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Listening to your body

ingrid barclay podcast with guest dr paul cribb

Founder and CEO of Metabolic Precision (MP) which is a one-stop-shop for providing the tools, the strategies and the knowledge and also the support. Dr Cribb has 3 undergraduate degrees, PhD in body composition, and in 2006 was one of Australia’s leading scientists. Dr Cribb loves surfing and first picked up the first barbell at the age of 17.

By the time Dr Cribb was 24 years old, he was known for competitive competition in the Seagulls Rugby League Club as a forward. He balanced operating his personal training business out of Melbourne and charging $300 per hour back in the ’90s. However, all this came to a sharp halt when he blew out his L4/L5 disc and couldn’t walk. This was due to an overworking and continuous gridding of his disc from heavy and incorrect deadlift and squats. He lost a large portion of his life to disc operations and artificial discs. This life-changing experience catapulted him to education in the field of personal training, with facts and science, rather than here-say and the latest fitness fads.

When we are young, we think that we are invincible, but one day, without the care and knowledge to build strength the correct way, you are in for a rude shock. Fifteen years ago, I would be the last person to talk about the importance of warming up, but now I preach about it all the time!

Up until the age of 45, I had no understanding of the concept of injury. Now, it takes me 35 minutes to warm up, and before I even start my actual workout routine, I am stuffed! However, the body is now primed, ready for action, and with increased protection from injury. Foam rollers, kettlebells and TRX bands all assist as a protective layer for your body to reduce the chances of injury. It is so important.

Dr Cribb laughs, “Yes, you need to do a warmup workout before you start working out!”

“What about recovery?” I asked.

“I have spent a small fortune on chiropractors, acupuncture and physio, everything over the years, and it has all helped, there are great people in each of those areas, but I had to come back to putting the owness on myself, and making sure that I strength every day, and use swiss balls, foam rollers; it comes back to making sure you’re looking after yourself every day. If we let things accumulate, that’s when the problems start. It’s all about that ongoing maintenance. I am doing things on a (surf)board now that I couldn’t do when I was 26 years old.”

What it comes down to is what is your ‘why’? Why do you wish to get in shape, why do you want to put yourself through the pain? What is the motivation? What is the picture of your life that you desire? This is the carrot. You can kick a donkey as much as you want, you will get little movement, a grumpy donkey and a sore foot. But if you place a carrot in front of the donkey, then the donkey will move, always seeing the carrot insight. You are making the donkey move with little energy expended.

“When I was 14, I used to write out the weight training programs for the guys in my football team. In high school, instead of passing notes around the classroom, I would pass the training program to the other guys in our team. I would be writing out what the centres are going to do, what us forwards were going to be doing. I would be passing them around at maths and English classes”.

“You have to learn to listen to your body. Some people want to ignore that, they grid through the week to get things done, rain, hail or shine. They try to do a five day a week program, they get really upset if they can’t do it”.

“On the Gold Coast, I used to train a lot of tradies. Guys would come to us, try to do the regular split routine, and Gold Coast is hot, and the tradies are doing long hours, labour-intensive work. I put them on program two, sometimes one day per week. Their wives couldn’t believe it. They called me up, thinking I had put them on steroids”.

You can build a singular training for everyone. Everyone has different lifestyles, eating habits and body. For the tradies, they needed time to recover, and the workout program allowed them to do this.

Every body is different. Every one should have a program that suits them. This is why you should listen to your body, but maybe, it has been a long time sine you have done this, so do it now. Close your eyes and listen to her.

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