Episode 12: Interview with Dr. Ryan Mason from UK Health and Wellness

In this episode, College and Career Studies student Jacob Tipton interviews Dr. Ryan Mason, Assistant Fitness Manager for UK Health and Wellness. In this conversation, we hear about fitness facilities and benefits that are available for UK students, faculty, and staff – as well as some general health and wellness information. Thanks for listening!

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello,
I'm Callie and I'm Sara,
and this is Community Spotlight.
We are students in the College and Career
Studies program at UK.
This radio segment
will spotlight
different things in the local community
each week.
Thanks for listening.

(00:30):
My name is Jacob
and I am a student in the College
and Career Studies program at UK.
This semester
I have been doing a practicum class
about Universal Design.
My practicum focus
has been health and fitness.
Today I am interviewing Ryan Mason,
the Assistant Fitness Manager

(00:51):
for the UK Health and Wellness Program.
I have been helping out
at the MoveWell
Employee Fitness Center with him
this semester.
Hi Ryan, how are you doing today?
I'm doing great today.
Looking forward to wrapping up
this semester
and having a little bit
more time through the summer.
Why did you

(01:12):
decide to go
into fitness for your career?
So I was always involved in sports as,
a young child up through adolescence.
so sports
have always held
a really special place in my heart.
and whenever I came to UK,
I started taking some sport
type classes as electives and,

(01:34):
I actually didn't even know
what kinesiology was
when I came to college
and ended up discovering
that I really liked that field.
through pursuing my masters,
I found out that I really like
engaging in research
revolving around physical fitness, and,
so I decided to get a PhD
and become an exercise physiologist.

(01:56):
And, really, that's that's what
led to most of
this is my my love for sports.
Oh, cool. Thank you.
Yeah.
I feel like you like sports, too, right?
Yes.
So I feel like sports
probably is
what brought you to your interest
in physical fitness as well. Yes.
What are your certifications?
I have a PhD in exercise physiology.

(02:18):
I am a certified strength
and conditioning specialist
through the National Strength
and Conditioning Association,
and I am an
Exercise is Medicine practitioner
through the American College
of Sports Medicine.
That's good.
Are there parts of your job that happen
in other places
besides the fitness center?

(02:38):
Yeah, a lot of my job,
even though I have this expertise
in physical fitness,
is customer service based, right?
so individuals
whenever they come into the gym,
they want to see friendly faces.
They want some accountability
because they interact with people.
multiple days of the week, right?
Several of the people that come in here

(03:00):
are here Monday through Friday.
I'm here for work.
They're here to further their fitness
along this journey that they're on.
But we see each other all the time.
And so I think that,
the customer service
parts of what I do,
kind of go across the board to a lot of,
a lot of positions
that, deal
with working with the general public.

(03:22):
What kinds of things do
you do
when you are working
at the fitness center?
So I do a lot of various tasks.

One of the things that I really like
about working here,
about this position
that I'm in
is the variety of things that I do.
I do consultations with people,
I work, with individuals from clinics

(03:43):
that are sent to me
by physicians with the Exercise
is Medicine program.
We work with individuals all across,
really, I wanted to say Kentucky,
but across the United States,
because University of Kentucky employs
people remotely all across the US.
Likely in other countries as well.

(04:04):
Those individuals are eligible
for all of our remote programs,
like, MoveWell rewards,
which is an ongoing physical activity
tracker program
where we reward people
for moving more throughout the day.
I do general things,
clean equipment, work on equipment fold
and lie towels,
and really
just interact with people

(04:25):
and give them tips
and help along the way
as they pursue
this physical fitness journey.
That's great.
How do you help people with exercise?
I help people with exercise
in a lot of different ways.
Some individuals
want a very tailored program
because they have been working

(04:46):
out for a while,
and they want to get the best results
that they can.
So they come to me for my expertise.
Some individuals,
have never exercised before
and they want to get started,
but they also need a hand
on what they should be doing,
what their form looks like
for various exercises.
so really what I do here with

(05:08):
individuals
is try to meet them where they are
and then expand,
help them discover their goals,
and then work towards those goals.
That sounds good.
What is your favorite type of workout?
I have a couple different
favorite types of workouts.
I'm constantly an experiment

(05:30):
with an end of one,
so I'm always trying new workouts,
trying different, rep schemes.
even right now,
I am trying different
cadences on my lifts.
So I'm lifting a little bit slower.
So I don't necessarily have a favorite
if I had to narrow it down.
I really like heavy strength training.

(05:50):
but as of late,
that hasn't really been my goal.
So, Jacob, we've been working together
for a whole semester
now, learning different exercises.
What's your favorite exercises
or type of workout that we've been doing?
Every-everything?
We've done machines.
We've done dumbbells, free weights.

(06:11):
Bike. Yeah. You've done the bike.
Electrical machines and weights.
Okay.
What different facilities can
students go to or become a part of?
So here on campus,
all students have access to Alumni Gym
and the Johnson Center,

(06:31):
which is part of,
campus Recreation and Wellness.
But I think outside of that,
some of the opportunities for students
that are lesser known
would be some of the clubs
for opportunities.
So whenever I was an undergraduate,
when I was in my undergraduate
program here,
I participated in the UK
club rugby program.
So I think that

(06:54):
there are a lot of sports
that individuals can get involved with,
you know, at the college age
that aren't necessarily as promoted
as just
the general fitness facilities here.
What facilities and fitness
benefits does UK have for employees?

(07:14):
So I work for UK Health and Wellness
and we have a lot of benefits
available to employees.
We have the
MoveWell facility,
which is where
you've been working out with me.
We have two locations of that.
We have Export Street
and we also have a Seton Center facility.
Outside of that,
we also have our virtual programs.

(07:34):
So we have an entire database of group
fitness classes
that we've recorded
that individuals can log in
and then catch a workout from anywhere
they have internet connectivity.
Additionally,
we have the MoveWell rewards
program that I talked about previously.
That's where individuals
wear a physical activity monitor,

(07:56):
and they sync that up to our third party
consolidation program.
And we can see how physically active
they're being,
how many steps
they're getting throughout the day.
So those are the main
fitness opportunities or benefits
that are available to UK employees.
There are also a lot of other benefits
that revolve around wellness,
such as our stress

(08:17):
and resiliency coaching.
our registered dietitians
can do nutrition, advice.
And then we also have tobacco cessation
available to UK employees.
and nicotine replacement therapy
for individuals
who are on the UK health care plan.
What advice do you
have for

(08:37):
people who want to
start a fitness program
but do not know where to start?
Well, I think, really great opportunity
for individuals
who are in the UK network
or connected to UK in any way,
would be to schedule a exercise
consultation
with one of our fitness specialists.
if you are not eligible for that

(08:58):
or you're not in the UK population,
there are a lot of great resources
available as far as
the American College of Sports
Medicine puts out
their exercise guidelines,
that's a really good place to start.
or searching for,
a credentialed trainer in your area
that has a accredited

(09:19):
personal training certification.
that would be
another good place to start.
Or you could also
just start by moving more.
one of the problems that we have in
our society
today is individuals are too sedentary.
And so that's not always our fault.
We have jobs
that require us to sit in a chair
for a long time
where, you know, tied to these locations

(09:43):
for eight hours
a day, sometimes even more.
And we know that individuals
who move more
have a better outlook on longevity.
So we want people to move more.
So, a tip that I usually give people
is if you are at a desk job
and you are required to sit
for a prolonged period of time,

(10:04):
set a timer
at least once every two hours,
get up, get a drink of water,
go to the bathroom.
Just you could even
just stand up from your chair
and do a stretch.
But we want to make sure
moving more is one of the key
elements to
starting your fitness journey.
That sounds good.

(10:25):
Is there
anything that we have not discussed
that you would like to talk about?
Really,
I think I would just like to reiterate,
what I answered
from the previous question.
for the most part, we as a population
tend to look for efficiency.
We tend to look for
how do we get the most done

(10:47):
with the least amount of work.
And that's a little bit
counterintuitive to what
it actually takes to
start your fitness journey, right?
Whenever we are trying to move more,
we want to be a little less efficient.
So what I mean by that is,
if you have the opportunity
to park further away
from where you're going,
well, that's less efficient.

(11:07):
But it requires
you to move a little bit more.
So making conscious decisions like that,
another one, that individuals
talk about a lot is,
you know, if you are only going up
a couple of stories in a building,
choose to take the stairs
rather than to take the elevator.
these, these small choices
that we make throughout the day
add up to a lot of extra

(11:28):
movement throughout the day.
That's good.
What is the best way for people listening
to find out
more about UK's
health and wellness program?
The best way for individuals to find out
more about UK
health and wellness
programs would be through our UK website.
The URL for that
is hr.uky.edu/work-life-and-well-being.

(11:58):
If you don't want to type
in the entire URL,
you can do a simple Google search for
UK health and wellness,
work life and wellbeing
and it should be the first link
that pops up.
Ryan,
thank you so much
for talking with me today.
Thanks for hanging out with me
for an entire semester.
It's been a lot of fun.

(12:19):
I know I've learned a lot from you,
and hopefully you've learned a little
bit from me as well. Yep.
This has
been Community Spotlight.
Thanks for listening.