Transcriptions:

Ask a Coach | Part 1

Nick  00:00

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Shark Bite Show. It’s been a little bit. I’m Nick, as always, today we have Josh, who runs athletic recovery services and he’s a coach at Shark Bite Cape Coral, Shark Bite Fort Myers. Then we have Val, who is also a coach at Shark Bite Cape Coral and Shark Bite Fort Myers. Today we’re gonna be running through this like a mailbag style. So what we did was we compiled questions from our members, friends, and the other coaches, people who just wanted to know things about fitness and about us. We’re gonna go in and just kind of answer them. This is the first time we’ve done something like this. Let’s see how it goes. So first up, Josh, Val. Thank you.

Josh  00:54

Thanks for having us.

Val  00:59

Thanks for having us.

Nick  01:00

If this is your first time listening to Val on a podcast, it’s gonna be fun. She’s not in any way awkward.

Val  01:06

You started the podcast more awkward than I could have imagined.

Nick  01:15

So there’s no order to this. We’re just gonna dive into them. First things first. One of the questions I got was what do you guys think is the most like complete exercise?

Josh  01:29

People are gonna hate me for this.

Val  01:31

I already know I’m gonna hate you for this.

Josh  01:34

Turkish get-ups because it couples principles of both controls stability and then strength throughout, and ranges of motion while transitioning through for injuries movement.

Nick  01:54

They suck in a good way.

Val  01:56

I don’t hate you for that as much as I thought I was going to, but I don’t mind Turkish get-ups. I also think they’re a really good movement. In terms of accessory work and things like that. I would say probably like a squat, clean thruster, get your pole, get your squat, get your push. It’s a lot of different body parts moving at once. Core stability, strength, you can lighten them up, make them fast, and they’ll destroy you so pretty versatile.

Josh  02:24

They definitely will destroy you.

Nick  02:32

I think mine is… it sucks to say it but either the burpee the thruster. There’s a reason they suck so bad.  Burpee, you’re getting your body all the way down to the ground, you chomp it up. So you’re getting pressing, you’re getting jumping, your cardio is getting up high, your heart rate is getting really high. In thruster, I feel like there’s not a single muscle in my body that doesn’t get used while I do that.

Val  02:56

Everything is working so hard and you have to have good mobility to do a thruster as well. So you can’t lack there, but there’s a reason your thrusters look the way they do.

Nick  03:19

What is a bad habit you catch yourself doing? And how do you work on not doing it? Because that’s something that I think people feel pretty commonly.

Val  03:31

Well, I have a lot of bad habits because I’m 23 and still figuring everything out. I would say I have two. One is that I eat like a 23-year-old. So I have a lot of caffeine and not as many nutrient-dense foods as I should. So that’s one of my very bad habits. Then the second would be probably just overshooting expectations of what I should be doing in workouts and pushing myself way too hard to the point where like, I want to come in and work out the next day, but I can’t because I was dumb and went way too hard the first day, or even like in a competition style setting where you have to pace yourself for the whole day through five really intense workouts and then going out way too hot on the first one or way too fast on the first round. Things like that.

Nick  04:26

So how do you plan on working on those? How do you combat those?

Val  04:30

I’ve been listening to all of my very smart and intelligent coaches and co-workers that guide me in the right directions. But I’ve been a lot more receptive to cues and advice and pacing, ideas. I also mess some stuff up and getting workouts and wasn’t able to finish that the way I wanted to. Should’ve gone a little bit slower in the beginning and then next time I go into a similar workout, try something a little different. I’m experimenting.

Nick  05:02

So you learn from them.

Josh  05:03

She’s almost acting like a 24-year-old.

Val  05:06

We’re almost there guys, one month.

Nick  05:09

Josh, what about you? I know, first and foremost, or anything else, one of my bad habits that took a long time for me to catch was undereating and overtraining. That’s pretty significant because we’re all seen as coaches and as the forefront of the view of everybody that kind of symbolizes what they’re here to do. It’s hard for people to kind of accept that sometimes. But man, talk about some like dangerous positions that I’ve been in without even realizing besides people coming up and being like, “Hey, eat.” That was me. I was the one saying you need food. 

Val  05:47

He does that to everybody. It’s very rude.

Josh  05:50

A lot of bad habits for most of us is we don’t realize we’re doing them unless we have the magnification of somebody else showing us what is actually happening. That’s my most significant I would definitely say.

Val  06:03

Are you still doing that?

Josh  06:05

No, I’m doing better with it. Do you see I was eating over up over there?

Nick  06:09

Josh was eating a homemade salad and wrap before we started. When I say homemade, he had like a giant Tupperware. It wasn’t a Tupperware was like a topless bowl. That had tin foil on it.

Josh  06:20

I did, I went, bougie. I made some chicken salad and then I made some lentils with steak.

Nick  06:27

I’m sorry. I don’t know what any of those are.

Josh  06:36

So I’m eating more. I did a meal plan for a little bit and solved some situations and positions change for me. Then I do much better at the kind of making bulk meals to last myself throughout the week to carry with me. And less eating out.

Nick  06:55

I think a big problem I have is sometimes I’ll make it so that I get stuck working out alone. We all know that I’m not the biggest fan of that. I don’t think many of us are. I like getting into classes, our Shark Bite classes. Not just because it’s our classes, but I really like getting into them. They’re fun.

Josh  07:13

Nick loves mornings now.

Val  07:16

We turned Nick into a morning person against his will.

Nick  07:20

It took eight years, but I’m officially a morning person. I tried really hard to survive my afternoon timeframes, but I can’t do it anymore. I just found I would get busy, throughout the day, and I would end up doing a workout by myself at 7:30 at night or in between coaching two classes and that 15-minute gap or something. I decided that wasn’t the most efficient way to do that

Josh  07:41

Working out without warming up because you’re tight on timelines.

Nick  07:45

We wouldn’t teach somebody else to do that. So what kind of hypocrisy is that for me to be doing that? So I combat that by now I get my ass up every day and come to the mornings, which is crazy. But anybody who’s known Nick for a long time knows that that’s not a thing I want to be doing, but it’s worth it because I got to get my work and I usually start my day off way better. I end up being way more productive now too.

Val  08:06

He comes in with a smile anyways.

Nick  08:08

I don’t come in with a smile on that’s not true. Josh, let’s have you start this off. So what’s the most common misconception we’ll hear about injuries?

Josh  08:28

So one of the biggest flaws and misconceptions that I have about injuries is that if you feel that you hurt yourself or you sustain what we quote-unquote call an injury is that you want to stop doing what you’re doing and just sit and rest and let it heal.  The most current research that’s coming out with the greatest substantiality of substance behind it is going towards the direction of active movement and mobility. Within other principles, rehabilitation and stuff like that as well are going to lead you in that direction of getting out of whatever that sustained injury is, and getting you back to a better movement quicker and faster.  Especially here in the gym. People say, “Oh, I injured myself and I can’t come in and do that.” A lot of times, especially with the very unique education aspect that we have as coaches here at Shark Bite between yourself and myself and everybody else included is our ability to scale to put you into positions to where you can actually do movements that will help improve your progression without injury and help get you back better faster.

Nick  09:40

Many people might not know this, but our backgrounds I’m a certified athletic trainer. Josh was a physical therapist assistant, Val has a degree in Exercise Science. We’ve all worked on rehab protocols. It’s so common for people to not know that. I think that’s probably been that way on purpose for many years because it makes doctors a lot of money.

Val  09:59

Even doctors and professionals in the field like me not too long ago, like a year, a year and a half ago, I was at a chiropractor at doctors for a back injury. They’re like, you just need to stop. And I was like, that is the opposite of what I need to do. So I stopped listening to them. And everyone gives me a bunch of slack because I don’t listen to doctors, but then they say things like that.

Nick  10:22

That’s the thing, right? There’s an understandable reason why people feel that way? It’s because, for years and years and years, that’s what they heard. But the most up-to-date science has proven that that’s not true. That was the accepted mindset for a long time, but I mean the doctor who came out with RICE. Rest Ice Compression Elevation, he came out and was like, “My bad. I was wrong. I’m sorry that it’s been that way for so long. I was incorrect about that.”

Josh  10:47

It’s mind-blowing is I don’t even think it was that recent. I think it was a good chunk of almost a decade ago or something like that. Which is pretty mind-blowing.

Nick  10:56

That is the most common thing and not even just in the gym here, but just anywhere. You’ll hear people say, “Oh, I hurt my shoulder, doing whatever, playing baseball with my kids or whatever.” So I guess I’ll just never move my shoulder again. How on earth is that gonna fix the problem?

Val  11:08

I rested it and it got stiff. And now it hurts when I go overhead because you let it sit down here doing nothing. For a long time.

Nick  11:16

I was just having a conversation with a new member yesterday who joined the gym. And she was saying that it’s weird. When she squats. Her knees hurt less. I was like, “That makes sense. That’s how anatomy and physiology kinesiology work.” That’s the point.

Josh  11:32

That’s crazy how we have these systems whether you want to think of it from a hunter-gatherer, from an evolutionary standpoint, we are meant to move, travel, and do things. And it makes sense that if we’re not doing that, our body kind of breaks down. I always made the analogy of motion is lotion, but if you’re not doing anything, you’re kind of a stagnant pool of water, and everything just kind of sits there builds, and magnifies.

Nick  11:58

When I was doing my internships in college, and then in a couple of physical therapy clinics that was hard for me to understand was because I came from that mindset, in the army when you got hurt, either they said, push through it, or they just said like sit in your room and don’t move for three days. Then I was doing rehab protocols with people and they were like, “No, no, you have to push into this pain for you know, for this reason, to achieve this goal.” And I was like, No, I don’t want to do that.

Josh  13:15

Yeah, especially in today’s day and age, like not even just with moving in general, but there’s such a stigma about saying, Oh, that hurts. Don’t do it. But there’s like a healthy level of discomfort that like we should as individuals like stress induces growth.

Nick  13:30

That’s a really good point, too, right? I think a lot of people are confused like, hurt and discomfort, as they are two different things and they, ‘ll feel the same if you haven’t felt them yet.

Josh  13:40

If you’re confused about those go find your local movement and health professional and they will educate you on what types of pains are good and bad.

Nick  13:48

What I feel is most common like that. Ankle sprains. If you’ve never sprained your ankle, or it’s been like a crazy long time, since you did you’re like, oh, that didn’t hurt that bad. But spraining your ankle really, really hurts. Like it is incredibly damaging. It’s incredibly painful, but doing nothing doesn’t make it better. The best way to fix an ankle sprain is controlled movement. That’s the way to do it not to lay in your couch for three weeks.  So what is something that you guys wish you had known when you first started physical fitness, whatever that was, whether it be here or just kind of like before you made it an important part of your life?

Val  14:43

I have so many. I knew so little when I started. Everyone does. Nobody really knows anything when they start. But I started working out in a gym a lot because when I was in gymnastics, I wanted that extra edge. I thought that if I just did more conditioning and I got stronger and did all the things that in theory you’re supposed to do to make you better then I would be better. So I started training like crazy amounts of times per day and hours and whatever. But I wish I knew, how to achieve the goals I wanted. So I was doing super high volume, workouts, lighter weights because I was a 14-year-old girl. That’s what you did. And you didn’t go into the gym and back squat and whatever. Eventually, I did because I got into weightlifting classes and stuff in high school. I was doing all these high volume, low rep things because those were the directions my coaches were giving me in gymnastics, you can’t put on too much muscle mass and they were still very old school in their ways. And touching a weight was taboo, we had five-pound little plates. If we use those that were going very heavy. So I didn’t really know how to properly get stronger, to be good at the things that I wanted to be good at. I wish I knew that because I think would have been a better athlete. But instead of just kind of like throwing darts out, seeing where they landed.

Nick  16:19

I’m not going to just let this slide by like Val just made it seem like she’s not an amazing athlete.

Val  16:23

In gymnastics. I was not a good gymnast, we’re not gonna pretend like I was.

Nick  16:30

What about you, Josh, what do you wish you knew,

Josh  16:33

I wish I knew that there’s strength in the foundations. That it’s not always just about lifting heavy to get the heavyweights up overhead, it’s a lot about the quality work that we do on the background of it that really pays off. That helps you substantially build your strength on top of it. I had a very unique opportunity where actually I just hit my year and a half postop like last week. So that’s pretty cool. But I had an opportunity to restart my movement journey last year. And because of that, I kind of took that principle that I was able to learn over the years and rehab and apply them to what I wish I would have known in the beginning. For me personally, I’m really mind blown at the results. It’s been a really cool journey to be able to apply those things that I wish I knew in the beginning.

Nick  17:21

I wish I just realized that it’s a long game, we do the committed club here and the people that come to a certain amount of times, it’s 13 classes per month, and then starting in 2022, it’ll be 15. So fair warning, everybody, but the committed club is a clear indication of the fittest people in the gym. t’s not, those aren’t necessarily the people who lift the most weight or like, do the fastest, but they’re the most consistent, right? I wished especially because I started this when I was really young, that I would have understood that. I can remember times when I would not start a workout program or something because I hadn’t bought protein yet. I would think why waste a time on the workout? Because I don’t have the protein yet. Or I would like I haven’t found the right plan on men’s health or something, it’s like I better not start till I find the right plan. And recognizing that if I started working out earlier, I would have been way better, way faster. Because the compounding interest of how you do. So I definitely just wish I would have recognized like, Yeah, you don’t need to do muscle-ups fast. You don’t need to do all the workouts really hard. You don’t have to wait for anything to be perfect. It’s a long game. Just start. They say the best time to invest was 10 years ago, right? The best time to start working out was last week. That would have been really good for me. Well, then this might be similar what has fitness done for you personally?

Josh  19:09

I mean, besides just a better movement, life, mental health has been my greatest benefit. The fitness for me just kind of gives me a chance to escape whether it be here in the gym or rock climbing or anything like that. Clarity as far as it’s very easy to get into your head. I’m a very big mental health advocate for people on being very open about finding that it’s necessary for people to talk about things. Sometimes it takes a definite dose of self-reflection and putting myself into those extreme positions of being able to elevate my heart rate and kind of shut my mind off and focus on just a task that’s in front of me for a period of time gives me an option. You really step back and allow me to organize what’s going on in my head and what needs to be done direction and stuff like that.

Nick  20:11

Getting to shut your brain off a little bit, and be like, I’m just focused on picking up this barbell or doing these pull-ups or getting my ass kicked on this bike or whatever. We live in such a distracted world now. There’s so much stimulus all the time, everywhere from every direction, so many opportunities to make decisions and talk to people and check your likes on Instagram, or whatever the hell is taking your attention. Getting an hour where it’s like, my brain is off. I’m focused on Caveman tasks, lift things, do things move fast, that’s really, really beneficial for me. So I feel you on that one.

Val  20:52

I agree completely. But I’ll give you guys a different answer to so it’s not three of the same answer. Fitness is pretty much guided my life for the past 10 years. So everything that’s happened has almost happened around the gym or around some sort of type of training. But it hasn’t always been the same. I started out like I said because I wanted to be a better gymnast. So I was like, smaller, leaner, lighter, faster, stronger, but didn’t really know what that meant. As I started getting later into my teen years, I started kind of finding CrossFit stuff on social media, powerlifting stuff, things like that. I was like, that’s cool. I want to be strong like that. Then I started leaning into that a little bit, started picking up a barbell, started getting comfy with those movements. Then I also had a lot of male influence between my brother and his friends, and they were all into the gym and lifting and things like that. Well, I want to keep up with them. Because why not? So my goals kind of shifted from the smaller, more female ideology of what society pushes on us into what can I do? What are the badass cool things I can do? How strong can I be? And look at all these impressive things I can do now regardless of weight, aesthetics, anything like that. I feel better. I’m less injured than I used to be. And focused more on just like doing cool shit.

Nick  22:45

I like that a lot. There’s been a big shift in talking to women when they come into the gym. And it used to be really common to just hear the words like I want to be skinny. That’s it. I want to be skinny and now I hear so much more often. Like I want to be strong. They might not always be saying that word. They might say the word like toned or something but that’s what they’re looking for. I’ll say another one for me, too, is in the mental health aspect is that other things feel easier when you work out. When you do hard workouts, I feel like other challenges in your day to day life don’t feel as drastic, that leaning into something challenging every single day, coming in here, and doing the workout we did today, which is biking and goblet squats, which is really hard. Years ago, I might have been like, I can’t do that, but I get the feeling of accomplishment every time I do. So then when I need to make a bigger business decision or something. It’s not nearly as challenging as it could have been, because I’m already doing a little bit of hard stuff every day.

Josh  23:51

I think it’s an important life lesson to learn. That’s something that I’ve been implementing with my son, he’ll come in here, and we’ll be doing something it’ll be challenging. But you do this and then because now that you find that you’ve had the ability to do something that you didn’t think that you were able to, you’re gonna find that that’s going to translate into other tasks as well. You’re going to be able to start getting out of that headspace of saying, Hey, I can’t do this and say, Okay, well, I know if I just push through this, I am able to work my way through something.

Nick  24:21

I agree with that for sure. This one is a good one for you, Val.  The question is, how do you stay motivated to continue showing up to work out instead of blowing it off to do something else?

Val  24:49

I have a really hard time answering that because like I said for the past 10 years this is all I’ve known and wanted to come in and do sometimes two-three times a day so I have a really hard time relating to prioritizing something else over the gym. But you have to make it fun. You have to make it something that you want to go and do, whether it’s you turn it into a social thing, and you’re like, all my friends are there, or you have a goal and you’re like, I have to show up and do this in order to achieve this. But it can’t be a goal that you’re setting just for an end game, you have to get some sort of fulfillment from it. So I think there has to be something you’re working towards, you can’t just be, I’m going into the gym, and I’m going to work out. I come in and um, do it again tomorrow. And like, maybe get better, I don’t know. Like, you have to go in with the purpose of going in, putting your focus into it, and then getting out. If all you want to do is go in and devote 20 minutes to it, go in and devote 20 focused minutes in the gym, you don’t have to go in and spend an hour to three hours to make progress on anything. So make it fun and find something that you want to do. Because nobody can want it for you.

 Nick  26:12

I think that part is really important because unlike you, I did not grow up being a gym person. I didn’t play sports. Even in the army, I wasn’t in very good shape. I was in like, the required amount of shape I needed to be in not, but not like, Oh man, I enjoy this. It was like, This is hell I have to do to not get yelled at and maybe not die. It wasn’t like, oh, I can’t wait to go to the gym. So for me, it’s you got to find something you enjoy. An unpopular thing to say like maybe this, isn’t it? Like, that’s okay, right? But you got to find something that you find fun. And then because you find it fun, you’ll be like, Okay, I will stick to this. And then kind of like what I said before that long game starts to pay off.

 Val  26:53

It’s not even directly the gym, lifting weights. It’s going out and riding bikes, going for a walk, going and playing basketball with your friends, any type of activity that– I get enjoyment out of that. Because not everybody enjoys lifting heavyweights. I don’t get it. But that’s what I’ve been told.

Josh  27:16

There’s nothing wrong with it. I’ll have people that will come into my clinic that don’t go to this gym. And they’re like, Yeah, but I don’t want that style workout. And I was like, at the end of the day, like realistically I care less what style of workout fits your personal needs because you as an individual need to find happiness with it. Whatever setting that you can be functionally active in whether it be a traditional gym, whether it be like functional fitness or CrossFit based gym, or whether you’re swimming laps like anything that’s keeping you active, getting that heart rate up, getting that variability in there is going to help make you a better person. So find what your fit is.

 Val  27:50

The best workout plan is the one you do.

Nick  27:54

I mean there couldn’t be anything more true than that. If Zumba is your thing, man if you’ll go to it, go do it. If you’ll get it going, get it going.

 Josh  28:02

We’re just all here to make everybody help healthier and happier and if we’re not the place where we want to help you find what is.

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Check Josh and Val on these social links:

Josh’s IG: @josh_echelson  

Val’s IG: @valerie_gunning

Be sure to check out this episode of the #TheSharkBiteShow. 

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