Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 268: 10 Training Tips for More Fun AND Effective Workouts

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

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Hey, everybody, welcome in to an awesome new episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. This is episode 268, closing in on 300 episodes, going to plan a very exciting giveaway for episode 300, including obviously from our amazing partners. We're going to have some coaching giveaways, some program giveaways, things that will help you live healthier, live happier, live fitter, exciting stuff coming for episode 300. In today's episode, I'm going to discuss with you 10 tips that I believe will help make your workouts more fun and also more effective. I was having a discussion the other day with a client where I said the two things that can really help with adherence to an

exercise program are starting with a reasonable number of sessions and making sure that those sessions are fun and those sessions are enjoyable. So I'm going to share with you 10 tricks I've picked up in the over decade plus I've spent coaching people that should make your workouts more effective and quite frankly, more fun and hopefully help you stick to the routine. So that's coming up in the main part of the episode. Can't wait to get into that. This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like LMNT. LMNT makes the best electrolyte product on the market. In fact, I've actually started drinking my LMNT each and every morning before I have coffee so as to optimize my circadian biology, make sure that I'm hydrated,

and make sure that I'm getting ahead on my water intake throughout the day and not reliant on stimulants, but instead being somebody who's reliant on hydration and the proper balance of minerals and electrolytes. If you want to feel your best all day, mentally and physically, it's imperative that you stay hydrated. LMNT provides a balanced ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support brain and body hydration. This combination of electrolytes improves health, potassium, and magnesium to support brain and body hydration. This combination of electrolytes improves health performance, body and brain performance. Mind you helps to reduce cramps and soreness and get you more hydrated. There's no sugar. Elementia is sweetened with

stevia. It's perfect for exercise and perfect for the sauna because the flavors are natural, tasty, delicious, and not overpowering. And if you're like me, you'll use them multiple times a day across your training sessions to get hydrated early, to replenish after sauna use. And again, it's not just me. LMNT is the official sports drink of Team USA Weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and I looking to take your fitness to the next level. My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry

and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Element's amazing flavors like mango chili, citrus, raspberry, orange, and more. To get access to this free gift with purchase, scroll down to the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners. Okay, so getting into 10 things that you can do for better and more effective training. Now, I'll say this first. I could come up with a list that was 100 bullet points long. There are so many things that you can do at the macro and micro level

to make your fitness experience more enjoyable. On the macro level, of course, we could focus on selecting the right types of exercise for you. This could be resistance. This could be aerobic. This could be dance. There's so many different types of exercise. For the purpose of what we'll discuss today, we'll assume that you're engaging in some type of aerobic and resistance exercise because these are becoming more popular. So popular, in fact, that I've seen at least three articles in the New York Times, I'd say in the last six months, specifically highlighting resistance training. And just yesterday, ABC News ran a huge, huge, I think 10 minute clip almost on resistance training, which is relatively rare, where they actually discussed that it is becoming more popular than

aerobic training, which is something that I never thought would happen. And it's really validating as like a huge kind of decade plus long advocate for this is the thing. I would put every penny I have on this being the thing. It's really cool to see more people engaging with it. So for the purpose of today's episode, we'll assume that we're doing some fusion of aerobic exercise and anaerobic or lifting-based exercise. So the first thing you can do that will make your workout plan substantially more effective and, in my opinion, fun is to have a program to plan ahead or to at least have a workout of the day or a WOD. That's a CrossFit term. All three of these things that I mentioned are essentially a form of structure. And I know what you're thinking. You might be thinking, how is structure fun? Like a lot of times structure is

like the opposite of fun. We oftentimes crave a lack of structure. That's why we like vacations. That's why as kids, we so enjoyed summer break. We almost need a break from structure. But when it comes to your fitness, it can actually be quite daunting, intimidating, and really distracting to not have a plan in place. So showing up to a gym with dozens and dozens and dozens of machines, free weights everywhere, tons of options, and not knowing where to start can really limit the effectiveness of your workout. And it's not really fun to be distracted and bouncing around without an objective. A plan, a program specifically, like a long-term plan is probably the best. Even a weekly workout plan is better than nothing. And a WOD or a single workout of the day, this is big in CrossFit,

if it is, you know, if it is included within a framework that makes sense, meaning like it's probably a great idea to have some forms of sprint training and some forms of lifting in your workout, but like you wouldn't want to do legs and sprints on Monday and then like a heavy deadlift strength WOD the next day. There'd be too much crossover fatigue. So assuming you're making intelligent exercise selection, I think what you'll find is that programs, plans, and individual workouts add enough structure as well as quite frankly frankly keeping you on the train tracks that it lets you really just show up and focus on working hard it'll be a lot more fun it's always cool to

see progress week over week that's the benefit of a real program it's going to allow you to actually improve week to week we love that that's in our training app we bake that into our one-on-one coaching big time those weekly progressions are what drive muscle growth, strength, honestly, quite frankly, fat loss, because it can be very challenging to lose body fat and you need to have some type of resistance stimulus to do it effectively. Um, but if you are going to the gym, you're doing the same things over and over again, you're selecting the exercises you like, you even grab, you know what weight you're going to grab before you even grab it because you've done this for so often. You maybe are lacking the enthusiasm and the gusto. You're not as excited to go.

The first and most easy thing you can do is to hop on a program specific to your goals created by a reputable fitness professional, one that you thoughtfully and tastefully put together yourself using free resources like this podcast, or to join a gym or find a trainer that can meet you for customized, intelligently programmed, individualized workouts of the day. That is an absolutely huge way to make your training more effective, less stressful, and a hell of a lot more fun because all you need to do is show up and execute. The second thing you can do to have a much more enjoyable and effective workout experience is to have a repeatable, consistent pre-workout routine. Now, this is more difficult on the days that you train outside of your normal time frame so for many of us i'll use myself as an example we go to the gym at the same time every day again using myself as an example i go to the gym monday through Thursday at 4.30 in the morning.

I know for many of you that might seem early. That's just what works for my schedule. I also go to the gym at 6 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. That helps me have a routine. I know when the alarm is going to go off, I get up and I begin the routine. My routine looks different from what your routine might look like, but the ritual, we'll talk about rituals in a second, is really, really big. And it really starts the excitement and the anticipation early. What I do before a workout is I have

a pre-workout formula from our awesome sponsor Legion. If it's legs, I'll do a scoop of the caffeinated pre-workout and a scoop of the uncaffeinated pre-workout. If it's legs, I'll do a scoop of the caffeinated pre-workout and a scoop of the uncaffeinated pre-workout. If it's an upper body session, I'll usually do two scoops of the uncaffeinated pre-workout. So two scoops are going down one way or another with some elementy electrolytes on an empty stomach to start the day early. I then head right to the gym to get going and get my session. On the way to the gym, I usually will listen to a podcast. Now, for many people, they might be like, wow, I would way rather listen to music. That's okay.

You're going to create your own ritual. That's the fun part of this. You are entirely and completely in control. You're in the driver's seat. You can choose what rituals work for you. Maybe it's a pre-workout. Maybe it's 10 minutes on the toilet before you work out scrolling through motivational videos.

I don't necessarily care what is in that pre-workout or pre-training routine, but a lot of you would do well to have a pre-training routine. It's an opportunity to organize yourself, get your mind right, get your focus where it needs to be, and set up for the task of challenging training. If you go in prepared, you'll have a better session. Some things that you should focus on for your pre-training routine or that you can look to

include into a pre-training routine, some form of pre-workout meal or pre-workout shake. If you like to train fasted, that's awesome. I would still recommend consuming electrolytes. We love LMNT. There's a link for them. It's down below in the show notes. If you scroll down, we'll be giving you a free sample pack with any order. That's what I have. That's what we have at the studio. Every client seems to like it, except for clients who aren't a fan of mildly salty flavors, but something, get something going, a pre-workout meal or a pre-workout training formula. I really like that. I like to focus on my hydration during my pre-training routine by sipping on water and again, sipping on my supplements. If you do take

pre-training supplements other than pre-workout, that would be a good thing to include in your ritual. It could be a shake, could be a variety of different things, playlists, podcasts, opportunities to get your mind right using different forms of media, videos, motivational tactics, techniques, even different things like that. Awesome to include there. Having a particular gym outfit. We'll talk about this more in point three, getting it, laying it out, putting it on. These are all things that should be in your routine and in your ritual. It should not be, oh, do I feel like working out? Okay, I'll go. It's alarm goes off. I begin my routine. And the first part of the routine for me is the alarm going off, me getting out of bed. One thing I'm actually looking to add to play with this a little bit is the inclusion of some pre-workout cold water immersion. I heard

Andrew Huberman and Andy Galpin discussing pre-workout cold water immersion as a potentially beneficial pre-workout modality. And having done cold water immersion in my ice barrel for about, let's say six months now, three to six months now, it's been a long time. I would say that I'm loving the benefits I'm getting with no detriment to my hypertrophy. And I'm really interested in trying a like micro dose ice bath before I train, but making that a part of my ritual and my routine is going to take effort. It's going to take time. It's going to take consistency. But if you want to have a fun and effective training session and a fun and effective training

career, quite frankly, building a pre-training ritual is a fantastic place for you to start. Okay, my third tip is probably going to be a lot more about fun than it is about effective, but we will talk specifically about some of the things you might be able to purchase that will increase the effectiveness of your training. But tip number three is to get some new gym gear. I have always found that a good looking gym outfit makes me feel more confident, whether it's shoes matching with a ball cap or, you know, for a lady, it might be matching the sports bra with the yoga pants. It could just be as simple as making sure that your socks and your shoes aren't clashing. For me at this point in my training career, with the yoga pants. It could just be as simple as making sure that your socks and your shoes aren't clashing. For me, at this point in my training career, with a lot of my training

being done early in the morning and a lot of it getting done at my home gym, my gym fashion isn't what it used to be. But when I was a younger man, I certainly appreciated having a thoughtful, tasteful gym aesthetic and gym wardrobe. And I know for a lot of you who are listening, you probably fall in that social media cohort of between the ages of 25 and let's say 40, where you are bombarded with gym content on Instagram that contains influencers wearing really flashy, good looking athleisure gym clothing from any of the various fitness brands. Okay. So that I have found can be a really good way to boost your excitement and motivation in the very short term. Do I necessarily believe that we should promote at a cultural level being so absorbed with our clothing.

I don't, you know, from a value standpoint, I'll be the first person to tell you that I think we as a society put way too much focus and attention into fashion and into aesthetic. I think we, we're, you know, it's the same with your body, right? Like we are trying to conform to a lot of these societal standards that were set forth, uh, in, by, and quite frankly, many of these were set forth by corporations who are simply looking to profit off of the insecurities that they frankly helped us develop. And I, for one, don't love playing into that any more than the next person. But I'm also going to be realistic. I'm going to shoot you straight, and I'm going to tell you the truth. A lot of people respond really well to new gym clothes.

And I'm sure there's a scientific reason for this, but there's no denying that a new pair of gym shoes, a new matching pair of yoga pants, and a sports bra, a new kit of gym gear will give you a little bit of a boost. People tend to respond really well to looking good, feeling confident, and then going and exercising. And one thing that's interesting, if you look at professional athletes who get paid to perform physically, a lot of them put a ton of time, energy, and thoughtfulness into their pre-game clothing and their in-game swag. A lot of players will wear cleats just to warm up that aren't even allowed to be worn on like an NFL field, or they'll wear bad-ass visors that are like yellow or blue during training camp because when they look good and they

feel confident, they play good. And while you might not want to drop a bunch of money on new gym clothes, if you're in a rut, I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to kickstart some motivation. I honestly have seen this work way too many times to let my own kind of, let's say callousness around corporate culture, consumerism and clothing obsession to get in the way of what I believe to be a really practical tip. As for fitness gear that could actually make your workout more effective for those of you who are lifting, I think a good pair of lifting shoes and a belt are a great option. And for those of you who are running, going out and actually getting fitted for an effective pair of running shoes for your foot shape, your arch, your strike pattern, your gait, like that can make a huge difference.

Now, those are multi-hundred dollar investments in pretty much every context. A leather belt and shoes is going to cost you 300 bucks and custom running shoes is probably going to be right around there. But if you are finding that in your fitness pursuits, you are being limited by your footwear or by your clothing or by your ability to maintain safety when lifting, these things can make a huge difference and they'll also definitely hype you up quite a bit. What's going on guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user

interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do, the reps to do, exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams

are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the core coaching collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show. Fourth tip has to do with external stimulants, not the ones that we ingest, right? Like caffeine, but things like music and things like video. And so I am a pretty firm believer in the power of music to generate a substantially elevated enhanced state.

I think the right playlist in the right situation can be a really, really powerful tool. It can be a romantic playlist. It can be a fun playlist. It can be a hype you up dance playlist. But if you have the right music in the right situation, it enhances everything. And I think the same is true for the gym. My tip for you guys is actually to make a playlist each and every month where you have between, let's say you work out for 30 minutes, the average song's about three minutes, you'd need 10 songs. You could go 15 for a 45 minute, you could go 20 for a 60 minute in scale. Keep songs in each month that you like. Drop the ones off that you're sick of and replace them.

You don't need to find 10, 15, 20 new songs every month. But if you pay for a music streaming service like most people do, Apple Music or Spotify, I would recommend creating a playlist for each month. At the end of the year, see what you've got and throw together one for the year. And if you can develop a number of playlists over time that are enjoyable to go back to, I love, love, love going back and listening to workout playlists I had from like the beginning of the pandemic. So 2020, March and April. And I remember just gutting out hardcore workouts with nothing but a barbell in my garage when everything was

closed. And I remember songs from like 2017 when I was doing a lot of powerlifting and those playlists still today get me going. They have like a nostalgic effect. It's really cool. It's really fun. And building out a playlist that's fresh instead of just continually throwing on the same stale songs can really enhance your workout quality. I know a lot of you are obviously shaking your head like no shit, dude, I'm fucking lit. When I go to the gym, you know, I'm like obsessed with my playlist. A lot of you guys are huge on this and bigger than me. You already knew I'm not putting you onto anything. But for those of you guys are huge on this and bigger than me. You already knew I'm not putting you on to anything. But for those of you who do not spend a whole lot of time thinking about your music selection or your audio selection, I'll be frank with you guys. I listen to a lot of podcasts and audio books while I'm training. But when I get to like a high top set, I'll have three

or four songs, four or five songs that I know I can just go to and smash. And so this can also connect with point number two that I made earlier, which is discussing, you know, how we build that pre-training ritual and, and finding a playlist for that time. And also, uh, curating your playlist during that time can be a really good option. Okay. Tip number five for more fun and more effective workouts is a little bit of a no brainer when I think about it in this context, and it is make sure that your warmup is dynamic, both in quite literally style, but, but also it is changing on a semi-regular basis and it is tied to your workout. Make it movement oriented and just get away from boring stretches, walking into the gym and walking and sitting like straight on a machine

or just doing a little bit of cardio. I think a light cardio warmup is fantastic, but I think if you select four to five dynamic movements that support your training that day and elevate your heart rate, you can get it done in the same amount of time. It'll be a lot more fun and you'll have little small metrics for progress. So something you could do is consider a micro warmup. We do this a lot with our one-on-one clients where we have a super set of two exercises that are complimentary for the task at hand. So if exercise one is deadlift and we only have an hour to warm up or an hour to train, sorry, I can't spend too much time warming up. So we might do something light on the treadmill, but then to mobilize the hips and prepare the body for deadlifting, we might do a 90-90 hip switch paired with a med ball overhead

throw. And two to three rounds of those two exercises will prep your nervous system, your muscles, your joints, your core, and they aren't specific to the first exercise, which would be deadlift. And once you've done the first exercise, more often than not, you're going to be pretty damn warmed up, especially if your first exercise is a compound movement, which for anybody on a decent program is probably going to be the case. I would say to stay away from the really boring foam roll, go walk on the treadmill, almost just repetitious, boring warmups and opt for something more dynamic. In fact, if you want to frame it as such, you could even, if you want to keep foam rolling

and keep doing like an incline walk to just get your mind right, think about that as part of your pre-training routine, but set aside, if you only have 40 minutes, I'd still set aside five to six minutes for a dynamic warmup, even though that would mean five to six minutes of not doing your quote unquote actual workout. So worth it. It's going to elevate the quality of the work that you do to a level that you will make much more progress over time. My sixth tip to make your workouts fun and effective is to incorporate a broccoli day. So this is something that I borrowed from the amazing coach, Eugene Teo. I can never say the last name right, but coach Eugene,

you guys know who I'm talking about. It's a day in which you conclude muscle groups that are lagging or weak or specific work that you know you probably need to do, but you're not doing. But we're going to flip this broccoli day on its head. So broccoli day I love because it's essentially like, you know, the broccoli is good for you. So you got to eat it, but you don't love it. And that would kind of summarize and describe doing work in the gym, like stability work or core work that you know you need to do, but you don't love. Not saying don't do that. Okay. But one thing I think everybody loves, like when you talk to most people is pizza. Pizza is one of the most generally popular foods. And I remember growing up in school when it was pizza day at the cafeteria was the

best. And I think you might want to include a pizza day in your routine, which would be the inclusion of something new, fun, and exciting that really gets you motivated. So for me, after watching the NFL Combine, which is one of my favorite, favorite events of the sports year calendar, I'm a huge fan of NFL football, like a really, I'm a huge fan of NFL football, like a really, really big fan of the game. It's something that I love to watch and it's something that I absolutely miss participating in. And one thing that you see a lot when you watch the NFL combine is sprint and force production, right? You see incredibly large human beings moving incredibly quickly in an incredibly graceful manner. You see vertical jumping, you see lateral movement,

you see footwork. And when I saw that, I said, man, are those things missing from my fitness? All I'm doing right now is cardio and weights with some cold water immersion and some sauna, which is awesome, but I miss moving that way. So what I did was I created a semi recoverable session that works on footwork and speed ladder work. And depending on who you talk to in the strength and conditioning world, and depending on who you talk to about things like speed ladders, you might find, oh, it's not really going to develop like in-game agility the way that more dynamic drills might, but it's less about that. And it's more about reconnecting with having quick feet, agile feet,

weaving in and out. The things that you would do like as a ball carrier in football, I noticed a lot of rotational explosiveness from the quarterback drills. I watched Anthony Richardson, let it absolutely rip. And I was thinking to myself, man, I've been using the chucker at the dog park, the little hand chucker. And I think when I go now, I'm just going to let it rip. I'm going to throw the ball with my hand and I'm going to work on throwing the ball for their fun little physical tasks that you actually enjoy doing physically, that you microdose either into your routine or you make a day for, will make your training a hell of a lot less stale. And I would venture to guess that a lot of you could stand to benefit,

even as bodybuilders, even with fat loss, even with getting ready for a wedding. A lot of you train for aesthetic specific goals with a small inclusion of movement practice that you love. It brings you joy. And if it's really rigorous and really demanding, it might be hard to recover from at first. For example, go out and play a game and pick up basketball for an hour and a half if you haven't played in two years and tell me how you feel the next day. It's going to hit you hard. But if you do it on a semi-regular basis, your body will adjust and adapt. And the inclusion of these fun things even once a week can be so, so incredible for keeping you motivated and excited about a movement practice. Tip number seven that you can use is to simply change the training stimulus. So if you've been

somebody who's focused on hypertrophy training, I was talking to a client about a two weeks ago about, Hey, look, you know, I understand that what you're probably thinking of when you think of hypertrophy training in the year 2023 training for muscle growth is heavy utilization of machines, moderate to high repetitions, proximity of failure, um, the use of intensifier supersets, drop sets, um, et cetera. But if you think about hypertrophy training classically, it's lifting heavy, it's progressive overload. It includes barbell lifts. And that's what many people think of as like boring suboptimal quote unquote strength training. But I think a lot of young lifters, particularly females could stand to benefit like a, like a mofo from a real strength block. That's why an elite physique, our women's app based training

program, we are doing in the entire month of March, just a strength block with like a little bit of accessory work. Because when you take natural lifters and you get them super, super strong, all that hypertrophy work that they do the rest of the year, because those strength adaptations diminish slower when you stay lifting, they have way more capacity for volume. And I think they go a little further. That's my honest opinion. I know that the research on this is mixed, but what I will say is it's sure as shit a hell of a lot more fun than slamming your head into the wall and doing the same things over and over. And I know for a fact that that's what it takes to achieve progress with fitness and with health. And quite frankly, with life, you have to be able to consistently show up when you don't want to

and do difficult things. But many of these changes will actually be psychologically more enjoyable while still moving you forward, if not moving you forward more quickly. So if you only do a lot of bilateral training, like barbell bench and barbell squats, do more unilateral training like single arm chest presses and lunges. If you only ever train for strength, try a hypertrophy block. If you do a ton of cardio, but never lift, try sprinkling some lifting in. If you only lift and never do cardio, try sprinkling some cardio in. Try to inject a novel training stimulus here and there while still respecting the context of what it is like, hey, this is what I want to accomplish. Like if I want to fucking be on the Mr. Olympia stage, I'm not going to do CrossFit for a month. That's fucking stupid.

You guys hear where I'm coming from with this, and I think it makes a lot of sense. Tip number eight has to do again with rituals, and this is the inclusion of an enjoyable post workout ritual. I'll talk a little bit more about the utilization of post-workout rewards, which could include food, but we will also include food in this routine portion. So a post-workout cool-down routine can be static stretching to lengthen tissues and create more flexibility. It can be walking at a low pace to help the metabolites that you accumulate when you do resistance training circulate out of the body. Meaning like you would love, I would love it if you moved enough after your training to elevate your heart rate and circulate enough fluid around your body that you're not like,

oh man, I'm fucking sore as shit. Cause if not, a lot of those metabolites are going to stay in the working tissue longer. So something like that can be helpful. I'm a huge advocate for cold exposure, pre-training or away from sessions, but heat exposure after sessions. I really like post-workout sauna. So that's something that is a huge piece of my post-workout routine, but also it's a huge piece of what I would describe as my post-workout kind of recovery. So you can find things that, okay, do I like it? Am I excited to do it? And is it going to enhance my recovery? Because if you can spend five minutes after you finish your gym session,

doing a little stretching and then another 10 in the sauna, it's going to become a ritual and a routine that you simply won't want to miss out on because it'll make you feel so damn good. And a well put together post-workout routine can take five to 10 minutes. And if you want to include other stuff for recovery, it can take as long as you like, but it will make it more fun and probably more effective because you'll be promoting recovery. Tip number nine is to incorporate a post-workout reward. Now, food and sauna, as they can be part of the routine, can also be forms of reward if you find those things to be enjoyable. Many people enjoy food.

Some people enjoy the sauna and find it relaxing. You can also have something that you might indulge with at home. Maybe it's a show that you like. Maybe it's giving yourself some screen time on one of the highly addictive short form content apps. Maybe it's going outside and taking your animal for a walk. There's a ton of things that you can do after a workout, assuming it reasonably fits in your schedule. I understand that everybody's schedule is different that communicate to your brain. Nice job. You did what we want you to do and you're getting a reward for that. And I think that type of positive reinforcement training works really darn well for most people. So definitely find that whatever that thing is for

you, as long as it's not a wildly health detracting behavior, like, yeah, after every workout, I fucking go through Jack in the Box while I rip on 12 cigarettes and smash back a number seven. You know, like that's like, that might be a little bit too much of a reward that might is quite likely to interfere with many of the reasons you're working out. Instead, find something reasonable that you'll enjoy. The last tip I have for you is to normalize plateaus and normalize crappy workouts. Here's the thing. I've done this for 10 years. I don't like lifting as much as I used to. I'm not as excited to do it as much as I used to be. And I have a lot of workouts where I mentally have to get myself through it.

And I have periods of the year where things are really stressful, where I don't enjoy my workouts as much as I would like. That is completely normal for adults living in America or all over the developed world who have a lot of crap that they need to worry about. Okay. This is so, so normal. But the fitness industry does a terrible job of communicating it. I really believe, I really believe that if they had, if it was up to

them, influencers would want you to believe that you should be incredibly motivated and excited to do every workout and train all year round, just like them. But what they don't tell you is they're not that fucking excited to train and they're not that motivated all year round. Are they more excited and motivated than the average person? Of course they are. Do they have a genetic predisposition for such? I don't know. But one thing's for sure, not everybody's able to maintain like fitness influencer level excitement all year round about their training, and that's normal. So in normalizing the lack of excitement and the occasional staleness that comes with maintaining a fitness routine, you free yourself from the guilt of maybe not wanting to do it occasionally.

And that's a really good thing for most people, because if you normalize not wanting to do it, but you still are committed to doing it and you're keeping the promise you make to yourself, it makes that routine so much more likely to stick around than purely relying and waiting for motivation. And so guys, with that, I'm going to close the episode. I want to thank you all so, so, so much for listening. I love the podcast. This is so fun to produce. It's so fun to share. You guys give me the absolute best feedback. The number one thing you can do to help me grow this thing is share it, share it on your Instagram story, share it on your Facebook, send an episode to a friend. And if you would like to, and you have literally 60 seconds, leave a five-star rating and written

review on either Apple podcasts or Spotify. It helps other people find the show and it makes a huge difference for creators like me who do have a pretty ambitious goal of helping a lot of people live healthier. So I want to thank you all so much for tuning in and I will catch you on the next episode. you