Latest / Voyage Clinics Podcast / How to Improve Your Exercise Routine | The Science Behind Movement with Dr. Allen Parcell

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How to Improve Your Exercise Routine | The Science Behind Movement with Dr. Allen Parcell · Voyage Clinics Podcast

0:10
Speaker 1: Hello.
0:10
Speaker 2: I'm doctor John Sanders with the Voice Cleans podcast.
0:13
Speaker 3: Our mission in the Voids Cleanse Podcast as a family
0:16
Speaker 3: physician is really to just bring health and wellness to
0:19
Speaker 3: our community and education. And today we have one of
0:22
Speaker 3: our BYU professors, Alan Parcell, doctor Parcel. He's here with
0:26
Speaker 3: us today and we're excited to hear from him. Doctor Pessol,
0:29
Speaker 3: welcome to the podcast.
0:30
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
0:32
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your kind
0:34
Speaker 3: of journey and what you're a professor of and all.
0:36
Speaker 4: Okay, sounds good. I think thinks start back in the
0:39
Speaker 4: Midwest and stuff like that. A group back there, and
0:41
Speaker 4: I was involved in sports, especially cycling and so forth,
0:45
Speaker 4: and I think that sparked an interest in performance and
0:48
Speaker 4: things like that and nutrition and so forth. And then
0:50
Speaker 4: when I started an undergraduate degree, I was taking some
0:53
Speaker 4: general education classes. Physiology especially caught my attention, and then
0:59
Speaker 4: the nutrition asked of it was interesting as well. And
1:01
Speaker 4: so when I finished up with that undergraduate degree at BYU,
1:05
Speaker 4: I didn't really.
1:06
Speaker 1: Want to get into job.
1:07
Speaker 4: I wanted to keep doing that some more, and so
1:10
Speaker 4: I've found a master's program and that's kind of what
1:13
Speaker 4: pushed me forward and so forth. So it was really
1:16
Speaker 4: an interest in exercise and movement that got me started,
1:18
Speaker 4: I think so, and that took me through a doctor program.
1:21
Speaker 4: I came back here to BYU and as a professor
1:24
Speaker 4: in exercise sciences back in nineteen ninety eight, and I
1:29
Speaker 4: spend my time there from research perspective, with a primary
1:33
Speaker 4: interest in skeletal muscle in humans. And then usually there's
1:37
Speaker 4: some sort of performance physiology research as a kind of
1:42
Speaker 4: a side note to the other stuff that I do,
1:45
Speaker 4: and usually focused in cycling or something like that, because
1:48
Speaker 4: it's an area of interest.
1:49
Speaker 2: What is your PhD? And I don't know if I
1:52
Speaker 2: could even say.
1:52
Speaker 4: It, so, Yeah, so the title of it is Human
1:55
Speaker 4: bio energetics, but you could probably call it exercise physiology.
2:01
Speaker 4: But the stuff we were doing and what I was
2:02
Speaker 4: studying had a lot to do with energy and metabolism
2:05
Speaker 4: and things like that.
2:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us about your current research.
2:08
Speaker 3: I love nerding out with PC's probably not super relevant
2:12
Speaker 3: to everybody in the community starts health and wellness, but
2:14
Speaker 3: I love nerdy stuff.
2:16
Speaker 4: Sure, I think some of the stuff that we're starting
2:18
Speaker 4: actually may have some application. It's still in skeletal muscle,
2:22
Speaker 4: but what we're getting started right now is kind of
2:25
Speaker 4: an area of interest looking at different types of muscle contractions.
2:29
Speaker 4: And so there are concentric contractions when you lift something up,
2:33
Speaker 4: and if you set something down and lengthen a muscle
2:36
Speaker 4: that's called an ecentric contraction. They both help us do work,
2:40
Speaker 4: but they're not the same. And historically speaking, people have
2:43
Speaker 4: studied the eccentric contractions because they can cause damage and
2:48
Speaker 4: soreness and muscle. I spent some time in Australia with
2:51
Speaker 4: a colleague in twenty twenty three and he has started
2:56
Speaker 4: to do some things looking at lower intensity, higher volume
2:59
Speaker 4: type eccentric contractions. They don't cause the soreness, but they
3:03
Speaker 4: do elicit a really positive response. And so if you
3:07
Speaker 4: think about people that might have limited energy capacity or
3:11
Speaker 4: joint problems or injury problems where they can't do heavy loads,
3:14
Speaker 4: they may be able to do lighter loads of these
3:17
Speaker 4: lengthening contractions and that can have a positive effect. So
3:21
Speaker 4: what we're getting started on right now is looking at
3:25
Speaker 4: specifically basically going to go down inside the muscle. We'd
3:28
Speaker 4: like to look at some of the cellular responses to
3:30
Speaker 4: just a typical normal eccentric contraction. Usually when people study
3:34
Speaker 4: these things. They do high loads and high numbers, and
3:38
Speaker 4: it causes a lot of disruption in the muscle.
3:41
Speaker 1: And what I've found or haven't.
3:43
Speaker 4: Found, is there isn't a lot out there looking at
3:45
Speaker 4: just the nature of the contraction itself and kind of
3:50
Speaker 4: the positive things that it possesses if you do a
3:52
Speaker 4: lot of those at low intensities. So we're just kind
3:55
Speaker 4: of getting rolling with that. I've got a couple of
3:57
Speaker 4: master students and they're each going to have a project
3:59
Speaker 4: that is going to help kind of lay the foundation
4:01
Speaker 4: for going forward with that.
4:02
Speaker 2: That's so cool.
4:04
Speaker 3: And I mean in medicine, I do a fair amount
4:06
Speaker 3: of sports means and take a lot of athletes and stuff,
4:08
Speaker 3: and we use those eccentric contractions to strengthen for teninopathies,
4:12
Speaker 3: we'll get like tenanis their tendons are bugging them. And
4:16
Speaker 3: strengthening the really the muscle that offloads that tendon is
4:20
Speaker 3: a way to do that.
4:21
Speaker 2: And we often say, do.
4:22
Speaker 3: These eccentrics, you know, lengthening the muscle underload instead of
4:27
Speaker 3: concentric would be shortening the muscle underload and eccentric and
4:31
Speaker 3: and just for that reason, because it causes a lot
4:34
Speaker 3: of U stress on that muscle and hypertrophy and build
4:39
Speaker 3: breakdown and building and all that. So that's super that's
4:42
Speaker 3: super cool, And I hadn't thought about just minimal load
4:45
Speaker 3: eccentric exercises and that's really very fascinating. What's your goal here,
4:50
Speaker 3: what's your hypothesis that that maybe we don't have to
4:52
Speaker 3: beat our muscles up so bad under some outcomes To.
4:56
Speaker 4: A certain extent, yes, I mean there are certain populations
4:59
Speaker 4: that maybe maybe at a high trained state, and so
5:03
Speaker 4: these types of things might not be as applicable to them.
5:07
Speaker 4: But like I said, if you have populations where they
5:08
Speaker 4: have some let's say they have some sort of worthopedic
5:11
Speaker 4: injury and they've got a bit of pain in a joint,
5:13
Speaker 4: and if they put too much load on it.
5:15
Speaker 1: Then this is a problem.
5:16
Speaker 4: But like I said, my colleague in Australia, they've done
5:19
Speaker 4: some things where they've incorporated really simple, low load eccentrics
5:24
Speaker 4: into kind of normal activities and they've shown improvements in function.
5:28
Speaker 1: He has shown that these things work.
5:30
Speaker 4: We would like to understand a little bit more about
5:32
Speaker 4: how they work and why they work, and if we
5:35
Speaker 4: can get a little bit more information on what's going
5:37
Speaker 4: on inside the muscle that enhances our capacity to maybe
5:41
Speaker 4: utilize that contraction to broader populations. So I think that
5:45
Speaker 4: we're we're going to be able to find that. The
5:48
Speaker 4: hypothesis is is that we can get some sort of
5:52
Speaker 4: an adaptive response that will improve function in certain populations,
5:56
Speaker 4: maybe not highly trained populations, but definitely in populations that
5:59
Speaker 4: are just exercise programs or other things like that. You
6:02
Speaker 4: don't have to get sore to improve muscle function. That
6:06
Speaker 4: could be kind of an underlying theme for where we're headed.
6:09
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
6:09
Speaker 3: It'd be so helpful utility with some of my older
6:12
Speaker 3: patients that struggle to you know, to bear a lot
6:15
Speaker 3: of weight but they still need to kind of maintain strength.
6:18
Speaker 3: And wow, that's really cool. I'm excited for your restarce.
6:21
Speaker 3: That is super fun. You know, as a family doc,
6:23
Speaker 3: we take care of lots of people and lots of
6:25
Speaker 3: walks of life, so and lots of age groups from
6:27
Speaker 3: took care of a newborn today and some older folks
6:29
Speaker 3: and everything in between.
6:31
Speaker 2: And it's funny.
6:32
Speaker 3: On our board certification process, you know, we got to
6:36
Speaker 3: you know, take these tests and make sure we keep
6:38
Speaker 3: up with the science and keep up with everything, but
6:40
Speaker 3: the largely the answer to a lot of the questions,
6:44
Speaker 3: and with regard to our healthcare, the answer is diet
6:48
Speaker 3: and exercise. You know what's the first line treatment for
6:52
Speaker 3: as loscratit disease, or for dyslipidemia, or for metabolic syndrome
6:56
Speaker 3: or diabetes or all these things hypertension.
7:00
Speaker 2: Diet and exercise would really put me out of a.
7:03
Speaker 3: Job, and I would be really happy because then we
7:05
Speaker 3: could do fun things like hunt mushrooms and play music
7:08
Speaker 3: all the time. So I really want to get granular
7:12
Speaker 3: today a little bit about exercise, and with you, as
7:15
Speaker 3: really an expert in this space, I want to talk
7:17
Speaker 3: about practical ways to apply it. How do we get
7:20
Speaker 3: started if we haven't started. I have some folks that
7:22
Speaker 3: are pretty active as clients right now, I have some
7:25
Speaker 3: folks that are not active at all, and so you know,
7:28
Speaker 3: there's a wide spectrum of let's get started here, and
7:32
Speaker 3: so I'd love to just pick your brain about some
7:34
Speaker 3: of those spaces. But I just want to talk a
7:36
Speaker 3: little bit about exercise. There's a book that both of
7:39
Speaker 3: us really love. It's called Spark, and.
7:42
Speaker 2: I forget who's the author again, John Rady, Thank you
7:44
Speaker 2: he's a psychiatrist, and I just I listened to all
7:48
Speaker 2: my books on audible because I have to wear readers and.
7:50
Speaker 3: I'm still mad at it, and so I got my
7:52
Speaker 3: readers on now, but I just don't like them, and
7:54
Speaker 3: it's a prideful thing. But I listened to it on
7:58
Speaker 3: Audible and I just thought, Wow, this is impactful and
8:01
Speaker 3: it's neat that there's a psychiatrist writing this.
8:04
Speaker 2: Can you speak to this?
8:05
Speaker 3: You make this as part of your curriculum to your students,
8:08
Speaker 3: and you teach a couple of cool classes at BYU
8:11
Speaker 3: speak to those spaces course.
8:12
Speaker 4: So I teach exercise physiology. I've been doing that for
8:14
Speaker 4: years and we have a new class that's we've only
8:17
Speaker 4: done it for two semesters now called Exercises Medicine, and
8:22
Speaker 4: the focus of that class we look at individual situations issues,
8:27
Speaker 4: so it could be metabolic disease or ADHD, or it
8:30
Speaker 4: could be aging. We'd look at women's issues like menopause
8:34
Speaker 4: and pregnancy, and we don't delve in really deep into
8:38
Speaker 4: those topics. We give basically an overview of what it
8:41
Speaker 4: is and then talk about how exercise can have a
8:43
Speaker 4: positive impact on that. And so it's been three years now.
8:50
Speaker 4: I came across the Spark book maybe five six years ago,
8:53
Speaker 4: and after reading it a couple of times and talking
8:55
Speaker 4: with people about it and using some of the information
8:58
Speaker 4: in class, I realized, you know, this is they want
9:00
Speaker 4: students to read. And so now in all my classes,
9:04
Speaker 4: everybody has that as assigned reading. What I tell them
9:07
Speaker 4: is is that you know, they have textbooks, and we
9:09
Speaker 4: talk about things in class that are specific to the
9:11
Speaker 4: curriculum and so forth, and I tell them the Spark
9:14
Speaker 4: book is incredibly complimentary, but it's in a different lane.
9:18
Speaker 4: And so I tell them, so you do your reading
9:20
Speaker 4: outside of class in Spark, and we'll be talking about
9:23
Speaker 4: these things in class, and you'll have different thoughts about
9:26
Speaker 4: class while you're reading Spark, and you'll have different thoughts
9:28
Speaker 4: about Spark while you're in class. And I think that's
9:31
Speaker 4: going to expand your mind you're thinking of it. So
9:34
Speaker 4: that's why I've gone to that and utilizes as a
9:38
Speaker 4: tool to help them kind of and think about things.
9:41
Speaker 4: And typically speaking, I mean every semester, they're fascinated by
9:44
Speaker 4: the things that they learned.
9:45
Speaker 1: They didn't really.
9:46
Speaker 4: Realize that moving your body could really have that much
9:49
Speaker 4: of a positive impact on different areas.
9:51
Speaker 2: No, it's incredible.
9:52
Speaker 3: I remember reading at the very beginning this school back
9:55
Speaker 3: in east of south of Boston and how they implement
10:00
Speaker 3: did a very rigorous exercise program for all their students
10:03
Speaker 3: and how it just improved test scores, improved attendance, that
10:07
Speaker 3: approved all these spaces that were not just physical but
10:11
Speaker 3: quite quite mental and just really really neat. I'm just
10:14
Speaker 3: as a side note, but the aguin Medical Surgical Society
10:19
Speaker 3: every year does a really great semi course up in
10:21
Speaker 3: On and I go to it every year. They just
10:24
Speaker 3: do a good job. This year the theme is exercise
10:27
Speaker 3: is Medicine? Oh really, are you teaching that that I'm presenting?
10:30
Speaker 3: Oh I should, I'll ring their bell about it. Hey
10:32
Speaker 3: guess what, Yeah, there's that's really cool.
10:36
Speaker 2: Well let's talk about why would a psychiatrist write this book.
10:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't remember if he provided a lot of
10:44
Speaker 4: rationale per se, but he does provide some background with
10:48
Speaker 4: how Western medicine has approached mental health, mental fitness, and
10:53
Speaker 4: psychiatric issues, and how countries in Europe approach and so forth.
10:57
Speaker 4: And he as he was coming up, you noticed a
10:59
Speaker 4: real difference that typically speaking in Western medicine the United States,
11:03
Speaker 4: we go right to pharmaceuticals and other places. We're going
11:07
Speaker 4: to movement and other types of activities and so forth.
11:12
Speaker 4: And so I think from that perspective as if I'm
11:15
Speaker 4: not a psychiatrist, but if I was, and you saw
11:18
Speaker 4: that if I could get one of my clients, my
11:21
Speaker 4: patients to go out and do a little bit more
11:23
Speaker 4: of this or a little bit more of that, and
11:25
Speaker 4: it seems to have kind of a remarkable effect that
11:28
Speaker 4: they report themselves, that would really begin to, you know,
11:32
Speaker 4: kind of spark an interest. And I think he went
11:34
Speaker 4: from there to look at all these different conditions that
11:38
Speaker 4: moving in our bodies has a big impact, especially on
11:41
Speaker 4: our brains.
11:42
Speaker 3: You know, even just the there's a bunch of I mean,
11:47
Speaker 3: we're going to get into the mental health spot. Let's
11:48
Speaker 3: talk about the brain and the effect of exercise on
11:52
Speaker 3: our brain and performance specifically. Why is it that exercise
11:56
Speaker 3: has such a profound effect on our brains.
11:59
Speaker 4: There's some things. So when we move and when we
12:02
Speaker 4: do exercise, it does activate different areas of our brain.
12:06
Speaker 4: It encourages growth in areas that are good, I mean,
12:09
Speaker 4: and they've demonstrated an increase in a number of synapses
12:13
Speaker 4: and even in sizes of parts of the brain that
12:16
Speaker 4: are beneficial to learning as well as making decisions and
12:19
Speaker 4: things like that. So we've got parts of the brain
12:22
Speaker 4: that will literally hypertrophy and grow a little bit if
12:25
Speaker 4: we're doing regular movement and exercise and so forth, and
12:29
Speaker 4: the opposite is true as well as when we stop
12:32
Speaker 4: doing that, we actually can see atrophy and important parts
12:34
Speaker 4: of the brain. And I don't study the brain, so
12:37
Speaker 4: I don't have specifics on that, but I do know
12:39
Speaker 4: that we activate particular growth factors and so forth in
12:43
Speaker 4: the brain when we do exercise and move our bodies,
12:45
Speaker 4: and that just enhances the brain's capacity to do what
12:48
Speaker 4: it's supposed to do. I would also submit that there's
12:52
Speaker 4: probably that emotional aspect to it. There are other things
12:55
Speaker 4: about exercise that help us feel better and that may
12:58
Speaker 4: not have anything to do specific with learning and cognition,
13:01
Speaker 4: but it creates an environment in which learning and cognition
13:05
Speaker 4: can be much more effective. So if we're doing things
13:08
Speaker 4: to kind of grow our brain and at the same
13:11
Speaker 4: time enhancing our mood, we're putting ourselves in a good
13:14
Speaker 4: place to be able to learn.
13:16
Speaker 3: And as a holistic minded family doc, everything is biocycle,
13:20
Speaker 3: social every disease, every wellness piece, everything, and to me,
13:27
Speaker 3: the physiology of exercise is so so important. We do
13:32
Speaker 3: sometimes we'll get like an MRI or a CT scan
13:34
Speaker 3: or of a brain. We're looking for different things, you know,
13:37
Speaker 3: and we often on a person who's a little bit
13:40
Speaker 3: older and maybe not as active. We'll often see this,
13:44
Speaker 3: like they say, some cerebral shrinkage with microvascular disease consistent
13:51
Speaker 3: with their age. And I think just for the sake
13:54
Speaker 3: of perfusion, just for the sake of pushing blood to
13:58
Speaker 3: parts of your brain, just moving more can just profuse
14:02
Speaker 3: the brain better and maybe prevent some of the actually
14:04
Speaker 3: preventing dementia. Absolutely pivotal and preventing, like those kinds of things.
14:09
Speaker 3: And I wonder if it's just the act of cardiovascular fitness,
14:15
Speaker 3: getting the blood moving, getting your heart rate up, getting
14:18
Speaker 3: your blood pressure rises physiologically as we exercise, and that
14:23
Speaker 3: blood pressure that rise, and blood pressure probably pushes blood
14:26
Speaker 3: through some of those small, small blood vessels and continues
14:29
Speaker 3: to perfuse those parts of the brain and promote these
14:32
Speaker 3: healthy things. I love what you said about emotions and
14:35
Speaker 3: the endorphins that exercise just releases all these feel good
14:39
Speaker 3: endorphins that my wife is addicted to and which is good,
14:44
Speaker 3: and it's a good thing. She gets up religiously and
14:47
Speaker 3: works out and she just loves that. It brings mental
14:50
Speaker 3: clarity to her day and she feels better. Her mood's better,
14:53
Speaker 3: and I'm happier and because she's happy. Yeah, so that's
14:57
Speaker 3: really cool. I like what you said about growth factors.
15:01
Speaker 3: I talk a lot about neuroplasticity and emotional intelligence in
15:03
Speaker 3: my practice. It is so so important. And parts of
15:06
Speaker 3: the brain that shrink under high stress without breaks are
15:14
Speaker 3: the parts that are in charge of neuroplasticity emotional intelligence.
15:17
Speaker 3: And if we are here on this earth to learn
15:18
Speaker 3: and grow and continue to change, that is emotional intelligence
15:21
Speaker 3: and neuroplasticity.
15:22
Speaker 2: And so this brain.
15:24
Speaker 3: Drive neurotrophic factor, one of those factors that increases with
15:26
Speaker 3: cardiovascular exercise, helps to grow those parts of the brain
15:31
Speaker 3: that are in charge of neuroplasticity and emotional intelligence. It's
15:34
Speaker 3: so beautiful. We also offer in the clinic some psychedelic therapy,
15:40
Speaker 3: some ketamine sessions for trauma and depression and things like that. Interestingly,
15:45
Speaker 3: the main mechanism of action for ketamine is also a
15:48
Speaker 3: spike in BDNF and then regrowing, actually regrowing that ventral
15:53
Speaker 3: metoprefuntic cortex and these places that are in charge of
15:56
Speaker 3: neuroplastics and emotional intelligence and allowing for folks to change
16:00
Speaker 3: and change their minds and their thoughts about things. There
16:02
Speaker 3: are multiple things that are really tough to treat in medicine.
16:08
Speaker 3: One of them is POTS and lots of people have
16:10
Speaker 3: this pots. This it's a postural orthostatic situation where folks
16:15
Speaker 3: can stand up and they get like headed, and their
16:16
Speaker 3: blood pressure drops and their heart rate races and all this,
16:20
Speaker 3: and the number one treatment for it exercise. Yeah, so
16:25
Speaker 3: many of the functional we call these function neurologic disorders.
16:28
Speaker 3: They used to be called psychosomatic disorders, but nobody likes
16:31
Speaker 3: to be called the psycholis. And this is not to
16:34
Speaker 3: say that they're all in your head, because they're not.
16:36
Speaker 3: They're very very much real. They're all treated. The mainstay
16:40
Speaker 3: of all of them are treated with exercise. And I'm
16:43
Speaker 3: not sure if it's the release and BDNF or the
16:46
Speaker 3: endorphins are both that help that along, but they do,
16:50
Speaker 3: and it's amazing, it is amazing, just in maintaining growth
16:56
Speaker 3: of brains, emotions, neuroplasticity, being really positively adaptive in our
17:02
Speaker 3: behaviors just from exercise.
17:04
Speaker 2: Really cool.
17:04
Speaker 4: I think John Rady makes the point in his book
17:06
Speaker 4: early On that really struck me the first time that
17:09
Speaker 4: I read it, that heat the purpose of moving our bodies,
17:13
Speaker 4: The purpose of exercise, if we want to categories like that,
17:17
Speaker 4: is to keep our brains healthy. If we improve our
17:20
Speaker 4: fitness and function and so forth, that's kind of like
17:23
Speaker 4: icing on the cake or sprinkles on the donuts, if
17:25
Speaker 4: you will. But the primary purpose of moving our bodies
17:29
Speaker 4: is to take care of our brains. And if you
17:32
Speaker 4: think about it from a really basic level of survival,
17:34
Speaker 4: well that kind of makes sense. We move around so
17:37
Speaker 4: the central processing unit still works really really good, and
17:40
Speaker 4: that helps us stay alive. Now when we get in
17:43
Speaker 4: this complex world that we live in now, with all
17:45
Speaker 4: these different things that come at us and all of
17:47
Speaker 4: the time. Now, this idea of moving to keep our
17:51
Speaker 4: brains healthy, if you will, really make sense. And all
17:54
Speaker 4: those and the things that happen in your body when
17:56
Speaker 4: you exercise, when you increase blood flow and so forth. Year,
18:00
Speaker 4: pushing more blood up to your brain is gonna put
18:03
Speaker 4: stresses on those vessels that actually release other growth factors
18:07
Speaker 4: to increase vascularization, so you can get more blood going
18:10
Speaker 4: up there. So the primary purpose is his point, is
18:14
Speaker 4: we move our bodies to keep our brains healthy, and
18:17
Speaker 4: then all that other good stuff happens too.
18:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it just icing on the cake. No, it's
18:22
Speaker 2: probably cack nuts. It's butter on your carrots. Maybe that's better.
18:28
Speaker 3: The learning and memory impact of exercise is also fascinating
18:32
Speaker 3: and on our emotional health, and maybe a mechanism action
18:37
Speaker 3: probably be DNF, probably endo orphans, but definitely another thing,
18:41
Speaker 3: at least for me. I might be addicted to exercise,
18:44
Speaker 3: but and I might have add but I think I've
18:47
Speaker 3: self medicated my whole life. My mom put me in
18:50
Speaker 3: sports as a young kid, kept me very very active.
18:53
Speaker 3: I grew up kind of on a little ranch and
18:55
Speaker 3: we were shoveling anewer and working with physical labor pretty
18:58
Speaker 3: much all the time. And I did well in school.
19:02
Speaker 3: I didn't ever need any medicines. But I mean I
19:05
Speaker 3: was exercising all the time.
19:07
Speaker 2: We had a.
19:07
Speaker 3: Break mid day break, and then we had a lunch break,
19:10
Speaker 3: and I was always playing sports during those things, and
19:13
Speaker 3: then at the after school, I always had some sports
19:15
Speaker 3: and it just helped me stay focused and stay kind
19:19
Speaker 3: of on point. Can you speak to that physiology there, and.
19:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I'm not as well versed up in
19:29
Speaker 4: some of the brain physiology, but they have demonstrated that
19:33
Speaker 4: with ADHD and issues like that, that regular exercise helps
19:38
Speaker 4: to provide that consistent focus so that there isn't necessarily
19:42
Speaker 4: mind wandering time, if you will. But when you also
19:45
Speaker 4: keep the other aspects of the body healthy, then you
19:49
Speaker 4: kind of remove some of these distractions, whether it's disease
19:52
Speaker 4: or disorders or levels of dysfunction.
19:55
Speaker 1: Or something like that. That helps.
19:57
Speaker 4: And I think the idea that moving in our bodies
20:00
Speaker 4: and if we put it in a sports context or whatever,
20:03
Speaker 4: there's purpose in that. And I think that purpose driven
20:06
Speaker 4: thing can go a long ways to help with some
20:08
Speaker 4: we talk about attention deficit issues and so forth. That
20:13
Speaker 4: it provides a very specific purpose and a direction, and
20:16
Speaker 4: that seems to be the issue. But I'm not as
20:20
Speaker 4: well versed on the physiology, but I think when you
20:22
Speaker 4: bring up the bdn F that growth factor.
20:25
Speaker 1: Is a big deal.
20:27
Speaker 4: The BD maybe should be big deal, and said brain
20:30
Speaker 4: derived So it's a true it's a big deal growth
20:33
Speaker 4: factor because it does I mean, it encourages growth of
20:38
Speaker 4: those neurons in the brain and synapses.
20:40
Speaker 1: They see hypertrophy.
20:41
Speaker 4: Like I said, in those places you talked about the
20:43
Speaker 4: prefronal cortex, the hippocampus is important for emotional regulation and
20:47
Speaker 4: memory and so forth. And so when we exercise, one
20:51
Speaker 4: of the major things that goes up is bdn F
20:54
Speaker 4: and it does. It stimulates growth in the brain. And
20:56
Speaker 4: they've demonstrated that even for adults. Now there used to
21:00
Speaker 4: be the thought that well, adults can't really generate more
21:03
Speaker 4: synapses in the brain and so forth, but it appears
21:06
Speaker 4: that they can. There is there is benefit there for sure.
21:10
Speaker 3: I mean the recent presentation I gave at a medical
21:14
Speaker 3: conference about neuroplastics and emotional intelligence showed these docks.
21:17
Speaker 2: I was presented to a group of docks.
21:19
Speaker 3: And these docks I mean pre med to med school,
21:22
Speaker 3: to residency to even private practice, high.
21:24
Speaker 2: Stress and very high school.
21:26
Speaker 3: And I remember through residency, I don't know if he's
21:29
Speaker 3: just being kind of shamed if you're taking breaks, you know,
21:32
Speaker 3: they're like, no, you got to keep working, Like what
21:34
Speaker 3: do you mean you want to? I got a baby
21:36
Speaker 3: in residency and we delivered the baby. I was on
21:40
Speaker 3: call and I worked the next day. I worked all
21:42
Speaker 3: night the night my child was born, and nobody known
21:46
Speaker 3: of my tende is like he said, hey, dummy, like
21:49
Speaker 3: take some time off, like go hang out with your nwemorn.
21:51
Speaker 3: They were like, yeah, I keep writing, you know, but
21:55
Speaker 3: that persistent alastatic load, which is just stress from all
21:58
Speaker 3: the wall angles with without enough recovery, really shrinks those
22:02
Speaker 3: parts of your brain, really shrinks them. And so we
22:05
Speaker 3: were talking about ways to recover that, and it sounds
22:08
Speaker 3: like exercise is clutch through all of it. And I
22:11
Speaker 3: remember all through med school, not only for learning and memory,
22:14
Speaker 3: but also probably for stress. I would man, I would
22:17
Speaker 3: study for a couple hours and then I go play basketball,
22:19
Speaker 3: and I'd study for a couple hours. Once I read
22:21
Speaker 3: the same paragraph four times and I.
22:23
Speaker 2: Couldn't know what I was.
22:25
Speaker 3: I would like get up and I'd go play volleyball,
22:28
Speaker 3: and then I'd study for a couple hours and go
22:30
Speaker 3: play soccer. And I was like, I've worn out my knees,
22:33
Speaker 3: I've got like bad arthrits now. But it was just
22:36
Speaker 3: self medicating, honestly. The neuroscience here I'm a little familiar
22:40
Speaker 3: with with regard to focus and memory, and only because
22:42
Speaker 3: I met right medicines and I see what exercise does.
22:45
Speaker 2: To that too.
22:46
Speaker 3: The exercise, especially high intensity, like if you're playing a
22:49
Speaker 3: sport and you're talking trash, which I do a lot,
22:51
Speaker 3: which is super fun because you get some norp and
22:54
Speaker 3: effrin going and norp and effern and dopamine and you're
22:57
Speaker 3: winning and you're working and you're pursuing something. You've got
23:00
Speaker 3: a goal, as you said, and you're just kind of
23:02
Speaker 3: working towards something. It actually spikes your dopamine and no
23:06
Speaker 3: open efferne in your brain, and both of those are
23:10
Speaker 3: the exact mechanism of action for medicines like adderall viomans,
23:15
Speaker 3: like these medicines that we use for ADHD, and so
23:19
Speaker 3: you can absolutely medicate with exercise.
23:21
Speaker 2: Absolutely. It just helps you focus. And I would laser in.
23:24
Speaker 3: I'd get done sweating, I just had a great time
23:27
Speaker 3: playing some ball with some guys, and I'd sit down
23:29
Speaker 3: and my mental clarity was incredible. I could just sit
23:32
Speaker 3: down and grind in a couple more hours and then
23:34
Speaker 3: I would taper off and I'd be like I got
23:36
Speaker 3: to move again.
23:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was cool.
23:40
Speaker 3: So I think it's largely those dopamine orpeniffern pathways. Well,
23:44
Speaker 3: buttrin we use well, buttrin to treat like depression, well,
23:47
Speaker 3: buttrin it is it blocks the re uptake of dopamine
23:51
Speaker 3: and oorpenifferent and so there you are, we're increasing dopamine
23:54
Speaker 3: and open eiffern and just just pushing it through. I
23:57
Speaker 3: think it also affects her tonin levels as well, but
24:00
Speaker 3: those are the ones that I know it definitely affects,
24:02
Speaker 3: and how it kind of affects our emotions and learning,
24:05
Speaker 3: and that's super super cool. I think it was in
24:07
Speaker 3: Sparka we talked about the Apache population, the Native American population.
24:11
Speaker 2: Was it in there? It might not have been, It
24:12
Speaker 2: might have been a different one.
24:14
Speaker 3: But the Apache nation has more ADD per capita than
24:17
Speaker 3: any other population you've studied. And ADD can be a
24:20
Speaker 3: superpower when you're hunter gathering and exercising moving, but outside
24:25
Speaker 3: of that, like trying to sit in a classroom, it
24:27
Speaker 3: should be a little bit tougher. Genetically, it probably pre
24:30
Speaker 3: selected for the population there because they're hunter gatherers, and
24:34
Speaker 3: the best warriors had the genetic propensity for the ADD thing.
24:38
Speaker 3: But they were excellent hunter gatherers, and I noticed in
24:41
Speaker 3: the wilderness. It's really helpful. Actually, I see the whole
24:45
Speaker 3: and I'm not just hyper focused on one blade of grass.
24:48
Speaker 3: I'm seeing all these cool things activating all these brain cells,
24:52
Speaker 3: and it's super neat, super neat. Let's talk about aging
24:55
Speaker 3: and cognition and exercise with its relation there. What are
24:58
Speaker 3: your thoughts in that space.
25:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that you talked about this idea of
25:02
Speaker 4: continuing to grow the brain and releasing growth factors and
25:04
Speaker 4: so forth. It's pretty clear from we know that there's
25:09
Speaker 4: a benefit with regard to say dementia or Alzheimer's or
25:13
Speaker 4: things like that. It appears that physical activity and movement
25:17
Speaker 4: can have a positive impact on maybe the initiation and
25:22
Speaker 4: even progression of those diseases and so forth. The suggestion
25:26
Speaker 4: is now is that the best time to start that
25:29
Speaker 4: physical activity is when you're younger, in twenty thirties and forties,
25:33
Speaker 4: because some of those things that happened begin to happen
25:35
Speaker 4: maybe in forties and fifties, and they're not things you
25:38
Speaker 4: notice yet, but it would look like every exercise can
25:41
Speaker 4: offset some of those things. Some people would say that
25:44
Speaker 4: you know, well, I have I had a relative, My
25:47
Speaker 4: father had Alzheimer's disease, but he was really physically active
25:51
Speaker 4: throughout his life. And so people say, well, then why
25:54
Speaker 4: would he get Alzheimer's, Well, it probably wasn't as bad
25:57
Speaker 4: as it might have been if he hadn't. If he
26:00
Speaker 4: hadn't incorporated all that physical activity into throughout the lifespan,
26:03
Speaker 4: his lifespan would have been a lot shorter than it was,
26:06
Speaker 4: if you will. So I think once again, all those
26:10
Speaker 4: neurochemicals that are released in the brain and so forth,
26:13
Speaker 4: those things are growing. What's needed up there In addition,
26:17
Speaker 4: not just a brain out, but from an aging perspective,
26:19
Speaker 4: if we can maintain levels of function further into the lifespan,
26:24
Speaker 4: that's going to have a benefit too. If we think
26:26
Speaker 4: about things related to loneliness is a big deal in
26:30
Speaker 4: the aging population, is probably the biggest deal, and that
26:34
Speaker 4: then probably leads to things related to depression and other things.
26:38
Speaker 4: Whereas the physical activity can provide opportunities for social interaction
26:44
Speaker 4: in addition to maintaining capacities to function from an orthopedic
26:48
Speaker 4: perspective and so forth, So that so that you can
26:52
Speaker 4: keep moving as you age.
26:54
Speaker 2: And I love that.
26:56
Speaker 3: I love that you mentioned loneliness and the social component
26:59
Speaker 3: of xercise. I was just up in Olympia a couple
27:02
Speaker 3: of weeks ago visit my aunt. She's in her eighties,
27:05
Speaker 3: and she told me about her exercise aerobic water aerobics
27:09
Speaker 3: class with this sweet group of ladies. And they're all
27:12
Speaker 3: in that chapter of.
27:13
Speaker 2: Life and they've become these buds, and they once a
27:17
Speaker 2: month they get together and have dinner and collaborate and
27:22
Speaker 2: talk about and they go on these little adventures together,
27:24
Speaker 2: and they all kind of spearheaded and they're just kind
27:27
Speaker 2: of having a beautiful social connection along with some exercise.
27:32
Speaker 2: And if you look at the societies.
27:34
Speaker 3: Around the scent engine areas and people that live greater
27:36
Speaker 3: than one hundred years of age, they all have that
27:38
Speaker 3: social connection component, and how beautiful to put it around
27:42
Speaker 3: some exercise.
27:43
Speaker 4: That's a I think the exercise can enhance that too.
27:46
Speaker 4: If you consider if you just look at the positive
27:48
Speaker 4: things that are going on in the brain when you
27:50
Speaker 4: move your body, when you exercise and so forth, if
27:53
Speaker 4: you couple that with social interaction, I would submit there's
27:56
Speaker 4: probably a synergistic effect there. So if you're forming relationships
28:01
Speaker 4: with this process of movement that's going on and so forth.
28:05
Speaker 4: I would submit that probably enhances the interaction to a
28:07
Speaker 4: certain extent.
28:08
Speaker 3: I mean it makes sense your spiking BDNF, you're creating
28:11
Speaker 3: neuroplastics and emotional intelligence, you're more pleasant to be around. Yeah,
28:16
Speaker 3: you're enhancing that whole experience, and that's beautiful.
28:19
Speaker 2: Wow.
28:19
Speaker 3: I didn't I haven't put that together, but yeah, totally
28:24
Speaker 3: stress and building resilience and the effects of exercise on
28:29
Speaker 3: this space. Let's talk about that a little bit.
28:32
Speaker 4: One thing that comes to mind when we head toward
28:35
Speaker 4: more of a sports situation and so forth. I think
28:38
Speaker 4: there's I think we can see throughout society and culture
28:42
Speaker 4: there's this idea that, well, sports teams are individual sports
28:45
Speaker 4: or things like that. When you're pushing yourself and doing
28:48
Speaker 4: those things, there's resiliency that comes in that and so forth.
28:51
Speaker 4: I don't have any concerns with that. I'm sure that
28:54
Speaker 4: it works, but I don't think it always has to
28:56
Speaker 4: be sport, and it doesn't always have to be competition
28:58
Speaker 4: to build that resilience and to get some positive return
29:04
Speaker 4: on those things. Even from an individual perspective, If someone
29:08
Speaker 4: starts some sort of an exercise movement program and it's
29:12
Speaker 4: done in an effective way, maybe with effective guidance, whether
29:16
Speaker 4: that whether they're whether it's self directed or somebody's helping them.
29:19
Speaker 4: But if it's done in the right way, they're going
29:22
Speaker 4: to be accomplishing.
29:23
Speaker 2: Things on a regular basis.
29:25
Speaker 4: And if we remove the competition aspect from it and
29:28
Speaker 4: just look at it from how do I feel? What
29:31
Speaker 4: about my functional capacity? What things can I do? What
29:33
Speaker 4: things can I do more of?
29:35
Speaker 1: Now?
29:35
Speaker 4: Because I've been exercising, there's the essence kind of a
29:39
Speaker 4: resilience right there when new things come on. This idea,
29:43
Speaker 4: well I can do this. I've done that, and I
29:46
Speaker 4: can do these things too. So I think this idea,
29:48
Speaker 4: this idea of using our bodies, and if we use
29:51
Speaker 4: them on a regular basis, that's who we are.
29:54
Speaker 1: That's kind of our soul, if you will.
29:56
Speaker 4: And if we know that we can do these things
29:59
Speaker 4: with our bodies, we've done it on a regular basis.
30:02
Speaker 4: You've got and from an internal locus of control, you
30:06
Speaker 4: can tell yourself, no, I can do this. I do
30:08
Speaker 4: things like this on a regular basis. Now it make
30:11
Speaker 4: it outside the realms of physical type performance and so
30:13
Speaker 4: forth to social or cognitive or whatever. But I think
30:17
Speaker 4: if inherently we're moving our bodies and recognize our capacity
30:21
Speaker 4: to do that, whether and maintain health or whatever it
30:24
Speaker 4: might be. I think that's going to add to the
30:27
Speaker 4: other things that come along in life.
30:29
Speaker 3: Especially wrestling. Any of those things that are just really
30:34
Speaker 3: a grind can build so much resilience. And I remember
30:37
Speaker 3: in college, so it come from a small town, little
30:40
Speaker 3: mining town, I played eight man football and we were
30:44
Speaker 3: just smash mouth the whole time. And I was half
30:46
Speaker 3: back and middle linebacker, and so I was running the
30:50
Speaker 3: ball and then I was tackling lots of people. And
30:53
Speaker 3: in college I played rugby, and you go to war
30:57
Speaker 3: every time. It's literally a grind out on the field
31:00
Speaker 3: and there's no pads and you're really literally beating each
31:04
Speaker 3: other up. It's just a good time, and there's resilience
31:09
Speaker 3: that comes from that. You know, you're only as you
31:10
Speaker 3: got to work together as a group, and you got
31:13
Speaker 3: to you know, ruck over and get the ball and
31:15
Speaker 3: keep moving. And but then afterwards, you know, UNLV in Vegas,
31:19
Speaker 3: everybody goes out for beers and I didn't drink, so
31:21
Speaker 3: I just go out and hang out with the guys
31:22
Speaker 3: and talk to them, and there's this there's this everybody's
31:27
Speaker 3: stress levels were just really low, and they were maybe
31:30
Speaker 3: they were drunk, but but but no, there was a
31:33
Speaker 3: there was definitely a social component of like releasing stress.
31:36
Speaker 3: And as I've continued to play sports in different venues
31:39
Speaker 3: throughout my life.
31:40
Speaker 2: I have a good time with it.
31:41
Speaker 3: I used to be really high intensity, and I think
31:43
Speaker 3: when I hit thirty, my my competitive nature went down
31:47
Speaker 3: by twenty percent a year. And now I'm forty seven,
31:49
Speaker 3: So I'm in the negative. But I'm in it for
31:52
Speaker 3: for fun. And so I would really play sports for
31:56
Speaker 3: for vacation, kind of like it. I was so high
31:58
Speaker 3: stress at my job and through residency and med school
32:01
Speaker 3: and all that, and I would play and it was.
32:04
Speaker 2: Literally just play for me. So I cut up a lot.
32:06
Speaker 3: I make jokes out there, whether it's volleyball or soccer
32:10
Speaker 3: or basketball or.
32:11
Speaker 2: Whenever I'm playing.
32:13
Speaker 3: I would jokingly talk trash, but not you know, terribly offensively.
32:18
Speaker 4: Sure not from a competitive standpoint, yeah, but just for
32:22
Speaker 4: fun and just laughing and joking.
32:24
Speaker 2: And it was kind of a vacation for me where
32:28
Speaker 2: I needed a vacation. I needed those stress levels to
32:30
Speaker 2: kind of blow off a little bit. And then some
32:33
Speaker 2: of the buds that I've developed over the years playing
32:35
Speaker 2: these sports are still my buds. You know. They're like
32:38
Speaker 2: basketball homie from Florida. You know, we still stay in touch.
32:42
Speaker 3: And it's all those things, the resilience and the distress
32:46
Speaker 3: and the collegiality and the mental wellness and the focus,
32:50
Speaker 3: and it's just so so healthy.
32:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, so healthy.
32:53
Speaker 4: I think accomplishing things once again, if it's you using
32:57
Speaker 4: your body to a call goals and they could be
33:01
Speaker 4: pretty high level ones or they could be relatively simplistic
33:04
Speaker 4: ones that I've done this on a daily basis for
33:07
Speaker 4: this period of time, and I feel better now when
33:09
Speaker 4: I get up in the morning or whatever, and you
33:11
Speaker 4: recognize what the source of that improvement is. It's these
33:14
Speaker 4: things you've been doing. I think there's some real payback
33:17
Speaker 4: with that when it's you. I tell students in classes,
33:22
Speaker 4: I don't remember what section it's in, but probably when
33:24
Speaker 4: we talk about cardiovascular health and we'll talk a little
33:26
Speaker 4: bit about training and exercise and how those things change.
33:29
Speaker 4: Sometimes the marathon will come up as a big stress
33:32
Speaker 4: on the system. And I asked the class, how many
33:34
Speaker 4: people run a marathon? And we'll get a feel for that,
33:37
Speaker 4: and I tell myself. I think everybody should run at
33:39
Speaker 4: least one marathon in their life. And then I tell
33:43
Speaker 4: my says, then the reason is it's not the twenty
33:46
Speaker 4: six point two on the day that you do it,
33:48
Speaker 4: which is no small deal. But if you're going to
33:50
Speaker 4: run a marathon, you're going to have to train for
33:52
Speaker 4: that thing. And the hardest part of a marathon, in
33:55
Speaker 4: my opinion, is putting together the training program in front
33:58
Speaker 4: of that. And that's that's a big accomplishment to organize
34:03
Speaker 4: that thing, to build up over time, to prepare yourself,
34:06
Speaker 4: and it doesn't take away from the the day of
34:09
Speaker 4: the event.
34:09
Speaker 1: That's a really great thing.
34:10
Speaker 4: But to look back, I just ran twenty six point
34:13
Speaker 4: two miles, But also look back, I just put together
34:15
Speaker 4: eight or nine or twelve months of some consistent training
34:20
Speaker 4: and exercise that got me to the point that I
34:22
Speaker 4: was able to do this. I think that's a big
34:25
Speaker 4: deal for humans. Weird when you can say I'm a human,
34:27
Speaker 4: I got a body, I did this with it. And
34:30
Speaker 4: there may be people that can't run marathons. It's just fine.
34:33
Speaker 4: There's other things that you know that we can do.
34:36
Speaker 2: Hard, hard, go get it. I love that.
34:39
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that for a minute, because I think
34:40
Speaker 3: that's a number one barrier for me, for probably everybody.
34:44
Speaker 3: For a long time, all I did was play, and
34:46
Speaker 3: that was my fun. It was my stress relief, it
34:48
Speaker 3: was my exercise. And then I started kevin injuries and
34:52
Speaker 3: with strength and conditioning lacking because all I do is play.
34:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.
34:55
Speaker 3: I would literally play three four days a week for
34:59
Speaker 3: two plus hours for years and years and years, whether
35:03
Speaker 3: it's soccer or volleyball, basketball, Each night of the week,
35:05
Speaker 3: I had something going on and it was so fun
35:07
Speaker 3: and so connecting, and I love my people, and it's
35:09
Speaker 3: stress relief and all the things. Then I started getting injured,
35:12
Speaker 3: and then I couldn't do that anymore. And then, and
35:15
Speaker 3: you know, I come from sports medicine.
35:16
Speaker 2: I get it. When you shart getting injured, you got
35:18
Speaker 2: to strengthening conditioned, dummy. You can't just keep playing sports.
35:22
Speaker 2: So I had.
35:23
Speaker 3: I had some bad knees, I had a bad back.
35:25
Speaker 3: I still have those problems, but I started just getting
35:28
Speaker 3: consistent with the strengthening regimen. I created rules for myself.
35:33
Speaker 3: Can't go play pick aball unless you strengthen that night,
35:38
Speaker 3: and so so those were kind of ways that helped me.
35:41
Speaker 3: But how do we what are some good pathways for
35:43
Speaker 3: folks to just maybe get started or maybe even push
35:47
Speaker 3: your body to certain levels. Do you have recommendations for
35:50
Speaker 3: how much exercise is enough for us? And then how
35:53
Speaker 3: do we stay consistent in that if it's not playtime
35:55
Speaker 3: because it is no longer play for me because my
35:57
Speaker 3: knees are barking at me and I get my exercise
35:59
Speaker 3: in and I do it less socially, and it's been
36:02
Speaker 3: a big loss for me. I've had to warn it,
36:04
Speaker 3: I've had art stuff. But you know, how do we
36:08
Speaker 3: get consistent? My wife is such a grinder. She knows
36:11
Speaker 3: how to do it, she loves it, she does it.
36:13
Speaker 3: I'm hoping our listeners are hearing this the upside to
36:17
Speaker 3: doing all these things for our brain, for our bodies,
36:19
Speaker 3: and then it's inspiring them to get started. I guess
36:22
Speaker 3: my question is how do you get started? And then
36:24
Speaker 3: how do you stay consistent in that space if it's
36:26
Speaker 3: not a super fun playtime thing.
36:28
Speaker 2: Sure.
36:29
Speaker 4: So, there's a national organization called the American College of
36:32
Speaker 4: Supports Medicine, and they have some basic recommendations. And one
36:36
Speaker 4: of the things that we go over and exercise is medicine.
36:39
Speaker 4: We talk about all these different conditions or situations. Somebody
36:42
Speaker 4: might be in metabolic disorder, or with pregnancy, or with
36:45
Speaker 4: ADHD or addiction or something like that. If somebody wants
36:49
Speaker 4: to begin to use exercise, or it's recommended or prescribe
36:52
Speaker 4: to them, and the question is where do you start.
36:56
Speaker 4: The basic recommendation is that people would participate in thirty
37:00
Speaker 4: minutes of some sort of continuous aerobic type exercise three
37:03
Speaker 4: to five days a week, and then preferably two sessions
37:06
Speaker 4: of some sort of resistance exercise. Doesn't have to be weights,
37:09
Speaker 4: it can just be body weight things and so forth.
37:12
Speaker 4: But that three to five days a week of thirty
37:15
Speaker 4: minutes of aerobic and two sessions per week of resistance.
37:19
Speaker 4: That's the same for everything. So regardless of if you're
37:24
Speaker 4: trying to work on something that ails you or you
37:27
Speaker 4: just want to start an exercise program and don't you
37:31
Speaker 4: don't feel the need that you need to talk to
37:33
Speaker 4: a physician to check things out per se. That's the
37:35
Speaker 4: place to start is three to five days a week
37:38
Speaker 4: of about thirty minutes of aerobic type stuff with whatever
37:42
Speaker 4: is in your capacity, and then another two days a week.
37:44
Speaker 4: And that's something obviously I try and press upon the students.
37:47
Speaker 4: They say, you'll notice it as we've been doing this
37:49
Speaker 4: for the past ten weeks. Every time we say where
37:52
Speaker 4: do somebody start, this is where they start, and that
37:54
Speaker 4: seems to work. Obviously, the intensity is going to vary
37:57
Speaker 4: based off where you're at, but that's the place to
38:00
Speaker 4: begin with that. The maintenance gets in the way of
38:04
Speaker 4: things sometimes for people. They want to do it, they
38:07
Speaker 4: know that it's good, they've done it before that's had
38:09
Speaker 4: positive impact. Actually, there's books that have been written on this.
38:13
Speaker 4: I think one of them was I don't remember the title,
38:16
Speaker 4: but it was forty four different ways to get yourself
38:20
Speaker 4: to exercise or something. I forget the title, but it
38:23
Speaker 4: went through some really basic things. Social is really good.
38:27
Speaker 4: Sometimes some people setting a goal or putting rewards associated
38:31
Speaker 4: with stuff that just doesn't work. Somebody says, well, you
38:33
Speaker 4: can go you know, you can go download that new
38:36
Speaker 4: album if you put in this mile, you know, many
38:39
Speaker 4: many sessions of exercise this week. Well some people say, well,
38:42
Speaker 4: I can download it anyway. I don't have to do that.
38:45
Speaker 4: So that doesn't work for some people. So you kind
38:47
Speaker 4: of have to find the thing that's going to be
38:50
Speaker 4: your jam.
38:50
Speaker 2: If you will.
38:51
Speaker 4: Social is something that works for a lot of people.
38:55
Speaker 4: That could be as simple as you share your goals
38:57
Speaker 4: with somebody else so you have some level of ability there,
39:01
Speaker 4: or you schedule a session with a friend and get
39:04
Speaker 4: together to do that. For some people, putting it on
39:07
Speaker 4: their calendar is a big deal. They won't they won't
39:10
Speaker 4: let it go if they put it on their calendar
39:12
Speaker 4: and it's going to be with someone that that seemed
39:15
Speaker 4: that will stick for a lot of people.
39:17
Speaker 1: There's other simple things to do.
39:20
Speaker 4: My wife is a fitness instructor and she's really good
39:24
Speaker 4: about exercising on a regular basis, and she teaches classes
39:28
Speaker 4: and she's the best one out there at this stuff.
39:32
Speaker 4: She talks about laying your clothes out the night before,
39:36
Speaker 4: So if you're going to get up in the morning
39:37
Speaker 4: an exercise and put your exercise clothes out there the
39:40
Speaker 4: night before, I've read stuff where people say just put
39:43
Speaker 4: them on, just sleep in your exercise clothes. So there's
39:47
Speaker 4: things like, so if you're if you're sharing your goals
39:49
Speaker 4: with other people, if you're scheduling a time with someone else,
39:53
Speaker 4: if you're if you're setting everything up so you're removing obstacles, barriers,
39:56
Speaker 4: to entry. And so if getting up in the morning's like, well,
40:00
Speaker 4: the workout clothes are over there, and I think my
40:02
Speaker 4: shoes are out in the garage or in the car.
40:04
Speaker 4: I'm just not going to get them, get them on place,
40:06
Speaker 4: get them laid out. Those are So there's things like
40:08
Speaker 4: that that you can do. Sometimes it's small steps. My
40:11
Speaker 4: son Henry's racing mountain bikes this year, and he likes
40:15
Speaker 4: to ride and he enjoys to do it. But sometimes,
40:17
Speaker 4: you know, whatever the days and so forth, I you
40:20
Speaker 4: know it's time to go out on a ride. Well,
40:22
Speaker 4: I'm kind of tired. I'm kind of this, but I
40:24
Speaker 4: know it, you know, I know it's important to do.
40:27
Speaker 4: And he may he may share with me, say yeah,
40:29
Speaker 4: I should go out and ride, and I said, well,
40:30
Speaker 4: let's not say should, but do you want to? So
40:33
Speaker 4: I kind of want to, but I'm kind of it's
40:34
Speaker 4: hard getting motivated. So I tell me, says, listen, just
40:37
Speaker 4: go upstairs, put on your cycling clothes. Don't worry about
40:40
Speaker 4: going on a ride right now. You just go get
40:42
Speaker 4: dressed for it, and and he'll do that. And once
40:45
Speaker 4: you get dressed for it, then you're kind of in
40:48
Speaker 4: It's I think it. It would be a really strong
40:51
Speaker 4: person that can get all dressed to go out for
40:53
Speaker 4: a run and then walk to the front door and say,
40:55
Speaker 4: you know what, I'm just going to go turn around
40:57
Speaker 4: and put my other clothes back on. Yeah, that's really unlikely.
41:01
Speaker 4: So people can come up with their own things, the
41:04
Speaker 4: stuff that works for them, whether it's a reward that
41:06
Speaker 4: they set for themselves, whether they have a picture of
41:09
Speaker 4: that eventual goal. Some people can look long term and say,
41:12
Speaker 4: you know, that's that's where I want to be. I
41:14
Speaker 4: want to have those capacities. For some people it could
41:17
Speaker 4: be grandkids. I want to be able to do this
41:19
Speaker 4: with my grandkids when I get to That's why I'm
41:21
Speaker 4: doing this now when i'm this age, so that I
41:24
Speaker 4: can maintain that function. So you got to kind of
41:27
Speaker 4: have to search around for the things that you know.
41:30
Speaker 4: But if you'll sit down and say, well, what are
41:32
Speaker 4: my barriers, what's keeping me from doing this? And if
41:34
Speaker 4: you're honest with yourself, Being honest tends to go a
41:37
Speaker 4: long ways with ourselves, you can start to see, oh,
41:40
Speaker 4: that's something that gets in my way. I need to
41:43
Speaker 4: get married and tell her, hey, we got to start exercise.
41:46
Speaker 4: And I know you want to as well, So let's
41:47
Speaker 4: schedule a time. I got to get my stuff out.
41:50
Speaker 4: I gotta be organized and prepared.
41:52
Speaker 2: These are some great tips and tricks. I love it.
41:55
Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing that with us. That is so good.
41:58
Speaker 3: It's funny the mental gymnastic that we all have to
42:00
Speaker 3: play with ourselves to stay motivated, to keep motive, to
42:03
Speaker 3: stay consistent and not shooting on yourself. Like you mentioned
42:07
Speaker 3: to your boy, like that should game is always counterproductive
42:13
Speaker 3: with regard to motivation. It's the same as like someone
42:16
Speaker 3: else forcing you to do it, also counterproductive for dopamine motivation. Yeah,
42:22
Speaker 3: it's got to kind of come from from yourself. And
42:25
Speaker 3: I love what you said, just like, break down the obstacles,
42:28
Speaker 3: push through, get yourself just just start, just get halfway
42:33
Speaker 3: there and see what happens.
42:35
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna put on my running shorts. I'm just
42:37
Speaker 2: gonna put it.
42:38
Speaker 3: On my shoes and get myself moving in that direction.
42:41
Speaker 3: What's interesting Once you get going and start, it's easy
42:47
Speaker 3: and kind of love it and you're like, ah, this
42:48
Speaker 3: is great. Why was that obstacle there? But it's always there.
42:52
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's just like our brains are
42:54
Speaker 3: our fleshy bodies and we're just kind of want to
42:56
Speaker 3: sleep or lazy.
42:57
Speaker 2: What.
42:57
Speaker 1: I think our culture and society kind of get in
42:59
Speaker 1: the way of that too. We have way more.
43:02
Speaker 4: Things pressing on us than we did ten years ago,
43:04
Speaker 4: twenty years ago, thirty years ago, and we have you know,
43:07
Speaker 4: kids and youth that are growing up in environments that
43:09
Speaker 4: are really different like that where.
43:11
Speaker 1: You're you're getting decision overload.
43:15
Speaker 4: Well, I you know, there's the exercise, there's this, there's that,
43:18
Speaker 4: all these things so you can figure out what your
43:21
Speaker 4: barriers are. And I think we talk you talked about
43:24
Speaker 4: the effect of should we need to be careful with
43:27
Speaker 4: ourselves and be respectful for ourselves. Some people will say, well,
43:31
Speaker 4: you know, I'm going to go out and run the day,
43:32
Speaker 4: but I'm probably not going to do it tomorrow.
43:35
Speaker 1: It's it's best to just stay in the moment.
43:37
Speaker 4: I'm exercising today. This is a good thing. Some so
43:42
Speaker 4: sometimes goals work, sometimes don't.
43:44
Speaker 2: Some they don't.
43:45
Speaker 4: But for some people they have this eye on the
43:49
Speaker 4: prize and then all the steps and they can see
43:51
Speaker 4: all of the steps to get to the prize, and
43:53
Speaker 4: that's overwhelming. But if they can bring it back, well, today,
43:58
Speaker 4: I'm going to do this, and I did this today
44:00
Speaker 4: and that's a good thing. We'll see how tomorrow goes.
44:03
Speaker 4: You kind of kind of find out what your demons
44:05
Speaker 4: are and how to address them. You mentioned the idea
44:07
Speaker 4: that you know you would participate in sports and we're competitive,
44:11
Speaker 4: and then you just kind of like to play and
44:12
Speaker 4: stuff like that. I was a competitive cyclist for a
44:15
Speaker 4: long long time, and the reason that I rode my
44:17
Speaker 4: bike and trained was so that I could basically do
44:21
Speaker 4: better than somebody else, so I could beat somebody else.
44:24
Speaker 4: When I kind of got to the point where that
44:26
Speaker 4: wasn't what I was doing anymore, my motivation for getting
44:30
Speaker 4: out and doing stuff wasn't what it used to be,
44:32
Speaker 4: and that was a really big.
44:34
Speaker 1: Factor for a long long time.
44:35
Speaker 4: Yes, and all of a sudden I have to and
44:38
Speaker 4: I'm still in the process of rethinking, Okay, these are
44:41
Speaker 4: my reasons for doing this now. I really love to
44:43
Speaker 4: cycle and ride bikes and stuff like that where it's
44:46
Speaker 4: on the road and mountains and stuff like that. But
44:48
Speaker 4: the reason that I'm doing it now isn't necessarily so
44:51
Speaker 4: I can go out and beat somebody. And that's a
44:55
Speaker 4: different feeling.
44:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a whole new equation to figure out and
45:00
Speaker 3: how do I get that motivation? Yeah, the distractions we
45:04
Speaker 3: all have this kind of like wake up in the morning,
45:06
Speaker 3: your dopamine is pretty high, cortisol's pretty high, and you're like, okay,
45:10
Speaker 3: let's go, let's.
45:11
Speaker 2: Go win the day.
45:12
Speaker 3: And then there's some little tricky floods of dopamine that
45:17
Speaker 3: enter our brain cells, largely from our screens and our phone,
45:20
Speaker 3: that then give you a sense of productivity and a
45:22
Speaker 3: sense of dopamine.
45:23
Speaker 2: And then and then that also can kill motivation.
45:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've noticed it if I get up and I
45:28
Speaker 3: do some silly dopamine things before my exercise, So maybe
45:33
Speaker 3: maybe you the trick is to use those little dopamine
45:36
Speaker 3: as a reward afterwards or something like I'll give myself
45:39
Speaker 3: some doom scrolling five minutes or something after the workout,
45:42
Speaker 3: maybe not before and creating creating that pattern I think
45:45
Speaker 3: would make a lot of sense, because then you don't
45:48
Speaker 3: get the dopamine flood before the reward or before the exertion.
45:51
Speaker 4: There use a meaningful, dense activity to get it. Yeah,
45:55
Speaker 4: as opposed to you can get some you can get
45:58
Speaker 4: dopamine from negative thing. Sure, we'll light your brain up
46:01
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, and you and and that can
46:05
Speaker 4: have bad consequences on a regular you know, over time.
46:09
Speaker 1: But but if you think about what are what are
46:11
Speaker 1: the things?
46:12
Speaker 4: What am I gonna feel good about if I've done this,
46:15
Speaker 4: if I've done that, and say, well, if I get
46:17
Speaker 4: up an exercise, if so, make your dopamine hit a
46:20
Speaker 4: meaningful activity, if you will, and framing it like that
46:24
Speaker 4: maybe a way to help, you know, get you in
46:27
Speaker 4: this position or that position. And if if it's a
46:29
Speaker 4: screen and it's a phone that's in your way, then
46:32
Speaker 4: get it out of your way, put it in another place.
46:35
Speaker 4: People's as my alarm clock said, buy an alarm clock.
46:39
Speaker 3: What do you want to create for yourself? I think
46:40
Speaker 3: if we look at it as we're creating, because we're
46:43
Speaker 3: certainly not creating by doom scrolling. But but if we're
46:47
Speaker 3: exerting ourselves, pushing, we're working towards something, we're actually creating
46:51
Speaker 3: stronger muscles, stronger minds, stronger hearts and hopefully long term
46:57
Speaker 3: relationships with grandkids and things that we're going to have
46:59
Speaker 3: long term, you know. And the whole equation continues to change,
47:03
Speaker 3: the exercise equation and what motivates us like we like
47:05
Speaker 3: both of us went from competitive to less competitive, like, well,
47:08
Speaker 3: now you know and we got to figure those spaces out.
47:12
Speaker 3: Doctor parself, I really appreciate you today. This was really fun.
47:16
Speaker 3: Do you have any closing comments or anything for our listeners.
47:20
Speaker 4: We use the word exercise a lot, and some things
47:22
Speaker 4: that we've been doing at school, some new programs and
47:24
Speaker 4: stuff like that. I've really encouraged people to use the
47:28
Speaker 4: term movement. There's nothing wrong with exercise, but sometimes that
47:31
Speaker 4: word exercise can carry some negative things with it for
47:35
Speaker 4: some people, some guilt, some shame. Oh I didn't. I didn't,
47:38
Speaker 4: And so I said, well, and I asked classes this.
47:40
Speaker 4: I said, what are some negative things that come down?
47:42
Speaker 4: And I say exercise and they come up with some
47:44
Speaker 4: of those things. I said what about movement, And they're like, well,
47:47
Speaker 4: now I don't have a lot of they don't necessarily
47:50
Speaker 4: carry negative things with movement. But I said that the
47:54
Speaker 4: two are kind of the same thing. And so I say,
47:56
Speaker 4: so if somebody is saying, well, I don't exercise, I said, well,
48:00
Speaker 4: how much do you move? And if they start to
48:02
Speaker 4: think about that, they realize, you know what I actually
48:04
Speaker 4: do move quite a bit every day and I say, well,
48:06
Speaker 4: that's a really good thing. You're doing well, and therein
48:10
Speaker 4: lies that positive thing that's coming back. Oh, I actually
48:12
Speaker 4: do move and I think it makes it easier that
48:15
Speaker 4: if they want to build on this idea of movement.
48:18
Speaker 4: So I've encouraged people to utilize that word movement as
48:21
Speaker 4: opposed to exercise all of the time. So I want
48:24
Speaker 4: to do some more movement. I want to do these
48:25
Speaker 4: different types of movements and it may not carry the
48:29
Speaker 4: same weight that and the level of commitment or whatever
48:32
Speaker 4: it is. The stress that comes when we put tack
48:34
Speaker 4: that exercise thing onto it. It's pretty clear that if
48:38
Speaker 4: we'll become regular movers, regular exercisers, that's going to be
48:42
Speaker 4: a big thing for us. The thing is to figure
48:44
Speaker 4: out how you're going to do that in your life.
48:47
Speaker 4: We comparison, as they say, is the thief of joy.
48:52
Speaker 4: And if we no pun intended run around trying to
48:55
Speaker 4: be like other people with our exercise, I don't think
48:57
Speaker 4: it's going to be as meaningfulfilling. So to sit down
49:01
Speaker 4: and be honest with yourself, what are the things that
49:03
Speaker 4: I enjoy and call it movement maybe instead of exercise,
49:06
Speaker 4: and recognize you know I'm kind of doing this and
49:08
Speaker 4: if I did a little bit more of this, this
49:10
Speaker 4: would provide some further enhancement. And remember that that we're
49:17
Speaker 4: not out there to get trained and to get compete.
49:20
Speaker 4: We don't all have to get bigger muscles, we all
49:23
Speaker 4: don't have to run marathons, but we do want to
49:26
Speaker 4: think about what are the things that do you want
49:28
Speaker 4: to do? What are the movements, what kind of movement
49:31
Speaker 4: is going to take to get me there? And make
49:34
Speaker 4: it a personal thing and an internal thing, not a
49:37
Speaker 4: comparison thing. You'll never win with the comparison thing. There's
49:40
Speaker 4: always going to be somebody out there that's going to
49:42
Speaker 4: take you to task. Yeah, thank you so much for that.
49:46
Speaker 4: I love the movement part. I've had to I've had
49:50
Speaker 4: to mourn some loss with some injuries and not being
49:54
Speaker 4: as active as I have been able to be in
49:56
Speaker 4: the past. And so twice a day on my walks,
50:00
Speaker 4: take my little dog on a walk twice a day
50:01
Speaker 4: for twenty minutes or so, and sometimes that's all I
50:04
Speaker 4: can do. That's it, that's all I can swing for
50:07
Speaker 4: the day. I've got some injuries that I'm still nursing,
50:10
Speaker 4: and I send these stupid little pieces of wood. I
50:13
Speaker 4: call them serenity wood. And this one is Mesquite from Arizona.
50:17
Speaker 4: And I want to give you that for being a
50:19
Speaker 4: Nikey podcast, but I yeah, it's just it's part of
50:22
Speaker 4: my routine as part of the movement slash mental healthy,
50:26
Speaker 4: and I just go on my walks and I send
50:28
Speaker 4: a piece of wood and rough it in the night before.
50:30
Speaker 4: And so I got a couple pieces to work under
50:33
Speaker 4: my walks, and I got a dusty old walking jacket
50:36
Speaker 4: that I send. And so I love what you just
50:39
Speaker 4: left us with that nugget.
50:40
Speaker 2: Of just just move, you know.
50:42
Speaker 3: So don't feel shiant, shame or guilt about I should
50:45
Speaker 3: do this. I'm only doing this. I want to do that,
50:47
Speaker 3: but I can't.
50:47
Speaker 2: Now.
50:48
Speaker 3: I should just just move what you can and keep
50:51
Speaker 3: pushing and keep moving and grooving. We're movers and shakers
50:54
Speaker 3: as people. That's good stuff. Thank you so much for
50:57
Speaker 3: being on our podcast.
50:58
Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate it. Cool to our listeners.
51:01
Speaker 3: Hopefully you learn some good stuff today and don't forget
51:04
Speaker 3: to like and subscribe or just turn off your phones
51:06
Speaker 3: and go outside and play move a little bit.
51:09
Speaker 2: Thanks