Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / Choose Your Hard: Agency, Resilience, and the Truth About Fitness | With Rithvik Raya

Transcript

Choose Your Hard: Agency, Resilience, and the Truth About Fitness | With Rithvik Raya · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, faithful, Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: my dad, coach Alex van Houten, will help you honor
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  Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: given you. Today you can expect truth from the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: tools from science, and guidance for everyday life. So listen. Closing,
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  Speaker 1: get ready, let's get one percent better today.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Hey there, coach Alex. Here, grace in peace to you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: This episode is a special one. I recently had the
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: opportunities sit down with ritvik Riyah on his show, and
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  Speaker 2: I want you to understand something before you listen. This
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  Speaker 2: kid is fourteen years old and he came prepared not
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: just with surface level questions now just tell me about
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: your book questions. He came with thoughtful, sharp, challenging questions
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  Speaker 2: about suffering, agency, science, fitness and faith, victimhood and what
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  Speaker 2: it means to actually take ownership of your life. And honestly,
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  Speaker 2: it was refreshing because we live in a culture that
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  Speaker 2: often underestimates young people. We assume they can't handle depth.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: We assume that they need entertainment or something. We assume
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  Speaker 2: that everything needs to be simplified, soften or made instantly consumable.
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  Speaker 2: But this conversation reminded me that the next generation is
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  Speaker 2: hungry for something real, not hype, not fake motivation, not
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  Speaker 2: another shortcut truth. They want the truth. And one of
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  Speaker 2: the big themes we kept coming back to was this
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  Speaker 2: life is going to be hard, So you need to
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  Speaker 2: choose your heart. You can choose the heart of discipline
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  Speaker 2: or the heart of regret. You can choose the heart
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  Speaker 2: of training or the heart of slowly losing your capacity.
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  Speaker 2: And you can choose the heart of telling the truth
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  Speaker 2: about your bae. Your habits, and your calling are the
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  Speaker 2: hard of living life like it's just happening to you.
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  Speaker 2: And that is where agency comes in. Agency means that
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  Speaker 2: you're not just a victim of your circumstances. Yeah, something's
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  Speaker 2: happened to you. Yeah, some things are outside of your control,
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  Speaker 2: and yeah some roads are harder than others. But you
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  Speaker 2: still have stewardship, you still have responsibility, You still have
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  Speaker 2: something in front of you that God is asking you
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  Speaker 2: to do with what you've been given. So as you
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  Speaker 2: listen to this conversation, I want you to wrestle with this.
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  Speaker 2: Where have I been waiting for life to get easier
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  Speaker 2: instead of choosing the hard thing God is using to
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  Speaker 2: make me stronger, because growth doesn't come from comfort, it
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  Speaker 2: comes from faithful resistance. And before we jump into this episode,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the first ever Faithful five K Race is coming up
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  Speaker 2: in August. If you're here in Arkansas, you can join
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: us in person, but if you're part of our out
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: of state audience, no worries. You can join us virtually
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: or even explore sponsorship opportunities to support the event in
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: the mission to help people make the most out of
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  Speaker 2: the body God's given them. The links are in the
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  Speaker 2: show notes below. All Right, without further ado, let's dive
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  Speaker 2: into this awesome conversation with Riddick Raya.
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  Speaker 3: All Right, so today's guest is Alex Van Hollen. He's
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  Speaker 3: a pretty unusual mix chemistry degree from Vanderbilt psychology background,
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  Speaker 3: now working in clinical psych PhD territory, but also deep
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  Speaker 3: in fitness coaching and this whole philosophy philosophy around the adaptation,
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  Speaker 3: resilience and what he calls agency. He's built programs, written
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  Speaker 3: a book called Faithful Fitness, created something called spy Fit,
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  Speaker 3: which sounds like military fitness, but it's framed around stress adaptation.
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  Speaker 3: And he's even dealing with Eeler's dan Low syndrome, which
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  Speaker 3: somehow still training and coaching other people through it. Now,
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  Speaker 3: I'll be honest, anytime I hear about framework systems and
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  Speaker 3: branded philosophies, I get a little skeptical because the fitness
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  Speaker 3: world is so full of people who take a basic biology,
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  Speaker 3: slap the name on it, and suddenly it becomes a method.
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  Speaker 3: So I want to understand what's actually real here, what's
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  Speaker 3: personal experience and what holds up under pressure. Let's get
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  Speaker 3: into it, mister van Hollen, great to have you on
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  Speaker 3: the channel.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much, Fritvick. I'm really looking forward to
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  Speaker 2: this conversation.
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  Speaker 3: So start me off with this Eler's Standlows syndrome. Am
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  Speaker 3: I saying that right?
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  Speaker 2: You're saying it right. There's there's a few different people
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  Speaker 2: who say it a few different ways, but Elers Danlos
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  Speaker 2: is usually the accepted method.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so most people hearing that thing like joint flexibility issues.
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  Speaker 3: But I feel like that kind of under sells it.
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  Speaker 3: What does your life actually look like physically day to day?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what's wonderful is you know I'm thirty seven
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  Speaker 2: years old, I've been wrestling with this my entire life.
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  Speaker 2: Genetic disorder means that it's been there since the beginning,
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  Speaker 2: and I wasn't diagnosed until my mid twenties, So something
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  Speaker 2: I was wrestling with but didn't know I was wrestling with. Right,
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  Speaker 2: So when I was diagnosed, life on a regular basis
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  Speaker 2: looked like regular pain. I had migraines all the time,
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  Speaker 2: I had a lot of immune dysfunction issues, gastro intestinal issues,
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  Speaker 2: and I was injured very frequently. Even having a background
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  Speaker 2: in exercise science, I couldn't execute exercise very well without
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  Speaker 2: ending up injured because I didn't I honestly didn't know
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  Speaker 2: what I was dealing with, and my body did not
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  Speaker 2: adapt like the normal human body generally does. Right, And
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  Speaker 2: so fast forward twelve years post diagnosis, that's where I'm
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  Speaker 2: at now. Knowing what I was wrestling with has really
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  Speaker 2: helped me to understand how to make the most out
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  Speaker 2: of the body I've been given, and to work with
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  Speaker 2: it rather than against it, to learn my limits, to
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  Speaker 2: feed myself well, and that's made all the difference. So
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  Speaker 2: on a daily basis now I don't wrestle with nearly
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  Speaker 2: as much pain. Although I do still wrestle with pain,
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  Speaker 2: I don't wrestle with nearly as many immunefficiency symptoms, which
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  Speaker 2: I still have those, but I know how to manage
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  Speaker 2: them a little better. I get a lot more rest
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  Speaker 2: than I used to in my mid twenties, which is
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  Speaker 2: a useful thing. And then I have also adapted both
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  Speaker 2: my work and my life around my training so that
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  Speaker 2: I can spend my joint integrity well and that makes
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  Speaker 2: the most use out of the energy and then the
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  Speaker 2: adaptive ability that I have.
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  Speaker 3: So there was a pre diagnosis though, So like when
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  Speaker 3: you were a child, when you first started to feel
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  Speaker 3: your body sort of fail you, how did your parents react.
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  Speaker 3: Was there a pressure to maybe tough it out, or
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  Speaker 3: was there a sense of fragility, like because I see
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people who's drive today is just an
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  Speaker 3: attempt to prove like their childhood weakness may be wrong.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that's very stuwd of you to notice.
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  Speaker 2: So for me, what it looked like was nobody really
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  Speaker 2: knew what was happening with me, and I was diagnosed
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  Speaker 2: with growing pains, and I was prescribed lots of ibuprofen,
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  Speaker 2: which is not good for your stomach, by the way,
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  Speaker 2: to take that all the time, right, And for my part.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know that that was the wrong diagnosis. So
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  Speaker 2: what I did is I continue to do the things
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  Speaker 2: that I loved, and it brought me onto some a
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  Speaker 2: journey for myself to tough it out. But not because
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  Speaker 2: somebody was telling me to do that, because I didn't
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  Speaker 2: want to sit on the sidelines. I didn't want to
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  Speaker 2: watch everybody enjoy themselves and just be in pain. Well, well,
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  Speaker 2: I couldn't do those things, so I found my ways
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  Speaker 2: to do them.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, So what would you say is the biggest
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  Speaker 3: misconception about you today?
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  Speaker 2: Then I would say that the idea that I'm struggling
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  Speaker 2: with a genetic disorder that requires some sort of pity
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  Speaker 2: or victimhood. And I would say this about most of
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  Speaker 2: the clients that I work with who have chronic diseases
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  Speaker 2: or pains that there's really no way out of. It's
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  Speaker 2: just a matter of making the most of it. What
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  Speaker 2: I would say is I don't want your pity. I
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  Speaker 2: don't want anybody's victim status, because when it comes to
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  Speaker 2: me and my life, this has given my life a
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  Speaker 2: lot of meaning and has also made it really, really
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  Speaker 2: difficult to do normal things that people take for granted
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  Speaker 2: that I don't take for granted. I treat those things
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  Speaker 2: with gratitude, and I have a very deep sense of
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  Speaker 2: how important those things are because I've had to struggle
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  Speaker 2: so much to keep normal in my life.
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  Speaker 3: And I read your book on faithful Fitness, which we
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  Speaker 3: will get into later in the interview. But so in
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  Speaker 3: the book, you talk about your body being a broken system.
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  Speaker 3: But looking at the day, like the world today, it
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  Speaker 3: feels like we're building kind of a broken society on purpose,
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  Speaker 3: Like we're prioritizing safety and comfort above everything else. So
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  Speaker 3: is our obsession with like safe spaces and avoiding discomfort
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  Speaker 3: actually making us biologically incapable of handling reality, Like are
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  Speaker 3: we domesticating ourselves into extinction?
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  Speaker 2: That's very astute of you. Yes, so the I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if we're going to extinction, but this is a
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  Speaker 2: significant problem in the world today, and that's a problem
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  Speaker 2: of abundance. That's in general what I call it, and
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  Speaker 2: in the psychological community, it's something that we're starting to
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  Speaker 2: look at from a scientific perspective. It turns out that
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  Speaker 2: our biological system was built to adapt to difficulty. That's
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  Speaker 2: one of the ways that we survive, and it's a
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  Speaker 2: great system. When you go for a run and you
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  Speaker 2: run out of breath all the way down to the
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  Speaker 2: level of your mitochondria, you enter a hypoxic state. That
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  Speaker 2: means you don't have enough oxygen to keep generating atp
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  Speaker 2: that you need. And so what happens, Well, it triggers
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  Speaker 2: all these different very important adaptations like increased blood flow,
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  Speaker 2: increased lung capacity, stronger heart rate, and even down to
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  Speaker 2: the level of your muscle tissue, you can have more
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  Speaker 2: mitochondria that are generated. And that stress is good because
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  Speaker 2: when you adapt from that, when you grow from that,
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  Speaker 2: now you're more endurable. Now, your heart stronger, Now, your
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  Speaker 2: lungs move more oxygen. Now your muscles are more resilient
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  Speaker 2: on the daily basis. Right, But what happens if I
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  Speaker 2: don't need to run. Let's say I don't need to
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  Speaker 2: run for my food, or I don't need to run
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  Speaker 2: to my school because I can just just rise bus.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly what happens in what actually happens is your biological
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  Speaker 2: system starts degrading over time. There's a very interesting law
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  Speaker 2: in thermodynamics called the second law of thermodynamics that says
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  Speaker 2: entropy always increases in a system. In the biological system.
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  Speaker 2: What that means is, if you're not growing, you are
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  Speaker 2: you are breaking down. If you're not adapting, you are dying.
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  Speaker 2: It's a very it's a it's not immediate, and I'm
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  Speaker 2: not going to say you're gonna die if you don't
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  Speaker 2: go for a run today, but the biological system itself
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  Speaker 2: becomes weaker and less resilient over time. And what that
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  Speaker 2: means for us as society is this, we've been in
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  Speaker 2: a state of abundance for a long time. Not saying
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  Speaker 2: everybody has it great, but even people in the Western
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  Speaker 2: world who are poor by current standards most of the
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: time have everything they need in order to survive. There's
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  Speaker 2: not a lot of stressors that are keeping them physically
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  Speaker 2: active and physically capable, right. And so what that means
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  Speaker 2: for us is, if there's ever a time where we
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  Speaker 2: don't have everything we need, if there's ever a time
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  Speaker 2: where we actually have to struggle through something stressful and painful,
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  Speaker 2: then our bodies might not be resilient enough to stand
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  Speaker 2: up to those things. And for me the in the
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  Speaker 2: fitness world, I think this is an extremely important thing
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  Speaker 2: to address in the fitness community, not just because everybody
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  Speaker 2: should have some sort of six pack abs or whatever.
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  Speaker 2: But that so that we actually are physically and mentally
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  Speaker 2: resilient as a population. And I find that very meaningful work.
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  Speaker 3: I love that idea of resilience. But you have a
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  Speaker 3: condition that could easily justify a life of taking it easy.
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  Speaker 3: So by choosing to train anyway, are you proving that
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  Speaker 3: biology is like kind of just a suggestion, not a
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  Speaker 3: prison sentence, Like if you can do it with a
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  Speaker 3: connective tissue disorder, what's the kind of excuse for the
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  Speaker 3: rest of us?
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  Speaker 2: You know, there isn't one, now, I'm just kidding, so well,
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  Speaker 2: so imagine imagine this. Okay, life is hard, just period.
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  Speaker 2: I take that as a regular truth. Even if even
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  Speaker 2: if you are in an air conditioned space, even if
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  Speaker 2: you have all the food that you need to eat,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: even if you have a great school and parents who
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: love you, life's still hard. You're still going to come
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: up against obstacles and difficulties. Rights that's a truth of life.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, the Buddhists would say that was the only
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  Speaker 2: fundamental reality in life is suffering, and there are other
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  Speaker 2: religious ideas around that as well. But the idea that
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  Speaker 2: life is hard is not going anywhere, And so The
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: question is what kind of hard? If you had the option,
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  Speaker 2: what kind of hard would you choose? Life is going
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  Speaker 2: to be hard, so what kind of hard would you choose?
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  Speaker 2: I would say that that working out and staying in
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  Speaker 2: good shape and eating foods that might not always taste
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  Speaker 2: as great as chocolate chip cookies, that that's hard, right,
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  Speaker 2: That's difficult for me. Making the most out of this
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  Speaker 2: biological hand I've been dealt is not easy. But being depressed,
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  Speaker 2: being addicted to pain medications, being unable to keep up
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  Speaker 2: with my kids, being unable to do the things that
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I love to do, like hiking and fishing and running
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: and laying on a couch somewhere feeling sorry for myself,
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  Speaker 2: that's really hard too. And so for me, I see
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  Speaker 2: it as I get to choose my heart, and choosing
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  Speaker 2: your heart is a very important thing for our personal agency.
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  Speaker 3: And we're going to get into personal and independent agency later,
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  Speaker 3: but right now, I want to talk about, like when
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  Speaker 3: someone builds a hyper logical scientific system to explain life
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  Speaker 3: as you have is because like their early life kind
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of felt chaotic or out of control. Was there a
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  Speaker 3: specific moment where you realize that if you didn't secure
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: or like science, your way out of your situation. You
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: were going to like disappear. Is this a PhD? A
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: pursuit of true?
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  Speaker 2: Fair question? Fair question. Once upon a time it would
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  Speaker 2: have been a pursuit of safety, especially in my earlier,
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  Speaker 2: earlier adulthood, but this has become more of a pursuit
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  Speaker 2: of truth as I have a Are you familiar with
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: adverse childhood events? A scores yes? Yes, Okay, so my
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: A scores A nine out of ten. That means I
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: had lots of adverse childhood events in my early life, right,
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  Speaker 2: And part of learning the science, the biology of psychology
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and the biology of trauma and depression. That that for
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: me was learning how to handle and deal with my
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: early childhood, what it looked like to grow out of
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: those things. And it's difficult in the literature to say
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: this about most people. I am not a licensed therapist.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I'm a psychologist. It's a little bit different, right, But
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  Speaker 2: that said, there was a lot of that. That learning
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  Speaker 2: process for me was about creating safety. But once you're
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: safe in your own body, once you don't need the
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: world to provide you safety anymore, but you're safe in
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  Speaker 2: your own body, then you have the opportunity to decide, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: is pursuing more safety the right way to go, or
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: do I get to use this safety and security to
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: do other things? And so for me, this is more
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: of a pursuit of truth. And I think that was
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: interesting the way you phrased it earlier. If I had
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: to build a scientific system to exist or not disappear,
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  Speaker 2: I think that's very interesting psychology. I don't know if
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: I would have ever articulated that as a young man,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: but I would say that I was determined to find
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: a way, and I found science to be very useful
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: in the process of understanding what was happening and what
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I might be able to do about it.
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  Speaker 3: And going back to your book, you're critical of branded
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: philosophies in the book. Yeah, I feel like you've spent
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: your life creating them. Is that kind of a defense mechanism,
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  Speaker 3: Like are you afraid that if you just admitted, like
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: why you don't know why your body hurts today, then
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  Speaker 3: you'd lose your authority like as a public figure.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe such a fair question. Actually, it has been more
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: a process of defiance and that if you can't beat them,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: to join them. I'll give you an example early In
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: my early in my career as a as a personal trainer,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I got in trained in parks and stuff, but I
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: also got to work for a very large corporation, and
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: in that in that time working for a large corporation,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: my job was to help people reach their health and
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: fitness goals. That's what a personal trainer does. People sign
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: up for a package, and they pay for that out
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: of their their own back pocket, right, and they and
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: they want to see a certain amount of results for
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: what they're paying for. It's completely voluntary, right. At the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: same time, the company that I was working for was
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: not the least bit interested and whether or not my
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: clients reached their goals. They were way more interested in
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: whether or not I was selling all of the things
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  Speaker 2: that the company had to sell, right and so exactly,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: and so for me as a personal trainer, that was
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  Speaker 2: very frustrating to me. I can never quite square the circle.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I couldn't understand. And at one point I actually learned
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: that the fitness industry, at least in the gym chain
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I was a part of, the fitness industry, is not
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: a health and fitness game. Actually, it's a real estate game.
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  Speaker 2: And so and so what actually made the business work.
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  Speaker 2: Where the majority of their profits were actually coming from
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: was whether or not new people signed up for a
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: membership and continued to pay rent on the mortgage of
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: the building and the equipment that the gym had purchased,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And then they were riding the appreciation value of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: business based on the real estate. So they weren't interested
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: in whether or not you lost ten pounds. They were
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: interested in whether or not you paid your gym dues
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  Speaker 2: next month, and whether or not you would recommend your
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: friends come right, and so and so. For me, as
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: a personal trainer, I was deeply frustrated by this because
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: it seemed to me that the company I was working
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: for was not interested in the things that I saw
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: gave my work value. Right. So, coming out from under
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: that umbrella and working with people, I learned that people
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: need a place to work out. And as cynical as
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: you might be about that, when you have a space
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: and you can say, hey, I'm going to the gym today,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: that's actually a very important service to provide in the world,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: a space for people to take care of themselves. Right,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: and so it took me a while in business for myself,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I would say I'm stubborn and hardheaded. So it took
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: me a while in business for myself to understand that
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: the company I had worked for had built something important.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: It was the space for people to practice their health
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and fitness. However, I believe that in the process of
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: doing so, they lost the spirit of what was important,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: which was the reason that people would like a space
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: to take good care of themselves. And so therein I
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: decided that if I were going to continue working in
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: this industry, that I needed to build a brand that
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: did that job better.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so something I would like to ask is
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: you jumped into the fitness industry, but you have a
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: chemistry and psychology background. So let me push on that
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: a little. Do you think most of these other fitness
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: coaches are kind of overestimating how much they actually understand
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: the body at a molecular level?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. Calories in, calories out. You've heard that,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I'm sure, Yeah, yeah, yeah, So the fitness community, we said,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: that's thermodynamics, and unfortunately that's not thermodynamics. Calories in, calories
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: out is simplified thermodynamics. Do you care if I explained
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: it to you and your audi?
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, So we brought up the second law of thermodynamics.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Earlier I actually had to take as a chemical engineer,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I had to take classes in thermodynamics. There's no such
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: thing as calories in and calories out and thermodynamics. What
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: it actually is is g that's Gibbs free energy equals enthalpy.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: That's H minus T times s. T is temperature and
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: S is entropy. That is thermodynamics. And when you take
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Gibbs free energy which is the calories, and entopy which
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: is the calories, and you put them side by side
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and say they're equal, you're assuming that entropy is zero.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: What that means that entropy is always increasing, but entropy
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: is always increasing. And so for a biological system to
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: boil down our nutrition to say all that matters is
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: calories if you're fats because you're eating too much calories
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and not exercising enough, or if you're if you're having
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: trouble growing muscles because you're not eating enough calories and
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you should do more of that, when we boil down
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: our biology to bad science, which is saying, well, let's
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: assume entropy zero, which is never the case. Let's assume
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: entropy zero, and all that matters is calories that's bad science.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And so we are just now we're just now at
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the level of techechnology and the level of understanding that
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: we can start looking at biological systems in a quantitative
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: manner and say, hmm, what is the effect of let's say,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: skittles on the entropy of my body versus the effect
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: of spinach on the entropy of my body? If I
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: have one hundred calories of spinach and one hundred calories
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: of skittles. If thermodynamics is just calories in and calories out,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: then it doesn't matter. Then it doesn't matter. But we
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: know better because a biological system is deeply affected by
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the nutrients that it intakes and the stressors it adapts
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: to in order to manage entropy. Well. And so that said, yes,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the fitness community, and I know that sounded very complicated,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: but that the fitness community one hundred prover simplifies the
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: complexity of the human body in order to make something
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: that's deeply important sound overly simple. And it's confusion to
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: the population.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I've seen a lot of people say like
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: science backed, when what they really mean is like, kind
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: of I read a few papers and I built the system,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: so where do you think you fall on that spectrum?
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I would say I fall firmly in the middle, because
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: when it comes to health and fitness, your program is
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: not actually the most important part of whether or not
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: you see results. So I'll give you an example. When
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I was first in personal training, I thought that if
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I had somebody pay me for my services and I
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: created a very intelligent program for them, then they would
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: just do it and they would see results. And it
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: turned out that most people know what to do in
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: many forms and fashions, but just aren't doing it. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: that's the remsistency, right. So science can teach you how
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: to build a great program. Science can teach you how
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: different nutrients affect the body in different ways. Science can
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: teach you how certain adaptive stressors can affect the body
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: in different ways. But science can't make you do it right.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing. One of the reasons that the
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: fitness industry is so convoluted from a scientific perspective is
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: because a lot of people will believe things will help them,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and as long as they're willing to pay for it,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: the profits keep those things around, right, And so in capitalism,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: if if it earns a dollar that's a vote to
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: keep it around. And so I would say I'm firmly
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: in the middle. I believe the science of things is
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: extremely important. However, why people do things is rarely because
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: it's scientifically important.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and some in like some of your past interviews
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: and some of your other videos on your YouTube channel,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: you mentioned mayakines and hope molecules. Yeah, but specifically, how
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: does skeletal muscle acting as an endocrine organ I believe
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: actually alter the cognitive appraisal in let's say real time.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: Is there a dosage response relationship or are we just
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: talking about a general like runner high with a fancy name.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, this is definitely beyond the runner high. So
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: we've known about the runners high for I want to say,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: over eighty years in the exercise science world, and the
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: runners high in general actually comes from the adrenal glands
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: right on top of the kidneys. When you are in
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: extreme stress, you get a huge hit of epinephrine and
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: nore epinephrin and then later downstream cortisol and this feels
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: good and that's I mean, that's that's useful biologically speaking.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: If you're trying to chase down a mammoth and nobody
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: in the tribes eaten in a while, then well you
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: need that, you need that extra hit so that everybody
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: doesn't die. That's the runners high right. That said, that's
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: very different from from what you just describe, which are
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: mile kinds. And this is a relatively recent area of research.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: We have found that muscles are not just but we
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: used to think they were. They were part of the
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: part of the body that's responsible for movement, that's true,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: but it's also it's also responsible for other things in
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: the body. It turns out that when our muscles contract,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: they also release biochemically active compounds into the bloodstream that
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: talk to different organs in the body. So our muscles
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: communicate at a biochemical level with our body and in
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: those are called myokinds m YO k I n e s.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: So those are the compounds synthesized in the muscle tissue.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Myo meaning muscle kind, meaning active in the in the body.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Kind is actually a really hard word to find because
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: like cytokinds, for instance, are as well. It's a it's
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: a type of molecule. But there's there's over a hundred
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: of them, and we haven't identified what all of them do,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and we still haven't. We haven't solidified whether or not
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: those are created only in the muscle in other places
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: in the body. So the whole molecule you just refer to,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: that's that's something a researcher coined it as. But it's
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: called erisin I R I S I N. And it
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: turns out that if you just inject ursin, it passes
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the blood brain barrier. The overall affective response in the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: mind and body is to say that I feel more
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: hopeful about the future. So it's a little different from
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: a runner's high. A runners high would be like I
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: work my butt off and now I'm just euphoric and excited.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: You know, it's good. It feels good to do that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: And you know there's many a marathon or in the
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: world who exists because they just love the runners high, right,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: But Erison's different. Ierson is I finished a weight training session,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: and before my weight training session, I was looking at
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: this problem that I'm trying to solve and feeling overwhelmed
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: by it. But now that I've finished my weight training session,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at my future and I feel good about it.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure how I'm going to solve the problem,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: but I don't feel so overwhelmed by it anymore. And
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: that's an actual measurable thing we can see in post
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: weight training individuals, likely as a result of arson and
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: maybe a few other my kinds.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's go a little bit deeper than Macro's
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: and weight training. So you talk about agents and movement
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: triggering what you call a chemical shift, including like the myokines,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: ursin and resilience. So explain that to me in a
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: way that's not like motivational branding in a sense, You're
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: gonna have to ask your question differently.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Are you asking what happens in the body when I exercise?
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: So what is the like movement in the what's the
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: chemical shift like in the agency of your argument? Like
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: you mentioned agency and the chemical shifts, so what are those?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: We don't we don't know what creates agency. So let
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: me define agency for you. The idea that I make
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: life happen, not that life happens to me. That's that
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: seems to be an attitude. We don't know where that
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: happens in the brain. We don't know if it happens
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: in the nucleus incumbans. We don't know if it happens
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: in our frontal lobes. We don't know if it happens
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: in our limbic brain in depending on your your spiritual
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I'm an agent in my life. I actually have some
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: sort of control, I actually have some force I can
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I can apply to this situation. Right, Whereas a lack
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: of agency is I'm I don't have any control. Things
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: are happening to me. It doesn't matter what I do.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: It doesn't change the outcome of the future, right, and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: so and so agency we're not sure if there's a
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: chemical shift at all that that creates agency. There's there's
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: not a we haven't found a drug yet that you
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: can inject into somebody's veins who feels overwhelmed and suddenly
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: they're like, Nah, it's good, I got this. It doesn't
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: happen that way and so so from exercise perspective, what
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I would argue is that whatever the shift is, whatever
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: whether it's biochemical, neurological, neuropsychiatric, or even electrochemical, who knows
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: whatever that shift is, when you approach an exercise program
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: and you start to execute it, that shift is evident
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: in the execution, meaning I'm working out nobody's making me
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: do this. Nobody, like, no environmental force has requested that
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I do deadlifts or die. You know, there's no there's
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: no lack of agency in my workout. In fact, it's
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: one of the more difficult things you can do, and
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: one of the things you can come up with all
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: kinds of excuses not to do. And so to approach
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: an exercise program and actually execute it is to create
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: agency in your life. And so and so I don't
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the chemical shift is. I wish
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: we did. That would be a cool thing to measure,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: but but we don't. We don't know what that looks
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: like yet.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: But like in a world of maybe algorithm driven lives,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: does individual agency exist anymore?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I believe. So. I don't think I'd get out of
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: bed if if I didn't. So I'll give you an example.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And actually this is something you can study. So, so,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: if you take a program and you give it to
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: somebody in their phone, tell them that this program was
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: generated for you. You paid your twelve dollars a month.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Here you go, like it was generated for you. We
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: have a very sophisticated AI system. Here you go. If
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: you give them that program, or if you say here
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I worked with you and knowing your body and understanding
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: my exercise program that this is what I've created for you. Right,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the question is which one are they more likely to
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: adhere to? And I've gotten to run this experiment in
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: my own business, which is a lot of fun. And
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: it turns out that if I'm algorithmically driven, if I'm
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: told that the algorithm asked me to do this, versus
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: there is a person on the other end of this
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: who cares to see the results and wants to see
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: me succeed. If if you put those two things together,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: the individual who's given a program by a person adheres
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: to that program of the time, whereas the person whereas
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the person given the algorithm adhars to that program less
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: than ten percent of the time. And I'm talking in
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: terms of twelve weeks or more. Yes, that's a big Yeah,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: it's extremely important. We are not only biological beings, but
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: we're also communal beings. And this is this is this
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: is born out in the exercise science and nutrition literature.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: They took every every diet on the market and compared
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: them to see which one of them actually resulted in
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: weight loss over a two year span. To see what
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: was the best diet and the meta analysis it looked
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: at over seventy eight thousand participants that encompassed over three
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: hundred different ways of dieting, which you know, some of
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: them are branded different brands of the same thing. Right,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: is that the Mediterranean diet or is it the fish
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: only I don't know, but but they took them and
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: found is it actually didn't matter what the diet was.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: There were actually only two things that resulted in success
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: over the long haul. The first thing was whether or
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: not participants had access to a professional they trusted to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: ask questions. That was one, and then the second was
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: do participants have an opportunity to work toward their goals
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: with other like minded individuals. It was coaching, communal sense. Yes,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: community coaching and community. Those were the two things that
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: showed whether or not these diets were successful over two years.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Not whether or not you counted your protein, not whether
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: or not you went carnivore, not whether or not you
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: only ate vegetables. It had everything to do with whether
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: or not you had a coach present and whether or
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: not you had a community to be a part of.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And that was what was successful. And so when we
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: think about this idea of algorithms and agency. It's you
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: have an opportunity to choose who speaks into your life
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: as a coach, and you have an opportunity to choose
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: what communities you're going to pour into and be a
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: part of. And yes, if you understand that that you
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: can be an agent in those contexts, then you can
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: definitely take some control.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: And you mentioned an experiment. Was that run by your company?
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: No, that that was not That was a meta analysis
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: run by I want to say, the British Journal prior
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: experiment with the AI program versus the personal program. Yes, yeah,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: we ran that as a company. It was a marketing
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: experiment to understand what people actually did with machine learning
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: versus actual human intervention. Yeah.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: I would actually love to talk about your company too.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: So your spy fit stuff, it comes in with I
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: believe stress adaptation.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Is that right, that's one one of the principles.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, So the idea of training for unpredictable environments is
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: that actually grounded in real stress physiology or is it
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: a narrative overlay on let's say standard conditioning.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the narrative overlay is actually important, But yes,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: it's it's based on actual research into stress resilience. So
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: so here's an example, and this is this is where
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: these two come together. This is why I see myself
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: firmly in the middle. Right, I know, based on the
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: literature and the research, I know that being resilient to
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: sleep deprivation is something that you can train, like, that's
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: something we can trade. We've we've traded it into our
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: military personnel. The individuals I've worked with at Everyday Spy,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: several of them are are ex intelligence officers. They've they've
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: been trained to deal with sleep deprivation. It's not easy,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: it's not pretty, but you can one percent become more
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: resilient to sleep deprivation. I, as a father and my
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: subjective experience, have also become more resilient to sleep deprivation
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: thanks to my two children having a very hard time
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: learning how to sleep in their early years. Right, and
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: and and that said, they're things you can do to
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: make yourself more resilient to sleep deprivation. For instance, five
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: grams of creatine per day has been studied to reduce
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the symptoms of sleep deprivation like memory loss, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: So that's that's important. That's the science. We know you
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: can train for that. We know there are things that
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: can make you more resilient to sleep deprivation. However, the
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: narrative overlay is very important because the narrative overlay says,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: are you sleep deprived because you suck at going to
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: bed end time and you're on your phone too much
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: and you don't set an alarm in the morning, and
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: so your circadian rhythm is off completely, Not because you
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: don't know the science of sleep, but because you have
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: no overarching story for why it's important for you taking risk. Right, So,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: the narrative overlay from the everyday spy position is we
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: have different mindsets. We have a mindset where we're training
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: for a mission. What does that mean, Well, sleep is
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: a part of the narrative overlay of allowing my body
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: to recover so that I can be strong for the mission. Right,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Or if I'm in a mission mindset, who cares about sleep?
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter that I stayed up all night because
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: we got an enemy to catch, or we have a
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: business to run, or we have a project to finish. Right,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I've been up in the middle of the night editing
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: a podcast. I bet you have too. We got a
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: mission to accomplish. Who cares about sleep right? Now? Right?
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: So that's that's a different narrative overlay with regard to
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: sleep right, And then the third one would be recovery.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I just finished the mission. I did my podcast marathon.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I finished eight weeks of growing my child from crying
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: newborn infant to actual baby that can sleep through the night.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: And now I can recover. Now I can restore my functions,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: restore my biology. So I want to make sure that
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: you and your audience understand the science is important, but
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the narrative overlay is not just marketing. It really matters
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: what we believe about what we're up to so that
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: we can make the most of what we understand in
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: the science. Otherwise we won't do it. We'll be stuck
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: on our phone scrolling and wondering why we're so fatigued
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the next day.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: And to get back to agency, you talk about people
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: lacking agency today, but looking at our political failures like
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: the polarization and the lack of trust, do you think
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: the leaders are failing because they're lazy or because they
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: are just terrified of appearing fragile? Like are we being
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: led by people who are just over intellectualizing their own
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: maybe personal trauma.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I think that's a fair question. Are you in the US, Yes, yes,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: in Florida. Cool. So, So here's here's the interesting thing
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: about agency. At different levels. We have the agency of
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: me as the individual, and then we have the agency
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: of the familial unit. For instance, I imagine, I imagine
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: you're not you're not all by yourself and your world.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yet you got you got friends, you got you got
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: some family, maybe some siblings. So there's your family unit.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Then you've got your your overarching community. You have the
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: individuals who are you know, responsible for keeping your streets
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: working like they're supposed to do, and who would come
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: fix your electrical system if for some reason we lost
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: power here, right, And so that's that's the communal level.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: And then and then we have the governmental level, which
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: in each one of those create space for the one
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: in the middle. Right. So to comment on the failures
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: of leadership is also to bring into question the failures
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: of the individual. Right. So if I'm upset about my
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: elected official, then I also have to look at the
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: way I do things and see if there's any issues
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: with the way I'm exercising my agency. I'll give you
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: an example for me. In my house, it's very important
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: to us to eat adequate protein on a regular basis. However,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: we walk through the grocery store and it turns out
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: that a bag of chips is less expensive than a
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: chicken breast. And I can be really mad at my
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: my government for allowing there to be such tasty food
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: that is so inexpensive and also so bad for me. Right,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: But if in my house I'm buying chips, then I'm
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: supporting the thing I'm frustrated about. Does that make sense?
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: And so when it comes to agency, it's important to
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: understand that I, as an individual, have to exercise my
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: agency such that the things in my life are ordered
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: the way that are important to my moral predispositions. And
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: then when I see in leadership that those things don't align,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: then I can start looking beyond myself. I can I
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: can manage, Perhaps I can make an impact on the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: way my family buys doritos, and maybe I can manage
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: and impact the way my community supports these sorts of things.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: And I know it sounds strange, but that's how how
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: we look at agency from the bottom up. And I
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to comment on the psychology of my
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: leaders until I can handle the psychology of what I'm
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: doing on a day to day basis.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: And mister man, howten, So most people today are like
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: living by accident, like what you're saying. They're eating inexpensive toritos.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: They move when they have to, and they think what
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: the algorithm like kind of tells them to. So is
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: your system actually about fitness or is it a manual
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: for intentional living?
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: It's a very good question. That's why the book is
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: a devotional. Actually, so I could have read I could
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: have written a health and fitness book right, read this chapter,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: learn a little more about fasting, read this chapter, learn
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: a little more about supplements, read this chapter, learn a
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: little more about exercise. But I didn't. I wrote a
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: devotional And the reason for that is because you have
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: to go through the process of doing these things on
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: a daily basis to build from the ground up. And yes,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I would say intentional living is definitely the core animating
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: principle for it. It's you're here coming back to our
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: original question. Life's going to be difficult. Choose your heart.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Choose your heart, and when you do that, when you choose,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: what's difficult in your life, and you actually start doing that,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: not only do you grow in your own agency, but
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: you also start to impact and influence people around you
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: to do the same.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: And now let's getting into something that's sadly kind of controversial,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: the discipline and morality aspect of this. So I loved
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: your book, you wrote Faithful Fitness, and you are tying
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: physical training to stewardship and Christian moral language. So are
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: you making a metaphor here or do you actually believe
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: like there's a moral dimension to this physical fitness.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I do believe there's a moral dimension to this, and
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: it's not in the same way that the fitness industry
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: would have you think. Right. So, I'm sure you're familiar
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: with the body positivity movement, which is just basically, you know,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: be comfortable and happy in the body you're in and
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: the way you are is just fine, right. And and
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: for many that they've taken that to say something like, oh,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: if I'm obese, or maybe I'm missing a limb or
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: something along those lines, I should still be able to
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: be confident and comfortable in a body, right. And I
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: want to say to anybody who's wrestling with anybody image issues.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: The body that you have is one hundred percent worthy
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: of love. The body that you have is one hundred
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: percent worthy of love. However, in the same way that
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: I love my children. So I have a ten year
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: old and I have a seven year old, and they're
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: great kids. They're super smart and very rambunctious, and they've
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: got all this energy and passions and interests. Right. I
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: don't tell my child you're just find the way you are.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell him that, yeah, because he's
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: ten and seven. They have so much growing to do.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: They're I mean you too, man Like, you're such a youthful, exuberant,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: talented guy, right, and you're great, but you're not yet
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: everything you could be. And to me, that's the moral
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: aspect of fitness. We have placed moral judgment on the
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: wrong thing, how we appear, how long we live. Even
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: when you place the moral judgment of fitness on the
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: wrong thing, and what you get is all kinds of
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: weird stuff like shame and guilt and pride and envy.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: You get individuals peeling upset because they had chocolate cake
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: on their anniversary and it's like, dude, no chocolate cake
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: on your anniversary is one hundred percent worth doing. It's
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: one of the things that makes life awesome, right. But
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: at the same time, the moral impact of fitness is
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: are you everything you could be? And when individuals look
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: in the mirror and they look back at themselves, many
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: individuals know that they're not everything they could be. And
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: even more than that, many individuals know that at least
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: a portion of that, or maybe all of that is
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: on them and their lack of agency, their lack of
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: a desire to do anything about it, and so and
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: so that's that's a very important thing for me in
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: the book. My goal is to help individuals to reclaim
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: that moral agency that they have and show them what
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: is good about fitness, what's worthwhile in pursuing fitness, what
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: your body actually can do for you in the overall
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: scheme of your life.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: One hundred percent agree with you, and I love that
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: you called it more a faithful fitness, Like it kind
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: of suggests that you aren't just a coach but also
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: a kind of protector. Do you ever feel like you're
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: carrying the weight of all those people who feel kind
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: of broken by the modern world, Like, does that ever
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: feel like a cage you built for yourself.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, I feel like I'm carrying a weight, and no,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like a cage. The apostle Paul actually said,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you can see on my cross
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: back there, I've got a chain wrapped around it. Right,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: And in one of the devotional days, the day actually
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: escapes me. It's later on in the book I explore
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: what Paul meant when he said to the early Christian Church,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: remember my chains, because at one point in his life
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: he was chained by the things that took away his
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: agency in life. He was chained by moral traditions, he
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: was chained by culture. He was chained by his own sins,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: even to the point where he was happy to watch
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: somebody die in front of him while holding everybody's coats
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: who were stoning him. And that was the extent of
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: the slavery of his chains, right. But what he says
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: that he did is he actually found a place in
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: his life where he was free from those chains and
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: decided voluntarily to chain himself to something meaningful and good,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: and that was the Cross. He said, he was chained
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: to the cross as an ambassador or a slave to
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: the gospel, is what he called it. And so for myself,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: I have found nothing more meaningful in my life than
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: to be chained as a father. I love having kids,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: and it requires me to give up so many things,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: but at the same time, it's very meaningful and important
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: to me. I've found nothing more meaning that it'd be
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: chained to my wife. I've forsaken all the other women
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: in the world for this one woman, and to be
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: chained to her is powerful and important in my life.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: And in the same way, I could be serving all
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: sorts of people, doing all sorts of things when it
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: comes to business, but I found it extremely meaningful to
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: be chained so to speak to those who have been
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: failed by the fitness industry. And so it does feel
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: like a weight because it's a responsibility, but it's definitely
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: not a cage. It's something that I've chosen and that
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: I'm excited about, and that is meaningful to me every day.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: But when you start labeling things like I believe you said, pride, sloth,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: of gluttony, shame in fitness terms, is that helpful or
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: does it create kind of guilt cycles that's just dressed
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: up as discipline.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: In essense, the guilt cycles are already there, so they
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: don't need my help creating them. If you ask anybody
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: in the health and fitness world, do you feel guilty
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: about in missing your work out? Do you feel guilty
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: about your cheesecake? That's there, I promise when I use
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: those terms, my goal is to bring up things we
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: already understand are not good in our world. Let's use
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: gluttony as an example. Is it gluttony to eat a
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: piece of cheesecake? Well, I don't know. Is it Is
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: it gluttony to eat fish? I don't know? Is it
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: The most important aspect of that is in what context?
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: And what does this mean to me? If cheesecake is
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: the way, and I don't know why I'm picking on cheesecake,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: my stomach hates cheesecake, but whatever, people can wrap their
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: head around this. If cheesecake is my way of dealing
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: with a very hard day, I'm angry, I'm tired, I'm depressed.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I need to pick me up right and instead of
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: seeking connection with my family, instead of exercising, instead of
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: getting enough rest, if I just have some cheesecake at
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: seven pm. It could be ice cream, it could be
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: who knows what it is? What insert comfort food? Here, right,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: that's what gluttony is. Gluttony is when I numb myself
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: from satisfaction. I use something consumatory to reward myself when
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not feeling well. Right, that's what gluttony is. Now,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: I get together with my family for Thanksgiving, and my
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: sister makes great cheesecake, and even if it tears up
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: my stomach, I'm still gonna have a couple of bites
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: because because she made it lovingly, and it's a family gathering,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: and and and this is a wonderful context for celebrating
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: with food. That's not the same thing as gluttony. Does
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: that make sense? It's words. Using these words is helpful
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: for individuals, and that's that's one of the reasons they
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: exist in the book. And why we define them specifically
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: is because when when we understand these words, when people
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: think of food as bad or good, like ooh, candy
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: is bad, Ooh, I don't know, some people disagree that
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: eggs are good. But whatever you can, you can insert good, bad,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: bad here. The morality of food boils down to me
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: and my intention, not the actual substance of the food itself.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you, But in
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: the current culture wars. Some would call that maybe moralizing
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: health or maybe even fat shaming, but others would say
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: that it's the only way to save us kind of
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: decaying West. So are you picking a side on the
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: culture war? Are you trying to just reclaim a moral
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: language that's been lost to let's say hyper individualism.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: If I'm picking a side in the culture war, my
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: side is against a victimhood. That's what it is. So
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: I'm championing agency. Any individual I've ever worked with who's
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: one hundred pounds overweight would tell you that that I
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: have approached their situation with the same level of compassion
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: that I approach my Eeler's da lows. Because let's let's
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: you are obese, and if you're listening to this in
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: your obese this is very important for you to understand.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: You have a genetic predisposition toward obesity. You have the
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: genes that make it easier for you to collect fat
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: in our world of abundance than the person who doesn't
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: have that predisposition. That's actually a scientific truth we're getting.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: We're getting pretty good at being able to isolate the
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: genes that make it easier for somebody to have the
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: phenotype of obesity, right, And if that's you, you have
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: a decision, just like I have a decision about Ewler's damlos.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: You have a decision to make about how you're going
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: to make the most of the body you've been given.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: And that's not the shame if any And I don't
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: think shame is the right word, because I don't want
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: to shame anybody. But the shame or the moral high
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: ground and the moral low ground is when I refuse
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: to make a decision about what I'm going to do
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: with the body I've given and just let it do
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: what it's going to do and for me, what I
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: want to reclaim. And if I'm on any side of
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: a culture war, it's against the victim status. It's like,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: oh no, poor me, I have eelers dan lows. Oh no,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: poor me, I'm predisposed to obesity and diabetes. Yeah, yeah,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: that's really hard. It's really hard, but you were made
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: for this. You can do it. And so that's the
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: spirit of the coach saying like, hey, I know this
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: hill is hard, but we're not gonna stop. We're gonna
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: trudge for it and make the most out of it.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: And let's talk about intensity, because this is where I
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: personally think most people are just completely wrong. So you
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: push this idea of base training on low intensity three
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: out of ten effort. But why do you think everyone
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: online is obsessed with just destroying themselves in workout?
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, A big portion of that has to do with age.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: So if you hang out with twenty year olds, intensity
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: sounds great, it feels good, it's motivating, the music's kicking right,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: and you have got a lot of growth hormone in
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: your body when you're twenty, so you tend to recover
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: from things a little faster, so there's a high associated
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: with that. There's the sweat and the passion and great, fine, awesome. However, however,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: intensity is only one variable in exercise science. It's only
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: one variable in stress adaptation. And the vast majority of
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: people that I've worked with in my career have gone
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: through enough life that they've matured beyond what's sweaty and
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: sexy and difficult to see what actually works, what matters
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: for the long haul, right, So, a small amount of
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: even elite athlete training, even the people who are training
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: in the Olympics, a small amount of their training is
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: intensity based, and that gives great results, but a huge
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: portion of their training is consistent base level foundational work
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: that it's not nearly as sweaty and sexy, like it's
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: not nearly as well. It might be pretty, it depends
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: on how hot it is outside, but it's it. It
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't lend itself well to a marketing campaign.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: The thing that you do every day that seems mundane
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: is way more important to your long term health and
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: fitness than those moments of intensity. Both can have profound
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: effects on the body, but I would say that intensity
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: is just more marketable.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: So the recent high intensity kind of dominates results culture.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Is like because people are impatient or the marketing or
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: is there like an actual physiological reason they still benefit
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: from pushing hard sometimes.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. So let's let's talk about fitness from
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: different tissue adaptations. Imagine we have our nerves, we have
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: our muscles, We have our tendons and ligaments and bones, right,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: and in that order, in that order, they respond more
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: rapidly based on how many cells they have poor square
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: meter of tissue, So nerves respond the most rapidly. I
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: actually see nervous system connection changes within a day or two, Right,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: have you ever tried to master a new habit or
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: a new ability and two days after practicing, you're way
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: better than you used to be. Have you ever done
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: that before? Yes? Yes? What came to mind for you?
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Is it like an instrument or a sport?
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: So I play guitar, so probably guitar. It was fingerpicking.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the first time you picked it up, you
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: were terrible. Right, maybe you're way better than me, but
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: you weren't very good at it. But after just a
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: couple of days of practicing, you can find yourself significantly better.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: That's a nervous system adaptation because our nerve cells, or
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: excuse me, our nerve tissue has lots of cells per
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: unit of distance. So that's great. Muscles are next. Muscles
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: adapt relatively quickly, on the scale of maybe a week
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: or two. Muscles can adapt to two different changes. And
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: then we've got tens and ligaments. These have significantly less
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: cellular density. Okay, and so so tenons of laments adapt
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: on a monthly even yearly scale, and then lacktically we
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: have bones and bones adapt on a multi year scale.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: That's why if somebody has a bone density scan and
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, you're losing bone density. Come back in
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: five years. We'll see if you have osteopenia or osteoporosis
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: or not. They don't have you come back next week
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: because there's not going to be a change in your
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: bones week over week, but over a long period of
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: time that's when. That's when bone density changes.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: And so all that to say, if if I look
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: at that scale of adaptation intensity, if I do a
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: really really hard workout today, and I do a really
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: really hard workout tomorrow, and I do another really really
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: hard work out the next day, what happens is I
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: see a lot of changes in my muscles and my
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: nerves really fast. And so I'll notice, I'll get stronger,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: I'll look in the mirror and go, hey, looking pretty good,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: man Like You'll start noticing, You'll get faster, you'll jump higher,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: You'll be able to, you know, pick up things you
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: couldn't pick up before. And that happens on the scale
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: of a couple of weeks. Right now, here's the room.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: If my bones and my tendons and ligaments are not
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: conditioned to deal with the new forces that I've created,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: then that will be temporary, because I will end up injured.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: This is where people get the itises people. It has
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: happened all the time. I'm going to become a runner.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: And so they start running and they run today, and
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: they run tomorrow, they run the next day and they're
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: feeling great, like man, I'm going I can I can
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: do so much, and then they get plantar fasci itis.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: That's the that's the inflammation of the tendon under the
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: foot right the planet. So what's plant fasciatas planto fasciatus
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: is the tendon did not adapt to all these forces
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: as quickly as the muscles and nerves did.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: Because they're adopting on a much smaller scale than the
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: tendons and the bones.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: A slower scale, a slower scale, so it takes them
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: much longer to adapt to these forces over time because
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: they have less cells to do the work right. And
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: so what that means is the intensity culture yields really
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: good results for about eight to twelve weeks, and then
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: everybody ends up injured. There's a few there's a few
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: hyper adapter, hyper responder maybe previously conditioned athletes that get
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: really good results in eight to twelve weeks and can
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: sustain and maintain but the vast majority of people will
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: try CrossFit and get hurt, or train for a marathon
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: and get hurt, or start weight training and go, Man,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: that knee that I was having problems with it got worse.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I guess weight training's not for me, right, So, and
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: so that's where it happens. People pay for the intensity
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: culture because it works for a time, but it doesn't
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: work for the long haul.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: And now let's zoom out because all of this kind
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: of ties into how people think about life improvement. I
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: know you built better daily to avoid kind of algorithm
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: driven comparison culture. But don't humans just compare naturally anyway?
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, they one percent do. And there's
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: really no way around it except to say what should
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: we compare ourselves to? So I come from a from
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: a Christian mindset, mindset, and perspective. So that energy of
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: comparing myself, that energy of the community comparing themselves is
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: automatically pointed toward Jesus, is automatically to figure that we
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: can all collectively agree is worth comparing ourselves to. So
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: instead of trying to be like Alex, I want people
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: to try to be like Jesus. And again, coming back
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: to the Apostle Paul. The way he said this was, Hey,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: if you have a really hard time wrapping your head
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: around what Jesus would do in your shoes, I'm following him,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: so you can try to follow what I'm doing. And
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: so he said, follow me as I follow Christ. So
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: so you're not getting away from comparison. That's built right
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: into the biological model. However, what you compare yourself to
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: is very powerful and so anchored to Christ. That's one
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: way our community does it. The other way that we
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: do it is I don't want you compare yourself to me.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I don't want you compare yourself to Rithvick. I want
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: you to compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Are
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: you a little better today than you were yesterday? Good?
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Then you're moving in the right direction. And that's that's
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: how we deal with both the individual comparison and the
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: collective comparison.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: So I think what you're talking about. Sorry, I like
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: know a little theology, So yeah, I want to just
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: show off here. Thomas Aquiness I believe was his name.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: He set up the degree I mean the proof of degrees,
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: where since we're just like four or five percent then
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: there must be one hundred percent out there. There must
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: be a best is that what you would be comparing
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: yourself to that would be your like Jesus.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Again, this is the collective in the individual comparison, So
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: you have to ask who can I become? Right? If
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: you're saying, well, I'm going to be just like Jesus someday,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: you're probably not gonna like so so sorry. That part
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: of Christian theology is that that none of us are perfect,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: which is why Jesus had to exist. Right, But that
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that absolves you of the responsibility of saying, Okay,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: who was I yesterday? And can I make any progress
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: on them? Right? So there's the individual, the individual comparison,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: comparing myself to me yesterday and moving forward, right, am
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I a little further on this journey? And then I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: have the collective comparison. Well, hey, what about what about
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Alex He's he's jumping on these giant boxes like I should.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: I should learn a box jumper. I'm not a good human.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: And that the collective comparison is is now we're all
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: striving to be more like Christ. So don't don't do
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: what I do unless it helps you to follow Christ
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: more closely. So yes, you can. You can think of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Christ as the end all be all from a community
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: comparative perspective, but that actually can become very very demotivating
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: and even an excuse for individuals. Well, I'm never going
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: to be like Jesus, so I might as well not
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: even try, right, Which is so there's some agency and
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: responsibility to be had when I look at myself and go, Okay,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: what can I do to become better with what I've
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: been given?
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: I fully understand that. And like this platform that you
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: built to get away from algorithms, do you think our
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: physical lack of movement is also what makes us so
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: susceptible to digital radicalization? Like if people were actually physically
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: capable and resilient, would they be less likely to scream
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: at each other on like Twitter?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Probably? Right, Let's say have all this pent up frustration
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: from my work, we would say in psychology that you
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: could you could vent that. You could vent that on
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: your cat, and you could vent that on your kid,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: and you can vent it on your wife, or you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: can take to venting it on complete strangers on the internet. Right,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Or I can pick up the weights and take that
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: pent up anxiety or anger or frustration and do something
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: productive with it, because that that emotion has to go somewhere.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: That emotion can either go out into the ether of
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: the internet, or that that emotion can be can be
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: turned inward in a positive way, so that you can
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: work through an emotion and understand maybe why you're frustrated,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: and after you're donelifting weights, maybe you know, have that
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: difficult conversation with the guy who frustrated you and be
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: more level headed about it.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: And now this is where I want to like kind
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: of strip everything down. If we strip all of it away,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: fitness frameworks, science, religion, What are people actually doing when
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: they try to get in shape? Is it survival control? Identity?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Like, I think there's a number of reasons why people start,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: but there's only one reason why you would finish strong.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: So many people will start fitness. I did. I started
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: fitness because I grew up without a dad in the home,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: and fitness was about the only place I felt like
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: I had any control in my life and about the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: only place where I had positive male interaction. You know,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: I could I could enjoy I kick I kickboxed. Kickboxing
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: is very strange sport you beat the crap out of
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: each other, and then you make friends like it's like, hey,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: nice kick, that really got me, Like and you give
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: a hug and everything's cool and so and so I
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: started personally. I started to feel like a man to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: be around men, to become strong, to test myself, and
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: because I enjoyed, i don't know, in a sick way,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: beating up people and getting beat on in a like
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: in a way that that was cool, Like that's the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: game we're I'll playing and it's fine. So so that's
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: why I started. I've worked with people who have started
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: because they met a girl and my gosh, suddenly like
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: you're in love and you know you're the man you
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: need to be. So like I'm gonna get buff and
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna all right, what Like, there's all
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: kinds of reasons people get started in fitness. I'm working
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: with a lady right now who fell on the floor
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: and she couldn't get up. She's in her mid sixties.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: She was stuck on the floor of her house. This
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: lady is a very very high ranking executive officer in
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: her company. She so many people depend on her to
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: do a good job. She's extremely intelligent, and after thirty
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: years of neglecting nutrition and exercise in her life, she
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: found herself in the floor of her living room and
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: unable to get herself up, and she had to wait
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: for four hours for a family member to come. And
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: she goes never doing that again. That was awful. Like,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: I need to get into shape and so and so.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: All of these are good reasons to start. But I
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: believe that if you stick with the journey of health
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: and fitness long enough, everybody comes to one reason to continue,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: and that reason is because it's a part of who
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: you are. And so that's exactly right. And so I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: think there's a lot of reasons people start, but I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: think if you're going to stick with it, there's only
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: one reason you'll come to finish.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you've created frameworks like spy fit and better Daily.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: But if I follow your frameworks perfectly, am I still
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: the master of my fate? Or am I just a
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: student of yours? Like where does your coaching and the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: individual's sovereignty begin?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very good question. So I think of the body
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: as something that we can take care of that allows
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: us to do everything else that we love in our life. Right. So,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: so as a man, I'm the only guy who can
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: love my wife. I'm the only guy who can father
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: my kids. I'm the only guy who can be friends
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: with my friends because they because I'm the only one
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: who will put up with them. That's why I'm just kidding.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: To have that body in that process allows me to
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: do all those things and even more. As Jesus said,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: I've come that they might have life and have it
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: more abundantly right. And so let's say you you do
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: everything coach Alex asks you to do. Sure, you're my
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: student while you learn how to feed yourself well, learn
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: how to exercise and take care of the body you
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: have right and make the most of you. But I
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: can't teach you what you need to do with your life.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: I can just make sure that your body's not an
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: impediment rather an asset to what it is that matters
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: to you. And so I'd say that's where those two
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: things shift and change over. And that plays out in
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: my community and also with people that I work with.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: They will work with me for as long as they
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: need to work with me in order to learn how
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: to take the best care of themselves. And then I
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: mean go do it. I can get it done, man.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's going to be my last
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: maybe major question.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: I like to do this fun thing with all of
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: my guests called rapid fire. I ask ten questions related
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: to the subject and basically you just answer them quick,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: one sentence, no thinking about it too much, and no
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: return questions.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: If you're up for that, let's go. Ok.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: What is the one quality you desire most in an
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: athlete that can't be measured on a test.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: I want the athlete to know their identity is not
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: their sport.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: What is your idea of like a perfect training session.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Perfect training session is one where you come up against
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: something you didn't think you could do and you overcome
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: it for the first time.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: What do you believe is your most defining characteristic as
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: a coach.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: I'm compassionately hardheaded in.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: The pursuit of human optimization. What do you consider the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: greatest misfortune for an athlete?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: I believe that when an athlete thinks they can't that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to shake themselves out of that.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: If you were restricted to only one piece of data
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: to track an athlete's progress, which would it be.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great question. If I'm not thinking about
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: it too much and it's going to be the wrong answer,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: but I mean, I'm gonna do my best. I would
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: say their endurance.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: What is your one idea of true rest.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: A fasted hike, fishing with my sons and my Who are.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: Your heroes in the worlds of sports or science who
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: exemplify the discipline of overcoming physical limitations.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Stephen Hawking is one of the heroes on the science
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: side I found very powerful and admirable. And I would
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: also say that David from the Old Testament would be
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: somebody who overcame things that I hope to overcome myself.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: If you could live in a society that optimized one
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: specific human habit like sleep, nutrition, movement, or community, which
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: would you choose? And it doesn't have to be one
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: of those?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right, hm. I would say living in a
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: community that's optimized how to eat for themselves would be
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: a very cool community to be a part.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: And what is the fault or mistake of your own
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: coaching journey that ended up providing the most growth for
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: your clients?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: Thinking I could exercise my way out of this disorder.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: And if you weren't a performance coach and a PhD student.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: What other field of betterment would you be exploring?
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: M I would probably be working with Elon Musk and
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: going to market.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah all right, guys, that was Alex van Houten. There's
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: a lot in there. Some of it is very deeply personal,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: but the real question is always the same. When you
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: strip away the frameworks, does it still hold up? And
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: I think it definitely does. Thank you so much for
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: your time, mister van Hotten.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Thanks Rythvic, you're an excellent interview. Keep up the good work.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: What's up?
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Beauful this episode? Help you share it with someone who
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: needs to hear, and don't forget to subscribe and neave
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: a review. Some more people can find faithful fitness. My
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: dad's devotional Faithful Fitness is available now and you can
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: join our Faithful Fitness unity by clicking the links in
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: the show notes. We all have a cross to carry,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: but it's lighter we do it together. See how later alligator.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: But until then, train hard and pray even harder.