Muscle as Medicine: How Smart Training Extends Your Healthspan - with Dr. John Rusin

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What if your workout routine actually built your body up instead of breaking it down? Dr. John Rusin, one of the world's leading experts in strength and performance, has revolutionized fitness with a philosophy that merges rehabilitation with peak performance.

After nearly three years of development, Dr. Rusin has distilled his renowned certification program into his new book "Pain-Free Performance," a comprehensive guide to training that respects your body while maximizing results. His approach stems from a surprising realization: the same principles that keep elite athletes healthy apply equally to everyday people seeking longevity and quality of life.

During our conversation, Dr. Rusin challenges conventional wisdom about exercise, revealing why most people waste time in the gym with movements that produce minimal results. He explains how strength training becomes truly effective only when it respects principles of adaptation—training close enough to failure, achieving sufficient volume, and moving with purpose. The good news? His clients typically train just 2-3 days weekly for 45 minutes, proving that quality trumps quantity when guided by proper methodology.

For those dealing with chronic pain or movement limitations, Dr. Rusin offers immediate solutions, including his 10-minute daily "six-phase dynamic sequence" that can transform how your body moves and feels. We explore common scenarios like post-pregnancy fitness challenges and nagging shoulder injuries, with practical advice for each situation.

Perhaps most powerful is Dr. Rusin's perspective on exercise as a cornerstone habit that enhances every aspect of life. "It makes me a better father, makes me a better husband, makes me a better business owner, gives me more energy, and it allows me to be at my best mentally, physically, and emotionally every single day," he shares.

Whether you're a weekend warrior, dealing with chronic pain, or simply seeking to extend your healthspan, this episode offers a refreshing, science-backed approach to movement that will change how you think about fitness forever.

Website: https://drjohnrusin.com

IG: @drjohnrusin

YouTube link: here

Tweet me @realdrhamrah
IG @drhamrah

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, everyone, welcome to the show.
Today, I'm joined by someonewho has truly changed the way I
personally think about trainingand longevity Dr John Rusin.
Dr Rusin is one of the leadingexperts in the world of strength
and performance and the authorof his new book, pain-free
Performance.
What sets him apart is hisunique philosophy fitness should

(00:24):
build you up, not break youdown.
He's a creator of pain-freeperformance training systems,
which has been used byprofessional athletes, weekend
warriors and everyday peoplelike myself to get stronger,
move better and stay injury-free.
What I love about John's work isthat it really bridges the gap

(00:46):
between rehabilitation andperformance.
Instead of separating physicaltherapy from strength training,
he's created a model that keepspeople moving, thriving and
performing at their best, notjust for sport, but for life,
and in the context of health andlongevity, that message

(01:07):
couldn't be more important,because if you want to live
longer and healthier, we cannotafford to waste time with
training that leaves us hurt,overtrained or burned out.
So today we're going to diveinto how his principles can help
us not only build strength, butalso extend our health span.

(01:29):
We'll cover everything frommuscle as medicine to recovery
as longevity tool, to what atrue anti-aging workout might
look like.
So, john, it's an honor to haveyou here.
We finally got this online, andso now you have recently written

(01:53):
a book called Pain-FreePerformance.
Now, before we dive into what'sin that in your book, what made
you actually write a book?
You're so busy with health andfitness and all of that.
First of all, what made youwrite the book, what motivated
you and how did you find thetime?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, I'm a career educator, so 19 years into my
career, we've run thousands ofcertification courses, live and
in person all across the world.
I've worked with tens ofthousands of clients inside of
my programs, I've been able tospeak and lecture at some of the
best universities and I have alot of free information out
there and I love to share it.

(02:35):
And we kept on getting the samequestion time and time again in
the pain-free performancespecialist certification live
events and it was John.
This really resonates with me.
This was the best weekend of mylife.
Where can I get all theseresources in one spot?
And we've been hearing that foralmost a decade at this point

(02:55):
and I didn't plan on everwriting a book.
It wasn't aspirational for meto go in and create not only a
book, but we're talking about atextbook, which is a whole new,
different animal.
And in 2022, on Thanksgiving Day, I got a call from a big
publishing house out here in LasVegas, nevada.
They're responsible for theall-time best-selling health and

(03:17):
fitness books and alsonutrition books to ever see the
light of day here in America,and I had somebody who was a
co-author for many of the booksthat I learned from going
through my undergraduate andgraduate studies and even as I
continued my education outsideof school, and he was on the
other end of the line saying,hey, john, we want to make
pain-free performance come tolife in a mainstream textbook.

(03:38):
And naively, I said, hey, let'sdo it.
And then he uh my co-author'sname is Glenn Cordoza and Glenn
said, hey, let's do it.
And then he uh, my coauthor'sname is Glenn Cordoza and Glenn
said, hey, and I believe so muchin your system I've been
utilizing your workouts and yourtraining programs and I've been
through your education coursethat I want to co-write this
book with you.
And I was like man, this is thebest news I've ever had.

(03:59):
Thanksgiving of 2022.
I thought I was in for a yearand almost three years later,
we're coming to a head with therelease of Pain-Free Performance
.
All Places Books Are Sold onOctober 21st, two years and 11
months since we started thisproject.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, I can imagine.
I mean it's something like whatyou told me.
It's about 600 pages.
I mean that's a thick book.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
It's 574 pages and the reason that I know it's 574,
it was that was the absolutecutoff for being able to bind a
hardcover book properly withoutit falling apart.
It was more mechanical issueversus a content issue
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
So do you feel you had to compromise a lot to pack
all that valuable knowledge in abook, or were you able to kind
of make it more concise?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I think both Making concessions was a matter of
trying to take a system which istried and true and proven and
one of the fastest growing andbiggest certification courses in
America today, and attemptingto make it better make it
shorter, make it more conciseand make sure that there were no
holes inside of the system,because when you teach for 16

(05:12):
hours over a two-day course,there's a lot of different
nuances.
You have a live audience, youcan answer questions, you can go
in and give live demos, you canbreak things down with a little
bit more detail according tothe interaction that you get in
the gym, but when you read aresource like a book, that is an
evergreen resource very wellthat you need to address

(05:34):
everything right away, so youdon't have any questions.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Now you have a lot of content on your social media.
By the way, if you guys want tocheck your social media out on
Instagram at Dr John Rusin, youhave a lot of high quality
videos that really depict nicelythe mechanics and the purpose

(05:59):
of different and varioustraining exercises.
But what I love about your pageis what actually attracted me.
You give, like simple tips,whether it is shedding
perspective or light into thewhy or into the science, as well
as motivational ones by simplygiving out facts that really by

(06:30):
simply giving out facts, thatreally makes us think and look
at exercise in a whole differentway.
So which came first?
Did you develop this concept ofyour book based on what you had
been already doing on yoursocial media platform, or was it
the other way around?
You tried to kind of get littlebits and pieces of the
knowledge into social media from?
Or was it the other way around?
You tried to kind of get littlebits and pieces of the
knowledge into social media fromthe book, like, was it the
chicken or the egg, or how didyou do that?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, I think the more interesting origin story is
in 2013,.
I was over in China working forthe Chinese Olympic Committee
as a sports performance coach,and I was a coach by trade, so
nobody knew my name.
I did not Facebook or Instagramor YouTube or any of this stuff
, but I found myself in a 13hour ahead time zone difference
so nobody spoke English over atBeijing.

(07:14):
Nobody was available for me tospeak to back where I was from
in America and I was left withall this time and I got this
idea that I was like hey, I readso many articles, I'm reading
the science and the literature,why not try to write some
articles?
And I submitted a couplearticles to at the time is
called testosterone nation tnationcom, and that was like the

(07:38):
be all end all.
If you were a strength andperformance coach, you were
publishing your materials overthere because it got millions of
views back when people used toread long form articles.
So I got my start writing longform articles and when I talk
about is four to 7,000 wordsmultimedia video describing
everything that I was doing, andI was simply writing on topics

(08:00):
that I was doing on a day to daybasis with my performance
athletes.
You know that transitioned overthe years to be able to find my
niche more in general fitnesspopulations with more of a
health and longevity focus.
But I saw that those principlesremained the same between my
sports performance background,now my health and longevity
focus, and then, in 2018,started teaching the

(08:21):
certification course.
Teaching the certificationcourse but the book is the exact
curriculum and structure thatwe teach in our two-day
pain-free performance specialistcertification course.
But with this course, we teachthe system of pain-free
performance.
We teach how to bucket, how tooptimize movement and also how
to be able to prescribe andprogram based on goal sets, but

(08:44):
also staying healthy and stayingfunctional in the process.
So I think that being aspecialist as a generalist is
more of where I can speak to andI hope that that comes through
in social media a little bitmore today in 2025, than it has
in the past, because I'm used tolong form content.
The idea of long form contenttoday hurts people's brains, so

(09:06):
everything is very quick hitting.
It's quick hitting lines, it'scatchy things, and then I'm a
big advocate of practicing whatI preach.
So many of the differentmovements or the different
workouts that you'll see thisisn't staged, like I'm not in a
studio, like trying to massproduce this content.
That's me I have an hour a dayto train between my client work
and my family life, and I justtake out the tripod and I'm able

(09:30):
to show what I'm doing andpeople can come and join me in
doing exactly what I'm doing orforms of it, with coaching and
training.
So I think that it's almostlike a bird's eye view on what's
actually happening, not stage,just real life practicing what I
preach, because I do believe somuch in the model that I
couldn't afford to do it, not doit myself.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Now.
At which point?
That's very interesting.
At which point did you make theconnection between exercise and
actually longevity orhealthspan?
I know the concept is not new.
The science has been out there,but I feel like today everybody
is talking about it.
Social media has caused thisvirality when it comes to

(10:12):
exercise and longevity.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
At which point you know in your science I mean,
you're obviously a PhD, so youhave studied and you have
published on this- you havestudied and you have published

(10:39):
on this, but was this always thecase in fitness and in the
fitness world was being able totake the best athletes in the
world and just ensure that theywere healthy, ensure that they
were fit and they were excitedto go out and be their best at
their sport.
And I think that that is theopposite of what most people
think about sports performance.
They think, oh, we're makingpeople jump higher and run
faster and be better athletes.

(10:59):
You're really not.
You're managing somebody who'salready great at what they do.
And that principle remainedtrue no matter who I worked with
.
Futuristically, I think, thisidea of health and longevity
mixing with high-end performance.
It really came full steam aheadwhen I was in Southern
California working with clientsin NFL off-season and I had a

(11:22):
quarterback.
He was an ex-NFL MVP, he's wonSuper Bowls, super awesome guy
and I worked with him with alittle bit of physical therapy,
some sports performance and alittle bit of personal training,
just because he liked to train.
And simultaneously I was alsoworking with his wife, who was a
mother of three at the timethree young kids at home and

(11:43):
wanted to be fit and healthy.
And I was also working with hiswife's mom, his mother-in-law,
who was in her 70s at that time.
She wanted to live a great lifeand she wanted to be active and
able to do everything that wasavailable for her to do in San
Diego, which was surf.
She wanted to be able to walkthe beach and run around with
her grandchildren and she wantedto be fit enough to walk and

(12:05):
make sure that she could do thetravel schedule of an NFL season
, which was 18 weeks long duringthe regular season.
So that's a lot of stress on thebody.
But I looked at everything thatwe did between the NFL player,
his wife and his mother-in-law,and the principles remain the
same of hey, they need to behealthy, they need to feel good,

(12:25):
they need to have a baselinelevel of general physical
preparedness and then, after wedo all that, we're able to
actually niche down and getafter their particular goal sets
, whether that be aesthetics,whether that be a little bit
more in terms of a performancerealm, more in terms of a
performance realm, or simplyworking on some of their

(12:47):
internal health and being ableto influence some of their blood
markers via the physicaltraining that we were doing in
the gym.
So the principles were the same.
But if you said that you weretraining an NFL MVP, the same as
his wife and his mother-in-law,people would think you're crazy
.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
And so can you kind of explain what is more
important at different stages inyour life when it comes to
health and fitness, whether itis muscle mass, agility,
flexibility, stages of our lives, considering our age, also
considering limitations that ourage bring with themselves?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Well, the concept of lifelong performance really
means that from the time thatyou start to be physically
autonomous as a child all theway up into late into your
lifespan, we should be able tohave core physical
characteristics that aremaintained in a human movement
system that is also maintainedthroughout that time.
That's where we start to getinto physical movement health

(13:55):
span, and it's very similar froma child all the way up into
somebody into their 30s and 40sand all the way into somebody
who is working on their seventhor eighth decade on this earth.
And these principles stillremain the same.
But I think that the change offocus is largely dependent on

(14:16):
previous level of function andfocus, and what I mean by that
is if we had neglected thingslike strength or muscular
hypertrophy for the last threeor four decades, by the time
you're 50 or 60, that becomes avital concern of your longevity.
But with the same person or adifferent example in the same
situation in terms of age, ifyou have somebody that had

(14:38):
always been an athlete, theymaintain their gym going
abilities between their 20s, 30sand 40s.
They're already starting offreally well.
Maybe they have great musclemass, maybe they have great
strength levels, and we need toactually hybridize and look at
some of their cardiovascularabilities, boosting their base
of VO2 or their peak of VO2, oreven looking at their mobility

(15:00):
and their movement quality orpower expressions.
So everyone's a little bitdifferent, but I think that
there is this big push into thehealth and wellness industry
today which is exercise asmedicine, and I'm so ready for
that because I've been preachingthat my entire career.
But I think that there's a bigdifference between somebody
saying I believe in exercise orstrength training is the key to

(15:25):
longevity and actually takingaction with a prescription that
is individualized to thespecific person, because you and
I could be exactly the same age, but I guarantee you that our
history is totally different.
Our health history, our medicalhistory, our movement history,
our injury history is going tolikely dictate where we move

(15:46):
forward from.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
So I love that, because I couldn't agree with
you more.
The frustration that many people, my patients in particular, are
left with is I feel like it's2025, we have so much science,
there's people like you, but yetpeople are lost as to where to
start, where to go, how to findhelp and if they go to a local

(16:12):
gym using their membership,oftentimes the trainers that are
there they don't have theknowledge, don't know how to
combine physical therapy withfitness, because most of the
patients that I see they're inthe middle ages or older.

(16:35):
They have some nagging injurywe're going to talk about what
the most common ones are andthey're, frankly, scared to
exercise because they feel likethey're going to aggravate an
injury, because it's alreadyhard enough for them to reach
for a glass, a cup of water orin the shower like wash their
back because of some naggingshoulder injury.
And when they're told that theyneed to go to the gym it's part

(16:57):
of their health and longevitythey're like look, I don't have
the physical ability, I havearthritis or I have knee pain, I
have shoulder pain, sotherefore I can't go to the gym.
Why is it that at 20, 25, thereis this confusion and there's
this lack of guidance when itcomes to this.
Probably, I would argue, it'sthe most important aspect of our

(17:20):
health.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
There's a large silo in dogmatic approach when it
comes to training, when it comesto nutrition, even sleep and
recovery, and it is one methodis the best for everything, all
the time, for everyone, andthat's just simply not true,
because many times we'll findfitness professionals in the
field today that are laggingprofessionalism, they're lagging

(17:44):
education and they're laggingcommon sense.
We tend to see heavy turnoverin personal trainers in our
industry today.
Almost 90% of personal trainerswho start a year personal
training will actually leave theprofession at the end of the
year.
So turnover means that you aregoing to have a vast majority of
those fitness professionalsthat you should be being able to

(18:06):
be guided by when you are in areturn to training situation.
That's somebody that is workingwith aches, pains, previous
injuries or health conditionsthat are simply mismatched in
terms of their interests ortheir hobbies and what they
bring to the table in terms oftheir training style and the
reality of what people actuallyneed in the real world.
So I'm a big believer of beingable to be well-rounded, being

(18:29):
able to be hybridized in termsof your physical capabilities
and have that show up in yourtraining program.
We all know that strengthtraining is great, but not
everyone has to become a powerlifter in order to train
strength.
We all know that buildingmuscle is super advantageous for
longevity.
Muscle is money as we get older, but we don't all need to be a
professional bodybuilder.

(18:49):
I think that we get so muchattention by the spectrum.
A freak show will sell, it willget the eyeballs and they'll go
, wow, I want to be theresomeday.
Or, man, if I could just get afraction of the percent closer

(19:12):
to what that girl looks like,I'd be doing really well.
Therefore, I should do what shedoes, even if she doesn't do it
herself.
Very rarely will we havesomebody with a really just a
mature approach to what trainingwell looks like being able to
move well, being able tooptimize your movement patterns,
be able to layer in things likepower, strength, muscle mass,

(19:34):
mobility, cardio andconditioning and forms of
athleticism and know very wellthat the gym is a means to
living a better life.
Being good at exercise has avery limited capability in the
real world.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
So what do you feel?
How can that be changed?
Because I feel, especially now,in the world of social media,
like you said, everybody wantsto compare themselves with
people that have put in the workfor many years, but then
judging just the end result andtrying to find a hack or a
shortcut to get there.

(20:11):
And by doing so they realize,you know, as they're struggling,
they realize, well, I guessit's not for me, because no
matter what I do, I can't seeany improvement.
How do you retrain someone'sthought process and mind when
approaching fitness in the wrongway?

Speaker 2 (20:36):
It's like that with anything in life.
You can compare yourself to abillionaire if you just made
your first million dollars andyou could feel like an absolute
loser.
The same could be said lookingat fake, ai-based generated
physiques online, looking atenhanced booty chicks with
different inserts inside oftheir body that was not

(20:57):
necessarily earned in the gym,or looking at certain bros that
would make Ronnie Coleman'ssteroid cycle look calm.
So we need to stop comparingourselves to what I believe is a
fake and plastic social mediascene.
You know we've spent a lot oftime on social media and then
you go out there in the realworld, you go to Target or you

(21:18):
go to Walmart or you go to yourlocal grocery store.
You're likely the fittestperson in that store with
hundreds of people and you'relike, okay, this is now the real
world.
But I work with my clients allthe times in terms of mindset,
and especially when it comes toa health and longevity focused.
Mindset of your health and yourfitness has nothing to do with

(21:41):
anyone else.
It's about you being your mostoptimal self you looking,
feeling and functioning yourbest, and it's never a
comparison game, because nomatter what your endeavor is in
life, you will never be the bestat it, and that's totally fine,
because you and your abilitieselsewhere are going to be able
to really shine bright and it'sless of what you look like.

(22:04):
And it's less of what you looklike and it's less of what you
perform like in a snapshot of afive second Instagram reel, and
it's more of the level of howyou live.
Are you physically thriving orare you struggling?
I think that answering thatquestion and actually creating
some forward moving momentumwith the physical practice it
gets people's buy in to be ableto have this so-called

(22:24):
transformation happen not over asix or eight week period, but
over a multiple decade periodwhere we start to habituate what
we make our life better viadoing, which is our training,
which is our nutrition and alsoour other 23 hours of the day
lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Now you have an app called unbreakable Is that
correct, correct?
And?
And in that app you givestructured guidance when it
comes to fitness, fitnessnutrition and all of the stuff
that make you healthy.
Essentially, I want you to tellus how the users can use that

(23:08):
as a tool to work towards a goaland how you guys guide them
through the app.
Because, truthfully, I think welive in a world where people
don't have the time to go to agym for hours and train.
I mean, world is fast-paced.
If you tell someone that theycan do something from home,

(23:29):
they're more likely to do it,but then they just need the
motivation and drive.
That's the other, that's acaveat.
Other, that's a caveat.
And also, from statistics, fromyour app, what is the majority
of the population that uses theapp?
Is it like the common gym bro?
Is it the middle-aged womanthat is trying to get in shape?

(23:53):
Are there just athletes andyounger folks?
Can you kind of explain thatand then tell us what the spread
there is?

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, so the Unbreakable app.
You know it sounds like anotherapp.
Oh cool, it's an app with atraining program on it, but I
worked over a year to createsomething proprietary for being
able to reflect the quality ofmy programming, my education,
and then a holistic health plan.
Reflect the quality of myprogramming, my education, and
then a holistic health plan.
In my opinion, just going inand exercising without
addressing nutrition, lifestylerecovery, it's never going to

(24:27):
move the needle in the amountthat you want it to.
So when we put Unbreakabletogether, training is our first
pillar.
But training has optionalityinside of the app, because we
all know that we train differentdays a week.
Maybe one week is differentthan another.
Maybe I'm traveling in LasVegas right now and I don't have
access to my home gym and I'min a hotel gym.
So we have 10 distinct programsthat are all ongoing that are

(24:51):
brand new for you, every singletraining block that you can
actually pick and choose andcreate your perfect structure.
That could be anywhere from twodays per week, full body
training, all the way up intosix days a week, where you lift
heavy on four days and you dohigh-end VO2 max work and cardio
and conditioning on another twodays and there's everything in

(25:12):
between.
I think one of the powerfulthings is about Unbreakable is
that you can start layering inwhat we know to be good, true
and effective in terms of yourhealth and longevity.
So we pick a primary trainingprogram which is like, hey, if
you do nothing else other thanthis primary training program,
you're going to kill it.
And then when people get themomentum going and they have a

(25:33):
little bit more time, hey, Ihave 20 more minutes three days
a week.
They can pull in things like amobility-emphasized program that
they can do in front of theirNetflix in chill mode.
They can pull in differentcardio that they can get their
150 minutes of Zone 2 cardio in,and they can also go at chronic
injury and pain points withspecific protocols to actually
build them back up from aprehabilitative and a

(25:55):
rehabilitative perspective.
So we'd like to have that firstpillar of training really come
to life.
It's not just following atraining program.
You can absolutely do thatinside of Unbreakable if you'd
like but with the assistance ofmyself and my entire staff,
we're able to create optimalsolutions for people to be able
to work on their prehab work ontheir mobility, work on their
strength and also theirconditioning, and we can make

(26:18):
this unique to almost everysingle user now, how do you, how
do you guys?

Speaker 1 (26:22):
I know you talk a lot about on your site and on your
content that in order to givesomeone advice as to how they
should be training specificallyto their body, you have to be
able to observe them in motion,observe their mechanics and
their posture.
All of those things areimportant because it's not a

(26:44):
cookie cutter approach.
Not everybody should do thesame exercise, the same reps and
same motion.
How do you do that with yourapp?
Let's say I'm a customer andI'm downloading the app and am I
just watching some exercisevideos and I just try to do it
to my best ability without anyfeedback?

(27:04):
How did you guys crack that?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, this is a great question.
I'm so glad you asked this,because why we spend five days
every month in studio in LasVegas to work inside of the
Unbreakable app is that we notonly have demo videos of 3,000
different exercise variants, wehave tutorials of all 3,000
different exercise variants.
So when you pull in a exerciseor a workout from us, no matter

(27:32):
what type of plan that you're on, first things first, you'll
have a written description ofexactly what we want you to do.
You'll have me or my staffpersonally executing the
movement on a psych wall, whitescreen, perfect camera angles to
be able to see the mechanics ofthe movement itself, and then
we have a little icon that youcan click and go I need a little

(27:53):
bit more education on this andyou click into the icon and you
have a one minute tutorial onexactly how to execute, the
things to avoid and the ways tomanipulate it in order to make
it work for your body, notagainst your body.
And if all else fails, we haveoptionality in terms of the
workout itself.
So if you're like man, a trapbar deadlift just doesn't feel

(28:14):
awesome today.
Boom, you click in anotherbutton.
You have a B and a C option.
Boom, you click in anotherbutton, you have a B and a C
option.
It flips it right out for youand you're able to get into
something comfortable to keep onmoving through the workout with
success and with empowerment,instead of something that leaves
you frustrated.
And I think that the amount ofresources that go into doing
3000 tutorial videos nobody'sever done it before and that's a

(28:38):
shining star of Unbreakablebecause at their roots my staff
and myself we are careereducators.
So even though we're coachingour clients and our members in
the Unbreakable app through atraining scenario, we also want
to educate them.
Back to the second part of yourquestion who's actually
utilizing this app?
We have a wide array ofdifferent avatars that will come

(29:00):
in and utilize our app, but avast majority of people are
going to be 40 plus years oldand we have an actually 70%
women to 30% men split, and Ithink that our most powerful
members are the ones that arelooking at resources like yours
and saying, hey, I know I needto be strength training, but I

(29:22):
don't want to get hurt, I needprofessional guidance and I need
a trusted source that has donea lot of this with people like
me, and I think that the 40 pluswomen who know that they need
to take their group trainingclasses or maybe their cardio
focused fitness work over thelast one or two decades, take it
up a notch in terms of beingable to strength train.

(29:43):
That is where we're having themost success right now.
It doesn't necessarily meanthat we don't have a bunch of
gym bros that are super strongand getting huge and lean we do.
It doesn't necessarily meanthat we don't have young and
also extended age people weabsolutely do.
But the vast majority of ourpeople are training anywhere
from three to four days per weekand it is a lot of our ladies
absolutely coming in there andcrushing it.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
That's amazing.
So pretty much it's foreveryone.
It depends on what your goal is.
Now let's do some scenarioswhere you know I would say these
are the most typical scenariosthat I've been confronted with
when trying to promote exerciseand fitness to my patients,

(30:29):
because for me is one of themost important prescriptions
that I write for my patientstowards their health and
longevity, as well as preparingthem for their surgeries, as I
don't want to take someone intothe operating room that is
metabolically unhealthy, that isnot fit, that is overweight and

(30:53):
has significant lack of musclemass lack of muscle mass.
So one of the approaches thatI've really utilized is to
prepare my patients for surgery,as if I would prepare them for
a sports event, whether it couldbe like marathon or it could be

(31:14):
like some sort of a footballgame, whatever that is, whatever
exercise that is.
So we have a patient.
She just had a baby and sixmonths postpartum she says you
know what?
I'm having trouble losing thebaby weight.

(31:36):
Where do I start?
I have barely any time becauseI'm busy with the baby and the
other children and maybe I'mworking.
There's no way I have time toexercise.
And now that person isspiraling down and doesn't even
know how to get out.
What would you, john, suggestthat patient or that person to

(31:58):
start?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
John suggest that patient or that person to start
Time is always going to be theself-perceived limiting factor
that a vast majority of peoplewill make an excuse from.
I use the word excuse prettyleanly.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
It is an excuse because you don't know, you
don't have a solution.
So in the real sense, when welook at it as an excuse, but
from a person's perspective, ishelplessness.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, so part of being a great personal trainer
and fitness professional isbeing able to navigate the
psychology and the emotions thatgo into being able to habituate
a new health practice, and thatprofessional ability to be able
to navigate this spectrum iswhat makes or breaks a coach

(32:45):
being able to help the fringe,which is essentially a vast
majority of people coming in,just like this example that
we're talking about.
But I do believe that there areentry point levels of activity
that can be a catalyst forfuture activity.
Do I believe that being able towalk 20 to 30 minutes a day

(33:06):
versus no minutes per day isbetter?
Absolutely.
I think that's a catalyst tochange.
I think that's a behavior stack.
I think that's something thatcan lead to stepping through the
doors of actually periodized,progressive training.
I also think that one of thelimiting factors is that people
have a misconception of theactual time that it takes to

(33:27):
move the needle in terms oftheir goal sets.
They look at, again, instagram.
They look at YouTube, they lookat these influencers that spend
three, four hours in the gym aday, and that's just not
practical for anyone that I workwith.
It's not practical for myself.
I do this for a living.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
And I can tell you right now it's not necessary.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
My clients will never train more than 75 minutes per
session and they will nevertrain more than six sessions per
week.
The vast majority will traintwo to three days per week,
around 45 minutes, and all of asudden it's like, oh, in two and
a half hours per week I canactually start working towards
losing fat, gaining muscle,getting out of pain and

(34:07):
extending my health span.
Now we're talking becausepeople's conception of what they
thought was necessary wasprobably around 10 or 12 hours.
So when we actually break itdown, hey, what does your
schedule look like?
That's the first thing that Iask many of my clients is what
can we 110% commit to in termsof a frequency per week and also

(34:29):
a duration per time per week?
And we start there and wemaximize every single second
that they invest in working withme, and that very, very quickly
turns into hey, I have a couplemore minutes, hey, I have
another day.
And this creates the momentumthat we're talking about in
terms of a long-term healthpractice and exercise being a

(34:51):
cornerstone of a lifestyle.
But I would say that for her, weneed to be able to define what
not having time actually isbeing able to feed the time that
she does have into investing itinto the highest yield areas of
being able to move the needlefor her and then also for her
specifically making sure thatshe doesn't do too much too

(35:11):
quick, because those are the twomistakes I see people make hey,
if I can't do everything, I'mgoing to do nothing.
Or you know what?
I'm so sick of feeling likeshit.
I'm going to go in seven daysper week, two hours per day, and
I'm going to do the ice cubediet until something works, and
neither are good and then gethurt.
That's the spectrum, and thenget hurt.
So we want to always balancethis pendulum and many times we

(35:34):
find ourselves right in themiddle is where people will have
success.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, that's beautifully said and I think
most people are either on oneside or the other side.
They either do nothing or theyoverdo it.
And I love this idea ofstackable and incremental
additions and improvements inyour exercise.
You know, just 10 minutes isbetter than zero minutes.

(36:00):
Heck, one minute is better thanzero minutes.
And to just look at your ownindividual progress rather than
looking at an outcome and thenget yourself frustrated, or you
know, it's kind of like you'restanding in front of a mountain
and wondering how you can climbit, just start walking.
Like you're standing in frontof a mountain and wondering how

(36:22):
you can climb it, just startwalking Right.
Second scenario a middle-agedman has nagging shoulder pain.
Could be part of an oldflare-up of a rotator cuff or
partial labrum tear.
Went to the surgeon, said it'snot significant enough for
surgery.
Just do RISE, meaning rest iceand you know, and here, by the

(36:45):
way, maybe take some diclofenacor some ibuprofen and, you know,
take it easy, whatever thatmeans.
But that person feels like hewants to do more and he wants to
be able to do the exercises heused to do.
And as his fitness is sufferingas a result of lack of mobility

(37:11):
and exercising because of thepain, he doesn't know what to do
or where to start.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Well, fun fact is that amongst the active pop, by
the way, today, yeah by the way,that was me.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, that's why I laughed.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
I was like yeah, yeah , yeah, somebody.
Um, fun fact active population.
In america today, the numberone chronic pain point is the
shoulder.
It's actually surpassed chronic, generalized lower back pain.
I can attest to that.
This is very serious and I haveto imagine that you have some

(37:47):
postural stresses that arehappening just due to your
profession and the amount oftime that you spend over
patients.
So we have these lifestylefactors that we need to go in
and not treat like they don'tmatter.
I think that that's a verypopular thing to do today.
Everyone's all the same.
If you want to look like this,if you want to function like
this, this is the plan.

(38:08):
But what if you're a surgeon?
What if you're spending 25 or30 hours a week hunched over,
being able to operate on anotherhuman being and give them back
life?
You know, like I have many ofmy clients that are physicians
and surgeons that are standingon a daily basis in positions
that would be like, oh my God,like I can't believe you can

(38:30):
stand there for 10 minutes, letalone eight to 10 hours in the
surgical suite.
So I think that identifyingfactors in the other 23 hours of
the day is the starting point.
That's the low-hanging fruitthat we can make some.
Even if we don't make anyrestoration during that time
that you're in these positions,we can at least call them out as
real and then we can start totrain to reverse these chronic

(38:52):
daily postures and be able tohave that as a core construct of
the way that we center theprogramming.
Now everyone's positions aredifferent, but I think that as
the decades pass, more and morewe have chronic stress disorders
that are bringing us moreforward, more rounded, and we
have more of a forward headposition, more internally
rotated at the shoulders andsimply deactivated when it comes

(39:15):
to our anterior core and ourposterior gluten-hamstring
complex.
So getting people out of thosepositions or reversing those
positions, that is one of thethings that I like to do almost
right away.
Think about digging a ditch ofdeep, dark positions that we
don't.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
I feel like I have to correct my posture here, but
it's not about that.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
You know that's another misconception.
It's like, hey, oh, I need.
You know, teachers have beendoing that for a hundred years
in school and my son stillslouches in his desk Like it's
always going to happen.
It's what we actively train,mindfully in the gym to reverse
these positions, to actually getstronger, to build muscle armor
, to build stability and be ableto actually enhance the way

(39:59):
that the body is moving.
So I tend to have somebody likeyou audit their body
maintenance, their daily bodymaintenance.
What are you doing right now inorder to get yourself out of
shoulder pain?
And that question is usuallylike nothing, or I'm trying to
stretch a little bit.
I'm trying to stretch that alittle bit, and then every time

(40:20):
I see that we have a hugeopportunity there.
I'm a big believer in running aprotocol called the six phase
dynamic sequence.
A six phase dynamic sequence isessentially a protocol that has
soft tissue work, stretching,corrective exercise, activation
drills, movement pattern,pattern prepping and then also
central nervous systemstimulation to lock in our new

(40:43):
motor skills, and it only takesabout 10 minutes.
That is an absolute game changerfor somebody who's working with
chronic shoulder pain orchronic pain in any region or
location, because the more thatwe start to fine-tune our
machine, the more that weactually get exposure to new
things and we're able toactually get into new positions

(41:04):
that are hopefully a little bitmore pain free, even without
touching what your actualtraining program looks like.
So for my clients, being able todo 10 minutes of active daily
body maintenance per day is anon-negotiable.
That only takes a foam roller,your body weight, a band and
maybe a light dumbbell and youcan do it from your living room,

(41:24):
you could do it from yourbedroom, you could do it in the
warmup area of the gym, or Ihave doctors, I have lawyers, I
have people doing it from theiroffice, and I think that's super
cool because when you feel goodafter the six-phase dynamic
warm-up protocol, you're morelikely to stick with it and
that's how, again, you can startstacking these habits to be
able to have a compoundingeffect of maintaining your body

(41:48):
with your own autonomy, and sohow do you assess that?

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Let's say, I signed up, which, by the way, I'm super
intrigued.
I'm actually going to sign upright now because, honestly, I
have looked around a lot andjust tried it on my own because
I wasn't able to find real help.

(42:16):
One of the things that I didbecause I was frustrated I'm
like, well, I can't just not doanything.
I got to do something and Ijust used principles to try to
strengthen my weak muscles,which were my back muscles and
then my shoulder muscles, andjust slowly exercise and train

(42:39):
them to the point that itwouldn't aggravate the pain and
basically I did baby steps untilthe muscles actually gained
some bulk and got stronger andthen, slowly, my shoulder pain
went away.
But one of the things that andit took me two years to do that,
by the way, wow, I just becauseI didn't know any better, I

(43:01):
didn't know about your app, Ididn't know about you, and so it
was very tough and I had toactually stop playing tennis
from activities that promoterepetitive movements, like
tennis or, you know, the typicalsports that we used to play

(43:25):
when we were younger, becausethen we're more prone to
injuries.
Is that true or is that like amyth.
Could that be mitigated throughthe exercises that you advocate
, or is this kind of?
Is there a truth?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I don't believe that there's any truth to that and,
honestly, I take personaloffense to a recommendation like
that, because when you look atgetting into your older years,
what are the people that youknow that are in their 50s, 60s
and 70s doing that arephysically thriving?
They're the ones over atLifetime playing pickleball and
tennis.
They're the ones swimming.
They're the ones biking,they're the ones golfing.

(44:07):
They're the ones in the gymdoing training.
And to say that we shouldrefrain from leisure activity
that is physical is a little bitridiculous or repetitive that
promote repetitive motions onjoints, or yeah all those things
that I just mentioned arerepetitive uh, motions on joints
, swinging a golf club, swingingthe pickleball or a tennis

(44:28):
racket, swimming is a big one,and those are all very
promotional of long-term health.
But the caveat will be do youhave the hardware aka the body
and do you have the hardware akathe body and do you have the
software aka the motor skill andthe ability to perform these
movements without compensating,without actually putting your
body in an advantageous positionto stay healthy?

(44:50):
And that's where training comesin.
A lot of my clients they'relooking to train so they can go
in and they can dominate therest of their life.
They want to go in and theywant to go in on Sunday and they
can dominate the rest of theirlife.
They want to go in and theywant to go in on Sunday and play
three to four hours ofpickleball.
You can't just jump in and dothat if you've never done it and
if you're out of shape and ifyou have no exposure on the
tissues.
That's why you train every week.

(45:12):
My mom, she trains twice perweek with handpicked personal
trainers over the last 10 yearsthat I've set her up with in New
York and Florida and she doesthat, so she can go out and golf
three days a week.
She can ride bikes the other twodays a week and when she walks
Italy she can fit 25,000 stepsin without pain, injuries or
repercussions.
So this is the thing that wetalk about with a health fitness

(45:33):
, a health forward fitnesssolution versus hey, let's get
bigger or hey, let's just losefat.
No, let's unlock your abilityto do whatever the heck you want
to do and not wake up the nextmorning hurt, injured and
regretting it.
So I think that a lot of whatwe have at our disposal needs to
be a more individual context,with individual context, but,

(45:57):
that being said, if you haven'ttaken care of yourself,
individual context but, thatbeing said, if you haven't taken
care of yourself.
There's a rebuilding phase thatyou need to do in order to get
fit enough and in order toexpose your body and your
movement patterns enough to beable to withstand the stress of
some of these repetitive sportsand repetitive movements.
It is earned in the gym to beable to go out and perform
outside of the gym.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Love that.
So to you, what are the twobiggest wastes of time when it
comes to fitness?
What would you see people aredoing, and that's why they're
not getting any results.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Well, with the popularization, I will say, of
strength training, especiallyamongst women's population, I
think that the idea that I justhave a weight in my hand is
automatically deemed strengthtraining.
A lot of people are wastingtheir time.
They're kind of women'spopulation.
I think that the idea that Ijust have a weight in my hand is
automatically deemed strengthtraining.
A lot of people are wastingtheir time.
They're kind of doing busy workwith their weights and they're
never actually stimulating for aphysical adaptation to get them

(46:51):
stronger, to build muscle, tobe able to protect tendons or to
be able to optimize the neurallink between the brain and body
connection which allows us tolearn new motor skills.
They're essentially goingthrough the motion with weights.
This is commonly done where, togive the example, if somebody
is doing a single-arm dumbbellrow and they are going in and

(47:13):
they have a 20-pound dumbbelland they do it for 10 reps,
because three sets of 10 isalways the best, so says the
science from 70 years ago, whichis not true and she's 30 reps
away from failure, but she doesthree sets of 10 with a 20 pound
dumbbell.
That's essentially just likemovement.
It's not strength training,it's not hypertrophy training,

(47:34):
it's not mobility training.
It's not power training, it'sreally just nothing.
It's just general movement andI think a lot of people that are
wanting to do good, they'rejust falling away from the
principles of adaptation.
And the principles of adaptationmeans that if you want to get
strong, you need to train closeto failure.
In terms of your rep ranges,you want to get to the point

(47:56):
where you can almost not doanother quality rep.
When the goal is to buildmuscle, we need to get some
certain fatigue factor andthere's a minimal effective dose
of overall volume or workloadthat we need to get into the
system in order for you to adapt.
If we want to gain moremobility, we need to get into
end ranges and we need to spendthe time and the energy in those

(48:16):
end ranges in order to open upthe brain, to give us access to
them.
And if we're working on power,we need to be moving fast enough
to have the brain-bodyconnection be able to be
adaptable, to accelerate anddecelerate from a protective and
a performance perspective.
Just doing everything all thesame slow and underloaded that's
probably the number one mistakethat I see.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Interesting.
So, and again, that's somethingthat I would say 80%, if not
more, of my patients I talk to,that's exactly what they're
doing.
When I asked them if theyexercise, like yeah, and then I
asked them so what exactly areyou doing?
Are you doing strength training?
Are you doing aerobics?
What are you doing?
It's like, oh, I'm doingeverything, I run, I do

(48:59):
weightlifting.
And then when you dive a littledeeper, that's what it comes
down to and you're like you'renot doing anything and I think
it's hard to reprogram people'smindsets and perception as to
what exercise actually meanscompared to what they think it
means, and there is a hugedisconnect partly because of,

(49:20):
like you said, way outdatedroutines and recommendations
from the past that haven't beenreally updated in people's minds
.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Well, I think we simplify this very well in
pain-free performance, on top ofbeing able to define the six
physical characteristics, whichare power, strength, hypertrophy
, cardio and conditioning,mobility and athleticism.
We simplify this for ourclients.
We go hey, you're going to getthese six feels in every
training session that you'll dowith me, whether it's inside of

(49:51):
my one-on-one programming,whether it's working with me
inside of unbreakable app.
We want you to move fast.
Move fast as a one specificexercise.
We want you to move fast.
Move fast as one specificexercise.
We want you to train heavy andstrain a heavy weight like, wow,
I'm empowered that I justpicked up that weight and I did
it awesome.
We want you to feel a pump forhypertrophy, like blood flow
into the tissues.
We want you to feel the heartrate elevate in terms of cardio

(50:13):
and conditioning.
We want you to feel a stretchwhen it comes to mobility and we
want to have you feel like anathlete, relive your athletic
background or create a newathletic future by actually
moving your body through space,connecting your upper body, your
lower body and core andfocusing on rotation and
lateralization.
So if we can get all six ofthose fields and then we can

(50:36):
stack a really niceprehabilitative warm-up and a
nice focused cool-down in termsof central stimulation being
reduced and parasympatheticrecovery being enhanced.
That's what a perfect trainingday looks like, and I think
people can get behind that.
They're like, okay, move fast,then move heavy, and then get a
pump, get my heart rate up andthen relax and recover.
That makes sense and I think alot of those bucketing items

(51:02):
people can have success with.
But when they're left with thequestion of what should I do?
Or trying to Frankensteindifferent Instagram posts
together into one workout,you're never going to have great
success.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Yeah, I totally agree .
Well, is there any exercise orany test that can predict your
lifespan or longevity, as peoplesay?
Is there a test that one can doto see where they're at?
And I think a lot of the stuffthat we do and recommend has to
be goal-oriented, and so youknow your baseline and you know

(51:34):
what to work towards.
That would be a great motivator.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
I do believe that there are specific metrics that
can be met.
There's not one single test Ithink a lot of people like to
perseverate on, like oh, gripstrength off of a dynamometer is
the largest predictor of healthand longevity.
It's like, is there anythingless functional than just
sitting your arm down to theside with a dynamometer and
squeezing your hand?

(51:58):
Like what does that translateto?
There's no movement.
It's an isometric.
I know I mean they use it as aproxy and I don't know where
that came from, to be honest,but if we want to deep dive in
and we're actually looking atthis we need specific protocols
and method metrics to be able todo power, strength, body

(52:19):
composition with hypertrophy,and we need to look at VO2 max.
We need to look at basecardiovascular abilities, we
need to look at mobility interms of stretch tests and we
also need to have somebody dosome sort of agility testing in
terms of their athleticism.
And you put those six thingstogether, we don't do a ton of
this.
I'm being quite honest with you.
My clients will go through andthey'll do body composition

(52:41):
testing.
We'll see clear metrics oftheir strength increasing.
We'll see their mirror test getbetter, aka their muscle mass
is going up, their body fat'sgoing down, they'll be able to
move better, enhancing theirathleticism and their power.
But I'm not a huge believer instrict standardized testing,
because there's one of twoscenarios that are going to

(53:03):
happen when somebody goesthrough something like that that
I do a handful of times a year.
Hey, uh, man, I really suckdisempowering.
I feel like I want to quit.
Second thing is, especiallywith body composition testing,
you'll see that a ton Peoplewill quit right there and then
after their DEXA.
And then the second thing is isthat they will start really

(53:25):
focusing in on one thing.
That means nothing.
We've all seen it where peopleare only focused on the scale
weight and they lose muscle massand they lose their ability to
be a real functioning humanbeing.
But the scale went down likeyay.
So, they really focus in on theless opportune things.
So even when people actually dotest in many of these different

(53:49):
areas, usually it's not goodenough.
Somebody like me will test andI'll be like should have lost 3%
body fat.
I only lost 2% of the last day,it's never good enough so you
get those people as well.
I'm a big believer that, as longas everything's moving in the
right direction, that is thebiggest thing to longevity.
Because testing every fourweeks or every four months or

(54:12):
every year or, you know, twice ayear, are you going to do that
for the next 30 years?
I don't think so.
I think, that sometimes you needto get people past the hump and
then we need to habituate thepractice.
Once we do that, then there'smarkers in times where somebody
has a unique goal.
Hey, I have this unique goal Iwant to go in and do high rocks.

(54:33):
Okay, we're going to get somedata on you.
Hey, I want to go in and I wantto be as lean as possible
because it's my wedding.
Okay, we're going to get somedata on you.
Hey, I'm starting to coach myson's youth basketball and I
don't want to get hurt out thereon the court.
Hey, we're going to get someathletic performance metrics on
you.
But very rarely across theboard does somebody need a
conglomerate of all these testsall at once.

(54:55):
I think it's just too much, tooquick and it's a disempowering
style of getting started.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, I love the way you look at it, because you hear
these conflicting things.
Some people say do this.
Some people say to that, youknow, in case of DEXA scan that
you just mentioned, you knowsome say, like it's, it could be
a great motivator when someonedoesn't understand the
difference between BMI and bodycomposition.
And it could be a greatmotivator when someone doesn't
understand the differencebetween BMI and body composition

(55:22):
.
And it could be a greatmotivator to show them look, you
have lack of muscle mass andtoo much adiposity, even though
from externally you don't looktoo bad.
But then it depends on theperson.
The caveat is that someonegetting too fixated or, like you
said which I was actuallysurprised to hear that they stop

(55:43):
altogether.
Do you have a story where thathappened?
Can you tell us why that is?
Because that's something I hadnever considered.
I had never thought of it.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Self-defeating prophecy happens very, very
often.
So people go in.
They're thinking that they'reputting in all this effort,
which is going from zero tobeing able to be multiple days a
week in the gym, watching whatyou eat, tracking it on an app,
maybe trying to get in bed.
They feel like their wholelifestyle is disrupted.
And then they go in and they dotheir in-body score or their

(56:17):
DEXA scan and they'reenvisioning something that's not
in reality in their life.
They think that, hey, I'm goingto lose 10% body fat this month
because I'm doing all thethings and boom, it hits.
It's a little bit of progressand it's not what they expected
and it has nothing to do withthe test.
That has everything to do withthe psychology of the person,

(56:38):
because they have uprooted theirentire lifestyle and they
expect more.
And I see this time and timeagain that it's like, hey, if
this is what it takes, I thoughtI was doing it and I'm not
Giving.
An example that's actuallypretty close to me is that my
mom, super fit, 75-year-old,trains twice a week heavy

(56:59):
strength and conditioning, isactive seven days per week,
looks probably 15 20 yearsyounger than she actually is.
Optimal health eats, welllimits.
Alcohol isn't on anymedications like killing it
killing it like I wouldn'texpect.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
I wouldn't expect anything less.
Uh being uh your you knowhaving a you know that would be.
That speaks to a lot of you.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Yeah.
So she is killing it.
She couldn't be doing anybetter and she couldn't be doing
any more even in terms ofsupplementation.
I have her working with one ofour concierge positions.
Everything's on point, and shegoes into her primary care
provider and I can't evenremember why she ended up at a
DEXA.
But she ended up at a DEXA andnow, all of a sudden, her hips

(57:52):
have early onset osteoporosisand I'm sitting there and I'm
like, okay, this doesn't matter,because what's the fix?
What is the fix?
Well, they said I need to beweight training.
You are.
They said I need to be eating amore high-protein diet, you are
.
So you're doing everything.
And my mom is really strugglingmentally with hey, I have this

(58:14):
thing now and I didn't know Ihad it before.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
I'm already doing really well, she's labeling
herself now she's labelingherself as osteoporotic and
fragile, and that's reallydisempowering.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
It's disempowering and it can mess with people's
flow.
So I do believe that obviouslythere are medical conditions and
there's physical conditionsthat we need to gain diagnostics
on in terms of monitor the bestpossible course of action with
multi methods and modes.
But there's also, if there'snot a problem, let's not go out
and create one, and I think alot of people that are coming in
for these more robustassessments they're trying to

(58:50):
create barriers, roadblocks,problems, when they aren't
necessarily struggling with it.
Again, just to reiterate, theonly time that I go in and start
looking at some of these deeperdiving assessments is at a
needs basis, it's not anautomatic onset.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Interesting.
That's very true.
I see it even in my professiona lot, where people like to
label themselves and then beatthemselves up, where I have to
tell them hey, don't worry,relax, you're making it way
worse than it is.
This is the only reason why Imentioned it, because I'm
obligated to, but it has norelevance.
You're fine and uh, it's.

(59:26):
It's a double-edged swordbecause at the same time, you're
trying to um, show the patient,uh, where they started off at,
and um, how much progressthey've made, so you can use
these tools as metrics, but atthe same time, you run into this
issue.
So it is a double-edged sword.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
On the flip side of this conversation, though, I do
have people check in everysingle week, and these are the
things that I'm most interestedin.
What does the mirror test looklike?
Are you looking in the mirrorand saying, yep, I can see
progress?
That matters a lot Mentally,physically, emotionally.
Perception yeah.
What does your performance looklike at your job and with your

(01:00:11):
family?
Are you performing well or areyou falling off?
How's your sleep been?
Are you sleeping well or areyou struggling with your sleep?
How would you rate yournutrition this week?
Zero to 10 subjective scale?
What is your motivation tocontinue to train and eat well?
Are you on path?
Are you feeling good about theprocess or are you falling

(01:00:32):
stagnant a little bit?
And finally, do you feel likeeverything across the span of
what you're doing in your lifeis getting better via the work
that we're doing together?
That's what matters for me,that's what matters for my
clients, and those are the typesof things that are going to
keep people active and healthyfor a lifetime, because they

(01:00:52):
feel good, because they lookgood, because they function and
because they're happy.
And those things you can neverput a test on, it's like, but
you want to be monitoring thoseon a weekly basis so you can get
out in front of people'sproblems before they become a
barrier to continuing to moveforward I love the, the way you

(01:01:14):
put it and the way you ask thesequestions, because isn't that,
at the end of the day, why we'redoing all of this?

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
I mean, of course, if we're not training training, at
least I can speak for myselfI'm not training for the
olympics, but the very questionsthat you ask.
That's why we should be doingthis, and I think a lot of
people lose perspective duringthe process and then beat
themselves up as if they're notgoing to be selected for the

(01:01:42):
next Olympics, and it's verydemoralizing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
To personalize this a little bit.
The reason that I train isbecause I, at this point, love
training.
I've trained for the lastalmost 30 years and it's part of
my life, and it's been part ofmy life as a strong cornerstone
for as long as I can remember.
But take away my profession,take away my coaching, take away
my education, I would stilltrain every single day because

(01:02:09):
it makes me a better father,makes me a better husband, makes
me a better business owner,gives me more energy and it
allows me to be at my bestmentally, physically and
emotionally every single day.
And once you unlock the abilityto feel your best, there's no
going back.
That's why creating thismomentum forward to be able to
have this feeling for yourclients, that's what locks them

(01:02:31):
in for life.
These are the types ofbehaviors that can span a
lifespan and create healthspan.
It's being able to seeholistically what this is doing
for you.
It's not one or two metrics,it's your entire life, because
at the end of the day, we justwant to be living our best and
our most highly functioning andhappy life, and for me, I know

(01:02:53):
that I just wouldn't be theperson that I want to be without
this as a cornerstone.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
I think what you just mentioned is the effects on
brain exercise and effects onbrain.
It's way underrated and they'veeven done studies where they
compared it to antidepressantsand they outdid antidepressants
by 80%, and I think it's a partthat's probably not mentioned

(01:03:22):
enough or underestimated.
The value on mental health,which then has an effect, like
you mentioned in your work, inyour personal life and your
personal just mental health aswell as physical.
It's one of the most underratedaspects of exercising and I
totally agree with you.

(01:03:43):
I've exercised my entire lifesince I was I don't know since,
I remember, since I was inmiddle school, and I never
skipped more than one or twoweeks, and the only reason why I
skipped one or two weeks isbecause I was in bed with the
flu.
But when I went somewhere whereI didn't have access to gym and

(01:04:07):
I didn't have access to my owngym or couldn't go to someone
else's gym I even used gallonsof milk and pushups and squats I
had to do something.
And now, thinking back, it wasmore for the mental aspect of it
.
The endorphins and the dopaminehit that.
I was just used to them up tothe point that they turn into or

(01:04:29):
become a habit, where then youdon't have to force yourself, is
probably the most importantthing of getting someone into
the gym and changing theirlifestyle that doesn't know or

(01:04:52):
thinks that it's impossible.
This is only for athletes orfor gym buffs, it's for
everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
It's for everybody.
It's for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
And I love how you're trying to bring it
scientifically to the everydayperson, whether it's a mom that
just had a baby through someonelike me, middle-aged who has
been struggling because of somenagging injuries, and older
people like your mom in their70s, to maintain them fit.

(01:05:22):
And I think if there's onething that can make us healthier
, that if there's one thing thatcan make us not only physically
healthier but also mentallyhealthier, it's exercise, and
it's one of the most underratedprescriptions that, as doctors,
we prescribe to our patients,and I'm so grateful for people

(01:05:46):
like you that are out there thatdon't just talk about it but
bring it to us in the practicalsense that we're used to using
this device here and canliterally start tomorrow.
I could tell you one thing I'mgoing to put that to test and
I'll just touch back with you ina month and I would love to

(01:06:07):
share you my feedback.
But I'm personally superexcited to see how it can move
the needle for me personally andexcited that there is at least
a solution out there that canmove the needle, and I really
have to applaud to you takingputting in this effort.

(01:06:30):
I know how much it takes to dowhat you're doing.
I have been a content creatorfor a long time.
I'm currently writing a bookand I know how much work it is.
My book is going to be half thesize of your book.
But look, we need passionatepeople like you and I don't have

(01:06:54):
any doubt in my mind thatpeople will be successfully
using your tools simply becauseof the passion you have for what
you're doing and the scienceyou put in there.
So, really, kudos, and I wantto really thank you from the
bottom of my heart to find timein your busy schedule to just
chat with me on this podcast,because this is one of the most

(01:07:18):
integral parts of what I'mtrying to promote in my podcast
and to my patients.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
It's my pleasure and I really look forward to having
you inside of Unbreakable.
We will document your progressand I'm happy to have you as
part of the community.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Thank you for having me Definitely a customer, john,
and thanks for coming on my show.
Thanks so much, Daria.
Thanks for having me again.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Appreciate it, john, and thanks for coming on my show
.
Thanks so much, daria.
Have a great one, and thanksfor having me again.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Appreciate it, John.
Have a good one.
All right guys.
Episode's over.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with Dr John Rusin.
If you want to look him up andlearn more about what he does,
go on Instagram at DrD-R-J-O-H-N-R-U-S-I, Instagram
at drjohnrusin.

(01:08:02):
And don't forget to leave me areview on your podcast platform
of choice.
And until next time, bye-bye,Bye.