December 20, 2022 • 49 mins
Today is a special one because it’s our first episode featuring a member of our Wits & Weights Facebook community, Josh Isley.
We discuss strength, lifelong health, training for events, avoiding overtraining, and lots more.
Josh Isely is a 42-year-old mechanical engineer who loves hunting the backcountry and mountains but who also rides a desk every day.
He was an athlete in high school and as happens to many people, relied on his natural abilities for too long and, in his own words, “let himself go a bit.” Josh was inconsistent with training and developed a bad relationship with food.
He spent the last several years training on and off for hunts and finally got it dialed in this year in preparation for a mountain goat hunt!
Josh still struggles with food and binging but is getting better all the time; his program worked well as he was able to climb much better than he could last year. He is now moving into recovery mode and beginning to prepare for New Zealand in the spring.
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Josh’s background and how he finds time to go hunting
- Why motivation is not enough (and what we should do instead)
- How we avoid overtraining (especially as we age)
- How to minimize the impact on aging/ailing joints
- Dealing with setbacks (injuries/anxiety/depression) and how to overcome those
- Managing the dichotomy of strength vs. endurance
- Balancing training for longevity with specific events
- What recovery looks like (and training periodization) in preparation for his event in New Zealand
- Strategies to overcome the urge to binge on processed food
- Dealing with the influences of your support structure when they don't “get” your nutrition/training
RELATED LINKS
- Talk to Josh in the Wits & Weights Facebook community
- Watch the episode on video here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Wits & Weightspodcast, where we discuss
getting strong and healthy withstrength training and
sustainable nutrition. I'm yourhost, Philip Pape. And in each
episode, we examine strategiesto help you achieve physical
self mastery through a healthyskepticism of the fitness
industry, and a commitment toconsistent nutrition and
training for sustainableresults.
(00:30):
Welcome, everyone, to anotherepisode of Wits & Weights. Today
is a special one because it'sthe first episode I've ever done
featuring a member of our Wits,& Weights, Facebook group, and
he's got a unique backstory.
He's got some exciting, veryinteresting performance related
pursuits that we're going tochat about. So I'm really
looking forward to thisconversation. We're gonna get
into strength, lifelong healthtraining for events, avoiding
(00:53):
overtraining, especially as weage, and more topics just like
that. My guest today is JoshIsley, a 42 year old mechanical
engineer who loves hunting theback country and mountains but
who also rides a desk every day,we can relate. He was an athlete
in high school and as happens tomany people. He relied on his
natural abilities for too long,and in his own words, let
(01:16):
himself go a bit. Josh wasinconsistent with training and
developed a bad relationshipwith food. He spent the last
several years training on andoff for hunts. And he finally
got it dialed in this year inpreparation for mountain goat
hunts. Josh still struggles withfood and binging but is getting
better all the time, his programworked well, because he was able
to climb much better than hecould last year. And he's now
(01:39):
moving into recovery mode,beginning to prepare for New
Zealand in the spring. We werejust talking about that. Before
we started recording. Josh, Iappreciate you coming on the
show, man. I'm excited to getinto training, nutrition,
whatever you want to talk about.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Philip pape, I appreciate it.
Exciting. Yeah. It'svery cool, man. So in the intro,
I mentioned how you're anengineer, 42 years old, by the
(02:01):
way you love the outdoors, youhave a desk job. And I can
relate. I'm also 42 also anengineering background. And I'm
also at a desk most of the day.
So if you don't mind.
Just tell us a bit about whatyou do. And maybe how you find
time to go hunting and anythingelse about your background?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, you said itin the intro, right. I, I was an
(02:23):
athlete in high school, I'vealways enjoyed being active.
I come from kind of an activefamily and my father was a good
athlete as well, but kind of letthings go after high school. I
always loved hunting. As I gotolder, I found the mountains in
the backcountry and reallywanted to be able to do that.
But I don't know if you've evertried to climb a mountain when
(02:45):
you're not in shape, but youcan't cheat the mountain. So
there's only only one way to doit. And that's to get in really
good shape. And be consistentwith your training. So I started
taking lunch breaks and running.
My knees kind of got beat up. Sowhen I would walk,
I got a bike this year, to tryto limit the impact on my
(03:07):
joints. And just made nutritionand weight training a focus of
my life I made it made it apriority and started to build
the discipline around that. Idid a last year in Colorado,
that was really high. And Ireally struggled. My joints hurt
my muscles ached. It was it waspainful. And it was kind of a
(03:29):
wake up call that as I getolder, I'm not going to be able
to rely on my natural talentsand abilities. And I have to put
in the effort and the work tokeep doing the things I want to
do as we age. Fair enough. Yeah.
So when you started climbingyears ago, I don't know how long
ago that was. But you said youweren't really in shape and
ready for it. And it sounds likeyou've pushed yourself over the
years, even as you've tried totrain and keep up with that.
(03:51):
Right? That initial climate wasthat? Are we talking rock
climbing? Are we talking juststeep kind of hiking? Not? Not
just I know it's a lot to hike amountain for hours on end? What
are we talking about? Yeah, no,no technical climbing. I don't
have crampons or ropes andcarabiners and things. It's
really just being able to moveheavy weight over long distances
(04:11):
for a long period of time. offtrail, you know, being able to
bend at the waist with 80 poundson your back and go over
deadfall there's a lot of beetlekill in places like Idaho and
Colorado, right. So it's theseanimals have been hunted
extensively for a lot of years.
And they live in some prettynasty places now, so to be able
(04:33):
to take 1800 or 2500 feetelevation changes, right? It's
really just climbing climbing upavalanche chutes, climbing
around through timber up andover screen slides and things
like that to get to where theyare. Okay, and when you talk
about carrying a lot of weighton your back and having to bend
over. And you know, I think ofthese, we focus a lot on
(04:54):
functional movements when itcomes to training but then there
are movements you need in reallife that you don't necessarily
use every day, but are specialspecific to something like that
right? Like so I'm thinking of agood morning a back a barbell
Good morning is like, movement,right? And now we're gonna
change that was, as you foundyourself getting a little bit
more beat up from these moredifficult climbs, what what was
(05:15):
the biggest factor you youthought to yourself, I need to
do better or if if I had donethat over again, this is what I
would focus on.
Yeah, so that was the kind ofthe case last year I struggled
with a few things and what Ifocused on in my training last
winter, and this through thesummer, leading into this false
Hunt was a lot of unilateralwork, single leg stuff, right,
if you slip and fall, you'regonna catch yourself with one
(05:37):
leg. So a lot of unilateral workin Single Leg deadlifts, single
leg squats, step ups, stepdowns, just things to be able to
and then mobility, right. Soeven having the strength but
being able to have jointmobility, everything's uneven,
rocky terrain, slippery terrain,and things like that. A lot of
(05:59):
core work, I could use a lotmore. But I definitely tried to
focus, focus on my core. Andthen as funny as it looked, I
would take my backpack into thegym, and I'd wear it while I'm
working out, I would try to dothings with that backpack to
mimic that it's hard to mimicthat with free weights. So
having that pack strapped onwith a bag of sand in the back
(06:19):
of it walking up and down stairson the stairclimber or up and
over plyo boxes and things likethat.
Nice. So specificity is whatyou're talking about is like
just do the movement you need totrain for as well as everything
else. Unilateral movements. Ithink a lot of people, they're
not a big fan of them in thegym, right? We focus so much on
(06:40):
bilateral stuff squats,deadlifts, but, I mean, what
would you say about those justfor the general population? Even
if they don't have to do anevent like that? Is there value
in doing those?
I think so. Right? I mean, it'snot as impressive to the lady
sitting across the gym whenyou're only moving 40 pound
dumbbells with unilateralmovements. But I think that it's
(07:00):
a novel stimulus for a lot ofpeople who haven't done it
before. And then you spend 12weeks or eight weeks on
unilateral movement, and you goback to a standard squat or
standard deadlift, and I thinkyou'll see improvement, it
helped my joints, a lot of timesmy knees are pretty beat up so
my knees will hurt. But the morethat I focus on really good form
(07:21):
and technique and strengtheningthose muscles and making the
muscles do the work, my jointsfeel better. And then I'm able
to move move better when I'mback into heavyweight.
Okay, now, let's talk aboutmindset a bit, because I know
you said you were inconsistentwith your training, because you
had some natural talents. And alot of people struggle with that
a lot of people know what to dothey know how to do it even just
(07:45):
don't do it. And rely a lot onwillpower, you know, which is a
finite resource or motivation,or hire somebody like me, who's
a coach to kind of give himextrinsically. But why would you
say that? That's, you know,motivation is not enough. And we
need to, I think you call itbuild a discipline? Well, we
were talking earlier about this.
Yeah, well, I'm just like mostother people, right, I get
(08:05):
really motivated in spurts. Andso it's really easy to go to the
gym when I don't have a deadlineat work, or I don't have a date
or whenever else. My son doesn'tneed me for something. But I
found that for me, what I neededto do was it was just like, I
had to make it like brushing myteeth or cooking dinner or
whatever else. It was just, it'swhat I did. And so there wasn't
(08:26):
any excuse, or any reason to saywell, I can't go it's just Well,
I, I do go this is what I do.
It's part of my day, it's in mycalendar. For me, that's what it
took. Because otherwise, theminute that I could find an
excuse, I would,yeah, so it's what you did. I
mean, that's the classic line.
It's what I did, like brushingyour teeth. And you mentioned a
(08:48):
calendar that you dropped alittle hint about one of the
ways you do it is you scheduleit in or reminders on your
phone. How do you do that?
Yeah, it's I don't, I guess Idon't have a real calendar that
I put it in, but it's just in myin my head and my calendar, the
one thing that I would do isblock off an hour and a half at
lunchtime. I don't know abouthow your work is but if I have
an open spot in my calendar,someone will fill it. So I would
(09:11):
make sure that every other day Ihad an hour and a half to go and
do my cardio. So I would run orride a bike in the summertime or
have a stair climber in mybasement. And that was my time.
It just if I didn't do it atlunch, I didn't want to do it. I
could find a way to go to thegym after work. And I needed
more time my gym routine waskind of longer anyway. And I had
to drive I live in the middle ofnowhere. So I had to drive and
(09:32):
get to the gym. But I neededthat that lunchtime cardio I
found that if I tried to get upearly, I couldn't get out of
bed. I didn't wasn't motivatedafter work. My brain just was
tired. I wanted to eat dinnerand sit down. I couldn't do it.
So I had to find a time thatworked for me and make sure that
that's just what I did. That wasmy lunchtime routine on Tuesdays
Thursdays and Saturdays. I ranor biked or hike to a rock. Yes,
(09:55):
that part of my part of my day.
Yeah, and that's awesome advice.
A couple of things. There's onethe fact that you thought ahead
and you planned it in, and youblocked it out, right? It's the
same idea when people say theycan't get enough steps. It's
like, well, you know, findsomething you do every day and
connect it with that activity,maybe it's lunch, and you're
gonna eat out for half an hour,block an hour, like you said,
(10:16):
out of your calendar block anhour. And that second half an
hour is always going to be forwalking. And what was the other
thing you mentioned that, evenif you do that, it has to work
for you. So getting up early,and doing it late didn't work
for you, just like, I can'ttrain after the morning, because
the day is just just gone forme. And some people are like, I
couldn't train in the morning.
So it's got to work for you.
Yep. So now, I love the culturehere of you working out and
(10:41):
trying to stay fit, you know,regardless of age, age, just a
number, and we're not in our 20sanymore. So we can't put in the
same long, hard workouts everyday, you know, six, seven days a
week, like we would have likedto back then. How do we avoid
overtraining, then?
Yeah, that's a great question.
And I didn't know the answer tothat. So I was raised by parents
who were entrepreneurs and smallbusiness owners, and they just
(11:06):
worked and worked and worked.
And my grandfather and my uncleswere farmers, right. And so I
was raised in this culturethroughout the late 80s. And
early 90s. It was nobody careswork harder, right? Just keep
going. And so I kind of tookthat approach through high
school and my wrestling coachwas the same way. And I
approached my fitness that way,and I found myself injured a
lot. I mean, I was workingthrough a doctor and growing
(11:29):
poles, I ended up I still havean umbilical hernia, a lot of
shoulder issues, right. And Ijust had this feeling listening
to podcasts like yours andothers, right? It was really
great information, hey, it mightbe overtraining. So I actually
went hired a personal trainer.
To me, I felt like it was aninvestment, right? I pay health
insurance and I go get aphysical, I go to the dentist
(11:49):
and take care of my teeth.
Right? I put money away forretirement, why wouldn't I put
the same investment in my body?
So I squirreled away some money,and I hired her and she was
like, Absolutely, you'reovertraining, you need to need
to back off, right. And so Ithink, just having that
reinforcement from somebody elsewho I trusted as a professional,
and then I was able to backthings off a little bit and
(12:11):
reevaluate. One of the problemsI have is sleep, I don't sleep
well. So I've been really tryingto focus on that. And that's
helped if I can, if I can getconsistent sleep. And I don't
push myself for two hours in thegym every single day. And I cut
it back to maybe instead ofthree days, go to four days,
shorter time periods orsomething like that and find
(12:32):
what works, right. It took awhile to kind of 00 in on what
my body needed. But I didn't getinjured after that. I had a lot
better experience when I wasable to stay more consistent.
And so I ended up in a betterplace by doing less than where I
was going by doing so muchbecause I was constantly
recovering from injury.
(12:53):
Yeah, people need to hear thatbecause I mean, we say 20s But
really even starting in yourlate 20s, early 30s. These
issues can start to creep up ifyou're overdoing it. And it
sounds like before you got apersonal trainer did did it
enter your mind that you shoulddo less? Or and you just didn't
do last or did you not evenconsider it? Yeah.
(13:14):
Oh no. I I struggled back andforth between this this inner
monologue. I'm probablyovertrained. Right, I can listen
to Philip on on his podcast, andI can listen to these other
people. And I can read thesethings. And I can look at I'm an
engineer, right, I can look ateverything that is happening to
my body and how I feel and putthe puzzle pieces together, then
the back of my mind is, youknow, put on your big boy pants
(13:36):
to keep working hard. Yeah.
I'm gonna lose my games. I'm notgonna be strong.
Like, well, I can't take a dayoff because I'll eat too many
calories. And I'll gain sixpounds. But it's just it's, I
think a lot of it has to do withwhat we're fed in the media to
and through sales. People aretrying to sell supplements or
sell workout gear, whatever elseit is. And I think we're fed a
(13:57):
lot of misinformation. Soyeah, I agree. And people come
from from different angles. Iknow, a lot of my female
clients, it's the idea of themore I move, the more calories I
burn. That's how I keep theweight off. So of course, I'm
gonna workout every day. And forguys like us, you know, we'd
like to lift so on my Wednesdayoff day, I'm like, What am I
what do I do? I guess I recover.
(14:19):
So in for me, I was trying to beas strong as possible, but as
small as possible. So I don'twant to carry the weight on the
mountain. So I don't want to behuge. I just want to be really,
really strong and really, reallylean. So we I was worried about
the same thing. I don't want toput on a whole bunch of body fat
and carry that up the mountain.
So even though it's my off day,I'm gonna put 50 pounds on my
pack and I'm gonna go rock forsix miles, right? Well, you
(14:39):
don't get a chance to heal.
Yeah, fair enough. So that makesit even more difficult because
now you're playing that game ofstrength to weight ratio. Same
thing that a lot of enduranceathletes go through. I guess I'm
gonna go off on a tangent there,because I've worked with a few
runners and it's always abalance of how much lifting do
we do versus two training foryour, you know, specific event
(15:03):
and balancing recovery as well.
Because I would love for them towork four days a week and get
super strong, but it's going tobeat them up and they're not
going to be able to prep for therace, they're not going to get
their their miles in. So what,what do you think about that
philosophy training for thatkind of event?
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, Ifight the same same battles. And
(15:23):
what I found is I just split itdown the middle, I was lifting
three days a week and liftingheavy. And other three days a
week, I was all about cardio andtrying to get long distance
endurance and muscle endurance.
And so I was eating a lot ofcalories. So to try to keep that
up, I was still in a deficit,but I was in when I quit. A week
before my trip, I was 185pounds, I was 10% body fat. And
(15:45):
I was eating 3000 or 3200calories, right, and I was
maintaining or just just losinga little bit. So there's a lot
of movement. But eating andfeeding the body so that it
could it could recover. But if Ifelt like if I just lifted and
didn't do the cardio, it doesn'tmatter how strong I am. If I
can't keep climbing, I can'tkeep moving because my muscles
(16:06):
don't have the endurance. But Ican I can run all day long. If I
can't pick up the animal and putit in the backpack and carry it
off the mountain, then then I'mstuck too. So I had to split it
down the middle.
Okay. And you said you were in ajust a mild deficit going in and
not even not necessarily tryingto be it's just trying to keep
(16:27):
up with the calories with Oh, Iwas trying to be you. Okay, so
you were trying to trying to getthe weight down in that way. Is
that is that is that typicallywhat's done as opposed to
because I don't know, is asopposed to cutting ahead of time
and then kind of maintaining oreven trying to gain into the
event? Just curious.
Probably would have been betterif I'd been gaining into the end
of the event. But I felt like itdid. Okay. Anyway, I, like we
(16:51):
talked about before, I stillstruggle a little bit with my
nutrition. And sometimes I gooff the rails. And so I had done
that. Earlier in the summergained gained a little bit of
fat back. And so I was stillworking on cutting that out you
had to make my trainer wanted meto be eaten more for sure. Yeah,
it's somebody went understandingon where I was going to
be. It's relative to where youare. And you know, when you have
(17:14):
an event, there's a time base toit that you just can't ignore,
you know, the average Gen popthat has flexible schedule, can
make it work, but you're like, Igotta go climb on this day. So
it is what it is. That'sreality. Okay, so continuing on
with the training for old dudes.
How do we minimize our impact onour joints? Because I'll tell
you, I experienced this myselfto just the joints are a little
(17:37):
bit achy, a little, a littlemore alien as we get older. How
do we minimize that?
Well, that's a great question.
And that's probably yourexpertise, I can tell you what,
what helps me. What I noticedthe most is definitely my
nutrition. If I'm eatinggarbage, I feel like garbage and
my, the inflammation in my bodyand my joints hurt. Right? If I
(17:58):
go out and have a pizza and acouple of beers and ice cream,
I'm gonna I'm gonna hurt thenext day I swell up. And it's
it's a problem. So I really haveto watch my nutrition. And then
it's funny, how little outta Howdo I want to put this, just the
smallest little difference inform. And technique can have a
(18:19):
big a big difference. And for mejust having a professional, look
at my lifts and critique my formand give me direction on what I
should or shouldn't do. And whenI was fighting through some of
the shoulder issues, like whatother exercises to do that can
mimic the same CNS response, butnot do the same damage to the
(18:42):
joint was really helpful to me.
Yeah, so okay, it's a fewconcepts here that are a goal
that I want the listener to getout of that. So starting from
the first thing you mentioned,nutrition, right, I talk a lot
about on the show about flexibledieting, and how most types of
foods can work within your diet.
But at the same time, you haveto go by how you feel and how
(19:02):
your body responds. And what youjust said was if you eat certain
things, and they tend to be moreprocessed, or maybe higher
sodium, or what have you, itramps up your inflammation. And
I think people need to reallythink about their bodies and
listen to it and maybe evenjournal or document their
biofeedback associated withtheir food to see if that
affects them. Because yeah, youmight be able to eat pizza
(19:22):
within your macros. But if itbeats up your joints, or if you
have inflammation or anautoimmune disease, a lot of
people have those now. There'sinsulin sensitivity is all these
things that come into play. Sothat's that's a good takeaway.
The other one about form is alsocritical, right? Because people
will complain about my kneeshurt, and it's because I'm
(19:43):
squatting Well, it's probablybecause you're squatting wrong.
And if you squat it right outactually might make your knees
feel really good. Or if yourknees hurt and you don't squat,
maybe starting to squat anddoing it correctly could help
your knees right. So these areall really good concepts for I
learned that just in the lastyear or so, right, I avoided
some things because my knees areso beat up, I'll likely need
(20:07):
both my knees replaced as whatI'm being told now. But the more
I lift, and even the heavier Ilift, the better I feel. I think
it increases blood flow, ithelps to lubricate your joints.
There's, I mean, I'm not anexercise scientist, I'm just an
engineer. But anecdotally, whatI have really
are mechanical engineers. Sothat's, that's like I draw.
(20:29):
Yeah, a little bit. But I just,I just know, when I'm
consistent, and I continue to doit, I feel better. And so I've
been taking some time off, whenI got back here tried to recover
a little bit, I was in the gymyesterday, for the first time
after a few weeks off, and myjoints are sore they are they
haven't been used that way in awhile. So it's gonna take some
time to get back into it. Butnow today, I feel good. I feel
(20:51):
better today than I have felt ina couple of weeks with recovery.
And I think it's because I wasin the gym and I was moving. A
body at rest stays at rest, abody in motion stays in motion.
So I think we got to keep, keepdoing it. It's hard to get that
activation energy to get into itwhen we're used to sitting
around or it's easy to getcomfortable being being lazy.
And I'm guilty of it for sure.
But I always I always seem tofind that when I get back to it
(21:14):
and I'm moving and moving someweight. I my mental and my
physical health is is better.
Man, I totally agree with you.
And for people listening, likeonce you get into it. And that's
the thing, getting that firsthabit going, you'll find that
you might wake up and yourresource on your knees are sore,
and you're just kind of achy.
(21:35):
But it's the day that you workout, right. And you got to get
yourself in the gym and all of asudden you feel great. And if
you do that enough times youkind of program yourself to know
that that will come from thatkind of makes it a little
easier. But I agree witheverything Josh was saying. I
felt it I've been there. Eventhis morning, it was just cold
and achy and gwydion it got itdone and you feel much better.
(21:58):
And I think we get a there'ssome times I feel some
stereotypes and we feel likewell, I can't go in and I can't
squat 300 pounds. So I don'twant to go to the gym, right? I
don't want to be embarrassed orwhatever. I just say go and do
it. I went in yesterday. And Iused a 50 pound kettlebell and I
did some squats with thekettlebell and I did some
(22:18):
deadlifts with the singlekettlebell like I was moving, no
weight compared to what Inormally move. And I did push
ups, right, I just needed to getback into the routine. We don't
have to PR every time we go inthere, it's not what it's about.
For me, it's just about constantimprovement and keeping my body
healthy. So I can keep doing thethings that I love as long as I
can do them.
(22:39):
Yeah. And people don't realizehow little how little activity
it actually takes to maintainyour strength. So even once you
have your strength, you can gothrough periods, like you're
talking about where the reps,the intensity doesn't have to be
nearly as high, you're nottrying to PR all the time, and
you're not going to lose allyour gains.
Now, ridiculously low, like 8%of the intensity or something to
(23:00):
maintain.
Yeah, what 1/8? So let's thatthat's about 8% as well, it's 12
and a half. Yeah, yeah, it'sreally low. And that could be
like, when people go onvacation, they say I'm gonna,
I'm gonna be out for a week ortwo, should I train and lose all
my games? The answer is youdon't need to do anything. For a
week or two, you know, like, youwill not lose your case in a
(23:21):
week or two, right? After abouttwo weeks, two to four weeks, it
starts to decline. And, andsomething as late as band work,
if you're on vacation can beenough to keep it going. As much
as we love our big barbellmovements and think that's the
be all end all. There's more toit than that.
Yeah, I have a bag of bands thatI take with me when I travel for
work. Yeah,for sure. So I'm not sure if you
know that I had back surgery.
(23:46):
But you know, I want to talkabout injury here. I had a micro
diskectomy last year backsurgery on my lower spine and
then an emergency appendectomytwo months later. But I found
that that inherent base ofstrength developed over the
years made the recovery prettyfast and easy. And I could get
back to training but everybodyhas a different situation. In
terms of what interrupts theirtraining, right? Injuries, maybe
(24:09):
anxiety or depression, thingslike that. Have you dealt with
setbacks like that? And then howdid you deal with those?
Yeah, I haven't had any majorsurgeries like that, in a long
time, had a knee surgery back inhigh school. Of course, I was
16. So I healed quickly. Mostly,it's been nagging things, right,
nagging muscle poles, thingslike that, that I've worked
(24:30):
through. I do have some baselineanxiety issues, and my whole
family has really bad anxiety.
I'm not medicated, I'm able tomanage it pretty well. But
exercise is a big part of it. Ido find myself especially this
time of year when it started toget darker. We're about to
change from daylight savings tostandard time here in Wisconsin,
where I'm at, it's going tostart getting dark at 430. So
(24:52):
I've traditionally found thatthat's a problem. Okay, and for
me, the way I work through it isjust cognitively right now. Um,
there's things like CBT,cognitive behavioral therapy,
issues that you can read aboutand just talk through it. And I
know that when it startshappening, I need to exercise
because it makes me feel better.
Even if I don't want to do it.
I've built that discipline. Andas part of what I do, then it's
(25:14):
just like, just like going towork on Monday. Nobody wants to
go, but it's what we do. So wedo it, and I don't want to go to
the gym because I'm feeling sad,or I'm anxious about work or
whatever other thing, well, toobad. That's what I do. So I go,
and it makes me feel better, andit pulls me out of it. So, to
me, it's just about building thediscipline in making it rather
than trying to force it intosomething. It's not I make it
(25:38):
fit my life. Right. Soyeah, and that's amazing that it
helps with the the depression orthe anxiety. Is that
physiological or is it the factthat you're doing something you
enjoy doing? Or is it a littleboth?
That's for somebody a lotsmarter, okay. Just know, I just
(25:58):
know it works. I mean, there'sthere's studies Josh, yeah, I'm
sure there are, I'm sure thereare studies out there, I don't
know them and couldn't, couldn'tcite them. But it's amazing. And
the other thing, too, is justbeing outside, right? If I live
out here on 40 acres, and I havea little bit of land, right Bo
hunts do so I'll just go out andsit in my stand. And just being
(26:19):
outside in nature and gettingfresh air during the time of
year when it's hard to getoutside and get sunlight also
really helps me one of the oneof the major indicators of
depression is the lack of desireto do the things that we
normally would love to do. Andso the way that I work through
that is well, even though Idon't feel like I want to do it,
(26:39):
I know that's what I want to do.
So I just, I'm gonna forcemyself to go, and I'm gonna go
sit out there, and I'm gonna doit and baby steps, things like,
Well, I don't really want to gofor a walk. But I'm just going
to put on my shoes. And if youput on your shoes, and you tie
them and you lace them up,you're probably going to go for
the walk. Right? So it's it'sdon't eat the elephant in one
bite, right? Just start with,Okay, put your shoes on. Even if
you don't go walk around thehouse with your shoes on, maybe
(27:00):
you vacuum or do something. Andthen the next day, put your
shoes on and go to get thenewspaper and work your way into
it. But don't give up. I mean,it's a digital society. And
sometimes we think in in blackand white and ones and zeros.
And it doesn't have to be thatway. If you start feeling for
myself when I start feeling thatway, and I don't want to go or
maybe I haven't gone in twoweeks like well, haven't gone in
two weeks, it's all over. I'mjust going to let myself go.
(27:22):
Doesn't have to be that way.
Right? You can say well, letmyself go for two weeks or three
weeks or a month or six months,whatever it is. Today's a new
day and you can start over youcan you can fix your nutrition,
you can put on your shoes, youcan go to the gym, even if you
just go to the gym and sit onthe bench. Just go there, get in
the space, sit on the bench,maybe walk around and look. It
(27:44):
starts that building up apractice.
Do your inspiring I'm glad wehave you on here. I hope
everybody is listening to like Idon't know if they're driving to
the gym right now or that homeor whatever it just take that
step. Today's always a new day.
Who cares what happenedyesterday? I mean, same thing
with nutrition. It's like, yeah,you binge eat yesterday, or you
you know ate way more than youintended to, you're not trying
(28:05):
to make it up or screw up withyour plan today. Just start the
new day and do it again. Youknow, perfect device that that's
so good. Hey, this is Philippape, letting you know that
applications are now open forone on one coaching. If you're a
busy working professional, whohas tried dieting and exercising
for years, with little in theway of results, and you want to
(28:26):
lose fat, get lean or feelconfident in your body without
excessive dieting, cardio orrestrictions. Just go to wits &
weights.com/coaching to apply.
I fight that battle all thetime. I mean, I'm fighting it
right now when I got back frommy trip, I have not been eating
(28:46):
well. I went to the grocerystore, I've just had enough and
I went to the grocery store andand bought healthy food and I
made a good meal today and youstart over. Don't just keep keep
after it just don't give up.
Yep, throw away the What thehell mentality and you know,
take the step forward.
It's a it's a, it's a long view,right? It's an infinite game,
we're trying to stay healthy aslong as we can. So while we have
(29:09):
short term goals, or I haveshort term goals in between,
it's also ultimately I want tobe healthy into my 80s and, and
so I can't get there if everytime I have an ice cream cone or
I drink too many beers I don'tlike just throw it away and it's
all gone. Exactly, which is it'seasy mentality to slip into.
It's taken me a lot of years tocome to that realization but I
(29:33):
think that that that's whatworks for me and it has been
working Give me Give yourselfsome grace, right? I mean, we're
not perfect.
For sure. Some grace, some selflove. And you know it might be
relying on the systems we'vebeen talking about and might be
taking the step each day itmight be your support structure,
somebody in your life that cansupport you. Lots of ways to get
there but get there. Really goodmessage.
(29:55):
Yeah, that's a really I don'tmean to go on a tangent but
that's a really good point youjust brought up and it made me
think of something If you don'tmind me just sharing your story,
please. I think a lot of peopledon't see food and nutrition and
exercise the same way they seesome other other things. And
some of my friends and familydidn't understand the struggles
that I had with food and what itmeant. Because if you look at
(30:15):
me, even when I'm what Iconsider heavy, I don't look
like I'm obese, right? So like,you would think of a normal fat
guy or whatever. And so they'relike, Oh, you're fine, you can
have this dessert, or you canhave that. And my response was,
like, you don't understand thisis something that's important to
me. And it's not that I can'thave it, I'm saying that I don't
want it. And I'm trying to dosomething different. And what I
(30:38):
need from you is that supportand then understanding, right,
you can do whatever you'd like,and put whatever you want in
your body. But I'm asking you torespect my decision. And if I
say I don't want it, say, Okay,no problem, is there something
else we can get you? Or how canwe support you? Right? As my
friend and my family, you woulddo that for an alcoholic or
somebody struggling with drugsor depression or having trouble
(30:59):
with a relationship, right? Youwouldn't say, oh, it's, it's
fine. Just go date someone else,you'd say, How can I support you
going through this, and it's thesame thing, but I don't think
that a lot of people seenutrition and exercise the same
way. And I feel like it's thesame.
I agree with you as well. Andthat's courageous to ask
somebody to make to support youand be explicit about your, your
(31:20):
wants and needs. Because ofcourse, I'm sure a lot of people
feel they maybe can't do that ordifficult thing to do. Yeah,
it's a good message, just thankyou for sharing that. So let's,
let's get a little more a littleless serious, maybe for a second
and go back and talk about thetraining again, and you're
hunting and I'm not a hunter, itsounds like a lot of fun. My
(31:42):
perception of of what you'redoing with the climbing through
the mountains and punting thesame time, it's like a composite
sport, right involves bothstrength and endurance. And we
already talked about the keepingyour weight down, but staying
strong, which are kind ofcontradictory, in some cases,
depending on how your trainingis structured. So how do you
manage that dichotomy? You know,the strength versus endurance?
(32:05):
Yeah, I think it's like I saidearlier, I tried to split it
down the middle and train, trainheavy, so I wasn't worried about
like high reps or low reps, Itried to do different things.
And so I would, I would runthrough a program for eight or
12 weeks, and I would do fivereps or six reps. And then I'd
go to a 12, or 15, or 20 repprogram, just to keep keep
(32:28):
scrolling, I don't think itmatters so much what you do, as
long as you're doing somethingto keep your muscles building
and keep keep your your centralnervous system, kind of
surprised. So I've got a coupleof programs that I bought, that
I thought were good. I tried todo full body workouts, excuse
me, very little of what I needis preacher curls or leg
(32:53):
extensions, or things that arevery isolating to single muscle
groups. I'm usually, like Isaid, up down, climbing,
kneeling, laying inuncomfortable positions for a
long period of time, right. SoI'm trying to move my whole
body. And then different tryingto find different ways to train
for climbing. So bicycle uphill,heavy pack, hiking up hills,
(33:18):
stairclimber spent a lot of timeon a stairclimber. So I just
split it down the middle andtried to do things that made
sense, I would put on my packand go out in public land and
just go for a long hike, try toif you want to shoot free
throws, you practice shootingfree throws, I wanted to hike.
So I practice hiking with aheavy heavy pack on. So that's
strength and endurance both.
Okay, and there's some I mean,there's some concepts in there
(33:39):
that are rock solid, that youknow, people need to understand
one being specificity, which wealluded to before, and you just
said it there. If you want toget good at something, do that
thing. So if you want to getgood at squats, do the squats.
And then the other is theperiodization. Right? We do it,
we do it nutrition and we do itwith training. You talked about
different rep schemes andchanging it up. And it's not
(34:00):
that we're trying to confuse themuscles or make it variant for
for its own sake, even though itcould be fun. It's you're trying
to be well rounded, right?
You're trying to hit everythingsupport everything you don't
want to overtrain a lot of goodreasons for that.
Yeah, and for me, as I pushed inthe lower rep ranges and started
getting heavier and heavier, Iworried about my my hernia a
(34:20):
little bit. I worried aboutinjury a little bit. So when I
started getting up into i thinki one rep max like 400 pound
deadlift. And I'm like, Well, Idon't need to pick up 400
pounds. So I'm going to startdoing higher reps and lower
weights, there's less chance ofme getting injured. It's
something I haven't done for awhile. It's something different.
(34:41):
So I'm transitioning into thatfor the eight weeks before my
trip.
Yeah, and that's a priority foryou, you know somebody who's
gonna go to a powerlifting meetthey've got to get their one RM
deadlift up, but that's not apriority for you so it makes
perfect sense. Now, you, youmentioned you dialed in your
training for the mountain goathunt earlier this year. In
British Columbia, I'm telling mymy wife and kids about that, I
(35:03):
think it's so cool mountaingoat. It's just a unique thing.
And it sounds, it sounds reallychallenging. It sounds fun
because I just from what I'veseen from mountain goats on any
nature's show, you know, I knowthey could like scale the size
of cliffs and whatnot. So tellus about preparing for that
event and how balancing thatwith longevity and everything we
talked about how you did that,and for these events in general,
(35:25):
and for that event,specifically,
yeah, so I focused a lot onclimbing. And what I found is
that coming down, sometimes it'sharder than going up. And it's
hard to train, it's hard totrain that going going down in
part. So for this hot I was inthe Canadian Rockies, and I was
carrying maybe 35 pounds on myback most days, right water,
some foods, some clothes, weweren't carrying camping, so it
(35:47):
was just hiking up every day.
But it was 4000 feet ofelevation gain up every day,
from where we stopped climbingup through avalanche shoots and
on trails and up creeks to getup to where the goats Live,
which is way up above Timberlineup in the rocks, like you were
saying. And so I had focused alot on training for the climb
because I had such a hard timeclimbing previously. But what
I'm finding is that I need tofind a better way to train for
(36:10):
the descent. Okay, right. Andthat concentric part with the
heavy load and slippery anduneven terrain that really
pounded my joints and my quadspretty hard. And my hips. So
that's something I'm stillsearching for, was thinking
about how to create a treadmillthat ran backwards and I could
point downhill and go downhillwith.
(36:32):
Yeah, yeah. Right. Because youthink of like your shins and
your knees and the things thatkind of get pounded even when
you're just going for a hike andyou're coming down the mountain
from a different movementpattern that is interesting,
right? Do they have otherspecialized movements that are
loaded thatthat mean I do, I do step ups
and then I step off. So I'll putseveral benches or PIO boxes
together in a row and I'll stepup, step down and step up, step
(36:54):
down and go across them. But Ican't get the same as like
putting a treadmill orstairclimber up and going for an
hour, an hour and a half right.
When I came down with my goat Ishot a really nice seven year
old billy goat this year, heprobably weighed 250 pounds. So
the guy was with and I bothcarried out packs full of meat
(37:15):
and hide in the head and horns.
And I think my pack was 75pounds when I got out and that's
with all my water gone, I'dfinished my water. So I had four
litres of water. So it was ateight, nine pounds. So water, so
I was probably at five poundpack coming down, which isn't
super heavy, but it was steepgoing up. At the top, it was
about 40 degrees, it was handover hand over foot climbing and
(37:39):
then coming down that gravityjust keeps pulling, never stops.
Sothat's impressive, man. I mean,
it'sfour and a half hours, it was a
four and a half hour hike downthe mountain with the goat. I
think it took us about five toclimb up there.
And that's you did that for awhile. And that's what the go
(38:01):
and then you said each day youwould also go up whether you had
whether you had a kill or not.
Obviously, you're going up anddown multiple days. Yeah. So now
and then you have another huntcoming up in New Zealand. And
you mentioned kind of movinginto recovery mode. And now
you've you take lessons fromeach of these hunts, I'm sure to
improve your training each time.
But you're also getting older,right? Everything's getting more
(38:21):
beat up. So what does that looklike in preparation for the
spring hunt?
Yeah, so my plan this winter isto put on some muscle and gain
gain a little bit of weight andjust get my get my engine kind
of revved up to build somestrength so that I can cut, I'm
gonna cut back again, I likecutting into the event so that
like the week before I can starteating more. Maybe that's not
(38:42):
for everybody. But that seems towork well for me. So my plan
this winter is to is to buildand try to build, build some
more muscle. I'm already up to210 pounds. So I put that weight
back on pretty fast. I'd like toput on, you know, five or six
pounds of muscle if I can. AndI'm sure that'll come with it
plenty of body fat. And thenyeah, I'm going to try to figure
(39:06):
out a way to train the thedescent a little better. And
keep after my climbing, I reallyfelt good to be able to climb, I
carried a lot more weight and Iwas able to just go up, up up
up, but I didn't get tired. Andso that was the first time I've
had that. And that felt good. Soprobably do a lot of the same
things I've been doing, try tofind in a way find a way to add
(39:28):
in some some descent training,even if that's just finding a
hill out here that I can walk upand walk down over and over
again.
Yeah, you go on the bleachers,rocky style, you know, up and
down. And for people listening,you know what you just said? The
how you felt it was easier afteryou had done that training to go
up this next time. And foranybody listening, you know, you
(39:50):
don't have to be a mountain goatclimber to get that same benefit
from training. I mean, I've hadclients who are in their 60s
never trained before, and theysay hey, I went to a football
game and I actually wasn't outof breath, you know, going up
the bleachers. And it's allrelative to you. And I think
that's the value of of what wedo. So you met you mentioned
nutrition a little, I want toget into that, because that is
(40:10):
also my space here. I know youhad, you said you had a bad
relationship with food andstruggle with the urge to binge,
what strategies have youdeveloped? Because now you're
obviously dialing in and you'recutting, you're bulking, you're
doing what you need to time withyour training. And you have some
what seems like good controlover that or better control? How
have you gotten there?
(40:31):
It depends on the day. To me,it's really all mental in my, to
me, it's all mental, right? If Iget a craving, I mean, I've got
some strategies, but I cave,often, right, I just, I just do,
I was raised on bar food andeating ice cream every night
before bed, right? Just likemost of us in sugar, cereal and
(40:52):
everything else, right. And soI've got a couple of tricks,
right? I tried to keep a lot ofhealthy choices around. If I if
my refrigerator is empty, I'mgoing to go down the street to
the bar and get a burger, right.
It's just it's, it's easy. Andso if I can make it convenient.
For me to eat healthy, I do abetter job. If I have food, if I
meal prep, if I spend a couplehours on Sunday, or whatever
(41:14):
making meals or I put a roast inand I have a roast and I have
the sweet potatoes alreadycooked, right? It's easy to grab
them and throw them in themicrowave and make a good
choice. So I had to come toterms with the fact that I'm
lazy and I'm going to make alazy choice. Sometimes I need to
have things available. They'reeasy for me.
speaking my language, just yourspeaking. I remember calling
(41:36):
people years ago, they're likewhy? Why do you strength train,
I'm like, I'm lazy. This is thelaziest most effective way to
train that I've ever found, youknow, I get to go three days a
week and take a bunch of resttime between sets. You're over
there on the cardio, I'm lazy.
It's kind of a, you know, it's aself deprecating kind of thing.
But there's some truth to that.
(41:57):
And the common theme of what youjust said, and people need to
hear this is mindset andplanning. And they're actually
two halves of the same thing.
Because the reason you plan andthink ahead and meal prep and so
on, is to take out the mindlater on right to take out the
decision making an emotion asmuch as you can. I mean, if you
go out to dinner, and there's abuffet, and there's some amazing
(42:18):
food that you just can't help,you know, it's going to be
tougher, right? But the planningis the key. So yeah, it's great.
I think understandingunderstanding your your brain or
your body or whatever iscontrolling your desire, right.
So I know people who can go outto dinner and they're like,
Well, I want dessert. And soexcuse me, they can have like
(42:41):
one piece of pie, or they canhave, you know, a handful of
chocolate chips and they'refine. If I eat a handful of
chocolate chips, I'm going toeat 6000 calories. There's just
no two ways about it. So whenI'm training, I have to get rid
of all that stuff. I can't go,you can't do it. And that's just
what I found about me. I'm, I'ma I'm an all or nothing kind of
guy. Right. And so that's justwhat I've had to figure out. And
(43:03):
so that's where I struggle withthe binging right, because once
I let go, I might eat 10 or12,000 calories in a day. If I
start in the morning withpancakes and syrup. It's I have
a hard time rein that in. So Ireally have to watch it. And I
tried to make other choices likeI found that if I take yogurt,
and I get a good 2% Greekyogurt, and I put frozen berries
(43:25):
in it, and maybe a little bit ofhoney, I can I can use that as a
substitute. And then I didn'teat the ice cream. And I don't
eat the whole thing, right. Andso I made up kind of a route
Yeah, substitute for what Iwould normally want. It's just
got the cold, and I've got thelittle bit of sweet. And it also
helps if I can get off of sugarfor two or three weeks, then
(43:47):
berries and oranges and otherthings taste sweet again. Yes.
And so I can use that. Right.
And I really struggled with thattransition once I've had Ben and
Jerry's for a couple of nightsin a row. And then I go and have
yogurt and berries. Well, thistastes like garbage, right? But
it's because my receptors orwhatever it is. And your brain
is like Well, that's not sugar.
So it just takes a little bit oftime and then I get back into
(44:08):
it.
That is so true. desensitizingyourself is actually a really
good strategy. I mean, we talkabout that with clients all the
time of substituting because ifyou just try to cut things out,
let's be honest, you try to cutthings out, you're gonna be
tempted, right? And I like howyou control your environment by
cutting them out of your house.
That doesn't mean hey, if youreally, really really want ice
cream, okay, we're gonna godrive to the high quality ice
(44:29):
cream stand with the mom and popflavors you can't get anywhere
else. We're going to enjoy theexperience. We're gonna have our
ice cream, maybe, I mean, maybeyou the type you do that and
then you're gonna go buy 10gallons of ice cream. I don't
know. Everybody's different. Butyou got so many so many so many
golden statements and what yousaid that people can take and
not everything. Not everytechnique has to be used by
(44:50):
everybody. But you know, threeor four of the things you
mentioned are going to be aregoing to be key controlling your
environment. You know,substitute Green, I think, did
that really start back in? Like,I don't know, maybe it was
before paleo, but I feel likethey came up with all the
cookbooks where they hadsubstitutes for every,
everything that could, you know,baked good.
(45:13):
Brownies. Exactly.
Actually, even my wife when Iwas when we first met, I was
very picky. I didn't eat anyvegetables. I very few unless
you count corn and potatoes asmuch I
was in the same boat 20 yearsago. And you
know, she did she bought a bookby Jerry Seinfeld's wife that
was written for kids to formothers to make food for their
kids and sneak vegetables in todelicious thing. So she would
(45:36):
put spinach in brownies andkidney beans in mac and cheese
and got me to eat vegetablesover time. So we can we can sort
of fool ourselves till itbecomes the norm. That's that's
what we eat. Good stuff, man.
What else? I guess we've covereda lot. Is there anything else
you want to cover that I didn'tbring up?
(45:57):
No, I mean, I guess for peoplelistening, like, even if you're
not a hunter, right? Anythingyou want to do. And it can be as
as big as climbing a mountain,right? I climbed Kilimanjaro.
And that was a great experience,or it can be as as every day is
I want to be able to, you know,walk my grandson down the aisle,
(46:17):
and I couldn't walk before,right or I struggled with being
able to stand for long periodsof time. Right? I think anything
that brings value to our lifecan be enhanced. If we are
stronger. I think just movingmoving our bodies, helps with
our mental health, it helps withour physical health. It helps
(46:38):
stave off injury and disease.
And I'm not a doctor, but I'veseen it time. And again, those
are my friends and people I knowwho are are constantly active.
Just have, I think a fuller andricher life. And then
ultimately, in my view anyway,we're only here for a short
period of time as well enjoy it,do what we can do enjoy it,
(46:59):
right. And so the more we canmove and feel strong and feel
grounded, the better we canenjoy the time that we're here.
Awesome, man, I couldn't say itbetter myself. I do want to I do
want to reiterate what you justsaid, though, that we might as
well enjoy it. Because I think alot of people think of fitness
(47:19):
and nutrition as some sort ofsacrifice or difficult thing
that makes your life lessenjoyable. And what you just
suggested is doing those thingsallows you to enjoy your life
for longer and do the things youwant to do.
Yeah, and find something you dolike right if you don't like to
lift weights, but you love torun and I guess run right but or
go outside and pick your pickyour child up your grandchild up
(47:41):
and go for a walk carrying yourkit. Just go out with the dogs
and didn't hold rocking, throwsomething right have just
exercise and moving and beingbeing out and being part of the
world.
Yep. All right. Well, wecouldn't agree more. And this
was this is an awesomeconversation. Thanks for coming
on Josh. One of my best guess,because you just covered
everything. And it was probablya personal experience. I'm
(48:04):
serious. I think peoplelistening can relate. Because
people struggle with this stuffall the time. And I think you
had a lot of really cool things,people are gonna probably listen
to this again, and try to reallytease out what can help them. So
this was fun. I'm grateful youtook the time to come on the
show and talk about yourexperience.
Now. Thanks for so much so muchfor having me. I appreciate it.
(48:24):
You're doing great work and alot of a lot of stuff that I did
pulled out of your podcast. Sothanks for all your help.
Absolutely. More to come. Thanksfor listening to the show.
Before you go, I have a quickfavorite ask. If you enjoy the
podcast, let me know by leavinga five star review in Apple
podcasts and telling othersabout the show. Thanks again for
joining me Philip Pape in thisepisode of Wits & Weights. I'll
(48:48):
see you next time and staystrong.
Welcome to the Wits & Weightspodcast, where we discuss
getting strong and healthy withstrength training and
sustainable nutrition. I'm yourhost, Philip Pape. And in each
episode, we examine strategiesto help you achieve physical
self mastery through a healthyskepticism of the fitness
industry, and a commitment toconsistent nutrition and
training for sustainableresults.
(00:30):
Welcome, everyone, to anotherepisode of Wits & Weights. Today
is a special one because it'sthe first episode I've ever done
featuring a member of our Wits,& Weights, Facebook group, and
he's got a unique backstory.
He's got some exciting, veryinteresting performance related
pursuits that we're going tochat about. So I'm really
looking forward to thisconversation. We're gonna get
into strength, lifelong healthtraining for events, avoiding
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overtraining, especially as weage, and more topics just like
that. My guest today is JoshIsley, a 42 year old mechanical
engineer who loves hunting theback country and mountains but
who also rides a desk every day,we can relate. He was an athlete
in high school and as happens tomany people. He relied on his
natural abilities for too long,and in his own words, let
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himself go a bit. Josh wasinconsistent with training and
developed a bad relationshipwith food. He spent the last
several years training on andoff for hunts. And he finally
got it dialed in this year inpreparation for mountain goat
hunts. Josh still struggles withfood and binging but is getting
better all the time, his programworked well, because he was able
to climb much better than hecould last year. And he's now
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moving into recovery mode,beginning to prepare for New
Zealand in the spring. We werejust talking about that. Before
we started recording. Josh, Iappreciate you coming on the
show, man. I'm excited to getinto training, nutrition,
whatever you want to talk about.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Philip pape, I appreciate it.
Exciting. Yeah. It'svery cool, man. So in the intro,
I mentioned how you're anengineer, 42 years old, by the
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way you love the outdoors, youhave a desk job. And I can
relate. I'm also 42 also anengineering background. And I'm
also at a desk most of the day.
So if you don't mind.
Just tell us a bit about whatyou do. And maybe how you find
time to go hunting and anythingelse about your background?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, you said itin the intro, right. I, I was an
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athlete in high school, I'vealways enjoyed being active.
I come from kind of an activefamily and my father was a good
athlete as well, but kind of letthings go after high school. I
always loved hunting. As I gotolder, I found the mountains in
the backcountry and reallywanted to be able to do that.
But I don't know if you've evertried to climb a mountain when
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you're not in shape, but youcan't cheat the mountain. So
there's only only one way to doit. And that's to get in really
good shape. And be consistentwith your training. So I started
taking lunch breaks and running.
My knees kind of got beat up. Sowhen I would walk,
I got a bike this year, to tryto limit the impact on my
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joints. And just made nutritionand weight training a focus of
my life I made it made it apriority and started to build
the discipline around that. Idid a last year in Colorado,
that was really high. And Ireally struggled. My joints hurt
my muscles ached. It was it waspainful. And it was kind of a
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wake up call that as I getolder, I'm not going to be able
to rely on my natural talentsand abilities. And I have to put
in the effort and the work tokeep doing the things I want to
do as we age. Fair enough. Yeah.
So when you started climbingyears ago, I don't know how long
ago that was. But you said youweren't really in shape and
ready for it. And it sounds likeyou've pushed yourself over the
years, even as you've tried totrain and keep up with that.
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Right? That initial climate wasthat? Are we talking rock
climbing? Are we talking juststeep kind of hiking? Not? Not
just I know it's a lot to hike amountain for hours on end? What
are we talking about? Yeah, no,no technical climbing. I don't
have crampons or ropes andcarabiners and things. It's
really just being able to moveheavy weight over long distances
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for a long period of time. offtrail, you know, being able to
bend at the waist with 80 poundson your back and go over
deadfall there's a lot of beetlekill in places like Idaho and
Colorado, right. So it's theseanimals have been hunted
extensively for a lot of years.
And they live in some prettynasty places now, so to be able
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to take 1800 or 2500 feetelevation changes, right? It's
really just climbing climbing upavalanche chutes, climbing
around through timber up andover screen slides and things
like that to get to where theyare. Okay, and when you talk
about carrying a lot of weighton your back and having to bend
over. And you know, I think ofthese, we focus a lot on
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functional movements when itcomes to training but then there
are movements you need in reallife that you don't necessarily
use every day, but are specialspecific to something like that
right? Like so I'm thinking of agood morning a back a barbell
Good morning is like, movement,right? And now we're gonna
change that was, as you foundyourself getting a little bit
more beat up from these moredifficult climbs, what what was
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the biggest factor you youthought to yourself, I need to
do better or if if I had donethat over again, this is what I
would focus on.
Yeah, so that was the kind ofthe case last year I struggled
with a few things and what Ifocused on in my training last
winter, and this through thesummer, leading into this false
Hunt was a lot of unilateralwork, single leg stuff, right,
if you slip and fall, you'regonna catch yourself with one
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leg. So a lot of unilateral workin Single Leg deadlifts, single
leg squats, step ups, stepdowns, just things to be able to
and then mobility, right. Soeven having the strength but
being able to have jointmobility, everything's uneven,
rocky terrain, slippery terrain,and things like that. A lot of
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core work, I could use a lotmore. But I definitely tried to
focus, focus on my core. Andthen as funny as it looked, I
would take my backpack into thegym, and I'd wear it while I'm
working out, I would try to dothings with that backpack to
mimic that it's hard to mimicthat with free weights. So
having that pack strapped onwith a bag of sand in the back
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of it walking up and down stairson the stairclimber or up and
over plyo boxes and things likethat.
Nice. So specificity is whatyou're talking about is like
just do the movement you need totrain for as well as everything
else. Unilateral movements. Ithink a lot of people, they're
not a big fan of them in thegym, right? We focus so much on
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bilateral stuff squats,deadlifts, but, I mean, what
would you say about those justfor the general population? Even
if they don't have to do anevent like that? Is there value
in doing those?
I think so. Right? I mean, it'snot as impressive to the lady
sitting across the gym whenyou're only moving 40 pound
dumbbells with unilateralmovements. But I think that it's
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a novel stimulus for a lot ofpeople who haven't done it
before. And then you spend 12weeks or eight weeks on
unilateral movement, and you goback to a standard squat or
standard deadlift, and I thinkyou'll see improvement, it
helped my joints, a lot of timesmy knees are pretty beat up so
my knees will hurt. But the morethat I focus on really good form
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and technique and strengtheningthose muscles and making the
muscles do the work, my jointsfeel better. And then I'm able
to move move better when I'mback into heavyweight.
Okay, now, let's talk aboutmindset a bit, because I know
you said you were inconsistentwith your training, because you
had some natural talents. And alot of people struggle with that
a lot of people know what to dothey know how to do it even just
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don't do it. And rely a lot onwillpower, you know, which is a
finite resource or motivation,or hire somebody like me, who's
a coach to kind of give himextrinsically. But why would you
say that? That's, you know,motivation is not enough. And we
need to, I think you call itbuild a discipline? Well, we
were talking earlier about this.
Yeah, well, I'm just like mostother people, right, I get
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really motivated in spurts. Andso it's really easy to go to the
gym when I don't have a deadlineat work, or I don't have a date
or whenever else. My son doesn'tneed me for something. But I
found that for me, what I neededto do was it was just like, I
had to make it like brushing myteeth or cooking dinner or
whatever else. It was just, it'swhat I did. And so there wasn't
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any excuse, or any reason to saywell, I can't go it's just Well,
I, I do go this is what I do.
It's part of my day, it's in mycalendar. For me, that's what it
took. Because otherwise, theminute that I could find an
excuse, I would,yeah, so it's what you did. I
mean, that's the classic line.
It's what I did, like brushingyour teeth. And you mentioned a
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calendar that you dropped alittle hint about one of the
ways you do it is you scheduleit in or reminders on your
phone. How do you do that?
Yeah, it's I don't, I guess Idon't have a real calendar that
I put it in, but it's just in myin my head and my calendar, the
one thing that I would do isblock off an hour and a half at
lunchtime. I don't know abouthow your work is but if I have
an open spot in my calendar,someone will fill it. So I would
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make sure that every other day Ihad an hour and a half to go and
do my cardio. So I would run orride a bike in the summertime or
have a stair climber in mybasement. And that was my time.
It just if I didn't do it atlunch, I didn't want to do it. I
could find a way to go to thegym after work. And I needed
more time my gym routine waskind of longer anyway. And I had
to drive I live in the middle ofnowhere. So I had to drive and
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get to the gym. But I neededthat that lunchtime cardio I
found that if I tried to get upearly, I couldn't get out of
bed. I didn't wasn't motivatedafter work. My brain just was
tired. I wanted to eat dinnerand sit down. I couldn't do it.
So I had to find a time thatworked for me and make sure that
that's just what I did. That wasmy lunchtime routine on Tuesdays
Thursdays and Saturdays. I ranor biked or hike to a rock. Yes,
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that part of my part of my day.
Yeah, and that's awesome advice.
A couple of things. There's onethe fact that you thought ahead
and you planned it in, and youblocked it out, right? It's the
same idea when people say theycan't get enough steps. It's
like, well, you know, findsomething you do every day and
connect it with that activity,maybe it's lunch, and you're
gonna eat out for half an hour,block an hour, like you said,
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out of your calendar block anhour. And that second half an
hour is always going to be forwalking. And what was the other
thing you mentioned that, evenif you do that, it has to work
for you. So getting up early,and doing it late didn't work
for you, just like, I can'ttrain after the morning, because
the day is just just gone forme. And some people are like, I
couldn't train in the morning.
So it's got to work for you.
Yep. So now, I love the culturehere of you working out and
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trying to stay fit, you know,regardless of age, age, just a
number, and we're not in our 20sanymore. So we can't put in the
same long, hard workouts everyday, you know, six, seven days a
week, like we would have likedto back then. How do we avoid
overtraining, then?
Yeah, that's a great question.
And I didn't know the answer tothat. So I was raised by parents
who were entrepreneurs and smallbusiness owners, and they just
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worked and worked and worked.
And my grandfather and my uncleswere farmers, right. And so I
was raised in this culturethroughout the late 80s. And
early 90s. It was nobody careswork harder, right? Just keep
going. And so I kind of tookthat approach through high
school and my wrestling coachwas the same way. And I
approached my fitness that way,and I found myself injured a
lot. I mean, I was workingthrough a doctor and growing
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poles, I ended up I still havean umbilical hernia, a lot of
shoulder issues, right. And Ijust had this feeling listening
to podcasts like yours andothers, right? It was really
great information, hey, it mightbe overtraining. So I actually
went hired a personal trainer.
To me, I felt like it was aninvestment, right? I pay health
insurance and I go get aphysical, I go to the dentist
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and take care of my teeth.
Right? I put money away forretirement, why wouldn't I put
the same investment in my body?
So I squirreled away some money,and I hired her and she was
like, Absolutely, you'reovertraining, you need to need
to back off, right. And so Ithink, just having that
reinforcement from somebody elsewho I trusted as a professional,
and then I was able to backthings off a little bit and
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reevaluate. One of the problemsI have is sleep, I don't sleep
well. So I've been really tryingto focus on that. And that's
helped if I can, if I can getconsistent sleep. And I don't
push myself for two hours in thegym every single day. And I cut
it back to maybe instead ofthree days, go to four days,
shorter time periods orsomething like that and find
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what works, right. It took awhile to kind of 00 in on what
my body needed. But I didn't getinjured after that. I had a lot
better experience when I wasable to stay more consistent.
And so I ended up in a betterplace by doing less than where I
was going by doing so muchbecause I was constantly
recovering from injury.
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Yeah, people need to hear thatbecause I mean, we say 20s But
really even starting in yourlate 20s, early 30s. These
issues can start to creep up ifyou're overdoing it. And it
sounds like before you got apersonal trainer did did it
enter your mind that you shoulddo less? Or and you just didn't
do last or did you not evenconsider it? Yeah.
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Oh no. I I struggled back andforth between this this inner
monologue. I'm probablyovertrained. Right, I can listen
to Philip on on his podcast, andI can listen to these other
people. And I can read thesethings. And I can look at I'm an
engineer, right, I can look ateverything that is happening to
my body and how I feel and putthe puzzle pieces together, then
the back of my mind is, youknow, put on your big boy pants
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to keep working hard. Yeah.
I'm gonna lose my games. I'm notgonna be strong.
Like, well, I can't take a dayoff because I'll eat too many
calories. And I'll gain sixpounds. But it's just it's, I
think a lot of it has to do withwhat we're fed in the media to
and through sales. People aretrying to sell supplements or
sell workout gear, whatever elseit is. And I think we're fed a
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lot of misinformation. Soyeah, I agree. And people come
from from different angles. Iknow, a lot of my female
clients, it's the idea of themore I move, the more calories I
burn. That's how I keep theweight off. So of course, I'm
gonna workout every day. And forguys like us, you know, we'd
like to lift so on my Wednesdayoff day, I'm like, What am I
what do I do? I guess I recover.
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So in for me, I was trying to beas strong as possible, but as
small as possible. So I don'twant to carry the weight on the
mountain. So I don't want to behuge. I just want to be really,
really strong and really, reallylean. So we I was worried about
the same thing. I don't want toput on a whole bunch of body fat
and carry that up the mountain.
So even though it's my off day,I'm gonna put 50 pounds on my
pack and I'm gonna go rock forsix miles, right? Well, you
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don't get a chance to heal.
Yeah, fair enough. So that makesit even more difficult because
now you're playing that game ofstrength to weight ratio. Same
thing that a lot of enduranceathletes go through. I guess I'm
gonna go off on a tangent there,because I've worked with a few
runners and it's always abalance of how much lifting do
we do versus two training foryour, you know, specific event
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and balancing recovery as well.
Because I would love for them towork four days a week and get
super strong, but it's going tobeat them up and they're not
going to be able to prep for therace, they're not going to get
their their miles in. So what,what do you think about that
philosophy training for thatkind of event?
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, Ifight the same same battles. And
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what I found is I just split itdown the middle, I was lifting
three days a week and liftingheavy. And other three days a
week, I was all about cardio andtrying to get long distance
endurance and muscle endurance.
And so I was eating a lot ofcalories. So to try to keep that
up, I was still in a deficit,but I was in when I quit. A week
before my trip, I was 185pounds, I was 10% body fat. And
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I was eating 3000 or 3200calories, right, and I was
maintaining or just just losinga little bit. So there's a lot
of movement. But eating andfeeding the body so that it
could it could recover. But if Ifelt like if I just lifted and
didn't do the cardio, it doesn'tmatter how strong I am. If I
can't keep climbing, I can'tkeep moving because my muscles
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don't have the endurance. But Ican I can run all day long. If I
can't pick up the animal and putit in the backpack and carry it
off the mountain, then then I'mstuck too. So I had to split it
down the middle.
Okay. And you said you were in ajust a mild deficit going in and
not even not necessarily tryingto be it's just trying to keep
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up with the calories with Oh, Iwas trying to be you. Okay, so
you were trying to trying to getthe weight down in that way. Is
that is that is that typicallywhat's done as opposed to
because I don't know, is asopposed to cutting ahead of time
and then kind of maintaining oreven trying to gain into the
event? Just curious.
Probably would have been betterif I'd been gaining into the end
of the event. But I felt like itdid. Okay. Anyway, I, like we
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talked about before, I stillstruggle a little bit with my
nutrition. And sometimes I gooff the rails. And so I had done
that. Earlier in the summergained gained a little bit of
fat back. And so I was stillworking on cutting that out you
had to make my trainer wanted meto be eaten more for sure. Yeah,
it's somebody went understandingon where I was going to
be. It's relative to where youare. And you know, when you have
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an event, there's a time base toit that you just can't ignore,
you know, the average Gen popthat has flexible schedule, can
make it work, but you're like, Igotta go climb on this day. So
it is what it is. That'sreality. Okay, so continuing on
with the training for old dudes.
How do we minimize our impact onour joints? Because I'll tell
you, I experienced this myselfto just the joints are a little
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bit achy, a little, a littlemore alien as we get older. How
do we minimize that?
Well, that's a great question.
And that's probably yourexpertise, I can tell you what,
what helps me. What I noticedthe most is definitely my
nutrition. If I'm eatinggarbage, I feel like garbage and
my, the inflammation in my bodyand my joints hurt. Right? If I
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go out and have a pizza and acouple of beers and ice cream,
I'm gonna I'm gonna hurt thenext day I swell up. And it's
it's a problem. So I really haveto watch my nutrition. And then
it's funny, how little outta Howdo I want to put this, just the
smallest little difference inform. And technique can have a
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big a big difference. And for mejust having a professional, look
at my lifts and critique my formand give me direction on what I
should or shouldn't do. And whenI was fighting through some of
the shoulder issues, like whatother exercises to do that can
mimic the same CNS response, butnot do the same damage to the
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joint was really helpful to me.
Yeah, so okay, it's a fewconcepts here that are a goal
that I want the listener to getout of that. So starting from
the first thing you mentioned,nutrition, right, I talk a lot
about on the show about flexibledieting, and how most types of
foods can work within your diet.
But at the same time, you haveto go by how you feel and how
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your body responds. And what youjust said was if you eat certain
things, and they tend to be moreprocessed, or maybe higher
sodium, or what have you, itramps up your inflammation. And
I think people need to reallythink about their bodies and
listen to it and maybe evenjournal or document their
biofeedback associated withtheir food to see if that
affects them. Because yeah, youmight be able to eat pizza
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within your macros. But if itbeats up your joints, or if you
have inflammation or anautoimmune disease, a lot of
people have those now. There'sinsulin sensitivity is all these
things that come into play. Sothat's that's a good takeaway.
The other one about form is alsocritical, right? Because people
will complain about my kneeshurt, and it's because I'm
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squatting Well, it's probablybecause you're squatting wrong.
And if you squat it right outactually might make your knees
feel really good. Or if yourknees hurt and you don't squat,
maybe starting to squat anddoing it correctly could help
your knees right. So these areall really good concepts for I
learned that just in the lastyear or so, right, I avoided
some things because my knees areso beat up, I'll likely need
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both my knees replaced as whatI'm being told now. But the more
I lift, and even the heavier Ilift, the better I feel. I think
it increases blood flow, ithelps to lubricate your joints.
There's, I mean, I'm not anexercise scientist, I'm just an
engineer. But anecdotally, whatI have really
are mechanical engineers. Sothat's, that's like I draw.
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Yeah, a little bit. But I just,I just know, when I'm
consistent, and I continue to doit, I feel better. And so I've
been taking some time off, whenI got back here tried to recover
a little bit, I was in the gymyesterday, for the first time
after a few weeks off, and myjoints are sore they are they
haven't been used that way in awhile. So it's gonna take some
time to get back into it. Butnow today, I feel good. I feel
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better today than I have felt ina couple of weeks with recovery.
And I think it's because I wasin the gym and I was moving. A
body at rest stays at rest, abody in motion stays in motion.
So I think we got to keep, keepdoing it. It's hard to get that
activation energy to get into itwhen we're used to sitting
around or it's easy to getcomfortable being being lazy.
And I'm guilty of it for sure.
But I always I always seem tofind that when I get back to it
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and I'm moving and moving someweight. I my mental and my
physical health is is better.
Man, I totally agree with you.
And for people listening, likeonce you get into it. And that's
the thing, getting that firsthabit going, you'll find that
you might wake up and yourresource on your knees are sore,
and you're just kind of achy.
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But it's the day that you workout, right. And you got to get
yourself in the gym and all of asudden you feel great. And if
you do that enough times youkind of program yourself to know
that that will come from thatkind of makes it a little
easier. But I agree witheverything Josh was saying. I
felt it I've been there. Eventhis morning, it was just cold
and achy and gwydion it got itdone and you feel much better.
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And I think we get a there'ssome times I feel some
stereotypes and we feel likewell, I can't go in and I can't
squat 300 pounds. So I don'twant to go to the gym, right? I
don't want to be embarrassed orwhatever. I just say go and do
it. I went in yesterday. And Iused a 50 pound kettlebell and I
did some squats with thekettlebell and I did some
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deadlifts with the singlekettlebell like I was moving, no
weight compared to what Inormally move. And I did push
ups, right, I just needed to getback into the routine. We don't
have to PR every time we go inthere, it's not what it's about.
For me, it's just about constantimprovement and keeping my body
healthy. So I can keep doing thethings that I love as long as I
can do them.
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Yeah. And people don't realizehow little how little activity
it actually takes to maintainyour strength. So even once you
have your strength, you can gothrough periods, like you're
talking about where the reps,the intensity doesn't have to be
nearly as high, you're nottrying to PR all the time, and
you're not going to lose allyour gains.
Now, ridiculously low, like 8%of the intensity or something to
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maintain.
Yeah, what 1/8? So let's thatthat's about 8% as well, it's 12
and a half. Yeah, yeah, it'sreally low. And that could be
like, when people go onvacation, they say I'm gonna,
I'm gonna be out for a week ortwo, should I train and lose all
my games? The answer is youdon't need to do anything. For a
week or two, you know, like, youwill not lose your case in a
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week or two, right? After abouttwo weeks, two to four weeks, it
starts to decline. And, andsomething as late as band work,
if you're on vacation can beenough to keep it going. As much
as we love our big barbellmovements and think that's the
be all end all. There's more toit than that.
Yeah, I have a bag of bands thatI take with me when I travel for
work. Yeah,for sure. So I'm not sure if you
know that I had back surgery.
(23:46):
But you know, I want to talkabout injury here. I had a micro
diskectomy last year backsurgery on my lower spine and
then an emergency appendectomytwo months later. But I found
that that inherent base ofstrength developed over the
years made the recovery prettyfast and easy. And I could get
back to training but everybodyhas a different situation. In
terms of what interrupts theirtraining, right? Injuries, maybe
(24:09):
anxiety or depression, thingslike that. Have you dealt with
setbacks like that? And then howdid you deal with those?
Yeah, I haven't had any majorsurgeries like that, in a long
time, had a knee surgery back inhigh school. Of course, I was
16. So I healed quickly. Mostly,it's been nagging things, right,
nagging muscle poles, thingslike that, that I've worked
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through. I do have some baselineanxiety issues, and my whole
family has really bad anxiety.
I'm not medicated, I'm able tomanage it pretty well. But
exercise is a big part of it. Ido find myself especially this
time of year when it started toget darker. We're about to
change from daylight savings tostandard time here in Wisconsin,
where I'm at, it's going tostart getting dark at 430. So
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I've traditionally found thatthat's a problem. Okay, and for
me, the way I work through it isjust cognitively right now. Um,
there's things like CBT,cognitive behavioral therapy,
issues that you can read aboutand just talk through it. And I
know that when it startshappening, I need to exercise
because it makes me feel better.
Even if I don't want to do it.
I've built that discipline. Andas part of what I do, then it's
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just like, just like going towork on Monday. Nobody wants to
go, but it's what we do. So wedo it, and I don't want to go to
the gym because I'm feeling sad,or I'm anxious about work or
whatever other thing, well, toobad. That's what I do. So I go,
and it makes me feel better, andit pulls me out of it. So, to
me, it's just about building thediscipline in making it rather
than trying to force it intosomething. It's not I make it
(25:38):
fit my life. Right. Soyeah, and that's amazing that it
helps with the the depression orthe anxiety. Is that
physiological or is it the factthat you're doing something you
enjoy doing? Or is it a littleboth?
That's for somebody a lotsmarter, okay. Just know, I just
(25:58):
know it works. I mean, there'sthere's studies Josh, yeah, I'm
sure there are, I'm sure thereare studies out there, I don't
know them and couldn't, couldn'tcite them. But it's amazing. And
the other thing, too, is justbeing outside, right? If I live
out here on 40 acres, and I havea little bit of land, right Bo
hunts do so I'll just go out andsit in my stand. And just being
(26:19):
outside in nature and gettingfresh air during the time of
year when it's hard to getoutside and get sunlight also
really helps me one of the oneof the major indicators of
depression is the lack of desireto do the things that we
normally would love to do. Andso the way that I work through
that is well, even though Idon't feel like I want to do it,
(26:39):
I know that's what I want to do.
So I just, I'm gonna forcemyself to go, and I'm gonna go
sit out there, and I'm gonna doit and baby steps, things like,
Well, I don't really want to gofor a walk. But I'm just going
to put on my shoes. And if youput on your shoes, and you tie
them and you lace them up,you're probably going to go for
the walk. Right? So it's it'sdon't eat the elephant in one
bite, right? Just start with,Okay, put your shoes on. Even if
you don't go walk around thehouse with your shoes on, maybe
(27:00):
you vacuum or do something. Andthen the next day, put your
shoes on and go to get thenewspaper and work your way into
it. But don't give up. I mean,it's a digital society. And
sometimes we think in in blackand white and ones and zeros.
And it doesn't have to be thatway. If you start feeling for
myself when I start feeling thatway, and I don't want to go or
maybe I haven't gone in twoweeks like well, haven't gone in
two weeks, it's all over. I'mjust going to let myself go.
(27:22):
Doesn't have to be that way.
Right? You can say well, letmyself go for two weeks or three
weeks or a month or six months,whatever it is. Today's a new
day and you can start over youcan you can fix your nutrition,
you can put on your shoes, youcan go to the gym, even if you
just go to the gym and sit onthe bench. Just go there, get in
the space, sit on the bench,maybe walk around and look. It
(27:44):
starts that building up apractice.
Do your inspiring I'm glad wehave you on here. I hope
everybody is listening to like Idon't know if they're driving to
the gym right now or that homeor whatever it just take that
step. Today's always a new day.
Who cares what happenedyesterday? I mean, same thing
with nutrition. It's like, yeah,you binge eat yesterday, or you
you know ate way more than youintended to, you're not trying
(28:05):
to make it up or screw up withyour plan today. Just start the
new day and do it again. Youknow, perfect device that that's
so good. Hey, this is Philippape, letting you know that
applications are now open forone on one coaching. If you're a
busy working professional, whohas tried dieting and exercising
for years, with little in theway of results, and you want to
(28:26):
lose fat, get lean or feelconfident in your body without
excessive dieting, cardio orrestrictions. Just go to wits &
weights.com/coaching to apply.
I fight that battle all thetime. I mean, I'm fighting it
right now when I got back frommy trip, I have not been eating
(28:46):
well. I went to the grocerystore, I've just had enough and
I went to the grocery store andand bought healthy food and I
made a good meal today and youstart over. Don't just keep keep
after it just don't give up.
Yep, throw away the What thehell mentality and you know,
take the step forward.
It's a it's a, it's a long view,right? It's an infinite game,
we're trying to stay healthy aslong as we can. So while we have
(29:09):
short term goals, or I haveshort term goals in between,
it's also ultimately I want tobe healthy into my 80s and, and
so I can't get there if everytime I have an ice cream cone or
I drink too many beers I don'tlike just throw it away and it's
all gone. Exactly, which is it'seasy mentality to slip into.
It's taken me a lot of years tocome to that realization but I
(29:33):
think that that that's whatworks for me and it has been
working Give me Give yourselfsome grace, right? I mean, we're
not perfect.
For sure. Some grace, some selflove. And you know it might be
relying on the systems we'vebeen talking about and might be
taking the step each day itmight be your support structure,
somebody in your life that cansupport you. Lots of ways to get
there but get there. Really goodmessage.
(29:55):
Yeah, that's a really I don'tmean to go on a tangent but
that's a really good point youjust brought up and it made me
think of something If you don'tmind me just sharing your story,
please. I think a lot of peopledon't see food and nutrition and
exercise the same way they seesome other other things. And
some of my friends and familydidn't understand the struggles
that I had with food and what itmeant. Because if you look at
(30:15):
me, even when I'm what Iconsider heavy, I don't look
like I'm obese, right? So like,you would think of a normal fat
guy or whatever. And so they'relike, Oh, you're fine, you can
have this dessert, or you canhave that. And my response was,
like, you don't understand thisis something that's important to
me. And it's not that I can'thave it, I'm saying that I don't
want it. And I'm trying to dosomething different. And what I
(30:38):
need from you is that supportand then understanding, right,
you can do whatever you'd like,and put whatever you want in
your body. But I'm asking you torespect my decision. And if I
say I don't want it, say, Okay,no problem, is there something
else we can get you? Or how canwe support you? Right? As my
friend and my family, you woulddo that for an alcoholic or
somebody struggling with drugsor depression or having trouble
(30:59):
with a relationship, right? Youwouldn't say, oh, it's, it's
fine. Just go date someone else,you'd say, How can I support you
going through this, and it's thesame thing, but I don't think
that a lot of people seenutrition and exercise the same
way. And I feel like it's thesame.
I agree with you as well. Andthat's courageous to ask
somebody to make to support youand be explicit about your, your
(31:20):
wants and needs. Because ofcourse, I'm sure a lot of people
feel they maybe can't do that ordifficult thing to do. Yeah,
it's a good message, just thankyou for sharing that. So let's,
let's get a little more a littleless serious, maybe for a second
and go back and talk about thetraining again, and you're
hunting and I'm not a hunter, itsounds like a lot of fun. My
(31:42):
perception of of what you'redoing with the climbing through
the mountains and punting thesame time, it's like a composite
sport, right involves bothstrength and endurance. And we
already talked about the keepingyour weight down, but staying
strong, which are kind ofcontradictory, in some cases,
depending on how your trainingis structured. So how do you
manage that dichotomy? You know,the strength versus endurance?
(32:05):
Yeah, I think it's like I saidearlier, I tried to split it
down the middle and train, trainheavy, so I wasn't worried about
like high reps or low reps, Itried to do different things.
And so I would, I would runthrough a program for eight or
12 weeks, and I would do fivereps or six reps. And then I'd
go to a 12, or 15, or 20 repprogram, just to keep keep
(32:28):
scrolling, I don't think itmatters so much what you do, as
long as you're doing somethingto keep your muscles building
and keep keep your your centralnervous system, kind of
surprised. So I've got a coupleof programs that I bought, that
I thought were good. I tried todo full body workouts, excuse
me, very little of what I needis preacher curls or leg
(32:53):
extensions, or things that arevery isolating to single muscle
groups. I'm usually, like Isaid, up down, climbing,
kneeling, laying inuncomfortable positions for a
long period of time, right. SoI'm trying to move my whole
body. And then different tryingto find different ways to train
for climbing. So bicycle uphill,heavy pack, hiking up hills,
(33:18):
stairclimber spent a lot of timeon a stairclimber. So I just
split it down the middle andtried to do things that made
sense, I would put on my packand go out in public land and
just go for a long hike, try toif you want to shoot free
throws, you practice shootingfree throws, I wanted to hike.
So I practice hiking with aheavy heavy pack on. So that's
strength and endurance both.
Okay, and there's some I mean,there's some concepts in there
(33:39):
that are rock solid, that youknow, people need to understand
one being specificity, which wealluded to before, and you just
said it there. If you want toget good at something, do that
thing. So if you want to getgood at squats, do the squats.
And then the other is theperiodization. Right? We do it,
we do it nutrition and we do itwith training. You talked about
different rep schemes andchanging it up. And it's not
(34:00):
that we're trying to confuse themuscles or make it variant for
for its own sake, even though itcould be fun. It's you're trying
to be well rounded, right?
You're trying to hit everythingsupport everything you don't
want to overtrain a lot of goodreasons for that.
Yeah, and for me, as I pushed inthe lower rep ranges and started
getting heavier and heavier, Iworried about my my hernia a
(34:20):
little bit. I worried aboutinjury a little bit. So when I
started getting up into i thinki one rep max like 400 pound
deadlift. And I'm like, Well, Idon't need to pick up 400
pounds. So I'm going to startdoing higher reps and lower
weights, there's less chance ofme getting injured. It's
something I haven't done for awhile. It's something different.
(34:41):
So I'm transitioning into thatfor the eight weeks before my
trip.
Yeah, and that's a priority foryou, you know somebody who's
gonna go to a powerlifting meetthey've got to get their one RM
deadlift up, but that's not apriority for you so it makes
perfect sense. Now, you, youmentioned you dialed in your
training for the mountain goathunt earlier this year. In
British Columbia, I'm telling mymy wife and kids about that, I
(35:03):
think it's so cool mountaingoat. It's just a unique thing.
And it sounds, it sounds reallychallenging. It sounds fun
because I just from what I'veseen from mountain goats on any
nature's show, you know, I knowthey could like scale the size
of cliffs and whatnot. So tellus about preparing for that
event and how balancing thatwith longevity and everything we
talked about how you did that,and for these events in general,
(35:25):
and for that event,specifically,
yeah, so I focused a lot onclimbing. And what I found is
that coming down, sometimes it'sharder than going up. And it's
hard to train, it's hard totrain that going going down in
part. So for this hot I was inthe Canadian Rockies, and I was
carrying maybe 35 pounds on myback most days, right water,
some foods, some clothes, weweren't carrying camping, so it
(35:47):
was just hiking up every day.
But it was 4000 feet ofelevation gain up every day,
from where we stopped climbingup through avalanche shoots and
on trails and up creeks to getup to where the goats Live,
which is way up above Timberlineup in the rocks, like you were
saying. And so I had focused alot on training for the climb
because I had such a hard timeclimbing previously. But what
I'm finding is that I need tofind a better way to train for
(36:10):
the descent. Okay, right. Andthat concentric part with the
heavy load and slippery anduneven terrain that really
pounded my joints and my quadspretty hard. And my hips. So
that's something I'm stillsearching for, was thinking
about how to create a treadmillthat ran backwards and I could
point downhill and go downhillwith.
(36:32):
Yeah, yeah. Right. Because youthink of like your shins and
your knees and the things thatkind of get pounded even when
you're just going for a hike andyou're coming down the mountain
from a different movementpattern that is interesting,
right? Do they have otherspecialized movements that are
loaded thatthat mean I do, I do step ups
and then I step off. So I'll putseveral benches or PIO boxes
together in a row and I'll stepup, step down and step up, step
(36:54):
down and go across them. But Ican't get the same as like
putting a treadmill orstairclimber up and going for an
hour, an hour and a half right.
When I came down with my goat Ishot a really nice seven year
old billy goat this year, heprobably weighed 250 pounds. So
the guy was with and I bothcarried out packs full of meat
(37:15):
and hide in the head and horns.
And I think my pack was 75pounds when I got out and that's
with all my water gone, I'dfinished my water. So I had four
litres of water. So it was ateight, nine pounds. So water, so
I was probably at five poundpack coming down, which isn't
super heavy, but it was steepgoing up. At the top, it was
about 40 degrees, it was handover hand over foot climbing and
(37:39):
then coming down that gravityjust keeps pulling, never stops.
Sothat's impressive, man. I mean,
it'sfour and a half hours, it was a
four and a half hour hike downthe mountain with the goat. I
think it took us about five toclimb up there.
And that's you did that for awhile. And that's what the go
(38:01):
and then you said each day youwould also go up whether you had
whether you had a kill or not.
Obviously, you're going up anddown multiple days. Yeah. So now
and then you have another huntcoming up in New Zealand. And
you mentioned kind of movinginto recovery mode. And now
you've you take lessons fromeach of these hunts, I'm sure to
improve your training each time.
But you're also getting older,right? Everything's getting more
(38:21):
beat up. So what does that looklike in preparation for the
spring hunt?
Yeah, so my plan this winter isto put on some muscle and gain
gain a little bit of weight andjust get my get my engine kind
of revved up to build somestrength so that I can cut, I'm
gonna cut back again, I likecutting into the event so that
like the week before I can starteating more. Maybe that's not
(38:42):
for everybody. But that seems towork well for me. So my plan
this winter is to is to buildand try to build, build some
more muscle. I'm already up to210 pounds. So I put that weight
back on pretty fast. I'd like toput on, you know, five or six
pounds of muscle if I can. AndI'm sure that'll come with it
plenty of body fat. And thenyeah, I'm going to try to figure
(39:06):
out a way to train the thedescent a little better. And
keep after my climbing, I reallyfelt good to be able to climb, I
carried a lot more weight and Iwas able to just go up, up up
up, but I didn't get tired. Andso that was the first time I've
had that. And that felt good. Soprobably do a lot of the same
things I've been doing, try tofind in a way find a way to add
(39:28):
in some some descent training,even if that's just finding a
hill out here that I can walk upand walk down over and over
again.
Yeah, you go on the bleachers,rocky style, you know, up and
down. And for people listening,you know what you just said? The
how you felt it was easier afteryou had done that training to go
up this next time. And foranybody listening, you know, you
(39:50):
don't have to be a mountain goatclimber to get that same benefit
from training. I mean, I've hadclients who are in their 60s
never trained before, and theysay hey, I went to a football
game and I actually wasn't outof breath, you know, going up
the bleachers. And it's allrelative to you. And I think
that's the value of of what wedo. So you met you mentioned
nutrition a little, I want toget into that, because that is
(40:10):
also my space here. I know youhad, you said you had a bad
relationship with food andstruggle with the urge to binge,
what strategies have youdeveloped? Because now you're
obviously dialing in and you'recutting, you're bulking, you're
doing what you need to time withyour training. And you have some
what seems like good controlover that or better control? How
have you gotten there?
(40:31):
It depends on the day. To me,it's really all mental in my, to
me, it's all mental, right? If Iget a craving, I mean, I've got
some strategies, but I cave,often, right, I just, I just do,
I was raised on bar food andeating ice cream every night
before bed, right? Just likemost of us in sugar, cereal and
(40:52):
everything else, right. And soI've got a couple of tricks,
right? I tried to keep a lot ofhealthy choices around. If I if
my refrigerator is empty, I'mgoing to go down the street to
the bar and get a burger, right.
It's just it's, it's easy. Andso if I can make it convenient.
For me to eat healthy, I do abetter job. If I have food, if I
meal prep, if I spend a couplehours on Sunday, or whatever
(41:14):
making meals or I put a roast inand I have a roast and I have
the sweet potatoes alreadycooked, right? It's easy to grab
them and throw them in themicrowave and make a good
choice. So I had to come toterms with the fact that I'm
lazy and I'm going to make alazy choice. Sometimes I need to
have things available. They'reeasy for me.
speaking my language, just yourspeaking. I remember calling
(41:36):
people years ago, they're likewhy? Why do you strength train,
I'm like, I'm lazy. This is thelaziest most effective way to
train that I've ever found, youknow, I get to go three days a
week and take a bunch of resttime between sets. You're over
there on the cardio, I'm lazy.
It's kind of a, you know, it's aself deprecating kind of thing.
But there's some truth to that.
(41:57):
And the common theme of what youjust said, and people need to
hear this is mindset andplanning. And they're actually
two halves of the same thing.
Because the reason you plan andthink ahead and meal prep and so
on, is to take out the mindlater on right to take out the
decision making an emotion asmuch as you can. I mean, if you
go out to dinner, and there's abuffet, and there's some amazing
(42:18):
food that you just can't help,you know, it's going to be
tougher, right? But the planningis the key. So yeah, it's great.
I think understandingunderstanding your your brain or
your body or whatever iscontrolling your desire, right.
So I know people who can go outto dinner and they're like,
Well, I want dessert. And soexcuse me, they can have like
(42:41):
one piece of pie, or they canhave, you know, a handful of
chocolate chips and they'refine. If I eat a handful of
chocolate chips, I'm going toeat 6000 calories. There's just
no two ways about it. So whenI'm training, I have to get rid
of all that stuff. I can't go,you can't do it. And that's just
what I found about me. I'm, I'ma I'm an all or nothing kind of
guy. Right. And so that's justwhat I've had to figure out. And
(43:03):
so that's where I struggle withthe binging right, because once
I let go, I might eat 10 or12,000 calories in a day. If I
start in the morning withpancakes and syrup. It's I have
a hard time rein that in. So Ireally have to watch it. And I
tried to make other choices likeI found that if I take yogurt,
and I get a good 2% Greekyogurt, and I put frozen berries
(43:25):
in it, and maybe a little bit ofhoney, I can I can use that as a
substitute. And then I didn'teat the ice cream. And I don't
eat the whole thing, right. Andso I made up kind of a route
Yeah, substitute for what Iwould normally want. It's just
got the cold, and I've got thelittle bit of sweet. And it also
helps if I can get off of sugarfor two or three weeks, then
(43:47):
berries and oranges and otherthings taste sweet again. Yes.
And so I can use that. Right.
And I really struggled with thattransition once I've had Ben and
Jerry's for a couple of nightsin a row. And then I go and have
yogurt and berries. Well, thistastes like garbage, right? But
it's because my receptors orwhatever it is. And your brain
is like Well, that's not sugar.
So it just takes a little bit oftime and then I get back into
(44:08):
it.
That is so true. desensitizingyourself is actually a really
good strategy. I mean, we talkabout that with clients all the
time of substituting because ifyou just try to cut things out,
let's be honest, you try to cutthings out, you're gonna be
tempted, right? And I like howyou control your environment by
cutting them out of your house.
That doesn't mean hey, if youreally, really really want ice
cream, okay, we're gonna godrive to the high quality ice
(44:29):
cream stand with the mom and popflavors you can't get anywhere
else. We're going to enjoy theexperience. We're gonna have our
ice cream, maybe, I mean, maybeyou the type you do that and
then you're gonna go buy 10gallons of ice cream. I don't
know. Everybody's different. Butyou got so many so many so many
golden statements and what yousaid that people can take and
not everything. Not everytechnique has to be used by
(44:50):
everybody. But you know, threeor four of the things you
mentioned are going to be aregoing to be key controlling your
environment. You know,substitute Green, I think, did
that really start back in? Like,I don't know, maybe it was
before paleo, but I feel likethey came up with all the
cookbooks where they hadsubstitutes for every,
everything that could, you know,baked good.
(45:13):
Brownies. Exactly.
Actually, even my wife when Iwas when we first met, I was
very picky. I didn't eat anyvegetables. I very few unless
you count corn and potatoes asmuch I
was in the same boat 20 yearsago. And you
know, she did she bought a bookby Jerry Seinfeld's wife that
was written for kids to formothers to make food for their
kids and sneak vegetables in todelicious thing. So she would
(45:36):
put spinach in brownies andkidney beans in mac and cheese
and got me to eat vegetablesover time. So we can we can sort
of fool ourselves till itbecomes the norm. That's that's
what we eat. Good stuff, man.
What else? I guess we've covereda lot. Is there anything else
you want to cover that I didn'tbring up?
(45:57):
No, I mean, I guess for peoplelistening, like, even if you're
not a hunter, right? Anythingyou want to do. And it can be as
as big as climbing a mountain,right? I climbed Kilimanjaro.
And that was a great experience,or it can be as as every day is
I want to be able to, you know,walk my grandson down the aisle,
(46:17):
and I couldn't walk before,right or I struggled with being
able to stand for long periodsof time. Right? I think anything
that brings value to our lifecan be enhanced. If we are
stronger. I think just movingmoving our bodies, helps with
our mental health, it helps withour physical health. It helps
(46:38):
stave off injury and disease.
And I'm not a doctor, but I'veseen it time. And again, those
are my friends and people I knowwho are are constantly active.
Just have, I think a fuller andricher life. And then
ultimately, in my view anyway,we're only here for a short
period of time as well enjoy it,do what we can do enjoy it,
(46:59):
right. And so the more we canmove and feel strong and feel
grounded, the better we canenjoy the time that we're here.
Awesome, man, I couldn't say itbetter myself. I do want to I do
want to reiterate what you justsaid, though, that we might as
well enjoy it. Because I think alot of people think of fitness
(47:19):
and nutrition as some sort ofsacrifice or difficult thing
that makes your life lessenjoyable. And what you just
suggested is doing those thingsallows you to enjoy your life
for longer and do the things youwant to do.
Yeah, and find something you dolike right if you don't like to
lift weights, but you love torun and I guess run right but or
go outside and pick your pickyour child up your grandchild up
(47:41):
and go for a walk carrying yourkit. Just go out with the dogs
and didn't hold rocking, throwsomething right have just
exercise and moving and beingbeing out and being part of the
world.
Yep. All right. Well, wecouldn't agree more. And this
was this is an awesomeconversation. Thanks for coming
on Josh. One of my best guess,because you just covered
everything. And it was probablya personal experience. I'm
(48:04):
serious. I think peoplelistening can relate. Because
people struggle with this stuffall the time. And I think you
had a lot of really cool things,people are gonna probably listen
to this again, and try to reallytease out what can help them. So
this was fun. I'm grateful youtook the time to come on the
show and talk about yourexperience.
Now. Thanks for so much so muchfor having me. I appreciate it.
(48:24):
You're doing great work and alot of a lot of stuff that I did
pulled out of your podcast. Sothanks for all your help.
Absolutely. More to come. Thanksfor listening to the show.
Before you go, I have a quickfavorite ask. If you enjoy the
podcast, let me know by leavinga five star review in Apple
podcasts and telling othersabout the show. Thanks again for
joining me Philip Pape in thisepisode of Wits & Weights. I'll
(48:48):
see you next time and staystrong.
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