In this episode we talk with Personal Trainer Eric Dagati. He has worked with many professional athletes and teams, executives, and ordinary people. He helps you understand what personal training is and how gains can be measured… surprisingly, how much weight you lift isn’t the standard! He helps you know what to look for in a gym and clarifies the relationship between gym and customer… I never thought of it that way!
RESOURCES
- Eric Dagati’s website https://ericdagati.com/
- Eric Dagati on LinkedIn
- Eric Dagati on FaceBook
- Eric Dagati on Twitter
- Eric Dagati on YouTube
- Eric Dagati on Instagram
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Listen to this episode on iTunes
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Show Snippet
00:52 Introduction Eric Degati
04:00 Why are different diets for different people?
08:30 Who is your typical client?
08:44 What are examples of things people goal for in a training probram?
09:31 How should we define exercise?
10:16 What is an “exercise snack”
11:00 What would you look for in a gym?
13:38 What are some of the things you have seen people do wrong in the gym?
16:26 “If you want big arms, you have to have a big chest. And if you want a big chest, you have to have big legs.”
19:35 How can we measure longevity as it is related to exercise (Ex: VO2 Max and Grip Strength)
21:05 What are people doing wrong to get injured?
23:27 Eric describes how his virtual program works
25:12 What is the best time of day to exercise?
26:43 What are some traits that makes someone successful with their overall fitness and health?
27:03 Non-negotiable habits
30:00 Don’t start big… why you should ease in to an exercise program
31:49 The three tenants that Eric teaches: Move, Fuel, and Reset
32:19 We don’t make our gains in the gym
33:38 The best way to get in contact with Eric Dagati
34:15 What does a first training session look like?
36:53 What reversing the aging process looks like
37:48 What the trainers obligation is
38:48 What should our later years look like?
TRANSCRIPT
if I came to as a doctor and said I have this drug that can improve your immune system it’ll improve bone health it’ll improve your cardiovascular system. It will increase longevity. You’d be like this is a sham This there’s no way there’s no such a thing And I say yeah…it’s called exercise
You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode, there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life. Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition, Dr. Michael Haley.
This is the Doctor Haley Show podcast. I’m Doctor Michael Haley and today we’re gonna meet with Eric Daghati…he’s a personal trainer that has, well, worked with professional athletic teams professional athletes, And even people like you and I, that could use a little guidance He also teaches…personal trainers He’s the guy they go to at He’s the guy that they learned from, and I’m excited to have him on the show because we talk about so many things for good health. And we probably touched on exercise a bit, but today we get to dive in deep…Eric thank you for being on the show How are you this fine day? Absolutely Thank you for for having me Thanks for the opportunity…So you’re in New Jersey Yes. I am. You’re talking about my sexy New Jersey accent. Actually you got this deep majestic voice I love it. It’s one of those here I am behind the microphone all the time. but I don’t have that majestic sound that you that’s coming across So it’s awesome Powerful I guess that goes with the whole athletic trainer thing…I don’t know. Just making stuff up here It’s a it’s a lot a lot of years of coaching and having to to to command in the room of of forty fifty sixty athletes. Ah yes. Authority. There’s some authority in it That’s what it is. Do you drink coffee Did you start the day with coffee or is that a no no? it’s not that it’s a no no I just don’t like the taste of it I love the idea of it I wish I liked it It’s just the taste just doesn’t it’s it just I always say it it kinda tastes like, hot water over potting soil It just it I can’t acquire the taste And energy in a cup sounds fantastic, but it just doesn’t doesn’t work for me I’m a I’m actually a big tea drinker. Oh okay I just made my wife a cup of green tea with a little coconut oil to give it a I guess that’s the median chain triglycerides thing going. A drop or two of stevia That’s how she likes it. So I can appreciate seeing I started with coffee I it’s just one of those things I do but anyway, how about nutrition in general Is that a big part of your life? So I need to know enough about it That’s one of those areas where I need to be a mile wide…as much as a mile deep And so I need to know enough about it to know if is that your primary…issue Is that the big rock that we need to to encounter first? And if it is then we have some basic fundamentals we need to get you And most of what I found and even talking with some of the top nutrition experts in the world is most of it is about habit Forming So if I can get you at least in in to, developing good habits, then that’s usually eighty percent of the way to your victory…If it needs more than that well then I have to refer out to somebody and that’s where I have a network of people But it’s certainly a huge tenant of what we do And we have to appreciate that and we have to understand…where is the weak link And that’s kinda the approach to really everything is to say okay You you are where you are now, and then at this place that you’d like to be, what’s in the way And so we have to clear the way a of any obstacles and sometimes nutrition’s a really big one. Yeah from my audience a lot of them have gone through some health challenges, and their diet might not be optimal for…being in the gym. It might not be…the gold medalist in the power lifting diet but it might be a very cleansing detoxifying…diet so that they can strengthen their immune system against some horrible condition or disease, or it might be a gut healing diet because they have an inflammatory bowel condition and so it might be very probiotic and and gut healing things like bone stock soup to heal the gut a lot of people come to me for aloe vera To help heal their bowels and strengthen their immune system. What does a diet look like for someone that wants to reach peak performance in the gym. So, first of all understand that These athletes are also people that get sick There are also people that have life stresses and have all these other things that that your audience is listening to So they have to address all those things as well. The only difference is the primary difference I should say is their margin of error and what I mean by that when I’m talking to people about habit forming with with nutrition, I usually say look if we can follow the eighty twenty rule meaning if you follow all the the guidelines that we’re gonna give you eighty percent of the time the other twenty percent you can kinda have your vices whatever that is And that’s a makes it a much more livable, an easier way to have higher compliance. And you’ll get to where you need to get to in just no particular rush Now if I have an athlete that has a season or a big meat or a big, tryout or something coming up will eighty twenty turns into ninety ten or maybe even a hundred percent on But even for them that’s only for a short period of time. They are human beings too And so they they pizza doesn’t stop tasting good once you put on a jersey or a helmet or grab a ball. So those sorts of things we have to manage as well So it’s just a matter of the time frames and working around very specific time constraints because they’re not gonna move back that fight or that soccer match or that just because you’re not ready So that’s the biggest difference is they have much more strict because their their careers are on the line Right Yeah Pizza never stops tasting good So I can agree with that It’s it’s breakfast lunch dinner It could be It’s still tastes good anytime You can wake up in the middle of the night and eat it cold out of the refrigerator it still tastes good. Well I’m from New Jersey Turn a rock I could turn in any direction throw a rock and hit one of the greatest pizza places you’ve ever tried So…and and I love that We don’t have that here in Florida. but I like to…liken aloe vera, because we have competitors…to pizza in the sense that Even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good. there’s really good pizza We have pizza in Florida It’s not New Jersey or New York pizza but It’s still pizza It’s alright It’s alright not the healthiest choice And I like the what you said that you can have your vices, the eighty twenty, you’re just not gonna get there as fast And for the audience that’s…limited room for error, you might be in that one hundred percent category right now there is no room for the recreational foods, so to speak. And I get that And for others, maybe it’s that Okay You’re still headed in the right direction You’re doing the eighty twenty thing but not getting there as fast as you can So I like the way you put that. Absolutely So I need programs that people can follow I’m not selling your thirty day challenges or your six weeks to summer type programs I’m in training people for a lifetime. Yeah What’s what’s your longest standing client? How many years? I have some clients that I’ve had for twenty years. Okay. No Yeah So they Are we still looking at the twenty year client are we still saying okay where do we go from here Are we still making gains and improvements Are we maintaining What do you do after twenty years? The way life comes at you is that directions change And what is it that you wanna focus on And maybe it’s discovery new things where I have, guy who’s in his sixties who plays super competitive tennis a half the year and then skis half the year Then I have another guy who’s…super big into fast pitch softball but also then plays pickleball and does some other things And I have a woman who’s a black belt in taekwondo and they’re all in their sixties And so that dynamic changes depending on what it is that they wanna attack life with I’m not getting the person that comes to a trainer because they need somebody to get them to work out right that I’m not your guy I’m the person that they go to that says I’m already gonna work out I’m doing this I just need the direction to get to specifically where I wanna go and I need somebody who understands what my challenges are whether it’s my my aches and pains that generally come with getting up over forty and how do you handle those? Or the life stressors and how do I manage all those different things and, talking about how do I, avoid over training How do I make sure that I’m doing the right things How do I make the right choices That’s really the person that I’m working with. Yeah I I like the way you that because everyone has different goals and different priorities. And…the personal trainer might be for the…Ninety year old that just wants to be able to put on his own clothes again, and get dressed And well okay We gotta get you moving again and get you back in shape so that you can dress yourself or so that you can accomplish the things that you want to again…Yeah We do a really poor job of defining what exercise is it’s in a lot of ways In one it’s always been much more of a vanity thing. and people are now finally coming around to understand that there’s so much more to that. That if I came to as a doctor and said I have this drug that can improve your immune system it’ll improve bone health it’ll improve your cardiovascular system. It will increase longevity. You’d be like this is a sham This there’s no way there’s no such a thing And I say yeah…it’s called exercise…It’s incredibly powerful. but it’s it’s not easy…And so and so with that people and we also do a really poor job of selling people exercise And what I mean by that is that we intimidate people with exercise We make people think well you have to go to this special gym and you have to have a membership and you have to do it for an hour every day And and that’s not the case You could go and do ten minute little exercise snacks throughout your day You you don’t have to join a gym You can get a lot done just at home with your own body weight There’s a lot of different things that could quantify as exercise that people don’t really make the connection of that If you like to dance if you like to ride your bike you like to do cross country skiing. All those things count You don’t have to be looking at flashing lights on a special machine that tells you how many calories you burnt for it to count as exercise. Yeah I like that Everyone has everything they need their own body weight is a great place to start I like that…But since we’re talking about equipment, if you were to…go get a gym membership, and you’re looking for a place around you what would you look for in a gym What kind of equipment What kind of people there…It it depends on who I am Now if it’s me, I I just I need more of an environment and I need really…for my own training I need more space. space is a commodity in most gyms because most gyms are not truly, a training center What they really are is an equipment rental. Right You get to go and use their equipment for hours as much as you like every day. And then they so if we’re selling you an equipment rental we’re just gonna cover every square inch of the place with just equipment. And we’re gonna have a piece of equipment that works this body part and this body part and this special. And that’s not what I would be looking for but I know what what I’m doing when I go into a gym. And so what I’m looking for may be different for the next person Now if if you’re a beginner, you need to look at a few things You need to look at it at the culture and the welcoming culture that there. So you need to feel feel welcome And unfortunately a lot of gyms because it’s this culture that does not accept people who don’t look like the vanity driven…norm that we think of with with gym Culture, is they don’t feel comfortable there And you need to go to a place where people look like you feel like you would make you feel comfortable So that’s number one And there are a lot of incredible facilities that do that And there’s a great community within there and then also a place that has some quality instruction that can give you some guidance that tells you what to do And that doesn’t mean you need to hire a trainer three days a week It means you need to have a place that can tell you hey that class is probably not the right one for you Well why don’t you try this one Or hey why don’t you start with these machines first? And then once you get good at that come and see me and I can show you some new stuff to do It doesn’t have to be this commitment that people scared of and it just gives you some guidance so you’re getting off on the right foot Because if not unfortunately there’s a high amount of people who go to the gym and actually get hurt Which is, completely a hundred eighty degrees out of phase of why we’re even compelling there We’re going there to get healthier and then you end up getting hurt trying to get healthy It’s kind of this weird dichotomy we have at the gym But when you take someone who’s been sitting in a desk and chair all day and for sometimes years at a time and you ask them to start moving positions and shapes and postures and planes and movement that they’re not used to Well there’s gonna be some risk involved because exercise is a stress And we wanna make sure that we do it right And so it’s worth the investment upfront to get a trainer or coach who can kinda show you those things so you at least get off on the right start. Absolutely i completely agree with you you can go in there and think you know what you’re doing and be doing something that’s actually making things worse. What are some of the things that you’ve seen in the gym where people were actually doing more harm than good Maybe a technique that they were doing improperly or possibly even someone telling them to do it a certain way that was wrong…Well I think the it’s more on the on the macro level of the programming is that, a lot of what the the gym culture is is this bias towards body building the good news is a lot of what we owe to having the big fitness centers all over the place goes back to arnold schwarzenegger And it goes back to when he came to America and made body building big And then gyms became big And you started seeing first it was just a a male dominated thing going to gyms And then women started to creep in a little bit And then the age barriers around that started to spread out where it wasn’t just your twenty and thirty year olds and you’re getting younger and older people showing up And now you have what we see here but a lot of it is still biased in those early body building roots. Now if you’re a body builder that’s awesome. If you’re not a body builder which is ninety eight percent of the rest of the world, you don’t need to go in and train your chest and triceps on one day and your back and biceps because that’s not how your body naturally works in real life And it’s also much more taxing on your body Body builders train five six days a week They eat an enormous amount of calories They have a very strenuous type of stressful training schedule that the average person who’s in workout two three days a week doesn’t need that The biggest mistake I see is trying to emulate the workouts of bodybuilders. Okay And that’s not saying body building’s bad and it’s just saying the average person who just needs to get off the couch and start moving should not train like a body builder.
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Yeah. I like that You brought up Arnold and I remember reading one of his books many many years ago, and learning from it but it was geared towards body building and the specific thing that I recall is he said. If you wanna have big arms you have to have a big chest. But if you wanna have a big chest you have to have big legs. And I remember thinking well that doesn’t make much sense to me. But then I went to school and I learned oh okay When you put more stress on your body, it affects the hormones of your whole body and they go everywhere. So the…it’s not the arm and shut connected because you’re doing bench press and you’re working them both but it’s a larger muscle group here which puts more stress on the body which drives hormones more than just working on your little biceps. But if you really wanna stress your body you would work on the larger muscle group in the legs the the the quads the hamstrings your calf muscles all the big meaty muscles. But that again was geared towards driving hormones for the whole body for the sake of becoming like Arnold. And who who didn’t wanna look like him…You’re not gonna look like him by accident And that’s another thing people have said they say oh I don’t wanna put on too much muscle And I say look I’ve been spending my entire life trying to put on too much muscle I wish it was that easy. So that’s not gonna happen But if you look at something as simple as as doing a squat. And what that involves that if you could take a a light dumbbell or kettlebell and hold it in front of you and do so I’m not talking about people who think squats They automatically think this big bar in your back but that’s bending over your back And there’s there’s chalk and spit and blood and it like this this type of scene that’s what they think a squat is Well you could take a light kettlebell or dumbbell holding in front of you and do a squat and you will have trained basically everything from head to toe if you can do it properly in terms of movement. And you don’t need to go in and spend, five minutes isolating your abdominal and five minutes isolating your your biceps and five minutes isolating this leg muscle and that leg muscle You’ve you’ve kinda covered it all for the most part You gonna cover it enough to go on stage in your underwear in a bodybuilding show No But you’re gonna cover it plenty that you’re gonna feel look and and perform a whole lot better throughout your day. Yeah It’s neat The kettlebell is a great tool You can do so much with it and it doesn’t take up a lot of space. When I think of exercise, I think of…not just strength training. That’s maybe one part of exercise but there’s also…agility…and there’s flexibility, and there’s endurance training. And the kettlebell can be used for literally all of those areas. It’s a wonderful tool…That’s kinda where I also think people need to think more in terms of what do I want to accomplish…you might be…in your sixties or seventies and really need more gains in the flexibility, or maybe more in the endurance and the cardiovascular, you lose your breath when you walk up a flight of stairs…We need to think in terms of okay where am I Where do I wanna be What’s it gonna take to get there…Yeah And then in terms of aging the one of the biggest links now is the power of exercise and longevity. And there’s some really powerful tools that you can look at that are actual, really, accurate…tests of mortality risk And two of them correlate directly with exercise One is your what’s called your vo2 max which is your ability to uptake oxygen when you’re doing an aerobic activity. And that is scored you can go to an exercise lab and have that done where that is scored And they know that if you get below a certain score, that you can’t live without assistance. Right And then everything above that puts you further and further away from that that type of living. And then also believe it or not your grip strength, you can test your grip strength and your grip strength has a high correlation with your…mortality risk And that’s not because of how strong your hands are, or your arm It’s really because that is a gateway into your vitality And how and those the people who have a stronger grip are the people who fall less They’re the people who have stronger bones who can withstand…coming out of fall even if they did fall So those are some of the biggest things that we look at with exercise when it ties to longevity. Okay very neat And I like that. I just connected that just now when you talked about it and I’m as I’m thinking in my mind you’re right That makes sense Vitality the grip strength and a very feeble you’re probably gonna also have poor balance and coordination and it makes sense I never thought of that. What a good measurement Easy to do. What are people doing wrong that’s causing them to get injured…One is that they have to understand that they have to first I always say there’s kinda three steps to how we move. We gotta first move…well Now what does move well mean? This means your body does not get in its own way. Meaning you should be able to keep your legs straight with your feet together and touch your toes You should be able to reach your hands up overhead where your arms can get in line with your ears and you should be able to reach back and kinda do a slight backbend. You should be able to reach behind you and touch your shoulder blade from either the top or the bottom You should be able to rotate freely about…ninety degrees from right to left If you can’t do those things, well then what when you go and and start doing exercise whether it’s formal exercise in a gym or you’re going out and you’re gonna go play tennis or you’re gonna go play golf And then you’re trying to rotate a way more than ninety degrees, and you can’t even do that without a club in your hand Well then that’s a recipe for exercise You’re going to get that range of motion from somewhere and it’s usually places that we don’t want it whether it’s your low back whether it’s your hip whether it’s your knee, your neck your shoulder places that you don’t have it and it’s gonna put additional stress across your body So the first thing was we need to move well and and move well enough that you’re not encumbered by your own movement If you can’t do those things then there are very simple things that you could do to address those things So you can do those That’s that’s number one And then from there you need to move with purpose. A lot of times when people go into exercise and they say okay I’m gonna do this exercise, and I have to do a set of ten repetitions. They just kinda go through and move it from point a to point b, and just so they could check the box and say I do the exercise where your movement should be purposeful You should understand why you’re doing it what you’re trying to accomplish, what it should feel like to do right and you should know what it’s gonna look like if you do it wrong And so if you don’t understand those parameters and you just kinda check-in the box we don’t know if that’s gonna provide the result that you’re hoping for. Yeah one of the things I like in a gym is a mirror for that reason so you can actually kinda gauge what you’re doing It’s not a vanity thing where you’re love to look at yourself in the mirror but you’re actually getting some feedback about your body position. I would imagine…you…get a lot more from a coach a personal trainer that’s there with you to help straighten things up. Do you do that virtually as well? Yes I have an entire virtual program that I do that through. and so, with that I have everything set up where I’ve recorded all my exercise on video and I’m walking you through the entire process to say okay Here’s how you’re gonna set up this is the movement from here to here This is what you should feel Make sure you don’t do this Pay attention to this Maintain this throughout the exercise. And so, it’s become something that allows me to be able to have a larger reach to where I can only work with people who could travel to me locally…especially because of some of the athletes that I work with where I have a pro football player who’s leaving for Europe. I have people who are all over the country that I need to work with And so that is a huge help from the technological side for me to be able to deliver that. Alright. I think that’s pretty cool too So is it like zoom based too or just videos that they’re watching? Or how does that work? For myself personally some coaches will do a Zoom or FaceTime type of session as I said earlier the people that I’m working with primarily are looking just more for direction and coaching So I do, coaching sessions with them virtually And then from there they have, the the programs rolled on a video and they can even video themselves and send to me for review as well…Oh okay. I videotape myself. Send it to my coach That’d be interesting That would work…when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I like to do is stretch my spine. And I think that’s probably the best first exercise for everyone because the central nervous system comes out through the bones in the back with the nerves going to every single muscle group, I believe exercise…should start first before anything after every period of inactivity. I like that you mentioned…exercise snacks…Is there a best time of the day to exercise and go into like a gym routine or a…push up routine or whatever set of exercises you’re gonna do If you find morning or evening or…there’s ideal and then there’s best What’s best is whenever you’re going to do it Right Whatever’s gonna work with your schedule. if I have a busy mom with three kids who’s gotta get lunches made and get them on buses and get them off to school telling her she needs to have this specific biohacker morning routine where it’s gonna she needs to get morning sunlight Any chance she needs to meditate and she needs to to journal and she needs to do deep breathing It’s like she doesn’t have that time So it has to work within your schedule and within your lifestyle. Now that being said, in the morning it’s gonna kinda set the table for the rest of the day. You started off with that win and it’s gonna create more energy more focus everything throughout the rest of the day So if you can do it in the morning that would be ideal, but not at the expense of sleep because that’s just as important because that’s where we make all our gains from exercise So it’s kind of a fine balance in finding someone’s particular life style their schedule and what they’re gonna be most compliant with But if I had the ideal then yes I would do it first thing in the morning Yeah. I also like to look at traits that make people successful…in business but also in other areas. In business there are certain traits that people have And you look at a successful person…a big business owner and they do these things they all do this these same things or have these same traits. Are some of the traits that we see that makes someone successful in the gym And when it comes to their…overall fitness and health For for the listening audience, what traits would they wanna incorporate in their life to be successful when it comes to physical fitness…I would say the first thing I tell people is you need to establish non negotiable habits. Right And what that means is you have to establish whatever it’s going to be that that is going to happen come rain or shine and that is because it’s definitive of who you are. And a lot of this comes down to our makeup and kind of how we see ourselves. And so if we have someone that as well I’m not a gym person. Well, you have to kinda redefine that then Or if you’re someone who previously had issues with anything, whether it was food whether it was alcohol whether it was anything So you have to to remove that person from your life and you have to become this new person. And so because of that you have to reinforce that every day with non negotiable habits. And there’s an expression I use a lot with my clients and it’s you get what you tolerate. And basically that the people who are really high performers won’t tolerate themselves…giving up on themselves Won’t tolerate that old person coming in and getting them or tolerate that if this is part of my daily routine this is my non-negotiable whether it’s meditation whether it’s their run-in the morning whether it’s their daily breathing, routine whether it’s they do a hundred push ups whatever it is that’s going to happen and they’re gonna find a way for it to happen If they’re on the road they’ll do it in their room or at the gym in the hotel. They’re gonna figure out a way because they’re not gonna let themselves down And unfortunately that’s what a lot of us do when we fail at exercise.
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I’m thinking out loud when you talk about non negotiable habits I I love that phrase I might even be the title of this discussion…That non negotiable habit might be…a minute…to start. I’m gonna wake up and I’m going to start stretching. And…after a few days it might be five minutes. And you can always start small with the non negotiable habits and build on them. I like that…Don’t try to do them all at once and everybody the most famous four words in in my world is it all starts Monday Right Is that people are gonna say Monday morning I’m gonna lace them up I’m gonna watch Rocky I’m gonna go for a five mile run I’m gonna do everything and It’s just overkill You don’t need to do that And you need to start incrementally and then layer your habits to your point to say okay I’m gonna start with a two minute deep breathing routine that I’m gonna do And then on top of that now I’m gonna add some mobility to that deep breathing So two minutes becomes five minutes And then when I’m done with that I’m gonna try to do as many push ups as I can And then maybe that five push ups turns into six And then so then you’re seeing some success and success kind of begets success And so that’s really what we wanna have If you do it the other way around and you say I’m gonna go out and run five miles and then you wake up the next morning and you need a half a bottle of advil to get through the day, you’re not successful And so I always say you need to be two things to be successful with exercise You need to be challenged because that’s what changes us If you’re not challenged you’re not gonna change Your body has no reason to change But if you start lifting heavy things your body goes oh my gosh I better get stronger I better build some muscle if you start challenging your cardiovascular system says I need to get a little more fit and a little more efficient. And so with that you need to be challenged but you also need to be successful You need to be successful in that You wanna come back and do it again the next day And it doesn’t mean you wake up every morning dying to exercise. It just means that you’re not breaking yourself down and beating yourself up because that’s not the root Unfortunately the whole no pain no gain thing is steered more people away from exercise than the opposite. Yeah Yeah Yeah That’s been definitely misused. I also think of non negotiable habits as taking time off Also meaning if you go to the gym every day seven days a week, that might lead to burnout maybe a non negotiable habit would be to take one day a week off…Yeah So there’s there’s three main tenants that I teach people that kinda go through move which we already talked about in in terms of you gotta have some level of movement whatever that is for your goal, then you need to fuel And fuel is as we talked about a little bit with nutrition as the obvious fuel is also everything you let in your eyes and ears Okay And that’s the people you hang around with the TV you watch the social media that you follow all those sorts of things you give your attention to is going to have an effect on you as well And then the last piece of that is reset is that we don’t make our gains in the gym. And we make our gains the other twenty three hours a day And I always give the explanation early on when we first meet to explain the kind of analogy of seeds and soil. Is to say when we train, we’re not actually building you up You’re actually challenging yourself and your body’s now as soon as that’s over saying oh my gosh I’m gonna if you’re gonna keep doing that I’m gonna have to adjust I’m gonna have to adapt because that’s what we do If it was hot we’d sweat If it’s cold we’d shiver And so if you challenge yourself it’s gonna try to adapt to those stressors. And so that means that magic is not happening in the walls of the gym It’s happening those other twenty three hours And what fuels that that resetting…is your nutrition it’s your sleep is your rest is your lifestyle all those sorts of things as what was actually feeds it So if you just go and train yourself…all the way to exhaustion every single day and you never give yourself the chance to reset It’s like planting seeds on cement It’s never going to grow You need to give yourself fertile soil and so that’s where we have some pretty complex systems we can actually use to measure and gauge your your recovery to make sure that we’re always right at that edge of your ability where your challenge ends successful at the same time. I like it. So how does someone get in touch with you if they wanna call you and say Eric can you help me? What’s the best way? the easiest way is to reach out to me just through my website I have everything kinda all in the hub there it’s just my name It’s EricDagati.com And I even have on the homepage I have something called ask Eric because I do a lot of these public type of appearances and people have questions and they’ll wanna ask about certain things So they can ask me a question It goes to my email and then we can start dialog that way plus you have links to all my different programs and offerings and my social media and those sorts of things are all in there as well. Okay Great And when someone does hire you what does a first meeting look like is that where you’re just digging in and finding out what they wanna accomplish or what do you do Yeah there’s a bunch of different assessments that we’ll do first on the global level to kinda see where you’re at in terms of your goals in terms of where you’re at in terms of your lifestyle and your focus and trying to start to find where are those weak links What are those big rocks in the way of holding you back What are those obstacles? And then from there we can get a little bit more specific where we can evaluate your movement and those sorts of things as we get further into the journey. And then from there your program just adapts to those things So if you’re someone who can’t touch your toes well something like a deadlift where you’re gonna have to lift the bar from doesn’t seem like a really good idea So that’s gonna have to come out of your program And it’s not because those are bad or those are dangerous It’s just because they’re not right for you right now And gonna give you some things to help you touch your toes So eventually you can do those things And so that’s kinda where the process evolves from Is is kinda seeing where you’re at now or where you wanna go and what are big rocks that are in the way. I don’t wanna contradict you but…for me deadlifts were the right thing. this is this is a funny thing it was back probably, I don’t know thirty years ago. And I remember moving one of those those pull out couches with the big metal frame kinda turns into a bed type thing. I remember I was on the second story of my apartment moving out and somehow I had to move that thing by myself and walk down a winded stairs And getting that thing over my head, I remember yanking it off the ground all at once thinking I’m gonna need some momentum And when I got it on my head I thought that is not good Something very bad just happened. But it’s on my head So I’m gonna go around the stairs and get it down and then I had to figure out how to get it up on the back of my pickup truck And I thought maybe kinda like a little running jump type thing and then slam it down. Finally got it down and couldn’t move for a long time. Could not touch my feet couldn’t touch my knees. And after about, oh seven or eight months of stepping forward with my left foot and then dragging my right up to meet the other one, I decided to go back to the gym and do deadlifts and squats. And…they look like, I had to get the bar up on the rack and and and pick it up and I couldn’t even bring the bar down to my knees on the deadlift. And the squat was more like a knee bend. But within two weeks it went further and further and further And of course after warming them up and stretching and stretching and stretching, after about eight months in two weeks, literally, completely healed. And I had a whatever it was I had to exercise…and stretch the injury…And I I say that not to say,, those things are right or wrong for anyone…but for anyone listening, that doesn’t think they can. Maybe it’s exactly what you do need. It could be that thing that brings you back to who you were…that maybe you lost. Maybe there was an injury Maybe you just let it go but there is hope. And you can always be healthier and better off tomorrow…than you are today. And when you do that you’re essentially…reversing the aging process…You’re extending your life…by making wise choices Eric I wanna thank you for your expertise I wanna encourage people that need that help to follow the links I’ll have links to your website and to your YouTube channel You have a lot of great content On YouTube? Any closing thoughts…Well it’s funny you mentioned that that analogy in that story and that’s that’s awesome that you were able to do that. And one of the things I tell people because as you mentioned earlier I train trainers. And I say look we have an obligation to give people…a certain freedom And what that freedom is is that freedom that if you have to move a couch you should be able to move a couch. And so that’s what we’re training for is real life And so I say all the time to my trainers, then I’m coaching is that if you train somebody regularly and they can’t come and help me move a couch Well then your program needs to get looked at with a pretty with some scrutiny because there’s a problem there. And so we’re training in the gym not to get good at being in the gym We’re training so we can get good that we have the freedom that we can do whatever we like to do So If we wanna pick up our grandkids if we wanna go play tennis if we wanna go for a hike or a bike ride we shouldn’t have the fear that we’re gonna break down or get hurt or or that we’re just too fragile to do that And so that’s what, a good program does is it gives you that freedom that you can go out and live life. Yeah even into your later years you should be able to not only…do the things you wanna do in life but you should be able to fun doing them You should be able to participate in sports. you’re what I think I heard you say in another podcast that you’re in your fifties. Yep. Okay I’m in my late fifties. you know I still play pickelball and skateboard and do all of these things And, I think you said you’re playing baseball. Like thirty five and older Men’s hardball baseball Yeah And I set out with the intention that I’m not gonna be the guy with the knee sleeve or the ten wraps on his body or needs to grease up and and Ben gay just to be able to get out in the field And I’m not gonna get a pinch runner and I’m not gonna do any stuff that I’m still diving for balls I’m still legging out triples I’m still doing everything that I wanna do. I get to be a kid every Sunday morning and so thats the freedom that my training gives me.. Now, and, before we close, how many people do you know in their seventies and maybe even eighties that are still playing sports? I just mentioned some of the clients that I have there that are in their late sixties and still, doing high level stuff and they have no intention on slowing down anytime soon. Yeah I Tom Brady was my hero playing football into, mid forties I thought wow. At a professional level, certainly we should be able to on a fun level continue to do these things for more many more years So…Eric I enjoy the conversation Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for sharing your expertise. Absolutely Thank you for having.
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