Latest / Thrive A/F (After Forty) / SEASON 2 PREMIERE: Emily Bridgers-Benson | Thrive A/F Ep. 10

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SEASON 2 PREMIERE: Emily Bridgers-Benson | Thrive A/F Ep. 10 · Thrive A/F (After Forty)

• Emily: Yeah, like I think that it's like a life skill to be able to like eat one or two Oreos and not eat like the whole sleeve of Oreos. Keith: Mm-hmm. Lou Fratto: man, that is so true. That is hard. Or the the thin mints, the the Girl Scout Emily: You Lou Fratto: Thin Mints Can I eat a whole sleeve? Keith: yeah. You can't answer the door, man, when you see coming. Don't even do it. Emily: okay. know who I'm targeting when Riley becomes a Girl Scout. Keith: god. Hello and welcome to the Thrive AF That's Thrive After 40 podcast. I am one of your hosts, Keith Calleja I am one of the owners of CrossFit Terminus in Atlanta, Georgia. And I am here today with two of my bestest friends in the whole world. So the first, you know him as South Florida's premier physical therapist and Brazilian ju jujitsu practitioner. Lou Fratto, Lou, introduce yourself and welcome to season two. Lou Fratto: Yeah, it's amazing that we're here. It's season two. I mean, like we said last time it flew by, but I am Lou Frato and yes, I am a physical therapist and Emily: Okay. Lou Fratto: longevity active longevity specialist in Delray Beach, Florida. And yeah, I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but I wouldn't call myself the premier jujitsu guy down here. That's for sure. There's a lot of guys that can kick my butt. But that's me. Keith: All right, thanks. And now we've been waiting for this a long time. Our first ever guest on the Thrive A/F podcast. She is Emily: Okay. Keith: a co-owner and managing partner of CrossFit Terminus in Atlanta, Georgia. She's a former UGA gymnast. She has competed in six CrossFit Games competitions. And in 2014, she won the title of the sixth fittest woman in the world. She is a coach and a personal trainer, a busy mom. Most importantly, my friend, Emily Bridgers Benson. Emily, welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself to Thrive Nation. Emily: Thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me. I feel honored to be the first official guest on here. Keith: How does it feel? Yeah. Emily: And what an introduction that was. Keith: Yeah, well, you deserve it. We've known Emily: Thank you. Keith: each other a long time. Really excited for this conversation. Do you want to tell yourself tell the folks a little bit about yourself in your own words? Emily: yeah, so I grew up a gymnast. Like he mentioned, I went to the University of Georgia as a gymnast and that somehow naturally led me into CrossFit and I was thinking about going to physical therapy school, but instead we opened a CrossFit gym and never looked back. And in the meantime, yeah. Lou Fratto: Nice. Keith: Well, you know it's never too late. It's never too late. Emily: In the meantime, I became a CrossFit competitor and did that for about 10 years. And then I retired as a competitor and became a mom. And now I fulfill my competitive desire with pickleball. Keith: so I was gonna save that conversation for the end, but you jumped the gun on me, but we'll come back to it. Lou Fratto: Pickle ball Emily: Well, it made me think of it because I've been told you have to pick what your midlife crisis is. It's either pickleball, jui jitsu, Hyrox or marathons. Lou Fratto: Right. Bu buying a buying a convertible Corvette. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. All right. We'll save that for the end because we're gonna do rapid fire questions and we'll come back to the pickleball situation at the end. So Emily: Mm. Mm. Keith: all right. like I said, this is the first episode of season two. We're gonna start to have guests on and expand not only the audience but the the focus of stuff we talk about. So let's get right into it. So Emily, you and I go way back, pretty far back, and Lou. you guys have never met. So Lou, Lou Fratto: Right. Emily: Okay. Keith: I'm gonna give you the honor of asking the first question to the first guest on the first episode of season two of the Thrive AF podcast. So I hope you have something good teed up and ready to go. So Lou Fratto: Nice. No pressure. Emily: Yeah. Lou Fratto: well actually you kind of you kind of asked it briefly but but I don't I didn't hear if if Emily answered it or not, so I'm just gonna repeat it. But first I wanna s I wanna thank you personally for being brave enough to be the first guest on our podcast. So I really appreciate that. And I've heard just enough about you to really be intrigued and I can't wait to learn more. So thank you so much. you know, Emily: Thank you. Lou Fratto: I know you must be I I think he said you have some young kids, right? So how how old are your kids, if if you don't mind saying Emily: Yeah, so I have Lou Fratto: Yeah. Emily: a daughter that's six, she's almost seven, and a son that's five. So they're in first grade and kindergarten. Lou Fratto: Wow. So I r I just had one child and I remember when she was that age we were like super busy. So the fact that you can carve out this time and you must be even busier, Emily: Thank Lou Fratto: I t totally appreciate it. Emily: You know, life is always busy, but you make time for what's important. Lou Fratto: Exactly. Well what I would ask you would be how does it feel to be the first guest on Thrive A/F? Emily: It feels amazing. As we've mentioned, I've accomplished a lot in the past decade or two. But in the last six, seven, eight years, I haven't done many competitive endeavors. So sometimes it can feel like you're irrelevant because you're not doing anything that thousands of people are interested in, but you're still doing important things. Lou Fratto: Right. Emily: I feel honored that Keith, you know, looked to me as the first. Lou Fratto: Yeah, that's really cool. Keith: absolutely. So I guess one of the things I want to talk about, or I want to ask you about, is because of your your experience with CrossFit. You've been in the game for a long time and literally at the games as well. And we've been partners, business partners for a while. but I would like to know if you can talk a little bit about how you have seen this the business and the sport of CrossFit kind of evolve over time and how you and Ben have have seen that reflected in the way that the vision for terminus in particular has kind of evolved. And before you answer, we probably should mention that you are married to Ben Benson, Emily: You Lou Fratto: Mm-hmm. Keith: who is another partner at CrossFit Terminus and head coach. So we probably should cover that at the beginning, but yeah. Emily: Yes. So I started CrossFit in 2010. My husband started long before, not long before that, but he started in about 2007. So pretty early on from a CrossFit perspective, when I started in 2010, not many people knew what it was. You know, I told people I'm doing CrossFit and you had to thoroughly explain what that was. And it wasn't until... Probably 2013, which is when we opened Terminus, that they had the big Reebok commercials on TV. And I feel like that's when CrossFit really blew up. And if you were wearing CrossFit Nano shoes, people pretty much assumed you did CrossFit. And majority of people at least had heard of it or knew what it was between 2013 and 2015. I think around that time, most people, or like 2014, 2015, that's when some people started seeing it on ESPN as a sport. But people didn't necessarily know what happened inside of the gym walls. So I feel like for a while, it brought in more people to CrossFit, we always battled, but you don't have to be a competitor to do this thing. Every day people do it to get stronger and be more capable and be fit for life. From the business side, I think in 2018, the CrossFit Games got rid of the media team and a lot of people felt like CrossFit as an entity took a hit because of that. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. over time, it became this... this, like, I would say between when I started in 2010 to at least 2013, it was like this niche, very hardcore kind of misfits came into the gym and found their place. Yeah, Keith: Like me. Emily: like they Lou Fratto: Mm-hmm. Emily: found their place where they belonged, but they may not have done sports in the past or they may have. But over time, as more CrossFit gyms opened up and it became more of a business, I think The idea was how do we make this more inclusive? And so Keith: Yeah. Emily: finding ways to, you know, attract somebody that to where it wasn't such an intimidating thing. Keith: Yeah, I think that's a great point. And like because I'm basically a client as well as an owner, I've experienced kind of both sides of it. So I know that you and Ben have been pretty intentional about the way that we have evolved our approach to the programming and just the attitude and like you said, the inclusivity that we want to build into the community. because I think a lot of people, you know. in the earlier days were intimidated or they had a kind of a point of view about, like you said, what happens inside the gym that wasn't really realistic. But you guys have been pretty intentional about driving towards a vision that I think is is like more people can actually understand and align with. Like we're not just training for competition. We're trying to train our athletes to be better at life and better in the world, right? Emily: Yeah, it's a, mean, honestly, it's been a difficult balance because we've wanted to stay pretty true to the CrossFit methodology because we feel pretty strongly that that's, you know, one of the best ways to get fit. But when you see higher level skill movements, it's hard to explain to people like, you know, you don't have to do handstand pushups to improve your overhead shoulder stability. You know, we can, Keith: Mm-hmm. Emily: we can, there are other ways to work on this skill that's not going to put you at risk. So yeah, just kind of making sure that we still cater to the high level people who want to be competitive or not competitive, but competitive with their friends in class. But also bringing people in that are in their 40s, 50s, even 60s that have no interest in competing with the person next to them, but they want to be. They want to have the strength and mobility and range of motion to do everyday tasks for the rest of their life. Lou Fratto: Cool. That's thrive. Right? So Emily: Yeah. Lou Fratto: my first thought was you know, I I sometimes hear the stereotype of, you know, CrossFit you you you get hurt there, you know, you can you can definitely get injured and there's people who don't try it because they're afraid they're gonna get hurt. and I would maybe guess that the older you are, maybe that fear might creep in a little bit more. Is it what are some of the ways that you guys kind of mitigate those risks and kind of help people maybe ease into it or or change the way that they work out or Or what have you. Emily: Yeah, I mean, it is definitely something that we've battled over the years. I'll say like in 15, 16 years of coaching, there have been very few acute injuries. Back in the day, we would see box jump injuries a good bit because we used wooden boxes. We don't use wooden boxes anymore. So we don't really have box jump injuries anymore. That was an easy fix. I don't know why we didn't do it sooner. Lou Fratto: Hm. Yeah. The shins The Shin, right? Keith: Thank goodness. I I was one of the victims, so Emily: Like beyond that, I dislocated my ankle in competition, and Lou Fratto: Alright. Emily: you know, I've seen an elbow injury on a snatch, really the only thing we see are like overuse injuries that maybe would have happened regardless of whether they were doing CrossFit or not. You know, we still get people that say, I woke up out of my sleep and my shoulder hurts now, or. you know, I turned my neck in the car and now my neck hurts, you know. So I don't feel like we have a significantly higher risk of injury than people just living a life whether they do CrossFit or not. Lou Fratto: Fair enough. Good. Keith: Why do I feel like every time you bring up an injury, it's like that you're talking about me? Because I think I've done both of those. I'm like, hmm. You know, I I'd like to Emily: Nah, thank you. Keith: drill down a little bit on something you mentioned there. the fact that you had an ankle injury. And I mean, I'm sure that wasn't the only maybe I'm wrong, but the only injury or setback that you've had during your career. So maybe talk a little bit about how you handle the Both the mental and the physical aspects of recovery. Cause one of the things Lou and I have been talking about in the context of this podcast is the importance of recovery and how people well, I'm gonna make generalizations, but recovery is not necessarily something that people take as seriously as training. So can you talk about that a little bit, your personal experience? Emily: Yeah, so when I guess the end of my career as a gymnast, I had a compression fracture in my back. So I was kind of told like I would never run, I would never lift weights again type thing. So the whole idea of me starting CrossFit was to like kind of prove that that was untrue. So in the beginning, I had to build up slowly and strengthen my back and make sure it was. an appropriate thing for me to do. When I was competing, you know, my back would flare up every once in a while. But I think, you know, basically at this point, my like T 10, 11 and 12 are naturally fused. I didn't have surgery or anything. But I do feel like it leaves my like upper back and my lower back a little bit more susceptible to getting tight. With that being said, when I competed, I was very good with recovery. I got a massage every two weeks. I went to physical therapy probably every two weeks as well. I would have people come into the gym if it was more convenient to work on me there. would, you know, I didn't have kids. slept, my sleep was much better than it is now. So I did, you know, I had. Normatec sleeves I had I one of my sponsors was the mark pro back then so I put the mark pro on whenever I could Yeah, it's like a kind of a tens unit that increases blood flow. So What else was big back then I don't think we did like saunas back then Keith: Cold plunges. Emily: I mean I had this like red light that is I I it's probably worth like $8,000 and we would like do it on my knees in between events at competitions I had a Lou Fratto: cutting edge. Emily: lot of people kind of like giving me things that were really nice tools to help recover. And still, that was probably my number one issue in comparison to my competitors was how I recovered from day to day. we'll never know exactly, but I never took any performance enhancing drugs and maybe they did. And that was the difference. recovery was like that basically was the sport of CrossFit was how do you recover in between events? How do you recover in between days? Because you were trying to do these high intensity workouts. 15 events over the course of three or four days. But now that I'm done competing, I do CrossFit as a recreational activity to keep me fit. Recovery looks different and different in the way that like I'm allowed to listen to my body a lot more than I did when I was a competitor. I'm not, I don't have to do a workout in order to earn money. I still try to do a terminus workout. four or five days a week. I walk my dog twice a day. I still do prioritize sleep as much as I can. My kids are much better now that they're six and five. We're in a good stage now where they sleep most of the time like normal people. Keith: Yeah. Emily: recovery is never gonna be as good as when you were a professional athlete and prioritizing. Keith: Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting like Emily: it 100%. Keith: take, I guess, is that you had this really strong background in recovery because of the rigors of what you were doing from a competition perspective. And you've kind of now transitioned to still making it a big priority for yourself. But the, you know, the I guess the requirements have kind of changed a little bit based on the fact that you're not. training to compete, you're just training to stay fit, keep fit and and continue on like doing what you do in a healthy way. Emily: Yeah, yeah, I would just say like now recovery and training just looks a lot more balanced. When I was training and pushing my body to extreme limits of how do I get as strong as I can and as fast as I can, mentally Keith: Mm-hmm. Emily: I was I was not very well. Like I had a lot of anxiety. I would have panic attacks because I think my central nervous system was just always on high alert. So now I feel much more balanced in terms of that aspect mentally, because I have like physically I'm still very fit, but I'm not pushing my body to the absolute limit every day. Lou Fratto: Yeah, what I what I picked up on is that sounds like back when you were in your competition days, you know, you had several professionals that you could rely upon. You had all this technology that you could rely upon and and also youth and just gutting it out. And now it sounds like you had to you've had to do more lifestyle changes to to recover properly in between, right? Emily: Yeah, and yeah, there's an aspect where like, I mean, I used to pretty much train twice a day most days with a nap in between. And, you know, I obviously coached a good bit as well. But now, like, there's no chance that I'm doing that. I'm training twice a day. mean, Lou Fratto: Ha ha ha. Emily: unless somebody like, you know, asked me to go on a trail run or something, and then I still wanted to get it. I don't know. Like, it's one workout a day now. Lou Fratto: Yeah. And no naps. Emily: And yeah, yeah, a very rare nap. Yeah, yeah. Keith: Well, yeah, something to look forward to there when they get older. At least you have the opportunity. The problem is as you get older it becomes harder to nap and harder to sleep in general. So, you know, it's a balance. Emily: Yeah, I've already experienced that, the harder to sleep at night, but, you know, I still try hard. Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Ex Except for those unwanted naps that come when you don't want you know, those those occur more frequently. You know, you're just like, you know. Keith: Yeah, when you're talking to people. Lou Fratto: My wife swears that I'm narcoleptic. I'm like, no, I'm just constantly sleep deprived. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. I fell asleep in an MRI machine once when I w when my kids were little. Yeah. They were like, Mr. Calleja you need to stay awake because I was like jerking. Lou Fratto: Nice. With that banging. Emily: That's impressive. Lou Fratto: Mr. Mr. Calleja Emily: Yeah, that's... Keith: Yeah, right. no, that's really good. Well, that I mean, we we use the concept of levers on this podcast to talk about different things. And these were part of Lou's book, which is what we based kind of the podcast on. So we've already talked about mindset was one of them, exercise and movement, obviously. but another one that we focus on, this was one of our most popular episodes, we talked about nutrition. So I would love to hear from you. what your I guess your your mindset is on nutrition and how has that changed as well. You talked about kind of these phases of your life and you competitive athlete, competitive gymnast, etc. Now mom, you know, and and other things. How Emily: Yeah. Keith: how has nutrition factored into that and how has your outlook on it changed? Emily: Yeah, so coming from a gymnastics background, nutrition was not great. Gymnastics, you know, a sport very well known for eating disorders. Luckily, I feel like my home life, my parents gave us a pretty like good background with eating. But looking back, especially when I went to college and I was making many more choices on my own. I could have been much more educated in how to eat more balance for performance, especially eating more food to fuel my performance. It was always like, why can't I make my last pass on my floor routine? Floor routines are only 90 seconds long and the third tumbling pass is so hard because you're hitting that point where you're going from anaerobic training, entering into that aerobic state. But it's very hard around that, like once you pass that 60 second mark to be very powerful going into your third tumbling pass. And I think back and I'm like, if I would have fueled properly, it probably would have been a lot easier. coming off gymnastics, I did not have very good eating habits in terms of like eating three meals a day or just having much consistency at all. I was centered around like, how can I eat less to lose weight or be a smaller person. And then CrossFit really helped me in terms of like looking at working out in a completely different light where I was like, I'm no longer doing something to, like I'm not gonna go on a run just to burn calories. I'm doing this more from the performance side. But it wasn't really until Ben and I started dating that he really helped me like with meals. and learning about, you know, fueling properly with carbs and protein and fats. So generally my approach was when I was competing, getting enough carbs and then just learning more about that, I started counting macros for about two years. And the general approach was like 30 or 40, 30, 30, like 40 % carbs, 30 % fat. 30 % protein. When I was competing, it was more like 50 % carbs and then a little bit lower on the other two. So that's kind of my general approach. Like I'm not big on anything extreme like keto unless it's medically necessary or like intermittent Keith: Lou, Lou, you hear that? Emily: fasting was a big thing. They used to call it like Lou Fratto: Do both. Emily: They used to call it like car back loading. I honestly Keith: Yeah. Emily: like I think I don't think those things are bad. I think it's what you know, whatever, however you feel best. I think especially for women, I don't really think fasting on a regular basis is is good for a female body. But that is not from a scientific approach. It's just based on my own. my own knowledge and my own experience. So now, yeah, I basically think that like 40, 30, 30 approach and there's no set numbers for any person. It kind of depends on your activity level, what's best for each person. Keith: All right, Lou, I'm waiting for you to come back in here and we're gonna have a strong debate 'cause Lou is, you know. Lou Fratto: No, I don't you know what, I I try to really make sure that I'm not militant or v too vigil about anything. and in the book I tried to you know, keep that stance as well. And I've totally agree with you that People respond individually to different diets. You know, it's when when and I like to experiment and try different things. And I think I said this before. When my wife and I tried vegan, I got my blood tested and the cholesterol numbers and everything, and it did nothing to affect that whatsoever. And hers were cut in Emily: Okay. Lou Fratto: half. Sh hers were cut in half. then I went on, yeah, yeah, her cholesterol Emily: Cholesterol for example. Okay. Lou Fratto: and her, you know, bad cholesterol went down, her good cholesterol went Emily: Mm. Lou Fratto: up. Mine did not change at all. I think actually they went up. The total cholesterol went up ten ten points. But then really long story about how I backed into keto and then I just stayed on it because I felt so good for about four months. I said, well, let me stay on it till I get my blood tested and let's just see what happens. And you know, this was eating red meat and everything, and my cholesterol Emily: Mm-hmm. Lou Fratto: was lower than in than it that it had been in ten years. It was, you know, amazing. And I Emily: So yeah. Lou Fratto: just I just feel so much better on it. which is again a a lengthy discussion and br Emily: like energy levels and just joint health. Lou Fratto: My brain works so much better, I have much more energy, and I don't get the I don't get the fog that that I do on other types of diet. So for me it just it's it's great and it just happens to be that I decided to go back on it a few weeks ago. So that's why it's just kind of like a pertinent part Emily: Yeah. Lou Fratto: of our discussion right now is I'm sort of in the throes of getting back into it. So Emily: Yeah. I guess the one other thing I would add in terms of nutrition as this relates to my kids is I saw many people when I was growing up that got things restricted from them, like specifically cookies, candy, that sort of thing, completely restricted because of being in the gymnastics world. And they would come to our house and we were the kind of house that just kind of let the Halloween bowl sit out for like months after Halloween. because we didn't have any restrictions. So we didn't like binge our Halloween candy. So people would come and like raid our cabinets when they came over. And then, yeah, like story after story when I was in college, my mom locked the cabinets. We couldn't get those things. And Keith: Wow. Emily: it always turned into like some kind of binging later on. And so with my kids, I've just tried to make it like not a huge deal. Like if they want a cookie after dinner, they can have a cookie. And if they want a they can have a donut, but they have to eat some kind of protein to make it a meal. I'm not just going to let them have a donut and go off to school. in that approach with my kids, it's kind of helped because it's just not so much of a thing. Like we go to birthday parties now, my kids don't even want a cupcake. So I'm not Lou Fratto: Yeah. Emily: saying I'm an expert. I only have two kids. It's only been two experiments, but it seems to be an approach that could work. Keith: It seems like a healthy way to approach it. And I think, you know, you're maybe you're lucky you had the benefit of seeing, you know, some of the negative aspects of of your own approach to eating when you were you know, a gymnast or when you were training and the benefits of changing those habits. So now you can have that perspective when you think about your kids and maybe like, Emily: Yeah. Keith: you know, Lou, you were saying, try not to be too militant about one way or another, but keep an eye on the underlying Fundamentals that make up like a healthy nutrition plan. Emily: Yeah, like I think that it's like a life skill to be able to like eat one or two Oreos and not eat like the whole sleeve of Oreos. Keith: Mm-hmm. Lou Fratto: man, that is so true. That is hard. Or the the thin mints, the the Girl Scout Emily: You Lou Fratto: Thin Mints Can I eat a whole sleeve? Keith: yeah. You can't answer the door, man, when you see coming. Don't even do it. Emily: okay. know who I'm targeting when Riley becomes a Girl Scout. Lou Fratto: God. Keith: god. Well, you gotta have your discipline. What do we say in the other episode? You gotta have the dis have your discipline at the store, not at home, right? So that's one way to do it. Lou Fratto: And and shoot for eighty twenty, right? Eighty percent of the time make the right decision and but you you answered my other question I was gonna try to fit in today and that was, you know, how do you approach all of this fitness and health and everything with your kids? And I was gonna ask if you're very structured or do you kinda let them do what they're gonna do and you relax and you you kind of answered that, so I I appreciated that. Emily: Yeah, mean, yeah, obviously we have the gym and then we have like a nice setup in our garage. So they see us work out. I definitely appreciate a workout being my own time. So I don't I don't prefer to have them with me when I'm working out all the time. But the fact that they see me sometimes working out, I think that goes a long way. And then if they ever say, I want to jump in, I let them and I slow slow my own workout down and I make sure that that's a priority because you know the main thing is just making movement fun for kids so then they want to do it or I feel like I honestly I feel like because they've like sometimes gotten kicked out of the garage they're like I want to go work out in the garage because it's kind of like I don't always Lou Fratto: Yeah. Emily: get to do that. Keith: Yeah, they always want to get in those places Lou Fratto: Good. Yeah. Keith: that they're not that they're restricted from, right? Just like the food. That's really good. Emily: Yep. But yeah, just trying to model an example of being active, taking walks after dinner, that kind of thing. Lou Fratto: That's awesome. Keith: Well, and I've seen some of the videos of you guys working out in the in the garage together and it's super cute and they are super into it, so Emily: Yeah, it always impresses me because like that probably only happens maybe once a month, you know, and of course, I'll try to get a little snippet of the video. But every Keith: Yeah. Emily: time it's like they've gotten so much more advanced than the last time we've done it. Yeah. Keith: I know. I noticed the same thing. I'm like, these kids, man, I tell you what, they're gonna have some competitors on your hands if if they keep going. That's something I wanted to get, I guess, opinion from both you guys on, because this Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Keith: was a little bit new to me. And it maybe it's just something that I'm noticing, but it kind of opened my eyes doing this podcast and Lou reading your book. we talked a lot about the difference or the different levers and how they relate to longevity. But one of the things that I'm starting to see, or I guess pay attention to everywhere, is the discussion around strength training and the importance of maintaining muscle mass as you get older. And, you know, I'd like to get a little bit of perspective from both of you guys in terms of Emily: you Keith: first, Emily, do you feel like like CrossFit is is CrossFit a good way for people that may not have a strong background in strength training or weight training? to kind of build a you know a proficiency in something that is going to maybe serve them well throughout the rest of your life. And then Lou maybe get your perspective on the same topic, like what are some good entry points and and then also why is it important for us to maybe recap a little bit why it's important for us to maintain muscle mass and strength as we get older. Emily: Yeah, would say CrossFit is one of the only, or I would say CrossFit is one of the best ways that people can be introduced to strength training. And that's because like going into CrossFit, had no experience really with strength training at all, especially not with a barbell. I never picked up a barbell. And the instruction that you get with technique, if you're at a good gym. Keith: Cars. Emily: is pretty unmatched. Lou Fratto: Terminus. Emily: There's women all the time that tell me I need to be doing strength training, but they don't know where to start. So I think CrossFit in terms of group class training does a really good job of breaking down how to lift different kinds of lifts, how to hinge, how to squat, how to press, know, all the basics of how to move your body. And we kind of joke all the time, like we basically will see like we'll train somebody for two to three years and then they're able to kind of just like go to Planet Fitness and do it on their own because we train them how to do it. And so it's almost like a fault of ours that we taught them how to be independent. But it's also cool to see that, you know, we've had members move away to, you know, north of the city or to different states and they just set up a garage gym and they're still doing training. But they're like, you know, we didn't find a gym that felt as good. You know, I want to keep doing what we've been doing. So there will be people that will follow our program for the next few years, even after they move away. Lou Fratto: That's super powerful. And that's actually the same thing about physical therapy too. It's like they come in and I want to, you know, wean them off of the dependence of physical therapy and teach them how to, you know, get them back to where they were and then get back even better than they were and then give the tools to stay there or to take it to the next level, whether that be, you know what, you can go do CrossFit, you know, you're you're healed, you're ready to go. You've been worried about trying it, go try it, you know. So that's that's actually super powerful, that you guys that you guys do that for your Emily: Thank Lou Fratto: For your clients. But you were saying, Keith, just from a general standpoint, I think something that I tried to say in the book is, you know, as we get older, if we don't do Emily: Thank you. Lou Fratto: anything to counteract it, you know, you get weaker every year starting in your mid 30s, you know, and then you know, even further on in the decades, you start to lose muscle mass, you know, and they call it like sarcopenia. And losing muscle mass is bad. Emily: So So Lou Fratto: In many ways, you know, for you. Obviously you get weaker and you lose function, you know, simple things if you don't do anything to r to reverse it, like getting out of a chair or getting off of a commode is becomes difficult. but also muscle makes the best padding for God forbid if you fall. You know, so if you're eighty-two and you have some muscle on you because you've been going the CrossFit or working out or whatever, and you fall. Muscle is the best padding to keep you from fracturing a hip or some kind of fracture that may end you up in the hospital and turn into a real disaster. You know. Not to mention Emily: Yeah. Lou Fratto: muscle has been now tied to energy levels and your immune system. So it's super important. It just gets a little tricky as we, you know, with each decade because you know you start to pile up some injuries and aches and pains and stuff like that. But but I believe completely That it's never too late to start strength training, and that you sh we should always just keep it going. I mean, it's super important. Emily: Yeah, I feel like when I was in my 20s and even my early 30s, women would kind of like look to me doing this like really heavy strength training. and be like, that's like crazy. like they were intrigued. It was more of like, wow, like that's really heavy. But now people are, you know, between 35 and a little over 40, they're like, what are you doing for strength training? I need to be, I need to be doing something. My body's changing. My body's starting to hurt. My joints are hurting. And I'm like, yeah, this is the, like, you need to be starting now because it's, you know, you're only going to be losing muscle mass each year if you don't start now. But obviously I try to say that in encouraging way, but it seems like it went from this place of like admiration slash you're a little bit crazy to now almost like I need help, you know? Lou Fratto: Right. It it's good that it's sorry, Keith, go ahead. I was just gonna Keith: Yeah. I no, please, you go ahead, Lou. Lou Fratto: say it's good that it's becoming more mainstream and more acceptable, you know? And it's kind of like in my view, where there's there's two extremes. There's like and and we're talking older generations that either have the people that get into something too aggressively with too much enthusiasm and or they do something too vigorously and they hurt themselves. and but there's also the other side. There's so many people who aren't working themselves or challenging themselves enough. You know, so there's both sides of the Emily: Yeah, Lou Fratto: sp Spectrum, you know. Emily: yeah, do think like there's a lot of I feel like a lot that we battle with information that's on social media these days of what's what's the best thing to take and the introduction of peptide and glp1s and all this stuff, but I do feel like the message of We need strength training as we age is starting to get across which is good Keith: Yeah, I think that that was kind of what made me think Emily: you Keith: of this is that I'm seeing it a lot more. And again, maybe I'm just paying more attention to it, but it seems to be coming almost conventional wisdom. And I Emily: Yeah. Keith: think the other thing you you briefly brought up there was GLP ones. And I know Lou, we've talked about this just a little bit on the podcast before, but it seems like one of the common issues there is that part of going on a GLP one is that you can experience muscle loss as you're losing weight. So it seems like again, almost like common advice now, I would, you know, if you're on a GLP one, you should think about Emily: you Keith: doing some sort of strength training to make sure that you're not losing muscle mass. you know, as it's affecting Emily: Yeah. Keith: you because it's like and, you know, Emily, you're our first guest. You're also the first woman that we've had on this show. So Lou Fratto: Yeah. Emily: Yeah, yeah. Keith: I mean, if you have any thoughts about particularly for women, the importance of strength training. Emily: I mean, I'm currently personal training a handful of people that are on GLP-1's I mean, obviously I've definitely recommended that they continue strength training while they're on it. There's certain people that have seen huge benefits with blood work and all kinds of things. But one thing I will say is we bring like the DEXA Truck to the gym two or three times a year. And obviously it gives like percentage of... lean mass and fat mass, but also gives bone density and your risk for osteoporosis. If I could go back with a few people, I would definitely want like a baseline DEXA scan just to number one, it's like a motivation tactic to see how much percentage fat mass you're losing or how much lean mass you've added. But I think it's really good for people to know if they are losing muscle mass. have the data right there. And I don't know if people know how easy it is to get a Dexa Scan because I literally just bring this truck to our gym and you can pay $75 to get it done. So I don't know if the access is like that everywhere, but this company that we've been working with is fairly very easy, very simple. Keith: Yeah. Please. Lou Fratto: Can I chime in on this, Keith? That that's that's amazing that you have that truck. We don't I as far as I know, we don't have that down here. And I've done a couple searches for DEXA scans just in my immediate area over the last I would say year and a half and nothing really comes up that that is convenient and you know where they have a broad Emily: Yeah. Lou Fratto: schedule that you can go to. So that's really cool that you guys have a truck that comes by. Emily: Yeah, I mean, basically I just emailed the company. like, can you come on this day from eight to five? And they're like, cool, we'll be there. And then, yeah. So yeah. Lou Fratto: That's beautiful. Keith: Yeah. I did it. Yeah, actually I I Lou Fratto: Wow. Keith: just came across my DEXA scan from a couple years ago. And just as a little preview, I also bought one of those, I guess, metabolic scales, the at home scales that can do Emily: Mm-hmm. Keith: some of the it's not exactly the same, obviously, but I want to take that DEXA scan from a few years ago and compare it to some of the stuff that I'm being getting, or maybe even go back. I we have DEXA coming pretty soon. Then go back and get another scan and see if anything's changed. I mean, hopefully I'm taking my own advice and actually doing things that we're talking about in this podcast has been helpful, but maybe Emily: Yeah, yeah. I mean, Lou Fratto: Yeah. Emily: I just do it like once every two or three years or something, but I did it when Keith: Yeah. Emily: I was still competing and then I did it like right after I had my first child. I don't know why I did that to myself, but... And then I did it a few years later and then I did it recently like in the spring. And to me, the main number that was cool to see is like my bone density numbers are like off the charts. So I'm like, okay, well... No matter what my body composition is right now, like that is the most important number in my opinion. That and like visceral fat, you can see the fat around your organs, which is what you don't want. Yeah. Keith: I was gonna say, yeah. Some it's better to know though. I mean, you know, like if you have the opportunity, you have the ability to actually get some of those baseline metrics, especially like you said, Emily, if you're starting a new program or if you're starting a new medication or something, at least you kind of know where you started. And like Lou, we did a whole episode on technology and tracking and you know, the the balance between tracking too much, but also, you know, a lack of information can can be just as damaging. So it's like finding that balance just like in everything else. But the that's a really good I think a really good way to start, especially if you're gonna, like you said, start something new. So cool. All right. So we've been talking a while. but it's been a really good conversation. So I did want to say Emily, you're you're actually on the on the lower end of our demographic. When we think about, you know, the podcast is called Thrive After Forty. Emily: Yes, I know I'll be Lou Fratto: Ha ha Emily: 40 next year though. Keith: Yeah, then you can start listening and we'll have you back. now. I I I guess for me, like final question would be longevity is one of the things that you know Blue's book is about and it's a topic that is coming up a lot more. and be honest, is that something that you think about approaching 40? Like and has it changed the way obviously you've changed your training based on where you are in life, but Emily: Yeah. Keith: I'm just curious if have you started thinking about a longer like life health span as well as life span? Emily: Yeah, no, it's definitely something I think about. mean, I, you know, even in college, I took like exercise and aging. I took, you know, I took all these exercise science classes and I did internships with this woman that did all this testing for basically aging adults. She'd take a sponge and see how high you could reach on a wall and she would make them pick up these things that resembled grocery bags. Anyway, it's always been something that I've been intrigued with. So. I would say where it affects me personally is like arthritis, the most. The orthopedic doctor that I go to happens to also see my dad, so he knows that my knees look like they've aged more than even my dad's knees. So basically knowing that I need to have strength training in place to protect my joints, number one. But yeah, like just seeing, you know, grandparents as they age and I mean, honestly, I don't see it much in our members because they're doing what they need to be doing. you know, my husband and I are now at the point where like our parents are aging. So just knowing that. I might want to approach it a little bit differently for my future. Yeah, Keith: Yeah, but your parents are still pretty darn fit though, right? Emily: yeah, my parents are fit. My dad, well, my dad has been doing CrossFit until maybe six months ago. He's had a little bit of a back injury to work around, but he also plays tennis and is active. My mom does jazzercise. She actually got a hip replacement this year. She's come back very well. I have always encouraged her to do more strength training and and I still wish that she would, but I think that anything that you do is better than nothing. doesn't have to be a perfect recipe. It doesn't have to be exactly what I think it should be either. Keith: Lou, she's speaking your language, man. This is exactly Lou Fratto: I know, man. Totally. Emily: So yeah, my parents are aging well. Yeah. Keith: That's great. Cool. All right, Lou, did you have anything, sort of a final question you wanted to ask before we go into a couple couple segments to close it out? Lou Fratto: Yes, final question. so what is Keith like in the CrossFit Gym? Specifically, is is he the this old gray alpha male, w wise alpha male that he likes to portray himself as or Keith: I can't believe you have you have Emily: I feel like everybody respects Keith like because he he can do more Lou Fratto: Beautiful. Emily: strict He can do more strict pull-ups than majority of people in the gym But I feel like there's been this banter Lou Fratto: Nice. Keith: Right. Grip, strength. Emily: There's only been this banter that started like the last two years of kind of like referring to you as the old man a little bit Lou Fratto: Yeah. Emily: I Don't even know how old you are Keith Keith: Onk, they call me Unk. Lou Fratto: That's great. Cool. Keith: You don't know how old I am? The secret, Lou and I are well almost the same age. I'm fifty six. Yeah. Lou is older than me. Emily: No. Okay. Lou Fratto: We we met f forty years ago. Keith: Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Emily: Wow. At Lou Fratto: So we met b Emily: University of Florida? Lou Fratto: before y so we're we've known each other longer than you were even born, you know. crazy. Emily: Whoops. Lou Fratto: man, that's that's that's crazy. Keith: Yeah. That's boy, what a place to end up. Emily: Mmm. Keith: And the UFUGA, you know, I mean, and we're Emily: Look. I know. Keith: able to coexist here, have this nice conversation. It's beautiful. I love it. Emily: I know, there's more of you Florida people here in Atlanta than you would think. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: Yeah, well. I met like played volleyball last night and was subbing in on a team of people that I didn't know that well. One of them turned out to be a gator and then somebody on the other side of the court was like, You guys are gators, so am I. So yeah, the migration continues. Yeah, indeed. Lou Fratto: Gator Nation. Yeah. Keith: All right. Emily: Yeah, I mean, it's as long as it's not Alabama, we'll accept it. Keith: Fair enough. I'll take it. I mean, I'm outnumbered in my own house. You know, I got Dana and and Lou Fratto: Totally agree. Wait. Keith: you know, Will, and so I'm over it. All right. I want to do some rapid fire questions. And since Lou, you you sh surprised me with a a a question about me to Emily, I'm gonna give these rapid fire questions to both of you. So y'all are gonna have to give both give me answers. All right, ready? Lou Fratto: jeez. All right. Keith: All right, Emily, you're gonna go first and then Lou Lou, you go second. All right. your go-to healthy snack or meal. Emily: Tacos. Keith: All right. Lou Fratto: Pizza? No. Nuts, nuts, I guess. Keith: That's Emily: I'll say like a meat stick. Keith: No wow. Wow. A gas station meat stick. Lou Fratto: Beef jerky. Emily: No, like a healthy-ish meat stick. Lou Fratto: Wait, slim Keith: a paleo, yeah, snap into a Slim Jim I said healthy. Lou Fratto: Jim. Slim Jim. Keith: All right, okay. what is your favorite guilty pleasure food? Emily: Ice cream. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Ice cream, especially chocolate, anything chocolate really. Keith: Alright. Hyrox Have you tried it? Would you ever try it? Do you believe the hype? Emily: I've done one. I've signed up for two. got hurt before the second one. I'll do it again when it comes back to Atlanta in April. Lou Fratto: I know just a little bit about it, but enough about it to be intrigued and it has crossed my mind, like, hm, maybe maybe I wanna try that, but haven't tried it yet. Keith: Okay, we'll come back to it. favorite gym movement or lift and least favorite? Emily: Push jerk or ring muscle up. Keith: Those are your favorites? Alright. Yeah. Emily: Yes. Now Lee's favorite, wall ball shot Keith: Okay. Emily: or deadlift. Keith: All right. Lou, what you got? Lou Fratto: I seem to I love working my core for some reason because a lot of it, you know, I'm laying down so I feel like I'm kinda semi-resting. and I hate, I absolutely hate, I do but I hate pull-ups. Man, I just they burn and I just I I hate the burn. But but I do Emily: I love a pull-up. Keith: All right. Gotta f gotta fight through it. All right, I told you we were gonna come back to this. Pickleball or tennis. Emily: Pickleball Keith: Now you used to play tennis. Emily: like both, but pickleball is so much more efficient. It only takes an hour or less. Keith: All right. Lou, do you have a preference? Lou Fratto: That's a good point. I like both really, but I have to say when we first tried Pickleball several years ago, I was really surprised at how fun it is. I did not think it was gonna be that fun, and it is really fun. Keith: Okay. Now this is gonna bring back some controversy from one of our old shout outs on a previous episode where we said tennis was the best longevity sport, and that Lou Fratto: Bah. Keith: stirred up a whole hornet's nest of debate. Emily: actually love tennis too. It's just more of my like, when I'm an empty nester, I want to get good at tennis. I know this was supposed to be rapid fire. I'm totally failing at rapid fire. Keith: No, too late. You gave your answer, Emily. She's trying to walk it back. You can't walk it back. That's why it's rapid fire. Yeah. I'm gonna have to cut you off. Lou Fratto: Cut, cut, Keith: I need that I need Lou Fratto: cut. Keith: I need that my I that red button. Emily: You Keith: Shut your mic off. Lou Fratto: Gone gone. Keith: All right. And the last and most difficult question. Prediction for the Georgia Florida game this year, which is being played in Atlanta. Emily: Georgia 48 to 31. Lou Fratto: Florida thirty six to twenty one. Keith: Wow. Okay. Emily: You Keith: Mark it down, folks. I'm not even gonna give mine. Emily: I know nothing Keith: Yeah, we'll see. Emily: about Florida football right now, so. Keith: No, we barely know anything either. I mean, we play two games and we haven't really Yeah. Right. Lou Fratto: man. Yep. Brand new coach, everything. We just at least we have some hope. That's the good thing, but Emily: So there's no way they're going to score 31 points then. Keith: Right. Ooh dang. Well we're gonna have to come back to this. You're not going to the game, are you, Emily? Emily: No, sadly. Lou Fratto: Are you Keith? Keith: no. No, but I no, it's it they're renovating Jacksonville, so it's in the Benz. No, it's at the Benz. And then next year it's Emily: is that Samford? OK. OK. OK. Keith: in Tampa and Tampa Stadium. So yeah. Lou Fratto: So is it in Atlanta? Emily: Well, let's find tickets then. Yeah. Lou Fratto: you gotta go, man. Keith: Yeah, dude. They got too much going on. I'm busy Lou Fratto: Just don't get Keith: mad, Lou. Lou Fratto: don't get in any fights like you like you used to Keith: No. Me. Emily: Like you used to. Keith: Come on, bro. Lou Fratto: No, he was the last person to fight. But I do have to say, I made a conscious decision not to go back to the Florida Georgia game in Jacksonville because at the landing, the last time I went, I think I was like Emily: my god. Lou Fratto: twenty seven or something, and we were with a Emily: That's too old to be there. Lou Fratto: Exactly. We're with a group of guys and you know, yeah, probably had a little too w too many things to drink. And one of the guys pick that w that was with my group that I barely knew picked a fight with some other and you know, we almost got into a fight. Thank God it didn't happen and people split everybody apart and I just remember going, I can't I'm too old for this, you know, what the heck? So I I haven't been back and it's been kinda no, man. Emily: Yeah. went to Georgia, Keith: But now you're a jujitsu master, come on bro. Emily: Florida, like six years in a row during my college years and I haven't been back since then because it was always just like, Lou Fratto: Yeah. Right. Emily: I think it only needed to exist during those years. Yes. Lou Fratto: Yeah, like happy we survived it and yeah. Keith: Yeah. I would go I would go here or I I actually was talking to somebody already planning on trying to get tickets for when it's in Tampa Stadium because I have some friends down there with connections. So I would definitely Emily: Yeah. Keith: go to that. I think I went to the one was it was in Sanford Stadium one year, right? I think we were living up here and we Emily: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Keith: won, I believe. But just throw that in there. all right, cool. Well that was fantastic. Thank you guys for sitting through Lou Fratto: No, that's good. Keith: the through the rapid fire questions. Emily, do you have anything that you would like to plug? stuff you're doing or interesting things happening? Emily: I'm not really selling anything online right now, but if you're in Atlanta, obviously check out CrossFit Terminus if you're in Savannah. We also own a gym called Victory Gym. I'm working on a gymnastics grip right now, but I don't need to release that yet because it's still in process. Keith: What about your summer camp for adults? Emily: yeah, so I work this fitness camp twice a year called Power Monkey Camp. I actually go there next week, but there's one in the spring and one in the fall. And it's just like a really good way to literally have an adult summer camp away from your real life and into this fake fitness world where you meet friends from all over the world. Keith: I've heard good things about it. I know some of the f folks in the gym. It keeps conflicting with my Lou Fratto: Love that. Wow. Emily: Yeah, super fun. Keith wants to go. Lou Fratto: Wow. Keith: one of my fishing trips that happens in the fall. So Emily: Enough. Lou Fratto: Likely story. Yeah. Keith: I got priorities. Yeah. Emily: Fishing over fitness. Lou Fratto: How long does it how long does it last? Keith: Yeah. Emily: So normally it's a week long, Sunday to Saturday, but the one that I'm doing next week is their first experimental long weekend, so it's gonna be Thursday to Sunday. Yeah. Keith: All right. Well we'll put a link to it in the show notes, on all our platforms so that people can check it out if they want to. So Emily: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Keith: All right. Well, I guess Lou, the only thing left to do, first of all is to thank Emily for being here. Really appreciate Lou Fratto: Yes. Keith: it. First guest. I mean, Emily: Yeah, thanks for having me. Lou Fratto: Thank you so much. Keith: yeah, we're we're just really excited and what a great kickoff for season two Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: of the podcast. Nowhere to go but up. So thanks again for being here. Huh? No, I was gonna close Lou Fratto: hey. Go, go ahead. Keith: things out and go into the sign off, but you go ahead. Lou Fratto: real quick, we the shark fighter has agreed to be our next guest, so. Keith: Yes. So Emily, you don't know this, but in one of our previous Emily: Okay. Keith: episodes, we brought up a short, a very short version of a story of one of Lou's friends who had a close encounter with a shark and while scuba diving. And we've but we've talked about him Emily: my gosh. Keith: multiple times. Doug, the mysterious Doug is gonna join us for next episode. So hopefully. Emily: That's terrifying. I one time swam with sharks. That was the scariest thing I've ever done. Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: He he literally had to fight the shark off. And he and he he managed Keith: So yeah. Emily: my gosh. Lou Fratto: to keep all of his limbs, so Emily: Yeah, that's impressive. Keith: Yeah. So you're lucky you came on first because that's gonna be Yeah. Emily: Yeah, that's gonna top everyone. Keith: We could all right guys. Emily: I read this book last night with Jet that was like sea creature versus sea creature. you had to like see who, anyway, was like lots of animals. But then there's a winner at the end of the book and it was the saltwater crocodile that won out over the sharks. So now then Lou Fratto: Whoa well. Keith: Really? Emily: you got to find somebody that's fought off a crocodile. Lou Fratto: Yeah, well I do have a great Gator story, but we'll save that for another time. Not not involving me, but Keith: Yeah. Did they do the squid versus sperm whale fight in the book? The classic. Emily: Yeah, there was a lot of the squids with like the venom. Yeah, yeah, it was a pretty cool book, actually. Lou Fratto: Nice. An ink. Keith: That was my favorite when I was a kid. I always wanted the squid to win, but apparently sperm whales eat a lot more squids than squids. What? No. This book is not scientifically accurate, obviously. Emily: No, I think the squid won against the orca. Yeah. Keith: So Emily: Ben said the same thing. Lou Fratto: AI. Had to been AI. Keith: what is this some kind of woke squid lobby? Lou Fratto: AI wrote it. Keith: man, this has been so fun. Thanks again, Emily. Really appreciate it. And you don't know Lou Fratto: It has been fun. Yeah, thank you very much. Emily: You're welcome. Yeah. Keith: either like the the end of every podcast, we struggle to do our sign off correctly. So I wish we would have. Yeah? Lou Fratto: We're gonna get it. Maybe she can Emily: yeah, you better get it right. Need like a three, Lou Fratto: help us. Emily: two, one. Keith: I didn't give her the I didn't give her the script, Lou. So that's true. Lou Fratto: yeah. Well we don't practice it either. Emily: You said, keep challenging yourself, keep something growing Keith: I did. Emily: and thrive A/F. Lou Fratto: Let's leave it at that. Stop. Way to go. Keith: We can't do it any better. That was it. That's the best of the season. Cut. And cut. Thank you guys so much. Really great to see both of you. And Emily, I'll see you soon. And Lou, I will talk to you soon. Lou Fratto: Yeah, that sounds that was great, man. Sounds good. All right. Keith: Yeah. Thanks y'all. Have a great day. Emily: Okay. Keith: Bye