The Fitness Basics You're Ignoring

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sFitness Programs and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and, mostimportantly, why things work.

(00:21):
Hence the name there is amethod to the madness.
Before I get to today's show, Iwant to thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gildan of the Gildan Group atRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
service in home sales.
Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home
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386-451-2412.

(00:44):
386-451-2412.
Hello everybody, coach Rob hereGetting ready to hopefully give
you some wisdom or something tothink about, perhaps some
motivation, something to geteverybody doing what I think we

(01:10):
should be doing physically, andthat is the heart of the matter
this morning I'm going to talkabout basically how simple it is
.
I'm just going to reiterate themessage because oftentimes we
get in the weeds and we try tolook for complicated solutions,
or complicated solutions arethrown at us left and right and
we see a lot of good influencersor good content creators on

(01:34):
social media or writing books oron podcasts or doing interviews
that will talk about the threeor four or five or so key simple
principles and people kind oflike, oh, is poo, poo that or I
don't know there's a sense of,even if they don't like
negatively, say something.

(01:56):
There's always this sort ofvibe around it, with at least
some people that think, somepeople that think, well, it's
more than that and it reallyisn't.
So I'm going to talk about justtwo of those things and the
other ones.
So let me give them to you thesimple things that we have to do
physically on a regular basisif we want improved health

(02:19):
outcomes, if we want to feelbetter, if we want to look
better, if we want better labswhen we go to our physician on a
yearly basis, if we want to getup out of the chair, we have to
do some form of strengthtraining.
And those are going to be thetwo that I'm going to focus on

(02:52):
this morning, very briefly andvery simply.
And then the other ones are just, you need to eat right, which
means nutrient-dense foods, noteat too much, eating a good
variety of healthy foods, asI've said before, get proper
amount of sleep and control yourstress.
So those are like the big fivethat we always need to focus on

(03:18):
and I'll add a caveat to thesleep is rest.
So we need to get proper restalong with the sleep.
But there's really not a lot ofother things you have to do.
You don't necessarily have toeat supplements or take
supplements If you're eating anutritious diet.

(03:39):
You don't need to do coldplunges and saunas and all that
stuff if you're getting adequaterecovery via good nutrition,
sleep, rest, you know, whichbasically just means sometimes
reading, just sitting aroundreading.

(03:59):
So we don't have to do allthese things.
We don't have to take coldshowers.
You know that's the same thingas the cold plunge, I guess.
I mean, if you're into it,great, but these are things you
don't have to do.
You don't have to go getprescribed different types of
drugs for your physical fitness,and I'm not talking about the

(04:21):
people that have to take theweight loss drugs.
I'm talking about people thatare trying to supplement things.
I'm not talking about medicalneed things.
I mean, it really is just amatter of always keeping those
simple things in mind.
So let me focus on the firsttwo.

(04:41):
All right, so cardiorespiratoryexercise and strength training
I mean, we have to do it.
And if you walked every day, ormost every day, let's say, five
out of the seven days per week,at a moderate, brisk pace, yes,

(05:02):
that is enough.
If we get up, or whatever timeof day you want to do it, if we
do it, it is enough.
Let me quickly talk about thedifference between walking and
running and why this debatereally doesn't have to happen.

(05:22):
All right, both of them, ofcourse, occur when you're on
your feet, so both of them areconsidered either low impact or
higher impact.
All right, non-impact would beswimming and cycling, because
your feet never hit the ground.
They basically stay in a um offthe ground position.

(05:45):
Okay, so high impact shouldn'tbe a scary word or a scary
sentence or a scary phrase.
High impact just means that atone point during the gait
analysis, both feet are off theground.
So when you jog or run, at onepoint it might be a very brief

(06:09):
point and when I look at mypictures in 5Ks now that the
race organizations send you, Inotice my feet don't come off
the ground like they used to.
I don't have that really goodleg kick anymore or butt kick.
Those are things I can improveupon, but we do lose some of
that with age.

(06:29):
So there's a matter of how muchit comes off the ground, and
that doesn't matter.
If both feet come off theground at the same time, that's
considered higher impact.
It doesn't mean it's bad, itdoesn't mean it's going to hurt
you, that's all that it means.
So low impact and really theonly low impact activity, when
we use the formal definition ofwhat it is, which is one foot is

(06:52):
on the ground at the entiretime, is walking.
That's it.
So you got low impact walking,you got high impact cardio, and
we're talking about bipedalmovements, meaning movements on
your feet, that is, jogging andor running.
Here is the big deal with this,not the big deal.
People make it into a big deal.
If you walk longer, okay, like,let's say, you do a 45 minute

(07:18):
walk at a brisk pace.
If you run 20 minutes, say, ata vigorous pace, they're equal.
So instead of saying one isbetter than the other, for the
most part they're equal.
You're probably going to getyour heart rate up higher with
running, so that may improveyour cardiorespiratory endurance

(07:39):
to an extent.
There's a lot of variables inthat, but you are going to get
enough cardio to improve yourcardiovascular system if you
walk at a brisk pace and you doit longer.
Walking for 20 minutesdepending on your situation, how
long you've been doing it andhow fit you are, or whatever,

(08:00):
may not get it done for you, butwalking for 40 minutes will.
Walking for 45 minutes will Allright.
So the real thing that peopleneed to understand regarding
cardio and I've said this fordecades now you can go long or
you can go hard.
Those are subjective words.

(08:22):
You can go long or you can gohard.
You don't need to go long andhard.
So, in other words, if you'remore into vigorous
cardiorespiratory intensitybecause it works better for you,
that would mean more likerunning and jogging versus
walking.
That would mean more highintensity spin classes versus a

(08:42):
casual beach bike.
I mean use common sense,vigorous, moderate, if you're
into that.
If you're into going harder,you don't have to go as long.
You are going to reapcardiorespiratory benefits.
If you run on a treadmill for15 minutes, you are going to get
roughly the same benefits as ifyou walked on the treadmill for

(09:05):
45.
What do you like better?
That is up to you.
You just got to freaking do it.
And all these arguments all thetime and people just don't do
the simple things.
All right.
Now let's take strengthtraining.
Now I will say people aregetting better.
When I say people, I meaninfluencers and creators and

(09:30):
people writing books, all theyou know, people that have an
influence over cardio or fitnessin general.
They are getting better withgiving the proper information.
I mean most people know nowthat there are a lot of good
ways to work out and most peopledo know that they don't have to
go to the gym every day tostrength train, to do some kind

(09:54):
of a bro split, meaning theydon't have to go to the gym and
just do glutes and quads one dayand then the next day pecs and
triceps.
You know right out of, say,muscle Beach in California when
the bodybuilders were makingthat famous in the 70s and 80s.
Is there anything wrong with it?
No, but you don't have to do it.

(10:15):
And when we look at thestatistical analysis of strength
training, it has been foundover and over and over again the
two to three days per week ofstrength training getting in all
of your major muscle groups isequal to or greater than, if you
spent more time at the gymdifferent days doing strength

(10:39):
training.
All right, can you do it?
Sure, I do it sometimes.
I mean, when I'm at my gym here, I usually always take the
early shift here and I'm heretill about noon before I go home
for lunch.
So I usually get here a littlebit after five.
Five thirty, I mean there'ssometimes a little bit of time
in the day when my work is doneDone.

(11:05):
What's better?
Sit there and play on theinternet and get depressed?
Sit there and go on socialmedia and get angry?
No, I mean, obviously that's apretty dumb use of my time.
Go out and do some strengthexercises, right.
So if we're doing it for thatreason, great, but we don't have
to.
We just have to keep it simple,stupid, but do it.
Too many people are not gettingin the minimum of two days per

(11:28):
week for strength training andyou're not going to get the
benefits unless you do.
And getting back to what I wassaying, the creators, the
influencers, the professionalsare doing a better job of
telling people the movements wehave to focus on.
That has been pushed out thereand thankfully people are

(11:49):
starting to get it Not everybody.
I still see people doingridiculous exercises on the
internet and the other day aclient and myself were kind of
joking around how people areinventing different exercises to
do on machines that are notmeant to be doing that
particular exercise, when thereis a very basic exercise that

(12:13):
they're trying to replicate.
I mean that stuff is silly.
That still goes on.
I still see people trying to doglute kicks off of a leg curl
machine lying on their back whenall they have to do is the leg
curl or stiff-legged deadliftsfor their glutes, whatever.
People are still doing sillythings like that.
But for the most part it's thissimple and you hear me say it

(12:37):
all the time.
One of our I guess let's justcall it locally famous workouts
is the squat push-p pull, wherewe do a circuit.
If we are doing some form ofsquatting during the week, if we
are doing some form of upperbody pushing during the week, if

(12:58):
we are doing some form of upperbody pulling during the week,
some form of upper body pullingduring the week, and then we
throw in a little bit of hingeand a little bit of lunge, guess
what you are strength trainingappropriately, because if you
think that your individualmuscles understand the

(13:20):
difference with some of thesevery, very, very small changes
in angles or range of motion ormachines, you are very wrong.
All right, we used to kid allthe time.
You know, you see people doingconcentration curls and then

(13:40):
they're going to do hammer curls, and then they're going to do
curls, and then they're going todo hammer curls, and then
they're going to do say whatelse?
Let's say preacher curls, let'ssay standing barbell curls,
let's say reverse curls.
So I just named six exercisesfor the biceps alone.
Great, if you want variety,knock yourself out.

(14:01):
If you want to do differentversions of them when you
strength train, I do that withclients, I do that with myself.
If I get bored doing a certainbicep exercise, then I'll do
another one, whatever.
Oh, here's another thing that'sgoing to blow you away and I'll
get back to that point.
You don't necessarily have toindividually train your biceps.
If you are doing proper pullingmovements like rowing, pull-ups

(14:25):
, pull-downs, you are trainingyour biceps, all right.
But anyway, back to this otherthing.
There's nothing wrong withtraining your biceps, by the way
.
It's just we have to make surethat we are getting in the
hardcore basics, which I willsay again squat, push, pull,
hinge, lunge.
If we are doing those things,we are strength training

(14:45):
appropriately.
But if you think that yourbiceps can tell the difference
between a preacher curl and areverse curl or a machine curl.
You really don't understandscience, nor do you need to, but
you should trust theprofessionals, such as myself,
that's telling you.
You're wasting your time withthat form of micromanaging your

(15:09):
fitness plan.
Do the basics, that's all thatwe have to do.
The biceps cannot tell thedifference.
The biceps function is elbowflexion and wrist supination.
Every muscle group has afunction.
Good trainers, good strengthcoaches, understand that.

(15:32):
They know the functions of themuscle.
They will show you the exerciseto do the function.
For example, if you're doing arow correctly a seated row, a
cable row, a dumbbell row youare doing some form of elbow
flexion.
I want to hit that one last.

(15:52):
That's why I got a little bittongue tied right there.
You are doing some form ofshoulder extension for the upper
back.
Okay, absolutely when you'rerowing, but in this instance
that's not the important partyou are also doing elbow flexion
, which works the bicep.

(16:13):
So if you're rowing, you aredoing, or pull-downs, you are
doing some form of shoulderextension which works the lats.
You are also doing some form ofelbow flexion If you are rowing
correctly, which it's reallyhard not to row correctly.
In this instance, you are doingthe biceps.

(16:34):
By doing that, if you're doinga bicep curl, you are doing
elbow flexion all by itselfGreat, but if you're rowing
properly, you've already done it.
So when people say I haven'tworked biceps, yes you have, you
row rode.
Or if they say I haven't workedtriceps, yes we have.
We have done chest press, wehave done pushups, it is covered

(16:55):
.
And if people will justunderstand that and not
overthink it.
But, most importantly, get tothe gym at least two times per
week and people are not doing itOnly 22% of our population in
the United States is doing theamount of cardio and strength

(17:15):
training that they need to do toget benefits.
All right.
So this is just another briefshout out to make sure that you
understand me on this Mondaymorning for me that it is very,
very simple, but we have to doit.