Business Innovators Radio - Don’t Get Jacked Up at the Gym

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

The New Year often marks the time for making health resolutions – including heading to the gym. While working to get in shape and improve your health is an excellent goal, it can also lead to injuries that can sideline your efforts. Discussing how to safely start an exercise routine is a great place to start before you step back into the gym.Dr. Dan, Angela and guest-host Riley explain the importance of starting slowly and meeting your body where it is, rather than jumping into intense workouts if you’ve been inactive. The goal is avoiding injury and burnout while still challenging yourself appropriately. They share examples from their experience and warn against comparing yourself to elite athletes who have access to unlimited time and resources for recovery. If you’re getting ready to hit the gym, this is a must-listen.To learn more about this and other hot health topics, follow us on social media and subscribe to our WTH podcast. If you have a specific health question or would like to find out if we can help you with a personal health challenge, check out our office page or contact us at 412-369-0400/ [e-mail] always, our mission is to help you Get Healthy and Stay Healthy for a Lifetime!What the Health?!https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/what-the-health/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/dont-get-jacked-up-at-the-gym

Welcome to What the Health, where anything health is fair game as we tackle the trends and bust the myths about health and wellness. Here are your hosts, Dr. Dan and Angela Toro. And welcome to another What the Health podcast. I am Dr. Dan here with my typical co-host. Angela, welcome back, guys. And we have a new co-host today. Hi, I'm almost Dr. Riley. Almost Dr. Riley. We had to clarify. We had to clarify. but what, you're like 99% done with the program. When do you graduate? In March.

March, March 24. Yeah, so we got less than four months left and here we go. So before we jump into the podcast today, what's been your experience so far in the office? It's been good. It's good to get out of the actual classes and into real world experiences. The patients you see while in school are completely different than what you actually get to experience in the real world. So it's been an eye open up for sure. And there goes the dog.

Yeah, and Benson also wants to be a part of today's behind. Yeah. Also, didn't want one to lead. He left out. So he is drinking right next to our wonderful podcast. Hydration. That's one of our holiday health tips. Stay hydrated.

Stay hydrated. Stay hydrated. Everything, Benson. Thank you. Yeah, so it's like, obviously, you know, you're going from the, you know, the class setting to much more of like a real life, you know, clinical setting. And so have you felt like you've been able to transition with the skills you learned in school effectively into the actual office setting? Yeah, I think they prepare you very well for the adjusting.

And they do a pretty good job of making sure you stay on top of communication. But it is still a big leap. And at Life University, it's all chiropractic students or current chiropractors. So jumping to the real world, kind of making sure you. can get on the same level as the patients. Make sure you're talking to their level of, you know, experience with chiropractic. Yeah, people who don't have a full understanding of the spine and nervous system and getting them to understand it down into late terms.

Yeah. So what made you decide you want to be a chiropractor? So I've always enjoyed helping people. I originally was thinking of physical therapy route, but I've been to plenty of physical therapists. I just didn't see myself doing that. I wanted to do a little bit more in the whole holistic side of chiropractic and, you know, being able to help people without medicine and allowing the body to heal itself was a very big eye-opener for me. Was there something in your upbringing in terms of how you were raised that kind of led you to that? No, not necessarily.

My first adjustment, I think, was in school. I've done a couple, you know, some research about chiropractic before going there. My undergrad was an exercise physiology. So the body really fascinated me and seeing how the chiropractic profession kind of views the body and how they used, you know, the adjustment to allow the body to heal itself was just really eye opening and attracted me a lot.

Yeah, so working with the body facilitating its own natural healing ability rather than, you know, trying to artificially stimulate it with, you know, drugs or, you know, surgery. And, I mean, that's exactly, you know, kind of My progression with it was just like I was really an exercise in middle school, high school, and then I fell in love with the human body when I took my first anatomy of physiology course. And then again, you know, leaving in an exercise, you know, science, physiology background.

You know, it's just, the chiropractic was just the next logical progression of that. Seeing how, you know, I grew up taking medication and Angela and I have had this conversation before. It's like we lived in a pretty typical American household. Like, hey, you have a fever, take this. You got this egg for pain, you know, take this. And it was like, oh, you have this cough. It's like, you know, but looking back on it, you know, the whole hindsight 2020 was, you know, I was actually a fairly sick child growing up. You know, if you actually look at, you know, some of the stuff that I went through, developing asthma, having, you know, pretty significant pneumonia once or twice a year.

Like, you know, it was, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, it was normal, right? That's what we call. That was the normal in America. All right. It had to be on antibiotics once a year was... I mean, yeah, completely normal, but it's not healthy, right? That's what I always talk about. And so it sounds like you've really come to that understanding about, you know, look, there's, you know, there's a better way out there to, you know, if we really get to the bottom of our body, you know, being as healthy as possible and keeping it that way.

So, well, that's awesome. Well, welcome to the office. I'm sure we'll interject a little bit more. What are we actually talking about today, Nigeria? So as we're heading into the new year. here. It seemed like a great time to have a nice flashing warning light for those people who are getting ready for their New Year's resolutions and to jump back into the gym. So today's episode is don't get jacked up while you're trying to get jacked. So really the idea of, you know, people that go

from that zero to a hundred. So, you know, warning, making sure that if you haven't exercised for the last year or several years or even several months not to jump in January 1 and try to do what you did, you know, we're able to do five years ago or 10 years ago or even five months ago if you haven't been active. Or you never did it. Or you never, yes. You never did weight to get in your life. Yes.

Yes. So, yeah, really understanding, you know, we've talked about exercise progression. So this is really more of a reminder because, you know, we're heading into that season where you're going to see all the advertising and all the gyms offering their, you know, come in and trials, you know, and the gyms are going to be packed full for them, three weeks. The Monday after, well, wait, what the, what day? So, New Year's is a Monday. It is a Monday.

It is a Monday. It's a Monday. It'll be a Monday. Yeah. It'll be packed, right? Because no one starts, you know, everyone will start on Monday, but New Year's day is still a holiday. So we're going to take that time off. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. So, but yeah, so really, and obviously, I mean, you guys have the exercise physiology background as well. So, I mean, you know the importance of making sure that you're really meeting your body where it is. And that is, that's the biggest thing, especially when you're starting an exercise program. You know, we see all the time. People come in.

They're, you know, coming in with their chiropractic care, they start feeling good. So what do they do? They try to go right back to where they were before they were coming in. And then they get frustrated because it's like, oh, well, I can't do, you know, X, Y, and Z like I used to. And, you know, remind me people that it's a, it's a. truly as a process and a journey and fitness is one of those things where, you know, it's constantly changing. What worked for you in your teens and 20s might not be the program that works for you in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 50, 60s, whatever decade you're in. You really need to

take a look. You know, I noticed that with myself. I don't know if you guys noticed that. I mean, Brad is the youngest here, but, you know, the types of workouts that I could do, you know, in my 20s is not, I look back. I'm like, I would never do that. I'm like, that would just That hurts to think about. Yeah. And you also kind of have to tailor them towards your life now. You know, you know, 10 years ago for me, it was all sports. So I'm trying to work out towards those sports.

But nowadays it's just trying to make sure I keep my body healthy. Yeah. Yeah. Before it was, yeah, you were training with a specific purpose of competing and a specific sport. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to go to work on one day.

So if you, yeah, if you go crazy on the weekends with your training. And, I mean, you saw that with me when I was. when I was fighting. It's, you know, I was, it was, it was, just weighing in the back of the office, doing recovery. I'm living in Monday mornings after some hard sparring sessions. I'm like, I'm good. Just give me a second. So, yes, very different, which is a great point. It's very different if you're training for a specific competition or specific, you know, specific purpose versus just overall health. And yeah, and that's, that is, that's huge because, you know, it's not all about bigger, faster, stronger. Once you get.

through your, you know, high school and if you play collegiate sports, it's like, you know, we talk about this, right? An athletic lifestyle, and, you know, a true, like, high performance athletic lifestyle is not healthy long term. Like, you know, to keep. Like football players. Yeah, yeah. Even golfers.

How many professional golfers have we had it that are just, you know, again, shoulder issues, neck issues, back issues? Yeah. And you want, especially those sports that are one side of. We've talked about that before. Throwing if you're a quarterback or baseball, volleyball you're doing hitting. You know, even basketball is kind of one-sided

because you typically dribble and shoot, you know, on one side. And so it's like all those one-sided, but especially things like golf, racket sports, where you're constantly putting so much torque through the lower body up through the hips and the lower back. You know, that's why you have golfers like Tiger Woods. I've had, you know, multiple back surgeries because it's just, you know, your body is not made for that constant stress and strain and torquing on it over long term.

So that's another something I wasn't even planned on talking about, but that just made me think of, you know, a good reminder because, you know, obviously we watch, you know, we're in football season and people like, you know, we watch professional sports and, you know, you see these players that go out with injuries. I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. They're, they're like, wait, so-and-so was just out. with a, I don't know if I remember if it's knee injury or a heel injury, and they're like, they're saying it's going to be back in a couple weeks. Is that even possible? It's like, well, when you're a professional athlete that has unlimited resources, yes, actually, there's a lot of,

you know, there's a lot of recovery out there, you know, stem cell injections, PRP, which is plat, platelet-rich plasma, which I've had, you know, there's a lot of different recoveries, cup, caffeine, acupuncture, you know, these guys are, they're spending as much time, if not more on recovery as they are on their training and they have a whole professional team and unlimited, unlimited money and the ability to do that. So yes, for them, I mean, again, long term, it's probably not what's going to be best for those injuries, but it is possible to get those people back in as quickly as you're seeing. That doesn't translate to the average joke. So when you hurt yourself, the average person exercising or, you know, just going about

your day-to-day life, you need to give it the time to heal properly, or you're just going to end up doing more damage in the long run. So I think that's an always important disclaimer, because we do, we see, you know, just like seeing, you know, celebrities and how, you know, we watch these people that are in the spotlight and go, well, well, they can do it. Why can't why can't I? Yeah, exactly. When even, you know, even when you watch the progression of, like, someone like Rocky Balboa and Aaron's going to laugh when she hears that I bring up Rocky, but I love the Rocky series. And, you know, they show his, you know, he, each, you know, movie, he fought a little bit different style and he tried to train a little bit differently. You know, even from the first movie to the second movie where he was trying to, you know, gain more speed and quickness.

You know, even, you know, to the third when he was training, you know, Apollo was his trainer. And, you know, he was training to a fight clubber laying in the third movie. It's like he was gaining more speed and quickness. And then you fast forward to, like, the most recent one, Rocky Balboa, where it was like, it was all. strength you know big heavy slow you know power lifting type stuff you know just to get the you know the you know the muscle you know built up so there's there's different styles and goals that you can mean but if you're truly trying to lift you know what we talk about longevity lifting you're trying to try and lift throughout your

lifetime and it's interesting we keep bringing up the the muscle right the resistance training because you know we go back and review you know I look at it is a triangle and you guys can have whatever you think but like you've got your um you've got your flexibility mobility as one tier of a triangle or three-legged stool you've got your endurance um you know stamina and then you have your strength you know on the other you know on the other it's kind of like the three tiers of the stool so um you know all all three of those if you want to have a good healthy lifestyle are very very important but a lot of times people were picking you know, a regiment that is, revolves strictly around or mostly around one of those,

you know, one of those points of fitness. Yeah. And that's intended, people tend to gravitate towards the one that they're most comfortable with, which makes sense. You know, again, it's, you know, we want to do something we feel comfortable. But again, like you said, it's important to incorporate all of that. And I really think, you know, again, when we talk about, I think a lot of people, when you hear endurance, people think, you know, long distance running.

And that's what I used to think with, when I would hear cardio, I'm like, oh, God, I hate cardio. But, you know, when I discover, you know, high intensity exercise, training, hit training, like, oh, no, I like cardio. I just don't like doing it in the, in the, like, long distance running kind of way. Yeah. So there's different ways. And that's, you know, it's so important. Because if you're not, you know, like Riley was talking about how, you know, with the chiropractic having to explain it to people who don't have a chiropractic.

background, same with exercise. You know, we sometimes forget because we all grew up doing sports and grew up in the gym, you know, the average person, if you didn't do sports, you probably were never taught how to lift, how to run, how to, you know, how to walk properly, you know. So it's, it's, if you feel like that person where you walk into a gym and don't know what the heck to do, that's okay. And that's, you know, that's part of what we do, especially what I do as a personal trainer is, is really help you understand. One, what are you trying to accomplish? Because you might not even know that. I mean, if you're, if you've never worked out, you might not even know why you should be working out and what you should be doing. So even starting with the basics of why is it important

to exercise? What, what are we trying to accomplish short term, midterm, long term? And then what is going to work for you in your body and your lifestyle and, and ultimately, you're where you live because, you know, watching the snow start to come down here. So if you were playing on getting out for a run today, do it now. But ultimately, yeah, that's, you know, that's, you know, that's, That's the biggest thing with exercises is really understanding where you are currently and where you want to get and making sure that there's a proper progression. If you've never run a day in your life, you're not going to go try to run a marathon tomorrow. So, you know, you're going to, there's, it's why they have those, what, like the couch to, couch to 5K programs that literally walk you step by step, which is great because that's how it should be. And same as if you're going to be doing lifting or mobility, Mike and I send each other all these crazy mobility.

videos all the time. And some of them are, hey, we should actually try these. And some of them are, oh my gosh, look at what this person can do. We'll never be able to do that because they've probably been training that every single day for the last, however many decades, to be able to move their body in that way, which is impressive, but not attainable for the average person who doesn't have the hours and hours to spend in the gym every day. I think it's important to figure out where you're at.

You know, I know everybody is going to be under a lot of pressure from now until, you know, January 1st, everybody sets that goal to start January 1st. You know, if you are unsure about where you're at right now or what you're wanting to do for your resolution, I would not use January 1st as a deadline. I would use, you know, because there's only, there's less than a month until that deadline's supposed to start, kind of figure out where you're at, use these next three or four weeks to figure out what you want to do, listen to some other people even say their resolution, what they want to do. And that can kind of help you guide you or guide you into what you really want and what you need for your health.

Yeah. Yeah, we talk about this all the time with goals and this whole idea is that people always want to start on a Monday or the first of the month or the first of the year. And it's like, go, you know, hey, it's Tuesday. Go do something, you know. Who cares what happened yesterday? Yesterday's gone. Like, just because it's Tuesday or Wednesday doesn't mean you can't start towards your goal.

You don't have to wait until January. Get out for a walk. You know, go, you know, go stretch. You know, move your body in a different way. And if anything, I think it helps get you through these couple months where, you know, I noticed that after the Thanksgiving weekend, you know, just three days of eating and drinking more, way more than we usually do. And for me, not exercising, which to go three days without exercise, my body was like, oh, my God. We went to the park that one way. We did. Actually, that was great.

Running around, kicking the soccer ball around with the knees as the nephews was, I need. did that. My wife, I've been for three days straight. But, so again, not using the holidays as an excuse to get totally off. And again, this podcast will be coming out post holidays. But just as a reminder of, you know, really remembering that, again, it is a process. There's going to be just because you miss today, you know, if you miss Monday, I see, again,

I follow a lot of fitness groups and people will post the never miss a Monday, which is a great inspirational. But you know what? Sometimes you're going to miss a Monday. It's going to happen. And guess what? That doesn't mean you wait till next Monday. That means, okay, Tuesday. Maybe you missed Tuesday, too.

All right, great. Wednesday is a great day to start. So every day is a good day to start and to really make sure that you're not, you know, setting yourself back to, back to zero. Well, and again, the other, you know, we always talk about adaptation in the office, right? The simplest definition of health, you know, the better, the people who are better able to adapt, they're healthier, right? you go outside of a cold day, the faster your body can start, you know, adapting to that

temperature by shivering, healthier you are. The, you know, same thing with heat on the opposite side. So the better your body has an ability to adapt, the healthier you are. So it goes, same thing with our routines. It's like we want to build up, you know, a routine so that we can have that structure and just make it, you know, make it as easy as possible to get into that routine where we are exercising or again we talk about exercise versus activity but we're doing something to stay active every day just like brushing our teeth but you know the idea sometimes we get into our heads like oh i have to go

to the gym you know monday wed wednesday friday and again if then if you miss the gym on monday like oh my gosh does that sabotage my whole week or hey it's eight o'clock at night you're just getting home from work can you get your butt outside and go take a 30 minute walk you know that is still a legitimate movement throw a yoga routine on you know on on YouTube or something. Yeah, yeah. If you had kids, do some freaking, you know, push up some body squats in the living room with your kids around, you know, Christmas tree.

Yeah. Around, you know, while you're watching TV on a commercial break, like, you know, it's funny, a lot of these streaming services that never had commercials. Now they're going back to commercials now. So it's like, well, shoot, now I've got 90 seconds and I can do something. So, you know, and so that's the idea of being adaptable because, again, you know, when you do have a young family, you mentioned before, like. Like, you know, you're in your 20s now and, you know, it's different now compared to, you know,

where you were growing up in, you know, in sports. And it's like, you know, add another decade on to it and have, you know, young kids, you know, and, you know, busy, you know, business practice. It's like, it's just a different, you know, it's a different time in your life that, you know, but it doesn't mean like you shouldn't be doing anything. It just means you need to adapt it to what your current situation is. So, again, we've built out a gym down in the basement. So we've got that, you know, access to equipment and weights.

But again, it is the easiest thing to do is put your shoes on and go for a walk outside. I don't even put tennis shoes on sometimes anymore. I have, like, I have a nice pair of, you know, sandals that I wear. They're crock sandals that just have the nice feel. And so I'll throw those on with socks. And I just, you know, I like the feel of it. Aaron loves on. Oh, my God.

It's like, you're talking about bad bond to the max. I'll be walking around the neighborhood with my sweatpants and socks. But it's like, you know, it just, it feels good to get out and just take a walk for a mile or two. And sometimes just doing that on a regular basis makes all the difference. So, you know, being adaptable to your routine, it's like you obviously want to set goals. But if you miss or something comes up, like, you know, don't sabotage your whole week because of that. Like, you know, what can you do that day to, you know, get right back on track? And be realistic with your goals starting out.

You know, again, if you haven't been exercising regularly, don't expect to be in the gym seven days a week. It's not going to happen. So start out with something that truly is realistic, you know, two to three days a week. If you can get yourself doing that regularly and then work up to more, you know, either to longer periods or to more days that you're there. But really being realistic because that's, you know,

the best way to prevent injury and also to psychologically not get yourself down when you don't immediately meet that goal. So yeah, so this is your, this is your New Year's warning. So be careful as you head into the, head into the gym. Don't get overzealous. Be realistic about where you are, especially, especially post-holidays. I mean, you're going to have that post-holidays sluggishness. And even if you are active, I mean, a regularly active person.

I know, I don't, those are not my best workouts those first couple, first couple days in the new years. So, you know, be, you know, be kind. We always say, treat your body. You treat your body right and it will take care of you. Yeah. So that's, you know, again, just some of the key things to remember are, you know, obviously, you know, listening to what's going on if you're sore in a certain muscle group. Maybe you need to take some time to mobilize and stretch that muscle group.

Versus lifting. Yeah. Yeah. Versus, you know, lifting in and putting it through. Because some people like, you know, do this whole body stuff every day. Yeah. Yeah. Every day.

And it's like, you know, maybe you need to cycle through some different body parts. And then again, intermixed that with some stretching and mobilization. And you'd be amazed at how much just stretching if you haven't done anything for a while or I've never done anything to move your body. Like, you know, doing a simple, you know, stretching or yoga type routine, mobility routine, you can wake up sore the next day because you're activating the muscles. So, but that's a good thing, right? Like we always talk about good soreness versus injury soreness. Did a whole podcast on that. You can go back and check that one out.

But yeah, and then the other thing is making sure that you're staying hydrated. It's just this time of year, especially when it's not as hot out. Yeah, we don't think about it. You know, we don't think about drinking water as much. And sometimes, you know, we're down in the coffee because it's a nice warm drink. But it's like making sure that you're keeping hydrated. You know, whatever your body weight is, divide it in pounds, divide it by two. That's the amount of ounces you should aim for, you know, plus or minus, you know, 10 to 20 ounces there.

So if you're 200 pounds, you divide that by two, you should be drinking about 100 ounces a day. So which is more than the eight ounce, you know, eight, eight, eight, eight ounce cups. So, yeah, you got to keep, you know, got to keep that body hydrated. And you'll feel more hydrated if you're active and moving your body rather than just, you know, sitting around on the couch all day. So, so, yeah, I mean, those are a couple of things, you know, just for injury prevention to think about, you know, as always, like, ask. you know, tie, you know, whether you have a spouse, whether you have a, you know, a friend, whether you hire a trainer, like get someone who's going to hold you accountable to, to your plan because the accountability is what's going to keep you showing up day to day week to

week. If you don't hold anyone accountable, you know, I have a guy in my men's group that, you know, always says, you know, I have, you know, the, how does he point? I have the, you know, greatest ability to deceive myself. And it's like, and we just all do as human beings. It's like we can reason our way out of any through or out of anything. And, you know, so by holding, having someone who's going to hold you accountable, you know, they're going to hold your hand when you need it or kick you in the butt when you need it. And we always discuss that as well.

So anything else to add with your background and, you know, fitness and routine. teens. I mean, Angela made a good point of don't start out, you know, crazy. Like, I'm going to go bench press and squat, you know, a bunch of weight. I've done that, you know, plenty of times. And I regret it. And it keeps me out of the gym. Yeah.

If you put any resolution, I want to go three or four days a week, but you work out super hard that first day. Yeah, you're done one, maybe two days that week. Yep. And then another point with being held accountable, that's what social media could be good for. If you're not, you know, afraid to post yourself on Facebook. and say, you know, somebody hold me accountable. Not only are you helping yourself, you know, keep that routine going.

You're probably going to pull maybe two, three more people into actually helping themselves out rather than, you know, them being on the keyboard on the couch and just motivating you. They might come and join you sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. It's a whole community of people that's really what it's all about. And, yeah, especially if you start going to a gym regularly. And, you know, again, it just always becomes a community. People are going to see you.

They're going to know when you're not there. And it just makes you want to go more when you have that, when you do. When you have that, that community of people that are holding each other accountable. Well, that was our whole purpose for, you know, creating the space that we're in process of creating right now, right? I think we can officially say we're calling it the shift room, right? I don't know. Spinal, spinal healing, intuitive, functional training.

Yes. Right? So, yes, but we're creating an entire space on our current property where our office is. And it's going to be designed around just that. It's, you know, around a community of, you know, of movement of training your body the way it's designed to be trained and that coupled with the adjusting and what we're trying to do with the, you know, with getting your spine and line and moving and getting your nervous system, you know, functioning at its best. It's all around helping you get healthy and stay healthy. So, you know, having that community of people, it's always funny, you know, when we get people walking in the reception room and, you know, they people here. who haven't seen each other for years and they're like, hey, you know, they end up meeting each other

or, you know, where they start, you know, you have people who show up at the same time to their appointments and they start getting to know each other and, you know, asking how they're doing. And so it's just a really cool way to see that community build each other up. And it's one of the many ways that we're, that we do things differently and it really works out. Yeah, yeah. Community based healing. So, all right, well, if any of this, you know, got you, resonated with you and you know you've got more questions feel free to reach out to us as always you know torot T-U-R-O family chiropractic.com check out our other podcast we've got a lot more information out there sometimes we feel a little bit repetitive doing these but these reminders are

always good and as always we will we'll see you at the next one thank you guys thank you thank you've been listening to what the health with dr. Dan and Angela Toro brought to you by Toro Family Chiropractic. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. Whatthehealth.world.