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A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
🥧 A podcast where we curiously explore nutrition, fitness, mindset, sports, wellness, & beyond. ☕️Host @parastoobadie
A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
Redefining Gym Culture, Strength, and Inclusion — with Paul Hynes
Is gym culture helping people feel strong or pushing them away?
In this episode, I’m joined by Paul Hynes, coach and community-builder, to unpack how fitness spaces can shift from intimidating to empowering, especially for women, youth, and newcomers.
We talk about:
- What makes someone feel like they don’t belong in a gym
- The rise of women in strength sports
- How powerlifting builds more than muscle
- The impact of the pandemic on young girls in sport
- What gym owners, coaches, and community members can do to create safe, inclusive spaces
This episode was recorded in 2022, but the message is just as urgent today.
If you care about lifting, leadership, or creating spaces where people actually belong — this one’s for you.
🔗 Connect with Paul:
Instagram → https://instagram.com/paul.hynes
Website → https://hynesperformance.ca
📬 More from the podcast:
https://parastoobadie.com/podcast
📸 Instagram: @asliceofhumblepiewithp2
📮 Email: asliceofhumblepiewithp2@gmail.com
Website: https://parastoobadie.com/podcast/
Email: asliceofhumblepiewithp2@gmail.com
Instagram: @asliceofhumblepiewithp2
Welcome back to A Slice of Humble Pie.
Speaker 1:Our guest today is Paul Hines from Hines Performance, based in Toronto, canada. Paul is a competitive powerlifter, personal training specialist, strong first SFG level one functional range conditioning mobility specialist, visual artist and obsessed with Lego. Paul and I met at a conference seven years ago and the conference was the Diva Girl Conference. It's where he was leading a workshop called Strength Training Isn't Just for Boys. Obviously, I was attending this conference and obviously I went to his session and I went right up to him and started asking questions. I went right up to him and started asking questions and since then, which is 2014, I've looked to Paul as a friend and someone I deeply admire in this industry. So for me, he's always been available to answer questions and hold great conversation just to direct me to more education and sometimes, if I have different like clients that I just wanted someone to bounce ideas off of, he was there and I'm very, very grateful for it, as I'm sure are my clients. Paul offers in-person coaching as well as online and virtual coaching, so he's accessible everywhere, even if you're not just in Toronto. So in 2019, paul was named one of Canada's top fitness trainers by Impact Magazine. In 2020. He was named one of GTA's top trainers by Sweat Equity Magazine. So, yeah, he's a boss trainer and, even more, he's a stand-up, wicked human being. Thank you for joining me today, paul.
Speaker 1:Let's get right into it. Welcome to A Slice of Humble Pie. So let's get right into it. I obviously know a lot about you, but I want our listeners to learn about you, and I know that you've always had a passion for fitness and I know you did a bunch of sports as a kid and as a young adult in college. I know you did a bunch of sports as a kid and as a young adult in college. I'm curious what inspired you to shift from being a college art student to fitness coaching. Like what?
Speaker 2:made you take that leap? Yeah, that's a good question. I can obviously make this story really long or really short, since I've told it in many forms over the years, but I think well it did. My journey in terms of fitness, like in the formal gym sense, definitely started when I was in college because for the first time I had access to a weight room. I had a somewhat open schedule where I could go and try to apply all the things I learned on the internet correctly, slash, incorrectly, which is all all of us have done, you know, in the early stages of our training journey to figure stuff out right. So I did that and then, once I was finished school, I pretty much I think it came to the realization I wasn't going to pursue art as a career and during that time I was still going to the gym near my house while I was working and I kept refining what I was doing and reading more and watching videos and going to seminars and stuff.
Speaker 2:And it got to a point where I was working in construction, building houses and I had some injuries and aching pains that kind of weren't being helped by the nature of my job. That's a very physically demanding job, as anyone who's done it knows. And I kind of came to this point where I was like you know what this is not going to make me any better. Why don't I try? Like I had this idea what if I try to like get into fitness and actually take that somewhere in terms of a career as opposed to just a hobby?
Speaker 2:My boss was very supportive. He's like you know, come back if it doesn't work out. And I'm thankful to say I didn't have to take him up on that offer. And we're going on nine years now I think that I've been coaching and training in either part-time to full-time role and now I'm out on my own running my own show. So obviously my story has to be taken with a heavy dose of survivorship bias, because I know that's not most people's experience in this industry. The average life cycle of a trainer, if you want to call it that, is like less than two years. So it may not be for everyone, but in my case it actually was and still is for me, which I'm, which I'm really happy about.
Speaker 1:So oh, I'm sure a lot of people are happy, especially all your clients. I guess I met you pretty early on then, in the beginning of your fitness, both of our fitness journeys. I was trying to think of the time getting ready for this, for this episode, and I'm like, oh, seven, eight years ago, so yeah, that's wild. So, going back in time again, I know that both you and I I'm sure anyone in the fitness world could say that Arnold Schwarzenegger was a big influence, and I know that I've read in some of your bios that you mentioned that you were like the skinny guy that wanted to get jacked. And I want to go back in time and think of when you first started at the gym and you were that skinny guy that walked in and wanted to get jacked. What was your first impression of the gym and the gym environment?
Speaker 2:was your first impression of the gym and the gym environment. Yeah, I mean that's. Yeah that's definitely taking quite a few years, going back quite a few years, because I would have started training late by the conventional sense, considering a lot of people would start in high school or before that. My first real foray into the gym was in college, when I was 20. My first real foray into the gym was in college when I was 20. And I vividly remember walking in and kind of having a sense of how things worked and where things were and what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:But if I was completely honest and I think I was at that time I didn't really know that much. I was figuring it out, like most people are, when they go in the gym and this is in the early days of like training articles you find on the internet and, like you know, maybe people's YouTube channels just starting offering their own opinions about what people should be doing in the gym. So, going in there it was, like you know, kind of like a deer in headlights moment. But you know what I I I didn't let that put me off. I knew I wanted to be there. I knew if I kept at it like I would see results. I didn't really find at the time like the environment to be anything other than neutral, like it wasn't unwelcoming, but it wasn't. Uh, you know there weren't people greeting me at the doorway and shake my hand like saying, you know, there weren't people greeting me at the doorway and shake my hand like saying thank you for showing up, you know. So you kind of had to be pretty self-motivated, I think, to be going to that gym.
Speaker 2:It was the gym in the college that I was attending, humber College, you know, north Campus, what, what represent, yeah. So I think for that time, unless you were a student athlete who was training for a sport or you're someone who really liked the gym, you probably weren't going to find yourself there. But I found for myself, like the environment was, you know, at a baseline where I could just show up, I could do the work. It was pretty efficient, it was quick in terms of my scheduling, pretty efficient, it was quick in terms of my scheduling and it allowed me to, like, really lay the groundwork for what you know would later become, you know, 10 or so odd years of training now. So, yeah, so I was 20 years old when I started. I'm 35 now, so actually 15 years.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Did you feel like you made? Did you make any connections, or did you have anyone that came up to you when you were in the gym to offer resources? Or was it mostly all self-motivated or self-directed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I was.
Speaker 2:I think fortunate is where someone who, at least from my perception, appeared to be more experienced than I was, came up and gave me a tip on something or gave me a piece of advice, or I'd ask them for a spot and they'd help me.
Speaker 2:You know the very, very common interactions you're going to typically find in the weight room and I don't remember them being anything but positive.
Speaker 2:I just remember people being helpful when I needed some help and then otherwise it was kind of like everyone just did their own thing.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, very, very much, like, very much a place for individuals to kind of do their thing, and you'd see groups of students or athletes together training sometimes, but for me it was there when I needed it, which was nice and it definitely helped me in the sense that, like now, I can picture, I can remember what it was like to go into the gym and not really know anything, and I know how powerful it can be to just get help with something, even if it's just something as simple as you know learning how to change the rack height on a power rack, or like where to, you know, place your dumbbells down when you're done, or even just what to do with your elbows when you're bench pressing, like all these little details that they're tough to learn from reading or watching a video, and then apply it to yourself because you can't see yourself unless you always are looking in the mirror which there's nothing wrong with that, but it's some exercise you can't do in front of the mirror.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with that, but it's some exercise you can't do in front of the mirror. Having someone else there is almost like an accelerated way to learn, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:But I definitely found that to be the case in some instances. For myself, I relate honestly and I'm asking because of the question we're about to get into for the topic of our episode. I was curious what your first impression was, by myself too, when I was. I started, I think, in my early teens. I was pretty comfortable, but I also found myself to usually be the only girl in the weight room, but I didn't feel unwelcome. I think it's just my personality. I was sort of sassy and I would just. I would just own, own my space and not really apologize for it from the time I was young.
Speaker 1:But I know that's not the case for everybody. So I kind of want to get into the other people that aren't you and me, that were maybe self-motivated or we were comfortable as soon as we got to that environment. So what do you think? I know that perhaps it wasn't your immediate lived experience, but what do you think is the first impression that most girls or women get when they go into the gym? Perhaps when you like back when you were in college, like if it was a you back when you were 20?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and I I'm going to answer this question carefully because I fully am aware that, like I'm a you know 30 something year old white man who felt comfortable in the gym since he was in day one, so I'm going to try to draw from as much of my clients' experiences who are women and who have been in spaces and not felt comfortable, not felt welcomed, as much as possible. I think right now over half my clientele are women or identify as women, which is pretty awesome, and listening to their stories definitely helps shape the way that I view the gym, because I'm viewing it through their eyes, right, so I can only hazard a guess as to what it's like to walk into a space as a woman, like the gym, which conventionally, at least historically I should say, has not always been a place where either it's been marketed to women or women have been welcomed or women have seen that they can themselves belong there. Yeah, outside of that, a lot of the problems that I've heard or the experiences I've had that have been on more of the negative side, have just revolved around, largely, I think, a lack of support on the side of, like, the gym itself. So, making sure people feel welcome making sure they know where things are. You know just orientation, like if you go to school and no one showed you where the library is and your classes are and you know the cafeteria is and you're like, okay, just go figure it out. You're self-motivated, like there would probably be a percentage of students that would do really well in that environment and there would be a large percentage that would be like college sucks or high school sucks, right. I think that's so partially.
Speaker 2:It's on the onus is on the gym or the gym ownership. To just make sure that if someone's new, if someone's not familiar with the space, if it's their first time, introduce yourself, get to know them, show them where things are, show them how things work. Even just giving someone a general idea of the layout of a gym, where weights go, how to load a barbell, how to use the machines, how to use the treadmill that goes a long way to helping someone feel more confident. And I'm a firm believer that you know competence ie getting better at stuff or feeling like you're good at stuff builds confidence, right. So if someone you know because I don't think many of us, unless again we're self-motivated are going to willingly put ourselves through the rigor of trying to do stuff that we're not good at right now, like with the promise that we'll get better in the future.
Speaker 2:But if you can help almost like accelerate someone's learning by just giving them a little bit of a leg up as far as onboarding, I think that goes a long way to helping them feel like they belong. I think it goes a long way to helping them feel like they can actually go into space and not waste their time and that they can use that as a base or like a foundation of like building from there in terms of their fitness journey wherever they might go. So I think, from the perspective of the organization or the gym, I think that's one of the things they can definitely do to help women feel more at home in a space who just aren't conventionally used to taking up space in places they're unfamiliar with. As far as gym patrons, if you're someone who goes to the gym and it's your jam, you feel totally at home there.
Speaker 2:There are some things you can definitely do, like you can also introduce yourself right and again I say this as a guy talking about how to interact with women, not in a creepy way, not in a like trying to hit on them, just actually genuinely saying welcome to the space, like I see you, let me know if you need any help with anything, and just like and then leave it at that, right, leave the ball in their court as far as like if they actually want to take you up on that offer, because the environment can be pretty overwhelming.
Speaker 2:And then just being mindful of your space and like where you are in your workout, like part of the thing in the gym is to develop body awareness. So if you're not, if you're totally in your own zone with blinders on just being aware that other people might be around you and other people, some of those people might not feel welcome, um or uh, might need you to keep an eye on where they are in the in the while you're in the middle of your, your stuff that you're doing, um, I think that's kind of like the basic stuff that a patron could be doing to help women feel more welcome in the gym. Right off the top of my head at least.
Speaker 1:No, that's great points and I agree with you, like the environment and then the people involved, and then I really appreciate your perspective and I wish that most people had that. But I think I speak on behalf of anybody that identifies as a woman that we have all experienced some like pretty aggressive harassment or mansplaining at gyms, or even not even in a physical gym. But like if I, if I post something and you post something, and we're doing the exact same thing, you're going to get a whole bunch of added pointers that was unsolicited, that you didn't even ask for. I've personally had people come up to me and give me like incorrect advice that aren't even from like a more experienced trainer. I'm all for it, by all means. I'm a coach, I hire coaches.
Speaker 1:If you're like, if I saw you at the gym, that's how we even met I asked you for advice, right? Like I'm all for people that know more than me to teach me, but it's like this weird, I haven't like I just ignore it. I'm just so like used to it now that I don't know if I'm even explaining it correctly. But you're just like expecting someone that doesn't even know what they're talking about to come and explain to you something that you're perhaps the expert at? Have you witnessed that? It doesn't sound like you've participated in it because you're a good human being, so have you witnessed?
Speaker 2:it and if I had in the past or if it came across that way. I mean, I've tried to grow from that. I don't think I have deliberately. I've really tried to stick to myself when I'm in those spaces and only help when it's asked of me Because, again, people are in there, they're busy, they're trying to do their own thing.
Speaker 2:There's a big portion of this stuff, for men in particular, that involves just minding your own business. Of this stuff for men in particular, that involves just minding your own business. If it's not concerning you, if they're not deliberately going to either hurt you because of the way that they're doing something or they're too close to your personal space, then leave it alone. You don't have to have an opinion on everything that you see, especially the stuff that you're not an expert in. And I say this to myself also, because it can be very easy to want to jump in, even online, with advice. But I mean pausing, you know, stopping and just asking like, is this actually, what do I need to say this right now? Why am I, why am I about to talk? I think is a really good, uh, interruption habit to build into your, your uh, online and offline interactions with people, especially with women, as speaking, speaking as a guy, um, I haven't. I've witnessed, yeah, I've witnessed my fair share of that kind of stuff over the years. I think one of the one of the more subtle ones that I don't think gets talked about enough is, right from the right from the jump.
Speaker 2:When, like, someone signs up for a gym I used to work for like aious ones was like the assumption that you know when, when someone, when one of the staff or the sales team would take a woman on a tour or the gym, they would automatically go to the cardio area, like the the treadmills, and they would go to the women's uh, training area, which was its own separate room. So very private, like, and I understand, like that can be exactly what some women need room. So very private, like, and I understand, like that can be exactly what some women need. But the problem arises when they would do that with every single woman that came in and not even think to ask them, like, what are your goals? Do you want to, like get stronger? Do you want to lift weights in the weight room? Like, do you want to just swim? Like, do you want to? Do you want to go in the spinning studio. Do you want to play basketball?
Speaker 2:Why am I assuming that, like because you're here, because you're a woman, like you automatically want to be shown the treadmills or the cardio equipment and you maybe want to be shown the women's only, like fitness area, and that the gym floor is something you're not really interested in? So that's, that's one. That's like. It's not apparently obvious, right Cause you, unless you're going the gym and again, you're used to the space, you know what you want you just will kind of assume that they have your best interest at heart and like, oh, that's where I belong, I belong with the treadmills, I belong with the, the area that's for people of my gender that are the way identify, like you won't even bat an eye, right? Um, unless, unless you know better, you know.
Speaker 2:So I think that's definitely one, and I've seen other like yeah, like you mentioned, guys going up to women telling them you need to do this this way, and like no one asked you, you know, unwanted spotting or just like I would say, an uneven amount of regard given to men who are using equipment versus women who are using equipment, like women working out on a squat rack or something plenty of squat racks free and the guy coming in asked the woman when she's done, when he could easily just go to the rack next to her. I don't know why. That is Because I can't fathom in my own mind me doing that. I'm like no, there's literally four other racks. Why am I going to bother the only one person Like are you starving for human interaction today? Is that why I don't? I literally don't know. Or like men taking off the plates off women's bars when they're not done with them yet, as if the weight stack for your own rack didn't exist and you're like oh, I see one here.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it's just lack of awareness, a huge lack in terms of that, a lack of emotional intelligence which then comes back. Comes back to like empathy, like thinking of others and the. And the problem in the in the conventional gym environment is that it's very individualistic, right, so any, I can't even get into that. With regards to like putting your weights away, which women are way better at doing than guys are, like the amount of times I had to tell guys to put away their weights when they're done versus women, I can literally count no fingers on my hand for women and I lose all my fingers the amount of times I tell guys to do that Interesting, and it was just really weird.
Speaker 2:It's like I do believe, like, despite the fact that, yes, you are there for yourself, yes, it's your own self-care time, it's your time to maybe the only time in the day, maybe you get to prioritize yourself, it's still, there's still other people there. You know it's like driving You're not the only car on the road. Do your part to make sure you get to where you're going and everyone else gets to where they're going. That's not that much of an ask, but unless, but, unless again, it's been going back to the organizational thing, unless it's been instilled from the top down, it's really, really hard to do it as an individual, because you are literally fighting the current of that whole system at that point in time, and that's unfortunately what I ended up doing, because I was the one who was putting away the weights and being like why is no one else doing this?
Speaker 2:So, anyway, not to make that more about myself, but that's just some of the examples that I've seen, and for every one of those, I've read hundreds online and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why women don't feel safe or comfortable in gyms and why they just don't go Like if they will, if they not only if they went there and experienced that themselves, but if they haven't and and then they read online or they hear other women talking about their own experiences like the gym was, like this, you know, I hope they don't think that that's all gyms and I hope they do try to go find a place that respects them, that welcomes them, that says you belong here, you can. You're just as worthy of entering through these doors and getting strong and pursuing whatever your goals are, and we're going to support you and help you do that. That's, that's my hope. But Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm right there with you, as you were, as you were eloquently sharing, that I held a couple of snickers, cause you had some brilliant one-liners, but you did wrap up, or you did allude to a few of the stereotypes. So I want to talk a little bit more about those so we can break those down, because we are, if you're listening, we do sound a little bit more. We're making it some generalizations, right? We call the dudes that I guess we refer to as gym bros, the ones that mansplain and give you unsolicited advice in the gym. And then you have the women that mansplain and give you unsolicited advice in the gym, and then you have, like you know, the women that show up, I guess, on the cardio equipment.
Speaker 1:We used to call them cardio bunnies. And so what other stereotypes I guess exist in a gym environment? And how can we break them? Because we're not supporting, we're not creating a safe and inviting space if we, even those of us in this fitness space, continue to either accept or encourage, you know, for further, like, oh, don't go to the gym, these bros or cardio bunnies. So how do we just change the language, just the ones we're using, and like, what are some of the other stereotypes that we could break right now on this, while we're chatting yeah, well, I think yeah, like you said, those are obviously stereotypes are generalizations based off a large enough sample size of people right and within them.
Speaker 2:We know that I mean you should know that they're not 100 accurate. They're always going to be exceptions to that and those exceptions are where we can have like conversations about maybe different ways to do things right. So I think yeah, as far as like the stereotypes, well, are you talking about like people, like caricatures, or are you talking about like beliefs that people have of like what they should or should not be doing in the gym?
Speaker 1:Both. Let's start with caricatures, susan. I was going to ask you to share all of the benefits of strength training in a second and the myths that you know about it for women, so both of them have at it Whatever feels organic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, there's definitely the back in my day guy who used to be an athlete at one point in time and used to be able to do this and and this is not his advice is not targeted only at women, it can be targeted at guys.
Speaker 2:When he's trying to like, relate to them or like, um, let them know that he's one of the crew, like he used to be at a certain level and he's not anymore because he had an injury or something like that. That's definitely one and like. But when interacting with them, it's like you kind of just at least I found you kind of just adopt a smile and nod, like you know, method of operating, like you're like, okay, cool, that, like again, validate what they're saying. You know, validate what they're saying. You know, you know, thanks for, thanks for having me, nice to meet you, and then just go about your day. And some people literally are there to talk, which which would be like, I guess the second stereotype of like the social butterfly, who is like literally the gym is there where they do feel really comfortable. Um, they're there to hang out with people, they're there to see their friends, they're there to chat. Uh, that's, that's definitely a very common one, and I think honestly, like that's probably the least harmful of all of them, because, like, in essence, like, if you don't feel welcome there, you're not going to want to interact with anyone. So the more people that are maybe you, maybe that's their only time in the week where they get a chance to like talk to people, or it's the only time in the week where they get to see their friends who with whom they have the shared interest of being at the gym, even if they don't work that hard like. Then there's the other stereotype of like people who are too busy thinking about what everyone else is doing and like not focus enough on what they are doing, which they might get annoyed at, like the social butterfly, and to it to that I would like they're not hurting you or anyone else. They're here to do their stuff and you're here to do your stuff, and as long as no one's deliberately obstructing someone or making the environment unsafe for someone else, again, it's kind of like the is this directly affecting me? No, then move on and maybe you should focus more on your own workout. Maybe you're not training as hard cause you have all this energy to devote to. You know, getting angry about what other people are doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are definitely people who use the gym on that same social line as a place to meet people, which can have mixed reviews, I think. Unfortunately it. Some guys definitely see the gym as that kind of place to pick up women and some women go there knowing that that's what's going to happen. So, again, as long as you're aware of why you're there and what you're there for and you're consenting to have a conversation with someone you're there and what you're there for and you're you're consenting to have a conversation with someone, you're not feeling forced or coerced or anything, then that's fine. Again, like I can't tell someone why they should be in the gym, I can just say, if you want help doing certain things, like I'm open to doing that.
Speaker 2:Um and cause, cause, I'll I'll say this the one, the one story I always think of when I want to talk about, like appearances and people judging, which I know is a big concern for like a lot of people, a lot of women especially, going to the gym, um, is I remember there was a there was a pro bodybuilder. He used to train at the gym that I worked out of massive guy Like you would see him on the treadmill and he would just stick out like a sore thumb because the treadmills are on the upper deck and there's this massive guy walking the treadmill and everyone else is kind of like normal sized, like what a big human. Um, and I didn't see him for a while. Like this is like after like about a year of me working there. I didn't see him for a while and I wondered like where he was. And he came in really late at night because I used to just I did the closing shift so I would close it.
Speaker 2:The gym at 12 am Came in, looked like one-third of the size he normally was and went over to the dumbbell rack and just started curling like 10 pounds and I was like you know, frank was his name. I'm like, hey, frank, how's it going? Where you been? And he's like and if I had just assumed right there like why is he curling 10s? This guy's a beast, like he should be doing with his body, I would totally miss the opportunity to scar in his midsection just coming off the rehab process and just now getting back in the gym. And I was like you literally cannot judge someone's effort, someone's body size, someone's motivation or reason for being in the gym just by looking at them.
Speaker 2:I think all of us could do a much better job, especially especially guys or people who want to offer unsolicited advice of like checking yourself first and saying, like, what assumptions am I making about the person that I'm looking at?
Speaker 2:One do I even need to be making them? And then, two, are they even accurate? And most times the answer is no. You just do not have all the info, even a smidge of the info, to be making comments or recommendations. And that's a gripe I have with my industry as a whole, and I see this on message boards and Facebook groups, where someone who's well-meaning asks a question, whether it's about a client, like if they're a trainer, saying I have a client who's doing this and I'm really stuck or just a person who's just want to how's my form, you know? And it's like 100 messages you should be doing this, this, this, this, this and no one stops to go.
Speaker 2:Do they do like, like, just do some detective work first of all and ask like well, how long have you been training for? What are your goals? Why are you doing that movement Like the? Just doing some basic due diligence? That would save both you and them a lot of headache when you do decide to give them advice, if they want it. That people just gloss over, and I think it's partly because people want to help, people want to be useful, people want to show that they know stuff, and that's fine. I get that. I think knowing when to speak is arguably as important as knowing what to say, and we could all be doing more of that. So I try to keep that in the back of my mind just because of like, not that one experience I mentioned with Frank, but other experiences like it as well, not that one experience I mentioned with Frank, but other experiences like it as well.
Speaker 1:I guess this is the sentence you said a few minutes ago of why am I talking right now? It's a good thing to remember for everybody. I agree with you with the frustration with our industry. The other part is I don't really see it, I guess in my little circle, but I do recognize that there's so much weight stigma and so, coming from that judgment, someone may feel really uncomfortable, but you don't know their story. Maybe they were 600 pounds and lost 100 pounds and then they came in and they're bettering themselves in that capacity, they're bettering their fitness.
Speaker 1:Or why does it even matter if someone's showing up in the gym? Like, why are you judging them for showing up, for doing whatever makes them feel good? And then I I find that too, that people start to offer all this like random advice, like oh yeah, you're eating junk food and you're you're, you're lazy, or just this weird judgment that's like so shamey and I can't compute. And then it's like we've created this elitism, this unattainable, like making fitness unattainable and then shaming people. And then we wonder why we're, you know, in an obesity epidemic and why there is an increase, because, like that piece that you said detective work, but I guess I call that part just curiosity of being a human being For a fellow human being. It's like I don't know your story. How can I serve you right now? Like can I support you in your story or am I just being an asshole? Like like to hear myself talk?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I think you touched on one really big one there, which goes back to, like, the judging based on appearance, um and uh. Unfortunately, there there is the because, like you said, fitness has become this elitist pursuit where, like fitness at the top level looks a certain way, talks a certain way, performs a certain way and anything else that does not fall into that. That bracket is not considered to be the definition of fitness. But if you actually look at the definition of fitness, it's the, the, your ability to perform a task. So it's very task specific, right, and I think that's a lot more freeing and it's a lot better way to look at it in a subjective sense, on a person to person basis, as opposed to saying, well, fitness is if you can deadlift 400 and you can squat 300 and you can run a six minute mile and you have abs and you can do 20 pull-ups, and if you don't have those things, well, you're not fit. Sorry, keep working until you can do those. Like. What a narrow minded view of what fitness is when you literally have this amazing body that you can train and develop and have do some pretty cool shit. So I think that's definitely a big one.
Speaker 2:And then with that comes the other stereotype that like, yeah, certain people are lazy because of how they look or what they're doing in the gym, which goes back to that assumption game and which, again, I don't know the historical context for why we equate certain looks with laziness, because at one point in time people who were overweight were considered to be very wealthy. Like if you go back to, like the medieval ages, it means you had a lot of food, it means you had servants who did stuff for you, it means you were like the creme de la creme, you know. And then the body image and like how we, how we look at bodies, has changed over several the last century, the decades inside of that, um, where certain bodies became the ideal, and we're seeing that now. Um, we've seen that in the 80s, we've seen that in the 70s, and my big thing is like that, that's just like the, the tide of the of the ocean, or the, the current of a river. You can choose to jump in there and swim and try to keep up, or you can build your own boat and go in the direction that you want to, and I think fitness can be a vehicle for that kind of self-actualization.
Speaker 2:For people who don't fit into that conventional definition of what they see fitness being advertised as on the internet. For them, fitness could just mean, like I want to maybe lose 10 pounds or maybe it's. I just want to go in the gym and get strong. I know I'm maybe a bigger individual, but I really want to go in the weight room and I don't want to be told that, like I need to do cardio first, like because that's not going to help me. One, enjoy the process and stick to the actual behaviors that I'm doing which will have a positive effect on my health and well-being. So, yeah, I think we can definitely. Going back to the original point is like do way less assuming, not equate certain looks or certain behaviors with laziness. Be more curious, be more inquisitive, like ask more questions, laziness, be more curious, be more inquisitive, like ask more questions, and I think that, yeah, women will feel more welcome in a gym that does that or an environment that does that, and then people in general, feel more welcome in an environment that does that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I love all of that. I know you're in the world of powerlifting, so let's get into the strength part a little bit. And the thing I I love, um, especially when women are in power lifting, I just that makes me really happy because it's like you're fixed, you're really focusing on you know, yeah, I'm strong, yeah, I literally did just deadlift a car. Like I just I can't deadlift a car, but, um, not yet. Anyway, but I get really excited when other people do. I just want to cheer for you. So do you find that there is, I guess, a lot of? Do a lot of female clients come to you for powerlifting specifically? Or have you talked to anyone that maybe wasn't really considering that they could power lift, like shifted them away from maybe doing the cardio bunny, doing air quotes, to heavy lifting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had a mix of both. I've had women start working with me with the goal of, like, training with a barbell getting stronger, maybe with the goal of one day doing a barbell getting stronger, um, maybe with the goal of one day doing powerlifting, maybe not, um. Then I've had other clients who are training, doing just general training for a while, uh, and then I would at some point I'd tell them like you know what? Like I think you should try this thing called powerlifting. It's using the barbell and you've already been using that. I think you'd really enjoy it. I think it's fun and that I think you'd really enjoy it. I think it's fun and I think I really do believe that. I think it's a good thing for pretty much every human to at least try to compete in something once. Now, I don't place any commitment on it. I'm like if you want to just do it once and you hate it and you never want to do it again, that's fine. At least you come into it, you learn a bunch of stuff, you push yourself, you expand your idea of what you're capable of, and then if you don't want to do it ever again, that's cool. We all have autonomy, we're all adults. We can all choose what we want to do with our time, but for those that fall in love with it, yeah, the process can be very rewarding and it's an excellent way to audit your own training process and really focus on the tangibles that you can control so you know your sleep, your nutrition, your stress management and then in training, like your technique, your load selection, your effort the things that really, in the long run, will have the biggest determining factors of how much success you're going to have in the long run will have the biggest determining factors of how much success you're going to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've watched as the powerlifting world and I'm speaking as someone who's in Southern Ontario used to be predominantly gear lifting. So for anyone not familiar with that term, that's just using some level of of supportive equipment like a bench shirt or a squat suit or a delif suit to help you lift more than you'd be able to without it on. So it's like an elastic fabric that could be multiple layers. That uh allows you to basically absorb more load than you'd be able to absorb without it on, so the tonnage you can lift is way higher. The issue with that is it's I would equate it to like it's like medieval jousting, when the crew of the night had to help the night get onto their horse because their armor was so heavy. It takes a lot of people around you who know all the what they're doing to help you get into that sport, and it's very different than like raw lifting, which is just you, your, your body and then maybe a belt and maybe like wrist wraps.
Speaker 2:So one thing that I definitely noticed has happened is in the past 10 years or so is the amount of women in powerlifting has absolutely exploded and it's really really, really wonderful. And I know you've seen it in your circles as well. You know you used to go to meets and they were small and and maybe a few people, not that many women, and now there's women-only meets which are absolutely rammed. They can't fit any more women in there.
Speaker 2:The environment is awesome and think of how much of a culture shift in the training world that is to go from okay, it's kind of this niche thing that only a few people do, who are like really really gung-ho and invested in it, to now like look at all these women from all walks of life, all ages, coming into this space and like really throwing down and like again expanding their idea of what they're capable of, and I think the benefits of that can't be overstated. That also kind of throws the idea out the window that powerlifting is only for aggressive people or it's very intimidating, or it's only for dudes who have tattoos and listen to metal music and snort ammonia and yell at each other or slap each other in the face before they bench.
Speaker 2:No, it's like literally for everyone if you can do the three lifts like if you can pick up a barbell and you can squat and you can bench and you can deadlift, you can do powerlifting even if you can't, you don't have the use of your legs, they're still. You can still bench. I've seen videos of people being helped onto the bench, you know, strapped down, and then they, they bench, relative to their body weight, more than I can, and I'm like that's amazing, that is so cool. Um, so yeah, I think, if you're at all, if you're a woman listening to this and you're at all like, you know, I, I, I train and I feel comfortable in the gym and I'm I want to get outside my comfort zone a little bit.
Speaker 2:Give yourself a performance-based goal, which, in the world of fitness, where a lot of it's based around, looks, fat loss, gaining muscle there's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. Again, if I'm going to say I'm a supporting body autonomy, I'm not going to tell you what your goal should be. I'm going to say, like, but if those goals are not helping you or giving you a positive experience within your fitness journey, maybe switching gears and going to like a performance-based sport like powerlifting or Olympic lifting or even strongman, can be incredibly eye-opening and you can actually maybe find something you really enjoy about it, and it can give you direction and purpose to your training in a way you maybe haven't experienced before.
Speaker 1:I'm pumped up and now I want to go lift something that was a great for. So let's talk about maybe the women that aren't comfortable, or maybe they choose not to have a competition goal and you know, or maybe, like we haven't, we haven't talked. On the other, I guess stereotype or part of the other issue in fitness is like the ageism, so like because strength training in itself, we all know that there are a lot of benefits. Benefits, right, especially for women of all ages, especially older women, and like, yeah, competitions are fantastic for really creating confidence. But what are some of the other, I guess, benefits? Let's reiterate them for maybe listeners that aren't aware of strength training benefits, and then some of the myths that we really need to get rid of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I would first preface all this by saying there's no one right way to do this. If you want to compete, that's great. That goal is just as valid as if you just want to go into the gym and learn how to lift a barbell, or learn how to lift dumbbells or improve your muscle tone. Any of the above this all factors under the umbrella of you're an adult. You can decide what to do with your body and what your goal should be, and if you need help with that, that's where coaching and stuff like that can come in handy.
Speaker 2:But yeah, as far as like the benefits I mean just in general, like increased muscle tone, is incredibly important, especially when you talk about things like sarcopenia, which is like a loss of muscle mass that usually starts after the age of 30. For men and women, it doesn't discriminate, and you can stave that off by building muscle or maintain the muscle you have with resistance training, because resistance training is the signal to the muscle fibers that, like, hey, don't go anywhere, I'm going to need you to be strong and capable in the future. Literally, that's like the simplest explanation I can give people to say, like, if you want to not lose it, like, use it right From the perspective of bone density, like people who do any kind of weight-bearing exercise, even if it's running, because running is a weight-bearing exercise. You are literally wearing your body weight on one leg at a time, but in the context of strength training, for sure, and the cool thing is like you don't have to be lifting super heavy in air quotes, because that is obviously a different amount depending on the person in order to see those benefits. You can be doing higher repetitions with lighter weight and still be getting the benefits of heavier repetitions with less reps. That's definitely a huge one. Yeah, we could talk about the hormonal benefits. I would just say that the mental benefits are arguably one of my biggest reasons why more people should be doing this, because there's something to be said for most people in their daily lives. I don't say people, but I could cater this towards women as well.
Speaker 2:If you think about your daily routine, how often are you doing something that's really, really challenging to you? For most of us, the answer is probably not that often, right? Because we kind of do a lot of the same things every day we get up, we eat, we go to work, we sit down, we drive our car, maybe we pick up our family members or kids or whatever. We go home and that's kind of all this steady baseline of like effort. So we really don't expose ourselves to like stuff that's a bit uncomfortable or a bit challenging.
Speaker 2:Don't expose ourselves to stuff that's a bit uncomfortable or a bit challenging, but we know that in order to get stronger or build muscle or improve your endurance or any of these qualities, you need to be pushing the envelope a little bit. You don't need to be going to 100 miles per hour from zero, but maybe, if your baseline is like 10 miles per hour on a daily basis, maybe going up to 20 three times a week in the gym is not a bad idea, because then you're not only are you getting the benefits we already listed of like muscle retention, muscle growth, bone mass, bone density maintenance, but you're also you're proving again, you're pushing your own perception of what you think you're capable of. You're shattering maybe some norms or some cultural beliefs that you might have had about what women should and should not be able to do, which can be incredibly empowering. And you're prioritizing your own self-care right, because this might be the only hour in the day where you get time to yourself. This might be the only hour in the day where you get time to yourself and you can notice those benefits and those lessons that you learn in the gym with weights translate to like the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:So when you go into a situation in your life that's like maybe a bit challenging or maybe a bit intimidating, you can think back to like oh, I remember how I felt when I was about to do that deadlift Like I was intimidated, my fingers, my hands were clammy, my breathing was rapid. I was like I was nervous, and then I went up to the bar and I did it and I accomplished that. I can do stuff. I can do challenging things right, and that is you know. Maybe you're not deadlifting in your office job, but you can take the same energy that you used when you deadlifted and hit a new personal best and apply that to like other situations in your life where you might need to call that same chutzpah that you already have displayed and prove to yourself that you contain.
Speaker 1:I love that. I call that my inner fierce. I love that. I call that my inner fierce, and I think for me that's where Turn Up the Fierce comes in. It's like I call that confidence that we all have within ourselves and whatever it is whether it's powerlifting in my case it's rugby and whatever sport I can very confidently say that discovering fitness and sport as a teenager or as a younger kid quite literally built my character, and so maybe that's why I was a bit more comfortable in having confidence in myself and being in a gym environment, like when we started our chat, not being afraid to take up space, even if it was in a situation that I'm new. Like you know, you're going to have some humble, a little bit of that curiosity and that biggerness and ready to learn, but I'm not being as intimidated because I know I'm capable of doing things. And so, yes, everyone that Paul listed a bunch of amazing reasons to get strong, whatever that means to you.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about one little point before we unfortunately have to wrap up this beautiful hour A little bit on the negative side. So I was reading a report from the Canadian woman in sport called the pandemic pandemic. The title of it is the pandemic impact on girls in sport and obviously right now we're speaking after 20 months in a pandemic and one of the statistics was that one in four girls, so 25 percent of girls. Then this is Canadian based statistics will not return to a sport after.
Speaker 1:After um, the pandemic is over and that was just one of the many stats. But if we don't really do anything about it, it's going to grow to be 350 000 girls, which is equivalent to the population of alberta, according to the, the report, and we just listed you. You just pointed out that there was an explosion of of, you know, women in powerlifting competition and that, like I've seen a growth in, like rugby and in Muay Thai and various other in the weight room, like whatever sports, fitness weightlifting. Honestly, that shocks me, it makes me really sad. That's such a big number and so how do we navigate this as fitness professionals and like, like, how does that even sit with you, even just as a human first and then as a fitness professional, like what is?
Speaker 1:your first impression when I say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really makes me sad. Um, cause I got into sport late, so I, I, you know, I I played, like you know, t-ball, but I wasn't really that good, and I played soccer, but I got into that like at 12 years old. So I know what it feels like to like not to know like everyone else is a bit ahead of me, you know. I'm not. My skillset is not where they are. I think I was somewhat self-aware kid, so I can only imagine how it feels for you know, imagine how it feels for 25% of the, let's say, under 12 age category of soon-to-be women, feeling like they don't want to return to doing something.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot we can do as fitness professionals and there's a lot we can do in terms of the support system around those athletes their parents, caregivers, relatives, coaching staff. This is not simply a problem. You can just throw money at and expect it to get better, which is the traditional North American way of dealing with our problems. It's like, yeah, just throw money at it, it'll get better. It's like no, no, no, no. You can't solve a human problem with money. You can solve other issues with money. You can't solve a human problem with like money. You can solve other issues with money, but you know, I always think of the quote like people fitness into their lives is genuinely care about them and their well-being, and and not just like how they perform as an athlete, but like care about them as a human being. I think, like you said earlier, like think of it first as a human and and then secondly as a coach. Think of your athletes first as humans and then secondly as athletes like which. If you do it the other way, I guarantee you they will burn out and I guarantee you they will leave sport maybe not all of them, maybe not right away, but the effect on their psyche and on their sense of self-worth and on their likelihood of continuing this stuff well into their later years, I think you're drastically reducing the likely, you're ske, reducing the likely, you're skewing the ratio in favor of them not continuing these behaviors yeah, that's the big one for me is, like you know, human first, athlete second, or human first, gym member second, or whatever.
Speaker 2:It is right. So all of us can improve the way we interact with girls, with women, to help them feel like you belong here, you deserve to be here, you're here to work, you're here to get better and we're going to help you do that. That's what we're about. We're not about your appearance. We're not about stuff that the media might talk about. We're not about your parents' expectations. We progress in the gym in a logical manner. Excuse me, progress in the gym in a logical manner, giving them the tools that they need to then take with them, whether it's in the gym in the future or on the field.
Speaker 2:Importance of practice, importance of showing up, importance of doing your best and the best being the good enough thing, not trying to compare yourself to someone else and then from, like, the injury management standpoint, yeah, not pressuring young girls to play the same sport year round. Right. Giving them options, giving them some say in the process, right. Like it doesn't matter if you're a star soccer player, you maybe want to be incorporating other movement patterns and other parts of sport that develop other areas of your movement library. Because the data is pretty clear on, for men and women, the most successful athletes at the top of their game 90 plus percent of them were multi-sport athletes growing up. But certain parents don't want to hear that and they think that my kid's going to be the next Maria Sharapova in tennis or Mia Hamm in soccer or Haley Wickenheiser, and I'm going to be the next Maria Sharapova in tennis or Mia Hamm in soccer or Haley Wickenheiser and I'm going to put them in this sport year round and that's what's going to propel them to the top and more often than not, the kid ends up hating it, they end up burning out or, worse, they end up getting injured, and I wonder how much of that stat has to do with that.
Speaker 2:That now, because of COVID and this 20-month break that they have all had from sport, they've really had some time to do a lot of thinking, like all of us had, and they've really said I don't want to go back to that, I don't like that. I don't like what it made me do, I don't like how it made me feel, I don't like the coaching staff, I don't like, maybe, my teammates. I just was pressured to do this. My parents push me or my coach push me or whatever, and there's nothing quite as powerful as like giving someone space to like think about stuff when you just the whole world has slowed down and we all have got a lot of time to be introspective about like, where do I want to spend my time when this is done, you know. So that's really, that's the.
Speaker 2:I have a strong suspicion that that's maybe some of what's going on here, and so just going back like the bottom line is stop pressuring people to do stuff that they don't want to do. Even if they're a kid, you still want to teach girls who are going to become women that they have a right to say no like their body, their choice, right. If they don't like the sport, then help them find another one that they want to spend their time in. Leave the coaching to the coaching staff. You know you're not going to live vicariously through your kid and have a good outcome happen in terms of your kid's development. That's likely just going to end up in the wrong category.
Speaker 2:And again, I'm speaking very broadly. I'm making a lot of. I'm maybe assuming a bit, but just from what I've seen with youth and high school athletics and looking at a lot of the data, and just think about the psychology of what makes people keep coming back to something over and over again. Nothing saps your desire more than like someone pushing you to do something that you absolutely hate. You know, and maybe this break was just what they needed to say like I actually don't want to go back and it's really unfortunate, very sad.
Speaker 1:That was a very passionate answer and I'm so sad that we have to wrap it up there because I know that we've hit our time. Uh, I I had many more questions, so I think I think we would have to leave that for another day. Um, but to kind of repeat some of the key points, I know that your mantra was your mantra for heinz performance is. Performance is defined by you. So basically, our takeaway is you have your autonomy. We're recommending strength training for all humans and let's all just be, you know, welcoming and compassionate, so that it's fitness is accessible for everybody and we can encourage more people to take risks and try some competition, because growth is a beautiful thing 100%, and it doesn't have to look a certain way.
Speaker 2:You don't have to look a certain way. Be curious, try stuff, push yourself a little bit. If you don't want to do it, that's great, try something else. But there's a big, wide world of fitness out there and it doesn't only look one way or isn't only made for one person type of person.
Speaker 1:So, thank you, paul. Honestly, this was amazing. I have millions of other questions, but I really respect your time and I appreciate your time and the a lot of golden nuggets and really good things. You said a lot of passionate little rants that I'm sure that, uh, yeah, I'm gonna have messages. I'm gonna have questions after because I have. I want to pick that up. Thank you again for your time and, um, we'll catch you next time yeah, thanks for having me p2, that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Bye.
