Video summary
The speaker introduces himself as a lifelong athlete who transitioned from being a Division 1 swimmer at Stanford to a sedentary attorney before reinventing himself as an ultra-endurance competitor in his forties. However, this intense athletic lifestyle eventually led to a decade of debilitating back pain, culminating in spinal fusion surgery last spring. Currently recovering from the procedure, he has been unable to move his body freely until very recently, forcing him to take a patient and deliberate approach to rebuilding his fitness. His primary goal is not to rush back into high-intensity training but to carefully reassemble his physical foundation, focusing on strength, mobility, and endurance while reconnecting with the joy of movement that he once took for granted.
His recovery journey has shifted his perspective on what constitutes effective training, moving away from the old habits of simply running or swimming as fast as possible toward a focus on core stability and functional strength. He aims to be in peak condition for his 60th birthday in October and hopes to participate in the New York City Marathon shortly after, not to set records but to prove he can complete the race among other runners. Despite his surgeon's initial hesitation regarding running again, he is committed to creating a "bulletproof" core through resistance training that prioritizes proper technique over heavy weights, ensuring he does not compromise the healing fusion in his spine. This shift has already begun to restore his vitality and energy, giving him a renewed sense of possibility and excitement for storytelling and sharing his experiences with others.
To achieve these goals without intimidating himself or risking injury, he has adopted a specific regimen that includes low-weight, high-repetition exercises and extensive mobility work. Instead of traditional sit-ups, he utilizes a bouncy ball between his knees and elbows to isolate and strengthen his core muscles in a way that is both effective and safe for his healing back. He acknowledges the difficulty of overcoming gym insecurity despite his past competitive success, noting that modern science has evolved significantly since his swimming days at Stanford forty years ago. Consequently, he seeks to learn from experts who understand current best practices regarding set counts, rep ranges, and spinal safety, rather than relying on outdated routines that may no longer be optimal for someone with his specific medical history.
Ultimately, this video marks the beginning of a new podcast-style series where he invites viewers into his world as he learns alongside them through active participation in workouts. He envisions a dynamic environment where they can talk while engaging in physical activities together, fostering a sense of community and shared growth rather than solitary struggle. By bringing in experts and fellow enthusiasts who enjoy the process of working out, he hopes to create a supportive space where everyone can improve together. As he embarks on this challenging but hopeful journey to reclaim his body and identity, he encourages others to join him, emphasizing that it is never too late to rebuild strength and find enthusiasm for physical movement again.
Read the full video transcript
Welcome to the container, my home gym.
I wanted to bring [music] you guys
inside my world because I've been on a
bit of a journey. I am a lifetime
[music] athlete. I was a collegiate
Division 1 swimmer at Stanford. Turned
attorney, turned sedentary [music]
slob. I reinvented myself at 40, became
this ultra endurance athlete, [music]
did a whole bunch of crazy things. And
then I endured about a decade of
debilitating back pain. Last spring
[music] I finally underwent spinal
fusion surgery and I am in the process
of recovering from that, which has
required [music] an unbelievable amount
of patience in which I have not been
able to move [music] my body until very
recently. And so now I'm in the process
of putting the pieces back together,
figuring out how [music] to
reassemble myself and build the ultimate
foundation for strength, mobility,
endurance, and adventure. I wanted to
share with you guys what I'm doing, why
[music] I'm doing it, how I'm doing it,
and this is episode one of my attempt to
do that very thing.
It's Grand Theft Auto for endurance
nerds.
It's called Zwift. [music]
There's no NPCs in Zwift. Everybody
[music] is a protagonist. So these are
all real people.
That's for right now, though.
All I'm doing
is creating [music]
a very base level
of aerobic [music] fitness. I'm not
riding hard.
I have such a long way to go
to rebuild my fitness.
And I'm not in a rush. I want to do it
the right way.
So, I'm just keeping everything chill.
My body is still very much healing.
And just trying to
>> [music]
>> reconnect with my body, reconnect with
my relationship with fitness,
remember why I fell in love with it in
the first place.
>> [music]
>> I feel like I'm becoming myself again,
looking in the mirror like, "Oh, yeah, I
remember that guy. I'm him." And that's
been really fun [music] and exciting.
And it's given me this sense of
possibility
and this uptick in my vitality and
energy where I feel
enthusiastic [music] for the first time
in a long time
to start storytelling and bringing all
of you guys kind of inside my world to
share [music] what I've learned uh in
service to all of you.
At the end of October, I turn 60, and I
have a twofold goal. The first is to be
as fit as humanly possible
on that birthday to celebrate turning
60, [music] and then to participate a
week or so later in the New York City
>> [music]
>> Marathon as a sort of final conclusion
to this recovery from spinal fusion
surgery. [music]
I'm not going into that race trying to
PR or impress anybody. I just want to be
a runner among runners, and I want to
complete the race. I haven't been able
to run [music]
in probably about
3 and 1/2 years.
Right now, I'm still [music] too soon in
the spinal fusion recovery process to
begin running again. Uh my surgeon was
[music] not exactly enthusiastic about
the prospect of me running again.
>> [music]
>> I'm pretty convinced that I'm going to
be able to do that,
but it depends upon
my commitment to rebuilding my strength
with resistance training to create
[music]
a bulletproof core to support my lower
back and to become functionally strong
with a focus on
mobility. These [music] are things I
haven't really ever emphasized or
focused on in my athletic life. It's
just about getting out there and running
or getting on the [music] bike as
quickly as possible or jumping in the
pool. And at my age and given what I
have [music] endured,
it's now, you know, very clear to me
that the most important thing that I
need to be doing is working on all of
those little things that are so easy to
overlook when you're [music] younger and
you can get away with them. I can't get
away with them anymore and so I have
made all the things I used to brush
aside like the core work and the
stretching, [music] the flexibility, the
annoying mobility exercises, that's the
primary focus of my workouts. It's
really basic stuff, [music] but I've
been doing this now for a couple months
and I can tell you it's already
>> [music]
>> paying dividends and I think this stuff
is really important. I'm learning all of
this as I go and I can't wait to
introduce you to some of the experts I'm
going to have coming in so that we can
all be students together.
>> [music]
>> You ready for some bouncy ball action?
It's pretty sexy.
Rather than do sit-ups or more
traditional core exercises, my PT
[music]
uh has me doing these super annoying
things with this ball that really
isolate the core muscles and shockingly,
they actually work. All you do is put
the ball between your knees and your
elbows and press
>> [music]
>> and if you press hard enough,
it starts to burn.
And then the advanced version of that is
alternating like moving your arms and
your legs like this
and then pressing, coming together to
press.
So, I did
about 75 minutes on [music]
the indoor bike trainer
of low end zone two.
Done some stretching and some mobility
exercises.
Some basic simple core stuff.
And now [music] I'm going to do some
shoulder and back resistance training.
>> [music]
>> Everything that I'm doing is very low
weight high rep right now until I get
stable enough to [music] start stacking
more weight.
I want to make sure that I'm not doing
anything [music] that's compressing my
spine. I want to build my body up, but I
don't want to
>> [music]
>> uh do anything that's going to
compromise the healing
of the spinal fusion. So, I've never
undergone like a
real surgery before and I completely
underestimated how much this would crush
me and lay me out. Like I literally was
in so much pain. The recovery process
has been
extensive and extremely difficult
requiring a huge amount of patience.
>> [snorts]
>> Uh I wasn't able to do anything except
walk
for like 6 months and that was extremely
difficult. And even at like 9 months
I still was like, am I ever going to
feel like a normal person again? And
that impacted my mental health
my relationship with my body and uh
when you've put so much distance between
yourself
and the things that you enjoy
like physical movement in my case, you
are kind of disconnected from who you
are. You start to forget that those
things are
um crucial in order to like feel like
yourself.
For this, I have to keep the weight
super low.
Choose the about perfect technique, not
how much weight I can add. It's just how
am I engaging the core, what is my body
position.
I'm just doing these things very slowly.
It's probably a bad idea, actually.
Gym environments are [music] incredibly
intimidating.
I've competed at the very highest level
of sport.
And when I walk into a gym, I'm like
insecure. You know, and then I think,
why should I be intimidated? I've done
more as an athlete than probably
everyone in this gym, or most of the
people in the gym. So, if I'm feeling
this way, you know, what is a what is
somebody who doesn't have the kind of
experience that I've had feeling when
they're walking into a gym. So, I'm not
like a huge gym person, I never have
been.
Now, I'm super enthusiastic about
resistance training. Uh not only do I
need it, and is it something that's
super important at my age, but I'm
actually really enjoying it.
I just need to understand it better, and
to learn more. Because the gym routine
that I do
is like
it's sort of like what you learn when
you're young is just like it stays with
you. So, when I was swimming at
Stanford, this is like 1987,
right? We would work out.
We'd swim like 20,000 m a day, and then
we would go to the gym.
And there was a certain kind of like
routine that we would do.
And that's the routine that I do in
here. But, that was
like 40 years 40 years ago. I would
imagine there's been some advances in
the science of, you know, understanding
like how to do resistance training. I
think it's hard when you're just a
well-intentioned
person trying to get good information uh
to
uh you know, figure out like what's the
best use of your time. How many sets of
this exercise should I do? Is higher
weight, low rep better than lower
weight, high rep? It seems like these
are questions that are constantly being
asked and uh
are always uh being updated and there
never seems to be any kind of real
resolution or maybe I'm wrong, but these
are some of the questions I want to ask
and get answers to uh and why I want to
bring people in here to share their
experience. Not just people who are like
experts in the gym, but people who have
lived interesting lives who enjoy the
process of of of working out, doing
resistance training. It has the
potential to be a cool
kind of twist on the podcast format
because we're going to be talking to
each other, but we're going to be
engaged in an activity. So, it's a more
kind of like dynamic
field trip activity-based
conversation
podcast to YouTube kind of thing, but
who knows and we'll figure it out as we
go
kind of thing, if that makes sense.
We're going to learn together. We're
going to [music] move together. We're
going to improve together. We're going
to grow together and uh I hope that you
will join me on this journey. I'm
excited about this. [music]
I'm really excited about this. Hope you
are, too. Hit that subscribe button and
we'll [music] see you next time.
Say thank you.
Yeah.