There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
The Only 3 Fitness Metrics That Actually Matter
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
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Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a method to the madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Hello everybody, rob here and we're going to talk about some fitness.
Speaker 1:Over the last week or so I've been sending out our emails and been talking a lot about the metrics and giving you different metrics that matter and things like that. Metrics and giving you different metrics that matter and things like that. So I decided I'm going to do an entire podcast on what ones we should be paying attention to and what ones we should just let go by the wayside, because you know we got enough to think about without being hammered by influencers and marketers and people basically trying to sell you a bill of goods and a bunch of snake oil, like things you should pay attention to and things you shouldn't, and whatnot, and you know it's pretty simple. Now, before I get into that. Let me say, though, that metrics do matter. I've always said that if you can measure it, you can manage it, and that's nothing, of course, I created, but it's true in fitness too. If we can really put an objective goal by something, we're more likely to do the behavior that's going to bring that goal about. So it does matter.
Speaker 1:The things I've always done since I started out was I'll do an assessment with somebody and I will test the five health components of physical fitness in one way shape or form, and those are muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiorespiratory, body composition and flexibility, and from there get some objective numbers of where somebody is, and then make goals where they most need to be. So, for example, if they have a very healthy body fat percentage, that's not going to be on our priority list, but maybe the same person is lower in muscular strength as seen by the push-ups that they did in their assessment. Then we are going to build the program more towards strength and a little bit less towards food and body composition. So that, I believe, has always worked, taking more of a scientific approach to training. So metrics absolutely do matter.
Speaker 1:We just have to know what to pay attention to and in the era of, you know, ai and an era of all the new technology, it can get quite confusing. All right, so the other day I talked about calories, calories being a metric that matters, and it is. I mean, I'm just going to kind of briefly sort of go through the ones that work and then the ones not to pay attention to, and then reinforce the ones that work again, because I believe that's what we should always do is end on a positive, whatever we're doing. So calories is a metric that we should pay attention to. I mean, plain and simple. There are other variables involved with weight loss. There's a lot of different things, but it still is going to come down to if we want to lose weight, we need to eat less than we burn, plain and simple. If we want to maintain, we bring in the human body in food is calories. I mean calories are a unit of energy, so calories are a metric we should, if we want to lose weight or if our goal is to maintain our weight pay attention to.
Speaker 1:Does that mean we need to be obsessed every way, you know? Do we have to be like, oh man, this, this and this? Well, no, but again, I don't want to get into all of that. I want to make it clear that they matter and how you deal with it is important. You know like I can't control all of the different types of folks in different conditions that might be out there. So if you've been told by your therapist or your general practitioner to not count calories because it's taken you down a bad road before, like either disordered eating or eating disorder, then by all means you need to listen to them.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't change the facts. Sometimes we really struggle with that as society. So well, I thought we weren't supposed to do that. Well, they weren't supposed to do that. But if you are overweight and you don't have a tendency towards obsessing over that, then you do need to do that. Or you should do that, or it should help you.
Speaker 1:And I think that's why so many people are afraid these days to come out and give people the declarations of what they should do, because not everything is black and white. I mean to lose weight, we have to take in less than we put out. That's pretty black and white. But whether or not you can do that safely and healthfully, I can't answer that I can. I like to track, I like to look at it. I'm not trying to lose weight, but I do like to pay attention to that and it works for me. And no, I don't get obsessed over it, it's just kind of like interesting information that I can utilize. Okay, so calories count, weight Checking, the body weight Hate to break it to you folks.
Speaker 1:Metrics do matter. If we pay attention to how much we weigh, studies have shown it that people that tend to weigh on a regular basis, normally every day, tend to manage their weight over their lifetime better than people that don't. All right. So again, just like the calories. If you have gotten obsessed in the past with the scale and it has led you down an unhealthy road of addiction or eating disorder or whatever, then no, it is not for you.
Speaker 1:But the research states those that continue to monitor their weight stay at a healthy weight and that's really the key. A lot of people can lose weight. Can people lose the weight they need to lose and maintain? It is the more harder question, right or harder solution harder thing to do. Well, studies show that if we continue to maintain or monitor our weight, we will maintain our weight better. And again, yes, people can get obsessed.
Speaker 1:And also, yes, weight isn't everything. That's a fact. I mean, body composition matters, there's no question about it. So a person who's muscular and weighs more is absolutely healthier than a person that has more body fat and weighs more. Yes, weight isn't everything. So we have to remember, with these metrics, we have to take all of that into consideration. Two things can be true at the same time, and that seems to be a hard concept for people to understand in society. Regarding everything, two things can be true at the same time. Keeping a regular check on our weight helps us maintain our weight, and weight isn't everything. Both things can be true, but it is a metric that we should pay attention to.
Speaker 1:All right, here's another one, a metric that matters. Studies have shown that people that can do regular pushups and one of the latest studies was 11. Why, I don't know, who cares, but 11. 11. Are far less likely to have issues in older age with muscle loss and strength loss. So, yes, the amount of push-ups is a metric that we can pay attention to just like everything else. That doesn't mean if you can't do push-ups because maybe you tore your rotator cuff back in 1975 and you haven't really been able to do exercises similar to that in a long time doesn't mean you're screwed. It just is a metric that matters. Why? Well, most likely because it's one of the best representations of upper body strength. So, yes, it is something that we should pay attention to. We use it in our assessments all the time.
Speaker 1:First, we'll see can they do a standard push-up? I mean, if they can, that's already a good metric. Wow, you can do a push-up. If you can do 10 push-ups I mean 10 standard push-ups I think you're fit, you're going to be fit. The metric says 11, whatever, but you're going to be fit To work up to that. Yeah, modified is great. We have to remember two things can be true at the same time. The standard push-up is a metric that longevity specialists have looked at and determined. It matters as far as how many you can do and your ability to age gracefully. So to say there is a direct causation effect or at least I should say a direct correlation effect to that for sure, and not everybody can do them for different reasons. Right Doesn't mean it's not a good metric. It means that you may not be able to do them, but we should pay attention to the gist of it with that.
Speaker 1:Now, a quick side note. With this one, I will say that those are three metrics we really should be paying attention to, and I'm going to further explain that when I talk about the ones we shouldn't. But those are like three that really tend to matter Calories, weighing ourselves, push-ups but I got a little caveat to this push-up one. With push-ups and other bodyweight exercises, I mean they are fantastic. But lately, if you've been paying attention to the news and especially all over social media, well, we've had different politicians and government officials like jumping on this. I don't know. Basically, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on, and I think both sides have been doing it. So I guess it really doesn't matter, but acting kind of like children, like hearing that, oh, you know you're not alpha, you can't do this.
Speaker 1:So they've been posting these videos of themselves doing. One of them I saw was pull-ups and push-ups, and then another one I saw yesterday was bench presses. I'm like, oh God, right, but the pull-ups and the push-ups that I saw online. So again, most people turned it into partisan. So if they were on their side of the aisle, they thought it was great that they were doing them. If they were on the opposite side of the aisle, they made fun of them. And I'm going to take it from an exercise physiologist slash personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach. That was easy to say. So all three. I'm just basically trying to say, hey, I'm going to take this from a very professional standpoint and tell you, the pull ups and push ups that I witnessed sucked, so nobody should be counting any of those that they were doing. So when we talk about these metrics, we have to do them correctly, all right.
Speaker 1:In this case they were saying that they were doing. I think it was 50 pull upsups broken up and then 100 push-ups broken up, or something like that. From what I saw, there wasn't one pull-up done. I mean they might have said they did 50. I mean one guy did them halfway down, like barely even came down, and then threw his chin back over the bar. Another guy had some assistance the whole time he was doing it still didn't do them right. The other guy went the opposite route. He went down but he barely went up. So they were not full pull-ups. There was not a single pull-up completed by either of them.
Speaker 1:And then I mean, and pull-ups are hard, I mean, guys, if you're gonna try to show off with the videos going, oh my god, maybe pick something you can actually do. That still surprises me sometimes when people of that level don't have handlers around, going bro, like you don't want to post some pull-ups trust me, you don't want to but I guess they have all their yes men around who are telling them how wonderful they are, I don't know. And then their pushups oh my goodness, like I'm sorry, but a remotely athletic male should be able to do a decent amount of pushups, like at least five. And their pushups were. It's so funny because in the Max Fit Games we did I even did a whole video on don't do bro pushups and they were so doing bro pushups. It was a joke which means basically lie on the floor and come up maybe two inches and go back down Like elbows are like so far away from lockout, it's not even a pushup. And they're both doing them and looking at each other like little kids. I'm like, guys, you are not setting an example of what we need to be doing because you are teaching horrible form.
Speaker 1:And I know both of these guys, important people, and they could have got somebody from the military. You know, I mean, gosh, the military has great standards. I mean, the academies do a great job. They could have got some of their generals or something out there. You know that are still super fit to do this for them. And you know, go, hey, you know they're going to now demonstrate what we want the country to do. That would be awesome, but they didn't, and that's not good. And then, real quickly, moving on to the bench press thing I saw yesterday both parties had one hundred and thirty five pounds in the bar and it was an alpha off I want to call it who can do more. And both of them got made fun of extremely bad and it was probably something they shouldn't have done. So then we'll wrap this up.
Speaker 1:So does the bench press metric matter? Not at all. People Push-ups yes, bench press no. But the moral of this quick little side story is if you're gonna do it, do it right, okay. So when they say 11 push-ups, they mean 11 push-ups. They don't mean 11, bro pushups, they don't mean 11, like, go a quarter of the way down and go back up pushups. No, they mean full range of motion. Pushups to where your arms are parallel when you're at the bottom and your elbows are locked out when you're at the top. That is an actual pushup, and the hips and the sternum and the chest stay in alignment the whole time. That's a push-up.
Speaker 1:So when we test our metrics, they have to be done right. So now let's talk about some of them that we don't need to be paying attention to. So, in any order not really of order of importance but your watches that tell you how many calories you're burning during activity. That's not a metric you need to pay attention to, because number one it really doesn't matter how many calories you're burning during activity. That's not a metric you need to pay attention to, because number one it really doesn't matter how many calories you burn when you strength train. That's not the point of strength training. You really aren't going to burn a ton of calories during strength training. That's not the point, because there's rest involved. There's work for 10 to 30 seconds and then there's rest to the next machine. There's not going to be a lot of calories burned during a strength training session. So that metric doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:When you go to cardio, it's probably not going to be overly accurate. It's using your body heat and your temperature to try to read how many calories. It's a halfway decent assessment, but not a great assessment. And when it comes to calories, that can matter greatly. So you might think, well, it's only off by 50 calories. Well, that's a lot. So don't even use that.
Speaker 1:When you use your smartwatches which is fine for exercise Use it for heart rate, for sure you can see how well you're recovering. Use it as sort of a track to time it. So then if you forget, you know you can go back and look, but you don't need to use it for the calorie burn. That's a metric that does not matter. Now, how about a lot of the strength numbers at your gym? Well, here's the thing with that. Absolutely, strength matters. I mean, there's no question, if you can lift more load than you used to, you're getting stronger. Here's the problem with that. Unless it's barbell or dumbbells, you don't know if it's all the same. So if you can say well, you know, I think I'm getting stronger because you know, when I'm at your gym I do this, but when I go on a cruise I do this and it's more weight. It's like well, we don't know that it's equal, right Matter of fact. I know it is not equal Every selectorized machine out there, and this isn't a bad thing, but they're different.
Speaker 1:They have different cams in them, they have different lengths of how far the stack moves. They have different geometry as far as where the handles go. The guide rods might be better oiled on some and less oiled on others, which is going to create either less friction or more friction. So that's going to change the numbers. If there's rust on the guide rod, that's going to form resistance. That wasn't there. If it's a smooth guide rod, I mean it doesn't matter. Even a Smith machine, which all look almost the same, they're all going to be different.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're comparing your numbers to your numbers at your location, yes, that metric matters. But If you go into it fatigued, you may not get the same number. So kind of like body weight. Two things can be true at the same time. Or I should say weighing yourself, yes, if your numbers are going up on a regular basis at your gym using the same consistent exercises and machines, yes, that matters, and you may have days where you're more fatigued. Or you did another exercise in front of an exercise which changed the number on the second exercise and then it's going to show less strength and also that doesn't matter. So two things can be true at the same time. Overall, I wouldn't worry about comparing your numbers that you're seeing at your gym with numbers other people are doing at their gym.
Speaker 1:I would not pay attention to that metric if you are. For example, if somebody gets on their social media platform and says I did 20 reps at 150 pounds on the leg press, and then you can maybe get all proud of yourself and say you did 200 pounds for the same amount of reps on your leg press. You don't know if the leg presses match up with each other, so don't compare those numbers. Those are metrics that do not matter. All right, here's a metric, another metric you don't really need to pay attention to. I gave you three to focus on and now I'm going to give you three, not to.
Speaker 1:The next one is your macro nutrients. Okay, that's an obsession. That's probably the one I see the most online. Oh, count your macros, count your carb grams, count your protein grams, count your fat grams. Look, weight loss is going to come down the calories and everybody having different body weights and different conditions. There isn't going to be a macro number that is ideal for everybody across the board.
Speaker 1:So your protein numbers? I mean, yes, we do need protein, sure, but your protein numbers are going to change based on your body weight, based on your activity level and based on whether or not you have medical conditions or not. So a person that's been told they need to protect their kidneys doesn't need to be on a higher protein diet. So when you see these different stats out there where they say you need so many grams of protein per day, that is nine times out of ten somebody trying to sell you protein or a meal plan. We all need protein and we need to time it and we need to have it frequently. All this is true, but the actual metric of how much per day is so variable that, instead of counting it, you should just pay attention to it and figure it out for yourself. One way you can know are you recovering from your workouts? Well, are you not recovering? Well? Well, if you are, you probably are getting enough protein. If you're not, maybe you're not.
Speaker 1:But the point is we don't need to count our macronutrients. Okay, carbohydrates same thing. Now, again, you have to remember. Two things can be true at the same time. So if your doctor says, look, you are diabetic, you do have to count your carb grams, I need you to count this, then count them. That's different. I'm talking about the general population that doesn't have issues with this, doesn't need to be trying to figure out how many carbohydrates they need.
Speaker 1:We need a balance of all three macronutrients. We don't need to be on a low-carb diet. We don't need to be on a high-protein diet, we don't need to be on a zero-fat diet. We need to have all three in proper balance. We do not necessarily need to count our macronutrients and get to a certain point. It's usually protein where people do it. Well, not too many people count the fat, but a lot of people will count protein to try to get it up and they'll count their carbs to try to get it down.
Speaker 1:Both thinking is off. Okay, we need all three. We need to learn how to think for ourselves and go I need nutrient dense foods. So not all carbohydrates are the same, and that's another big reason that you shouldn't count, because there's a huge difference between a sweet potato and a bag of Twizzlers. Okay, both are carbs, both are going to count as carbs. Huge, huge difference.
Speaker 1:So we need to think about are these nutrient-dense, good, out-of-the-ground carbohydrates or is this processed sugar? You say, well then, maybe I should count sugar. No, you shouldn't, because, again, if you put a banana into your MyFitnessPal, you're going to see that it's pretty darn high in sugar. And a banana sugar it's fructose isn't nearly as problematic. It's not problematic at all, actually. But it's not that problem that when you see the processed sugar like the Twizzler why do I have Twizzlers on my mind? I had no idea. When I thought of pure sugar, that's what came to my mind.
Speaker 1:And final thing on this endurance athletes, they need some sugar anyway. They need real pure sugar during their endurance events. So we just can't use that as a metric. Okay, so no on comparing your weights to other people at the gym. Ignore that metric. No on exercise caloric expenditure during or after workouts no. And macronutrients no. Those are three metrics I don't want you to pay attention to. Do pay attention to your calories, do pay attention to your weight and do see if you can and try to improve your push-ups. Okay, metrics matter, but they have to be the right metrics. Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and please select automatic download, because that really helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product. They have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
