Welcome to The Figuring It Out Podcast.
At 22, I took the plunge to go on the entrepreneurial journey and start a fitness business, 7 years later I’d been the nutritionist for 2 elite sports clubs and private coach to some of the worlds best sportsmen and women.
Now it’s my mission to show fitness coaches how you can put yourself in a league of their own, become the go to coach, and finally eliminate the self-doubt and imposter syndrome that's holding you back from building the business of your dreams.
This podcast will help you figure out how to thrive and conquer the fear that comes with the lonely entrepreneurial journey.
If fear is the only thing stopping us from achieving our dreams, and we only fear what we don't understand, then the antidote to fear is knowledge. All we have to do is find out who has the knowledge that we need to conquer our
Callum Walker:fears and achieve our entrepreneurial dreams. My name
Callum Walker:is Callum Walker, and welcome to the podcast that will help you figure it
Callum Walker:out and conquer this lonely entrepreneurial to the podcast. In the last episode, I ran through how I switching up my activity and my training on a specific day to put my body into the state that it needs to be in. And today I'm gonna go a little bit deeper into what you can actually do to be able to go and apply this to yourself. And also, this is almost kind of like just a bit more of a counterintuitive way to look at your exercise. And if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a coach, or if you're someone who just values, being able to perform at your highest level, not necessarily just from a physical activity or from a professional point of view, but personally, then today's really gonna help.
Callum Walker:And last episode, I really kind of spoke about this almost kind of like go in slow mode. And I wanna kind of expand on that because I think it's really, really important because society really kind of pushes out to us that we need to be in go, go, go, go, go, go, or we need to almost kind of go to full on extremes where we're either on or we're off. And that can be a challenge because if we're on and we're off, we never actually get any consistency and we never really get any specific momentum when we don't get any balance across the, you know, the the pillars and the aspects of our life. So today, I wanna really almost kind of like articulate to you two things. First of all, the way in which I almost kind of like spread out my training across a week, but then also how I kind of spread out my training across a year and how I kind of change it up.
Callum Walker:And to start with, I want to kind of come back to this kind of like go and slow mode. And I want you to kind of forget about everything that you've ever been taught about training, everything you've ever been taught around exercise, and actually start to almost kind of like get clear on. We have two ends of a spectrum. We have a spectrum of go, send it, high energy, and we have a spectrum of slow, which is like lower, like lower intensity things being more present and really really slowing down. And the problem that we have in society is that society basically says to us that we either need to stop or we need to go.
Callum Walker:Whereas I would prefer you to see it more as a continuum. So see it more as a continuum as opposed to, right, I need to need to go or I need to slow, but actually, like, there's different rates of go and there's different rates of slow. And the way that I almost kind of like see it for myself, I mean, was just talking about this in the car the other day, is really almost kind of seeing it in line with the seasons of nature. Now if we almost kind of look at how nature operates, nature doesn't operate as, like, you know, it's just one season. There are unless you're, like, bang on the equator where that's, like, pretty consistent across the year.
Callum Walker:Like, really, everywhere else across the world, nature operates with seasons. We have winter, we have spring, we have summer, and we have autumn. And they're varying different degrees of different things. So it isn't almost kinda like, you know, that, we have, like, one day it's winter, the next day it's summer. There's a season of winter, but we don't go immediately from winter into summer.
Callum Walker:We gradually bleed from winter into spring and then spring into summer and then summer then bleeds into autumn, which then bleeds into winter. And I think that we need to approach our energy the same sort of way. It's not necessarily like, you know, you either have summer or winter, or if the first day of winter and then the first day of autumn, it gradually bleeds across. Now you don't necessarily have to align directly with the natural seasons in terms of the winter, sorry, in terms of the weather. But I think looking at that concept and applying it to ourself can be really, really healthy.
Callum Walker:But it really kinda comes down to defining what the, you know, what the season you are currently in. You know, what is the season you're currently in within your own life? Like, are you actually in more of kind of a growth phase, a go phase, a move? Like, you trying to build and go and send it? So if I look at the last six weeks as an example, I've been in that mode.
Callum Walker:I've been building. I've been growing, but that season is starting to come to a little bit of an end. So if I look at that season, I almost kind of have broken it across like a little bit of a six week period. Like, we're currently in the February, and the first six weeks of the year had been very much in go mode. And if I almost kinda look at how I've, addressed my training in that way, I almost kinda look at this continuum of, you know, of go and slow where it hasn't almost been like a 100% go and 0% slow.
Callum Walker:I've actually been more in a send it mode where I've gone like, right. Actually, in terms of the type of activity that I'm doing, it's not a full on go, send it, and absolutely, like, this is absolutely everything I'm doing. But it's been more of kind of a a 70% dominant go and a 30% dominant slow. So that also means in terms of the type of activity that I've been doing, it's been more higher intensity stuff. I've been doing longer runs.
Callum Walker:I was doing more kind of like higher rock space sort of training, but then I would also then incorporate an element of the slow side of things. So if we almost kind of look at like, you know, let's say that I'm exercising four times a week over that six week period, four times six is 24. Like typically, you know, three, 30% of those sessions have been more kind of, you know, slower based sessions. So 30% of 24 is what that's what about just over six or seven. So out of the no it's about eight sorry.
Callum Walker:So out of the 24 sessions, eight of them had been more kind of slower based sessions and then the other, 16 have been more centered around the, yeah, have been more centered around kind of higher intensity things. But now I'm kind of like moving into more of a slower sort of state. So if I actually look at it, I'm flipping that ratio where now it's gonna be more focused on 60, you know, to 70% of those sessions, and that can be flexible. They're gonna be more slower, low intensity sessions. So what do I almost kinda mean by that?
Callum Walker:Well, I like to almost kind of break it down into having four different types of activity. I have a type of activity which is to send it. So that is almost kind of like more of a, anaerobic type session. So that might be more of a high rock session. It might be more of a sprint interval session where I'm really kind of pushing myself.
Callum Walker:So, again, I mentioned in the last episode that I've been utilizing a whoop when my recovery is kind of in more of the green zone and my nervous system is primed to be able to take on that load. I'll be doing those types of activities. So I'll be doing a higher rock session. I'll be doing a, you know, a more anaerobic session. So I have like one type of session, which is an anaerobic send it session.
Callum Walker:Then I have a more kind of, like, longer intensity aerobic session. So I'm currently trying I've got I've got the marathon coming up in nine weeks time. So again, that would be a longer run that I would be doing based on where I am in that specific training cycle. So, I would be doing like a more aerobic session, which would be, you know, anything that goes beyond 10 kilometers from me. So anything that I'm running over an hour, that's more of kind of like a, you know, my higher intensity go sort of, aerobic session.
Callum Walker:So I almost kind of have like two types of go sessions. I have an anaerobic absolutely sending session. I then have a longer duration aerobic session, which will be some form of cardiovascular activity that goes over an hour. But then I have my kind of more slow sessions. So my slow sessions would be more in terms of like from a strength based session that might be more of kind of like a, a more mindful sort of strength based activity.
Callum Walker:So, in terms of doing resistance exercise, I'm doing resistance exercise, but I'm doing it without headphones. I'm doing it without absolutely sending it, and I'm doing it in more of a mindful sort of way. So I'm feeling the contraction of my muscles. I'm focusing on where I actually am. I'm focusing on the feeling of the, you know, of the actual movement.
Callum Walker:And then I'll have what I refer to as, a parasympathetic session. So by a parasympathetic session, that would be something like a walk, a, a lower intensity, shorter duration cardiovascular session, a yoga session, something like, a sauna session. Those sorts of things are activities where I'm keeping my heart rate a little bit lower. Then again, I'm being more present with my body. So again, on the season that I'm in and the ratio of go to slow, I'll choose the ratio of activities that I'm doing based on the day that I'm going for.
Callum Walker:So I mentioned that, in the last episode that today we'd originally planned that we were gonna do a longer intensity aerobic session, and a longer run, But my body is not primed to go and do that. So we're actually going into more parasympathetic mode. And today is all about actually, I'm gonna do a yoga flow, then I'm gonna do a sauna session, and I'm going to focus on my parasympathetic breathing. And off the back of that, I'm ensuring that I'm in more of that slower state. Now I might find that tomorrow my nervous system is primed to be able to take on a higher load and I could do the session that I'd originally, agreed to go and do today tomorrow.
Callum Walker:And I'll find that I end up doing the session significantly better tomorrow because I allowed myself to recover. So, originally we'd planned to do 10 k, but I might find that if I look after myself and prime my nervous system correctly today, I might be able to do 15 kilometers really quite easily and conveniently. So that's gonna be the play. So I think that really, if I could almost kind of articulate to you, I would have four different types of session, a parasympathetic slow session, a more lower intensity strength or aerobic based session, a absolutely send it go session from an anaerobic exercise point of view, whether that's sprint intervals, whether that's a high rock style functional based training session where you're in high heart rate zones, or you then also have a longer duration, higher intensity aerobic sessions. Those can be longer runs, longer swims, longer rows, whatever it is specifically to you.
Callum Walker:Sorry. Gotta have a shout out to the side just there. So, yeah, so, hopefully, I found that use, you found that useful. And as always, I'm gonna sign off with never forget if every one of your clients gave you one new client, you've doubled your business. Have you got a client
Callum Walker:who isn't losing weight right now and you have absolutely no idea why? And maybe you're worrying that if nothing changes, they could drop off at any moment? Well, I've got a free nutrition masterclass for you where I reveal the secret nutrition strategy that guarantees that that stuck client loses two to four pounds in the next seven days without lowering their calories, upping their cardio, or even tracking macros. Click the link in the description to get access to the free elite nutrition secrets masterclass and get your client moving in the right direction, stopping them dropping off today.