Art of Wellness #4 – Q&A with AI featuring Personal Trainer Danny Gustin

What else is on your mind these days? Dude, you’ve just been on this tangent about pornography and OnlyFans. No. I can’t talk about it. Yeah.

We need to reel it back in. Yeah. So what’s new with you? Man, what is new with me? I’m just busy at the clinic, you know, seeing people every day.

But it’s fun. You know? It’s like I wanna talk to you about this because it’s all, like, self imposed stress. Like, you know what I’m talking about. That you have got going on?

Like, everything we’re doing, it’s all, like, stuff that we wanted to have. Right? Yeah. So, like, who are we to complain about it? This is a good conversation, I think, because, like, we don’t have I don’t know about you, like, a corporate structure to be breathing down our neck to tell us what to do all the time.

So, like, to me, that was more stressful than what we’re doing right now, which is being on our own. Yeah. Does that make sense? Mhmm. But also it’s still stressful because it’s, like, self imposed stress, but it’s not.

Well, self imposed, but it’s stress nonetheless. Yeah. So whether or not it’s self imposed, it’s still stress. Right. Yeah.

Right? I think the thing that makes it a little bit better for us is we chose it. Right. Right? I think people who have the imposed stress on them that they just they have no say in the matter, that’s probably a harder pill to swallow sometimes.

Which to me lessens the blow of the the negative stress. Does that make sense? Like, getting into a state of distress, which is the negative 1st distress. Yes. Exactly.

But, like, to me that like, it’s still stressful because we’re busy all the time because, you know, we’re we’re business owners. But at the same time, there’s there’s no boss telling us what to do, which to me was more stressful in the beginning. So yeah. Yeah. I think it has its there’s perks to both.

Yeah. Right? Sometimes it would be nice just to have your checklist. Right? Here’s what you’re here’s what you’re doing this week.

Here’s the things you need to get done by the end of the week. Here’s your project. This is your focus. Right? Yeah.

And so we’ve talked about that before. Part of the challenge is finding which hat to wear at a given time. Right? Yeah. Sometimes you have to shelf this hat to focus on this hat.

Yeah. And that’s, I think, the biggest challenge for me sometimes is just priorities. Yep. Right? Like, I think of I think it was Steve Jobs.

He said success is not what you say yes to, but what you say no to. Mhmm. Right? And so that I get caught up in the minutiae sometimes. Do you say yes to a lot of things that you shouldn’t, you think?

I’ve gotten better about it over the years, but I think it’s more in I think in general, people who are in people the service industry, service professions Mhmm. Probably are inclined to that. Yeah. Wouldn’t you say? Right?

If you’re in the service profession, like you’re a hairdresser, a physical therapist, massage therapist Okay. Personal trainer, etcetera, etcetera, you’re probably a people person. Yep. You probably got into it to help people. Right?

So I think that type of person is more inclined to at least I know I am. But I think in my experience, a lot of personal trainers are more inclined to say yes. Right? Okay. Because you wanna help.

You want to service others. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is hard to say that. Talking about earlier with pornography and brothels.

Yeah. Servicing others. Mhmm. That’s what I do. That’s what you do.

I’m just playing. But, no, I’m just playing. But, you know, that is that’s the balance, I think, is finding is finding what is really gonna move the needle and focusing on those things and trying to calm down and put a lot of your energy into that, and then calm down the things that it’s like, okay. If it literally can wait a month, is it really that big of a deal? Yeah.

No. I know what you’re saying. Yeah. It’s that balance of it’s hard because, again, we are in the service industry. So it’s hard to say no to people because they want our help.

But we have to also have our boundaries, and I hate that word. It’s such a Why? Overused word, I think, nowadays. Everybody’s like, oh, we need boundaries. We need this and that.

I think it’s a good word. It’s a good word, but I think it’s definitely overused these days. Well, what are you struggling with stress wise? It sounds like there’s something that No. I think just maybe the flow like you said, within a corporate structure, it’s more streamlined.

They kinda just give you a plan. They tell you what to do essentially. Yeah. And, you know, I did that for 5 years, 6 years, or whatever. And it essentially turns you into a robot, and you kinda forget about the, like, the finer things of helping people.

You know what I mean? Does that make sense? And Well, I could see how that would be true if you were given very little freedom to Which is decide how you Yes. Implemented your treatment plans or things like that. And to me, that’s what the corporate structure did for health care.

It it doesn’t give you the freedom that you really need to help people. There’s too much too many time constraints. There’s too many productivity standards that you need. Yeah. Where I think you worry about that too much as opposed to worrying about the person.

Yeah. Where I think now I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum where I’m stretching myself a lot for people, which is good, but I have to bring it back a little bit more to center. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah.

I can I mean, when I was in when I was working for a fitness company, one of my first personal and training jobs was a gym in Naperville? And when I got promoted the second time, I was promoted to almost a purely, like, almost 80% administrative sales role. Mhmm. And once a month, we’d review KPIs, which are key performance indicators. And I did not like doing that because it was always result based versus action based.

Mhmm. Right? And Yep. The reality is you can’t always control. Well, you can’t control the result.

Right? And you can control the action you take. So saying, oh, well, how many new personal training clients were there? How many new assessments were done? I would have much rather had it be focused on like, the assessment one wasn’t a bad one because you’re you’re going out there and connecting with people, but you couldn’t always control the result.

Right? Yeah. And that’s the thing. I think there’s a lot of great things about corporations and, you know, working for somebody if that’s if that’s a better fit for you. For sure.

But one of the things I did not like is just that focus on always having to grow, right, which I think is gonna be more prevalent when you have shareholders and the board of directors, right, and all that stuff. Right? They’re always expecting it to go more and more and more where I think when you’re self employed, you’re you could probably more easily find that enough level. Right? I’ve got x amount of clients.

I’m making x amount of money. Maybe I’ve got a couple employees. That’s enough. Yeah. Right?

But I think when you’re working for a large company, especially these big health care companies Did we call them out? Yeah. I’ll leave that up to you. Maybe later. You’ve got stronger fields.

I have a whole episode about me calling out, Yeah. Those companies. We’ll just do it. We’ll do it fast. But they know who they are.

Brian will throw out names, and then you’ll just go, boom. Yeah. Attack them for 30 seconds. Yeah. But not my favorite places to work for.

Anyways, I had a whole my whole thing with this podcast was to ask AI. So I want I wanted it to be q and a with AI. I think I texted you this. Yeah. But yeah.

Anyways, this is Art of Wellness episode 4. Thanks for coming. Thanks for tuning in. We got Danny here again. We’re back with him.

This is our 2nd episode, right? Yeah. Yeah. We did the first one together. Yeah.

Number 1. This is episode 4. There we go. Thanks for listening, subscribing, all that good stuff. And we got AI asking us questions about health and wellness.

So Did you say please to it? I don’t think I did. Did you gotta throw the please in? I know. I always say please to Alexa.

Thank you. When they take over if you don’t? When they take over someday Crap. They’ll remember who is polite Kill me first. And who was screaming at him all the time.

Yeah. But I’m calling out my buddy CJ. Man, he’s he was so mean to Alexa back in the day. Just be screaming at her after we got one of those, Alexa? Yeah.

The Echo Show? Yeah. Yeah. It’s awesome. Those creep me out.

Really? Don’t they, like, talk to you at night or something? I don’t think they do unprompted unless they’re giving you some sort of reminder. But they’re listening. Right?

I guess just like anything’s listening now. So I swear, sometimes I’m on my phone, and I’ll be like, let’s say I’m just talking to you about, oh, my my egress window in my basement broke. And then before I know it, I open Google and type the letter e. Mhmm. And it says egress windows near you.

And I’m like, what the heck was that, dude? That’s not cool. Yeah. Actually, one time, I took a picture of a window. I so it’s just sitting in the gallery on my, you know, on my on my iPhone.

Yeah. And then a window ad popped up. Yeah. So what’s that about? I mean yeah.

Now it could be completely coincidence, but it freaked me out. I was talking about pornography in the beginning. We’re gonna get a bunch of porn ads now and our Well, I think you’re more likely to get it than me. But Yeah. Probably.

Gonna list it look at your cookies and stuff. You know? Just yeah. Got no cookies on my phone. All the viruses in the world.

But, yeah. But Chat gbt. That’s what I use. Is that what you use for AI? There’s so many apps.

Use it more. It just because it’s the first one I was exposed to, and I’ve been pretty content with it so far. It has been a game changer for nutrition coaching. So nowadays, at this point, I could just someone says, hey. I want a a 7 day meal plan based on x amount of calories, x macro you know, this percentage of macros Mhmm.

Fats, proteins, carbs. I don’t like this food. I do like that food. Oh, by the way, I also wanna keep in mind that my calcium needs to be banning the, you know, recommended daily allowance. Yeah.

Chat JPT can spit that out Oh my god. In 30 seconds. Yeah. And then you can go, oh, well, wait a minute. Actually, I don’t want anything with tofu in it, and then it spits it out again.

Yeah. It’s crazy. Mhmm. Do you realize how long that took before to write up a 7 day meal plan based on that criteria? It would take hours and hours and hours to just do the date, you know, to kind of fine tune it.

Like, oh, the macros are just right. The calories just right. Keeping in mind these different recipes, and it has that. It is full blown recipes. Mhmm.

Now I’m not saying it’s perfect. Right? That’s what I was gonna ask. Yeah. You know, sometimes it’s still at the point where there is some sort of deviation.

Yeah. Right? Like, you it’s you told it to stay above or stay below a certain amount of protein, and it goes a little bit over. A certain amount of calories, it goes a little bit over. But that’s where having a professional do that So yeah.

Can help you know, I can trim this out. At this point, I’ll just do that in front of people. Mhmm. I’m not trying to give anyone the impression that I’ve spent hours doing a 7 day meal plan. Yeah.

I’m just saying, hey. This is the best way to do it. It’s the most economical Yeah. Time a time efficient way to do this. Here’s some of the recommendations it’s making.

What do you think of these meals? I don’t like that meal. I go, hey. Do it again without meal 5, and replace meal 5 with something else Yeah. That’s cheesier or whatever.

Right? And then boom. It’s crazy. It’s super awesome. Yeah.

As far as nutrition coaching goes and meal planning specifically, it’s awesome. Yeah. I would never ever wanna go back to a time without that. Do you think that’s making stuff a little bit well, first of all, I was thinking, like, it kinda you kinda lose that human element of I think people can tell when you’re using overusing AI now. Do you know what I mean?

Like, if I’m typing something, like, I know people, like, use it for Instagram reels, TikToks, descriptions, and stuff like that. I think Yeah. We could spot out if AI is helping you a little bit too much now. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. There are certain YouTube videos I’ll get recommended for whatever reason, and it has that AI voice talking and sometimes that just turns me off. That’s what I was gonna say. Immediately just not do it. Yeah.

So for sure, I think there is a balance. Mhmm. But in the context of what I was just saying, I don’t think there were any nutritionists, registered dietitians, nutrition coaches, whoever, who were writing up meal plans in finding great fulfillment from spending hours and hours and hours doing it. And maybe there were a few Yeah. But I would argue the vast majority of them would not wanna be doing that.

Right? The the reality is you wanna help the person. Mhmm. Right? Maybe someone who’s more recipe inclined, like someone who really loves cooking, might have preferred doing it that way, but I’m not that way.

I’m much more utilitarian about about nutrition. Right? I think just like anything, if we overuse it, it’s not good. But if you use it for, you know, things that you could save time on Yeah. It helps a lot.

Just like anything. Just like the phone in general. This is where, you know, we run our businesses essentially now is just email people, call people, Instagram posts, TikToks. Yeah. Everything is through your phone now.

So, it makes it a lot easier. But also, you could abuse it or overuse it and just, like, scroll mindlessly yeah, through nothing. And that’s also not good. But I think the balance is if you lose your brand touch. Right.

Right? If That’s where I was going. Yeah. Losing your brand touch, it’s not feeling personalized anymore. Right?

And maybe sometimes you occasionally have to cross that threshold to know you didn’t. Right. But, you know, you’re someone you take a lot of pride in what you do and personalizing things. So And that’s I’m sure if you did cross that threshold, you’d probably reel it back pretty quick. Well, you too, I would say.

You know, both of us. I think we both have that human element of authenticity and people could spot it out. But I think if you go too far into the AI making things too streamlined, we lose that human touch that people like. Yeah. I think you’re right.

Again, it’s hard because we can’t always be doing that. It’s very time consuming, like you said. If if we could find that right balance of staying authentic to our clients but also making things more streamlined, that’s the perfect perfect storm right there, I would say. Yeah. I think you’re right.

I think you’re right. I think with automation, I understand people’s fears with it. I have a ton of fears with it. Mhmm. But I think when you’re removing when you’re removing things that people didn’t really like doing in the first place Mhmm.

Right, and, hopefully, that opens up other things for people to be doing. That’s the fear, right, is for, you know, for all this efficiency, which really is gonna mean cutting of certain jobs. Mhmm. Hopefully, that opens up other doors. Mhmm.

Right? But, yeah, I think there’s definitely some jobs out there that no one really wants to be doing. Right? Right. Like, how many I don’t know.

I don’t know all the ins and outs in this, but, obviously, there’s a lot of talk about bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Mhmm. And sometimes I wonder even about that, you know. Maybe I’m just thinking of someone being on an assembly line, like, taking a toy and going Okay. You know what I mean?

Robots will replace that or something? Or Well, I’m just saying who really liked doing that? Oh, yeah. I mean yeah. Is there, I mean, is there anyone who is just stoked to be doing that every day?

Maybe maybe if that’s what it took to provide for you, same way. Right? If they really needed it Exactly. They do what it takes. But, no, it’s a interesting conversation, I think.

Yeah. I think your point of balance though, that’s what it’s gonna come down to. We’ll find we’ve done so far as humans finding the balance. Right? But I think, you know, in general, we sway 1 towards one side too much sometimes, and then we revert back to the center.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, now that we have AI, we’re probably gonna start overusing it a lot. And then in a few years, people are gonna crave that human connection again. And, I don’t think we could ever actually lose that or should lose that, the human connection.

No. I I think if anything, professions that aren’t really as affected by AI, like, probably we’re many, many years away in robots too. Right? We’re probably many, many years away from physical therapist, you know, robots. Being robots.

Personal trainer robots. Right? And I think the more the more we go down that path, I think the more people are gonna be craving human connection. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah.

And so I think there will be doors that are going to open up, especially for people who are more people oriented, like having conversations, like human connection. Because, again, I mean, it’s it’s it’s who we are. Right? We need that. We need connection.

Right? That’s a big part of, I think, what a lot of people are you know, there’s a mental health crisis. Right? A lot of more people on pharmaceuticals to just get through the day than ever before. Right?

Yeah. I think a big part of that is just a lack of connection. Right? Yeah. So I think people will find a way to get that, and maybe that’s a way that’ll create opportunities for people who are trying to work.

So Yeah. Guess we’ll see. I guess we will see. But, definitely, I think the human element is extremely important, and we can’t lose that. But, you know, I’m I’m thinking the future again, we’re gonna probably gonna sway too much more towards the robots and AI stuff, and then we’ll come back to center again.

Usually, the pendulum does swing past that. What I’m saying. Yeah. With every last election. Yeah.

Yeah. With anything, things kinda come back. So That’s why I hedge my bets, though. And I say please and thank you With AI? To a to the AI.

To the AI gods. Trust to the not the gods, but, you know No. We’re treating it like a god. No, man. I’m just keeping it master.

I’m hedging my bets. Don’t we have something to ask it anyway? I’m so sorry. Danny is apologizing to you, Chad GPT. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Don’t kill him. Okay. So anyways, you know, obviously, I’m a physical therapist. Danny’s a personal trainer.

And I was thinking we should ask Chad GPT, which I did ask it. What would you ask a personal trainer and a physical therapist sitting on a couch next to each other for a for a podcast? Very specific. And it came up with a lot of good questions. I was skimming over them this morning, and I was like, oh, this is pretty good stuff.

But I think I wanted to start with because I asked it, like, 2 days ago the same question, and it gave me, like, a different question. One of the questions was, what got you into into the profession in general? So let’s go back and forth on this. I wanted to ask you what got you into personal training, and then I’ll talk about my PT journey, and then we’ll kinda go more towards the nuts and bolts of health and fitness with those questions. So, like, what got you into personal training?

When I was 16, I probably started working out. And then when I was 18, I made good friends with a buddy who actually I went to high school with, but we weren’t friends in high school. We met at some bonfire, and we both wanted a workout buddy. Then that’s when I got hardcore. Right?

Like, 6, 7 days a week. Probably put on, like, £30 of muscle in, like, a year or 2. Right? Yep. Went from a 150, £45 to about a £180, £85.

Mhmm. And, anyways, that was just something I really enjoyed doing. Mhmm. I also did not wanna go the conventional educational route. Okay.

It was something I just I’ve always struggled with the delay of gratification as far as my interest in a particular subject. So gen education classes were always difficult for me because, you know, again, part of why I think I ended up wanted to work for myself was just kind of, I wanna understand the purpose behind why I do things. Right. Right? And if I’m the one running the show, then I can make sure that’s the case.

Mhmm. So in the context of gen eds, I’m always wondering why. Why do I need to be taking a history class if my eventual goal is to which it was pre physical therapy. Mhmm. I was targeting NIU Yeah.

And going to College of DuPage. PUTI. Yeah. Yep. And so I just got burnt out on that.

Like, these gen ed courses are just coming in. School in general. You’re saying? Yeah. Well, gen ed courses and, like, more traditional educational route.

Right? Like, going to a college, university. Did you like high school? No. Me neither.

No. No. And I struggled throughout school. I I could spend a lot more time talking about this, but I won’t. We should.

I mean, I think it’s a good conversation because I hated school too. I despise school. It was not my favorite thing. I same thing. I don’t like people telling me what to do.

I don’t like sitting there. I don’t like taking tests. I was okay, and I was relatively good at them. But it doesn’t negate the fact that I just didn’t like it. But I just made myself study.

I made myself go to class. I it was a means to an end to me, but I definitely see your side to the story. It’s education is it’s like a double edged sword. You know what I mean? Like, you have well, you don’t have to do it.

But You do the first 18 years. Yeah. Right. And that, to me, made me not like it more just going through it. Yeah.

Thankfully, in college, you get to study a little bit more of what you like. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Right.

It’s the gen ed part Even with the schedule, that’s Right. But definitely the gen ed part, it wasn’t fun either. It’s just these basic classes. You’re just sitting there like, alright. I took these in high school pretty much.

It’s the same thing. It’s a money grab. It’s a yeah. It probably is. And There’s no doubt that it is.

Right. Like, who who okay. You always ask a counselor. If you ask any counselor, oh, it’s to be well rounded. What was the first 15 years of me going to school for?

Yeah. No. I Was that not to be well rounded? Didn’t I already take speech, history, this, that? I mean Yeah.

That was all to be well rounded, wasn’t it? So why can’t by the time I’m here, just other countries do that. Right? Like, I believe in Scotland and and the UK, at least from my understanding. 18 year when you’re 18 years old, it’s university.

Mhmm. You go straight into specific studies regarding whatever your profession is gonna be Mhmm. Which I don’t understand why that wouldn’t be the case. Why does why is there a need to be more general at that point Yeah. When really whenever you get into your career, it’s not going to be general.

Right? Not at all. It’s gonna be whatever specific job you whatever specific criteria is necessary for your job and and soft skills. Right? Just like being able to have good communication skills and good time management and whatever whatever else.

Right? Yeah. But it’s not gonna be I there wasn’t a time recently where a client recently told asked me, hey. Who is the 40th president? And then I didn’t answer, and they fired me on the spot.

Right? You know? So I I’m not saying there isn’t any benefit because, you know, there’s obviously taking English for, you know Yeah. That many years and writing and all those things. I know that helps, right, in speech class, any of that stuff.

I know it helps. I use the word parallel and perpendicular a lot as a per personal trainer. So shout out to geometry. Right? Mhmm.

But that’s all well and good in high school. I guess, again, my issue is more so that it was just continuing on with that. Yeah. It’s like, really, we’re still doing this. Yeah.

Right? And so I got burnt out, and, I worked I probably had, like, 16 jobs between the time I was 17 and 21 Mhmm. Working at the restaurant industry, car dealerships, etcetera. And, eventually, I was a hard worker. I always have been.

Yeah. And I got I met with a mentor, and I was kinda getting burnt out on, you know, coming home smelling like food and dripping sweat for minimum wage. And I was like, I know I need to do something. I’m just not quite sure what it is. Right.

You know, I know I can’t do this for the rest of my life. And he had a student who was going to the National Personal Training Institute, and he recommended it. I checked it out a week later. I loved it. I had such a good feeling about it.

I enrolled. It was a year long program, and it was the only personal training trade school in the country at the time. I think it still may be. And that’s it. Yeah.

I think well, for me I I don’t like saying I don’t like school, but I didn’t like school at all. So I’m the same way. I was just a different the way I thought of it was, again, it was a means to an end. And I I hate saying I didn’t like school because I wanna have some PT students on one of these days. So Yeah.

And we’ll I’ll talk to them and interview them. Also, some pre PT students. Well, don’t you think there’s a big difference between having challenge having issues with school as much as issues with education? Right? Like, I love learning.

I love education. Yeah. I see what you’re saying. But the the school system is the one that they do it is not the optimal for learning, I would say. But yeah.

I mean, after I got through the gen ed stuff, it did get a little bit better. You know, I I studied more because I my bachelor’s in exercise science, and then I just it it got more detailed with each class. It got more exercise y Yeah. For lack of a better term. And I was like, oh, this is cool.

I could actually study what I wanna study. And we did some biomechanics stuff. We did some physiology stuff. Obviously, anatomy is huge, with any medical field. So once we got to those classes, like, oh, this is pretty cool.

And then, you know, when I was in college, I still don’t know what I wanted to do. I know I knew it was something medical, but it took me a while because, again, school just took up so much of my time. I just didn’t have time to think about the future sometimes. Yeah. And, thankfully, my professors at North Central, they were like, hey, you know, check out whatever.

They they veered me towards every medical profession. Like, hey, check out podiatry, check out pharmacy, check out dentistry, check out meds, straight med school. Yeah. Check out PT. And then I forgot who it was.

But one of my professors, she was like, you know, try PT. It’s more of a you’re more of a sporty guy. It’s more of a sporty profession. You could shadow some sports PTs. Maybe you’ll like it.

Yeah. And Then I did that. I was like, oh, this is cool. I didn’t even know this is a thing. I knew nothing about the medical industry at all.

Like Yeah. You know, I’m first generation. My you know, just me and my brothers went to college. None of it no nobody in my family really went to college. So this was, like, me just learning on the fly.

And, you know, thankfully, at North Central, they gave us some some good guidance. So I’ll I’ll always be thankful for that to them. Yeah. I’ve heard great things about North Central. My wife that’s my wife’s elementary school.

That’s right. Especially now, it’s it’s a way better school. Like, it’s much more health science related and the undergrad students get a lot more attention. They get a lot more guidance towards the medical field. Yeah.

My wife was saying the new president has really changed it over there. We’re just, like, heavily Yeah. Heavily going in on the STEM subjects and health science. So shout out to North Central. We love you guys.

That’s my that’s my school, my undergrad school that is. But yeah. So when I shadowed PT stuff, I was like I started working as a tech and I was like, oh, this is kinda cool. This is kinda, the little clinics. It was like the ones I shadowed, it was more private.

It was like a little family. I was like, I could do this. Like, this is, you know, I’m treating more I could treat more athletes in this type of scenario. But, you know, again, to get into PT school is super hard. Yeah.

But so I Yeah. In my head, I was like, it’s more school. Like, why why do I keep doing this to myself? You had a vision. Yeah.

And then, obviously, the the student debt after PT school was insane. And one of these podcasts I’ll talk about I’ll get into more of the details of that in a different podcast, but it was a lot of money. Yeah. And, you know, I get PT students asking me all the time, like, is it worth it? Is it not worth it?

Should I go should I go to more to a cheaper school? You know, that’s maybe not as well known. You know, it’s such a lame answer, but I’m like, just just follow what your heart says. You know what I mean? Like, I went to out of state, more expensive school, I would say.

Why? I just had a feeling. I just I just liked it. I liked it at at Iowa. It’s a great PT school.

They were super nice to me there. They their doors were always open. We could always talk to the instructors. It was it was great. Yeah.

It was like a family, and I like that. And I I interviewed at different PT schools where it didn’t feel like that. I just felt like, it felt like school again, like you said. Yeah. Yeah.

It felt like I was gonna be in classroom all day. They don’t care about us. Learn this. Take the test. Go away.

Yeah. Whereas in, you know, where I went to school, like, it felt like we were all helping each other. The instructors were great. It was it felt like a family, and it was great. Obviously, the money afterwards when I looked at it when I graduated, I was like, oh, the dad.

I was like, dang. This is a lot. Yeah. But just like anything, man, you make it work. You I lived at home.

I all my paychecks went to that debt. I paid most of it off. That’s awesome, dude. There’s there’s no other way to do it. Yeah.

You know? And, my wife did the same thing. Yeah. You have to. And people complain about it, but, you know, what else are you gonna do?

If it’s something you love to do, you’re gonna find a way to to pay it off or find a way to get to the finish line. And thankfully, I did. And, I love it now, especially now that I’m on my own, like we talked about. Yeah. You know, working we’ll get to that later.

But I’ll I’ll make a whole podcast about working for, like, more corporate healthcare, systems which Yeah. I think that’d be good. Or just people who like, for example, one of the guys who works for me, he’s going to well, he’s not going to school for physical therapy yet, but he’s currently trying to get his GPA up. Yep. Yep.

As you mentioned, it’s difficult to get into. So he’s gonna be studying for his GRE soon. All of all of that. Right? Yeah.

And so I think it’d be great to I’m sure maybe there is references out there, but I think it would be great to do a whole podcast just on just on, hey. Here’s all the things you need to consider Mhmm. When, you know, considering pursuing physical therapy is a profession. Right? Yep.

Money as in the cost of school. Yep. Right? What your GPA needs to look like. I think a lot of people need to hear that.

Yeah. Yeah. You know? Because I’m sure like Ryan, for example, Ryan is sharp. He’s really passionate.

But when he was going to school for kinesiology, you know, maybe there was a few classes he could have worked a little bit harder on. Mhmm. If he knew, he would have needed to have his GPA at Mhmm. This height Mhmm. Eventually.

Right? But he figured that out later and hindsight’s 2020. Right? Mhmm. I kinda I mean, I did the same thing.

Like, after North Central, like, I I knew my GPA. Like, it wasn’t bad. Yeah. But I was like, I need something more. And Yeah.

I remember when I applied fresh out of North Central, like, I didn’t get anywhere. I got in no places. Nobody wanted to interview me. I got all rejections from every PT school I applied to. And then, again, if you want something bad enough, you’re gonna find a way to do it.

So, like, I would, again, I tried to build my resume. And, again, I’ll I’ll make a whole podcast about this probably. But, you know, I did more volunteer work. I did more observation hours. I worked at more PT clinics.

Basically, you have to make yourself the undeniable candidate. And that’s what I would like to think I did because the second time around when I applied, I got in pretty much anywhere. So, but it was a whole another year and a half, 2 years of taking more classes, volunteering, observation hours. So it’s tough, but Yeah. But I love it now.

So Yeah. That’s all that matters. You love what you do, so we’re here. Here we are. Here we are talking to AI.

Talking to So let’s talk to AI. Chat GPT. Let’s see. What what do you got for us, Chat GPT? So the first question well, second question, technically.

The first one was, how we got into our professions. But the first one was, what are the most common mistakes you see people make in their exercise routines? What kind of riff off of this one? It’s a great question. I would say the first thing that comes to mind is just not having a vision.

Okay. Like, goals? Yeah. Yep. Well, you have goals, but you have maybe more generic goals.

Right? And you have, a loose timeline for those goals. Mhmm. Right? And so a lot of people don’t program.

Right? Yeah. They pick a few exercises and just start getting after it. Right? And I think there’s so much value in, you know, not only anecdotally, but, you know, research based, the idea of having macrocycles, microcycles.

Well, not that you get to knee need to get so analytical with it, but, you know, if you’re just doing barbell bench press for 6 reps for 6 months, right, your body’s gonna get so many diminishing returns after a certain amount of time of just getting doing that over and over and over again versus switching up with dumbbell press or doing different tempos, doing different rep ranges. Right? And so I would say having a vision, but also creating implementing different program design principles, I would say, is gonna be key because not only that’s gonna help you be more effective over time, it’s also gonna help you prevent injury too. Mhmm. Because scenario 1 where you’re, again, barbell bench press for 6 months, 6 4 to 6 rep range because you just wanna go heavy versus 3 months of going 4 to 6 and then follow that up or 2 months of doing that.

And then 2 months of going, hey. I’m gonna do dumbbells, and I’m gonna do 8 to twelves. Right? And then months 4 to 6, you know, you’re you’re doing 10 to fifteens with Mhmm. Really slow and controlled to kinda give yourself a break from the heavier volume and the the higher intensities, and then go back to lifting heavier.

Right? I think I’ve personally seen much better results doing that for myself, for others. Again, not only to from a performance standpoint, but preventing injury Mhmm. That way, then, again, just kind of sticking to something and just kinda like, alright. Now this is my thing now.

Yeah. And not only that, but it gets boring doing that too. Right? Which I think is probably another reason why people how many people go into the gym and either, a, are not successful in what they’re doing, or, b, they may be successful for a short amount of time, and then bye bye. Right?

Health clubs count on that. Yep. Right? And part of that is just, I believe, being ambivalent about what you’re doing. Right?

If you’re not certain why you’re stepping foot into the gym and what you’re gonna be working on and what you’re working towards Mhmm. It’s gonna be easier not to go on the days that you’re tired or you’re stressed and you didn’t sleep as much. Mhmm. Excuse me. And it’s raining outside or whatever.

Yeah. The rain. Yeah. You know? Like so I think, again, being more clear on your vision, create you know, implementing different aspects of program design to have variety, to keep it interesting, to keep you progressing, to stave off injury.

I think those are all probably some of the most key things. Especially now, like, we’re coming towards the end of the year here, so people are gonna start going to the gym for their New Year’s resolution stuff pretty soon. So Yeah. We’re gonna you’re gonna get a lot of people rushing into the gym and You know, we have a smaller health club, so I’m not sure we will. I’ve always found that I start to notice an increase in personal training more so around February, March.

Okay. And my theory on that is that’s around the time people are realizing, oh, whoops. This isn’t as easy as I thought it was. Yeah. You know, I’ve been doing the elliptical for a month, and nothing’s happening.

Right? So, but it occasionally, it does work out like that. But I think it works out more like that in larger health clubs. Yeah. Yeah.

Where you get just that huge rush. Right. So, yeah, the question was, What are the mistakes that you see people Common mistakes. Common mistakes. I guess it’s asking, like, very, I don’t know, general sense, but I was thinking more so, like, when someone walks into my clinic or whatever.

But It’s kinda harder for you because no one people don’t typically do physical therapy on their own. Right. Well, yeah. But at the same time, like, you know, we’re well versed in exercise. So Yeah.

I would say I mean, just some, like, general things Can I give you a suggestion? Yeah. Go ahead. Maybe maybe relative to what your profession is, what about one of the things you do is manual therapy. Right?

Soft tissue work. Mhmm. Right? What are maybe some of the the mistakes you see people make doing self self, soft tissue therapy. Myofascial release.

Whatever you wanna call it. The buzzwords. And I’ll get to that. Rolling, lacrosse ball. I’ll I’ll narrow it down the more I I give you this answer.

But I think common mistakes I think we see people make, let’s say, in the gym are, they don’t warm up warm up at all. They just walk in. They start lifting weights. Oh, yeah. That’s true.

All the time. They just walk in. They start doing some circles with their arms or something, and they start benching. Yeah. You should warm up before any form of exercise.

I don’t know how many times my golfer clients are hurting their back. Especially And I say, did you warm up? And they’re like Yes. Yeah. I mean, I did I took my golf club and did this a few times.

And I go, dude, that’s not a warm up. Right. Especially if it’s more specific to a sport. Yeah. You definitely should be doing specific sports specific warm up stuff prior to your actual sport.

Even weightlifting, I you could probably get away well, I I shouldn’t say that either because you should prime your nervous system and your body to the movements you’re gonna be doing. You know? And I think people should be warming up more than they should more than they think they should be doing. You look at some of the best power lifters, I mean, they will do a lot of work just to get to their first work set. Mhmm.

Tons of weight acclimation sets. Right? Yep. Part of it is because they’re super niche about what they’re doing. Right?

They’re not gonna come in and do 15 exercises. They might just do the big three and maybe, like, a couple accessory things and call it a day. Right. But, you know, if they’re doing it Right. You know, being probably more athletically gifted, more Sure.

Having a better base, then it’s definitely gonna be applicable for the average person too. And I think, yeah, warming up so number 1, I would say, is warming up. Also, when you’re younger, you could probably get away with not warming up as much. So, Like, trying to I’m trying to reel this back into the more rehab injury stuff from my perspective is when you get older, you get more aches, more pains, more stiffness. So I think the older you get and the more seasoned veteran you are in the game of going to the gym or whatever sport you do, you’re gonna have to warm up more.

So Yeah. We can’t be skipping those things, in terms of prevention of injury, stuff like that. Also so warming up, I would say, common mistake in the gym or in working out. Number 2, I would say, kinda what you said, too much too soon. Like, they they again, they don’t go in with a plan or a vision.

And maybe those the new year’s people, like, after the new year, they go in, they start thinking they can bench a lot, and they hurt themselves. Yeah. Or they feel some weird something weird in their shoulder or in their in their back or something trying to deadlift. So I would say slow and steady wins the race. So Yeah.

I would say number 2 would be going too hard too soon. So start slow at first. Build up. Just like anything, you know, you’re you’re you need to acclimate towards whatever you’re doing. I don’t care what it is.

So definitely weights and sports. You have to build yourself up to tolerate more load, whatever you’re doing in sports. So I would say warming up too much too soon. And if we’re we’re talking just general gym exercises, I would say it’s, you know, improper form is number 3. And, again, that’s why we’re here, to guide them to have better form, to not injure themselves, to not hurt themselves.

And I think you could see something on YouTube. Try it out. Some people get it. Yeah. And they’re they’re gifted enough to, you know, watch the motor pattern on you on a YouTube video, and they just right away, they get it.

But some people need more hands on cueing, you know, tactile cueing of push your hips back more or, you know, maybe you touch somebody in the back right here and, like, hey, do it this way or whatever type of cueing they respond to, they might need an extra pair of hands to get them to have more proper form. Yeah. I would say a big a lot of there’s a misconception that personal trainers either, a, work with people who just wanna be absolutely jacked or, b, are working with, like, the biggest loser. Right? You don’t do those 2 2 things?

Yeah. I mean, occasionally, that occasionally, that will happen, but but the reality is is there is so many people who reach out just wanting to make sure that they are working towards their goal and not getting hurt. I mean, I get the whole idea of I just wanna make sure I’m not getting hurt. I just wanna make sure I’m doing things the right way using proper form. I get that Mhmm.

So often. Right. Right? So I think you’re spot on with that. Especially when it comes to rehab and injury and and people in pain is our form has to be great.

Pristine, as I always say. Because when you’re dealing with someone trying to exercise, which you should be exercising with pain to a degree, obviously, if it’s too too much on the pain scale, like, 10 out of 10, we can modify some things. But if it’s less than a 5 out of 10 on the on the pain scale or around the 5, we can modify it, maybe tweak a few things. But you should be I’m just laughing thinking about someone just 10 out of 10 pain. Right.

Yeah. Doing a Extremely through every rep. Yeah. No. But and that’s when you when you modify things is you lighten the load, you adjust the form.

Yeah. You make sure they’re not overdoing it. Yeah. Especially, you know, when it comes to PTU and physical therapy, we can’t hurt them more, obviously. That’s their whole job.

But we Oh, you would hope not. You know, our whole job, I describe it to people, is, like, we’re trying to stress the injured area in a way, but also not overdo it. So it’s that gentle balance of stressing it to adapt and promote an adaptation a a positive adaptation to get stronger, reinforce the area, desensitize the area, while also not, like I said, overdoing it too much too soon. And that’s essentially our job is to stress a certain area, but not overdo it. Yeah.

So, which, again, is an art form, as I always say. It’s a science. It’s also an art because people respond to different things differently, as you know. So I would say the 3 things I said was warming up, too much too soon, and form. Mhmm.

I just top of my head, I would say those 3 things. Yeah. I think that’s a great start. You could think of? People That’s a great start.

Okay. Let’s go back to AI. Q and a with AI. Let’s see what they or it they I don’t know. Robot.

I’m not even gonna touch that. Apologize. You should always apologize. I’m sorry. Chat GPT.

Don’t don’t don’t don’t. On the side of caution with AI. My phone just blows up. We just we just die. That would be a viral moment, Gerald, if your hand just exploded out of anger.

I have no hand or whatever? Let’s see. Number 2, where is it? How can someone balance strength? It was a good one.

How can someone balance strength, flexibility, and endurance for overall health? So balancing those three things which are very important. Are we talking about cardiovascular endurance or muscular endurance? We could throw both do both. All of them.

Under that umbrella of endurance, we have to put both, I would say. Well, first off, it always depends on why do you want any of them. Agree. Yep. Mhmm.

Right? What what do you need cardio I mean, obviously, I could generally say cardiovascular endurance. You want a baseline level of activity in your life just for cardiovascular health. Right? Being on your feet more, walking more, etcetera.

Right? So there is value, like, you’ve talked about even just from a pain standpoint, right, of getting that 20 minutes, 10 minutes or so on the cardio equipment Yeah. Just getting things moving. But there’s also that cardio benefit, right, of just Yep. It’s better for your heart to be more active.

Yes. Right? Mhmm. But then from there, it goes, well, what do you need cardio for? Mhmm.

Is it gonna I mean, a football player has completely different cardiovascular needs than a wrestler. Right? Yes. Than a weekend warrior. Right?

Etcetera, etcetera. So it’s hard to answer that question as without knowing exactly why someone is doing what they’re doing. Mhmm. Right? So my answer to that would just say, hey.

It all depends on what your priorities are and what and what you’re working towards because it may be times that it’s prudent not to have balance. Right? Mhmm. Because if you’re a power lifter, it may not be all that important for you to have muscular endurance. Right?

Or if you’re a runner, it may not be all that important for you to spend a ton of time doing max strength training. Mhmm. There may be benefits of occasionally doing stuff that’s fast twitch, but Right. It all really depends on what they’re working towards. On their goals.

That’s exactly what I was thinking is depends on what the person is working towards. Like, I had Brad on the previous podcast, and he’s a jujitsu guy. He does lot he’s a Is he the b is he the BJJ lab owner? Mhmm. Yeah.

I met him once. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, again, he’s more he wants to do more jujitsu. So what’s the point of him deadlifting £600 or whatever? You know, I guess it’d be nice, but, not saying he can’t do that.

But, again, on the spectrum of his training, he wants to focus more so on technique, on jiu jitsu, on being nice and healthy for his specific sport. Yeah. You could structure in some weight training, obviously, to to supplement the jujitsu and get stronger in in certain areas. But, like, I was telling him, you don’t wanna be burning the burning the candle at both ends. It depends on what your goals are.

If you’re doing both full force, it’s just a recipe for injury. You’re gonna be exhausting yourself, overtraining yourself. Because you’re just as tough on your body. Yes. And then your train your weight training at, you know, 5 times a week as well, like, that’s not smart.

There’s not balance. Maybe if you’re super young and you’re whatever, you could get away with it, but it’s also not a good habit to get into, I would say. So definitely your goals, number 1, like, what what’s the person’s goals? Yeah. And then we go from there.

That’s how we balance things out. Those four things that AI said. But for talking to structuring things, I would say tell me if you agree with this, but not that you can’t get away with it, but maybe trying to separate out cardio from weightlifting, especially high intensity cardio. Like, you don’t wanna be doing high intensity I guess it depends on how you structure the you’d wanna do it at the end. Yeah.

It depends how you structure the variables. But if you’re doing a super high intensity weight training session and they induce a super high intensity cardio afterwards, it’s gonna be burning yourself out. But if you wait a day, do it the next day. Yeah. Recover a little bit.

In terms of structure, I would say that’s more that’s a smarter progression, a smarter programming, I would say. Yeah. And I think it all one thing that you need to look at too is the consequences of the order. Right? So, for example, if you do cardio before strength training, you could say both are important.

It’s good important to have cardiovascular health. It’s important to strength train for the purpose of building muscle and getting stronger, etcetera. Right? But if you do a lot of cardio before strength training, there’s gonna be major consequences to your strength training. Right?

Whereas if you do strength training first and then cardio after, there’s not gonna be many consequences to your cardiovascular training Right. Doing the strength training first, especially if you’re doing more steady state cardio and not all out intensity cardio. Right? So I think that’s important too is just understanding how doing things in different orders is gonna impact the overall outcome. Right?

So, again and I think that comes down to priorities too. Agreed. Your goals, like, what are you working towards, and how can we structure that for the client for prevention of injury and not exhausting them. So Well, that’s a whole another thing. If you’re already exhausted cardio wise, that’s another good point.

Right. And then you go into strength training, you’re gonna be that much like more likely to hurt yourself. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. Then fatigue sets in, and then your form suffers, and then you tweak something, then you’re out for 3 months or something.

And then you gotta come see me, and I fix you. Yeah. One more thing on the cardio. I yell at you first, then I fix you. One more thing about the cardio is I think it’s also just important to understand just because you’re on a machine, like an elliptical or a treadmill, does not mean you are doing something different than what you do in your day to day life.

Right? It what exercise is is you adapting to a stimulus being put on your body. Mhmm. Right? And the stimulus needs to be intense enough to Yeah.

Move and all the time. Moving and shaking. Also, my legs are asleep, so it’s I’m trying to adjust. Dude, that’s why I keep moving. My legs are, like, dead or something.

Maybe we need to No blood flow. Get, like, the little bowl chairs or something. We could foam roll out. Brian’s already got a foam roller somewhere, but, anyways, we’ll we’ll save that for later. Isn’t that almost look like a giant foam roller?

I don’t know what that is. A rug or something? Yeah. But Anyways I don’t know where I was. It’s all good.

Back to checking. Back to AI. Yeah. Back to AI. Let’s see.

So that was number 2, balancing everything, strength, flexibility, endurance for overall Oh. Health. Go ahead. So if you walk to your car or school or or through your the hallways at work at 2 and a half miles per hour Mhmm. Right?

And then you go to the gym and you hop in an elliptical at 2 and a half miles per hour or a treadmill at 2 and a half miles per hour, you’re really not doing anything all that different Mhmm. Than what you do. Now is that better than nothing? Sure. That being said, I would say, again, if you’re trying to maximize your time with exercise, you want it to be distinctively different from what you’re doing in your day to day life.

Right? Right. So you’re gonna get a whole lot more value walking twice as fast or going into a light jog or doing anything that is gonna be distinctively different from what you’re doing in your day to day life. Because you’ve already adapted to the things you’re doing in your day to day life. Right?

Because it’s what you do in your day to day life. Or, again, I see so often people will just go on the elliptical, and it’s Yeah. It’s like, okay. That’s something, but that pace just because you’re on a piece of a machinery doesn’t mean it’s gonna be that effective if your intensity is so low. Yep.

Right? Again, you could make the argument that motion is no. Some motion is better than no motion. It’s just gonna be me and Jerry’s story the whole time. So, anyways, that’s all I wanted to say about the cardio.

I would say if you wanna get more value out of cardio, I would just say try to make the intensity at least noticeably higher than whatever you’re doing in your day to day life. I’m also struggling to see which camera I gotta look at now that Brian told me that. It’s okay. Got it. That one.

Okay. The green one or the yellow one? Yellow one. It’s yeah. I don’t even know anymore, but I look at all 3.

But I think that’s a good point because Just like your eyes. Just go both ways. Now I forgot. I was gonna That would be good. But I think it’s important.

I think we were gonna gonna go back to that until I wanted to go back on cardio. Oh, here’s my thought. Good point about, like, if you’re just doing the same thing in the gym as you do in with everyday activity. You know, I think the main point is, like, you’re not stress you’re not stressing your body enough to create that adaptation that you want. If you’re doing the same thing, it’s not stressing your body.

It’s the same thing. So your body is not gonna adapt to it. Yeah. Exactly. The analogy I use is if you go out into the sun right now, it’s December.

If you go outside for 10 minutes and just lay for stuff, that might be uncomfortable because it’s fairly cold. But, you know, if you just lay there, you’re not gonna get tan. Why not? You were laying outside in the sun, but the stimulus is so weak that there’s gonna be no changes. Mhmm.

It’s the same thing with the gym. If the stimulus is not strong enough, you will not make change. And, again, that’s a big part of both of our jobs is we wanna create that stimulus that’s effective enough, but also not overdo it to where we injure them or hurt them or they stubborn. Or they yeah. Right.

Or they hate us or whatever because you’ve made them do too much and then they hurt tweaked their knee or something. You know what I mean? Back to what you were saying about your point 1. Mhmm. Or point 2, actually, I think, was going too in too soon.

Right? Like, you’ve barely prepared your tendons and ligaments and muscles for heavy pressing. You’ve been working out for 1 month, and then boom, I’m going I’m gonna do heavy bench press. Mhmm. Right?

Yep. That’s that sunburn. Yep. Because you just did something that your butt the stimulus was too strong for what you were prepared for. Exactly.

Yeah. Alright. Number 3. What’s your opinion on the role of technology in tracking fitness and recovery? So I’m I’m guessing it’s talking about, like, the Dude, I’m currently load loading creatine, and I’m so incredibly thirsty.

The wearables. But yeah. The wearables? I was gonna say, yeah. What kind of creatine?

What what brand? It’s whatever vitamin shop sells. Steroids? It’s creatine. That’s yeah.

Which is steroids. Right? Do you think so? That’s like a meme online. Oh, yeah.

No. It’s it is crazy. Like, I, I have some clients who will occasionally start taking creatine, and they’re going That’s what I’m saying. Hey, man. I’m I’m thinking about taking creatine.

I’m gonna die or whatever? I’m like, that’s cool. I’m like, yes. You are gonna die. It’s literally the most researched supplement there is.

Creatine monohydrate is the most researched supplement. Since high school, I think. Yeah. And I think they’re don’t quote me on this, but I’ve heard they’re even coming out with studies that creatine use in, the you know, elders, seniors is good for preventing neurological degenerative disease. Yep.

That’s crazy. Mhmm. Again, considering creatine monohydrate is so cheap compared to so many supplements, the fact that it’s so irrefutably beneficial anyways. I was wondering if, chat gpt is gonna ask us about supplements, which would be kinda fun to talk about. Yeah.

You know? Like, how much test are you on or all that stuff, you know? B ball. Not enough, brother. I know.

Right? It’s never enough. Oh, yeah. Wearables. So, like, I’m assuming the Oura rings, the Whoop Straps.

Wearables? Yeah. Wearables. That’s what’s the question? Like, what what’s your opinion on those wearables that track fitness activity?

So I’m not I’m not the one to ask. I don’t use them. Me neither. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t. Right?

I I I take that back. I briefly was doing a Fitbit. Right? That being said, I would say going back to balance and values and and that and kind of prioritizing those things, I don’t like being so removed from my being present on a regular basis. Yes.

So I found that and I think people are even prone to this with fitness tracking, like MyFitnessPal or live live live the cuts is gonna be back here by the end of it from us adjusting, but that’s my issue it. Right? If I really had a hardcore reason to use any of those, I would. That being said, I don’t like the whole, oh, how many steps am I at? What’s my heartbeat?

What’s this? You know, what’s that? I just wanna live life, man. Yeah. It’s a little neurotic.

It’s a little it’s a little neurotic to me, but there are people out there who really balance that well. Like, I have some clients who are probably a bit more type type a in nature and maybe a bit more analytically driven, and that really works well for them. I would but for me, and I think a lot of people, if you’re not so devil in the details, really analytically driven, I think you could probably do without it just fine. I mean, do you get people asking you all the time about I get it all the time. Like, all my patients are, like, hey, they come in with their WHOOP straps, with their Oura rings.

Like, what do you think about this? What do you, you know, what’s your opinion on whatever the new hot wearable is? I just tell them as long as it’s not interfering with like you said, like, some people are overly consumed with data Yeah. And they’re like, oh, I need to do this perfectly and do all this, to the t. Because if not, my whole world blows up.

Yeah. Because a lot of the athletes I work with, they’re very, like you said, type a. And it’s hard to get them to reel back and just kinda chill a bit. Yeah. Like, don’t be especially when they’re injured Yeah.

They start getting really frustrated, really stressed. Yeah. That stresses them out even more, the ring or the the whoop strap or whatever. I’m like, just forget about that for now. Let’s focus on, the injury at hand that you have.

Knee injury, back pain, neck pain, whatever. Yeah. And I think there are some studies that came out that says they’re not even that accurate. I wanna be surprised if they aren’t, and I also have an issue with things that train people to suppress their intuition. Right?

Because, ideally, if you were listening to your body and making a habit of doing that, you wouldn’t need an app to tell you you’re overtraining or you need to sleep in or you need to maybe take a day off working out. Mhmm. I know that. Right? A lot of people know that.

Right? I mean, I have that happen all the time where clients will come in and just say, I just don’t think I have it today. Right? And am I going to just go at that workout with full intensity how I always do with them? No.

We may foam roll a bit more in the beginning that day. Right? We may cut the exercises by 33%. Right? Or switch up completely.

Right? Like, may hey. You know, we’ve talked about wanting to do more with the battle ropes. Do you you wanna just take a break from weights today? Right?

People have a sense for what their body is telling them. Mhmm. And I think you’re gonna be better off in the long run just listening to that and honoring it, that’s a huge step. Right? Because how often do we know we’re tired, know we’re not feeling well, and just drink an extra cup of coffee, right, and power through.

Right? So that would be one of my concerns with getting too reliant on those wearables is just rather than just listening to your own intuition, you’re waiting for a device to tell you what your intuition is or what what your reality is. That’s kinda what we’re just talking about in the beginning is, like, relying on AI too much, relying on technology too much. You lose that intuition like you said. Need a device to tell you to pee soon?

Hey. Your bladder’s getting full. Might need to run to the bathroom. I mean, seriously. Right?

It could it that’s obviously an extreme point, but that is where I’m going with the intuitive nature of just listening to your body. Yep. It will tell you what you need to do. Right? Yeah.

And some of these according to you, some of these studies are showing that there is I have to look into it more. I’m pretty sure there’s a systematic review talking about how they’re not as accurate as we think. So what’s even the point? I don’t know how you really could even be too aware of what your body’s telling you Yeah. Without getting blood work and maybe measuring your cortisol levels Mhmm.

And your inflammatory markers. Right? Like, if your inflammatory markers and cortisol are super high, maybe that’s a sign that your body’s majorly stressed out or in need of recovery Chilling a bit. And chilling. Yeah.

Short of that, I don’t know how you would. But, again, I’m not here to trash the wearables because I haven’t really looked too much into it. But I would say that my my main ish my main concern with it would just be people not getting as comfortable just expressing their intuition. Yeah. Okay.

Man, let me get, like, a Is that seriously? I guess so. Holy That was fast. That was crazy fast. It’s just like last time, you sent me 18 questions.

I forgot to 3. 1 or 2. Right? Yeah. 3.

Oh, man. Alright. I was gonna go off of that, but that’s fine. We’re kinda late. This is a good last question to end on.

It’s a big topic in in exercise and fitness is what are the signs of overtraining? That was that’s a great lead off of what we were just talking about. I like it. Do you wanna start some Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. I was gonna say, like, very general guidelines to see if you’re overtraining is aches and pains, poor sleep, interrupting your sleep at night if you’re overtrained. Also, elevated heart rate, I think, at rest is a sign of overtraining. Elevator blood pressure at rest is also a sign of overtraining. Mood disturbances, hormonal things is also a sign of overtraining.

Guys get, like, erection difficulties, libido, problems with libido, women menstruation, things like that. I’ve seen that in the clinic where people come in and they’re, like, you know, I haven’t had my period in x amount of time or a guy comes in, he’s, like, I can’t get an erection for whatever and they’re overtrained. Because I again, I see most of the people I see is on the other side of the spectrum where they’re too they’re very athletic, they’re in good shape, maybe they’re overdoing it, and they’re getting injured, and they’re causing more harm than good. But so I would say those things, like, the physiological markers, hormonal things, sleep disturbances, and general aches and pains are a good sign that you’re overtraining. Can you think of anything else?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would say, first off, overtraining is a trend. Right? Overtraining isn’t I have one day that I’m tired, one day that I feel achy, one day that I don’t wanna go to the gym.

Right? Overtraining is a trend of those things happening. Right? Because there’s always gonna be days that you have off days. Right?

But if you’re noticing a trend of your body being achier than usual, if you’re noticing a trend of feeling less enthusiastic about going to workout, Right? Or just generally feeling more fatigued Mhmm. And more tired. Right? All of those, I think or another one is just your numbers.

Right? If you’re starting to get diminishing returns with all variables being the same, you’re sleeping just as much, you’re eating the same, you’re training the same, etcetera, etcetera, and you’re starting to notice diminishing returns on your workouts, that would be another sign, I would believe, that you’d be overtraining. So I would say with overtraining, 1, is it a trend? Because it’s not necessarily overtraining if it’s not a trend of these patterns. Right?

And looking at things like, what’s your enthusiasm for exercise? Has it reduced? Right? Are you just generally more fatigued throughout your day to day? Right?

Are you noticing diminishing returns from your workouts? Right? And, again, all of these things are trends. I would so say those are some of the best indicators for overtraining that I’ve seen that are, again, are intuitive. Right?

It’s not necessarily something that you need to get. You don’t need to go to a doctor or anything like that. Not that there isn’t value in that from time to time. Yep. Just adjust the variables that you can control.

Like, just well, as best you can, obviously. The exercise variables, your sleep, your nutrition, hydration, all that stuff. But it’s hard to reach that over training state. But, you know, when you work with people who are in a highly trained state already, they could, you know, they could get there. And Yeah.

It’s hard for for me to tell them back off a little bit because they hate hearing that. But, yeah, those, again, those are pretty good signs of overtraining. And Plus, I think a lot of it is having to balance your life because stress is stress. Right? There’s eustress, there’s distress, but that being said, a large amount of accumulative stress is still a large amount of an accumulative stress.

Yep. So the if you’re again, I see this with clients all the time. If you’ve been having this deadline at work that is requiring a lot from you. Right? Later days Mhmm.

Sleeping. You know? Let’s say it’s not even affecting sleep. Right? But it’s just more stress on you on a day to day basis trying to meet this deadline, even that can affect overtraining.

Right? And so, again, that can be one of those things where scale back. Right? Mhmm. You know, it doesn’t always need to be black and white like you’re all in or you’re all out.

If your frequency normally is 4 4 strength training sessions a week or jujitsu and strength training or whatever it is. Right? Mhmm. Maybe on those weeks, go 50%. That’s not the end of the world.

Right? And I think what’s interesting about it is we’re talking about type a people. You can end up kind of in this vicious cycle of, oh, well, I have a lot I need to do, and these are the things that make me feel good, but I can’t really go about those things the way I want to. So now I’m stressed out that I can’t perform at the level I want to. And then it’s just this vicious cycle.

Right? Sometimes you just need to live and let go, except that you can’t go all in all the time on everything. Right? Yep. And that that even brings it even more full circle back to what we were talking about earlier with owning a business.

Right. Right? There’s gonna be just times where your priorities have to shift, and that’s okay. That’s okay. Easier said than done.

But, yeah, it’s it’s a the mental game is very real as I tell people all the time. And do your best to play the long game because, like you said, if you’re having a rough week, you feel like crap, It’s okay to back off. But, again, telling somebody that is is also an art because they don’t wanna hear it. So there’s a way of communicating communicating that to certain types of people that, hopefully, you’ve grown to build a relationship with, that you know how what they respond to, and you could talk to them in an effective way to get through to them because they trust us as health professionals. Well, that is why they call it personal training.

Yep. Anyways, my leg’s falling asleep. It is asleep. Should we just stretch out for the last 2 minutes? Yeah.

There we go. And then we’ll get a, like, a thumbnail or something, and then we’ll call it. But, anyways, you wanna plug some stuff? Dannygustinfitness.com, Dannygustin fitness podcast. Oh, man.

Best personal training in Naperville the last 5 out of 6 years. Very glad to know Jerry. He’s an amazing physical therapist. He’s helped me a lot. He’s helped clients, and he’s amazing at what he does, and I’m happy to be here.

I appreciate that. But, yeah, you guys can find me on APT sorry. You can find my Instagram at APT, doctor g. If you have any questions on pain, injury, back pain, knee pain, ankle pain, whatever pain, I’ll, help you guys out. But that’s it.

That’s all I got. Podcast is on YouTube. YouTube, all the platforms on everything? Just YouTube. Just YouTube?

Okay. But yeah. What’d he say? He says it’s not a podcast. Well, whatever.

Calling you out of a Whatever, Brian. But thanks for watching. We appreciate it. Know. You just have a podcast business.

And we’re gonna stretch out and Audio hypod podcasting. Get a thumbnail, and we’ll we’ll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.