bodyweight training app review

ryan: hey everybody. on today’s show, i’mtalking with one of my friends al kavadlo. now i talked to al quite a few times in thepast. this time around, it’s pretty exciting because we’re going to be talking abouthis new book zen mind, strong body. i’ve been in japan for quite a while andzen is something that i’ve studied pretty much the entire time that i’ve been herein japan. so it’s really great to be able to talk about this with al and hear his perspectiveon things. we talk about training. we talk about nutrition and we talk about life.[music] ryan: hey, hey, hey, what’s up, my friend?al, how are you doing, man? al: hey, hey! what’s up ryan?ryan: nothing much, man. i’m so happy to

have you on here. we’re going to be talkingabout your new book, zen mind, strong body. we’ve talked so many times before. it’salways good to come back and have a chat with you.al: always a pleasure. ryan: this time around, i think it’s reallycool too because your new book, i think it’s pretty special the fact that you’ve takena lot of your articles, some of your best articles, 26 of them and you put them togetherand to this – in this format and actually just before the interview, of course we weretalking about kind of how you laid that out. i love it how you split it up into three sectionsand there’s such good information in there and let’s talk about it today. is that cool?al: yeah, absolutely. yeah.

ryan: so name of the book, zen mind, strongbody. like i mentioned before, 26 articles and something else that i really love is theintro. you have this guy – what’s his name? mike fitch …al: i think you guys are familiar with each other …ryan: yeah, mike and i are really good buddies too. so it’s really, really cool to seethat mike did the intro on that. it’s always good to see all of us supporting one anotherand more importantly having fun with what we’re doing and …al: absolutely. grateful to have him onboard. ryan: he’s such a neat guy, yeah.[music] ryan: so going into the zen part of it, i’vebeen in japan now over 20 years. i came over

for the martial arts and within that, withmy swordsmanship, with kendo and the aido and everything. studying zen meditation sideof it is a big part of my life and i was really happy to see you come out with this book andespecially with the title and there’s a lot of different books out there that talkabout zen and they go into some – the mindset of things and i like how you keep it simplehere and when you’re talking about somebody. if i may, i’m going to go ahead and readsomething that you wrote in there. al: go ahead.ryan: basically what it is about your book and so – because a lot of people might seethe title and become a little confused about it and i like how you summed it up here. itsaid, “when you’re completely focused

on your training, the division between bodyand mind breaks down and everything else seems to fall away.” this is what i’m referringto when i talk about zen mind. i really like that because i think a lot ofpeople have this misconception of zen and the meditation of that. you have to completelyclear your mind and you shouldn’t be thinking about anything when in fact i believe thatit’s more about pulling the focus back to exactly what you’re doing and having thismindfulness of being in the moment and you do talk about that a lot in your book, whichi like, especially one of the phrases when we get into part three. it’s when you talkabout, “be here now,” and i just love that.[music]

ryan: if you can tell us a little bit aboutthe focus of your book, about really why did you write this. why are you putting thesearticles together for all of us? al: you know ryan, i’m really glad thatyou read that quote. i think that’s one of the most important lines in the book andit’s one of those things. there’s so much emphasis in mainstream fitness on the goal,on getting to this end point and so many people get lost in actually enjoying the moment.they’re so hung up on the results. so that was really the impetus to put thistogether and that’s such a big part of my fitness policy is being present for the experienceitself and being able to appreciate it and enjoy it for what it is rather than just seeingit as a means to the end.

i think the only way – the irony of it iswhen people aren’t thinking about the goal so much and they focus on the process. loand behold, you get in better shape. when people are so hung up on the goal, sometimesthat causes them to get frustrated and derailed and they never get any progress at all. soi’m just trying to get people to focus on being present for their workout and doingit to do it. ryan: that’s so great. in gmb, we talk aboutmindfulness all of the time and there really isn’t something that shouldn’t be mindful.so even if it’s just the pull – and i say just the pull-up like it’s nothing.but being in the moment and really feeling about what’s going on and so just focusingon trying to crank out 10 reps or something

like that. just like what you said, the goal– it’s great to have the goal by focusing on the process. when you focus on the process,you will actually get that goal. [music]ryan: something right in the beginning of your book, one of your first articles wastalking about why you don’t make new year resolutions and i think this is great. it’sthe time of year. it’s january right now and everybody is wanting that new body andthey want to maybe focus on particular skills. i want to get the planche or i want to getsomething. why don’t you do new year resolutions? al: well, it’s one of those things that– the whole calendar is kind of just a made-up thing so that we can know, ok, i’m goingto meet you at this day on this time. so we

could arrange to do a podcast like this. justa beautiful thing. otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to coordinate it.but people take that good idea too far and they turn this thing. well, ok, i’m goingto start working out in two weeks and in the meantime, i’m just going to stuff my faceand sit on my butt. that’s crazy. it’s like every day is anopportunity and your body doesn’t know if it’s january 1st or december 20th or whateverday it is. it responds to the stimuli that it’s given. so you want to give your bodythe stimulus that’s going to keep you growing and keep you healthy and keep you strong nomatter what day it is. so the other thing with those new year’sresolutions is – and it’s a clich㩠and

everyone knows it. no one sticks to it.ryan: right. al: you know? so you can’t think that magically,oh, january 1st is going to hit and suddenly i’m going to have this willpower that idon’t have now. it’s like you got to really take a good hard look at yourself no matterwhat day it is and say, “hey, what consequences are your actions going to reap? are thosethe consequences you want?” if not, you got to reevaluate what you’re doing.ryan: that’s so good, man. i mean this year, i don’t really have any resolutions as well.a couple of years ago, i started january 1st. i was like i’m going to get the one-armhandstand and i did but nowadays, it’s exactly what you said. it’s just focusing on everysingle day and appreciating every single day

and being in the here and now and just continuingwith it and also understanding that we’re not perfect, that we might make mistakes andwe shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it. we should just be mindful of what we’redoing and move on. we will go into it a little bit when we’retalking about food. a lot of the things that you said as far as being here now, but i thinkit comes down to something else that you brought up and that’s – you get questions andpeople say, “well, how do i get better?” well, there’s only really one answer, right?practice. [music]ryan: getting into the practice side of it, what would you do as far as – if you’rewanting to go to a new goal or a new skill

or you have some sort of goal, yeah, you practice.what kind of mindset would you have for that? al: well, the thing is, you want to breakthese skills down. i know that’s something you do a lot with gold medal bodies. it’ssomething we do at pcc, saying, hey, the end goal is a one-arm pull-up or a pistol squat.but where you’re at now, that’s not realistic. so the step that’s more realistic for youtoday is to do a box pistol or an australian one-arm pull-up or one-arm flex hang or whatevermay be appropriate. you do that and you do it the best you cando it and then as you get stronger, eventually the next step kind of becomes available toyou and then you can continue to pursue that goal. there’s a quote – it has probablybeen attributed to a few different people

but the quote is something like, “faithis taking the first step even though you can’t see the whole staircase,” and that’s kindof what you have to do in this kind of progressions is you just – you go on the step that you’reat and the next step will be there when you’re ready to take it.ryan: so yeah, i think so many people actually try and force it and for one, like we’retalking about, they kind of lose the real meaning of actually practicing something.but when things are forced, typically it doesn’t happen and so a big thing with me is justletting go and saying, “yes, i do have this goal here,” but let go of that goal in orderto focus on what i’m doing right now and practicing and making sure that you’re practicinga level that’s good for you because i mean,

let’s be honest. we see a lot of peopleout there trying to do things that they’re really not ready for.the ego gets in the way, right? oh, yeah, i’m strong enough. i should be able to dothis but we see it all the time and i mean not just for example – and body weight calisthenicsworld that we’re in, but body building. it could be at work. it could be anywherewhere people have this ego and they let that ego kind of drive them instead of lettinggo of that and really focusing on what they’re doing and maybe …al: yeah. the other thing that starts to happen i found when you get into some of these advancedskills, handstands, et cetera, is the more you practice them, the more you realize howmuch is involved, how many subtle nuances

there are and it starts reminding you likewow, i thought i understood this but there’s so much more to still learn about this.that’s the beginner’s mind and that’s a big thing i talk about in the book too.it’s not getting too attached to this idea. like ok, i know how to do this. i know whatthis is. but constantly approaching it with humility.ryan: yeah, every single session. humility in going in with that beginner’s mindset.[music] ryan: one of the stories or articles, pardonme, in the book talking about perception and similar to what we’re just talking about,and perceiving that maybe something should be a particular way. maybe you think you shouldbe able to get that exercise right or even

that you should look a particular way.for example in the book, you – when you first started off, it was in – it wasn’tin new york city. it was in a different gym. al: i got my career in personal training startedin chicago at a place called lakeshore athletic club.ryan: and you basically just covered yourself up because you didn’t want anybody to havea particular perception of you because you have tattoos.al: i got a lot of tattoos here and the first job as a personal trainer and i was a littlebit concerned that people were going to say, “whoa, i don’t want this freaky tattooedguy training me. he’s kind of scary.” so i kind of tried to look a little bit more– you know, just like a regular straight-laced

kind of guy.ryan: just like … [crosstalk] [0:11:35]al: right, exactly. and over time, as i talk about in the book, as i got more comfortablein my skin, so to speak, and began just kind of being who i was, that actually ultimatelywound up being more of the draw for people because people were like, “oh, this guyis kind of interesting. he has got a cool look and he has got stories.” the moralis be yourself, right? ryan: exactly. it’s where – i need tokeep coming back to the ego part of it but there are a lot of people who tell us thatwe should be a particular way or act a particular way or even do particular exercises maybewe don’t even want to do. so what i love

about you is you’re your own person andyou do things your own way and you tell people to do that too. i think that’s so refreshingbecause there are so many people out there who say, “well, you have to be able to dothis and this is one exercise that you should be doing and you shouldn’t do anything elseunless you do this.” it’s just great to see that if you encouragepeople so much and you give them this positive way of looking at things, that goes way beyondthe ego and i mean i think the smile. with you, this is interesting. i’ve always thoughit’s – yeah, you’ve got a lot of tattoos and i think they’re great. but it’s thatsmile and you just see that, that energy and that positivity coming out of you every time.[music]

ryan: in your new book, we’re talking aboutright now zen mind, strong body. the photos are always great. i always love those photosand i ask you every time. i know that you say that you don’t have a professional photographerdoing this. but i mean is that your brother? al: this book, i did work with a couple ofpro photographers. ryan: oh, you did?al: i have worked with a few pro photographers in the past, but i’m kind of always – andi guess this is just the modern world also. you’re always ready for a photo opportunityat any moment. like, oh, there’s a really cool statue. let me climb up and do a humanflag on there or whatever. so you got to just be ready to go. so yeah, a lot of those folkswere taken by a lot of different people and

yeah, my brother danny took a bunch of them.but i did have a couple of really great photographers that i was really fortunate to work with onthat. the photo that’s on the cover of that bookwas taken by a guy named michael alago who’s a really talented dude. and you know what?that photo kind of was partially the impetus to even put this book together. i had thistitle zen mind, strong body that a friend of mine andrew tanner [0:14:05] [phonetic]had suggested a long time ago as a possible idea for a workshop.we wound up doing this whole pcc thing and that has been going really well and we’rehappy with that. but i always had that zen mind, strong body kind of floating aroundthe back of memory. that’s a really good

name for something.ryan: yeah. al: and then i did this photo session withmichael alago and we did this great photo where i – he was like, “do this like prayerhandstand. you look really good.” i kind of have that photo. i have this idea and ihad my idea that i want to put a book like this together. i’ve been like, wow, i’vehad my blog for six years now. i’ve got a lot – like hundreds of articles, somebetter than others, but some really good ones that are kind of getting lost in the mix andi want to put them out in a way that they will kind of be permanently out there andnot just lost in the ether of the internet. so, all those three things kind of coalesce.like here’s this title. here’s this image.

here’s this book idea and just like boom.it was just a beautiful thing in the universe because i feel like it kind of served it rightup to me. ryan: yeah, i was just going to say that.just everything comes together and it’s good when that just happens.al: so yeah, that was like a zen- like thing in itself.ryan: it’s very cool. and it’s simple. the simplicity of it, you see it too. so – andreally everything that you do, even like when you said when you’re taking pictures, it’skind of like – ok, well, let’s take a picture right now. i’m ready to do it. keepingthings simple and it’s something you wrote in your book too, another quote. don’t makeyour life any more complicated than it has

to be and that’s a great way to look attraining, diet, just whatever you do and i love it.al: people want to make it too complicated. they don’t want to accept the easy answer.[music] ryan: i want to ask you a little bit abouthow you mentally deal with injuries and this is something – you talk about injuries inyour book. but what are some things that you kind of deal with? and physically, yeah, yougot to work around the injury and we know that. you’re not really going to push throughthe pain but more the mental side of it. when you have an injury, how do you sort of dealwith that? al: like you said, you work around it. ifyour wrist is bugging you, it’s kind of

an opportunity to put more emphasis on yourlegs or if you have a knee issue, then you can work on shoulder mobility or whateveris going on with your body. there’s always going to be an area that is safe and healthyenough to work and improve on. so sometimes you got to look at if there’san opportunity. like oh, i have this opportunity now to really focus on my legs because i havean issue of [0:16:31] [indiscernible] my upper body. but ultimately, it comes back to thatday-to-day philosophy and that being in the moment with it and accepting things for whatthey are and not getting angry about it or getting frustrated and saying, “oh, it’ssupposed to be like this.” now that’s not like that, i’m all workedup and upset. it’s just ok, this is what

i have to work with. so i’m going to dothe best with what i got to work with rather than complaining that i don’t have morebecause we always can see the glass as half-empty or half-full. it’s kind of a clichã©. buta lot of life is up to us, how we choose to relate to our circumstances.ryan: so relating to circumstances will actually – takes us to the next – the next thingthat i want to talk about was your experience with your triathlon and my first triathlon– i’ve done two but the first one i did was as a freshman at university and i willtell you what. you kind of go in blind thinking, “oh, yeah, no problem. i can do this,”and you train for it and the physical part of it, not necessarily a problem. but onceyou get in the water with all those people,

and you can’t see anything, you’re gettingkicked in the face, and your goggles are coming off and then you got to get out of the waterand you’re just – all kinds of messed up in the head.it can be tough and i just remember i – i thought i was prepared but mentally i wasn’tand that was a big eye-opener for me. you want to tell us a little bit about your experiencethough with triathlon? al: it’s funny. i had almost the oppositeexperience because i have a lot of friends who have done triathlon, who were kind ofgiving these horror stories. it was about, oh yeah, this guy elbowed me in the face andmy goggles fell off and i was fighting to put them back on and there was a shark chasingme. i got a flat tire on the bike ride and

i broke my leg on the run and all these horriblethings that could go wrong. so i was really prepared for the worst. soi kind of felt like – this is something i talk about a little bit in the book, howwhen i was pacing myself during that race, i really took it easy because i was so afraidof all these things that might go wrong. i just want to finish in one piece. i just wantto finish in one piece. then of course i did finish and i felt like,well, i should have pushed a little bit harder. i was so pensive about so much of it but itwas a great experience. doing something like any sort of endurance challenge, a triathlon,a marathon, whatever it may be, it’s such a great mental exercise more than the physicalone and you learn so much about yourself and

it really – it comes in a form of meditationwhen you’re on those long runs or those long swims and like you said, you’re inthe pool or you’re in open water and the visibility is terrible.it goes back to what we were saying before about taking that step even though you can’tsee the whole staircase. you can only see five feet ahead of you and you keep swimmingand you’re just one stroke at a time, one breath at a time and that’s kind of a beautifulthing. ryan: yeah, and being on those endurance.like for example, a run. i really love – i used to. i don’t do it really much anymorebut running in the mountains. now if i have time, i just go hiking in mountains but iwas running and i was in an endurance race.

i just remember that it does. you do kindof get into this mindfulness, that meditation of just focusing on putting one foot in frontof the other and you fall into that groove. a lot of people call it the flow, runner’shigh, whatever you want to call it. but if we can take that feeling and reallyincorporate more into our everyday life, which you’re talking about here in your book,with your training and everything, i think that we would be so much better off for itand that’s what i just love about your book. skill work too. let’s be honest. you andi, we’re into skills. we love learning new skills, right? so having that mind …al: and you’re stronger at this point, right? ryan: yeah, exactly. it’s kind of like,hey, whatever.

[music]ryan: the skill work, as far as approaching that, and you talk a little about that. you’vegot some great programming in your book to help people to get places. we talked a littlebit about it but skill work. how do you approach a particular skill in your case?al: well, it’s just one of those things – we were talking about this a little bitearlier. you just have to be patient and respectful and see it as a journey and not be attachedto, “i’m going to get this move by next friday,” or next month or the end of theyear, whenever it may be because that timeline might ultimately set you up for disappointment.so it’s one of those things you kind of want to – you want to have high aspirationsbut you want to have realistic expectations.

so you just – you enjoy the process. ifyou get a little bit better and then next week maybe you regressed a little bit, youkind of just take that in stride and just understand it’s a big picture thing. otherwise,you drive yourself crazy. you will get frustrated. here’s the thing with goals. what happenswhen you achieve a goal? you want a new one, right? like that. ok. i can do a handstand.now i want to do a one-arm handstand. ok. i can do a one-arm handstand. now i want todo one-arm handstand push-up. whatever it is, there’s always going to be a carrotdangling at the end of the stick that you’re going to want to keep chasing.so you have to realize the futility act and you keep the chase up, but you realize, “well,i’m going to get them or i want something

else,” so you kind of have to just keepthat in the back of your mind that the thing itself isn’t really the thing. there’salways something else kind of hiding behind it. it’s the game of black and white. it’swhat [0:21:52] [indiscernible] calls it. i don’t know if you’ve read …[crosstalk] ryan: yes, yes. so good. i mean it all comesback to being here now, what you’re talking about all the time in your book and not justskill work of course. nutrition is the same thing. you can stuff your face with crap and… al: then you got to live with the consequences.[music] ryan: since we’re just kind of talking aboutnutrition, as far as being here now, what

– because your approach to food and everythingis pretty simple and so you can either choose to stuff your face full of crap. but if youget on yourself thinking, “oh, i don’t have the body that i want and i don’t knowwhy i don’t have it,” kind of thing, it all …[crosstalk] ryan: unrealistic outcomes. so what wouldyou suggest for a person who might want to change up their nutrition? i don’t evenwant to say change up the nutrition because let’s be honest, most of the people thatcome to us are saying, “ok. i want to lose a little bit of weight,” or something likethat. al: sure.ryan: how do you go about that?

al: people often are not honest with themselvesand i think that’s the first thing that people have to do is really take a good, hardlook at what they’re really putting in their bodies and then assess from there. it’sjust – there’s – you can tell when someone is lying to you. we’ve all as trainers hadhad those clients who come in. they’re going to be like, “yeah, i’ve been eating reallyclean. i had a salad today and a piece of grilled chicken. i don’t know why i’mnot losing weight.” it’s like, well, maybe there was something else. what about those10 beers you didn’t tell me about? and that slice of cake you were sneakily eating. youthought no one saw. so people just – there’s no secret outthere. it’s just you reap what you saw and

a lot of people are in denial about what they’redoing to themselves and sometimes, it’s not entirely the people’s fault, becausethey’re misled by the dietary industry. they’re told certain things like you shouldeat six meals a day and this popcorn is fit popcorn and this is going to be good for you.so there are a lot of really shady misleading marketing. but at the same time, i think there’sa lot of people who ought to know better, who believe what they want to believe. it’slike oh, this popcorn is good for me. i’m not going to question that because i likethinking that popcorn is good for me. ryan: and really understanding where you areright now too. i think – you’re saying that too and being here and i think we allknow what is good and what is bad for us.

i mean let’s be honest. mcdonald’s isnot good for you. al: yeah. it’s one of those things – likewhen people who smoke cigarettes. you don’t go up to someone and be like, “smoking isbad for you,” and they’re like, “really? it’s bad? i should quit.” it’s likeeveryone who’s a smoker knows it’s bad. they’re addicted to it. they’re goingthrough whatever they’re going through. it’s the same thing with food. it’s likepeople know they’re making bad choices but it’s a deeper problem than just understandingthat this isn’t a healthy thing to eat. so it’s – the whole dietary nutritionalthing is something i try not to get too deep into. it’s almost a whole separate thingfrom what we do. we’re here to teach people

calisthenics.ryan: yeah, how to do cool shit. al: and it’s like go see a dietician, butinevitably those questions constantly come up and it’s unavoidable. so that’s partof why i wanted to talk about some of that stuff in this book. really a big part of whyi wanted to put this book together is there are so many questions that are continuallyasked that haven’t really been addressed in my other books yet. i want the chance tolike officially and formally put it out there. like, this is my stance on diet or cardioor a lot of the other things that i get into in there.ryan: yeah, good stuff and i like how you separate it into the three sections. it’san easy ready because well, it’s you, and

i love it because it’s so personable asyour examples that you give, bringing it back and showing examples of what you’ve gonethrough and showing that you’re not perfect as well, which i think is great because alot of people out there look at trainers and think, “oh, this trainer is just the mostperfect person in the world and when he farts, he farts unicorns with rainbows,” and whatever.but that would be kind of tough to fart a unicorn.but i think it’s good because we bring it down to a level that it’s simple in thesense that not necessarily easy. you make things easy. but it’s simple. as long asyou keep things simple, but continue to practice, you show that you can get there and doingit in a way that’s not going to drive you

crazy.al: zen mind, baby. ryan: that’s where it’s at, yeah.al: yeah. ryan: so final advice for us, some zen words… al: you said something a minute ago that iwanted to come back to as a final thought. people are always comparing each other toother people and you always compare your inner world to someone’s outward presentation.so you see someone on facebook or twitter, whatever, sharing all these pictures. lookhow awesome my life is. look how great everything is. you’re just seeing these little snapshotsthat they want you to see, but you don’t really know what’s going on in their innerworld. but you know what’s going on in your

inner world. you have these insecurities andyou think, “man, that person seems so happy and perfect and they’re not insecure andthey never go through any of this,” because they’re not publicly showing it to you.everybody feels all those things and it’s universal and people need to understand thatwhatever they’re going through, that everyone is going through it at some point and thatthey’re not alone and that they’re not the only one.there are other people out there whether you need help with fitness or your diet or whateverit is. put it out there and you might be surprised what you get in return.ryan: love it. be real. be true to yourself. love it man.al: i know. represent. keeping it real.

ryan: always such a pleasure talking withyou man. book, zen mind, strong body, check it out. we have all the links, everythingfor you, to order from al. thanks again man. really, i always learn something new wheni talk to you. so thanks for being you, man. thanks for being you.al: my pleasure. we’re working out. ryan: we’re working out. i love it. allright, man. thanks again. al: all right, ryan.[end of transcript]