042 How To Create Sustainable Change: The Philosophy Of Fitness Ep. 32

00:00 Icebreaker: Latest dream

07:28 Cornering yourself into the things you know you want to do, but for some reason resits. Freedom can be hard

12:51 Making progress

19:03 The first result to seek from your efforts should be to change your identity. Explore this idea further here:  STOP SETTING GOALS!: Learn the Lyceum Method to achieve more, stress less, and love all your life. by Cody Limbaugh, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

26:38 Listen to more about Boundaries here

27:47 Never Do Nothing - Kelly Starrett

41:04 Pain VS. Progress

47:56 Listen to: Prioritizing Joy In The Pursuit Of Success

48:00 Pacing for Progress

52:04 Consistency helps us to know ourselves better, and self knowledge is a powerful tool

53:12 Listen to your body as a trusted advisor, but don't let it become your master

57:22 Grease the Groove

01:02:03 Exercise demos from us: FitTogether YouTube

01:02:00 The Amazing Effects From Five Minutes A Day

01:14:45 The importance of external support

01:15:00 A summary of many powerful methods for changing your life

Couples - Proven Fitness & Intimacy Practices To Achieve Your Health and Relationship Goals Together!
To learn more or book a brainstorming call, visit HowToFitTogether.com

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Transcript

Cody: 0:56

Hi, this is Cody Limbaugh. And

Tali: 0:58

I'm Tali Zabari, and you're listening to the Philosophy of Fitness Podcast on the live

Cody: 1:03

All Your Life Network.

Tali: 1:28

Hey doll. Hey, baby. It's been a minute. It's

Cody: 1:31

been a few

Tali: 1:32

minutes. Yeah. Yeah, we got a little bit out of the habit of recording every weekend. I can't exactly put my finger on as to why, but it happened, which I feel like that's a funny way to start this podcast considering what our topic is today. Yeah.

Cody: 1:48

Well we're not, we're not claiming to be perfect here. No. Just cuz we're coaches. We had some in the tank thankfully, so we didn't have any gaps in our publishing. Right.

Tali: 1:58

But we're down to the wire. Yes. And so we're producing again. And today's icebreaker is what, what is was the last dream that you remember having?

Cody: 2:11

Man, that's a hard one for me cuz I hardly ever remember my dreams.

Tali: 2:15

I know. But I think forcing yourself to try to remember helps.

Cody: 2:20

It does help. But that only works if you do, like, have a reminder for yourself first thing in the morning.

Tali: 2:25

Yeah. If they fade or like really get jumbly if you let a few hours pass. Yeah. Well, do you remember anything that you, it doesn't have to be last night, but the last dream that you remember having.

Cody: 2:37

I know even that is hard. I'm not struggling to remember anything.

Tali: 2:41

Well, I'll go first. Maybe that'll buy you a little bit of time. My dream last night, I definitely don't remember the details anymore, but I do remember that we were looking at apartments in Portland. I like we were gonna move back or something. And the weird thing about dreams sometimes is that there will be things in your dreams that feel really familiar, even if you've never seen them before. So there was a particular apartment layout that I can, I can kind of see in my mind if I think about it really hard. In my dream at the time, it was supposed to represent, like, oh, a familiar place or somewhere we had already lived which is super strange. And it's different from like reoccurring dreams. I have had dreams that have taken place in the same house, whatever, multiple times.

Cody: 3:38

Yeah. I've had a few of those too. I have, I have a couple locations that I've dreamt about locations. Yeah. Several times that I have never actually seen in real life.

Tali: 3:45

Isn't that weird? Yeah. But there's like a feeling of familiarity. Oh yeah. It's like when you're dreaming, it feels comfortable, like it would in real life. I, I don't understand how it works at all. But I do watch a lot of like, house DIY stuff and like really love interior design. So maybe it is inspired by a place that I've seen before. I don't know. But I definitely know it was a dream because I don't think we plan to move back to Portland. No. Like ever, no

Cody: 4:17

nice to visit. I don't think I wanna live there again. It's

Tali: 4:21

weird because I've lived in Portland for such a long time. I was born there, I grew up there, went away for a while, and then came back and there's so much of it that I love. But I don't know, I think that sense of familiarity is like not exciting to me. Hmm. I would rather explore somewhere else. Somewhere new. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's such a beneficial, I don't know, not tool or characteristic, but just like an attitude to have that you can make anywhere your home. Hmm. Yeah. I've moved a couple of times in my life and I think, you know, the first time wasn't very far away, but it was at a really important time in my life where there was a lot of change, and so that was really significant. And then moving here, I would say, Is significant because of how different it is. Not necessarily the point in my life, but just for a different reason. And it's, they've been really important experiences. Yeah,

Cody: 5:23

yeah, yeah. Well I do remember a dream. Yay. Yeah. I wish I remembered it more clearly cuz I remember at the time thinking, well this is kind of like one of those lesson dreams, which don't happen very often. I have a hard time with people who assign a lot of meaning to their dreams because most of my dreams have just felt like completely complete, utter nonsense that's like completely useless. But this one seemed to be one of those dreams, like you might see in a movie like this is very symbolic. Okay. And so a recurring theme that I've had in my dreams for the last year or so is this overwhelming sense of frustration that occurs within the dream. And a lot of times it's either me trying to get ahold of you, like via phone. Mm-hmm. And my phone won't work. And in the dream it's sort of like hours or maybe days go by without being able to reach you. Mm-hmm. And having the sensation like you are feeling like I'm neglecting you or rejecting you or have left you or something like that. And I'm like trying to get ahold of you and I just can't. And it's weird. It's weirdly frustrating. The other version is I'm trying to get somewhere and I'm, no matter how hard I'm running in my dream is like slow motion walking. It's like all I'm capable of doing is walking. Mm. And. Every muscle in my body is tensed up and I'm like struggling to sprint. And all that's happening is a slow walk. And I'm just So, you're sprinting in your mind. Frustrated. Like even my body is just all tensed up and everything. I'm just not moving. And people are like walking by me with ease, you know? It's weird. It's just weird. Just utterly frustrating sensation. And this was one of those dreams and I was trying to get down a sidewalk. And here's the kind of symbolic part though, is like I get to an intersection, which is symbolic how castaway

Tali: 7:28

of you. And at

Cody: 7:29

that intersection, it's in the city though. And at that intersection though, I look to my side and the person next to me on the sidewalk is Jordan Peterson. What? And he's always talking about like dreams and meaning and you know, all this psych psychology of. Choice. And, and here I am at an intersection talking to Jordan Peterson about this frustration and choices that I'm making or whatever. And I, like I said, I wish I could remember more, cuz at the time it seemed like it was bringing me some clarity. And here it is a few weeks later and I'm like, eh, I forgot. So Well, what's the lesson? That's what I'm saying. I wish I could remember it more. I got it. It's kind of faded, but well, there's

Tali: 8:06

a lot of irony, that's for sure. Yeah.

Cody: 8:09

So maybe I'll, okay, maybe I'll journal about it and remember what I was thinking at the time that there was some sort of lesson. But yeah, I think I have been feeling like I've been making some changes lately as far as just dialing in my daily habits and you know, I've been working from home by myself for the most part since November, and we're in April now. And so as with anything, when you start something new, it's always easy. It's like this new exciting honeymoon phase, and then there's sort of like a lull or a dip where it's like, oh shit. It's like I'm, I'm not beholden to a boss. I have no time card. I have, I'm not checking in and like signing in for work and signing up. You have nowhere where to be. Yeah, I have, I have appointments, but no, that's true. But not all day. So, and I purposefully stack most of my appointments to the morning because I get an appointment anxiety if they're in the afternoon. It's like, it feels like it affects my whole day, even though it's a one hour session. It's just on my mind and it's like coming up and, and that anticipation just sort of like messes with me. So I like to put all my appointments first thing in the morning.

Tali: 9:25

Sounds like a typical split shift coach. Yeah. Kind of thing.

Cody: 9:29

But but having all my appointments in the morning also means I'm off the hook after my last appointment. It's like the rest of the day is mine, which I love, but it can be a trap because it's easy to be like, well, I'm tired, I'm gonna go take a nap. You know, instead of doing work that needs to be done, keeping the momentum going. Yeah. So I do feel like in the last few weeks, like since that dream even, I've kind of been dialing in my, I dunno if you can call it self discipline or just like organizing myself to be a little bit more effective. And I feel like I'm on an upswing good when it comes to that. And so I think that might relate to those dreams. Like I have this frustration of trying to run somewhere and can't move very quickly. And in my real life I kind of have this hangup with never feeling like I've been as effective as I need to be in a day Yeah. To get shit done. So anyway, I feel like I'm on an upswing with that still not exactly where I want to be or, or visualize myself, but, well,

Tali: 10:34

there's a lot to figure out when you have your own schedule. Mm-hmm. It's not obvious. And I think sometimes when you try to recreate your day as if you had a job, you know, you might find that that doesn't work. You have to try a lot of different things, I think, to find mm-hmm. Your groove and what's gonna work for you and appeal to your energy and

Cody: 10:56

Well, and a lot of jobs have narrow parameters, so, Even if it's not a factory job where you're like putting the same bolt in the, in the million cars in a day, you know, like even if it's not some rote thing, even the more creative jobs still tend to have sort of lanes that you're in and you're in that lane and that's your job and you do that. But as a business owner, you wear all the hats. Like I'm in all the lanes. You do a lot, whether it's the marketing, the programming, the coaching, the you know, prospect calls building the website. Like it's, it's everything. All, all the things are there. It's endless. It's all on the table and it's all on the table every day. And so it's, it's easy to just sort of not know where to start. I think a big problem with entrepreneurialism and people who are trying to, whether it's trying to take their side hustle into their full-time thing or whatever, I think a, a big lesson is for people to learn how to get clarity on what they should be doing. Cuz it's just so Oh yeah. Easy. It's so easy to be busy and not get anywhere. Yeah. Busy but not effective. Oh yeah. And I had a saying for it, but now I forgot to sing. But anyway. You're, you're, oh, it's, it's like you're doing activities but not really taking action. Like, the difference is you're, you're active doing things, but a lot of what you do might not actually move the needle to make progress on your business. Sure. It's just things that you think you should be doing cuz it feels like you're, you're doing work, you know? Like for, for us maybe writing a blog or something like, That's, that feels if, you know, like part of the work, part of the job, but it has zero effect. Like nobody reads blogs anymore and at least not ours. And if they do, it's like maybe some blog that's like already popular has conversations going around it. They have a huge following, some author that's sold a million copies of their book or something. But for us, plebes are here. Just kinda like trying to get discovered in the blogging world. Blogging is something that happened 20 years ago and so even though it's cool, we both like to write, that's probably not the most effective use of our time in order to, you know, get the exposure we need and build on our business. It's not the highest priority. Yeah. So just kind of an example of like activity versus really taking action on things that move the needle.

Tali: 13:31

Well I think that's a fair segue into what we wanna talk about today. Our topic has a few ideas that we wanna explore, but I would say the overall. Gist, our overall idea is about steady progress and not only like different ways to manage that steady progress. I feel like that ties really well into what you were just talking about cuz it really takes figuring out, I think. Mm-hmm. I think, and you have to be open to, I think trying different methods or having to play with different intensities to see like what you can actually hang with or what's gonna be too far over the edge. So yeah. Steady progress, let's just call it that. Mm-hmm. And then start going into this like subcategories.

Cody: 14:24

Yeah. Well, I mean, the old cliche, slow and steady wins the race with the tortoise and the hair. Mm-hmm. It's kind of this analogy that people think of, but there's a lot of nuances that I think we can explore in. Trying to figure out what that means for us as individuals and the things that we're trying to achieve. Life seems short sometimes, so we can get in a rush to try to get somewhere that we want to be. And we also have a kind of a society of instant gratification which also I think contributes to this. Whether it's the dopamine hit you get from getting on Instagram or a microwave dinner or fast or fast food, like they're just, yeah, endless examples in our society of instant reward. You know, it's really easy to get your hands on sugar or watch a movie or get on social media or whatever that is. Instant reward is kind of all around us. When we're doing things like working out, you know, it has its own sort of instant rewards. Eventually once you, once you kind of get into the groove you can, it's like, wow, I feel so good cuz I just got done working out. And so you have a little bit of instant intrinsic reward, but it takes some practice to get there. If you're really outta shape, those first few workouts are gonna feel like shit. And so in a way you're working towards something that's a delayed onset reward system. So I think that may be an interesting place to start with this conversation is just like getting the ball rolling and learning a little bit of patience in the results versus the practice that we're doing.

Tali: 16:11

Sure. Well, something I just wanna bring up, I was thinking about as you were saying, all of that is, especially cuz you brought up Instagram, you know, I think it's really easy to forget that all the things that we see on Instagram, Like people doing things with their lives. Like not only do we forget that that's incredibly curated content. Mm-hmm. You know, we're not seeing what's happening between posts by any means. And, you know, quote unquote, posts are forever. And so people are gonna be really thoughtful about what they put up there. And then we also don't know the whole journey that it took them to get there. Mm-hmm. You know, if I think even about my own Instagram, I did a lot of posting when I was really strong and, you know, training all the time, but there were also like 10 years before that where I was just like ramping up. Mm-hmm. It wasn't anything special. It wasn't anything sexy. You know, it does, it's not an overnight success kind of thing. And so I think a lot of times we can be very hard on ourselves when we aren't getting that instant gratification like, Realizing that it takes a lot of really unsexy work. Mm-hmm. And I feel like we've had that conversation with our clients lately about, you know, this is, this result that you're looking for is gonna require you to not only be uncomfortable, but to be uncomfortable often. And you're going to have to change the decisions that you make or make conscious effort all the time. Mm-hmm. All the time. Like changing your life, whether it's fitness or business or anything else. It's a tall order and that's okay. But I think it's important that we don't sugarcoat how, how much work that really takes.

Cody: 18:03

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's, it's one of those things too where you know, you were just talking about. Uncomfortable work, but it could also be a situation where it gets more comfortable with the practice, but you have to put in enough time for it to get there. Yeah. You know, particularly in fitness, sometimes I forget, even though I think I have a little more experience with this than some people, and I think you do too, some coaches sort of like grew up in sports and then they went from sports to athletic training and then to a personal trainer. Mm-hmm. Like they've been in shape their whole fucking life and they have no idea what it's like to be unfit and to be really unfit, unhealthy un Yeah. And so, but I remember when I first got, I was already certified even, and I was still in such poor shape that I would go. I worked at Ballet Total Fitness when I first got my first certification, and I remember going in and doing what I thought was a warmup. Like I would just be moving and starting to push some weights. And 15 minutes in, I, I'd turn green and I'd like have to go to the bathroom and like lay down in the locker room cuz I felt like I was on a puke. And that took, that took a year of training to get over that. Like, wow. I, I would just feel nauseous almost every time I tried to work out. And So I think it's easy to forget now, 20 years later what it must be like for some people to start and then they get really frustrated cuz they might not be seeing results of change in their body or whatever. And it's like, you know, you kind of have to, like, the first result you should be looking for is to kind of change your identity. And I'm probably gonna refer to this book a lot in this podcast because it's just so germane to our topic, which is Atomic Habits by James Clear. And I was just reading in, in it this morning, but he has this quote from the book I think is brilliant. He's like, every action you take right now is a vote for the person that you want to become.

Tali: 20:09

You said that yesterday in a coaching call and I loved the phrasing around it or no, today? Yesterday.

Cody: 20:15

Yesterday. Yesterday. Yeah. And I think we just have to remember that, that these like small incremental steps, it's not that we're. It's not that we're necessarily doing a workout to get a result, we're doing a re a workout in with the intention of being consistent enough that that becomes who we are. We are the type of people who don't miss workouts and the type of people who don't miss workouts are the type of people who are fit. Yeah. It's not, do a workout, get a result, do a workout, get a result. It's building a lifestyle around how you think, how you move, how you structure your days the career choices that you have. Like I, it's, it's amazing the, a number of people I talk to who's like livelihood prevents them from working out and is an excuse for like, their poor eating habits and their poor lifestyle. And it's like, you know, I, I understand we all have to pay bills, but. You really have to stop and think about your priorities here if your job is causing you such degradation. Such Yeah, like physical and mental degradation. Like you say. Like that's, that's a fucking problem. Like that needs to be addressed.

Tali: 21:34

Totally. And that came up with a client recently too, is like, maybe that's something you need to evaluate. Yeah. And I know I had said this at one point, you know, coming back to coaching at first was a little bit, it felt a little defeating at first, essentially going backwards. Cuz we had moved here and we had opportunity for new life and the slate was wiped clean. And turns out all I wanted to do was something I'd already done. And that just didn't feel very impressive to me being dealt this new card in life. And you know, Doing the same, same old however, part of me feels really convinced that as long as I'm a coach, I will always be in favor of my health. Mm-hmm. You know, I'm gonna be spending time in a gym. I'm gonna be teaching others how to be living healthier lives. And so if that's what I do for the rest of my life, like at least I can have some security. Knowing that that's gonna be a value and a theme. You know, it doesn't, just because you hire a coach doesn't mean you're gonna get the results. You still have a lot of work to do. Mm-hmm. I've also learned that as a, as a client myself. But you know, there are no guarantees there. However, you know, being in the fitness industry is going to ensure that that is the, the chatter. That's the water I swim in. Mm-hmm. And so I'm really okay with that because I have seen how easy it is to slide in the other direction, and it happens so quickly to the point where it scares me. It really scares me, like what my body can become mm-hmm. If I'm not doing this work. Yeah.

Cody: 23:25

Yeah. I mean that's, I got into personal training. Completely selfishly, that was the whole point for me to become a personal trainer, is that I was like, really sickly, missing a lot of work because I was sick. 230 pounds of really weak mass. And excuse me, I I became a trainer in order to get the education, to try to get myself in good shape and build some accountability around it. So I guess I have a little less sympathy, if you will for the excuse that people's career or job is getting in the way of their health. Cuz to me, that's a misalignment of priorities.

Tali: 24:11

Well, you know how it's like to be stuck on a train like that, you know? Yeah. Your whole life becomes dependent on this job and it's, you know, think about even like changing over our banks, like how messy that was, like trying to think about changing your career. Mm-hmm. That's hard. That's a. Big ask, but we're also talking about like your fucking life here. Like you only get one body.

Cody: 24:34

Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying is that I, I think people misunderstand the priority of, you know, are you gonna stay in that job for 30 or 40 years and end up a sickly old person?

Tali: 24:45

Well, we've also talked about in a podcast before about like, can one hour of exercise really balance the other 23 hours of your day? Mm-hmm. That are not in favor of your health. So I think there is potential to have a really demanding job, or even a job that's hard on your body, but that might mean that there has to be sacrifice somewhere else to really compensate for it. Like, if you are not only working a job that's really tough on you mentally, physically, whatever, but then you are also heavily prioritizing like television time. Mm-hmm. You know, that's a weird thing that. I feel like even in our household, we consider a given. Mm-hmm. And it's easy to forget that there are other options out there. Mm-hmm. That could be much better for us. So there just has to be a sacrifice somewhere or a trade.

Cody: 25:39

Yeah. It can't be fit into everything you're already doing. Yeah. If you want to change, this is not just exercise, this is anything. If you want to change, you can't keep everything the same that it is now and then add, cause none of us have room to add anything. You have to take something out to put something more in. And so if you want to change yourself, whether it's learning a language or, or developing your body or you know, taking more time for intimacy or going on dates or whatever, like you can't just add to your existing

Tali: 26:15

life. You've gotta take that energy from elsewhere. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you heard it in the car this morning, but my mom was telling my sister and I that. With all of the practices she's trying to implement in her life. She's got a lot of like courses that she's interested in taking on a personal development and personal healing. And, you know, lots of things outside of her work. And for those of you who don't know, my mom, she is like by definition a workaholic. And she said something like, so nonchalantly today, I was like, damn, that's kind of a big deal. She was saying that, you know, she's like letting some of the things that she normally does just kind of fall by the wayside in order to make room for these mm-hmm. Practices. And I was like, damn, I've never heard her even think about compromising her work for herself. Yeah. So I can tell that there's gotta be a huge shift that she's even saying that out loud. Mm-hmm. So it's, it can happen, but like, goodness, it's taken her a really long time to get to this point.

Cody: 27:18

Yeah. Well we recently published a. Podcasts on boundaries, setting boundaries for yourself. Mm-hmm. Just a few weeks ago. And I think, I'm not necessarily telling everybody out there to quit your job and become a personal trainer. I know, like, that's not the point. But I think that we sometimes forget that we can set boundaries for ourselves, even if we have a demanding career. And by just telling your employer, like, I'm sorry, I'm not available until 8:00 AM or something like that. Or you know, asking whether your schedule can be shifted around somewhere or maybe given, maybe do a split shift. Maybe you come in early and take a two hour lunch. Like what? There's no law that says you can't take a two hour lunch so that you can get a workout in and your meal get cleaned up, come back to work. That's not unheard of. It just may be unheard of for you or your current employer, but I think it's worth being creative to try to make sure that your lifestyle is serving you and your future and your health and a balance.

Tali: 28:27

Well, so we've already covered a couple of the topics that we wrote down for today without really mentioning them. So the first one is never do nothing. Mm-hmm. And though that may not be grammatically correct. I like the way it sounds. But it's, it's really highlighting how important the practice is and kind of making intensity secondary because like you were saying, for steady progress or really progress at all, it's all about taking on a new lifestyle. Mm-hmm. And, you know, becoming the kind of person who. Works out or creates art or whatever the pursuit is. And so I, you know, if your life is demanding and you're just kind of newly entering this practice, you have to be okay with having the Barbie low. Yeah. Just in order to make that happen. I have a good friend who, she has a gym membership and a lot of the times she'll go into the gym and all she'll do is. But she walks away being like, I'm glad I went to the gym today. She intentionally took the time to move her body. Yeah. And even though it might not have been what she had been able to do in the past, or what she'd really liked to be doing, now she is prioritizing intentional movement. Mm-hmm. And that is totally worth celebrating.

Cody: 29:53

Yeah. I wrote an article about this like 10 years ago, and I'm sure that a lot of coaches out there especially at the time, would've pushed back against my philosophy on this. But I, my article was called No Days Off. Mm-hmm. And, and I really, really fervently believe that this idea of training days, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I kind of I. I sort of recoil at the idea of working out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, because that's three days outta seven. That's exactly what we do. That's three days outta seven. What do you mean? Well, no, we do walks and stuff on Tuesday, Thursdays, so just,

Tali: 30:32

and something on Saturday. Shoot me out. Sorry, me out.

Cody: 30:35

My point of no days off is not go balls out seven days a week. Mm-hmm. My point is, is that you have to set aside some time, like let's say you have a minimum threshold, 20 minutes or whatever, where every day, seven days a week, you're going to do something for at least 20 minutes. Now that could be on a Monday, you do CrossFit and a lift and some mobility, and you're in there for 90 minutes. But on Tuesday you go for a 20 minute walk to recover. So I'm not saying never have recovery days, I'm saying never do nothing, which is what Kelly Starz said. Well, I'll give credit where credit's due. Oh, I didn't know that. Kelly Star's the one that said never do nothing, which is has alliteration. So it's a little better than mine cuz it has alliteration. But I've been saying for a long time now that you should never take days off because days off break your habit, days off are a version of you that doesn't work out. And if you want to be really well-rounded, fit, healthy, vital, someone who moves and you identify as someone who is active and energetic, then you need to act like it. And you need to do that as a daily practice. So when I say no days, I'm not saying CrossFit seven days a week. I'm saying Monday, Wednesday, Friday is fine if you wanna take those as your intensity days. But the days in between you should be doing something mobility, a five minute stretch routine, a walk a something. You have to be doing something intentionally. Otherwise it's not a habit. There's no such thing as a habit that's like two days a week.

Tali: 32:10

Well, and I think when you make it a part of your life in that way in, I think you're almost like giving yourself more freedom and a chance to be more in tune with yourself because you can make decisions mm-hmm. On how you're gonna spend that intentional time where you know, if you're following like a Paradise program, all of that is set out for you. And if you feel like shit and you have a. Really heavy day ahead of you. You know, that session might not go well, but I remember like back when I would train all the time, it, it would've been nice to like have the freedom to be like, oh, I feel like crap today. I'm just gonna like back off a little bit. Yeah. But I didn't, I was really held to the schedule. I was held to the periodization, well, it was in line with my goals. I wanted to be, you know, a great weightlifter and, you know, conquer that world and all that. But I think if you're not in the competitive world, there's a lot more opportunity to create that awareness and development of your sensitivity and understanding of like what your body needs. Mm-hmm. That's huge. Yeah. We're constantly, Forcing ourselves mm-hmm. Into situations and needing a lot of ex, I've struggled with needing a lot of like, external structure and really wanting and desiring to be able to like, have those things come intrinsically or come from within. Mm-hmm. You know, I've been very reliant on coaches, very reliant on programming, and it's helped in a lot of ways. I've made it really far and been in great shape because of it. But like I said, there's been like a, a tendency to become reliant on it, and I want to be able to you know, manage that myself. Why? Because I think that that would be a way of knowing that it's like internalized. Mm-hmm. Like it's become my values, you know? Mm-hmm. I've been in positions where I haven't had coaches, whether it's for nutrition or exercise. And I have felt completely out of control and I become very panicked and uncomfortable. And part of me is thinks that, okay, I just need to accept what I need in order to get where I want to go. And that might not be something that's inherent to me, but I guess part of me would hope that, like after being alive for 32 years, that like, you know, being in shape or having healthy habits is like something that I would choose for myself even if no one was helping me. Mm-hmm. And I think I would to some degree, but I wouldn't make it very far. I need a lot of support. I need a lot of, a lot of hype people in my corner to make it happen.

Cody: 35:09

Mm-hmm. Well, I think that's where the never do nothing is even more valuable because if you. Develop the practice of knowing that every day you're gonna set some time aside for your body. I think that goes a long way toward never falling off the wagon, so to speak. You know, if you take three days off from a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then Monday sucks trying to get back in there. Mm-hmm. But if it's something you do every day with some intention, it becomes something you start to look forward to. You know, it's gonna feel good and, you know, it's just part of who you are and what you do. Mm-hmm. On the other hand, I don't think there's ever been a problem with having a coach. I think that we

Tali: 35:52

in, well we've advocated for it like crazy. Yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong with it either. I

Cody: 35:56

think though that we live in a society where getting help is sort of a Well that would be nice. And I think it's really necessary. We are social animals. We are, we are. Impressionable. We are, we're, we're impressionable, but we're also, I'm, I'm blanking on the word, but they're, we're like social apes, you know? We are, we are primates that are, have evolved in a very social way. We are very dependent on each other. Mm-hmm. And to deny that, like, to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and this whole like, self-made person, this like, on an island independence especially here in America, is just like this kind of theme that's shoved at us a lot. And I think there's a lot of great things about that. You know, being an individual, being, you know, making your own choices, having freedoms and such. But that doesn't mean that you can ever have all the answers be a hundred percent disciplined. Like to expect perfection of yourself and to be able to expect yourself to grow in a vacuum is just silly. And I think immature. I, it's, I think having accountability, whether it's friends, an accountability group, coaches, like all those things are really valuable and are not something to be looked on as like, well, I am failing by myself, therefore I need to go get a coach now. It should be your first thing. It should be like, I should go get a coach so that I can educate myself on what I'm doing and get guidance from someone who's specializes in the thing I'm trying to accomplish and kinda, you know, provide accountability for myself. And you know, that it's just a valuable tool to seek out rather than a crutch.

Tali: 37:46

Can I just refer to Castaway really quick? Sure. So we watched Castaway this weekend and it was the first time I believe I've seen the movie all the way through. And you know, it's a man stranded on an island by himself, but if you think about it, his motivation to continue to live and to get off the island was his girlfriend. Mm-hmm. You know, he had her, her picture all the time. He thought about her all the time. That was like his motivation to get the hell off of that island. And he also made a friend of Wilson, you know, for that support in the meantime, someone to talk to, someone to lean on. And so I think that that's just a, a way of tying in the movie of the week to to your idea of like us being social animals and how important it is to tap into that. Yeah. How beneficial it can be. Mm-hmm. Yeah. One thing about never doing nothing, and you know, that example about. That I mentioned about going into the gym. Just a stretch. I've been thinking a lot about creating some content around the idea of aiming higher. You know, like you said, we're never gonna be perfect, we're never gonna do everything just right. But I'm really trying to express to our clientele on a regular basis that you're always gonna have another opportunity to do more. Mm-hmm. To do better, whatever. You know, it's not like everything is inherently good or inherently bad or you know, just because it wasn't perfect. It's like a complete fuck up. But you also always have room to push a little bit harder. Mm-hmm. And I think that the never do nothing or no days off is a really good playing field for that idea because, You're not gonna be able to max out every day. You're not gonna be able to do, you know, high intensity every day. But it is gonna be enough data points for you to be able to, kind of like what I was saying before about having the creativity in the room and the freedom to really assess what your body needs and what it's capable for that day. Mm-hmm. And so you know, it's also a really cool grounds for ambition and playing with that toggle, whether you're ramping it up or dialing it down. Mm-hmm.

Cody: 40:09

Yeah. And I like the idea of the dial because, you know, just another fitness analogy doesn't even have to apply to fitness, but we all recognize, I think most people should recognize that if you're deadlifting for the first time, you're not gonna load the bar up with 500 pounds and try to lift a deadlift off the floor for your first attempt ever. You know, you're gonna start with something that's very manageable, that you can do for several reps with really good form and movement patterns and feel good and not strain your back. And then you gradually, over a long period of time, you get stronger and add that weight. And that is just something that I, you know, I think most people are aware of, but for some reason when it comes to their habits, they expect to just turn, flip a switch and start doing something. And to be the

Tali: 40:59

best ever, just because you've decided to be,

Cody: 41:01

or even the most consistent ever, it's like, okay, I'm gonna do an hour a day every day of this thing. It's like, well, why don't you start with 10 minutes? Let's, let's start with something that you know isn't gonna burn you out in the first week. And then slowly turn the dial up over time. And that's what your, your objective is, is to get so consistent and be, and change your identity. Like I am a person who does an activity every day and then, Once you kind of established that identity, then you can start to turn the dial up. Now I'm gonna do 15 minutes minimum every day now 20, et cetera. Until, until eventually you're at that hour a day of kicking ass and, you know, feeling great about it.

Tali: 41:44

So this actually takes us to our next point. Mm-hmm. Progress that's effective, not painful. Mm-hmm. And we've been talking to our clients who have a tendency to like, push themselves a little bit too hard sometimes, cuz we do within our programming, like give some room for, you know rate of perceived effort and, you know, building to a challenging set or whatever. And so if you don't have a good grasp on what your capabilities are, it's really easy to teeter too far to the point. You know, whether you strain something or you push yourself so hard that you don't have energy to do anything the next day. Mm-hmm. There are a lot of different ways I think that that can pronounce itself as you know, pushing ourselves to a rate that is no longer effective. Mm-hmm. And therefore isn't repeatable.

Cody: 42:43

Yeah. And this is especially true, I think, in areas of a weakness that we wanna bring up. In CrossFit, they always talked about work where you're weak and your goat.

Tali: 42:52

Yeah. Which I don't know why they called it goat, because GOAT is now known for greatest of all time. Yeah. But that's later. CrossFit. It was like the thing that you sucked at. Yeah. But that was earlier. Do you know why that

Cody: 43:04

was a. Yeah, I think Adrian Bosman came up with that. Okay. And it was just a joke, like, this is your, like your goat, like referring to the animal.

Tali: 43:13

Yeah, I know, but like, this is just, it's not obvious. I don't know.

Cody: 43:16

I don't know. He's a silly guy. But that's a Google search. He's an awesome coach, but he's also a really funny dude. Anyway, the, the idea was to bring up your weaknesses so that you're a more well-rounded athlete, cuz the whole objective of CrossFit is to become competent in just about everything and to bring up all areas of your health and fitness at the same time. Not focus on one thing and let everything else suffer. And so another way of looking at it is like, you're stronger than most individuals and you have better endurance than most individuals, but you're not as strong as a strong man, and you're not, you don't have the endurance of an Ulta marathoner, so you're, You're in like the top 10% of the world as far as like all of the things in fitness, you got range, but you're not the first in any one thing. So there's some value into that and I love that philosophy. But there's another, there's a, there's a dark side to that, which is if you spend too much time working where you're weak, you're kind of working in a place of frustration that could be needless.

Tali: 44:22

You're always up, you're always going against the current.

Cody: 44:25

Yes. And again, I told you I was gonna bring this book up a few times and I knew this was gonna come up. Okay. James clear's Atomic Habits just this morning I'm reading toward the end of the book and he talks about in one chapter, it's sort of like going from good to great kind of thing. And he talks about the I idea that, you know, certain people are genetically gifted for certain things and he uses a really funny example of a runner and I forget the guy's name and I apologize for that because it's a reading the name I wasn't even sure how to pronounce it. So, okay. The, I, the idea that I could remember it is kind of funny, but he was a runner who got two gold medals in I think the 2004 Olympics in Greece for the 1500 and the 2000. And he is like a really good at like the one mile. So he runs like three of these sort of like mid-range races, not sprints, but they're not super endurance anyway. And then comparing that guy to Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps is six four. This runner guy is like five eight and they have the same in seam on their pants. And so, wait, I have to think about that. Yeah. So Michael Phelps is six foot four with shorter than average legs and a really long torso. Right. Which is, he's very, which is perfect for swimming long. Yeah. Because he's got this long, strong back and kind of like long ape-like arms. So it's like perfect for swimming. Right. Okay. This other dude is like a, a really short torso. He's short, overall long legs. He, he only weighs 136 pounds. Wow. But his legs are, as long as Michael Phelps is, who is six four. So this guy's like built for running. He's like the perfect runner cuz he's super light, but he's got longer legs even though he's shorts. Like long stride. Yeah. So he's got all the things that make him a great runner and he, and that the whole point of the chapter is like, yes, these people. With a dedication that most people don't like, there's nothing to downplay the work that was put in to them becoming the best in their sport. However, if you were to put the runner in the pool and Michael Phelps on the track, they would be dismal failures. There's no way that Michael Phelps could ever be a good runner because he's too heavy. Every time you add a pound to running that, that you, you're carrying that extra weight, that extra energy output. Heavy people are not good runners. And so the point is, is that instead of always working where you're weak, sometimes it's good to just explore a lot of options. Find. Habits that are actually easy to create and then really hone those habits and practices. Where that applies to exercise is that you might want to just try a whole bunch of different modalities, like try 30 different programs in one month. Like, I don't know, I'm just throwing something out there. But I mean, just like really experiment and see what you're, you're drawn to, and then the habit that you're trying to create is much easier. To do something that you're drawn to, that you naturally take to, that you feel like you get a quick win right off the bat, that makes it much easier to develop a habit. Oh yeah. And then like I said, you can gradually turn that dial if maybe that habit isn't exactly where you want to end up. So like maybe you're really good at endurance, but you want to get stronger. Mm-hmm. Well start with some endurance running and then some body weight stuff at the end or something like that. And then you can kind of transition into weightlifting over time. So just, just throwing that out there. As far as like, I think so many people think of self-discipline as this gold standard where you are doing shit you hate in order to get a result you want. And there may be times where that's necessary, but maybe you should try to do things that you love that can help provide consistency. To get a result that you're happy with?

Tali: 48:36

Oh yeah. A really early podcast of ours was like following the joy. Mm-hmm. Like, do what you're excited to do. And we talk about this a lot when it comes to nutrition, that the best diet for you is gonna be one that you'll stick to. Mm-hmm. If you're hating it every minute of the day, then it's probably not gonna be something that you're gonna do very well or be interested in putting in the effort to do. But I feel like I had a good experience today that kind of speaks to this effective versus painful progress. We went over to some new friends of ours', new gym that they have been, you know, coaching folks in town. It's primarily a kettlebell gym and my experience with kettlebells has been exclusively through CrossFit. So swings, clean snatches, goblet, squats. But I've never done like. Kettlebell solely. And I know it's its own sport and everything, but I really don't know much about it. And so even though I know all these handful of movements, there's kind of like the CrossFit way of doing them and then there's like a real way of doing them. And I noticed today just like working out alongside these folks that there's a real way of doing it that I don't know. But you know, we were looking at the board at the workout that they had planned and it was kind of like the 12 days of Christmas where you have this big long list of things to do and you kind of work your way down, but you also like boomerang back up in the other direction. So you get in shit ton of reps. And I have been doing CrossFit, you know, for the last couple of months, like very consistently. And we've been doing lots of like short, fast metcons. And this one was predicted to take us about 50 minutes. And when I heard that, I was like, okay, I have to really be thoughtful about how I'm gonna go about this because I have a tendency to. Start quickly and move quickly to where I won't be able to sustain that energy for a longer workout. So I had to be really thoughtful about the weights that I chose today. At first, I was like, Ooh, these feel kind of light. But as you saw towards the end of the workout, I was, you know, form was still good, but I was working my ass off. And you know, having to kind of teeter between effective movement without kind of leaning too far into the painful side is like, you also have to check your ego a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of like excitement and maybe even like negligence that can have us fall into that trap. But a lot of times I think it's ego where like, I should be able to do that. I've, I have been able to do that before where mm-hmm. It's easy to forget like who you fucking are right now. And so, I knew that I was gonna be out of my element. I knew that I was gonna be working longer than I usually do, you know? So I had to be really thoughtful about the choices that I was making, and wonderfully I was able to stay with the same weights the whole way through. I was, I was pretty proud of that. Mm-hmm. And it made me think of another instance where back in the day I went to a friend's. Bar three class. Do you know what bar is? Yeah. Okay. So I had a coworker who like came to one of my craft's fit classes and I went to her bar class that she taught and they give you dumbbells for particular movements and the heaviest weight is like five pounds. Right? And I was like weightlifting at the time and I was like, oh yeah, obviously I'm gonna choose the heaviest weights. And turns out it was like the hardest thing I've ever done. You're holding your arms out by your sides and just kind of like pulsing up and down, like when you're in this kind of like sumo squat thing for a really long time. And so I felt like an asshole for, you know, thinking that I knew what I was getting into when I really didn't. It was my first time going to a bar class. What do I, what am I doing? Choosing the heaviest weight? So stupid. Even a weightlifter can get their ass kicked by five pound weights. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I think that's just a part of what I was saying before. I've been really. Thinking about this concept a lot about developing or like just becoming more in tune with ourselves. Yeah. You know, being able to make adjustments and corrections as things go. One thing when I was a coach in CrossFit that really drove me nuts, is that people a lot of the time were very unwilling to make any changes to their workout as they were doing it. Even if their form was going to shit, even if they were no longer getting the stimulus of the workout. Mm-hmm. Even if, you know, they were running well over like the time cap or something. Mm-hmm. You know, that rigidity, that's what gets you injured, that's what stalls your progress. Yeah. You know, you've gotta be agile, you've gotta be fluid to course correct. Mm-hmm. I think that's such an important part of any pursuit. Is that you just have to be able to ramp it up and dial it back. Yeah. Kind of. And developing that, that rubric for yourself can be really hard. Mm-hmm. But it's super valuable to pay attention to.

Cody: 53:52

Yeah. It goes back to the know thy self. You know, the better you know yourself, the better you can make those adjustments with wisdom. Yeah. You, you had mentioned the, the more consistent you are, the more you'll know that. Yes. And that's one thing I love about the No Days Off approach. Yeah. Is that you start to really learn like what you need and listen to your body and not your ego, which there, there's a fine line because sometimes your body wants to stay in bed and you need to. You need to ditch that shit. You know, like I've been doing the cold shower thing lately and I started with hot showers and then I would just like, oh, 30 seconds at the end, turn the cold on, you know? And it was like, well that sucked. And now I'm doing this thing where I get out of bed and I go straight in there and get cold water right on my face and try to control my breathing and until my breathing regulates, like that's kind of my rule is I'm not, oh, I'm not allowed to get out as long as I'm still doing that uhhuh. So I have to stay in that and endure the suck until I'm able, I'm able to regulate my own

Tali: 55:01

breathing. Have you seen progress there in terms of like how quickly you can make that happen?

Cody: 55:05

I have, and I've also seen kind of a tipping point where after about a minute and a half. There's no difference between a minute and a half and like five minutes. Like there gets to be a point where it's like, well, this isn't a big deal anymore. You know what it's like it's cold, but so what? It's cold. You know, you

Tali: 55:24

know what this reminds me of is remember that scene in Fight Club? It's in a, it's a great scene where Brad Pitt pours whatever that shit is on Edward Norton's hand. Do you remember what it is? It gives him a chemical burn. I forget. Pours something on his hand and he's like holding him down so he can't escape. And he's like, I have whatever it is that's going to make this stop burning, but I'm not gonna give it to you until you like, calm the fuck down. Hmm. I can't say that I am interested in taking cold showers. The lesson of like, that patience and that control over yourself is very intriguing.

Cody: 56:05

Yeah. To me. Yeah. But the reason I bring it up is that like, that's a little bit of sort of like a pushback against my inner bitch kind of thing. And sometimes when I'm in there and I'm gonna, I'll just be really vulnerable here, ready as a dude, you know, I'm supposed to be lord tough and self-discipline and everything. I'll tell you what I think about a lot of times when I'm in there is other men I know that are doing it. Oh. Like I think of sometimes it's like Joe Rogan or something, but sometimes, like my friend Greg, like I know my Greg's my friend Greg does seven minutes of cold every morning and I'm like, well, he's doing, I know he's doing, I know he didn't skip today. There's no reason for me to get out of this fucking shower no matter how bad I want to. That's cool.

Tali: 56:48

That's inspiration.

Cody: 56:49

Yeah. But that's kind of an example of like, sometimes it's good to like listen to your body and not your ego. You know, maybe it's not a good day to max out on the weights, or maybe it's not a good day to do CrossFit at all. Maybe you should go on that 20 minute walk and just take a day, quote, unquote off to do some light activity. Sometimes you have to just say, wait a minute, is this my, is this what my body needs? Or is this just my sort of inner bitch, like trying to get me out of this?

Tali: 57:19

So there's like a series of questions, I guess, to ask oneself, but the, it's the not never doing nothing is kind of the, the basis of it all. Yeah. Like that's kind of the non-negotiable. Yes. And then from then on is like creating like, or it's more nuanced, I guess. Yeah. After that point.

Cody: 57:41

So every once in a while I might miss that cold shower in the morning, but if later on I'm taking the hot shower, I'll still end with cold just to make sure I did, I did it, I did it that day. Mm-hmm. So it's kind of another never do nothing situation where sometimes it's pretty intense and sometimes it's less, but I'm never gonna just skip it. Same with the workouts, same with all the practices that I'm trying to get into my life.

Tali: 58:03

Well, speaking of practices, the last note that we have here is about greasing the groove. Mm-hmm. And I'm gonna let you take that because this is actually. Something that I'm doing at all.

Cody: 58:13

So the term grease, the groove is from a blog post article from quite some time ago. I mean, this is maybe 15 years ago. Is is been around a while. If I can still find it, cuz it is such an old article, I will link to it in the notes. Cool. So check out the show description in whatever app you're listening to this in and check for that link cuz I'll, if, if I can find it, I'll put it in there. And it's basically a guy who wanted to improve his pull-ups, but he was having a hard time with the program in the gym. He just felt like he was stalled out. He couldn't get past a certain number of pull-ups. And so what he did is he had a, I think if I recall correctly, he had like a woodworking shop in his basement or something like that. And it was some reason that he went down there every day and he had a pull-up bar installed above the stairs like going. Down to the basement. And so every time he went up and down the stairs, he had to grab that pull-up bar and just do one pull-up. Now this was a guy who was capable of doing like 20, I'm just making this up cuz it's been a long time since I read this article, but he could do more than one. But the point was, is that he was going to do a very minimal effort, but make it such a routine that he was getting a lot of frequency in. So several times a day he would get one pull-up, and over the course of like a month or more, his pull-ups that he was able to do in the gym when he went to actually go and work hard on him, dramatically improved. And so he kind of coined this term of like greasing the groove or sort of like if you have a drawer that's sticky and you put wax on it and you all of a sudden you can slide it in and out really easy. He's talking about that for movement of just like practicing a movement enough that it just becomes a little smoother.

Tali: 1:00:06

So I actually conducted a similar experiment myself not having read this article, but many years ago where I had a pull-up bar in my doorway and I hung a pair of rings from it thinking I would do like a dip Nice. Every time I would pass through the door. And then very quickly they just became something that was in my way. Decorations. Yeah. And like walking through a doorway with rings when I was super annoying. So I didn't really you know, take full advantage of that situation, but I had the same idea. Yeah. Cuz that was a movement that I just like, could. Not do.

Cody: 1:00:42

Yeah. So what I'm doing right now is well I wanna talk about two different experiments. So one is the current one that I'm doing, which I have a list that I'm calling Grease the Groove. And the reason it's a list is that there's like a handful of movements that I used to be able to do pretty well or at least was like fairly conf competent in doing that I can no longer do or do well. My muscle ups are gone again. This is like the fourth time in my life that I've like gotten muscle ups and then lost'em again. And so right now I'm practicing the components of those by just doing like five pull-ups, which is a pretty minimal effort for me. And five dips, which is actually kind of hard, but they're getting easier on the rings and. Practicing pistols. Still practicing pushups, even though I've gotten better at those just because it's, I've found a lot of benefit in just doing a few reps every day. So there's this short list of items that I'm doing every single day, but the whole list, even though it's like eight or nine movements, I mean, it's, it looks like a big list, but I'm only doing a few reps of each. So it literally takes 10 minutes or less to grease the groove and get all these things in every day. After only about a month of doing that, maybe less, it has not been that long. Three to four weeks. The other day I'm dealing with a bit of a back strain, so I've been backing off of my workouts and kind of doing some easy stuff lately to let my back recover. Way to know thyself babe! Mm-hmm. But I'm still doing, you know, the daily movement stuff. So I did a workout where I would do some sort of back therapy. It was planks, snow angels. Quadriped stuff. I have videos for all this stuff, so I'll link to some of these exercises if you're curious. And in between each of those exercises, I do five pull-ups. So I ended up doing six sets of five pull-ups, and at no time were they stressful at all. Nice. So I think that just kind of goes to show the whole benefit of the grease, the groove thing. But I want to give another example because I really want to drive this point home. I think so many people get in this head space of what it takes to be effective, and they think that you have to push hard, you have to exercise all this discipline, you have to work hard, you have to, I, you know, all these things. Attributes that we should all, you know, maybe strive to develop.

Tali: 1:03:18

I would say you have to work but maybe not hard all the time.

Cody: 1:03:21

And this is the thing, is that still work? I think we underestimate what something can do and so people get this all or nothing attitude. I'm, I'm either gonna hit this workout or take the day off and they don't consider the fact that just doing the warmup has a lot of benefits of just doing that 10 minute warmup, even if you're not able to do the whole workout that day. This is something we, we coach our clients in quite a lot, especially our remote clients that we don't get to be hands on with. Cuz a lot of, because they can't meet us in a gym. Yeah. They're not meeting us in a gym and a lot of times they have like crazy work schedules or illnesses or injuries or whatever that come up and there's the tendency to just not do the workout. And so really try to drive this point home is that you do something like, don't throw away the. Opportunity to move your body just because you can't do the whole thing. And a great example of this is when I first started to develop this idea of a daily practice, minimal effective dose kind of thing, I was experimenting with a bunch of different things, meditation, writing. One of those things was guitar. And I had so many things on the list cause I had like 10 different things I was trying to do. Mm-hmm. And it was such a long list that I couldn't, I could not practice guitar for a half an hour every day. There was no way it was gonna happen cuz I was also trying to work out and write and do all these other things. So my minimum threshold was five minutes. And it is shocking what five minutes of practice can do over the course of say, three months. Mm-hmm. It is absolutely mind boggling because we don't think of five minutes as being an effective practice at anything. And I'm just telling you, if you haven't tried this, try it with some skill you're doing, whether it's fitness or, or drawing or music or, or whatever. Or even like connection with your partner. Like take five minutes of like looking in each other's eyes and talking without a fucking screen in front of you. Like try, try a practice of five minutes a day and look at the amazing difference in your life that it'll make in three months.

Tali: 1:05:28

Well, I can speak to that when it comes to what you were just saying about looking in each other's eyes. You know, you and I have had to squeeze in romance in, in little moments. You know, we used to work crazy schedules and now we're working crazy schedules again. Mm-hmm. And it does so much for our connection to one another and just feeling present. You know, it's easy when you live with somebody for you to just. Kind of become satellites, just kind of bumping into each other and and just to not be present. Mm-hmm. You know, we got, we've got lives to be living and it's easy to just be living amongst each other rather than with each other. And, you know, even earlier today, we just took like 10 minutes. That's all we had, but it was great. Mm-hmm. It was really great. I'm so happy that we took the time to do that and we've come to really appreciate even the little bit that we can get. Yeah. And I think that gratitude, you know, that's something that if that's gonna be a byproduct, then it's worth it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Cody: 1:06:38

Yeah. One other aspect that I've written about this in my book, So if you haven't read the book, it might be valuable to just look at this section. There's, there's free versions of it everywhere. So I've tried to give this away. It's not like a sales pitch here to get my book, but I talk about this sort of minimal effective dose and the power that it has and if it's implied, if it's applied consistently, like every day, a practice, every day. And one of the things that I fervently believe is that if you're gonna spend, let's say, 70 minutes of practice doing something per week, that 10 minutes a day for 70 days is far more effective than one session of 70 minutes. The guitar is a perfect example because it's just a physical limitation. If you are learning at an instrument like that in 70 minutes, what's gonna happen is you're gonna have this sort of peak learning learning experience. The first few minutes you're gonna warm up within, especially a brand new. If you're brand new to an instrument, you know you're gonna get hand cramps or mouth cramps, or whatever the instrument is, like, you're gonna be really uncomfortable in about 15 minutes. Hmm. You might have a learning curve of that. That first 20 minutes is pretty productive and then that starts to really drop off after 20 minutes cuz of fatigue boredom, fatigue, frustration mental clutter. Maybe you're learning too much at once and you just can't retain it. So there's a big drop off in your learning curve, both with a skill or knowledge set after a very short period of time. Whereas if you maintain a really short practice, there's so many things that it's gonna do for you. First of all, you don't hit the frustration cuz in five minutes you can only get so frustrated in five minutes. Mm-hmm. The second thing is, your retention's gonna be better cuz your, you're getting a little bite. Bits of information and you're sleeping on that information and then practicing it again the next day. And that tells your brain that this is important. If you do something once and then you don't do it for a few days, your brain's like, well, that was an anomaly. Hmm. And it's likely to just forget what you've learned, or at least part of it. You, you don't get physically as tired in each session. And by doing this consistently daily, again, you're kind of teaching your brain that this is a priority. This is kind of, you're starting to identify yourself as somebody who does this thing. And so I just can't stress it enough how important it is to get a small daily practice in for the things that you want to improve or change in your life.

Tali: 1:09:23

I have a question for you. Mm-hmm. This keeps coming up as you're talking about it. I've been thinking a lot about something I mentioned on one of our coaching calls. The other day about how it was always kind of wild to me that I was able to retain so much CrossFit skill, even though I wasn't training in CrossFit. Yeah, that's because I was coaching it and I would have to demonstrate it. Yeah. Pretty regularly. But it wasn't every day. You know, the thing about CrossFit is that there's so many different things to get good at. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on how, if this factors in or if this is an example of what you're talking about. Because, you know, I'd be able to demonstrate handstand pushups and toes to bar knee to elbows and headstands and stuff, even though I was a weightlifter at the time. Yeah. I wasn't doing any of that shit. Yeah. But,

Cody: 1:10:11

well, there's, there's two things at play that we haven't already mentioned. One is carryover. So in some of the things that you're talking about, if you, let's say you build up to a point where you can do a handstand pushup or a set of handstand pushups. And then you switch to weightlifting, but you're still doing clean and jerk and you're still doing snatches, you're still doing overhead work. Mm-hmm. And elding a lot of capacity in that weight overhead. But you already had the skill of being able to do handstand pushups. Well, there's carryover between the two. Mm-hmm. And so that's the first thing is that there's carryover. And even within CrossFit, if you are doing a lot of the really basic essential movements, they're gonna carry over to other things.

Tali: 1:10:53

And that's why they are the The foundational movement.

Cody: 1:10:56

Yes. Yeah, exactly. So that's the first thing. The second thing is it depends on the foundation that you started with. And this is true in, I think this might be sort of a universal truth when it comes to, Ooh, how we are as human beings. Someone who has been incredibly fit for 15 years. And then takes six months off, we'll be able to come back as long as they're smart about it. Come back gradually, six months later and build on a strong foundation that they already had, right? Mm-hmm. But someone who's only worked out six months in their life and then takes six months off, they're gonna be coming back pretty much at square one, like starting over. There's practically no benefit to the first six months that they had, cuz they've probably lost it in the next six months that they took off. And so some of it has to do with the foundation that you built ahead of time in your ability to retain those.

Tali: 1:11:55

What about someone who wasn't fit for many years and then was really fit for like 10 years mm-hmm. And then took three years off. Sound familiar?

Cody: 1:12:06

Yeah. But you, I think you, the, the frustration that you might be feeling is comparing yourself to yourself. Comparing yourself to yourself four years ago.

Tali: 1:12:18

Yeah. I would say That'ss wearing off.

Cody: 1:12:21

Yeah. But I, my point is, is that compare yourself to the general public and you're still way fucking ahead because you still have that 10 years of foundation that you built for yourself. So,

Tali: 1:12:32

well, it's like the, the exercises that I did today at the kettlebell gym. Yeah. There were a lot of new movements, but I had capacity enough, I had enough capacity to not only hang with the workout, but mm-hmm. I learned new movements today and was able to do them. Yeah. Over and over again because there was some sort of familiarity there. Yeah.

Cody: 1:12:50

Well, and even the movements that you feel like you've lost a lot in your weightlifting movements, for instance, you're still way ahead of the average Joe who comes in to coach to get coaching from us. You know, you're still like, whoa, you're still impressive to them because they didn't see the peak and compare you now to your peak. You know, they're, they compare you now to everyone else they know who can't even do a snatch. You sure. You know? Sure. So, You kind of, sometimes you have to get some perspective there as to where you're at.

Tali: 1:13:19

Well, I have been leaning really hard into the belief that I can come back stronger. Oh yeah. I was saying that today when we were working out with Rachel and Jason, that I feel like 32, being 32 years old, it's a really good time. Not for a comeback, but for a second wind. So I feel like, you know, I, I put a lot of work into my twenties. Mm-hmm. Physically, and then I, you know, took time off with covid and transition and shit. And now I feel like energized to like, build up again. And I do feel things coming back, maybe not faster, but I don't know. I feel like it's going somewhere. I feel like I've built up enough momentum to not be worried about it anymore. There was a point in time where I was like, Ooh, I'm never gonna get over this hump. Mm-hmm. It's always gonna feel hard, but I think we've made a lot of really great moves to make that happen that we've mentioned today. Like structure. Mm-hmm. Being one you know, we've been doing CrossFit main site stuff, which is a great resource. There's always something available to do, managing the intensity so that we can keep doing it. The cool thing about Main Site nowadays is that it gives you like two to three tiers of scaling options. Of scaling options. Yeah.

Cody: 1:14:42

So I don't think they're always the best option. So it's still, I think it's still valuable to get a coach or get the knowledge yourself to be able to scale for yourself. Well,

Tali: 1:14:52

I still wish, but there's some ideas I still wish. When a workout is written on the board, there is more of an explanation of what it's trying to appeal to. Yeah. I think that can really make better decision makers out of athletes. Yeah. As opposed to just kind of like suffering through it. So that's, that's been great for us. And then creating community around it. Mm-hmm. You know, we have somebody who comes to our house three days a week. We know we have to be down there at a certain time to do the workout. Like, that's accountability, that's energy, that's community. I'm all for it. Yeah. I think we've really set ourselves up well. Yeah. And we're, you know, we've got something to build off of now rather than just like you and I existing in a vacuum.

Cody: 1:15:42

Yeah. That's hard. Yeah. It's important. You know, this whole podcast has been about making change and making sustainable change and your approach to making change in your life. And I think giving yourself the proper environment is huge. Not just having the right equipment or workout space, that's part of it, but surrounding yourself with other people who are on the same trajectory or who can encourage you. You know, in the last two weeks I've started setting up a mastermind group of mm-hmm. Men who are trying to like, achieve some change in their business lives and also in their health and fitness and that kind of thing. And the idea is to hold each other accountable. Like, these are the practices I'm trying to do, and if I don't hit at least 80% of these practices in the week, then you get to call and bug the shit out of me the next week to make sure that I'm on track. And I love that, kind of do that for each other. So there's lots of ways of building or getting a coach or whatever. So there's lots of ways of building an environment that makes self-discipline easier. That's the thing. I think that is kind of the main theme of this whole hour that we've been talking is like instead of fighting to make yourself do things and use this idea of self-discipline, all these like harsh words of like harder, harder grind. You know, do this thing that you know you need

Tali: 1:17:09

to do and like lost.

Cody: 1:17:11

Yeah. Big stakes. Maybe yourself. Yeah. Maybe ask yourself, how can I get this result easier? Or how can I start this practice easier? Set the bar lower, do a small increment, slowly bring, you know, dial up the heat. It's

Tali: 1:17:26

kind of the same thing by another name, don't you think? You're kind of tricking yourself in a way.

Cody: 1:17:31

It is, but I think there's ways, I, I just think that it requires more self-discipline to do things on your own full steam right from the start. Make a drastic change. Don't take anything else outta your life. Just try to add something else. Like all these mistakes people make because they think that they, it is just a moral flaw. Like, I have a moral character flaw of not being disciplined enough to do this thing. And maybe it's just your approach. Maybe instead of beating yourself up about not being disciplined enough, maybe what you need to do is figure out a method that's going to allow you to. Ease into something and get the ball rolling and build on that momentum over time. Yeah. In a strategic way. Get help, get coaching, get accountability, get a, get peer groups, get an environment that's comfortable. Do things that you are wanting to do, not just things that you think you should have to do. Yeah. Start small. Like all these things are just strategies for implementing this change.

Tali: 1:18:33

Yeah. This reminds me a lot of, when you and I first got together and I was under the impression that good relationships take a lot of work. Yeah. And you had just said something so simple, like it could be easy. Mm-hmm. I was like, what? No, that's not what I've been told my whole life. Or Yeah. Have, you know, seen from other folks. It's a really different way of thinking. It's really kind of a bummer to think that we. See ourselves as only making, or it's just a really common belief that to get where we wanna go is gonna be a really tough road. Mm-hmm. Not to say that life won't be tough. Mm-hmm. It will be. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But it doesn't have to be inherent to the experience, or it doesn't have to be inherent to success.

Cody: 1:19:21

Yeah. And this, well, and this isn't to downplay the role of hard work either, you know, like,

Tali: 1:19:28

oh yeah, you're gonna be doing stuff this whole time. You're gonna be challenging yourself in making decisions and putting an effort and making sacrifices. Mm-hmm.

Cody: 1:19:37

But it's a matter of, of finding that sweet spot of challenge that's not breaking you.

Tali: 1:19:42

Yes. Yeah. Not creating additional suffering to the, the things you're already gonna be bending yourself to be doing. Mm-hmm.

Cody: 1:19:52

Yeah. Well, and the thing is too is like suffering as a, like, look at suffering as a skill. Rather than throw your deep yourself into the deep end of the pool and say, I'm gonna suffer through these hard grueling workouts and if I can just make it past 90 days, not only will I be in amazing shape, but I'll be such a badass that I'll be able to just take these grueling workouts for the rest of my life. Cuz you probably won't make it 90 days. Mm-hmm. Instead just find that sweet spot where there's like a little bit of a challenge and then the next day that same little bit of a challenge. And then the next week maybe it's a little bit more of a challenge. And that

Tali: 1:20:30

can even be broken down on the dial into smaller pieces. Like if you look at any given Metcon that has like three or four movements. Yeah. Give yourself one of those to like push the envelope on not all of them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you wanna be able to keep moving and you're gonna be like circling back to these movements. If you don't have any relief at any point and that whole thing is a slog mm-hmm. You're probably not gonna get a lot out of that workout other than bumping up against that wall all the time. And that doesn't like create the energy about like, to wanna come back the next day. Yeah. That's a big part. Or to feel

Cody: 1:21:07

good about your work. Yeah. That's a big part of this. Yeah. Like making things pleasurable enough that you're gonna want to do it again instead of you have to do it again. Yeah. Yeah.

Tali: 1:21:18

I feel like this is the first podcast that we've ever really circled back to ideas and concepts that we've talked about before, but it's cool that, you know, through our coaching that we've been doing lately and our training that we're coming up with new ideas around it. Mm-hmm. I think that's really awesome.

Cody: 1:21:37

Yeah. Some of it's just a reframing of language, I guess. But but it comes with

Tali: 1:21:42

experience, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really fun. I feel like a lot of our topics have been about our work in the past. Mm-hmm. And now we have a lot of really current work that we get to reference. Yeah.

Cody: 1:21:55

Yeah. I mean, this whole never do nothing thing. I told you today that yesterday, yesterday we just mismanaged our time. And so we didn't get movement in yesterday. No. That was my first break though. That was my first do nothing day. After a 19 day streak, boop. And. I'm not trying to like brag about this here. I'm just, as an example. Brag babe. Just as an example though, is that I stressed my back out about two weeks ago now. I think it's already been two weeks. And so that 19 day streak was with an injury that I'm still trying to nurse through. Totally. But even so, I got, you know, some pull-ups don't hurt. So pull-ups in. I got some planks and I got a lot of walks and a, you know, a walk. We live on the side of a mountain, so a walk is a hike. Like there is no such thing as just an easy walk. There's always a hill involved. But that was 19 days straight of some intentional activity, even with something that I could have easily used as an excuse to just set it out. Yep. Yeah. So again, I'm not, I'm not trying to brag, it's just like an, it's just an idea that we should embrace of, of just letting go of this all or nothing attitude. And something is not just better than nothing. It's like infinitely better than nothing. Oh yeah. So do something. Do something doable, do something pleasurable, and then just build on that as momentum. Steady as she goes. Yeah. Hmm. Feel good about this? Oh yeah. I'm gonna wrap it up. Yeah. Okay. It was great to be here. Yeah. It's good to be back. Mm-hmm. I will see you next week.

Tali: 1:23:30

You're gonna see me all week. I'll see you

Cody: 1:23:31

all week, but we'll see all these people listening next week. Yeah. Okay. I love you, baby. I love you too.

Tali: 1:23:41

This episode was produced by Tali Zabari and Cody Limbaugh. Check out our writing, coaching services and home studying adventures at live all your life.com. For show notes, resources mentioned, or to submit a question or contribution, click on the podcast tab.