Ep 023 – Gyms, Personal Trainers, and Workout Regimens

Suburban Folk 0:00
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Unknown Speaker 0:56
be able to pay for 80% of my child’s college.

Suburban Folk 1:00
I don’t trust that most people will eat their

Unknown Speaker 1:02
vegetables. So we are kind of standard is three servings of vegetables per meal. You take something like a two by six and you cut it with a circular saw. That’s like a superpower. Those middle school years are not as fun but at that age, they’re still willing to talk to you.

Suburban Folk 1:18
Welcome to the Suburban Folk podcast. I’m your host, Greg. Today’s episode is about the gym. What makes the gym successful, what can deter people from coming to use the facilities, how you can make the most out of your local gym and how to work with a personal trainer. My guest is Dr. Darien Parker, Dr. Parker earned his PhD in sports education leadership with an emphasis in behavior modification from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from James Madison University in kinesiology with concentrations in exercise leadership, athletic administration and advanced coaching. He is also a certified personal trainer through the National strength and conditioning Association. Dr. Parker has received such prestigious accolades such as the n double A CP Arthur Ashe award, the Marilyn Crawford scholarship award and the Virginia Association for health physical education recreation and dance graduate student award. He also has been featured on Fox five news, Las Vegas and the health line today show Dr. Parker has also served as an advisory board member for the Nevada chapter of national strength and conditioning Association. He has been in the fitness and wellness business for 19 years. Throughout the course of his career, he has served several roles in the fitness and wellness industry. In the academic setting, Dr. Parker served as the Director of Education and program coordinator for both the professional fitness Institute and Pinnacle Career College. After working in the academic environment, he worked for W Ts international as the general manager for club ridges and upscale private fitness club located within the gates of the exclusive ridges community in Las Vegas. In addition to this, he served as the National Director of fitness for wt s assisting and oversight and support of wt SS national portfolio. Dr. Parker continues to be the Private personal trainer for several leaders of prominent businesses in the United States. His new venture as the CO principal of epic leisure management provides an opportunity for him to create, implement and foster the highest levels of people centered culture while also providing the most innovative and significant technologies and services to his clients. Thanks so much for joining the show. today. I’m excited to get into some specifics about overall health, as well as designing and maintaining a fitness facility. So can you start us off by giving some more about your background and how you came into founding epic leisure management?

Unknown Speaker 3:38
Yeah, first off, thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. Greg. You know, for me, fitness has been kind of a reoccurring theme in my life or exercise. I grew up in a very athletic family. My father played college football, my brother playing college football, and I was a Track and field athlete in college. So it was just kind of like exercise had been a very large part of growing up, you know, recreation playing a lot of sports and like a lot of people who get into fitness, it’s like, well, I like to exercise I love being active. But for me, it was more just I really realized how important the relationship building aspect of fitness could be just a great platform for creating meaningful relationships. So I spent a good portion of my early years and the exercise industry and helping to certify personal trainers to become trainers through vocational schools and university system while also being a personal trainer myself. And then in the course of that journey, I came across a company called wt s International, which became a 12 year journey for me from being a personal trainer to Becoming the general manager of a very high end luxury club in Las Vegas for over a decade, and then becoming the national director of fitness for the company. So it’s based in 33 countries. So I had this kind of world Ren whirlwind experience from, you know, training to becoming a corporate executive over that time. And then I ended up leaving the company, not because it was bad, it was on the contrary is wonderful. It was a great time. I just wanted to get out on top and do something else. And that’s literally what it was. I said, You know, I like what I’m doing. I love the people I’m around. I would just like to do a version of this on a much smaller level, a more boutique level, and then also do something more remotely related to my personal training services. And so that is what epic leisure management came out of which was working for third party management company for all those years and then deciding to build a smaller boutique base version of that on the west coast.

Suburban Folk 6:10
Does that play into the community aspect that you were talking about? Maybe the larger the operation, the less tight knit community you get?

Unknown Speaker 6:20
Yeah, I think that you know, my business partner and I, once we came together and really went full force with it, we made a decision that we did not want to be a big company, which sounds counterintuitive to a lot of people think that right? Let’s grow let’s get bigger. Let’s make more revenue. Our thing was like, we don’t really need that much money. Like let’s like, just be comfortable. Let’s be ambitious. But let’s, let’s cap ourselves. Like if somebody tries to offer us more work than our cap, we’re just going to turn it down. And doesn’t matter how much money it is. We’re just going to enjoy what we have and what we can service. So we felt like Liz, I know I felt like in a very large company that’s in, in many, many different countries all over the world, it’s very difficult to have an effective practice. I think it’s hard for people, they see money and they equate money with success. But that’s not always the case. You could be huge and make a lot of money and still not be very good, in a sense. And so I thought that our company did a very good job, but I think it was we did a poor job of connecting the dots in that community building the relationships because we’re just too big. It was way too big. It’s impossible to service 33 countries and not have enough staffing for that. So we wanted to have a different approach. And

Suburban Folk 7:43
I imagine having that kind of an overview, you didn’t get much time to be in the front lines to see what was effective or even imagined something that’s the most rewarding and health industry in fitness industry. is seeing people’s gains and seeing them hit their goals. So I’m wondering if you had a large enough purview, you sort of don’t get to see those into individual stories.

Unknown Speaker 8:12
I was lucky, I got to say that because even though I became a corporate executive, I also was I was allowed to continue to run the club that I ran at the same time. And I continue to personal train throughout the entire time, just like I do now. So I, I was a trainer, I was the GM of a club and I was the national director of fitness. So I was able to have like this multi tiered perspective of it all.

Suburban Folk 8:37
Yeah, so a little bit of everything. And I imagine flexibility was key or at least planning so that you can be as flexible to manage all of those things make make sense. And I have to ask,

Unknown Speaker 8:48
what is the main differences between like a private upscale gym and a run of the mill Gold’s Gym that you know the general population is going to I would say they’re not even the same jobs. They may be they feel like they’re in variety. They’re in different professions almost I think people get that mistake by, they go, these are personal trainer jobs. These are group exercise jobs and some of them mechanics are the same, you know, but the business is very different. And a Gold’s Gym per se, that’s a that’s a for profit business. You know, the bottom line is the bottom line, you need to make money, quarterly earnings, the whole deal. It’s a commercial facility, anything like your Gold’s Gym, your lifetime fitness, 24 Hour Fitness, whatever it may be. Those are big commercial entities, and it’s about selling completely about selling, hitting quotas, those things whereas in the private luxury base facilities like the one I was in, which was just for people who lived in the community that I was in, it’s an HOA, you know, you’re dealing with the homeowners association. You’re dealing with People who live in the community. So you know in a gym, regular gym, commercial, you have memberships, you can, you know, revoke people’s memberships, things of that nature blacklist them. When they live in the community, you cannot do that. They own the club, essentially, the residents, so it’s a much more customer service oriented job, especially as a personal trainer, you it can be much more politically charged job because of that, but I think there’s much more security in that environment because the people and that those type of communities, they are multimillionaires, extremely wealthy people, you’re part of their team. And as long as you know you’re there and you’re providing the attention and the knowledge, the expertise, it’s pretty much a long term gig. There’s a tremendous amount of security and it which is what I liked about is you can form these very long term relationship friendships and not super have to worry about I need to have 5060 clients I need to be selling nutritional supplements and all that stuff. It’s nothing like that, you know,

Suburban Folk 11:10
is there also like an ongoing maintenance for lack of a better word because I guess I think of the gyms that are sponsored by an HOA or part of, I don’t know, like a luxury condo community or something like that. The equipment, of course is not being used and in some cases abused as much as in the commercial gyms that you know, everybody can join. So is the follow up similar or is it sort of like you get it set up, make those connections and then move on to another community? No, it’s um,

Unknown Speaker 11:47
the goal is long term

Unknown Speaker 11:50
continuation of the service. I mean, the goal is to be there as long as possible. Which is very different in the fitness profession. A lot of the you know, You’re larger commercial gyms, the turnovers tremendous eat, and this goes back to even think of a place like an Equinox is very successful on the surface and you see it out in news articles and there you know Equinox has its own hotel and stuff. But the undercover story is that the turnover is tremendously high in the work environment is a less than ideal from a lot of people work in that environment because it’s a sell job, it’s completely a sales job. And whereas in the private residential community especially, it can’t there are some elements of elements of selling, but it’s primarily a customer service job. And part of your customer services. The clients want to know that you’re going to be there on the long term basis to work with them over many, many years. So it’s it’s companionship, relationship building, long term, building of genuine connections.

Suburban Folk 12:55
So bringing that to in your current business of epic leisure management, when was researching the page. It sounds like one of the things that you provide is consulting services for each step of the way. For people that are building their gym, am I reading that right? Or is there some other kind of way to look at that?

Unknown Speaker 13:17
Yeah, no, you’re reading it right. It’s one one step in the process. And I think that’s one of the things I like to do when I do podcasts or do media is because the service that we provide is not common to a lot of people. If you go on a gym, you will see the people who work for that gym, they’re hired by that gym. They’re employees of that system. Whereas we we are not that I mean, we hire and employ people. However, it doesn’t say our name on the building. It doesn’t say our name inside the building or the amenity. We essentially are contracted by a developer. Whether the Be in hotel, developer, residential developer corporate campus hotel owners to run their business for them. So we are kind of the undercover entity for the amenity for with that. So it’s a very different situation. So we do that but on the other end to your consulting aspect of it is we do everything from the idea of the facility or the amenity. So the design the concept, the space program, we do the pro forma, which is the business planning, five year business plan, feasibility studies, looking at occupancy rates for hotels and how many treatment rooms there should be based off of that the demographics of the community, all the way consulting through the pre opening of the manatee, and then as I mentioned, the turnkey daily operation of the facility. amenity

Suburban Folk 15:00
Do you have any concrete ways of measuring what makes a successful fitness center versus a non successful center, whether that’s you’ve come in after somebody who’s already put something together and you’re needing to be a second set of eyes or even after you’ve built something, are there certain measures that you look at to say, Okay, this fits the need for the community that we were, you know, building the Center for?

Unknown Speaker 15:27
Yeah, I think, yeah, it’s definitely two different things. I think when you’re when you start from the beginning, I currently working on a project that just broke ground with a developer. The metrics for that are going to be interesting because it’s basically we’ve built this lot we’re building this relationship over many years before the club even opens. And so for them, it’s delivering on the goods that providing whether it’s doing like getting the right equipment for the facility spec in the equipment, providing demographic group ports, things just providing that information having a solid relationship before the club opens is already a successful business. After that, it’s really about one of the biggest measures is does the club get used, especially in your luxury condos, your high end residential amenities, usage is one of the biggest metrics. Because you may have this amazingly beautiful club that nobody uses, which is always the case, especially when it’s unstaffed. When a club is on staff, it’s rarely use the club. When I call this staff such as when we staff it at a club, then it then the rate of usage goes much higher, especially when it’s done very well. So the usage is probably the biggest indicator, along with the revenue, which is merely just assemble. primarily an HOA is which is a symbol or value proposition that people are like the facility And the staffing. So they’re purchasing services there. But in your Hoa based communities, it’s really not, it’s a not for profit, generally speaking, unless it’s a membership where you get a percentage of the membership. So essentially, the club is, is taking a loss and the developer knows that they build that into the community understanding that we’re just trying to cut down on the loss for that by creating more revenue. But really the goal is, keep the residents happy. Provide programs and services that get them in the door. So there’s value for the facility that was built.

Suburban Folk 17:36
I can vouch for at least nobody using a facility a vacation we had last year, we rented a condo, and it was a giant facility that nobody was using at all. I mean, this was a this is a massive condo complex, right on the beach, and that’s great for me, because I already wanted to use it anyway. But I that’s why I’m curious. So I wonder what it is about that one versus maybe others that do get more use. So you mentioned staffing and the staffing include not only somebody there to, I don’t know, check in, check it out, make sure you have towels, water, whatever other things and make sure the equipment is good. Does that also include like personal trainer?

Unknown Speaker 18:20
Yeah, I think the biggest part of it initially as well, let me back up a little bit. The biggest mistake many of these condos, residential communities, hotels, things, the biggest mistake they make is unstacking. it in terms of the director of a facility, they’ll often staff a front desk person to provide many of the things you just mentioned. But there will there will be no leadership. There’ll be nobody driving the actual programming and services so often what you get which is this weird conundrum now and fitness and wellness, condos, hotels, private residential Communities now all know they have to build beautiful monuments to health and wellness. So they spend all this great money capital and building these fantastic facilities. And then they forget that there should be people in it. There should be staffing in it. And the and the reason they do that is because they don’t want the payroll, or they think we’ll build it, and they think it’s Field of Dreams and people will just come build it, they will come. It never happens that way. And so our job is often to provide evidence and convince the developers like, hey, you’re building 60,000 square foot club in a condominium community. You’re not going to staff that. That place will be garbage within two hours, the minute you open, it will be dirty. The You know, there will be stuff all over the floor. They’ll be maintenance, nightmares and issues. And you may hire front desk staffing, but that person’s Not going to care about your club. That way, it’s just a, it’s a minor job for them, they don’t care that much. So as you experience, you went to a place that was empty, that is very common. And these beautiful complexes near the beach or you know, wonderful forest areas. It’s just the developers, they said, we’ve spent the money on making it beautiful. And we’re going to try to save money by just not having it staffed. And it’s a huge mistake, and they know it. They always know when you talk to them, they always like, yeah, we should at least have a director. like nobody just shows up to a gym. It’s one of the activities that people hate the most to do. It’s not comfortable for them. So you have to make them feel like it’s a community. You know, I wonder for the people that are self motivated enough to go to the gym, especially again, if you’re going to more affluent areas, you’re also having to consider people that are just buying their own equipment and creating their own home gym. How does that play into the overall concern? iteration for what you set up? Good question. You know, when I started working the luxury fitness industry, that was definitely something that we would talk to residents about, and many of them would tell us, you know, I, we built this beautiful home gym, and some of them were bigger than the ones the community facility that we had, you know, we’re in a 9000 square foot facility, and some of them had ones bigger than that, in their homes is ridiculous. But they never used them. They always thought they never use them. It’s the it’s a constant theme. They would come to the club, and they came to the club because they were staffing there, there was somebody to talk to them, there was engagement. And often what I found in these, especially very high end communities is that people are very lonely. When you’re living in a house that’s 13,000 square feet, and it’s just you and your significant other. It’s very lonely. And so they come to the club to get the socialization that’s the secret sauce is connected. Being with other people. And we try to tell developers, that’s how your Club’s going to become successful, I understand the payroll aspect of it. And it’s one of your highest costs of operating and be the highest. But you’re going to keep people extremely happy when it’s well done, and that clubs going to get us like crazy.

Suburban Folk 22:19
Is there any consideration for these setups for like group classes, because I know, that’s one of the things at at least the club that I go to, that also has very much that sense of community, you know, it gives you a time that, you know, you’re going to see the same faces come together, you know, sort of what you’re getting into as far as the type of workout but I don’t know if you would have critical mass to actually make something like that work at these types of facilities.

Unknown Speaker 22:47
Yeah, they’re very popular, just as popular as they would be at a larger club. It just that you have to reframe the usage for that so you know, when you’re very large, commercial gems, you’re getting In some cases, hundreds of people in a class or 5060 people, and these environments, you’re looking at kind of your eight to 12 people’s really good, which sounds funny, you remember that number, but it creates actually more intimate group exercise environment, and more, very much like everybody really gets to know each other. That is, those are considered very successful classes and that range of people. And you know, so we have a full on group exercise program with a lot of classes. It just you have to reshape your mindset of how many people that means

Suburban Folk 23:36
what makes me think of peloton or beach body are these companies like that, that all offer their online forums again, to create that sense of community that you’re talking about. But then I think they also want people to have the shared experience. So hopefully, they’re holding each other accountable for maintaining a workout schedule, you know, tracking Your games, all those types of things. So it seems like they’re trying to do that those those companies that you know, are more in that home fitness space to substitute for not being face to face in some way. Do you imagine that is kind of why they’re doing that for that engagement?

Unknown Speaker 24:16
Yeah, I think that, um, it’s just, technology and fitness are probably some of the biggest benefits of this digital age we’re in, you know, I think it makes me think of, I’m 41 it makes me think of remembering like workout videos back in the 80s. And how, you know, those were very popular at one time and then it faded. But the idea I think, was there the idea was planted then. And then we kind of went through this age where that kind of fizzled out and then you had kind of a rebirth of it with kind of your tibo things of that nature. You know, gosh, I’m losing my mind there was I’m thinking of this stuff. That’s in my mind right now like Pt 20. or you know whatever p90x you know it Pete beach night. Yeah, beach body. That stuff started coming into play hip hop abs, all these things and all the sudden it now it’s like okay, peloton mirror tonal and you see the commercials out there? They’re pretty prevalent now about showing that stuff.

Suburban Folk 25:23
Yeah, exactly. And in the end, you know, almost like supplementing for face to face. Yeah. Like you said with the p90x or the hip hop abs and insanity, I think was the same guy. It’s terrible that I remember all these. Sean,

Unknown Speaker 25:38
Sean Tina,

Suburban Folk 25:41
but he knows I think they tried to have local groups that you could get together with to really emphasize the community. So maybe transitioning from that point, and to somebody that is new to the gym or just exercise or maybe it’s gotten out of exercise. What other barriers Do you find or excuses before being Frank? Yeah. And then how do you tell people to get over the hump and commit to a specific exercise regimen?

Unknown Speaker 26:09
I think this is one of the central

Unknown Speaker 26:13
concepts to becoming successful, and an exercise approach. And in my time, I’ve learned a few things that I think are very effective. But training people and having kind of the initial talk with people. And really, it comes down to the concept of friction. We have to create as little friction as possible for people to be consistent for that. And that’s one of the reasons to kind of pull in what we just talked about your peloton, mirror tone or any of your live online training based services, things that nature is it creates a less friction. If you take away the drive to a gym, it creates less friction. We know that when a gym is two miles away versus five miles away. way, there’s a significant difference in people using a gym. It’s a staggering percentage and the difference. Because your take, you’re giving people more time if something’s closer to them, the closer you give it to bring it to them, the less friction they have, they can walk to the gym. Or if it’s just a mile or two away, it’s much easier than if it’s five to 10 miles away for that. The other thing is creating friction, less friction with time, you know, a lot of trainers and places they’ll go let’s do an hour of exercise for a lot of people that is extremely daunting, and it’s actually really unnecessary. You don’t have to work out that long the physiologically, you know, and to gain chronic adaptations, you do not need to work out that long. You need to adjust the intensity of your workout if it’s going to be shorter, but giving people a 30 minute workout versus an hour teaches people time management, it creates less friction they go I could do 30 minutes an hour. Hmm. People question that. And often what happens and I know any trainers that listen to this. Often what happens when you do hours with people, they often show up five to 10 minutes late or 15 minutes late. And they’re okay with getting a 45 minute workout workout. And they’ll often sabotage themselves by doing that. But they’re not okay with a 25 minute workout or 20 minute workout. So they’ll be on time for 30 minutes and often late for an hour with that. So there’s always like, psychological games, you’re playing kind of, in a sense with people. The other thing is, like, let’s say they’re working with a personal trainer, is I tend to try to over schedule my clients, I say, hey, instead of three sessions scheduled for because there’s a likelihood that something’s going to come up each week, and you’ll need to cancel one of those sessions. But if you cancel your lease, you have three, but if you try to do just one session a week, and you cancel all the sudden you’ve missed two weeks for that. So my biggest advice is you need to create as many levels of less friction as possible, so that a person can’t give themselves ways out of the situation. And in a sense you’re having to, you’re having to burn the boats on the island and give yourself no way of getting out of it.

Suburban Folk 29:19
How much of the excuses call them excuses do you think are made up? versus real? You know, because, like you said, time, and that makes complete sense. And what I’m thinking of when you’re saying the gym being closer versus farther, it’s almost like yeah, that gives the ability for an excuse might they still have the time to get further probably, I’d imagine in most cases, if it’s a matter of getting up a little bit earlier, or whatever it happens to be for myself, for example, I run quite a bit. And my joke is, I do everything I can to run outside because just I need to start and before I know what I’m a mile down the road, and the only way I’m getting back home is at least that I run a mile or you know, however far have gone back, let’s say compared to a treadmill, that stop button is right there the whole time, you know, and it’s sort of staring me in the face. So do you think that those hurdles are mostly made up? Or do people again, I think mostly time management that they are valid, sort of in today’s day and age?

Unknown Speaker 30:28
Wow, that’s, that’s interesting.

Unknown Speaker 30:32
Good question. I’ve definitely thought about this maybe in the depths of my mind and not verbalize it completely. But I have no problem telling the truth, my truth and being open minded about it. I do think there are a lot of people who make things up. I think it may be it’s real to them, but if you really sat down and press them on it, they are just they don’t want to do it. You know, if somebody cancels on something, there are valid reasons to cancel. Or not go to the gym, but often it’s I’m tired, or I, you know, I was working later than I should. And then I just, you know, I provide examples when people tell me things I’m like, Listen, my brother has is a full time hip hop artist. That’s what he does for a living. He has two sons that he takes care of by himself. And he doesn’t get done with all of that until 11 o’clock at night, and he goes to the gym at 11. Every other day, what’s your excuse? You get home at four, or five, like, the time is there that there’s 169 hours or so on a week, the time is available. You just have to stop giving yourself these ways out all the time. You have to burn the boats. That’s all it is. You just have to figure out ways to keep yourself from letting yourself out of it. And often that’s why people turn to personal trainers because it’s the sense of letting someone else down. The accountability, most of it is just a Accountability related.

Suburban Folk 32:01
Yeah, I agree with that. Now, is there also a challenge for a personal trainer of getting somebody to fly on their own, so to speak, meaning, when you have a client is it just assumed that they will always need a personal trainer to stay motivated and be held accountable? Or is there certain milestones that would say, Okay, you’ve got your regimen down, maybe we’re meeting twice a week now we’ll go to once a week now we’ll go to, you know, whatever the frequency happens to be, and you seem to be self motivated enough now that you can you can do it on your own.

Unknown Speaker 32:41
Also, another good question. I think, Greg, you got some good stuff going on here. Man. I gotta tell you, you’re pumping some major wit major stuff here. Because this is the stuff I think as trainers like we don’t talk to each other about as much. I mean, I would talk to my staff about things like this because I was interested in it but as a large scale not as much I would say like, in my personal experience, never dropped somebody back and frequency. Because they don’t want that. I mean, they might say to me, you know, I have a good feel for what we’re doing. I could probably do this on my own, but I don’t want to like because once you reach a certain point with training people that it becomes not just a training relationship becomes a friendship. And so all the sudden, you know, you don’t become like less of friends over time. You know, you just, you keep like having and my case, people want more over time. Because most of my clients and my current clients are fairly wealthy. So it’s the money is never the issue. Most of the time people cut bags because of money. It has nothing to do with their desire of like, Oh, I could do this on my own. And that’s also kind of dangerous as well, because good training is a constant progression over time. So it’s not like I gave you did so well. you’ve graduated you now. become this level of Zen master, you know, all the moves, you’ll never know all the things, because there’s always a progression beyond the next progression and the next progression to continue to get better. I have a guy that I’ve been training for 13 years. And it’s a lifelong training relationship. He said that to me that and he’s not the only one. And, you know, for me, it’s constantly progressing the workouts over that long of time so that they’re still challenging. But even him when he trains on his own, he goes, I kind of stopped here and there, I don’t really do you know, the intensity is not as great. And I think that’s the big worry, too, is that as soon as you stop having that training relationship, the biggest thing and a lot of trainers will tell you the biggest difference between my working with you and you working with yourself as intensity. tempo is very different by yourself than it is with somebody else, you know, so I haven’t experienced people dropping back unless it was a monetary issue. Which I haven’t experienced much because of the population I’m working with. But maybe somebody else has had that instance I’m not sure.

Suburban Folk 35:07
And maybe a related question like you mentioned the goals and I’m definitely with you that there is certainly enough ways to change what you’re looking to do from a fitness regimen that I can’t imagine you just hit a pinnacle and say, Okay, I’m just gonna even if you hit that probably to maintain it would be so daunting.

Unknown Speaker 35:29
It’s too difficult to do it by once you’ve become extremely fit. It’s harder than becoming fit. Becoming you know, and all the aspects of mobility, stability, muscular strength, endurance, the whole thing. It’s because you have you have now got to a point where you have residual from being fit I mean, you could take more time off and you’ll be still continue to have a high level of fitness but all the sudden the exercises have become extremely complex. The progressions have become complex the intensities, the Very high most of the time, and to emulate that on your own will be very difficult to do very few people can do that. Do you find that the clients tend to come up with what their goals should be? Whether that’s they’ve hit one and then you know, they’re ready to set their sights on something else? Or even the initial goal? How much is it, you presenting for them, or them having something in mind that they dictate, you know, where they want to go? It’s never my goal. It’s always their goal for sure. Our goals and what I have found in doing this for a long time, is that the goals become very secondary over time. I just think like if once you reach a certain level of commitment with somebody, especially in training, those goals kind of start falling away. They kind of start withering, because at some point, it’s just the goal is just like have a quality workout every time a high functioning high intensity workout, and show up regularly The other things become extremely secondary. I mean, I would say the majority of people I work with, like, if you were to ask them what are their goals, they’d probably be like, just to keep doing what I’m doing. Like to like, keep showing up regularly keep working hard have this relationship like I think one of the biggest things, biggest mistakes people make an exercise is trying to exercise for weight loss and that’s a gigantic portion of the population. It may be maybe in the initially it’s it’s warranted, but it should not be your long term goal. And exercise is weight loss, it should just be feeling the best version of yourself and the other things will come together as you stay consistent. And and sleeping and nutrition. You know, an exercise you put all those things together, you will experience tremendous benefit from that.

Suburban Folk 37:50
It seems in the more recent news when talking about the standard American diet which we know is not great. And, you know, almost like there’s an inverse relationship between the health food industry and the fitness industry in that, you know, maybe the fitness industry doesn’t want to talk as much about the dieting because the suggestion is it has more to do with people’s weight gain than just not working out enough. It sounds like you’d probably agree.

Unknown Speaker 38:28
Well, I you know, I think over my time, I’ve learned some very key aspects of this. I think they’re fairly universal, but one scientifically, you would have to exercise and an ordinate amount to make a large difference in weight loss from exercise. You would really have to spend 450 plus minutes a week at least to make a gigantic portion of weight loss related to exercise. Most people can’t do that. You know, when when I’ve had clients in the past And they’ll say I want to exercise five days a week. I’m like, no way. That’s that’s a friction point, you’re creating more friction for yourself to be unsuccessful. Now I know there’s some trainers who may listen this and go are you kidding me, I would love to work with somebody five days a week, the money and it’s not about that. It’s about providing an entry point for them to be successful. Start with a couple of days a week, know that that’s not going to be a significant contributor to weight loss, that there’s other things they’re going to need to do in order to to contribute to that exercise is a great assistive device for weight loss, but nutrition is the biggest element for weight loss. It’s the it’s the biggest, most effective, easiest way to lose weight is through nutrition, better nutritional habits for that. So I can’t say that exercise can’t contribute to it. I just think that most people can’t contribute the time necessary for exercise to make it a large portion of their weight loss aspects and it’s not safe. You know, when a client first starts in one to five days a week or something, they’re going to be extremely sore, they’re going to have a lot of discomfort, they’re not going to be able to come back and train properly, they need recovery in between. So it’s almost impossible to have them work that much to contribute to that, and the initial stages. So I always recommend say, Hey, listen, the nutrition elements going to be a large part of your weight loss goals, you just have to you have to accept that and that I’m not your weight loss guru.

Suburban Folk 40:34
I would also think that combining both exercise as well as proper nutrition would also keep somebody motivated again, you know, emphasis that the way you look is not the be all end all for why you’re staying fit. But hey, it helps,

Unknown Speaker 40:52
especially when you’re first getting started and clearly if you’re able to commit to some sort of a better nutrition regimen along with the exercise that you’re starting to take up to your point you’re not over exercising, which would go back to the friction points that you’re talking about. You just don’t want to come back after well, but oh, by the way, you’re seeing extra gain right already from the beginning, which hopefully that would contribute to the motivations of continuing with your fitness regimen. You know, it’s interesting, you know, better eating practices and things that you know, I’m not a registered dietitian, so I’m not going to provide any specifics on it, but I know many generalities from you know, having my doctorate and exercise and, you know, sports education, it’s, it’s really more about how things make you feel, I think people don’t listen to their bodies there. You know, people I had a guy on my podcast, Gary Statler. He lost 200 pounds. He was 400 pounds going to 200 and all by just actually listening to his body and seeing if he was actually hungry. Because a lot of people just mindlessly eat, it’s they’re not actually hungry. Most of the time, you’re not that hungry. But you just eat because society tells you to eat breakfast, eat lunch, eat dinner. That’s not true. I mean, you should just eat when you’re actually hungry. The signals of your body tell you’re hungry, no matter what time that may be. It may be 10 o’clock in the morning, you know, maybe six in the morning, whatever it is learning to say, am I actually hungry? And then how does this food make me feel after I eat it? And once you start doing that, then nutrition becomes more of a feeling. It becomes more of a How does this make me feel? When am I hungry? I notice I didn’t say anything about carbs and fats and all this stuff, or this is good or these are bad. That’s a terrible approach to nutrition. It’s more about Okay. How does it make me feel Am I actually hungry? some techniques for, you know, moderation of what you’re eating, stop talking about cheat meals. That’s one of the dumbest things people say, out there, they just caught the connotation of cheating is like something that you shouldn’t do. So why would you do it? You know what I mean? Like, it’s a really, it’s a really bad what word in a sense of it does, it creates a poor sense of, of what it means for that and maybe so I’m going to indulge myself a little bit but cheating like that as a very bad connotation and words are important to us and how we receive them

Suburban Folk 43:34
what I have found, which is similar to what you’re talking about, of just reading how your body is reacting when you eat is when I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing as far as what I eat and like you said, not mindlessly eating. Then if I do have just use the term cheat day or you know go and have something that I don’t usually have like fast food or something else. If I haven’t been eating it on a regular basis, it makes me feel worse, you feel horrible,

Unknown Speaker 44:05
don’t

Suburban Folk 44:06
you know, and another thing more recently, because like you said, I can be the mindless eater as well I actually work from home. So if there’s snacks in the pantry or whatever, I’m going to go grab them, you know, while I’m doing whatever work so I’ve transitioned over to smoothies and more and more, I’m trying to eliminate, you know, whatever I can that’s maybe high in sugar or something like that, and, you know, sneak in the vegetables and the more I’m doing that, the more I can actually taste the nuances of that food or other food. Whereas on the other end, if I have a super processed salty thing, it’s like overwhelming that flavor.

Unknown Speaker 44:46
And I think it’s just you just have to like listen to that. And then you also have to know what you’re getting yourself into a listen, I am no saint when it comes eating food or anything. I don’t pretend to be that in anything. Like my buddies just came up from Las Vegas to Blaine, Washington and we blew it out over the weekend. We drank a lot, but I knew what was going to happen. I know exactly what’s going to happen wasn’t a surprise to me. You know, I was like, Okay, I probably didn’t feel the greatest on Monday after they left, but I knew that was going to happen. And but I allow myself those times to just, Hey, I know what’s gonna happen. I know, I’m not gonna I don’t normally have, like, you know, like, a big hamburger or something like that, not because I think it’s bad, it tastes delicious. It’s just that it just makes me feel terrible half the time, you know, like, so I think these words of good and bad, don’t eat that don’t eat this. They’re psychologically damaging to people. Because when you tell somebody, they can’t do something, or they shouldn’t have it, they want it more. They want it badly at that point. So we have to de stigmatize these things with people

Suburban Folk 45:51
a good way just to even step back and say, you know, is this something that’s gonna make me feel good or afterwards you know, rather than Then in the moment, let’s go to some generalities if there are any about, again, somebody that is just hitting the gym now, I’m sure that it depends, let’s say if they’re very overweight, you know, I mentioned for me, I’m a runner, and hey, that can be really tough on the joint. So if somebody you know, coming into certain weight, you probably don’t want to put them on the treadmill like that, because you’re going to do more harm than good. Are there certain exercises that are universal that you would introduce somebody to to again, just get used to some type of regimen? And then also, you mentioned the number of days it sounds like about three to four is what I’m hearing, but what do you recommend out of the gate, you know how much to work out in a particular week, I kind of look at a lump in in two different

Unknown Speaker 46:45
categories. One is if you’re working with

Unknown Speaker 46:49
a service provider, or a trainer or one if you’re working out by yourself, because those are two very different versions of working out completely, they’re not even the same thing. If you’re working with fitness professional. You know, especially for me, like I like to get people like to have people learn their bodies first. So we often don’t use any external resistance and begin to say, hey, let’s learn to move our body satterlee or flexion, extension moving forward, backwards. Let’s move our body laterally moving side to side. And then let’s, let’s do a transverse plane or rotation based exercises at your lumbar spine, the thoracic spine, because you’re not used to doing this, you’re just used to walking straight and align all the time. So let’s get you to move your body in different planes of motions, and be able to create mobility stability, and let’s provide some neurological changes for that. So, for me, I like to add movement into it and a lot of my colleagues are very similar. You know, we’re going to provide functional based exercises we’re moving, there may be 1015 yards up and down an area whether you know where you were. Doing things. You’re doing very simple, you know, squats, lunges, doing hip rotations, hip flexion hip extension. And to the observer. This looks very foolish. It looks like they’re not doing anything because people think I’m getting a trainer, they’re going to push me really hard. They’re going to do all this crazy stuff. That’s, that’s foolish to do that. You’re taking somebody especially if they’re coming from scratch, you’re basically you basically have an infant in your hands. And you have to give them very small steps to move up to getting into a more complex system of movement for that. So I always recommend two to three days a week of training with people, because you’re going to need a lot of recovery in between before you can add more frequency for the general exerciser. I think exercise wise, you know, a lot of the general exercises move towards a treadmill or a bike Or especially a lot of guys start bench pressing and stuff from bicep curls. Looking in the mirror, the whole thing, you know, it’s, I would encourage you to not be in the same stationary position is to do something that moves like you’re a runner, that’s great, you’re running, you’re moving. The distances are different. You know, you’re changing that to provide exercises where you’re actually moving on a regular basis. A lot of people exercise, we go to any gym. Anybody listen to this, do this. This is an observation you can make easily go on a gym, just watch everybody especially, you know, in a very large gym, most people are not moving through the gym. They’re actually standing in one spot included. The treadmill is a stationary thing. Or the recumbent bike, or an elliptical, whatever it is, or somebody lifting weights, or everybody is in their little spot and they don’t move from that spot unless you’re just walking over to another space to us. I would encourage you to use the gym move through the gym. That is a great the long walkways and gems those are great ways to do squats, lunges, some hip work there, get get your body used to moving on a regular basis and a non stationary way. So that would be my advice on both of those things. I wonder as well, if you get used to that as part of your routine, then if you have a day where you can’t get to the gym, again, removing a barrier, right? Like if it’s a nice day out, you could do that. Yeah, on your street. If you don’t live on a busy street completely, completely. I’ve done that with so many people, you know, we go to their local park or could be right outside their house, wherever it may be. Just take advantage of being in places where there’s spaces, and you’re moving through that space. I really think this is one of the biggest issues with our exercise. Even when people do exercise regularly. It’s often in a stationary place. And so they walk to the gym or row to the gym and They got there and then they stood instead still, in the same place. It seems very counterintuitive to me.

Suburban Folk 51:07
I’ve actually said that myself before that it is kind of strange that you drive to a gym to go work out and then you drive to wherever else you’re going. And at least for now, my excuse for being in a club is really just for the pool. Because you know, it’s something I don’t have on my own and is available and I maybe could bike to the gym, and then and then swim from there. But um, you know, not not quite well, not this time of year. I’m not going to do that. But a point well taken that it is very strange for practice, when you look at it that way that you’re driving to stand in place basically, or Yeah, machine.

Unknown Speaker 51:49
That doesn’t move anywhere. It’s strange, and it’s a boredom thing.

Suburban Folk 51:52
Again, like I mentioned for the treadmill, like you’re just so painfully aware you know, at least when You’re out and doing something, you’ve got some scenery that’s changing and distracting you hopefully a little bit and even full circle, I imagine also as well, that’s where the community of the personal trainer part comes right? Where you make it more of a social gathering than just something that you hate to do and write every minute of it.

Unknown Speaker 52:18
But even if you’re like, a general exerciser, like you don’t have to be beholden to like one machine for like an hour. Like sometimes I tell people, I’m like, why are you on an elliptical for like an hour and a half, you know, like, there’s like seven, eight different different pieces of cardio that are very different, like, just do like one minute on each and keep switching back and forth. Make it different, make it interesting, make it a little exciting, like it’s cross training. But Pete but it’s I think it’s a microcosm of how people are they get comfortable with something and just want to stay on it. Just want to do that one thing that feels good. It’s not too bad. I don’t want to switch, switch. That’s people In general, and I’m like, you know, there’s lots of different options. And like for me, I think and my colleagues, we think this is such a simple concept, just do something different. Get on a different machine, go for two minutes, two minute intervals, hard on this machine for two minutes recovery on this machine for one minute harder. And when I tell people that they go, I never thought of that. I’d be like, it seems so simple, but we’re creatures of habit, you know.

Suburban Folk 53:25
And also, I’m probably guilty of this to some extent, you don’t want to look like you don’t know what you’re doing. I mean, there’s stereotype in the gym. So yeah, you just got to suck it up and ask people, whether it’s people that work there or somebody that you think has a workout regimen. Yeah, do that. But yeah, don’t let that be, you know, a detriment. And then again, that becomes your excuse for not going anymore because you don’t like the thing you’re doing over and over.

Unknown Speaker 53:52
Yeah, this isn’t high school. I mean, it’s

Unknown Speaker 53:55
not like

Unknown Speaker 53:58
you’re a grown adult man. Snow do your thing. Yeah. Well, how about cardio versus

Suburban Folk 54:03
weight training, weight lifting, again, to your point of using the space? One thing that comes to mind for me that I do some, and they’re definitely people in the gym, you know, even just walking with kettlebells do you typically have folks do like a cardio day and then a weightlifting day? Or is it usually a combination of both things for any session depends on how much they train with me. If they are training, like I do have some people who have worked their way up over the time to five days a week or four days. So then we’re doing a split routine. So at that point, you know, we’re trying to do two days on one day off two days on or, you know, Monday is or Tuesday is upper body

Unknown Speaker 54:45
with movement, you know, Wednesday as lower body or Thursday as cardio, Fridays mobility. I really change it up quite a bit because the biggest mistake is people confuse their bodies. They say Oh, I see this all the time in gyms It drives me nuts, as I’m people will be like on like a treadmill. And then they’ll get off and start doing bicep curls. I’m like, What? like that that makes no sense chronologically and the order of your exercise is critical. People don’t understand the order of what you do is incredibly critical to the results that you get. When you do it. The first thing you do was will always be the most effective thing that you do versus the last thing you’re doing. There’s clear research to back this up for that. So I really talked to people about Hey, listen, if you’re training a lot with me, then like tomorrow, I have a cardio day was one of my clients and he knows that every Thursday’s cardio, every Saturday is as heavy upper body resistance training every Tuesday is lower body mobility. And because we can’t be we want to make sure that our body knows exactly what we’re doing that day. And that the body has the understanding of this is what we’re we’re working towards. So we separate those things out if they’re working with me once or twice a week, which I don’t recommend. But if they absolutely have to do that, then we’re going to have to combine it a little bit more. But even then I’m not mixing cardio and resistance training back and forth. Those are separate sessions within a session.

Suburban Folk 56:18
Okay, that makes sense. And I know I have experienced through some trial and error, doing crunches and push ups after a run or something like that. And obviously, there’s a big difference when you spend all that energy doing the cardio activity, that you’re not getting the same results that you would be if you you know, reserve that first part of the workout for especially if it’s I think a weight training. So before I get you out of here, maybe even going full circle. One other question I had, you mentioned sports being a big part of your life growing up and as I’m getting, you know, older and there’s the adult leagues and stuff like that. Have a stance on should that be part of Somebody’s fitness routine. Is there a certain age where, you know, for example, I think of like, you know, if you’re not doing sprints and then you go on the basketball court, you just ask him to like pull your hamstring or do you have sort of like the adult sports and when maybe it’s time to hang it up?

Unknown Speaker 57:20
hang it up. Oh, man, this is so good. Greg, I got to tell you this. Lots of great questions, man. Really good. Bravo to you. I think it’s a tricky thing. Like I’m 41 and I would never enter into an adult League of basketball or flag football unless I started working my way up to those movements initially. I think you know it everybody laughs at kind of the 50 year old guy tries to go play pickup basketball, 40 year old guy, and then he just like blows his knee out and like, Yeah, he blows his knee out because he’s done no training for those movements. You can’t just roll into it. I think they’re great to do but I think like This is my honest stance like I literally try to find things that I’m not going to like blow my ACL out on like I’m gonna be in like bowling leagues or something on my golf or something

Unknown Speaker 58:09
like

Unknown Speaker 58:11
you know, but if but if I really was like if right now is like yeah I’m gonna get on a pickup basketball team I would start training for it. I was started doing cutting based movements drills and stuff I would work up to it. You can’t just roll out there the first day and like expect to go full speed that’s like you’re literally going to hurt hurt yourself. It’s like hundred percent probably gonna happen.

Suburban Folk 58:32
Okay, that is really what my hundred percent that’s what my man when you see some of those guys go out there. It’s like, are you sure this is the best thing you should be doing?

Unknown Speaker 58:43
And they’re not training. They’re not doing anything. Just roll out there. The guys with big guts rolling out there playing you know shooting hoops and stuff. I’m like, Oh, it’s good movement and stuff. But please like, Don’t Don’t sprint like

Unknown Speaker 58:58
the soft tissue injuries come in.

Suburban Folk 59:00
And then that goes into some of the other concepts. We’ve been talking about that you’re probably going to be pretty sore the next day that you’re not,

Unknown Speaker 59:06
oh my god, you’re gonna be destroyed, you’re going to be destroyed. But like I used to play basketball all the time, like, yeah, like 20 years ago.

Suburban Folk 59:13
Yeah, exactly. look different than during again, I really appreciate it. And before we go here, do you want to go ahead and give folks your contact information where they can find you on social media? And if there’s any, like upcoming events that you have, that you should let folks know about?

Unknown Speaker 59:29
Yeah, I keep my contact stuff really, really simple. I should say it’s just Darien Parker at gmail. com want to contact me on email. And then I’m primarily just on LinkedIn. So again, just type in my name, you can find me on LinkedIn.

Unknown Speaker 59:46
And that’s primarily at the other event wise.

Unknown Speaker 59:50
Now, I mean, I wouldn’t say there’s anything event wise coming out, they’ll be open to the public. I am hosting a podcast retreat in May but that’s just for guests of my show. My Coming to so other than that, I’m just I’m just living the dream and enjoying my life. Staying active and and meeting great people. And that’s really what it means to me, you know?

Suburban Folk 1:00:11
Yeah, that sounds great. Well, I appreciate you taking the time with us. We will be in

Unknown Speaker 1:00:14
touch. All right. Thank you Greg.

Suburban Folk 1:00:17
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to be notified a future weekly episodes, please hit the subscribe button. If you’d like to help us further, head on over to Suburban folk.com and sign up for our email list. There’s also a donate option where every dollar received helps us make a better show for you. Thank you. Suburban Folk is part of the pot all the time podcasting network with 11 other great podcasts. This podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not designed to diagnose or treat when beginning any exercise program. It should be reviewed and discussed with your medical professional prior to beginning information. On this podcast is not designed to replace medical treatment.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai