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Relentless Roger

Relentless Podcast

Reverse Engineer Your Finish Line

Reverse Engineer Your Finish Line
In Episode 8 of the Relentless: Real People, Real Results, Real World podcast we talk about the balance between art and science, reverse engineering your physical and performance success, and the power of getting your customers involved.

LISTEN UP!

State of Relentless: 

Relentless Main Event: 

  • Reverse engineering your physical and performance realities.
  • Discussing the Spartan Race and its assortment of priorities: burpees, run intervals, and grip strength training.
  • Applying reverse engineering to physique-related goals: gaining muscle mass, reducing bodyfat, and losing weight.
  • Extending it to business-related goals like sales: assessing quotas, lead acquisition, etc.

Relentless Actions: 

  • Mind: Referencing my Lil’ Wayne/Gary Vaynerchuk post, and encouraging you to “do you” and find your own set of inputs.
  • Body: It’s already week 10 of my push-up challenge, and it’s going swimmingly. So much so that you really should set your own!
  • Business: Making a donation to Rosa’s Fresh Pizza to feed the homeless and drawing on a colorful sticky note sparked musings about small business customer experience and involvement.

Relentless Ask:
Send me a question! Comment right here, shoot me an email at roger@relentless-fitness.com, Facebook me, or Tweet me. Let me know what you want to hear about in future episodes. You ask, and I’ll answer!

If you like what you hear on these episodes, you can rate, review, and/or subscribe on iTunes.  Thanks for your support!

Relentless Podcast

Keith Norris 2: Ayahuasca Yin, Strength and Conditioning Yang, and the Most Anabolic Substance on the Planet

It’s time for episode seven of the Relentless: Real People, Real Results, Real World podcast!

In this episode I welcome in Keith Norris, a real life Incredible Hulk, former football player, current Efficient Exercise and ARX equipment rockstar, Paleo FX conference co-creator, ID Life investor, blogger, and unfortunate Dallas Cowboys’ fan.

LISTEN UP!

SHOWNOTES: 

  • Attending a recent Strength & Conditioning conference hosted by Mario Mendez of My Fit Foods.
  • The importance of continuing education for professionals: “If I have a spare moment when I’m not actually doing my own thing or running my own business, I am reading stuff that has to do with my business or S&C, or I’m listening to something, or I’m talking to somebody on the phone. It’s a never-ending process.”
  • Knowing what you don’t know: “The more we are in this, the more we realize how much we don’t know…we know a lot more than the people that we are helping, but we don’t know everything.”
  • Evolving as a personal trainer: “The best in the business realize that there is a balance between the art of S&C and the science of S&C and that neither can answer the full question. Both together can get a hell of a lot closer to answering the full question.”
  • Why a personal trainer is like a chef: “What makes a good chef is being able to feel – it needs another pinch of this. I can’t tell you why, I feel it, I know it.”
  • Ben House and Aaron Davis of Train, Adapt, Evolve, and the Omega Wave – an all-encompassing readiness testing device.
  • Baseline readiness tests for anyone – waking heart rate and grip testing: “The best thing that a person can do is learn themself…I know when I’m ready to go, and I know when I need to back off. I can’t quantify that…but I know it. This is the art of knowing yourself.”
  • Using exercise as a coping mechanism versus dealing with the issues themselves: “My coping mechanism was don’t feel it emotionally, just beat it up…but beating it down doesn’t mean overcoming.”
  • The Ayahuasca retreat: “It is the most intense thing I have ever been through in my life, and I’ve been through a lot of intense things. It was 10x more intense than what I anticipated.”
  • Understanding the metaphysical versus feeling it: “Until you go through it, you don’t get it.”
  • Keeping an open mind: “If I try to explain this on logical or rational terms to people, there’s no way you’re going to be able to explain it and make sense of it or justify it on those terms. You just cannot do it. It gets back to S&C being a combination of art and science. This is total art.”
  • Visual candy and hallucinations: “There were times, yes, when the visual candy and hallucinations were other-worldly and it was fascinating, but that was 10% of the total time spent there. That was minimal. The rest of it was excruciating hard work. It was anything but a ha-ha party.”
  • Affecting lasting change in others by conveying that you truly care: “I am better now at being able to transfer that feeling to somebody else.”
  • Drawing parallels between training athletes and horses: “If you want to be a good trainer just look at a horse trainer and look at his skills and observations. What separates a great trainer from a so-so trainer is his observational skills. They tap into that animal’s vibe. You can’t ask an animal where does it hurt? What’s wrong?”
  • Being impacted by a video of a 12 or 13 year old boy shown by Patrick Estes of the University of Denver.
  • Letting your kids be kids: “I wanted my kids out there moving, swinging, being kids and playing on stuff!”
  • The benefits of unstructured play activity: “If you get them early, it sticks.”
  • Treating the organism as a whole: “The body and the brain develop simultaneously. If you take one of the stimuli away or you dumb down one of the stimuli, the others are going to suffer.”
  • A testimonial for Marissa! “If you’re luck enough to have a Riss and a Relentless Fitness, for Christ’s sake get them into that type of environment.”
  • The stress of overthinking details versus the actual benefit of those details.
  • An earth shattering supplement: “If I could somehow create a supplement that was sleep, I would be a baziilionaire because that is the most anabolic substance you can give somebody. Just sleep. But it’s so easy and there’s no buy-in, it doesn’t cost anything. What it takes is discipline for you to just turn out the lights and go to bed.”
  • On magic pills: “People want the silver bullet. They believe that diving way down deep into the rabbit hole that they’re going to find that silver bullet. Yes, certain supplements at certain times, do they help? Absolutely but the amount they help is minuscule compared to eating real food, smart exercise, sleep, and stress reduction. Those things are the big winners.”

FOLLOW KEITH:

DO ME A FAVOR, WILL YA?
If you like what you hear on these episodes, please subscribe to, rate, and/or review the podcast on iTunes.  Thanks for your support!

Long Format

Why I Only Listen to Lil Wayne and Gary Vaynerchuk

“I don’t fantasize
I mastermind, then go after mine
You see I handle mine, I dismantle mine
I tote a tool box; bitch, it’s hammer time”

– Lil Wayne, Let the Beat Build

Input matters

Here are two maxims:

  • What you put in becomes what you put out.
  • The more you put in, the less you put out.

One at a time.

What you put in becomes what you put out.
You take on the characteristics of your input, whether that be historical fiction or Housewives of New York. 

Jim Rohn famously said “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. In On Writing Stephen King suggested that an author develops his style through the books he reads. Rohn and King could just as easily have referenced your natural surroundings, home/workplace decor, Internet usage, social media conversations, visual media consumption, and even your nutrition as impacting your output.

The more you put in, the less you put out.
You have a finite amount of energy and time. The time and energy you devote to input is time and energy you do not have for output.

From 2007-2009, I read a prodigious amount of self-improvement literature. The first 3 or 4 books were groundbreaking. They helped change my view of the world. The 32nd book? Not so much. Instead of a growth driver, the books became excuses. Time spent reading them was less time spent creating.

It’s a fine line. An initial amount of input brings new ideas, tools, and inspiration, but when you cross a threshold it becomes counterproductive.

“You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do things because I do them or Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban tried it. You need to know your personal brand and stay true to it.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk

Perform a self assessment by making the maxims questions:

  • Are you happy with your current output? [If yes, end exercise]
  • [If no] What is your desired output?
  • Where is the gap? Is your output falling short qualitatively or quantitatively?
    • If the gap is qualitative, the solution may be input quality (changing some).
    • If the gap is quantitative, the solution may be input quantity (removing some).
  • What is your current collection of inputs?
  • How does each contribute to or take away from your desired output?
  • What new input can change the game and contribute to your desired output?
  • What 1-3 input alterations offer the greatest reward?

Be honest with yourself. You’ll find the opportunities – the 3rd hour of Facebook/Instagram time, the 2nd hour of mindless television, the excess drinks/dessert. They’re staring you in the face.

I self assessed, and here’s what I found:

No, I am not happy with my current output. While I’m confident in my output as a personal trainer – clientele, session structure and execution, and results produced – I’m not as confident in my output as a business/brand growth driver, specifically in the social media space.

When I do release something – post, podcast, etc. – I’m happy with its quality, but the quantity and consistency are too low. In that regard I’m doing myself a disservice.

What are the root causes? I’m uncomfortable with sales. I don’t placed as much mental importance on what I do in online social media versus the physical brick and mortar space. When fatigued by the day-to-day grind, I lose focus on social media altogether.

Where are the opportunities? Change the input/output balance. Scale down my inputs to leave more room for output – specifically lessen the business literature I consume. Re-purpose a key 60-ish morning minutes that is sometimes lost to sports or entertainment reading.

My favorite part? I’m shifting almost exclusively over to two inputs: Lil Wayne and Gary Vaynerchuk. 

They introduce key attributes to my personal equation. Lil Wayne represents thinking big, being ruthless, and making no excuses. Gary Vaynerchuk represents the grind, consistently taking action, and smart social media execution. Both represent recapturing a past dream or two and tearing after them.

“I want to own the New York Jets, that’s what I want. And I absolutely believe I am going to own the Jets.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk

You and I can change, and we can re-engineer our paths at any time we choose. Or not.

It’s exciting, and it’s a burden, all at once.

I choose to look at the exciting side of the coin. You?

“Life is a beach, I’m just playing in the sand.”
– Lil Wayne, Right Above It

***

[Part II: Added after initial post.]

Apparently this is quite a polarizing piece of content!

One response I received: “…but I like Real Housewives.”

Exactly!

Another: “…Lil Wayne is horrible.” Another: “…Gary Vaynerchuk is full of himself.”

Exactly!!

Let’s flesh this out, and let’s be crystal clear.

One thing I am not is an input authority. Just because I may not see value in Real Housewives, doesn’t mean there isn’t value to you. Just because I do see value in Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast, doesn’t mean there is value to you.

A phrase I go back to time and time again is this: do you.

Do you, people!

It’s about figuring out what works for YOU. It’s about figuring out what inputs provide YOUR key collection of attributes, tools, and inspiration.

I’m not on team judgement. I’m on team handle your shit, team grow and progress towards your true goals, and team be generally positive about it along the way.

If the post caused you to reflect on your own collection of inputs and outputs, then it did its job. Housewives or Vaynerchuk or anything in between – it’s all good.

Do you.

(Image Credit: http://www.mid-day.com)

Relentless Podcast

Get on Your Grind

Get on Your Grind
In Episode 6 of the Relentless: Real People, Real Results, Real World podcast we talk overhauling your input to produce the output you desire.

LISTEN UP!

State of Relentless: 

Relentless Main Event: 

  • The creative recharge provided by time off the grid and musings on replicating that in the day-to-day grind.
  • Two truisms on input/ouput:
    • What you put in becomes what you put out.
    • The more you put in, the less you put out.
  • Drawing inspiration from:
    • Gary Vaynerchuk and his 30-year-old “freak out” life re-evaluation.
    • Steve Liberati and his Relentless Action of “counteracting” yourself.
  • Performing a self-assessment and honing in on sales, business growth, and consistently “putting myself out there”.

Relentless Action: 
Take honest stock of your goals of 10, 5, 3, and 1 years ago. Are you on the trajectory to achieve them? Is your proportion of input to output satisfactory? Do you need to qualitatively or quantitatively make alterations?

Relentless Ask:
Feeling charitable? Jump on board and sponsor a teen from Steve’s Club, benefiting at-risk teenagers via fitness and mentorship. I’ve seen firsthand the impact of the dollars – $25 for an unlimited month – and they go a long way!

If you like what you hear on these episodes, you can rate, review, and/or subscribe on iTunes.  Thanks for your support!

Short Format

Press Takeaways: On Fasted Workouts, Strength Training and Sprints, and Not Being a Physical Yo-Yo

This Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer Health section featured an article by Justin D’Ancona entitled Fasting workout, quicker results? with a number of quotes from yours truly. It first tackled the question of fasted workouts and their usefulness before handling workout prescriptions. Here, for your benefit, are 6 expanded takeaways. #6 is my favorite, so if you’re in a rush, jump to it.

1: “Like most fitness questions, and answers, this one falls into the gray area.” – Justin D’Ancona

Smart, smart, SMART quote from D’Ancona. The article itself tackles two studies that fall on opposite sides of the fasted workout equation. One proclaims no results, while the other reports significant – up to 20% bodyfat! – improvements in its subjects.

Your takeaway here is to stop headline hunting because headlines tell you very little. Studies can be flawed and have an assortment of small sample sizes, biases in gender, age, ability, etc, and narrow thinking (displaying a positive/negative without considering a resulting positive/negative elsewhere). Studies are useful – yes! – but they require your critical thinking and personal experimentation to derive real results.

2: “The researchers discovered those in the group that exercised fasted didn’t compensate for missed meals by consuming additional calories during lunch, nor did they complain of an increased appetite for the remainder of the day.” – Justin D’Ancona

Here’s an example of a study takeaway that requires the aforementioned critical thinking and personal experimentation. It’s an intriguing idea. Can you fast through breakfast, not suffer cognitively or physically, and consume fewer calories (which would in theory be an effective weight loss strategy)?

My experience with fasted exercise is this: it works for lower stress output. If you’re typically more relaxed in the morning and walking or doing low intensity work, it’s worth considering. If, however, you’re a morning high performer and doing higher intensity work, my experience says it will break you.

3: “For the most part, my recommendation is to eat balanced… My philosophy revolves around a positive source of protein, positive source of carbohydrate, positive source of fat.” – Me

“Low” or “no” anything are short-term strategies and are maaaaybe applicable from-time-to-time for the right reasons. If you consistently and significantly deprive anything, it’ll have unintended consequences. Give yourself well-rounded and focus on quality sourcing.

4: “Get a big strength workout and a big sprint workout in a week. Where with the strength workout you’re pushing your limits on the type of weight that you’re able to push, pull, squat, and deadlift…” – Me

Strength is the foundation of your house. Quick message to the ladies: if I never again hear the “but I don’t want to get muscular” retort to my strength programming, I’ll die happy.

After your best friend of walking – yes, walking – strength is next on your priority list. It’ll sustain and build muscle mass, which is worth its weight in gold, while also preparing you for the daily stressors of life – picking up babies, landscaping, snow shoveling, and playing pickup sports.

Quick self-evaluation: If you are someone with back pain AND someone who regularly shirks strength training (with sound form, of course), re-evaluate your life. Immediately.

5: “…And then on your sprint workouts, you’re working shorter, but super high intensity. So, like, 30 [seconds] on, a minute off, eight times, but every time you’re doing that 30 on, toward the end of that 30 you’re really struggling.” – Me

Intensity. Scaling yourself up the intensity spectrum sends a direct signal to your primal physical wiring to improve… or else. If you want that next chunk of physical results, you’d best find the time to sprint.

A few words on sprinting. My definition: performing an activity as intensely as possible for the prescribed block of time. That means if it’s :10, you’re dying at the 10th second. If it’s :30, you’re spent at 30. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

6: “Wait, weight loss results from only two workouts per week? ‘I think people usually start too fast with too much. Prove to me you can do two workouts a week first.'” – Me

More is not better. It’s not.

Thought experiment: would you rather…

  1. Train like hell for 10 weeks, work yourself up to a physical peak you enjoy for 2-to-4 weeks, and plummet off a cliff without a parachute. End scene: 1-year later you wake up in a worse position than you were to begin with.
  2. Develop reasonable health habits that progress you slower up a hill (not a mountain). End scene: 1-year later you wake up in the best shape of your life with the ability to sustain it.

I get that you want results, and you want them NOW. I get it. But do you really want to vacillate between periods of killing yourself for 6 workouts a week, getting injured and/or petering out, then not doing a damn thing? Do you really aspire to be a physical yo-yo?

Start reasonably. Sink your energy into walking, strength, and sprinting (Have you listened to the Keith Norris podcast yet? We handle that exact formula.) Prove that formula to yourself. Then add the frills if you’d like.

 

Relentless Podcast

Dan Calista: Business in the Desert, Clear Company Values, and Dropping Zbombs

It’s time for episode five of the Relentless: Real People, Real Results, Real World podcast!

In this episode I welcome in Dan Calista, founder and CEO of Healthcare Management Consulting firm Vynamic (named “Best Place to Work” by Philadelphia Business Journal), Jerry Maguire enthusiast, husband and father, and lifelong entrepreneur.

LISTEN UP!

SHOWNOTES: 

  • Morning Coffee: Starbucks’ Via coffee with Hazlenut half-and-half.
  • Snap Out of a Funk: Take a nap.
  • His excitement about the rapidly declining cost of game-changing technology and putting it into the hands of the world. “The fun has just begun.”
  • Professionally Helpful Media: Glengarry Glen Ross and Jerry Maguire.
  • Relaxation Oriented Media: Steve Jobs’ Stanford graduation speech.
  • “Who is Dan? I try hard. I have failed countless times…get knocked down, try something else, pivot. I have learned a lot from mistakes.”
  • Receiving an Apple computer as a kid on Christmas morning and having it revolutionize his thinking and writing. So much so that he was accused of cheating. “If I didn’t have that computer, who knows where I would have ended up.”
  • “Things can always be better.” Embracing continuous improvement.
  • Going to Babson College (named #2 return-on-investment school) with a focus on entrepreneurship. “My goal was to start a business right out of college…I wanted all business all the time.”
  • Targeting a double drive-thru coffee place. “I didn’t even drink coffee. I just loved the concept of it. High margins, efficiency – I can compete in that market.”
  • Having the concept fail due to a conservative town, traffic patterns, and the cost associated with regulations, zoning, and upgrading the surrounding environment. “I had to realize that this isn’t going to work out…I had no job. I had no income.”
  • How did he decide to pull the plug? He talked to people he loved and trusted and confronted the problem. “I’d like to think that I’m not afraid to ask for help.”
  • Turning back to a home exterior painting business, his college summer job. “It was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done, because I didn’t know how to paint. I didn’t know how to hire people. I didn’t know how to buy equipment. I didn’t know how to sell. It was literally a crash course.”
  • Translating the painting principles of production management and operational flow to Vynamic and business today.
  • Performing a utility role in his senior class play – Guys and Dolls – and why you can call him “the Ox”. Gaining behind the scenes experience and seeing how the production pieces came together at showtime.
  • Why you can also call him Desert Dan, after his high school company that purchased a used tent and rented it for parties. He rented it for $400 and after assorted labor costs, cleared $300 each rental. Company tagline: “We cover all your needs.” Later expanding, purchasing, and renting 50 chairs.

DD Crew

  • “I’ve always been a magnet for being around other like-minded, inspirational people.”
  • Seeing a critical mass of people he respected going to one firm, Anderson Consulting, which became Accenture. Working in management consulting and tackling strategic challenges alongside a solid team. “There are a lot of perks to working with tremendous people.”
  • Having his Jerry Maguire moment in 2002. “Suddenly the answer was pretty clear…When is going to be a better time than now?”
  • Growing Vynamic to 90+ employees via steady, healthy growth over time.
  • “The thing that is consistent is from the very beginning is valuing and prioritizing people…What is the value proposition to the people working inside the company? That’s not discussed nearly as much as the value proposition to the customers.”
  • Learning from Tony Hsieh, of Zappos and Delivering Happiness.
  • Basing the name Vynamic on dynamic – dynamic for change and V for values and vitality. “The only thing constant in life is change. Hey, let’s be in the change business! Because the reality is we’re all in the change business and change is happening whether we want to acknowledge it or not.”
  • The consistent theme of growth – make the experience better for the 4th, the 10th, the 20th, the 80th employee.
  • Looking back at the early days – “I had enough money to buy a laptop and a big dream.” – when there was no room to risk take, versus the current time when there is room to experiment and try new things.
  •  On Culture:
    • “What is the definition of culture? I like to think of it as your values and your behaviors. What do you say is important and what do you do?”
    • “Culture is a function of commitment, not size.”
  • “Hire slow, fire fast.” Taking your time in selecting as your business grows and getting many people – often 10+ – involved in the hiring process. “Would you want to work with this person on your next team project?”
  • Targeting experienced employees versus those fresh out of school, for which they lack a protocol. “If we’re not ready for it and the structure isn’t there, it’s not going to be a success yet.”
  • Asking a prospective employee to present a process and requiring them to think on their feet. “You see people in a different light.”
  • Vynamic Colors: Having each new employee choose a unique color with personal meaning. The company’s color? Vibrant green representing a fresh, healthy start. Dan’s color? Sunrise yellow.
  • Post employee orientation never missing a debrief and always asking “How can it be better? What needs to be re-enforced?”
  • Deciding to expand geographically to Boston by asking the team and receiving a positive response.
  • “The story of Vynamic is the story of the V…You have to look for opportunities to express your values. What is the value of values, meaning monetarily? It’s to position you in the right direction when faced with a fork in the road. Values will help guide that. When we’re operating at a high level, those values are clear and we know where to go.”

2014-10-27 at 8.34.11 AM

  • Choosing their industry focus, as well as their original location (Philadelphia) in 2002 by reflecting on values. “The business plan for Vynamic was the letter V. It was the shortest business plan in the history of business plans.”
  • “You take an A team with a B idea any day of the week…Ideas are cheap. It’s how you connect.”
  • Personal Wellness: “It’s holistic.”
  • Energy Management: “Who are the people that you are surrounded by that you get energy from?”
  • Planning ahead of time to include health related activities in an extra busy week.
  • Appearing on NPR and discussing the company concept of Zzzmail – outlawing work email between the hours of 10:00pm and 6:00am – and Zbombs – a frowned upon strategy of bombing a co-worker with a thought provoking, lengthy email at 9:59pm. “I believe the HR of the future will have a Zzzmail policy.”
  • “Work when you want to work, work when you have the inspiration, and manage your energy and flow how you like. Just don’t put that on somebody else.”
  • Having fun with their marketing and “stories worth spreading”. Having a meeting on a double-decker bus and buying a Vynamic ad to cover its exterior.
  • Going through the Relentless Transformation in 2011 (how we met) and carrying on the concepts of anywhere workouts, making strong choices when on the road, and supermarket strategy.
  • Advice to Young Dan: “Stick to your values…ask for help…go all-in and go as aggressive as you can…invest in people.”
  • What’s Your Endgame? “I immediately think of my kids…I want my kids to be able to pursue a healthy life.”
  • Preferred Vice: Sweets. “Any sort of candy, fruit item.”
  • Continuously learn from others and have conversations.

DAN’S Relentless Action: 
Say thank you to someone for anything big or small.

FOLLOW DAN:

Vynamic Music Video:

A FAVOR:
If you like what you hear on these episodes, please help me out by subscribing to, rating, and/or reviewing the podcast on iTunes.  Thanks for your support!

Short Format

Free Fitness Results! Interested?

While I respect and am proud to offer external accountability to many, there is another side of the coin. When striving for physical results, it’s essential to understand. Allow me to explain…

First, a spark. I recorded a follow up podcast – release in two weeks – with real-life Hulk Keith Norris (listen to his first one here). Late in the conversation we talked sleep. More specifically, we discussed how an individual can spend so much time stressing over breakfast, supplements, and workouts while getting choppy 4-5 hour per night sleep. Doesn’t that seem counterproductive?

Second, a flame. I programmed a heap of walking for a friend to develop the habit, which we know drives body composition improvement and long-term health. Unfortunately the response was that while my effort was appreciated, walking wasn’t intense enough and would be swapped out.

This isn’t a diss to those who don’t sleep well or to my friend, who I love. With that said, here’s my emotion right now. W. T. F. Spelled out more specifically, that’s “what the fuck”, people.

When FREE samples, sessions, or supplements are offered, most people jump at the opportunity. However when FREE physical results are offered, most people ditch them like a bad habit.

Examples:

  • Supplements cost significant money. Broccoli doesn’t. Many people buy into supplements and rarely steam broccoli.
  • Personal training sessions cost significant money. Walking doesn’t. Many people attend their sessions and skip the walks.
  • Television cable packages and technological devices with screens cost significant money. Sleep doesn’t. Many people watch television, keep their screens on, and sleep horribly.
  • Meditation retreats, programs, and apps cost significant money. Meditation itself doesn’t. Many people go to the retreats, complete the programs, buy the apps, and then don’t meditate.

Here’s a damn simple formula: eat unprocessed, walk prodigiously, sleep well, and find a consistent outlet for your stress.

Do these things and do these things well. Then allocate your money to a personal trainer who revolutionizes your strength world, to a supplement that fills in a blank, or to a retreat that interests you.

Don’t be someone who spends thousands upon thousands of dollars on fitness without carrying your own weight in the fitness equation. Work on establishing internal accountability, then add external accountability.

Look inward, not outward.

It’s free.

Relentless Podcast

Keith Norris: Exercise Efficiently, Embrace the Suck, and Expand Your Mind

It’s time for episode four of the Relentless: Real People, Real Results, Real World podcast!  (Scroll to the bottom for all listening options.)

Podcast Description:

A deep dive into how real people get real results in the real world. Relentless mixes stories to provide context and the actions you can take right now in both short-format episodes and long-format interviews. Get ready to tackle anything from your morning cup of coffee to your exercise and nutrition regimens to building a million dollar business.

Keith Norris: 

In this episode I welcome in Keith Norris, a real life Incredible Hulk, former football player, current Efficient Exercise and ARX equipment rockstar, Paleo FX conference co-creator, ID Life investor, blogger, and unfortunate Dallas Cowboys’ fan. Here’s the rundown:

  • Drawing inspiration from the drive and initiative of his wife, Michelle Norris.
  • Podcasting fasted with a double strength black coffee in hand.
  • Loving the Jura Impressa espresso machine.
  • Re-entering the workout rap scene courtesy of Bo Alexander.
  • Last 2 Workouts: Sprints (lower body) and next day landmine rows and dips (upper body).
  • Snap Out of a Funk: Embrace the Pomodoro technique (breaking work down into small intervals and determining your optimal work/rest ratio). “It does really enhance one’s productivity and output.”
  • Learning the most from a Paleo FX panel on shamanism – specifically plant medicines and Ayahuasca – and leveraging the conference’s lifestyle component.
  • “If your spiritual alignment is out of whack – and you can define spiritual anyway you want to, this isn’t a religious doctrine – whatever your North Star is, if you’re not aligned with that, everything else isn’t optimized.”
  • Having a longstanding love for Johnny Manziel and the Dallas Cowboys.
  • Professionally Helpful Book: Triphasic Training by Cal Dietz. “He is so far beyond everyone else in the Strength & Conditioning community right now.  He’s kind of the Robb Wolf of the S&C community right now.”
  • #1 Dietz takeaway = Eccentric repetitions.  #2 = Turnaround speed.
  • Relaxation Oriented Book: Tao Te Ching.
  • Looking ahead to an Ayahuasca retreat and being prepared and open to fantastic insight. “I’m apprehensive, yes, but I’m really looking forward to it.”
  • “As you get older you realize – and I’ve done a ton of reading and talking with close friends – that certain plant medicines and certain drugs can give you insight into optimized self. It can help you clear blockages and see things as they are – not how you have colored them. Because all of us see life through our pre-made prism. My hope is always to find truth, not what I think to be true but what is actually factual. And this could be with mundane things, this could be with strength and conditioning practices. What actually works? What actually helps people? That is really what I’m looking for. Clarity and the ability to perceive the world as it is and not how it’s coming to me funneled through my preconceived conditions.”
  • Being a lifelong athlete, starting as a hyper-competitive kid surrounded by the best coaches in AAU track and field.
  • Maturing, experiencing a physical change, and having to transition to football, ultimately at Texas State.
  • Spending 9 years in the military and diving headlong into the pharmaceutical industry. “I thought I was doing the world a huge service by being in what I thought was a helping profession.”
  • Balancing the “ugly underbelly” of pharmaceuticals with the positive side of creating life changing drugs.
  • Alongside Michelle ditching life as they knew it at the worst economic time – “we took a bath on the house” – and moving to Texas. “Family and friends were going – have you lost your minds?”
  • Experiencing personal tragedy and asking “What’s the absolute worst case? Is potential bankruptcy that big a deal compared to the death of a daughter? No, it pales in comparison. If we look back on that, yes Brittani’s death was devastating to both of us, but we try to spin it into a positive and say that her death has inspired us to do some pretty ballsy things. People have been like ‘you’re completely nuts and there’s no way this is going to work’. But we’ve forged through and we’ve done it. And really we’ve been able to do it with the strength of Brittani behind us.
  • The rough early days of Paleo FX: “All of that hard work for the benefit of going into debt. It was a tough road.”
  • Balancing stable, linear progressions of the ARX equipment and Efficient Exercise businesses with the groundbreaking, volatile nature of Paleo FX. “You want to get a PHD in entrepreneurship? Paleo FX is it.”
  • Allowing Paleo FX to be its own entity. “It’s like raising a child. You can raise a child within certain parameters, but at the end of the day you have to let the child be who he’s going to be…If we’re smart about it we get out of its way and let it be what it’s going to be.”
  • Learning from the Ancestral Health Symposium and bringing the science to a more accessible platform for the layperson.
  • Going from expecting 50-100 people at an Efficient Exercise location and later renting out the Texas University football stadium. No other venue in the city was available and held their capacity.
  • Having Robb Wolf on board as the first speaker and leveraging that to attract others.
  • “In our infinite brilliance at the time we decided to do it during SXSW, a massive music and interactive festival which just shuts the city down. People are flooding into Austin anyway, so why not just have another conference? Which was the worst business decision we have made to date…Paleo FX has survived in spite of our follies.”
  • Why have a conference in Austin, Texas? It’s ground zero for the Paleo movement.
  • Advice for Tough Times: Hold strong to your vision.
  • “One thing that has never wavered for Michelle and myself has been the overall vision of what this thing should look like. We have the vision and we feel this pull to be able to do something good for society. At the end of the day, is PaleoFX a money making business now? Yes it is. Now that it is a money making business we can parlay that profit into making it a larger bullhorn to spread this word. And that’s exactly what we want – we want a large bullhorn because we believe in the power of what Paleo can do for people.
  • The necessity of an education process to take what we know works and spread it.
  • Revisiting a discussion from the Summer of 2010.
  • “The truth of the matter is that I could have realized my athletic potential – and there is no exaggeration implied here – by performing a fraction of the training that I actually endured.  In fact, I would argue that I would have been a much better athlete then if I would have trained under the principles that I know today to be true.  That, for me, took many years of self-reflection, chipping-away and letting go to fully realize.”
  • Coaching football and making a difference in kids lives by relating to them and reigning them in.
  • Workout addictions and training to run away from something, not to become better at a sport.
  • Two types of adult overtrainers: those who believe they are doing better and those who use it as a physical/mental drug.
  • “I’m not a trained shrink, but I can also help the other people start to understand that exercise can be a drug like any other if you are trying to mask something else that is going on in your life.”
  • “If you want a degree in psychology – Masters or PHD – I would suggest [personal] training or bartending.”
  • “I don’t know exactly what it is, but there’s just something brutally effective about a hard lift set, followed immediately by a sprint.  We did versions of this theme back in my college days, but Dan John is the only person I know who has actually written anything about, what he calls (and what I now have come to call), the Litvinov workout.  Here for instance, is what I did today: – 20 fast-as-possible (yet with good form) front squats with an 11’ by 4” diameter slosh pipe, then, immediately following that – a 40 second sprint for distance recover just long enough to get your lungs, spleen and pancreas back in their right place, and hit it again.  I did 4 rounds of these today in about 15 minutes.  Did I do anything else?  Yeah, right.  Hit it hard, and go home.  Hey, I like hanging with the guys and the gals and talkin’ smack at the gym, too – just not when I’m actually working out.  Know the difference, and don’t mix business with pleasure.
  • A week in the life of an “average” person looking to improve: (1) Walk everyday. “I tell my clients that you cannot walk too much.” (2) Every other day: one of or a combination of deadlift, dip, sprint.
  • Formula: push + pull + drive + walk.
  • Not necessitating a Fitbit: “Just walk as much as you can.
  • Jogging does not beat walking. Walking is effective no matter how advanced you are. Dorian Yates – a legendary bodybuilder – walked miles after every workout to control his bodyfat levels. “Did he jog? No. He walked.”
  • Still working on top-end sprint speed to this day.
  • ARX equipment and recently entering the large scale manufacturing process (versus building them one-off in the past). This eliminates inconsistencies and ultimately brings cost down.
  • “The people who have bought into [the ARX] the quickest and the most have been physical therapists and the entrepreneur community.”
  • Using tangible data to appeal to the entrepreneur community. Knowing instantaneously what your force output is at any point in a motion.
  • The benefits of autoregulation (“go with the flow”) versus linear periodization (“I’m bench pressing x weight in y sets because it’s on my Excel spreadsheet…life doesn’t work that way.”)
  • Great trainers knowing how to lessen the demand on clients when they come into a workout fatigued.
  • Simplifying lifting in the moment – “you need to do your motion and not think” – then coming back, deconstructing, and fine tuning. Unless there is an unsafe lift being performed.
  • “The human reaction to change is fascinating to me, in that it can be absolutely debilitating to people.  There have been studies done which show that, even if the proposed change is highly likely to affect a positive outcome with very little in the way of potential risk, people will still prefer to maintain the status quo – even if they consider that status quo to be quite miserable.  How is that?  It’s the old “devil you know vs angel you don’t” mentality; quite simply, change scares the hell out of people.”
  • “You have to embrace the uncomfortableness. Embrace “the suck”.
  • Discerning what triggers work for what people: “Everybody has different triggers, and the tricky thing about being a trainer is that the trigger that may work for person A may turn person B off.”
  • Using vanity goals to help people ditch sugar.
  • Getting involved with a supplement company – ID Life. “Where is a supplement’s position within the overall diet? It’s exactly that – it’s a supplement. It’s not meant to take the place of an otherwise crappy diet. It’s not. So we always push for let’s get the diet straightened out, and then let’s supplement to go from good to great.”
  • Why supplements are equivalent to “curls for the girls”.
  • Our society dealing with higher toxin levels than ever before.
  • How to work with your wife. “You have to both realize that your vision is the same.”
  • Preferred Vice: Beer of choice is “the thicker the better”. Pick of the moment is Modelo, Dos Equis, Tecate for summertime and temperature. Guinness for winter.

keithpaleofx

KEITH’S Relentless Action: 
Do something. “Take a swing, get in the batter’s box, and take a crack at whatever you’re passionate about…Nothing is going to happen unless there is forward momentum…Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is just knowledge. Action is power.” Don’t be the coulda, shoulda, woulda guy and treat failures as feedback.

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