how many of you have heard of oprahwinfrey? yeah ok oprah has been quoted as saying in every area of my life i feelsuccessful, but when it comes to losing weight, being healthy and feeling fitthis is what she said. i want you look at the screen. she said i feel like a bird that'slocked in the cage and i can't fly. how many of you can relate to oprah orhow many of you know someone that can relate to oprah? we're going to betalking, in fact, today i want to start off our time to get together today likelaurie was saying, thank you guys for all you do.
you're helping folks that feel stuck ina cage literally. we're going to talk about physical inactivity and i knowmany of you may be thinking, "we're gonna have a conversation for an hour aboutexercise?" we're really going to be talking about how do we unlock this cage -this cage of feeling stuck. how do we do that? so i'm gonna actuallytalk to you about really how to soar. we're going to be discussing some specificthings. i want to talk to you about 7 simple strategies that will get youmoving and get the folks you are working with moving more effectively. and aswe'll talk about today the number one intervention to improve your health you- do you know what it is? it's moving.
yeah, but what is the most difficultthing for all of us to do us as well right? it's tough and we're going to talk aboutthat. in fact, i would love to have a dialogue with you guys. i don't want tostand on the stage and just - y'all are gonna go to sleep. i would love to actuallylearn from you and hear from you what are you seeing. what's going on around youokay sound good? so do me a favor. you guys wanna havesome fun this morning? yeah? turn to the person next to you okay before you do, look him straight inthe eyes and say, "you look like a lot of
fun." go ahead and tell him that - haha -alright here we go here we go. ok so this is what we're gonna do.we're going to talk about three specific areas. the first we're going to talkabout is the problem. we're going to talk about inactivity but we're also goingto talk about - what are the barriers what-what-what is affecting our abilityto move more. and i heard earlier - who it was the - which department was it that wasthe number one in exercise? was it the health department? department of health. yeah.well done well done. but it's toug. it's not easy is itfor us personally as well. we'll talk about the problem. we'll talk aboutspecifically seven strategies and then
we can talk about how do we create amovement. how do we do that with the departments we're working, with theorganizations we're working with. sound good? and we're gonna have some fun. i promise you that.you will leave here hopefully with a smile on your face. so here's the first thing. i want to do amental exercise. you guys up for this? put your feet out in front of you. sitback. i'll stay on the stage because you're probably like, "what is he going to do?" i want you to close your eyes, butbefore you do, promise me you will not go to sleep. okay close your eyes.
what i want you to do is take a deep breath.inhale through your nose, slowly exhale through your mouth, and what i want youto do - i want you to picture yourself in your favorite vacation spot, yourfavorite place of rest and relaxation. see yourself there, okay. take another deep breath. inhale throughyour nose, slowly exhale through your mouth. now i want you to picture yourselfas healthy as you can possibly be. look at your face. look at your body. look at your life. ifyou are as healthy and as fit as you could possibly be - what do you look like? what do you feellike? what is different about you?
what is different about your life? take another deep breath. sowly exhaleand slowly open your eyes. pretty good huh? i see y'all smiling - okay.first question - where did you go? how many of you went to the beach?oh my gosh. what?! y'all gonna fly back with me tocalifornia, right okay. how many went to the mountains? ok where did the rest of you go? right now can i ask you a question? were any of you doing something in your picture?were you doing something? shout it out. what were you doing? running. good - good- good.
same thing? anybody else? walking, yep. good good. anything else? you're fishingfrom a kayak? i love that! that's so cool! let's talk about what did you noticeabout your face? if you're as healthy and as fit as you could possibly be. smiling? yeah good. anything else? did you noticeanything about your face? laughing. yeah. did anybody see themselves at aparticular age? were you the same age you are now but maybe you look youngerpossibly? yeah i had black hair. anybody else have - what did you seewith your face? anything different? i hear often less stress.
here's another question for you. if youhad one wish - snap your fingers and something wouldmagically change about your health and fitness - one wish just snapping fingersand it would magically change, what would you wish for? ok think about that anyone want to share?what would be your one wish? can i tell you what the number one wishis across the bar? weight loss - number one by far. anybody else have another - different one?pardon? abs - yeah - awesome abs! good. so i want youto hold onto that wish because we're
going to come back to this at the end ofour conversation today. i want you to either write it down, think about it - just hold on. what is yourwish? i want to show you something. believe or not, whatever your wish is,chances are if you were to exercise on a regular basis, chances are you'd be that much more - thatyou'll be that much more closer to that that wish. did i say that correctly? that wasterrible english! haha you got to bear with me this morning. sohere's my question - what do you think of when you see this word? be honest with me.
come on. here is our opportunity.regimented, hard to fit in, yeah boring. you know, it could be positiveconnotations. right so here's a question you want to ask the people you'reworking. what do you think of when you think of exercise? what comes to mind? ok very important, but we do need to talkabout this. american college of sports medicine - we know this stuff, right guys?look at this. exercise has a role in the treatment and/or prevention of more than40 chronic diseases. unbelievable. i'll just go through these real quick -reduce the risk of heart disease, reduces the incidence of diabetes, reduce the incidences ofhigh blood pressure. you all know
this right, and let me ask you a question. the people you're working with - you thinkthey know this? they may not know the stats specifically but if you ask tenpeople - do this, try this, ask 10 people, "do you believe exercise is good for you?" guess what - how many of the ten do youthink are going to say, "'course, right." we all know it's good for us right. so wehave to have an honest discussion. this is really the question. here's somemore - improved cardiovascular endurance. some of your wishes may be up thereright. but here's the question of the day,really the problem. what is the problem
guys? seventy percent of us, 7 out of10 of us are notmoving enough to just to maintain our present health. right let me show youanother one. why? this is the bigger question. why aren't we moving? we know it's good for us. let me ask you guys. what do you think isthe number one barrier to an active lifestyle? what do you it think would be - yep, believe it or not, perception. perception actually clinically it's listed perception of lackof time, but you know what i would say? i think it's more a reality.
to be honest with you guys, honestly doyou feel a bit busier today?and the folks you are working with, are they busy?let me ask you this question. i have a slide. oh actually i need to tell you this story.well, i'll tell you this. have you ever been to a circus or seenon television where a clown will get a dowel or a stick and they'll put a plate ontop of it and they start spinning the plate? you ever seen this before? and thenpretty soon they get two plates going and 3 and five and then 10, and they'rerunning back and forth trying to keep
all the plates up right. do you ever feel like that - and theplates are our responsibilities of life like kids, work, maybe parents they needhelp, you know friends that need help, church stuff - whatever - and you're runningback and forth and then all of a sudden we come along and we say, "guess what - youneed to exercise too right." and what do we say? what does that person say to us? whatdo you think anyways? right i'm not i don't have a minute to breathe. let me sharewith you. my background is in exercise physiology. my undergraduate studies werein exercise physiology. i was a college athlete. i played college football, and soi was used to training right. and i loved training.
training was fun. training athletes andexecutives highly motivated - but one day i was speaking to a very small group ofindividuals, and i remember like it was yesterday, there was a woman sitting in the frontrow. and the entire time i was speaking she never looked up. not one time. now forthose who do presentations, would that be distracting? she was looking atthe ground. i didn't know if i was boring. i don't know what was going on, but whatfascinated me, and i kept doing this - i kept walking by, kept looking at her like - isshe's gonna look up? she never looked up. after the talk she came up to me. sheintroduced herself and i think i have on the screen here - she said two words.actually three - she said sean i'm stuck.
she said stuck i've tried everything -every pill, every product, every potion, every plan. you name it, i've done it. and then shesaid - and i was fresh out of college. by the way i was a behavioral counselor.i'll let you try and guess - i worked for a major weight loss clinic. ok i had one class of psychology incollege, but i was now behavioral specialist - and that wore a white labcoat. i thought i was so cool - like a doctor. but i would, i would basicallyhelp these folks to learn about health and well-being. like we all do. and then theyleft the clinic with a bag of cuisine.
anybody want to guess what major weightloss center this was? it wasn't jenny craig. do you remember nutrisystem? i workedfor nutrisystem the first job out of college right. and so what was fascinating aboutthat job was fast fast forward - the the owner - i notice all my clients losingweight every single one of them when they were on this plan. a hundred bucksevery week they'd grab the food. they'd eat it. the sad part was when they got totheir goal weight, they started reintroducing regular food back intotheir life. guess what happened - all of my clients started gaining the weight back.so ithought i it was a failure. ireally did. i went to the owner and said, "hey can we startdoing some exercise training with these
folks or maybe work together with a gymin the area? and she looked at me you guys and she honestly said this.she said no. i said why. she said we want them to gain the weight back. i said, what? she said, of course, sean, that's ourbusiness model. now i'm not saying that's true of allnutrisystems but i quickly gave my two week resignation and i was gone. back to annie - sorry annie looked at me guys and when she told me that - she said i havelost the same 60 pounds over and over and over and over again. and i was ready.i felt like i had my white lab coat. i did not at the time, but i figuratively iput my white lab coat on and i
said to her, "annie you know what? you justneed to schedule regular activity before the week starts." how many of you have heard thatbefore? and it's a good answer right - and she looked me .she said, "ok i have threekids, i have two jobs, i'm on the go all the time spinningplates." i was not married - fresh out of college,no kids, and i had the audacity to basically say, "well, you just need tomake it a priority." and when she looked at me, you guys, i swear there were daggerscoming right at my head. and she was really sweet though. but all of a sudden as i'm trying tofind a way - and honestly - she knew more
about exercise and nutrition than i did.she read every book. i'd mention a book. "i read it." i'd mention some plan. "done that.i've had personal trainers have done that." and really like searching - allof a sudden this little crowd starts gather around annie and they're like, "yeah."they're all like, "yeah what do you got for us?" i had nothing guys. i had nothing. she wasreally sweet. she just looked at me, nodded her head andwalked away. i got in my car and i literally - blah blah blah - that's whatii was doing - and what i've committed not to do anymore.
you ever see charlie brown right?remember the teacher when they talk? whaa - whaa - whaa - when i was telling annie - iliterally said this to her, "annie did you know if you did three to five days a week ofregular aerobic activity, stay in your target heart rate zone, do regularstretching, perform regular resistance training, all acsm stuff - good stuff -really good - scientifically we know it's beneficial, but to annie, guess what shewas hearing - blah blah blah blah blah. and so i went to my car. i sat in there, put thekey in the ignition and i didn't start the car. i thought i've got to find a bettersolution than this. we really do. how can we help people?we're all busy.
we're all on the go. so we're going totalk about that. we're going to address this issue. so this is what most of usfeel like or deal with right. do you guys have traffic here in nashville? i noticed alittle bit of it with jj but it's nothing compared to what we have in california.but still we're dealing with this every day. how many of you have kids right? wehave other responsibilities, and thank you thank you thank you. many of you're volunteering in thesepositions and you're helping people, you're inspiring people to livebetter lives. thank you. you guys are amazing. thank youvery much for all you're doing. the state of
tennessee thanks you. so what we need to talk about - this is what it'sdoing to our bodies. very quickly - did you know that the average americansits about 7.7 to 15 hours a day? you ever heard of a company called la-z-boy?what a great name for a sofa company right?! do you - have you guys heard of thisproduct? it's a couch, sofa. you sit down on it, you remove the middle cushion and youknow what's underneath the middle cushion? a refrigerator! so we've got aremote control, we've got our refrigerator. i promise ithink it's coming guys -
they're going to create a sofa with thetoilet. that's terrible! i mean but thisis reality - 7.7 15 hours. let me show you a couple things that youneed to be aware - you're probably already aware of. the evidence is mountingrelating to sitting disease, and let me share with you a few facts. i hope it'shelpful for you. british journal of sports medicine discovered - how many of you arefidgeters? anybody a fidgeter? guess what - keep doing it. encourage those you workwith - keep fidgeting - if it drives you nuts - i was sitting down at the airport justclosing my eyes and this one young lady sat down next to me and all of a sudden the whole benchstarted shaking. she was shaking her leg.
and i was like, "good for you! did you knowthat's good for you?" so this is important to know becausewhen we sit all day long - how many of us sit most the day - and guess what - i'm notdoing personal training anymore. i'm writing. guess what i do most of day? iwrite. i sit on my butt and i write aboutsitting disease right. so how do we change that because it is affecting ourhealth. and let's talk about that. this is a fascinating study. this floored me wheni saw this.did you know if you were to exercise in the morning but then sit allday research is showing it negates thehealth benefits of that workout. what?!
that's - i mean no it's because - we're notexercising in the first place in the morning and then we're sitting allday right. so its multiplicative. the effects - take a look at this one. there's a lipoprotein called lipoproteinlipase that actually when we move our bodies activate to utilize fat forenergy. what studies are showing is if we sit forabout three to four hours in duration this lipoprotein lipoprotein lipaseshuts down and actually causes our bodies to store more fat. so we actually become more fatefficient storing fat if we sit too long.
right so that's another study- penningtonanother study showing higher risk of heart disease. this one floored me when isaw this and does someone need to hold on i'm sure you've all heard this -sitting is now the new smoking. so really its equivalent to smoking a pack and ahalf of cigarettes a day if we sit for too long. this was troubling for me - justin the profession i'm in now of writing and doing a lot of - we're paid guys forthis. aren't we paid for our knowledge? and we most of us are doing this all daylong or this all day long we have - 200 years ago a hundred years ago - you wouldnot have somebody talking to you about exercise or physical activity. know why?our whole day was physical activity and
exercise. now we have to find a way tobring it back into our lives. if not there are significant consequences right- makes sense. ok so let's talk about just a couplethings - did you know sitting too long ages you significantly? couple things - ourmetabolism will decline and this is just normal every 10 years past the age of 25 it decreases about 25 percent. we beginto notice this don't we also neuro muscular control balance declines,functional fitness declines past the age of 45, flexibility declines, but did youknow this? guys this is important - you have two ages and the people you'reworking with -
please let them know that you have twoages. you have your birth age and you have your body age. did you know that thefitter you are, the younger your body age is? i know. think of this practically howmany of you know somebody in their sixties seventies eighties - 80 year oldsthat are fit, strong and healthy, vibrant - love life right? yeah i do too. young body age - probably ifthey're 80, their bodies could be 60 - could be 65. i'm going to share with youa couple stories in a moment. but have you ever met a twenty-year-old that isthe other way? they're like an eighty-year-old and guess what. this isreally important that we remember this.
there's a reason for it. we lose something as we sit. it's ourmuscle. when we lose our muscle guys, we lose our health. if you want to changesomeone's health in the negative way let them sit. let them lie in a bed. and i'llgive you a perfect example. sophomore year in college were playingboise state. i was on the inside blitz. some of you guys are like oh i know thatright. inside blitz - and my - our nose guard took the center and threw him and hehit my leg and planted in the blue turf and tore my medial collateral ligament,top of my hip all the way down to my ankle. i had to wear cast so i had to crutcharound for eight weeks the worst part -
how many of you ever broken a leg or an arm orhad to wear cast? it's the worst thing ever the worst thing is not being able tomove it, but next to that you know what's really bad - yeah when you get an itch you cannotscratch it. so i would get a hanger or stick. some of you guys are laughing,but two weeks after wearing this cast and not moving this limb, i could take my hand - i could go down and scratch my thigh. four weeks - i could go all the way down andscratch my knee. now all of a sudden this 19 year old body is changingdramatically. i'm gaining weight. i'm depressed. i'm feeling old, lethargic, justangry, just not liking life right.
literally eight weeks - cast is almost off.i could take my hand, guys, and go all the way down and almost touch my ankle. when thedoctor took the cast off of my leg - literally functionally body age - do you know howold this limb was? i would venture to say it was 99 years old and the reasonwhy i say that is my grandmother was alive at the time and she was 94. her legslooked much better than mine, and functionally she was strong. she couldbend it. i couldn't bend my knee. i couldn't really walk on it without asevere limp functionally and my fitness decline - you name it - every aspect ofmy fitness just went in the tank. in eight weeks i would venture tosay physically my limb aged almost 80
years. so the same process is happeningin our bodies. how do we protect against that? how do wedo that and how do we help others? so let's get into it. by the way, economic impact is significant. total direct indirect costs just for physical inactivity over 147billion. so let's get into some strategies. can i show you some stuff? iwant you to steal this stuff okay? i want you to take this with you and use it. howmany of you go to a meeting all day long and you're sitting all day long? never do that. please take some of thesethings i'm gonna show you.
you guys interested in is seeing somesimple things you can do? a couple of things i need to tell you - the reason whywe developed this - we were challenged by a manufacturing company to put togethera program to help their employees. thier productivity was dropping.they were experiencing a lot of issues - repetitive motion issues, functionalissues .they asked us to come in and assess them - three departments, hundredforty-one employees and this is what they said to us. they said, "look we want -we know exercise will help these guys, but you cannot do it before work orafter work. you need to do it throughout their day - something that's not going todistract them and something they can do
during their work time. like okay that'seasy. that's a tough one. it has to be no sweat and it has to bevoluntary. like are you kidding me? this is just not going to work.you're stacking the deck. so we went to work. we started analyzing what they weredoing. we were looking at each of their movement patterns. we're looking at theirday and i want to show you something. we did a pre-assessment a mid-assessmentand a post-assessment. how many of you are familiar with dr. joe lutzinger'swork? any of you know who dr. joe is? he's a phenomenal researcher in the area ofproductivity. real quickly - this is what we discovered - statistically significantchanges in all these areas: perception to
exercise, corporate culture changed,supervisors began to model a healthy lifestyle, workplace demonstrated acommitment to healthy living through resources, and here's the amazing thing.we started noticing statistically significant areas. people started eatingdifferently guys and honestly i'm talking 30 seconds of movement. soinstead of here, now this is a manufacturing facility, but we've done thisin office settings - instead of all day long - literally just standing up and doing acouple things i'm going to show you can dramatically change not only your bodybut also what?
please remember this, okay. a friend ofmine shared this with me. he's a physiologist. he said, "sean, motion effectsemotion." what a brilliant statement! if we were just to move for even twominutes, we feel better, we have a smile on our face right. all these areas beganto change. people started to stop - and they stopped smoking. they begin to movemore. their stress levels at work - productivity went up. presenteeismchanged. morale boosted just by doing little moves throughout the day whichi'm going to show you here - strategy number one - what i learned instead of theblah blah blah is what if we were to
give people simple solutions things thatthey would feel confident that they can do? you have heard this term right?self-efficacy - dr. albert bandura from stanford university coined the phrase.we're much more apt to attempt something if we feel confident. we can do it right. so if i said this to you, "i want you towork out six days a week for 60 minutes every day." you're gonna look at me likemm - but if i were seeing you every hour of the day or every other hour - ifyou can - i'd like for you to just do 30 seconds to a minute of movement. startthere. i literally had to look at this andsay, "sean you've been doing this
backwards. you've been trying to treatpeople like athletes right." so here's the first one. adherence is to exercise - making"fitness work" is highly related to self-efficacy. highly related. so here'sreally the statement of the day. did you know a little exercise - even aminute of movement - is better than no exercise? and again i was trained in allthis stuff. acsm guidelines - they're perfect.they're absolutely true, but guys if we were just to help the folks we work withfor a minute of movement or two minutes of movement - guess what starts to happen?they begin think, "i could do this." when people leave a talk like we're havingtoday and they say, "i can do that." i love
to hear that because that means they'rewilling to change small steps. that's what we really want to do. so what i want to talkabout - i want to show you a few of these we're going to talk about. yeah that's that's actually not what we didwith them but there are seven movement patterns that we do every single day andif we if we do these on a regular basis guess what - you're going to stay young. you're going to help thedepartments, the organizations, the companies that you're working with stayyoung, productive, innovative, creative, because these are things you can doduring work.
you up for it? can i show you a couplethings? how we doing on time okay? yeah okay alright. so this is ina book. how many of you are familiar with welcoa? wellness councils of america.so simple book - you can actually use this is. it's like amagazine-style book. it is really affordable. but all these moves are in there - but iwant to show you this is what we found in our research - how many people wouldlike to burn an extra 200 - 300 calories a day at work from nine to five? are you kidding me? dr. levine discoveredjust by doing movement like this, you could lose an extra 30 to 35 pounds in ayear - by doing it during your workday.
what? that's huge! very huge - increase yourmetabolism - how many people want more energyright? we all do. so let me start with the first one - balance. you guys ready okay? ready to have somefun? okay i'm going to give you a little test. go ahead and standup. this can be interactive. first test - let's see how young your balance age is ok.give the person next to you a high five and say, "you look young." go ahead and tell them. just say, "you look young." ok, this is what i want you to do. again, remember please take these ideas withyou and use them.
ok what i want you to do is put all your weight onyour left foot. bring your right foot up just a little bit and just stay there.okay now what do you notice? on the foot you're balancing on, do you noticeanything wiggling and jiggling right okay? did you know you're strengthening yourtendons or ligaments and your muscles by performing this movement? okay switch legs. put your weight on yourright foot. now same thing - bring your knee up a little higher if you can. nowyou're going to engage your core. you actually work your core a little bit.nowyour hip, your abdominal muscles and just
stay there okay. put your footdown. my daughter justsaid - she taught me she goes, "dad, did you know if you talk to siri and just say 'siri,give me an alarm at this time' she's gonna do that for us? it's pretty cool -your 20 year old tells you what to do. get your phone, put it on your desk andremind siri and your phone to say get up an hour ideally every hour you wantto move for three minutes ideally, but if you can move for 30 seconds or a minutefirst movement balance here's your test - whichever foot or leg you felt most comfortable on, iwant you to stand on it - but i want you
to bring your knee up a little bithigher. i want you to try and go about to waist level, but here's the test okay, iwant you to put your arms down by your side and the goal is to try and not tomove. the moment you move, the test is over. okay you guys ready? one caveat though -when you bring your knee up, i'm gonna ask you to close your eyes. when i say go i want you to close your eyes but try not to move. alright let's see how young yourbalance age is. ready? hands down by your side.
bring your knee up. don't close your eyesyet. you're ready set go. oh boy oh my goodness. ok ok open youreyes. can i show you the results of this study?so if you were - if you stammer to move within four seconds, your balance age isapproximately 70 years old. try this at home or at work.just do this simple balanced movement - no sweat right? just do it on each leg and thentest yourself a week later or two weeks - that i guarantee you you'll do betterthan you did today. i promise you. easy. you like that one? ok give theperson next to you a high-five and say, "you look younger."
yeah all right - have a seathave a seat. strategy number two - we need to make itpersonal. okay so guys we're working with folks and we're talking and we'relooking at ourselves - i think we need to understand that if it's something we like -when it comes to exercise people always ask me this question. well i think i've got it up here. obviously youcan take a personality profile. what do you like? do you like to workoutwith others? like to walk with others? do you like to be alone? you like to useequipment? you like to just use bodyweight? what is it you like? if peoplesay to me, "i just hate running." i say
to them, "don't run. don't do it. find something you like right." you know what the best exercise is?the best to help you change your metabolism, to help you improve yourhealth - you know what the best one is? by far the best one it's the one you will do right. it is. so the folks we're working with -please don't feel like it's got to be prescriptive - that everybody's got tofollow the same approach. now walking is
the number one, most popular form ofactivity and the easiest most affordable and simplest, but make it personal. goalsetting and tracking - try and think guys within a month period of time or 90 days90-day contracts 90-day agreements 90-day goal setting. if i were to ask youall - let's set a goal for the next threemonths, the next 12 weeks and then let's break that down. let's look at the monthand let's look at the week. studies have shown that isvery helpful for adherence. and i know many of you are already doingthat. it's gotta be personal. let's go to the next strategy - numberthree - it's got to be measured. how do we
measure fitness progress? how do we dothat? i'm going to show you something. stand up guys. ok so here's your second test. real simple. this is kind of fun. so all i want you to do is i want you totake your hands, place them on your thighs, and i want you just to bend fromthe waist and just go down to kneecaps - just your knees. okay good job. you guys got enough room?okay come on back up. you ok? ok this time i want you to do it and i want you to smile.
ok go down and see if you can go down alittle bit. let's go back down to mid shin. now by the way, if youfeel uncomfortable doing this, your back hurts, you have any pain, but just go downa little bit further, just a little bit further. ok now what you're doing, yourperformance stretching movement just hold that for a second. just hold that. bend your kneesjust slightly. keep them soft and then come back up. did you know guys if you were to just dothis movement, stand up in your desk and
perform this simple stretch - but here's a good assessment you can do yourself. please don't try this ifyou feel uncomfortable doing it or you don't have have enough room. can you touch your toes? now no don't doit yet - and honestly one of the best ways to doit - can you get your hands past your toes? mybrother was three years older than i am - can do the splits. you know what one of my greatest weaknessesis? flexibility. some of us - that is one of our biggest challenges. so maybe one of thethings i need to work on and i continue
to do this is stretching. so try this - ifyou can - walk your fingers down. see how far you can getdown. if you can touch your toes. now if you functionally can - that means you'remuch younger. oh somebody get a camera out right now. weneed to take a picture of this. literally performing asimple stretch like that can significant - so one way to measure if you feel like- this as far as i can go - guess what just performing this simplestretch. here's another one. place your right foot in front of you, heel on theground, toes up elevated - walk your fingers down your knee but keep yourchest up.
look at me okay. as you go, do you feelthat in the hamstring? so if you were just to do that motion with your group, if youguys are in a eight hour meeting or for our meeting just say, "hey everybody, standup. "go ahead and put your other leg on the ground. heel on the ground - again10 seconds 15seconds. stanford researchers showed even 30seconds of stretching is beneficial - very beneficial for our body. okay good job. have a seat. well done. so how do we measure our fitness? so reaching - simpletest that you can do okay.srategy number four - what if we were to do recessat work?
are some of you doing thisalready? what if we had a toy chest - a fun littlepiece of - like a jump rope? can i show you the best movement toimprove your day - to put a smile on your face? you guys ready for this? okay stand u.p can i get a couple ofvolunteers? so guys come on over. come to the middle of the stage. our friends here are going to teach us a simple movement. let's say the alarm goes off and saysstand up from your desk.
did you know jumping rope is one of thebest things you can do for your body - for your energy and also for your mood?really but i want to show you a fun way to do it. ok you get to see these guys do it. sowhat you're gonna do - everybody grab your rope handles. nowwhat i want you to do - all you're going to be doing is going to rotate yourhands and then come up on the balls of your feet and then down. you're notjumping, just coming up on the balls of your feet. and do a little bit faster.ok so we're not jumping yet. okay very good. well done. gentlemen youguys look good.
okay so we're gonna make it even better.i'm gonna put some music on and you're gonna partner upwith somebody. so guys go ahead and face each other. face each other. ok shake thier hand. give 'em a high-five.get to meet 'em. okay here's the only rule you have to smile the whole time. look at your partner and just go to it. butthis time instead of just going to the balls of your feet, give it a little hop. you wantto get a little rocky style with it -do whatever you want to do. all right you guys up ok.
pump it up real loud. oh yeah look at your buddy. oh yeah oh mygosh that is good. smile the whole time. good job guys. okay okay okayokay. bring it down bring it down. stop stop okay do you all know eachother pretty well? not really? ok let's get to know each other. youready? so what if you were to introduce yourself to the person next to you, butyou were not to use words and you were just to show them your signature move? i know you've got a signature move. iknow you do because you do it while you're at home when no one's watching.
am i right guys? oh yeah ok. this is whati want you to think of. let me show you. look at the screen real quick. here's a signature move right. signaturemove. signature move. beautiful yeah yeah yeah.i remember that one. that was great - know who these folks are? fred astaire gingerrogers. this is a great signature move. i love this one oh yeah napoleondynamite right. now here's what we're gonna do. we'regonna have some fun. remember steal this take it withyou. do this in your office meetings. here's what we're going to do guys. these guys are like, "i ain't gonna do that."
i want you to show your signature movebut here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna close our eyes. no one's gonna see this. i promise okay.everybody raise your right hand raise your right hand and say, "sean, i promise notto peek." haha okay haha are kidding i'm kidding ok so this is what i want you to do. when the music comes on - i'm gonna pick a really good song - good song we're gonna blast this reallyloud. i'm gonna pick a really good song okaybut give us a second though wait, wait, don't go yet. what i want you to do -
don't start dancing right away we got toget our eyes closed okay you ready oh this is a good one - you guys ready? ok let the music go on go ahead but okyou ready to wait to get a little faster ok don't want to do you think that'sclose your eyes ready show me your moves! what you got? what you got? okay open your eyes. open your eyes. okay now really honest really - how many of you peeked? right there.
none of you peeked? none of you peeked? did you enjoy that? should we do it with oureyes open? alright we don't have time but can you give theseguys a round of applause as they exit? thanks guys. gotta make it fun - strategy number 5 -progressive. how do we make fitness progressive? can i show you a couple thingsreal quickly as you're seated? let me just show you something. one ofthe things that affects our body more than anything is sitting and whathappens is our posture begins to change dramatically. let's just sit up right now.what i want you to do is try to sit on the
end of your chair. just sit on the end ofyour chair and just sit upright. pretend there's a string around your top buttonand pulling your chest up. could you just sit like that for a moment? did you know just sitting like this canimprove your posture? did you know when your posture is improved you actuallylook about 10 pounds lighter? take a look at athletes. look at gymnastsbodies or ballet dancers - are they the most incredible looking athletes ortrack runners right? especially the sprinters. you know why they look soamazing - because their core strength is phenomenal right. so one of the things wewant to do is to improve our core so
what i want you to do is put your hands infront of you and just pull back with your hands and then push out stretchforward and pull back. just doing this motion can help especially when you pullback. squeeze your scapula together and then push out. now to progress that - iwon't have you do this - you could stand up, bend from the waist and actuallyperform this motion. this is a progression okay it's a littlebit more challenging - put water bottles in your hand, put a little light weightin your hand, use a resistance tube and that's a progression. ok so this is just an example ofprogression. one of the things that we
discovered - can i show you guys? this is somuch fun. how many of you have ever heard ofinterval training? ever heard of that? interval training has been shown to beone of the best things to boost your metabolism. one study showed - believe ornot - you can burn nine times more body fat performing interval trainingcompared to slow aerobic activity. nine times more. one study showed four minutesof interval training was equal to or better than a 30-minute walk. four minutesversus 30. that's significant. can i show you how to do a quickinterval? i'm gonna show you how to do it in your chair.
you ready? it's called chair jogging orchair racing. ready sit on the edge of your chair and what we're going to do -all i want you to do is just move your arms. take your coat off my man. awesome. you ready? just move your hands nice andeasy. okay when i say go, i want you to pumpyour arms as fast as you can - not yet not yet not yet - okay all i want you to do is think of itslow - fast - slow - fast. ok guys got it okay? relax. we need somemusic right. you ready okay? you ready?
let meget a different song here. i'll get a fast one. uh okay here we go. i think it's on. when i say go i want you to pump for about 10 seconds. okay, ready, set, go. good. good. smile. ok, slow. slow. get your feet moving. ok now believe it or not - doing this will make you younger. it will physically make you younger. look at theperson next to you and say, "i'm gonna beat you." okay i want you to race. ok, ready, set and go!
okay! good! good! good! y'all are going to be doing this i know on monday right? let's go come on. so interval training - now here'sthe deal. could you do that standing? of course. you could do it with a jump rope oran imaginary - the reason why i like imaginary jumping so much - you don't have to messwith a rope right. you can just do this for 30 seconds. i promise you it willwake you up. does that make sense? yeah chair jogging. now we'd like to get you out ofthe chair but again why not do it in your office meeting to say, "hey everybodycome on let's go. let's do a little racing right."
again make it fun. what we did is we startedworking with 30 seconds to a minute then we went to a 10-minute workout. westarted studying - let me show you the results. sal ubelievable - he lost 80 pounds. here's the reality guys. i don't want tomislead you. the number one intervention to change our weight is not exercise itis nutrition. but the number one way tomaintain that weight loss and the best thing for your health is what? and theyreally need to go together right. they really need to go together, but here's what ibegan to see. sal didn't eat well, didn't
move. we started him with just 30 secondsa minute throughout his day and guess what. hesaid, "i can do this." guess what hey sal you want to try fiveminutes ten minutes? he started doing a little bit more and we started addinglittle interval work, started lifting weights. look at this guy. 80 pounds downand he is now a champion in this corporation helping other people do thesame thing. yeah that's what we need to start. very proud. here aresome otherfolks. bruce lost over 85 pounds. barbara - her blood pressurechanged dramatically. this guy ken on the bottom - he did 25 push-ups before hestarted. 12 weeks later he was able to do
a hundred push-ups. that's militarystrong. he's over 45 years old doing a hundred push-ups at a time withoutstopping. that's significant but starting small,starting with a minute, two minutes during work anytime you can.oh here's a free resource. please take this burst workout.com. it's a 10 day challenge. give it to the folks you're working with. ok sign up. all it does every day -we'll send you a little one minute workout that you can do throughout theday. it's a video. burstworkout.com. just go there okay guys. follow us ifyou're on twitter please. i'd love to
stay in touch with you guys. i'd love to -anything we can do to help you okay. this was an epiphany for me. so i'msitting down again writing and i'm sitting there and i'm writing aboutsitting disease and writing about it. i'm studying it buti'm still struggling with this idea of showing you gotta get up. i worked out5:30 in the morning to 7:00 in the morning every day,consistently but that day - you still gotta take care of that day right. so as i'mdoing this, i had this epiphany. what if - and i sweat easy. are some of you like that? it's a good thing. it is healthy actuallyright, but i don't wanna get all sweaty and
have to go shower and stuff. so i wasworking in my home office and i just stood up. in fact try this. guys stand up. i'm going to ask you to sit back down.put your hand behind, you push that chair back. you guys are like, "what?" sit down stand up. sit down. now i won't make you do this. i thought. i call them chair kisses. brings a whole new meaning to kissing something right. it'sjust a little touch and then come right back up. what i know is just doing 10of those - if you did that every hour of
your work day, at the end of the day, howmany squats would you do? 80 squats. but what if you just had five? just startwith five - doesn't matter. i started noticing - what if we started showingpeople how to do it? it has unbelievably given people hope like "i can do that. that's something i can do." even if it's every other hour but start. this is reallyimportant guys. one of the things that we lose especially i'm going to speak tothe guys. my wife has said this too - when we're athletes like our glutes are like way up there right. and then as we getolder, start going down like this. one of the best things you can do issquatting and these are big muscle
groups right and we lose these musclegroups. what happens to our metabolism hmm so just starting just starting withmovements like that lunging or squatting - very beneficial. sothis is a good example a squat and a lift. just a simple movement together is verybeneficial. do that during your work day. strategy number six - support and reward. there is nothing better - number onenumber one strategy in my opinion - well second to that i would say there's oneother is really meaningful to me. we are better together. we are bettertogether.
can i tell you a quick story? a friend ofmine - i meet with a group of men - we have a men's group. every wednesday morning weget together we have been doing this for 20 years years and a buddy of mine - i just noticed he wasdown. he was prob about - he's an amazing pr communication guy. owns hisown firm, super successful. but just doesn't make time for himself - justdoesn't - like a lot of us and the folks we work with. i could just see he was beating himself up and he was probably a hundred fifty pounds overweight and ican just see it that day he was down and you ever notice this guys? when you knowa friend of yours is just struggling you hear their voice.
and he had tried countless diets and andagain i work in my home office a lot. i have another office but i like towork at my home office - can get a lot done. we have a gym in our garageand i started noticing my workouts were not as efficient because i would alwaysput them - i like i do it later in the day. you know here again we're in thisindustry - i'm like what the best time for me is right in the morning - just get itdone, do it and then move throughout the day. so i had this thought. what if ijust - my friend's name is john. what if i approached john and said, "hey john you want towork out together?" because i have a membership to a 24-hour fitness and wheni said this to him, he goes, "really?" i said,
"yeah i'd love to work out with you." andhe immediately thought that i was doing it for him, but you know who i was reallydoing it for? me. this is my living. i do this for a living - talkingabout exercise and fitness. i needed him as much as he needed me. and so guesswhat. every morning at five thirty we're together. we're there. we have not misseda day unless we've called each other like today i'm not gonna be becausenow i'm traveling - but i even shot him a note last night. and the amazing thingis he's already lost 35 pounds. but i told him i said, "john it's not about the weightloss. i want you around. i want you healthy. i want you. you're my friend. icare about you. i love you right.
we need to find ways to bring peopletogether and support. you guys do this right - in teams and whatnot. it's beautiful. so i think supporting and rewarding thisis vital and we'll talk - so one of the things we've done with the"fitness that works" - it's actually in the book - there are ways you can create likea seven-week challenge. you guys are all familiar with this - where every weekthere's a new routine, something you can go hand out to folks. there's ideas inthe book if you want to use that. some people use incentiveprizes and that'sgreat too that also works, but forming a team -
here's what i'd love for you to do personally. wear two hats. personally who is supporting you? who hasyour back? my buddy almost i would say probably the first two weeks everymorning he would say, "thank you sean. thank you for training me" is what he said to me the first day. i said, "stop. i'm not training you. you're my buddy. we're working out together." and this is going to be till the day one of us goes.i told him that we're not stopping. this isn't like a12-week deal. i need you as much as you need me. who in your life personally is thatbuddy for you? you've got to have that in
my opinion personally. ok now the people you're working with -asking the same question - do you have a buddy? remind them we're better together- much better together right. ok strategy number seven - in my opinionyou know - we all said it's true the - number one reason why most of us don'texercise or the folks we don't we work with don't exercise is time or lack ofthe perception of lack of time. actually my opinion has changed. i think it's this.i think most of us do not know our deeper "why." if we were to ask thequestion - remember i asked you earlier if you had a wish and you could snap yourfingers and change something about your
health and well-being what would it be? think of that and here's my question -deeper question - why do you want to change that? what's your "why?" could you write thatdown now. you may say, "i want to lose weight." why? now you may say, "i want tolook better." great but is that enough? when that alarmgoes off right there in the morning and you went to bed at twelve-thirty is thjatenough to get out of bed? maybe, but in my line of work and for most was here it'susually not enough. it's got to be deeper than that. can i share with you one quick story?i was at a men's retreat and my pastor
is standing right in front of me. i'llnever forget. this is was years ago and he looked back at me and then looked athis food and looked back at me and he said "sean, i know what you do for living" and ifelt bad. i feel like i'm here i've convicted the pastor speaker with all this food on his plate. so he said sean i want your help. i said, "of course. you know i was like whatdo you need?" he said "i want to lose about forty pounds."before i could say a word he said, "let me tell you why." and this was an epiphany for me too. ithought he was going to say - and he did
he said, "yeah i want to look better. iwant to feel better and have more energy." but this is what he said and ifyou're religious or not does not matter. this is what he said he said, "i want toshare god's love with as many people as i can until the day i die." this is what he did guys. think of thisand i'm like, "what just happened?' he connected his calling. he connectedhis greater purpose in life with his health. that's an epiphany. what's your "why?"what's your deeper reason for moving? let me share with you one other story.
this is frank. i met frank when i wasworking at a manufacturing facility. we did the actual "simple movefitness that works" program and frank was a vietnam vet. by the way for those ofyou that have served our great nation, thank you thank you thank you for yourservice. you guys are amazing. frank was one ofthose individuals. frank was really mad. he came in the office i was actuallyworking in and i didn't know him very well. i'd seen him. frank was about 5 foot 8.he was prob about 400 pounds and he was this big strong burly guy, but obviouslystruggling with his weight. he walked in and i could see it in his face.
have you ever been there? like somebody wants to fight about anything. i didn't want to fight with this guy. so i kind of avoided him. i said, "hi frank." know eye contact. he's just like glaring atme. i think can help you? he said, "yeah i'm here for my money." "here for your money? what do you mean?" oh the health risk appraisalquestionnaire he was going to fill out the questionnaire and he was gonnareceive an incentive. i said, "oh, frank yeah. sit down." all of a sudden he's filling out thisquestionnaire and i'm over here and he's doing - i could feel it - just laser beamson my back looking at me, and i do not want to turn around like oh no. this isnot going to be good. all of a sudden i
just, i took a peek and he's literallyturned like this just staring at me and he goes, "i don't get it. i don't understandwhy you guys do all this nutrition and exercise stuff. that's ridiculous." and here i was this young - this is years ago - literally - figuratively putting on a white lab coat again. "well frank." this what i said to him.maybe some of you have said this. i said, "frank did you know if you were to exercise morefrequently, regularly you could live seven years longer?" it's pretty good. i'm like that's goodfrank's gonna turn around and all of a sudden say, "oh, i'm gonna start exercising."
or so i thought. frank looked at me. gotta look closer tome, glaring me in the face and the eyes - did not move his eyeballs at all - juststaring right at me and he said, "what if you don't want to live seven yearslonger?" i did what y'all did right now. i just - you ever do that> you ask a questionlike you you need time to gather yourself. like what am i gonna say to this guy? like frank what did you say? i didn't hear what you. what did you say? i don't know what i'm gonna say to this guy. he said, "i've been slowly killing myself. i'vebeen slowly committing suicide. i know that. i don't care." i was in graduateschool at the time. by the way i decided to go
to graduate school to study psychologybecause i was missing something. i knew that my physiology training was onething but i just didn't know how to help people long-term. i just didn't have aclue how to help folks, so i went back to graduate school and one of my professorsdr. joe said this, "if you're sitting with a client, sometimes your presence is all that'sneeded - just your presence - just be there. tthis is what i did. the best thing icould have ever done for frank that day - i just sat there and just listened. frankjust threw out these f-bombs and expletives and just he was so angry. isaid, "just let it out. go go go frank.
get it out." i didn't judge him - just listened to him and he just waledk out - didn'tsay thank you. i literally you guys was like "what just happend?" i don't know if this has ever happened to you before. literally two days later frank came back in the office.he sat in the chair and just looked at me. i said, "how you doing, frank?" and that was all i asked. and just went into it. another just tirade - just angry about stuff and family and everything. you know what i'm talking about right? the next day he comes back in. this time - i think it was the third or fourth day. he started talking about vietnam.
i did not have any idea what this manhad endured. when he started sharing his story, guys, i was i was in tears. actually it was - it was really hard forme to hear what this guy had endured. frank would drink a case of coke a day - a case of coke. that was his medication. that was his drug. he had a drinking problem as well buthonestly as i listened to him i began to gain this tremendous empathy for himbecause i can't imagine anyone - man or woman - enduring what he saw. frank wouldcome back into the office - sometimes two, three, four times a week just for 10minutes during his break time -
just sit down and we would just talk buti would just mostly listen and also guys, it was about eight monthslater - frank said this to me. "sean, remember that exercise program we talked about? can you show me how to do some stuff?" and you know what i said? what do you think my answer was? it was a question. "frank, why?" and now all of a sudden, here's this bigburly strong man with tears in his eyes. he said, "it's for my daughter. "i want to be at my daughter's wedding. he had ayoung little girl. he found his "why." that is gonna get us moving - that something isgoing to change our lives, the people we work with, if we can help them find their"why."
oh my goodness guys so in my opinion ithink we just need to dig a little deeper when it comes to helping folks. yes losing weight, feeling better,having energy - those are all great - but we need to dig. so here's what i want you tothink about as we leave today. what's your "why?" again, on behalf of theentire team here, thank you guys for all you're doing. you're helping peopleliterally find their "why." you are that champion, you're that supporter tohelp them move more, eat well, live better. incredible opportunity! you guys aredoing that so well. thank you for doing that. i want to encourage you - two things - start thinking about your
personal "why." write it down. we have a whole workshop on finding your"why" and i think it's important to help people do that, but help others findtheir "why" by asking a simple question. ok i want to review real quickly. theseare the seven strategies. for fitness to work, it's got to besimple, gotta be personal. it's gotta be measured. it also has to befun. i think that's crucial. progressive, supported, rewarded and purposeful. thatis really ultimately what makes fitness work. so i want to leave you with this guys. howdo we start a movement? here's your task. in myopinion - what i'd like you to think
about. commit to moving yourself. you'reprobably already doing that, but think about it throughout your day. get your phone. put it on your desk. tellsiri every hour and you know give it a time when you're going to move. stand up -just do a couple of moves. ok anything that we did - couple of squats -could be 2, 3, 5. it will improve your health. it'll change your day. i promiseyou that you will feel better just by doing that, and you may inspire someonein the office. and what are you doing - doing the simple moves stuff - and all of a sudden, you're going to see thiseffect. also challenge others in your
organization, your departments, the folksyou're working with - challenge them to do this as well. you could formally do aseven-week challenge if you want to do something like that not so much - you'realready probably doing a walking challenge or exercise challenge but maybeit's just a simple moves challenge. during your day - awarding people points for doing something. obviously there are different ways.you can get people to engage through club memberships, lunch and learns, healthfairs. i mean you guys have a lot of these things in place already. by the way, welcoa has an incentive program
that's turnkey. literally you can justdrop it in and run a simple moves program. so that's a resource you guys cantotally use. but this is what i'd love to do with y'all. i'd love to stay in touch with you. sotake a picture of the screen. that's my personal email. sean at personallyfit dot com and another website burstworkout.com. i'd love tocollaborate with you guys. we want to learn from you all - what are you doing that's working? what areyou doing that's helping people change?
we're seeing across the country - when wecollaborate and talk about our best practices - that's when we really canlearn a lot from each other and what you guys are doing in tennessee is phenomenal. it is phenomenal really. webinars, seminars and workshops - that's stuff wedo - and train the trainer programs. these are all things that we do, but iwant to leave you with one story. i got three minutes. early in my career,one of my first clients came to see me - a single mom to boys. struggling - struggling with her weight,struggling with her blood pressure,
struggling with a cholesterol level,struggling big time - and she said, "sean, my doctor said i have to change. if i don'tchange, i'll probably die." her words. and i said, "let's talkabout this." at the time, i didn't really understand the"why," but we began just to dialogue. her main reason was her doctor told her to andeven that, sometimes it's not enough - just not enough. so we began to work together.she started walking on a regular basis and i'll just fast-forward this for you.it's been years, years, decades actually since i started with this individual intraining her. and to see her progression, and to see her today. she celebrated her87th birthday on tuesday, excuse me, what's today?
what's today? thursday? oh my gosh! friday. wednesday was her birthday. i was at her birthday. andwhat i'm so proud to tell you is that this first client was my mom littledoreen paladino, lil' italian mama. she's an amazing individual. i would tell youshe's my hero.her "why" she told me this. she said, "sean you and your brother are my "why." if i don't take care of me, who's going to take care of you guys? shefound it and what was so cool you guys - on wednesday my daughtertook her to breakfast. i thought she was gonna invite me tocome. "she goes, "no, dad. i just want it between nana and i. so they went to breakfast.they had breakfast together.
my daughter was so blessed by thatconversation and has been for years because my mom found fitness that worksfor her. she loves to walk. she works out. she lifts weights. 87 - youguys strong, fit. i would say now, today, i would say she is healthier and younger today at 87 than she was theon the day that she came into the gym i was working at. i would say that. so remember we talked about learning tofly. so this is how we do it. you know how eagles learn how to fly? this is cool.when the mom-and-pop figure it's time to get out of the nest, you know what theydo? it's really amazing.
they'll take the little guys and they'llput them in the nest, kind of like on the edge of this pinnacle looking down andthey'll starve them. they literally won't feed them for like days and weekssometimes. and then all of a sudden one day they come back with some food intheir beak and they're circling the nest and guess what little babies doing? they'regoing like this. they're smelling it right, and all of a sudden, a little push, a little nudge, awwwww - falling - and what does the mama eagle dobefore they hit the ground? she grabs them. puts them right back on the perchand she does this over and over and over until finally these little babies arestarting to fly - and pretty soon they're
gonna soar. you guy, you're mama eaglesdaddy eagles. you're helping people fly. thank you guys for all you're doing. iwould encourage you take care of you because sometimes when we're taking careof everybody else, we forget about ourselves too. so thank you for the time - jj, lori -thank you guys so much. i really appreciate it. thank you guys.