Speaker 1: Good day, champions. I hope you're terrific. So something a
Speaker 1: little bit different today. I know we've spoken over the years,
Speaker 1: over eight and something years and two one hundred and
Speaker 1: something potties about working out and gyms and training and
Speaker 1: adapting and changing bodies, all that stuff. We've even bumped
Speaker 1: into this topic, but I've never really done a solo,
Speaker 1: extensive kind of unpacking of what I think is some
Speaker 1: of the most common mistakes, ranging from just that's kind
Speaker 1: of not very efficient or very effective through to it
Speaker 1: might be kind of dangerous for you in that space
Speaker 1: of how people work out. So if this is not
Speaker 1: interesting to you or for you, then jump out. If
Speaker 1: you are interested in changing your body or joining a gym,
Speaker 1: or you already go to a gym, or you're on
Speaker 1: the kind of reinventing yourself on a physiological level, but
Speaker 1: that fitness, health, wellness, performance, posture, pain, blood pressure, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, I think you'll find this interesting. So just
Speaker 1: to give you some context and background for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know, and there's no bragging bragster in this.
Speaker 1: This is just kind of giving people insight into where
Speaker 1: this stuff comes from. So this is not a list.
Speaker 1: I got from anywhere. This is not off the interwebs,
Speaker 1: this is not this is not out of a book.
Speaker 1: This is just me, the exercise scientist who's worked in
Speaker 1: jym since he was eighteen, so worked in gym's been
Speaker 1: in Jim's owned multiple gyms, owned for gyms. It was
Speaker 1: the first, if not one of the first PTS in Australia.
Speaker 1: Co wrote the first personal training qualification, set up, the
Speaker 1: first personal training center. Blah blah blah. All of that
Speaker 1: not meant to be any skyting in that. That's just
Speaker 1: my journey. That's just practically where I've been. And I
Speaker 1: started that at eighteen, so that's forty four years ago.
Speaker 1: And I've worked with professionals, teams and elite athletes and
Speaker 1: Olympians summer and winter Olympians, blokes in prison, people with disabilities,
Speaker 1: people with terminal illnesses, people with all kinds of neurological problems,
Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease, people coming back from horrendous injuries. I still
Speaker 1: work with three times a week with my friend John,
Speaker 1: who's got a traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury,
Speaker 1: and had basically died multiple times after an accident that
Speaker 1: he had and he's still a work in progress, and
Speaker 1: I still help out a few friends here and there,
Speaker 1: but I'm not officially a trainer anymore, but nonetheless still
Speaker 1: look through an exercise science lens. Still talk to people
Speaker 1: most days of my life about something to do with health, wellness,
Speaker 1: performance training, and so that is where this is coming from.
Speaker 1: It is very much my thoughts, my insights, my ideas,
Speaker 1: my observation, my experience, my beliefs kind of intersecting into
Speaker 1: the chat. So not advice, not individual advice, not an
Speaker 1: individual prescription or program, just me talking to you about
Speaker 1: what I think about all of these individual topics that
Speaker 1: I'm going to cover, all these ideas or these suggestions
Speaker 1: that I'm going to unpack with you, and then and
Speaker 1: then I guess it's up to you what you do,
Speaker 1: if anything, with this. I'm not going to point you
Speaker 1: in a direction. I'm just going to say what I've seen,
Speaker 1: what's worked, what hasn't worked for me, but also for
Speaker 1: the people that I've worked with, And as the title
Speaker 1: kind of suggests, just things that are very common that
Speaker 1: are just really mistakes or perhaps flawed ideas or approaches.
Speaker 1: And often, in fact, I would say more often than not,
Speaker 1: people are not really aware, so they're not intentionally doing
Speaker 1: something unproductive or something bad, or they're not intentionally trying
Speaker 1: to of course derail our own kind of progress or outcomes.
Speaker 1: But there are so many things to understand with of
Speaker 1: course health in general. But I'm talking today purely about
Speaker 1: the exercise component. I'm probably going to focus a little
Speaker 1: bit more on gym stuff, typical what we would call workout.
Speaker 1: But also all of this is pretty transferable, whether or
Speaker 1: not we're talking about strength training or cardio training or
Speaker 1: flexibility training, or power or speed or something specific to
Speaker 1: a sport or something where we are just trying to
Speaker 1: get leaner and change our body composition. We're trying to
Speaker 1: do something that is productive and constructive and performance enhancing
Speaker 1: in a healthy way for our body. So I think
Speaker 1: most of you, if you're interested in this, will find
Speaker 1: this somewhere between mildly interesting and really fucking valuable. So
Speaker 1: I might do. I've actually got two points here talking
Speaker 1: about intensity, and one is too easy and one is
Speaker 1: too hard. No, no kind of light bulb moment there, necessarily,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about Let's talk about what is too easy.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about why intensity matters. So and by that
Speaker 1: I mean, how hard relative to your ability and your
Speaker 1: strength and your fitness and your physiology and your anatomy
Speaker 1: and your injuries and your bioage and your chronological age,
Speaker 1: how hard are you working out? Remembering that my seven
Speaker 1: out of ten hard could be your three out of ten,
Speaker 1: or it could be your eleven out of ten. Because
Speaker 1: we're talking about intensity relative to you alone. Doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how how many reps or sets or volume or how
Speaker 1: intense somebody else is doing something, because you do not
Speaker 1: live in your body and vice versa. So we're just
Speaker 1: talking about what does intensity relate to and what is
Speaker 1: its role in changing a body. So apart from the
Speaker 1: fun and the fitness and all of the things, and
Speaker 1: the socializing sometimes and all of the reasons we go
Speaker 1: to a gym, or we go to a running park
Speaker 1: or a rock climbing all or a CrossFit whatever, apart
Speaker 1: from all the obvious I want to change my body reasons,
Speaker 1: there is something that people don't think about too much,
Speaker 1: which is what is the level of intensity that I
Speaker 1: need to operate at to make my body adapt, To
Speaker 1: make my body change, to make my body build muscle,
Speaker 1: to make my body lose weight, to increase bone density,
Speaker 1: to increase range of movement around the joint or flexibility.
Speaker 1: Because when I build muscle, or when I lower my
Speaker 1: resting heart rate, or when I find that I can
Speaker 1: now run at fifteen kilometers an hour for an hour
Speaker 1: instead of twelve kilometers or ten, what I've done is
Speaker 1: I have forced my body to adapt. And the thing
Speaker 1: that I do to my body is I impose some
Speaker 1: stress on it. So lifting a weight is stress. Going
Speaker 1: for a run is stress. Stress in the terms that
Speaker 1: we think as in distress, dis stress, but you stress
Speaker 1: which is eu stress, which basically means you're doing something
Speaker 1: that's somewhere between a little bit hard and really fucking
Speaker 1: horrible to create an outcome with your body. Now, at
Speaker 1: one end of the scale, we've got a lot of
Speaker 1: people in the gym who are kind of going through
Speaker 1: the motions. Again, this is not individual advice, but this
Speaker 1: is what I see. I see a lot of people
Speaker 1: in a lot of gym training at a level of
Speaker 1: intensity which will not change their body significantly, if at all,
Speaker 1: anytime soon. An example is I see someone doing an
Speaker 1: exercise where they could comfortably do, say fifteen repetitions at
Speaker 1: fifteen kilos I'm just using a number and a weight,
Speaker 1: fifteen reps at fifteen kilos. They do the fifteen reps,
Speaker 1: They're nowhere near exhaustion, They're nowhere near high performance, They're
Speaker 1: nowhere near testing themselves or getting uncomfortable. And they put
Speaker 1: the weight on the floor because old mate, somebody wrote
Speaker 1: that for them perhaps, or that's just the number that
Speaker 1: they want to do, and as soon as it starts
Speaker 1: to get uncomfortable, they put it down. So we need
Speaker 1: a level of use stress, We need a level of stress.
Speaker 1: We need a level of discomfort for our body to change.
Speaker 1: If I can go and run five kilometers in say
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, which is six minute kilometer pace, So five
Speaker 1: k's in thirty minutes, and I go out and I
Speaker 1: do that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I do it three days
Speaker 1: a week. I run the same distance, the same course
Speaker 1: kind of at the same kind of day, in the
Speaker 1: same body, at the same kind of speed. What I'm
Speaker 1: doing is maintaining. Now, if my goal is to stay
Speaker 1: the same, or I'm doing the right thing. If my
Speaker 1: goal is to change, then I need to manipulate the
Speaker 1: intensity or manipulate the variables or the way that I
Speaker 1: do this thing to give my body a reason to
Speaker 1: get fitter, to increase my lung capacity my VO two max,
Speaker 1: to be able to lower my resting heart rate in
Speaker 1: the simplest of terms, to build aerobic fitness, right to
Speaker 1: be able to do a thing that was hard, now
Speaker 1: I do it easier. So the way that I would
Speaker 1: do that, as an example, is over time, I would
Speaker 1: do maybe the same run, maybe five k's, but instead
Speaker 1: of in thirty minutes, I do it in twenty eight minutes.
Speaker 1: Now I'm working at a high level of intensity. And
Speaker 1: now because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm running
Speaker 1: quicker and doing it in less time, my body will
Speaker 1: And of course there's an end point to this, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, if I'm on the path, my
Speaker 1: body will adapt eventually able to run five kilometers in
Speaker 1: twenty eight minutes and will be kind of easy. And
Speaker 1: then I should maybe either up the speed or up
Speaker 1: the distance, or lower the recovery time or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: We need to keep tweaking these variables, these components of
Speaker 1: exercise to get our body to keep evolving and changing
Speaker 1: and improving if that's our goal. So in the gym,
Speaker 1: I often see guys in the gym with better genetics
Speaker 1: than me, who are somewhere between twenty to forty years
Speaker 1: of age, who've got no injuries or seemingly no injuries,
Speaker 1: who are full of testosterone, who spend their life with
Speaker 1: fucking headphones on. Nothing wrong with headphones, or wear headphones sometimes,
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about the problem with that in a
Speaker 1: little bit. And they are training at three out of
Speaker 1: ten and then wondering why they're not getting ten out
Speaker 1: of ten results. Well, your body will only do what
Speaker 1: it has to do based on what you do to it.
Speaker 1: Should they go in the gym and kill themselves and
Speaker 1: train to their outer limits? No, of course they shouldn't.
Speaker 1: We need to be wise. We need to listen to
Speaker 1: our body. But training at a level where your body
Speaker 1: has to progress creating a kind of intensity around what
Speaker 1: you do. So how do we make it more intense
Speaker 1: but safely so we don't take crazy leaps. We don't
Speaker 1: go from lifting X to lifting three X. Of course,
Speaker 1: we might lift X plus ten percent. Or I might
Speaker 1: instead of going into the gym and doing the same
Speaker 1: ten exercises I always do, which I've now adapted to,
Speaker 1: I might go in and do the same muscle groups
Speaker 1: but ten different exercises. Now, all of a sudden, instead
Speaker 1: of doing a regular barbell bench press, I'm on dumb bells.
Speaker 1: I'm using dumbbells and on a football which is convex
Speaker 1: or spherical in shape. And now my shoulders are on
Speaker 1: a ball, not on the bench, and now my back
Speaker 1: and my hips are in space, in free air. Now
Speaker 1: I've got to not only do I have to do
Speaker 1: the bench press right, It's the same biomechanical movement. I'm
Speaker 1: still pushing that weight. I'm horizontal or parallel to the ground,
Speaker 1: and I'm pushing that weight up in the air as
Speaker 1: I do on a regular bench press, but now my
Speaker 1: shoulders and my head are on the ball and my
Speaker 1: feet are on the ground, but everything else is in
Speaker 1: free space. So now I need to stabilize my hips
Speaker 1: and my lower back and my core. And I'm doing
Speaker 1: dumb bells, not a barbell, which means each weight in
Speaker 1: each hand is the same, but I'm not holding onto
Speaker 1: a bar so this is a unilateral movement where I'm
Speaker 1: lifting let's say twenty k's with my right hand twenty
Speaker 1: k's with my left hand. Now, because it's not a
Speaker 1: bar bell, there's much more balance involved. So now I
Speaker 1: need to use my stabilizer muscles of the shoulder, and
Speaker 1: so on and so on. So I do the same
Speaker 1: exercise in a different way, and the demand goes up
Speaker 1: on me, the demand goes up on my physiology. And
Speaker 1: as a result, I do it the right way. I
Speaker 1: do it sensible, I don't be an idiot. I do
Speaker 1: it over time and my body adjusts. My stabilizers get stronger,
Speaker 1: my core gets stronger. I get used to doing this
Speaker 1: movement on this ball instead of this bench, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, is way healthier for your shoulders because doing
Speaker 1: something on that shape which is round obviously, and it's
Speaker 1: convex not concave for you as you do it, it
Speaker 1: allows your shoulder blades or scapula to come into your
Speaker 1: spine when you do the downward part, so the negative
Speaker 1: part of the bench press, and when you do that
Speaker 1: on a bench, a hardish bench, it doesn't allow that
Speaker 1: what we call scapular retraction, or in simple terms, your
Speaker 1: shoulder blades moving across your back in towards your spine.
Speaker 1: Then as you push the up away from your spine
Speaker 1: and back out right, that's that's what our shoulders should
Speaker 1: naturally do do during that movement, but they don't quite
Speaker 1: often on a bench preser. So, for a range of reasons, right,
Speaker 1: instead of doing barbel curs, you might do dumbells. Instead
Speaker 1: of doing you know, push ups with your hands and
Speaker 1: feet on the ground, you might do one foot on
Speaker 1: the ground. So now you've got three anchor points, not four.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, this is way harder. So what
Speaker 1: we're always trying to do in theory, if your goal
Speaker 1: is improvement, let me underline that if your goal is change,
Speaker 1: if your goal is better strength, better power, better fitness,
Speaker 1: better balance, better coordination, better posture. Right, and this is
Speaker 1: what most people want, but most people do not train
Speaker 1: in a way that produces that result, for a range
Speaker 1: of reasons that I'm about to continue on with here.
Speaker 1: So now, if you're unsure, train with somebody who's or
Speaker 1: get a trainer from minute. I'm not necessarily a big
Speaker 1: fan of trainers, because, like every other profession, some are
Speaker 1: fucking terrible and some are brilliant, just like painters, just
Speaker 1: like bricklayers, Just like every profession, there are people who
Speaker 1: are great at what they do and people who are
Speaker 1: less great. Right, so, but perhaps you need to train
Speaker 1: with someone for a period of time. Maybe you don't,
Speaker 1: but when you are doing something, this is one of
Speaker 1: my kind of go tos. Now, if you're a brand newbie,
Speaker 1: don't do what I'm about say. But if you're someone
Speaker 1: who's got some miles on the clock and you've got
Speaker 1: a bit of a base, you've got some conditioning, you've
Speaker 1: been training for a while. Let's say you're doing it,
Speaker 1: and I'm just picking fundamental exercises that we all know
Speaker 1: rather than some weird random exercise that most of you won't.
Speaker 1: But let's just say we're doing barbell curls. And it's
Speaker 1: not about curls or bench press. It's just about picturing
Speaker 1: an exercise. Now, you're doing a barbell curl with pickaway.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what the weight is, and you've just
Speaker 1: taken it from the top of your thighs. When your
Speaker 1: arms are straight and your palms are forward, and you
Speaker 1: bring the bar up and you bring it under your chin. Now,
Speaker 1: what some people will do is they will bend their knees,
Speaker 1: they will bend their hips, and as they're bringing it up,
Speaker 1: they'll throw the bar a little bit and they'll straighten
Speaker 1: their knees and straighten their hips. Now, instead of it
Speaker 1: being a single joint isolation movement, which is just biceps
Speaker 1: and brachialis a little bit of bracchi eyed radialis but
Speaker 1: in other words, may they biseep exercise? We now make
Speaker 1: it a hip and a quad exercise and a little
Speaker 1: bit of a calf exercise. Because we're bringing in all
Speaker 1: of these other muscles to assist. We need to try
Speaker 1: to find the safest and hardest way. So I walk
Speaker 1: up to you and I say, now, do that exact
Speaker 1: same thing, but don't bend and straighten your knees, don't
Speaker 1: bend and straight in your hips, and instead of taking
Speaker 1: one second per exercise, take four. Now what happens when
Speaker 1: we see that is or do that is we're using
Speaker 1: the exact same weight. The weight hasn't gotten heavier. The
Speaker 1: technique has changed, which is good. We're slowing it right down.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden, the intensity goes through the roof.
Speaker 1: Not because we're doing a new exercise or something inherently difficult,
Speaker 1: or not because we've increased the weight, but we've now
Speaker 1: increased the way we do that thing. Your body responds
Speaker 1: to intensity and stress. Your body does not respond alone
Speaker 1: to sets or reps or volume or weight. So it
Speaker 1: is in your interest if this is if you're in
Speaker 1: the group I'm talking to you, it is in your
Speaker 1: interest to figure out how do I train relative to
Speaker 1: me intensely, effectively, safely. So I am pushing my body.
Speaker 1: I'm exploring the edges of my performance threshold right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing anything crazy or silly, so that every
Speaker 1: workout that I do is somewhere in the ballpark of
Speaker 1: pretty productive to really fucking productive. Now, are there times
Speaker 1: where you should ever have an easy day? Sure, if
Speaker 1: you want to go in some days and just kind
Speaker 1: of go through the motions, you're a little bit you know,
Speaker 1: you're not brand new, your energy is not ten out
Speaker 1: of ten. You're feeling a bit jaded. My suggestion is,
Speaker 1: either have a day off of full recovery, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, sometimes is the best. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: be lazy. I'm not talking about fucking off. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about you understand that you having today off and getting
Speaker 1: great recovery and maybe a great sleep and hydrating well
Speaker 1: and eating well is probably overall going to be a
Speaker 1: better decision than going in the gym and doing a
Speaker 1: mildly shit workout because you just want to get through
Speaker 1: it right. So there are so many variables with this stuff.
Speaker 1: And what I was going to say before is sometimes
Speaker 1: I will go up to somebody Obviously you know, I
Speaker 1: won't go and interrupt the stranger, but somebody that i'm
Speaker 1: somebody that I know, or someone that I'm working with
Speaker 1: or whatever, and they will do, let's say, like I
Speaker 1: said to you, fifteen reps of something, whatever, exercise, whatever weight,
Speaker 1: and I go, how is that? They go, oh, that, well,
Speaker 1: that was solid, that was hard. And I'll say how
Speaker 1: hard do you reckon you're working? And they'll often say
Speaker 1: eight or nine out of ten And I'll say, now,
Speaker 1: I want you to pretend that I am going to
Speaker 1: give you ten thousand dollars for extra every extra rep
Speaker 1: that you do. I want you to do as many
Speaker 1: good reps as you can with good form, not being silly,
Speaker 1: because I don't think fifteen is anywhere near close to
Speaker 1: what you can actually do. And I'm not lying when
Speaker 1: I say hundreds and hundreds of times in front of
Speaker 1: the same person with the same exercise and the same
Speaker 1: weight three minutes after they did their eight out of
Speaker 1: ten set, and then they then double or trip all
Speaker 1: the reps. Now, I've spoken about this before. We don't
Speaker 1: understand our potential, we don't understand what our body is
Speaker 1: capable of. We are not great at judging how hard
Speaker 1: we are working. Now, keep in mind, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: we all need to go into any training environment and
Speaker 1: flog ourselves. Of course, So for my mum who's eighty six,
Speaker 1: a really really good weight might be two kilo shoulder presses.
Speaker 1: That's a really good weight for my mum. But it's
Speaker 1: not a good weight for me, and it's probably not
Speaker 1: a good weight for you. But it's not about a
Speaker 1: number or a set of reps, or it's about what
Speaker 1: this does to this individual, and what for this individual
Speaker 1: is going to move the needle. So that thing I
Speaker 1: was about to talk about is called rate of perceived exertion.
Speaker 1: Rate of perceived exertion up here in excise science is
Speaker 1: essentially you starting to really understand how hard you are working.
Speaker 1: My guestimate is that most people that they most people
Speaker 1: that tell themselves the I'm working at eight or nine
Speaker 1: or ten out of ten story, not all, but a
Speaker 1: huge percentage of working somewhere closer to five. Because and
Speaker 1: here's the other thing. Right, let's just be really practical,
Speaker 1: like getting in shape, looking amazing, creating amazing, losing fat,
Speaker 1: building muscle, creating a higher performance version whatever that is
Speaker 1: for you. Right, is my sixty two year old body
Speaker 1: high performance? Fuck? No is my sixty two year old
Speaker 1: body high performance for sixty two? Yes? Am I special? No?
Speaker 1: Am I gifted? No? Do I have great genetics? No?
Speaker 1: But what I do is I do the things to
Speaker 1: optimize what I have to work. QUI now, John, that
Speaker 1: I've spoken about before on my show many times, and
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned earlier, who's got a traumatic brain injury,
Speaker 1: in a spinal cord injury. And I've been working with him,
Speaker 1: and you know, John has got so many challenges. He's
Speaker 1: in his seventies, he's got all of this shit, is
Speaker 1: in constant pain. He's medicated for this and that. I
Speaker 1: started training him in a wheelchair. Eventually he progressed to
Speaker 1: a frame, eventually progressed to a stick. He's still with
Speaker 1: sticks now too. Sticks. He trains in his seventies with
Speaker 1: multiple fucking and way more than just the brain injury
Speaker 1: and the spinal cord stuff, other stuff I won't mention,
Speaker 1: but way too many issues than most of us could
Speaker 1: even think about. He still trains three days a week,
Speaker 1: and he does what he can with what he's got available.
Speaker 1: And at seventy I think he's seventy two or three.
Speaker 1: He is for the bits of his body that he
Speaker 1: can train. He can train his just and back and arms,
Speaker 1: legs not so much. But he is stronger, much stronger
Speaker 1: than the average bloke his age, and he has got
Speaker 1: so many reasons not to be, so many reasons not
Speaker 1: to be. So you are probably underestimating yourself. You may
Speaker 1: not be. I don't know you. Well, maybe I know
Speaker 1: you if I do what's uphm. Okay, So intensity, Now
Speaker 1: let's look at the other end of the scar let's
Speaker 1: look at too hard? Okay. So we want to train
Speaker 1: at a level where, like I said, we're safe and
Speaker 1: we're getting this adaptive response, and going into the gym
Speaker 1: and punishing ourselves and training at our outer limits is
Speaker 1: more destructive than productive. Heart is good, sensible heart is good.
Speaker 1: Stupid heart is stupid. Okay, And we see some what
Speaker 1: we see is a multitude of people or some people
Speaker 1: more accurately training really intensely with bad form. So guess
Speaker 1: what you're going to produce? What's the most likely thing
Speaker 1: you're going to produce. Of course you're all saying a
Speaker 1: fucking injury. You are right, So let's use good form.
Speaker 1: Let's train intensely when it's right for us. Let's not
Speaker 1: train intensely every day, because recovery matters, sleep matters, appropriate
Speaker 1: nutrition matters. Most of us are not built unless we're
Speaker 1: eled athletes and we've got all the other things in place.
Speaker 1: But even elead athletes don't train intensely every day because
Speaker 1: it doesn't equate to optimal performance. And what we now,
Speaker 1: whether or not we're an Olympian, or whether or not
Speaker 1: where you and me, Joe or Josephine Suburbia and we're
Speaker 1: just trying to get the most out of ourselves. The
Speaker 1: same principles apply in that we need to train, we
Speaker 1: need to move our body, we need to understand what's
Speaker 1: going on. We need to be be able to recognize
Speaker 1: am I training hard too hard, not hard enough. We
Speaker 1: need to be able to understand that days off matter,
Speaker 1: that recovery matters, that all of these variables that matter
Speaker 1: for Olympians in terms of the performance and the adaptation
Speaker 1: and the recovery on a level, they matter to us
Speaker 1: it is not that different from a training and a
Speaker 1: conditioning point of view. There are way more similarities than not.
Speaker 1: And that's what people don't really understand. So when I
Speaker 1: talk about high performance, and I've worked with in inverted
Speaker 1: commas typical high performers in many fields. But when I
Speaker 1: talk to you about high performance, I talk about myself.
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about am I getting the most out
Speaker 1: of me based on what I have to work with? Now,
Speaker 1: what do you have to work with? Will you have
Speaker 1: your genetic potential, you have your brain, you have your willpower,
Speaker 1: you have your mind, you have the ability to manipulate
Speaker 1: and control all of the other factors you know, like
Speaker 1: sleep to an extent it's hard sometimes, and nutrition and
Speaker 1: supplements and environment and other people and support and education
Speaker 1: and all of these things that we can, if not
Speaker 1: totally control, at least somewhat influence. So training hard is good,
Speaker 1: But training hard and poorly or training hard with bad
Speaker 1: technique and bad recovery and all of those things is
Speaker 1: more negative. So it's trying to find the level. What
Speaker 1: is the level for me? So, for example, you are
Speaker 1: hypothetically you're a yoga person, or you're a super bendy
Speaker 1: Wendy kind of person. And you and I you're a
Speaker 1: you know, for you your potential, you're a nine out
Speaker 1: of ten on flexibility. And you and I go to
Speaker 1: yoga tonight, or you and I go to a stretch class. Now,
Speaker 1: in the context of the class, you are going to
Speaker 1: be way better than me. You're going to be more elite,
Speaker 1: or you're going to be more progressed, more advanced, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. But I go in there
Speaker 1: and I do a couple of things which for you
Speaker 1: would be incredibly easy and require next note effort. But
Speaker 1: for me, I'm working at nine out of ten legit
Speaker 1: because I feel like I'm about to tear shit off
Speaker 1: the bone. Right, So what is too easy for you
Speaker 1: or what is not valuable for you instead of in
Speaker 1: terms of growth and adaptation, might for me be borderlined dangerous.
Speaker 1: So again it comes back to us, comes back to
Speaker 1: us as individuals and trying to figure out our body.
Speaker 1: All Right, A couple of other things that I have
Speaker 1: seen people train repetitively, They do the same thing the
Speaker 1: same way I spoke before about progression and maintenance. If
Speaker 1: you go and get one hundred random people, this would
Speaker 1: be creepy so let's not do it. But if we
Speaker 1: could kind of in some alternate universe, we could see
Speaker 1: people training in the Let's say we had one hundred
Speaker 1: peace over one hundred days, and we just kind of
Speaker 1: observed what they did every time they come in. You
Speaker 1: would find a very high percentage of those people do
Speaker 1: kind of the same workout. It's kind of the same intensity,
Speaker 1: kind of same weights and machines and movements and sets
Speaker 1: and reps and volume and recovery time and effort and
Speaker 1: all of these things. So they are kind of living
Speaker 1: in an exercise form of groundhog Day. They're doing the
Speaker 1: same thing the same way. So if we do the
Speaker 1: same thing the same way, what are we doing? Well,
Speaker 1: we're maintaining how many people? In other words, we're staying
Speaker 1: where we are. We're not going backwards, We're not going forwards.
Speaker 1: We're staying where we are. How many people that you
Speaker 1: talk to that work out and exercise and go to
Speaker 1: a gym, their goal is not to improve fucking No one, hardly,
Speaker 1: no one. Maybe three to five percent who are kind
Speaker 1: of happy where they are and they just do it
Speaker 1: to stay in shape or whatever. And if that's the case,
Speaker 1: also that is brilliant. That is not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: That is for some people that is appropriate. But if
Speaker 1: you are in the group that you're like, well, Harps,
Speaker 1: I want to get better. I want to get stronger,
Speaker 1: a fitter or leaner, or better at my sport, or
Speaker 1: want better flexibility or balance. I want to be able
Speaker 1: to get in and out of a car easily. I
Speaker 1: want lower blood pressure. I want to be more functional.
Speaker 1: It might just be I want to be more functional
Speaker 1: to do life because I'm sixty seven as fuck right, Great,
Speaker 1: Then do not do the same thing the same way
Speaker 1: every fucking day, day in, day out, for two years
Speaker 1: and then go, how come I'm not improving? Because you
Speaker 1: know why you're not improving, because you're not giving your
Speaker 1: body a reason to improve. Also, keep in mind that
Speaker 1: our body adapts to what we do, which is why
Speaker 1: Fatty Harps can go to the fucking yoga studio and
Speaker 1: look completely incompetent, but in the gym for his age
Speaker 1: elite because I'm really good for that. I'm really good
Speaker 1: for strength stuff. Now, by the way, this is true
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I would say where I'm at right now,
Speaker 1: my flexibility. I've spoken about this, this is a personal
Speaker 1: floor of mine. I admit my flexibility is for my
Speaker 1: potential are two or three compared to other sixty two
Speaker 1: year old It's maybe a little better even who knows,
Speaker 1: But my strength is maybe an eight or nine for
Speaker 1: what I have to work with right now. Then it's
Speaker 1: up to me, well, how important it is is it
Speaker 1: to me having better flexibility? How important is it for
Speaker 1: me to be able to run around the block, or
Speaker 1: how important is it for me to be able to
Speaker 1: go and do a ten k bushwalk? Or how important
Speaker 1: is it for me to be able to pick up
Speaker 1: my grandkids or kick a footy with my granddaughter or
Speaker 1: my grandson or whatever it is. Or how important it
Speaker 1: is it for me to be able to load up
Speaker 1: the trailer with shit, put the trailer on the car,
Speaker 1: go to the tip, jump up on the trailer, throw
Speaker 1: shit off, right, activities of daily living, just life. But
Speaker 1: in order for that to happen, we need to make
Speaker 1: sure that we are doing the things that will work
Speaker 1: for us in terms of variety and needs and goals.
Speaker 1: Am I hugely worried about getting more flexible? Not really?
Speaker 1: Not too many people die from tight hamstrings. I'm not shaying,
Speaker 1: don't be flexible. I'm just saying it's not super high
Speaker 1: on my list of things to do, and honestly, if
Speaker 1: I cared that much, I would do more. But that's me.
Speaker 1: That's just full disclosure me. Next on my list is consistency,
Speaker 1: or more accurately, lack of consistency. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the actual number is, but I do know that what
Speaker 1: they call the active gym membership in Australia is relatively low.
Speaker 1: And that is by that active gym membership means people
Speaker 1: who are current members of gyms who either don't go
Speaker 1: or rarely go. They show up with a burst three
Speaker 1: or four weeks the fucking superman or superwoman. They do
Speaker 1: what they do, and then you know, live happens. Oh
Speaker 1: what happened? Oh live happened? What do you mean, Ah,
Speaker 1: live happened? You know, so you stopped going? Well, yeah
Speaker 1: you stop? Did you accidentally stop going? Or And this
Speaker 1: is the thing, this is a psychology part of it. Right.
Speaker 1: We are inconsistent, most of us. Not that we need
Speaker 1: to be addicted. Right, here's the problem too. We always
Speaker 1: frame things to make ourselves feel good about what we
Speaker 1: are doing or not doing. Do you know how many
Speaker 1: people because I exercized nearly every day of my life.
Speaker 1: I walk every day ten k's. I lift some weights sometimes.
Speaker 1: In fact, today, as I record this, it's twenty sixth
Speaker 1: of February. Having a day off today. You know why
Speaker 1: a little bit tired. You know why I got a
Speaker 1: million things on and that equals and by the way
Speaker 1: I lifted weights the last six or seven days, I'll
Speaker 1: probably do something tomorrow. All good, but I never just stop.
Speaker 1: So if I said to you, do you want to
Speaker 1: be healthy and functional and strong and well for as
Speaker 1: long as you can, you would say to me yes.
Speaker 1: If I said, do you want a long health span?
Speaker 1: That is the percentage of your life lived well. So
Speaker 1: if you live to ninety, would you like to be
Speaker 1: relatively healthy for most of that time or would you
Speaker 1: be happy to come into massive health issues at seventy
Speaker 1: and then just stumble you away with drugs and whatever
Speaker 1: to your ninety The answer is no, I want the
Speaker 1: first option. I want a long health span. Well, guess
Speaker 1: how you have a long health span? You be consistent,
Speaker 1: you will not accidentally live to ninety healthy years, And yes,
Speaker 1: unless you're a genetic freak, and if you are, I'm
Speaker 1: a bit jealous, also well done. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: we need to find a way. If consistency of performance
Speaker 1: and feeling and health outcomes is our goal, we need
Speaker 1: consistency of behavior. If we rely on our feelings, if
Speaker 1: we rely on our day to day level of motivation
Speaker 1: or inspiration, almost none of us will get there. What
Speaker 1: we need is we need to create a relationship with
Speaker 1: our body and with exercise, which is intertwined. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we're obsessed. It just means we've got a habit. We've
Speaker 1: created an operating system that works for us. Do I
Speaker 1: love every workout? Sure don't. Do I get excited about
Speaker 1: the gym, Sure don't. Sometimes I do, Often I don't.
Speaker 1: But it's not I don't go up there because it's
Speaker 1: fun or it's fucking great, although I do enjoy it
Speaker 1: most of the time. But the reason I really go
Speaker 1: to the gym is Okay, I was going to say
Speaker 1: something that's probably not totally true. So the reason I
Speaker 1: go now is because I hang out with some of
Speaker 1: my mates. But more importantly, I love that bit more
Speaker 1: importantly because it keeps my body and my brain and
Speaker 1: my performance in a place which is where I want
Speaker 1: to be. I know that I'll get old. You know
Speaker 1: that you'll get old. But the way that we get old,
Speaker 1: the way that we age, is to a very large
Speaker 1: extent in our control. Putting aside illness, you know, genetic
Speaker 1: illness and predispositions and all of that. But my observation
Speaker 1: is that a large percentage of the population, at least
Speaker 1: that I have worked with, we're getting older and more
Speaker 1: dysfunctional and more broken at a rate which was not necessary.
Speaker 1: So consistency matters. Consistency matters. I'm going to keep going technique.
Speaker 1: I spoke about that before people in the gym. So
Speaker 1: if you want to progress, you'll form your technique. The
Speaker 1: way that you do things needs to be as good
Speaker 1: as it can be to ensure one that your body
Speaker 1: knows what's going on and you can progress and you
Speaker 1: can adapt safely. And two, of course, that you don't
Speaker 1: get injured. And people who start out and I was
Speaker 1: one of them, I started out with poor technique because
Speaker 1: I was young and dumb, and I got a long
Speaker 1: list of injuries that please don't be as dumb as
Speaker 1: I was, but please learn how to do things well
Speaker 1: in the gym, so that you know what's happening with
Speaker 1: your body. And I'm just going to bump into one
Speaker 1: of my next points, which is body awareness, and all
Speaker 1: that means is understanding what your body should be feeling,
Speaker 1: and how your body should be moving, and how your
Speaker 1: body should integrate with this movement, whatever the movement, whether
Speaker 1: it's running or skipping or or lifting a weight. I
Speaker 1: watch people in the gym all the time who are
Speaker 1: doing things with terrible technique. That's not a criticism, that's
Speaker 1: an observation. And perhaps it's because nobody's ever actually helped them,
Speaker 1: or maybe they haven't asked. But the difference between doing
Speaker 1: something well and something not well, even investing the same
Speaker 1: time and energy and finances and all of that, the
Speaker 1: difference is incredible. And one of the beauties of doing
Speaker 1: things really well is you don't need to smash yourself.
Speaker 1: It's fast, safer, you don't need to use the same
Speaker 1: heavy weights, you don't need to do anything that's going
Speaker 1: to predispose you more than likely to a bad outcome.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about a few more so something I've observed
Speaker 1: more recently, and this will say make me sound like
Speaker 1: an old dude. That's all right, though, and that is
Speaker 1: about around our inability to focus when we exercise. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be the guy that goes there
Speaker 1: should be no phones or headphones in the gym or
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, but it is. It is just a
Speaker 1: reality that in most gyms, in most gyms, there's not
Speaker 1: a complaint. This is an observation. In most gyms, most
Speaker 1: people are looking at their phone maybe most of the
Speaker 1: time in the gym. And you might go, well, I
Speaker 1: go to a gym where that doesn't happen. It's cool, great,
Speaker 1: well done you, And I mean that that's great, and
Speaker 1: if you're the person who doesn't do that, fucking well done.
Speaker 1: But our inability to focus on where we need to
Speaker 1: be focused our mind, our body, our energy, our attention
Speaker 1: on doing this thing that I am doing, doing it well,
Speaker 1: it is so low at the moment, and as a result,
Speaker 1: we're seeing we're bad outcomes, we're seeing bad injuries. We're
Speaker 1: seeing people who are at the gym for an hour,
Speaker 1: training for ten minutes and not training for fifty minutes,
Speaker 1: and so trying to figure out what is the best
Speaker 1: protocol for me. I see some people they'll do three
Speaker 1: or four sets, then they'll scroll or they'll look at
Speaker 1: their phone for two or three minutes. Fine, I think
Speaker 1: that's great. But I also see people who do one
Speaker 1: set and then literally sit in the same place for
Speaker 1: the next fifteen minutes looking at their phone, totally disengaging
Speaker 1: their body, totally cooling down. And then when anyone says,
Speaker 1: are you using that machine, which they're clearly not using
Speaker 1: that machine because they've been fucking sitting on their phone
Speaker 1: on that machine for fifteen minutes, they say, yes, I am.
Speaker 1: Now there is an issue at the moment that everyone
Speaker 1: seems to get upset about when I bring it up.
Speaker 1: That's cool, get upset. I don't really give a flying fuck.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is is whatever the environment, whatever
Speaker 1: the kind of exercise, whatever the distraction, for the most part,
Speaker 1: when you work out wherever, whatever, however, it is my
Speaker 1: very strong suggestion that you be completely focused on what
Speaker 1: you are doing. You predispose yourself to mistakes and injuries
Speaker 1: and poor results and lack of productivity when you are
Speaker 1: in any training environment with any kind of distraction. What
Speaker 1: you don't need is a distraction. And if you can't
Speaker 1: train well without some kind of stimulation, that's something to
Speaker 1: think about. Doesn't mean don't go for a run with
Speaker 1: music or it doesn't mean that. It just means that
Speaker 1: if you going to the gym and doing a workout
Speaker 1: for forty to fifty sixty minutes without your phone terrifies
Speaker 1: you for a range of reasons, that's an issue. And
Speaker 1: I mean, this is no this is no revelation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the last one I'm going to talk about is just mindset,
Speaker 1: and it's just the mind stuff. And I'm you know,
Speaker 1: my first book that I wrote was essentially about the
Speaker 1: psychology and the emotion and the human stuff around and
Speaker 1: getting in shape. And so even though I'm an excise scientist,
Speaker 1: even though I've written tens of thousands of programs, trained
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of humans and all of these things
Speaker 1: that I've done, which there's you know, that's just my
Speaker 1: track record. But I can tell you that largely getting
Speaker 1: in shape and changing your body and getting sustained results
Speaker 1: and moving the needle and seeing real progress is way
Speaker 1: more about your thinking than it is your biceps. It
Speaker 1: is way more about your attitude, It is way more
Speaker 1: about your state. It is way more about your fucking
Speaker 1: drive and your commitment to act, actually fucking doing the
Speaker 1: work and making real progress and then not looking for accolades,
Speaker 1: just do the work that produces the outcome. You might
Speaker 1: have the best resources, the best genetics, the best support crew,
Speaker 1: the best environment, the best everything. But if you've got
Speaker 1: the worst fucking attitude, the worst mindset, the worst thinking,
Speaker 1: you cannot optimize what you've got to work with. So
Speaker 1: it is a convergent, not a divergent process. And by convergent,
Speaker 1: I mean it it's about your mind. It's about your emotions,
Speaker 1: it's about your attention, it's about your focus. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's about your body, of course, it's about education, of course,
Speaker 1: it's about what resources you have. Of course, it's about
Speaker 1: energy and time and all of those things. But in
Speaker 1: the middle of that, the driver of our behavior is
Speaker 1: really our mind. You don't accidentally not go to the
Speaker 1: gym to you don't accidentally join a gym. You choose to.
Speaker 1: You don't accidentally stop going for six months. That's a choice.
Speaker 1: That's a decision, And I'm not judging you for that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, let's be honest. Let's be honest. Are
Speaker 1: you one of the people that has repeatedly gone right, buck,
Speaker 1: and that's it, I'm doing it, and then you haven't
Speaker 1: done it. You don't need to hate yourself. You need
Speaker 1: to be self aware, not self learning. What is that about?
Speaker 1: Have I done that? I did that many times in
Speaker 1: my younger years, many times where I my thinking, my
Speaker 1: attitude was the problem, not my potential, not my genetics,
Speaker 1: not what I had as a possibility for me. And
Speaker 1: so what do we want? We want to train well,
Speaker 1: We want to train consistently. We want to train properly
Speaker 1: for our body. We want to follow the right program.
Speaker 1: What is the best program for me? Well, the best
Speaker 1: program for you will be dependent on what you need,
Speaker 1: what you are capable of. What is your current level
Speaker 1: of strength and fitness, and flexibility and mobility, mobility and
Speaker 1: agility and muscular and aerobic endurance. What are your goals?
Speaker 1: Where are you now? Where do you want to be?
Speaker 1: What's your timeline? What's your structure? What's your process? What
Speaker 1: happens when you can't be fucked? What happens when you
Speaker 1: lose motivation? What happens when the scales go the wrong way?
Speaker 1: All of this stuff that we just need to go, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is this doesn't have to be hard, in inverted
Speaker 1: commas or complex, but we do need to be somewhat
Speaker 1: cerebral about what we're doing. And if you are getting
Speaker 1: a generic program from someone, not a program written purely
Speaker 1: for you and all of the you variables, you are
Speaker 1: definitely not following the optimal program for you, definitely because
Speaker 1: it wasn't written for you. It's like you've got ten
Speaker 1: people who all feel unwell and the doctor doesn't ask
Speaker 1: them or test them or check them or do blood test.
Speaker 1: The doctor just gives them all the same medication because
Speaker 1: they're all crook. Well. That's literally or metaphorically what's happening
Speaker 1: in Jim's all over Australia and the rest of the
Speaker 1: world right now is that people are oh, Sally does
Speaker 1: this program, so I'm doing and she got in great
Speaker 1: shape and I'm doing this, or Dave did so I'm
Speaker 1: doing it. Well, you're not Sally or Dave, bro or
Speaker 1: bro Sephine. You're you. The best program for me could
Speaker 1: be the worst program for you. It's very in fact,
Speaker 1: it's totally unlikely that what will work for me will
Speaker 1: work for you because you're not me. And so there's
Speaker 1: this individuality of biology and physiology and adaptability and function.
Speaker 1: There's all of these individual things that need to be
Speaker 1: factored in. But if we can take a little bit
Speaker 1: of time and not be lazy and I go, ah, fuck,
Speaker 1: it's all too hard, harps. Can you think? You can think?
Speaker 1: Can you solve problems? You can solve problems. Can you
Speaker 1: stand in the gym and look in the mirror while
Speaker 1: you do a movement and go, yeah, there's something not
Speaker 1: right here. Let me get it right. So instead of
Speaker 1: doing it wrong for five years, you might get it
Speaker 1: right in the first week or two or three. Now
Speaker 1: you've adapted. Now you've developed a new skill, more knowledge,
Speaker 1: more awareness, and now you're doing the thing right, and
Speaker 1: now the benefits come. I see blokes in the gym
Speaker 1: that have been bence pressing like shit for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: but they won't be told by anyone they're doing. They've
Speaker 1: got good intentions, they've got terrible form, terrible technique. They
Speaker 1: bring it two thirds of the way down, not all
Speaker 1: the way down, because if they take it all the
Speaker 1: way down, they can't get that inappropriately heavy weight back up.
Speaker 1: And they're more concerned with what the weight looks like
Speaker 1: than the actual fucking benefit of doing the exercise properly.
Speaker 1: Chuck your ego out, don't rely on a round of
Speaker 1: applause or recognition or bullshit ego based kind of rewards.
Speaker 1: This doesn't work. And I know for some of you,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the time, it's nearly fifteen minutes. You
Speaker 1: might think, fuck, this is full on, this is difficult,
Speaker 1: this is guess what, things don't have to be fun
Speaker 1: all the time. I'm not saying it needs to be hard.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. I for the most part, really enjoy most
Speaker 1: of what I do. But there are times when I'm
Speaker 1: doing something where it isn't fun, quick, easy, or painless.
Speaker 1: But guess what, it's fucking effective. So that's the thing
Speaker 1: that I do. That's the thing that I do, and
Speaker 1: that's the thing that we sometimes need to do. And
Speaker 1: I'll finish on this that we often we get almost
Speaker 1: like an emotional attachment to something. Here's a story I've
Speaker 1: told once before on this show. So in one of
Speaker 1: my gyms, I used to have ten treadmills lined up
Speaker 1: along the front of the building looking out. I had
Speaker 1: a big, dirty, big window, clean, big window, and in
Speaker 1: front of that window, looking out the front of the building,
Speaker 1: I had ten treadmills side by side. And one day
Speaker 1: I was in my office and I saw which was
Speaker 1: near the treadmills, and I saw someone happen to be lady,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, it could be a dude. But I went
Speaker 1: over and I said to her, and she was waiting
Speaker 1: for a treadmill that now I don't know, five of
Speaker 1: the treadmills are being used, five for free, and she
Speaker 1: was waiting for the last treadmill, first one away from
Speaker 1: my office. And she was standing there, clearly waiting for
Speaker 1: the person to finish on that treadmill so she could
Speaker 1: get on that treadmill. And I walked up and I said,
Speaker 1: how you going, And I was speaking to her. I said,
Speaker 1: what you're doing? She said, I'm just this is my
Speaker 1: favorite treadmill. And I went, they are all identical. They
Speaker 1: are all the same brand, they are all the same age,
Speaker 1: they have all the exact same components. And she literally
Speaker 1: wouldn't go and use one or the other five because
Speaker 1: she had a story in her head that they weren't
Speaker 1: the same, they weren't as good, and that fascinated me,
Speaker 1: And of course I didn't you know. I just went,
Speaker 1: I went, well, FYI, but if you want to stand
Speaker 1: and wait, that's cool. So I left her. But we
Speaker 1: tend to do the things that we are good at
Speaker 1: with exercise, sometimes we tend to do the things that
Speaker 1: are the most fun, and I think that there should
Speaker 1: always be an element of fun in what we do
Speaker 1: with our body at times. But there are also times
Speaker 1: where we go and do the thing that we are
Speaker 1: not good at, the thing that we are not comfortable at,
Speaker 1: the thing that we're not comfortable with, the thing that
Speaker 1: is not easy, because that is the thing that we need.
Speaker 1: It's not the thing that we want, but it's the
Speaker 1: thing that we need. I have more, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to. Boy, you let me know if you like this.
Speaker 1: I'm not seeking improval. I'm just trying to get feedback
Speaker 1: so I know whether or not to do another one
Speaker 1: of these or version of this ever. So don't forget
Speaker 1: the you Project Facebook page. If you like this, jump in,
Speaker 1: give me some feedback. If you hate it, give me
Speaker 1: some feedback, that's okay, and let me know whether or
Speaker 1: not I should do I'm not going to do these
Speaker 1: daily or even we but whether or not, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think because of my background, which is really
Speaker 1: the first thirty years of my work life was really
Speaker 1: more about anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, nutrition, high performance from a
Speaker 1: physical point of view, even though he incorporated mind stuff
Speaker 1: like that is really my my the major story of
Speaker 1: my work life and my background. And so if you
Speaker 1: want more of these kinds of potties, let me know.
Speaker 1: All right, enjoy your workout.