The Livy Method Podcast - You Don't Have to Love Exercise. You Just Have to Start.

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Fitness and aging expert Andrew Blakey joins Gina Livy for a conversation that cuts through the pressure to go hard or go home when it comes to moving your body. Andrew breaks down why going too hard too fast is the most common mistake, why rest is where strength is actually built, and how consistency with movement isn't about discipline, it's about identity. Don’t have to be a fitness person to be a fit person.Plus: free weights vs. machines, the squat debate, stretching order, and whether your gardening counts as a workout (spoiler: kind of, but not really). Where to find Andrew Blakey:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewblakey/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Iamandrewblakey/Website: https://blakeybreakthrough.com/ This episode aligns with day 53 of our Spring 2026 weight loss program. You can find the full video hosted at: www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring2026To learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm going to be honest with you, this podcast is unapologetically a hot mess because that is what midlife feels like sometimes. Why, though? And how do we make it better? Do we all just need facelifts and g-lp-1s? I mean, let's talk about it. No bullshit, no wellness wangery here because we're trying to make real change and change is hard. But we're in this together. Welcome to the Living Method podcast.

Fitness and aging expert Andrew Blakey is joining me for today. You know, hi, Andrew, how are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I'm excited. As always, I feel like we always have some big, deep chats when we do our segments here. So I'm excited to see where we end up today. Well, you know, you tell me, you tell me, you've been with us for a while.

You know, people are trying to lose weight in a healthy way. They're trying to make real change in their lives. Exercise is hard, especially for women. Like, you know, and no disrespect to women like Stacey Sims out there. She's super jacked. She's like, you got to do this. You got to do that. you can't do this, you can't do that.

I mean, the expectations are just like through the roof when I'm just trying to fucking move my body, even just a little bit. Uh-huh, yeah. And I feel like it's difficult because same thing. Like you see, you see all these people online saying, well, you know, the science says you need to lift this heavy. You need to be doing, you know, this, this, this, this. But it's kind of like, okay, well, where's the science that we can actually just finally

admit, hey, you know what? Working out is hard. It's difficult. It's not easy. and, you know, I'm going to do it anyways. But it's like, where's the science that talks about, okay, it's hard to do this, not just do this, this, this, this and this. Yeah, because everything's clickbait out there on social media,

trying to give you tips in 30 seconds, trying to get your attention. Yes, okay. Also, maybe trying to motivate you as well. But like, what is the real deal? And, you know, I was a personal trainer for like most of my life. And, you know, people just wanted to work out to lose weight. And I'm like, that's not working for anybody, is why I kind of shifted into doing one of the reasons why I shifted into more just helping

people with the nutrition and lifestyle habits. But sometimes personal trainers, when you hire them, they just want to show you that they can work you out really hard. Right? Like the harder, the better. And in all fairness, I've had clients who are like, this workout is too easy for me. I'm like, it's a balanced workout. It's working the right muscles. It's all of those things. Why did you take the approach of the like the aging aspect of things? Yeah, great question. I mean, I think the big part was that somehow, I mean, I just kind of fell into, into, you know, most of my clients when I was starting out were over 40. And for me, it's like if I'm, if I'm working with somebody, I'm going to be digging deeper on the science behind things on how to make sure that we're doing things the right way. I mean, my background's in kinesiology and all that good stuff. But by now, I mean, I've been doing this for close to a decade. I'm close to, I think, I don't know, nine, 10,000 hours working with with people over 40. And so from there, it was just kind of like, you know what, I want to. to be able to give people over 40, not just the right approach, but an approach that they can actually stick to, not just for, you know, a couple of weeks, but for the rest of their life. And like

you said, it's hard. It's hard. Yeah. What's the biggest mistake that we make? Oh, the biggest mistake. I mean, I feel like I got to go with the most, I guess, kind of cliche one, but it's going too hard, too fast, right? I think that same thing, you know, talking about, you know, the science that we just mentioned it's like well you know what sure on paper it says you know three to four five days a week you know like that's how many times we should be aiming for you know three to four but it's like you know what when somebody um has gone five 10 20 years of their life and and not worked out or maybe have never worked out you know at all how can we expect them to to go and and throw four days of working out into the life it's just it's not sustainable it's it's um you know i feel like it's

asking for burnout and not just that but i mean i i saw a video um the other night and it kind of broke it down really, really well. And I was talking about, yeah, sure, our muscles, you know, they adapt quite quickly. But what about our tendons, our ligaments, all the different connective tissues? Those take much longer to adapt. And so when we're, you know, going from zero, or maybe, you know, maybe you're doing walking or cardio or something like that, which is fantastic. But when we go from that to now working out four days a week, yeah, sure, we might get

stronger, but the chances of overuse injuries and, you know, different injuries and things coming up, those old aches and pains that we've, you know, gotten over the last 40, 50, 50, 60 years of our life, they start talking to us, you know, the last thing we want with working out is, is to hurt ourselves, right? And when you, you know, get an injury doing that, then it can be super, super demotivating and kind of be like, well, I'm not doing this to hurt myself. I'm just going to avoid that all together, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to ask, what's the hardest part doing it or sticking with it? Yeah. Oh, that's a big question. I mean, we could go into a we could go into an hour long tangent on the on this one um you know i think it it really is a

combination of both um and and one of the things that i always talk about is the mindset work that goes into into behind working out um because like i said it's not easy it's not something that comes naturally to all of us um even myself you know at one point i was 40 pounds overweight didn't know where to start didn't know how to get started with with working out and i mean it was intimidating it was intimidating um and so i think that you know the more we can make not just starting the more we can kind of lower that barrier to starting knowing, hey, you know what, I'm in the right space. I'm, you know, doing this the right way. One, that's going to make you more likely to show up. But when we don't put, you know, crazy unrealistic expectations on ourselves, right? It's, you know,

getting to a point where, you know what, I'm doing something for myself. I'm committing to myself. And I like to say that, you know, getting started with fitness is ultimately one of the biggest forms of self-respect that we can make, right? It's choosing ourselves. It's choosing ourselves. It's choosing prioritized ourselves when we prioritize everybody else for, you know, the rest of the time, right? Yeah, I mean, it's true. Like we have these one bodies to live in and we just, you know, we treat it like a garbage can. We don't give it the respect that it deserves. A lot of that comes down to stress and how we're living our lives and, you know, a lot of things beyond our control. I'm thinking about how they live, you know, in Europe, for example. Like there isn't a gym on every corner.

people are naturally walking. They're being social. They're moving their bodies more. Here's a comment from Stephanie. I need to push myself back to weight training. Once it got nice out, I would rather be working in the yard and the garden. Is that a trade-off? Can we like forego the gym to do more gardening?

Or does it like give me like your honest thoughts and opinions on that. I mean, obviously, you know, getting out, getting moving, right? You know, one of the things we want to avoid is being sedentary, right? Yeah. sedentary has got all sorts of different, you know, damage that it can cause to, to, you know, multiple parts of our body, not just our muscle, you know, our cardiovascular, our, you know, blood pressure, all of that. When we're sedentary, you know, it greatly increases the chances of, I mean, ultimately all

calls mortality, right? Yeah. But to answer the question directly, I would say that, no, we can't, we can never really say, you know what, no, I'm not going to work out. I, you know, I do all this walking, I do all this gardening. I think we do need a structured resistance training. program because same thing when we're gardening yeah we're going to work up a sweat we're going to get moving we're probably going to be a little bit achy after which is you know I love I love

that we're getting out moving in the first place right I don't want to celebrate that but same thing you know when we get started with resistance training that's going to make the gardening feel easier that's going to allow you to get up and and down and you know instead of taking I'm just throwing this out into there instead of taking three days to do a garden maybe you're doing it in one and a half because you don't take so many breaks or whatever and again I'm just I'm just making that up right now You're not a gardener, are you? I'm not a gardener. I'm not a gardener.

And I will say, I do have this plant in the background. It is fake. It is fake. This is not a real plant. That is as close to a green thumb as I'm going to get. But where I was going to go on with this is when we start working out, it's going to help in all areas of our life. Whether that's gardening, it's going to make gardening feel better. It's going to allow me to get up and down a little bit more easily.

It's going to allow you. It's going to improve kind of all areas of your life that require us to be moving and motoring and moving and shaken, you know? Yeah. Like I'm thinking about, okay, so, you know, we didn't, there wasn't, there didn't used to be all these gyms and everyone wasn't having protein shakes and all of this. Also people didn't live as long back in the day. And, you know, the generation that came before us, yes, they are living older. We are living older and older. And futurists are telling us, we're going to be able to live a lot older. But we're seeing a lot of older people in old age homes who are just completely unable to take care of themselves. And that kind of shows the gap between,

you know, people understand the importance of resistance training and building and maintaining their muscle and having that cardiovascular and endurance health, right? Like that's where we have to say, if I want to live a long, healthy life, there are certain things that the human body is going to need, which is maintaining and building that muscle mass, having some flexibility, being able to bend down and get back up, like squats, right? So we've been told doing a squat as one of of the most important exercise as you can do. Every time we have this conversation, people like, well, I can't. My knees hurt. My back hurt, whatever. But you have to squat to sit on a toilet. You have to squat to go up and downstairs. You have to squat to when you get down and when you

get back up again. If you cannot do a squat, that is going to affect your quality of life moving forward. Would you say that that's the most important exercise someone can do? Oh, most important exercise. I hate this question. Why, you got a different one? No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, it's because same thing, you know, like, I've been doing this so long where it's like, okay, you know, yes, squats are super important. But, you know, also, you know, what about core strength? You know, if we're on the ground and we're not able to sit up and get up, we're going to be stuck there for hours, right?

Yeah. But to, again, come back to the question here, absolutely. Squats are hugely important because we are, we are standing. We are sitting so much, right? Yeah. You know, even, you know, even think at the end of the day when you get, when you get on to your You're not just, well, maybe some of you guys are just plopping onto your bed, you know, just at the end and just doing a little swan dive onto it. But for the most important, same thing, we're sitting onto our bed and we're laying down.

We're sitting into an, you know, an office chair. I just sit to sit here. Probably a lot of people that are watching right now. Maybe you're on your couch. Maybe you're at the kitchen table. Maybe you're at work. You're probably sitting right now. Maybe some of you guys are walking right now and listening as well.

But with the squat, same thing, like you said, a lot of people are like, well, you know what? my knees can't handle that. It's, it's achy. It's, it's sore. And so I think that's even more reason to be able to experiment and find the different variations that do feel better, right? And just because you're achy right now with a squat doesn't mean that if you don't find the right variation.

One of the things I always like to do when we're overcoming kind of a certain movement pattern issue like that is same thing, finding a variation that feels right, working within your tolerance that is without pain. And as we get stronger in that, oftentimes it, you can kind of level up to get maybe a little bit deeper to now choose a little bit more of a conventional style. And so it's not something where it's like, you know what? I'm going to throw in 20 squats every day and now things are going to get better.

It is very much finding the variation of a squat that feels okay with your anatomy, how your hips are aligned and all of that good stuff. How do you, any advice for getting over that sort of mental, well, I can't do this exercise. This isn't for me. So for example, Sherry Perez has started leading us three times. Workouts on Friday. And I know some people can't get down on the ground. I know some people can't do squats. I know some people can't lift their arms over their head. And it's so hard to find the perfect exercise routine unless, of course, it's created for us by someone like you. There's so many reasons we can use to not exercise mentally. How do we get over that obstacle of just being like, like if I'm doing Sherry's exercise and I don't know, I can't do a squat. I'll just move around and do something else because I'm familiar with exercise. But how do you get past that men? I don't know what to do. This doesn't work for me. Just like, fuck it.

I'm not doing it. Yeah. And it's interesting that we're talking with this because actually yesterday we went really, really deep. I mean, I'm doing the online fitness program as well, right? Yeah. But we were talking a lot about limiting beliefs yesterday. It was a very, very powerful conversation.

There was a lady messing me saying that it brought her to tears by the end of it, which was crazy. But again, you know, we all have stories that we're carrying. We all have beliefs that we're carrying. always fall off. I'm not a fitness person. I don't know where to start. I'm too old for this. I'm afraid of hurting myself. Right. We all have these stories. Right. And it's not easy. Right. It's not easy. Because when you have those stories, it's almost like same thing. Our brain wants to try to find reasons to confirm that. Right. It's, you know, that old,

reticular activating system. Like, it's the same as I gave this example yesterday. It's the same as when you get a new car, right? When you get a new car, you go out, driving and you realize how many other cars are on the road. We are now searching for that car because it's relevant to us, right? And it's the same as when we have a limiting belief. Something like I always fall off. I'm too old. All those different things I just mentioned, our brain is going to come up with reasons why that's true, right?

But in terms of overcoming this, you know, it really does come down to starting to cast votes in a different way, starting to cast votes for yourself in why that's not true. It's, you know what? I'm just going to give an example of I always fall off, right? And it's kind of like we're waiting for that shoe to drop. We're waiting for that. It doesn't matter how long year you've been working out for three weeks, two months, six months, a year.

You've demonstrated that you are showing up. You're demonstrating that you're consistent. But we're still looking for the reason for why everything's going to fall off, why that shoe is going to drop. And so I would say to answer that question, we need to start casting votes for why that's not true. Why we're not that person, right? Why those beliefs don't serve us anymore? And it's easier said than done. said than done. But I think that the more that we can prove that that's not the case anymore,

the more we can prove that I'm willing to let that belief go, the more we can acknowledge it. And it kind of loses power over us a little bit. Yeah, like you hear Sue, afraid of aggravating something that is hurting. It almost always feels better after exercise. Yeah, like that's sort of our thing. Like, oh, you know, like someone's like I had frozen shoulder, like, couldn't lift my arm over the head. But there's so many other things you can do, right? Oh, I've just, you know, tore my ankle. There's other things that you can do. I also, this concept, it's very similar to weight loss in a sense because you don't just lose your weight and that's it. You're done.

It's like you have to maintain the lifestyle and the same thing with working out. And it's so normal to like have times in your life where it's easy to work out and other times in your life where you kind of fall off because there really is no end game. Like where do you get to where I've arrived with like I worked out. I am fit. I am done. I'm finished. Never happens. Yeah, absolutely.

And I feel like that kind of brings us to the conversation about identity, right? I know that same thing. You guys talk a lot about, you know, mindset work and stuff like that, right? And identity is one of those things where it's like when we want, if we want to stay consistent with exercise, if we want to stay, you know, consistent with working out, right? We really do have to kind of almost shift our identity a little bit. And I posted a real yesterday. I know it's talking about how we're not, we're not becoming a whole new person. It's kind of like we're, we're uncovering something that was always there.

We're uncovering the strength that was always there. We're uncovering the fact that we are capable of working out. We are capable of sticking with it, right? Yeah. But again, it's something that it's not going to come overnight. It's not about being perfect. It's not about having the perfect workouts. It's not about having the perfect routine.

Like you said, we are going to have hard weeks, right? We're going to have weeks where we fall off the way. We don't work out. We don't do our movement. Right. And so too often, I think that we beat ourselves up about that instead of just admitting, hey, you know what, I had a hard week. That's okay.

Yeah. And now this next week, I'm going to get back to it. Yeah. I think people don't spend enough time talking to themselves in that kind of way, right? Like, you'd be very judgmental or very like, oh, I can't do it or whatever. I saw a thing speaking of online. You can follow Andrew. Where are you?

I am Andrew Blakey. That's right. over on Instagram, always sharing tips and whatnot. We're going to have information on how you can sign up and do one of his courses that he does. But that kind of like, there you go, I put it on the screen. I am Andrew Blakey.

It's kind of like, so I've been trying to get up and go for a walk or trying to get up an exercise. And every morning it's this fucking, I'm so tired. It doesn't matter how well rested I am. It's the same thought process, right? I could sleep for a little bit longer. I can go back to bed. I can do this.

I can do that. And someone was saying like, You just have to do it. You just have to be like, this is what I'm doing. Whether I like it or not, feel like it or not, I just need to get up and do it. Is it as simple as that? I mean, you know what? It isn't.

It isn't. It isn't. Because at the end of the day, doing something that, you know, isn't a regular part of our routine, right? Maybe you're just starting to do walking. That is new. That is new. And doing anything new is difficult. It's not going to be like, ah, you know what?

You know what? I haven't done my morning walks in three, four years. I'm, you know, I think I'm going to get back to it today. And now I'm going to start doing it every day. I don't think it's that simple. But at the same time, it's one of those things where it's like nobody, nobody can do it for us. Nobody is, you know, again, we got that saying where it's like nobody, nobody's coming to save us. No.

Right? You're like, no, they're not. No, they're not. You know, nobody else is going to do it for us. And I know that that's almost kind of like a little bit of a little bit of some tough love. But I think that with that approach of, you know, ultimately it is up to me to make a change. It is up to us to make a change. Yeah.

You can either take that as something as, well, you know what, I don't think I'm strong enough to do that. Or we can embrace that and be like, you know what, that's actually a very empowering statement where it's like it is within my control to make that changed. It is within my control to start doing that. But, you know, like all the things we're probably going to talk about today, none of it's easy. None of it's easy, right? But the more we start to cast that vote and the more we start to make those changes, the easier than they become. It's like one of those big, that's the snowball, right, where it starts, actually no and no,

that's a bad example. It's like a big rock. It's like a big rock where it's like, yeah, at first to move that rock, it takes a lot of effort, right? And then once you get it moving, it becomes easier and easier, right? So it's not the snowball effect. It is, we're going to call it the rock effect. The rock effect.

Okay, fine. The rock effect. Also, like, doing it within community and feeling like you're not alone is really important. Last year, we had one of our members, Rainy, do 365 days of walking, rain, snow. I saw that. I saw that. I see Lynette here also doing the same. She's like a 300-something days.

And I see her every day. And I'm like, oh, my God, I just love this woman. I love her. Every day, I see her on my feed. And she's out there. She's walking. She's finding the beauty in things. She takes pictures of, like, the gorgeous.

just sunsets and the flowers. And she's like so intentional about going for a walk and looking for the beauty. And it's so inspiring. And here she is saying, yes, Andrew, uncovering who I have always meant to be means more to me as I grow and care. I'm like, that's what this is about. Like I want to be the kind of person. It's not that I need to exercise.

I want to be the kind of person that gets out of bed and I'm excited for the day. And I have ease of movement. and I want to stretch and I want to meditate and I want to journal and I want to feel fantastic. Like I want to be that part. I can feel it. Yep. I can feel it. And I absolutely can do it.

It's just a matter of, okay, maybe I shouldn't stay up and watch Game of Thrones for the fourth time. Because I've already fucking seen it. And yet I'm stressed. So this is my way of like kind of like de-stressing at that. You know, so I'm like, what am I doing? Why am I? I want to get into some of the questions that people have. Free weights over machines.

What do you? What's better? Different. They're different, right? You know, the same thing. I'll keep this answer short because it sounds like, it sounds like there's a good amount of questions that we're about to, we're about to go through, which I'm excited for.

Free weights versus machines, I say that when somebody's first getting started, if you're getting started on your own machines, reason being is because there's a little, it's a little bit less that could go wrong, at least until while you're getting started. You know, if you were working with somebody, if you were working with somebody who knows what they're doing, same thing. You can go right to free weights. But with free weights, you are going to get more of the instability, which is a huge, huge plus. So I think there's a room in any fitness routine for both.

I like free weights. I like machines. But if somebody is like, you know what, I'm going to go to the gym today for the first time, I would say, you know what, start with machines just again because they are very fixed motion. and it's kind of a little bit harder for to mess it up a little bit. You still can if you're not, you know, you don't have kind of the basic patterns like shoulders back and all of that. But start there is what I would.

That's my own personal opinion on it. Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but not enough instructors teach technique because I was really big. You don't want to lift heavy. You want to lift good technique. And so many instructors do not teach good technique. Not just when lifting weights, but doing fitness classes. Like a good instructor does not sit at the front.

of the class and just sit there and tell you what to do. They're walking around. They're watching your technique. They're advising you on how to do this, how to do that. That's how you find a good instructor. Is this something that you teach in your course where you're actually showing technique? I mean, I'm going to assume. I hope the answer is yes. Oh, that's huge. That is a huge, huge part of it. You know, when you have been doing it for, for, you know, a good amount of time here, you know, I do have very, very particular cues that when, you know, we do it on Zoom. We do it. We do it all of our workouts on Zoom. So I got the big, the big grid of everybody there.

So, you know, I'll show the exercise. I'll give you the cues. And then same thing. I'm like, you know what? All right, everybody keep going for just one second. I'm going to come check out everybody's form. And, you know, I go through and say, hey, you know, hey, so and so, you know, make sure you're doing this instead.

Or, you know, if I see a couple of people, I'm like, for example, something really an easy, easy cue for anything where we're doing like pulling and pushing is over exaggerate, puffing your chest out. Yeah. What happens when that happens? You over exaggerate it. Shoulders naturally come back. you're in a better, you're in a better position.

So all of these different things, they're one of those things where it's like, you don't know it if you don't know it, right? And so if somebody's new, don't beat yourself up that you don't, you don't have proper technique yet, right? It's not going to come overnight. It's a, the more you do it,

the more you correct yourself, the more you have somebody that's like, hey, make sure you're doing this, the more it starts to become a little bit more ingrained. But that won't, that won't come in your first week. It won't come in your first month. That comes from doing it time and time again. and being even more aware of it as you're going through it.

Great. What about taking time off? Like if we're sore, do we push through that or do we, because taking time off is a slippery slope, right? You take one day off, two days off, three days, and I'll get back next week? Yeah.

And what degree of soreness are we like is acceptable for us? Yeah. One of the things that I like to say, and it's going to sound a little not counterintuitive, I feel like I've been using that word a lot lately. anyways, I always like to say that strength isn't built during the workouts. Okay, that is the stimulus, right? That is what allows those adaptations to form.

But if we're not resting, if we're not recovering the right way, same thing. It's, it's, I always, I have this graph that I like to use, but we're not going to, we won't get into graphs and stuff here today. But if we're training too much and we're not allowing ourselves the proper recovery, eventually you cross something, which is kind of like almost like a like an injury threshold, right? It's kind of like when we're working out, you know, we dip a little bit, you know, because we've just worked out. Our muscles are all beat up, right? And then we recover, right?

We're in a stronger place than we were before. And then so on and so forth. And that's how we get that positive progression, right? But if we're working out, you know, we get that dip afterwards. We don't allow ourselves to fully recover. Now we're getting another dip and eventually across something, which is what we kind of call like the injury threshold. And that's where the overuse injuries and things like that, you know, come about. So what I like to say, yes, you will get sore.

you will get a little bit achy from working out and getting started with fitness and all of that. That doesn't mean that we can't move the next day, right? That means that, you know what, the next day, you know, you're like, yeah, I'm feeling a little bit achy. You know, go go for a walk, right? Do your biking, you know, go do something intentional because same thing, the more that we do a little bit of some movement. That helps to promote that blood flow. And when we get more blood flow to our muscles, it's also bringing all the nutrients and things that we need to heal actually even better. So that's what we call more of like an active recovery is what we call that.

great what about like what's what's I mean it seems like there's always something new everyone's trying to tell you sell you something I like I love novelty like if something like those shaky shaky workout boards that's going to get you out for a walk go for it if buying a weighted best going to get you up for a walk go for it what's like what's something new that's like you're hearing people talk about that's worth us looking into oh I mean it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna make me sound like I'm 100 years old but I hate new stuff I hate I hate new stuff I hate change You know, I do like to stick with, you know, I think that with any really, really good fitness routine, it's not going to be super sexy all the time. It's not going to be, you know, using all this crazy, fancy, you know, equipment and stuff like that.

You know, I think that if we were looking at something like professional athletes, things like that, then yeah, you know what, we've got all these fancy equipment we can use. You know, we've got those, not anti-gravity chambers and stuff like that. We got all sorts of funky stuff that we can be talking about. but I think for the average person, you know, it really is about, you know, sticking with the basics and sticking with what we know works. That doesn't mean that it's going to be boring. That doesn't mean that we have to be like, you know, what? If it's not boring, that means it's not working. Yeah.

You know, but it is, it is doing it in a way, finding somebody, finding, you know, program or a trainer that matches your style and, you know, is going to help you to grow and progress in a way that is, you know, safe, sustainable. And, I mean, somewhat entertaining. I mean, I'm big into the, into the dad jokes. I love my dad jokes. I try to be, I know I'm a little quirky as well. So I embrace that. I think that I think people appreciate in the program because we're having fun. But, you know, same thing.

The stuff that we're doing most of the time, we're cracking jokes. We're having a good time. And then the exercises are, we're just kind of going through it. So it's kind of like entertainment with the working out at the same time. Well, you're like 30 years old talking about, you know, fitness and aging and longevity. I'm an old. I think you are an old soul. I'm going to ask you about your dad joke in a second.

Because someone actually wants to know what your best dad joke is. But what's an old thing that we're doing that we need to stop doing or ditch? An old thing that we're doing that we need to ditch. You know what? I think in again, it's going to, you know, I'm going to finish this. I know at the beginning people are going to be like, what is this guy talking about? I love plyometrics. I love plyometrics, I think.

And for anybody that doesn't know what plymetrics are, this is, you know, explosive movements, jumps, hops, you know, skipping stuff, ply metrics, right? You know, same thing. When we look at the science, great for bone density, great for developing power, great for all of that good stuff. And I 100% agree with all of that. But the other thing is same thing. You know, when we say, you know what, plymetrics is great, it is a very big generalization

as well. And so, again, if we're talking about somebody who's brand new to things, you know, say the same thing. They're probably carrying a little bit of some extra weight. You know, getting started with plyometrics as, as your way of getting started with fitness, I think is personally a terrible idea. Tendons can't handle it. Joints can't handle it. All of that stuff.

That's something that you want to, you know, build into down the road, right? But to start with plyometrics, again, I love plyometrics. I think they're great. There's a ton of incredible benefits that come along with it. But I think same thing. If somebody's just starting out, probably, you know, the likelihood of the risk versus reward. just isn't there for me for that one.

Yeah, it's like, you know, you see 80-year-olds jumping up on a box like this high. Like, that's not, you don't, like, there's a whole thing you got to go through to get to a place where you can jump on a box that high. What about order of workout? Someone's asking, like, weight routine first, then stretching or Pilates. Like, what comes, what comes for? Do we stretch anymore before we work out? Do we stretch after? Like, is it cardio first, then weights?

Like, this is a tail as old as time. Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to do, there's a couple different pieces to this question here. First one of these, what I'm going to say is order in terms of like, you know, stretching and your workout. I would say you're going to want to do more of a dynamic warm up or dynamic stretching before your workout. That means anything where you're moving. Arm circles, you know, hip openers, heel sweeps. And I know that there's probably a bunch of people from the group program in this right now who are like, I know exactly what you're talking about.

because we always do the same warm up before every, before every workout. Because the same thing, I want them to learn how to do it and how to do it on their own. So we start with our dynamic warmup. Then you do your workout, right? And then at the end, you can do more of like your static stretching, which would be more of like, you know, your holds, like I'm just pulling my arm across the body. I'm just holding that. That would be more of like our static, our static stretching.

Same thing. There's a place for all of them. But the order does matter. Same thing. We won't go too deep into it. But what we know about static stretching is that if we do that before, workout, our strength output actually decreases a little bit during during our workout. So that's why we go like getting kind of hardcore like this that we're doing. Like it's better to do shoulder rolls than to do

something like this. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I would say about like kind of like the order of the stretching. In terms of cardio first versus strength, for that one, I always like to say you want to do the one that is kind of like your number one priority to start. Right. Like there's a difference between, you know, going on the treadmill for three or four minutes. minutes to warm up, right, versus you're doing a full cardio, you know, workout of, you know, 40 minutes or whatever you're doing, getting a huge, huge sweat going. You know, there's a difference between using that as a warm up versus using it as a workout. And in terms of what you would want to do, cardio versus strength first, again, I always like

to say, do the one that is your, is your biggest priority, right? So if you were training for like a, you know, a 30 kilometer walk or if you're training for, you know, something that has to do with it, it's very cardio specific, then you'd probably want to do that one first. But, you know, if you're kind of like, I would say probably like a majority of the people who maybe isn't training for a marathon or a greatly huge long walk, my own personal philosophy is that you'd want to do your, you know, your dynamic warm up, do the workout. And then you can do, you know, some more cardio work at the end. If that's, if that's something that's important to you. Great. Here's a comment from Kim. She's lost 60 pounds since January 2025,

unable to work out this session due to her knees. She used to work out a lot until COVID hit. So she's almost 58 and just now starting to work out both in her home gym and pool. She has a lot of sagging going on in her upper arms. The bat wings galore, stomachs, thighs. Will working out get rid of any of it? Or do you think I may have to have plastic surgery to get rid of it? Please be brutally honest.

So I'm going to go first because. Okay. When I'm not working out, it is flat, like, this is like flap city. Like, it's like a hole on my thighs, all of it. And that's where I'm like, okay, Gina, let's go. I find a little goes a long way in terms of like when you're building muscle. Like, I can tell when I have muscle and when I don't, right? I mean, we're talking like years and stuff. I'm not just talking a few weeks. But I find that you can make a pretty significant difference in terms of muscle tone. Skin sagging is a whole other thing. I find after you lose your weight. This is why you want to lose weight in a healthy way and way you'd lose it all over, as opposed to deprivation and really quick. Your skin tends to take longer to regenerate around your new frame. You might, depending on skin, need skin surgery in which we have Dr. Sean Rice, who comes on, he's a plastic surgery surgeon and talks about that. I think aesthetically, though, like, do I want to be strong and fit and feel great and healthy? I'm okay with a little bit of, like, hanging skin. I had four kids. It's all just,

to what, you know, I think you'll feel better about your hanging skin if you're fit and you're happy and you're healthy. Um, and if you want to get skin removal, then that's up to you. But what's your take, Andrew? Honestly, I don't think I have anything to add to that one because I think you, I think you summed it up very, very well. Have you seen a lot of change happened? Like a woman is a very flabby skin. She did work out and all of a sudden it made a big difference. So I think that's what she's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, like, you know, the, the, the skin part that takes a little

bit longer to adapt, right? And to kind of kind of regain kind of a little bit of some more of that form. In terms of the working out, yeah, you know what? Same thing. You know, we can, we can add some more that muscle. We can help to tone things up a little bit. Doesn't mean that we doesn't mean that we're getting bulky. A lot of people don't want to get bulky. But again, you know, you know, regularly working out isn't going to get you that bulky drug, right? You know, so and I know that that's a big question that I think we, we talked about a lot in our last segment. But I'll just put it out there for anybody who is starting with working out, to get that bulky look, you need to be doing this four or five times a week.

You need to be, this is like your full-time job. So if you're just starting to work out to be healthy, you don't have to worry about that bulky look. But that little bit of that athletic physique, that lean look, right? Once you lose that weight, having some muscle underneath there is going to help you with that aesthetic look if that's something that is important to you as well. Yeah. I mean, my, you can't see my arm because I have a shirt on, but like I remember looking in

the mirror and just wanting my arm to be smaller than my. my hand. So I had like big arms, right? But also the kind of tone, the kind of like, you're not going to get bulky unless you're really working at it, but also the kind of the kind of difference that you are going to make by toning up your arms, you have to really be intentional about doing, this is not like a couple times a week, you know, three sets of like bicep curls is going to do it. Like you have to really, I think, be intentional that I want to do a routine consistently long enough, lifting heavy enough that is actually going to build the muscle in my arms to make a difference. Like I'm, you know, like you can't just do it a couple of times a week here and there and you're

going to notice a huge significant difference. Yeah. And like the other thing with that as well is like when we are consistent with working out, same thing. Even that even the mindset and how we think about ourselves changes, right? I know that if there's a week where I don't work out, I feel gross. I don't feel good even in my own skin, you know. And so it's like working out being consistent with it is going to make you feel better kind of with wherever you're at as well, right? There is a mindset shift that comes with that and even how we look at ourselves and how we feel about ourselves also. Okay, we got to go because I hear the comments really quickly. How do you feel about reclining sit-ups versus standing crunches?

The same thing. I think it depends. It depends on who you're at. Try both. Do what feels right. You know, there's a benefit to both, but listen to your body always. Favorite ab exercise? Mine is crossover abs. Game changer. Okay. What's yours? Okay. Favorite one? You know what? McGill modified curl up and everybody's like, what is that? What the fuck is that?

Yeah, I know. It's called a McGill modified curlup who is created by this Dr. Stuart McGill, one of the leading back pain specialists of the world. This is one of his big three exercises that helps to really help with poor engagement, learning how to turn it on, and also both improve and prevent back pain as well. Okay, fine. You're going to have to do a video and send it to us. Show us that. Okay, you promise me. I'm going to, I'm going to hound you for that. You need to show us that. Before you go, people can follow Andrew Blakey at I am Andrew Blakey over on social media, Instagram. You can go to his website. Check out the blakey breakthrough.com and his online workout course that he offers that, honestly, a lot of our members, swear by, before you go, I have to ask you, what is your best dad joke?

My best dad joke. Oh, okay. You know, you guys might have heard this one. But, you know, for those of you you don't know, I went to the doctor the other day and I had, and I, I, I told him I broke my arm in two places. And he told me, okay, well, then stop going to those two places. Yeah, and I think that's it. You know, I didn't say they were good dad jokes. You are 90. I say I try hard. You are 90.

You are 90. Thanks, Andrew Blakey for joining us. I'm going to hold you to that. Actually, Andrew periodically comes on. get you come on throughout the summer and share some fitness tips and stuff with us, like you did during our last summer club. But yeah, you're going to have to tell us that whatever that thing is. Yeah, you're forward to it.

Thank you everyone who joining us live for listening after the fact. We appreciate you. Thank you, Andrew. Always a pleasure. I'll see you next time. Of course. See you then. Bye-bye.