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04 High Intensity Training Defined Jan 27, 2017

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What exactly is high-intensity training? Is high-intensity training safe? In this episode we'll hear from a longtime Inform Fitness client, who is 72 years old, describe the intensity of his slow motion strength training at Inform Fitness in Toluca Lake, California. Adam continues his explanation of muscle failure in high-intensity training and the value of having a personal trainer guide you through your 20-minute workout. ___________________ If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question. The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 04 Intensity Defined - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. You know, I like the philosophy of the program of taking each one of the muscle groups to meltdown [laughs]. Surely what it is and you know there's a certain amount of emotion that goes along with these meltdowns. So, you kind of have to be willing to get into that thing where, okay, the sabre tooth tiger's got me and it's going to bite off my head and it's -- but it's a slow bite and you just got to be willing to stay there [laughs]. You know, I mean, anybody can do half an hour a week. Anybody can do a half hour a week of a sabretooth tiger biting down on your head. If that doesn't define intensity, I don't know what does. That was Keith from the Toluca Lake InForm Fitness location. He's one of the clients. He's been coming for quite some time, I believe. Is that right, Sheila? Yeah. He's been coming for probably a year and a half now, I would say. And Keith is how old? Keith is almost 72 years old. And he has been doing this for quite some time and that's how he describes high intensity strength training and great selling point for InForm Fitness and that's exactly what we're doing here today. Welcome to episode four of the InForm Fitness podcast. My name is Tim Edwards and of course joining us again is Sheila Melody from the Toluca Lake location. We have Mike Rogers from New York City and across the hall from him, the founder of InForm Fitness and the author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. This episode, intensity, could probably turn itself into two, three, maybe even four episodes because this is kind of the foundation of what you put together with InForm Fitness, Adam. Yes, and that description of a sabretooth tiger biting down on his head slowly -- I'm almost cringing thinking about what people who've never heard about this work out and they come across this podcast and if they listen to this they'd be like, "Screw that." Well, it's a slow bite, Adam. [laughter] It's a slow bite but you know what, you got to listen to what he said. Yeah. Anybody can do anything for 20 minutes and the last episode that we had, The Importance of Muscle, is the result of what happens when you're able to just do something for 20 short minutes a week which is also the length of our podcast as well. So, just to kind of give you an idea of how little of an investment it is for some long-term bigtime gains. So, yes, we don't want to scare anyone away with the sabretooth tiger comment but here's a 72-year-old man talking about something he's able to endure 20 minutes a week and I think that's just a fantastic testimonial, maybe not the most accurate description. [laughs] No, no, no. I don't want to -- listen, I was smiling and smirking and kind of cringing at the same time. I mean, I understand why he's saying it and the fact that you just pointed out that he's 75 and doing it should say it all that -- It does. You know, if he's 75 and enduring this kind of intensity, it should give you -- Well, let's not give him that much credit. He's 72 but -- [laughs] [Crosstalk 03:53]. But close enough. [laughs] 72 years young [crosstalk 03:57]. He's an intense guy too. He is. Now, you know, this is such an incredible topic because what I'd want people to get from this episode today, is understanding that, as important as intensity is for exercise, it doesn't mean danger. Doesn't mean I can't do that because I'm out of shape or I'm not that strong right now. I can't work out that hard or I'm not young enough to work out that hard because that's not where the danger lies. It's not intensity that causes the dangers of exercise. It's intensity coupled with high force crazy movements, ballistic movements, high repetitions. It's this force associated with that intensity. So, we don't realize that you can have a very intense experience weightlifting and have it be of the utmost safety at the same time which is the real profound thing about this. I think we talked about this on the first episode, about the safety and intensity. Mhm [affirmative]. So, the thing about intensity is you can get there. I mean you have to get there and if you can get there in confidence that you're not going to get hurt, like our friend Keith just mentioned. Mhm [affirmative]. At 72 years old being able to work out that hard and not worry about hurting himself, that's the beauty in this. That is the true beauty in this. Things that are generally worthwhile often times are not easy and that goes with everything I think we do in our lives and I think it's just, you know, if you want to do something that's worthwhile that's only 20 minutes once or twice a week, I mean, the bang for your buck, this really, really hits hard there. I mean, and we hear all sorts of different scenarios. Like he's mentioned being bit by a sabretooth tiger. The most common one I think I hear especially for women is childbirth and things like that. [laughs] you know something and it's not and they go all over the place. Another really attractive description. Yeah. [laughing] Definitely. People are going to be lining up. Sign me up. Yeah. [laughs] Well, let me just say, you know, as a, you know, as someone who never really went that intense before I started doing this workout and when I was opening InForm Fitness in LA here and our trainer -- I brought our trainer, Ann Kirkland on and she's amazing and we were doing each other's workouts and there was one moment that I'll always remember because it was doing the leg press and the leg press does get scary. Like what Adam says, we don't want them to think that intensity means danger but in your mind it is a little scary when you're lifting the heavy weight and you're feeling in your body that you can't go on but I remember I was getting a little scared, you know, because I was going up towards 200 pounds at that point and Ann said, don't worry nothing bad is going to happen. And that just all of the sudden, that's was like an 'aha' moment for me because we go so slow, we're watching you the whole time and nothing bad is going to happen. I'm not going to die. I'm not -- the worst thing that's going to happen is I will not be able to push that weight any longer. I will not be able to hold it. The worst thing that would happen is that I suddenly, you know, just stop doing it and drop the weight a little bit. That is the worst and that's what you have to kind of have to work through in your head is just this -- to me it's a very great mental conditioning, you know so. Tim: And that's the value of having a trainer like the three of you and the rest of the staff you have at all the InForm Fitness locations is the fact that there's a trainer with you one on one for that 20-ish minutes or so. And then the part that got a little scary for me like you Sheila was my very first time through the workout is when you hit that point of failure where you can't move that weight anymore, well our natural response is just a boom let it down but as Adam has said, that's where the magic happens. And so then you say, "Alright you're at that failure point, 10, 9, 8," and you're counting down to one and we're holding it and we're sitting there struggling. That's the pinpoint of the intensity that it doesn't necessarily hurt, there's that burn. It's intense and you want to beat it. You want to be able to hold it as long as you can and then you let it down and there's that amazing release. That to me is the intensity and as Adam, you said in previous episodes, that is where the magic happens. Adam: It is and, you know, again we talk about failure too. The word failure, muscle failure and that scares a lot of people. If you're not careful to define what failure is and that failure is a good thing, people can feel, "Oh, I suck at this," or, "I'm too weak. I can't do this," and working out to that level of intensity and muscle failure will do that to you. So, you have to educate. You have to understand that there's a totally different mindset, totally different objective to what we're trying to achieve when we do a set of exercise here. We're lifting weights slowly because it's safer. We're going to safely lift this weight until our muscle has nothing left and that can be a scary proposition. There's a natural survival instinct that I want to kick in, this fight or flight thing but we're smart people. Right? And we're human beings and we have thinking capabilities. So, we're going to overcome that fear. We're going to overcome that temptation to panic and we're going to stay in the pocket and we're going to push that level of intensity where we can't lift the weight anymore and push a little bit beyond that and endure that burn, embrace that burn if you will and then just expire and then like you said Tim, that's where the magic happens but it's also where the exhilaration comes in. You actually get it that you focused on it and the whole experience is only a minute in a half and really it's the last 20 seconds or so that will be uncomfortable part. So, it's 20 seconds of what I like to just call, severe discomfort. That's right. That's really all it is. Severe discomfort. And when Ann said, "Well, what's going to happen?" Because as soon as you stop, the severe discomfort goes away immediately. Yup. It goes beyond just goes away. It's almost exhilarating. [laughs] Exactly. It really is. Yeah. There's seven times a workout where I'm like, "Oh, that feels really good for that to stop." So glad you're done. [laughs] [laughs] Yeah but -- You know, I think the word sometimes -- you know, like Adam is a very, very direct and I appreciate that and the truth is I actually am attracted to that term 'muscle failure.' However, over the years I have noticed a lot of people, they don't connect to it and it's something I think we do have to work on with some people. They just won't stick around and sometimes the concept, especially with type A people, the word failure does not sink in quickly. Even if they love a good challenge. I mean, I play around with the terminology. I almost always go back to muscle failure also but -- That's a big hurdle to overcome when I was first exercising with Sheila and she was training me through this, I didn't like the failure. I was like, "Oh, I failed." Right, you know -- Right. But after a while, once you learn to manage that and understand it as failure, that is the goal. It's the only option and then we're able -- Right. Yeah. Well, that's how I like to approach it. I call it what it is and I say, "But that's okay because failure can have different meanings." That you can have personal failure, we're not talking about that kind of failure. We're talking about different types of failure. The threshold. Kind of like the word 'shalom' in Hebrew. It can mean goodbye and hello. You know and the thing is failure can mean several things also. Alright. So, we're smart intellectual people. We're all big boys and girls here. Alright. We're using the word failure in a different way. Alright, get over it. Stop being so touchy feely sensitive, you know. You know a lot of people will say, "Well, I'm not really in great shape. I haven't worked out in like six years." I mean, I'm very careful -- we all are very careful explaining when you start this workout we're going to kind of build you up to that. We're not treating you like an advanced client from day one. We're going to teach you what muscle failure feels like. We might not even go to muscle failure the first couple of workouts. We might get close to it. We'll bring you up, we'll bring you into it. Then I always like to say to people, we're not going to go anywhere where you're not willing to go yourself. I'm not going to make you do anything. You're going to feel confident enough to do this the right way. You will go to muscle failure and confidently go to muscle failure. Not because I'm imploring you but because you feel safe doing so. Well, what you just said supported what I was about to say and I'll just follow up with this. I really struggled with understanding A, what failure was until after a full week of going through all the exercises, understanding I can't move that weight anymore. Then dealing with the fact that oh, well I failed. I wanted to go more. I believe it takes a couple of weeks at least for me it took a few weeks to my brain around what failure was and my trainer Sheila helped me get there to understand that. And then the beautiful thing about reaching that failure, that threshold, that limit, is understanding those limits later were pushed just a week or two later when you go up weight in maybe two to four to five pounds up on the amount of weight that we're pushing, lifting or pulling. When we passed that threshold that helped me understand it and that's the goal and it's wonderful to push yourself to the limit because otherwise, you don't know how far you can go. You're not going to see any strength and I have seen incredible gains over the last four months. You know Adam talked about educating and talking to people and giving credit to our clients and he's absolutely right about that because you know when you -- like failure if we look at in exercise or all aspects of our lives, like when we look back on times we've failed we'v…

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03 The Importance of Building Muscle Jan 27, 2017

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This episode Adam discusses the importance of building muscle beyond just looking good at the beach or in a cocktail dress. You will learn about of the profound effects building muscles safely has on all the organs of your body. Some questions answered in this episode are: Will I become more "toned" working out with low weights and high reps? What is muscle failure and is it necessary to build muscles safely. What is the dose-response relationship and how does it apply to building muscle? If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question. The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 03 The Importance of Muscle - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: Alright. Welcome back to the InForm Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman. My name's Tim and we are at episode three, The Importance of Muscle. We'll get down to that in just a minute but listen to that music in the background. Just kind of get that -- it's got a good groove to it. Don't you think guys? Adam: Mhm [affirmative]. Tim: Yeah? Mike: I sure as hell think so. Tim: [laughter] And of course was Mike Rogers, GM of InForm Fitness in New York City, who wrote and performed our theme music. What's the name of that song, Mike? Mike: That song is called, "Allergic To The Medication." I actually co-wrote that with my partner, Brian Lord, who currently lives in Portland, Oregon and hence the demise of the Hypertonics, that was our band. Tim: [laughs] Mike: But, you know, every once in a while, we pop out and we have a show every once, you know, to bring back the love but yeah, that was one of our favorite songs. Tim: Well, we're going to put you on stage at our one-year anniversary show perhaps, maybe and we'll have a show in New York and LA because that's where we're broadcasting from or podcasting from. Alright. Let's get into it, guys. Let's dive in. So, we've had a couple of episodes under our belt now. And if you haven't had a chance to listen to episodes one and two, we invite you to go back and do so. Episode one, we talked to Adam Zickerman in great detail about Adam's history, what led him to building his empire at InForm Fitness and this slow motion high-intensity workout which is what this podcast is all about. This show is for those that are looking to supercharge their metabolism, increase cardiovascular endurance and build muscle. That's what today's episode is all about, building muscle or just, The Importance of Muscle, beyond the obvious, guys. The obvious is, you know, functionality. We want to look good and get as many right swipes for all of you single people out there [laughs] I suppose. Adam, walk us through the importance of muscle. Not just the obvious, the things that we're all aware of. Well, actually I do want, you know -- yeah. First of all, the obvious is not so unimportant. I mean, there's so many things but let's start with the obvious. Mhm [affirmative]. I mean, I guess the one obvious thing about building muscle would be looking better. Right? You know, looking chiseled, looking defined, looking strong, looking fit and that's an aesthetic thing and that's probably the obvious one. To me though, especially for baby boomers, I'd have to say that's probably fifth on the totem pole of importance, you know. To me, probably the most important thing about muscle is the strength aspect that it gives you. To me, that is the foundation of any fitness program. Do you find that that is more prevalent, the importance of strength to, say, baby boomers because that's when the age group that starts to notice that they're not nearly as strong as they once were, is that why that's at the top of their list? That's exactly when they start to realize what's important in life. [laughs] They have the family. They got the girl or they got the guy. Right. You know? They sell the BMW. They get the minivan and now they don't want to be in pain anymore. [laughs] Now they want to be able to go play sports with their kids and not be in pain and to enjoy life and to not exacerbate or have the injuries they've had of their youth start creeping up on them. What this does, what strength gives you, it buys you more time to be pain-free because those injuries they're lurking and as soon as you start getting weaker, those injuries start becoming more pronounced. The main way I think to keep those things at bay is just to not lose any muscle strength as we get older. You know what I've noticed from all the years I've been training and really, really thinking about this and living it as well is that around age 30, you know, people, both men and women are losing muscle just from the nature of aging. Maintaining that has become and should become the priority in our life. I mean, everything sort of slows down a little bit. We start to store a little bit more fat. Our joints get a little weaker. When we're playing sports, the little injuries that used to go away in a day or two sometimes linger a little bit longer, those little aches and pains and I mean, I'm an active guy and so that happens. A lot of it, what women think is toning, "Oh, I want to tone up. I want to tone up. I want to tone up." Well, girls, that's muscle. That's what it is. It's muscle and you get, you know, and you're not going to bulk up, you know, and get -- you're going to be the best you can be. Right, Adam? Why don't we talk a little bit about bulking up? Alright. The thing about muscle is this, we all think that if you work out one way, the muscle will respond one way and if you work out another way, the muscle will respond the other way. For example, if you do -- the old adage is if you do heavy weights low reps, you'll bulk up. Your muscles will get big and bulky. And the other thought would be if you do high reps, then you get toned. You get cut. That's like ridiculous. Alright. When a muscle gets stimulated, when a muscle is fatigued, it makes itself stronger and the way it makes itself stronger is by creating more, what they call, myofibrils which are the cells within a muscle fiber and the muscle fibers get thicker and thicker and stronger and either it's stimulated enough for that to happen or it's not stimulated enough for that to happen. Period. It's not like it's going to bulk up one way -- a myofibril is a myofibril. It's the same. That's the reaction. More myofibrils, thicker muscle fibers. So, Adam, when I started my workout with Sheila several months ago and she was explaining this work out through the Power of 10, the slow motion high-intensity strength training system that you developed at InForm Fitness. Sheila did a great job. I loved the word she used when I was in the middle of the workout. I was getting a dose. I feel like I'm getting a deeper penetration into the muscle. Am I visualizing that correctly? Are there different types of muscle fibers that are being stimulated through this protocol? Right. Well, first of all, let's talk about dose and usage of the word dose. I'm so glad that you that resonated with you. Very much. That that made that kind of affected, "Oh, like," because, you know, Doug McGuff author of Body by Science talks -- had a whole chapter in his book, Body by Science, about the dose-response relationship. And Sheila, you used the word 'dosage' because in her head that's how she sees it. Mhm [affirmative]. Because that's exactly what it is and the dose-response relationship that McGuff talks about is a relationship that every medical student, every doctor has to know and deal with. And that is understanding the dosage of a certain medicine to get the proper response. And doctors all know that they have to balance just the right dosage to get just the right response because if the dosage is too little, there's not going to be a response. Or too much. And if a dosage is too much, it becomes toxic. So, this it's balancing act of having exact right doses deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. Now, exercise is exactly the same way because medicine is a dosage and a high-intensity exercise experience is a dosage. And while we need to do it individuals, understand what dosage works best for us to get the response we need. And that dosage in general, on a bell curve of the human population, is about once a week that dosage. It can vary for the individual by days and even weeks for that matter but you have to start somewhere. When you look at the general population, it seems that one week, one work out per week, you start seeing progress, you start seeing muscle strength and muscle gains. Wow, that fast. But this type of workout. Not just any workout, right? If anything -- And the analogy works really well with more or less than you need. If you have too much exercise, well now we're getting into my personal story about how my boss said I didn't look very good even though I was always very fit because I was tired, I was overtraining. I was getting hurt a lot and then you have the opposite. You have people that, you know, they do it half assed. Let's face it. They go through the motions. They go to the gym. They're talking and reading People magazine and they're not really getting any real doses even though they might be spending a lot of time. Point is, they're not going to get any response. The dosage is too weak. Yeah. I think we're always trying to figure out how to create this balancing act and it is a little difficult sometimes because we're all individual. We're all very different. Some people can benefit from going two times a week, sometimes one time a week is absolutely appropriate. And the thing is, I think depending on what you're doing and how intense you're doing it, we have to try and figure this out. And figuring out the right dose, you know, we always start on a conservative level when we're trying to understand peoples' bodies but then -- and then it usually becomes very intense very, very quickly. But understanding this dose-response relationship I think is one of the most important things in how we think about our health in all aspects. From what we're eating, to how much we're sleeping, to the how much in the frequency of our exercise. So, it's something that is worth everyone thinking about a little bit. And one of the thing that, you know. I -- that really had an impact on me when I first heard this is, and Adam said it, was the fact that muscle dictates to the rest of the body what happens. Basically, the muscle is the most demanding tissue in your body. So, when you place a demand on that muscle, it makes the rest of the body stand up and pay attention. Mhm [affirmative]. Right? Well, now you're bringing up something different now. So, we got the dose response thing which means, you know, you have the right stimulus. Alright and therefore you're waiting for the right response. The response that we're looking for is strength. Now, what does strength, getting back to the beginning of this podcast, what does strength give us? Why is strength -- why is muscle so important? That's what Sheila was referring to now when she talked about the demands of muscle. Right? The demands of muscle -- another analogy I like to make is like the demands of a population. What happens when a lot of people start moving into a new town and start developing a new town? Alright. The more people that move into that town, the more services need to be built to service those people. Alright. You'd have to have more restaurants. You'd have to have more supermarkets. You'd have to have a better transportation system. Everything has to improve to meet that demand. The utilities, new electrical units whatever that they call that stuff when they build out a city. So, that's the demand and demand is the people. So, when you're building muscle let the demand [inaudible 11:54]. The more muscle that you put on your frame, the more demands you're making on your body to meet those demands. And what does that mean? That means the heart, the transportation system, has to become more efficient. The infrastructure of the town has to improve. The roadways what do you -- well that's our bones. That's our skeletal system. Once again, that's it's more of a common fact that people understand that building strength will help with bone density. The idea of strength training and exercise and staving off the effects of osteoporosis has been known for a while now. Well, it's because when you have strong muscles, again, the bones have to support those new stronger muscles and they become more dense. So, question I have, is you bring that up and that's a fantastic analogy of the demand and supply and using that city analogy and you're talking about with the building of the muscle, the strength training and its effect on various parts of the body like Sheila introduced a minute ago. What about organ functionality? You mentioned the heart as well too but does that also -- does building your muscles and becoming stronger also help you with other functionalities? What, like say, for digestion? Exactly. [Inaudible 13:07] digestion, our ability to utilize -- our glucose metabolism improves. That's a very interesting point because when I talked about these factors that I wanted to have separate podcasts about. One of those things, the research being done on myokines. Myokines are these proteins that are generated from the muscle after high intensity exercise. They have anti- inflammatory properties but they also have what they call organ crosstalk. Your muscles can release these myokines and talk to other organs in your body to have them perform better. Mhm [affirmative]. Like the pancreas is actually utilizing insulin better. The liver's ability to store more glucose improves. All these types of things, the mobilization of body fat for fuel improves as a result of these myokines being generated from the muscles. That really high intensity exercise can only do for you. So, and this is recent stuff that we're learning about. So, it's called organ crosstalk. So, when you never thought in the past that high intensity strength training -- it only lasts 20 minutes once a week mind you, have these profound effects. Not just on our strength and getting rid of our aches and pains and allows us to put…

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02 Is Recreation Exercise? Jan 27, 2017

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The purpose of exercise is to build muscle as quickly and as safely as possible so you can live the life you want. So, does performing the physical activities you enjoy like hiking, cycling, playing basketball, golfing or gardening count as legitimate exercise? ___________________ If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question. The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 02 Exercise vs Recreation Rough - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Alright. Welcome into episode two of the InForm Nation podcast with Adam Zickerman. If you stumbled across this episode in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio or YouTube and have not yet had a chance to listen to our first episode, we invite you to go back, give it a listen because in that episode you'll hear some important foundational information to help you understand the mission of this podcast and be formally introduced to all the members of the podcast team but we'll quickly run through the room here and reintroduce everybody. I'll start. My name's Tim Edwards. I'm the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network and have been training with the Power of 10 system at the Toluca lake location in Southern California. Joining me here in the Los Angeles area, just a few freeways away from the Inbound Podcasting studio, is one of my trainers at InForm Fitness, Sheila Melody. Hey, Sheila. Hi, Tim. How ya doing? I'm coming here from sunny Southern California. It's a beautiful day. It's perfect today. Maybe not -- [laughs] Yeah. I'm just going to rub that in to our -- [laughs] Well -- To our New York cohorts here. Yeah. As we record this through Skype we can see our other cohorts here wearing sweaters and jackets. So, probably a little chilly over there across the country on the East side of New York City. We'll start with the GM of the Manhattan InForm Fitness location, Mike Rogers. What's up, Mike? Hey, what's up? Yeah, it's like an arctic 50 degrees here right now. It's hell. [laughs] No, it's actually not so bad. I just came back from Vegas over the weekend. So -- Nice. You know, I'm ready to sort of recharge, restart and -- And recoup. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm excited about the podcast today. [laughs] And of course, the reason we're all here, the founder of InForm Fitness and author of New York Times Best Seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. How you doing, Adam? Hey guys. Looking forward to this. We got one under our belt and here we go with number two but before we drill down into today's topic, the definition of exercise, Exercise vs Recreation, let's quickly recap what we discussed in the first episode. Adam, if you don't mind for our listeners who have not yet listened to that show, what is the Power of 10? Well, it's the name of my book, Power of 10. There wasn't a Power of 10 until the book came out actually. It was just Inform Fitness. The premise of InForm Fitness and then the book was to understand and put exercise in its proper perspective and what we should expect from exercise. Ultimately, the premise is that the sole purpose of exercise is to build muscle, to maintain muscle mass as we get older. That to me is the number one priority and the exercise plan. The whole book Power of 10 and the whole technique starts there. The technique, of course, enters into intensity and safety considerations as well as balancing exercise, with proper nutrition and rest. There you have the Power of 10, balancing exercise, rest and nutrition, the three pillars we call it. On there that's the foundation. Then there all your recreational pursuits, the life that you want to life, sits right on top of that. If you want to life the kind of life you want to live, an active life, a happy life, a pain free life, it starts with exercise, rest nutrition and everything else follows from there. Adam always says like, you know, the mission of InForm Fitness is to provide people with the exercise they need to give them the life that they want, you know, so -- I could have just said that. [laughs] Could have said that but -- We need a little more [laughter], a little more detail. Of course InForm Fitness -- Sheila, why don't you chime in on that? If you don't mind, why InForm Fitness? I always say there's a couple reasons for that. One is that we want to inform our clients always. We're all informed. We're informing them about why you're doing this exercise, what it, you know, even to the point of what muscles are working at that particular time. Then we also are real sticklers on performing the exercise in proper form. So, I might find, you know, myself saying, "Okay. Stay in form." Then I'll go, "Oh, yeah. That's our name." [laughs] It's perfect. That is -- we are calling our community, that we're building here through the InForm Fitness podcast, to InForm Nation because that's what we're trying to do. If you're listening to this podcast and you're enjoying what you hear and you're becoming educated, becoming informed, we invite you to join InForm Nation. We'll have more details on how you can do that at the conclusion of the show. Now, this show is geared towards those who are looking to build muscle, lose fat, maintain cardiovascular health and maybe even improve whatever it is that you love to do which really ties nicely into today's topic, Exercise vs Recreation. Briefly, let's go around the room and discus, what are some of the physical activities we all enjoy that might be confused with exercise. Let's start with you, Sheila. What I really love to do, around LA especially, is hiking. Lots of hiking, lots of canyon hiking and tennis and yoga. Those are things I actually enjoy doing. So, when you're hiking do you ever go up to Runyon Canyon? Is that right? Up there off of Mulholland Drive and see some celebrities. Yes. [laughs] I've gone up there. It's definitely a very busy hiking area actually. It is. I prefer to kind of be out here in Malibu Canyon area because it's way more wide open. That's kind of the city hiking area but there are plenty of places here in Southern California to hike. As I'm sure there's plenty of places in New York and the Upstate New York and surrounding areas too. Are you a hiker, Mike, or what do you do for exercise or for recreation, I should say? You know, I like to take a hike often times in life. [laughs] [Crosstalk 06:43] -- You're told to hike often. Yeah. [laughs] I love hiking. I don't do it on a regular basis. It's usually if I'm away or wherever. If I was in California, I'd probably be taking a hike. You know, I grew up with a lot of -- very, very active. Every sport and I did soccer and lacrosse very competitively. As I've gotten older, I sort of phased into triathlon sports, like, biking, swimming and running. Love cycling the most there and even more recently, tennis and golf over the last few years. So, I do a lot of, a lot of stuff. I just have a problem sitting still. So, being active is extremely important to me. You know, using my body is very important to me, so -- Adam, what do you do? I know -- I thought you told stories in the past, you liked to ski. I'm a seasonal, recre-ator. I mean, during the winter I pretty much are limited to skiing. In the better weather I like to hike. Actually, I go fish. I do a lot of fly fishing. I love fly fishing. We just got a puppy, just got a puppy. [laughs] What kind of dog? A golden doodle. So, we're going to -- we have some beautiful preserves by our house and we're going to start doing some more of those walks and hikes with the dog now. Walk the dog. It will force you outside. Then in New York City too, do you drive through the city or do you do a lot of walking to and from somewhere? Well, that's another thing. It's a walking city for sure. Yeah. Mhm [affirmative]. Boy, I got to -- We're on the move all the time. Tim: I got to take up hiking just to keep up with all of you. That's not something that I've really explored. All I do outside of what I do at InForm Fitness in Toluca Lake is I play softball once a week. Outside of that basketball with my kid and that's it. So, I probably [laughs] need to get out a little bit more often and add to my recreation list. How is all of this different from exercise? All of these things that we're mentioning, one would say, "Well, isn't that exercise?" You're playing tennis a few times a week. You're hiking. Tell us the difference Adam. This is really -- it seems like a relatively easy concept to grasp but you say there's a difference between exercise and recreation. Adam: I think once it's explained it seems easy but you still have a push back. It's hard for people who have been told their whole life that you have to be active and be out there. They've been playing tennis their whole lives and playing soccer their whole lives, to tell them that's not exercise. They're not wrong by thinking it is in some sense and that is there's an exercise effect. Again, exercise, specifically is to build muscle and get stronger. There's no doubt that a lot of these sports and recreational pursuits have an exercise affect in the sense that they do make you stronger. A tennis player is going to get stronger legs from it, a stronger arm or upper body in general from that sport. That's not necessarily the goal of that recreational pursuit. The goal of that recreational pursuit is to enjoy that recreational pursuit is because you love it. Alright. That is the goal of that. The goal of exercise is to make you stronger. The problem with recreational pursuits being perceived as exercise is that's not the goal of recreational pursuits. They can get you stronger to an extent but it comes with its risks. It's not comprehensive. It's not going to do what you really want exercise to do. It's not going to build your muscles from head to toe. It's going to build them in a very specific way for that particular sport. That's not a general conditioning program. You don't have to spend a lot of time to get strong. 20 minutes once a week without the risk of getting injury. As opposed to being a weekend warrior or maybe even more so and thinking that, you know, you join a bike club and you're biking on the Wednesday night bike trips and you have the weekend stuff. You're thinking you're doing all of this because it's in place of your exercise. Tim: For people that are saying, "Well, I don't need to work out," or, "I don't need to lift weights or do anything because I play tennis three times a week," or, "I golf every week." Right. That's the problem, people who think -- We hear that a lot. We hear that -- I'm sure Sheila and Mike and myself, we hear that a lot when we do an intake. We say, "So, have you exercised in the past?" They'll say, "Yes," and they'll start listing the sports that they play. [laughs] Right. We get into that discussion. I said, "Alright, well, great. I mean, those are great things and I hope you continue to do them or maybe will want to do them again once you feel up to it." That's one way I make that distinction with people, to help them make that distinction. That this exercise program might get -- especially if they haven't done their recreational pursuits in a while because they don't feel like they're in shape to do them. [laughs] Or they may have hurt themselves in the process of doing them. Tennis players constantly, we have them all the time, like they had tendonitis, tennis elbow or golf -- [Crosstalk 11:35]. Golfers with back problems and it's just like and it's keeping them off the course. I mean, and to -- and so I mean, that's the thing. It's walking like four miles and they get to miss out on type of thing. It's unfortunate. So, what's -- I have an interesting story just personally as far as I did -- I'd done a lot of yoga and I was always doing yoga. Then I started to get into do this. Then when I got certified and I opened the Toluca Lake facility. Then it was like, you know, my life got very, very busy and I couldn't go to my yoga class for over a year. So, and I go to this very hot, you know, the Bikram yoga which is an hour and a half. It's very, you know, intense, kind of. So, I finally made it to a yoga class after a year and this was the testament to me that this works as far as just building your muscle because I used to like go to the yoga class and then I'd be off for a couple months and go back and the first time back the next day I was so sore. You know, just from doing it. This time I hadn't been in a year I went and even though, yes, it was a little more, like a different kind of endurance getting through that class, the next day I was not sore. That was like, "Oh my gosh. This is because I have been building my muscle and I'm strong." So, it was a whole different eye-opening thing for me. Yeah. I noticed it when the first time I went skiing and I went to high altitude and when you're coming from the East Coast and you go out to Colorado and you're at 12,000 feet, 11,000 feet, and you do a couple of runs you really feel it. My ski mates that were living in Colorado were always impressed that the East Coaster, me, actually hung in with them until about 3 o'clock. They went till five but the fact that I even lasted until three doing the runs that I was doing with them coming right off the plane from the East Coast, they were impressed. Yeah. I get that as a testimonial. So, like, probably more often than any other in regards to sports performance or recreational type of performance in regards to their strength and endurance and ability to stay out on the slopes. I hear it all the time and I just heard it last week from one of our clients. He specifically said, "It's night and day. Night and day." He's a very athletic person already but he said, "It's absolutely so clear that the strength training that he did here," for only a couple months too, maybe about 8, 10 sessions previous to his skiing, he said, "It was unbelievable." Frankly, over the whatever how long I've been here, thirteen yea…

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01 Adam, You Look Like Crap! Jan 26, 2017

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Welcome to the first episode of the InForm Fitness Podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and Friends. Inform Fitness offers life-changing, personal training with several locations across the U.S. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'll get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, (which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast). Your hosts for the show are Adam Zickerman, the founder of Inform Fitness, Mike Rogers, trainer and GM of Inform Fitness in Manhattan, Sheila Melody, co-owner and trainer of Inform Fitness in Los Angeles, and Tim Edwards, founder of the InBound Podcasting Network and client of Inform Fitness in Los Angeles. To find an Inform Fitness nearest you visit www.informfitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question. The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 01 Adam You Look Like Crap - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: And with that we welcome you to the maiden voyage of the InForm Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman. How about that guys? We're finally here. [cheering] Yeah. [laughs] You're hearing several voices in the background and of course we're going to get to know each and every one of them here in the next few minutes. After about, what, two months of planning and scheduling and equipment troubleshooting? Now finally recording and excited about passing this valuable information onto those who are looking to build muscle, lose fat, maintain cardiovascular health and maybe even improve your golf game or whatever it is that you love to do. I'm certainly on board. My name is Tim Edwards and I'm the founder of Inbound Podcasting Network and we are very proud to add the InForm Fitness podcast to our stable of shows. Not only because we've assembled a knowledgeable and entertaining team to present this information but I am also a client of InForm Fitness. I've been training, using the system for close to about four months I believe and very pleased with the progress I'm making and I certainly have become a believer in the Power of 10 in which we will describe in great detail later in this and in future episodes. So, let's get started by going around the room or the various rooms that we're all recording from via the magic of Skype and formally introduce each member of the podcast team to our listeners. Of course we'll start with the founder of InForm Fitness Studios and the author of the New York Times, best-seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. Adam, it's a pleasure to finally launch this podcast and get started with you. Adam: Longtime coming. I'm so happy we're doing this. Tim: And I believe joining us from the Manhattan location of InForm Fitness, from across the hall from Adam, is Mike Rogers. Mike's been training at InForm Fitness for about 13 years and has served as a general manager for the New York City location for the past five. Mike, glad to have you in. Thank you. It's great to be a part of it. And finally, joining us from the Los Angeles area is Sheila Melody. Sheila became a Power of 10 personal trainer in 2010 and in 2012 helped Adam expand to the west coast by opening the first InForm Fitness Studio just outside of Los Angeles in beautiful Toluca Lake and has since instructed hundreds of clients through the years, myself included. Sheila, this was your idea to launch the podcast. We're finally here doing it. Good to see you. I'm so excited to do this, to bring -- to introduce Adam and Mike and the Power of 10 to everybody out there and let's go. Let's go. Alright. So, there's the team, Adam, Mike, Sheila and myself, Tim. And we're all looking forward to diving deep into the content. But Adam, before we do, remind us of that very sophisticated title you came up with, for our very first and ever so important episode of -- [laughs] The InForm Fitness podcast. That title of the show again, Adam, is what? You Look Like Crap. [laughs] Very interesting title and in addition to the story behind that title, tell us -- before we get into that, tell us a little bit about your background. What led you to launching InForm Fitness and writing the book, Power of 10? Well, exercise has always an interest of mine, since I was a kid. I was a jock. My father's a jock. So, I became a jock and, you know, I had trainers and people telling me how to train and I read books on it [inaudible 04:06] magazines and I did it the way everyone was doing it, the way my trainer just wanted me to do, the way my coaches were telling me to do it and it was the conventional biometric type stuff. It was the free weights. When I was in high school, they didn't even have Nautilus yet. [Inaudible 04:25] Nautilus had just started. We had a universal machine in our gym. Those are -- but it was the first introduction to machines that I had. You know, looking back on it, it was kind of primitive but, the bottom line is, you know, you have -- you worked out hard. You worked out often and you got hurt a lot. [laughs] Did you get hurt sometime in that progress, in leading towards InForm Fitness, did you suffer an injury? I had plenty of tweaks up until the point I had my major injury during a deadlifting program but way before that I was -- and what led to the title of this, was way before my major injury, what led to the title of this, was when a boss told me that I looked like crap even though I exercised all the time. Well let's -- let me stop you there. So, you said you looked like crap. Did you in your mind? Oh, no. No, I thought I was a stud. [laughs] And nothing's changed. [laughs] And you could see Adam for yourself if you go to informfitness.com and [laughs] see if he really does. Confidence is important in life, you know? [laughs] Yes, it is. And you got to fake it too sometimes. So, you were an exercise guy, you were doing it all the time and he knew that you were exercising. What is it that led him to tell you that you looked like crap? As you can imagine, I was working in the laboratory at the -- that I was working and as you can imagine from Scientific Laboratories, there aren't too many jocks hanging around Scientific Laboratories. I was -- [inaudible 05:49]. What Mike? I see you want to say something. A lot of studs are hanging out with [inaudible 05:57]. Yeah, exactly. There are always too many. You know. So, I kind of -- and I was new on the team and I was probably -- I would -- I'm an over -- when it comes to scientific inquiry and research I was over my head. I'm an overachiever with that. It was such a passion of mine that -- but I had to work ten times as hard to get where I was in that laboratory, where all my colleagues, you know they read it once and they got it, you know, and I had to spend hours into the middle of the night trying to figure out what we were doing in the lab. So, the one thing I had on everybody because I didn't have brains on them and I had brawn them and I had my so called experience in exercise and I tried to [profitize 06:33] how they should be exercising. Again, it was like lots of hardcore stuff, everyday working out. You got to do a cardio, you got to do at least a couple mile runs every day. You got to do three weight training programs. Mhm [affirmative]. I was working out with this guy, Ken [Licener 06:48], maybe he'll be a guest one day on our podcast. He's a real pioneer in this and he used to work out -- he was a chiropractor that worked out of the basement of his house. And when you puked, you had to puke in this bucket. Oh jeez. And then, you can't just leave your puke there and you had to walk out with your bag of puke in your hand and everyone would see you and they'd clap if you had a bag of puke in your hand. Oh my God. [laughs] And you'd have to throw the puke, the bag of puke, into a garbage pail on the corner of his house. Oh my God. Oh. And by the end of the night there were like 30 bags in this thing. [laughs] You know, I can imagine the guys picking up this stuff, you know, in the morning -- [laughs] So, Tim, that was the best. That's the type of workout that I'm trying to explain to these exercise -- these scientists in my lab and so my boss, he was kind of tired of hearing it all and it didn't make sense to him at all and he's a smart guy, obviously. And so he said to me, he says, you know, Adam, someone who knows so much about exercise and works out all the time, I have to say, you look like crap. That's where it came from. Tim: Did that piss you off a little bit or did you maybe kind of step back and go, "Hey, well maybe he's right. Maybe I am taking the wrong approach." Adam: At the time, I paused. It was a seed that was planted and it didn't start germinating for many years later and it was through other experiences, other injuries, and all the comments from friends that said, this can't be good for you and then there was the epiphany, when I read the Ken Hutchins manual which basically put into words things I was questioning and he kind of answered a lot of those questions for me. Tim: So, tell us a little bit about Ken Hutchins. Who was he and what's in his manual? Adam: Ken Hutchings. [laughs] He's an eccentric guy. Ken questions all the things that I couldn't articulate and he made -- he point -- he made the point about how exercise is your stimulus and then you let it -- then you leave it alone. It's not about more is better. He also brought home the point that exercise has to be safe and it's not just the acute injuries that he was talking about. It's not the torn muscle here and there, or the sprain here and there, it was the insidious effects of over training that are much more serious than a strain or a sprain. The kind of insidious things that lead to osteoarthritis, hip replacements, lowered immune systems and therefor susceptibility to disease and those types of problems associated with chronic overtraining. My father ran marathons his whole life, didn't eat very well. In his early 70s he had quadruple bypass surgery and this man ran many, many miles and you know so that -- all this, all this experience and then reading this manual, you know, that -- it blew me away. I mean, honestly it changed everything for me. Then I started seeking out people that were already kind of gathering around Ken Hutchings that also were touched by what he had to say, that also I guess were feeling the same things I was feeling leading up to that moment. And it kind of reminds me of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where, you know, like, the aliens kind of shone that light on them and the people that had that light shown on them all of the sudden were compelled to go to Devils Tower. They didn't understand, you know, but they would just -- they just couldn't help themselves. They were driven. And I felt, you know, you read this manual and all of the sudden -- and somebody else reads this manual and all of us, these people that read this manual like zombies being led to the Devils Tower to you know congregate and talk about this and that's what the original super slow exercise guild was about. I mean it was a bunch of exercise nerds now, you know, that were touched by these ideas and our mission, the power phrase was to you know change perception of exercise and change the way people look at exercise and why we exercise and how we exercise. Tim: So, Adam, with this new mission of changing the perception of why and how to exercise, tell us how InForm Fitness came to be. Adam: So, it was 1997. 1997 where Rob Serraino actually sold me some of his original equipment. He was upgrading his equipment and I bought his, his original [inaudible 11:28] five pieces of equipment [inaudible 11:30] MedX leg press and new MedX [inaudible 11:32]. So, I spent about, I don't six grand initially to start my business and I opened it up in a client's basement. A client of mine said I can have his basement, rent free, as I perfect my trade. I was like, thank you very much. I went to his basement and it was like 300 square feet and it was musty and there was another tenant down there that was a chain smoker. Tim: And you learned why it was rent free. [laughs] Adam: Now I realized why it was rent free. Exactly. So, that's where I started. I didn't have paying clients right away at that moment. That's where I had this equipment and I trained myself and my clients who owned the building and a handful of friends. Tim: Well -- Adam: And from there I started trying to get as many people as I can to come to this basement and it's a testament to the workout that I was able to build a solid client base in a very inconvenient part of Long Island, by the way. Not to mention the fact that it was in a basement that smelled like smoke but it was also not easy to get to this place because all my connections were on the north shore of Long Island and this place that I was talking about was on the south shore of Long Island and I didn't know anybody on the south shore of Long Island. So, I wasn't getting clients from my -- from the neighborhood. I was getting clients where I'm from, my network. I mean, listen, I was passionate about it. I was and I had the war wounds and I, you know, I was licking my wounds and I told a story about -- and people, you know, as you know people were able to relate to my story because I'm not -- I'm not like this gifted athlete or with this, no matter what I do my physique is perfect. You know, I mean, I have to work maintaining my -- I'm not a natural like that. So, I am a regular guy. You know, I'm a five foot nine and a half Jew. You know, I mean [laughs] You know, I had some things to overcome. [laughter] Giant among us Jews though. [laughter] So, you were mentioning earlier, you know, you wanted to test to see if this had any staying power and here we are about 19, 20 years later almost. So, mission accomplished. I couldn't be prouder to be associated with these two people. Mike Rogers I've know him now -- how long, Mike? It's so long, it's like -- [Inaudible 14:00] 14 years. Like, we grew up together at this point. 14 years. I'm always attracted by something that's a little counterintuitive, that something that seems --…

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