Ever wonder how a fitness coach balances grueling workouts and fatherhood? Meet Nolan Womack, a dedicated dad of four, husband, fitness coach, gym owner that's on a mission to become the fittest father of four without sacrificing time with his family.
Nolan's journey is not just inspirational, it's a testament to training with maximum crossover benefit in the least amount of time. His personal insights into setting goals, experimenting with adjustments, and working to achieve his goals are an eye-opener for anyone embarking on a fitness journey.
Nolan has a knack for consistency and his approach to breaking up workouts into digestible pieces and making fitness sustainable is an innovative way to keep fitness goals in sight. His approach that curiosity drives his personal goals, is a refreshing take on fitness. Not just that, his methods for cultivating healthy habits in his children are insightful nuggets for anyone looking to combine family and fitness.
However, it's not all about fitness. Nolan's story also delves into the delicate balancing act between achieving fitness goals while devoting quality time to family. His approach to customizing workouts, considering disciplines from CrossFit to gymnastics, and his unique perspective on the diminishing returns of time spent in the gym will have you rethinking your own fitness journey. Nolan's rich experiences and strategies will inspire you to push your boundaries and achieve your fitness goals, all while keeping family at the forefront. Tune in for an energizing conversation that will leave you motivated and better equipped to juggle fitness and family.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
not terribly long ago I was working out 42 hours a
week, so it was a full,full-time job on top of coaching
and training, because I wasjust training to be the fittest
and I realized that it wastaking a lot of time away from
the family because that's what Iwas doing all day, that's six,
seven hours a day.
During one of the competitionsI strained like five different
muscles and I went and picked myson up from school and he came
(00:23):
out of the school and he lookedup at me and he wanted to jump
on my back because typically I'dbe out there, they'd run and
jump up on me.
And he came up and he couldtell I wasn't feeling good.
He was like oh, can I jump onyour back?
And I had to tell him no.
I had to look him in the eyeand tell him no, and that broke
my heart because it's likewhat's the point of working out
42 hours a week if I can't evenhave my kid jump on my back?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
This is the ATHLETE Dad Podcast, where we explore
the intersection betweenphysical pursuits and fatherhood
.
I'm Ben Gibson, and if you'rean ambitious dad that is
pursuing or looking to pursueyour athletic passions now while
improving the way you show upat home, then this is a show for
you.
Something that we all love tosee in this community of ATHLETE
(01:12):
dads is a dad that is on amission.
Today, I'm excited to share myconversation with Nolan Womack.
Nolan is on a mission to becomethe fittest father of four yes,
four without sacrificing timewith his family, and this
conversation came at the perfecttime for me.
(01:33):
As many of you know, I just cameoff Denali about a month ago,
and this was a multi-year goalthat I had been dreaming about
and working towards for a longtime.
But once I came back from themountain, I kind of found myself
in a funk, and a big part ofthat was, I think, I was
operating without a goal infront of me, and I'm someone
that typically needs to havesomething in front of me that
(01:54):
I'm working towards at all timesto feel like I am optimizing my
time here on earth.
And since I haven't really hada goal, I've been kind of in a
funk, you know, I haven't reallyfelt motivated to get back into
the gym.
My fitness has lagged a littlebit and I've kind of just been
wandering aimlessly when itcomes to my physical pursuits.
(02:14):
And so when I had thisconversation with Nolan, you
know it was the rightconversation with the right
person at the right time.
And since having thisconversation I've really felt
like I've started to find my ownmojo again, because I know that
every day Nolan is gettingafter his goal.
If it's 4 am you better believehe's in the gym working and
(02:36):
he's got twice as many kids as Ido.
So, first off, I've got no realexcuses.
But secondly, this conversationwas so impactful because I just
love the way that he is thinking, how thoughtful and intentional
he is in the pursuit of thisgoal, even just in the way he
thinks about defining his goaland the success criteria that he
applies to his goal.
(02:57):
And so thinking about thisthoughtfulness and hearing his
approach to his goal and hearinghow he just has this amazingly
positive perspective on all ofit, you know, really just kind
of kicked things into gear forme and I think part of why we
listen to podcasts like this,part of why we're parts of
communities like this, withother men, other dads, to have
(03:20):
these rich conversations that,in a sense, kind of hold us
accountable to things that we'retrying to do ourselves.
It is because it does just that.
It helps us realize that ifthese folks can do it, then I
can do it too.
And that's not to take awayfrom anything that folks like
Nolan or any of their guestswe've had in the podcast are
doing Like.
If you've been listening, youknow that these are incredible
(03:40):
human beings, but they're alsovery real and so there's this
closeness to them, there's.
It doesn't feel like there's alot of distance between us and
our lives and them in the waythat they show up authentically
to have these conversations, andso that's why we're here.
So I want you to take thisconversation and use it as a
tool to get you where you wantto go, because some of you
(04:02):
you're already feeling motivated, you're already getting after
your goals.
So this conversation, thisepisode with Nolan, should just
add more fuel to your fire.
And if you're like me where youknow I was in a bit of a slump
and in between goals and justnot really feeling it Well, this
episode should help get thingscooking for you too.
Nolan is just an incrediblythoughtful guy and a great dad
(04:23):
who is crushing in his physicalpursuits, and so please enjoy my
wide-ranging conversation withNolan Womack.
Nolan, super pumped to have youhere.
Welcome to the athlete dad,excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I appreciate you having me here.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What I think would be most helpful for folks
listening is kind of setting thecontext of like, what does dad
life look for you?
So if we were to appeal back toCurtin and follow along with
you for a day as dad?
Like, what does dad look likefor Nolan?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So it's gonna look a little different during the
summer time and during theschool time.
Right now in the summer time Istill wake up early, I get my me
stuff done, so I have mypersonal time in the morning.
That's when I work out.
I go to work I've got since Iown a gym and I coach all day.
I'm kind of in and out of thegym for different blocks.
(05:18):
So I do the early morning blockand then I come home I wake
everybody up, cook everybodybreakfast.
Once the kids are all awake,then the whole family comes to
the gym with me for the latermorning block of when I coach.
After that middle of the day ispretty open, so we'll go run
errands and stuff, typically asa family.
Kids have a lot of free timeover the summer or we'll go for
(05:43):
a nice walk or something alongthose lines.
If the kids have an activitysometimes one of the kids in
baseball or ones in gymnasticswe'll take them to that as the
evening comes around.
Oftentimes it'll be 50-50 ifthey come back with me to the
gym again or if they all stayhome, let them kind of have
their home time.
(06:03):
Once I'm back home, then webring out video games and we
play, and we play card games andwe go play basketball outside
and just kind of try to bepresent with them and talk about
their day and how things wentin their world.
Then I normally go to bedbefore they do so.
During the summertime In theschool year it looks pretty
(06:23):
similar where I go early morning, come back, wake everybody up,
cook breakfast.
Sometimes they're up before Iget back, but then they're off
for school for the whole middleof the day.
In the evening they'lltypically come with me to the
gym, spend some family timethere.
Maybe we'll go out to dinnermore wall run into the grocery
store together then, we'll cookdinner and then kind of catch up
(06:44):
on their day as we pick them upfrom school and get into that
stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So quite a bit going on.
And you're a dad of four and Ihave to say I have two, and I am
shocked that anyone has morethan two.
The sheer logistics of havingmore than two kids has
confounded me.
So did you know you wanted tohave four kids?
Did you know you wanted to havea big family?
Or how did having four kidsunfold for you guys?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So growing up, I knew I wanted two and then my wife,
growing up, knew she wanted four.
So we compromised and we hadfour, but really we had the two.
We had them about a year and ahalf apart.
A couple years later, we haddecided like, okay, let's go
(07:31):
ahead.
My wife's window she had somethings going on where she wasn't
going to be able to have kidsforever.
I don't want to hurt havingreservations about not having
had a kid that she was hopingshe could have had.
She comes from a family of fourkids.
I come from a family of twokids, so I only have one brother
and we had two boys already andso we happened to have a
(07:52):
daughter.
Then she's a few years youngerthan the boys.
I thought we were done and wejust kind of it's like, once all
the kids were in school andthen she's like, well, she
really missed having a little, alittle her around the house.
So then we decided to haveanother kid and that's how I had
the fourth kid.
Yeah they were all planned andthey're all great.
(08:14):
It's like after every one.
I think the most stressful wasthree, because when you have one
, it's like you both can givefull attention to the one and
it's like you can overly takecare of the one.
When you have two, I think ofit as you're playing man to man,
so you each have one, and whenyou go to three, you go from man
to man to zone.
So now there's one that you maynot be able to take.
(08:38):
Like if you're focused with onekid and they're focused with
one, it's like there may be onethat's on their own.
But when you go to four, youkind of give up hope that you're
going to be able to controleverything and you just learn
how to like roll with it.
So I think four is easier thanthree.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, oh, that's an interesting perspective.
Yeah, four, I just imagine youhave to be like on a horse
corralling them around justtrying to keep them moving in
one direction.
And I think you're spot on withthe defensive coverages.
Yeah, we always thought of oneas like I got a safety over the
top, Like we're totally good,and then man to man and then
zone, and yeah, I think that'sprobably you know, I think just
(09:16):
getting kids out the door, justthinking about four, that's.
That's that specifically is mymy you know confusion spot right
there.
But that's awesome, man, soundslike you have a ton going on.
And tell us a little bit moreabout your background and what
you do for work right now as agym owner.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, so my background is I've been a
personal trainer for almost 15years.
I did it part time for a longtime and then dove into it more
full time.
I used to run a backflowtesting company, so a whole
different thing.
After that, though, we hadmoved down to a town, didn't
(09:56):
know a lot of people.
I started helping coach at oneof the gyms in the area, started
meeting people.
That way I knew that I wantedto coach people.
I knew I wanted to be able tohelp people.
I'd done a lot of differentthings in in fitness, had
dabbled in a lot of differentstuff, from CrossFit to movement
(10:16):
based stuff like capoeira andgymnastics and calisthenics to
bodybuilding and strong man andpretty much the whole gamut of
everything.
So I knew how to help peoplewith their goals.
I'd got to the point where Iwas 217, trying to get to 250.
I lost 40 extra pounds of bodyfat and kept it off for like six
(10:38):
, seven years now.
So know how to help people,kind of manipulate their body
weight to get to a healthy rangeand just kind of wanted to find
a way to help share.
So when I started helping coach, I knew I wanted to open a gym.
But there's.
We're in a small town, sothere's already a gym in the
area.
There's a couple other gymsthat are more for just access
(11:00):
but not really coaching, and oneof my friends told me, like hey
, you're in a new area, don'tstep on toes.
That's why I started helpingout by just coaching there, and
after being there for a couplemonths, that was the beginning
of 2020.
So all the shutdown startedhappening from there.
That gym owner was kind of onthe way out, and so they just
(11:21):
approached us, was like hey,would you be interested in
taking over?
And naturally that's what Iwanted to do.
So it was a great opportunity.
But we told him only whenthings can open back up.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So a few months later things could open back up.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
But then we took on that risk and started it From
there.
What we do now is we startedoff with like a class model.
A lot of gyms run that.
People come in and it's like alesson in fitness and you start
with the warmup and you have allthe different things and
everybody goes through the samething.
We used to do that, but then wefound everybody coming in had
(11:56):
just a little bit differentgoals and they had different
needs anyways.
So somebody would come in withlike an ankle sprain and they
had a totally rewrite theworkout for this person.
Or this person didn't careabout getting faster at this
workout or necessarily evengetting stronger, they just
wanted to move better.
So I was like, okay, how do wecater their workouts to them
(12:19):
Instead of saying, well, youhave to do this because that's
what the workout is for theclass.
So then we opened the model upto just kind of coaching hours
and now everybody comes in forpersonalized training in a group
setting.
So it's a little more open flowin there.
But it's a private gym would be,I guess, the best way to
describe it.
People come in and they have apersonalized training program
(12:43):
that they go through alongsideother people.
So it's a pretty friendlyenvironment compared to a global
gym where you go in everybody'splugged in and just trying to
do their thing and those aregreat.
It's kind of a hybrid betweenthose different models.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, dude, that's a really great idea.
I don't know that I've everseen that in any gym and I don't
know if that's like a commonframework for gyms to use, but I
think that's so smart for somany reasons.
Like one, I think you hit on itLike a lot of people want the
classes because there'saccountability, there's the
camaraderie and thesocialization aspect of it, but
everyone needs thatpersonalization to really get
(13:21):
what they want out of theworkout.
I've definitely gone to myshare of just group classes and,
yeah, you're sort of just likeon the literal treadmill, just
with everybody else doing thesame thing and there's very
little customization.
So that customization piece iscool and I love that.
You keep talking about goals,not just with your life, but
with all these other folks, andso it seems like there's a
(13:42):
really big emphasis on thisfitness.
The gym, that's the vehiclethat you're using to help people
reach their goals, whateverthat may be.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, because their goals.
I mean that's the whole motivebehind why they're even looking
at working out.
So the very first step is westart everyone off with like a
consultation, just to learn whythey even want to go to a gym.
And sometimes the answer issuper surprising.
Sometimes you think you knowwhat the answer is going to be
and it's not what you expect.
Some of the clients we have oneof them is trained into be a
(14:14):
ranger in the army.
Wants trained in to be an elitelevel like competitor in the
sport of fitness.
Some people are just trained into lose 300 pounds.
Some people are working on theyjust recently had a hip
replacement so we're working ongetting them mobility back in
through the rest of their bodyto avoid other future surgeries.
(14:36):
It's pretty cool to see allthese different people coming
together and the way theysupport each other because they
all have a goal.
This is common ground where,even though their goals are
different, they're all workingtowards a goal.
So everybody supports eachother because they understand
the goals that everybody'sworking towards.
So goals are definitely kind ofthe foundation of what we do.
(14:56):
It makes sense when you wonderwell, why are we doing this?
Why do I have to be on thetreadmill?
Well, if you understand whyyou're being on the treadmill
and how it relates to your goal,then you don't have to stay
disciplined so much to get onthe treadmill because you want
to get on the treadmill.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And I love the spectrum of goals yeah, somebody
wanting to be an Army Ranger tosomebody else dealing with
navigating post hip replacementand everybody there to support
each other.
That's awesome.
I mean you, in a way, with whatyou're doing with your own
personal goal, I think are doingsomething similar where you're
creating this community ofparents, dads, moms, everybody
(15:37):
else that is either.
That is kind of like byfollowing, supporting you and
your goal, but in the rich valueyou're delivering, supporting
everybody else and their goalsand that's one of the reasons I
was so pumped to talk to you isyour big mission become the
fittest out of four and I lovethat.
There's like a new part of ittoo, and we'll want to talk
about that.
But help everyone understandwhat is the mission that you are
(16:00):
currently on yourself with yourown fitness.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
So I'm training to be thefittest father of four without
sacrificing time with my family.
I've come to understand thatthis is your ability to do
something, so you are fit for atask and I'm not.
As a dad especially I don'tcare about being the world's
best bench presser, so I caremore about the general list for
(16:26):
like framework for training thanI do about the specialist kind
of stance.
So I'm not trying to be thebest at any one thing, but I
care about being able to keep upwith my kids and my future
grandkids in whatever thingsthey care about.
So if they want to playbasketball, I want to be just as
good at basketball as Ipossibly can.
If they decided soccer, if theydecided wrestling, I want to be
(16:48):
able to keep up with whateverit is they want to do.
If they decide they want tohike Denali, like I want to be
able to be there.
So for my training that lookedlike okay, that fitness just
comes down to ability, and Irealized everybody has ability
and everybody can improve theirability.
So with my training it'slooking like I want the maximum
(17:12):
crossover benefit on generalability with the least amount of
time and I found it's easierfor me.
I've dabbled with a lot overthe years.
So not terribly long ago I wasworking out 42 hours a week, so
it was a full, full time job ontop of coaching and training 42
(17:33):
hours a week because I was justtraining to be the fittest and I
realized that it was taking alot of time away from the family
because that's what I was doingall day, that's six, seven
hours a day.
And then I realized during oneof the competitions I strained
like five different muscles andI went and picked my kid up, my
(17:54):
son up, from school and he cameout of the school and he looked
up at me and he wanted to jumpon my back because typically I'd
be out there, they'd run andjump up on me.
And he came up and he couldtell I wasn't feeling good.
He's like oh, can I jump onyour back?
And I had to tell him no.
I'd look him in the eye andtell him no and that broke my
heart because it's like what'sthe point of working out 42
hours a week if I can't evenhave my kid jump on my back?
(18:16):
So then I got help and tookcourses and seminars and got
certs and like, read books anddid all the training and stuff I
could find, hired PT's andother coaches for me and got as
much help as I could get andlearn a whole different approach
to training that focuses moreon, like the joints out.
(18:36):
So everybody has everybody withan elbow.
Your elbow opens and closes, itflexes and extends and there's
certain muscles and tissues thatgo around the elbow and if you
can strengthen those tissues andresearch shows you can
strengthen the tendons.
It takes longer for tendons toadapt than muscles but you can
strengthen those tendons andyour elbow is just better at
(19:00):
opening and closing, howeverthat looks like, whether it's
climbing a mountain or if it'sdoing rope climbs or pull ups or
if it's carrying groceries.
So focusing my training ontendon based work has given me
more crossover, more carryoverto other pursuits with less time
.
I'm able to focus on less otherstuff because I have more
(19:23):
structural adaptation.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, man, I mean, I think that anyone that has been
involved in some sort of fitnessgoal has definitely been there
where you're just spendingungodly amounts of time Doing it
, probably unnecessary amountsof time, to a point where I
think I certainly know I'vepushed past, like the point
where you know I started toexperience diminishing returns
(19:46):
on the time I was spending in agym.
I love the specificity, I lovethat you had a very, you know,
noble, compelling goal of beingthe fittest, but that through
that moment of sort of like Iwas think people do things out
of either inspiration ordesperation and that moment of
desperation of like man, this is, this, is not serving me
anymore you got more specificwithin that goal and it created
(20:10):
something that I'm sure was likeso much more meaningful and so
much more beneficial for you.
And yeah, I was curious aboutthe other piece of, because I
noticed in the beginning it'sthe fittest data for.
And then there became theaddition of without sacrificing,
you know, time with family,which I absolutely love tell me
about.
But where did that come intothis specific goal?
(20:30):
Like did you find yourself Loanit again?
Or like, what did that looklike?
Speaker 1 (20:35):
so that came in Because with recording some of
my training and getting itposted and trying to share that
it takes.
It takes me like I'm prettyslow at recording and editing,
so it takes me like an hour totwo a day longer than it should,
and so that means in the middleof the day I'd sneak off into
the garage or in the bedroom andtry to like make the voice over
(20:56):
and get it posted On top of theother training I was doing.
And at the time I was like, hey, I still doing some of the
different style of training.
But I was involved.
My dad and I were going to do atriathlon.
So I was like, okay, I have howmuch of this other energy
system work do I need to do andkeep up with that, to like just
crush this triathlon?
(21:16):
But you could just see thelooks on their face and I told
him like alright, guys, we'regoing to go for a Sunday fun run
.
And they were just like Dad, dowe have to?
Like?
Like yeah, and typically like ahalf hour into it they'd have
fun.
But when it got to the pointthey were dreading doing it.
(21:37):
I was like, okay, I don't wantthem to have.
That example, is like Fitnessis something you have to dread
and they weren't having fun withthat anymore.
So then we started, we mixed itup a little bit, where we start
going off trail and like climbtrees and play around with it.
It wasn't the intended workoutI wanted, so that drove me a
little bit.
Came to this dichotomy of dothe workout that ultimately I
(21:58):
want because it gets theminvolved, or do the workout I'm
trying to do because it'sfocused on my goal.
So that was like, okay, that'sfine, well, we'll do what they
want to do.
They're gonna have fun with it,that's gonna be more
sustainable.
But there would be eveningswhere I'd have to go to the pool
because the swimming times sobe staying up late at night.
We'd all go break from whateverwe're doing because I had to go
(22:20):
swim.
And there'd be other timeswhere I'd be on the bike for two
hours getting zone to work inand I just be sitting in
pedaling and they want to goplay basketball and it's like,
well, I love to play basketball,but I already did my impact
stuff and I need to just getthis heart and lung work in, and
so you could just see, yeah, itwas really came down to looks
(22:40):
on their faces where it's likewhen they started not being
excited about stuff.
That's when I kind of took alittle hiatus and I didn't post
a whole lot because I had toredefine what I was really
looking for out of it and I'd atinker with some things to see
how can I get that maximumcrossover effect with less time.
And now I do most of myworkouts early morning.
(23:06):
So I'm usually at the gym like345 in the morning and it only
takes me 30 minutes to an hour.
So typically like right at 45minutes and the kids are asleep,
I'm gone, I'm done.
They see that I'm still workingout.
I thought it used to be superimportant.
They saw me walk the walk and Istill think it's important.
(23:26):
But to take the time in themiddle of the day when we go out
to lunch and when we're goingand running errands and to say,
hey, no, this has to be timethat we all have to work out,
there's some pushback there, sofigured, ok, I know I'll stay
consistent if I work out in themorning.
They watch my YouTube videos,they watch the Instagram reels
and they watch all of that stuff.
So they still see me doing thethings.
(23:48):
So that's still cool.
Yeah but it just became moreimportant.
That's look, I'm gonna Maximizemy ability so become the
fittest father of four, withoutsacrificing that time with them,
because that's just time youdon't get back.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right, I love that and I love that you iterated on
the process here.
You weren't just like, well,kids, this is what we're doing,
get on board, I'm gonna be thefittest dad.
It's like, ok, yeah, this isn'tworking, let's let's reevaluate
our goal, let's make sure thatwe're Aligned with that purpose
again, and then iterating,tweaking, to make it work.
(24:24):
And I think that's Such animportant part of being a dad
and showing up in two worlds theway we want to show up, of like
I want to show up and meet myfitness goals, my athletic goals
.
I want to pursue these things,but like I don't want it to come
at the expense Of the family,or yeah, or have like skiing
with dad be a burden, somethingwhere it's like we're all gonna
(24:45):
go ski and we're gonna have agood time and like this is what
we do.
And so, yeah, I love theflexibility, I love that you're
iterating on it and I love thatyou are getting up To get it in
at an ungodly hour, because whatI hear a lot too and this is
what I've heard is I've, youknow, a four year old and a one
year old, so they're not quiteyet in, like soccer every
(25:08):
weekend and all these things.
But sometimes I hear, got it somuch easier with the small kids
because you don't have all theseother activities.
But then I look at you and you,you're at the gym at three,
thirty three, forty five.
So like, how are you?
Like, how did you come to therealization that you needed to
get up at three, thirty three,forty five to get it in, so that
it wasn't Happening at lunchtime or other family time?
(25:29):
Like, how did you make thatwork?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I tested it, so that's probably the best answer
is over the years I knew fitnesswas going to be a cornerstone,
like just have it, and it'sgonna be something I had to do
Before we moved down to where welive.
I used to have to drive like ahalf hour to the gym and it was
on my way to work, so I had toget up early because if I didn't
do that I knew I was gonna betoo tired after work.
(25:53):
Then they were all gonna beawake and I was gonna work out
while they were awake to thenget home.
So, playing around with it, Ifound OK, the morning's a time
that that's kind of always beenmy time.
I've played with differentsleeping patterns to make it
work where I have that time inthe morning, but I found once I
(26:16):
have that done, it doesn't seemto have a negative impact on the
rest of my day.
Now I don't stay up as late as alot of people, so 9 to 10, like
, I'm usually in bed, but it'snot much much earlier than my
kids, so during the summertime.
So I found that's sustainablefor me, I'm already heading to
the gym because I'm coaching, sothat's a big win.
(26:37):
That's easy.
Before I started coaching,though, I used to just work out
in the garage or the dining room, and I would still wake up
early and get it done, becauseit would only take 45 minutes or
so, like even 20 minutes.
I learned that your workoutdoesn't all have to be done at
once, so if I'm focused on acouple of movements, it's like I
(27:00):
can knock those two movementsout, and then I can pick back up
later.
And I can do the next part of myworkout a little bit later and
I learned that from studyingsome of the fit people out there
and like the way they train forcompetitions.
And there was a guy that brokedown how this other dude was
training and how his clientssmash it all into one really
long session, but this dude justbroke it up throughout the day.
(27:21):
And I thought well, why couldn'tyou just break up each part of
that throughout the day?
So there's times where I'llsneak in like a five minute
workout and it's not the onlyworkout I do during the day, but
oftentimes I'll have a minuteor two when we're waiting for
the kids and it's like, ok, Ican get some calf raises or
tibialis raises or somethingWaiting for them to tie their
shoes on and then we can get outthe door and it's not the most
(27:42):
complete workout, but it'sactivity and that's how I
learned.
So I just learned that if I wasgoing to get it done, I've had
too many days where I would waitto try to do it later.
And then some Aaron came up andthen we were too busy for me to
go and get it done and then I'dget upset because I didn't get
my workout in.
And then I learned OK, that'snot good that this has become a
(28:03):
crutch where I have to get myworkout in.
It's less so.
That way now I can handle notworking out in a day.
It's hard, but I've gottenbetter at that.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And when the gym used to run like the class based
model, I would try to jump intodifferent classes throughout the
day.
So we had other coaches and Iwould try to jump in.
So I worked out with everybodyat different points.
So I just tested when I workout best and I've always been a
pretty early morning person.
So that's just what's workedreally well for me logistically.
(28:36):
My wife is a night owl so she'sup way later than me.
I'm up earlier.
So whenever the kids have likehad rough nights, one of us is
usually up and then it's justdone, it's out of the way.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, I hope people hear all the criteria that you
just threw out, that you'reevaluating in making these
decisions.
Like it might seem on thesurface, like so, like such an
easy decision of like why, just,I guess I got to get up earlier
, but what I'm hearing is OK, Idon't want it to overlap.
On family time this is animportant thing that I want to
(29:12):
make sure I'm getting in, butI'm also aware enough to realize
that when I don't get it inthere's there's also this you
know this feeling that I'm usingthe workouts as a crutch.
You know I'm trying to get themaximum return for the least
amount of time.
You know where can I configureall this?
And so, like that is so greatto hear that there's so much
intentionality behind thisdecision to get up early.
(29:35):
And I think if, if my guess atleast, is that what keeps more
people from doing that is thatlevel of intentional talk
through all the why hasn't, whyhaven't I done this and what do
I want to make sure that I'm notsacrificing?
And like, what does successlook like?
I guess that really what itcomes down to.
(29:56):
It sounds like you're reallyclear on what success looks like
for you with that goal and thenyour willingness to get up at
three thirty and get it done,you know is is reinforced
because you have a clear whyyou're very intentional with
that process.
So I got to give kudos to you,man, because that is, that is no
easy feat and you're not you'renot just doing it, you know,
(30:17):
like jocco, just to get thelikes.
It's like this mission thatyou're on.
That's really, reallycompelling.
So kudos to you, dude.
Tell me about where, because Ithink the thing that's so
impressive is what day are youon as of today?
Like, where are you at intoday's?
forty one, two forty one.
So the consistency is admirableand that's got to be the
(30:39):
hardest thing, like I think, forme personally, like I'm kind of
a creature of habit, so once Iget into something I can do it
consistently.
But starting that consistencyis hard and I guess that, like
with fitness generally, that'sprobably one of the hardest
things for folks and you, beinga trainer and a gym owner, you
probably see people cycle in andout of fitness all the time,
(31:00):
but it's like the hardest thing.
So tell me about, like, how doyou make it works so
consistently?
Because I'm sure there's beentimes when you haven't been
motivated and you're talkingyourself out of the workout.
So like what, what are youdoing in those times to continue
working so consistently?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
So, even though it's 241, since I decided that that's
what I was gonna start sayingat least, I mean, we're going on
14, 14 years of probably noless than four or five days a
week.
I learned early on, fortunately, that consistency is the most
important part.
And when exactly I learned thatI don't really know, but I know
(31:40):
that Every day is probably WillSmith, how I talked about like
every day you have like onebrick and you're building a
brick wall and you move that onebrick and you get a lay it down
and you should lay it down asperfectly as you possibly can,
and then the next day, likeyou're laying your next brick
down.
I've studied jocco and havelistened to him and his idea
about, like a discipline'sfreedom.
So you know, I've definitelylearned from him as well.
(32:00):
That's like, look, it's in thedoing of the things that,
whether you want to or not, likeyou still do it.
And when I Decided that, whatsuccess meant to me was the, the
pursuit itself.
It wasn't the achievement ofany specific thing, it was the
pursuit of something worthy ofpursuing and and there's a
(32:25):
pursuit of a worthy ambition.
So the idea that I was going tothese were just what fit people
did is I don't know a fitperson that doesn't work out.
It's like, okay, I'm gonna workout, and how am I gonna make
that work?
Because I knew that was gonnabe a must.
So on the days that that Idon't feel like it, I Just kind
(32:47):
of do it anyways, and I know itsounds really simple and I know
it's nothing groundbreaking andit's like, oh well, that doesn't
really help, but it really wasthat.
Just, despite not feeling good,I'm gonna work out today and I
broke it into a little frameworkthat I found useful.
I've learned that fitness, yourgiven ability on a specific day
(33:10):
you have like the floor of yourfitness and that's like what you
can do on your worst possibleday.
So when you don't get enoughsleep, when you're extremely
stressed out, when you're noteating well maybe eating some
bad food as a kid's birthday orsomething and You're dehydrated
and all the things that couldpossibly go wrong or going wrong
, and your ability of doingthings on that day, that's the
(33:34):
floor of your fitness and theopposite of that's the ceiling
of your fitness.
So when you're perfectlyhydrated and well rested and the
pre workouts hitting just rightand all the things are like the
right song goes on On yourspeakers, like all the right
variables possible are goingright, that's the ceiling of
your fitness and we're always inthis gap.
Well, I decided that on thedays I don't feel like it,
(33:59):
that's my opportunity to raisethe floor of my fitness.
So, by improving the floor, I'mstill raising the ceiling
because I'm raising the baselineand I've just had to understand
that I'm not going to set apersonal record.
Every workout, some workouts, IApproach it more like practice,
so I'm going in and I'mpracticing these movements.
(34:20):
I'm not trying to set a record,I'm just trying to move better
than I did the last time overthese specific things and
Controlling the variables of theworkouts.
I know X reps it, x sets, withthis much rest is going to give
me this kind of stimulus andmaybe I can't do as much as I
did the last time.
That's okay.
Maybe I just didn't sleep aswell with enough persistence,
(34:44):
though, like you'll breakthrough those plateaus.
And Then it's hard to not beexcited about working out after
a point.
Once you've built the momentumin your favor, it's hard to stop
it.
So momentum works both ways,where, once you have that
consistency down, it's justingrained.
I Think it's ingrained into,like my internal identity, like
(35:07):
the way I see myself is just,this is what I do, and it's hard
to break what we believe wetruly are.
So I know I work out.
That's that's what I do.
I love finding out what I'mcapable of.
So when I try to cartwheel andI get one, and I get the
hands-to-hand push up and I getthese, these fun things, it's
like, well, what else can I do?
So it's a matter of curiosityand kind of exploring this
(35:30):
Instead of feeling like it's achore and it's something I have
to check off because I have todo this or have to do that.
It was switching it to.
I get to do this Because that'shelping me pursue that worthy
ideal that I'm chasing.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
That's great and I love the framework too.
I think that that is such aHelpful way to think about it,
where, yeah, I mean, I'vecertainly been there on days
where you're up all night withthe kids and, for whatever
reason, the lack of sleep makesme just want to eat a bunch of
garbage, and so then I go to thegym and I'm just like like I
really feel like it's almost not, not even worth working out
(36:04):
because it's it's gonna be sucha horrible workout.
But thinking of the idea ofraising your floor and
subsequently raising yourceiling by just putting your
body in motion, I think that's areally helpful, helpful way to
think about it.
I think the other thing yousaid earlier about Breaking it
up throughout the day, likethat's huge, you know, and
there's so many things like thecalf raises while they're
(36:25):
putting their shoes on that'sthat's sort of just by.
You know the sheer capacitythat I have in life right now,
how I've had to think about it.
So it's reassuring to hear thatthat's an approach that that
you take to.
I'm literally doing like lungeson on the way to the bathroom
and then, between calls, allI'll go hammer out some, some
kettlebell swings and I'm justlike man, I hope, I hope some of
(36:46):
those sticks.
So I think the doing itthroughout the day Eliminates a
lot of pressure on people too,where it's like, hey, do you
have a minute, you know, can youjust do?
Do air squats for a minute, youknow, do as many push-ups as
you can for a minute, you know,do your lunges on the way to the
bathroom, and I think that thathelps people Get it in so they
(37:07):
don't feel like they, well, Idon't have an hour, so I'm not,
I'm not gonna get to work outtoday that that like zero some
Principle or you know, I don'thave, I don't have my headphones
, so I can't work out today.
It's like, yeah, just get it inanywhere you can, any way you
can.
I love that and I really likewhat you said.
Around your internal identity,like that that's such a big part
(37:28):
of it is that it feels likethere's a Almost like a sense of
responsibility in it toyourself, because you have this
great external goal where you'redoing this for, for family, for
kids, for future grandkids, butthere also feels like there's
this like responsibility toyourself in that.
Is that something that you feelis kind of a part of that?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, so growing up I mean I was small, I was weak, I
was constantly in pain, I wasextremely slow, and I Remember
feeling that way.
I remember being dead last inevery single race I ran in high
school Like I remember the totalbeing the total opposite.
(38:08):
And I remember when I learnedlike hey, you can actually Work
out and change this, like thisisn't a fixed trait, like this
is developable and I was like ohsnap, okay, I'm gonna develop
this and Then learning likeyou're capable, you, you can
undo some of that.
Like you can get stronger, youcan jump higher, you can run
faster, you can get out of pain.
(38:29):
I was like, okay, that's, yeah,you feel compelled to do that
because I remember where I camefrom.
I remember not liking it, itwas, it was miserable.
And then I've seen both sidesof that.
So One just for my duty tomyself.
Someone framed, someone put thequestion out on something
yesterday and they're like, hey,if imagine the person that you
(38:51):
love the most and you wereforced to swap bodies with them
for a year, it's like think ofthe way that you would take care
of them.
Now do that for yourself.
I was like, okay, well, yeah, Ilove myself.
Like, so I'm gonna take care ofmyself because this is the only
place I got to live.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So Dude, that swap.
I think that perspective is huge, yeah, and I think for a lot of
people, yeah, they'd probablyAlmost be surprised that they
might be willing to do more forsomebody else than they'd be
willing to do for themselves,and I think that's a really good
practice to think about.
You know, if we were to swapwith the person I love the most,
(39:30):
or my kids, you know how, howwell would I nurture that, that
body, that mind, their spirit,through living a healthy
lifestyle, and I think you know,I'm always Hearing and, I guess
, playing Devil's advocate too.
You know, I think one of thecommon reasons why people might
not, though, is that they arefeeling like they're giving
(39:51):
everything to their kids, like Idon't have time to prioritize
my own fitness and my own healthbecause I'm taking care of my
kids, I'm getting them ready forschool, I'm driving them to
school, maybe they'rehomeschooling their kids.
I got to go to work, you know,nolan, I got to put food on the
table.
What would you say to somebodythat is struggling with creating
the space for themselves To bea priority, in terms of their
(40:14):
own health and fitness, but alsotheir own goals and pursuits,
if they're struggling with thatsort of mindset.
Yeah, that's a super fairquestion because that's a very
common problem.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
People believe that they need to Give all of
themselves to their kids, butI've come to realize that I'd
question if being if it'simportant to be A healthy
example of what, or to be a goodexample of what, health and
fitness should look like fortheir kids, and if that would be
(40:48):
more powerful than the examplethat they've currently been
setting for their kids.
So when people aren't eatingwell, because they're cooking
what their kids want to eat andthey're cooking just mac and
cheese and chicken nuggets orsomething they're not like their
kids don't eat, have nevertried vegetables They've never
like, they don't eat me, likewhatever nutrition looks like,
(41:09):
if they're not leading thatexample for their kids, I'd
question that when it's, we'dwalk down the road.
What's that going to look likefor their kids?
Ultimately Like?
Is that going to set themselvesup?
Is that going to set their kidsup for the future that they
want for their kids, or is itjust going to reciprocate back
to the reality they're living?
Where their kids are then goingto?
It's like not putting your yourair mask on first when you're
(41:33):
in the airplane.
Before you've you've got a youcan't pour from an empty vessel,
so I Was looking for a way tomake sure that they're not going
to be able to eat.
Was looking at examples.
A long time back when my wifeand I got married, I was looking
at some of the adults of mylife and I came to this
conclusion that there's ahierarchy in our own identity
(41:57):
and while the highest priority,like the self actualization, may
be being a parent, it may bebeing your kid's parent.
Um, the base level of that isthat you're an individual.
So the greater your capacity ofbeing an individualist, the
more Self-sustained of anindividual you are, more optimal
(42:18):
of an individual you are.
The better partner you can beTo your spouse, the better
partner you are for your spouse,the better of an example you
are for your kids.
So part of this is I want toshow my kids what's possible in
life and you have to take careof yourself so you can take care
of others.
So that would be kind of theway that conversation I try to
(42:42):
steer.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
That yeah, I love that.
Yeah, and I think you know toyour, to your you know.
First point about when you'renot, you weren't able to pick up
your son or have him jump onyour back.
You know, if you're not takingcare of yourself, what kind of
energy are you even showing upwith to play with your kids?
Are you able to play with yourgrandkids, or are you, you know,
have you, have you becomeimmobile to the point where
(43:03):
You're not able to sit on thefloor and play blocks because it
hurts your knees and your backand and so, yeah, I love the
idea of, uh, you talked about.
You know you've got to put your, your oxygen mask on first.
You can't help others untilyou've helped yourself.
And I think you know there'sthis.
There's a struggle with it.
People feel like it's a selfishthing.
But, yeah, if you're not takingcare of yourself, what kind of
(43:24):
energy are you showing up withwith for others?
And I think that you also hit ittoo in the way you described it
, where you want to show yourkids what's possible.
Like, man, if only our kidsjust like, listen to everything
we said, it would be so mucheasier.
But the challenge is thatthey're watching us right and
and Showing them is so muchharder because they're always
(43:47):
watching, and so what are weshowing them?
What are we teaching them aboutthe way they should navigate
the world if we're Not takingcare of ourselves so that
everyone else is served?
Is that something we want forour kids?
You know, if we were to ensurethat for their future, would you
want them to live in a waywhere they're never taking care
of themselves?
Like no way?
So, yeah, I love theperspective there and the thing
(44:10):
I'm curious too, as youmentioned this idea of internal
identity with yourself.
But you're focusing a lot ofthis with how you're sort of
showing and educating your ownkids.
How do you think aboutdeveloping that internal
identity With your kids andhelping them realize that, like
fitness and health isn't like athing, that's like a special
event, but it's just.
(44:31):
It's just the way we live ourlife.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
So I think I've been blessed with a unique advantage,
since we're always at the gymand I think there's some easy
things somebody can do in theirown house too, to do some of the
same things.
Like we put monkey bars up inour house.
We have some jungle gym stuffin the garage, I think just
instead of trying to tell yourkids what a healthy, fit person
(44:55):
does like, show them and body it, go for walks after dinner.
Like show them like it, justmake that, normalize it.
So normalize what health lookslike.
Get on the floor and playblocks because you can go for
walks.
Challenge your kids two thingsLike see if they can climb that
(45:15):
rock, see if they can climb thetree.
Have them do calculatedchallenges.
Right, there's calculated risks.
Some things are just okay.
It's probably not smart tochallenge them to something.
But if it's the rocks tooslippery like, but part of that
would be don't undermine theirinternal confidence.
So don't tell them to becareful.
Versus like tell them like hey,watch your step.
(45:36):
So help them learn to pursuechallenges.
And when they start pursuingchallenges, that builds their
confidence because they realizewhat they are capable of.
And when you make thatsomething physical, like hey,
can they pick this rock up?
And they pick the rock up andyou chair them on and
everybody's happy and it's great.
And the other day our baby, sheclimbed up the stairs for the
(45:58):
first time and so all of us werelike surrounding her and
cheering her on and she wentevery single step and she like
looked around and then she likeclimbed up another step and she
got all the way to the top.
She looked and she was like,yeah, like she did it, and she
like clapped for herself andlike we all cheered.
You could just tell like shewas proud of herself and even at
almost 10 months old she feelsthat that's, that's a part of
human nature.
So you have to.
(46:21):
It takes practice to learn howto cultivate that and to be
aware of opportunities forhelping your kids cultivate that
.
But you just got to seek themout.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I love that and it seems like a lot of it is rooted
in play, you know, like youknow finding ways to not just
make it like we're going onanother hike, but it's like
let's take a tree, climb, breakon the hike, let's climb that
rock along the way who can getto the tree the fastest, you
know?
And rooting these things in alot of play.
But I'm totally guilty of theoh, be careful, even on things
(46:55):
that I'm like like I'm like myson is trying to climb a rock
and I'm like just be careful,and it's like, oh, actually,
make sure that you're pointingyour big toe, like I'm trying to
like, yeah, be a little moremindful of it.
And yeah, I think just so manyof those things you know are
good things to be aware of aswe're doing it.
But yeah, I love that.
It's just like findopportunities, make it rooted in
(47:17):
play, make it somethingenjoyable and model it.
And I love that you have thosethings around your house.
We found that to be reallyhelpful too is that, you know,
you know is sometimes we'll godo our workout and then we'll
have like the little babyweights and they're doing the
baby weight workout with us, oryou know mom's doing a Peloton
video workout, so we've got youknow the mats for the kids and
(47:38):
they're just flailing around onthe mats but like they're seeing
that this is just like a waythat we live, this is a part of
our life and that we're you'reincluded in this.
This isn't just something thatmom and dad does, this is
something we all do.
Yeah, I love that.
I want to come back to somethingthat you've kind of rooted all
this in, which is, again, goals,and I think that you know my
hypothesis with a lot of thesethings and I know I've shared a
(48:01):
lot of my hypotheses.
I just hypothesize all day, buta lot of it, I think, comes
back to the lack of goals, andyou have talked about people
coming in and having specificgoals, but I know that for a lot
of people, they're sort of likethey don't know what their
goals are, they don't know whatthey want, they don't know what
they should be going for.
Like you have spent a lot oftime it sounds like thinking
(48:22):
about your own goals.
How do you think about helpingpeople find their goals so that
that intrinsic motivation isthere and you can just build on
it?
Speaker 1 (48:35):
So a little bit about how we'll go about that is, if
you ask someone why five times,you typically get pretty deep
rooted into an underlyingmotivation behind something
They'll say like oh, they wantto go to the gym.
It's like, well, why do theywant to go to the gym?
It's like, well, you know,maybe they want to.
It just the chain of that getsdown to, like the deeper root.
(48:57):
Maybe they have they want tofit into their genes.
Maybe those genes are becausethey have a high school reunion
coming up and like.
So some of those, those willkickstart the motivation to like
to get that habit going and getthat consistency going.
But to keep it going, that'swhere I think that having
(49:17):
appropriate challenges and thenovercoming those challenges and
then stimulating theircreativity and getting them
excited about seeing what elseis possible and like stimulating
their curiosity about whatthey're capable of, that's how
you keep them hooked and it'sgot to be fun.
You have to approach it in theright manner, but I think that
(49:41):
that's kind of whatever theirgoal is, it's going to probably
change and it's okay that itchanges, but a part of their
goal changes.
They're still going to want towork out.
They know they still probablywant to work out because that's
the healthier thing to do, likethey just understand that that's
(50:02):
what they want to do or shoulddo and that that's probably
going to help them get to theirgoal.
So you have to find ways togamify it.
So even with adults we gamifythings.
We give them targets to beatfor their specific workouts and
so when their pace hits whatevertheir pace was supposed to be,
and then we get to improve theirscore, and then they get to see
(50:22):
and measure that and they getto improve it over time.
Or they realize like, hey, eventhough they just had a hip
replacement and they juststarted going on this hike and
they can step up higher thanthey've ever been able to before
.
So they realize like, whoa,that's crazy.
And you just see that firegoing up, like, oh, what else
can I do?
And then they start exploringmore things.
(50:42):
And when they find themselvesrunning along the beach, and
even though it burns becausethey're running through the sand
and they're running up a hill,but they think back to all the
hard workouts they've gonethrough, they're like, oh,
that's why you had me do allthose squats If I didn't do
those squats they findconfirmation that the squats
helped them perform what theywere really trying to do, which
(51:04):
was running at the beach withtheir family.
I try to pull people's buttonsso they push them themselves,
because when somebody owns that,they're doing it for their own
reasons.
Then they'll really stick withit.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
It makes sense with the goals changing too, like you
know, as you've seen, with yourown like, you're iterating and
getting deeper and getting morespecific and the motivations are
changing.
But I like what you said aboutthe curiosity too.
I didn't realize that until yousaid it, but I think that's a
big piece of what keeps me goingwith my own goals, of this
curiosity Again, specificallywith climbing of like, and I
(51:38):
wonder what that would be like.
I wonder if I could, you know Ishoot, how would my body do at
20,000 feet?
I'm super curious to find out.
You know, I wonder what itwould take to do that.
And I think that curiosity,that's such a great point that
that really is what keepssomebody going.
And really it's like two partyeah, getting somebody just to
(51:59):
get moving on it, and then thatcuriosity and their own
abilities, and stoking thatcuriosity helps really hook them
and make it sticky for them sothat they're just naturally
continuously curious around.
Cool, now what?
Now what, what could I do?
And yeah, that makes a lot ofsense.
I'm curious, like, what are youcurious about your ability to
(52:21):
do now?
Like, what gets you interestedin seeing what you can do?
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, I want to see if I can do a one arm chin up
and I'm getting closer.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
So I think I can.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Everything, pretty much everything besides that
that.
I've been curious if I could dolike I've gotten between stuff
with handstands and cartwheels.
There was a little while wherea tumbling gym rented out the
back of our gym and it was for acouple of months and they had
an adult tumbling class, I waslike I want to do a back flip.
So I took their adult tumblingclass and within four lessons
(52:57):
she had me doing back flips andI was like what I could do a
back flip.
So then I was like, boom.
She's like, hey, let's try backhand spring.
And she had the block set upand I went and my first time I
just like dove straight back,like straight down and like
crashed into it.
And she's like, no, you got tolike jump up as you do it.
So then I went and I jumped upand I jumped over the mat and
did like my first back handspring.
(53:18):
I was like, well, that's crazy,what else is possible?
So I don't totally know what'sout there.
I'm learning how to juggle now.
I'm getting better at juggling.
A lot of what I do people, it'skind of like circus tricks to a
degree.
So between juggling and workingon juggling with my feet too, I
haven't done that.
I'm not very good at that yet.
(53:39):
Something called rope flow,where you're like spinning the
rope around, that's a lot of funHandstand stuff I know I can
get a lot better at that stuff,but the one arm champs like
that's.
That's been a goal for a longtime and I'm starting it like
I'm getting closer and closer tothat one, so that one's really
cool.
I thought it'd be cool to seeif I could get to dunking.
(54:01):
In high school I had probablythe record lowest vertical jump
that they've ever recorded, so Ithought that.
I think it was like 16 inches.
It's pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
That's amazing.
They're like jump.
You're like I just did.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
I just did jump.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
That was my job.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
The best part was they messed up when they put my
score in.
No, it was 14 inches.
And they messed up because theytyped the four before the one.
So it said I had a 41 inchvertical jump.
So it put me at the top of theleaderboard on the sheet they
printed out like everyone knewit wasn't really like.
Everyone is so embarrassed.
So I think it'd be really coolnow in my 30s to get back to
(54:42):
actually dunking a ball and justbeing polar opposite of
everything that I was in highschool, like slow small week in
a pain.
And then now something I'mworking on is the knee over toe
squat where you keep your hipsup the sissy squat right.
The Sisyphus squat and one of mygoals is to always be able to
do that with our baby.
(55:02):
So Ellie May, she's currentlylike 10 months, she's somewhere
around 20 pounds and I can stilldo it holding the baby.
I can still do it holding her.
But even as she gets to threeand five and seven and 10, I
want to still be able to doingthat holding her.
So kind of the idea of Milo,the guy that carried the bull
(55:23):
across the mountain range, backin like the Greek mythology, so
something along those lines likeI think it'd be really cool.
I call it the Ellie May squat,because if I can always do that
with her, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
So well, you're certainly modeling the rooted in
play.
Like I can just see theexcitement as you're talking
about these things and I loveall the things that you're
getting to like there.
The I mean the backflip for meand I'm sitting there going like
man.
I've always wanted to backflip.
I wonder what that would belike.
And I hope people listeninglike just take 30 seconds to
(55:56):
just like dream a bit and becurious about like what's
something that you've kind ofalways known in the back of your
mind that you thought was justcool, that somebody did
generally, and imagine that foryourself.
And I think that that seems tobe a big, important step that
you have made is you're like man, that's cool that people do
that.
I wonder what that would belike if I could do that and then
(56:18):
taking that action to, to, youknow, make progress on it.
So yeah, dude, you're gettingmy brain spinning on all kinds
of interesting things.
Hopefully I'm backflipping herein the next six months.
So I just have one more thingaround.
You know sort of like the originstory, because you mentioned
your background of you knowbeing slow and weak and small
(56:39):
and being in pain.
So you know fitness hasn't beena thing.
That has been a part of yourlife, your whole life, and I'm
curious, you know, what do youfeel like, whether it was
something like your, your owndad did or your own parents did
to help nurture that, or werethere things that were absent
from the way you grew up thatyou realized, like man had?
(56:59):
I had that earlier from afather, parent, mentor.
That would have been reallyhelpful.
Just curious, like where didthings shift for you?
And and again, what?
What do you think was donereally well from the adults in
your life as a kid that helpednurture that and where do you
think you might do thingsdifferently as a dad yourself?
Speaker 1 (57:18):
So I remember being back with, like as a kid, my
parents I feel they did a reallygood job of forcing me to be
consistent with things and mybrother and I we went to, we did
karate and we took it for yearsand we got all the way up
through the belts and we gotright to the point where we're
(57:39):
about to test for our black beltand then the professor he
tossed in like oh, here's a newbelt that you have to test for
before your black belt, becausehe just wanted money for two
more kids in the classes.
So he kept adding it.
My parents are like no, youguys know everything you need to
like.
So they pulled us out.
Um, after that, I they, my dadrequired me to do sports.
(58:01):
It was like in middle school,it was like I had to do at least
one sport a year.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
My teacher.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
He was the wrestling coach, so he talked me into
wrestling because we werestudying ancient Greece and he's
like, oh, the ancient Greekswrestled, You'd love it.
It's like, okay, I don't loveit.
Uh, at the time I didn't loveit.
It was like I had to eat tomake weight for the lightest
weight class.
I was like 70 pounds.
And then going into when mybrother was going into high
(58:29):
school, he really wanted to playfootball because my dad's loved
watching sports.
So he knew he wanted to playfootball and impress my dad.
And my dad got him a personaltrainer.
And then my brother's footballcoach said he didn't want him
working out with a trainer, hewanted all of his workouts to be
with the team.
Well, my dad prepaid for allthese sessions and somebody had
(58:50):
to deal with him.
So I had to fill in thesessions and so I started
working with a personal trainerand I couldn't stand it.
It drove me nuts it.
I did not like the gym.
I didn't like working out.
It was something that I wasforced to do.
I had to be bribed with chickensandwiches and milkshakes
afterwards.
And my trainer he the onlything really in fitness he
(59:14):
really understood.
He was, he was a bodybuildinglike coach, so he really
understood bodybuilding.
And it was at this kind ofhoity toyy athletic club and it
was a really nice facility butit really catered to a very
niche part of fitness and Ithought the whole point you
worked out was to get big.
That was my entireunderstanding I worked out with
him.
(59:34):
And then high school came around.
Once I got into high school, mydad said, no, now you have to
do three sports a year.
He's like great.
So then I started doing.
I had to do three sports a year.
I learned being allergic tograss and small and slow
football was not my favorite.
I did that for two years.
(59:56):
But wrestling I realized that Ihad gained a little bit of
weight.
So I was a little bit biggernow and I was no longer gaining
weight to make the lightweightclass I can do to be better than
my opponents.
I can practice harder.
And I learned, oh, I canstrength train and I can be
stronger than I can be Strongerthan them.
Some kids are stronger thanothers and I can get stronger
(01:00:18):
and I can run and I can build upmy endurance and these are
things I can do to have an edgeon who I'm wrestling and this
guy or I wasn't.
And once high school was comingto an end, I was like well, I'm
not going to wrestle anymore.
So now I found like the sportof fitness and I got into like
hey, there's performance basedtraining.
(01:00:39):
And I got more into like, oh,you can do things for time and
you can turn this into like itsown competition.
And I was like, wait, becausestill at the time, even though I
knew you got stronger fromlifting weights, I thought it
was only correlated to the sizeof your muscle.
So I still only understood itas bodybuilding and an
aesthetics approach, so this wasgearing into a performance
approach.
So then I dove deep into thatand I realized like, hey, I'm
(01:01:03):
getting stronger, I'm gettingfaster, I'm getting in better
shape, but all these things thatI wanted are happening.
And then I started.
I started training and Istarted training other people
and I started seeing how ithelped them.
And one of my first clients wasa.
He was like 74 and I rememberhe walked into the gym with a
(01:01:23):
cane and his goal was to playbasketball.
I was like an 18 year old kidand I was like, yeah, we can do
that.
And it was just like eternallyoptimistic.
Well, within like three monthshe was back running on the court
playing basketball and weplayed one on one and as a
wrestler.
So I wasn't very good, so itworked.
But I was like holy smokes,like we can take somebody that
can barely walk and we can getthem to this.
And when I saw the power thatthere was in helping people with
(01:01:48):
this, I realized, like what Iwanted to do, so that sparked
the cure.
Like that sparked that bigcuriosity of like what's
possible out there and ifsomething's possible for
somebody I can't, it means it'spossible for one and it means
it's possible for me to getbetter at it and it's just a
matter of if I'm going to putthe time into doing what's
needed to get all that, to getto that distance in it.
(01:02:11):
So if I don't get to theone-arm chin up, it's because I
didn't commit enough timerelative to my other goals and
that's okay.
That's.
That's kind of where the baseof all that's from.
So for my kids, what what I'mtrying to model is I have
workouts for them where one ofmy sons they both want to dunk.
(01:02:32):
They both like playingbasketball.
So we have a little eight foothoop in the front and they want
to dunk.
So I have speed and jumpingworkouts for them that we're
doing and I don't force them todo it.
So a little bit more lenientthan my dad was, but I try to
make them want to do it and byasking the right questions and
(01:02:53):
framing things, I hope that moreoften than not, they do do the
workouts and when they'reexcited about it, I try to
remember like, okay, this iswhen it's really important, is
when they're excited about it.
Then they do the workouts andthen, like my one son, they had
field day at school and they hadto like see who could jump the
farthest and he smoked all theother kids in his class and I
(01:03:14):
was like that's cause you workedout and he put those pieces
together.
He's like, yeah, okay, I wantto keep doing this and so
modeling the stuff.
I feel it's been pretty easywhere, showing them how that
connects to what their goalshave been, and then it's just a
matter of flowing with it.
Is their goals change?
We'll mix it up, but that's myplan.
(01:03:35):
Thanks, dude.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
I think, as a former wrestler, I think the big
takeaway is make sure your kidswrestle, right.
No, I love what you said aboutyou know there's a shift for you
where it was no longer aboutexternal motivation, but it was
intrinsic.
It was like I'm actually fullyin control of this and that's
what makes it interesting,because now I'm, I have a lot of
experience and I have the powerto do whatever I want to do
(01:03:59):
with this.
And that is such a cool moment,I think, for people when they
make that shift of like wow,this is.
It's like the bestresponsibility you've ever come
to realize.
So you're like wow, like if I'mthe problem, I'm the solution,
if the only way this gets betteris me doing something, then
like that's perfect, becausethat is 100% what I can control.
(01:04:21):
And I love that.
With your focus with your kids,it sounds like you're really
focusing in on that intrinsicmotivation, like they are going
to want to do it.
And I think you hit onsomething else too with the
success your son saw in jumpingthe farthest is like sometimes
all it takes is just stickingwith it until you see some
success, like just man, justkeep going, keep going until you
(01:04:44):
see progress or success or alittle win, and then it's like
you're hooked, you're you're,you're clipped in, you're now
ready to do this.
You know, at the highest level.
You can, you, you, you feltthat.
So, man, that's awesome.
And yeah, I love the.
I love a good wrestling originstory too, so that was a near
and dear to my heart.
You know you're training and Iwant to come back to where.
(01:05:07):
Where can people follow alongon the journey?
Where can people find out abouttraining with you?
Like, where can people, wherecan people do that?
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
The best place is probably Instagram at nwfitnolan
.
Tiktok is just Nolan Womack.
I'm on Facebook too, butInstagram is probably the best
place.
That's where most involved.
I'm on YouTube at nwfit.
Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Got it Awesome, yeah.
So follow along.
I'm certainly follow along, andit's my daily reminder to make
sure I get my workout in in anyway possible, and I'm excited to
see you know how many daysyou're going to get in.
I'm sure we'll be in thethousands at some point, based
on your years of consistency.
And I want to just put it backto you you know we've talked
about kind of a wide array ofsubjects, from from goals and
(01:05:55):
process and logistics to youknow, a little bit of philosophy
dabbled in.
But if you, if you were toleave other dads with any piece
of advice, whether they arecurrently pursuing their goals
or not, you know what, what,what do you think you'd want to
leave them with?
That's been really helpful foryou being able to put yourself
in the position that you have sofar.
Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
So I would want to remind them of memento mori.
And that's what makes itbeautiful, because our time's
limited, so live like it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
I've taken away so much greatness from this, and I
know other dads will as well.
So, nolan, thank you so muchfor for all the time and again
excited to continue followingalong.
This has been an episode of theathlete dad podcast.
As always, we'd really loveyour support in helping to get
(01:06:47):
this podcast out into the world.
You can do that by sharing itwith somebody you care about,
who you think would reallyappreciate the content of what
we talk about.
You can also like and review onall podcast platforms, so go
give us some love.
It's much appreciated and itcertainly helps us out keeping
the show going.
It's also important that yougive us a follow on Instagram at
(01:07:09):
the athlete dad.
You can get all the access toall the pictures and content and
more from the podcast that wetalk about, and, of course, I'm
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it keeps you up to date on allthe things happening with the
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So go give us a follow onInstagram and actually all other
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(01:07:32):
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You're going to want to sign upfor our email list.
Go to theathletadcom, sign upfor the email list, become one
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(01:07:53):
really enjoy this topic, you'regoing to love, because we just
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So go to theathletadcom, signup for our email list and grab
yourself some of that exclusivecontent.
not terribly long ago I was working out 42 hours a
week, so it was a full,full-time job on top of coaching
and training, because I wasjust training to be the fittest
and I realized that it wastaking a lot of time away from
the family because that's what Iwas doing all day, that's six,
seven hours a day.
During one of the competitionsI strained like five different
muscles and I went and picked myson up from school and he came
(00:23):
out of the school and he lookedup at me and he wanted to jump
on my back because typically I'dbe out there, they'd run and
jump up on me.
And he came up and he couldtell I wasn't feeling good.
He was like oh, can I jump onyour back?
And I had to tell him no.
I had to look him in the eyeand tell him no, and that broke
my heart because it's likewhat's the point of working out
42 hours a week if I can't evenhave my kid jump on my back?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
This is the ATHLETE Dad Podcast, where we explore
the intersection betweenphysical pursuits and fatherhood
.
I'm Ben Gibson, and if you'rean ambitious dad that is
pursuing or looking to pursueyour athletic passions now while
improving the way you show upat home, then this is a show for
you.
Something that we all love tosee in this community of ATHLETE
(01:12):
dads is a dad that is on amission.
Today, I'm excited to share myconversation with Nolan Womack.
Nolan is on a mission to becomethe fittest father of four yes,
four without sacrificing timewith his family, and this
conversation came at the perfecttime for me.
(01:33):
As many of you know, I just cameoff Denali about a month ago,
and this was a multi-year goalthat I had been dreaming about
and working towards for a longtime.
But once I came back from themountain, I kind of found myself
in a funk, and a big part ofthat was, I think, I was
operating without a goal infront of me, and I'm someone
that typically needs to havesomething in front of me that
(01:54):
I'm working towards at all timesto feel like I am optimizing my
time here on earth.
And since I haven't really hada goal, I've been kind of in a
funk, you know, I haven't reallyfelt motivated to get back into
the gym.
My fitness has lagged a littlebit and I've kind of just been
wandering aimlessly when itcomes to my physical pursuits.
(02:14):
And so when I had thisconversation with Nolan, you
know it was the rightconversation with the right
person at the right time.
And since having thisconversation I've really felt
like I've started to find my ownmojo again, because I know that
every day Nolan is gettingafter his goal.
If it's 4 am you better believehe's in the gym working and
(02:36):
he's got twice as many kids as Ido.
So, first off, I've got no realexcuses.
But secondly, this conversationwas so impactful because I just
love the way that he is thinking, how thoughtful and intentional
he is in the pursuit of thisgoal, even just in the way he
thinks about defining his goaland the success criteria that he
applies to his goal.
(02:57):
And so thinking about thisthoughtfulness and hearing his
approach to his goal and hearinghow he just has this amazingly
positive perspective on all ofit, you know, really just kind
of kicked things into gear forme and I think part of why we
listen to podcasts like this,part of why we're parts of
communities like this, withother men, other dads, to have
(03:20):
these rich conversations that,in a sense, kind of hold us
accountable to things that we'retrying to do ourselves.
It is because it does just that.
It helps us realize that ifthese folks can do it, then I
can do it too.
And that's not to take awayfrom anything that folks like
Nolan or any of their guestswe've had in the podcast are
doing Like.
If you've been listening, youknow that these are incredible
(03:40):
human beings, but they're alsovery real and so there's this
closeness to them, there's.
It doesn't feel like there's alot of distance between us and
our lives and them in the waythat they show up authentically
to have these conversations, andso that's why we're here.
So I want you to take thisconversation and use it as a
tool to get you where you wantto go, because some of you
(04:02):
you're already feeling motivated, you're already getting after
your goals.
So this conversation, thisepisode with Nolan, should just
add more fuel to your fire.
And if you're like me where youknow I was in a bit of a slump
and in between goals and justnot really feeling it Well, this
episode should help get thingscooking for you too.
Nolan is just an incrediblythoughtful guy and a great dad
(04:23):
who is crushing in his physicalpursuits, and so please enjoy my
wide-ranging conversation withNolan Womack.
Nolan, super pumped to have youhere.
Welcome to the athlete dad,excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I appreciate you having me here.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What I think would be most helpful for folks
listening is kind of setting thecontext of like, what does dad
life look for you?
So if we were to appeal back toCurtin and follow along with
you for a day as dad?
Like, what does dad look likefor Nolan?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So it's gonna look a little different during the
summer time and during theschool time.
Right now in the summer time Istill wake up early, I get my me
stuff done, so I have mypersonal time in the morning.
That's when I work out.
I go to work I've got since Iown a gym and I coach all day.
I'm kind of in and out of thegym for different blocks.
(05:18):
So I do the early morning blockand then I come home I wake
everybody up, cook everybodybreakfast.
Once the kids are all awake,then the whole family comes to
the gym with me for the latermorning block of when I coach.
After that middle of the day ispretty open, so we'll go run
errands and stuff, typically asa family.
Kids have a lot of free timeover the summer or we'll go for
(05:43):
a nice walk or something alongthose lines.
If the kids have an activitysometimes one of the kids in
baseball or ones in gymnasticswe'll take them to that as the
evening comes around.
Oftentimes it'll be 50-50 ifthey come back with me to the
gym again or if they all stayhome, let them kind of have
their home time.
(06:03):
Once I'm back home, then webring out video games and we
play, and we play card games andwe go play basketball outside
and just kind of try to bepresent with them and talk about
their day and how things wentin their world.
Then I normally go to bedbefore they do so.
During the summertime In theschool year it looks pretty
(06:23):
similar where I go early morning, come back, wake everybody up,
cook breakfast.
Sometimes they're up before Iget back, but then they're off
for school for the whole middleof the day.
In the evening they'lltypically come with me to the
gym, spend some family timethere.
Maybe we'll go out to dinnermore wall run into the grocery
store together then, we'll cookdinner and then kind of catch up
(06:44):
on their day as we pick them upfrom school and get into that
stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So quite a bit going on.
And you're a dad of four and Ihave to say I have two, and I am
shocked that anyone has morethan two.
The sheer logistics of havingmore than two kids has
confounded me.
So did you know you wanted tohave four kids?
Did you know you wanted to havea big family?
Or how did having four kidsunfold for you guys?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So growing up, I knew I wanted two and then my wife,
growing up, knew she wanted four.
So we compromised and we hadfour, but really we had the two.
We had them about a year and ahalf apart.
A couple years later, we haddecided like, okay, let's go
(07:31):
ahead.
My wife's window she had somethings going on where she wasn't
going to be able to have kidsforever.
I don't want to hurt havingreservations about not having
had a kid that she was hopingshe could have had.
She comes from a family of fourkids.
I come from a family of twokids, so I only have one brother
and we had two boys already andso we happened to have a
(07:52):
daughter.
Then she's a few years youngerthan the boys.
I thought we were done and wejust kind of it's like, once all
the kids were in school andthen she's like, well, she
really missed having a little, alittle her around the house.
So then we decided to haveanother kid and that's how I had
the fourth kid.
Yeah they were all planned andthey're all great.
(08:14):
It's like after every one.
I think the most stressful wasthree, because when you have one
, it's like you both can givefull attention to the one and
it's like you can overly takecare of the one.
When you have two, I think ofit as you're playing man to man,
so you each have one, and whenyou go to three, you go from man
to man to zone.
So now there's one that you maynot be able to take.
(08:38):
Like if you're focused with onekid and they're focused with
one, it's like there may be onethat's on their own.
But when you go to four, youkind of give up hope that you're
going to be able to controleverything and you just learn
how to like roll with it.
So I think four is easier thanthree.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, oh, that's an interesting perspective.
Yeah, four, I just imagine youhave to be like on a horse
corralling them around justtrying to keep them moving in
one direction.
And I think you're spot on withthe defensive coverages.
Yeah, we always thought of oneas like I got a safety over the
top, Like we're totally good,and then man to man and then
zone, and yeah, I think that'sprobably you know, I think just
(09:16):
getting kids out the door, justthinking about four, that's.
That's that specifically is mymy you know confusion spot right
there.
But that's awesome, man, soundslike you have a ton going on.
And tell us a little bit moreabout your background and what
you do for work right now as agym owner.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, so my background is I've been a
personal trainer for almost 15years.
I did it part time for a longtime and then dove into it more
full time.
I used to run a backflowtesting company, so a whole
different thing.
After that, though, we hadmoved down to a town, didn't
(09:56):
know a lot of people.
I started helping coach at oneof the gyms in the area, started
meeting people.
That way I knew that I wantedto coach people.
I knew I wanted to be able tohelp people.
I'd done a lot of differentthings in in fitness, had
dabbled in a lot of differentstuff, from CrossFit to movement
(10:16):
based stuff like capoeira andgymnastics and calisthenics to
bodybuilding and strong man andpretty much the whole gamut of
everything.
So I knew how to help peoplewith their goals.
I'd got to the point where Iwas 217, trying to get to 250.
I lost 40 extra pounds of bodyfat and kept it off for like six
(10:38):
, seven years now.
So know how to help people,kind of manipulate their body
weight to get to a healthy rangeand just kind of wanted to find
a way to help share.
So when I started helping coach, I knew I wanted to open a gym.
But there's.
We're in a small town, sothere's already a gym in the
area.
There's a couple other gymsthat are more for just access
(11:00):
but not really coaching, and oneof my friends told me, like hey
, you're in a new area, don'tstep on toes.
That's why I started helpingout by just coaching there, and
after being there for a couplemonths, that was the beginning
of 2020.
So all the shutdown startedhappening from there.
That gym owner was kind of onthe way out, and so they just
(11:21):
approached us, was like hey,would you be interested in
taking over?
And naturally that's what Iwanted to do.
So it was a great opportunity.
But we told him only whenthings can open back up.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So a few months later things could open back up.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
But then we took on that risk and started it From
there.
What we do now is we startedoff with like a class model.
A lot of gyms run that.
People come in and it's like alesson in fitness and you start
with the warmup and you have allthe different things and
everybody goes through the samething.
We used to do that, but then wefound everybody coming in had
(11:56):
just a little bit differentgoals and they had different
needs anyways.
So somebody would come in withlike an ankle sprain and they
had a totally rewrite theworkout for this person.
Or this person didn't careabout getting faster at this
workout or necessarily evengetting stronger, they just
wanted to move better.
So I was like, okay, how do wecater their workouts to them
(12:19):
Instead of saying, well, youhave to do this because that's
what the workout is for theclass.
So then we opened the model upto just kind of coaching hours
and now everybody comes in forpersonalized training in a group
setting.
So it's a little more open flowin there.
But it's a private gym would be,I guess, the best way to
describe it.
People come in and they have apersonalized training program
(12:43):
that they go through alongsideother people.
So it's a pretty friendlyenvironment compared to a global
gym where you go in everybody'splugged in and just trying to
do their thing and those aregreat.
It's kind of a hybrid betweenthose different models.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, dude, that's a really great idea.
I don't know that I've everseen that in any gym and I don't
know if that's like a commonframework for gyms to use, but I
think that's so smart for somany reasons.
Like one, I think you hit on itLike a lot of people want the
classes because there'saccountability, there's the
camaraderie and thesocialization aspect of it, but
everyone needs thatpersonalization to really get
(13:21):
what they want out of theworkout.
I've definitely gone to myshare of just group classes and,
yeah, you're sort of just likeon the literal treadmill, just
with everybody else doing thesame thing and there's very
little customization.
So that customization piece iscool and I love that.
You keep talking about goals,not just with your life, but
with all these other folks, andso it seems like there's a
(13:42):
really big emphasis on thisfitness.
The gym, that's the vehiclethat you're using to help people
reach their goals, whateverthat may be.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, because their goals.
I mean that's the whole motivebehind why they're even looking
at working out.
So the very first step is westart everyone off with like a
consultation, just to learn whythey even want to go to a gym.
And sometimes the answer issuper surprising.
Sometimes you think you knowwhat the answer is going to be
and it's not what you expect.
Some of the clients we have oneof them is trained into be a
(14:14):
ranger in the army.
Wants trained in to be an elitelevel like competitor in the
sport of fitness.
Some people are just trained into lose 300 pounds.
Some people are working on theyjust recently had a hip
replacement so we're working ongetting them mobility back in
through the rest of their bodyto avoid other future surgeries.
(14:36):
It's pretty cool to see allthese different people coming
together and the way theysupport each other because they
all have a goal.
This is common ground where,even though their goals are
different, they're all workingtowards a goal.
So everybody supports eachother because they understand
the goals that everybody'sworking towards.
So goals are definitely kind ofthe foundation of what we do.
(14:56):
It makes sense when you wonderwell, why are we doing this?
Why do I have to be on thetreadmill?
Well, if you understand whyyou're being on the treadmill
and how it relates to your goal,then you don't have to stay
disciplined so much to get onthe treadmill because you want
to get on the treadmill.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And I love the spectrum of goals yeah, somebody
wanting to be an Army Ranger tosomebody else dealing with
navigating post hip replacementand everybody there to support
each other.
That's awesome.
I mean you, in a way, with whatyou're doing with your own
personal goal, I think are doingsomething similar where you're
creating this community ofparents, dads, moms, everybody
(15:37):
else that is either.
That is kind of like byfollowing, supporting you and
your goal, but in the rich valueyou're delivering, supporting
everybody else and their goalsand that's one of the reasons I
was so pumped to talk to you isyour big mission become the
fittest out of four and I lovethat.
There's like a new part of ittoo, and we'll want to talk
about that.
But help everyone understandwhat is the mission that you are
(16:00):
currently on yourself with yourown fitness.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
So I'm training to be thefittest father of four without
sacrificing time with my family.
I've come to understand thatthis is your ability to do
something, so you are fit for atask and I'm not.
As a dad especially I don'tcare about being the world's
best bench presser, so I caremore about the general list for
(16:26):
like framework for training thanI do about the specialist kind
of stance.
So I'm not trying to be thebest at any one thing, but I
care about being able to keep upwith my kids and my future
grandkids in whatever thingsthey care about.
So if they want to playbasketball, I want to be just as
good at basketball as Ipossibly can.
If they decided soccer, if theydecided wrestling, I want to be
(16:48):
able to keep up with whateverit is they want to do.
If they decide they want tohike Denali, like I want to be
able to be there.
So for my training that lookedlike okay, that fitness just
comes down to ability, and Irealized everybody has ability
and everybody can improve theirability.
So with my training it'slooking like I want the maximum
(17:12):
crossover benefit on generalability with the least amount of
time and I found it's easierfor me.
I've dabbled with a lot overthe years.
So not terribly long ago I wasworking out 42 hours a week, so
it was a full, full time job ontop of coaching and training 42
(17:33):
hours a week because I was justtraining to be the fittest and I
realized that it was taking alot of time away from the family
because that's what I was doingall day, that's six, seven
hours a day.
And then I realized during oneof the competitions I strained
like five different muscles andI went and picked my kid up, my
(17:54):
son up, from school and he cameout of the school and he looked
up at me and he wanted to jumpon my back because typically I'd
be out there, they'd run andjump up on me.
And he came up and he couldtell I wasn't feeling good.
He's like oh, can I jump onyour back?
And I had to tell him no.
I'd look him in the eye andtell him no and that broke my
heart because it's like what'sthe point of working out 42
hours a week if I can't evenhave my kid jump on my back?
(18:16):
So then I got help and tookcourses and seminars and got
certs and like, read books anddid all the training and stuff I
could find, hired PT's andother coaches for me and got as
much help as I could get andlearn a whole different approach
to training that focuses moreon, like the joints out.
(18:36):
So everybody has everybody withan elbow.
Your elbow opens and closes, itflexes and extends and there's
certain muscles and tissues thatgo around the elbow and if you
can strengthen those tissues andresearch shows you can
strengthen the tendons.
It takes longer for tendons toadapt than muscles but you can
strengthen those tendons andyour elbow is just better at
(19:00):
opening and closing, howeverthat looks like, whether it's
climbing a mountain or if it'sdoing rope climbs or pull ups or
if it's carrying groceries.
So focusing my training ontendon based work has given me
more crossover, more carryoverto other pursuits with less time
.
I'm able to focus on less otherstuff because I have more
(19:23):
structural adaptation.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, man, I mean, I think that anyone that has been
involved in some sort of fitnessgoal has definitely been there
where you're just spendingungodly amounts of time Doing it
, probably unnecessary amountsof time, to a point where I
think I certainly know I'vepushed past, like the point
where you know I started toexperience diminishing returns
(19:46):
on the time I was spending in agym.
I love the specificity, I lovethat you had a very, you know,
noble, compelling goal of beingthe fittest, but that through
that moment of sort of like Iwas think people do things out
of either inspiration ordesperation and that moment of
desperation of like man, this is, this, is not serving me
anymore you got more specificwithin that goal and it created
(20:10):
something that I'm sure was likeso much more meaningful and so
much more beneficial for you.
And yeah, I was curious aboutthe other piece of, because I
noticed in the beginning it'sthe fittest data for.
And then there became theaddition of without sacrificing,
you know, time with family,which I absolutely love tell me
about.
But where did that come intothis specific goal?
(20:30):
Like did you find yourself Loanit again?
Or like, what did that looklike?
Speaker 1 (20:35):
so that came in Because with recording some of
my training and getting itposted and trying to share that
it takes.
It takes me like I'm prettyslow at recording and editing,
so it takes me like an hour totwo a day longer than it should,
and so that means in the middleof the day I'd sneak off into
the garage or in the bedroom andtry to like make the voice over
(20:56):
and get it posted On top of theother training I was doing.
And at the time I was like, hey, I still doing some of the
different style of training.
But I was involved.
My dad and I were going to do atriathlon.
So I was like, okay, I have howmuch of this other energy
system work do I need to do andkeep up with that, to like just
crush this triathlon?
(21:16):
But you could just see thelooks on their face and I told
him like alright, guys, we'regoing to go for a Sunday fun run
.
And they were just like Dad, dowe have to?
Like?
Like yeah, and typically like ahalf hour into it they'd have
fun.
But when it got to the pointthey were dreading doing it.
(21:37):
I was like, okay, I don't wantthem to have.
That example, is like Fitnessis something you have to dread
and they weren't having fun withthat anymore.
So then we started, we mixed itup a little bit, where we start
going off trail and like climbtrees and play around with it.
It wasn't the intended workoutI wanted, so that drove me a
little bit.
Came to this dichotomy of dothe workout that ultimately I
(21:58):
want because it gets theminvolved, or do the workout I'm
trying to do because it'sfocused on my goal.
So that was like, okay, that'sfine, well, we'll do what they
want to do.
They're gonna have fun with it,that's gonna be more
sustainable.
But there would be eveningswhere I'd have to go to the pool
because the swimming times sobe staying up late at night.
We'd all go break from whateverwe're doing because I had to go
(22:20):
swim.
And there'd be other timeswhere I'd be on the bike for two
hours getting zone to work inand I just be sitting in
pedaling and they want to goplay basketball and it's like,
well, I love to play basketball,but I already did my impact
stuff and I need to just getthis heart and lung work in, and
so you could just see, yeah, itwas really came down to looks
(22:40):
on their faces where it's likewhen they started not being
excited about stuff.
That's when I kind of took alittle hiatus and I didn't post
a whole lot because I had toredefine what I was really
looking for out of it and I'd atinker with some things to see
how can I get that maximumcrossover effect with less time.
And now I do most of myworkouts early morning.
(23:06):
So I'm usually at the gym like345 in the morning and it only
takes me 30 minutes to an hour.
So typically like right at 45minutes and the kids are asleep,
I'm gone, I'm done.
They see that I'm still workingout.
I thought it used to be superimportant.
They saw me walk the walk and Istill think it's important.
(23:26):
But to take the time in themiddle of the day when we go out
to lunch and when we're goingand running errands and to say,
hey, no, this has to be timethat we all have to work out,
there's some pushback there, sofigured, ok, I know I'll stay
consistent if I work out in themorning.
They watch my YouTube videos,they watch the Instagram reels
and they watch all of that stuff.
So they still see me doing thethings.
(23:48):
So that's still cool.
Yeah but it just became moreimportant.
That's look, I'm gonna Maximizemy ability so become the
fittest father of four, withoutsacrificing that time with them,
because that's just time youdon't get back.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right, I love that and I love that you iterated on
the process here.
You weren't just like, well,kids, this is what we're doing,
get on board, I'm gonna be thefittest dad.
It's like, ok, yeah, this isn'tworking, let's let's reevaluate
our goal, let's make sure thatwe're Aligned with that purpose
again, and then iterating,tweaking, to make it work.
(24:24):
And I think that's Such animportant part of being a dad
and showing up in two worlds theway we want to show up, of like
I want to show up and meet myfitness goals, my athletic goals
.
I want to pursue these things,but like I don't want it to come
at the expense Of the family,or yeah, or have like skiing
with dad be a burden, somethingwhere it's like we're all gonna
(24:45):
go ski and we're gonna have agood time and like this is what
we do.
And so, yeah, I love theflexibility, I love that you're
iterating on it and I love thatyou are getting up To get it in
at an ungodly hour, because whatI hear a lot too and this is
what I've heard is I've, youknow, a four year old and a one
year old, so they're not quiteyet in, like soccer every
(25:08):
weekend and all these things.
But sometimes I hear, got it somuch easier with the small kids
because you don't have all theseother activities.
But then I look at you and you,you're at the gym at three,
thirty three, forty five.
So like, how are you?
Like, how did you come to therealization that you needed to
get up at three, thirty three,forty five to get it in, so that
it wasn't Happening at lunchtime or other family time?
(25:29):
Like, how did you make thatwork?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I tested it, so that's probably the best answer
is over the years I knew fitnesswas going to be a cornerstone,
like just have it, and it'sgonna be something I had to do
Before we moved down to where welive.
I used to have to drive like ahalf hour to the gym and it was
on my way to work, so I had toget up early because if I didn't
do that I knew I was gonna betoo tired after work.
(25:53):
Then they were all gonna beawake and I was gonna work out
while they were awake to thenget home.
So, playing around with it, Ifound OK, the morning's a time
that that's kind of always beenmy time.
I've played with differentsleeping patterns to make it
work where I have that time inthe morning, but I found once I
(26:16):
have that done, it doesn't seemto have a negative impact on the
rest of my day.
Now I don't stay up as late as alot of people, so 9 to 10, like
, I'm usually in bed, but it'snot much much earlier than my
kids, so during the summertime.
So I found that's sustainablefor me, I'm already heading to
the gym because I'm coaching, sothat's a big win.
(26:37):
That's easy.
Before I started coaching,though, I used to just work out
in the garage or the dining room, and I would still wake up
early and get it done, becauseit would only take 45 minutes or
so, like even 20 minutes.
I learned that your workoutdoesn't all have to be done at
once, so if I'm focused on acouple of movements, it's like I
(27:00):
can knock those two movementsout, and then I can pick back up
later.
And I can do the next part of myworkout a little bit later and
I learned that from studyingsome of the fit people out there
and like the way they train forcompetitions.
And there was a guy that brokedown how this other dude was
training and how his clientssmash it all into one really
long session, but this dude justbroke it up throughout the day.
(27:21):
And I thought well, why couldn'tyou just break up each part of
that throughout the day?
So there's times where I'llsneak in like a five minute
workout and it's not the onlyworkout I do during the day, but
oftentimes I'll have a minuteor two when we're waiting for
the kids and it's like, ok, Ican get some calf raises or
tibialis raises or somethingWaiting for them to tie their
shoes on and then we can get outthe door and it's not the most
(27:42):
complete workout, but it'sactivity and that's how I
learned.
So I just learned that if I wasgoing to get it done, I've had
too many days where I would waitto try to do it later.
And then some Aaron came up andthen we were too busy for me to
go and get it done and then I'dget upset because I didn't get
my workout in.
And then I learned OK, that'snot good that this has become a
(28:03):
crutch where I have to get myworkout in.
It's less so.
That way now I can handle notworking out in a day.
It's hard, but I've gottenbetter at that.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And when the gym used to run like the class based
model, I would try to jump intodifferent classes throughout the
day.
So we had other coaches and Iwould try to jump in.
So I worked out with everybodyat different points.
So I just tested when I workout best and I've always been a
pretty early morning person.
So that's just what's workedreally well for me logistically.
(28:36):
My wife is a night owl so she'sup way later than me.
I'm up earlier.
So whenever the kids have likehad rough nights, one of us is
usually up and then it's justdone, it's out of the way.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, I hope people hear all the criteria that you
just threw out, that you'reevaluating in making these
decisions.
Like it might seem on thesurface, like so, like such an
easy decision of like why, just,I guess I got to get up earlier
, but what I'm hearing is OK, Idon't want it to overlap.
On family time this is animportant thing that I want to
(29:12):
make sure I'm getting in, butI'm also aware enough to realize
that when I don't get it inthere's there's also this you
know this feeling that I'm usingthe workouts as a crutch.
You know I'm trying to get themaximum return for the least
amount of time.
You know where can I configureall this?
And so, like that is so greatto hear that there's so much
intentionality behind thisdecision to get up early.
(29:35):
And I think if, if my guess atleast, is that what keeps more
people from doing that is thatlevel of intentional talk
through all the why hasn't, whyhaven't I done this and what do
I want to make sure that I'm notsacrificing?
And like, what does successlook like?
I guess that really what itcomes down to.
(29:56):
It sounds like you're reallyclear on what success looks like
for you with that goal and thenyour willingness to get up at
three thirty and get it done,you know is is reinforced
because you have a clear whyyou're very intentional with
that process.
So I got to give kudos to you,man, because that is, that is no
easy feat and you're not you'renot just doing it, you know,
(30:17):
like jocco, just to get thelikes.
It's like this mission thatyou're on.
That's really, reallycompelling.
So kudos to you, dude.
Tell me about where, because Ithink the thing that's so
impressive is what day are youon as of today?
Like, where are you at intoday's?
forty one, two forty one.
So the consistency is admirableand that's got to be the
(30:39):
hardest thing, like I think, forme personally, like I'm kind of
a creature of habit, so once Iget into something I can do it
consistently.
But starting that consistencyis hard and I guess that, like
with fitness generally, that'sprobably one of the hardest
things for folks and you, beinga trainer and a gym owner, you
probably see people cycle in andout of fitness all the time,
(31:00):
but it's like the hardest thing.
So tell me about, like, how doyou make it works so
consistently?
Because I'm sure there's beentimes when you haven't been
motivated and you're talkingyourself out of the workout.
So like what, what are youdoing in those times to continue
working so consistently?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
So, even though it's 241, since I decided that that's
what I was gonna start sayingat least, I mean, we're going on
14, 14 years of probably noless than four or five days a
week.
I learned early on, fortunately, that consistency is the most
important part.
And when exactly I learned thatI don't really know, but I know
(31:40):
that Every day is probably WillSmith, how I talked about like
every day you have like onebrick and you're building a
brick wall and you move that onebrick and you get a lay it down
and you should lay it down asperfectly as you possibly can,
and then the next day, likeyou're laying your next brick
down.
I've studied jocco and havelistened to him and his idea
about, like a discipline'sfreedom.
So you know, I've definitelylearned from him as well.
(32:00):
That's like, look, it's in thedoing of the things that,
whether you want to or not, likeyou still do it.
And when I Decided that, whatsuccess meant to me was the, the
pursuit itself.
It wasn't the achievement ofany specific thing, it was the
pursuit of something worthy ofpursuing and and there's a
(32:25):
pursuit of a worthy ambition.
So the idea that I was going tothese were just what fit people
did is I don't know a fitperson that doesn't work out.
It's like, okay, I'm gonna workout, and how am I gonna make
that work?
Because I knew that was gonnabe a must.
So on the days that that Idon't feel like it, I Just kind
(32:47):
of do it anyways, and I know itsounds really simple and I know
it's nothing groundbreaking andit's like, oh well, that doesn't
really help, but it really wasthat.
Just, despite not feeling good,I'm gonna work out today and I
broke it into a little frameworkthat I found useful.
I've learned that fitness, yourgiven ability on a specific day
(33:10):
you have like the floor of yourfitness and that's like what you
can do on your worst possibleday.
So when you don't get enoughsleep, when you're extremely
stressed out, when you're noteating well maybe eating some
bad food as a kid's birthday orsomething and You're dehydrated
and all the things that couldpossibly go wrong or going wrong
, and your ability of doingthings on that day, that's the
(33:34):
floor of your fitness and theopposite of that's the ceiling
of your fitness.
So when you're perfectlyhydrated and well rested and the
pre workouts hitting just rightand all the things are like the
right song goes on On yourspeakers, like all the right
variables possible are goingright, that's the ceiling of
your fitness and we're always inthis gap.
Well, I decided that on thedays I don't feel like it,
(33:59):
that's my opportunity to raisethe floor of my fitness.
So, by improving the floor, I'mstill raising the ceiling
because I'm raising the baselineand I've just had to understand
that I'm not going to set apersonal record.
Every workout, some workouts, IApproach it more like practice,
so I'm going in and I'mpracticing these movements.
(34:20):
I'm not trying to set a record,I'm just trying to move better
than I did the last time overthese specific things and
Controlling the variables of theworkouts.
I know X reps it, x sets, withthis much rest is going to give
me this kind of stimulus andmaybe I can't do as much as I
did the last time.
That's okay.
Maybe I just didn't sleep aswell with enough persistence,
(34:44):
though, like you'll breakthrough those plateaus.
And Then it's hard to not beexcited about working out after
a point.
Once you've built the momentumin your favor, it's hard to stop
it.
So momentum works both ways,where, once you have that
consistency down, it's justingrained.
I Think it's ingrained into,like my internal identity, like
(35:07):
the way I see myself is just,this is what I do, and it's hard
to break what we believe wetruly are.
So I know I work out.
That's that's what I do.
I love finding out what I'mcapable of.
So when I try to cartwheel andI get one, and I get the
hands-to-hand push up and I getthese, these fun things, it's
like, well, what else can I do?
So it's a matter of curiosityand kind of exploring this
(35:30):
Instead of feeling like it's achore and it's something I have
to check off because I have todo this or have to do that.
It was switching it to.
I get to do this Because that'shelping me pursue that worthy
ideal that I'm chasing.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
That's great and I love the framework too.
I think that that is such aHelpful way to think about it,
where, yeah, I mean, I'vecertainly been there on days
where you're up all night withthe kids and, for whatever
reason, the lack of sleep makesme just want to eat a bunch of
garbage, and so then I go to thegym and I'm just like like I
really feel like it's almost not, not even worth working out
(36:04):
because it's it's gonna be sucha horrible workout.
But thinking of the idea ofraising your floor and
subsequently raising yourceiling by just putting your
body in motion, I think that's areally helpful, helpful way to
think about it.
I think the other thing yousaid earlier about Breaking it
up throughout the day, likethat's huge, you know, and
there's so many things like thecalf raises while they're
(36:25):
putting their shoes on that'sthat's sort of just by.
You know the sheer capacitythat I have in life right now,
how I've had to think about it.
So it's reassuring to hear thatthat's an approach that that
you take to.
I'm literally doing like lungeson on the way to the bathroom
and then, between calls, allI'll go hammer out some, some
kettlebell swings and I'm justlike man, I hope, I hope some of
(36:46):
those sticks.
So I think the doing itthroughout the day Eliminates a
lot of pressure on people too,where it's like, hey, do you
have a minute, you know, can youjust do?
Do air squats for a minute, youknow, do as many push-ups as
you can for a minute, you know,do your lunges on the way to the
bathroom, and I think that thathelps people Get it in so they
(37:07):
don't feel like they, well, Idon't have an hour, so I'm not,
I'm not gonna get to work outtoday that that like zero some
Principle or you know, I don'thave, I don't have my headphones
, so I can't work out today.
It's like, yeah, just get it inanywhere you can, any way you
can.
I love that and I really likewhat you said.
Around your internal identity,like that that's such a big part
(37:28):
of it is that it feels likethere's a Almost like a sense of
responsibility in it toyourself, because you have this
great external goal where you'redoing this for, for family, for
kids, for future grandkids, butthere also feels like there's
this like responsibility toyourself in that.
Is that something that you feelis kind of a part of that?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, so growing up I mean I was small, I was weak, I
was constantly in pain, I wasextremely slow, and I Remember
feeling that way.
I remember being dead last inevery single race I ran in high
school Like I remember the totalbeing the total opposite.
(38:08):
And I remember when I learnedlike hey, you can actually Work
out and change this, like thisisn't a fixed trait, like this
is developable and I was like ohsnap, okay, I'm gonna develop
this and Then learning likeyou're capable, you, you can
undo some of that.
Like you can get stronger, youcan jump higher, you can run
faster, you can get out of pain.
(38:29):
I was like, okay, that's, yeah,you feel compelled to do that
because I remember where I camefrom.
I remember not liking it, itwas, it was miserable.
And then I've seen both sidesof that.
So One just for my duty tomyself.
Someone framed, someone put thequestion out on something
yesterday and they're like, hey,if imagine the person that you
(38:51):
love the most and you wereforced to swap bodies with them
for a year, it's like think ofthe way that you would take care
of them.
Now do that for yourself.
I was like, okay, well, yeah, Ilove myself.
Like, so I'm gonna take care ofmyself because this is the only
place I got to live.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So Dude, that swap.
I think that perspective is huge, yeah, and I think for a lot of
people, yeah, they'd probablyAlmost be surprised that they
might be willing to do more forsomebody else than they'd be
willing to do for themselves,and I think that's a really good
practice to think about.
You know, if we were to swapwith the person I love the most,
(39:30):
or my kids, you know how, howwell would I nurture that, that
body, that mind, their spirit,through living a healthy
lifestyle, and I think you know,I'm always Hearing and, I guess
, playing Devil's advocate too.
You know, I think one of thecommon reasons why people might
not, though, is that they arefeeling like they're giving
(39:51):
everything to their kids, like Idon't have time to prioritize
my own fitness and my own healthbecause I'm taking care of my
kids, I'm getting them ready forschool, I'm driving them to
school, maybe they'rehomeschooling their kids.
I got to go to work, you know,nolan, I got to put food on the
table.
What would you say to somebodythat is struggling with creating
the space for themselves To bea priority, in terms of their
(40:14):
own health and fitness, but alsotheir own goals and pursuits,
if they're struggling with thatsort of mindset.
Yeah, that's a super fairquestion because that's a very
common problem.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
People believe that they need to Give all of
themselves to their kids, butI've come to realize that I'd
question if being if it'simportant to be A healthy
example of what, or to be a goodexample of what, health and
fitness should look like fortheir kids, and if that would be
(40:48):
more powerful than the examplethat they've currently been
setting for their kids.
So when people aren't eatingwell, because they're cooking
what their kids want to eat andthey're cooking just mac and
cheese and chicken nuggets orsomething they're not like their
kids don't eat, have nevertried vegetables They've never
like, they don't eat me, likewhatever nutrition looks like,
(41:09):
if they're not leading thatexample for their kids, I'd
question that when it's, we'dwalk down the road.
What's that going to look likefor their kids?
Ultimately Like?
Is that going to set themselvesup?
Is that going to set their kidsup for the future that they
want for their kids, or is itjust going to reciprocate back
to the reality they're living?
Where their kids are then goingto?
It's like not putting your yourair mask on first when you're
(41:33):
in the airplane.
Before you've you've got a youcan't pour from an empty vessel,
so I Was looking for a way tomake sure that they're not going
to be able to eat.
Was looking at examples.
A long time back when my wifeand I got married, I was looking
at some of the adults of mylife and I came to this
conclusion that there's ahierarchy in our own identity
(41:57):
and while the highest priority,like the self actualization, may
be being a parent, it may bebeing your kid's parent.
Um, the base level of that isthat you're an individual.
So the greater your capacity ofbeing an individualist, the
more Self-sustained of anindividual you are, more optimal
(42:18):
of an individual you are.
The better partner you can beTo your spouse, the better
partner you are for your spouse,the better of an example you
are for your kids.
So part of this is I want toshow my kids what's possible in
life and you have to take careof yourself so you can take care
of others.
So that would be kind of theway that conversation I try to
(42:42):
steer.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
That yeah, I love that.
Yeah, and I think you know toyour, to your you know.
First point about when you'renot, you weren't able to pick up
your son or have him jump onyour back.
You know, if you're not takingcare of yourself, what kind of
energy are you even showing upwith to play with your kids?
Are you able to play with yourgrandkids, or are you, you know,
have you, have you becomeimmobile to the point where
(43:03):
You're not able to sit on thefloor and play blocks because it
hurts your knees and your backand and so, yeah, I love the
idea of, uh, you talked about.
You know you've got to put your, your oxygen mask on first.
You can't help others untilyou've helped yourself.
And I think you know there'sthis.
There's a struggle with it.
People feel like it's a selfishthing.
But, yeah, if you're not takingcare of yourself, what kind of
(43:24):
energy are you showing up withwith for others?
And I think that you also hit ittoo in the way you described it
, where you want to show yourkids what's possible.
Like, man, if only our kidsjust like, listen to everything
we said, it would be so mucheasier.
But the challenge is thatthey're watching us right and
and Showing them is so muchharder because they're always
(43:47):
watching, and so what are weshowing them?
What are we teaching them aboutthe way they should navigate
the world if we're Not takingcare of ourselves so that
everyone else is served?
Is that something we want forour kids?
You know, if we were to ensurethat for their future, would you
want them to live in a waywhere they're never taking care
of themselves?
Like no way?
So, yeah, I love theperspective there and the thing
(44:10):
I'm curious too, as youmentioned this idea of internal
identity with yourself.
But you're focusing a lot ofthis with how you're sort of
showing and educating your ownkids.
How do you think aboutdeveloping that internal
identity With your kids andhelping them realize that, like
fitness and health isn't like athing, that's like a special
event, but it's just.
(44:31):
It's just the way we live ourlife.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
So I think I've been blessed with a unique advantage,
since we're always at the gymand I think there's some easy
things somebody can do in theirown house too, to do some of the
same things.
Like we put monkey bars up inour house.
We have some jungle gym stuffin the garage, I think just
instead of trying to tell yourkids what a healthy, fit person
(44:55):
does like, show them and body it, go for walks after dinner.
Like show them like it, justmake that, normalize it.
So normalize what health lookslike.
Get on the floor and playblocks because you can go for
walks.
Challenge your kids two thingsLike see if they can climb that
(45:15):
rock, see if they can climb thetree.
Have them do calculatedchallenges.
Right, there's calculated risks.
Some things are just okay.
It's probably not smart tochallenge them to something.
But if it's the rocks tooslippery like, but part of that
would be don't undermine theirinternal confidence.
So don't tell them to becareful.
Versus like tell them like hey,watch your step.
(45:36):
So help them learn to pursuechallenges.
And when they start pursuingchallenges, that builds their
confidence because they realizewhat they are capable of.
And when you make thatsomething physical, like hey,
can they pick this rock up?
And they pick the rock up andyou chair them on and
everybody's happy and it's great.
And the other day our baby, sheclimbed up the stairs for the
(45:58):
first time and so all of us werelike surrounding her and
cheering her on and she wentevery single step and she like
looked around and then she likeclimbed up another step and she
got all the way to the top.
She looked and she was like,yeah, like she did it, and she
like clapped for herself andlike we all cheered.
You could just tell like shewas proud of herself and even at
almost 10 months old she feelsthat that's, that's a part of
human nature.
So you have to.
(46:21):
It takes practice to learn howto cultivate that and to be
aware of opportunities forhelping your kids cultivate that
.
But you just got to seek themout.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I love that and it seems like a lot of it is rooted
in play, you know, like youknow finding ways to not just
make it like we're going onanother hike, but it's like
let's take a tree, climb, breakon the hike, let's climb that
rock along the way who can getto the tree the fastest, you
know?
And rooting these things in alot of play.
But I'm totally guilty of theoh, be careful, even on things
(46:55):
that I'm like like I'm like myson is trying to climb a rock
and I'm like just be careful,and it's like, oh, actually,
make sure that you're pointingyour big toe, like I'm trying to
like, yeah, be a little moremindful of it.
And yeah, I think just so manyof those things you know are
good things to be aware of aswe're doing it.
But yeah, I love that.
It's just like findopportunities, make it rooted in
(47:17):
play, make it somethingenjoyable and model it.
And I love that you have thosethings around your house.
We found that to be reallyhelpful too is that, you know,
you know is sometimes we'll godo our workout and then we'll
have like the little babyweights and they're doing the
baby weight workout with us, oryou know mom's doing a Peloton
video workout, so we've got youknow the mats for the kids and
(47:38):
they're just flailing around onthe mats but like they're seeing
that this is just like a waythat we live, this is a part of
our life and that we're you'reincluded in this.
This isn't just something thatmom and dad does, this is
something we all do.
Yeah, I love that.
I want to come back to somethingthat you've kind of rooted all
this in, which is, again, goals,and I think that you know my
hypothesis with a lot of thesethings and I know I've shared a
(48:01):
lot of my hypotheses.
I just hypothesize all day, buta lot of it, I think, comes
back to the lack of goals, andyou have talked about people
coming in and having specificgoals, but I know that for a lot
of people, they're sort of likethey don't know what their
goals are, they don't know whatthey want, they don't know what
they should be going for.
Like you have spent a lot oftime it sounds like thinking
(48:22):
about your own goals.
How do you think about helpingpeople find their goals so that
that intrinsic motivation isthere and you can just build on
it?
Speaker 1 (48:35):
So a little bit about how we'll go about that is, if
you ask someone why five times,you typically get pretty deep
rooted into an underlyingmotivation behind something
They'll say like oh, they wantto go to the gym.
It's like, well, why do theywant to go to the gym?
It's like, well, you know,maybe they want to.
It just the chain of that getsdown to, like the deeper root.
(48:57):
Maybe they have they want tofit into their genes.
Maybe those genes are becausethey have a high school reunion
coming up and like.
So some of those, those willkickstart the motivation to like
to get that habit going and getthat consistency going.
But to keep it going, that'swhere I think that having
(49:17):
appropriate challenges and thenovercoming those challenges and
then stimulating theircreativity and getting them
excited about seeing what elseis possible and like stimulating
their curiosity about whatthey're capable of, that's how
you keep them hooked and it'sgot to be fun.
You have to approach it in theright manner, but I think that
(49:41):
that's kind of whatever theirgoal is, it's going to probably
change and it's okay that itchanges, but a part of their
goal changes.
They're still going to want towork out.
They know they still probablywant to work out because that's
the healthier thing to do, likethey just understand that that's
(50:02):
what they want to do or shoulddo and that that's probably
going to help them get to theirgoal.
So you have to find ways togamify it.
So even with adults we gamifythings.
We give them targets to beatfor their specific workouts and
so when their pace hits whatevertheir pace was supposed to be,
and then we get to improve theirscore, and then they get to see
(50:22):
and measure that and they getto improve it over time.
Or they realize like, hey, eventhough they just had a hip
replacement and they juststarted going on this hike and
they can step up higher thanthey've ever been able to before
.
So they realize like, whoa,that's crazy.
And you just see that firegoing up, like, oh, what else
can I do?
And then they start exploringmore things.
(50:42):
And when they find themselvesrunning along the beach, and
even though it burns becausethey're running through the sand
and they're running up a hill,but they think back to all the
hard workouts they've gonethrough, they're like, oh,
that's why you had me do allthose squats If I didn't do
those squats they findconfirmation that the squats
helped them perform what theywere really trying to do, which
(51:04):
was running at the beach withtheir family.
I try to pull people's buttonsso they push them themselves,
because when somebody owns that,they're doing it for their own
reasons.
Then they'll really stick withit.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
It makes sense with the goals changing too, like you
know, as you've seen, with yourown like, you're iterating and
getting deeper and getting morespecific and the motivations are
changing.
But I like what you said aboutthe curiosity too.
I didn't realize that until yousaid it, but I think that's a
big piece of what keeps me goingwith my own goals, of this
curiosity Again, specificallywith climbing of like, and I
(51:38):
wonder what that would be like.
I wonder if I could, you know Ishoot, how would my body do at
20,000 feet?
I'm super curious to find out.
You know, I wonder what itwould take to do that.
And I think that curiosity,that's such a great point that
that really is what keepssomebody going.
And really it's like two partyeah, getting somebody just to
(51:59):
get moving on it, and then thatcuriosity and their own
abilities, and stoking thatcuriosity helps really hook them
and make it sticky for them sothat they're just naturally
continuously curious around.
Cool, now what?
Now what, what could I do?
And yeah, that makes a lot ofsense.
I'm curious, like, what are youcurious about your ability to
(52:21):
do now?
Like, what gets you interestedin seeing what you can do?
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, I want to see if I can do a one arm chin up
and I'm getting closer.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
So I think I can.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Everything, pretty much everything besides that
that.
I've been curious if I could dolike I've gotten between stuff
with handstands and cartwheels.
There was a little while wherea tumbling gym rented out the
back of our gym and it was for acouple of months and they had
an adult tumbling class, I waslike I want to do a back flip.
So I took their adult tumblingclass and within four lessons
(52:57):
she had me doing back flips andI was like what I could do a
back flip.
So then I was like, boom.
She's like, hey, let's try backhand spring.
And she had the block set upand I went and my first time I
just like dove straight back,like straight down and like
crashed into it.
And she's like, no, you got tolike jump up as you do it.
So then I went and I jumped upand I jumped over the mat and
did like my first back handspring.
(53:18):
I was like, well, that's crazy,what else is possible?
So I don't totally know what'sout there.
I'm learning how to juggle now.
I'm getting better at juggling.
A lot of what I do people, it'skind of like circus tricks to a
degree.
So between juggling and workingon juggling with my feet too, I
haven't done that.
I'm not very good at that yet.
(53:39):
Something called rope flow,where you're like spinning the
rope around, that's a lot of funHandstand stuff I know I can
get a lot better at that stuff,but the one arm champs like
that's.
That's been a goal for a longtime and I'm starting it like
I'm getting closer and closer tothat one, so that one's really
cool.
I thought it'd be cool to seeif I could get to dunking.
(54:01):
In high school I had probablythe record lowest vertical jump
that they've ever recorded, so Ithought that.
I think it was like 16 inches.
It's pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
That's amazing.
They're like jump.
You're like I just did.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
I just did jump.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
That was my job.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
The best part was they messed up when they put my
score in.
No, it was 14 inches.
And they messed up because theytyped the four before the one.
So it said I had a 41 inchvertical jump.
So it put me at the top of theleaderboard on the sheet they
printed out like everyone knewit wasn't really like.
Everyone is so embarrassed.
So I think it'd be really coolnow in my 30s to get back to
(54:42):
actually dunking a ball and justbeing polar opposite of
everything that I was in highschool, like slow small week in
a pain.
And then now something I'mworking on is the knee over toe
squat where you keep your hipsup the sissy squat right.
The Sisyphus squat and one of mygoals is to always be able to
do that with our baby.
(55:02):
So Ellie May, she's currentlylike 10 months, she's somewhere
around 20 pounds and I can stilldo it holding the baby.
I can still do it holding her.
But even as she gets to threeand five and seven and 10, I
want to still be able to doingthat holding her.
So kind of the idea of Milo,the guy that carried the bull
(55:23):
across the mountain range, backin like the Greek mythology, so
something along those lines likeI think it'd be really cool.
I call it the Ellie May squat,because if I can always do that
with her, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
So well, you're certainly modeling the rooted in
play.
Like I can just see theexcitement as you're talking
about these things and I loveall the things that you're
getting to like there.
The I mean the backflip for meand I'm sitting there going like
man.
I've always wanted to backflip.
I wonder what that would belike.
And I hope people listeninglike just take 30 seconds to
(55:56):
just like dream a bit and becurious about like what's
something that you've kind ofalways known in the back of your
mind that you thought was justcool, that somebody did
generally, and imagine that foryourself.
And I think that that seems tobe a big, important step that
you have made is you're like man, that's cool that people do
that.
I wonder what that would belike if I could do that and then
(56:18):
taking that action to, to, youknow, make progress on it.
So yeah, dude, you're gettingmy brain spinning on all kinds
of interesting things.
Hopefully I'm backflipping herein the next six months.
So I just have one more thingaround.
You know sort of like the originstory, because you mentioned
your background of you knowbeing slow and weak and small
(56:39):
and being in pain.
So you know fitness hasn't beena thing.
That has been a part of yourlife, your whole life, and I'm
curious, you know, what do youfeel like, whether it was
something like your, your owndad did or your own parents did
to help nurture that, or werethere things that were absent
from the way you grew up thatyou realized, like man had?
(56:59):
I had that earlier from afather, parent, mentor.
That would have been reallyhelpful.
Just curious, like where didthings shift for you?
And and again, what?
What do you think was donereally well from the adults in
your life as a kid that helpednurture that and where do you
think you might do thingsdifferently as a dad yourself?
Speaker 1 (57:18):
So I remember being back with, like as a kid, my
parents I feel they did a reallygood job of forcing me to be
consistent with things and mybrother and I we went to, we did
karate and we took it for yearsand we got all the way up
through the belts and we gotright to the point where we're
(57:39):
about to test for our black beltand then the professor he
tossed in like oh, here's a newbelt that you have to test for
before your black belt, becausehe just wanted money for two
more kids in the classes.
So he kept adding it.
My parents are like no, youguys know everything you need to
like.
So they pulled us out.
Um, after that, I they, my dadrequired me to do sports.
(58:01):
It was like in middle school,it was like I had to do at least
one sport a year.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
My teacher.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
He was the wrestling coach, so he talked me into
wrestling because we werestudying ancient Greece and he's
like, oh, the ancient Greekswrestled, You'd love it.
It's like, okay, I don't loveit.
Uh, at the time I didn't loveit.
It was like I had to eat tomake weight for the lightest
weight class.
I was like 70 pounds.
And then going into when mybrother was going into high
(58:29):
school, he really wanted to playfootball because my dad's loved
watching sports.
So he knew he wanted to playfootball and impress my dad.
And my dad got him a personaltrainer.
And then my brother's footballcoach said he didn't want him
working out with a trainer, hewanted all of his workouts to be
with the team.
Well, my dad prepaid for allthese sessions and somebody had
(58:50):
to deal with him.
So I had to fill in thesessions and so I started
working with a personal trainerand I couldn't stand it.
It drove me nuts it.
I did not like the gym.
I didn't like working out.
It was something that I wasforced to do.
I had to be bribed with chickensandwiches and milkshakes
afterwards.
And my trainer he the onlything really in fitness he
(59:14):
really understood.
He was, he was a bodybuildinglike coach, so he really
understood bodybuilding.
And it was at this kind ofhoity toyy athletic club and it
was a really nice facility butit really catered to a very
niche part of fitness and Ithought the whole point you
worked out was to get big.
That was my entireunderstanding I worked out with
him.
(59:34):
And then high school came around.
Once I got into high school, mydad said, no, now you have to
do three sports a year.
He's like great.
So then I started doing.
I had to do three sports a year.
I learned being allergic tograss and small and slow
football was not my favorite.
I did that for two years.
(59:56):
But wrestling I realized that Ihad gained a little bit of
weight.
So I was a little bit biggernow and I was no longer gaining
weight to make the lightweightclass I can do to be better than
my opponents.
I can practice harder.
And I learned, oh, I canstrength train and I can be
stronger than I can be Strongerthan them.
Some kids are stronger thanothers and I can get stronger
(01:00:18):
and I can run and I can build upmy endurance and these are
things I can do to have an edgeon who I'm wrestling and this
guy or I wasn't.
And once high school was comingto an end, I was like well, I'm
not going to wrestle anymore.
So now I found like the sportof fitness and I got into like
hey, there's performance basedtraining.
(01:00:39):
And I got more into like, oh,you can do things for time and
you can turn this into like itsown competition.
And I was like, wait, becausestill at the time, even though I
knew you got stronger fromlifting weights, I thought it
was only correlated to the sizeof your muscle.
So I still only understood itas bodybuilding and an
aesthetics approach, so this wasgearing into a performance
approach.
So then I dove deep into thatand I realized like, hey, I'm
(01:01:03):
getting stronger, I'm gettingfaster, I'm getting in better
shape, but all these things thatI wanted are happening.
And then I started.
I started training and Istarted training other people
and I started seeing how ithelped them.
And one of my first clients wasa.
He was like 74 and I rememberhe walked into the gym with a
(01:01:23):
cane and his goal was to playbasketball.
I was like an 18 year old kidand I was like, yeah, we can do
that.
And it was just like eternallyoptimistic.
Well, within like three monthshe was back running on the court
playing basketball and weplayed one on one and as a
wrestler.
So I wasn't very good, so itworked.
But I was like holy smokes,like we can take somebody that
can barely walk and we can getthem to this.
And when I saw the power thatthere was in helping people with
(01:01:48):
this, I realized, like what Iwanted to do, so that sparked
the cure.
Like that sparked that bigcuriosity of like what's
possible out there and ifsomething's possible for
somebody I can't, it means it'spossible for one and it means
it's possible for me to getbetter at it and it's just a
matter of if I'm going to putthe time into doing what's
needed to get all that, to getto that distance in it.
(01:02:11):
So if I don't get to theone-arm chin up, it's because I
didn't commit enough timerelative to my other goals and
that's okay.
That's.
That's kind of where the baseof all that's from.
So for my kids, what what I'mtrying to model is I have
workouts for them where one ofmy sons they both want to dunk.
(01:02:32):
They both like playingbasketball.
So we have a little eight foothoop in the front and they want
to dunk.
So I have speed and jumpingworkouts for them that we're
doing and I don't force them todo it.
So a little bit more lenientthan my dad was, but I try to
make them want to do it and byasking the right questions and
(01:02:53):
framing things, I hope that moreoften than not, they do do the
workouts and when they'reexcited about it, I try to
remember like, okay, this iswhen it's really important, is
when they're excited about it.
Then they do the workouts andthen, like my one son, they had
field day at school and they hadto like see who could jump the
farthest and he smoked all theother kids in his class and I
(01:03:14):
was like that's cause you workedout and he put those pieces
together.
He's like, yeah, okay, I wantto keep doing this and so
modeling the stuff.
I feel it's been pretty easywhere, showing them how that
connects to what their goalshave been, and then it's just a
matter of flowing with it.
Is their goals change?
We'll mix it up, but that's myplan.
(01:03:35):
Thanks, dude.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
I think, as a former wrestler, I think the big
takeaway is make sure your kidswrestle, right.
No, I love what you said aboutyou know there's a shift for you
where it was no longer aboutexternal motivation, but it was
intrinsic.
It was like I'm actually fullyin control of this and that's
what makes it interesting,because now I'm, I have a lot of
experience and I have the powerto do whatever I want to do
(01:03:59):
with this.
And that is such a cool moment,I think, for people when they
make that shift of like wow,this is.
It's like the bestresponsibility you've ever come
to realize.
So you're like wow, like if I'mthe problem, I'm the solution,
if the only way this gets betteris me doing something, then
like that's perfect, becausethat is 100% what I can control.
(01:04:21):
And I love that.
With your focus with your kids,it sounds like you're really
focusing in on that intrinsicmotivation, like they are going
to want to do it.
And I think you hit onsomething else too with the
success your son saw in jumpingthe farthest is like sometimes
all it takes is just stickingwith it until you see some
success, like just man, justkeep going, keep going until you
(01:04:44):
see progress or success or alittle win, and then it's like
you're hooked, you're you're,you're clipped in, you're now
ready to do this.
You know, at the highest level.
You can, you, you, you feltthat.
So, man, that's awesome.
And yeah, I love the.
I love a good wrestling originstory too, so that was a near
and dear to my heart.
You know you're training and Iwant to come back to where.
(01:05:07):
Where can people follow alongon the journey?
Where can people find out abouttraining with you?
Like, where can people, wherecan people do that?
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
The best place is probably Instagram at nwfitnolan
.
Tiktok is just Nolan Womack.
I'm on Facebook too, butInstagram is probably the best
place.
That's where most involved.
I'm on YouTube at nwfit.
Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Got it Awesome, yeah.
So follow along.
I'm certainly follow along, andit's my daily reminder to make
sure I get my workout in in anyway possible, and I'm excited to
see you know how many daysyou're going to get in.
I'm sure we'll be in thethousands at some point, based
on your years of consistency.
And I want to just put it backto you you know we've talked
about kind of a wide array ofsubjects, from from goals and
(01:05:55):
process and logistics to youknow, a little bit of philosophy
dabbled in.
But if you, if you were toleave other dads with any piece
of advice, whether they arecurrently pursuing their goals
or not, you know what, what,what do you think you'd want to
leave them with?
That's been really helpful foryou being able to put yourself
in the position that you have sofar.
Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
So I would want to remind them of memento mori.
And that's what makes itbeautiful, because our time's
limited, so live like it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
I've taken away so much greatness from this, and I
know other dads will as well.
So, nolan, thank you so muchfor for all the time and again
excited to continue followingalong.
This has been an episode of theathlete dad podcast.
As always, we'd really loveyour support in helping to get
(01:06:47):
this podcast out into the world.
You can do that by sharing itwith somebody you care about,
who you think would reallyappreciate the content of what
we talk about.
You can also like and review onall podcast platforms, so go
give us some love.
It's much appreciated and itcertainly helps us out keeping
the show going.
It's also important that yougive us a follow on Instagram at
(01:07:09):
the athlete dad.
You can get all the access toall the pictures and content and
more from the podcast that wetalk about, and, of course, I'm
a visual person, so I love whatwe get to share on Instagram and
it keeps you up to date on allthe things happening with the
podcast.
So go give us a follow onInstagram and actually all other
socials at the athlete dad Ifyou want exclusive access to
(01:07:32):
content that we do not sharepublicly on the podcast or
socials themselves.
You're going to want to sign upfor our email list.
Go to theathletadcom, sign upfor the email list, become one
of our exclusive subscribers andyou'll get access to things
like more bonus episode, deeperdives, other content that we
just don't release to the public, things that I think, if you
(01:07:53):
really enjoy this topic, you'regoing to love, because we just
get much more into the weeds onall of these things.
So go to theathletadcom, signup for our email list and grab
yourself some of that exclusivecontent.
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