SUMMARY KEYWORDS
day, body, gym, training, exercise, started, run, feel, eat, people, big, breath, meditate, fitness, train, love, sit, ice bath, classes, addicted
SPEAKERS
Jake Illing, Martin O'Toole, Julia Malcolmson
Martin O'Toole 00:00
That's recording. So do me a favour, just look at that camera and do a clap like that. So we can synchronise your hands. There we go. You do the same please, darling. We are rolling Jake Jake, Jake. Howdy. Hi, buddy. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you.
Jake Illing 00:30
Thanks for having me.
Martin O'Toole 00:30
Thanks for coming.
Julia Malcolmson 00:32
Yeah. Thanks, Jake. Nice to see you.
Martin O'Toole 00:34
Thanks for coming to our wonderful abode. It's nice to record at home because we don't always do it. Do it. We record all over the place. So
00:41
very stoked we did it here was great. Surrounded by filtering the jungle
Martin O'Toole 00:46
said, Yeah, I was I was I was pushing to record it in your gym just because I thought that, you know, the scene would be nice, but much better. We did it here. The gym is very loud. Yeah. And I imagine actually, the noise from the restaurant next door is quite prevalent.
01:00
It's hard to guarantee that there'll be no one there. It's very difficult these days.
Martin O'Toole 01:05
Well, welcome to Zen garden. Now speaking of restaurants, thought we'd ask you a few quickfire questions for starts. So burger or chicken salad.
01:17
Burger all day.
Martin O'Toole 01:20
You're gonna say that? smoothie bowl or chocolate cheesecake?
01:30
So they're different ones a desert and one I'd have for brekkie I'll take both
Martin O'Toole 01:36
both for breakfast. For breakfast media all day breakfast for breakfast.
Julia Malcolmson 01:41
So we're gonna move on to some exercise now. Burpees or press UPS
01:45
burpees all day. For burpees burpees for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's the answer to the question before.
Martin O'Toole 01:52
Before the smoothie bowl pick
Julia Malcolmson 01:53
burpees. squats or star jumps.
01:57
Ooh. I'd say squats.
Martin O'Toole 02:00
Sit ups or leg leg raises.
02:03
Sit ups all day.
Julia Malcolmson 02:05
And plank or pull ups?
Martin O'Toole 02:08
Ooh.
02:11
Tough question. I'd have to say the pull ups. Yeah, yeah. Both because it's
Martin O'Toole 02:18
a because because it does better stuff to your body. Just feel
02:22
it. It's really good for lengthening the spine you feel nice and long. And so many of you planking sore shoulders and the pull ups is such a great exercise to engage the call. And it's a really nice lengthening because I'd love to talk about sore shoulders or solo backs gonna hang in the bar bands and pull ups and
Martin O'Toole 02:40
I think because I because because I'm allergic to go into the gym. I would I would do plank all day long when
Julia Malcolmson 02:46
we I mean I would choose plank but I find pull ups really hard. Yeah, me too. But if I want to hang upside down then I go and hang in a yoga sling. Well,
Martin O'Toole 02:54
I actually I just started going to the gym again a week ago but then I got involved in a fight between the dogs. And two one dogs I don't know if you can see I got a fang gum deep in my forearm. So I've got tendon injury the moment it's ridiculous like why I can't like pop I can't I've got very restricted range of motion in this 100 the moment when was that week ago
03:22
I was inspired you to start some martial art training. defend yourself against the dog in judo
Julia Malcolmson 03:26
chop the kids little angels.
Martin O'Toole 03:30
Cue but when they sometimes when they get into a fight together, you're not supposed to get in the weather is nice. But this was in the middle of drifter cafe. So we didn't really have a choice to break the peace and quiet. Yeah, I mean, people were terrified. Were they? Yeah, anyway, so this is scary. I've had some scary dog fights in my time. Your dog doesn't fight that does he? Let's see. Unless he's provoked, provoked, provoked.
03:56
You've seen how big he is? So there's been some pretty scary scary times imaginary scary times. He's now the king of being in but every dog has tried to have their go at him.
Martin O'Toole 04:05
Well, for for those who are listening and watching you don't know anything about Jake's dog. He's got a massive Rottweiler. But yeah, but it's I don't think it's safe to describe them as a Rottweiler because it is kind of a giant puppy, isn't he? In the years. He's a
04:21
very, very, very big Rottweiler. He's the tallest Rottweiler I've ever seen. And lots of other people have ever seen people ask me lots of time as he crossed with Great Dane or people come in like a purebred rock wall. And I'm like, yeah, like why is he so tall? Why is he so big? Because he just loves the gym every day working out.
Martin O'Toole 04:40
stretching his phone, who's in there watching?
Julia Malcolmson 04:42
He's such a softy.
04:44
He is 95% of the time but yeah, he's had a couple of big fights where he has he's had to defend himself. You know it's it comes down to defending himself and I feel sorry for him. Sometimes you get to pick doesn't get picked Don because he's so big but all the barley dogs surrounding us, they they hate him, all the men all the male dogs and being in hate him. Yeah. And they bark at him all the time and provoke him and there's been a few times where he has gone you know what, I'm not going to take it anymore. And I've had a few dogs to like other big dogs attacking him and had some big fights and like he when you got bitten, it was about two years ago. very silly of me. But um, I had Rottweilers my whole life growing up in Australia, so I'm very comfortable around big dogs and fights. I'm not scared of big dogs and he got into a really big fight about two years ago. And I ran in as the hero I've done it before in the past when in dogfights in Australia, and the other dog grabbed onto my leg accident I had a huge puncture wound my leg and off the hospital just happened in a split second. Yeah. Wow, that happens so quick. It's
Martin O'Toole 05:52
nuts, isn't it? We've we've had two other incidents both with the same dog actually. And the owners are absolutely lovely their local local folks so probably won't mentioned them on the podcast and in case we were Yeah, we scare people off their dogs. However, they do have a dog called karma. And karma wants Bit her on the ass. Wow. It's kind of ironic. I love
Julia Malcolmson 06:15
that story. And
Martin O'Toole 06:15
every time anytime I get any chance I get to tell the story of how Jules got bitten on the ass by camera. And he was actually hanging off for us. Like his little legs were off the ground. So yeah, and camera also bit me in another incident on the and I've got I've got scars in the back of my leg from the puncture. Yeah, it's incredible. It's a strange thing. Just a small thing. Little Fang, the amount of pain it causes tooth
06:45
can just puncture the skin so easily. Yeah, happens quite a lot.
Martin O'Toole 06:51
But all of that to say it's a massive run up to an excuse as to why I'm not going to the gym. But we did start going. I did start going and I started doing pull ups and I managed to do two,
07:02
two pull ups. I got some work to do that.
Martin O'Toole 07:06
Yeah, well, the intention is to because I'm going to the dream fitness centre at the intention is to get to a docent
07:13
at the DFC, the DSC, the art the other place. Yeah, you've been in. I love it. It's great. Jim, actually, we were just set the other day it was raining and we wanted to I was supposed to go running. So when John on the bikes in there, and they've
Martin O'Toole 07:23
got treadmills in there as well. And they seem to be upgrading a lot more of the equipment, because they feel like they've got competition going on nearby
07:29
at school. It's locally it's local owned. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A lot of local people in 100%. Super cool.
Martin O'Toole 07:35
Like 250,000 a month. Yeah, post. Gyms in
07:41
Shanghai. Now. I know, crazy prices are going up
Martin O'Toole 07:46
with all that said, the intention is to get to a certain level where I'm not passing out doing your high intensity get to three pull ups. When I can do maybe five pull ups up. So you
07:58
will say you're saying
Julia Malcolmson 07:58
we didn't last very long did we
Martin O'Toole 08:00
know we didn't but then I had the that sort of ongoing lung issue didn't know. I was I had gone vegan for a year and a bit or something like that. Not Yeah, something like that. And I started to feel faint all the time. And and I started to have this some strange lung issue happened upon me where I was short of breath all the time, then I was coming to do training at your place. And several times, I had to get on my back and put my legs up on the wall. Because I was so faint. I was getting dizzy. I was passing out. Yeah. And obviously that's to do with lack of fitness as well. And I don't know, but I don't see anybody else in your gym doing that. So I figured
08:43
we've had, it's happening more now that we have the tourists coming back there is you know, I'm very now before every class begins, I make a speech to let everyone know, like, Hey, guys, we're all here on our own accord. We're all here to better ourselves. Don't try and compete with some people. You've seen some of the people in our gym, we have some athletes in there. We have some people who are 60 We have some people who are 18. And everyone's on their own journey. But when they train in the group, sometimes people can try to, especially the men, the ego can kick in and like I'm not going to let this guy beat me. I'm going to keep up with him. That guy's an athlete. Yeah, you're not. Yeah, it's not going to end well for you. So now I'm very, very split. It's it was it was okay during the COVID times because everyone who was there was training there all the time. And there wasn't so many new faces, but I mean, like yesterday, we had 72 people in one class, you're gonna have like 30 new faces turn up. And some people they fly in from Europe, it's cold, you don't sweat much then you fly to one of the most humid places in the world where you sweat a lot. And our classes are pretty hard. Pretty hard possibly on the call hardest classes in Bali. And yeah, so now I'm very clear to make sure that people just you know Just you're there on your own accord. And if you're not an absolute beast in the gym, just just go at your own pace. And I only make sure I pick on the people who I know now and no, really? Because you can't. Yeah, we've had, we've had some people recently not feel too well after class. Yeah, that's because they're trying to keep up and the energy so high, you know, when you have 70 people in the room, and everyone's the music pump, and everyone's cheering and screaming, and people start to feel a bit dizzy, and they're like, I just feel a bit dizzy. I'm just going to keep going. Because the guy next to me is still going and then all of a sudden, the body eventually, dizziness is the body sign saying like, stop, please stop treating me like I'm not used to this just yet. Let's stop, and then people don't stop and the body will just use get forced to stop.
Martin O'Toole 10:43
Yeah, well, I think also there. There's a ludicrous number of people who not just in your gym, but in this part of the world who were just blooming fit out there. I mean, it's like Baywatch. There is some everyone's got an incredible body of almost everyone is
Julia Malcolmson 11:04
that lifestyle isn't it's like, we're outdoors. We're at the beach. Like it's kind of a, it's a healthy mindset here.
Martin O'Toole 11:13
Very much so. So I get that because obviously, these people are training every day in some way, shape or form. They might not be in your gym, but they're obviously surfing probably twice a day as well. Yeah, they are super fit out there. Do you surf? I don't know, if I ever asked you that. Actually,
11:27
I do surf. Yeah, I surfed a lot during COVID didn't have to work so much. A lot of free time. And the gym was very quiet, you know, pre COVID We were the gym was pumping, and the business was developing a lot really, really, really fast. And then COVID hidden and everything just stopped. So I served a lot during COVID. Now with business growing the way it is and working on my other projects and becoming a new father. I don't have much time for surfing. So I've put something away for the time being. I'll get back to it later. So if it'll always be there.
Martin O'Toole 12:01
In congratulations, official congratulations for your your new baby. Although that was a while ago,
12:06
she six, six and a half months now. Almost seven months faster. On flies,
Martin O'Toole 12:13
so. So I suppose we should probably explain a little bit about about your gym and what you do there and how we met or at least you could do that actually, rather than me explain it because it's you it's your story. So yeah, so if you could just give give us a bit of an idea about about barley Training Centre. How it came about.
12:36
It came about pretty crazily, so I never when I was younger, I hated exercise when I would have been teenage boy High School. You couldn't get me to run you couldn't get me to do exercise you couldn't get I hated it. As a teenager I probably wasn't the best teenager. Yeah, I was smoking bongs get into straight fights thinking I was super cool. And yeah, I thought I was a good fighter. I had some broken hands been beaten up and, and that type of thing. So yeah, I was a pretty bad teenager. And then a couple of friends of mine. They were training at our local moto gym, which is actually a huge, very, very big motor gym owned by a world champion trainer. And I was like, yeah, cool, I'm, I'm gonna good fight. I'm gonna rock up there and have a go with this fighting stuff, thinking I was good. And I remember just the first time I went in there, and my whole world just changed. I was like, I know nothing. I'm a complete, I got the absolute shit beat out of me completely humbled. And that just started my whole journey. And from that, I became obsessed with kickboxing. So it would have been about 18 when that happened. I think I had my first fight maybe six months or 12 months later. And so that was how I fell in love with fitness. So from that, I was obsessed with kickboxing. I was totally obsessed. It was everything I've wanted to do my whole life. I was like, Okay, I want to become I want to make a living from fighting. But it's not easy to make a living from fighting. It's extremely hard, especially in Muay Thai, the martial law that I was training. It's very, very, very hard. So after about three to four years, I decided to quit my job and take it more serious and I booked a one way ticket to Thailand, which was pretty risky. Everyone thought I was crazy. And I got over there. And after about nine months, I got pretty injured in a fight. And that was the end. I couldn't fight anymore. And so I was very confused, lost didn't know what to do. completely quit exercise, because I never knew I liked exercise I thought I liked I thought I loved fighting. I loved my diet. But obviously to fight you train twice a day when I was living in Thailand. I was training four hours a day. I would run 10 k's a day we would raining all day. And so I got hurt. What am I going to do with my life now? And I went back to Australia, went back to working in construction, started smoking started drinking, I'd wake up and I'd come to Bali holidays wake up, have cigarettes have my son point is in the morning. And after about a year, I wasn't, I wasn't well, I felt very. I was very, I was very depressed. I had lots of anxiety, started getting into fights again. I heard a couple of people. Kinda, yeah, I heard I heard a couple of people, which wasn't, wasn't so good. And then I was here in Bali. And I actually got into a bit of a fight here. And I was just full of anger. And I didn't know what was going on. I was just like crawling in my own skin. And one of my good friends at the time, he said to me, I remember he said to me, he's like, Man, I'm really sorry, but I don't want to be your friend anymore. And I was like, what? Like, why not? And he's like, you're not the same person anymore. He's like, you're full of anger. You even threatened to like when he hit me sometimes he's like, someone looks at you. You like want to have a have a go with them. And I said to him, I was like, Thank you for telling me this. Because I feel like something's wrong. I don't know what's going on with me. I can't describe I don't know what's happening. And I said, I'm gonna fly back to Thailand tomorrow, and I was in Bali is having a holiday. And at this time, I was in Bali, I was waking up smoking cigarettes in the morning, drinking every single night. And I just had so much energy. And I didn't know, I didn't know what to do with it. And I didn't know that I liked exercise. I just completely had quit for a year. So I went from training for many, many, many years, hours every day to complete Stop, just stop. Then I flew back to Thailand, I was like, Alright, I'm gonna go back to Thailand with no intention of fighting and just go back to my old gym where I was back with the Thai people. I was, and I'm just going to train and see what happens and get away from this Bali lifestyle that you guys know, there's lots of parties. And back then if there was a party, I'd find it. And so I flew back to Thailand. Soon as I got there. I started training, I was just like, Ah, this is what I've been looking for. What's like, this is it, this is the answer. And I was a new person. Instantly I got there, I just started training again. And I was like, hang on a minute. Maybe I'm addicted to exercise, maybe I'm obsessive exercise, maybe like I do love fighting. But maybe if I just train all the time, I'll be really happy. And I feel really, really good. And that started my whole fitness journey because I didn't classify the fighting as like a fitness journey as a fighting journey. For me, I was like, I wanted to be the best fighter. I wasn't obsessed with fitness, I wasn't doing burpees and all these things like I do. Now, I wasn't doing pull ups and that sort of stuff I was fighting. It was a it was a pure fighting journey. But they came hand in hand. But with fighting, you have to have very, very intense high levels of cardiovascular endurance. So my cardio was always really, really, really good. And from fighting that was where my transition coming to being, you know, even to these days, like I have very high levels of cardiovascular endurance and, and from that, went back to Thailand. Went back to Australia. And just that was where the journey started. It started running every single day. Don't pull ups every single day. Burpees every single day. And yes, soon as that started, I was obsessed with running because I always love running when I was training for my moto fights, we'd run 7k 10k a day and I live in my gym. Back on the Gold Coast is in barely had land. So we'd run the head land from my time when I was training Muay Thai. And so I put that back into my practice and started running again. And it was just an instant fix for me, it just fixed everything. So that was how my love for fitness came about. But from that I didn't, it wasn't wasn't instant to like, okay, maybe I'm gonna become a trainer. And so from that, I was obviously always coming to Bali quite a bit. And I'd come here and do my own training. I was down in Chengdu a little bit, and I was training down there doing kickboxing down there. And I'd come to being in and back in like 2015 16 Being in wasn't much you know, there wasn't there wasn't much there in being and I'd still be running in the morning and doing my own thing. And so my cousin Ricky, she owns the cashew tree, her and her husband, Marty. So I'd come here and stay with them. And it started out just they had a small little tile yoga area there back in 2015 or 16. It would have been so long time ago. There wasn't much that was covered people doing yoga, and I just use it to train a few people. Were trying to get in my tie some friends I trained my cousin. And then it got to the point where two people asked me like, Hey, can you teach us some some kickboxing? And I was like, Yeah, sure. I'll teach you guys. And then before we know it, I had like eight people coming to learn my tie. And that was Have the gym started. It didn't. It was never a planned thing. And so from that I didn't have any money though. So I was broke. I didn't have any money. So I was like, okay, like, I love this. This is my passion. I hated my job in Australia. I always hated my jobs. I always worked in construction to pay the bills and construction, I always felt lost, working doing that job and and yeah, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go back to Australia. I think I worked for about one year saved up all the money I could. And then yeah, it came to Bali and my cousin and I and my day, we decided to give the gym we opened the gym and when I first opened the gym, we just started as a pure Muay Thai gym was a kickboxing gym. And back then being in was not what it is now, why it
Martin O'Toole 20:48
was really quiet, probably nicely quiet.
20:50
I remember the first year when we only did two classes a week two because there wasn't anyone around couldn't get people in every single day. So we just did two Meitei classes a week. And I remember in the first year, my goal was to get 10 people to get lofty, lofty aspirations. My goal for this year is to get is to get 10 people to a class and I got that goal. And then from that, my my training changed so much over the years to like, I love teaching Muay Thai, but it wasn't might how I was training myself. So my own journey has been like, you know, I trained kettlebells every day I run I do all the things that you guys want to do so and that's okay, I'm gonna bring in a fitness class for the most part people and that so they can keep bringing this fitness class then all of a sudden, and I I brought that in within like six months the the fitness class, it wasn't easy, because I was bringing in a fitness class for my type people and my type people who trained Muay Thai have pretty good cardio. So that kind of started one of the reasons why our classes are so hard, because it was based for athletes and, and everything just grew from there. My, my, my kettlebell classes, you know, I did kettlebells. Back in Australia, when I was 18. That was our strength training for our fights and type of thing when I was living in Australia, when I when I was young. To fight for the gym that I was training for, we had to do kettlebell training once a week. So just bringing all these new types of training over the years. It's really developed, but then from the first year, it was like, Alright, I want to get 10 people, we got that. And the second year, that's 50 people there. So it just grew. And then COVID hit everything, just pause for two years, and there was no business planning, no business development. It's like everything just stopped. And then now we're here are like, where is that now where we're hitting the numbers of 75. Today, today was a new record within two classes I had we had doubles this morning was 80 people in two hours
Martin O'Toole 22:47
to know you're doubling up your classes every day. Didn't do doubles day. classes every day as well.
22:52
Now, yes, classes seven days.
Martin O'Toole 22:54
I well, because we came to think we came about four or five times it was it was it even four or five times? That might be a little optimistic. We really enjoy it. Yeah. I think you enjoyed it more than I do. Because you're fitter than I am. Because yoga teacher so she's Yeah, she's doing she's moving every day. Yeah, I'm a writer who's quite sedentary at the moment. So yeah. But we did Nevertheless, we enjoyed it. But I was really pleased to see that you you managed to stick it out through through those times. Because it was tough for a lot of businesses, wasn't it? Like it was so you last off
Julia Malcolmson 23:29
super tight was such a nice community there wasn't it? Yeah. Lovely. Yeah, it was a great time.
Martin O'Toole 23:34
And everyone's centred. I think I felt to me like the community was sort of, you know, kind of coming closer together around the likes of you and others. Yeah, don't worry, we're
23:43
on set. And I feel like everyone that time, you know, we had, we had a really big pulse of new clients move from Uber who joined the gym. We had a lot of people who had a lot of Yogi's who never done our type of training before calm and just become so obsessed. They're there like six days a week, and they're like, I'm loving this, it's my time to concentrate on my, you know, they've never done our type of training before they've done so much of the complete complete polar opposite. They came to the gym and I were really, yeah, we were Yeah, we saw a huge migration of wood people. And it was a really, really nice time. But it was it was difficult, you know, to just go from a pumping booming business to all of a sudden to a business that's not booming, and not knowing when it's going to come back. Yeah, but for me, it's um it's very easy because I love what I do. So it was never like, Oh, I gotta go to work and teach 10 People I gotta go to work because, you know, it's it's very easy to wake up and go to work every day when you love what you do. But I don't see what I do into that work. It's not. I love what I do. And that's one of the reasons why I feel it's become so successful because, you know, even if I was a multimillionaire, I'd still be doing the same thing every day.
Martin O'Toole 25:00
I think you probably know more than I do. But certainly because I'm one of those people who is all or nothing. So when I'm when I get into then, the first few times, yeah, it's hell on earth. Yeah, I really don't want to be there. I'm kind of a bit grumpy about everything. But then there's a breaking point isn't that and I'm sure we all have. We all have a different point, though. And then suddenly, you love it again. Because then you back into it. However, the older you get, I'm realising I'm 47 in a couple of weeks. The older you get, the longer that the further away that breaking point is. I think so. So that's my challenge now. And actually, one of the this one actually, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the podcast was, you know, we talk about all sorts of things on how to die happy, that's kind of the beautiful thing about the, the the idea behind it is that we can talk about the arts of living and dying. Well, yeah, forever 100% Because there are so many, so many different ways. totally right. So we can talk and we're essentially we're talking about being human. And so and so one day we're talking to Yogi's next day, we're talking to addiction psychologists or best selling authors, or Qi, Gong masters. You name it, but I was marginally aware that we've not really got stuck into physiology. And with experts now, of course, we've talked to Yogi so we are talking about the the yogic preservation, if you like, of the body, but I wanted to do a few episodes around the theme of Zen, the art of Earth rover maintenance, because I call this the earth rover. Yeah. And you are our first Earth rover maintenance expert. And I understand this is your first podcast as well. It is. Thanks for Thanks for having me. Yeah. So where do we where do we start? Then when we when we're talking about Earth rover maintenance tools,
Julia Malcolmson 26:59
whatever, I think what you you talked about the minute a minute ago, your story, you know, something was wrong. And you just felt so uncomfortable in your being. And then as soon as you got back to exercise, you're like, oh, yeah, of course. And I don't know, somewhere along the line, we just forget that how important it is to move our body every day. And it doesn't have to be a massive workout. You know, even dancing or shaking the body just being in the body and moving it shifts everything. So there's such a pandemic pandemic of like this depression and mental health issues, the real pandemic real but if we, how often do they get asked? Well, when did you last go to a dance class? And when did you last? Go and work out? And especially I think the classes because, come even coming to your classes, they were so hard, but the community side of it, you all kind of move together and breathe. And I remember finding myself like laughing and smiling and like dancing, even though it was really hard. Yeah, like kind of dancing around. And it just didn't
Martin O'Toole 27:59
love for smile on tape. Sorry. Maybe one day, I would say
Julia Malcolmson 28:05
that. The exercise and the maintenance of the body is one of the most important parts of being happy.
Martin O'Toole 28:12
Well, absolutely. Hence, hence, we're having this conversation because we there are so many components that we overlook when we think about what it is to be happy. And we're obviously quite clearly we're not talking about the superficiality of happiness. It's not about stuff. It's not about form. But of course, there is that whole story behind what happens to our the chemicals in our body in our brain when we move. And actually, you just told a beautiful story in that regard that you had this, you will have heard this, but energy in motion is emotion. And if we are not moving around, we get blocked energy in our bodies, the somatic embodiment, isn't it. So as a result of that, we can feel pretty bad by just by not moving. Jules is constantly getting me because obviously I'm sitting at that desk, smashing out an 80,000 word book at the moment. She's constantly coming in and she'll just take a look at me say stand up. star jumps. You know, he's
29:12
a moving Yes. You've
Martin O'Toole 29:13
made some burpees Yeah, not burpees pull ups. Who's done? Maybe do burpees
Julia Malcolmson 29:19
that'll be the next one. I'll get those in next week. A little pull up bar in there. Yeah. Yeah, got some weights in there. And
Martin O'Toole 29:26
I have what do you call them you love? Well, yeah, I've got some resistance bands. And I that was a, something I wanted to talk to you about. There's there's a constant debate. Isn't there about fat burning in your business? I think and obviously, science continues to evolve. Our understanding continues to evolve. So on the one hand, you've got people saying, Ron, you got other stuff in high intensity, you've got the same CrossFit strength training resistance training. So what's your what's your take on on fat burning?
29:59
On burning fat? The number one it's scientifically proven that the number one best exercise for burning fat is running is running if you sprint sprinting sprint for 100 metres now, if I could be incorrect but yeah, I'm very certain that it is if you sprint for 100 metres no other exercise can get your heart rate as high as it can as if you sprint as fast as you can. Or under metres. So running is the number one exercise for for burning fat. That yeah, I've got I love to run runnings, my drug for me running is my drug I love to run, I run I run a lot naturally. See my legs I have quite skinny legs that look as though legs. And I remember when I started Muay Thai running for me just became very natural. Yeah, it was funny because through high school, I hated running. I was like, why would I run I got nothing to run from. Like, I'm not running, I want to go smoke some weed. I don't want to run to meet my dealer. Even Even now, like for me running is very meditative. It's my, it's like a deep meditation practice. For me. I had a I had an amazing run the other day, like, you know, it's been raining a lot lately. And the trees are all very green again. And I'll wake up and lots of mornings I'll run before before I teach class. And one of the things I love so much about running is no one can interrupt you. No one can talk to you. There is no music. I never run with headphones. A lot of people love to run with headphones. But it's that one time where there's just pure peace and quiet. It's sweat dripping on the face, my feet in the pavement, the open road ahead. And for me, it's yeah, I just get into this state when I run. It's
Martin O'Toole 31:42
I love it. And transcendental.
31:45
Yeah, it's everyone's got their own things. You know, like some people can't go for a few days without surfing, I have to be in the ocean. I love surfing. But I don't go crazy. If I don't say if I don't do exercise for even just a couple of days, I'm on edge, I'm more and more angry, I snap, I don't sleep as well. I just, I'm not the same person. And I'm not as nice to be around a much nicer person when I'm doing exercise. That's why I try to move my body every single day, even if it's, for example, if I'm quite busy with work, or lots of projects, or whatever's going on. I like to sauna or ice bath and anything that gets my heart beating. I'm just way more content. And it's been like that for many, many, many years now. And I feel so blessed to to have figured out these tools that helped me, you know, like we all go through these difficult times in life. And it's one of the things I try to teach people is like, your body is always there for you. Like, if you're going through a tough time, go move your body, it's still there. You can go for a run, you can go serve, you can do the things that are going to make you feel good. And no one ever feels shitter after a workout than they do when they begin you're always going to feel happier. Yeah. So
Martin O'Toole 32:57
that's, that's an absolute fact. Yeah, take it. So take your earth rover out for a spin. Do you have a meditation practice as well? Or is, as you said, I love what you said about running the meditation?
33:10
I do. I haven't been meditating as much recently. But I, I had never meditated my whole life. I didn't have a clue what it was. I wish I learned more about meditation. When I was younger, when I was fighting, I feel it would have been a huge benefit to fighting. Because fighting is very, very, very mental and scary and comes along with very, very anxiety before you fight the anxiety is crazy. It's some of the most strongest anxiety you can ever feel. So I do wish I started meditating when I was younger, but I started to meditate possibly about four years ago from Joe Dispenza. Oh, yeah, mine, a friend of mine, one of my best friends, Scotty he was here in Bali. No, we were in Australia. And he was at my house. He's like, I'm just gonna go meditate. What are you doing? And he's went out and sat in the garden, looked at the trees and he was just sitting there his headphones breathe. I was like, Dude, what are you doing? Like, you look silly. And then he got me onto it. And yeah, it's helped me so much. And I've It's put me on a complete different journey. And it's helped me in so many ways and I can relate it into so many ways into my own training. And from that, you know, I've learned so much about the breath and from learning all about the breath as advanced my levels of training and just constantly reaching new levels and, and realising that from meditating from when I when I learned to meditate and be able to come to those places My mind is so still and so present in some of the now was like, well my trainings, meditation, you know, and it sort of says that many people it's like, when you're training and your heart rate is so high, you are nowhere else but right now in present you're not thinking about later on what you're doing. You're not thinking about the dramas you're having in life. You are so present. And that is one of my that's one of my biggest loves. About about exercise, even training in the gym. And in our head classes, you feel the energies, like, we have 70 people in that you have 70 people that are present. They're not on their phone. They're not thinking about their girlfriend or pistol off that morning or their boyfriend. They're not thinking about their money dramas, they are completely present. And they come there to escape that. And it's, it's a, it's a really beautiful, it's a really beautiful practice. And But yeah, if I didn't learn about meditation hadn't gotten that you wouldn't you don't realise that until you start meditating. And that's one of the things is, you know, I see a lot of people and they can ask people like, Oh, do you meditate? And someone might say, no, no, no, I don't like what you do. You know, you're doing this sport, or this activity that you're addicted to, that makes you happy. That brings you completely into the now into the present. Surfing is a huge one. Yeah. meditative things ever. I don't think there's any more president you can ever be than from riding a wave, when you're actually sitting on that way if you are so present, and I feel that's why so many surfers are addicted to, to surfing, you are so in the now and in
Martin O'Toole 36:06
the nature as well, I think, yeah. 100%. That's
Julia Malcolmson 36:08
why it's such a common misconception that meditation is sitting cross legged on your knees, you know, that's not I mean, that is a way to meditate, but it's submitted. Yeah, there's so many ways. Sure. It's whatever works for you. I always think that when I look at surface, it's one of the reasons I really need to do it. I really want to get into surfing I look out on their boards out in the ocean. Wow, that must be the best place to just Yeah, fully present.
36:36
Yeah, breath and 100%. Yeah, completely agree.
Martin O'Toole 36:39
I love that you've opened this conversation up like this, actually. Because it's, I've been writing about meditation lately. Excuse me, often, and people have been asking me about meditation for few years, but especially more folks back home in my past life, have you like, who were sort of interrogating what what is my new life? A new way of life? They're kind of interested or they might be mocking it? I don't know. But either way, a lot of people question me about meditation. And I remember when I first started to when the first time I remember first time I tried to meditate. Try to meditate this funny, isn't it when you think about the idea of forcing
37:22
yourself to become still in present, I must be present.
Martin O'Toole 37:25
He was in the bath I'll never forget, he was sitting in the bath as I, I might try this meditation business. And I got really angry with myself, because I couldn't clear my mind like this. And obviously, peace and love to me for going through the exam. I think a lot of people do that. But
Julia Malcolmson 37:42
so many people say I don't meditate, because I can't, I can't say well, it's still the mind. It's a practice. It's the same as people saying, you might get this with the stuff in the gym. I don't come to yoga because I'm not flexible. Or I don't meditate because I can't meditate. And it's yeah, okay, well, I get where you're coming from. But it's a practice you do pull ups because I can only do two, you know, you didn't, you didn't learn the language in a day you've got to work at it
38:05
for me meditating is, is, I have a very, very, very busy mind. I've always had a very busy mind. That's why exercise has helped me so much. If I don't exercise, I have too much energy. I have ADHD. So exercise, just for me to get into a deep state of meditation, I have to exercise before if I, the other day I went for it. It's very difficult for me to meditate in the morning, I have so much energy as soon as I wake up, bang, I'm all go, I can't be it's very hard for me to see I can't home in the mornings, I gotta go do something, I gotta go do something. So I've found my best way to get into a deep state of meditation is exercise first, and meditate after the exercise and I just feel so much more relaxed in my body. And I even just the other day, just going for a nice run. I went for a run first and then I come back and I start breath work after my run and all of a sudden I'm just completely still and present. But if I don't do that before, it is a little bit difficult for me, I'm sitting down I'm like, why am I sitting here so still, I should be out doing something. Whereas if I feel very content in my body in a physical way, it's very easy for me to relax the mind if I feel tired in my body like when you train so much it is addictive the body gets addictive and you do get addicted to being sought to you get addicted to that feeling i i love the feeling of being tired. I love the feeling of training all day jumping in the sauna going in the ice bath and then knowing that I can just sit and relax now and just be so content in my body knowing that I can't do any more for the rest of the day. And then from that the mind for me just goes completely
Martin O'Toole 39:46
still. And presumably you sleep well as a result sleep way
39:50
better. If I don't train my sleeps terrible. Yeah, it's all over the place. I don't even want to sleep. I feel like I can't relax properly.
Julia Malcolmson 39:57
And that there's a process you just talked of it's I mean, it's actually See the same, you know that the asanas and yoga which is the physical style? You it's designed to do that before you meditate, you know so you would always do Asana, your breath, work and then meditate. And I think a lot of people feel that they need to sit and meditate before they've done anything else. And even in the physical. Like, we're not, we're not we didn't grow up sitting like this, you know, we've all been brought up in chairs, and then we suddenly think, right, I'm gonna sit in lotus position. Yeah, expect my hips to sit like this and a half an hour.
40:25
Yeah. Yeah, it's so true. I even know from during, during COVID. And I started diving into yoga. And from that yoga practice, you know, yoga classes are in the morning and that do the Shabbat dinner at the anime like, Whoa, I completely just switched off. That would not happen if you didn't do that yoga practice. There's no way I could just walk into somewhere and somebody All right, lay down, be still for 10 minutes. Knock, I can't do that.
Julia Malcolmson 40:50
Well think about like when we put kids in school. Yeah, like sit in a chair. And don't move. Yeah, you're gonna sit there all day. Moving, then I'm going to tell you all for moving. It's actually what if they stopped moving, they need to stand up and run around and then sit down again. Sure, we forget that
41:05
for sure. And it's one of the biggest things I try and teach people is that exercise alone has the ability, it saved me if I if I didn't find exercise on my tie. I think I'd be in a very bad place. I know, I'd been a very bad place before I found my tire wasn't doing very well. I was doing some pretty bad things. And, and that saved me and then realising later that I have this addiction to exercise. And it helps me be a better person, it saved me as well. Wasn't for exercise, I wouldn't be living in here in Bali. And just from from all that it's given me so much. It's given me the business from that now I'm opening more business that's going to be linked to that business. And it's just, yeah, it's put me into this place now where I'm so we're, I'm so grateful. And I try to teach people that a lot about I've crazy time when one lady I had I had a private client about three years ago, she came over to Bali to train with me. And she was going through very, very severe depression, chronic depression she had, she had just lost a child about about nine months ago. And she had gained heaps aways, and he was really, really in a bad place. And so she came to me and trained and I said to her, she came and she had no idea what we're going to try. And she turned up and she was she was quite wealthy. So she want to do private every single day. So I don't care what the price is on the privates every single day. This is what I'm going through. I hate exercise. She's like, I hate it. I can't enjoy it. This is why I've gained all this weight. And so I said to her, I was like, I'm going to teach you might die. She's like, we're gonna do Muy Thai. She's like, why are we going to do my PT I said, Let's just try it. And we'll see. And we'll see how you go. Because for people who hate exercise, if they're learning a skill, they don't see it as exercise. So she's so we started the session at the end of the session, she started crying. And I was like, What's wrong, and she's like, she was she was bawling her eyes. That's the first time I've ever loved exercise. She's like, that was so fun. And that was the start of her journey. She come and train seven days a week with me and my tie. It was the most crazy I'll send you guys a photo of this woman's trend transformation as the most crazy transformations but also just her mental transformation was was crazy. And she left a completely different person. You know, she even she walked in never knowing how to what boxing was and by the answer is jabbing elbowing. And when we first started session, she couldn't do one set up on our first day couldn't do one set up. On their last session, she was banging out 50 Sit ups space of about two months. And it's a it saved her, you know, just the exercise saved her. And soon as people get that, it's like all of a sudden aha moment where she's like, ah, exercise, it saved me. It's that tool is always there. Yeah, even lady you might relapse or you might quit the exercise for a little while. And, you know, I think they say like, the average human goes through 10 depressives times in our life. And you know, I know I've had my fair share of tough times. But for me, whenever I go through difficult times, I have my tools. And these tools are always there. And I know straight away I become selfish. If I'm going through a tough time I become selfish and I My goal is straight away again, I'm going to get myself to the fittest and strongest I can right now. And if I do that, I'm going to feel happy. I'm going to feel happy. And I try and teach that to people you know and not and not try to. There's this really silly thing with fitness and training where a lot of people do it to look a certain way. You know, that's the very wrong way to go. added because if your body doesn't develop into that way you want it to look, you're going to hate the exercise. I just did all this stuff. And I don't look this certain way, as I was told I was going to look, I didn't lose these kilos that I thought I would lose. For me exercises never ever, ever been about physical, physical looks, or physical gains. It's been because I love it. I love it. And it's takes me it makes me happy. And it takes me to that place, mentally, where nothing else makes me happier. You know, and that's one of the biggest things to try and I try and teach people is like, don't worry about how you look because I have a certain belief. It's never been scientifically proven. But I do have a certain belief that when people just focus on developing the fitness side and the strength side and just to become an absolute beast, the best they can completely forget about how they look, the body just transforms automatically, the body is transformed. But if you go into a gym, saying like, I'm gonna do this to look a certain way I'm gonna eat this food to look a certain way. Doesn't seem doesn't happen. None, there's no sign, but just that's just, that's just from my time with working with people. The best transformations I've seen in people who are just they're focusing completely on the training, not so much on the diet, enjoying life becoming happy. They have the best dramatic transformations I've seen.
Julia Malcolmson 46:29
So they're not there for the outcome. They're there for the moment. They're there for the love of
46:33
their field journey. And it's, I have a very different way of looking at diet. And you know, I don't I don't I've never dieted my whole life. And I can't diet, it's a train so much. So if I died, I'll lose too much weight, I get too skinny and always been like that.
Martin O'Toole 46:50
What's your, because anybody's listening and not watching. And Jake's wearing clothes. But obviously when he's in the gym, he's gotten on top of top. It's got a hell of a body. I mean, yeah, especially in your body like daanish, bro. So, so how, how is that there's no diet at all to that you just eat whatever you feel like eat and drink whatever you feel like drinking, but because you're exercising so much it counts as well.
47:13
So when I first started exercise, it was for my time. So when I was living in Australia, fighting Muy Thai, I would still work a normal job. And so I'd worked construction 10 hour days, finished my construction job, which was very physical gota moist, I was doing these huge days burning numerous amounts of calories, so you have to eat a lot just to survive, otherwise, you're gonna body's gonna crash, you're gonna burn out. Your food is your fuel. So then moving to Thailand, we would train four hours a day, two hours in the morning, two hours afternoon, it's extremely intense, you have to eat a lot just to maintain the weight, you're my goal was just to maintain the weight, I naturally have a fast metabolism. But my training would start at 8am, I'd have to set my alarm at 6am to make sure I eat something before I train. Otherwise, I'd just get I'd lose too much weight, I get too skinny. Because we're burning so many calories, you're training for four hours a day, you need to feel the body. And for me, I have a different outlook on it. Some people don't agree they'll debate with it. But I'll always say what's worked for me. And I do believe it. It works for lots of people. And I've given people this advice is, yeah, I eat whatever I want. And I do go through stages where I do gain a couple of kilos. And I have a way of looking at food is that if I want a big juicy burger, and a cake afterwards, I eat it. And I get excited because I know I have an excess store of calories. I can train really hard. I do love that I can I'll eat a burger and that and my sick. Tomorrow, I can go so hard and training so hard. Because I have these calories, I'm gonna burn them off tomorrow. And I use that to fool tomorrow's training and I'll train like an absolute beast or I'll wake up and go run 10k And it's always it's always been like that. And I see the same with I do believe that it's very it's become so blase how people have so many different outlooks on food, like we're humans. If we if your body's saying to you Yum, I want to eat that was probably a reason why you should you know, you can once you find that mind body connection, and I learned a lot through I went vegetarian during during during COVID vegetarian for a year. And I was one of those ones like, you know, I told everyone this is the way you must not eat meat. And I thought I was right. You know, I was one of the vegetarians and telling everyone like you can't eat steak. You can't eat chicken activist you guys don't understand that. And, and yeah, for me, the biggest thing was when I went vegetarian was in the beginning, there was no change. But after six months, nine months, the two biggest changes was I lost a lot of weight, I couldn't gain any weight because I was still training the same. I was still red, but also very skinny. Now I'm about like, 75 kilos, I was walking around like 69 kilos, eating so much food, I'd wake up and eat a bowl of muesli full of peanut butter and eat all the calories, I could eat all the pizza, I could eat all the pasture and I'd still lose weight, as I was still getting skinny. And then after about nine months, I started to feel not so confident. In my own beliefs. I wasn't backing myself as much I felt I was just my clarity crashed, you know, I'm usually a pretty confident person, I backed my own beliefs, and I'm very confident where I'm going. And I started questioning myself and just not feeling so much like, I felt my testosterone dropped. I didn't feel like so much with beast in the gym anymore. And then once I reintroduced meat again, my weight went up straightaway. And I did notice a pretty, a pretty dramatic increase straightaway. I was like, whoa. And I was like, Okay, I was wrong. You know, I said a lot of a lot of my friends and that sort of thing. And a lot of my friends too, we will we were vegetarians at the same time. And we all experience the same thing. So I spoke to my mates who they're all very physical as well. And now we're experiencing the same things as me. And but you're going going back to the question, like, No, I don't follow any diet. Now at all. Incredible, I do have my own things I eat, I have these little things might you know, every morning I wake up, it's very the same, I'll have drink water when I wake up, I'll have a long black coffee with no milk. Before training and bananas. Bananas is my is my go to before training. You know, if I'm going to do a very big workout, I'll have a banana about an hour before training, some sugars, and that's what gets me through and then a massive meal at about 1230 very, very big meal. And then I have a very big dinner. So I'm kind of like a two meal guy a day.
Julia Malcolmson 52:20
I think so many people are really under nourishing themselves and then training really hard. Completely I think it's you start seeing and people like we're just this so much food is lacking nutrients isn't even that nutrient dense food being consumed. And we don't really know what it's going to do long term.
52:37
I I believe that with food, it is meant to be enjoyed. Foods made me enjoy. Like it tastes good.
Julia Malcolmson 52:47
So you will agree with that, right?
52:51
I love food man. I'm talking about my next meal. When I'm eating the meal. Me I'm like
Martin O'Toole 52:57
we're eating and I'm saying what we're going to eat. I'm always like, I
Julia Malcolmson 52:59
can't even think about it. Yeah,
53:01
I love exercise. So like, we're addicted to food, we have to eat exercise, the two and two go together. But one thing that I find is the people who have an addiction to food, if they don't have that addiction to exercise, the food causes them. They always had these negative thoughts with food, these negative thoughts where they'll be looking at a cake going, you know, I remember having some clients over the years and I'm training them pretty hard. Like they're training hard. They're burning lots of calories. And they're like, a hot really wanting to have that cake for dinner last night. But I just couldn't. I was like, You should have had it like, should have had it. They're thinking about it so much. And then even if they do go home, they don't feel good about themselves afterwards. feel shame? I feel good. If you do if you don't. If you don't have it, you're like, Oh, I really should have had it. I wanted to enjoy that cake. Man. If you do have the cake. You don't feel good either. And you have this negative thought pattern always with food. You never like oh my god, that was so good. I'm so happy with that meal. And I can't explain the scientific bile what's going on in our bodies when that's happening. But I do believe in from people that I've spent that I've met throughout my fitness career, I've been around some very, very fit individuals. They all love food. They all eat a lot. They love to eat, and they're all ripped. And yet that's just my certain belief. I know a lot of relationship debate. And there's a saying that there's this one saying a friend of mine said to me recently is that someone said that you can't out train a bad diet, but we're here to prove them wrong because there's always the debate about what's more important the diet or the exercise. Well obviously like eating McDonald's isn't healthy for you all day. Eating burgers isn't all day, but you can eat a lot. That's the thing people don't understand is food is calories. So if you eat a lot of food, you can burn off that food in a workout. If you work out a lot if you have the time If you go surfing in Bali, I don't know how many calories you burnt you burn a lot of calories, jumping in the sauna, burning calories jumping in the icebox burning calories. Living in Bali, we're sweating all the time. We burn a lot more calories here than we do in a colder climate.
Martin O'Toole 55:16
Just walking around just walking around. I think I think the the point you make is I agree but I also I suspect the there is a there's a nuance there around what we isn't there as well because I don't imagine you are going to you know, having McDonald's and KFC and Pizza Hut every day I you
55:34
know, I but I'll every now and again. I will have McDonald's, you have a No, I didn't feel naughty because I didn't even dance for about 10 years. But just recently, we've been doing lots of construction and building a villa. And so it's come along with going with my wife into Denpasar doing some very stressful days with a newborn baby. And there's not so much food access and underside and we have had the sneaky McDonald's every now and again.
Julia Malcolmson 56:00
Enjoy Yeah, we do. Yeah, when
56:03
I eat it. I love it. Yeah, I fully embrace it. I'm like, I am eating McDonald's right now I'm going to enjoy it, every single bit of it. So you should embrace
Julia Malcolmson 56:11
everything you eat. Because you're I'm like you, I sometimes won't eat something if we're not really that fussed about it. And you always like, eat it, you can't waste it because you love you just love eating.
Martin O'Toole 56:20
I don't leave clues. I'm
Julia Malcolmson 56:21
just like, I'm not. I want to really love it.
56:25
You got to enjoy food.
Martin O'Toole 56:27
I think it's something you said earlier as well, which I'm interested in talking further about, it plays to this idea that you I think you can eat anything as long as you as long as you really in tune with your politics and in tune with your mind and and ultimately, vegetarianism doesn't work for all. Veganism doesn't work for all. Yeah, but it does for some 100%. And so I don't think there's any such thing as this, you know, this sort of black and white pigeonholing that we do
56:56
I always say to people is I get asked a lot from people, they'll come into the gym and train with me, or they'll message me and I'm like, man, what's your diet? I'm like, Dude, you probably don't want to know, I just did a Big Mac, I don't want to know, I didn't have a Big Mac. But it's it's completely different. As I'm like, my diet is based around what I do for exercise. I design a lot more than you. So you don't want to have my diet. Because if you have my diet, you probably will gain some weight because I have to eat a lot on training a lot. And that comes down to Yeah, just the main thing that people asking, Well, what's your day, you look really good. Just because I do something a certain way. We're all biologically different. We're all so so. So, so different. We all do different activities every single day. And yes, veganism does work for some people. It's I remember, you know, what's it been? Now like two years since the carnivore diet came around, and I'm on Joe Rogan lifestyle. Everyone's like, he's crazy. How can this you are gonna die if you just eat meat, red meat, red meat, lots of people doing it now. There's lots of people doing it, and they're feeling good. And there's lots of people eating vegan food all day, and they're feeling good. There's lots of people doing all different diets. And my best way of telling people is like, try a few diets for a while and see how
Martin O'Toole 58:13
you feel. Exactly. It's a simple answer. Check in with your body. Check in with yourself. Sit
58:17
with yourself. See how you feel. How do you feel after you ate that? Yeah, we
Martin O'Toole 58:21
have you heard of BSI hospital? Yeah, yeah, we went there. And I've been there. And you've done the whole process of the tests not went there a few years ago? Yeah. Yeah, we did that. We did that last year. And it's so funny. I think our relationship with with, you know, where the medical aspect fits in with fitness and nutrition. They don't do though there's sort of no, when you think about it, you'll see a regular regular GP and I'm feeling depressed. Nobody asks you what you're eating. Nobody asks you, assuming what you're doing. But yeah, BSI did 91 blood and urine tests? Yeah. Now, I've never done anything like that before. This guy gets the computer out, you know, sits me in front of a screen says, you know, we're not need to do X rays or anything like that, look, we're going to look at your source code. We're going to look at your blood. And it was fascinating process, wasn't it? The point I'm trying to make is actually having done that. Then this guy says, Well, based on what your source code says, and your age, and your weight, and yada, yada, you ought to be eating this, you ought not to be eating that. Now. I'm taking that taking that to the bank, because that guy's see my blood. Yeah. But of course, you'd go and say you have a completely different conversation. 100% She'll go and sit him and have a completely different conversation. And we haven't even taken into account movement, what we do for a day job, how much sleep are you getting your music you're listening to? What are the things that we consume in that? Yeah. creates that. Yeah, that sense of peace, oneness, and yeah, connection with the body.
59:51
It can, it can really come back to I can relate a lot of that back to learning to meditate, you know, to be able to make that mind body connection is like How am I feeling right now? If I'm looking good, if my skin's looking good, if I'm happy if I'm sleeping good, I'm good. I don't need to change my diet. Like, don't change something that's not working, you know? And that's how, that's how I live my life if I if I'm feeling good and I'm happy, I don't need to change it, you know, so don't I won't try and look for a new diet or, and I feel it's, it's become it's become silly the whole diet things become a big money grab. It's yeah, it's a huge money grab the same as billion dollar market, isn't it? It's a huge thing. And it's lots of things have become big money grabs, you know, selling fake fitness programmes from people who aren't actually fit. I've become a huge money grab. And, you know, I've seen some people who sell fitness programmes and they come to the gym and like fit, you know, they just got a good dish genetically gifted, they have a physique of a nice body. But the cardiovascular stuff, some women who are genetically are born with bigger bumps and others, they go and sell a booty programme, but they're not even trainers. And it's the same with men. Some men are born genetically gifted with good physiques, but they're not that fit. And they'll go sell a diet plan to have the body they have it's all it's all completely made
Martin O'Toole 1:01:08
up retrofitted. fakeness it's fake, right? There's,
1:01:11
there's a very fake fitness world out there. It's very big and social media has made it huge stooges. Well, I was
Martin O'Toole 1:01:18
gonna ask you about that. Because you you have people, as you said, early from 16 to 18. What? What's your perspective? Perhaps not through the people you're working with in the in the classes? What what's your what's your your perspective of how social media is driving, fiercely driving the younger generations, actually, all generations, perspective of what the human body ought to be looking like.
1:01:48
For women in a bad way, I feel it's driving women in a bad way. It will change, I hope, eventually, but it's driven women to be away to think that skinny is sexy, to be slim, and look really slim in a bikini,
Julia Malcolmson 1:02:05
it's to be really slim, but then also have a massive booty and massive boobs. It's just like,
1:02:09
100% Yeah. And it's, it's driven, it should become that way. And you know, it's, it's, it's very sad how eight year olds have access to Instagram, and their brains are a sponge, and they're developing in this and there's 10 year olds who are like, oh, I want to look like that's what's popular. That's what that's what gets the most likes. What gets the most likes on Instagram, the girl who's in the bikini, so she's gonna get a lot more likes, and the girl who's wearing a jumper and long jeans, you know, and I do believe it's, it's different from men, I don't feel men aren't on there. Looking at other guys body's gone. I've got to look that way. I feel it's it's definitely, you know, I have lots of friends to women who are in the fitness industry who used to train to be slim. And now they trained to be strong and fit. And they're just so much happier. You know, and I had a friend here recently, and she's inspiring girls to do what she's doing is like, it's a difficult one. Because with women with training, if they're training and they're doing some upper body stuff, they're gonna get muscles, and then they have their persona of like, oh, men might not like my muscles. I'm supposed to have skinny arms, a big bum and a small stomach. You know, you can't train your upper body. But again, yeah, answering that question. It's a different it's a difficult one. And yeah, well, I
Martin O'Toole 1:03:32
think it is, I think I think it's I think it's a long term problem. But the I had I thought about it, I would have dug up the study, but I know there is some science on the effects of depression on on young folks as a result of, of seeing what these people perceive to be, you know, perfect body, not being able to achieve that and then feeling very upset with themselves about it. But it's not
Julia Malcolmson 1:03:57
even a new thing. I mean, obviously, social medias exacerbate the whole situation. But if you look back, every decade has a different body shape for a woman 100% What's, what's fashionable, what is what's fashionable, and what do men like this decade, and women have been shaping themselves into that.
Martin O'Toole 1:04:15
As a lot of it's a bizarre pressure and a huge effect on mental illness. And I make no judgement either way, but certainly an observation I have is I've seen a lot more women a lot more younger women actually with fillers and Botox in their lips and yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, like I say,
1:04:37
it's sad. I mean,
Martin O'Toole 1:04:38
no judgement. Yeah. And it's your body do what you like with it.
Julia Malcolmson 1:04:42
You're already really beautiful. Yeah, well,
Martin O'Toole 1:04:44
exactly. But I think the point I was gonna meet was I'm old enough to remember where plastic surgery was quite a new thing. And primarily was old people getting plastic surgery to look younger. Which, again, you know, that's up to you. Do that play.
1:05:00
It's the complete switch now.
Martin O'Toole 1:05:02
Well, that's that's the thing, I struggle to comprehend how a young person isn't content with how they look, you know, that's
1:05:08
the scary thing is that a younger person's brain is like a sponge, you know, it's not developed and it absorbs everything, you know, especially the younger, I believe the younger you are, the more information you're absorbing. And the access the the teenagers have these days, and children have to so much information is so dangerous. And I worry for what's going to happen, you know, you see these kids that are now that are just so addicted to their phones, and it's become, it's become so sad. And whether it's even just from a thing about image, or it just comes back to, you know, we've started the conversation with addiction. That's the biggest addiction in the world right now. Everyone's addicted to it. You know, you can't say that you're not addicted to your phone. If I say to you go two days without it, you're like, Oh, but I need it. Well, I'm sure you're gonna be fine without your phone for two days, you'll still be alive. But you try to take the phone off a teenager for like two hours, they they freak out. They almost have an anxiety attack. Drug, it's the dopamine hit it is. Instagram has been built to feed that. Every single human is addicted to dopamine,
Martin O'Toole 1:06:13
the molecule of more has
Julia Malcolmson 1:06:15
a very stration I'm getting smaller and smaller, isn't it? Yeah. Well, so sorry. To reduce people's concentration. It's getting shorter and shorter.
Martin O'Toole 1:06:23
Yeah, yeah, the attention span is like goldfish level. Now.
Julia Malcolmson 1:06:27
I was saying that the other day about how we've gone from like, even Instagram used to be, you know, a really nice image, and then a beautiful, heartfelt blurb to read. And it's got shorter and shorter. And now it's like reels. And it's got to be instant and quick.
Martin O'Toole 1:06:40
And the algorithms, the algorithms switch as well now, so actually, they'll get less and less interested in still images. Yeah, I got into using Instagram because I was like to take photographs. Well, it
Julia Malcolmson 1:06:51
was it was geography wasn't
1:06:52
sure that that was how it started. Yeah. And it's become such a tool is where people are so addicted to the instant gratification. No, they can't see the long term in anything. It's like, well, if I want to become really successful, I've got to work hard. Shit, I can't just get that now show me the half that instant dopamine hit. It's, it's scary. Because how does that affect an eight year old? We don't know yet. You know, Instagrams only being I know when I started Instagram in late 2012. And in that time, yeah, it was just sharing photos. You just post a random picture of bush. Yeah, flower? Do you find a lot of repeat? And then now it's become what it is now? Yeah, well,
Martin O'Toole 1:07:31
everybody's? Well, it's following the TIC tock model, isn't it? So everyone's now for sure. Making going out of their way to make these mini micro shows.
1:07:40
I mean, it is a great tool. It's a it's the issue of them. It's the best marketing tool in the world. You know, it's my main marketing tool for my gym. And I don't use it so much from my personal or my personal use. But I've had this conversation with many friends and people in the past about you know, you always question yourself, like, should I be on this platform? Should I not? Is it a good platform? Is it hard for people? Am I addicted to it? Should I even be scrolling through it? And yeah, everyone's got their own personal opinion about it. But I believe that if you are helping someone through that tool, well, yeah, it's great. It's a great thing. But then everyone can say that, you know, a girl who's got a good bikini body could say at all. Yeah, well, I'm inspiring women to have the bikini body like me. But is that healthy? Yeah. Well,
Martin O'Toole 1:08:28
I suppose there are different levels of inspir aeration. Yeah. And I think we've we've got a societally we've, we're very confused about a lot of things now, one of those things is what is inspiring. Obviously, people people are inspired to get rich quick into people are inspired
1:08:47
to get a lot of followers. Yeah. That's one of the big ones. Yeah, that's, that's one of the teenagers you know, that's the scary thing as you'd like teenagers now who are in school. It's very easy to see who's the most popular kid in school who's got most followers. That's the first popular kid he's number two. She's number three. You know where his back and we're at school. There wasn't any of that you knew who was the prettiest girl in the school as a person? Yes. But now it's it's just become this instant tool of measuring people and young people making the dream to be like, I want to be an Instagram influencer. Yeah. What if it gets deleted one day? Some days? I think I'll be so cool if those tools got wiped off the face of the earth.
Martin O'Toole 1:09:29
Well, I mean, I'm also I'm with you, because we use Instagram for for our promo. Yeah, for sure. And actually, we get a lot of people especially because we do these little video trailers for the episodes, we get a lot of people and sharing them, which is really Yeah, it's amazing. So I think just, I suppose it's one of the it's a conversation about technology as much as anything else, isn't it? Because technology has evolved so exponentially over the past few years. We struggle, I think We're struggling to keep up with it. But also, we are being encouraged to just to get on our knees to this this technocracy as opposed to just dipping in and using these technologies as and when they are, they are practically practically helpful for us because they all are, you know, and obviously, a lot of these these technologies are awesome, but it's when you become reliant on it is when when you become addicted to it.
1:10:24
Yeah, it's a it's a difficult one. I've been battle with myself, you know, I'm not gonna lie. I've gone through times where I'm like, Oh, my God, I spent way too much time on Instagram today, I spent way too much time on my phone. I'm very, it's something I've learned over the last, you know, it takes a long time. And it's very the phones difficult one, you know, sometimes I'll ask people like, what's your screen time of day? And they'll have a look, it's always more than what they think some people are. Oh, my God. So if you think like, I don't know what the average person's screen time is, I'd say it's three to four hours. You spend four hours on your phone, it's 25% your life? Yeah, it's been for us on your phone. Can you imagine like getting to, when you're, you're 80 years old, and you're sick and you're dying? Like, I spent 25% of my life scrolling, looking at that damn screen, like, you know, like, those
Martin O'Toole 1:11:11
tick tock videos,
1:11:13
sending you live is crazy. And that's just for as many people like, Oh, I'm only on it four hours a day. Okay. You sleep for eight hours, you're awake for 16 You're scrolling on your phone and a screen? You know, what did you develop from that?
Martin O'Toole 1:11:25
Yeah, what did you actually learn? What did you learn? Because I suppose there's a point in there isn't. There are thinking about your industry your industries is Instagram is rammed to the rafters was that with fitness and health and, and some as you've as you've identified, some being some relatively fake, but then some phenomenal, aspirational people as chap, I follow up called metabolic Mike, you might I know, he's, he's, he does. He's taught he's either talking about fitness, nutrition or cold plunges. And yeah, hacking so. But but that's the sort of stuff for sure. We absolutely ought to be I mean, for sure. I mean, I, you know, I follow all sorts of random accounts. So I'm, I guess I'm following a lot of things to do with meditation to do with what to do with this field to do with how to die happy. But still, you're right, we've to be careful about how much time
Julia Malcolmson 1:12:19
to scroll through all the other bits to get to track where they nailed it. Because I wish I could say, just only want to see because I follow a few people who are really inspiring yoga teachers. Yeah, very movement based and mobility. And I'm getting really into following them. I learned something from them every day. I can't just say it Instagram, I only want to see their title.
1:12:41
And I feel it's become a thing as well. You know, it's probably not a nice thing to say, but it's given idiots access to a lot of people. Yeah, it's given idiots, audiences. And then it's also become a tool where Instagrams algorithm works, even if you say something that is going to be very, very debated. And you know, everyone's going to disagree with you. It's kind of behind the algorithm, because you're gonna get so many comments. And so people now look for anything that's going to be highly debated, and people aren't going to agree with, you know, just to get the video views because everyone's going to show how this idiot how is this person doing this? That's not true. It's become this thing when? Yeah, that's one of the negatives I see about it. But I completely with you on the benefits of it, you know, I lose, I use it. It's my main marketing tool for my business. And we get messages all the time from people saying, oh my god, I'm so inspired from seeing other people in your gym and Sophia, what your story is every day just to get motivated. Everyone has just gone super hard. And whenever I want to get motivated, just jump on and watch your guy's stories and see these people in their you know, it's of all different ages, all different sizes. And that's where, yeah, we'll see we'll see where the whole thing goes. You know, as well, what my biggest thing is I see with people is like, what's what's scary about it is what's going to happen with teenagers who have this addiction and this addiction to instant gratification. You know, they go through high school, and they go through their schooling years, and they think they're super, they think they're very popular getting all these likes, and all of a sudden they finish high school and mommy and daddy have told them how good they are. And they're the best and oh my god, you're so pretty and beautiful and all sudden I have to get a job. You got to build your boss don't care about your Instagram. You know, if you're not making money, and it's, it's become a bit scary that these, I'm sure it's a lot more common with women, but they have this as a teenager, they have this goal to be what you want to grow up. I want to be an Instagram model. You know, it's like, don't think they make that much money. You know, I've met a few of my time and they know, a little bit broke.
Martin O'Toole 1:14:38
I remember when reality TV started. And there was a TV show called Big Brother. I don't know they made that in Australia as well. Yeah, it'd be a big brother. And I watched the first episode of the first season of Big Brother because we all did. We're like, Whoa, this is fly on the wall. Put a lot of strangers in the house. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? But then it became this this huge global phenomenon. And they were doing Celebrity Big Brothers. And anyway, the point is, I don't know when it happened. But I remember then seeing in the UK anyways, not in perhaps not the case everywhere, that there were people that were children saying, I when I grow up, I want to be a celebrity. I want to be a big brother. I want to be on Big Brother. I want to be on reality TV. Yeah, definition
Julia Malcolmson 1:15:28
of role model, kind of
1:15:29
massive. I want to be seen directly. I want to be seen by the masses.
Martin O'Toole 1:15:34
Yeah. Because these are these people. And the bizarre aspect of that was people were becoming famous for being on reality TV, for sure. So they were becoming celebrities from being? I don't know, it's
1:15:46
one of the things I think with that though. It's like people who they think if they get on the reality show, it's very short lived, their fame is very short lived, you're famous for a year, then no one cares about 80 years later.
Martin O'Toole 1:15:55
Yeah. And there's a lot of depression and a lot of negative stuff that happens off the back of it, because there's the one minute they're inflated next minute, they're deflate, and of course, they're at the hands of the tabloid press as well. Sure. A lot of these people a lot of these people are who who make money out of their image aren't unfortunately, subject to the winds of the tabloids, aren't they? So one day,
1:16:17
one of the scary things like if you're planning to be an Instagram model, Your looks are going to fade one day, they're not going to be there forever. You're going to be happy when they fade.
Martin O'Toole 1:16:27
Because it's going to happen. Well, I suppose you can have some more fillers and, and some more Botox, but
Julia Malcolmson 1:16:32
we'll just embrace the ageing process. Amen.
Martin O'Toole 1:16:35
So that you are as you age. Yeah,
Julia Malcolmson 1:16:38
we kind of we've lost that ability to see that. Well, we haven't
Martin O'Toole 1:16:41
all not all. But yeah, I think societally so it's a thing to be concerned about.
Julia Malcolmson 1:16:47
My love your ageing handsomely,
Martin O'Toole 1:16:49
gracefully? Something about like a fine wine.
1:16:52
There's something about barley where everyone looks a lot younger than what they actually are. I agree.
Martin O'Toole 1:16:57
I agree. Well, I don't know if it's just barley, but I think it certainly in certain communities, I've noticed, I mean, I the most of the people we know who lives here, do, I think we just we've all got a younger outlook
1:17:10
on himself. But then I suppose surrounded by happy people who are smiling every day, we're getting vitamin D, every day, we get chances to get in the ocean, every day, we're moving our bodies, we get to eat pretty good food. And I feel it's, you are a product of your environment. And we're surrounded with these happy people with beautiful energy. And it's, you can't lie that Bali is full of good looking people. And a lot of happy people.
Martin O'Toole 1:17:33
It is, it is and I think also a lot of conscious people as well. So everything not just not just meditators or Yogi's, but I think people who are the treating the treating the body and mind the way they ought to be like a temple
1:17:48
and they're doing and they're doing what makes them happy. And if you're here, you've you've left your life and your country where you were, you know, and I was at, that's what it was for me is Bali was the goal. He's like, I gotta find a way to live here. I've got to find a way to live here because I hated my life in Australia
Martin O'Toole 1:18:03
was the other way around. I'd never been to Bali. And I mean, I hated my life in England, but I came here for for a week. I think it was like in December 2018. Just to check it out. I was only I was I didn't really have a holiday. So I was spinning around looking at properties and yada yada. And then that was it. decided after moving and I moved in April. Yeah. But I'm glad I did. Yeah. And that's so many people. I know who the same sort of people we're talking about. Now. We've all made that, that that big move and never regretted it. 100% and never want to never want to plug back. I mean, wait. Once you've unplugged from the matrix, you don't really want to plug back in. You can't
1:18:47
go back. I feel it'd be very, very difficult to go back. I don't plan to go back to Australia anytime soon.
Martin O'Toole 1:18:53
I'm not planning to go to the UK. The European back at Christmas, though. Yeah, for holiday.
1:18:57
Yeah. Holidays are okay. And then when you have those little holidays, it makes you appreciate barley on a whole nother level to come back. And yeah,
Julia Malcolmson 1:19:04
because you do start kind of quest. Sometimes you start questioning little bits. Yeah, for sure. Well, I want to be back there or am I missing these things? And you go back and have your little fix. And after like two weeks you're like Okay,
Martin O'Toole 1:19:14
two weeks of rain. Freezing cold. And food crisis is crises and utility crises that we're having over there. Yeah, I'm kind of watching from from the side of the world go. Yeah, so we are we have quite a lot of people in in England listening to us. So hope you're all okay under the circumstances. Now I want to ask you one more thing actually about social media before we move on. One things I love that you do on social media. You do these short videos sometimes where you just do a, like a load of app stuff. I've saved that I saved all that.
1:19:48
That's why you got an eight pack now.
Martin O'Toole 1:19:50
That's why I've got a video. That's why there's an eight shirt. But I think stuff like that is super super, really helpful. For anybody who's, I think very inspirational for somebody who might not be going to the gym. And that was really the question I had is, you know, we're talking about all of these fit and happy people in Ottawa to everyone with these great bodies, but But what about the poor folks who are doing a three hour commute in and out of London every day? Sitting at the desks? Yeah, they're exhausted for years. So I know how that feels. What are the what are some of the the easy things they could do without a gym?
1:20:30
Well, the number one key to living a long life is cardiovascular exercise. So that's my answer to that question is not run, run, just get your heart beating, you know, get your heart beating every day, whether it's whether it's any way possible, go for a 10 minute run, get a treadmill in your house and do a 10 minute run before you have to go to work. That would be my personal opinion, if I had to, if I had to go back to a life of working like I used to work in Australia with a free half an hour every day, in the mornings before work or not work construction or something, it would be fine some type of run, I would run in nature, because I'd be able to meditate and get my heart rate at the same time. But yeah, I believe that is scientifically proven to be one of the best keys for living long is cardio exercise, getting getting the heart beating
Martin O'Toole 1:21:24
CV. And you mentioned earlier on that actually sprinting is better for you. So I suppose we haven't really talked about high intensity training. So for that, for the people listening to the podcast, who haven't got a clue what it is, you want to give us a quick rundown,
1:21:39
it stands for High intensity interval training. So it's short bursts of very intense exercise followed by rest followed by again, very high intensity bursts of exercise, it's a mix of cardiovascular based exercises and strength based exercises. Then going back to your question just then is there's a lot of people who aren't so experienced in in the fitness world who perhaps don't have that much free time that you were saying is a lot of people don't realise that. Let's say you are quite obese. And your goal is to get a six pack one day, you're not going to get it from doing six from just doing situps you've got to burn the fat. And throw a lot of people don't realise is you cannot burn body fat from just one area of your body, you cannot do it, you can build that muscle. But let's say you have 30% body fat, you're, you're quite obese, you have to lower that body fat percentage, you've got to do cardio, do just cardio first, and then build the muscles later. A lot of people you know, they'd be like in the gym, doing all these setups I'm gonna get I'm gonna get set up, so I'm gonna get set up, but their body fat percentage is too high, you're gonna get those setups away quicker if you just ran it every day, lower your body fat percentage, you're gonna be able to see your abs you may see your muscles. That's one of the things people get confused about. And that's one of the things too is a lot of people sell these fake programmes of wholesale you the best booty workout, but that booty workout might not be for good. Like that booty workout probably won't be very good for someone who's very obese, who has a very high body fat percentage, and need to lower their body fat composition first, and then do the muscle toning later.
Martin O'Toole 1:23:15
Yeah, that's a really valid point. I've known lots of people do that as well who are overweight and just go to the gym and start lifting
1:23:21
weights. And that's when it's even when I met the client who I told you about, you know, she had gone to the typical weights gyms and employed a personal trainer and she was already slightly obese and they were just get her in there doing some bicep curls. Now, it's like you're not kind of getting results. And that's why you hate exercise. Because you're not enjoying it, you're going to this thing, you don't enjoy it, and you're not getting a result. So therefore you hate it. And you don't enjoy it. And they tie this negative aspect to exercise like, Oh, I gotta go to the gym. Yeah, that's my thing is I try and teach people is like, you should get addicted to exercise and love it. You know, I never ever, maybe I'm weird. But I get so excited to go train. I'm like, Oh, my God, yesterday, go for a run. I'm getting all excited and love it. Because for me, it's an addiction. It's my escape. And I try and teach that to people and like once you can unlock that key. There's the answer. Yeah, you're gonna be healthy the rest of your life. I plan to be doing this when I'm 6070. Yeah, the same.
Martin O'Toole 1:24:19
Yeah, I plan to be doing it when I'm 60 and 70, which means I need to get back on the horse, sir. And that says something was going to ask you about what? What's your experience of people getting into training later in life? So let's say somebody decides in their mid 40s, right, okay. Perhaps they've never trained or that's not me. I mean, I have trained a lot. Yeah. But on and off, on and off, on and off. Yeah. Actually with a career as an alcoholic. Yeah, I would often have big injuries. Yeah. Like, you know, broken stuff. Yeah. And it's only when you look back in hindsight and go that's why you stopped trading. Because you brought your show Yeah, snowboarding in a park in England. Yeah. You can't snowboard in parks, I think for sure. piste, obviously, it was mine. So, so if you've got people in their mid 40s, who are who are saying, Okay, actually, I'm gonna give this a go, yeah. Where do they start?
1:25:16
It would straight away when I get a client, let's say someone's 40. I'll ask them, what's the reason? Why do you want to do it? Why do you wanna do it, you might just walk into the gym, and you might say, I want to get stronger. Okay, so you were gonna, your programme is going to be to get stronger, you might have a client who comes in who's severely obese and like, I want to lose some weight, I'm sick of looking this way. Or you might find someone who comes in who says, I want to get to the highest levels of cardiovascular endurance I've ever been in my whole life. And I have the thing for my personal self. And I say there's some people, Mike, you want to be able to look back when you're older and be like, that was the one time when I was the strongest data was that time, you won't have a photo maybe to show your grandkids but like, look at me when I was this strong. And then you might want over time when you were like, this is when I was the most cardiovascular fit I ever was I could run 20 Ks. And that's for me my outlooks on exercise. And I say to some people, it's like, you know, answering your question is how would you push someone in the right direction, it would be dependable on what their goals were. But for someone who's never done anything, it would be my way of teaching people is to have a mixture of everything, you know, for, for men. And for women, we want to engage all of the muscles in our body, we want us to be working, stimulating every single muscle. But I'm a big, because my background comes from my tie. It's a very cardiovascular based sport, I love cardio. So lots of my way of getting people to love exercises, cardio, and to love that feeling of your heart beating throughout your body, to get that heart rate very, very, very high. And I see it, you know, one thing I bring, which is meditation has taught me a lot as well and learning about the breath, meditation, I started to learn meditate. And then from that, as you start learning meditation, you hear these things about breathe, and, you know, doing the doing the podcasts and listening to all these meditation teachers, they would always want the breath. So anyway, on my own journey about studying the breath, I was reading books and doing breath work. So I did some Wim Hof seminars, and doing all my own experiments on myself with the breath. And that was when I found this feeling of when I finished a very, very high intense workout of just sitting and coming back to the breath, and just being so present. And just being so still, there's something I brought into my classes now so and I see, I just see how still everyone is and a lot of people who aren't usually very still people, they just sit there and they're like, I'm gonna make that feeling you have right now where you feel your heart beating. Embrace it, love it, get addicted to it. And they do, it's very, very easy to feel it. When their heart rates very high, you can feel it. You know, it's I say to people that right now you are very, very present,
Martin O'Toole 1:28:04
and meditating 100, we just didn't know it was totally said one conscious breath is a meditation completely. So nice
Julia Malcolmson 1:28:11
to hear that being bought in for sure to training. And obviously, because, of course we hear of it in the yoga industry. Yeah. And that's kind of often how it works. You go through these real high intensity moments, and then as I sit and feel and breathe, but to be bringing that into, like, the training and I think it's so good, because it's what people need
1:28:31
for sure, I've reached new levels of my training with learning about the breath. You know, I read some books about the breath and what's going on in the body when we breathe and all about the lungs. And what's happening when we hold our breath and exhale and breathing and certain pieces nose breathing, mouth breathing and the difference breath and it's it's definitely reached my levels of cardio to it to a new level. I wish I knew this stuff about the breath and the power of the breath halves of our body. When I was fighting when I was younger, I feel I would have been better than it was. And just knowing that, you know, it's the human species were the only species on the planet. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but we're the only species that has the ability to speed up our heart rate from our breath. And the only species that can slow heart rate down. No other animal can do that.
Martin O'Toole 1:29:15
Have you read James Nestos book?
1:29:17
Yeah, I read it. Yeah, it's a great book.
Martin O'Toole 1:29:20
He's a he's a wizard when it comes to all things breath.
1:29:22
And that's one of the things that's where, you know, the level of cardio and fighters it's reaching whole new levels now. And I started experimenting a little while is like bringing in small breath holes into my training, which is quite intense. And yeah, there's, there's, there's so many different levels to it. And then there's the oxygen masks that people can wear. Now, I'm not a big believer and then there's the altitude training where you're training up in the up in the mountains where people where there's less oxygen, so when you come down to normal levels, you're absolutely spot. One of the things that yeah, it's one of the things I say to people too is if you're fit in Bali if you get fit in one about classes if you're getting through it and you're one of the top people in the class, you're a beast. If you go back to your country Yeah, where it's not as humid and you're not sweating as much and it's a whole different level. You're an absolute beast. I used to get this from you know, I learned this from an I live in Thailand, I would get fit in Thailand and go back to Australia and just be an absolute weapon. It's so easy. I can breathe the air and I hadn't. I believe Bali is one of those human places in the world. So you sweat a lot
Martin O'Toole 1:30:29
is regular humidity even
1:30:33
from the humidity, it feels like you're getting less oxygen and I see all the time people have never been in they come in the gym, they fit in their country. They might be from Europe, you know, we've had we've had a guy come from Norway winter one time coming to class. He's like I'm obese and super fit. And then half of his I'm seeing like Dr. Mike do because you've come from like Tanzania, and I'm from mica Pacer is 10 five degrees and you're training and most humid places in the world. It takes the body time to adapt. And I remember even but the body's very powerful and how it adapts it will adapt. I mean when I first moved to Thailand, I flew over to Thailand and I booked myself in for a fight started flight training. And I was just like what have I done I can't do this my whole body was just aching because you sweat so much more in times very similar similar temperatures to here and I flew from an Australian winter it was like late June so it was very cold flew over there Australian fire camp and I was just cramping every day and my muscles were cramping was so hard for me. I was getting beaten up by the time it was getting really sounds I can't do this. My body like these guys are a different level. I can't do this in this heat. After two weeks as I hold a stick it out a little bit longer to two weeks my body adapted. It's the same for us here is you know, my body is extremely climatized to the heat here. You know I trained I've trained been training every single day now for five years. And then I remember little trips going back to Australia just makes everything easy and what all is easy.
Martin O'Toole 1:31:53
What else that's fascinating and also something you said Jules a minute ago as as just contemplating. There does seem to be this emergence convergence now between certain fitness experts, you included and the some of the yogic traditions and I'm fascinated with what's happening there. And along with and you've mentioned Wim Hof, of course, I think Wim Hof done a wonderful thing for for the, for the story of breath in general.
Julia Malcolmson 1:32:26
There's people making it accessible, aren't they, they're sort of taking a lot of the ancient practices or the breath work was there before and just re it's been repaired repackaging it, and then it appeals to different people will still resonate with the traditional, you know, a lot of the breath work I do and Kundalini is so similar. Yeah, that Wim Hof for a lot of the more modern techniques of breath is not a modern technique. It's just no rewrapped and presented and
Martin O'Toole 1:32:51
nobody's invented any of these new these breathwork takes around for a long time. 1000s and millions of years. We've been using breathwork
1:32:59
was the one who made it big and woke everyone up to it and exactly the hour of it. And yeah, I remember when I first did the Wim Hof I was I was blown away. And I've done lots of breath work over the years and learned stuff on my own and gone through study done lots of studies on my own and figured out how can I bring this into training you know, and, and I've learned and I've learned lots, but I also to have found that a lot of people have taken the breath work as a money grab, you know, it's like yeah, I can sit to you right now and make you hyperventilate and gold tingly. And you're gonna be like, Oh my God, what just happened to me? Yeah, that's the power of the breath, man. No, I just made you hyperventilate, didn't breathe overnight. And it's very, very Yeah, that's one of the negatives I feel is people who aren't that experienced in teaching breath work, or they only know how to teach one way. They know how to teach the way. The Wim Hof way, which is to hyperventilate, yes, you are going to feel tingly. It's the body's natural response to being hyper ventilated. And it's become a selling tool to sell that feeling. Yeah, I've done it too many friends and stuff like that. They've never done it before. They're like, Oh my God, you just do? Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 1:34:13
No, you did it yourself.
1:34:14
Just hyperventilate to do it's easy.
Julia Malcolmson 1:34:16
It's a weird, it's weird how that's been repackaged, actually, because if you think again, it's a breath work tool. Yeah, you can add all these other breathwork exercises that are in class and you would do multiple exercises in one class. Or you can pay like, sometimes up to 10 times the amount to go and do one type of breath.
Martin O'Toole 1:34:33
Breathing we're talking about as well. Yeah, yeah, there's
Julia Malcolmson 1:34:36
various Yeah, Holotropic No,
Martin O'Toole 1:34:38
I mean, the the breath you've find yourself it
Julia Malcolmson 1:34:43
really depends on the instructor because I've done a lot of conscious connecting breath work and sometimes nothing's happening and I've just been taught to hyperventilate, but other times I've worked with practitioners who I am actually having an incredible out of body experience and I'm seeing visions and it becomes completely different practice. Yeah, as you said, so many people are now marketing themselves as
1:35:05
Leno. And I feel that they're all marketing themselves in a different way to try to make himself sound different. But they're still using the same tool. They're hyperventilating. Soon, but different, you're gonna get the similar response to the body, you're gonna get the tingles in your hands, and people might cry and that type of thing, and then people are going to have Yeah, I remember the first time I did, it brought stuff up, you know, the first time I ever done it was many, many years ago and brought stuff up. And I feel that a lot of people that learning about to become a breathwork teacher, but they're not learning to deal with the people when those things come up. No,
Julia Malcolmson 1:35:36
you're learning to break down but you don't have to fix them when
Martin O'Toole 1:35:40
that happens. Well, that's we talked about that on the show before in a different context, unfortunately, and I suspect it's it's in part thanks to technology now we have the and and our widespread use of screen so now we're and obviously the pandemic which locked down for two years so so online learning has become significantly more present for sure. But then they're also the repeat I think there's also this this evolving growth rather of people who are healed in some way. Yeah, they, they discover a methodology, which helps them and then they go wow, I want to share this with everybody for sure. And now suddenly, you can do a five hour course online get a certificate. Yeah, pretty much anything and we were talking about how you can you can actually get plant medicine Charmin certificates online now,
Julia Malcolmson 1:36:31
that means is that plant medicine I thought it was just shamanism,
Martin O'Toole 1:36:35
okay. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think it's shamanism but clusters of fat as a foundation stone for then pitching yourself in his appointment isn't Shaman. And as we know, don't want to be doing anything like that with anybody wasn't citing the jungle for years worked with the tribes doing this sort of stuff. So and the same goes for what you do. And the same goes for modules does you know we have we have a lot of a lot of young yoga teachers now. Don't worry, we're done. 50 hours? Yeah. In whatever school, any school let's face it, and then and then they're all pitching themselves out as yoga teachers and I'm not necessarily I'm not I'm not disrespecting the aspiration is to want to heal people. Yeah, I think that's a beautiful thing, for sure. But I think we are we've now set ourselves up for failure. Because just because just like everything else is a hack. There's a hack this and that. And hacks for a loan is a hack for everything. i Sorry, sorry to interrupt you. I saw a video on YouTube the other day, which was how to hack your karma. Hack, hack, cleansing your karma hack. Okay, so there's now a five minute video you can watch that tells you how to get out of some the samsaric cycle of life, birth and life death and rebirth. Like that. Anyway, what we're going to say,
1:37:48
yeah, it's become very easy for people to trick people with use of social media, especially in Bali. You know, it's very, you guys would know, there's lots of coaches here. There's lots of love ruins life. Yes, there's some good coaches. But there is also some business coaches that don't even own a business. There is also some relationship coaches who have never held a long term relationship. There is some fitness coaches who aren't fit. There are some breathwork coaches who don't even know how to breathe properly. You know, it's, it's, I'm a big believer, and I always say is like, practice what you preach. And one thing from my gym, I get a lot of people sending resumes. It's like, oh, can I get a job? Everyone was live in Bali. So we get a lot of resumes from people. It's like, I've never even looked at one I don't I don't look at a resume. I don't pay attention to a resume because for me, the best trainer from my from my personal experiences we were recently going to open another BTC and Chango and it was very hard for me I was like Who can I find someone to replicate me? Who can be someone that's seen on the same level as me you know, it was very difficult and it's one of the reasons why we took so why while we weren't going to do it another reason why we didn't do it in the end and when I found when I finally found because you got to be fit you can't just go and teach down there if you're not fit you know and and I've said it to a lot of people is I would Yeah, so it was very hard on me the person who I ended up finding was was my best friend he flew over here is his I'd say he's on par is fit fit with me he's we were pretty much drawing everything we've competed everything our lives we run the same we burpee the same actually actually beat me on burpees recently, but I guess that must have been he does have the gym burpee record. Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 1:39:37
I mean, I've seen you do burnouts in your monster when you reach
1:39:40
those levels to reach those levels of fitness that I'm talking about of my friend and myself. You have learned a lot. What I've learned about the body in my own development is how I teach people you know, you could never learn that from a book or from a six week PT loss or from an E course it's taken me I've been doing this for almost Yeah, almost 20 years. Yeah, almost 20 years and all these things I've learned and I experiment with my own body, you know, I'll go through stages where I'll train just strength for three months, I'll train cardio for three months, I'll do running for three months, I've done my time for certain amounts of time and boxing for set amounts of times and trying all different types of things, trying different diets yourself. It's like, I can't tell someone what the right diet if I've never tried to tell someone veganism isn't the right way. If I haven't tried it, I can't tell someone these things if I haven't tried it, and I can't teach someone how to be really, really, really fit and strong. If I'm not one. I don't believe you can. Amen to that. You know, and, and if you're, and they wouldn't, they wouldn't they wouldn't people don't trust you to at some. They say one thing is with a with a PT with a as a trainer. We're lucky in Bali because it's very sweaty, you don't have to wear a shirt. But if you're a trainer, your uniforms, your body, you know, people are gonna look at your body. If you got a good body, they're gonna listen to you. No one's gonna listen to an overweight fat PT, like you do if you do 30 burpees don't you tell me do you do our ratio? You know, and another big thing is I'll never dish out a workout to someone that I can't do better myself, you know, because in case they turn around, they say to me, Look, well, that's impossible. I'm like, Alright, watch. I'll do it. And that's how I that's how I try and inspire people. I always try to inspire people from you know, my own trainings and how I live my life. And, you know, it's, there's no fakeness to it, because I do love it. It's like,
Martin O'Toole 1:41:30
Oh, there's one thing I'm clear after this conversation is how much you love exercise, which is brilliant. Yeah. What? Because we're gonna have to wrap up in a minute what so you mentioned Jim Chang. Is that opening? What's happening with the with Valley Training Centre? And what's the
1:41:47
valley trying to at the moment, I'm opening a recovery centre in Michigan. So yeah, over the another addiction of mine is saunas and ice baths.
Martin O'Toole 1:41:57
So biohacking. Yeah.
1:41:59
I'm opening a recovery centre and being in the unit. About that. Yeah. So yeah, it's all official. My wife and I, we started building it about six months ago. Yeah. And, yeah, it'd be ready in probably January. Cool. Yeah. So it's become a sauna as an icebox to become a huge part of my training. I love it. It's part of my ritual. I love it just as much as my exercise. And one of the greatest things with saunas is a lot of people don't realise like it's cardio exercise, your heart rate gets up. So on the days, when some days when I'm very busily worked out, if I have worked on the construction or had to do Denpasar days or haven't had the time or it's been raining, and I can't go for a run, or I just don't feel like being in the gym. Some of the times too. I'll spend so much time teaching in the gym, giving everyone my energy. I don't feel like doing a workout in my own gym, I want to go somewhere else and bit of peace and quiet. I'll go jump in the sauna. And I've done it a lot of experiments to on my own body with Heat Shock Therapy, which is where you do a big workout and then the second you're done, you jump in the sauna. Increase your heat shock proteins within into a cold plunge. I'll go and sit and breathe for 20 minutes to get the to absorb more benefits of the heat. This is like intense levels of training. I don't do this all the time. I only do this when I'm trying to reach a certain goal of cardio endurance. But yeah, that's that's the thing is what I love about this one as an icebreaker. There's so many different avenues for it. There is the sports side of it. There is the relaxation side of it. There is the inflammation and injury healing side of it. There's so many different aspects of it. There's
Martin O'Toole 1:43:33
I think there's a meditative aspect to cold punches as well
Julia Malcolmson 1:43:37
on on the sonar as well even the infrared neutral plan
1:43:41
is a huge one, especially if it's cold. I think Wim Hof is the same as like you're never more present when you're the freezing cold ice.
Martin O'Toole 1:43:49
Jules is just stuck because Jules teaches at the Assam Maya. Awesome and they've got ice baths cold
Julia Malcolmson 1:43:55
ice bath and it's the first time I've done
Martin O'Toole 1:44:00
could you Jews wouldn't even be in a cold shower, really. And I
Julia Malcolmson 1:44:05
had to start with them that with Kundalini I have a cold shower every morning but obviously barley a cold shower and barley. It's not it's not it's not cold. But yeah, and then I've started using the infrared sauna. And then I have the cold plunge but it always takes me a cut. I can't it always like the first time I go in. I get to my knees and then I get out and have a little freakout and then I go back in again and get down but I don't stay in there long yet. I'm still
Martin O'Toole 1:44:25
very used to but the point is you you keep turning up your
1:44:29
body adapts it take it takes time. And when I first I Spy thing Yeah, I wasn't very good at it. But I've been doing it for many, many many years and it gets very addictive so be careful.
Martin O'Toole 1:44:37
But the physiological benefits off RedBubble
1:44:41
aren't they can't even get started. Well
Martin O'Toole 1:44:44
that makes me think that when you open up if you'll have as we'll come over and bring the podcast to to the to the recovery centre and maybe we can talk to you about that particularly,
1:44:55
that'd be awesome on site.
Julia Malcolmson 1:44:57
You don't feel me getting in the
Martin O'Toole 1:44:59
way Yeah, we'll all get the ice bath.
1:45:02
We'll do the podcast in let's see how long we do it and see how relaxed the conversations are. Let's talk about cold stuff.
Julia Malcolmson 1:45:13
How long do you spend in it?
1:45:15
It's completely different. It changes everything I like to do it's there is no answer. There is no right or wrong answer. You can go through all different scientific books of how long should you spend it, it comes down to what is the temperature of the ice bath? Some ice baths are 3456 up at 12 degrees up to 14 degrees. Depends what you're in there for. depends completely I've done it once or I did too long where I didn't feel too good. But I wouldn't do it again. And a lot of it too when I first started ice birthing you know I do with my mates and we'd challenge them on all out ice bath you till I'm like it's two hours later. I'm still shivering hypothermic. Yeah. hypothetic myself on time. Yeah. Well, that
Martin O'Toole 1:45:54
was a couple of hours.
1:45:55
I did 20 minutes, right? Yeah, well, I'm stupid. You're stupid. It was my ego. I was like, I'm gotten a bit more older now. I had a baby detach from ego. Separate.
Martin O'Toole 1:46:07
Well, I was wondering, I wasn't sure how long was safe because I saw Russell Brand doing a challenge actually on his social. Yeah, so that was well, that was 20 minutes,
1:46:15
I think oh man. No, it was a cold one to
Martin O'Toole 1:46:18
last mass. Actually, my buddy Cole what he done Butterworths started that company. It's what they called Brass Monkey. Shout out to Dan and the guys at Brass Monkey in the UK. They handmade those baths. And Russell Brand's got one and then he's doing Dan and his buddies and his business are doing a phenomenal job already of spreading the wellness but in the UK as well. Now he's talking about cold plunging in the UK and getting into a cold plunge bath here or in the morning. degree Yeah, I
1:46:52
don't. I've never done one in a cold climate. I've done them here and in Australia in the summer. That's the only time I've ever I've ever done it
Martin O'Toole 1:46:59
from going from the cold to the cold. I was in somewhere different climate.
1:47:03
I'm going to do it on my next trip to Europe whenever I go to winter. I'm so excited because I have this love for cold water now to go swim in the lakes while swimming. Yeah,
Julia Malcolmson 1:47:11
it's such a big thing in England right now people swimming in the sea.
1:47:14
Yeah, super cool. I mean, like, I think Wim Hof the one who made it public he's brought this breath and this whole love for the ice and it's become viral it's become Yes. And you know, that can come back to the powers of social media. Because of the internet social media. We all have these access to these tools. Absolutely. That's one of the ones is we don't know. Like there is all these scientific evidence and all this proof that sauntering everyday and is barfing. It's gonna does make you live longer. This was
Julia Malcolmson 1:47:41
the Scandinavians saunas, and then the snow,
1:47:44
for sure. Yeah, I'm excited to have it on our doorsteps and be able to do every day when I wake up and come and see it and also learn like there's so many more things to bring into it, you know, I'm going to try to bring a new more things of my own training. And I've already experimented with training and then jumping into sonar. And then there's the crazy things you can do what you do train in a sauna, and that type of thing. And I love the
Martin O'Toole 1:48:07
fact that you're constantly doing these experiments, which you then then you're considering how you can bring that back into into your client and for your clients. That's nice. Yeah.
1:48:18
When you find that space and even one of the things why I'm so excited to open this and your recovery phase, it's gonna be called Santai by the way, sometimes anti Santai means relax Indonesian language. So for me, I'm sure you guys will have felt it too is when you're in freezing cold when you're in the ice bath you're very very very present. And I do find the similarities you know because for me not knowing how to meditate many years ago not loving exercise not knowing that it was helping me when you do you guys will understand the feeling when you do feel that feeling in that space. It's one space you always are you in the ice bath you know I've had some of the most beautiful experiences just sitting on ice bath the most beautiful experiences and doing breath work and meditating and ice bath I've reached some very very high levels that I haven't been able to to tap to
Martin O'Toole 1:49:06
altered states of consciousness Yeah,
1:49:08
yeah 100%
Martin O'Toole 1:49:09
No, I can well believe it okay, do you want to shout out your social media and website and anything like that just before we before we let you go so people can follow you here just shout
1:49:20
out my gyms Instagram just by training centre by training
Martin O'Toole 1:49:25
centre as easy as that all there is anybody wants to check out my personal
1:49:30
one I don't really use it last night. I think I use it sometimes I'll use it again one
Martin O'Toole 1:49:34
they'll get enough inspiration from following barely trace Training Centre have no doubt Well, I thanks very much Jake. I've really enjoyed really enjoyed this conversation. We could
1:49:43
sit here and talk for hours.
Martin O'Toole 1:49:44
Yeah. We actually talked for hours Wow, super quick. Yeah. And we've had dogs bouncing off the sofa and old helicopters flying over
Julia Malcolmson 1:49:53
yeah as witching hour. The dogs are ready for a run. They need their exercise and they just start they start spinning around the garden.
Martin O'Toole 1:49:59
Maybe we should You just give them a cold plunge. So thanks thanks again for coming to see us for that and we'll let will come and see me seeing
1:50:07
you guys soon. Thank you. Peace out.
Martin O'Toole 1:50:10
Peace and love.
