handle somebody either coming to you as a first-time client, or if you’re getting ready to deal with somebody who might be having surgery, then it’s very valuable to, like you said, make the first contact, create the dialogue right away, take notes, and give feedback. I think that’s all very very important.

24:14 Simon Shawcross:And what was interesting was that was both of our experiences. We’ve both been proactive in that stepping out to meet the health professionals and being the ones who’ve made the initial step in that direction. And I think that speaks as to how valuable that process can be for a trainer who really wants to forward their career and excel with working with a wide variety of clients.

24:43 Eric:Agreed, absolutely. And this benefits you as a professional, and it solidifies you as a professional in the industry, where right now we are in dire need of more professionalism, and this is definitely one way, by working with other high-level professionals.

24:57 Simon Shawcross:Yeah.

25:00 Eric:Simon, I gotta jump off here, sir, but let everybody know where they can find you and what you have going on right now.

25:07 Simon Shawcross:So they can come and find about certification programs at hituni.com. The other thing is we just released a… I just wanted to say this one thing, we’ve just released this fantastic blog post on hituni.com/blog, which is written by a really well respected business writer, and it’s got their 25 top resources they recommend for a fitness professional to become an entrepreneur and forward their business. And it’s just a very exciting blog post that I just wanna just put out for people to go and take a look at it, because if you’re serious about your career, this has got some great free tools in there for you to start moving forward.

25:46 Eric:Cool, yeah. I’ll grab that and link it to the show notes for sure.

25:49 Simon Shawcross:Fantastic.

25:52 Eric:Well. As always, this has been great, and we’ll talk to you very soon.

25:56 Simon Shawcross:Fantastic, Eric. Bye for now.

Transcript taken from Fitness Candor Podcast episode 135

00:14 Eric Feigl:Hey, everybody, welcome back to Fitness Candor Podcast. Kristen DeAngelis, Registered Dietitian, joins us again, a very uncaffeinated probably sad soul of a person that Kristen is because I just found out that she’s been without an abundance of caffeine since November. So, RIP, I guess. That sucks. It sounds so sad to hear that.

00:43 Kristen DeAngelis:Eric, it is a beautiful thing. My baseline energy is through the roof. I don’t need anything that makes me jittery.

00:51 Eric Feigl:No. No, I don’t believe that for a second. We’re gonna skip right past that though, and we’re gonna get into something that I think it hits close to home for both of us, it sounds like. We’re gonna talk a little bit about binge eating. And so what I really wanna start out with is, let’s define binge eating and then we can take it from there. So from your experience, since you’ve dealt with it more on the professional side than I have, what is the definition of binge eating? And then what do maybe people think binge eating is? How about that?

01:26 Kristen DeAngelis:Great question, great question. So I wanna go through more of the diagnostic criteria and then break that down a little bit. So really with binge eating, we’re looking at eating in a very finite, a discrete period of time. So it’s something of like one hour or two hours, it’s a short period of time, where it’s an excessive amount of food more than what anyone would classify as normal. I put in quotes “normal” ’cause everyone’s eating nowadays large portions, but this is specific, again, to that one or two hours, even 30 minutes and where there’s a real sense of complete lack of control, almost fear around it and really like… I personally relate to this where you feel like it’s an out-of-body experience and there is absolutely nothing that can stop you. It’s a real fear, it’s this huge sense of lack of control.

02:27 Kristen DeAngelis:So a few more items, not diagnostic criteria, if you are listening to the show, I’m just reading this off from the nationaleatingdisorders.org, which also has some really great resources and even some quizzes that you can take if you are suspecting that you might be suffering from binge eating. Binge eating episodes, if you check off three or more of the following, and I’m gonna name out a few. So eating much more rapidly or quickly, so just completely stuffing your face as much as you can get in as quickly as possible. Second would be eating until you’re overly really uncomfortably full. Third would be eating large amounts of food when you’re really not physically hungry. Four would be eating alone because of feeling embarrassed or feeling guilty or ashamed. Again, I’ll raise my hand, that’s definitely happened to me before. And the last one will be feeling disgusted with oneself or depressed or guilt and kind of that cycle that leads mentally after.

03:31 Kristen DeAngelis:So, yes, if you check off any three or more of that, then I would highly encourage to open up the discussion, check out this website, or reach out to me as someone who does work now with a variety of different types of eating disorder clients, it’s really important that we address it, nipping it at the bud and not letting it continue to go on and on and on for years.

03:56 Eric Feigl:So if a person checks off and they meet the criteria, obviously reaching out to that website or someone like yourself, experienced leader in helping someone manage those types of urges and that type of behavior, what are some other things that you recommend or strategies that maybe peole can start to incorporate and go from there?

04:24 Kristen DeAngelis:Yeah, I think that’s a great question. I think it’d be helpful also to maybe identify because I think at times almost anyone can think that they have binge eating. And again, I think almost anyone could also benefit from working with a dietitian and nutritionist or a trainer or a health coach. But really when we’re looking at that more clinical aspect of binge eating, it’s again more of that complete lack of self-control and real discrete period of time. So I just wanna clarify that for someone who feels like, “Oh, well… ” My husband for example, we were talking about this last night and he’s like, “Oh, well, I checked up binge eating on your… ” I was having him read my sample intake form and I’m like, “Well, you don’t really have binge eating ’cause you don’t really feel guilty after, you kinda just like eat the 25 Oreos and then you’re done and you’re good and you think that that’s part of the weekend and like, you’re cool with it.”

05:26 Kristen DeAngelis:And for someone else it might be like, “Okay, I’m gonna grab the Oreos, go into my room and try to eat them as quickly as possible before someone wakes up or comes back in, and then I’ll discreetly put them back in the cabinet.” That would be more of a clinical sign that we’re being more aware of, “Okay, is there hiding going on? Is it excessive amounts in that finite period of time?” Just to clarify that. Is that helping a little bit just…

05:56 Eric Feigl:No, it definitely does because… So my brain goes in two different directions, so I’m gonna start over here. When I hear binge eating, what I typically see in my mind, and maybe a lot of other people do, is they see that person going through the drive-through and ordering five different meals and acting like it’s for somebody else. It’s that very like I would say stereotypical person drive-through in there, and they get home and they gorge it all, and then it’s almost like shark eyes, you know what I mean? Like everything just goes red and they black out, and that’s kind of what I think maybe a lot of people think of. I’ve had moments, and I don’t know if I should look at that and check things off were I’ve come home after a long day and I do the whole fasting thing, so sometimes most of the time I’m very controlled on what I eat and the amount that I eat and the portions that I’m, you know, done eating at a certain time and blah, blah, blah.

07:00 Eric Feigl:But there are some times that I’ve come home and I’ve had my giant salad that I usually have with like sardines and nuts and everything and then I’m like, “You know what, I want some sweet,” so then I’ll grab a half of a dark chocolate bar, which is like 80% cacao or something with a handful of blueberries or something. I’ll shove that down and I’m sitting there and I’m like, “Damn, I want something else.” Okay, so I’m gonna go…

07:23 Eric Feigl:And I keep going to a point where I’m like, “Alright, once 7 o’clock hits, I’m done eating.” I don’t know if that qualifies to me as being a clinical issue, but to me that’s like an episode that maybe a lot of people can relate to if they’re living an active lifestyle, maybe they have never had episodes like that. So I don’t know if there’s one area to put everybody in or if it’s like a big broad spectrum of binge eating. Is there? It is.

07:54 Kristen DeAngelis:Yeah, definitely a big broad spectrum for anyone, that’s for anything really. And so I think this point really relates back into what we talked about on one of our previous episodes, which was understanding the difference between physical and emotional hunger and how to identify stress eating and how to handle that. So I think that would definitely be an episode to go back to and evaluate. I would like to have people also think about, if this is occurring at least one time a week, and it’s been occurring at least one time a week for the past three months, that’s another clinical diagnostic criteria. So it’s kind of something else to think about.

08:37 Kristen DeAngelis:Also some other things that can happen though is stomach cramping, weight fluctuations that come up or down, and also really the disordered thinking around the binge eating behavior, so kind of getting into an all-or-nothing behavior. For me, I’ll share with you a little bit of my… And I was thinking right before we got on the show, I actually have not shared this with anyone so way to just share it with the whole world. That’s just how we roll.

09:08 Kristen DeAngelis:When I was in college, again my way to control was to control food and so when I didn’t eat enough, that’s when binge eating would hit really, really hard. And that’s a sign of, yes, I was physically not providing my body enough calories that it needed for the high energy and demands I was always going through, but I relate that to anyone if you are under, over or a normal weight. No one knows if you have an eating disorder based on your weight, no one knows that, because you could be under, over or a normal weight. What can happen though is when we restrict, so someone who wants to chronically be on a diet. That’s what now it’s leading into that cycle of binge eating and that’s how we start to address, “Well, how do we get to a solution?” Okay, so we’re restricting, we’re on a diet, and then we have restricted so much that now we want to go overboard and we overeat, and then we get those feelings of uncomfortableness, of guilt or shame, or whatever we feel. And then we say, “Oh, I’m gonna get back on the diet on Monday,” and then the whole cycle continues.

10:27 Kristen DeAngelis:And so, relating back to me, several years ago, and then also, if anyone’s listening and you find that you’re kind of a chronic dieter, that can also be a sign that you’re getting stuck in this habit loop. Because for me, I covered it up, I covered it up and would just love to try different diets, and I think it is fun to experiment on. I am always saying it’s important to experiment with your body, but I would take it to extremes. It was either hardcore vegan, hardcore vegetarian, hardcore Paleo, Whole30, fasting. And though all those things can be really supportive, but if you’re taking it into that all-or-nothing direction, that’s where it can become, yeah, a little more controversial. So just kind of 2 cents on that.

11:22 Eric Feigl:And thanks for sharing that because in our industry, people don’t realize like I think a lot of people will think that because you do what you do, I do what I do, we have our shit together. And that’s not true, like everybody has their own battles, we just happen to be in this field. And I think that’s one reason why you’re so good at what you do is because you’ve experienced some of those things that you help people with. Like, I’ve experienced some things that I help people with. Maybe this is a whole other podcast topic about how people should view the people that they work with, because [chuckle] we’re dealing with things also as we help people go through their things.

12:02 Eric Feigl:So something maybe that popped in my head when you were going talking about what you’re going through… Let’s say somebody is doing this binging one time a week for about three months, and it’s some fluctuation here and there, they kinda get back on the horse, they realize what they’re doing, and then they stop. When people think of binge eating, at least when I do, I don’t necessarily think of it as, obviously, it’s not a healthy behavior, but can it be done with healthy foods, healthier options? Or is it only using junk foods? Is there a separation of the two? In terms of the calorie content, if you sit down, eat a gigantic salad versus 25 Oreos, the calorie count and the feelings and the emotions attached to one thing might be different than the other, but is there some kind of cross-section there? Is it like, “Oh, I’m gonna go over board here just because I know it’s healthy, it’s fine, I’m gonna eat like 10 steaks?” Or is it only like, “I’m gonna go overboard because it is that unhealthy food?”

13:10 Kristen DeAngelis:Alright, so really good question, Eric. And again, I feel like I could project what people are thinking. They’re thinking that, “Yeah, if it’s healthy food, you can eat as much as you want and if it’s unhealthy food, that’s considered a binge.” But let me share you two experiences. For me, again, when I was in that all or nothing, there was a point in time I remember with this one day, I think I ate 10 apples in a row. Do you know how sick I felt after that? Even though I wouldn’t let myself eat anything that wasn’t healthy. The second example. I don’t binge on this, but I just love them. But I ate so many carrots and sweet potatoes in, I don’t know, probably a week and my skin literally started turning orange. My roommate was like, “Have you been spray tanning?” [laughter]

14:08 Kristen DeAngelis:So really though, I think this is an important conversation to have, it’s hard to identify. So again, the question will always come back up to, is there an emotional component to it, where it’s a lack of, like complete out of control? You feel like it’s an out-of-body experience, and even that hiding. So if you’re going through a drive-through, that’s also kind of like this little rebellion. It’s like I’m in my car, no one’s with me, no one can see me, I can do whatever I wanna do. So those are all signs. Yeah, so they’re all signs. Do you wanna get to some ways and strategies?

14:52 Eric Feigl:Yes, I do. Yup. One thing I do wanna add to that though is I brought that up because there have been times where I’ve come home and I’ll get into the cabin and I’ll have like the… And I have already said this once, like the healthy eating thing where I know, I get like this effet, I’ve already had more than I should have, screw it, I’m just gonna have another Thunderbird bar. [chuckle] That’s your fault by the way, the Thunderbird bar…

15:20 Kristen DeAngelis:Oh my God, I love those bars.

15:22 Eric Feigl:Have you had the mocha one? ‘Cause the mocha one will blow your mind.

15:27 Kristen DeAngelis:Oh, yeah. Yup, I got the whole box. I know.

15:28 Eric Feigl:And it’s only 9 g of sugar, which leads me to something else, why I bring this up? Because I look at the label I’m like, “I’ve already had one, I’m gonna have another ’cause it’s only 9 g of sugar and I allot myself 25 g a day, or some crap like that.” So I get those ideas in my head and I think it’s important for people to discern, like you said, the reason for the outburst. And I don’t even know what mine is sometimes. I get home, I’m just like, “Screw it, I’m gonna do it because either I think I deserve it or maybe I just had a bad day or maybe I just feel going off the rails.” I don’t exactly know what it’s linked to, and maybe I should dive deeper into that, but… So anyway, yeah, let’s go to the next piece and some strategies.

16:22 Kristen DeAngelis:Yeah, so I think it’s really helpful like what you just said is, number one, we have to understand the root, the root of where is this coming from? So in my example, and also even if you don’t think you’re under-eating, you actually might be under-eating because you’re getting back into that chronic diet, restrict diet, restrict binge, that cycle. For me, I was binging because I was physically restricting too much, and then when I started eating normal portions, my brain was still so scared that I wasn’t gonna eat enough, so I was constantly still kind of engaging in some of those behaviors. It took a while to break. And I wanna bring this up that recovery, full recovery from an eating disorder takes on average seven to eight years.

17:13 Eric Feigl:Wow.

17:15 Kristen DeAngelis:Seven to eight years, not seven to eight months, not seven to eight weeks, but seven to eight years for actual full recovery. So just keep that in mind, and really having compassion for us during the process. But what I will say is that, one thing that I think is very common when, for example, you get home or maybe at some time during the day and you’re feeling like pretty anxious or stressed, what can happen is, and this happens for me quite often. I know what low blood sugar feels like, low blood sugar feels shaky, a little bit nauseous, you kind of just feel like this flutteriness. For me, that’s what that, what low blood sugar feels like?

18:00 Kristen DeAngelis:And so, low blood sugar is physically you need to eat if you have low blood sugar. But what happens is that if we are highly anxious, if we’re having anxiety or panic of some sort or worry, we can have those same kind of fight or flight and adrenaline pumping through which we can associate, right? It feels the same thing in our body. So we feel like, “Oh, if I just eat something like this will calm it,” ’cause that happens to me often and I have to really slow down. Take some deep breath and understand, “Okay, is this adrenaline pumping through my system?” And to be honest, Eric, that’s actually why I stopped caffeine or stopped coffee. For me, it was exacerbating symptoms of anxiety and kind of those underlying symptoms for me, which when that happens, I confuse actual anxiety with low blood sugar. Am I hungry or am I stressed?

19:04 Kristen DeAngelis:So, right back to what you said, we really wanna identify, number one, where is this hunger coming from? And is it? It’s physical hunger ’cause, if it’s physical hunger and we have to look at the whole day or what does our day look like, ’cause for some people fasting might work, like for you, that might work, but for other people, you know, fasting might be further feeding into those behaviors.

19:31 Eric Feigl:Definitely, yeah, that makes sense. So we’ve been…

19:38 Kristen DeAngelis:Oh you’re good. Were you gonna say something too?

19:40 Eric Feigl:No, no, no, just that it kinda goes along with everything else we’re talking about like there are the different levels to the reasons why people are doing what they’re doing. So one thing is not a coverall in this situation. This is not like a, “Here this works for everybody, because you’re binging and go.” And the seven to eight-year recovery, that’s… Because you’re dealing with something physical and emotional and it’s gonna happen, these kind of things are gonna be every single day, you have to realize, maybe some people are like, “Holy cow, it’s gonna take me that long.” But in the time… Think about the time that a person has been maybe doing those behaviors, seven to eight years, it might have been longer, might be 20 to 30 years, those behaviors, seven to eight years. If that’s the actual outcome they’re looking at, seven to eight-year recovery time, in the course of an entire lifetime, that’s a drop in the bucket. It’s gonna feel probably not like that, but yeah.

20:38 Kristen DeAngelis:Yeah. And that statistic isn’t meant to scare anyone because I’ve been working with people who make just incredible, just beautiful, beautiful changes in a matter of six months or one year in working together.

20:53 Eric Feigl:Sure.

20:53 Kristen DeAngelis:But I can still see that there’s a lot of trouble with the language that they have, kind of the body image, the self-talk around foods, and that’s where kind of that like seven to eight-year period kind of keeps going and prolongs, just because it does take time to like really rewire the brain. And so that’s really where I would give my next suggestion as far as how to handle binge eating would be, not just to work with a dietitian but also specifically a therapist. I decided after college, I had people for a long time telling me to see someone and I was never really ready, I wasn’t really ever committed, and then I decided when I was ready and I started working with someone and she literally changed my life. I mean, I’ve moved back to Chicago now, I guess, like six years later, and I decided to work with her again because I just think working with someone in the mental health field is so, so helpful, no matter what you’re going through.

22:10 Eric Feigl:Yeah. On any level. If you have the two together, the dietitian and the therapist, that can be on the same level that’s even an added benefit.

22:18 Kristen DeAngelis:Absolutely. Yeah, I work with several therapists and we kind of dual action with our clients, which is so helpful, to really have that team approach. And I would say, additionally, to working with the therapist, a dietitian, a personal trainer as yourself. So that’s… I like to think of a support system of at least five.

22:41 Eric Feigl:Okay. Yeah.

22:42 Kristen DeAngelis:And I know that you and I have worked with clients personally, and our client has you, they have me. But I also ask, “Well, who else is on your support system? Is it your mom? Is it your friend? Is it a co-worker? Is it a church group? Is it a yoga community?” Find those communities because the second that that eating disorder starts to grow bigger and bigger inside of us, is when we isolate ourself. There’s a great film if you haven’t seen it, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead 2. And I worked with Joe very closely, I traveled throughout the world filming, Fat, Sick & Nearly… Showing the film tour for Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead 2. And it shows just this, it shows that when we isolate, we very easily get back into those binge eating behaviors.

23:37 Kristen DeAngelis:So, it’s a story that kind of shows that and demonstrates that very well, so I think building that support system, working with someone, being able to eat more regularly, more frequently, having a kind and compassionate self-talk towards ourself, and stating that, like compassion is saying that this is hard, this isn’t easy. This is gonna take time and there’s people just like you doing it, and so it’s reach out and find that support. That’s what’s gonna really make the difference ’cause that’s… For me, that was my journey. The second that I opened up and was ready to ask for support and have that dialogue, that’s when change happened, but when I hit it, when I isolated, it made it bigger and bigger.

24:24 Eric Feigl:Yeah, and then you’re kind of digging yourself out of a hole after that too, right? You probably feel like you’re starting from scratch and it takes you longer to tell people what just happened. And I know when you and I work together with people and I’m kind of guilty of being a little… And I’m working on this all of the time, but I’m guilty about being maybe a little more to the fact like, “Alright, you said it now, let’s do this kind of action.”

24:52 Kristen DeAngelis:That’s good though. Some people need that though.

24:54 Eric Feigl:Well, I think some people need that, but they also need… So in your circle, don’t just have an echo chamber of people. Make maybe one person can be that really stubborn hard head person that just says, “Hey, let’s do this, I’m here for you, you said I was gonna help you, now stop your shit and let’s do this.” And then somebody else can be like a little more, a little softer, and a little more sympathetic or empathetic. And there’s variance because that’s… Because your emotions vary. Our emotions vary. The reasons why we do things vary. In the moment, there might be one of those people you can reach out to differently, but they’re all on your team, and so having a support system is so freaking important and… But like you said, there’s… It’s not gonna happen overnight. This isn’t a fix. And maybe somebody out there who thinks to themselves, maybe I do have a binge eating problem, maybe I don’t, I’m not so sure.

26:00 Eric Feigl:There are resources out there for you to find out. And if you do, then there are ways to help manage that and it’s just as important as any other kind of habit like over exercise or you name it. There are a lot of these different tiers that we see ourselves in. And just because you’re not that person driving for the drive-through at 3 o’clock in the morning at Taco Bell ordering five things off the menu, that doesn’t mean that there might not be something underlying that can lead to something even more dramatic down the road.

26:34 Eric Feigl:Kristen, I hate to cut this short, but I gotta jump off here. I gotta get going. Let people know where they can find you again and where they can reach out.

26:45 Kristen DeAngelis:Yeah, thank you so much, I’d love to hear from you guys. I’d love to support you on your journey. You can find me on Instagram @kdwellness. My website is kristendeangeliswellness.com, and also rootsreboot.com. You can reach out to me and find me there as well.

27:03 Eric Feigl:Perfect. And I’ll link all that in the show notes and all the hot topics that we discussed in the show notes. So Kristen, thank you so much. It looks like it’s beautiful in Chicago so I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll talk to you soon.

27:16 Kristen DeAngelis:Alright, over and out. Thanks, Eric.

Transcript taken from Fitness Candor Podcast episode 134

Eric:                          Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitness Candor Podcast. Simon Shawcross joins us again, the founder of HITUni.com. He’s been on the podcast multiple times, so I’ll link all of his show notes if you want to learn more about him, I urge you to do so. But, Simon, how’s it going man? After a little bit of work, we finally connected.

Simon:                    I’m in a great place, Eric. It’s great to be back on the podcast and I’m excited to talk about what we’re going to discuss today.

Eric:                          Yep. So am I, so you just hit the nail on the head right before we started recording. Our job as trainers is probably the easiest equation to a client’s overall picture in terms of them getting healthier, getting stronger, maybe getting leaner or losing some body fat. You know, things like that on the inside of the gym. Once a client walks into the inside of the gym, we know exactly what they’re going to do and we know for the most part, you know, barring any kind of injury or any unforeseen events that we don’t know about coming into the gym, they’re going to be doing exactly what they should be doing once they step in and work with us. Now, the hard part for us and for them, for the client to get the most out of their strength training, they need to have a lot of stuff on the outside of the gym, tightened up, sleep, stress levels, nutrition. They need to get some play time in which means, you know, go out and enjoy, enjoy the world, you know, decompress, have some fun, enjoy family time. So again, the things that you and I helped them with the trainers help them with, that’s the easiest part. How do you help your clients when they’re not in the gym? Let’s start with that.

Simon:                    Number one priority comes down to how much do they want it. And I think that’s something that’s really important to express to the client. And the way I often couch that, I would say it’s awesome coming in, working out once or twice a week together, enhancing your strength and your overall fitness, and you’re going to get so much benefit from doing this, from just doing this with me, with us. However, if your goal includes improving your overall health and wellbeing and also in particular, if your goal includes any aspect of body fat reduction, then you’re going to need to put a lot of energy initially into outside of the gym stuff because the gym especially, let’s take weight reduction because that is one that a lot of people an effect or an impact a lot of people want to have from exercise and from when they start to get motivated to attend the gym and get their butt in the gym.

Simon:                    What they want often is to lose body fat and to look better despite all the other wonderful things that we can do for them is, a key factor for many people. Some people do have or a lot of people do have a skewed perception of all you’ve got to do is turn up to the gym, do the workout, and then you can go and eat kind of wherever you want, because the workout’s allowed you to do right now and you’re still going to lose weight. And as we know, that ain’t gonna happen, particularly if you’re a long way from where you would want to be on need to be. And I, and I’ll say, look, I’m happy to work with you, unless there’s any, any dangers to that person coming, I’m happy to work with you on your strengthening and that is going to have a knock on impact, a positive impact on your metabolism.

Simon:                    However, what I need for you to fully understand is that if you want to maximize that and if you want to achieve this goal of weight reduction, then you will need to be motivated enough to make changes outside of the gym too. So they have to take responsibility for that aspect. You know, I’ve seen trainers sort of almost bullied by their client. The client putting this huge amount of pressure, sort of this expectation on the trainer that it’s their fault if they don’t lose weight and I, I think it is, if they don’t make the picture clear to the client, but start out that relationship by making it ultra clear that they need to take ownership of that side. You can support them, you can give them nutritional advice. You can send them to a dietician if they need to go down that route.

Simon:                    There’s many ways as a trainer you can point them in the right direction, but they will ultimately need to take ownership for their actions outside of the gym and if a person can’t or doesn’t commit to that, then the likelihood of them achieving their goal is, is fairly slim. So they need to really get that message and then they can go, “Simon, okay, I’m not prepared to make those changes yet, but I still want to get the benefit of strength training with you”. Fantastic. Or they can go, ah, well I’m not gonna. Get the weight loss. It’s not for me. Well, they would probably not going to be a good or longterm client for the trainer anyway, or they are going to be, these are the clients in many ways I love. They can be very black and white about it and they go, just tell me what I need to do, tell me what to do, and then I will…because I have got this huge motivation now for whatever reason in my life to get to this place, that I want to go to to lose that body fat and the example we’re talking about here.

Simon:                    Those clients are great because all you’ve got to do is say, do this, cut this. You know, we’ll work on it week by week and you can see their motivation and their desire to change. And if they don’t have a kernel of an inkling, a spark of that inside them. If they don’t have the motivation, you’re just going to end up another person, another personal aspect in that individual’s life who they can go, yeah, I tried that and it didn’t work for me. They didn’t have the motivation to make the change. So long as we’re talking about trainers who are going to provide decent advice then, so it is on the trainer’s shoulders to a degree, but to a much smaller degree than the clients.

Eric:                          Right. No, I agree with everything you said and I think being in the in the space that I’m in, I see it a little more how you said it where a person… so there’s two things on my end to different parts of what you said. Number one, when the client, the client already, if the client is coming to you, that’s a good sign because it already means that they’re willing to make some change, right? It’s not like they’re outsourcing their efforts to exercise because we’re still going to show them exactly what to do, but they still have to put in the effort. Again, that’s on the the client or the trainer side to say if this is not heavy enough, if this is too light, if you don’t feel challenged, we need to make an adjustment.

Simon:                    The stuff we talked about in our last podcast as well as how to get the most out of a client who is hard as someone.

Eric:                          Yep. So, so there’s that piece of it, but it ties into what you just said about like having the client be upfront about that or excuse me, the trainer being upfront about that. And number two…

Simon:                    By the way, just to get this correct. I wasn’t. The way I expressed it just now is not the way I would personally express that to a client, but it’s how I would express it to a trainer. Because I would be much softer than I was just now. I think trainers really need to get this. You do need to make a picture clear that they will need to invest some of their energy in this process.

Eric:                          Correct, and my second point was going to be, I think some trainers take it 100 percent on themselves to be the only reason this person is going to lose weight, lose body fat in the, in our instance. So they see this as almost a personal challenge where it shouldn’t be like, this is a teamwork event. Majority of it is on the client side and I know a lot of trainers who get into this trap of, well, I’m going to beat the piss out of this person because you know, I don’t know what they’re doing on the outside because I know this person’s going to have five glasses of wine a night and you know, let’s not, let’s not joke. A lot of the clients that we work with have those kinds of lifestyles where the out at business meetings, you know, are maybe they, they spend a little more money to go out to really nice meals four nights out of the week and they don’t cook at home and things like that.

Eric:                          So we know that going into this situation. But having that conversation with that person like, look this, your goal might not fit your lifestyle. Goals and lifestyle should fit each other and you can be flexible with both but you can be molded with both. This is not, we’re not saying that we every client’s going to walk in and say, give me six pack abs and you know, a chiseled back, that’s not what they’re looking for. But in terms of our specific goal, the trainer and the client both need to be on the same page. And I think defining those is definitely on the trainer side. So what are some techniques that you’ve used to maybe to motivate your client or to get that, get that through to them? Because I’ve got a couple unique ones that I’m interested to hear your thoughts on.

Simon:                    Cool. With the dietary stuff the way I would start that out usually would be one of those clients I just referred to, he’s like very black and white. It’s like, just tell me what to do and I can do this. I’ll make this happen. In which case I’ll layout pretty much what I would want for them to do nutritionally. Taking into account their personal preferences and their lifestyle, as you just mentioned, all of that stuff. It’s got to be thrown into the equation. They’re at the other end and I get the sense that they’re not hyper motivated yet and they are going to find this process of challenge. One of the first things I would do is to have them just change one thing, nutritionally be like set the bar really quite low from my perspective, but I know having a positive result in them they can come back sort of beaming to me and saying I was able to do that.

Simon:                    Rather than overload them with stuff that you know they’re not going to be able to do in week one and week two, you know, okay, just eliminate this or eliminate that for this week and let’s see what happens for you. And then once they start and establish a positive habit in that respect, then we can add the next thing and the next year and ultimately they’ll end up toward the place about black and white client. But it’s, some clients need that gentle nudging in that direction and many successes along the way. Other people can just jump from where they are off the edge of a cliff into. Right. I’m going to get in amazing shape now. So that’s how I would typically start out with this sort of two ends of extreme. I’m really interested to hear your super secret tips are.

Eric:                          This is not super secret! And actually I had a client kind of helped me with this. So, you know. All right, I’ll just put this whole thing in context. So I had this idea, this person wasn’t, they were coming to the gym that were showing up to all their appointments. They were working hard. They weren’t seeing the results that they wanted. They were still getting, getting stronger. They weren’t losing the body fat. And this is the type of person who was not doing little extra on the outside of the gym, like let’s say going for a couple of walks throughout the week. They weren’t, they weren’t maybe like reducing that one extra drink during happy hour. They weren’t getting to bed, they weren’t getting seven hours of sleep, there was no way that was going to happen because of whatever reason. So I said, okay, that’s a high stress person.

Eric:                          Okay, so when you automatically, when we say to a person who’s already high stress, and they want to come in and just work me out hard like that, you have to understand, first of all, that is a stressor exercise as a stressor. You can dig yourself into a deeper hole if you beat the piss out of yourself every time you go into the gym, right? And then you have to work out of that hole just to get back to baseline. That means no exercise. That means, you know, all sorts of different things. Anyway, so I’m having this conversation with this person and I know they’re financially motivated, right? So I said, okay, they, they hate late canceling on me. They hate paying me that money. So I’m like, okay, tell you what I said, which is good. You know, that means I get the framework that I’m in.

Eric:                          So I say, okay, I’ll tell you what, I want you to try to get one one walk in for 30 minutes once a week, okay? And I want you to take a picture of like where you’re walking. Take a picture of yourself, send it to me or send me a short video of you walking and I want you to be out of breath once a week. And if you don’t do that over the course of one month, if I don’t get four videos, you owe me $100 extra, right? Because again, some people don’t give a shit. Some people will say, well, here’s your money. I’m not going to do that. This person was. I think for the most part, if you’re paying money, you don’t want to owe the other person more money. I don’t want to go someplace and pay money for a service and then just throw money down the drain if I don’t live up to my end of the bargain.

Eric:                          So for four weeks go by and they miss it and he walks in with $100 bill. He was like, I couldn’t do it last week. Too much. Gives me that money. He goes, I want to up the ante. I want to do the exact same thing, $150 and I’m like, I’m like, that’s, that’s aggressive. I said, I like your style. I said, I tell you what, why don’t you give me that $150? Now you’ve already given it to me. Now I want you to earn the money back so I’m going to pay you essentially to do this. Now I know some trainers out there freaking out and all, you’re a terrible person. You’re taking the money. Look, this person is financially motivated. This is one way to do it. You can find other routes. Okay? Persecute me if you want to say, I’m a terrible person all about the money.

Eric:                          I’m not all about the money. I’m telling you that right now. This person just happened to respond this way. My point is if you find something that that your client is so passionate about or it is in front of them and they have to work towards it, use that as leverage for both of you. It could be. I don’t know. It’s hard to compare other things to money because it’s tangible. It’s right there in front of you, but if they, if that person has a trip that are coming up on, you know, I don’t know if it’s like a… If it’s a certain point in time where they have to be ready for set certain milestones that maybe, they earned something along the way and a lot of people out there thinking, well you know, you’re, you’re taking away the motivation factor for a client.

Eric:                          Maybe to a certain extent you are, but my point is not to get like, and I’m not trying to defend my stance because it ended up working for this person and I’ve done that with multiple people and they’re like, you know what,I can’t I’m not going to do this. The money isn’t a motivator for me. I’m, I’m done with it. Okay, fine. Sometimes it could be just the fact of they’re showing up to the gym knowing that they haven’t sent you a picture of them doing cardio and they’re like, oh man, I failed. Not that you want them to feel like a failure, but find them the real motivation behind the person and use that with them. Use that to your advantage. Use it to their advantage is my point. But, it was kind of a funny story all in all. Like he how he was so motivated and he was just like, he came in and was like, here’s $100, man. I failed. But then he was like, what? I said, why don’t you just give me the money upfront and you earn it back, you know, every time you send me a picture you get $25 back or something like that. Find the reason is my point.

Simon:                    Yeah, I think that can be a good one. That can be a good one. I know as you’ve said yourself are personality types. That wouldn’t work for him. My very, very first gym I used to hang out in, who would, who would come in a couple of days after new year’s Day every year with years membership in cash and that was the last you see of him for a year.  You know, there are a lot of gyms that do work on that model where people pay direct debit thing and they know gyms have them over a barrel because they don’t want to sort of cancel it because they always feel like they’re going to do something but they never do. With the gentleman you were talking about, obviously it’s like because business personal relationship he’s got with you, difference about the way that would work with a financially motivated individual.

Simon:                    Yeah, it’s a cool one. Because sometimes the client is not going to tell you what their actual motivation is coming through the door always. They don’t always let you know and it, it, you know, it can be something as simple as like they want to be in shape to it very, a little bit more senior to enjoy their grandchildren. They might not say that or they might have had a family member who died of a heart attack or at an age their starting to approach now, but they might have, that’s what’s got them through the door and the more sort of exploratory and perhaps you know, after you get through the first few sessions and they get more comfortable, you can sort of start exploring a little bit to find out these genuine motivations are.

Simon:                    Because when you’ve got those, when you’ve understood those, it does make your job as a trainer easier. It allows you to, okay, I know, I know why they’re here. Now I’ve got it. And, and you know, it really varies from the ones. Again, if we take that far end of the scale, who just wants somebody to hold their hands and they’re often from a trainer’s perspective, I think the ones who are hardest to work with. All you’re going to be doing is providing all the energy all the motivation for two people and they’re going to suck that up and thrive off that, but the moment they leave the gym they’re not going to do anything more with that. Right, and then the other end of the scale you’ve got, you’ve got the guys who will do a 100 percent and then somewhere in between you’ve got people who once you find their motivations and you tap into those and you find a way, okay, this is how I’m going to sort of suggest or wrap up why we’re doing this for them. And they’ll get it because it serves their true purpose that they’re deep defining reason for doing this with you. And yeah, that’s critical to find, to find what that is if you can.

Eric:                          I think so too. Another thing I wanted to bring up was; let’s go right to the nutrition thing or the sleep thing, because I like to use technology to our advantage. I’m a big fan. I have an apple watch. I’m a big fan of like sharing stats with people. I use the Sleep ++ app. I like having clients send me photos of their meals. So for instance, another motivating thing would be to help them be more compliant on the outside of the gym. If they’re going to a meal and, and let’s say they usually get the, lobster mac and cheese, you know, and then like whatever side dishes. One thing that I would say is it’s not just sometimes it’s not enough for us as trainers to say you need to eat asparagus. Why is asparagus maybe the choice or find the vegetable that they want to try and then follow up on that, on that reason why we gave them choose this meal because it’s more calorie dense, more nutritious, more X, Y and Z and make it a habit. So give them like maybe a little bit of research. Not like an entire pamphlet, but if you can find a well written piece on Brussel sprouts and why they’re beneficial, you know, once they start making that a habit after three or four times of them sending you a photo of them eating Brussels sprouts with a meal instead of a French fries. Not that there’s anything wrong with French fries. I actually don’t mind French fries at all.

Eric:                          Yeah. Something terrible. I don’t know. Just pick, pick, pick the person’s poison it after awhile of them sending you a picture. Great. Do you think that is a, you think that’s, we’re going to now try to reaffirm those positive behaviors instead of just, you know, letting it go by the wayside. What’s the next thing you can build on? You know? Okay, great. Let’s start tracking your sleep. Can you think you can get to try to start getting ready to bed, you know, a half hour sooner and find, find like a common ground where maybe it’s them sending you a picture of the, you know, their alarm clock by the time they went to bed or tracking their sleep on their Apple Watch and not just tracking it because that data just sits there. But talk about it. Talk about why it’s important. You want to start getting to bed by 10:00pm, maybe start getting ready for bed at 9:15, you know, start going through the motions. Setting those small goals. Keep the conversation going though because the moment that we think just because they’re using their sleep app that they got it figured out now. If that data is just sitting there with no conversation, it doesn’t do us any good.

Simon:                    It sounds very holistic and as you said, you’re using more than technology to your advantage but you’re not using it as is just a thing that you’re advising people to go and do. Your giving them feedback based on it and encouraging them through the use of the technology.

Eric:                          Yep. It’s the feedback that I think the trainer gets so stuck with. I think the feedback is that’s the hardest part. Giving them, giving people honest feedback. If you’re, for instance, going back to the sleep tracker. If you’re looking at this thing, okay, now let’s break this down. Do you understand what all these lines mean? Do you understand that just because you were in bed, you fall asleep until 11:30 or 10:30. Do you know what that means? Start having those conversations with people and I think that keeping the dialogue open on the outside of the gym will create more useful discussion on the inside of the gym and then that and that becomes their framework, their mind. They recognize you as someone who’s still a tool in the toolbox. This isn’t, you’re not like, you know, they still to make the efforts, but at least they have the context of like, oh, okay, I know what this means. Now I know what I need to do. That takes more pressure off of you as a trainer, I think.

Simon:                    Trainers need not be fearful of this whatsoever because if technology was the answer and all you needed was your Apple Watch, couple of fitness APPS, everybody be in shape already because to be worried about the technology as you’ve, as you’ve done, embrace it. Use them as tools, encourage your clients to use them. Because we know these things will, will tend to end up as shiny toys but get used for a week, two weeks, a couple months maybe. And then what about just like anything else and in most people’s cycle with exercise.

Eric:                          That’s right. No, you’re absolutely right. And look this, you know, I know I to wrap this up pretty soon. Have a appointment come into. But, you know, what we’re talking about, this is just to people’s perspective on how we’re helping. There’s, there is, there’s not a single one right way to address every single individual that you work with. It’s just not. You can’t do it.

Simon:                    Again, this is, this is the stuff that’s the quality of a mark of a great trainer is adaptability. That individual in front of you right now and the more individuals you are in front of and you become intuitive to and attentive to the more flexibility you have as a trainer to work with all sorts of different people as you, as you nourish your career.

Eric:                          Right. Yup. And it’s just like you said, the adaptability…obviously if you figure out something that works well for most people, start trying to implement that, but you should be able, you should be comfortable abandoning things that simply do not work for some individuals. Instead of just forcing your idea of what a healthy lifestyle of how to approach a healthy lifestyle. You know, it’s so easy for you and I to say, you know If you and I wanted to focus on getting a little leaner or something like that, like our mind frame, our mindset is so much different than what a client’s would be, so we have to take ourselves out of that position. And I think a well seasoned trainer might be able to do that. But it just adaptability, like you said, and be able to be open to many avenues and to be able to abandon some things and come back to some things.

Simon:                    We live, breathe and sleep this stuff. And our clients are never going to get to the place nor wanted be. Nor do they really need to be. Just help them get the most out of what works for them and their lifestyles and then the odd one or two will ultimately want to become trainers or want help or we’ll go, actually this is, I love, I love fitness and I missed out. I hadn’t realized I missed out on such an awesome thing and now I want to be involved in great. But the vast majority of your clients and not going to be in that place and therefore, but as you’ve said, the mindset that you have is not likely to be at least the initial mindset that most people coming through your door. And adaptability is key.

Eric:                          Well, Simon, I gotta wrap this up. Literally my, clients just pulled in. I’m in my truck right now, so they pulled it like right behind me. So if anybody has any questions, comments, concerns, where’s the best place to reach you?

Simon:                    HITUni.com is our website. They can get on email and on that website there’s all the social media channels too if we want to get direct message or whatever to me by twitter or whatever. Yeah.

Eric:                          Perfect. Awesome. Thank you Simon. So much. Always a pleasure and we’ll talk to you soon.

Simon:                    Absolute pleasure!

Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitness Candor Podcast! Another solo episode and I want to talk about my favorite f word, functional. This word is probably my least favorite word  that has anything to do with fitness or the fitness industry. So it’s a great buzzword everybody loves to talk about how an exercise is so functional, this and that, and I want to do my own quick breakdown analysis of the word functional. So when I think of functional, a lot of people will disagree, but I think of any way that you can get your muscle to be as strong as it possibly can is functional. So for the people who are anti machine, I’m sorry, but they’re functional. If you’re anti kettlebell, I’m sorry, but those can be functional. Anti body weight, that’s functional up to a certain point. Resistance bands up to a certain point.

All of these devices that we use, they’re just the modality to how we get our body to be as functional and as strong as possible. If what you’re doing isn’t getting you stronger, I don’t care how, how great it looks or how, how free flowing you look doing it, if it’s the latest fashion and fad and blah, blah, blah. If it’s not getting you, stronger, not preventing injury in the long run, it’s not functional, it’s not functional for you. So, you know, a lot of people don’t like the leg extension machine even though it’s one of the best ways to strengthen the quad muscle and the tissue surrounding the knee, that’s functional. So is a body weight squat that is also functional And any way that we can safely use a tool like the leg extension or any kind of device, that is functional for you. And that’s basically it. I know this is a super short one, but I kinda just wanted to do a quick rant on it and I, I think I did it. So let me know what you think. Maybe you’re, maybe you disagree with what the word functional means. So let’s have conversation about it. Thanks for listening everybody. We’ll talk to you later.

Transcript taken from Fitness Candor Podcast episode 132

Eric:                          Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitness Candor Podcast! An original guest from back like long, long time ago, Nick Folker joins us today. He’s back in the flesh, finally, Nick and I’ll link all the, all his original details in the, in the notes, but he’s a performance coach with over a decade of Olympic division one training experience, he’s also the co founder of Bridge Athletic and again that that’s part of our very first podcasts all link, all that in the show notes, but you can learn more bridgeathletic.com. He’s the current VP of Innovation for Physmodo, which basically I’m not going to do it very much justice, that’s what he’s here for, but it delivers a personalized biometric screening, which we’ll learn more about that now. So, Nick, thanks for jumping on and I appreciate it.

Nick:                         Eric, great to be back. And thanks for finding me. Kind of fell off the radar for a bit and you brought me back. So, absolute pleasure to be back and thank you.

Eric:                          I appreciate it. So, let’s just, let’s talk about it man. What have you been up to? What’s going on? What, I mean, you’ve got a lot of stuff going on. You literally just walked out of a meeting, so I’m glad I snagged you, but tell us a little bit about, about what Physmodo is and we can kind of go from there.

Nick:                         So to move back to, you know, take a couple steps back. I moved out to Dallas, Fort Worth area in Texas in September, ended up in Dallas, fort worth a little bit after that. Got connected with this great company for Physmodo. And you know, it’s, it’s great to be back with a very small team, a team of six, seven great individuals, some awesome advisors and people that are helping. And the premise is to do something, you know, if you go to buy a certified car or you’re looking at something, you get that 20 point check or whatever it is. So it’s looking at  getting eyes on individuals and, you know, doing it objectively because using a camera ,and it’s scalable and you can do it in 30 seconds and that’s the key. You know, it’s…we’ve been asked if it’s a replacement for FMS, you know, everyone knows that; we’re definitely not trying to replace it, we just trying to do something,  that is objective and it can take 30 seconds and the great thing too is sensorless and you don’t need to be certified or have a certified trainer. It takes you through check marks, you get four checks, then, you know, get a three second countdown. You do your three overhead squats, you’re not holding anything and you get your, scores in real time.

Eric:                          So let’s scale back even further, your background is in performance coaching, right? So, high level athletes, you get to see how these people move, which you’re already dealing with high level athletes. I mean they’re already very refined. You know, you see they’d probably do the same kind of repetitive movements all the time where it’s just clockwork. Right? So when you are looking at athletes like those versus like the general public, what it is, something to take Physmodo out of it, what are some of the things that you use, some like coaching cues or techniques that you use that would have benefit those, those athletes.

Nick:                         You know, the great thing with the athletes I’ve had is they’re great at the sport. they do. But that because a lot of it was a swimming and water polo you now put them on land. It’s a whole whole different beast. So it was, it was actually, it was refreshing to get them into the weightroom because a lot of them hadn’t done any dry land or movement on land. So it was almost getting it fresh slate. It was the getting them, you know, at the, at the collegiate level, we could see if you can say impose, impose our philosophy and our coaching on them. Versus inheriting an athlete; in football you get…in college, you’re going to get a kid has been lifting since they were 14 or 16. It’s usually a parent or an uncle or brother that knows more than everyone else and has taught to them, you know, bad movement patterns.

Nick:                         And now you’ve got to teach an old dog new tricks. So, you know, in, in terms of helping getting back to it, it’s just we used to pick two or three things we’re gonna work on that day and that’s what we had to make sure that we got done. You know, the human brain doesn’t really remember more than three things. Look at these coaches during a timeout, they’ll go in and not to stray, but they’ll go into timeout and then giving the kids 10, 15 things to do and they screaming, you know, all these different, you know, instructions and commands. It’s like give them three things. Their heart rate is racing. They’re not going to forget those three things.

Nick:                         So we try to keep it simple. And then explain why we’re doing it. You know, it’s, it’s the, the younger athletes now and you know, I was very, very fortunate to work with high level athletes. But my passion is youth sports. I really love working with younger athletes to help them just because I never had that, that coachin, and I, my parents couldn’t afford the extra curricular, you know, the extra coaching and all the camps and all that stuff. So I love trying to give back to that because I never had it. But, you know, getting back to the old athletes like, yes, they were great, but it was just like give them three things, keep it really simple and just, you know, make it repetitive so that they can, you know, it’s Monday, we’re going to work on this Wednesday, that Friday that it’s come back to the next week.

Nick:                         How do we do with Mondays, three cues. If everyone’s hitting it, then let’s move on. But it’s just, you know, keep it simple. You know, we’ve become so, and it’s ironic to say this because the last two companies I’ve been at are both software, but it would become so tech reliant that we actually forgotten how to coach. And the human touch is, it’s amazing. It’s, it’s so unnecessary. You know, I just walked past it. We’re in a shared workspace and I walked past a girl, young girl, she’s here for reading, Coaching and she’s reading a book and I said to one of the guys who go down to the meeting, when you see a 10 year old reading a book, it’s pretty cool. I know it’s random, but it’s like, you know, getting back to the coaching; these tools like, you know,  Physmodo and stuff are awesome because they give us, you know, the camera can tell us things that the human eye can’t pick up, but what do we do with it?

Nick:                         That’s where the human element comes in and that’s what our challenges is to take this and make it actionable and you know, sort of the Silicon Valley word is chewables. It’s like, that’s cool, but like, coaches don’t understand this. What one number with two numbers can we give them to say yeah, they’re ready to go. And to an, I apologize, I’m on a rant but, Physmodo is a screen, but it’s more than that because it’s not becomes a readiness score. So how ready are you to take on today’s stresses that coaching or that kind of stuff? What did you do over the weekend that’s affecting your, your movements score? What did you do? Did you go and, you know, lift a bunch of stuff, overhead, you know, so now we can get eyes on what they did in the last 24, 48 hours or last week and adjust our training accordingly. But that human element, and I think I said this in our original podcast, it’s so important and you know, I, I keep stressing them. People say to me, what do you do is keep that relationship, keep that, that human touch.

Eric:                          That’s a good point. So I want to paint a picture for people, and correct me if I’m wrong because I’m a terrible painter, but you’re standing, you’re standing in front of this device. And I’m trying to, I’m trying to visualize it for people. So when I see this thing, I, the first thing that popped in my head was almost like a Redbox, like a DVD dispensary. So you’re standing in front of this machine that’s capturing you performing a movement, let’s say an overhead squat for instance, but nothing in your hands and whether you’re an athlete or not, just a squat alone is a very basic baseline movement. So you go through this motion, you come back out of the motion, what happens next? What does that machine capture?

Nick:                         So right now, one of the keys is, and this isn’t important to understand, is there’s no video and no pictures being taken, which was very important for our pro athletes, just because of everything that is involved with, you know, their representation and also for the youth sports. You know, the, the other key thing is there is no human touch which is kind of important in youth sports now.  And so that does, those are, those are pretty key. Once you’ve, once you’ve done your three overhead squats, you stand still and you can actually see this little whirlly thing. It’s one of our logos going on above you because that’s how it locates you. And it calculates your scores. You then, if you’re a first time user, you’ll walk up to the, what we call it kiosk, and it has a touchscreen monitor and you’ll input your email because that’s how it identifies you.

Nick:                         And then the second time, so once you’ve, once you’ve done the email, you will be sent a QR Code. So now you download the key, the, the APP with the QR Code. So next time you do it, you just pull up the Qr Code, put it in front of the camera and the screen and it pulls it to you. So there’s no, you know, the user interactions very, very user friendly. Yeah, so it’s, you know, and the other thing too is we are coming out with a new kiosk, it’s a little smaller and sleeker. So it’s, you know, it’s going to be pretty user friendly from a team or coaches side, but also from the, the athlete and it’s, I mean, this is, this is being used across pro sports, college, a youth, physical therapy, chiropractor, military, special ops. I mean it’s, it’s in every single vertical if you want to say that.

Eric:                          So one thing that I really liked about this, and I think sometimes when you talk to strength coaches, personal trainers, people in, in our, on our side of the industry, like the coaching aspect of it, that “human touch”. When you start talking about implementing more technology into it, I feel like people get so scared because they’re like, well, they’re taking our job. Why would you want that thing taking our job? But I think when you think about something like what Physmodo has done, which I really like, is, OK, there’s two pieces to it. When I’m showing someone how to do a body weight squat, they are 100 percent relying on me to make sure three months from now they’re progressing. And it’s my eye, you know, obviously they’re going to start to understand the mechanics of the ankle, here’s the foot placement, here’s how my back should feel. They can understand all that, but I’m going to adjust as I see necessary, especially if they’re under load.

Eric:                          So what I think about this is when you have something that you can hand a person, it takes almost the, takes the pressure off of you a little bit as the coach, as Instructor and says, look, here are three movements, X, Y, and Z, here are your scoring patterns. We need to work on these. That still puts me in the picture, you know, they still need you to help them through that. And you have another tool on your side to say, let’s go check and see where you stand now. And if you’re doing your job right, it almost hold you at a higher standard when you’re doing your job right, they should have a better outcome.

Nick:                         Yeah. You hit the nail on the head there. If you and you know, for coaches that really get this and trainers and sports medicine. This is a huge tool in your toolkit. You know, in the, in the fitness space we have a partnership with TRX which has been amazing, and you know, the cool thing there is lets say go into a gym and they have one of our kiosks in the, there are a number of them, you can do this while your trainer is working with someone else. So while your trainer is finishing up. You can go into, I don’t want to name any, any gym in case, I say the wrong one or one, a different chain gets upset about it, but you go into a, a large chain and one of our kiosks is  there. You do a screening, 30 seconds, you get your score. You’re looking at it, okay cool, while my trainer is finishing up, I’m not going to go bug them and say, what do I need to do today? We push one exercise. So this, you get your five scores after the, after the screen, get a competent school which is out of 100. And then you get full body domain scores. So I’m mobility activation, posture, symmetry, and out of each of those full body domains, we will give you an exercise to work on, one of what we call a joint indicators that it might be my right shoulder because mine’s all jacked from swimming. So I’ll go and work on those and we’ll send you a video to look at. It’s 20 or 30 seconds, got voiceover so you can do that and it’ll take two minutes or five minutes at a, you know, if you want to walk around and get some water while you’re training is finishing up.

Nick:                         So then they can look at your results and go, okay, cool, you’ve done that. I’m ready to go into the workout. So it’s actually helping them and is helping you be more engaged, you know. And let’s say collegiate setting or pro setting, instead of, you know, your guys or girls coming in and just sitting on a foam roller, you know, you do a screen and go, you know, what symmetry is off on your left knee, what do we need to do to make that go from a red, a red indicator to the left or mobility is off because you did a huge field day yesterday, you know, your depth is a bit off big squat day, whatever it is, how do we need to prep so you’re not just throwing stuff against the wall, you know, when they come into the weight room and everyone sits around and talks and foam rolls or getting or use their baseball or does some bands. It’s actually what you need to do to get you ready for the workout.

Eric:                          That’s awesome. And yeah, and again, it takes some of the workload off, and gives it, gives the person some ownership to and some direction, which I like. So yeah, that’s huge. When I set people up, when I can start doing like mobility drills and things with people at the very beginning of the workout and they started thinking, man, I’m gonna have to do this. Every time I come in, I’m like, yes, yes you are, we’ll change them occasionally, but you don’t need to come in and wait for me to guide you through these, you know, these are very basic movement that you can do that. So, that, like you said, it’s a tool in the toolbox. One thing that you and I talked about a few weeks ago was the scope of where, where this could land and you had brought up the importance of showing this to children, not even in sports, which I thought was a really unique idea. So give us a little framework around that.

Nick:                         Well, I think everyone’s very aware of the amount of time, like especially kids are, either spending, trying to improve their GPA or just literally on the couch playing games. You know, in terms of getting them moving, you know, you can create a wellness, if you want to call it that, for lack of a better word, a wellness score or, you know, progression and actually help them with, you know, going, you know, what we can get you moving and then take this into PE courses or you know, extracurricular and say, you know, what, every day in school, let’s, your class comes in, does the screen and you know, we’re going to start with, I don’t know, not to make it militaristic, but five squats or you know, a lunge or something. And so you can actually start showing them that, you know, with exercise there are different things they can do.

Nick:                         And just, you know, some of them might have their posture off because they’re just sitting playing games all day or there’s, you know, the hips got red indicators because they’re just sitting on the couch all day. So you’re looking, I mean the impact this can have done the road, because we don’t know where this is going with the amount of time that people sit playing games inside in dark rooms. You know, what’s the, what’s the medical and the healthcare industry going to be in 10, 15, 20 years. We can get eyes on that now to try and help with those costs. I mean this is, this has huge implications down the road.

Eric:                          Yeah. And I, I wanted to point out something that you and I discussed. I spoke to my friend Ben who’s also been on the podcast and, and we started discussing more and more about this and he, the more we talked about it, the more excited he got because as a, as a physical education teacher, he, you know, in the past 15 years we’ve seen so many phys ed programs get cut from schools. Right. Which I don’t know, I can’t sit here with hard stats and say that’s why we have, you know, an, an overweight children epidemic going on. But it’s certainly not helping because if you’re removing those programs before children get to the school and if they don’t even know what physical activity is, you’re already doing them a disservice. So they’re not learning it in a school environment they’re not getting in that activity in the school environment.  So they’re going home, probably not doing it. And I’m being very general about it. But the point is, when he started talking about this, I’m sure for a Phys Ed teacher, he has to sell his job probably every week, if not every day. And, he’s probably lucky if he has somebody there who understands how important it is. If you’re, if you’re not so fortunate to have someone there who understands how important it is, you know, in upper echelon of the academic setting, you can have this as a tool, again, a tool in your toolbox, but you have hard evidence to say, we took these children from point A to point Z and here’s how we did it. And here are the hard numbers. So data, I think data is something that’s missing in that curriculum.  And Ben agreed and, he, I mean obviously he was super excited about and you guys are linking up. I know that and I think the, like you said, the more data that we have now, who knows what’s going to happen to healthcare, but we see a big, lots of big changes now. And the people coming up who are going to be using it hopefully not as much. But if they are, if they don’t have reference points to start from, if there’s one thing that we can all take it, take control of his is our mental and our physical wellbeing. Definitely physical wellbeing. Like, you know, the, the mental aspect might be one thing. But, when things like these come out, yes, we can say, well, you know, if you’re talking about physical education shouldn’t, should we take all of the mechanics out of it shouldn’t take all the technology out of it. But if we have awesome resources like this, that is, that is basically telling you, here’s the standard, you’re either above, below, right in the middle of you’re right where you should be. Go out and fix it. Go out and adjust, and here’s how. Why wouldn’t we use it?

Nick:                         And that’s, that’s one of the big things is we, you know, we, we’re not, we’re not giving anyone a program or philosophy. We’re giving you the diagnostic or the assessment of what’s going on and saying, yeah, you go, you know, you wrote, you guys, you guys come up with a program, what we’re not going to push out philosophy or methodology on you, which a lot of programs are doing. You know, if you want to start a new PE program or as a strength and conditioning, it’s like, this is, these are suggestions on how to do it. We say, no, this is what we’re seeing wrong. And you know, how about going this way? But it just, it does. It gives PE teachers and sports medicine and coaches and you know, everyone at a starting point of this is where you are and what you did over the last six months, where you in this way, you are now.

Eric:                          Yeah. That’s awesome. So what, what are your expectations? You mentioned healthcare and the first thing that popped in my mind was a physical therapy. Do you guys, are you working with any physical therapist?

Nick:                         This is huge for physio therapy because you can, you’re gonna to, especially if you’re someone on post surgery or a return to play. I mean even just regular post surgery is instead of, instead of getting the piece of paper with 10 stick figures on saying do these three times 10, you know, we can, we can say okay, you know, or having to put you on expensive Cybex machines and going, you know, this is where we think you are like, okay, let’s do you know when you get to a certain point, let’s do your overhead squat it, it doesn’t have to be that deep. You just do it to where you’re comfortable. And we will give you feedback and we can open up the actual, we’re getting 30 frames a second. So we can actually open up the joint angle that you’re at and show you that you were at 165 degrees last week. This week you have 160, then 155, then you know all the other way around. Whichever way you’re looking at going or you know what you’ve just said, acl surgery and your symmetry between right and left knee is way off. So what are we going to work on? Was there a lot of scare tissue? Were you overloading, were you compensating on the one side. How do we get that back? It’s not just again, throwing spaghetti against the wall and hoping it sticks.

Eric:                          Yeah. The one thing that popped in my head, we’re talking about a physical therapies. I because I’m dealing with somebody who’s fresh out of her fourth hip replacement surgery. So she has a degenerative disease, so it attacks for joints and she’s dealing with it all over the place. So you know, she tries, we try some things and I’m with her an hour and a half. No, two hours a week, two hours a week. And she’s with the PT for an hour a week, so she brings me the PT things. I get to see them. I’m like, look, you have to do these things on your own, you know, so you’re like, you’re more or less like you’re pleading with the person to take some ownership of those stick figures and just say you’re just saying, hey, please do this on your own. You come down here, we need to take what those things on the paper, what they’re doing to the muscle groups.

Eric:                          We need to put them into action down here. It’s hard because the person is still in pain. They’re still uncomfortable, you know, they hate doing those motions. You know, when they come down to the gym, they might, she might be, you know, fresh off of a, a nine hour workday. She’s already frustrated. She doesn’t want to be there. She skipped her exercises because she was up early and then she comes down and see somebody like me where it’s like, okay, let’s try to get the best out of you we possibly we possibly can. You know, it’s, it’s resources like that to where we can always point back to and say, I know you’re frustrated and I know it’s been a long road because it has been months and months and months of this and here’s where you started and here’s where you are now because she can still sit still sit down and stand up. But when I have her do 10 of those in 10 body weight squats or, you know, just standing up from a, from a bench in the gym and she’s still hurting. It’s hard for me to say but, but you couldn’t do five of those six weeks ago.

Nick:                         Yeah. And you know, again, going back to the data, but if you can just go back and say pull up the school and say, look, this is what you would look at. You had a red indicator here and now it’s yellow. You know, it’s, it’s. We were getting them improvement. Yes it’s going to be a bit sore, but we’re actually, we’re getting some improvement. Being able to bring them back and show that and almost gamify it saying, hey, let’s see where you are today. You know I’m trying to work out every morning now and so I’ll, I’ll even if it’s half an hour, get something in and then look at him and my mobility score has improved dramatically just by doing 30 minutes in the morning when I wasn’t doing anything and I’ll come in, I’ll, you know, we have a system yet and I’ll do one and then I’ll just sit all day and I’ll do it again at the, at the end of the day I’m like, okay, wow.

Nick:                         My, you know, my score has changed a bit. What do I need to do if I’m going to work out tonight or if I’m traveling. How has traveling affected me? I mean now we’re getting into some really actionable stuff of teams that are traveling cross country or businessmen and women that are traveling a lot. Travel affects you more than you think. You know, all the stuff we know from jet lag, but from a mobility standpoint, how jacked up to my from the travel and what do I need in the next thing is what do I need to do to get me back to where I was. And that’s the key is it’s not just building on those, you know, just putting sort of as (unrecognizable name) would say that he was the head coach at Cal when doing our first started. He’s like, you’re not painting over a rusted fence. And that’s what happens. You traveled and you need to work out and I need to do something, but maybe you don’t need to do that kind of a workout. Maybe it’s not as much lower body. Let’s do some bike or mobility on lower body and two or three days in, let’s get back to it because your scores improved. It just giving you this set of eyes that you just didn’t have before.

Eric:                          The good thing, another good thing is if you, if people look forward to something like that, I would like to think I like to think of 100 percent, but a better reality is, and I’d like to have 90 percent of the people that come train with me, they enjoy coming in. I don’t know how much that’s true, which is fine, but if you enjoy that, that the good thing about it is whatever the number is, wherever the score is that you get feedback that you get. It’s not necessarily negative, it just, it is what it is and those kinds of things you can improve on. Now if you come see me now and you know, for instance, if you’re going through physical therapy or you asked me how can I have my low back stop hurting.

Eric:                          And, if I say, okay, look, I want you to, I want you to do twice a day you’re going to do a set of 20 cat cows. You’re going to do child poses and a prone Cobra right twice a day. And you come in and see me a couple of days later, I’m like hey did you get those in? Not hard to exercises. I’m being friendly. I just want to know. And you’re like, oh damn, no I didn’t. And it’s like, okay, so we have to, we have to start with another baseline. How do we, how do we actively get that person into figuring out how to do that? So whatever, my point is, you go down and you, if you’re using this device, it doesn’t care whether or not you practiced or not. It just is what it is and it’s still up to you to get better.

Nick:                         And that’s the thing is, you know, I won’t use any specific names, but you do it, you do an assessment or a movement assessment, there is human error involved. So if I’m a young coach, and I’m just starting off somewhere else, got a new client, I want to show them in six months that I’ve done something and I’ve shown some improvement. So you know what? I’m going to score them a little worse than they actually are. And so in six months I’m going to, you know, I can show them some. There’s a lot of human error involved, a lot of manipulation. There is no manipulation. That’s the camera doesn’t care who you are, what time of day it is. It is what it is.

Eric:                          That’s right. Yeah. And I, I’m, I’m thinking about all the people that I know who travel and man, I see a lot of people who travel and they get back. Oh Man, I’ve been, I’ve been, like I said this a lot on the podcast. I know people who listen to fitness podcast. I’ll be here all the time, but you know, we get up in the morning from laying down which sleep is great, you need it. But then we get up, we sit in a chair to have breakfast. We sit in your car to get to work. Most people sit at a desk for eight to 10 hours a day. You get back into your car, back home to sit and have dinner, and then you’re back in bed. So, you know, beating the piss out of yourself, in the gym every single day because you think you’ve been inactive isn’t always the way to go. And that’s, that’s just a cycle back to something you said earlier and I’m glad you said it because it’s, it’s hard to get people to realize that, you know, and in the more beat up you become because of traveling or because of just having an everyday life. It doesn’t mean you need to do more, you just need you to do what’s right.

Nick:                         It’s an unfortunate. I’m not 21 anymore so you know, the little bit of time that I have in the day to work out, I want to make sure it’s right and I want to do the right thing because I can’t rebound like it used to. I can’t go and do five sets of five dead lifts. And you know, what, if it’s the wrong thing to me today, tomorrow, two days, I’ll be fine. Yeah. I, I just, I’m, I’m broken for a week. So you know, that I want to make sure that time that I spend is right and it’s what my body needs it. I mean, this is, I mean, it’s, it’s quantifying movements and you know, the sort of Hashtag we have is quantified readiness was ready to take on today.

Eric:                          I’m going to try to write that down. Quantified readiness. That’s a lot of dead air here. I’ll pencil that in later. Well, cool. I’m glad we got to do this and come in to catch you up. And it sounds like you’re on to some really awesome stuff. So if people have any more questions, comments, concerns, what’s, what’s the best way to reach you? Share your social media and all that.

Nick:                         I mean best way directly, his email. It’s, either [email protected] or [email protected]. Those, those will both come to me. You know, we were on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter when you know, it’s like I said, small company, so we need to, we need to add a little bit on there, but those are going to be ramping up pretty soon.

Eric:                          Awesome. Awesome. Nick, I appreciate it man. And I know, I don’t know if you got some more stuff to do, so thanks for hopping on. And then if people do have any questions, comments, concerns, reach out and I’m gonna go ahead and say for you, especially if you’re in the education field. I know he’d love to talk to you, so please do so and Nick will talk to you very soon, man. I appreciate it.

Nick:                         Awesome. Thanks Eric. I really appreciate the time and thanks everyone for listening.

Transcript Taken From Fitness Candor Podcast Episode 130

Eric:                          Hey everybody. Welcome back to Fitness Candor Podcast. Patty Durell the CEO and founder at Rock Solid Fitness in Florida joins us today. She is a high intensity trainer, uh, excuse me, a high intensity training, personal fitness coach and a licensed physical therapist assistant. We got linked up because our, we found out a couple of weeks ago when we first hopped on the phone that, that people in certain circles, even if they don’t know each other, we’re still kind of connected somehow. So somehow over Facebook she found me or I found her and then we found some similarities through the people that we have worked with. Um, it’s Kinda like, it’s like a big family tree we kind of found out. So, um, anyway, we’re here. We both have a lot in common in terms of how we feel about personal trainer education or the exercise science field and where that whole direction is going in and the importance of giving more information and adding more value to people. So anyway, Patty, thanks for joining us. I appreciate. I know you’re sitting in your car, so you took a little break to be with us.

Patty:                      I am and I’m so glad to be with you, Eric. You know, I love talking about what we’re gonna talk about today. It’s one of my passions. So I’m excited to be with you.

Eric:                          Well, I think anybody who has the passion to help other trainers in the field, um, it’s definitely worth talking to because just like we said right before we pressed record if a were, if it weren’t for people sharing ideas and sharing thoughts, like where would we be? And I don’t think anybody would get very far. If you’re not sharing, you know, if you’re not around people who are willing to like boost you, then you’re probably in the wrong. If you’re not in the wrong profession, you’re definitely around the wrong people.

Patty:                      So true. So true. I heard someone say it in Ursa convention once, it was a speaker and he said, hey, you know, what is R and D mean to everybody? And of course somebody raised their hand and said research and development. And he said, no, I think it means rip off and duplicate, like there’s so many people who have done so many great things and have such great ideas. Just network, talk to people, learn what they do, learn what success means to them, and success leads, trails. So it’s true. I think that’s really true.

Eric:                          I listened to a podcast on my way home today and I’m one of the guests on a. It was on the Joe Rogan experience podcast and he, he said, um, what’s the, uh, the greatest form of flattery is?

Patty:                      And someone tries to imitate you.

Eric:                          Yeah. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. That’s it. Yeah. I knew, I draw like, but anyway, so, so yeah. So welcome to the show. Thanks for sitting in your car. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your story and how you got to where you are right now.

Patty:                      So, um, it’s a story I tell everybody that comes into my organization and interviews with me. Um, you know, I grew up one of five kids. My Dad used to joke about taking the stick or the bottle out of my mouth and putting the stick of Pepperoni in there and eventually I grew up to be an overweight young child. And, and weight was always an issue for me and my family. My nickname became fatty Patty kids called me fatty Patty. They were pretty cruel in school and I grew up with a big, you know, kind of complex or um, self esteem issue. Not a lot of confidence in myself. Never feeling attractive or certainly not wanting to participate in any gym class or anything like that. So I grew up into an over fat young adult, you know, um, went to school, um, for licensed and to become a licensed physical therapist assistant and my anatomy and physiology partner at the time.

Patty:                      I was kind of belly aching to him. How I had, you know, found weightwatchers and weightwatchers taught me how to eat and I lost some weight, but I still had this like 20, 25 pounds on me that I couldn’t lose. And in order for me to get through school, I was loading trucks at ups in the middle of the night, you know, and I was taking in teaching karate and I was tending bar later on and I was in a fulltime pretty, you know, aggressive curriculum for physical therapist assistant and I still couldn’t lose this weight and I was so active so I was bellyaching to him. And he was like, you know what, I think you’re doing too much and I thought you’re so stupid. I think I’m doing too little. I just don’t have enough time to do more and eat less.

Patty:                      So he’s like, let me take you to the gym and show you this style of training that I been utilizing. And so I went to the gym with them and we were working out pretty hard, a lot different than I was working out with my karate instructor and I was doing barbell bicep curls. I’ll never ever forget it in our world gym and Hamden Connecticut. And I felt like I was gonna throw up and I said that to this guy. I think I’m going to throw up, and he was really excited about that. I went and threw up and I came back and he was even more excited that it actually happened and I came back and he said, you threw up, Arthur Jones thinks you don’t work out intensely enough unless you’ve thrown up after one set of bicep curls. And I was like, who’s Arthur Jones and why do I care?

Patty:                      So I quickly learned to Arthur Jones was, I’m not sure if I really still cared at that point. Something about Nautilus and all this stuff and you know, I kept with the program. I kept working out with this guy. I was working out less frequently. I was working out less duration so I had more time for studies, more time for myself, which I really didn’t have much of it that time, but the best thing for me, Eric, was I started to lose weight. Even better than that was I had this sense of confidence that I never had before. Like I learned that I truly didn’t know what I was capable of unless I kept trying and if I didn’t quit I was capable of great things and for me it was very powerful. It’s that carryover effect that changed my life really more than how my physical appearance changed my life. That’s how I was introduced to high intensity training. That’s kind of my story.

Eric:                          Okay. So you got, you have this, this introductory introduction to high intensity training during, during your, um, your schooling for being a PT Assistant. Was there anything that was kind of counterintuitive to you or the things like that didn’t really make any sense and you were kind of battling against either way?

Patty:                      You know, in school I would say no because I really didn’t understand high intensity training at while I was still in school. Um, is there a lot of noise there? Eric? Um, so it was when I got out of school and started practicing therapy. Right. So for me, I was always like, if there was a gym available, which there usually was attached to the facility I was in, I would want to take the patients to the gym and strength train, not ankle weights, not tubes and bands and stuff like that. So and none of the other therapists felt that way, you know, they would be doing like functional training which is so important and so necessary when you’re at that level, right. I mean these are people who just had surgery or just had a stroke or just had a brain injury or had some life event that took them into a therapeutic setting.

Patty:                      So I should, I should say that I was working in inpatient, which is very different to outpatient. So it started in inpatient therapy when I started to question why am I the only one taking them to the gym, why am I the only one that’s valuing this really aggressive resistance training when in therapy itself I learned about progressive resistive training. I mean, that’s where I learned about it was in school for therapy and then of course this guy who turned me on to high intensity training who is now my husband, he’s the one that really kind of enhance that knowledge about what progressive resistance really means and looks like and feels like. So I think in a, you know, I think that that we have to get people to normal, but we can’t forget that normal isn’t where we want to live because the definition of normal in the medical world is that you can feed yourself, he can bathe yourself, you can kind of take care of those basic activities of daily living. And, and to me that’s not really thriving. That’s existing, you know. So I always like to think we need to thrive in our life.

Eric:                          Well you brought up another good point. The, you know, the, the medical system, the baseline for them is to have you keep coming back to them so they can prescribe more. And that’s not if you, if you can do things for and everybody should have the ability to do things for themselves and not rely on that. Now I’m not saying like let’s get rid of medicine. medicine is a pretty freaking incredible thing. I’m glad to be alive in 2018 lot better in 1918. So, but, but the idea that we have to rely on a popping pills or something that we don’t have control over our own bodies and our own stomachs and mind and in the whole the whole thing, the whole machine is they don’t want, they don’t like talking about that, which is why, you know, you’ve only talked to talked to a doctor. They might only have like an hour or two of nutrition training even so it’s, it might go, it’s part of the Standard American Diet, which we’re starting to find out more and more things now about the fallacies of that. But so, so fast forward a little bit and tell us about your interest in opening your own high intensity training studio and what that looks like now. And especially with the people that you work with.

Patty:                      So it started for, you know, Dave and I, Dave is my husband Dave Durrell and he’s, he’s the person I say as responsible for introducing me to high intensity training and really teaching me all that I, I know, um, up until um, what really, he’s, he’s really, he’s responsible. Eric, let’s just say that. So we saw this revolving door and physical therapy, right? So I started in inpatient, we moved to Florida. We’re working in outpatient. We have this really sweet deal. We’re working in orthopedic surgeon’s office. Basically we could see the patients with the surgeons. We could go to surgery with the surgeon. So we, we really felt like we had landed in a very educational job and position, which was awesome for us. We were working under great therapists and it was amazing. So. But what we saw was this revolving door of patients that would come in, they would get, well, we would take them to the Nautilus Center, which was it attached to the doctor’s facility at this outpatient clinic.

Patty:                      It was amazing. They would get. Well, they would come back though because it would not join the fitness center that we hooked him up with. We hooked him up with a program. We taught them what to do. We gave them a special rate that docs would charge seven or eight bucks a month just to keep their patients well and the patients wouldn’t do it, so they would come back to therapy again. And so we were like, gosh, if we could just really teach them what to do in the gym, maybe they wouldn’t need us. So we started, we approached the owner of the gym we worked out of, which was a world gym and Largo Florida, which is now a parking lot for the high school of Largo, part of this story. Um, so we approached the gym owner and we said, hey, can we bring people in here and can we train them and we’ll give you a piece of it and it will become your members.

Patty:                      And he was all excited about it. And so we just started with some patients and we brought the patients to the gym and we started to work out with them for, gosh, I think we were charging $15 an hour or something like that in 1997. And they started to get well. And then some of the therapists came and we had these two doctors that came and they just got great results and they started to send all their patients to us and then we had a waiting list and then the gym changed ownership and we had to find a new place and then that gym went out of business and we had to find a new place and then that shit went out of business and we had to find a new place. And then we went back to the original place and then it went out of business.

Patty:                      And it’s now a parking lot. So, you know, it’s hard. The gym business is hard. So if you’re not controlling your asset and you don’t have control of this space and the equipment, which is what a mentor of mine shared with me, I should find a new profession. So that’s really in 2001 I went and full time kind of in our business. I left PTA and went full time and then Dave had moved on to work in the NFL a little bit, so I was taken on all of his clients and then, you know, I just kind of put down a credit card and bought some equipment and when I moved into a space and lots of our clients that started with us are still with us to know so many years later. So now we’re in a really sweet space. We started in what I call our incubator.

Patty:                      It was a thousand square feet and clearwater, I don’t know how we built a business in this little space, but we did. And um, we moved a year and a half ago to Dunedin Florida and we’re in a 2000 square foot facility that’s um, we feel like we stepped into our brand. That’s, it’s pretty when you walk in, it’s got a beautiful lobby area. It’s got handpicked equipment in there. Um, you know, just a nice changing shower area. It’s nothing over the top, but it’s, it’s comfortable. It’s our brand, it’s exclusive, it’s high end. So we like where we are now.

Eric:                          Yeah, that sounds very familiar to the gym that I worked in that I’m a Joel Wainscott owns Mission 5 Fitness. So I think like minds like that, you know, it’s obviously your catering to a certain group of people, but it’s like here are the essential, this is what we need. And you know, you said you didn’t know how you built a brand inside of the thousand square foot, but I can kind of, I can see how not being since I don’t know own my own training studio, but you know, hearing you talk and you know what you’re doing, number one, you care about people and the people that come into it doesn’t matter the size of the facility to facility can be 500 square feet. But if you know what you’re doing with the equipment that you have and you care about the people you work with, you, you can build a business.

Eric:                          You can, you know. So whether the business is 16,000 square foot or thousand square foot, you can be successful in each way or unsuccessful on how you treat the people you’re working with and if the lack of knowledge, you know, if you don’t have knowledge and, and, um, don’t take ownership of what you’re doing with people, then that can fail a place. Which kind of brings me to my next question and my, my next interest. We both talked about, we both value, um, the education process of personal training. We also value, um, how other people see our time when they work with us and I know you, you have kind of a special interest in a special or a, a different idea on how something like that should go. So can you talk a little bit about that and just explain like the importance of how you feel about educating the personal trainer?

Patty:                      Yeah, I mean we feel very strongly about having educated people in our facility. Um, one, we look for people who already have a, an education, a college degree in exercise science or something related. I mean, I am probably the least degreed person in my facility. I only have an associate’s degree in science, you know, everyone that works with me has at least at least a bachelor’s, if not a master’s degree in exercise science and nutrition. So I, I start there. That’s how much I value education, working in commercial gyms, saying other personal trainers that just didn’t have the knowledge or the education. They still had the heart, they still cared. Um, they still wanted to help people, but in the process of not knowing they were hurting people. So that was one of my biggest concerns when I started the business was how was I going to hire people?

Patty:                      How was I going to find the right people? How was I going to make sure they weren’t hurting the people that we work with? Because as you heard, we had people coming from therapy, so they might have had a brain injury, a stroke survivor, an amputation and total joint replacement, something like that. So it was really even more important to me that people knew so well. Now that we get people who already have an anatomy and physiology with lab one into will you bring them in and we talked to them about high intensity training and it blows my mind how many people can graduate from an exercise science program with a bachelor’s degree and never learned about Arthur Jones and all of the research that he has done in the field of exercise science. So we teach them if they didn’t learn it in school, then we teach them and we have a basically like a little college curriculum of materials put together from experts, you know, like yourself, people who are teaching about exercise science and how to train in a gym professionally in a gym setting. What was still applying the principles of, you know, brief, intense and frequent exercise. So, um, uh, yeah, I, that the more educated we are, the better we can serve our population and it doesn’t stop there ever, right? We’re all students of life. We looked at research, we try to talk to researchers. I’m so excited to create new friendships and relationships like yours, you know, we follow you on instagram so we can find out your latest and greatest news and information is shared. And so it just is ongoing. Constant.

Eric:                          Yeah. But you know, what’s interesting and this, I’ve never thought of it this way even though I’ve talked about it a lot, but the little jab at the, uh, the medical system that I took earlier about how doctors are going to take one hour of one or two hours of nutrition. Well I think back on my own education, exercise science going into to a masters in kinesiology, sports studies, and I don’t remember having very many weightlifting classes. You know what I mean? Like there was a lot, there’s a lot of anatomy and physiology exercise, you know, one and two and a lot of, uh, clinical settings, exercise and clinical settings, which is great. But in terms of like, just like bare bones, here’s how, going back to like the bicep curl, for instance here, here’s how a proper barbell bicep curl should be performed. There was none of that.

Eric:                          Of course it wasn’t, it, none of that’s geared towards someone going out and helping a population, um, in, in your kind of setting or in my kind of setting. And that sets, um, that’s a disservice I think. But I think what you’re doing, what you’re taking on, you’re saying, okay, great, now you’ve, you’ve got this, um, this information behind you, now let’s apply it. And that’s the missing link, right? And of course what you said, it’s, it’s constant learning and we’re in such a great age right now. It’s kind of a double edged sword because you can go out there and find people to follow and they have awesome work and you can, you, you can use it and you put it into practice and then the next thing you flip through is like someone teaching the exact opposite and they have twice as many followers.

Eric:                          And you’re like, what is happening here? Why? You know, why, why is the person teaching the easiest, the best principals not getting enough traction? If is it not sexy enough, you know, do we need to take our shirts off to do this? Like, what? I don’t understand.

Patty:                      You got to show some skin now. I know.

Eric:                          So it’s funny because I, um, I’m going through my instagram. I don’t follow a ton of people. I don’t have a ton of followers now, but I’m starting to, to unfollow the people who can’t show me a video without having their shirt on for some reason. I’ll go outside and I see it. I’m like, Oh God, all right. If I see another ass shot from a girl doing a deadlift, I swear to God I’m gonna throw my phone against the wall. I’m like, great. You have a dead lift. We don’t need to see that angle of your dead lift.

Patty:                      It’s so true and it’s such an exploitation for such an unnecessary thing, you know, it really is. I wish to things that I want to comment on what one I wish that doctors would pull out their prescription pad and write on it; You need to move 30 minutes every day. You need to do high intensity strength training three times a week for 30 minutes and you need to eat fruits, vegetables, and fiber. Like if we can just start there, Eric, we could change the world a little bit. A little bit. Yep. Yeah. And the other thing I want to say what some. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say that, you know, the conflicting, confusing information on the Internet right now is, is what is going to make us the best experts because you’re right, out there, there’s so much stuff and our clients then the general population gets so confused about it. They shut down and do nothing or follow the pretty body. So it’s really an opportunity for us to capitalize on I think.

Eric:                          Oh, I think you’re right. Yeah, that’s a good way. That’s a good way to think about it. I see what you did there. I see what you did. You turn my negative into a positive. All right, I’ll take that. It’s fair. Checkmate. So, so Patty, we also talked about what time versus the time versus value and how um, how us as fitness professionals, we block off a certain schedule on a certain time in our schedule. We say this time slot is worth this much. My time is worth this much and we hope that the person we were telling that to sees the value in that and they respect that value and I think, I think, um, you know, when I’m teaching the business for personal training classes since any state and I’m telling, I’m telling the students, hey, here’s how you have to value your time.

Eric:                          Here’s how often you should increase your rate based on knowledge, based on, you know, punctuality and all these things that you’re giving your client, even though they might not realize it. And that’s a hard thing to grasp, you know, when, when, especially when you’re the customer service industry and we are a service. That’s what people see us as. I feel like we are a service that they’re using and you kind of have a different idea in a different way to approach that, which I thought was really, um, really unique. So can you talk about that a little bit?

Patty:                      Sure. Like we’re in a phase right now where we’re getting away from selling time and sessions to our clients and it’s really a different shift for all of us to think about. Right? We’re not even offering a free introductory workout anymore, so that’s always been the thing, you know, you want to come try us out. We think everybody should take us for a test drive before trying us out and I still believe that, but it’s not free anymore. It’s still a test drive. And because Eric, what happens, I mean here you are teaching a college class about the business of personal training, so it’s a real thing, right? It’s service that we can provide to people that will enhance their life immediately, immediately, it’s going to start to have positive impact on them and so when you change lives at that level, I think people should be compensated for it and when you have people like educated the kind of people that you’re creating at your college that we’re creating in our industry here in our little studio, you should be able to charge for that and get paid for that and I should be able to pay my staff what their degree, what their time and what their value is.

Patty:                      Right? But I think in our industry we are so used to undercutting the session dollar and competing with the session dollar that we deep value everything about us. We’re not your, your students are not sitting in front of a computer over the weekend getting a certification. They’re getting an education or learning. They’re learning it at a different level. So we are saying to our clients, hey you, we don’t spend a half an hour with you. You might come in here and the facetime you have with us is 30 minutes, but when we came in this morning and half an hour before our shift, we read through all of your cards. We were up to date on what happens with you last time if something happened. If you’re, you know, playing football with your kids over the weekend and you sprained your ankle, the next coach who works with you knows that and knows how to work around that or whatever.

Patty:                      You just had surgery. We know where you are in the process and we know what to do if you will. That takes time and preparation and when we’re done with you at the end of the day, we go back to your workout card and we plan your next workout and we discover is there any article that we need to send to you and your research? Did we promise you something in that session? Were you struggling with your nutrition? And we need to sit down and go through your menu and then send it to you. So we might spend up to an hour, an hour and a half with a client, you know, for, for one session, where do you capture the value of that? How do you charge them for that? If you’re charging them for 30 minutes of your time, you don’t. So what we decided to do was make it a membership and not limit access to us so people can pay a monthly rate and they can come in and see us as often as they need to.

Patty:                      Basically. That’s of course we’re still going to stick to the high intensity training principles. We’re going to see your workout card and we’re going to know if you’re over training or under training, you know, all of those things are still going to be the same. But if you’re coming in twice a week for strength training and you really want to get a third workout in and we think you can handle it, come on in and we’ll push it through a metabolic. Or maybe you’re just that kind of person who just has to the split up your body and we’ll split it up for you for three days. You know, there’s so many different ways to make things work and we’d rather get people exercising and moving then not and making it a habit than not. So we’re trying to reward people for at least coming in eight times a month, you know, give them additional rewards or way that they can earn perks.

Patty:                      It’s, it’s new to us. It’s exciting. We’re literally in the first week of transitioning all of our clients over. Some of them love the idea and just love the fact that they’re going to have access to the experts when they ever, whenever they want and others aren’t loving it and that’s, you know, you learn that some people are going to exit our life and we’re not going to be happy about it and we hope they continue to strength train when they’re not with us and other people will stay and benefit from our knowledge and value it and appreciate it. Like we value and appreciate them.

Eric:                          Yeah, that’s really unique and it’s a, it’s a really cool system and I’m excited to see how it plays out because there’s, there’s always something in the industry. For instance, when we know when I, when I first started 10 years ago, 11 years ago, um, all I thought was, well, I’m going to go out and I’m going to sell people a package of 10 and it’s going to be a discounted rate because that’s what you do and I’m just gonna, you know, keep, keep going. And then eventually I learned that, you know, the knowledge and the time that you put in, like you said, with the workout cards or sending information, newsletters, you know, free content that goes into what they’re doing, making promises and following those promises. All of those things, they shouldn’t be discounted. You know, it. It’s not like we leave the gym and then we’re done for the day.

Eric:                          Maybe some people are, I, I’m sure some trainers are. And if they’re successful, great. If they’re keeping people happy and they’re safe, great. But I think for the, for the most part, people here for the long haul who really love this industry and want to see go forward. They do things like you’re going to do and they kind of shake things up a little bit. Because even though you might not, maybe there are other places in your area that are doing something like that. There’s not here, but eventually somebody’s going to catch on to like, wow, that’s a great idea. Just like when I finally said I’m done doing discounts, I’m done selling packages. No, I’m not going to have you pay up front to get a cheaper rate. Like, here’s the value. This is it. You should value this appointment because of X, Y, and Z. You know, I’m gonna keep my word, you keep your word. And then we go. If it all works out that way, but I think that’s cool. Like to have somebody to, to change the game into eventually, um, may set a higher standard for what we’re doing and for what people should expect from us.

Patty:                      That’s right. You contact doctors, Eric, you find out what your clients need, right? I mean that’s. Who else does that? People who work at La Fitness don’t do that. I don’t think, if they do great, but if they’re not doing it, we all are right. And so we should, we should be compensated for that and people should recognize that value. So I’m telling him like, uh, you know, like almost like I’m angry about it. Hey, this is what we do for you. We want you to know we love you and we care about you and you’re not a time slot at Rock Solid. You’re a unique individual at Rock Solid.

Eric:                          Yup. Yeah, that’s, yeah, the, the idea that, um, so it was my brain started to go into like a bunch of different directions we’ve got like harness harness myself in, but the idea that um, you know, someone gets injured for instance, and then they automatically say, I have to stop training. I’d have to go in, have some kind of, some kind of surgery. Whether it’s, let’s just say I’m having a knee replacement. Okay, we understand that’s, that’s invasive. You’re going to have some time off, but there are things we can do before you go into surgery to keep them stronger. And I, and I’m not saying I’m not tooting my own horn, but I’ve worked with several people who have had multiple hip replacements because they have some degenerative diseases that they’re dealing with. I just attack their joints and other people who’ve gone and had knee replacement just because of longterm wear and tear.

Eric:                          They were football players, baseball players, super active an accident happen. And before they go into to um, have surgery, the doctors even told them like, glad you’re working out because this is going to make the recovery process a lot easier. We can tell because your muscle structure and you know, the way, the way that the, the joint is, you’re looking healthier than it was before. Those kinds of things take, take time to build. And if you build a rapport with, with those professionals that see your clients that you’re working with, that’s going to benefit the entire scope of your practice and their practice. And I think that. I think that goes a long way. I don’t think that was my original thought, but I’m glad it came out that way because I think I’ve talked about the disconnect between exercise science and personal trainers in the medical field. Um, and with physical therapists and you know, and other people, if they hear personal trainers, they’re just kinda like, oh yeah, I know you’re working with a personal trainer and it’s sad.

Patty:                      It is sad and we get it all the time where, oh, my doctor told me not to work out with a trainer and I’m like, why we are the place you need to be at! What do you mean if they sent you for physical therapy it would be okay, but exercise anywhere else is not okay. And it’s just because unfortunately there are trainers out there who aren’t educated and know better. And so they, there are people in every profession that hurt people and unfortunately in that business, you know, there are, we see more injuries and our gyms that were created from poor lifting for years of poor lifting, you know, backs and shoulders and knees and squats, heavy squats. I mean, my own cousin can hardly walk from heavy squats all his life, you know, so

Eric:                          Heavy squats, kinda like power lifting type stuff or…

Patty:                      Regular exercise routine, just loading his spine for 30 years or whatever, you know, just regular stuff. And so, you know, I get it and he was a, he was an attorney or you just, you know, worked with a trainer and, and did his own thing and it’s, it’s hard to. It’s hard to see. It’s hard to watch, you know, that, you know, if we had just done something different, maybe it would have been a different outcome.

Eric:                          It’s 100 percent, especially with your body. Oh my God, you look back, you’re like, oh, I wish you wouldn’t have done that. What are they? What are they thinking? Move forward. It’s true. Well Patty, this has been awesome. And before I let you go, I, I’d like for you to share if you could, uh, maybe a personal habit that you’d recommend to other professionals. Maybe something that’s been told to you that you’ve implemented in and shared with others.

Patty:                      You know, I think the biggest thing for me personally, Eric, is I’m spending time with my husband because as I’ve, as I’ve been building a business and hiring people and being in a team, my husband and and I now we carve every Sunday we sit down and we’d get our schedules together and we have a connection time in the morning. We have what we call quality time block on Wednesday. Nothing gets in the way of our quality time block at 5:30. Everybody in my life knows that I’m not reachable by phone. I’m not gonna make an appointment with you. And if it, if I do, it’s because my husband approved it, you know it’s done and usually he won’t. It’s our time. And then Saturday nights or date night. So we, we carve out time for each other and I think that’s the best habit that I could. I could tell people who are in business, building a business, make time for you and make time for the people that are important to you and schedule it like you schedule everything else.

Eric:                          Yep. That’s. Wow. That’s pretty powerful because I know it’s part of the business in this industry to be constantly on. Right. That’s what’s expected, but in, a lot of other. Well, I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t in every single industry. That’s just the time we live in and but it doesn’t. I don’t think it has to be that way, so that’s good. That’s really good advice and I should probably, heed that – don’t laugh.

Patty:                      I’m smiling because you should make a date with your wife and make that night be yours and there’s no cell phones and there’s no other people and you have to look at each other and have a conversation and it’ll be the best time you spend in your whole week.

Eric:                          And I know other professionals out there are probably thinking to themselves, yeah, I could do that too, so that’s awesome. Hey, thanks for sharing that. If anybody has any other questions, comments, concerns, where’s the best place to reach you? Not by phone.

Patty:                      No. Actually by phones invest way, not by email, so I’ll give you my phone number. If somebody wanted to reach me, you can call me at 727-, 580- 2885. And if you wanted to email me you can. Um, I’m not responsible for it. It’s [email protected] that’s for Yeah, we have Rock, Solid Fitness FL in Facebook, which is pretty popular. We have Instagram and Twitter as well. Awesome. And Snapchat? I think so.

Eric:                          Good. I’ll link all this stuff in the show notes. So if people do have questions, comments, concerns, I hope they reach out to you. So again, Patty, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Go back, get get out of your car, go back to work.

Patty:                      Thank you so much, Eric, and keep the good work going. Thank you for all the education you’re doing. Thank you.

Transcript Taken From Fitness Candor Podcast Episode 131

Eric:                          Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitness Candor Podcast, another solo podcast. I got a lot of really good feedback from my last one. So thank you for the feedback. I’m glad I’m adding a little bit of value and I’ll try to keep this short and sweet also and if you like it, leave me some more feedback and I’ll try to try to keep doing the best they can. So I was thinking of the term today, low hanging fruit and I know a lot of times when we hear that it’s probably referred to as like, you know, someone tells a really bad joke. You’re like, Ooh, low hanging fruit man like that, reach a little higher, get something a little better. And for some reason I had that term written down in my notes and I was like, I want to talk about that because I think it’s related to exercise and I think it’s really an exercise in a good way though.

Eric:                          I think the best thing sometimes for us, especially if we’re developing our own programs or even developing a program for specifically somebody new to training or maybe that just needs a little bit more development in like the key movements and basic presses pulls, rows, carries, some hip hinges and squat patterns, things like that. The best things for us are usually the low hanging fruit. Things that we see all of the time that maybe we’ve just done so much of and we think that maybe there’s something better. Maybe there’s something more that I need to be looking for. Like a leg press or a lat pull down, a mid row machine at a dumbbell bent over row a basic pushup. These things that are very, very simple that may be, it may be, if we’re walking up to this is really dumb, but like the tree of fitness and we look up and we see all of these things that we’ve always, always been in front of our faces, like the pushup for instance.

Eric:                          And we’re thinking there’s gotta be something better beyond that. There’s got to be something different beyond that. Well, why not just revisit that, that push up that basic motion and try to make it a little bit more challenging. We don’t have to throw it away. It’s not like a rotten apple. It’s still a great motion it’s still a great instrument that can be used to develop strength and definition and healthy shoulders, and strong chests. So anyway, my whole idea is that especially, especially for people who are developing programs for the first time and I have a feeling that a lot of people think that the people they work with, their clients, they expect all these flashy new movements and I don’t think that’s 100 percent necessary and if you start feeding your clients those kinds of things, eventually you’re gonna run out of tree branches.

Eric:                          They’re not going to be more fruit left. But, If you start with the basics and you redefine the basics as you go, you know, changing your tempo. Queuing certain movements a little bit differently and those kind of aspects. I think you’ll find that, number one, you’ll have a lot more to choose from. You’ll learn a lot more and so will your client and I think that lays a pretty solid groundwork and all these movements that, especially as trainers, that we learn the very, very beginning, even like the basic, a body weight squat, you know, really dig deep and learn more about the body weight squat. If you think you’ve got it nailed, great, but maybe try to try to find something that, that you might think isn’t there in a client’s movement pattern or something that you can teach them with the basics because I don’t think we should throw all these basic movements out and make exercise programming way too complex. And I think that there’s a lot of that out there. So anyway, give me your thoughts, comments, concerns, questions about this and let’s have a dialogue. All right, thanks for listening guys. We’ll talk to you later. Bye.