HemoLife Podcast

Strength Beyond Blood: The Ultimate Fitness Guide for Hemophiliacs Pt. 2

• L.A. Aguayo • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Host L.A. Aguayo brings on Dr. Joe Moleski and Carlon McClerkin to share their expert advice on building safe and sustainable workout routines for people with hemophilia. They discuss techniques to distinguish between normal muscle soreness and potential bleeds, while providing practical strategies for gym success despite physical limitations.

• Learning to recognize the difference between muscle soreness and bleeds through mindful body awareness
• Using slow, controlled movements to develop proper muscle connection and prevent injuries
• Starting with machines before progressing to free weights for better form and safety
• Creating workout schedules that align with factor infusion days for maximum protection
• Beginning with 2-3 short workouts weekly, focusing on compound movements that build foundation
• Adapting exercises to accommodate target joints and mobility limitations
• Overcoming the psychological barriers and fear that prevent many from starting fitness journeys
• The importance of having support and guidance during the critical first three weeks of a new routine
• Embracing hemophilia as part of your identity rather than hiding it from others

Don't let fear hold you back - with proper technique, planning, and support, fitness is absolutely achievable for people with bleeding disorders. Reach out to coaches like Carlon or L.A. who understand your unique challenges and can guide you safely through your fitness journey.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Hemolife podcast your gateway to transformation and empowerment. Hosted by Elia Aguayo, we're diving deep into the world of rare disorders, unlocking the full spectrum of your potential. Each episode, join us as we connect with pioneers, wellness experts and true survivors. They're here to share powerful stories and invaluable insights, from mental resilience to physical health, community news to life-altering strategies. At Hemolife, we provide the tools you need to excel and inspire, prepare to elevate your life, learn, laugh and grow with us. Let's embark on this journey together.

Speaker 4:

We're back with Dr Joe Malesky and Carlin McClurkin and we're going to jump right into our next segment, which is building a safe and sustainable routine. So, colin, I'll start with you. How did you learn to listen to your body and how can someone tell the difference between a normal soreness and a potential bleed?

Speaker 3:

Excuse me, when I work out, it's a very conscious or cautious workout Meaning. When I'm working out, I'm doing my movements, but I'm doing them very slow, to the point to where I'm working on pushing through but actually using the correct muscle groups to push through. And while I'm doing some exercises, while I'm singling them out, I like to feel where I'm doing my workout, to where I can make sure I'm doing the right movement. And when I first started I used to think everything was a bleep.

Speaker 3:

I'm not going to lie. As a kid I told my mom, yeah, this hurts. I was a very active kid, very, very active. I would go play basketball outside with my older brother. I would go play football, I would go play flag football. I would go do anything everything. I was the kind of kid that don't tell me no, I don anything everything. I wasn't. I was kind of the kid that don't tell me no, I don't want to be told no. So I'm going to try to figure out everything that I want to do. My dad's cutting the yard. I'm going out there.

Speaker 3:

So coming back to the question, with all that being said, listening and learned my body through all of it. Um, now it's to the point to where, when I get sore, I like to know if I had a chest day on monday. If I'm sore in my chest, I know if I had a chest day on Monday. If I'm sore in my chest, I know that's from my chest day. But if something's hurting in my leg, that's when I'm going back to think I didn't do anything in my legs. Why are my legs hurting? Yeah, so now I go back and think, okay, well, now this is when I start moving my leg, if I can move my leg. I still have mobility of my leg. It's not really so much of a bleed when I lose the mobility of my leg and I lose all of that sensation. That's when the bleed comes along. But my soreness, pain. I can still be very, very active. My bleed pain. I'm not as active. There's very low movement and even my pain levels are different.

Speaker 2:

I like that. You brought that up because I do work out a little bit and you have these soreness and then bleeds. Soreness, I mean, if you didn't know the difference between both, you'd be infusing every day and then you'd be like well, I'm going to quit. That was me in college. Yeah, I'm just going'm just gonna quit. I can't work out yeah.

Speaker 3:

So like when I went to swim in college, this is when the working out really got amped up, because when I was doing working out in gym for my club team, I wasn't doing as much. So when I went to college and did the workout for college swimming, that's when I was like yeah, this is I was doing bicep curls and I was like man I have a bleed in my arm like this hurts yeah, I can't go to practice the next day.

Speaker 3:

But come to find out it was just soreness from doing bicep curls. And now when I do bicep curls I get that same sensation. Yeah, and now I'm like, well, I kind of wish that I knew that back then for now, because now it's man, now I know that was just soreness, it's not a bleed. So really really learning those two is what really helped me. Now to the point to where I can do as much as I can.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so a lot of what you're talking about is, like mind muscle connection that you develop. It does take quite some time to develop that. You know when you're developing this routine, you do really need to hone in on proper technique, and you know learning how to exercise properly, like Dr Joe mentioned earlier, picking the right weight to start off with so that you can break down the muscle properly with when you're doing the right technique. What are ways that people can learn, though? To start when they get in the gym, to start learning the proper techniques and how to do it right.

Speaker 3:

Best way to start there would be on your machines, especially for hemophiliacs. If I'm creating a workout plan for you, I wouldn't start you on dumbbells. Why? It's because when you start on dumbbells, you're already starting yourself out in a wrong position. And if you don't know how to do a proper dumbbell press, if your shoulders come from here to here, you're already in the wrong position. So therefore, you're already giving yourself that wrong outcome in risk to start hurting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so if you start on a machine, it's giving you the proper technique, the proper muscle to mind connection. So once you gain the muscle mind connection, you can move on to the free weights, to the point to where you can start yeah, like you said earlier, like you, the key when you first start to is slow and controlled movements.

Speaker 4:

And one technique that I actually use whenever I was trying to learn my muscle connection is you actually you tap on the muscle that you're wanting to work out. If I'm doing chest like so, for me too, people always ask me how I was able to develop my chest with my arm not being able to straighten out fully what was my muscle connection. And so I'm actually, when I'm doing it, you can can actually tap on it and you keep on to activate it as you're pushing through and you just go slow, like a lot of people get in the jam and they need to push it out quick. That's not how we do it, you know, if we're trying to, if our goal is to build muscle safely, slow and controlled, and that's why I can do bodybuilding. I'll get a bleed going bowling. I'll get a bleed going hiking. I'll get a bleed doing all these small things you don't think, but I can step on a bodybuilding stage because it's slow, controlled and proper technique.

Speaker 2:

Do you guys use the bands Like you?

Speaker 4:

just said like bands.

Speaker 1:

That's where you warm up from.

Speaker 2:

You feel it versus I'm just going to grab weights and do this. When you're doing that, you're really using the improper muscle groups and you could have poor form Boom, you got to bleed, and then you could potentially hurt yourself. And you could have poor form Boom, you got to bleed, and then you could potentially hurt yourself. And so, yeah, so maybe for our viewers it's start out with these bands, the muscle technique you just talked about, and actually reach out to LA or Carlin and just say yeah, yeah, get some guidance.

Speaker 4:

I mean, there's so many like when I first started, there was just so many YouTube channels out there of people teaching you how to do the right movements and YouTube channels out there of people teaching you how to do the right movements, and you have to experiment with these exercises. Not every single one's going to work for you, and especially if you have, you know, different target joints. You know the answer is to never just give up. There's always, there's always a solution. Right, you can, you can start using machines. You can, you can hit different angles. You know, it's like for my bicep my arm won't go up all the way.

Speaker 4:

But guess what happens if I turn it this way, I can go up. Now, right, I can't go like. You know, it's a little bit. It's like a little bit better. Like this one's more painful for me. If I turn it this way, I can go up and across. And then another thing I do is I'll actually hold my left hand and I will push it up with my right hand and go up and push it even further up to give myself even more contraction to break down that muscle. All you're doing is putting blood into the muscle, you're breaking it down and then later, when we talk about nutrition and supplementation, how you can recover properly and your muscles will grow accordingly to the energy that you're putting onto that muscle.

Speaker 2:

What is your guys weekly? What does your weekly routine look like?

Speaker 3:

So for me I would go Monday. I'll hit my chest Tuesday. I will hit my back Wednesday, I'll hit my leg Thursday. I like to give myself a rest day because during all of this I have work that I have to go to. I have disc golf that I picked up that I like to do. So like my morning routine I wake up, I eat breakfast, I take my dogs out, I read my daily, read my Bible, write down it in my write down in my journal. Then from there, if it's a Monday, I get my factor. From there I go to the gym. From there I go to disc golf. From disc golf I go to my country club job. From my country club job I go to my coaching job. From my coaching job I come back home.

Speaker 2:

Super busy.

Speaker 3:

That is my routine. I try to do that routine Monday through Friday. Thursday is my rest day. I get back after it Friday. Saturday, Thursday is my rest day. I get back after it. Friday, Saturday, Sunday is the rest day.

Speaker 4:

What kind of recommendations would you give, though, to someone who is just starting out? I mean, that sounds like too much for someone just starting, I think, starting out.

Speaker 2:

I mean, when I started out, if I was going to the gym, I aligned it with the days I'm infusing. So if you're a three time a week or whatever it may be twice a week or the day that you're infusing, this is what I do. I go out and I would infuse and then do the workout for 30 to 45 minutes low weight, high rep bands and just be very, very cautious. That's really yeah, yeah, do you infuse?

Speaker 3:

the day. So my infusing days. I'm on a lactate so I go every four days and since how active I am, I go infuse Monday. I go on Wednesday because Wednesdays are my leg days and for me I had both of my hips are kind of like target joints because I had both illusory bleeds in my right hip and in my left hip. So I always try to infuse on my leg days due to the fact that I know that if I do a wrong movement on my leg days something really, really bad could happen. So I infuse Monday, wednesday and Friday.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean, you know my routine's way different than you know somebody who's just starting out, for sure. So when I, you know, when I think about when I first started out, I I look back at how beneficial it was to just hone in on compound movements in the beginning, because you want to build a solid foundation for your body. So compounding meaning you're going to be hitting more than one, more than one muscle group at a time. Right? So maybe if you have underdeveloped shoulders or arms, you don't want to just go in there and say, shoulder day, 50 pounds, boom, let's build these shoulders Like you can do. You can do other things. So compound movements one would be like a deadlift. You know that's going to be a compound movement, plotting, if you can. You know, if you have bad ankles, then you know that might not be the best option. Yeah, like I said, anything that's going to hit more than one muscle group and then not go too hard. I would say two to three times a week is suffice. 30 to 45 minutes a day. I mean that to start off, that's all you really need. And then, with proper nutrition and everything you know, you'll, you'll progress. And later on, in the future episode we're going to be talking about progressive overload and what that means and how you can implement that strategy and track your your success along the way.

Speaker 4:

For me, though, now, like I try to, I'm not in competition phase, so I'm I'm doing three to four times a week and I'm touching. I'm in a phase now where I get to touch up just what I want. So, you know, maybe, hey, I want to shape my chest a little bit. That you know. That's the art of bodybuilding. You're crafting, you're in full control over your body. I want my shoulders to be a little bit more rounded out, you know, and so I'm going to go there and just touch on those things my craft. But in the beginning you got to build that solid foundation. But bodybuilding is awesome for a hemophiliac who doesn't. You know, you were told we don't have control. This is the one thing you can have full control over, and it's like an art you create the image that you want to create.

Speaker 2:

So would you have for our listeners here something that maybe like is a like a guide?

Speaker 3:

on the beginners like hey, this is basically for, like a beginning for a beginning person with hemophilia to start working out. The best way for you to do it is to I would literally just start going for small little walks that first few weeks. I would just start little walks. The second week I would start you with, like some bands from the bands we'll go to to machines. For machines we'll go to weights. From machines we'll go to weights. Then if you have target joints and you have your target joints, then we'll work around them. There's ways to help those target joints and help those joints to get better.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, you definitely have to have a game plan, though, and what's cool is you hire a coach. You can hire someone like Carlin. You can do other research as well on coaches, but it's super important, and what's cool about it is it takes all the hard work away from you, all the guessing, all the knowledge. It's going to be there for you in the plan. You wake up and simply implement it. You just do it. You just wake up. All you have to do is take action, and then you have an accountability person as well. So when to check in with someone who's going to lift you up if maybe you are struggling a little bit mentally, and just make sure that you are aware of the process that you're going through and it's okay to fail.

Speaker 3:

It only takes two weeks for someone to really realize the change of your working out. The first week is kind of hard, don't get me wrong. First week's hard because you've got to deal with the soreness and you got to deal with the new routine change. Second week you're dealing with the soreness. If we keep going, you break down that soreness that you had from the first week. The second week you're breaking down the soreness. The third week you already have the routine. You don't want to break the routine by the third week you're in it.

Speaker 4:

yeah, the hardest part is that beginning stage. For sure, it's just that first week, the initial start, but then to have someone there to tell you what you're feeling is okay, it's normal.

Speaker 2:

And I also think that 21 days people quit a new habit. What is it? 14 to 21 days? Yep. So having somebody like Carlin or LA that can just keep you past that 21 days, I mean that's key. So you need support. I mean we could tell you do dumbbells, we could tell you do this, but really once you don't, if you don't have anybody in your corner, in your corner that's done it, I mean you're really on an island. So I recommend reaching out to somebody that's done it before.

Speaker 4:

So for either one of you who wants to answer for the final question on this segment, what's your advice to someone who's afraid to even start due to the fear of injury or past?

Speaker 3:

bleeds. So I can kind of start this one. The reason why is because when I was a lot younger, there was this one time I got this really, really bad bleed, and we all remember in the last segment how Dr Joe said he didn't want to tell anyone about him having the bleeding disorder. So I was the same way. I was maybe 12, 13 years old. I was at a swim meet. My parents didn't take me to the swim meet and I'm in the warm-up, cool-down pool and I get kicked in the neck.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:

I'm a hemophiliac Hemophilia A severe. Yeah, I'm a hemophiliac. Hemophilia A severe. Yeah, me too. I get kicked in the neck. So be it. I'm at a swim meet. I want to be here. I'm swimming fast. I'm swimming good. I've trained for all of this. I want to be here. Yeah, I don't tell anyone. This is a two-day swim meet around. I'm just with my swim coat. I don't tell her. My mom comes picking me up Sunday. We go to Burger King. She gets me chicken nuggets. I can't even swallow the chicken nugget, my gosh. So we go home. It's late at night. My mom goes yeah, we're going to the hospital. We get to the hospital, doctor goes we have an hour to live. So from that day I could have balled everything up. And goes yeah, I'm not, I'm not doing this anymore. But from that point forward it showed me like, hey, I have to own this. If I don't own this, I will hurt myself.

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah, and my, my big thing is is when I was young, younger eight, nine, 10, I was kind of embarrassed by it and I was like I didn't want to tell anybody. As I progress, progress, I was like no, no, no, this is something that empowers me and I'm fine with telling folks and this and that. So I think you know I'm 37 and be 38. You know, back then, hemophilia, people didn't know a lot about it. They didn't know the treatments, this and that. But nowadays I have a younger brother that he grew up completely different. Okay, we're 13 years apart, but nowadays it's more accepted. So I recommend that you do tell folks about it. It's very important, but when we grew up it was different.

Speaker 4:

Yeah yeah, I remember that we're talking about it on the podcast.

Speaker 4:

This would never happen. I remember when I first started social media, nobody posted on their profile Hemophiliac dude everywhere. Now, everywhere, people are proudly putting that in their bio and this is like we used to be like no, this isn't me, this doesn't define me. Okay, maybe it doesn't define you, but man, if you, if you just twist that, you know a little bit mentally, like it elevates, you do it and it turns you into something special. And you know, that was always my goal in the beginning is like turn this into a badge of honor, not a disability. And now I just love seeing how everyone is just putting it out there. It's open.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and just telling everybody hey, I have this, if something happens I need to get medical treatment, but I have it under control. Yeah, so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Don't be afraid for someone to label you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

No, don't be afraid for someone to label you. Yeah, no, don't be afraid for someone to label you, and that was our biggest thing growing up. You don't have to face that anymore. We are here on a podcast, so we are out and speaking of it and loud you know, this is our life. It's emo life.

Speaker 3:

This is what we deal with and it is not something to be afraid of, it is not something that hinders you in any way possible. When you do have those bleeds, all we have to do is sit back, rest rice, rest ice compression, elevate Factor up.

Speaker 2:

Then you're back. You're back to it Awesome. Well, we had a great podcast here and let's continue.

Speaker 4:

That's awesome. So that's it for this episode, guys. We'll see you next time. That's awesome. So that's it for this episode, guys.

Speaker 1:

We'll see you next time. Thank you for tuning in to the Hemo Life Podcast. Today's episode hopefully inspired you and provided valuable insights to enhance your journey. Join us again to hear more incredible stories and expert advice from our community. Make sure to subscribe and stay connected with a group of extraordinary achievers and pioneers. Sure to subscribe and stay connected with a group of extraordinary achievers and pioneers. On behalf of LA Aguayo and the entire Hemo Life team, keep pushing forward, strive for excellence and remember you are the architect of your own destiny. Until next time, stay strong, stay inspired and continue on your path to an elite life.