#094 - Have you ever found yourself stuck in a rut, exhausted with your fitness routine and finding no pleasure from the same tedious workouts? Well, today's episode is going to change all that. We're talking about how to avoid burnout, stay injury-free, and actually enjoy the activity you once loved with our guest, Fitz Kohler, Fitzness.
Fitz is no stranger to challenges; she's a cancer survivor who bounced back stronger than ever and shares her journey in her book, "Your Healthy Cancer Comeback." Tune in as we discuss her transformation from sickness to strength and the warning signs of burnout.
Topics Covered:
Recognizing the signs of burnout
Addressing burnout with the four pillars of fitness
Discovering the benefits of zero impact exercises
Implementing practical ways to prevent injuries
Today’s Guest
Fitz Koehler
Fitz of Fitzness.com is one of the most prominent and compelling fitness experts and race announcers in America. As the voice of the Los Angeles Marathon, Buffalo Marathon, Big Sur Marathon, DC Wonder Woman Run Series, and more, she brings big structure, energy, and joy to sports. She’s passionate about guiding others to live better and longer through her company, Fitzness®.
“Inspire to Run Podcast is truly inspiring!” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move toward the healthy life that they desire. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
#094 - Have you ever found yourself stuck in a rut, exhausted with your fitness routine and finding no pleasure from the same tedious workouts? Well, today's episode is going to change all that. We're talking about how to avoid burnout, stay injury-free, and actually enjoy the activity you once loved with our guest, Fitz Kohler, Fitzness.
Fitz is no stranger to challenges; she's a cancer survivor who bounced back stronger than ever and shares her journey in her book, "Your Healthy Cancer Comeback." Tune in as we discuss her transformation from sickness to strength and the warning signs of burnout.
Topics Covered:
Recognizing the signs of burnout
Addressing burnout with the four pillars of fitness
Discovering the benefits of zero impact exercises
Implementing practical ways to prevent injuries
Today’s Guest
Fitz Koehler
Fitz of Fitzness.com is one of the most prominent and compelling fitness experts and race announcers in America. As the voice of the Los Angeles Marathon, Buffalo Marathon, Big Sur Marathon, DC Wonder Woman Run Series, and more, she brings big structure, energy, and joy to sports. She’s passionate about guiding others to live better and longer through her company, Fitzness®.
“Inspire to Run Podcast is truly inspiring!” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move toward the healthy life that they desire. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
Hey, my friend, more often than not, are you feeling tired, worn out, maybe even bored. Well, these could be signs of burnout. And let me tell you something burnout is real. Today you're going to hear a recording from a recent Instagram live as I sit down with Fitz Kohler from Fitzness, and she talks about ways that you can prevent burnout and, in addition to that, it can also help you stay injury free as a runner. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to Inspire to Run Podcast. Here you will find inspiration, Whether you are looking to take control of your health and fitness or you are a seasoned runner looking for community and some extra motivation. You will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts. And now here's your host, Richard Connor. We have Fitz.
Speaker 3:
Kohler, I'm so excited to have you, fitz, you know so Fitz was on the show episode 36, so it's been quite some time and I've been meaning to get you back on the show and I think it's just an opportunity to have you live here to talk about such an important topic around burnout. And you know, fitz runs her own company, president of Fitzness and a race announcer, has just an amazing story around her journey battling cancer.
Speaker 4:
So go back to episode 36 and hear all about Fitz. But, fitz, if you want to just take a moment and introduce yourself and share a little bit of your story. So I'm the noisy girl most of you here at Start and Finish Lines around the country I think my races are the best races, so if you're registering for the Good Ones, you'll often find me there. I'm obsessed with our running community because it's made of the best people always working on their own health, great causes taking good care of their communities. I mean, it's just the best of the best.
Speaker 4:
I also happen to be a highly credentialed fitness expert, with a master's in exercise and sports sciences. I'm the author of four books and I do a bunch of corporate speaking and what else. I don't know what I run. I'm an athlete. I'm a fitness fanatic. Personally, I really respect my body and take good care of it. And oh, by the way, I also happen to have cancer a few years ago and that was a hell of a wild ride, and I can tell you that you look a heck of a lot better bald than I. Did you rocket. I did my best with it but, yeah, cancer did that and it's gone, thankfully. So I'm back to living completely fully again. Right, I'm there, I'm 100%. Ish, love it. Yeah, and I shared your story not only on the podcast but with friends and family, and you sent your book to somebody who is diagnosed, I think, maybe going back about a year or so ago to share your story.
Speaker 3:
So you have a wonderful story and really great to see You're 100% again. You got through that journey but also great to see you sharing that story with others. You might be going through the same thing.
Speaker 4:
Well, you know what, and I appreciate that and thank you so much for getting my noisy cancer comeback for your friend. But the one I'm really excited about now is your healthy cancer comeback. It's the guidebook, the blueprint to help cancer patients and survivors go from sick to strong. Because you know the research. Endless research proves that exercising quality and nutrition will make a cancer patient more likely to hit remission and less likely to have a recurrence. And almost all of the medical providers will tell a patient you should exercise, you should eat right, but none of them tell the patients how.
Speaker 4:
And so when I hit rock bottom, I decided someone's got to do this, someone's got to teach them how, and so that's why I wrote your healthy cancer comeback, so that my noisy cancer comeback is a great story and there's certainly some lessons to be learned in there. But I think this one, the new one, is the one I want in every cancer patient's hands. Okay, so we're going to have to promote that as well, so I'll get that in the stories and show notes here for folks. So, all right, thanks for sharing that fit and let's you know. Get into the topic around burnout.
Speaker 3:
So this is a highly requested topic and burnout is real, I think, not only just in fitness, but just everything that's been going on for the last two or three years. This, this is probably more common problem, I assume you know these days, so let's talk a little bit about it, and you know, one of the questions that I have, and I've been thinking about a lot just in my own personal and fitness journey is like what are the?
Speaker 4:
signs of burnout Like how does someone know that they're kind of on that course to burnout? Pain and suffering. And so pain, physical suffering could be physical or mental. You know you don't want to do it. You're finding every excuse not to exercise should be something we look forward to because it makes our body feel good. If we, if we, are doing the same thing over and over and over again, it becomes monotonous, we lose the pleasure and certainly our body starts having that wear and tear that just doesn't feel good anymore. So, yeah, pain and suffering, yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's interesting that you mentioned about exercise, because you can probably do the same thing in exercise and get burned out from that.
Speaker 3:
but exercise could be a way to prevent burnout, so it's interesting how it kind of goes both ways there.
Speaker 4:
Well, it depends what you're burning out from. So if we're talking about work, right, all we do is work, work, work then the exercise is a diversion. But if you're training for a marathon, for example, and all you do is run, you start to burn out, you start to, your body starts to revolt physically and your mind starts to revolt. So it becomes an unfun experience and you need distractions and that actually will make you a better athlete. It'll make you a better runner if you lean towards the distractions. Yeah, I love that, and you know, I'm just thinking about my own journey. Like a year ago I was trying to do a lot of different things.
Speaker 3:
I felt like I was always running or training but I never really felt like I achieved all of my goals in the way that I wanted to and by the end of the year I was just dying. I was like I can't do that anymore and I really had to get specific about. Here are the things I really want to achieve and kind of cut back on, you know, some of the other things that just weren't a priority for me. So I'm wondering, you know, is that we can talk about maybe some of the ways of preventing burnout once you acknowledge or see that you're on that, on down that road, but what are some of the ways that you can prevent it?
Speaker 4:
Well, you know, the ugly truth in the running community is runners tend to only run. And we got to run, run, run.
Speaker 4:
I'm doing training for a marathon, I got to run five, six, seven days a week. That's just simply not true, and it's amazing how many runners or how many marathon runners, people who run multiple marathons a year don't even qualify as fits. And so I think, if you understand the definition of fit and what the requirements are, you may start thinking, huh, I should be diversifying my workouts. And so, in order, well before I go to the actual pillars of fitness, if you're a marathon runner but you can't do five pushups, do you qualify as fit? Do you think that's a question? Do you think Probably not? Okay, I mean, five pushups is not a lot of pushups. Okay, if you're a yoga instructor who can do all sorts of fancy bendy poses on one foot but you can't walk up two flights of stairs without huffing and puffing, are you fit? No, no. So I could give a few more examples.
Speaker 4:
I'm not going to drone on in that, but in order to be fit, in order to qualify as fit, you need to be proficient in four pillars of fitness. That's what I call them. They're strength. Physical strength, it's all your body, your muscles, your ability to push, pull, lift and press against resistance. Your cardiorespiratory fitness, right, it's your huffing and puffing, your ability to go, your stamina, your flexibility. It's your body, your muscles, ability to reach and go through their full range of motion. If you're a little stiff person who runs and hunches over, you're not fit. And then, of course, the last pillar of fitness is balance. And why is balance training important?
Speaker 3:
Do you know? I assume if you don't have balance, it probably could lead to injury and leg for your legs, one leg versus another as an example.
Speaker 4:
Well, if you're not proficient with balance, you're likely to fall down. So it's strength, cardio, respiratory fitness, flexibility and balance, and those four pillars of fitness are necessary to qualify as fit. So, before we're athletes, before we're runners, we're run races, we're people, and so the most important thing we focus on is how to create a fit body, a healthy body that will withstand the test of time, keep us going, keep us not only alive, but having fun and active, performing the way we want and feeling the way we want. And so, in order to be a fit person, it's strength, flexibility, cardio and balance. Those four things are essential, and so what runners tend to do is cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio and they're just, they're not even diversifying.
Speaker 4:
It's not that they're only doing cardio, but they're swimming and biking and dancing and doing karate. They're just running and the pounding my my, you've got to have mercy on those joints, right, it's? It's not beneficial. Over time, in fact, it becomes counterproductive. And so, to prevent burnout, if you start taking those four pillars of fitness seriously, all of a sudden you start diversifying your workouts and you find you're not lacing up your running shoes and hitting the pavement every single day. Your strength training might be Pilates, it might be cables and dumbbells at the gym. That's different. That's not only different for your body, but it's different for your mind. The same thing goes when you're stretching, and so I really believe that's not only the way to promote actual fitness and increased performance, but it's how you prevent burnout. I love that.
Speaker 3:
Well, I learned something new today, already just in the first few minutes, about the four pillars and and yeah, you're absolutely right about the diversification. You know, I've been only thinking about it in a way of, just as you said, it'll help me in the performance of what I do, which is running. So of course the strength training and some of the other activities will help me there, but but I hadn't thought about it in terms of diversification and preventing burnout, you know, in terms of for your, for yourself, mentally.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, mental and physical, I mean it. Just, you know you do too much. Yeah, your feet, your hips, your knees, you know the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the knees. You know there's a couple of words uh, planiferschitis, IT, leotirocid, you know, it, band syndrome, piriformis syndrome those are words that normal people don't know Right. So if you walked into a crowded mall and you said, hey, blah, blah, blah, who's got piriformis serum, piriformis syndrome, most people would look at you like you were crazy because they don't know that word. Runners know that word because they're experiencing piriformis syndrome. That's because they're weak and they're tight, and so all of these weird little injuries most common injuries that runners experience are overuse injuries and under training in the other pillars.
Speaker 3:
Okay, so, so let's talk about examples of where, how you could train in some of those other pillars, and we talked about maybe strength training as one of them. So you know, maybe within strength training or maybe the other pillars, if you can give some examples of things that you know runners and athletes should consider incorporating.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. So first of all, every one of your muscles matter. So it's not just lower body, it's shoulders and lats and biceps in your forearms, all of your muscles matter. So I want people to you know, ingrain that in their head. They all count, not just the ones we see in the mirror.
Speaker 4:
But when we talk about sport, performance training, we, we can target specific muscles for runners and I would say the most essential muscle to target right off the bat is your glutes. That's your, your, your, your squats, your lunges, and then of course, those that lateral gait. So your glute medius is the muscle that runs along kind of the side of your hip. It's part touch, part hit and that muscle holds your femurs in place. Your femurs are the longest bone in your body. It goes from your head to your knee and they're big right. And if you're running around in those, if you're running and those femurs aren't kept in place, all of a sudden they start wiggling back and forth. Right, they're, they're loosey-goosey. If you've got loosey-goosey femurs, your hips hurt, your knees hurt, and so so many runners complain about knee pain and then they think, oh, I got to go to my doctor and the doctor says you don't, I we're. We're going to take an expensive MRI and we've seen you don't have an actual knee injury unless you've had that twist or a fall. The odds are you don't. Actually, you haven't injured your knee. What your knee is doing is paying the price for your lack of strength at your hips. And so most runners have these, this hard to describe knee pain. That's weakness, it's tightness and weakness.
Speaker 4:
And so if you do your squats, if you do your single leg squats and your and your lunges, we perform on one leg. You know, runners never hop down the race course like bunny foo-foo. We don't ever do boing, boing, boing, right. So we perform on one leg as we run. So we should train on one leg, we should prepare our, our legs to be sufficient and strong individually. And so when you do squats, do a single leg squat, do it on one foot. Lunges are a great choice.
Speaker 4:
And then, for that glute medius, hold your femur in place and take one of those bands, those evil bands. They're cheap, they're they're lightweight, they're portable. You can take them with you everywhere you go, but you wrap them around your ankles and you just step to the side and that helps build up that glute medius that, along with oyster shells or clam shells or chicken wings, whatever you want to call them. In fact, on the cover of fitnesscom there's a block that says strength training for runners. There's a 12 minute video workout. It's me and you, and I lead you through targeting all the muscles. But yeah, it's, it's. I mean, it would have devastating effects on a runner who did not train for strength or flexibility. It's all so essential and if I could sit every distance runner down and give them the conversation and maybe a little smack on the tudge, I would do it because it's that important.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, for sure it's important. And then you know if you're for those who are listening in, if you're doing like a cox of 5k program or you have some other program training for your distance. You're going to have days that have rest and you're going to have days that are in the rest or cross training. So for those cross training days, here are some of the things that you should be doing, which is the strength training.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, and you can really make progress. So I train for Boston Marathon. I ran three days a week. Three days a week, that was it. I did two 30-minute runs and then I would do a long run on Friday or whatever day it was.
Speaker 4:
So you don't have to run every single day. In fact, most of the running coaches will tell you not to run every single day. But can you still increase your lower body's ability to perform by using the elliptical trainer or a stepper, which are zero impact exercises that aren't going to wreak havoc on your feet and your knees and your hips, yet they're going to help you build strength throughout your quads and your hamstrings and your glutes and etc. So you know you can still do cardio on the other days, just do something different. Can you increase your respiratory fitness by swimming or cycling? You certainly can. And then the strength training I recommend every other day. So they say strength training once a week. That means targeting each muscle group once a week is for muscle maintenance. If you like to make progress, do it twice a week and then, if you really want to make progress, it's every other day or three times a week.
Speaker 4:
And I'm an every other day girl, because muscles are very high on my list of importance. So I hit it hard multiple days a week. You have to leave 48 hours of rest in between training each muscle group. But yeah, every other day is ideal for performance.
Speaker 3:
That's awesome. And what do you do? Because if you're doing that every other day, well, I guess are you running on those days too. Are you running on the off days?
Speaker 4:
When I was training for Boston, I did opposites I did so. I would have a run, running only, and then strength training in the other days. I very much believe in having a day off, you know, which is a day where you're not going out and doing something vigorous. So activity is different than exercise.
Speaker 4:
So sometimes people, people, come to me to lose weight right and I say well, I'm so active I garden and I do housework, and okay, that's being active. That's moving your body. That's not exercise. Exercise is deliberate. It's targeting one of those pillars of fitness strength, cardio, flexibility, balance with a vengeance to try to make progress. Exercise normally requires a sports bra or a particular shoe or a mouthpiece, or you know you're preparing to do exercise right. Activity you know mowing the lawn, it just doesn't count. It's good activity and I give it thumbs up. But what I'm saying is one day off from the vigorous exercise get. You can still be active on that day. You can still walk with your dog and your kids or wrestle with your husband or whatever. You can still be active. But six days a week for vigorous exercise, if you're trying to make major progress, okay, okay, that's super helpful. Well, I have a long way to go.
Speaker 3:
I know I'm not getting into the gym as often as I like, and trying to balance my runs with the getting into the gym has been super hard, but I got to do better than that myself.
Speaker 4:
Well, and here's the deal. If you can get to the gym filled with all sorts of wonderful equipment designed for someone to build strength, then great. But if you've only got 12 minutes and you have no equipment, you get on fitnesscom and you do my strength training for runners workout, which requires a little to nine right. So lunges don't require any, any equipment. You can do squats, you can do squat jumps, you can do pistol squats, you can do, you know, lateral gait with just a teeny little band. So you don't have to go to the gym and love the gym. But if you can't make it, fine, so be it. Get it done at home, no excuses. Oh, it's just about to say that.
Speaker 3:
You just took away my excuse, so okay, so that was the one pillar around strength.
Speaker 4:
Let's talk about one of the other pillars. Where should we go next? Let's go to flexibility, so valuable. So we talked about going to the doctor because you're in pain. It's either because of weakness, the other thing it may be is because of tightness. And and I assure you, runners, that if you do not do strength training and flexibility training, eventually you will have pain that will lead to suffering, that will lead to that very expensive doctor appointment and the very expensive scans. And then they will send you to a, an expensive physical therapist, who will go, ah, you're really weak over here. Or, oops, you're kind of tight. Okay, you're not injured, you're tight and you're weak. And so, where strength training does come with some significant rules and nuances.
Speaker 4:
Flexibility training does not. And you know, beyond making you a better athlete, it allows you to stand up straighter. You know your shoulder girdle, for example. This joint will take your arm 360 degrees. How many people actually go through that motion every day? Do you move your arm in that way? No, not with a hand. No, you should. Your hips will move your legs in these big, ginormous circles. So you know, mobility number one.
Speaker 4:
We see old people. They start to hunch that get crooked they're. They haven't been working on flexibility. So, first of all, the way you look, the way you feel standing up tall, flexibility matters.
Speaker 4:
But if your muscles are accustomed to going through a full range of motion, if, let's say, you, you step off the sidewalk while you're running or you're at Disney because Disney's got a what do they call it? Cobblestone right and your leg extends in a weird way, you're not going to tear your hamstring because your hamstring is flexible and it's okay going through that full range of motion. If you're not, then you may have a sprained strain or tear. So it's important to stretch all the muscles, from your neck down to your toes, and the way I do it is throughout the day, every day. And so my I have a little policy. When I let my dogs out to go to the bathroom, which is frequently every single time, I get down on the ground and I stretch my hips every single time, even at three o'clock in the morning, I've got a 14 year old dog. She's got to go potty all the time.
Speaker 4:
So at three AM she's out going potty. I'm stretching my hips. When I walk through certain doorways, I put my arms out and I stretch that way and then, of course, at the end of my workouts I go through, you know, five to 10 minutes of total body stretches. So so with strength training, you know you have to give that 48 hours in between, skip workouts to allow your body to repair, rebuild and respond to the efforts you've made. Flexibility training you can do all day, every day. There is no limit, and you should keep your body moving because it'll feel better and it'll perform better.
Speaker 3:
That's awesome, all right, so something else I need to add to my list. Yup around flexibility and I'm wondering. I started to. I don't know if this falls in a category of flexibility, but I started to do foam rolling within the last few months, something I actually never did before. I can't believe I'm admitting that on Instagram live here but I never did foam rolling before and I feel like it really helped me. So does that fall within that flexibility pillar or would it fall somewhere else?
Speaker 4:
Well, it does fall somewhere else. It's it's a massage, right, it's it's pressure. So something like your IT band, you cannot stretch. It band is not a muscle or a tendon or ligament. You cannot stretch it. So if you've got a tight IT band, what you can do is string, train and stretch, Stretch and strengthen your hips to get them level. But the only thing you can really do to find relief is pressure, pressure on that Fast shout. So IT foam rollers are really good for providing relief. They're a great tool for preventing pain and responding to it.
Speaker 4:
Well, you know, with foam rollers, I mean there's, that's a whole new bag of worms too, because there's the basic foam roller, the you know circle shape one. But then there's PVC pipes. I've got some big old PVC pipe which is just murder. I mean it is horrific, but it's also really effective. And then I have one that I wish I could remember the name it's. It's foam balls that are all connected, and so not only can you get that nice relief of pressure, but it serves to crack my back. It's almost like when people put tennis balls together and roll their spine between them. Wish I could come up with the name, this guy, I can't remember it.
Speaker 4:
But but, yes, anyone needs to know what the name of that foam roller is, let me know and I'll. I'll send it to you. So fantastic. So there's vibrating foam rollers. I mean they really go in a bunch of directions, but they're, they're certainly very helpful. Okay, good, good, good, okay.
Speaker 4:
So which pillar is next balance? Right, so you don't fall over? It could just start with standing on one foot, holding on to the wall. If you're unsure, I mean, godly, if my mom were to do what I was saying mom, hold on to the counter. But a strong young man like you can certainly stand on one foot without much risk, right? And then, once you feel really good standing on one foot and you're no longer shifting around like that, you can add elements to make it trickier, to add, to make it more advanced. So, closing your eyes a great choice. Flapping your arms, playing catch with a friend. While standing on one foot, you can move that other leg up and down. Your limbs are really Dumbbells. They can be. The best tools you have is just moving your other limbs around.
Speaker 4:
So balance training is really important. You can also do that whenever you want to. There's no limitation to it, and the more you do it, the more you'll increase the thing called Proprioception and that's a really big fitness word, but what it really means is your body's ability to respond to an imbalance. And so if you're walking down the sidewalk and One of your feet, foot's feet yeah, one of your feet falls off or steps off the edge of the sidewalk and there's a ditch, right it's, it goes down into the sand or grass. If you have not been balanced training and your proprioception is not strong, that outside of your foot hits the grass, your ankle rolls. You go down, right down goes Frazier. However, if you've been practicing With proprioception, with your balance training, you're walking, that outside foot goes to step on off the curb and instantly it just recoils. You don't even have time for your brain to say wait, ankle, you know, straight up, don't, don't roll down.
Speaker 4:
If you're, if you practice your balance, it's your body's natural response is to keep you upright and so when your balance training you should be wobbling. So let's say you take a yoga or a Tai Chi class and they have you stand on one foot and Do some weird stretch. If your yoga instructor is standing there motionless like a tree and she or she is so proud, that person's not making any progress. If they can stay perfectly still without any sort of Obvious wobble, they're not making progress. It's you that's kind of wobbling in the back.
Speaker 4:
You're the one making progress because Fitness training should challenge you, right? So if you're doing cardio fitness, you should be huffing and puffing. That's. That's the signal that we're making our heart and lungs stronger. When you're doing strength training, you know if you can flail these three pound dumbbells around all day, you're not make, you're not getting stronger. You're getting stronger when you start to grunt, right, when you move to failure, you can only do six repetitions. Ah, right, there, that means you've made yourself stronger. When you stretch and you, right here, I'm not making any progress, but here I kind of wince a little bit.
Speaker 4:
The wince Is the telltale that you're making progress with flexibility. And for balance, it's just that that wobble if you wobble, even just a little bit, you know you're getting better. And so, um, strength, flexibility, cardio, balance I stand till I'm blue in my face, but they all really matter. Yeah, well, I feel like I progressed a little bit here because I was definitely wobbling. So, yeah, and, and without the closing your eyes part, I mean, if you're standing at the in line at the grocery store, you could just lift one foot off the ground, just be on one foot. Nobody's going to think you're aware they're not paying attention to your feet.
Speaker 3:
So balance training is something you can and should do regularly, and I was just about to ask you, that is, could you pair it with the flexibility, like if you're doing your balance and then stretching? Is that is that good, to kind of pair those together, or it really doesn't matter, just do whatever you.
Speaker 4:
You know it's nice to have this structured fitness routine and and running really calls for that, but the other elements of fitness really don't. You could be at work in address and heels and do some push-ups, right?
Speaker 4:
if you can close an office door, you can make some progress with strength. If you want to stretch, I stretch in air. Oh my gosh me.
Speaker 4:
In the airports, I travel a lot to go announce the races and do keynotes. So, um, I take the private space and whether I'm in the large women's bathroom or I just go into a stall and do stretches I mean anywhere, anytime stretching do it when you can, and I'm a big fan of tall posture. I think it's very sexy and it feels really good. So I will do whatever it takes to Um, to increase my range of motion and and get me higher. And then I stretch in the airplane bathrooms, which is really awkward and weird, but I make it happen. So, yeah, wherever, whenever, for balance training, for flexibility and even strength training, it's nice if you have 45 minutes to dedicate to a, to a rough strength training workout, but if you have 60 seconds to do pushups or 60 seconds to do burpees, I don't care who you are, our 60 seconds is going to feel like a really long time and you are going to make progress For sure, for sure.
Speaker 3:
So just to kind of recap so for the folks here that are runners You're training for that 5k half marathon marathon. You're feeling like you're getting burnt out. You know they just consider some of these other pillars that we talked about. Right, it's around strength, cardio, no strength. Balance, flexibility.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, and then diversify your cardio. You can make a lot of progress as a runner by doing a stepper or an elliptical or riding a bike. For sure, you don't have to exclusively run. And if you, if you mix things up, boy, you're gonna be a lot more entertained and I think you're gonna feel a lot better and and probably perform a lot better on race day.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, for sure. And then you know, go back to what you said initially about having this distraction or something else to work on, right? So if you're burnt out, it depends on where you're burnt out is coming from, and I really love the way you put that. So if it's coming from work, making sure that you have other activities that are more of a distraction, take you away from that. Work, work, work. The many hours work to doing something else can kind of also help, you know, preventing burnout. So really appreciate you sharing that as well.
Speaker 4:
And I just think you know, oh, when we become grown-ups, sometimes we we give up the fun things in our life you know, I just decided I was gonna take guitar lessons.
Speaker 4:
I don't know why. I just decided it would be fun and interesting and I'm really excited about it. It will benefit my career zero. It will benefit my family zero, but it will be interesting and fun for me and I'm gonna do it. And there's also some great reward and showing up and being a complete novice at something.
Speaker 4:
You're the worst. Right, you show up in class or to whatever event you're at and you're the worst person. You've got no skills, no knowledge and and then all of a sudden, you start learning and you get better. And I really value that experience of making progress. And you know, even if you never become the best and I tell you what I do a lot of things and I'm not the best at I feel great about where I, where I was and where I've come, and you know, hoping to make progress from there on out. So so do something interesting and especially, do something outside of fitness. Get a hobby. That's totally different. Whether you paint or write poetry or play poker, I don't care, just do something that does nothing but make you happy and Appeases your mental fortitude.
Speaker 3:
I share so much information with our community. So you know, just tell us a little bit again about your book, about your website and when folks can find you and follow you.
Speaker 4:
Thanks. So fitness comm is my home base and that's, I see, fitness. Look right there. Fitness and Anybody could go there to get a ton of free resources to live better and longer and earn a healthy body. And then also I've got Some awesome resources for cancer patients and survivors. So I hope zero percent of your viewers have cancer, but I know every last one of them loves someone with cancer and what I hope is they will pick up your healthy cancer.
Speaker 4:
Come back sick to strong. Get this and help your favorite cancer patient and survivor recover fully, build back their strength, their stamina, get back to vibrancy. It was no fun. It was no fun being in the depth Despair and sick. And so when I, when I was there, I was fortunate enough to be a fitness expert and I knew how to rebuild my body. Lucky me. But at the same time I felt so sad for my peers, all those cancer patients who were not fit Experts, that had no idea how to get back to any sense of normalcy. So so that's the wish is that if anybody loves a cancer patient, send them or go to fitness comm. Then buy it for them. You want to help that person anyway, so get them your healthy cancer come back. There's a journal, there's a memoir too, but that's the one I really want people to see, and then of course, I'm at fitness, right here on Instagram, and I love it when people say hello.
Speaker 4:
So if you follow, that's great, but I'd rather you reach out and say hi. All right, sounds good, we'll definitely connect with it. Reach out and say hi. So you saw her here on Instagram live. You heard her on the podcast. So again, thank you so much for all this great information and again, I'll link to your platform there. Have a great night, thanks, and you need to come to one of my races soon. I have another finish line for you. Okay, let's do it. Okay, all right, take care Bye.
Speaker 2:
That's it for this episode of Inspire to Run Podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click the subscribe button to join our community and also please rate in review. Thanks for listening.