"Take It Easy", especially when starting an exercise program

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Welcome back.
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For those that have listened in the past, I apologize for my time away, since it's been over a year since my last episode.
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In this past year, I've actually retired, and part of my absence is because of all the retirement projects I've been working on and the transition to retirement.
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That's certainly going to be the subject of an upcoming episode, but for now, let's get to this episode.
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This episode uses the story of the Eagles' first single from their first album, while also using wisdom from that song to talk about the best way to start an exercise program or to modify your existing program.
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That's right.
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We're going to talk about the song Take It Easy.
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This song tells a story of a road trip and a broken down vehicle, but the song almost didn't happen.
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And it especially almost didn't happen for the Eagles.
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By the way, for those of you that might be nitpicky, the name of the band is actually Eagles and not the Eagles.
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But I'll refer to them as the Eagles since this is a more common use by most.
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So it was actually Jackson Brown who initially started writing the song based on a road trip he took through Utah and Arizona.
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Brown shelved it because he just couldn't get past a certain point.
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Glenn Frye, one of the founding members of the Eagles, lived in an apartment above Brown and heard him playing it.
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And this chance encounter created a massive hit for the Eagles.
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The two founding members, Glenn Fry and Don Henley, met in 1970.
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In 1971, they were hired to play in Linda Ronstadt's band.
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While on a tour with her, they decided to form their own band, which eventually became the Eagles.
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Ronstadt was supportive, and they also added Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon to the band, who are also part of her touring band.
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There have been multiple changes and additions to the band and many stories associated with them.
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We'll get more into those in later episodes.
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So for now, let's just get to the song.
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This song has one of the most iconic opening lines in rock and roll.
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And it goes like this.
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I actually learned how to drive on a 1956 Willis Jeep.
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I couldn't imagine taking that on a long road trip since it would really shake and shimmy anytime you got above 45 miles an hour.
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Those jeeps were not built for comfort, they were built for utility.
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They didn't have seat belts, they had a three-speed manual transmission with a separate shifter to put it in high and low range four-wheel drive.
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Not all wheel drive, four-wheel drive.
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But you also had to get out and move a dial on the hub of the front wheels to put it in four-wheel drive, much different from today's vehicles.
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But they could go anywhere, but just not comfortably.
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He took that to many remote locations, and for any skiers in the audience, he took it to the very top of Shigolof Mountain.
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Let's now talk about the next section of the song and what inspired that.
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With apologies to those in Winslow, Arizona, some accounts attribute this to being in Flagstaff and not Winslow.
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But artistic license being used, Winslow fit better in the song.
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The reason Brown was standing on a corner is that this is the first spot where his Jeep broke down.
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The other bit of artistic license is that it really wasn't actually a Ford truck that the girl was driving, but instead a Toyota truck.
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In fact, Brown was very intrigued by all of the women in Arizona that drove trucks.
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Regardless of the exact origins, the mention of Winslow in Take It Easy has had a long lasting impact on that town.
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In 1999, Winslow erected a bronze statue and a mural commemorating the song at the Standing on the Corner Park, turning it into a tourist attraction.
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So back to the story.
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After a few days, he got the Jeep going again and continued his journey, ultimately reaching Zion National Park in Utah.
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He met up with some folks there and eventually headed back home.
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This is when the Jeep broke down the second time, this time for good.
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Fortunately, some of the people met in Zion came by and picked him up and gave him a ride back home in their van.
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This is where he started piecing together the parts of the song.
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In my first trip after I retired, my wife and I met up with one of our sons and daughter-in-law out west and actually traveled a portion of that same trip that he took and went to Zion.
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Fortunately we weren't in an old Jeep, but instead in a small motorhome.
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And we never broke down, but we just only had a slightly amusing issue hooking up the Sewhose at one of the campgrounds.
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It was once he returned and started working on the song that Glen Fry overheard and helped him finalize the song, and the rest is rock and roll history.
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Take It Easy became a massive hit for the Eagles, peaking at number twelve.
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It served as the opening track on their debut album and has since become one of their signature songs.
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Jackson Brown later recorded his own version of the song for his 1973 album, For Everyman, but it's the Eagles rendition that remains a classic version.
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While on the surface, the overall message of the song is to enjoy the journey and appreciate the moment.
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I'm going to apply a different message related to exercise and how you should take it easy, especially when starting an exercise regimen, and even take it easy during most of your exercise sessions, even for those who have been exercising for a while.
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So the first point to really remember is that most people are exercising too hard most of the time.
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I see it all the time at the gym.
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I lived it back when I was training for running races and triathlons.
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People think they need to go hard to get a benefit, and it's whole part of the whole no pain, no gain mentality.
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Such as the numerous hardcore type training methods there are high intensity programs day in, day out.
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The unfortunate thing is those are most likely to lead to injury, and the body just doesn't have a chance to recover, which is very important.
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Training at a lower intensity reduces the risk of overuse injuries that are commonly associated with those high intensity workouts.
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In fact, when you're done an easy type workout, you should feel as if you could do that exercise all over again and not feel like you're you're dead tired after the exercise session.
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But even so-called aerobic training that is too high of an intensity can be detrimental.
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And there is a term for that.
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It's called chronic cardio, which can lead to burnout.
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While chronic cardio exercise does burn calories, especially it burns more sugar than fat, you may at the end then feel that, oh, I deserve a treat now because I exercise hard.
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And also your body adapts because you've burned off all that sugar along with the fat.
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It makes you hungrier and less active during the day, which can cancel out a lot of the caloric burn that you had.
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This is why people can train consistently and still not lose weight unless their nutrition changes.
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This leads to another main point of exercise is that you can't outrun a bad diet.
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Exercise isn't just specifically for weight loss, it's instead more of a wellness tool.
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If you're constantly eating more after workout and especially the wrong things, you aren't going to lose weight if that's your primary goal.
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And then you may just feel the exercise isn't working and you give up on it.
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Instead, think long term of exercise as a wellness tool.
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It has been proven in many studies to boost the feel-good chemicals, endorphin, serotonin, dopamine, which can actually reduce depression and anxiety.
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And there have been many studies that have proved that.
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Another reason people may quit an exercise program is that they treat it as a chore and not a gift to themselves.
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So the other point is exercise really needs to be sustainable but also enjoyable, something you want to do.
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So maybe you do it with friends, maybe you do it when you're watching TV, maybe you have a TV near your exercise area, watch your favorite program while you're exercising, listen to your favorite music, watch some videos, just find a way to make it enjoyable.
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Do something you want to do.
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Maybe it's dancing, maybe it's running, maybe it's biking, but something you enjoy and that you will do long term and keep going.
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So we talked about exercise as a wellness tool, making it sustainable, enjoyable.
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But what actually is the proper intensity?
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You know, how do I know if I'm in that right zone or how I should be exercising?
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How do how do I know that?
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And let's talk about that right now.
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So if you've seen anything in the exercise world, any videos, you've probably heard of zone two.
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And there were five zones that were developed, and those zones go from zone one to five, one being easy, five being the hardest when you're almost at your maximum heart rate.
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The issue with those zones is they can be somewhat hard to kind of figure out where you should be.
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There are many different methods, and typically they start with taking 220 minus your age, then multiplying that by a percentage to determine your maximum heart rate.
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Some of those different ways use a different percentage to determine your maximum heart rate, which can be confusing.
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And then once you know your maximum heart rate, you can determine your zone by the percentage of that maximum heart rate that you're exercising at.
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Again, which can be kind of confusing.
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Zone 1 would be 50 to 60% of your maximum heart rate, zone two, 60 to 70%, zone three goes up to 70 to 80%, zone four, eighty to ninety, and zone five, ninety to your maximum heart rate.
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So that that whole way of determining that can be somewhat confusing.
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So let's talk about a much easier way of determining that that doesn't need to involve all these different calculations.
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So Dr.
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Phil Maffatone is an endurance coach who really started doing a lot of studies with people on their heart rate and during exercise and then seeing how that affected them.
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And he came up with a method that was very easy and very easy for someone to determine.
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It's really just taking the number 180, subtracting your age from that.
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So for me, for example, I just turned 63, subtract that to from 180, and 117 is my maximum aerobic function that I should be exercising at.
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No more than that.
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Once I go above that, I'm starting to get out of that aerobic zone.
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And then anywhere 10 beats below that, so from 107 to 117, that's the zone I should be exercising at that will build my endurance and help me to become more efficient at whatever exercise I'm doing over time.
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Not only did Maffetone work with regular people, he actually was a coach of some great triathletes.
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In fact, he was the coach of Mark Allen, who ESPN called the greatest endurance athlete of all time.
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Allen won the Iron Man in Hawaii a record six times, tying Dave Scott for that title.
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When Maffetone first started out doing the heart rate training studies, there weren't even the normal type of chest strap heart rate monitors like Polar or some of the other ones now.
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At that time, he actually had a large contraption that he would tape on the athlete's chest to do that.
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And then ultimately later on in the 80s, the polar heart rate monitors came out.
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When Maffitone first started training some of his triathletes, many of them said, I can't do this.
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And he asked him, How come?
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He said, Well, and because of their no pain, no gain mentality, they were like, I can't have people watch me, see me, training this slow.
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So he said, Well, train at night or train somewhere where people can't see you.
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But it really did work for them.
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And one interesting thing is when Mark Allen first started training with mafetone, his mile time doing it at that low aerobic rate was around 815 to 830 a mile.
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And after months of training and doing this, he was able to go at a mile at around 520 at the same heart rate.
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So it really shows how much that low heart rate training can make you lower your time.
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And it not only lowered the mile time during that aerobic training, but then when they went hard in a race, it lowered that so that he could go much faster at a lower heart rate and still be able to do very well.
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The other great benefit of the mafetone training is that you're primarily burning fat as opposed to sugar, so your body doesn't feel like you need to replenish after a workout, and what you're burning is fat.
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So it's a lot easier to maybe use that wellness tool, but also as a weight loss tool over time.
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The other important benefit is that it doesn't stress out your heart as much as some of that training that is at a much higher rate.
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And I mentioned how Mark Allen and Dave Scott were tied for both of them have six wins at the Kona at the Iron Man Hawaii World Championships.
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And they had an iconic race in 1989 where Mark Allen first beat Dave Scott and then he won six times after that.
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Dave Scott had been the champion prior and had won six times.
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And it's a great story.
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There's a great book on that called Iron War that goes through the different training of both of them.
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And Dave Scott was a type that would train very hard all the time.
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Push himself, push himself, push himself.
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Where Mark Allen, after working with maphetone, would do that maphetone aerobic training most of the time.
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He would do high intensity at times, but a very limited amount compared to what Dave Scott was doing.
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What happened to Dave Scott, very similar to many endurance athletes at the time that were going at those higher rates, is he has developed and he has some heart problems now where Mark Allen doesn't.
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So it just shows that again, training at those higher intensity levels all of the time, that chronic cardio over time can stress out the heart and create problems for you down the road.
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So again, that mafetone method, easy, easier than you think it should be.
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You're fine at the end, you feel like you could do that event again, that workout again, that is the best way.
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So again, go with that 180 minus your age.
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That's your top limit for most of your workouts.
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And especially if you're starting off, have that, do that for a number of months before you sprinkle in some high-intensity work, which we will talk about in a future episode.
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But doing that at that level will be much more beneficial for you and will help to develop that aerobic system for you.
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So you may ask, how do I determine my heart rate if I don't have a heart rate monitor?
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Well, there's a couple different ways.
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If you have a watch or clock near you, you can take and hold your fingers to your carotid artery in your neck and just count the beats.
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When you're exercising, you should be able to feel those and count them for 15 seconds, then multiply that by four.
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And there's your heart rate at that moment in time.
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The other thing you can do is if you don't have even a clock or watch near you, you can do it by if you are primarily able to breathe through your nose while you're doing that exercise, that will keep you pretty much into that zone.
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The other method is a talk test.
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If you can talk, not easily, but you can talk, you're staying within that zone.
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If you were on the phone with someone, they would know you were exercising, but you could still carry on that conversation.
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So that talk test is another way.
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So those are some methods to do if you don't have a heart rate monitor.
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As Jackson Brown and the Eagles said, I'll have a lot more about exercise in upcoming episodes.
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In fact, two more from the Eagles and one from Jackson Brown that deal with exercise.
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But for our next episode, we're going to talk about a major riff between bandmates and nutrition.