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Adam Zickerman and Mike Rogers of Inform Fitness are joined by Luke Carlson of Discover Strength to discuss a book authored by Greg Mckeown titled Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. The principles described in this book directly apply to the slow motion, The principles described in this book directly apply to the slow motion, high-intensity, strength training protocol practiced at all 7 InForm Fitness locations across the country and the 3 Discover Strength location in and near Minneapolis, Minnesota of which Luke is the founder and CEO. Adam Zickerman - Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen Greg McKeown - Essentialism -The Disciplined Pursuit of Less http://bit.ly/Essentialism_Amazon http://bit.ly/Essentialism_Audible For a FREE 20-Minute strength training full-body workout and to find an Inform Fitness location nearest you, please visit http://bit.ly/Podcast_FreeWorkout If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. For information regarding the production of your own podcast just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com
Now listened to in 100 countries, The InForm Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of InForm Fitness Studios, specializing in safe, efficient, High Intensity strength training.
Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific-based, up-to-the-minute information on a variety of subjects. The topics covered include exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.
43 Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
exercise, fitness, essentialist, essentialism, people, book, workout, luke, thinking, essential, crossfit, inform, client, stimulus, barbara walters, adam, high intensity, location, paying, lose
SPEAKERS
Tim Edwards, Mike, Luke Carlson, Adam
Luke Carlson 00:06
We are in an exercise and fitness climate, where 98% of what people are doing is not essential. Before you could even contemplate anything fitness related. You have to have that filter going into it less, but better. How can I focus on what's truly essential, and then eliminate everything else so that I can pour myself in to what's actually essential?
Tim Edwards 00:37
Inform nation thanks for being with us for episode 43 of the inform fitness podcast, with New York Times bestselling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting network and a client of inform fitness in Toluca Lake here in Southern California. Today's guest on the podcast is Luke Carlson. Luke is an American College of Sports Medicine certified exercise physiologist, a cancer exercise specialist, and has a BS and MS in kinesiology from the University of Minnesota. And the reason Luke will be with us in this episode is to discuss a book authored by Greg McEwen titled essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less, and how the principles in the book directly apply to the slow motion, high intensity strength training protocol, practiced at all seven inform fitness locations across the country. And the three Discover Strength locations in and near Minneapolis, Minnesota, of which Luke is the founder and CEO.
Adam 01:36
So Luke, welcome to the program. Thank you for coming in.
Luke Carlson 01:39
Hey, it's my pleasure. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
Adam 01:41
Yeah, so Luke is actually in our office. He's not calling remotely from his home base in Minnesota. He's actually here visiting New York who's actually some clients in the New York City Marathon. And here is rooting him on and he's still lingering in New York for a little while. And
Luke Carlson 01:57
we had to make the visit to inform fitness. It's always a top of my New York list. Everybody else wants to see that. The Empire State Building and I want to see inform fitness in New York.
Tim Edwards 02:10
that tour bus comes right by your facility there right, Adam?
Adam 02:14
Oh, when a tour bus Yeah, the double decker tour. They always point out there's Inform Fitness over there.
Tim Edwards 02:19
Adam waves out the window outside.
Adam 02:22
Everyone wants to know what that line is outside. So So So Luke, Luke is multi talented, not only does he run high intensity fitness facilities, but he's a motivator, corporate motivator, and a incredible entrepreneur. And I heard him giving a talk on a book written by Greg McKeon called essentialism. It's a New York Times bestseller. I read it this weekend, after hearing Luke talk about it. And it's a great book on on basically paring down what's important in your life and learning to say, No, it's a big skill. Easier said than done. As it turns out, and we all want to be everything to everybody, whether we're running a business, we don't want to ever turn a customer down. Even though that customer might not be for us. We never want to say no to our kids, our employees, our friends, and we end up overextending ourselves. And we basically lose sight of what's important to ourselves, our own individual wants and goals. And, of course, part of that process, and why it's relevant to high intensity exercises. People tend to feel the need to exercise a lot. And more is better. And this book is really the opposite of that it's do, what's the expression,
Luke Carlson 03:49
the mantra over and over throughout the book is less, but better
Adam 03:53
exactly
Luke Carlson 03:53
in every area of your lives. And think about that, my goodness, that applies to how we work, all of our family interactions. But then you think about workouts, it's before you could even contemplate anything fitness related. You have to have that filter going into it less but better. How can I focus on what's truly essential, and then eliminate everything else so that I can pour myself in to what's actually essential. And Adam, I know you live this every day, you guys live this every day, but we are in an exercise and fitness climate, where 98% of what people are doing is not essential. People don't have a clue. And they haven't asked what is essential.
Adam 04:32
And that's the that's what this whole podcast is kind of about really kind of bringing it down to what do we truly need for exercise and why don't we what's the what's the least amount we can do to get the most out of our exercise program? Right?
Luke Carlson 04:47
It's it's unbelievable when I when I read the book, and I read it about a year ago a little over a year ago and I actually heard the author speak and I thought I need to read this book. And I thought son of a gun I've been practicing this type of exercise for For the better part of 17-18 years, and now he writes this book, and he really provides the perfect framework or filter from which to look at exercise. So he is really saying without talking about exercise, he's really saying all of the same things that we've been saying for so many years.
Adam 05:18
There's a quote in the book, or he's quoting Victor Hugo, actually in the book. And we all know and love Victor Hugo, the French dramatists. He says here, nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And Luke, just before we started recording, you said to me, when you read this book, Adam, weren't you relating everything to exercise? I was like, Yeah, and this quote, in particular, when I read that, I was like, hopefully this high intensity, less is more. Hopefully our time has come. I know. Dr. macguff talks about that, that you know, that the work we've been all doing the last 20 years. Finally, maybe our time has come? Do you kind of feel that?
Luke Carlson 06:05
Sure. Yet, I would say yes. But I also think that if we could somehow have every customer, every potential customer in our businesses, or in the fitness world, in general, man, if they read this book, right before they walked into our facilities, it would be like the primer, and every one of them would become a client. But I think we lose track of this essentialist approach. And I don't think the consumer has that lens when they're thinking about whatever those fitness decisions are going to be. And so I think it's, it's a book that on your fitness journey, it is the right place to start is to understand this essentialist approach, first and foremost.
Adam 06:47
So relate to the essentialist approach to to exercise and how we practice exercise. In other words, repeat a little bit of what I heard on your lecture.
Luke Carlson 06:56
Yeah, that so the first thing I would say is you have to understand what is your objective? So what is the desired outcome from working out? And here's the key question, in simplest terms, is your goal to hang out in a gym? Is your goal to hang out in a workout facility? Is your goal to stimulate improvements and changes to your physiology? And that is such a basic simple question. But as soon as you ask that question, or as you as you answer that question, you can start moving toward this essentialist approach. So I think our goal is really twofold. Our goal is number one to improve our health. So health is defined as the absence of chronic disease, or chronic disease risk factors. And I think broadly, the second goal is performance. So that might mean running a 5k Faster, hitting a golf ball further chasing our grandkids as we age, or what I like to talk about our performance in our work environments, if we are compensated, but based on our mental firepower, if we're what Peter Drucker would call a knowledge worker, then my goodness, how we exercise, how we exercise has a massive impact on how we perform in the workplace. So if we're trying to achieve goals that are, improve our health, and enhance performance, then we apply this filter of essentialism. And we start to realize pretty quickly, what do we not need to do anymore? What can we just cut? And then what do we double down on? What are we tripled down on? What's the type of exercise that's actually an effective stimulus to produce these desired outcomes? And then after that, it becomes pretty simple, becomes pretty simple to realize, what what do I need to eliminate? What can I avoid? Or what can I just do? Less of as a whole?
Adam 08:44
I know we're preaching to the choir a little bit here. But using essentialism, what does the essence of exercise come down to? I know, we talked, we've covered this a million times in other episodes, but let me hear from your mouth.
Luke Carlson 08:54
Well, I would say this, it comes down to working against meaningful resistance to the point of muscle failure, or muscle fatigue, covering all the major muscle structures. And I'm telling you 10 years ago, we thought that was important from a strength training or from a building strength or hypertrophy. So muscle size, and from a bone building standpoint. Now we know it is so much more robust than that. Whether it's cognitive function and prevention of mild cognitive impairment or moving in that direction, or cardiovascular fitness, we just have so much more evidence now to say that if you strength train and you strength train, right, all of those benefits are going to come from that strength training stimulus.
Adam 09:38
So keeping essentialism in mind, what doesn't it entail?
Luke Carlson 09:45
Well, another way to approach this another way to articulate essentialism is maybe thinking about how do we Pareto Principle our workouts, what's the 20% of what everyone's doing right now, that actually produces the 80% kind of the benefit. And if you look at that 20% It's the muscular tension. And it's the muscular tension at the point of failure or fatigue, and cut out everything else. So we would say cut out anything that's really low level of intensity, aerobic exercise, cut out anything that is unloading the musculature. You know, we found an interesting way that the way most people exercise right now, we found a way to engineer out the three, four or five most valuable components of really what exercise is, we've engineered out muscle tension, we've engineered out ecentric work, we've engineered out fiber recruitment. And all of those things are what exercise is exercise, by definition is not being in a health club, with sweat dripping off your nose, while you're wearing Lululemon, it is actually placing tension on muscle and getting to the point of fatigue. So it's a focus on that and less on some of the other things right now that we really should quantify as sport, if we're thinking about things that are, are really popular right now, some of the bootcamp formats and the classes that are so popular right now are competition based, rather than what I would call stimulus focused or stimulus based. So so there's a lot to cut out and a lot to cut out.
Mike 11:22
Yeah. Well, I think the problem, okay, it's not in what it's not in what you're saying. It's the problem in what people believe out there. I think what people's belief in what is essential, is a lot more than what we're talking about. And and there is still a lot of resistance in the medical community and in the fitness community. That and this is just one piece of the puzzle, just when you're just trying to intellectualize the science and trying to convey these, these simple things to them. People still have this belief about cardio and the AHA still has their literature, I know your prescriptions on exactly what we should be doing. And that's where we have a barrier, you know, and you know, it going back it's you think about who are the people that you really don't have to convince to come in here? Like how what percentage of your clients of your gyms are referrals, you know
Luke Carlson 12:16
yeah almost really everyone's a referral
Mike 12:18
almost everybody is because their friend, just like oh my god, you wouldn't believe I have this great workout. The results are showing above all by I was able to lose weight, they were actually able to do get all the results they're talking about in this time, but they usually don't do it until their friend does it. You know, and and, you know, when we were way back when we had some, like big media coverage, you know, because Barbara Walters said it, you know, and Lesley Stahl said it on TV. All of a sudden people are like, wow, there's probably something here you know,
Adam 12:46
yeah, see people people had a great desire to look like Barbara Walters. Yeah,
Mike 12:51
but she's an influencer. People love it people are influenced are your friends or someone who you may be looking up to you could look like her!
Adam 12:58
which reminds me of I was at a party and somebody said, Hey, this is Adam Zickerman, you know, his client is Barbara walters you should try this workout. And they were like, Oh, just what I want to look like Barbara freakin walters.
Tim Edwards 13:08
Look how old Barbara Walters isn't she's still functioning and still moving. It's not a matter of her looking like that. It's, it's how she's functioning and moving through life. So there's your test.
Adam 13:17
I'm sorry, Luke go ahead
Luke Carlson 13:19
two things, or just recent observation. So number one, the number one reason the number one barrier to why people don't do anything fitness related is time, they don't have the time. And what is so incredibly interesting and coincidental. And ironic is that the right prescription for them actually involves very, very little time. So we actually have the answer for the number one barrier as to why people don't engage in exercise. Now, the other thing that I lose touch with and I know you guys have to be in the same boat is I rarely go into health clubs. Well, I visited two different health clubs in New York City over the past two days, and I walk around a health club, and I am reminded about how much time and effort is wasted when someone visits a health club. I mean, I think what we do is the right thing, I think we provide good value to our customer. And I am only reminded of that when I walk into a health club, and I think Oh, my goodness, that person was here for an hour and 20 minutes, and they did nothing, or maybe five minutes of what they did was actually beneficial for them. And so I think it's worse, I think we are less essentialist in our approach to exercise than ever. If you look at the broad fitness consumer and the fitness business as a whole, we're moving away from essentialism in the independent
Adam 14:44
you know, just I was just thinking, you know, I was having this conversation with somebody about how I thought maybe the trend is finally changing where like as Victor Hugo said, Maybe this idea is time has come. You're saying the opposite. I just think even with even with the popularity of CrossFit which is a very high intense exercise I'm kind of thinking that maybe people are realizing that intensity is the key less is more, even though they're doing CrossFit, at least they're understanding intensity at this point. But I guess you're disagreeing with me.
Luke Carlson 15:11
Well, I agree with that, that observation, the best thing CrossFit has done is to tell the population that Hey, it's okay to work at a high level of intensity. So I think we've heard that message, I just think there's so much that support superflous in addition to it,
Mike 15:25
do they consider the the safety?
Luke Carlson 15:28
Oh, absolutely. You know, that's a totally different conversation. But if you look at okay, so I want to do some higher level of intensity, cardiovascular work, if someone wants to do that, and they really want to be smart about it, they can do it in a 15 to 18 minute workout. Absolutely. But we feel like if I'm going to go to the gym, for just 15 to 18 minutes, that can't be enough. So we find a way to include so many other facets that are just not evidence based. They're not essentialist in their approach. And I was just utterly shocked at being in a health club just yesterday, just looking around like wanting to call everyone in and huddle up around me and say you guys got to rethink this. You're paying the money. You bought the Lululemon, you're you're here, but you're stopping right at the point where all this becomes valuable.
Adam 16:14
Well, you know what the essentialist talks about this what you pay, you're paying for a membership, right? So you have to get your money's worth.
Luke Carlson 16:20
Yeah.
Adam 16:20
And you feel like a compelled to actually use it because you're paying for it. And that's, that's a non essentialist view. And the essential is trying to say that that's illogical thinking,
Luke Carlson 16:31
yeah
Adam 16:31
there was a there was a bias. They call it a certain type of bias. I can't remember off the top my head. But it's illogical, whatever the bias
Mike 16:39
right here, you're paying to have your time back. I mean, it's
Adam 16:43
people always say, Wow, that's a lot of money for half an hour workout, you know, and I was like, Listen, you know, don't you pay more for faster cars, faster computers, faster plans Express trains
Luke Carlson 16:52
I always say this, you know, when I talk about the the visit to the dentist, if the dentist could do everything in one half the time? Would I pay the same amount of money or more? And the answer is absolutely. Yes. Like, I'm not thinking, hey, let me sit here for another hour. Because I really
Adam 17:07
gimme a discount. Yeah, do that root canal slower and give me 20%? Off?
Mike 17:14
Yeah, I think I think the I'm trying to figure out the exercise, culture and barriers. I mean, with all the information we have now that is right there in front of us. Like, you know, there's and listening to the people who we have still have clients who they do this, they love it, but they still got to do like CrossFit classes where they still have to do they feel like they have to run five times a week or something like that. We're still having those conversations that we don't want to get in the way of what motivates them. And maybe there's something external like, like they need for their heads to be
Luke Carlson 17:45
if that's the case, yeah. And I and I can honor and recognize that then they have to understand intellectually, that there still may be a pyramid of how they should look at their exercise. And that essential exercise is still their, one to two really brief, intense resistance training workouts per week, build everything else on top of that, but just don't forget what's essential
Mike 18:07
the foundation
Luke Carlson 18:08
Exactly. I think right now, the problem is that people are saying, well, I don't do that, because I do this, well, you cannot swap them out. I mean, if you're adding other there's other things they have to be in addition to not replace it. I think we're in a culture where people have replaced the meaningful stimulus, the meaningful exercise
Mike 18:25
and our clients, they stay forever, like the most people, they don't stay with other programs. They stay with us because this is the thing they could stick to. It's something they get results from. And they you know, and they, you know, we have had people remember when Hence Orme walked out the door, he loved his results here. But he I think he thought he needed more. And then he realized this was what was essential.
Adam 18:45
By the way, that was the episode called The Return of the Prodigal client, if you want to listen to that was a great interview. You know, I want to wrap this up. But I do want to bring up a point when we were talking about the the intense stimulus and was important and people lost sight of that. And if they only knew that for 20 minutes, once a week that intention was will give them all they all they need. But but the essentialist also the essentialism book, it talks also about now this is a management book, and it's about how to run a company and how to run your relationship. So it's not about exercise, but they do talk about having fun, that's important to have fun. And your business. I mean, like I have on my desk right now I have a slinky. I got guitars around the office. I mean, we know how to let off some steam around here for that reason. But I also think it's important in our exercise program, when we talk about the intense workouts, it's not saying don't have fun outside of that, but don't call it exercise call it for what it is fun. Recreational pursuits is about enjoyment and stop mixing up your your your fun with your exercise.
Luke Carlson 19:47
And in fact, by doing the right exercise, you're going to better prepare yourself for all of that fun, that recreation, the sport the other activities that you're you're involved with. So I couldn't agree with you more perfectly stated
Adam 19:59
so Luke, pleasure having you here even though it was brief, it was great. Thanks for stopping by. Why don't you tell our audience you know, where they can find you contact you what you're doing where you are.
Luke Carlson 20:11
Yeah. So we're in Minnesota and we have three locations. We're building a fourth location right now. So we have one location downtown Minneapolis, one in Plymouth, which is a suburb of Minneapolis and another location in Chanhassen or under construction right now on a Woodbury location. So we've been very much inspired by inform fitness and Adams original book and if you are in the Minneapolis area, we'd love to have you drop in and experience a workout with us.
Tim Edwards 20:37
Thanks again to Luke Carlson, the founder and CEO of Discover Strength based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And if you happen to be listening in the Minneapolis area, jump on over to discoverstrength.com to set up your own strength training session. We'll include links to discover strength in the show notes and links to Amazon and audible to pick up the book discussed here today by Greg McEwen titled essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less, and as always links to Adam Zickerman's book, power of 10, the once a week slow motion fitness revolution. Now for those of you that reside near Manhattan, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg, and Reston. We've got great news for you. At the time of this recording, which is November of 2017. There's a free session waiting for you at informfitness.com Click the button, try us free right there on the homepage. Fill out the form. Pick your location and enjoy a slow motion high intensity full body workout in just 20 minutes. Remember strength care is the new health care. Get on board and join inform nation. What do we got to lose? Except perhaps maybe a few lbs? Thanks again for listening to the inform fitness podcast for Adam, Mike and Sheila. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting Network.
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