March 22, 2018 • 26 mins
March 21, 2018
William Smith explains how keeping out bodies fit can help keep our brains functioning properly as we age and could reduce our changes of dementia.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Visit c H E N E G A A b
S dot com to learn more. Welcome to the Workout
Wednesday podcast. It is what the hell is Today's day, Wednesday,
(00:43):
March one. Thank you for hanging out with me. So
today's podcast it's pretty cool because it's something I know
very very little about the relationship between your physical health,
um and taking care of your brain and your mental health.
So I'm just I'm not even gonna waste time. I'm
going to say good morning to today's guest Will Smith. Hey,
(01:04):
how you doing? Anthony? And great great tomtas who will
in the virtual world after the radio podcast world. Um,
why don't you first just kind of explain what you
do and kind of what your goals are what you do.
My background is in exercise physiology. I've worked at in
all levels of health and wellness. I was a full
time personal trainer for fifteen years, but if you want
(01:26):
to include even going back to high school when I
started doing exercise orientations at my local y m c
A and Battle Creek, Michigan, where I grew up, probably
closer to twenty five years, including college and graduate school UM.
There After college, I moved to New York, lived in
Denver full hour for twin cycling and fitness, designing, staining
programs and bikes and what have you. Moved to New
(01:47):
York in the thousand range, was a full time personal
trainer at very high end Leite Health Club. Did a
lot of personal training, worked with special populations people at
work to PDA tissues post REHABU ended up going onto
a division one level that was an assistant director of
strength conditioning at a major university. Ended up starting my
(02:08):
own business and special populations and UM. And then I
made a little bit of a career pivot a few
years ago, about six years ago, and I moved entirely
into healthcare, which now in a day to day basis.
I helped companies UM with my background and also the
resources of the health care system I work with provide
health and wellness programs on site to their employees. So
(02:29):
a lot of what we're going to talk about today
has to do with that kind of overall sense of
well being in the physical, mental, and the factors that
play into overall help. And you've got a lot of
things on your on your resume. Yeah, yeah, I would
say if anybody is a career track health and wellness professional,
it's probably me. I love this because I don't know
a lot about this subject. I know that, yes, working
(02:51):
out is good for you. I've heard that working out
is good for you mentally too, But outside of that,
I don't really know the connection between physics, all fitness
and kind of mental health. We look at our brain, Um,
you know, we have a central and personal nervous system.
Our central nervous system is pretty much our brain and
our spinal cord our perphile nervous system is everything that
kind of shoots out to the arms of the legs
(03:13):
and um, you know, taking it a layer higher. Uh,
we know that, for example, how interconnected the body is,
you know, the brain and the gut, the gas fro
intestinal system. G I track a lot of people don't
know actually have more nerve endings UM and can be
more responsive in that way than the brain is. So
in many ways that the g I track and the
stomach is much smarter UM than the brain is. UM.
(03:33):
What is the information behind that. Let's say, if you're
on the subway in New York, you know if that's
because I'm how to go into city, want to right? UM?
If you feel something, if you feel somebody behind you,
you feel you've got tightened up, or if you run
across the street and your gut tightens up, that's the
nervous system, the gut sensing UM a stress fight or
flight syndrome before the brain even responds. So I think
(03:55):
it's just a one fact or one point that the
body is entirely interconnected, and everything we do affects everything
else that only people say you have like a gut
feeling or gut reaction. That's kind of where that comes from. Absolutely,
And so there's all these other little things in the body,
like you have UM curves in the feet, the pelvis,
the diaphragm, the roof of the mouth, and as we age,
(04:17):
all those tends of flatten out and people don't realize, Hey,
you know, one of the reasons people are very poor
balanced when they're getting older, for example, it's because their
feet to flatten out to some degree. The big toe,
for example, is one of the most important joints in
the body. So um as we age, which we're talking
about mental health today, um as we age, if you
don't have let's see, a good big toe joint, for example,
(04:38):
your balance can be extremely off regardless of how your
brain help is and all those facts that go into
your nervous system. So um those little things, a little
nuances are really important. So as we start talking about
you know that mentical hueage today and attachment physical fitness,
I just want to give that back talk about today
is really connected. Well okay, so then why does it
matter for my brain if I'm I stay active and
(05:00):
stay kind of in motion. Why why does that hurt? Um?
One of the things I know that my my publishing
authors sent out with the press release was that connection
of some new studies I came out recently on you know,
mental health Alzheimer's dementia, which is a syndrome syndrome men
includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in vascular dementia. Now getting to
your point about how brain health and physical fitness are connected. Um,
(05:24):
we have things called primary dementias, and we have something
called the secondary dementia. So primary would be like Alzheimer's
vascular dementia, which are often linked to strokes, and then
we have something called secondary dementia, which is more Parkinson's
and movement related. So some of the recent information literature
that's come out, particularly UM in the vascular dementia field
that links strokes and cardiovascular disease, indicates that people are
(05:48):
um more likely to develop mild and potentially severe cognitive
issues as they age UM and in some cases developing
early onset or early cognitive deficiencies even in their thirties
and forties. And the reason for that is entirely not entirely,
but a lot has to do with controllable risk factors.
So UM point in case, the literature starting to indicate
(06:11):
that when we have traditionally thought that low intensity exercise
was you know, the end all, like get out and
move your body every day. That is still a good recommendation.
But now what they're finding too, and you see this
a lot in these train programs are out there like
the fartlet training and interval training, and it's all relative
to your age and your level of conditioning. But they're
finding that is if you increase your level of intensity,
(06:33):
especially on a cardiovascular level, a little bit more like
that moderate or even a little bit more, you can
actually increase the strength of your heart at a more
rapid rate, the lasticity of your blood vessels, which can
deliver nutrient and oxygen flow to your brain, which is
really important for brain health. By staying active and maybe
taking it up a notch, taking it from that low
(06:53):
level intensity to maybe a moderate or just above moderate,
if you're able to do that, By doing that, you're
just kind of giving your brain the nutrients and the
sustenance it needs to stay functioning at a high level.
Of that what I'm like hearing, that's absolutely and I would,
you know, if I can springboard off to that point.
So I think that's a really good point about staying
a high level. You don't have to just stimulate your
(07:14):
cardiovascular system or your cardio respiratorial muscular system just by
doing a robic exercise. I mean, you talk about the
muscular system, you can still stimulate your heart rate. Um
improvements in your resting cart rate, which means your pulse
rate drops at a resting rate. By doing things like
strength training, UM, that circuit training at the gym, doing
interval training where you lets you do three or four
(07:35):
primary body parts and then you take a break, and
then if you get in better shape, what ends up
happening is you can decrease your rest time between each
of those UM kind of circuit stations. So it's not
always about the type of exercise. It would be that
you would want to manipulate the weight the rest time.
Using your body weight is some of the best form
of training you can do walking up and down hills, UM,
(07:58):
breaking up, tearing a conversation on with the person next
to you, but then breaking it up a little bit
by increasing the intensity, UM, by by just walking a
little bit faster, UM. But all that, all these things
really work together. And I think the point is is
that most people out there, I would say, of the population,
cannot afford UM. And I say this very respectfully. Be said,
a lot of friends are still full time trainers in
(08:19):
the field. A lot of people cannot afford a full
time person or an expensive gym or other things where
honestly you're not always getting a better level of service.
You might get a more one on one level experience,
but you may not get that level of service that
is commenced with the price. So that's that's why telehealth
(08:39):
and all these resources we're talking about today are really
really important for the average person out there that just
wants to improve their health. Well, what was the last
thing you just mentioned health? Um, some of the more
recent development in health delivery, we talk about teletone and
things on the spaining bikes and what have you. But UM,
the way that the way the whole kind of healthcare
delivery field now is heloping is that, UM, we have
(09:01):
things like telehealth where you can log on and you
can talk to your doctor all about cost control and
what have you. So UM, I would I would see
that being one of the most important things in the
future is the delivery of good, solid, respectable content that
people can rely on in a convenient and accessible manner.
So I think we're just seeing the beginning of that.
(09:22):
I feel like you don't really worry about your your
cognitive abilities or your mental health until you're a little older,
because it's not something you think of when you're young, right,
So for someone who maybe a little older, it might
be like, oh, I'm not as sharp as I once was,
or maybe I'm just I just don't feel like it
feels a little cloudy up there. What is something that
(09:43):
someone can do if they haven't been active for a
while and they want to make sure that they stop
wasting their time and they start today and they're like,
I'm going to do something to kind of help my
body or make my body help my brain. What is
like a quick exercise, maybe a body weight type of
thing that someone can do without going to a gym
or without spending a ton of money on a trainer. Sure,
(10:04):
so you know, I hate to make it it's simple,
but at the end of the day, it's about getting
these many muscles working together at one time. So, for example,
the old stalwart, the body weights, squat um, the dead lift,
those types of things work major muscles, major joints. They
get a lot of blood floats of flowing through the body.
(10:24):
Now and again, going back to the point made earlier
about the interconnectingness of the body, if you just start
with something is simple, I hate again, just really simple,
just like a squat even if you're not doing anything
now start with just five to ten squads today and
then do that every other day. UM. The American college
sports medicine generally recommends about a hundred and fifty minutes
of exercise per week. That's about thirty minutes a day.
(10:45):
That doesn't seem too bad. It doesn't seem bad, and
you don't have to do all thirty minutes at one time.
You could do a fifteen minutes in the morning, and
you could do fifteen minutes at night. And again, this
is all about breaking it up and making it work
for you. So the larger still say you can get
involved a squat those types of things. You're working your
muscle masses located in your lower body. I don't know
(11:07):
keep most people know that. So when you work those
lower body muscles, you're attacking your heart. You can attach
your brain because your brain has to stabilize your body
forward and backwards and activate the muscles in a coordinated matter.
Those things are really important. Plus sets and activity of
daily living. You're probably squatting and you don't even realize it.
Every day. Well mean, if you're getting up and sitting
down in a chair, you're kind of doing that same action.
(11:28):
Absolutely getting out of the car. Ye I know that
you mentioned you know, you could do fifte minutes in
the morning, fifteen minutes at night. There is a podcast
I did a couple of weeks ago and it was
about the Tobatta Handbook and it was all these different
Tobata workouts and just as a quick aside, if anyone
wants to go back and listen to that, those are
sixteen minute exercises you can do. If you're in a
time crunch, you could grab all of those and do that.
I know you have a book actually though it's Exercises
(11:50):
for the Brain right for brain health, sorry, exercises for
Exercises for Brain healthy. If I was if I just
saw the title, like, okay, my are these physical exercises
of doing brain activities? Like what do I find in
that book? That's a great question. So they exercise is
for brain health, kits on a little bit of everything.
And again my scope of practice, I'm part of the
care continuum, if you will, that the personal trainer, the
(12:12):
health professional that is with you. I like to say,
the other nine of time, after you get done with
your doctor, after you they don't your physical therapist or
any of that acute care stuff. You might need. We're
we're the people that are out there educating and teaching
people essentially how to get healthy and be independent with
independent functionally healthy wise. Now, if you go to the book,
(12:33):
we try to represent a lot of those principles in
the book, so very very pointed point of examples. So
we give you some mental exercising that book. We talk about,
you know, simple things like counting up and counting down um.
For some of you who have severe cognist function maybe
this function, maybe they have a Alzheimer's or vance Alzheimer's,
we could start something simple like counting backwards, counting up
(12:54):
from seven by seven, or counting backwards from seven from
like you know, seventy or us. If somebody really wants
to work in the brain, they could start counting backwards
from about um. Simple things like that. Creating lists uh
that that to help with time management. We talked about
those types of things. On the physical side, we talked
about very simple exercises that like um, like working working
(13:17):
the back of the body, working the muscles that are
important with pasture where in Parkinton's tends to have a
forward flex posture. We're teaching people how to stand up
straight we're talking about simple things like deceleration movements, and
a simple example of that is walking down the steps
and controlling your body weight as you walk down the steps,
because that works your body in a different manner then
(13:37):
you would normally use it. You know what's funny. I
used to do a like an intense leg workout. Walking
up the stairs was easy, that was fine. I never
had an issue with that. It was that first moment
when I walked down the steps and realized how wobbily
everything was because my muscles were so sore, and that
would not always scare the crap out of me. Yeah,
that's what we call that stretched lengthening reflex, where you're
(14:00):
going down the stairs and you're learning to control your
body weight very slowly. That's actually one of the most
important pieces of injury preventions for any age. It's controlling
your joints like that. Yeah. Does diet come into play
here at all? Yeah, So the diet is very interesting one. Again,
I'm not a dietation or nutritionists, but I can definitely
touch on that because it's in the book. I think
some of the most important things that go along the
(14:21):
idea of nutrition is um When we live in a
very uh. I would say an inundated society where we're
kind of environmentally with chemicals and the variety of things
that we're inundated with every single day in our foods,
in our food system and what have you. So I
would say, try to drink. Number one, try to drink
as much water as possible, you know, assuming you don't
(14:42):
have some kind of you know, um, you know, salt tissue,
hypernitrain me or something like that. Try to drink a
lot of water. That's number one. Number two is we
want to try to decrease the amount of oxidating stress
in the body. That means the inflammatory state. So leafy grain, vegetables,
stuff with omega three's omega six is like um all
man and uh, you know, UM, olive oils, those types
(15:03):
of things UM are very very important. UM. A lot
of fruits, a lot of vegetables UM are very good
to UM. Lean proteins are great, uh wavering towards like salmon,
which has great um fat in it. Not as your
only protein source, but those are good things to take
in every day. UM. And there's actually been a connection
just don in the side, there's actually been connection with
(15:25):
people who drink tea and coffee of actually lowering their
risk of developing Parkinson's UM. So that that is there's
some really interesting research out there. Or encourage your audience
is actually if they have a family history. So I
actually and this is I love everything that you mentioned
because I think I have someone on the podcast who
has mentioned a lot of those points. Like I think
(15:46):
the last podcast, if I remember correctly, was someone who
was on here talking about an anti inflammatory diet, and
then a couple of weeks prior to that, there was
I had someone on who was talking about how something
as simple as green tea or oolong tea can really
help kind of sustain energy in keep you going um
and help your metabolism. So it's it's cool that you're
talking about all those little things. And then the water
topic I think is so interesting because kind of on
(16:08):
a whim. When I first started this podcast the first
week of this year, the goal was, Okay, let's add
one thing to everyone's week during through this podcast that
if they do this all week long, they make it
a habit, then next week will add something on top
of it or takes something away. If that's if it's
a bad habit, and the first thing I said was
actually to drink the right amount of water. And it's
an impressive how many experts like yourself have come on
(16:31):
here and said drinking the right amount of water is
one of the most basic things you can do for
your overall health. Well, when you think about it, now,
you persending your cells or water, your body masks and
the remaining masses water. And when not only from a
just a hydration standpoint where you feel like you're not,
you know, dehydrated, if you will um just drinking that
(16:52):
for mental acuity, you'll be amazed by if you drink
more water, how much more awake and alert and everything
else you'll be. And then the other thing, I really
like what you mentioned about habits. Habits are the most
little little changes. It doesn't have to be macro changes.
Their micro changes every single day. It takes like what
twenty one days to twenty five days, will we change
a habit? If you just change one thing every day,
(17:15):
that's positive, it can make all the difference. Well, that's
kind of the whole point of this podcast is learning
just a little bit. I don't do I think that
there's a person out there who's gonna listen to this
specific episode, I remember every single word you or I say, honestly,
probably not. But if a hundred people, even if it's
just a hundred people can listen and take one thing
away that they happen to carry with them for the
(17:37):
rest of the month and that becomes a habit, then
we both kind of did a decent thing. Yeah, totally
totally on board with that. Absolutely. And um, I've started
downloading like meditation apps and stuff. Do you find that
matters at all in terms of kind of like overall
brain health, brain and mental health or anything like that
where I where? Well, first of all, I think I
(17:58):
think everybody needs something a little different there to have
a change. Um, I know there's a whether it transcendental,
transcendental or transcendental meditation. I always trouble it back that
a lot of celebrities and you know, thought leader CEO
S what have you do that every day asn't matter
of practice. I think my approach to that is everyone
needs a little downtime, Everyone needs to unplug, and everyone
(18:22):
needs a point where they can take all those distractions out.
And I did this last week on one a vacation
with my family, and we I barely looked at my
phone and it was I focused in on two things,
you know, my family time every day and then UM
and then just you know, moving my body every day.
Those were the two things. And for me, that was
almost meditated. That was almost cathartic because I took away
(18:44):
all the distractions. So I think, going back to your question,
I think meditation is awesome. I think it's it's a key.
Not maybe not everybody needs to do it, but I
think it could be de breathing, it could be meditation,
it could be focusing on something very important for a
short period of time in the morning where there's no distraction.
I think that's the key. Um. To make it a
daily habit, just do it every day. Whatever it is, Well,
(19:07):
let's um, let's give you the opportunities. Normally I give
give out this random thing that I kind of think of, like, oh,
this could be cool, or if people do this every week,
or if this could be cool if someone removes this
from their their life every day, if you can wave
a magic wand and give everyone this one thing that
they would do every day, Is there something you can
think of off the top of your head, Like I
wish everyone just added this and it would help them
(19:27):
physically and mentally. Absolutely, I would say, and again, just
going back through the simple squat idea, it's not a squat,
but move your body every day. I know it doesn't.
You can eat all you want, you can do everything
you want, but just move your body for five to
thirty minutes every single day. If you can do that,
(19:48):
just get out there and move. Raise your heart rate up,
raise your breathing rate up. I think you will find
it will domino effect into everything else. Your interactions with
people will be more positive in some way because you
will have taken care of that self care piece for yourself.
You probably will naturally drink a little bit more water
because you'll be more thirsty. Move your body every day.
If I had to do one thing, just move your
(20:09):
body every day. I love that you brought up the
interactions with people because I thought I was weird originally.
If I didn't get a workout or whatever, I would
just I would actually get like kind of grump being angry.
And what I then realized was, hey, I'm not the
only person that feels that way. Um, but a lot
of that was just a stress reliever for me, Like
if I can go to the gym. It's kind of
(20:29):
my meditation because for the most part, if I'm doing
if I'm doing it properly, I'm not looking at my
phone that often. I'm usually I'm just using my phone
to kind of track the workout. So it gives me
that downtime from all of the different factors that come
shooting at you with its emails, text notifications from whatever app.
And then I it is also a stress reliever because
you're you're getting out some of that frustration physically. So
I do like the fact that you brought that up
(20:50):
that you can actually be in a better mood by
moving a little bit more during the day, I think,
I think fitness or just moving, I think health is
a great way to create social glue between people. I mean,
we see this in the gig economy now. A lot
of the gig economy is about developing relationships with people.
We see it in you know, Facebook, private chat rooms
and all these things where people come together for a
common cause or a reason. I think everyone kind of
(21:13):
looks for that tribal component, you know, that that sense
of belonging of community. Um, but that means something for
everybody that could be a virtual that could be an
in person, that could be a professional networking group, which
you know, linked In is create the example of that.
But I think the end of the day that I
think the important teaser is that sociable that people look
to belong to something and hopefully it's something positive, because
(21:35):
I think if you do something positive, especially in the
health and movement paradigm um, it can be very positive
for you and the people around you. That's actually kind
of one of the reasons I think that podcasts and radio,
Like people always say radio has been around forever, maybe
it's dying. It's one of the reasons that podcast and
radio still do really well because you're you're listening and
you're part of something. It's very different than listening to
(21:55):
like an album in your apartment by yourself. That's kind
of your time alone. You're not part of a group necessarily,
But if you're listening to a conversation and chiming in
through social media, you're part of that tribe. Yeah, there's
a there's a familiarity, there's an interconnectingness between people who
have a common interest, a genuine common interests, and wanting
(22:15):
to join that because it's adding value to their life
in some way. Um, and I think I I totally agree.
I think radio and audio is making a comeback mean
between Alexa and the Google everything else to the world.
That's the interface because honestly, it's when people listen to stuff, right,
it still allows you in our multitasking task switching society
(22:36):
that we live in, it still allows you to do
whatever you're doing, but still listen to it. Oh yeah,
which is which is kind of interesting. You know, Well,
when I if I'm cooking in my apartment, it's hard
to watch like a Netflix show, but I can easily
put on a morning show podcast and listen to that
or a health podcast and listen to that while I'm
doing other things. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I think. I
think we're just seeing the rebirth of audio again. I
(22:58):
think audios and be then ext you know, and then
the next what television was, you know, fifty years ago.
So if people made it this long, they made it
twenty five whatever minutes into this podcast, and we're about
to let them go off into the world onto whatever
journey they're on. If there's one thing you want someone
to take away from this podcast, one lesson, one idea,
what would you want that to be I would say, uh,
(23:19):
And again I don't want to be cliche, but I
think health is the new wealth, UM, and it has
always been the new health uh. The new wealth. UH.
I think you've got people have People are becoming more
in tune with their bodies now and realizing the importance
of their health because healthcare costs are out of control.
Within with a new gig economy, now you have a
significant increase in people free lancing UH and non cont
(23:40):
you know, non exempt, exempting, full time employees where they're
working for themselves, free lancing, what have you. So I
think we want to see a huge upstick in that UM.
So blending in blending that all in together, I think
there's going to be more onus and accountability on the
individual to take care of themselves UM and the health perspective.
And there's a lot of great tools out there now
that you can do that. UM. You can access and
(24:02):
using podcasts like this one. Try to eat a little
bit better, try to change that habit, try to move
your body every day. But I think help is a
new wealth, and I think people will come to see
that more and more. Hopefully before you know, you have
a health detriment. But just take care of your body
because it really is the greatest asset you have. And
I love the fact that this podcast is I mean,
it's different from the ones I've done in the past
(24:24):
because it's showing that, Yeah, taking care of your body
is great. You want to go fit into a bikini
or a swimsuit before you go to Vegas or to
the Bahamas with your friends. That's obviously that's important to
a lot of people, or being able to run around
with your kids or whatever. But by doing that, by
taking care of your body, you're also protecting your brain
for the future. You're also hopefully you're minimizing your risk
(24:46):
for things down the road. Yeah, I like to see
you making a deposit into your health bank. And that's
that's that's what we do every day, the little things
that work all right, Well, if people want to find
out more about you, maybe they want to pick up
your book, where could we say into people? Sure, you
can go to Amazon. You can find my web page.
They're exercises for a brainhouse, exercise for perfect posture just
(25:07):
came out. Um. I also have a blog called Jersey
grind dot com that I just put up about two
months ago on Workplace Workplace Resources. Thank you. I know
you have a ton of things you've gotta get to today,
but thank you for making some time and hanging out
with me on the Workout Wednesday podcast. It was a pleasure.
Thanks for having me as your guest today. All right,
next week, I believe that my guest is going to
be Shawn Ty from a Beach Body. He's got the
(25:29):
Insanity DVDs Instanding Max thirty sean week. His books for
Transformation is out as well. I've had him on the
Morning Show a couple of times. I had him on
the Workout Wednesday video. He's one of the most motivational
people you'll ever come across. So if you've got questions
for Shawn t whether it's motivation questions, fitness questions, diet questions,
(25:50):
whatever it is, hit me up at worst Anthony, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter,
or just a shooting email to my Day Friday show
at Gmail. I will see you next week. Good luck
on whatever journey you are on, and thank you as
always for spending some time with me on the Workout
Wednesday podcast. Shanika Analytic Business Solutions CABS twenty twenty, Washington
(26:12):
Post top workplace is looking for professionals like you in
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E G A A B S dot com to learn more.
Shanika Analytic Business Solutions CABS, Washington Post top workplace is
looking for professionals like you in the Green Belt, Maryland
area to join its team. CABS specializes in engineering and
I T for federal agencies and offers a competitive benefits
package and an appreciation for work life balance. Does this
sound like a good fit for you your career? Their mission?
(00:22):
Fulfill the mission and apply for your next career move today.
Visit c H E N E G A A b
S dot com to learn more. Welcome to the Workout
Wednesday podcast. It is what the hell is Today's day, Wednesday,
(00:43):
March one. Thank you for hanging out with me. So
today's podcast it's pretty cool because it's something I know
very very little about the relationship between your physical health,
um and taking care of your brain and your mental health.
So I'm just I'm not even gonna waste time. I'm
going to say good morning to today's guest Will Smith. Hey,
(01:04):
how you doing? Anthony? And great great tomtas who will
in the virtual world after the radio podcast world. Um,
why don't you first just kind of explain what you
do and kind of what your goals are what you do.
My background is in exercise physiology. I've worked at in
all levels of health and wellness. I was a full
time personal trainer for fifteen years, but if you want
(01:26):
to include even going back to high school when I
started doing exercise orientations at my local y m c
A and Battle Creek, Michigan, where I grew up, probably
closer to twenty five years, including college and graduate school UM.
There After college, I moved to New York, lived in
Denver full hour for twin cycling and fitness, designing, staining
programs and bikes and what have you. Moved to New
(01:47):
York in the thousand range, was a full time personal
trainer at very high end Leite Health Club. Did a
lot of personal training, worked with special populations people at
work to PDA tissues post REHABU ended up going onto
a division one level that was an assistant director of
strength conditioning at a major university. Ended up starting my
(02:08):
own business and special populations and UM. And then I
made a little bit of a career pivot a few
years ago, about six years ago, and I moved entirely
into healthcare, which now in a day to day basis.
I helped companies UM with my background and also the
resources of the health care system I work with provide
health and wellness programs on site to their employees. So
(02:29):
a lot of what we're going to talk about today
has to do with that kind of overall sense of
well being in the physical, mental, and the factors that
play into overall help. And you've got a lot of
things on your on your resume. Yeah, yeah, I would
say if anybody is a career track health and wellness professional,
it's probably me. I love this because I don't know
a lot about this subject. I know that, yes, working
(02:51):
out is good for you. I've heard that working out
is good for you mentally too, But outside of that,
I don't really know the connection between physics, all fitness
and kind of mental health. We look at our brain, Um,
you know, we have a central and personal nervous system.
Our central nervous system is pretty much our brain and
our spinal cord our perphile nervous system is everything that
kind of shoots out to the arms of the legs
(03:13):
and um, you know, taking it a layer higher. Uh,
we know that, for example, how interconnected the body is,
you know, the brain and the gut, the gas fro
intestinal system. G I track a lot of people don't
know actually have more nerve endings UM and can be
more responsive in that way than the brain is. So
in many ways that the g I track and the
stomach is much smarter UM than the brain is. UM.
(03:33):
What is the information behind that. Let's say, if you're
on the subway in New York, you know if that's
because I'm how to go into city, want to right? UM?
If you feel something, if you feel somebody behind you,
you feel you've got tightened up, or if you run
across the street and your gut tightens up, that's the
nervous system, the gut sensing UM a stress fight or
flight syndrome before the brain even responds. So I think
(03:55):
it's just a one fact or one point that the
body is entirely interconnected, and everything we do affects everything
else that only people say you have like a gut
feeling or gut reaction. That's kind of where that comes from. Absolutely,
And so there's all these other little things in the body,
like you have UM curves in the feet, the pelvis,
the diaphragm, the roof of the mouth, and as we age,
(04:17):
all those tends of flatten out and people don't realize, Hey,
you know, one of the reasons people are very poor
balanced when they're getting older, for example, it's because their
feet to flatten out to some degree. The big toe,
for example, is one of the most important joints in
the body. So um as we age, which we're talking
about mental health today, um as we age, if you
don't have let's see, a good big toe joint, for example,
(04:38):
your balance can be extremely off regardless of how your
brain help is and all those facts that go into
your nervous system. So um those little things, a little
nuances are really important. So as we start talking about
you know that mentical hueage today and attachment physical fitness,
I just want to give that back talk about today
is really connected. Well okay, so then why does it
matter for my brain if I'm I stay active and
(05:00):
stay kind of in motion. Why why does that hurt? Um?
One of the things I know that my my publishing
authors sent out with the press release was that connection
of some new studies I came out recently on you know,
mental health Alzheimer's dementia, which is a syndrome syndrome men
includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in vascular dementia. Now getting to
your point about how brain health and physical fitness are connected. Um,
(05:24):
we have things called primary dementias, and we have something
called the secondary dementia. So primary would be like Alzheimer's
vascular dementia, which are often linked to strokes, and then
we have something called secondary dementia, which is more Parkinson's
and movement related. So some of the recent information literature
that's come out, particularly UM in the vascular dementia field
that links strokes and cardiovascular disease, indicates that people are
(05:48):
um more likely to develop mild and potentially severe cognitive
issues as they age UM and in some cases developing
early onset or early cognitive deficiencies even in their thirties
and forties. And the reason for that is entirely not entirely,
but a lot has to do with controllable risk factors.
So UM point in case, the literature starting to indicate
(06:11):
that when we have traditionally thought that low intensity exercise
was you know, the end all, like get out and
move your body every day. That is still a good recommendation.
But now what they're finding too, and you see this
a lot in these train programs are out there like
the fartlet training and interval training, and it's all relative
to your age and your level of conditioning. But they're
finding that is if you increase your level of intensity,
(06:33):
especially on a cardiovascular level, a little bit more like
that moderate or even a little bit more, you can
actually increase the strength of your heart at a more
rapid rate, the lasticity of your blood vessels, which can
deliver nutrient and oxygen flow to your brain, which is
really important for brain health. By staying active and maybe
taking it up a notch, taking it from that low
(06:53):
level intensity to maybe a moderate or just above moderate,
if you're able to do that, By doing that, you're
just kind of giving your brain the nutrients and the
sustenance it needs to stay functioning at a high level.
Of that what I'm like hearing, that's absolutely and I would,
you know, if I can springboard off to that point.
So I think that's a really good point about staying
a high level. You don't have to just stimulate your
(07:14):
cardiovascular system or your cardio respiratorial muscular system just by
doing a robic exercise. I mean, you talk about the
muscular system, you can still stimulate your heart rate. Um
improvements in your resting cart rate, which means your pulse
rate drops at a resting rate. By doing things like
strength training, UM, that circuit training at the gym, doing
interval training where you lets you do three or four
(07:35):
primary body parts and then you take a break, and
then if you get in better shape, what ends up
happening is you can decrease your rest time between each
of those UM kind of circuit stations. So it's not
always about the type of exercise. It would be that
you would want to manipulate the weight the rest time.
Using your body weight is some of the best form
of training you can do walking up and down hills, UM,
(07:58):
breaking up, tearing a conversation on with the person next
to you, but then breaking it up a little bit
by increasing the intensity, UM, by by just walking a
little bit faster, UM. But all that, all these things
really work together. And I think the point is is
that most people out there, I would say, of the population,
cannot afford UM. And I say this very respectfully. Be said,
a lot of friends are still full time trainers in
(08:19):
the field. A lot of people cannot afford a full
time person or an expensive gym or other things where
honestly you're not always getting a better level of service.
You might get a more one on one level experience,
but you may not get that level of service that
is commenced with the price. So that's that's why telehealth
(08:39):
and all these resources we're talking about today are really
really important for the average person out there that just
wants to improve their health. Well, what was the last
thing you just mentioned health? Um, some of the more
recent development in health delivery, we talk about teletone and
things on the spaining bikes and what have you. But UM,
the way that the way the whole kind of healthcare
delivery field now is heloping is that, UM, we have
(09:01):
things like telehealth where you can log on and you
can talk to your doctor all about cost control and
what have you. So UM, I would I would see
that being one of the most important things in the
future is the delivery of good, solid, respectable content that
people can rely on in a convenient and accessible manner.
So I think we're just seeing the beginning of that.
(09:22):
I feel like you don't really worry about your your
cognitive abilities or your mental health until you're a little older,
because it's not something you think of when you're young, right,
So for someone who maybe a little older, it might
be like, oh, I'm not as sharp as I once was,
or maybe I'm just I just don't feel like it
feels a little cloudy up there. What is something that
(09:43):
someone can do if they haven't been active for a
while and they want to make sure that they stop
wasting their time and they start today and they're like,
I'm going to do something to kind of help my
body or make my body help my brain. What is
like a quick exercise, maybe a body weight type of
thing that someone can do without going to a gym
or without spending a ton of money on a trainer. Sure,
(10:04):
so you know, I hate to make it it's simple,
but at the end of the day, it's about getting
these many muscles working together at one time. So, for example,
the old stalwart, the body weights, squat um, the dead lift,
those types of things work major muscles, major joints. They
get a lot of blood floats of flowing through the body.
(10:24):
Now and again, going back to the point made earlier
about the interconnectingness of the body, if you just start
with something is simple, I hate again, just really simple,
just like a squat even if you're not doing anything
now start with just five to ten squads today and
then do that every other day. UM. The American college
sports medicine generally recommends about a hundred and fifty minutes
of exercise per week. That's about thirty minutes a day.
(10:45):
That doesn't seem too bad. It doesn't seem bad, and
you don't have to do all thirty minutes at one time.
You could do a fifteen minutes in the morning, and
you could do fifteen minutes at night. And again, this
is all about breaking it up and making it work
for you. So the larger still say you can get
involved a squat those types of things. You're working your
muscle masses located in your lower body. I don't know
(11:07):
keep most people know that. So when you work those
lower body muscles, you're attacking your heart. You can attach
your brain because your brain has to stabilize your body
forward and backwards and activate the muscles in a coordinated matter.
Those things are really important. Plus sets and activity of
daily living. You're probably squatting and you don't even realize it.
Every day. Well mean, if you're getting up and sitting
down in a chair, you're kind of doing that same action.
(11:28):
Absolutely getting out of the car. Ye I know that
you mentioned you know, you could do fifte minutes in
the morning, fifteen minutes at night. There is a podcast
I did a couple of weeks ago and it was
about the Tobatta Handbook and it was all these different
Tobata workouts and just as a quick aside, if anyone
wants to go back and listen to that, those are
sixteen minute exercises you can do. If you're in a
time crunch, you could grab all of those and do that.
I know you have a book actually though it's Exercises
(11:50):
for the Brain right for brain health, sorry, exercises for
Exercises for Brain healthy. If I was if I just
saw the title, like, okay, my are these physical exercises
of doing brain activities? Like what do I find in
that book? That's a great question. So they exercise is
for brain health, kits on a little bit of everything.
And again my scope of practice, I'm part of the
care continuum, if you will, that the personal trainer, the
(12:12):
health professional that is with you. I like to say,
the other nine of time, after you get done with
your doctor, after you they don't your physical therapist or
any of that acute care stuff. You might need. We're
we're the people that are out there educating and teaching
people essentially how to get healthy and be independent with
independent functionally healthy wise. Now, if you go to the book,
(12:33):
we try to represent a lot of those principles in
the book, so very very pointed point of examples. So
we give you some mental exercising that book. We talk about,
you know, simple things like counting up and counting down um.
For some of you who have severe cognist function maybe
this function, maybe they have a Alzheimer's or vance Alzheimer's,
we could start something simple like counting backwards, counting up
(12:54):
from seven by seven, or counting backwards from seven from
like you know, seventy or us. If somebody really wants
to work in the brain, they could start counting backwards
from about um. Simple things like that. Creating lists uh
that that to help with time management. We talked about
those types of things. On the physical side, we talked
about very simple exercises that like um, like working working
(13:17):
the back of the body, working the muscles that are
important with pasture where in Parkinton's tends to have a
forward flex posture. We're teaching people how to stand up
straight we're talking about simple things like deceleration movements, and
a simple example of that is walking down the steps
and controlling your body weight as you walk down the steps,
because that works your body in a different manner then
(13:37):
you would normally use it. You know what's funny. I
used to do a like an intense leg workout. Walking
up the stairs was easy, that was fine. I never
had an issue with that. It was that first moment
when I walked down the steps and realized how wobbily
everything was because my muscles were so sore, and that
would not always scare the crap out of me. Yeah,
that's what we call that stretched lengthening reflex, where you're
(14:00):
going down the stairs and you're learning to control your
body weight very slowly. That's actually one of the most
important pieces of injury preventions for any age. It's controlling
your joints like that. Yeah. Does diet come into play
here at all? Yeah, So the diet is very interesting one. Again,
I'm not a dietation or nutritionists, but I can definitely
touch on that because it's in the book. I think
some of the most important things that go along the
(14:21):
idea of nutrition is um When we live in a
very uh. I would say an inundated society where we're
kind of environmentally with chemicals and the variety of things
that we're inundated with every single day in our foods,
in our food system and what have you. So I
would say, try to drink. Number one, try to drink
as much water as possible, you know, assuming you don't
(14:42):
have some kind of you know, um, you know, salt tissue,
hypernitrain me or something like that. Try to drink a
lot of water. That's number one. Number two is we
want to try to decrease the amount of oxidating stress
in the body. That means the inflammatory state. So leafy grain, vegetables,
stuff with omega three's omega six is like um all
man and uh, you know, UM, olive oils, those types
(15:03):
of things UM are very very important. UM. A lot
of fruits, a lot of vegetables UM are very good
to UM. Lean proteins are great, uh wavering towards like salmon,
which has great um fat in it. Not as your
only protein source, but those are good things to take
in every day. UM. And there's actually been a connection
just don in the side, there's actually been connection with
(15:25):
people who drink tea and coffee of actually lowering their
risk of developing Parkinson's UM. So that that is there's
some really interesting research out there. Or encourage your audience
is actually if they have a family history. So I
actually and this is I love everything that you mentioned
because I think I have someone on the podcast who
has mentioned a lot of those points. Like I think
(15:46):
the last podcast, if I remember correctly, was someone who
was on here talking about an anti inflammatory diet, and
then a couple of weeks prior to that, there was
I had someone on who was talking about how something
as simple as green tea or oolong tea can really
help kind of sustain energy in keep you going um
and help your metabolism. So it's it's cool that you're
talking about all those little things. And then the water
topic I think is so interesting because kind of on
(16:08):
a whim. When I first started this podcast the first
week of this year, the goal was, Okay, let's add
one thing to everyone's week during through this podcast that
if they do this all week long, they make it
a habit, then next week will add something on top
of it or takes something away. If that's if it's
a bad habit, and the first thing I said was
actually to drink the right amount of water. And it's
an impressive how many experts like yourself have come on
(16:31):
here and said drinking the right amount of water is
one of the most basic things you can do for
your overall health. Well, when you think about it, now,
you persending your cells or water, your body masks and
the remaining masses water. And when not only from a
just a hydration standpoint where you feel like you're not,
you know, dehydrated, if you will um just drinking that
(16:52):
for mental acuity, you'll be amazed by if you drink
more water, how much more awake and alert and everything
else you'll be. And then the other thing, I really
like what you mentioned about habits. Habits are the most
little little changes. It doesn't have to be macro changes.
Their micro changes every single day. It takes like what
twenty one days to twenty five days, will we change
a habit? If you just change one thing every day,
(17:15):
that's positive, it can make all the difference. Well, that's
kind of the whole point of this podcast is learning
just a little bit. I don't do I think that
there's a person out there who's gonna listen to this
specific episode, I remember every single word you or I say, honestly,
probably not. But if a hundred people, even if it's
just a hundred people can listen and take one thing
away that they happen to carry with them for the
(17:37):
rest of the month and that becomes a habit, then
we both kind of did a decent thing. Yeah, totally
totally on board with that. Absolutely. And um, I've started
downloading like meditation apps and stuff. Do you find that
matters at all in terms of kind of like overall
brain health, brain and mental health or anything like that
where I where? Well, first of all, I think I
(17:58):
think everybody needs something a little different there to have
a change. Um, I know there's a whether it transcendental,
transcendental or transcendental meditation. I always trouble it back that
a lot of celebrities and you know, thought leader CEO
S what have you do that every day asn't matter
of practice. I think my approach to that is everyone
needs a little downtime, Everyone needs to unplug, and everyone
(18:22):
needs a point where they can take all those distractions out.
And I did this last week on one a vacation
with my family, and we I barely looked at my
phone and it was I focused in on two things,
you know, my family time every day and then UM
and then just you know, moving my body every day.
Those were the two things. And for me, that was
almost meditated. That was almost cathartic because I took away
(18:44):
all the distractions. So I think, going back to your question,
I think meditation is awesome. I think it's it's a key.
Not maybe not everybody needs to do it, but I
think it could be de breathing, it could be meditation,
it could be focusing on something very important for a
short period of time in the morning where there's no distraction.
I think that's the key. Um. To make it a
daily habit, just do it every day. Whatever it is, Well,
(19:07):
let's um, let's give you the opportunities. Normally I give
give out this random thing that I kind of think of, like, oh,
this could be cool, or if people do this every week,
or if this could be cool if someone removes this
from their their life every day, if you can wave
a magic wand and give everyone this one thing that
they would do every day, Is there something you can
think of off the top of your head, Like I
wish everyone just added this and it would help them
(19:27):
physically and mentally. Absolutely, I would say, and again, just
going back through the simple squat idea, it's not a squat,
but move your body every day. I know it doesn't.
You can eat all you want, you can do everything
you want, but just move your body for five to
thirty minutes every single day. If you can do that,
(19:48):
just get out there and move. Raise your heart rate up,
raise your breathing rate up. I think you will find
it will domino effect into everything else. Your interactions with
people will be more positive in some way because you
will have taken care of that self care piece for yourself.
You probably will naturally drink a little bit more water
because you'll be more thirsty. Move your body every day.
If I had to do one thing, just move your
(20:09):
body every day. I love that you brought up the
interactions with people because I thought I was weird originally.
If I didn't get a workout or whatever, I would
just I would actually get like kind of grump being angry.
And what I then realized was, hey, I'm not the
only person that feels that way. Um, but a lot
of that was just a stress reliever for me, Like
if I can go to the gym. It's kind of
(20:29):
my meditation because for the most part, if I'm doing
if I'm doing it properly, I'm not looking at my
phone that often. I'm usually I'm just using my phone
to kind of track the workout. So it gives me
that downtime from all of the different factors that come
shooting at you with its emails, text notifications from whatever app.
And then I it is also a stress reliever because
you're you're getting out some of that frustration physically. So
I do like the fact that you brought that up
(20:50):
that you can actually be in a better mood by
moving a little bit more during the day, I think,
I think fitness or just moving, I think health is
a great way to create social glue between people. I mean,
we see this in the gig economy now. A lot
of the gig economy is about developing relationships with people.
We see it in you know, Facebook, private chat rooms
and all these things where people come together for a
common cause or a reason. I think everyone kind of
(21:13):
looks for that tribal component, you know, that that sense
of belonging of community. Um, but that means something for
everybody that could be a virtual that could be an
in person, that could be a professional networking group, which
you know, linked In is create the example of that.
But I think the end of the day that I
think the important teaser is that sociable that people look
to belong to something and hopefully it's something positive, because
(21:35):
I think if you do something positive, especially in the
health and movement paradigm um, it can be very positive
for you and the people around you. That's actually kind
of one of the reasons I think that podcasts and radio,
Like people always say radio has been around forever, maybe
it's dying. It's one of the reasons that podcast and
radio still do really well because you're you're listening and
you're part of something. It's very different than listening to
(21:55):
like an album in your apartment by yourself. That's kind
of your time alone. You're not part of a group necessarily,
But if you're listening to a conversation and chiming in
through social media, you're part of that tribe. Yeah, there's
a there's a familiarity, there's an interconnectingness between people who
have a common interest, a genuine common interests, and wanting
(22:15):
to join that because it's adding value to their life
in some way. Um, and I think I I totally agree.
I think radio and audio is making a comeback mean
between Alexa and the Google everything else to the world.
That's the interface because honestly, it's when people listen to stuff, right,
it still allows you in our multitasking task switching society
(22:36):
that we live in, it still allows you to do
whatever you're doing, but still listen to it. Oh yeah,
which is which is kind of interesting. You know, Well,
when I if I'm cooking in my apartment, it's hard
to watch like a Netflix show, but I can easily
put on a morning show podcast and listen to that
or a health podcast and listen to that while I'm
doing other things. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I think. I
think we're just seeing the rebirth of audio again. I
(22:58):
think audios and be then ext you know, and then
the next what television was, you know, fifty years ago.
So if people made it this long, they made it
twenty five whatever minutes into this podcast, and we're about
to let them go off into the world onto whatever
journey they're on. If there's one thing you want someone
to take away from this podcast, one lesson, one idea,
what would you want that to be I would say, uh,
(23:19):
And again I don't want to be cliche, but I
think health is the new wealth, UM, and it has
always been the new health uh. The new wealth. UH.
I think you've got people have People are becoming more
in tune with their bodies now and realizing the importance
of their health because healthcare costs are out of control.
Within with a new gig economy, now you have a
significant increase in people free lancing UH and non cont
(23:40):
you know, non exempt, exempting, full time employees where they're
working for themselves, free lancing, what have you. So I
think we want to see a huge upstick in that UM.
So blending in blending that all in together, I think
there's going to be more onus and accountability on the
individual to take care of themselves UM and the health perspective.
And there's a lot of great tools out there now
that you can do that. UM. You can access and
(24:02):
using podcasts like this one. Try to eat a little
bit better, try to change that habit, try to move
your body every day. But I think help is a
new wealth, and I think people will come to see
that more and more. Hopefully before you know, you have
a health detriment. But just take care of your body
because it really is the greatest asset you have. And
I love the fact that this podcast is I mean,
it's different from the ones I've done in the past
(24:24):
because it's showing that, Yeah, taking care of your body
is great. You want to go fit into a bikini
or a swimsuit before you go to Vegas or to
the Bahamas with your friends. That's obviously that's important to
a lot of people, or being able to run around
with your kids or whatever. But by doing that, by
taking care of your body, you're also protecting your brain
for the future. You're also hopefully you're minimizing your risk
(24:46):
for things down the road. Yeah, I like to see
you making a deposit into your health bank. And that's
that's that's what we do every day, the little things
that work all right, Well, if people want to find
out more about you, maybe they want to pick up
your book, where could we say into people? Sure, you
can go to Amazon. You can find my web page.
They're exercises for a brainhouse, exercise for perfect posture just
(25:07):
came out. Um. I also have a blog called Jersey
grind dot com that I just put up about two
months ago on Workplace Workplace Resources. Thank you. I know
you have a ton of things you've gotta get to today,
but thank you for making some time and hanging out
with me on the Workout Wednesday podcast. It was a pleasure.
Thanks for having me as your guest today. All right,
next week, I believe that my guest is going to
be Shawn Ty from a Beach Body. He's got the
(25:29):
Insanity DVDs Instanding Max thirty sean week. His books for
Transformation is out as well. I've had him on the
Morning Show a couple of times. I had him on
the Workout Wednesday video. He's one of the most motivational
people you'll ever come across. So if you've got questions
for Shawn t whether it's motivation questions, fitness questions, diet questions,
(25:50):
whatever it is, hit me up at worst Anthony, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter,
or just a shooting email to my Day Friday show
at Gmail. I will see you next week. Good luck
on whatever journey you are on, and thank you as
always for spending some time with me on the Workout
Wednesday podcast. Shanika Analytic Business Solutions CABS twenty twenty, Washington
(26:12):
Post top workplace is looking for professionals like you in
the Green Belt, Maryland area to join its team. CABS
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