(0:02 - 0:12) Let's get real, let's get loud on America Loud Talk News. This is a McCullough Report. And focal points, substack, I'm so excited to have Ron Oliver in the studio. (0:13 - 0:36) He is a holistic health and fitness coach, and he's gonna tell us everything we need to know about what is a holistic approach to fitness and our health. And this is gonna be such a great, I think, uplifting interview, Ron. I'm really excited for you to get our audience excited about this new way of thinking of things. (0:38 - 0:41) Thank you, sir. It's a real pleasure to be here with you. Well, terrific. (0:41 - 0:55) Why don't we start by you giving us an introduction to who you are, what's your background, your education, and how you got into this field? Sure. I didn't go to college and university like you. I went to high school and then immediately got into construction. (0:55 - 1:16) And by 22, I realised I hate construction and I had a passion for health and fitness. So I became a certified health and fitness coach at Gold's Gym, North Vancouver, British Columbia. And I worked there for a couple of years, learning the ropes, going through courses on nutrition and training bodies with weights and stretching and all of these things you need to know to be a good trainer. (1:17 - 1:46) Then I went on my own and it's been an incredible journey. I've had the privilege of working with all kinds of people from your average person to businessmen, executives, world champion athletes, all kinds of people. And what we do as a holistic health and fitness coach is we look at the whole person, the mind, the emotional health, the mental health, the physical health, and the lifestyle, all of it, because it's all connected. (1:46 - 2:00) You can't separate your body and your mind and your spirit, can you? And so it's all about the holistic approach. Stress is the number one cause of fatigue and disease, as you know. And then we have chronic dehydration to deal with. (2:00 - 2:19) We have people who do not know the vast contrast between consuming foods and fluids and being able to utilise the nutrients their bodies need. And most people, really in North America especially, don't have a very good understanding of what proper nutrition is. And I don't believe there's a perfect diet for everybody. (2:19 - 2:51) I believe everybody's an individual and we all need to look at what each individual's needing, whether it be eliminating some toxins from their body or eliminating some nutritional deficiencies. Well, let's go through some fundamentals now. Let's take fitness first, okay? There's been a great debate over time about aerobic exercise and strength exercise and blends of that. (2:51 - 3:13) Where do you fall on this exercise in terms of type of exercise and quantity? Well, it really depends on your age because you can't train a 50-year-old like you train a 20-year-old. But back in the day when I first got into the industry, it was so long ago, when people asked me what I do, I said, I'm a fitness trainer. They didn't even know what that was, you know? And at that time, aerobics was the craze. (3:13 - 3:22) Everybody's going to aerobics. All the women are going to aerobics because they think it's the best way to lose weight. It might help you lose weight, but it's not the best way to burn off fat. (3:23 - 3:54) You know, it's actually high-intensity, short-duration training, interval training that's been proven to burn off the most fat and the most lean muscle mass you can develop on your body, the easier it is for you to burn off the fat, as long as you're training at the right heart rate, of course. And as you know, losing lean muscle mass is detrimental to even longevity. So the idea is you want to understand that you have a limited pool of biochemical resources in your body based upon your health and your lifestyle and your work. (3:56 - 4:24) And if you go to the gym and you train hard at the right intensity, going to momentary muscular failure, you're going to tap into that pool of resources. But if you use all of it in the gym and you leave the gym, you don't have the resources to heal and rejuvenate and regenerate and grow stronger, right? So most people, what they do is they over-train. They spend too much time training and they don't have any resources for recovery. (4:24 - 4:42) And then there's the time where your body can actually go stronger. So if you go in the gym and you come out of the gym after a good workout, you're actually weaker than when you went in, right? Is that true? Absolutely. Like if I put you through a workout, if you can do 20 pushups right now and I give you a chest workout, you'd be lucky to do two pushups. (4:43 - 4:53) Wow. Ron, let me ask you, what's the role of being sore? Like you work out and you're sore afterward. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on what you've done. (4:53 - 4:56) Obviously there's bad pain. You can injure yourself. You don't want to do that. (4:56 - 5:34) But you can have the pain of lactic acid, which makes you sore and stiff for days. But if you know how to cool down and do some aerobic activity after the workout, you can flush out all that blood and then you're not going to have that problem. But then there's also the soreness of tearing the tissue microscopically and then you're forcing the body to grow larger, right? So there's many ways to do this, but I have found that high intensity, short duration activity, where you use the least amount of resources from your biochemical pool, so that when you leave the gym, you got lots of money in the bank to recover and then regenerate and grow strong. (5:34 - 5:59) What's your favourite high intensity exercise? I would say because of my love for boxing and kickboxing, those are two phenomenal ones, even if you're not a professional or an amateur fighter, just because you're using your whole body and it's super intense. Or mountain biking or sprinting, if you're healthy enough to sprint. Or if you're not healthy enough to sprint, you can just march up a hill really fast using the whole body. (5:59 - 6:09) And then it would be, you're going to do weights. It's going to be the deadlift and the squat. You know, those things are unbeatable because you're using so much muscle. (6:10 - 6:29) You're using the largest muscle groups. Wow. So how about for this high intensity, what do you think about if you're on like a stationary bike, if you just, you know, get up on the pedals, get up out of the seat and pedal as hard as you can? Is that pretty good? Absolutely. (6:29 - 6:39) You can really, it depends on the bike. Like if you're on a recumbent bike or a sit-up bike, it's going to train your muscles differently. But I'm personally like the mountain bikes that get on the woods and go on the trails. (6:39 - 6:59) But if you find a good hill and you pump it up that hill as hard as you can, you're going to have one heck of a leg workout. You know, you can make yourself as sore from that if you push hard enough as if you did a legs, you know, a leg workout with weights. But that interval, like there's one where I'm in Dallas and I go on this trail called the Katy Trail. (6:59 - 7:08) It goes to the University Trail, but I have to go over a bridge on Mockingbird. And you know, I have to stand up in the pedals to get up over that bridge. Yeah. (7:09 - 7:37) What's the duration that that should last to give me that benefit, do you think? You know, if you can go as even 60 to 90 seconds, high intensity where you're going all out, all the power you can muster, you can stimulate some growth. If you really go to the point of, it's all about going to momentary muscular failure, right? Like if you're going to do a set of bicep curls, let's say, okay. And let's say you can curl a hundred pounds, that's your max, right? And you can only do 10 reps. (7:37 - 7:56) So your first rep is 10% of your maximum effort, right? Second rep is 20%, 30%. And when you get to your 10th rep, it's a hundred percent maximum effort. And if it takes you everything you got to get that last rep up, and then you get to the top and then you bring it down, you go halfway down, you hold it until gravity just pulls it to the floor. (7:57 - 8:16) You've gone to momentary muscular failure and you have stimulated the growth mechanism and your body's now forced to build bigger, stronger biceps because you've taken it to failure. So it's not just kind of do 10 and you're done or do it, you know, repeat it a couple of times. You're talking about really kind of going all out. (8:16 - 8:28) If you want to build bigger arms, bigger legs, if you just want to condition your body, it's a different story. But usually when I work with people, they've already lost a lot of muscle mass. You know, I work with a lot of people in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. (8:28 - 8:46) They've lost a lot of muscle because they're not using it. If you don't use it, you lose it. As you know, muscle atrophy will happen within a few weeks, especially nowadays with men having very low testosterone, right? Men have low testosterone, they have low IGF-1 levels, they have low growth hormone levels. (8:46 - 8:56) So it's harder for them to maintain that muscle. But if you can get them healthy where their hormones are healthy levels naturally, then they can maintain their muscle a lot longer. Wow. (8:57 - 9:13) You know, I think a lot of problems, like a lot of guys are on the road travelling and they're in hotel rooms. So if you're stuck in a hotel room, let's say it's a cheap hotel and there's no fitness room. What are some things you can do in a hotel room without- Oh, that's a fantastic question. (9:13 - 9:31) Cause I have a lot of executives, they've gone around the world on business trips and they don't have a chance, but they want to keep in shape, right? So what I've done with lots of them is I'll get them to set up their phone on camera and I'll put them through a workout in their hotel room. All they need is enough room to lay down on the floor. So I'll have them do just body weight. (9:31 - 9:39) They'll do burpees to warm up, that gets the whole body going. Then we'll do their abs, we get their core out of the way. And then I'll have them doing squats. (9:40 - 9:51) I'll have them doing some plyometrics, isometrics. We'll have them doing jumping squats, the jumping lunges and in 10 minutes, they can barely walk down the stairs to get down to their meeting. Really? Absolutely. (9:51 - 10:14) What is it about burpees? Like I was in a hotel room the other day and I think just 10 burpees and the kind of the way I do them is, when they're standing position, you kind of do a jumping jack and then you go down to doing a pushup and then you get back up again. I don't know, I don't even know if that's a legit burpee, but just like 10 of those, I was so out of breath. It's tough, it's tough. (10:14 - 10:23) You're using, most people don't have a very strong core anymore because they don't really use it. And you're using your whole body. Most guys can do 10 burpees. (10:24 - 10:30) So you're doing good. If a guy's overweight, 30, 40 pounds, he probably can't do five. Well, I've always thought a good exercise. (10:30 - 10:49) Have you ever seen the guys in the NFL and they have a drill where they make them go on the ground and then they have to get back up again and go on the ground to get back up again? I've always thought that's a good exercise. It's a practical exercise. Because if you ever got knocked down and you had to get up quickly, you know what I mean? It just seems like that's a good one. (10:50 - 11:02) Yeah, well burpees, you see some of these guys that go to prison and you see them on YouTube doing prison workouts, right? And they're doing burpees like crazy. They do them a little different. Like they call them prison burpees. (11:03 - 11:12) So you do them a little different than you'd see a football player or an MMA fighter doing them. But they get pretty jacked in there by doing so many high reps. They get really conditioned. (11:13 - 11:45) Some of these guys are doing sets of 100 in a row. Well, while we're on this hotel workout, what about pushups? Do you think you should do pushups level or should you put your feet up on like a coffee table or something and do them? Well, this really depends on the area of your chest you wanna hit. If you want more upper chest, then you put your feet up on the bed and you're doing like an incline bench press with the floor, right? And if you want more lower chest, then you can do it with your feet on the floor, your hands on the desk, doing it on the other angle. (11:46 - 12:02) And then if you want to just do overall the whole chest, you just do it on the floor, but it depends on where you put your hands, how wide, what direction are your fingers pointing. You can do pushups at least a dozen ways and isolate the body differently. The pushups are phenomenal. (12:02 - 12:11) And also chin-ups. I know, but when you do a pushup, should you bring your chest down to the ground? Absolutely. Full range of motion is ideal. (12:11 - 12:25) Then you're gonna use more muscle. What should you do with your head? Should be looking up or forward or? You don't wanna have it forward too much or back too much. You don't wanna hyperextend your neck, but you basically don't, you can hold it up a little bit, but you don't wanna crank your neck up. (12:25 - 12:34) You wanna keep your neck pretty general. And then what about your butt? Butt up in the air or down? You don't wanna touch your hips on the floor. You wanna touch your chest on the floor because that's much harder. (12:35 - 12:39) Okay. It's a workout. People like to make it an easy out. (12:39 - 13:19) I mean, and you do pushups, should you do like two or three reps of a certain number or should you just go for the max on one time? Well, you'd wanna warm up first, especially if you're not 20 years old. So do a couple of warmup sets, get the blood in there, you know, and it's always great to do some, you know, just find the stairs, run up and down the stairs, a couple of flights of stairs, get your heart pumping, then go into your room, back in your room, do some abs, get the abs out the way because that'll warm you up a lot more and then do a set of pushups just to get warm. You know, don't go to failure because you don't wanna go to failure first set and then go to failure on your second set. (13:19 - 13:30) And then when you can do another pushup, go to your knees and keep going. You literally can't push yourself up. So the intensity is high and it's safe because you're not lifting any weight. (13:31 - 13:50) Yeah. I mean, I know if I put my feet up on one stair on the staircase and then I do pushups, I can do about 50, but then I really feel the burn. And what you're saying is I should probably just on that point in time, go to my knees and then do some more, is that right? Yeah, and it's also time under tension. (13:50 - 14:18) Like if you're doing them really quick, you can do more than if you're going a little slower, right? So, you know, there's three levels of intensity. There's positive failure, static failure, and negative failure. So if you can curl 100 pounds once, you can resist 120 pounds and just hold it statically, but you can resist 140, right? So it's always good depending on the level of fitness that you have right now. (14:18 - 14:28) You know, you don't wanna go too intense in the beginning. So you wanna, you know, it's always trickle, stream, river, and you know, build it up over time because you don't want an injury. It's just the whole point of this is for longevity. (14:28 - 14:57) We wanna be fit when we're really, really old, right? Right, but so let's say, let's just stay on pushups. Is it better to go fast or is it better to kind of go slow and make them more agonising? If you're fairly fit, you can go fast on the way up, as fast as you want, and then on the way down, go slow. You know, descend slowly, and then pause on the bottom for a moment, you know, a good second, one count, and then explosively up, and then again, back down slow again. (14:58 - 15:04) That'll be way harder. You won't be able to do 50 that way. If you can do 50 normal pushups all the way up, all the way down, you'd probably get 30 out. (15:05 - 15:13) Ah, yeah, I'm sure I'm cheating. If I showed you a video, you'd probably laugh. Have you heard of Mike Tyson pushups? Nuh-uh. (15:13 - 15:42) He made them kind of famous back in the day when he was fighting regularly, going to all the boxing camps and he would do a pushup like you've seen, a full pushup from the toes and the hands, but then once he got up, he would push his rear end way back in an angle, so now he's getting into sort of like a shoulder press, and then he would bring himself back down and then in the pushup position and go again. So it's like a, you know, sort of a 45-degree angle shoulder press incorporated with the pushup. And he kind of made them famous. (15:43 - 15:52) They were obviously done before Mike Tyson came along, but he coined them. Everybody calls them Mike Tyson pushups. So if you can do 50 pushups, you'd probably do 25 Mike Tyson pushups. (15:53 - 16:04) Wow, man, that sounds tough. So okay, so we got pushups. I know about like straight forward sit-ups and then put your elbow over to your knees. (16:04 - 16:32) I got that so far, but it seems like the abs now, people are doing a lot more different things to strengthen the abs. There's tonnes of things, like even just, you know, doing the running man, you know where you do a lunge? You know what a lunge is, right? Where, you know, you just going like, but the running man lunge, we're going like this. If you bounce back and forth, and you're coming off the ground, it's like plyometrics. (16:32 - 16:47) And if you go really deep and you lean back, you're gonna be stretching your core when you do it. So even your core will get a workout from that. And then what works ideal, like, I mean, people don't really understand that you're not gonna get abs from doing abs. (16:48 - 17:04) You'll get a strong, fit core, but abs aren't burning any calories. You'll burn more fat doing squats, right? So it's really gonna be the diet that makes your abs show. Oh, is that right? So even if you do a tonne of sit-ups, you never get that six pack, huh? No, you gotta eat right. (17:04 - 17:18) You can't outwork a bad diet. Okay, we'll get to diet in a minute. So abs, so, you know, what I've found is the straightforward sit-ups, and then elbow over to each knee, I go through those. (17:18 - 17:29) But then I do some side sit-ups. You may think there's a kind of weird, but I lay on my side, and then I, yeah, and then I reach over, and I do a side one. I touch my ankle, then I touch above my head. (17:29 - 17:44) I go, and I've found that that's really helped kind of better define those flanks. Yeah, I'll give you two great ones, okay? Number one, you just sit on the floor on your behind, and you just have your knees bent. You lift your heels off the ground so you're holding them up in the air. (17:44 - 17:56) And then you're leaning back on an angle like this with your upper body. You just get a small dumbbell, like a 10 or a 15-pound dumbbell, and you hold it like this with both hands. And then you just balance on your rear end. (17:58 - 18:15) And you just reach to your right side, touch that dumbbell on the floor, balancing on your butt, and then go put it on the other side like you're rowing a boat. Oh my gosh, and what, your feet are up in the air during this? Your feet are just off the floor like this, and it's tough. And you just do a set to failure. (18:15 - 18:27) You're just rowing the boat, and you're holding yourself up. You're using your upper core muscles to hold your body on an angle like this. But then you got your feet in the air, so you're using your lower abs at the same time. (18:27 - 18:34) And then you're crossing over back and forth. It's brutal. You do one set of those to failure, you'll be screaming in your abs. (18:35 - 18:47) Hereafterwards, do the plank. But don't just do the plank like everybody else on your elbows and toes. Once you're on your elbows and toes, I want you to squeeze your abs 10%, keep breathing. (18:48 - 19:03) Then go to 20%, 30%, 40%, all the way incrementally to 100% contraction of your abs. And then just keep breathing and holding that, and it makes it so much harder. And if you can do a minute of that flexing after the last one, you're pretty much Superman with your abs. (19:03 - 19:21) Okay, that sounds terrific. Now, I think the biggest thing I struggle with a lot of, I know a lot of people do, is back. So if you're in a hotel room, you're not in a fancy gym, you don't have any equipment, what can you do to strengthen your back? Suspension training. (19:24 - 19:39) So you can get little, you can put a, you can, you know, you can buy a gym bag, but you can actually put a gym in a bag. And you can bring it with you, it's very small. You just have a couple of Olympic rings and they got straps, and they got them set up so you can hook them under the door, sorry, above the door. (19:39 - 19:50) So you open the door, put these little things under the door and there's a little pad that goes through the door and then you shut the door, lock it. And then you got these two straps with these Olympic rings. And then you can hang on an angle. (19:50 - 19:59) So you can be hanging back from the door, depending on your strength. You can have your back horizontal to the floor, like you're doing the opposite of a pushup. And it's very hard. (19:59 - 20:12) Or you can be on a 45 or a 65 degree angle. So no matter how fit and strong you are, you can find the angle where you have the strength to do rows. So now you're just, it's doing the opposite of a pushup, exactly the opposite. (20:12 - 20:26) You just stretch it out, then you contract your back muscles before you bend your arms and then you drive your elbows behind you as far as you can. And that'll work your upper back, your lower back, depending on where you pull. You can pull to your hips or you can pull closer to your chest. (20:26 - 20:33) And you can train every muscle in your body in your upper back that way. And it works your arms a lot too. Wow, Ron, I've never done that. (20:33 - 20:45) What about getting on the floor and getting out on your stomach and trying to hook your feet under something and then lifting your back up? What do you think about that? For abs? For back. Back. For back. (20:45 - 20:55) Oh, the other way, like the hyperextension? Yeah, you get on your stomach and you're trying to lift your back up. Oh yeah, that's okay. You know, it's not an ideal exercise. (20:55 - 21:05) It'll be, it's better than nothing if you're just starting out and you're at your first competition. Or you're like a Superman position where you're trying to fly. That's definitely good, like a static contraction where you hold it. (21:06 - 21:16) As long as you flex your glutes when you do it so you don't put too much stress on your lower back. Because a lot of people have a weak lower back because they have weak abs. So I always get my clients to contract their glutes. (21:16 - 21:36) That supports the lower back and then they don't have any sore backs when they're done doing it. But that could be pretty good to get into starting out. What about one where you go on your hands and knees like this and then you lift one hand out and you lift the opposite leg up and then you do the other like that? Oh yeah, that's always good because you're using the stabilising muscles to balance. (21:36 - 21:47) So you're gonna work a lot of different muscles you wouldn't normally use. Okay, that sounds good. And then if you're in a hotel room and you're gonna do squats, what's the best way to do squats? Knee bends. (21:47 - 21:58) It really depends on what area of your legs you wanna get. If you wanna isolate your butt more, you can change the angle of your torso. If you wanna get the inner thighs more, you can go more wide with your stance. (21:58 - 22:05) As long as you're, wherever your toes point, your knees gotta follow. Because as you know, of course, your knees only bend one way. They don't rotate like your hip. (22:05 - 22:22) So there's some rules to squatting. But depending on where you put your feet and whether you're on your toes and you have your heels on a block or you're flat-footed or you lean forward, you can do squats a dozen ways and totally change the workout. So it's good to do a variety of these things so you work all the leg muscles. (22:23 - 22:34) Because sometimes people say, well, your knees shouldn't go above your, in front of your toes, for instance. I've heard some people- That's what they used to tell us. And I can tell you that's not true. (22:34 - 22:48) I mean, if you're lifting massive weight, you could definitely put your knees in a dangerous position. But if you're talking body weight, it's actually proven to be better for your knees to have your knees going over your toes. Oh, that's important. (22:48 - 22:57) Oh, I gotta tell my wife that. Okay. Yeah, if you go on YouTube and you just look up knees over toes guy, he's a guy that had massive knee problems. (22:57 - 23:00) He used to play basketball. His knees were shot. He couldn't do anything. (23:01 - 23:11) And he had to just trial and error it and figure it out. And he became famous on YouTube being knees over toes guy. And he proved without a shadow of a doubt that that's just not true, what we were told back in the day. (23:11 - 23:26) When you do a squat, how far should you go down? It really depends on what you wanna isolate, right? If you go super deep, you're gonna incorporate your glutes and your hamstrings. If you go just parallel to the chair, you're gonna mostly hit your quads. So you can change it up. (23:27 - 23:33) But again, it's all about form. So you're not gonna cause any injuries. Your technique is important. (23:33 - 23:42) And then it's time under tension. And then you can do static contractions where you just squat down and hold it. And it's very hard. (23:43 - 23:59) What do you think is a good number of squats in a set? It really depends on if you wanna, what do you want? What's your goal? What are you trying to do, put on muscle? Yeah, just trying to keep him strong. Just trying to maintain really. Okay, so I had a guy come to me recently. (23:59 - 24:04) He's a salesman. He's about 55. And he'd never really worked out in his life. (24:04 - 24:11) Quite slender, very little muscle mass. And he couldn't even deadlift his body weight. So he's pretty weak. (24:12 - 24:19) But I increased his, I tripled his strength in two months. Really? Tripled. Wow. (24:19 - 24:30) And he wasn't on any steroids or nothing. It's all natural. It's just all about stimulation and then recovery time and then proper nutrition so your body can rejuvenate and getting enough sleep, of course. (24:32 - 24:55) And it's really not as difficult as people think. It's just that the fitness industry's really typically about making money like everything else. I don't always tell you what you really need to know because if you knew you only had to work out for let's say 20 minutes or 30 minutes three times a week and you're going to the gym, you don't wanna pay as much as the guy spending two hours a day in there. (24:56 - 25:12) So they don't want you to know that. Well, I think the audience can tell I'm getting all my questions answered from Ron Oliver who's helping greatly because all these mythical things are working out. Here's my next question. (25:13 - 25:29) Is it better to do the strength part of a workout before the aerobic workout or after? That's a great question. Now you definitely wanna warm up before you do some heavy strength training. So definitely warm up and a treadmill or a bike is great for that. (25:29 - 25:43) Go for a walk. So you always should warm up because you wanna get your heart and lungs going and get your body warm. But then if you're trying to put on lean muscle mass, it's gonna be a different answer than if you're trying to get your butt in shape or if you try and lose a bunch of weight. (25:43 - 25:59) So it really depends on the person. You're not an overweight man. So you're just trying to stay in top shape, right? So for you, just warm up, do a cool down and then do your cardio in between the strength training. (25:59 - 26:08) And you'll get the best results for you. So let me tell you what to do. So after tonight, I've got to go on TV a couple more times, but after tonight, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. (26:09 - 26:19) So I'll go through my strength workout first. So actually I stretch. So I do some stretching and I have some back exercises my chiropractor wants me to do. (26:19 - 26:30) Like I use a 36-inch roller to kind of roll out my legs. I roll up my back and I use a lacrosse ball on my back against the wall to kind of work it up. Okay. (26:30 - 26:42) Then what I'll do is I'll do curls, but when I do curls, I'm doing it more for endurance. So actually I do two sets of 20. You're going for the biceps or the hamstrings? No, for biceps. (26:43 - 26:52) Arms, okay, yeah. Okay, I'll do that. I'll do pushups, but I do pushups actually on the 36-inch roller so I can really bring my chest down and back. (26:52 - 26:56) That's good. That's more range of motion, that's good. Yeah, so I got that. (26:57 - 27:06) And then I do some arm extensions. I'll do two sets of those. And then I do some presses above my head with weights like this. (27:07 - 27:27) I'll do squats and actually I do 40 of them and I have some weights and I go down, I do straight ones and I do on the side like that. Okay. Then I do this back where I pin the back of my legs under the curling bar and then I raise up my back like that. (27:28 - 27:39) I feel the least confident about my back. Okay, what are you doing for your rear delts and your upper back? Well, I'm gonna get to that. Let me tell you the whole workout first. (27:39 - 27:55) Okay. So then I'll do the core, I'll do the straight setups, the elbow to knee and then I'll do the side setups. And then after that, hang on, I gotta plug in my plug here. (27:56 - 28:18) After that, I leave my workout area, my house and then I get on a bike. Okay, so then I bike. I'll probably bike somewhere between five and 10 miles through streets and uphills and downhills and on trails, what have you. (28:19 - 28:31) Okay, and I try to get up on the pedals as much as I can. Then I come back from my bike, then I run. And so I'll typically run about three miles. (28:31 - 28:49) Then I'll come back from the run and then I swim. Very good, you're an iron man. Yeah, when I swim, I'll do the breaststroke and none of these are far distances but I'll do the breaststroke and then I'll put on the goggles and I'll do the overhand. (28:50 - 29:01) And then after that, I just towel off and I feel so unbelievably good. Now the problem with that workout is it takes about two hours, two and a half hours. Yes. (29:02 - 29:12) And it's just, if I get out late which I probably will tonight, it's just not practical. Yeah. But I have to tell you, I feel so great. (29:12 - 29:18) Oh yeah, I feel phenomenal. Yeah. I can show you what we can do if you want. (29:19 - 29:36) We just have to pick a time, wherever you wanna be. We just need both our phones so we can do camera. And I can put you through a little fitness test so I can see exactly where you have your strengths and weaknesses and I can design a little personalised protocol for you to try for a month. (29:36 - 29:40) I should probably take you up on it. No way. I do feel a weakness is my butt. (29:40 - 29:49) Like I don't have like a bubble butt like some girls or guys do. And so I think that's probably a weakness. Oh, we can work that out. (29:49 - 30:04) I've had guys with a complete flat butt, no butt at all and built them a rear end. Well, you know who said that recently on the girl side of things is, remember Jessica Simpson? Of course, yeah. Yeah, she used to date Tony Romo and he played for Cowboys, I'm in Dallas. (30:05 - 30:18) And she said she had a flat butt. She said it on TV and she actually, I guess, got a trainer like you, an expert. And there are certain weights that girls do to get that desirable butt. (30:18 - 30:34) Absolutely, with what we know about strength training and conditioning and even bodybuilding, you can isolate any muscle in your body and bring it out. Pretty amazing. Okay, well, gosh, that's been a great review of the exercise part of things. (30:36 - 30:45) And let's see, we're right now, we're about halfway. So we're gonna take a break now for our commercial sponsors. And we've been talking to Ron J. Oliver. (30:45 - 30:57) He's a holistic fitness coach. He's kind of, I think the real deal. And you can tell everybody, I've been asking all the questions I wanna ask about working out since I don't get a chance to ask too many experts. (30:58 - 31:10) And a lot of guys, I'm 62. A lot of guys my age feel like, well, it's kind of too late to get started or what have you. And I'm probably like Ron, I feel like we all need to do something. (31:10 - 31:21) So let's take a break now and we'll be back after just a few minutes. Let's get real, let's get loud on America Out Loud Talk Radio. This is the McCullough Report and I'm Dr. Peter McCullough, your host. (31:22 - 31:31) Pause right here. Let's get real, let's get loud on America Out Loud Talk News. And focal points, sub stack. (31:31 - 31:41) I'm Dr. Peter McCullough, your host. We're talking to Ron J. Oliver. And let me tell you, he is a stud and he is a holistic fitness trainer, coach and expert. (31:41 - 32:04) The first half of the show, we reviewed everything you could possibly wanna know about strength, fitness, muscle isolation. And now we're gonna talk about diet and specifically, Ron, I wanna talk about diet that's best for fitness and strength. Okay, people are interested in heart healthy diets or they're interested in weight loss diets or interested in anti-cancer diets. (32:05 - 32:23) What's the diet would you say if one wants to be fit and strong? The number one thing about nutrition, no matter what type of diet you wanna formulate, it's the vast contrast between consumption and utilisation. There's a big difference. And we work with microscopes. (32:23 - 32:38) We do live blood morphology analysis. So we'll look at the blood of a client and we can tell immediately that they're chronically dehydrated at a cellular level or they're deficient in minerals, vitamins, they're not digesting their protein. So it's really all about maximising bioavailability. (32:39 - 32:46) Of course, you need clean food. You want food that's bioavailable, it's clean. And then it's all about utilisation. (32:46 - 33:03) And a lot of people are consuming enough protein possibly, but what quality is the protein and are they digesting it, right? And it's the same with carbohydrates. So protein is the building block for muscle. So you need enough protein, but most of the protein powders out there are just garbage. (33:04 - 33:21) And actually people are not digesting most of the protein they're consuming. Well, I was gonna ask you about that. A lot of these really muscle guys, they drink muscle milk or a carb edge or mild plaques or creatine. (33:22 - 33:37) What do you say about all these kind of muscle building protein supplements? Most of them are garbage, they're unhealthy. Like they can make you a big, but you're not gonna make them healthy. Like when I look at the blood of these guys, these bodybuilders especially, I mean, their blood looks awful. (33:37 - 33:51) They look like they're 80 when they're only like 30. So there's a lot of toxins in these supplements, plus they're doing other things besides supplements, and that is bad. Like TRT, then I don't, we'd never do that. (33:51 - 34:07) We're gonna get to that in a minute, but let's stay on diet. So you really have to understand it's all about bioavailability and you need enough protein, but not everybody's the same, right? So it depends on your blood type, what proteins you're gonna be best with. Some people are great with fish. (34:08 - 34:11) Some people, they don't like fish. Some people like chicken. Some people like beef. (34:12 - 34:42) Some people wanna deal with eggs. Some people don't wanna eat beef at all, right? So you gotta make sure it's a diet that they will stick to, otherwise they won't stick to it, and it has to be consistent. Consistency is the game, right? And what I do is I pay attention to my client's elimination because if you're not eliminating properly, you have a digestive issue, right? And so you really need to get into the cleaner, higher-end nutritional supplements that are made from organic ingredients. (34:42 - 34:55) A lot of them are fermented, so it's very bioavailable. And as you know, nothing dead can support life. And the enzymes and the good bacteria in food are very heat-sensitive. (34:55 - 35:07) So a lot of times people are overcooking their proteins, like all this carnivore stuff that everybody's doing. You know, the caveman diet, all this kind of stuff. Well, it matters what source of meat do you have. (35:07 - 35:13) There's bad meat, good meat. There's bad eggs, good eggs, you know? So give us an example. So, okay, I know. (35:13 - 35:18) But tell us what you do. Give us a good example. I only eat organic whole foods, period. (35:19 - 35:23) I won't eat any commercially-grown anything. There's just no way I'll do it. It's toxic. (35:23 - 35:35) I'm not gonna eat genetically-modified food. I'm not gonna eat food that's sprayed with herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and sexicides. So I make sure it's clean, and then I make sure I eat it very bioavailable. (35:35 - 35:54) So like, for example, we make our own beef jerky because the beef jerky that you can buy in the store, they cook it at such a high heat, and it's full of nitrates and all this other garbage, so it's just unhealthy. And so when I dehydrate my meat, it's only at 112 degrees. Before the time, between 112 to 118 degrees, you destroy all the enzymes. (35:55 - 36:06) And I want the enzymes in the meat to digest it, right? And then I also supplement with enzymes when I eat protein, just to make sure it digests very efficiently. Because, I mean, I'm 58 years old. So I wanna be able to do this, tell them, you know. (36:07 - 36:22) So what type of enzymes do you use? I use a formula of, it's got protease in it for the protein, various kinds of protease. It's got the amylase. It's got every enzyme you would need to digest basically anything. (36:22 - 36:32) But this one's designed specifically to really help with the protein, because I don't eat a lot of carbs. I mean, I eat a bit of carbs. I'm not on a carnivore diet, but I don't like high carbs, you know. (36:32 - 36:48) And my carbs are gonna be like vegetables. Well, let me ask you, so if you have a steak, are you eating a steak pretty much rare? Yeah, absolutely. You're eating a steak rare and you take some enzymes and it's a pretty high quality steak, right? High quality, absolutely. (36:48 - 36:57) Grass fed, grass finished. Grass fed and not too fatty, not too marbly? Yeah, exactly. Okay, and then what about fish? I don't really do fish anymore. (36:57 - 37:14) I used to love eating sockeye salmon, but with all the evidence of microplastics in all the fish nowadays and the forever chemicals out there, I mean, it's just, it's so toxic. It's really not worth it. It's just not, you can get cleaner meat by getting free range animals on the land. (37:14 - 37:24) The ocean's become a big problem. The rivers and lakes and streams as well. What about chicken? Chicken is a pretty low quality protein. (37:24 - 37:32) I would prefer to eat organic eggs versus the chicken. Oh, okay, organic eggs. How about pork? I will never touch pork. (37:33 - 37:44) How come? You're gonna get parasites for sure. Wow, you know why? I don't need it either, but you know why? Because they've been using genetic vaccines in them since 2017. Absolutely, I won't. (37:44 - 37:51) Yeah, so pork is out. Yeah, okay, good. Absolutely, I won't eat shellfish either because they're basically like the rats of the sea. (37:52 - 38:04) Hmm, well, I eat some of that. Okay, now let's switch over to fruits and vegetables. Any problem eating apples and fruit? Well, nowadays you really got to watch if it's organic. (38:04 - 38:37) And now, of course, organic's not perfect, but there's a big difference between organic, it's not perfect, but the commercially grown, you're gonna get the most herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides in these types of foods. And what people aren't thinking about is water is in everything. So if someone's conscious about drinking pure water, like they won't drink tap water or cheap bottled water, they're not thinking about all that water in the apple or the tomato or the grapes or the cucumber. (38:37 - 39:01) Even a steak is 75% water, right? So I like to pick foods that I know where it's grown, like local farms, it's by far the best. And I'll go there, check out the farm and make sure they're actually not spraying the stuff because I just don't want those chemicals getting in my body to mess up the microbiome of my gut. Okay, but it sounds like you're not against fruits and vegetables, you just want- No, I eat them. (39:01 - 39:27) I just don't eat a lot of the starchy ones, I eat more the low sugar, like I don't eat grapes, I don't eat mangoes, although they're delicious. I eat like the green apples, the strawberries, blueberries, those low sugar fruits, you know? And then- And how about vegetables? Yeah, I like vegetables, like cucumbers, tomatoes, like I'll make cucumber salad, tomato salad. I actually won't, I won't lie, I don't make it, my wife makes it for me, but that's what I eat. (39:28 - 39:38) And I'll throw some kale in now and then. Yeah, like today, my wife, she made hummus, and then I had cucumbers and peppers to dip in it. Okay, cool. (39:38 - 39:47) What do you think? Yeah, it's good, you know, those are good foods. I like, it's really all about alkalinity as well, like you don't want too much acid going in your body. Mm-hmm. (39:47 - 40:22) You know, I find that- You mentioned something about fermented foods, and I've had some experts on, including Dr. Sabine Hazan about the microbiome, and she favours fermented foods like sauerkraut- 100%. Kimchi, we had kimchi the other night, just a little bit like a condiment, it was something. You think that's a good move? Absolutely, like bacterium, you know, friendly flora or probiotics and enzymes are critically important for everybody's health, right? They're the only two workers in our bodies, right? And everything else is the building material, right? The water is the delivery system. (40:22 - 40:32) And so you really need to make sure you're getting enough fermented food in your diet or you won't have enough good bacteria in your body. Okay, so I've got to ask you something, we only have a few minutes left, I asked you some quick questions. Sure. (40:34 - 40:48) Tap water, okay, bottled, or what's your preference? I don't drink bottled water because of the microplastics and the chemicals leaching, it's just not safe. It's worse than tap water. Tap water is a nightmare, you've got pharmaceuticals. (40:48 - 41:06) I mean, there's so many forever chemicals getting into the lakes and streams and rivers in Canada. Just tell me, what do you use? Well, I have some phenomenal filters under my sink that will knock out the chlorine, the fluoride and the heavy metals. And then I have a medical grade ioniser to separate the positive and negative ions. (41:06 - 41:21) So I'm just drinking a highly negatively charged water so I can be detoxifying as I drink water on a daily basis. Okay, how about alcohol? Yes or no? No, I'm not a big fan of alcohol. I'll have a tiny little shot like this once in a while with a meal. (41:21 - 41:28) Yeah. I'll have some red wine, but I will never drink any excessive amount. It's just detrimental to our health. (41:28 - 41:37) Yeah, I don't drink any at all. How about coffee? Coffee is very acidic and you want to maintain an alkaline body. It's been 30 years since I've been sick. (41:38 - 41:50) Really? Following the protocols of my mentor, the doctor that trained me and the biochemist that trained me and all of these things I know. Are you saying that you haven't even had a cold in 30 years? That's the truth, sir. Oh. (41:50 - 41:52) Not once. You just set the record for me. That's great. (41:53 - 42:02) My son is 27. He hasn't been sick in 25 years, but he lived with me since he was two. I raised him by myself, so I just taught him how my mentor taught me. (42:03 - 42:09) And, Ron, where do you live? I live in Quebec, Canada. Oh, no wonder. You're a Canuck. (42:09 - 42:15) You're way up there. You're near Montreal or whereabouts? Yeah, about three hours from Montreal. All right, well, my wife's Canadian. (42:15 - 42:18) She's from Toronto. Oh, phenomenal. Yeah. (42:18 - 42:24) So, listen, this has been a great conversation. I've learned so much. We could talk forever on this. (42:24 - 42:42) These are really interesting topics. So I'll have to have you back on about, I have so many more questions, but how do our viewers follow you? They can just check out my website, EliteDynamicLife.com. I just started a podcast with Roy Jones Jr., the famous boxer. He's retired now. (42:42 - 43:04) So they go to EliteDynamicLife.com. Right there, they'll catch a 30-minute conversation him and I had. And then right below that, there's a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation where I share the seven steps to achieve dynamic health and fitness, basically cram 30 years of experience and wisdom into 30 minutes. Wow, and you do this for your full-time job, right? Yeah, 35 years. (43:04 - 43:16) Man, that's incredible. Listen, thank you so much for joining us on the programme. I can't wait to get this out here, and we'll provide links to your website and to the show. (43:16 - 43:29) And are you also on Instagram and Twitter and all the social media? I was just getting all that kind of going. I did set all that stuff up because my son helped me do it. I'm not a high-tech guy, but my wife is now taking over that department because I'm just no good. (43:29 - 43:43) You would be great on Instagram. Because I watch Instagram. Like, I subscribe to Back Pain Advice, and I don't have back pain, but I've got a kyphosclerosis, and a lot of these chiropractors, and I'm always learning new things. (43:43 - 43:49) My wife is always watching that, too. But yeah, you'd be great on that. Well, listen, thank you so much for joining us on the show. (43:49 - 43:51) Absolutely, my pleasure. Thank you, sir. All right. (43:53 - 43:57) Let's get real. Let's get loud. On America Out Loud Talk Radio, this is McCullough Reporting. (43:58 - 44:00) And Focal Point's Substack.