The Mindset Forge
In Season Five, The Mindset Forge focuses on helping men between 40 - 60 years old maximized this chapter of life by building strength, discipline, purpose and a proactive mindset.
During Season's one through four, you will fantastic content focused mainly on successful athletes and performing artists who've learned how to show up for the big moments of sports, performance and life.
The Mindset Forge
From Addiction to Ultra Endurance: Dan Duran's Journey of Mental Toughness and Mindful Living
Embark on a transformative adventure with me, Barton Bryan, as I sit down with ultra Ironman athlete Dan Duran to unravel the threads of extreme endurance intertwined with the fabric of a mindful life. Our conversation unveils Dan's journey from addiction's grasp to the pinnacle of discipline, revealing how the pillars of family, habits, and a smile can deflect life's blows. Alongside, I peel back the layers of my own experiences, sharing the raw power of mental fortitude and the steadfast love of family that fuels the drive to transcend human limits.
As we traverse the landscapes of mental resilience and fatherhood, Dan and I examine the hallucinatory corridors of exhaustion and the life-affirming touchstones that guide us to the finish line. This episode isn't just a chronicle of physical feats; it's a deep dive into the heart of what propels us forward in the face of life's marathons, be they literal or metaphorical. Listeners will find resonance in our tales of sobriety's triumphs, the rigors of career pivots, and the relentless pursuit of personal redemption through the crucible of endurance sports.
In the arena of holistic fitness, we illuminate the often-overlooked aspects of recovery, balance, and the science that underpins a healthy lifestyle, especially as we age. Rodney Corn's wisdom has reshaped my approach to Ironman challenges, underscoring the necessity of tuning into our body's signals and the evolving insights of fitness research. We invite you to absorb the essence of our discussion, which promises to arm you with knowledge, inspire action, and ignite a passion for pursuing excellence in all domains of life. Join us for this profound exploration of what it means to live fully, challenged yet unbroken, in the pursuit of our greatest selves.
Dan's Bio:
Dan manages the international and industry advocacy division for the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). He is also the chairman of the REX Roundtables for Executives Personal Training Leadership Roundtable. He has over 30 years’ experience in training and training management including being a health club owner and the Fitness Director for two large multi-use health clubs where his teams grew revenue exponentially. He is an international presenter and has presented in over 10 countries. Dan is an ultra-triathlete, having completed numerous Ironman’s, two Double Ironman’s, a Triple Ironman, and a Quintuple Ironman.
More info on Bio Hackers World Conference in Austin, TX on April 6th. and 7th: https://www.biohackers.world
Email: Barton@bartonguybryan.com
Website: http://bartonguybryan.com
Use this link to get a 30 minute discovery call scheduled with Barton regarding the Team Bryan Wellness Concierge Fitness Program
https://calendly.com/bartbryan/conciergecoachingcall
My 3 Top Episodes of the first 100:
7 Essentials to Building Muscle after 40
3x Olympic Gold Medalist Brendan Hansen
MMA Strength and Conditioning Coach Phil Daru
Welcome back to the Mindset Forge podcast. I'm Barton Bryan, your host. I'm back again to give you another awesome episode. This one is a doozy. I had so much fun interviewing Dan Durand. Now this guy is in his fifties. He is an ultra iron man athlete and we'll go into what that means. But this guy has done not just iron man's but double the distance, triple the distance, oh my gosh, five times the distance of the swim bike and run for an iron man. So just an incredible athlete. But that can be unrelatable. But the cool part about Dan and he is the most relatable dude on the planet he talks about some of his addictions earlier in life. He's just got such a perspective on family, wife, all the things that really impact who he is today. And I say that because some people, when they hear about these ultra iron man, ultra marathoners, ultra athletes, it can be a little bit inaccessible in terms of we don't think this person is anything like us. But, as you'll find in the conversation, there's a lot of very like, honest things about Dan that I think are very relatable and can really help you, wherever you're at, take that step forward to being more disciplined, having better habits and leaning into family and being the best version of yourself. So listen up and enjoy the heck out of this episode.
Speaker 1:But before we get to that, couple things I want to talk to you about. First off want to shout out three people. My first guy. His name is Chris T. Now Chris is in the Houston area. He reached out to me because of the podcast. He's a longtime listener and he signed up for one of my online coaching programs, so he and I will be working together for the next six months. He's super excited and I love that he jumped all in. The other two I want to shout out today is Tiffany and Hayden. I'll leave their last names out, but Tiffany and Hayden are concierge clients of mine here in the Austin area. They live downtown and I see them one on one and I do all the nutrition stuff. We talk about steps, we talk about sleep, we talk about everything.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, I want to talk about an event coming up here in Austin, texas. If you're in the Austin area, perk yours up a little bit here. There's a biohacker world conference in Austin on April 6 and 7. They're gonna have a ton of speakers, a bunch of businesses that are in the space of longevity, fitness, biohacking, wellness, all that kind of stuff. So there'll be presentations. There can be a lot of cutting edge stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll be there and I've got some tickets to give away. So stay tuned for next week's episode to find out how you can get free tickets to this event. By the way, all my concierge clients, both in person and online, get free tickets as part of the concierge program. So, without further ado, let's find out why Dan is called the laughing linebacker in the world of Iron man and ultra Iron man, and get his perspective on being middle aged mindset hacks that he's figured out and hear his story, and let that inspire us to be a better version of ourselves each and every day. You were known as the laughing linebacker, yes, and I love that.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. Well, I also listened to a few podcasts that you've been on.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Did my, done my homework, but but yeah, the laughing linebacker, give us the the history of where that comes from, and then you know, obviously talk about distance racing and things like that. Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, I've only mentioned that a few times, so you definitely dug it out of somewhere. And before I answer your question, I just want to thank you.
Speaker 1:I just want to thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:For the listeners out there, it is a podcast and if you haven't had a chance to see Bart or meet him in person, he is an imposing figure. He's very tall, he's very well built, he's very handsome and I wouldn't say intimidating, but he's got a command presence about him. But as soon as he starts talking to you, he's all heart. So I you made a real impression on me at that conference and I appreciate you having me here. It's an honor.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you, Dan.
Speaker 2:So all right, the life laughing linebacker, that particular event. I was doing a double Ironman, so it's twice the distance of an Ironman 4.8 or 4.4 mile swim, 52 and some change 53 mile run and the bike is 224 miles and I was on the run section and people are hurting, and you do that, you know, continuously. Just go straight through and people are hurting, legs are hurting, you're suffering from sleep deprivation. At that point you know it's painful and every time I'd come around the corner of the loop on the run and there was all these routers there cheering us on, I would smile at them and laugh at them and sometimes I'd try to get a little jiggy or do something funny and they're like Okay, I know you're suffering, I know you're in pain and I'm, I'm 6'1.
Speaker 2:I wish I was Teller, I swear I'm 6'2, but I'm not At the time. I'm racing at about 208 pounds and I, you know, I played college football. I was not a linebacker but I'm pretty muscular for for endurance athlete. And so they came up with the saying the laughing linebacker because I would smile, which, for those of you that study behavior in the mind and you know mental strength, just the mere act of smiling will change how you feel on the inside, and so I would make myself smile to lessen the pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great and listeners write that down, like the next time you're in that you know place where you don't want to be, you don't want to go that extra mile to do that extra rep, just just try smiling. Yeah, just what happens to your entire physicality, by psychology and all that.
Speaker 2:And I gotta add, because I got a bazillion stories, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. But at that same location, on one of those laps, one of the athletes was so sleep deprived and so disoriented that he just was standing there and looking around like counting butterflies. I'm like, dude, are you all right? Yeah, I'm all right. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm good. And I did another lap and he started going the wrong way and headed into the forest. So there was all kinds of stuff going on out there and laughter was what helped me.
Speaker 1:You have to find a way because you know it's kind of it's. A lot of people have been introduced to this type of ultra. Like you know, it's not just an ultramarathon. You're obviously doing like swimming, biking, and then you're doing a 50 mile or like so it's. It's all these things. You know people have been introduced to this more maybe because of David Goggins recently with his stories and and mindset and all that kind of stuff. But I love what you and your wife had an agreement on. It's like and you can go into detail, but like, unless this is life threatening or I'm going to have an injury for the rest of my life, do not pull me out. Talk about that relationship with you and your, your spouse, and how you guys kind of manage that for these big events. Great, great questions, because I'm using your stories. But like this is, guys, listening, this is mindset 101, 201, 301 and 401, all the way up to masters, right here. So listen to this because this is right on with with how you want to be framing your mindset. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, indeed, and it is mindset Again, I'm, I'm built more like a football player. I am not made to go fast. And so you know, how do you train for double iron man? I've done triple iron man's I've done. My last big one was a quintuple. So five times, how do you train for that? You, finally, you got to. You know, you go okay, that's enough. I can't do that much training.
Speaker 2:It's actually mental more than it is physical, much more. And so going into it, you, you know you go into a mentally prepared, and I can give a lot of analogies. I actually just had shoulder surgery a month ago and I can tell you how come that recovery has been going so great. It's about going into it mentally prepared, and so part of that preparation is your team and my, my crew. My team is my wife. She is the crew leader, crew chief, and she runs the show and she's amazing.
Speaker 2:She did say she retired after the quintuple, though she had blisters all over the bottom of her feet. I had none and she said that's it, I'm retired, I can't do this anymore Because she slept less than I did over the course of five days. So we start a race and we always have. I always have this talk with her every one of these, and that is no matter what. Do not let me quit, because your mind goes to all kinds of places.
Speaker 2:I hallucinated a lot on the triple iron man and I wanted to quit and she made me keep going. That's a funny story. I wanted to quit on the quintuple and she made me keep going because your mind just goes weird places. And I said, unless I have sustained an injury which will affect me the rest of my life not that I can heal from in the next few months do not let me quit. And that was the deal that was written in stone and she stood by it and I've never suffered an injury other than really bad blisters. But I had a lot of pain, but she's like Nope you're not quitting.
Speaker 1:You can listen to these stories and be like, yeah, I could do that. But talk about that moment Some people call it the wall, the pain cave, that moment where you're hallucinating, your body is just telling you this is a terrible idea, you should stop, you should go to the hospital or whatever. What's that relationship with yourself in that moment? Because sometimes you don't have your wife right there. I mean, you can't really rely on her to be there in those moments. It's really you against you. Like, talk about how you self-obsess or figure those moments out.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's an interesting dichotomy too. By the way, there's a great book it's called how Bad Do you Want it? I can't remember the author's name, but I read that years ago. And that's that mental component and how it relates to the physical component. But it's a dichotomy because I believe that if I were alone and my wife weren't there and I've been in those situations where, whether it's an ultra-mountain run, like I did this last summer and it's just sucking, or the Leadville Marathon, I don't have somebody next to me to say don't quit. But my mind goes to those people, those wives, my family, my wife, my children, my mother, who inspire me or who I want to do good for, to leave a legacy with you don't ever frickin give up. That's just the way it goes. What kind of example will I set if I quit? So if you're by yourself, you got to not tick it up a notch. When you know you get your wife there, you can be a little more whiny but and verbalize it. And so I'll tell you that the example was probably the triple was the toughest one.
Speaker 2:I was just wrapping up the second marathon, so I was on like mile 40 or 50 or something out of 70 plus miles and the blisters on my feet were really bad and I'd never experienced blisters that bad before and I was sleep deprived. I'd slept 15 minutes, 10 minutes, and this is the third day. And you can't eat enough calories. You lose your appetite, so my body is just drastically undernourished, even though I'm still trying to eat. And I'm hallucinating. I'm seeing things come up out of the ground. There were people talking to invisible people next to me. It was all kinds of crazy stuff going on. It was like taking like a wild mushroom ride without the drug. So the ground was moving and plants were becoming animals it was nuts. And so what I hallucinated was that the bottom of my feet if you're into anatomy and physiology like the tibia and fibula, the two bones that go down into your ankle, those were what I was walking on. They were stumps. So I was thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, walking on the ends of my bones, and the bottoms of my feet were bleeding all over the pavement. That's what I saw and that's what I felt, and it hurt like hell. And that's when I wanted to quit. I'm like I can't do this. I'm going to finish the second marathon.
Speaker 2:I'll say, hey, I almost did it and what happened was the sun was just starting to rise and my son had woke up. He was a little guy at the time, maybe eight years old, 10 years old, somewhere in there, and he rode his bike up and saw me and he goes how you doing, dad, and I go? Not too good, kid, son, you know not too good. I think I'm going to call it quits buddy, I'm pertinent. And he looked at me and he goes mom's not going to be happy. So he rode back to the.
Speaker 2:He rode back to where all the you know, all our we keep all our stuff and all our support crew and he told my wife and she had just tried to lay down to take a nap and she was hot. I came in and she met me right there. She's like you are not going to quit. You have put us through all this training and you're gone all the time. And she was getting in my head right, she was getting in my head and she and there was a guy, another athlete, out there.
Speaker 2:He goes by the nickname Taz. He's an amazing ultra athlete and he had blisters on the bottom of his feet. She said Dan, taz is out there lancing his blisters, bleeding all over the ground for you. He's doing it for you, dan, because he cares about you and he wants you to win. And I'm like I started crying. I'm like, oh my God, taz is doing that for me. She's like, yes, let's change your socks and get your butt back out there. Oh my God. And I got some food in me. I closed my eyes for 10 minutes, swapped out shoes and socks, finished the race. It was nuts. We still laugh about it to this day. He wasn't bleeding either, taz, taz.
Speaker 1:One of the things I talk about with some of my clients and also on this podcast, is this idea that we always show up for other people. If your boss or somebody you really respects, like says, hey, let's have lunch, you're early, you're well-dressed, you're ready to go, you're caffeinated or whatever, we don't do that for ourselves, right, it's easy for us to say, oh, I don't need to go to the gym, oh, I don't need to really show up. Well, for myself. And I'm always trying to get people to shift like treat yourself like your boss, treat yourself like the most important person, and that relationship with like I'm going to the gym today, I'm going to do a good job at this thing today, whether it, whatever it is, it's so important. But there is something like just innate in us. It's the human condition of like connection with others, of wanting to not disappoint others, and I think it is a truly powerful lever to pull. And your son I can only imagine your son on his bike dad no, mom's good and just like.
Speaker 1:But how much juice you can squeeze from just like the thought of your son disappointed, or the thought of your son telling your why I mean all those things like that is just juice to squeeze in those moments where you need it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was actually what kept me in the quintuple. So I was in New Orleans in November, racing five times the distance of an Ironman. So 12 miles swim, 560 mile bike, and what is that? 131 mile run, and I was on, I think, the bike.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, that month in New Orleans is supposed to be great weather Cool, not too hot, not muggy. A freak storm came in. I got big storm. The swim had to be moved because of the rain and the lightning, so eight hours of swimming in a swimming pool instead of a lake was brutal.
Speaker 2:And then the bike everybody was getting flat tires, it was ice cold. And so I am just beat up. I don't have rain, I don't ride my bike in the rain, I'm a fair weathered athlete. So all I had taken was all my hunting clothes, so I was wearing big, bulky camouflage jackets and it was not aerodynamic. It was cold, my hands were frozen, I was tired, I was wiped out.
Speaker 2:It was about near the end of the bike and I parked the bike and went in to get some food and I looked at this pile of wetsuits and my mind is getting all mushy at this point and they're all frozen. And I looked at them and I'm like, why am I out here in the ice in this crap? What do I have to prove? And I told my wife I'm like, why am I out here? This is just dumb. And she said to me Dan, how many races have you done, how many things have you taken on and quit? I said none, ever. And she goes OK, what's your son going to say when you tell him you quit this one? And that was it. I was it no more. Boom. I went another two days, three days, whatever it was, biking and running.
Speaker 1:But I mean the legacy of a father and a son. I have a nine-year-old son and so I feel the same thing. It's like to leave a mark on him about how to live the best version of himself. As he gets older he sees he's looking at me competing, working out every day, doing all the things. This four-nine-year-old knows more about protein, carbs and stuff than any nine-year-old. I take him to the gym already. We're doing basic stuff so that he can start to just develop movement patterns and coordination and all that kind of stuff. And it's just you're imprinting that legacy onto that child and it's really a special relationship. But it's different from when I was just a guy, even married without a kid. It's just a different thing now as dad's almost a superpower that we can tap into if we really understand it.
Speaker 2:A great 100%. And there's these four rules that I always review after these races with my son. He's been to all but one of them. He didn't go to that quintuple because it lasted so long. It was five and a half days of racing nonstop and he had school, but otherwise he was there and he watched me and he watched me suffer and he watched other people suffer. He watched other people endure and survive and he watched other people bail out. And there's four things that I was impressive on afterward. Number one is anything is possible, anything. Look at me At this point I'm almost 50 years old, doing the quintuple or right in there, and I've had shoulder and knee injuries and other stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm not built like that kind of athlete and I said I'm going to do it and I did it. Anything is possible. Number two, and crucial to that, is make a plan. You have to have a plan. I write my own plans, but if you don't know how to write a plan, get help and get a plan. But you need a plan and along with that is follow it. You don't just have it, you follow it and then be willing to adapt it. I have to travel or I get sick or there's a game on a weekend when I was planning a big training break, whatever, adapt it, don't get frustrated because things don't go according to plan. So number two have a plan, follow it and be willing to adapt it. Number three ask for help. This should be number one.
Speaker 2:I'm worth mentioning is I'm in my 15th year of sobriety and I couldn't have done that alone. I had to ask for help. And so ask for help and following up on that is listen to what they freaking tell you. If you ask them for help and they tell you what to do, they can listen to them. So if I tell my wife I need your help and she says you need to eat, don't say no, I'm back and eat, eat. Do whatever she tells you to do. Or don't ask for help. And the last thing is never, ever give up. Just don't quit. Just ask yourself am I going to die, is somebody else going to die? And if the answer is no, then put one foot in front of the other, either literally or figuratively, and get the freaking job done. That's it. Four rules.
Speaker 1:There's a beautiful thing about an endurance race or something where the goal is to finish. I mean, if you're trying to be the fastest in the world, that's a different kind of animal altogether, because it's you're looking at times and like how do I? You know who's in the heat and I'm competing against that guy, and you know Taz, or whether that guy is. Obviously he's your enemy. You got to get him. And if you're doing it to like I'm going to show up, I'm going to be my best version of myself, I'm going to complete this, I'm not going to quit, then one foot in front of the other is still progress. Yeah Right, like you know, it kind of just allows you hey, I've got this amount of time to do this thing and complete it, and I think that's. That's just kind of a fantastic thing. I'm all about it.
Speaker 1:I think I don't do the long distance stuff, but even doing a bodybuilding show last year, you know just signed, I signed up, I paid my money like 24 weeks out and I'm like I am not going back out my coach, we started the diet, all those things. And you know, you just felt this momentum of like I'm doing the work, I'm on the, I'm doing everything I was supposed to be doing. Everything is, you know, I'm trusting my coach, I'm listening to what he says, like you talk about, you know, and you, just you, just you pull all the levers you're supposed to pull and you, you, you just show up at your best, right, and and it's a totally different concept, but it still requires the same mindset of like, just the discipline of the day to day work- yeah, and it's rules for living.
Speaker 2:So your example is perfect. Let me give me another example Getting a degree, have anything is possible. Make a plan, be willing to shift it, maybe change majors, change schools but don't give up on that plan. Ask for help, you ask for help. That's, if wise, reasonable question, what they tell you and don't quit. It doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be altered.
Speaker 1:Those are rules for living in any endeavor. Yeah, that's really good. Try now. This is. You've brought this up just a few minutes ago. I wanted to. This is one of my uh questions for you. Oh, really, talk about sobriety. And I mean I think starting out with this podcast, we multiple iron man's and these like it could be very quickly the listener is now like, oh, this person is, you know, like a super athlete. I'm not like him, but there's a very real and humble side of you that is, you know your growth, your path, the obstacles that you really had to overcome as a man. Talk about that and how sobriety plays into them.
Speaker 2:Wow, you know that is such a layered question and answer. But first of all, sobriety for me it was alcohol and it was a progressive. It is a progressive disease. I was what's called a periodic, so I didn't drink every day, but when I drank I drank like you've never seen drinking happen before and I had a massive tolerance and it just continued to affect me physically. So I was pumping iron six days a week. I was teaching self-defense three days a week. I was studying martial arts three days a week.
Speaker 2:I was still, you know, I thought I was doing everything right, but then a couple of times a month I'd go on these major benders and I needed help. And I knew I needed help Particularly after the doctor told me you know, your high blood pressure. I was 50 pounds overweight at the time. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, you have to. I had diverticulosis, I had esophageal stricture at ulcers, I had bad arthritis, a lot of cortisone shots the list goes on and something had to change. And so when I changed and got sober, I also changed careers. Now I had already bought a couple of franchises. I was a PT instructor at a couple of colleges, for fire academies and police academies and of course, the one that I ran because I was in law enforcement at the time, but I wanted to dive in 100%. I'd been told that that's what I should do. And so when I got into full-time private world of fitness, it was a big learning curve, but I wanted to prove to myself and I was sober. I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't a failure, that I wasn't falling apart, that I was you know, I was 40 years old at the time that the best days were not behind me. So, really, actually, sobriety one of the effects it had on me is I wanted to prove to myself and, I think, to others, that I'm okay and I can do cool stuff and I'm not falling apart. Like the doctor said and like you said, I'm okay.
Speaker 2:And then when I started getting into endurance stuff which was shortly after, within about a year that became my why for the first several years, I started writing a book. I haven't finished it, I'm halfway through it and I told myself I'm not gonna be able to write a book until I've done some cool stuff. And it landed on doing an Ironman. And then I did an Ironman. I'm like, well, I wasn't that tough, that's not worthy of a book. I need to do something harder.
Speaker 2:And then I did the double, and early in my racing years that was my why it was I need to. And then my mom passed away right in there and I'm like I need to show mom that I'm okay, that I'm physically healthy, that I can do tough things. That was my why. It wasn't until later in that journey that it shifted over more to my family than to my son, sadly, but true so. So, brydie, in the early days it was me proving to myself that I'm okay and that I can do stuff still, because I was very much in a journal in Junkie. I was a specialty diver, a rescue diver, specialty scuba diver, self-defense instructor, farms instructor, taught a lot of stuff, trained in a lot of stuff. I called myself a high-speed, low drag ninja warrior and I thought I was unstoppable and that led to my demise.
Speaker 1:That's the name of your book, buddy. Yeah, yeah that was that A high-speed, low drag ninja warrior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I learned it from a Navy SEAL. Actually, I didn't make it up that I was training with. I was in one of his classes and he said that and I'm like, okay, I'm still in that. So that was how I ran and I didn't want to just be like, okay, I'm not doing this stuff anymore. I still want to be able to do hard things, but I need to change my mindset and I would basically walk around paranoid you call it always being in yellow, ready to react to orange than to red, so you're always thinking somebody's out to. In fact, one of my sayings that I trained the people that I taught the people I trained is be polite, be professional, be prepared to kill everybody in the room. So you're always paranoid. And so taking all that energy and all that stress and going to none was a big mind shift for me. So I had to find a way and outlet to continue to challenge myself, and endurance was my outlet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so often, like people that have a tendency to addiction, for addiction, whether it's whatever the addiction like, can find it in a healthy way, in a sport, in some sort of a challenge, and that's you know. And those who don't find that tend to find an unhealthy version of it.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:You know it's a rather vice and that kind of thing. So I'm that way I mean I'm not necessarily I don't have specifically an addictive past, but I know that about the way I obsess about working out and things like that Like there are times where I'm, like you know, on vacation Googling the bodybuilding gym nearby, going like maybe this is too much. We call that all or nothing. Bart, you're an all or nothing guy, it's all in there and that's okay, you know, my wife gives me crap, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly it. I just I've embraced it now at 48. I'm like, hey, this is who I am. It's not gonna be. You know, I just at some point I just never want to not be able to do it. So that's also the injury prevention part that like is so important.
Speaker 1:And we were both, you know, obviously in the in the fitness industry and I'm, you know, training people really focused on longevity and and this whole, like you know. I mean, obviously there's all this like let's take all these things to keep us young, but I think there's so much about movement, about just changing the way we move. One of the biggest things I've been preaching to the world ever since I started last year was yoga and combining strength training and yoga and various disciplines and to really make sure my body never just breaks from too much of the same thing over and over. Talk about your experience with you know this kind of longevity movement and what your perspective, being in the industry for so long and being an athlete and all that lends to the, to your thoughts on like what we should be focused on in our 40s and 50s.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's great. And and I, I actually left out a part, and I'm glad I did, because that's where this gets plugged. So at 40, again, I was I don't know if you'd call it an adrenaline junkie, but I think so and and so I told you about how I, you know, looked at the world is. It's always a threat, and so I was stressed to the max. I was. I had insomnia, all kinds of. You know, I just never slowed down, right, I just never slowed down. I had bosses get me in trouble for working all the time. They're like you can't work all the time because it reflects poorly on the rest of the team. You know you're writing this many tickets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's not that I'm working any harder, it's because I'm working more hours beyond what I'm getting paid for, and so that was just my personality and it created a lot of stress. So when I went into fitness I got so lucky this was I'm a man of faith and this was, this was, this was a God thing. That I was told about a guy. I went to an NESM workshop, which is who I work for now, but I was originally certified through a national academy sports medicine. I went to a workshop and they said oh, you're from Ubus City, california. I said yeah, and the guy said my good friend and former NESM person, ronnie Cornlips, in Ubus City. So I said I don't suppose you could give me his phone number and he said no, but you'll find it. You know, back then we had phone books and so I've actually found his name and I called him and just out of the blue and asked for advice and found out if we went to the same church, we went to the same gym, I met him and he started mentoring me. He had just co-founded a company called PTA Global Personal Training Academy Global. Years later I was the executive vice president of it. So long story of in between there.
Speaker 2:But Rodney was the director of education at National Academy of Sports Medicine, so he's a very smart guy. He's still in the industry, director of education for a leco. And Rod started teaching me about stress and he started training me to teach me, to mentor me, and he actually gave me the science he had to, because that's my mind. Don't just tell me what to do, tell me why. And to answer your question, bart, what I learned is that I was way out of balance. I was lifting heavy weights like a bodybuilder for 20, 30 years. I wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't eating well enough, and he taught me balance and he taught me daily readiness and he taught me nine questions to ask your clients or to ask yourself before you train, each and every time you train, and then you turn the dials on that workout based on the responses. So what I ended up doing was a lot less work physically and my fitness completely changed.
Speaker 2:My wife said I'm morphed that's the word she uses M-O-R-P-A-G-D. Morphed. She said you morphed your body. You completely look different, and I do. If you look at pictures of me before and you look at me now, I look very different. I changed and it was because I learned how to sleep. I learned how to train less. I learned when I should and shouldn't train.
Speaker 2:It wasn't about you know the volume, it was about the quality of the movement. And three dimensional movement. To your point or I had done the same movements for 20, 30 years. I went through a power lifting phase. My body was beat up, my joints were beat up. So incorporating three dimensional movement, three dimensional loads, using myofascial lines as a lens to look at the body, by Dr Thomas Myers, and in loading and unloading and movement, completely changed me. I went.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the deal. So when I was in enforcement, I was, like I said, I was a specialty diver and I was an FBI instructor. So every year I had to take several physical tests. The worst one was the five mile run and the swim. So the five mile run was for the FBI, the swim was for the diving. I would get physically ill the night before the swim because I was a horrible swimmer. I just terrible.
Speaker 2:I was a rescue diver with fins on. Put fins on, I can kick butt, but if it's just my nothing on swimming in a pool, I sink. I don't know what I'm doing. I swallow a lot of water. And then running was so painful I'd hurt my knee playing football in college. I had a couple surgeries on it. It was, it was just sucked. I didn't like to run and so I'd go do this five mile run and I'd suffer for a week afterward.
Speaker 2:Fast forward I'm doing iron man's right swimming long distances and running. All of that was possible Because I changed the way I trained and that way I moved and my joints quit hurting and I felt better. So how do you train for a quintuple iron man? You don't, you know, you, you, you, you have, you can't over train, you have, you end up under recovering. So the biggest takeaway for us as aging men and women I know we're kind of geared toward, I think it's the 40 to 60 year old men on this podcast, but I think it's the biggest takeaway for us as we're aging is be be smart about your recovery. Be smart about recovery. That's the key.
Speaker 1:And talk about sleep, all sleep important. It number one because I there's guys out there, but there's guys out there buying their own coal plunge yeah number one. Sanos and all that. Yeah, it's funny. You asked that yeah.
Speaker 2:So during when COVID kicked in and the company I worked for had been bought by National Academy of Sports Medicine and I wasn't sure where I was gonna land, I actually was helping some people out and a guy named dr Michael Bruce they call him the sleep doctor. He's been on good morning America and all these different shows. He's very well known presence public speaker.
Speaker 1:I Got connected with him and he asked me to vet his course, a sleep course.
Speaker 2:So I Went through the entire course, gave him my feedback and so forth, and that was like phase two of changing my sleep. First of all, I started sleeping because it used to be. I'll sleep when I'm dead. I'll drink when I'm done. Don't give me water. I don't carry water bottles. I can wrestle on the mat for four hours straight. And waters for weenies. I'll finish one up, I'll drink one of them.
Speaker 2:And that was kind of like yeah, college basketball coach would say water makes you weak, yeah yeah, so that was kind of the mindset I brought right thing and so I had already improved my sleep. But this was next level, and Going through and practicing the majority of the things that he taught in that course Literally changed Everything for me about whatever it was 2020. Ironically, I just reconnected with him. I am a chairman of one of the Rex roundtables for executives roundtables, so I'd share a group of fitness leaders and then the Rex roundtables serves I think, 20 different roundtables representing about I don't know 2000 health clubs globally. We meet before Ursa and we always need a keynote. We're doctors. The sleep doctor is going to be our keynote, so I get to, I'm going to introduce him and he's going to talk about the importance of sleep for performance, as in job performance, and and member the members of health clubs and how they benefit from improving their sleep. So sleep a number one. I don't think you have to go to nuts on it. Yes, you can do that.
Speaker 2:The different new technology I think most of it is great stuff, but simple things like powering down an hour before you go to bed, getting rid of blue lights All our light bulbs are flipped out, switched out with blue light blocking Bulbs. For that last part of the evening street. If you're streaming to your TV, stream it with blue light blocking dark room, same bedtime. Understanding your chronotype because we're all different. I'm an early bird, which is the lion in in in the the chronotypes there's lion, bear, dolphin and bear lion, wolf, dolphin and bear with dr Sleep. No caffeine in for the, at least the first 90 minutes when you get up in the morning. All these little hacks that have definitely made life better. And wearables. Wearables are great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's good. I mean, I think the it's like. It's like exercise if you don't exercise, start exercising if you. If you don't, if you don't feel healthy, start sleeping. Well, I don't, you know what I mean. Like, I feel like there's so much of like our energy are, you know, when we are sleep deprived, the frontal court me you're. You're over here literally hallucinating. Yeah, your brain is telling you there are things there that are not actually there, like, and that's so much of that is sleep deprivation and how that affects our ability to have willpower. You know you want to be, you know, somebody who has a disciplined mindset. Try going, you know, three hours of sleep at night, two nights in a row and and make any great decisions in your day. Like I can't, I get. I'm like all I'm thinking about is how do I get a nap? That's what I'm thinking, yeah.
Speaker 2:What's crazy about it is, once you've incorporated good sleeping, you know, when you've had a poor night sleep, I mean I know all day long. I know, yeah, that's how I lived every day, you know back in the day and I didn't realize that wasn't normal, but it real quick want to mention because you've kind of been hitting all over it. I actually have spoke and done lectures all over the world on stress and the autonomic nervous system all learned from rod. I'm not a smart guy. Everything I teach I learned from somebody else. I Never invented anything or done any research. So what I learned from rod and what I shared with others is it's three buckets and that's those nine questions.
Speaker 2:So the first one is lifestyle. That is, and it starts with sleep, how much sleep did you get last night? Do you feel we're well rested? They're different. Hydration and nutrition those are the three components of lifestyle. Are you you know? When did you eat? What have you eaten? How hydrated are you? There's lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Then you have the physical bucket, which is what training have you done the last 24 or 48 hours? What did you do? Are you in any pain? Do you have any injuries? Are you sore?
Speaker 2:And then there's the mental, emotional bucket. So how motivated are you, how stressed are you? All, all of those are stress. We think of stress as just being emotional. We don't think about the fact that all those other things Create stress.
Speaker 2:And when you, when you, when your stress levels go up, that we, we embed more cortisol. Right, the hormone cortisol, which is good it's. We need cortisol. That's part of your fight-or-flight hormone package. Prolactable better word, which you know, raises your heart rate and your breathing. It gives you more tunnel vision so that you can do it and you need to do. It kind of shuts down your immune system.
Speaker 2:But if you're constantly bathing in it, I call it cortisol shower. That's when bad things happen. Your immune system is compromised, you get injured, you can't think straight and here's the biggie you gain weight, you gain body fat and here's the second component you lose muscle and bone density. So chronic stress does exactly the opposite of what most people are trying to do in the gym. You're spinning your wheels, man. If you're already stressed, working out adds more stress. You're actually going to go backwards, and that's why it's so important to understand where a person is each and every day, or yourself, and incorporate those stress reduction principles, whether it's lifestyle, physical or mental, emotional so that you're not putting so much stress in the system that you're actually hurting yourself by working out today.
Speaker 1:And they're not going to get the results that they're looking for anyway. If they're at the gym, if they're just dealing with a body that's just pumping full of cortisol and stress and anxiety and all that kind of stuff, that was me.
Speaker 2:That's why I was falling apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a bit of a plug on my end. So I've rolled out this, what I call concierge fitness training. It's really looking at all of it, like I just feel like too many trainers. They just come in, they give you the workout, they kick your butt, they get paid by the hour and there's not a lot else in terms of how they're looking at the whole thing. This is really what I've just realized over the years of doing this. We have to look at everything. We have to look at sleep, we've got to look at all these factors, and so that's the way I'm trying to care for people now is really not just let them see me as an hour to hour trainer. I pay you for the hour. Thank you very much. I'll see you next Thursday or whatever.
Speaker 1:This is a relationship. We're building something together in that journey that we're going on. So I'm glad you're saying this, because it's exactly the way I feel People will show up. It's like I want to train with you. Great, because, like you said, I'm tall, I'm impressive, but I'm like okay, well, let's look at this, this and this. How are those things going? And then you start asking those nine questions and you realize they don't need to be doing a whole bunch of strength training or they need to pull these other lovers for a couple of weeks, get their system back to neutral or normal and then start adding the stress.
Speaker 2:And that's what happened to me. I'm training with Rodney Porn, who assembled the OPT model under the guidance of Dr Mike Clark at National Academy of Sports Medicine decades ago, knows everything, former body builder, built like you know, amazed you wouldn't believe. You know. When he tells you all of these, you're like you've got to be kidding me. He looks like a kid because he's in such great shape and his skin and all of these things. And I'm training with him. I'm like, oh my God. I told my wife. I'm like I'm Rod's going to train me and he was cutting back sets. He was cutting back weight A couple of days we would like skip the heavy weight and I'm like what's so great about this guy? Because I literally my wife can tell you I would come home frustrated because he had me playing with balloons and laughing and mobilizing instead of pushing heavy weight. But in short order my pains went away, my weight started dropping and he uses me as an example to this day of what happens when you relieve that stress.
Speaker 2:So far, I will say this I have no scientific search, study or research to back this and if I offend any listeners out there, I'm sorry, but I'm not less than 1% of the trainers. In my opinion, in our industry, incorporate what you're doing, period. The majority greater than half certainly do exactly what you described. You're paying me to beat you up for three hours a week. If you're not sorry, you're not happy, that's my job. I can't tell you how many times my clients showed up and I put the clipboard down and said, nope, we're not doing what I had planned for you today because of the answers to those nine questions and that's why I kept clients for a long time because their lives got better, they felt better, they looked better, they moved better, not because I trashed them three days a week.
Speaker 1:That is a God, hallelujah.
Speaker 2:You're on it.
Speaker 1:I think this is why you and I connected so well. One of the reasons is just understanding that. The whole person, how do you address the whole person? And that's awesome. And I think, especially in your 20s and 30s, I feel like more than not we're made of rubber bands and we can just kind of beat ourselves up more. We've got the nervous system strong and youthful. It's going to bounce back pretty quickly. It's a testosterone to make mistakes and still not like it's still going to be a course correct. But for me it was like really 44 where I felt like the wheels were just falling off. I had to really get smart, really figure things out, really dial in stuff and whatever age that is for that person where they start to feel like that, where just things are slowing and things are harder and injured more often, that is a time to really find that discipline, find that. Go get somebody who can help you with the information that understands the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Rodney calls it God's periodization plan. So you end up with an injury. That means you have to decrease your training mission accomplished. You didn't listen to your body, you didn't do the things you need to, and so you end up injuring yourself. Whether it's from chronic cortisol? Well, generally it is chronic cortisol because connective tissue weakens type one. Fibers don't fire first, like they're supposed to, right. So if you remember the size principle from anatomy and physiology and your personal training, type one has to fire before two and three, or two A and two B to create tension and stability in a joint. Chronic cortisol decreases the type one firing, so you don't have stability in the joint and you put force through it and you get hurt. Then you take six months off, two months off and God goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I told you you needed a break, so I gave it to you and I am guilty of that one, definitely was and that's the you know this guy, Cody Hill, trainer from camp gladiators, where we know him, but he's a trainer here in Austin and he's like one less rep than what you think you could do. Not going to be a big deal.
Speaker 1:One more rep than you probably should could be a really big deal, I like that it's that, like you know, and it's hard to know, this is where you have to know your body and you have to be really dialed into, like what? What's the purpose of going for that final rep or pushing past failure or whatever? Why are we doing this? Is this the right time to be doing this? Like for all the other? You know, levers pulled, the properly, so that we're hydrated and, you know, ready for this type of work. You know, and all those things matter. Like we can't just like I feel good today, I don't know, there's a cute girl doing squats next to me. I'm going to go heavy. Like we have to be smarter than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you know you, what you're saying reminds me of the importance of staying up on research. So we have to continuously be learning and learning what's the latest right, because all science changes every year and what we thought was right was wrong, shoot we. We spent a couple of years in lockdown. I think there might have been a little bit going on around that. So what we don't know? And you know what's the oldest science in the world, the strontum. And we're still haven't got that one nailed.
Speaker 2:So I say that because, for example, you know, in all my years it was four, five, six sets of eight, six to eight reps. That's how you get buffed. Now, actually, the science has shown you can get buffed doing 20 reps. You don't have to do those heavy loads. And some latest, some very recent research that ACE actually published demonstrates that you don't have to train the failure for the same gains in hypertrophy. It actually you just have to train to a point that the rhythm or the tempo, what we would call, is being affected by the fatigue. So if your reps are slowing down because they're becoming more difficult, you've achieved what you need to achieve for that adaptation, that progressive overload and that specific adaptation to occur. You don't have to go to failure and you don't have to eke out that last rep. So that's where science is your friend and you wanna be paying attention. And when you're my age, that's really good news, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the thing that's so hard for people to wrap their head around. It's like, well, obviously, the more I push, the closer I get to failure, the more I'm breaking down those little muscle fibers and they're gonna grow back and I'm gonna be stronger or bigger for it, or whatever the adaptation you're trying to achieve. And, a, you're closer to injury and B, you may not even be accelerating that process of adaptation by doing that one thing. And that's great. I mean, I was just listening to one of the StarTalk podcasts with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Speaker 1:They were talking about how Einstein was looking at like black holes and relativity and there was some force that he couldn't explain and he was so frustrated he just called it like the gravitational force, like the anti-gravitational force, and then it was, and then he disproved it and then he died and they reproved that what he wanted to disprove was actually true again. So the force that I mean Einstein. Okay. So this guy in like 1917, like figures out that there's like in order for all these things, there has to be kind of an anti-gravity, anti-matter, but he hates the idea. So he basically tries to disprove it, finds a way to disprove it and then, like 30 years after his death they rediscovered that they with more information for better telescopes and all that kind of stuff, that he was actually correct the first time.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:And that's, that is the beauty of science. It's like we're always trying to get closer to the truth. We never actually have the specific truth, and strength training, fitness is like that too. There are so many variables. There are. The human is the biggest variable of all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, again on that theme, it's just we just have to remind ourselves of the science behind adaptation. Whether it's run further, jump higher, lift more or grow the size, you know the cross-sectional density of a muscle fiber to get more muscular, whatever it may be, you're just adapting to stress that, you're putting in your body and consistency and time as your friend. We're in such a society of immediate gratification and I would say the internet has certainly you know I'm not an expert in this space, but has certainly been the bleeding cause of that immediate gratification. I mean I can. If I need a pair of work gloves, because you know mine aren't warm enough, I can have them here tomorrow on with Amazon and I live out in the sticks and they're still gonna show up here tomorrow, and I know that because I just ordered some. So you know that we all expect things quickly, but there's gonna be a price to be paid physically if we look at those adaptations through that lens.
Speaker 2:So just be consistent. We call it the C word in my house and you can't see me because we're on a podcast, but I'm making a C with my hand and that's what I teach my kids is. It's all about consistency. There's no perfect workout, there's no perfect exercise. There isn't, they don't exist. But whatever it is, you do, just be consistent with it. And that applies to all things. And if you're consistent with it, you're going to adapt to it. So don't kill yourself. Just be consistent and you will adapt and you will achieve those things you wanna do. Others call it press applying.
Speaker 1:Discipline, yeah, I mean, it all comes down to knowing what you want and doing it on a consistently doing it on a daily basis. Now, the challenge with that is the I don't wanna over train right, Like you could. Somebody could take that information, be like ah, Dan, told me, be consistent, I'm going to the gym every day, I'm doing squats, I'm doing, bench press, I'm doing, and then they get injured. So what's when you talk about consistency, the big C in that sense, what are some? Just so we can kind of like end on this note, like what's your recommendation for just creating enough variety around strength training, cardio recovery, things like that, to allow somebody to kind of really like find a rhythm of health without overdoing it?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a tough one, Because it comes down to goals, because everyone's different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it comes down to goals. But if we were just to look at aging, well, right, it starts with the exercise for you is the one you'll do. It starts with that. So I am, you know, out here in the sticks in Idaho. I have five acres, 120, 130 fruit trees, chickens, I'm putting cows back in, so I've got to build a fence this spring. I have a lot of physical work to do. I build things out of wood, I build things out of steel. That is movement. If that's all I did and never went to the gym, I'm doing well, if I'm consistently moving. If I'm in a big garden so you're out pushing a shovel, you're pulling weeds, whatever it may be, if you're moving, you're doing well.
Speaker 2:I used to, I'm not gonna lie. I used to think the whole steps thing. I believe in it and I believe in the 10,000 steps a day. But like wearing it and getting anal retentive about it, that's dumb. Then I got one that started counting it and I'm hooked. And so if I don't meet my activity level every day, I find a way to meet my activity level. And when it says 200%, which is not a lot for activity level, right, I'm like stoked. But I know I don't wanna do that every day, but the bottom line is move consistently, move in three dimensions. Pick things up. Play with your kids the best. I used to teach weight loss classes. My wife and I did one. I first got into the industry. The guy that absolutely smoked it and kept the weight off and beat everybody in this weight loss challenge Never worked out in the gym. He did one session with me. He was an attorney and he just didn't have time.
Speaker 1:He's like you know what I can't commit to this.
Speaker 2:He danced with his kids every night. He danced with his kids till they were just sweating and giggling and having fun, and he lost more weight than everybody else in the challenge. So move. If you're strength training, if that's your gig, I like total body workouts three times a week. Get everything under a load. You don't even have to worry about biceps and triceps, because they get used when you push and you pull. So just do some total body work three times a week. Find a way to get your heart rate up, whether it's during that, before or after that I mean, there's another conversation to be had around it or on the other days, which is what I like. So the 150 minutes of exercise at a moderate intensity that the Centers for Disease Control recommends is spot on and it's hard to do. If you do that, you're doing well. 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity, 300 at low, 75 at high, moving three dimensions that's like lowest common denominator right there. And eat well and sleep well, hydrate well you're on your way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, beautiful stuff, man. I love everything about I mean you're just, you're a man who's been, you know you have your own journey with your as an athlete, you know as an ultra endurance athlete, as a father, as a husband, all these things. And you're also like really helping to provide for the industry of personal training and kind of in self-improvement really is kind of the overarching thing, is like helping people get better, and so I just really honor your time. You're taking the space to fit me in your schedule.
Speaker 2:Hey, anytime the feeling is mutual. It's an honor, buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brother All right hey, great episode, by the way. Funny story. You know, one of the things that Dan and I realized in our conversations was that the lawyer who lost the most weight in his fitness challenge is my cousin. It's my cousin, greg, in U-B-City, and so that was funny because I had found out that he trained my cousin and so when he told that story and he mentioned that guy was a lawyer and he danced with his kids.
Speaker 2:I was like oh, my God.
Speaker 1:I bet that's Greg, and so I asked him. At the end of the episode he was like yeah, actually it was. If you have any comments, thoughts on the episode, maybe something that really stood out for you about Dan's perspective or the things we talked about, definitely go to one of my social media channels, either Instagram, send me a DM or go to Facebook, drop something in the comments. Of course, if you feel like you just want to send something privately, you can just email me. That's in the show notes, but I'd love to get your feedback, what you're loving and any thoughts you have. And, last but not least, I'm looking for trainers, both online coaches and in-person trainers here in the Austin Texas area. So if you're interested, send me an email, find that in the show notes and let's chat. I'd love to hear what you're up to and find out if you're a fit for Team Bryan Wellness and our Concierge Program. Thanks again for listening to the Mindset Forge podcast. Let's be 1% better this week and make sure we're moving towards becoming the best version of ourselves.
