Aaron King (00:00):

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Aaron King with coach Bob King, and we're continuing our series here on stress. And if you heard us last week, we talked about how stress impacts the youth and the high school levels. And I had talked a little bit in the intro about really just, what has happened to the world globally, our society, and my personal experience on blood pressure. And it, it comes back to stress and, you know, they say stress or diet and exercise are so important for a healthy life. But, I think it's undervalued really for folks, how much, a little bit of exercise, and a lot of exercises can reduce your stress levels. So how do you want to kick this one off as we get a little bit more adults and scientific, and this episode versus last week, where do we want?

Coach Bob King (00:50):

I think, you know, the beginning is going to be the same as that we were born into stress. And if you're an adult, as you probably know, if you're an adult, it ain't going away. Our goal is to try to minimize it. And let me just go back and keep on that theme about the adult world. You know, we get hung up on, you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Well, just take that literally, you know, we have, we have a good life and we had the Liberty to do what we want, but happiness is a pursuit and we're, we're going to be pursuing it because it's, it's just evasive because things get in the way life gets in the way stress gets in the way. Another aspect of that is stress. Doesn't go away because we are,you know, like I said, born into it and then things come into our life that we maybe aren't ready for.

Coach Bob King (01:35):

I mean, whether it's a marriage kid a house, a mortgage, and all the other things that we deal with, but stress is going to be every day. It can be work-related, home-related personally related, et cetera. And we deal with it on a psychological, emotional, and physical level. And you're all connected. That is the key. The physical, emotional, psychological stress is don't separate. And so, for example, if you have, if you accept yourself as an, you know, being stressed out at work and stressed out at home, it's going to have a physical impact. And you mentioned exercise and its ability to help mitigate stress. Let me just mention this, the reason why that's so important because it diverts you it diverts your, your energy. And so your energy is all inward. When you're stressed. You're now you're just about to explode. We'll go explode down the track or go explode in the weight room.

Coach Bob King (02:30):

The other part of it is, and this is not trivial at all. If you get into a serious exercise program, whatever it is you do, then go in the whole hog. And that means well, what do I wear? Well, let me go get a pair of shoes, shorts t-shirts, and all the things that make me work out comfortably. I, if I want to look good, look good. If I want to be relaxed, do relax, but get my workout gear organized. And so there's that whole transition of, Oh, I've got to work out. So changed clothes. I go do my thing. I come back, clean up, eat. What am I going to eat? So now you've got that starting to get in control. So stress management in, in a summary kind of statement is get a diversion, do something else besides deal with just stay swimming in your stress. And if you have stress at work, go home and take a break because I'm going to swear that you're going to find that it's going to be there when you get back.

Aaron King (03:26):

That's one good point. You made about the eating, the dress, how you want to set up your workouts. I found that just from a pure, just from people's schedules there are many things that are just about convenience and what's gyms, the gyms that folks sign up for you. You know, you still work at a lot of gyms. It, it comes down to geography. Where do I work? Making it accessible? You have to create more than one type of exercise. I think where to let's say you go to the gym, you have that whole routine. Well, if you didn't bring your, your workout clothes, or if you didn't bring your workout clothes, or you forgot something, then maybe you won't go to the gym. There's, there's a reason not to go those little stressors. Sometimes, sometimes the best recipe is just making sure you have running shoes or something just to get a quick jog or a walk. So having, having fewer hurdles to get to the gym, and that's like the most basic application.

Coach Bob King (04:25):

Well, Hey, planning is the name of the game. You know, the whole, what's it says playing the work and work the plan or by, you know, failing to prepare, you're preparing to fail. Those are cliches that are absolutely true. And so, for example, what you're talking about, and we're here in Dallas, Texas, and when I talked to people, you know, the adult world, especially in advising them, I say, you know, if you can walk because come July 5th or 10th, you're not going to want to walk because even if it's late in the day, the sidewalks, a hundred, five degrees. So you get your walking and outdoor activity in during our seasonally, good times a year, we're going to have a rainy time. It'll be a little cold, but we're definitely going to have heat. So what does that mean?

Coach Bob King (05:06):

Well, I do have a gym membership close to me so I can go get inside and get on a bike or a treadmill. I need the, I need the strength training. I've got to have the muscle. So that's going to be there. Have a backup plan for like when COVID hit, man, it didn't take long, but I got it organized here at the house because I'd like to come home now and get on the StairMaster. And my Airdyne because I can do it out a mask. If I'm at the facility, I'm going to wear a mask, but it's just really not fun. So having it's once you do the planning, it's done, it's not like you have to every day, start from scratch. Cause you, you know, you have a menu of what you're going to eat. Here's my menu of exercise options. So get that done early on and know what you can do on a rainy day and a rainy day is this, here's an example. A rainy day is a rain outside, or maybe your facilities close for cleaning, or maybe the crowds too big. You don't want to go. I mean, rainy days, anything that changes what you plan on doing in the, in the original location. So those happen all the time.

Aaron King (06:10):

Let's turn the page a little bit and go somewhat? Physiological, without diving too deep into the science, just the chemical response. We mentioned last time, how stress is cumulative, but stressors and hormones like cortisol that are released in your body and the impacts they have on you from an aging standpoint. And, you know, as folks get older, it hurts to work out. So if stress is aging, you, it's not making it easier to work out. So what's the balance thereof being preventative versus reactive. I know that this that's kind of a broad statement right there, but,

Coach Bob King (06:46):

But no, no, no. It's a great statement because here's the, what got my attention to what you said was the reactive part of it. Well, I don't have time to go to the gym anymore. I can't work out. I can't do it. No, no, no, no. You don't understand. You really don't have a choice because okay. I use this all the time. In this example, I asked people, I said, have you ever flown on a jetliner? And most people say, yeah, I have. What's the first thing the flight attendant does just before you take off, I don't know any unlikely. With the advent of the loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will come from the ceiling. And what do you do? You put it over your face first and then assist those around you. That's almost counterintuitive here. Let me help you. You can't help anybody if you're deep, deep capacitated.

Coach Bob King (07:27):

So my advice is to take care of yourself. Let's go exercise, eat right, be healthy. I like to say my shoulders are big enough to carry what I need to for, you know, the daily life at home or work or whatever. So if you will put the oxygen mask, the exercise on you first, and then you can take care of others better. And part of that might mean, look, look at your schedule. Well, I have to get work at six. I can't get up at four 30. Okay. Well look at lunch break, look at, and here's a key right here, everybody to understand this, don't get off of work, go home because you forgot your stuff. And thank you're coming back to the gym. You will lose 99% of those fights, you know? And when I say flight, just you, you walk in the house and go, ah, home and you won't go back. So pack your bag. What was the,

Aaron King (08:18):

The whole thing you already say about the second you start negotiating Yvonne.

Coach Bob King (08:22):

Yeah. When you negotiate, you lose. And so you lost them over. Yeah. Well,

Aaron King (08:31):

So now talking about those chemicals and those things why does, why does the, let's talk a little about cumulation and we mentioned last time about illness and an immune system. I want to bring that back into this episode because we're talking a little bit more about the adult side, the active adults, and folks like that. So the response is different and we have more stresses and did indeed cumulative. There's more stress here. And so balancing out, getting you, your walk through the park can be can help with stress significantly. But you know, really saying resistance training and things like that may be more impactful cause you're putting your body through physical stress. So it's more prepared. But it comes down to goals. So I, I was thinking the other day that I, I didn't have time to work out.

Aaron King (09:26):

I mean, I know, let me back up. What did we just say? That excuses? I didn't feel like working out. I'm going to put it that way. And if I didn't feel like putting in, but I had, I was like, you know what? I got enough time. I can go get a 20-minute walk around the park and do this. And it shifted, it was a mindset shift, mind, a mindset shift that I want folks to kind of differentiate my goal and your goals don't have to be, I'm going to set a new PR. I'm going to do XYZ. It can say I'm going to be healthy. This is going to be a stressor. I'm focused on blood pressure, mental clarity.

Coach Bob King (10:01):

Well, I'm going to give you this real quick. You know, I mean, I don't, I say even, I mean, it's, I'm in the biz, but Oh man. I'm to work out. I don't think I want to work out today. Bob, you have to, who said that Bob, you have to, so it becomes a half two, and that's fine because every day is completely different. And everybody knows that you wake up someday world beater, you wake up someday and I'm not leaving the house, but you just, you have to have a mindset that says I have to exercise as medicine. That's the summary. I got that. The T-Shirt I saw that back in 1983, the physician in sports medicine magazine just printed her own t-shirt exercises, medicine. And ever since then, that has been validated about a billion times. It exercises medicine in the, and you, you can't not watch certain drug commercials on TV for blood pressure, blood sugar, something like that.

Coach Bob King (10:53):

And the last little bit, it always comes back this medication with good diet and exercise. Wait, wait, what'd you say? And so if you get onto that diet and exercise, we'd like to run the drug company out of business. And that's a good thing. And so half to in this case is not a bad thing. It's a, there's a lot of have to's you don't want to do in life that you ended up doing. But this half to is really a good thing. And I bet you, those of you listening that have been in this situation who have to go work out and you fight yourself, but you do it are glad you did you feel better when you finish and you're, you're mentally getting molded to do that more often without so much resistance.

Aaron King (11:30):

So what does resistance training like weightlifting do for stress that the basic stuff does not?

Coach Bob King (11:35):

Well, the interesting thing about it is, you know, obviously, stress is what weightlifting is. I need to put more stress on the bar. We never say that I need to put more weight on the bar. Well, the weight creates more stress in the muscle muscular force and contraction. And what you end up getting is a hormonal response to that. Usually, some sort of morphing type of that feel-good hormone gets released because you're, you're accomplishing something and you're, you're satisfied with the effort you gave it. I did it. And so not just muscular as far as like, you know, increasing muscle mass or mitochondrial numbers and things like that. But you're also giving your brain nutrition emotionally because you accomplished something. And ah, that was hard the other day. And I did two more reps today. And so you're able to build on a kind of an entity that has no real verbal feedback to you. And doesn't backtalk to you and doesn't laugh in your face, but you can go in there and you can control it, first of all. And that's important so that you are in control of your destiny. And it does a lot of things physically and mentally to be in the weight room. You know,

Aaron King (12:44):

I had a conversation about goals the other day. It was, you know, the new year and everything. And the conversation was, I want to work out a little bit more focused on my fitness a little bit more. Okay. That's great. And then another goal of another person's was they wanted to be nicer to folks be more patient cause they're just, you know, a little bit grumpy or whatever. Well, it's by taking care of your body, getting rest, reducing stress, working out, you don't have to try nearly as hard to be nice, to focus more, to read more, to achieve more goals because your body from a physiological standpoint is now more prepared. Your, your temper is going to be much easier to manage. And it there's a physical physiological precursor to external actions. And so I think that's something that folks really miss and maybe under undervalue underappreciate, but don't really think in order to achieve X, I really need to get wired.

Coach Bob King (13:49):

Right? Well, you have this newfound confidence you've taken control of your destiny. You know, it's like if, if I just sit here and go, Oh my gosh, I'm just, I'm going nowhere. I just I'm fat. I'm just, I'm out of shape. I'm weak. I can't get out of his chair without him. I mean, if you just start going, what is, in sports psychology, we called negative. Self-Talk, you know, if I, if I miss his catch, if I, this negative self-talk is across the board, it's not just athletes. So if I'm, you know, some individual who doesn't you know, I'm 42 years old and I've done XYZ office and home for a number of years. And you know, the physical aspect of it gives me the confidence that it will, if I can do that, I can do all this. I've overcome something with resistance training. I've overcome something with being 30 minutes on cardiovascular training. I've overcome something by doing my, my first a hundred crunches or whatever. And so confidence. Now we're talking about how the physical is bleeding up into the mental, and now it just pours over into the rest of your life. And there's a whole, there is yes, and there's a whole

Aaron King (14:56):

The chemical side of it too. So just think about being angry, like Snickers commercials

Coach Bob King (15:02):

And the, and the whole cortisol, the HPA triangle, they call it, you know, when all those hormones get dumped, they are for a certain purpose. They are to protect you. They are, to keep you safe. They're to do, do a temporary function. So you don't want that streaming through your body on an all-day daily basis. And so to help control that exercise, when I say exercise is a medicine that goes across all the medical bounds, you know, for your, all your internal organs, your musculature, your skeletal system, your brain, and your brain feeds into your emotions, because how you think will determine a lot about your F your mood that will now translate into a man. I got a good night's sleep. Now we're back. The circle is complete. How important is sleep? And so this, all we say it a thousand times, we'll say it 1,001, everything is connected. You can't separate them.

Aaron King (15:54):

Yeah. I just think that folks need to take away that, that one thing is your, the way you act, the way you treat your body, the way you exercise or don't exercise is going to affect all the other outcomes of your life. From dating to professional to entrepreneurship, to try and reach a new hit, your new quota or new sales goals, taking care of your body is going to have tangible outcomes in your day to day life. And so that's something I want folks to really take away. And, you know, it's funny too, looking at folks like Warren buffet is, is always the example where we talk about diet and exercise. The guy eats like fast food diet Cokes. It's going to live for how long, who knows how long he's one of the richest guys there is. There's something to be said for stress alone is a killer, you know, because a guy like that doesn't really treat himself that healthy, but he's got, it seems to be at least that he has the stress side of things.

Coach Bob King (16:51):

Well, you know, we always talk, we call it the Olympics Olympic scoring throughout the high, throughout the loan. The rest of us are in the middle. I found this from, our friends at the Mayo clinic. And I just want to give people this list of, you know, so you'll know about the physical aspect here, just a shortlist of things that they say, here's what stress can do to your physical dizziness or a general feeling of being out of it, general aches and pains, grinding teeth, clenched, jaw headaches, indigestion, or acid reflux increase in, or loss of appetite, muscle tension in the neck face, shoulders problem, sleeping, racing, heart cold, and sweaty palms, tiredness, exhaustion, trembling, shaking, weight gain, or loss. Upstate's upset, stomach diarrhea, and sexual difficulties. And that's, I mean, that right there is enough to say, okay, where's the first year I can sign up at, so we have to take care of these things.

Coach Bob King (17:44):

And if you'll look at that, and none of that has to do with, a disease, like I caught something, all of those have to do with what I like to call a self-inflicted wound. We, we, in a sense, chose it. Now people are going to have a little bit of pushback and say, well, you don't know my circumstances. I understand that. But I also know we've probably all been there, done that. And so my point is, you've got to climb that mountain. I mean, it's, it's just one of those things that we have to do that when you climb that mountain might be another set of stress on the next peak that you have to climb. And let me just say this about the exercise, things that occurred when you were talking a minute ago, is that we're talking about exercising for the sake of stress management, wellbeing, health, et cetera. I am never going to tell you, you can get the body you always wanted. And I say that because the TV ads are still running. And so the body you always wanted is not what we're talking about. And so make sure you understand it. Yeah, you should have some physical changes. You change, you should feel better. Hopefully, clothes will fit better and sizes will change. That's not what this topic is about. So make sure that's very clear when you go start your exercise program.

Aaron King (18:53):

I'm glad he said that about folks that we don't know their circumstances. You know, there are some folks where yeah, like we have not walked in your shoes. We have not dealt with certain things. We've dealt with our own versions of them. Maybe not, probably not to the degree of some of the folks listening, but what we're talking about is the reality of what that stress is doing to your body and the reality of what helping manage the stress can do for your outcomes. So re regardless or not, or not of what your situation is, stress is a thing, and there are ways to manage it. So anything you can do, you know, start somewhere climbing that mountain, eating that elephant one bite at a time, you have to start somewhere because you can't run away from stress, no matter how much you don't want to deal with it, no matter how tough your situation is, that's what's happening to us.

Coach Bob King (19:43):

It's there. And let me let me give you a couple of examples in 19. I think it was the fall of 1977. I was just getting into this business. And I was at a presentation lecture by the guy that was the, I don't remember his name. He was the, then the doctor who was the head of the president's council on physical fitness. He spoke, I don't remember everything you said, except the last line. He said, you know, you need to exercise when you get home every night, take the dog for a walk. Whether you have a dog or not, we cannot promise to add years to your life, but we can add life to your years. And, and that, that, that stuck with me to this day since 1977, because he just, the thing that we talk about is just keeping moving. And the last example I will give you is learning all this.

Coach Bob King (20:34):

And starting in my career, I read a story about a guy and it was the story. The context was cardiovascular fitness, and this guy had reached the end of his rope. He was overweight. He drank too much. He said going to end it. He went out and started running and he was going to kill himself with a heart attack. He passed out, woke up, he went home. He goes, I didn't die. He did it again. And he kept doing it. Next thing you know, his life was changed. He got in shape. He quit drinking. He got his act together. It's like, are you kidding? And so exercise literally saved his life. Didn't kill him.

Aaron King (21:12):

Well, there you go. Again, we always try to keep things as simple as possible. We're not trying to be the medical journal here. We read them and try to break them down for the simplest implementation possible. And if you want our workouts there at KingSportsTraining.com, we put out speed daily every week. It's free workouts. The newsletter goes out every week and we're just putting out as much content as we can. Our goal, our mission here is to make professional sports training, accessible to everyone, and we put it out. A lot of it for free. We put out the custom programs for nine bucks, nine 99 a month, as cheap as possible. We want everyone to have access to the same things that we've used to reach the like coach King here, reaching the Olympics and, and Superbowls and NBA and all those things we're putting out there on the internet free, also visit Kingsport strain.com. You can create a free account and you'll get the newsletter and everything. But if you want more from Coach King, he's on social media, on Instagram and Twitter @CoachBobKing on social media as well, YouTube and Instagram @DeepSnap.