Becoming a Role Model: Hugo Garcia's Fitness Journey to Self-Development

Ready to reshape your perspective on health, fitness and personal growth? Today, we pull up a virtual chair with our special guest Hugo Garcia, an inspiring personal trainer whose philosophy intertwines physical strength with mental resilience. Tag along as we explore Garcia's transformation journey, from a sports enthusiast to a respected personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness, and ultimately to a fitness entrepreneur. Discover how the mantra "you can't outrun a bad diet" rings true, and learn to strike a balance between quality nutrition and effective muscle conditioning in your fitness journey.

But wait, there's more! We also dive into the vibrant life of an extraordinary volunteer firefighter, who's found a unique synergy between his service role, fitness knowledge and parenting approach. Understand how fitness forms the backbone of his firefighting duties, and how his children learn to value fitness through his example. We also delve into the importance of CPR, a life-saving skill this devoted father passionately imparts to his children. Our conversation culminates with his personal routine for maintaining physical and mental well-being. Learn from his sage advice on self-development to become the person you would admire and heed advice from. Ready to transform? Let's step into this enlightening episode together!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello and welcome to Health at Fitness Re-Defined. I'm your host, anthony Amen. Join me today as we take a dive into full-time health fitness. We're doing it over from university to take it back for a fiction and see health at fitness and a whole new light. We always love having fellow trainers on this show because it helps bounce ideas up each other, learn something here, learn something there and give you practical tips of takeaway so you can say, hey, anthony, taught me something, the show taught me something. I'm going to share this with a friend. I'm going to get the show out there because we can help as many people as possible. That is what it's all about guys helping others. So if you learned something from this show, please go ahead and share it. So, without further ado, let's welcome to the show. You go, garcia, you go. It's an absolute pleasure to have you today.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Thank you, anthony, it's my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Really excited. I'm going to drop the ball on this one for you and just tell everyone that this is your first episode on a podcast ever, and I'm only saying that because I'm actually genuinely excited, because I love that I get to be number one. So when you blow up and you're like a podcast pro, this is going to be the episode you're referencing all the time. So I am pumped about that. Same here. Thank you very much, of course. So, without further ado, why don't you tell everybody about how you got started into the personal training ground and where did it all?

Speaker 2: 1:33

begin yeah, sounds good. As a child, I was always involved in some sort of physical fitness sports as a kid. I used to. I was in a karate studio. I played basketball in elementary school. I played football in middle school. I played football. High school I was in track and field.

Speaker 2: 1:57

When I started college, I went to school originally for law enforcement, and while in school I was working for 24 hour fitness, and the main reason why I decided to apply to 24 hour fitness was mainly for the free membership, and I was a service representative.

Speaker 2: 2:16

While trying to get into a police department, I decided that why not try to make a little bit more income while I try to become a police officer? So what I decided to do was go through my certification process to transfer from the service department at 24 hour fitness into the fitness department, and while in the fitness department, I was a personal trainer there for two years. Ever since the second month of me being a personal trainer there, I led the department in sessions serviced every single month until I finally decided that I think fitness and personal training might be the field for me, which is when I decided to explore into personal training studios that were privately owned, that allowed independent personal trainers come into the facility with their own clients, run their own business, and I've been an independent personal trainer since 2013. So 10 years now in business and it's going well and I love it.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Love it. Man. It's a great, great feel that I'm sure you've trained hundreds of clients, if not thousands. It just kind of ends up really quickly. So let's bring it all the way back for a nice little fun story. Who was your first ever client and how did you help them?

Speaker 2: 3:37

Oh man, my first ever client. I still remember her name. Her name was Kim Tran. She was an older lady, always involved in fitness. The reason Funny story, the reason why she became my client was because her previous trainer at 24-hour fitness was A bodybuilding competitor. So she was always More confident and training with a male that looked like a bodybuilder At that time I had a little bit more muscle than what I have now.

Speaker 2: 4:09

So that's how she was referred to me as my first client and and she actually trained with me for, I want to say, about eight years. She started with me back at 24 fitness, like I mentioned, and then she followed me into my Independent field here, into the private gym that I am now. She was very gracious for Holidays, for Christmas, for birthdays, even my brother's birthday, my sister's birthday. I still remember this. She would always give me a gift, she would always give them a gift, and then After that, for some period of time, I started to actually train her daughter as well. So I got really close to her family and she was a great client, great experience over at all.

Speaker 1: 4:55

I love it. We always remember our first client. Isn't it great how long ago it was. It's just like that kind of would set you up on the Pat. So now that you've gone, you've done training for a while. I've been in for since 2013. You said so 10 years. This is awesome. What would you say your Specialty is when it comes to training?

Speaker 2: 5:16

Okay, I do try to teach my clients that most of our physical goals, the foundation of physical goals in terms of body composition, body capabilities, athletic performance should be Stamina from a foundation of strength and conditioning. So okay, so I train my clients at different levels of strength and conditioning according to their physical capabilities, according to their experience. So that's usually what I try to really implement in my sessions and teach my clients the importance about strength, the importance of Conditioning and then everything else that stems from there and how you can build your capabilities from that strong strength and conditioning foundation.

Speaker 1: 6:01

I'm gonna ask you another question, because I do like having different opinions, and maybe we won't have a different opinion, who knows? But there's a saying, and I'm sure you've heard this a hundred times in our field you can't outrun a bad diet, true or false? And why?

Speaker 2: 6:20

I. I think it's very true to an extent. Um, now there are people in the field that focus on meeting their macronutrients to Meet their body composition goals, um, but not really focusing on the quality of the food that meets their macronutrients. So that can have some, sir, some sort of negative effect internally, like cholesterol, high blood pressure, what have you um. But I've always been a proponent of Having a proper macronutrients diet that comes from whole foods, minimally processed foods, so that way you're not only meeting your overall body composition goals but you're also improving your internal health as well.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So you would say diet is the most important thing comparatively to cardiovascular strength training, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Yes, yes, I would agree on that.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Yeah, so I used to right and this is why it was gonna be fun. So for my first five years in the field sold, and then the more I studied and the more I learned and the more research that caught up. I would actually beg to say that if you were to pick one thing that's either diet or exercise, it'd be exercise, but specifically exercise that increases hypertrophy or any kind of muscle size beyond a diet, and more studies are showing that. I do agree nutrition is way more important than cardiovascular, like running and jogging and swimming and all that stuff. You do need all three, but if I were to rank them like order priority, it would be weight training, nutrition, cardiovascular. What do you think of that?

Speaker 2: 8:10

No, I completely agree because that's something that I do explain to my clients the importance of resistance training, because if we're not moving against resistance, our bodies only experiencing atrophy and then, from atrophy leads to aging at a faster rate, can lead to injuries as well, and that's something that can only be slowed, if you will, with resistance training. And then after that I would actually rank diet secondly and then cardiovascular endurance there.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Yeah, I mean even in the flip side. I mean, if you guys are gonna take anything away from this, is the more muscle you have on your body. So if I add and we've talked about this before if I had a pound of muscle in my body, that's an extra seven calories I'm burning a day at rest. So if I add 10 pounds of muscle, I'm not burning 70 extra calories a day at rest. Even if you ate the same exact diet. Now you're hitting more of a calorie deficient.

Speaker 1: 9:04

So maybe you're not gaining weight as quickly, maybe you're even starting to stay the same or even lose weight, depending on how much muscle you're building, as opposed to your intake, no matter how bad it may seem. So that is why I'm a huge believer in weight training first, as opposed to nutrition and the cardiovascular health. We've always talked about the cardiovascular trap, like, of course you're gonna lose weight, but you're also gonna burn muscle, which is gonna negative side effects. So you do it no more than like two, three days a week. But walking is amazing, definitely. Couldn't agree more. Now I'm gonna ask you another question. Out of all of that and let's open it up to just wellness beyond diet and exercise, is there anything that ranks more important than diet and exercise alone?

Speaker 2: 9:50

I would say rest, because you would get a lot of. And the reason why I say that is because without rest, you can't perform properly an exercise, and if you can't perform properly an exercise, you most likely won't experience the results that you want. So that's what I would do.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Listen, hold on. You know, did we talk about this pre-show?

Speaker 2: 10:10

Yes or no? Not at all.

Speaker 1: 10:12

This is the first time that we're talking this is my point and this is what I want to emphasize. I am not a broken record, only the I am. But sleep is the most important thing, and it's not just me saying it. We didn't talk about this. And he's coming from California telling you that it's the most important thing, and I'm going to get some of my show. I never preface people and say let's talk about sleep. No, they're always that's what they come out with, naturally. So stop rolling your eyes at me. Get a consistent bedtime. Get seven to nine hours of sleep, depending on what you need. Stop saying I don't need sleep, you're just going to end digging yourself your own grave. I'm sorry, that's my rent.

Speaker 2: 10:52

I don't have anything to add to that Definitely, without sleep, it only leads into regress. We all do. We don't want to experience regress, we want to experience progress, and you can't experience progress if you can't perform properly, which stems from rest.

Speaker 1: 11:06

I've really, really, really couldn't agree more. So, without further ado, let's hop into what I offer guys F? Squared consulting. If you're looking for fitness and financial freedom, that is where squared consulting get an F? Squared fitness and financial freedom comes into play. Keith and I have joined forces to come together to bring you the best of both worlds.

Speaker 1: 11:26

As an entrepreneur, we all know we get lost in our business, and it's the day to day activities of learning, growing and we don't focus on ourselves. There's two ways to burn out from owning a business. The first one is your health. If you're not taking care of your body, taking care of your mind, taking care of your nutrition, evening properly, you're going to burn out, basically, and you're going to end up sick. Trust me, I've been there. Don't do that. We don't want to be sick because ultimately, we're going to lose money in a business and not be able to perform for two, three weeks, maybe even longer, depending on what you get, aka maybe a heart attack.

Speaker 1: 11:58

So it's important to get that stuff organized. Let me help you come up with a calendar, set days to work out, set up your priorities so you can get your life organized and have more time to manage the second part of that is, if your personal finances take a huge and giant turd, you're screwed, because now what's going to happen is you can't follow your dream opening your business pushing further, because you can't even afford the mortgage on your house or you can't afford to feed yourself. There's so many levels to this. So it's important to make sure that you're tracking your personal finances and make sure that you don't end up in a huge pile of debt. And what we also don't do is entrepreneurs plan for a future. When you work salary, you put everything away into a 401k. You're going to live off of that. We don't think about that or anything of business. We don't even think about paying ourselves. So let Keith help you get your finances in order.

Speaker 1: 12:52

So, guys, go check us out fitbodiesbatwolletscom. Again, that is fitbodiesbatwolletscom. We're here to help make sure you can get your life under control, specifically helping entrepreneurs. I mentioned this podcast. You can get 10% off of all services. You go just. I love that. We talked about, like little specific things, helping others and you did mention this to me, pre show you are our father as well as a volunteer firefighter, which is amazing. Both of them yourself having a kid and also helping others for free. I really would like to talk about firefighter first and explain what that's been like for you and your personal life and how that has helped you.

Speaker 2: 13:37

Sure, I've been a volunteer firefighter for only a year now. The reason why I decided to volunteer for the fire department is because I've always been a strong believer that self fulfillment comes from a life of service, and I feel that I am of service to my own immediate family through my personal responsibilities, and I am of service as well to my clients by being their personal trainer and also being of service to my community as a volunteer firefighter, and just belonging to a big entity that's bigger than myself and not getting anything in return for helping people is a huge feeling of fulfillment for me, which I never feel that. So, in terms of the schedule of the volunteer fire department, it's usually one, one weekend per month, or maybe two weekends per month and, as you know, being an entrepreneur, you're always working, so it does take away time for my actual work time, but I never see it that way because I always get more in return from the experience that I have at the fire department.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Yeah, and what has it been like helping others? Like in that scenario? Like I know, it's a physical job, right? So how does the fire department training compare to what you're doing, helping clients? Is there any correlation between the two?

Speaker 2: 15:01

Definitely is. So my fire department is a motor sports fire department, so we specialize in motor sports. So we are the fire department on site for specific racetracks, for specific events like Call over us, other events like monster trucks, drag races. So there are a lot of vehicle accidents that do happen on the track that we report to. But being able to be in a situation where you're trying to calm a person down that's in need of medical help has allowed me to develop a composure that gives the person a sense of calmness because of my confidence to speak to them properly and explain to them that, with our help, everything's going to be okay. So I feel that a lot of those conversations that I've had for medical emergencies with patients has allowed me to converse better with my clients as well, whenever they have any sort of doubts in their program, whenever they're going through any personal situations in their own life. It's been a blessing in terms of helping me in those types of situations with my clients.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Has there been any stories that you've been grateful that you've taken care of yourself because it's put you in a situation where you otherwise wouldn't be able to help someone?

Speaker 2: 16:30

Oh, definitely. I feel that without my own personal health, my own personal physical capabilities, there's no way that I could be able to do this volunteer job, and the dangers of the job are always there. Even though that we're not a paid fire department, we still put our lives at risk, like any other type of fire department. So I always emphasize the importance of health to my peers that are also in the volunteer fire department and I've actually helped them improve their health by leading some physical exercises, and actually a couple of them are on my online fitness program and we just I try to express the importance of physical fitness, not only for yourself, but for people that are helping and for the man that's beside you.

Speaker 1: 17:18

I love that, and then we can kind of branch us over to having a kid. We've talked a lot on the show with trainers who are dads and talk about the importance of teaching lessons for your kids. So how would you say you raise your child differently than the average American because you're heavily involved in this industry, or is there a difference?

Speaker 2: 17:40

I do believe so. My daughter just turned three last week, on the 25th, so I do love the fact that she gets really excited every time that she sees me in uniform and she's always saying dad, dad, fire, dad, fire. And we go through scenarios of CPR. She's in this stage where she'll lay somewhere on the couch or on the bed and she'll yell out dad, dad, help. And she'll pretend that she's unconscious. So I'll go, I'll grab her, I'll pick her up, I'll put her on a different platform and then I'll do like some chest compressions and then I'll ask her if she's okay.

Speaker 2: 18:18

She keeps her eyes closed until she finally opens up her eyes, and then I've taught her that as well. So she's done like some mock CPR on me. So I think that her growing in that type of environment and knowing how to help someone in case of an emergency is completely different than what I think the average child is learning at her age. And then also just the excitement that I receive and the loving feeling that I receive from noticing her excitement when she sees me in uniform. I know that she has some sense of pride in that, which makes me continue to apply the best that I can in the fire department, even though that it's not my career, because I know that she gets so much excitement from and I know it can only be something that she can continue to be proud for as she ages and realizes the importance of that as well.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Hello man, you seem to be really passionate about helping your daughter, Like you see it in your face, which is amazing.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1: 19:26

Absolutely amazing and wonderful. I don't have kids personally yet, but I'm sure once I do I'm gonna have very similar reactions to questions.

Speaker 2: 19:36

They're amazing man and, as a girl, your love for them just continues to grow. Your love for them is just infinite.

Speaker 1: 19:44

I absolutely love that. So what advice would you give listeners right now that maybe volunteer with the firefighter or just have kids or just looking for some general tips? I know we went through a broad spectrum, but is there anything? I mean I think specifically kids. I'm sorry I'm gonna change the question just a little offhand, but being a father, especially for three-year-olds, a lot of the questions are you know, I don't have time. So how do you make time for your health when you have a young child?

Speaker 2: 20:14

Well, I personally believe that most children won't listen to their parents, but they're going to emulate their parents. So by setting the proper example, by being the role model that they deserve, I think that's how you mold your child to be a successful human in the future, if you will. Now, in terms of how I make time for my health, even though we spoke about rest, I hate to say and I hate to admit, that I don't rest much. But the reason why I said that rest is very important is because I've personally felt the decrease in my capabilities from not resting well. But I have a specific routine that I follow every single day that allows me to start my day with my own proper habits, to make sure that, before I even see my first client, before I even see my wife, before I even see my daughter, I've already gone through a specific process that allows me to express the best version of myself. So, along that process allows me to not only improve my physical health, but also.

Speaker 1: 21:22

What is that?

Speaker 2: 21:23

routine. I'm sorry. What's that? What is that routine? What does that look like? So it starts with the wake-up time. It's a wake-up time that I almost never miss, which is 3 am. 3 am, 3 am yeah Wow, and I head out. I head out.

Speaker 2: 21:38

So I live 30 miles away from my gym, so I head out at 3.30 in the morning in the gym at 4 am While I'm driving to the gym. I always have some sort of self-development audible book that I'm listening to on my drive to the gym. Once I get to the gym, I start my workout. Once I finish my workout, I do my daily reflection, which is usually journaling, because I'm pretty sure that you've felt also the positive mental effects after a very challenging exercise, where you just feel like you have complete mental clarity and you're able to put your thoughts and words better. So I put that down on paper every single day and then after that it usually gives me like 10 to five minutes before my first client comes in at 6 am, but by then I've already gone through my daily process. That allows me to improve myself, to apply the best version of myself to everything else that I do after that.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Wow, I still can't get over you. We're good to 3 am. That's what's still blowing my mind right now. That explains the sleep I'm waking up at like 7. I'm always doing fives. I mean, everyone has their own like wake up time, it doesn't matter what time Common misconception, and I'm sure you've read this in a bunch of books.

Speaker 1: 22:57

For those listening, it doesn't matter what time you wake up, it doesn't matter what you do with your time. Exactly, exactly. I'm not a morning person, like I'm not. I'm literally. If I woke up at 3, I'd be like, just so why is that productive?

Speaker 2: 23:11

for anybody. That's why I definitely look for, like the first 10 minutes after 3 am.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Yes, yeah, like there is no light. It's 3 am. I love it. So what other? Just kind of start wrapping the show up? What are the actionable tips would you give to somebody that wants to start their own fitness journey, that's looking to be a better person? Is there any kind of takeaways you express that we haven't discussed yet?

Speaker 2: 23:40

Yeah, in terms of advice for anyone out there in terms of trying to build their own physical capabilities, their own physical health or become a better person in every, in any role that you're in, I would say to first develop the person that you would admire and the person that you would take advice from, and, once you develop that individual, give that person to everybody else, whether it requires you following a specific morning routine to make sure that you expose the best version of yourself, or as simple as eating healthier and trying to make some time for an exercise routine, but the bottom line is to create the best version of yourself and then give that person to everyone else.

Speaker 1: 24:22

I love it, and that's going to hop right into the final two questions that everybody wants to ask you, which is pretty similar question. But if you were to summarize this episode and one or two, take on one or two sentences what would be your take on message?

Speaker 2: 24:36

Create the person that you would take advice from, create the person that you would look up to, create the person that you would admire and once you've created that individual, then apply that person to be of service to others. I love that. That was awesome.

Speaker 1: 24:50

Thank you, great saying. You guys are amazing, I'm sure you're amazing. The second question is how can people find you, get a hold of you, if you're?

Speaker 2: 25:01

interested in learning more. I'm on Instagram. I'm hugogfit, hugo Gfitcom, and also hugo Gfit At gmailcom. Nice and easy guys.

Speaker 1: 25:14

If you're interested, go check it out. Thank you for coming on, and then you guys for listening to this week's episode of Help With Fitness redefine. Please stop again. Hit that subscribe button. Enjoy this next week. I'll see you guys next week and remember fitness is medicine. Thank you, bye.