What’d we say? | Podcast Transcript

(00:00):

What’s good with you guys. Thank you for joining me. I’m Johan Francis CSCS, and this is my show ego killer. Welcome to the show where we cover all the moves you make inside the gym to help you move better out in the real world where it really matters. It’s in the gym, that we’re gonna challenge what we do, our mindsets and our habits and behaviors so that when we’re out there doing our thing, we feel a lot better. It has to do with breaking down the bubble of the ego. It has to do with challenging our current mindsets, which may have served us at one time, getting past that point and getting to a stage where we’re growing, we’re looking for growth. We’re looking for balance. We’re looking for balance, right? Not too much of the left, not too much of the right, not too much of the middle, all things equally, equanimity and balance, right?

(01:00):

You wanna work really hard, but you don’t wanna sacrifice too much. We want to be quality friends and family members without sacrificing our own need. This is all balanced. And this, in my opinion, this gym therapy is how we get to establish what that means. We have to remove. We should remove a lot of the ego to do so sometimes when I see you guys in the gym and I don’t really see you guys a whole lot, like I, you know, you’re like a, you know, like a blood moon. Like I see you once in a while, I’ll take a picture and then I don’t really see you guys in a long time after that, I kind of think, well, what, what, what are we looking for right now? Look, I may have been guilty of this myself. At some point, you know, I’m human too.

(01:46):

We all have those. You know, we all have those types of beats and behavior patterns where at one point we feel like we’re gonna get it in for a month. And after a while, we’re like, nah, I’ll see you later. Or maybe we worked out too hard, whatever it might be. But sometimes when I see you guys and you disappear for a very long time, or when we set up to work out and we’re all ready to get it going, and I’m looking at you and I’m pumping you up and I get that chilly reception in return. That’s like, Hey, are you ready to go? It’s like, yeah, <laugh> when I get that chilly reception. And then I don’t see you for a while. I start connecting the dots, just like a lot of good coaches. Would I start connecting the dots? Because you know, ultimately in my position you actually want, I wanna see you guys more. I wanna see you guys working out and trying to get there. Mainly me think in what were you really when I don’t see you again, when I try to get you to come in real quick and I got that chilly reception, what were you looking for? What were you expecting? I have to ask. It’s a form of self-evaluation it’s also a form of curating an experience that is very quality for you. What were you looking for?

(03:06):

What I feel in that case you might have been looking for when I don’t see you for a while, you’re looking for ease. And I want us to understand, and also want us to break through the fact that maybe, maybe we’re addicted a little bit addicted, behaviorally to ease, and we’re looking for ease in all things. Look again, like I’ve been saying right now, I’ve also been, you know, in a place in my life where I’ve been looking for ease, where I’ve looked for ease. And if something becomes kind of challenging, it starts to recolor. <Laugh> recover, recolor the experience for you.

(03:48):

I can only imagine you pull up in the gym. You’re looking for something really easy and it gets a, even a tiny bit challenging. This ain’t what I signed up for. I signed up for ease. I’m not doing all this. And so every time you’re looking to get back in the gym, you’re looking to do the easiest thing in the world. And when you have a good solid gym with a lot of options, maybe you start to opt for the easiest options over time. When you do that, our results aren’t really there. So I want us to talk a little bit about, and I’m gonna ask you three questions about breaking through the addiction of ease. I want you guys to resist the feeling that everything should be easy, that everything should be, mm, maybe over the top. Look, I’m not here to say that your workout shouldn’t be fun, but maybe we could reimagine well fun is we get to define it in a certain way.

(04:43):

We’re talking about to me. Fun is challenge. All right. So when I’m thinking about having fun in the gym, I’m talking about challenges. I’m talking about challenges. In fact, I just had an interview the other day, and the interview was asking me about what I can do to establish a modus operandi for workouts and fitness inside of a academic environment for younger people when they’re not athletic. And I say, yo, you’re gonna have to make it fun. You’re gonna have to start establishing a game of Dodge ball, right? I’m gonna have to start saying, Hey, you could, you can Dodge a kettlebell. You could Dodge a ball. No, but doing fun things, tugs of war races, foot races, right? When it stops being about evaluating everybody as a group, the next funnest approach is challenges is self challenges. Again, looking for that form of evaluation, challenging yourself is a way to keep the, the energy and the fun very high inside the gym.

(05:52):

So when we’re talking about how to make everything a little bit more palatable up in there, we’re talking about challenging ourself. Last time you were able to do 48 crunches inside of your minute. Now you’re gonna go for 50. You did that with the ease. Now you’re gonna do a weighted. These are ways that you challenge yourself. I always know that if something is an outright, super fun, we’re not here scoring goals and putting up points. And the like, right. If there’s not a trophy at the end of our engagement, I know when I’m training with you guys inside the gym, that the people who are having the most fun are the ones who are constantly asking me what they did to lift last time so that they could break through this time and set PRS personal records, personal best, whatever you want to call it inside the gym.

(06:44):

Those are the folks that are, that are actually enjoying themselves. When we work out, when we take the route of ditching competition, when we stop working with challenging ourselves, what often happens is boredom sits in when boredom sits in with our workouts, it’s very hard to complete ’em. And so have you guys ever been in a situation where you get to the gym and you’re like, yo, this is about to be hard. I’m not for this. I know me personally, I’ve been inside of places inside of fight gyms where the environment just isn’t fun at all. And there is only challenge. And that challenge is similar to a young man going into Bud’s part of his seal training. And it’s just the most Aster, Spartan, fundless enjoyment, less gr like grind ever. I’ve been in those type of workout rooms where the, the exercise, the workout, the training, just isn’t fun at all.

(07:50):

And it’s the same room. And it’s the same us stir rules, right? I’ve been inside those training rooms too. And I’m just that masochistic myself. I know maybe some of you guys can share similarly, where I’ve been back inside those rooms. Well, then that’s understandable. But what I want to ask you guys, there’s three questions about how we can break through you feeling like everything should be, I don’t want you guys to feel like your fitness is Aster. It should feel at least like you’re breaking through. So when I don’t see you for a long time, these questions maybe are for you, someone, you know, that is on the verge of getting back into their training, right? They’re in the verge of staying active inside the gym, or even outside the gym, right? The space where that they’re gonna lease for the day to exercise, to challenge themselves, someone that you know, right. Maybe you can ask these questions to them.

(08:57):

All right. Well, before we get to the questions, let’s talk about the excuses. Sometimes. I wonder what, you know, what you are thinking when you come in just for that hot little second. I don’t really see you again for a very long time. Was it the drive over was the drive over the thing that made you real tired before your workout, right? Is have you experienced your commute being the Dettor? Was it choosing what you were gonna work out in? Right? You didn’t have the right shoes. You didn’t have the, you didn’t have shoes. Oftentimes I will encourage you. Hey, you forgot your shoes. Work out barefoot, just like our ancestors. Was it the music, the music wasn’t hitting, right? And so you couldn’t get into the vibe.

(09:49):

I’m sorry to say a lot of these while they are quality. As far as excuses go, they are excuses. They might be a little crappy <laugh> they might be a little bit weak. If these, if these are the excuses that we uphold to reinforce an easy workout. Well, guess what, that’s probably what we’re looking for is something really easy to get over, or you have to embrace the idea of challenge you, whoever it is that you’re encouraging to get back into their training, who needs to lose weight, who needs to be active, who needs to reform their life. And their mindset needs to break through their own egotistical limits and not the negative type of ego, just the existing type. We have to reframe challenges. So that challenges actually become achievable. They become personal, right? A lot of what we receive in life has to be firsthand.

(10:49):

We have to have firsthand experiences. Okay? Because those are the ones that we actually adopt. Those are the ones that we can overcome, firsthand experiences. I wanna experience what this feels like for me, not through the I guess, experience or eyes of even my coach, my trainer, my friends. I wanna embrace all of the processes of hard training, the beginning, the getting there, the working through difficulties and barriers, all of that. Not sexy, but the result is euphoric and that’s where we need to be. Okay. So what would we mean is if our excuses are such that every little thing about training is a challenge, every little thing, right? Go Murphy’s law is already in full kinetic swing. Before we even get to the workout. You, my beautiful friends. All right. <Laugh> you might be addicted to ease and you might passively, excuse me.

(11:53):

You might actively, if not, subconsciously be looking for an easy path to victory. And unfortunately, inside the training room that is anathema to actually getting the type of fitness results you want. Number one, are you doing everything you can to avoid the process of training or do you embrace it? Do you embrace challenging yourself? Do you embrace the training that you’re about to receive speaking from personal perspectives, even with some of you that I’ve trained over the years, some of those first few days, first few hours, first few weeks of training are the most brutal. Just getting in the door is a victory. And at some point, if you allow yourself just to conquer that small barrier, to overcome that, to get through the literal threshold of the gym door and step onto the training floor, if you can do that, your mood shifts a lot of that step through and getting to the gym is the biggest challenge ever.

(13:07):

And once you’re able to do that, what happens is your mood shifts. Then you start to see all the positives, right? And then you start to get filled with that. Good. The euphoria that adrenaline, right? That workout high over time. Naturally, that becomes the, the, the feeling right? The sweet spot, the sweet spot. This is the experience of the training feeling good. You’re moving well. You are able to upkeep the output, the energy, the flow you’re in a flow state during your fitness routine. That feeling becomes what you look for on a daily basis. It’s something I experienced with Chris Washington. It’s something I experienced with a lot of you trainees over the years. A lot of you folks that come in to see me and work with me where the first few days or weeks are brutal. But over time, that becomes less of a concern.

(14:03):

So are you avoiding, are you embracing your training? Okay. Avoiding any type of behavior change is only gonna lead to failure to adapt. Right? We know this and we don’t really want to be in a process of avoiding. We want to instead, I mean, once you’re avoiding something already, it’s kind of hard to reverse all that, but we need to sit there and evaluate. That’s the first thing avoiding, not the business, not the move. The play instead is getting into the frigging gym. You could get through that doorway. You could do some things. I want you then number two, to think about how you feel afterward or how you’re about to feel afterward. All right, you’re gonna feel better or worse. 90%, 95, most of the time, almost all the time, you’re gonna feel better. And you already know that you’re gonna feel better. You’re not gonna feel worse after you get a quality workout in.

(14:56):

Yeah, you’re gonna feel a little bit sore. Now, look, if you’re feeling sore and you expect everyone to feel really bad for you, that’s not really the plane you’re gonna pop in Advil. You’re gonna get back in the game. You’re gonna feel a little better in a couple days, and you’re gonna run it back again. Knowing that this time your body is adapted to the moves that you just partook, knowing that in three months, hell three weeks, your body’s gonna be fully adapted. These are adaptations. They’re acute adaptations. They take a minimum of three weeks. When those things happen, you start to get less sore. It is the earth while muscle memory kicking in, right? That term that has, that seems to encapsulate, encapsulate your body, recognizing the movement patterns that you’re engaging in. Once it recognizes it, it recruits the necessary muscle fibers, the motor units, all those things.

(15:54):

And then you move better. Once you move better, you stop wasting energy. Your body adapts. You don’t get sore. You don’t get sore. Staying hydrated afterwards, popping a little Advil. Jumping in that EPSO salt. Those are the only way we’re gonna control our soreness. But look, you’re gonna feel better. You’re gonna feel better about yourself. You’re gonna feel better about your mood. All of these things are proven to the thousandth power. You’re gonna feel better. Now, if you really perceive that you’re gonna feel worse afterward. This is a tough, tall order for me to say, yo, you’re addicted to just feeling easy. That’s a little bit deeper knowing that you’re gonna feel worse after your workout is really you throwing up a lot of obstacles to getting into any type of active shape. We have to confront that and make sure that that isn’t the pre dominating feeling.

(16:46):

Are you gonna feel better or worse? You’re gonna feel better. And lastly, are you actively looking for comfort? Looking for comfort is fine inside of life. It’s fine. It’s okay. It’s the move. A lot of the times, I think we’re sold oftentimes that comfort and comfortability is the Penn ultimate goal. When we move, when we work in our jobs, right? We want to feel like a queen in her castle, like a king. It is thrown at the end of the day. We wanna feel like we’ve accomplished. And then we get to kick our feet up and enjoy the fruits of our labor. All right, that’s comfort. That’s one type of comfort, but growth never is been about comfort. The perception of growth, right? To get a little philosophical, right? Quick, real quick. The perception of growth. When we see it coming, it becomes it. We see it as a challenge. When that growth just kind of happen, happens in a, what you would call Hmm. In a moment of clarity, in many moments of clarity in a, in a period in your life where everything’s kind of clicking when you, when you, when growth happens in that period of life, where everything kind seems like it’s clicking and things come easily growth in those particular situations is imperceptible. And it’s easy. Well, guess what? <Laugh>, when you go to pull up on training, it’s almost never, never, never gonna play out to be easy per se.

(18:25):

It just isn’t. We know that the training is gonna be difficult because that’s where all the gains are met. That’s where all the gains are met. That’s where all the challenges have to occur. We have to put our bodies in positions where it might actually fail right longitudinally at the peak end of the set and the rep count. We have to put ourselves in those positions in order for us to grow, the idea of pro of progressive overload has to, it is right there in the name overload <laugh>, it’s not progressive load. It’s progressive pushing ourselves to the limit, embrace that. And so we go inside the gym, looking for everything to be comfortable. It’s tough for us to really learn. It’s tough for us, tough for our minds to actually absorb not just verbal cues, right? Motor cues from coaches, ones that we need to correct ourselves, looking in the mirror, but both behavior cues occur a lot more slowly.

(19:24):

And so go into the gym, not looking for comfort straight up. I don’t want you guys looking for comfort. When you come inside the gym, I want you guys looking for growth. Try to adopt growth as your mentality. All right, I’m gonna leave you with that right there. I want you to try it out, go to ego killer show.com and let me know what you think. Also, if you like the episode, go to apple podcasts, five stars, get you a free gift. I promise. Try those or ask someone close to you. Those three questions. Ask yourself those three questions. If you’re feeling like you’re a little bit addicted to ease, and maybe I will see you and you’ll be more of a mainstay instead of the gym going forward. And I hope that happens for you. Thanks for listening. Stay up