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Cameron Francis is joined by Chris Ackland, the Head Coach at CrossFit Box Hill and Founder of Iron Tribe Weightlifting, to discuss Health, Fitness, Workouts, Meal Preparation, Nutrition & so much more for the busy, busy business person. Tune in to learn how to workout without going to the gym, what to eat and when and how to get the most out of sleep.


Show Notes:

  • If you fail, start again – 00:07:36:05
  • Realistic goals -00:09:48:03
  • Tips to improve physical state, mental state, emotional state – 00:11:49:13
  • The rule of 5 – 00:13:15:01
  • Find something that you enjoy that you consider as exercise – 00:16:56:24
  • If you can’t go to the gym, squat – 00:18:24:23
  • Documenting your progress – 00:20:46:29
  • Tracking tools – 00:22:29:15
  • How gymnasts train – 00:23:30:15
  • Healthy eating – 00:29:14:13
  • Sleeping habits – 00:46:15:13
  • How do I start – 00:53:13:11

Resources mentioned:

Beyonce Tension Gymnastics

Dr. Kirk Parsley – America’s Biggest Problem

Dr. Kirk Parsley – Quick way to Naturally Increase Testosterone

For more information on Chris Ackland and Iron Tribe, log on to www.irontribe.com.au

Transcript

Chris Ackland:

I think step one would be just get to the gym three days a week. And

 

actually, not even the gym. You need to find something that you really enjoy

 

that is considered exercise in your mind.

Cameron Francis:

One of the best sayings I’ve ever heard is pressure, stress is pressure.

 

Pressure makes diamonds, right? I love that. When pressures comes and

 

when you’re feeling that stress you’ve got two options. You can either take it

 

on and get better from it, or you can let it affect you.

Speaker 1:

Digital Cowboys episode three. We discuss everything digital marketing and

 

growth hacking for small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs. So if you

 

want that competitive edge then saddle up, because Cameron Francis and

 

Sam Roshan are about to drop some value bombs.

Cameron Francis:

Hey everybody, this is Cameron Francis and this is episode three of Digital

 

Cowboys. Now I’m really excited today, I have got Chris Ackland, he’s the

 

head coach at Crossfit Boxhill and founder of Iron Tribe Weightlifting. He

 

was one of the founders of a very successful digital marketing company in

 

Melbourne, but he sold his shares to pursue his passion for movement and

 

strength training.

 

Chris has been coaching for five years, and in that short span of time he has

 

left no stone unturned, having worked with some of the best coaches in the

 

world. A consistent podium finisher at state championships and 10th placer

 

in the nationals, Chris also headed to China to learn about coaching and to

 

improve his techniques. Chris’s biggest motivation is to improve the state of

 

weightlifting as a sport and give it the recognition it deserves.

 

For Chris, strength training is the fountain of youth. It is an effective

 

approach in improve a person’s strength, power, movement, and vitality.

 

He’s known as someone who actually walks the talk and he believes that the

 

real adventure happens in the journey itself. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris

 

Ackland.

 

Woo! Chrissy!

Chris Ackland:

Good introduction.

Cameron Francis:

How did that, did that feel a little bit awkward going through all of it?

Chris Ackland:

That did feel awkward, yeah, it was beautiful.

Cameron Francis:

Excellent. So you’ve been doing this for, how long have you been doing Iron

 

Tribe Weightlifting for?

Chris Ackland:

Iron Tribe officially started middle of last year.

Cameron Francis:

And how’s it all been going?

Chris Ackland:

It’s been going really well.

Cameron Francis:

As expected?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, I didn’t probably have any expectations when I first started it, but

 

through the help of my current boss at Crossfit Boxhill he’s helped kind of

 

push it which has been fantastic. And organically, like I’m not actually trying

 

to necessarily attract new clients now, I’m just trying to put out great

 

content.

Cameron Francis:

What have you been putting out? What have you been doing?

Chris Ackland:

Just educating people on the technical side of the movements that I teach.

 

I’ll soon be doing a video on food prep for the person sitting in front of me.

Cameron Francis:

It’s a pain in the ass to do it. It’s actually not easy.

Chris Ackland:

It isn’t, it isn’t. And I think when you start to enjoy the process a little bit of it

 

all that’s when it makes it a little bit easier. But when it’s seen as a chore,

 

like anything we’ll avoid it like the plague.

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, okay.

Chris Ackland:

Just self-preservation unfortunately takes precedence.

Cameron Francis:

What’s the next step for you? What’s the focus?

Chris Ackland:

The next step for me is just to keep moving forward, try and grow the sport.

 

I’m going to hopefully give back a little bit. So this year I plan on getting the

 

referee license and starting to volunteer a bit more.

Cameron Francis:

What does that mean? Referee for what?

Chris Ackland:

For weightlifting. I’ll be one of the people eventually making a decision on

 

some poor lifter if they made the lift successfully or if they didn’t make the

 

lift successfully.

Cameron Francis:

So what is a successful lift? And what is the definition?

Chris Ackland:

So the sport of weightlifting is the sport of the snatch and the clean and jerk.

 

Two movements. The snatch is taking from the ground or a barbell is taken

 

from the ground overhead in one movement. The clean and jerk is taken

 

from the ground to your shoulders and then to overhead. A successful lift

 

would be, there’s a couple factors come into it. Basically doing it without

 

pressing out. So you’ve got to catch the bar with straight arms above your

 

head, you’ve got to show control at the top of the lift for the three judges in

 

front of you to then give you the three white lights. So one judge per one

 

white light. Two white light gets you a good lift out of three. And two red

 

light gets you a no lift or three red lights as well.

Cameron Francis:

How’d you go in the last contest?

Chris Ackland:

Last contest came third at state championships. I didn’t do too bad.

 

Obviously it was a bit of a battle for second, but the guy unfortunately got

 

me.

Cameron Francis:

Did he? By how much?

Chris Ackland:

I think he beat me by four kilos.

Cameron Francis:

Is that a lot? It doesn’t seem like a lot.

Chris Ackland:

It’s not. But it is. My first goal was to go six for six. I’d had an average

 

competition the one beforehand. So I wasn’t actually aiming at beating the

 

total that I got the competition beforehand, it was just to go on. Because

 

you get three attempts at the snatch, three attempts at the clean and jerk.

 

And it was just kind of a confidence building competition. I was doing that, I

 

ended up hitting five out of six. And the last lift probably would have put me

 

a kilo behind, so I could have essentially gone for the win if I’d have put two

 

more kilos on the bar.

Cameron Francis:

What’s your PB in comparison to what you did?

Chris Ackland:

So my best, depends on how you look at it. My best clean is 134 kilos. My

 

best clean and jerk is 128. 127 on the day.

Cameron Francis:

Okay. Well that’s good. Is there a goal of getting as close to your PB …?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, and every competition’s got a different goal so you might do four,

 

upwards of maybe five to six competitions depending on how new you are,

 

and you don’t look to PR at all the competitions, you just look to build

 

confidence and you might use them as warmups for national, state meets,

 

international meets, things like that.

Cameron Francis:

Okay. When’s the next one?

Chris Ackland:

The next one, I haven’t set a date, I’ve got two options. I could enter myself

 

into a Crossfit weightlifting competition which actually carries prizes and

 

possible monies. Which is always a kind of nice thing. But because I’m in the

 

process of moving up a weight class I’ll struggle to do super well in that one.

 

If I was at my lighter body weight doing what I do now I would probably

 

push some people to be competitive. So that’s a kind of maybe one, which is

 

a bit sooner than I’d like. I’m in a bit of a building phase at the moment.

 

Probably four months from now I’ll do another one.

Cameron Francis:

Do you know that we’ve probably known each other for about 15 years.

Chris Ackland:

I do know that.

Cameron Francis:

And you hear a lot of people talk about health, they talk about fitness, about

 

what’s the best deadlift and all of these kind of things. And a lot of the time

 

it’s just rehashing other people’s information. So the reason I say this, I’ve

 

wanted to speak to you today to give some tips, tricks, or ideas for the busy

 

business owner, the busy founder, someone exactly like myself that doesn’t

 

prioritize their health over everything else. A perfect example, I try very

 

hard, but very, very easily it can fall down on the priority list. Something

 

comes up, I’ve got to do A, I’ve got to do B, I’ve got to take this phone call.

 

And then that compounds. And then I get into this really negative

 

momentum where it’s like now I wake up it’s like, “Fuck, I really can’t be

 

bothered going to the gym.” And then just now I’ve accepted it, and so now

 

I’ve got to break it somehow. But the crazy thing is, if I go to the gym I’ll feel

 

like …

Chris Ackland:

A million bucks.

Cameron Francis:

Two million. Like I feel really, really good. I feel strong, I feel handsome, I

 

feel good.

Chris Ackland:

Absolutely.

Cameron Francis:

But why can’t I just do that the next … you know what I mean?

Chris Ackland:

You know, I had a group client … I think the tough part about it is, and

 

especially from someone in your shoes, the busy corporate male or female,

 

whatever it might be, I think the big issue can be they want to do everything

 

100%. If they’re going to do it, they need to start tomorrow and they can’t

 

fail, they can’t falter, there can be no issues in what’s going on. Now the big

 

problem with that is we all fall down, we all make mistakes, it’s never going

 

to start at 100%. I mean, you’ve only got to go and look into your own

 

business at the mistakes that have been made. And that’s basically how we

 

learn, right? Instead of having a learning mentality or a teachable moment

 

mentality we kind of have it, “Well no. Tomorrow I’m going to the gym, I’m

 

going to be there at 5:00 and I’m going to be there for the next seven days in

 

a row.” And if we fail one of those days, then we’re like, “Fuck it, I’ll start it

 

next Monday.”

Cameron Francis:

Yes. It’s exactly what happens.

Chris Ackland:

Do you know what? I’ve got a 21st coming up or now at our age, we got 30th

 

we got a baby shower’s coming up, I’ll wait until after that. Or a holiday. And

 

sometimes people use that as motivations and obviously, look we’re goal

 

driven people, which is fantastic, we need those goals. But the problem with

 

a lot of those goals is, let’s use you as an example Cam, getting married in

 

August.

Cameron Francis:

October 14th. Thanks for remembering, you just happen to be in the bridal

 

party. Make sure you put that in the diary.

Chris Ackland:

I’m just thinking about the bachelor party, we’ve got to get through that

 

first, haven’t we?

 

And what’ll end up happening is you’ll hit your goal, because majority of

 

people actually hit their goals, it’s just how long do they hit their goals for?

 

So people have a bit going in, they get to that goal and they don’t set the

 

next one quick enough or they don’t set a long term picture, and next thing

 

you know they revert back to old habits. Because they don’t have that drive

 

or that why.

 

With every one of my clients the first thing I have to try and find out is,

 

“Why do you want to do this?” And unfortunately, losing weight for your

 

wedding although it might be motivation now, if I’m going to work with you

 

for years to come it’s not a good enough motivator.

Cameron Francis:

What if I continually get married though?

Chris Ackland:

Well then you’d be set for life.

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, because then it’s not much of an issue.

Chris Ackland:

I think you’d need three jobs to cover that.

Cameron Francis:

Okay, so for those normal people that aren’t going to continually get

 

married what would be some of the good goals that, what are some realistic

 

ones?

Chris Ackland:

They need to be, your ‘why’ needs to be special to yourself. Because 8 week

 

challenges, 28 day challenges, things like that. 8 week challenges, things of

 

that nature, they’re great because they get people moving, they get people

 

in the gym, and they get them working towards a common goal with people

 

that have similar interests. Now when you’ve got that motivation around

 

you and you’ve got those people messaging you it works really well. What

 

naturally happens is the 8 week challenge finishes and the gym might offer

 

you a discounted gym membership and signs you up, and that’s fantastic.

 

But if you lose contact with those people who you were with you just kind of

 

lose motivation. That’s not going to get into the gym, right? So having the

 

goal of, “I want to lose five kilos,” at 5:00 in the morning isn’t going to get

 

you out of bed.

 

So you can have performance goals. I think the reason what keeps me kind

 

of going to the gym personally is mine are all performance based. So if I miss

 

x amount of days that pushes my goals back. I’ll never compete at the

 

Commonwealth Games or the Olympics or anything like that. I think a great

 

goal of mine would be to one day get selected for a Commonwealth Games

 

shadow team, which is like kind of reaching for the stars, reaching for the

 

moon and the stars type scenario. And that’s what keeps me driven.

 

And the other thing is for now, while I’m a bit younger, I want to stay ahead

 

of my athletes. And that’s what motivates me, the ability to have done it. So

 

that 10 years from now I can say that I competed in a nationals before I took

 

an athlete to nationals. So as a coach that only made me better. Because I

 

made a couple of mistakes with myself that I didn’t make with my lifter and

 

she ended up placing second at nationals.

Cameron Francis:

So what about if we’re looking at someone that runs their own business,

 

they work anywhere from 60 to 100 hours a week. Their diet’s inconsistent.

 

You can imagine their sleeping patterns.

Chris Ackland:

Atrocious.

Cameron Francis:

But high performers, you know? That’s what they do. What are some of the

 

tips that you would want to give them in order to improve their physical

 

state, their mental state, their emotional state, all of the above?

Chris Ackland:

I think step one would be just get to the gym three days a week. Actually not

 

even the gym. You need to find something that you really enjoy that is

 

considered exercise in your mind. Because obviously the brain is where half

 

the battle takes place. And just the act of exercise whether it’s exercising

 

playing racquetball or something …

Cameron Francis:

Squash.

Chris Ackland:

When you’re playing squash. Whether you’re going to the gym, like I happen

 

to find that most busy executives love getting strong. They’ve got that alpha

 

male about them, they love putting a heavy bar and just being like, “I can

 

deadlift 200 kilos, when I go into the office and I’m sitting across someone

 

who looks like he doesn’t go to the gym, I’ve got an edge on him.” Whether

 

it’s a psychological edge or whatever. So you need to find something first

 

that you can justify to yourself and you can take time away from your

 

business.

Cameron Francis:

The weight lifting one’s very interesting. It’s very interesting because there’s

 

a lot of parallels between that alpha male strength and just the mental

 

aspect of everything that we do. So okay, so weightlifting. Trying to go three

 

times a day.

Chris Ackland:

Three times a week.

Cameron Francis:

Three times …

Chris Ackland:

So that’s the thing, it needs to start slow and it needs to become like you

 

said, habits. So step one might be pick, I think it’s called the rule of five, pick

 

five things that really, really mean alot to you with regards to your health.

 

And prioritize it from one through five. What you do from that is, get rid of

 

number five, focus on the first four.

Cameron Francis:

Interesting. So give me an example of what that looks like.

Chris Ackland:

So let’s say for example I need to, sleep for number one. Because if I’m not

 

sleeping it’s going to affect my work, and output if I don’t go to the gym.

 

Number two would be nutrition … This is just off the top of my head.

 

Number two would be nutrition. Three would be actually going to the gym.

 

Four might be the quality of my nutrition, as opposed to like … My big thing

 

when I say nutrition is there’s eating and then there’s people that starve

 

themselves. Like I’ve got a corporate client at the moment who it wouldn’t

 

surprise me if he didn’t eat for two days. He’d live off coffee and …

Cameron Francis:

Deliberately, or …?

Chris Ackland:

Well, just busy.

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Chris Ackland:

He might, what I would consider not eating. I think people have different

 

mindsets as to we have an overeating culture. I think to a degree that’s true,

 

but I also think there’s a lot of people out there that under-eat. They don’t

 

eat to fuel themselves.

Cameron Francis:

Do you think that an element’s got to do with knowing and understanding

 

what to eat, why, and how?

Chris Ackland:

For sure. And I think the biggest issue is it’s all complicated. And the fitness

 

industry likes it really complicated. Because a confused person is kind of

 

easier to manipulate. Because then you fall into categories. You’ve got the

 

low-carb category, the high-fat category, you’ve got the high-carb category,

 

you’ve got the paleo, you’ve got …

Cameron Francis:

So many, man. [crosstalk 00:14:45]

Chris Ackland:

All your gluten-free, dairy-free, everything. And then what happens is, again

 

falling back to that place, we fall into that same issue. And if we don’t do

 

that we fail and then we kind of resonates into failure or whatever happens.

Cameron Francis:

You know, I want to touch on nutrition and what should you eat. I want to

 

touch on the gym thing. So busy, go three times a week.

Chris Ackland:

Go three times a week, just do your weightlifting. So again, you have to

 

enjoy it so I’m not going to force someone to lift weights if they don’t enjoy

 

it. Because they’ll stop coming to the gym.

Cameron Francis:

So for those that don’t enjoy weightlifting, what do they generally like?

Chris Ackland:

It could be if it’s a girl, yoga. I think some fellas like yoga.

Cameron Francis:

So would you consider yoga to be, and I don’t know, but would you consider

 

it a type of working out?

Chris Ackland:

Sure. Absolutely.

Cameron Francis:

So that counts. So yoga, yogalates, pilates, weight lift, jiu-jitsu, boxing.

Chris Ackland:

Just be active. Movement is one of the biggest components to everything.

 

You look at what we do in a day like today. Let’s say for example you drive

 

45 minutes to work and you’re in meetings all day from 7:30 in the morning

 

until 6:30 at night. You’ve done approximately 12 to 13 hours of sitting

 

down. We’re not meant to sit down. We are meant to rest, cervezas,

 

absolutely …

Cameron Francis:

Did you just say cerveza? That is excellent.

Chris Ackland:

Oh yeah, cerveza too. What’s the Spanish word for sleep?

Cameron Francis:

Siesta.

Chris Ackland:

Siesta.

Cameron Francis:

But you know, and actually this is one thing I changed myself, because you

 

don’t come here much, but you notice that I have a standing desk, right? I

 

stand up until my feet are sore and then I go, “Shit, I’d better sit down.” I

 

agree. But I think I do it for a different reason. I do it because of momentum.

 

Like even right now sitting down I’m not as comfortable speaking than if I

 

was standing up.

Chris Ackland:

You can’t be as animated.

Cameron Francis:

Exactly, I’m more confined. So when I’m in my standing desk I’m able to

 

move a lot more, I can be a lot more animated, and I’ve just got a lot more

 

emotion flowing through me, whereas sitting down … Then also, by standing

 

up there comes along all those health benefits and all that stuff attached to

 

it.

Chris Ackland:

So I think number one, find something that you enjoy that you can consider

 

exercise. And it has to involve some form of movement. So obviously chess

 

exercises the brain, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s going to cut it.

Cameron Francis:

It’s movement, activity, sweat. I think sweat would be important.

Chris Ackland:

Sweat to a certain extent, yeah.

Cameron Francis:

So no sweat. So if you don’t sweat then that’s not good.

Chris Ackland:

No, I wouldn’t say that at all. Exercise needs to be, there’s too many

 

different categories for it, but to keep it simple let’s move for half an hour

 

and burn up a bit of a sweat. I think what I want to touch on is that and why

 

I kind of said it’s a little difficult is, something I want to train out of people as

 

much as possible is people have if it doesn’t hurt, it wasn’t worth their time.

Cameron Francis:

But what’s hurt mean?

Chris Ackland:

If I can’t walk for three days after my gym session I didn’t train hard enough.

Cameron Francis:

Who says that?

Chris Ackland:

Ah, people, “I wasn’t that sore on Monday so obviously I didn’t try hard

 

enough or you didn’t push me hard enough.” Or if it’s some guys who are

 

trying to get massive, like, “If my biceps aren’t exploding out of my arms for

 

the next three days, I didn’t train biceps hard enough.” And the only cool

 

quote I’ve got to say to that is if muscles soreness is a direct correlation with

 

getting bigger, go run a marathon with no marathon training and see how

 

sore you are. You wouldn’t have built any muscle doing that. And I think I

 

stole that from Layne Norton but …

Cameron Francis:

Okay, well let’s just say if someone can’t go to the gym time-wise, can they

 

do stuff in their office or can they do things at home?

Chris Ackland:

Both.

Cameron Francis:

Okay. So what can they do?

Chris Ackland:

First step would be learn how to squat. I think that’s key to most human

 

movement.

Cameron Francis:

You can YouTube that or you can email Chris. But you want people to learn

 

how to squat.

Chris Ackland:

Learn how to squat …

Cameron Francis:

Okay, I want to squat now.

Chris Ackland:

Sure, go for it.

Cameron Francis:

You tell me if this is good. I’m squatting. I’ve got a sick squat.

Chris Ackland:

I was going to say you’ve got the jeans for it. Yeah, it’s perfect. You guys just

 

missed out on the best squat I’ve ever seen.

Cameron Francis:

I didn’t want to brag. So tell me why that was the best squat you’ve ever

 

seen.

Chris Ackland:

Well basically you can use a squat as a diagnostic tool. If you see someone if

 

they’ve got a healthy squat and they’ve got good hips, good ankles and

 

obviously if they’ve got good knees and good ankles, the knees are in the

 

middle, they’re probably going to be healthy as well. Big generalization, but

 

you can see that from the first get go. I’ll look at that and if I was doing a

 

movement screen on somebody, most to all body movement screens are

 

done, because that’s perfect.

Cameron Francis:

Okay.

Chris Ackland:

So if I saw that and let’s say your left knee was caving in, things like that, I

 

would then look at why. Like, why’s that caving in? Is that caving in because

 

the person doesn’t know to push their knee out or keep their knee over

 

their foot? Or is it because there’s a weakness somewhere? Or is there an

 

injury somewhere?

Cameron Francis:

So is there a particular video that, like can someone just search how to do

 

the perfect squat? We’ll put it in the show notes.

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, maybe I’ll do a tutorial after this.

Cameron Francis:

And we’ll put it in the show notes, cool. Now that they know how to do the

 

perfect squat, how many should they be doing? Not that they know, just get

 

in the act of practicing, how many should they be doing?

Chris Ackland:

Start, go old school, three sets of 10.

Cameron Francis:

Three sets of 10. No weights, they’re doing everything free hand.

Chris Ackland:

Well like if you were doing it, and let’s say you’ve got 15 spare minutes. If it

 

was a strength training session and you had a whole hour I would say, “Take

 

your time, take your rest periods.” If you’ve got 15 minutes, let’s look at it

 

from a weekly perspective. You have three sessions in a week and you’ve got

 

two 25 minute sessions. That’s going to allow you to get there, have a

 

shower, you do your 15 minute session, and you leave. Or vice versa, sorry

 

you should shower before you leave because you won’t want to be stinky.

 

Or you might want to be.

Cameron Francis:

I might. My sweat actually doesn’t smell too bad. It’s true.

Chris Ackland:

What I would do is, most people if they’ve never trained weights before, if

 

they’ve never been in a gym before, that’s going to be tough enough. And

 

you would pick two or three exercises for your lower body, three sets of ten.

 

Two or three exercises for your upper body. Now it sounds super simple and

 

it is super simple. If you want to make it more complicated, don’t rest

 

between the movements. At first I would go over, I would be trying to stress

 

movement quality over the amount of repetitions.

Cameron Francis:

So do you think it’s important for the non-competer, right, I’m not going to

 

compete but you want to be healthy you want to be fit, it impacts all of the

 

different aspects of your life, that you should be documenting what you’re

 

lifting, when you’re lifting, how many …? Is that important for the

 

non-competer? And I’m not leading you into the answer.

Chris Ackland:

Depending on what they’re training, if they’re training to get stronger I think

 

it’s important. I think it’s important for many reasons other than the fact

 

that it helps them progressively overload from week to week, month to

 

month. But also from the psychological factor. So that they can look back

 

three months, because after a while you’ll go to the gym, you’re like, “I don’t

 

feel like I’m going anywhere.” Let’s say the scales haven’t moved for a little

 

bit, you’ve been lazy with your nutrition, you could still get stronger with

 

both of those things not going your way. But you don’t realize it because you

 

forget when you started.Like the first time I went into a gym I think my 1

 

REM back squat was 60 kilos.

Cameron Francis:

So it’s got to do with the memory …

Chris Ackland:

Oh sure. [crosstalk 00:21:52] because people will eventually get fixated on a

 

number and they’ll forget about the process that they’re going through. So

 

like for some people you have a perfect squat there, I might spend weeks up

 

to a couple months trying to get somebody to that squat. And that’s a big

 

achievement, right? And they might look at that when they first start

 

squatting going, “I’ve been doing this for six months and I’m only on a bar.”

 

But they might forget where they started. From a health perspective by kind

 

of tracking it, it keeps you a little bit more accountable. And then you can

 

see where you started, where you are. You might take six months off for

 

whatever reason, then you come back, you’re like, “Well this is where I

 

finished last time, I’m going to go a little bit below that and I’m going to try

 

to beat it in the next four months.”

Cameron Francis:

Any tracking tools that you recommend?

Chris Ackland:

There’s a number of them.

Cameron Francis:

The one that you use.

Chris Ackland:

Pen and paper. I use Google Sheets for myself.

Cameron Francis:

Good. No tools, no subscriptions. I think that I’ve got my routine down pat

 

when I do go and what I should be lifting. I think I’ve just got in ingrained in

 

my brain. And I’ve also got, like I know that I should at some point change up

 

one exercise to keep it, knowing to go a little bit heavy with lighter reps or

 

more reps and then a little bit lighter. Like changing those kind of things up.

 

But yeah, Google Sheets, I think that that’s a great idea.

Chris Ackland:

Google Sheets, yeah, I use that all the time. I use it for all my clients. I’ve got

 

personalized sheets made up depending on what their goals are. And it

 

looks different from someone who is, just like you said, health conscious

 

versus someone who’s training specifically for an Olympic team.

Cameron Francis:

So we went into the squats, I mean surely you’d be doing crunches and

 

pushups, right? Would you include that into your work?

Chris Ackland:

I would include that, yeah absolutely. Anything bodyweight movement, I

 

think if somebody’s only going to choose body weight movements, do some

 

research on how gymnasts train and go through their really, really basic

 

beginner stuff. And I’m talking beginner stuff.

Cameron Francis:

What’s some of the stuff that they do? I have no idea.

Chris Ackland:

Well, if you had video footage hereI’d make you do a couple of them.

 

Because obviously gymnastics is all body weight …

Cameron Francis:

Forget it, I’ll put it on.

Chris Ackland:

Oh, you’re going to put on some screen stuff.

Cameron Francis:

I’ll put on some screen stuff. Let’s go to, let’s look up Beyonce Tension

 

gymnastics, see what comes up. Now I’m very fortunate, I work with … yeah,

 

that top one …

Chris Ackland:

This one?

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Ackland:

There’s no Beyonce.

Cameron Francis:

Ah, she’s singing.

Chris Ackland:

Is that what it’s …? I want to listen to it. Cameron’s going to put on …

Cameron Francis:

Okay. I’ll put the video in show notes. Wow. So basically they’ve got a

 

routine where … see, but they … you know what’s interesting, their faces,

 

they don’t even look like they’re stressing. Whereas if I go and do that right

 

now I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. So are they strong?

Chris Ackland:

Very strong.

Cameron Francis:

Very strong. So could they cop a punch in the stomach? [crosstalk 00:24:59]

 

That’s really incredible. Okay, so they’re tired there.

Chris Ackland:

They’re resting.

Cameron Francis:

So basically they’re doing side by side crunches with their legs lifted really

 

up.

Chris Ackland:

It’s called a hollow.

Cameron Francis:

Is that what it is?

Chris Ackland:

There’s a couple of foundation moves in gymnastics that have a lot of…

Cameron Francis:

Jesus. So now it’s like a, what would you call that? That’s superman, they’re

 

the supermans. So you’re basically holding a superman. Now they’re doing a

 

superman just with their bodies, now superman with their legs, all on their

 

stomachs. Like each beat they’re pumping. So pump, pump. And now they’re

 

doing a swan. Actually this is a really, so I’m going to pop this in, I want

 

people to see it and then give that a go. I don’t think I would do, would

 

many men do that?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah.

Cameron Francis:

You’re sure?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, 100%.

Cameron Francis:

That just doesn’t look like, but that’s cool.

Chris Ackland:

No, I wouldn’t say that last stretch that you saw. And this is dependent on

 

the person. If somebody’s like relatively fit and not severely overweight, I

 

mean even overweight people could probably do that, I would start with

 

that if they were looking for something they could do anywhere.

Cameron Francis:

Okay.

Chris Ackland:

So basic gymnastics, there’s a book by Christopher Sommer called, actually

 

he’s got a whole website on it, Gymnastic Strength Training. To put it in

 

perspective, one of the movements when you watch the video they do

 

what’s called a hollow. And it kind of looks like a dish. Some gymnasts call it

 

a dish. Basically they’re lying on their back and they tuck their legs up and lift

 

their arms up so their biceps are next to their ears, and kind of create a dish

 

with their body. That position there is called the hollow. Let’s say that, I

 

don’t want to use level because I’m not a gymnastics coach, but let’s say

 

that’s level three of ten. Level one and level two are tucks. To move on from

 

each of those positions you need to be able to do five rounds of 60 second

 

hold with a 30 second break between each. Now you gotta build up to that.

Cameron Francis:

So do you get belts in gymnastics?

Chris Ackland:

No, you wouldn’t get belts.

Cameron Francis:

You get bracelets.

Chris Ackland:

I don’t want to say it, because most of this is really tough.

Cameron Francis:

Just joking gymnasts.

Chris Ackland:

There are levels, so I think a girl who I work with, she was a national level 10,

 

which I would assume is just a couple steps below …

Cameron Francis:

That’s in level 10. Can they go higher than 10?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, I think. I’m not sure, I could be butchering it. Maybe level 14’s

 

international? But that’s a massive guess. But yeah, bodyweight training is

 

fantastic, I think it’s from a weightlifting coach perspective if I have someone

 

who’s done even one or two years of gymnastics come to me, my job is 10

 

times easier. Because they’ve probably got a little bit of flexibility carry over

 

even though they probably haven’t done it for a number of years. Their body

 

awareness is off the scales. It is just unbelievable how many people when

 

you first get into the gym, and it makes sense so it’s not their fault, when

 

you’re like, “Okay, this is how you do a lunge,” you demonstrate it and they

 

just about fall over.

Cameron Francis:

But you can do that in your house. Like I could put on my leotards. I would

 

be flopping out of everywhere from top and bottom, it’s no good. But you

 

can just do that on the floor. You get a yoga mat and away you go. I think

 

the reason why I suggested for things to do at home are for those people

 

who are finding an excuse not to go to the gym. But for the execs or for the

 

business owners it may be an idea to … Your microphone’s working mate,

 

don’t worry. Just flicking my equipment. Just full flicks it. Ah, you lost my

 

train of thought. That maybe just getting in the habit of working out,

 

sweating, getting excited before you can actually go to the gym.

Chris Ackland:

Absolutely.

Cameron Francis:

Cool.

Chris Ackland:

And like I said before, that’s a great foundation for anything.

Cameron Francis:

I can’t wait for people to see it and give it a go. And look, if you want to send

 

some photos through of yourself doing it, please do so. I’ll be doing it

 

myself.

Chris Ackland:

It’s brilliant.

Cameron Francis:

For some shits and giggles. Okay, so we’ve gone through the gym and

 

exercise. Let’s move onto some health food. So food related stuff. I believe

 

on the weekend you’re going to help me, well you’re going to be doing the

 

meal prep. But yeah, let’s talk about what someone should be eating, why,

 

how often. Remember, I’m busy, right? I’m busy. So how do I speed up the

 

process, how do I simplify it?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, so if I didn’t have someone who was short on time I wouldn’t have

 

done what I did with Cam. So basically for Cam I provided him with a whole

 

training routine and a whole nutrition exactly to the grammage. How much

 

olive oil goes in it, how much butter, you name it. Broccoli, it’s got 300

 

grams of spinach, whatever happens to be in each meal. Now I wouldn’t do

 

that for the everyday person because it’s just setting them up for failure.

 

Someone like Cam, Mr. Overachiever, I’ll give it to him and he’ll just pay

 

someone to organize it for him. So what I want to do is, if they’re a busy,

 

busy person I think step one, eat a bit of protein in every meal.

Cameron Francis:

Okay. And what does that look like? Because protein is a protein shake.

Chris Ackland:

Let’s go, if it’s from a lean cut of meat, a palm sized protein.

Cameron Francis:

What’s protein?

Chris Ackland:

So steak, chicken breast, chicken thigh, salmon, tuna, all the good stuff.

Cameron Francis:

So have a palm of chicken or some kind …

Chris Ackland:

If you’ve got a thickness of a deck of cards, about the size of your palm.

Cameron Francis:

It’s not that much.

Chris Ackland:

It’s not, but if you’re having say four meals a day, that’ll start to be good

 

enough. And the bigger person the bigger the palm. So they’re obviously

 

going to need a little bit more protein.

Cameron Francis:

Okay, so that’s a good rule of thumb.

Chris Ackland:

So yeah, a palm size of protein is really good. Let’s say that’s at every meal.

Cameron Francis:

So you’re talking even breakfast?

Chris Ackland:

Absolutely.

Cameron Francis:

Ah, interesting. So my breakfast of …

Chris Ackland:

Champions.

Cameron Francis:

Shit, what do I have for breakfast? Whatever it is, it’s not very good. I should

 

be eating chicken breast in there.

Chris Ackland:

Well, it doesn’t have to be chicken breast. It could be eggs. It could be, my

 

personal favorite for a little while, especially for like corporate guys as well,

 

eat a steak for breakfast. It’s the best.

Cameron Francis:

So what’s the difference between steak and chicken breast?

Chris Ackland:

The reason why I would do it like that is because slow digesting. So let’s say

 

for example you’re a busy businessman and you have breakfast, and then

 

you can’t eat until 2:00 in the afternoon. So I’m going to try to eat some

 

things that are going to be as slow releasing as possible. So obviously eating

 

a piece of steak is going to digest a lot slower than eating a piece of chicken

 

breast. Versus then having whey protein which would be gone within the

 

hour or whatever it is.

 

You’ve got to be a bit smart with your food choices. Now if we had rules of

 

thumb, if you could eat three or four times a day it would be palm size of

 

protein per meal, fist size of carbohydrates per meal.

Cameron Francis:

What’s that? Like potato chips?

Chris Ackland:

Let’s say starch or carb. So white potato, sweet potato, basmati rice,

 

anything like that.

Cameron Francis:

Okay.

Chris Ackland:

And then I would count your kind of cruciferous vegetables, your green

 

vegetables. I’d kind of count them separately, and I’d probably have almost

 

like what you could fit in the cup of your hand, on the plate with it. If that

 

could take up more , by all means. And then a thumb serving of fat, which is

 

olive oil …

Cameron Francis:

So why did you laugh at what I was eating upstairs? I thought it was good. I

 

had tuna, and then I had the brown rice.

Chris Ackland:

And I think what you did was good. So you had no time to food prep. This is

 

where when you categorize food into bad and good it puts people in an

 

impossible situation so they don’t make a decision, and then they get

 

hungry. And when you’re hungry you make the worst decisions.

Cameron Francis:

Correct. Walking past and you’re like, “Oh my god, Hungry Jacks, I’m

 

starving.”

So if we don’t categorize foods into good and bad, there’s just, I’m not even going to categorize them, everyone knows what they should and shouldn’t eat. When they’re satisfied, if I was to put all these foods in front of you and say, “Which is good and which is probably non-ideal for you?” You’d know, right?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah. You’d at least get 80% of them right.

Cameron Francis:

So why do people get it so wrong?

Chris Ackland:

Because what they would do is, let’s say some people are confused about

 

what decision to make, so they don’t make a decision, because a confused

 

mind is probably not going to make a decision. And then from that they get

 

hungry. And we go into preservation mode, we’re going to eat something,

 

and it’s probably going to be the thing that’s in the drawer, whether it’s

 

chocolate, whether it’s whatever it is. I know lots of corporate guys they

 

only eat what’s accessible. And unfortunately you just gotta walk down the

 

street right now and try and find a good option. I like my clients to prepare

 

all their food if possible, but let’s say they can’t …

Cameron Francis:

Do you know, a true story, I’m pretty sure that one of the burger joints down

 

the road actually have a burger called the Double Bypass Burger. The Double

 

Fucking Bypass Burger.

Chris Ackland:

That’s the best.

Cameron Francis:

Very funny. But very quick. So rice, tuna, and then I put a sprinklings of some

 

peanuts …

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, so that’s a natural fat choice.

Cameron Francis:

So I just put some peanuts, and then I cut up some broccolini, because I

 

prefer broccolini over broccoli.

Chris Ackland:

Does it make you less gassy?

Cameron Francis:

Yes. So gassy. Because I used to …

Chris Ackland:

Capsicum and cucumbers and things like that.

Cameron Francis:

That’s crazy that you mention it. But they never smell.

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, they might …

Cameron Francis:

No. When I was eating raw broccoli, just straight up eating raw broccoli, and

 

I just thought, “Jesus, I’m farting so much.”

Chris Ackland:

You know why?

Cameron Francis:

Crazy. But yeah, broccolini you don’t get any flatulence. What else did I put?

 

I’m pretty sure that was it.

Chris Ackland:

Corn.

Cameron Francis:

And the cup of corn. Corn’s okay?

Chris Ackland:

It’s okay, yeah.

Cameron Francis:

It’s not good bad.

Chris Ackland:

Not good bad. Just another vegetable. I don’t think it’s got much nutrients in

 

it, but …

Cameron Francis:

I just wanted to put a secondary vegetable.

Chris Ackland:

You could have the healthiest meal in the world, and if it’s got no flavor

 

you’ll have three bites and then you’ll eat a bar of chocolate.

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, I’m all over that, so badly.

Chris Ackland:

So you gotta enjoy your food.

Cameron Francis:

You have to.

Chris Ackland:

You gotta enjoy your food. And that’s why I won’t take certain foods away

 

from people, like at the moment …

Cameron Francis:

Do I have to stop eating Doritos?

Chris Ackland:

Well it depends on the amount.

Cameron Francis:

Well, the family size.

Chris Ackland:

Family size, yeah, let’s … And here’s the thing, I was listening to Robb Wolf

 

talk yesterday on another health and fitness podcast which was fantastic.

 

The Mind Muscle Project, shout out to those guys. And he was talking about,

 

and I’ll butcher this because I’m not good at secondary information, I’m only

 

kind of good at what I know. Abstainers and moderators. So a moderator is

 

someone who I could give you, let’s say there was a whole block of

 

chocolate here, I put it in front of you and then you could have one little

 

piece and you’re fine. And then there’s an abstainer who, the block’s gone.

 

They can’t have one piece without having it all. So for some people you’ve

 

got to make the decision just to be smart about it, just don’t put it in the

 

household. When you’re out with friends, enjoy it, because obviously we’re

 

social beings, we need to eat where we go.

 

But getting back to the food, I think having that with most meals will start to

 

keep people satiated for longer which will start to make to better decisions

 

around food. Better decisions around food will lead to probably better

 

decisions around going to the gym. And then it just becomes this cascading

 

effect of … Whereas if you skip the gym and then you have a bad day of

 

food, you’re probably going to get a shit sleep that night …

Cameron Francis:

It all goes to shit.

Chris Ackland:

… and then you make a bad decision the next day, and the next thing you

 

know it’s been a week and you haven’t gone to the gym. So trying to put

 

everything on autopilot, so if we quickly go back to Cam’s lunch, what I like

 

about it is there was not food prep involved in it.

Cameron Francis:

So good. The food prep was in the container.

Chris Ackland:

So he had … Who was it through?

Cameron Francis:

What? Who?

Chris Ackland:

What container?

Cameron Francis:

A bowl.

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, so from what I saw you’ve got the cup of rice.

Cameron Francis:

A cup of rice.

Chris Ackland:

Cup of rice. Canned tuna.

Cameron Francis:

Canned tuna. Then the canned corn.

Chris Ackland:

Canned corn. Then you had …

Cameron Francis:

I had broccolini but I cut it up and then, I don’t know if this is the best thing,

 

but I put water and I put in the, I know you’re anti-microwave fan, but I just,

 

it just made it a little bit softer. I like the hard crunch.

Chris Ackland:

I think, again, if I was to look at that meal and I was to look at the alternative

 

that you would have eaten, family size of Doritos, it wins.

Cameron Francis:

I think so.

Chris Ackland:

It does win.

Cameron Francis:

And then also put a little bit of peanuts. But can you win off that meal?

Chris Ackland:

You can do a lot of good with that.

Cameron Francis:

Because it sounds like you’re not going to lose. But can you win? Can you

 

excel, can you grow, can you build mass?

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, absolutely can.

Cameron Francis:

Well then, don’t be lazy fuckers. It took a couple minutes.

Chris Ackland:

It needs to be, it doesn’t need to be easy it just needs to be doable. I could

 

give you, like let’s say that piece of paper I gave you was the golden goose.

Cameron Francis:

The golden chalice.

Chris Ackland:

If you just follow this for five weeks you would be 10 pack …

Cameron Francis:

You’re kidding me? Are you lying?

Chris Ackland:

No. I never lie.

Cameron Francis:

Because now I’m going to do it.

Chris Ackland:

But let’s say I gave you it laid out, but it seemed to hard. You didn’t have a

 

strong enough why, going back to what we said a little earlier. You’re not

 

going to do it. Which is why I like to kind of layer it on, start bit by bit, start

 

nice and slow, achievable goals. And it might be step one, let’s just get

 

protein in every single meal. Step two, okay, well now we’re getting protein

 

in every meal and I’m enjoying the protein …

 

Sometimes I’ll just start with meal one. Let’s get breakfast. Let’s get you two

 

or three options. Let’s get the really fast and easy option which might be like

 

a shake and a banana with some type of nut butter, you know, there’s

 

protein, carbs, and fats on the way to work. Or a better option could be eggs

 

with, or steak, let’s say steak. My favorite one, steak, capsicum, how do I not

 

remember my favorite breakfast? But yes, things like that. So we could have

 

three options, the great option. Well let’s say the most amount of time

 

option, least amount of time option, and then a kind of moderate amount of

 

time option.

 

And then kind of when you nail that, that’s a habit, right? You do it for x

 

amount of days, 30 or 60 days, whatever the rule of thumb is, and you don’t

 

need to think about breakfast anymore. What I try to do with a lot of my

 

clients is set up habits so that a year from now they’re kind of like, “Well I

 

would never do that.” And you have to remind them, like, “Six months ago

 

you would do that.” I think that’s a good place to start.

Cameron Francis:

So you said four meals, what about when first meal and last meal of the day.

 

How would you break those up?

Chris Ackland:

And it doesn’t have to be four meals. If you have only two options to eat in a

 

day that doesn’t mean your chances of getting your goals are ruined. You’re

 

limited to what you probably could do, but getting the right amount of

 

nutrients and calories in for the day is number one.

Cameron Francis:

So that’s more important than how many times you are eating.

Chris Ackland:

For sure. Unless you’re a strongman and you need to eat every single two

 

hours, nowhere near as important for the general person. For your ability to,

 

which is where it comes down to, not get hungry and then not make poor

 

decisions. You know, eating four times kind of gives you plenty of time to

 

make those decisions. It could be three meals and shake for your

 

post-workout, whatever it happens to be. So let’s say, what was the

 

question?

Cameron Francis:

So first, last meals. Like how would you break up your meals from when you

 

wake up to when you go to sleep?

Chris Ackland:

Personally, and for a lot of my clients depending on how they train, let’s say

 

they train mid-evening, afternoon. I like a high-fat, high-protein breakfast. It

 

just keeps me full for longer. If I had the breakfast that, so let’s say for

 

example, I have let’s say I had five eggs …

Cameron Francis:

How many yellows? Or yolks?

Chris Ackland:

Four.

Cameron Francis:

So four yolks.

Chris Ackland:

For me, yeah. I need to get …

Cameron Francis:

How many yolks.

Chris Ackland:

For you? For you I would probably go for three. You’re sitting down a lot

 

more than I am. I’m on my feet all day, I train for an hour and a half to two

 

hours a day.

Cameron Francis:

So different needs.

Chris Ackland:

Even though you’re a bigger guy and you’d probably need more calories if

 

you were to do the same amount of moving as me, you don’t need that

 

much energy. So let’s say I was like, you’d do, for you you’d probably do a

 

three egg omelet with a heap of vegetables in it.

Cameron Francis:

What type of vegetable’s in an omelet? Ew.

Chris Ackland:

What do you mean?

Cameron Francis:

I’ve never done it in my life.

Chris Ackland:

You’ve never put vegetables? That’s capsicum …

Cameron Francis:

Okay, that’s different. I don’t know why I was thinking, the normal, like

 

onion, tomato. I was thinking broccolis. When you say vegetable I go straight

 

to that. I don’t even factor in tomato, onion as vegetables, you know?

Chris Ackland:

But that three egg omelet with a good amount of vegetables in it might be

 

your breakfast.

Cameron Francis:

That sounds like a delicious breakfast. And can you pre-make that? Or do

 

you just suggest …

Chris Ackland:

You could. Absolutely can. I’m not really good with re-heated eggs. But

 

whenever I have steak, steak is kind of like my medium option, it’s already

 

cooked the night before. And I’ll just get it on the way out.

Cameron Francis:

So steak and eggs is actually a good breakfast.

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, from my perspective. I’ve seen great results with it.

Cameron Francis:

That’s awesome.

Chris Ackland:

Okay. So again, it’s got to be doable for you and it’s got to be palatable.

 

Because if I gave my girlfriend steak, she couldn’t think of anything worse in

 

the morning to eat. And I think that’s true for a lot of women. Whereas a lot

 

of guys, not all guys, but a lot of guys, especially the alpha kind of males,

 

give them a bit of steak in the morning they think it’s the best.

Cameron Francis:

Without cutlery or a plate.

Chris Ackland:

No, just chew it, T-bone.

Cameron Francis:

Okay. So if I wake up at 5:00 when should I eat? If I wake up at 6:00 when

 

should I eat? If I wake up at 7:00 when should I eat?

Chris Ackland:

If you wake up at 5:00 and you’re going to the gym straightaway?

Cameron Francis:

Yeah.

Chris Ackland:

I would have, let’s say you have your post-workout shake, I’d have a

 

biggerish shake and I’d have half before and half after. So on the way to the

 

gym I’d probably have half a protein shake with …

Cameron Francis:

But the meal, the meal.

Chris Ackland:

Well that’s what I mean. I’ll substitute that meal. Because you probably

 

wouldn’t want to, and you could if this is the decision you make, you’d

 

probably rather be training on not an empty stomach, but you’d rather be

 

training with the nutrients, it’s like really accessible into the bloodstream.

 

You don’t want to kind of be like, I wouldn’t want to be digesting food if I

 

had the option.

Cameron Francis:

So you wake up, gym, come home, then eat.

Chris Ackland:

Yeah, absolutely.

Cameron Francis:

And then are you looking at say every three hours?

Chris Ackland:

That’s one thing that I do like. Pick a times that suit for you, and it could be

 

three hours, it could be four hours, it could be five hours, whatever it is. And

 

try to stick to it because not so much about what’s going on in the inside,

 

but just from your psychology of it all, if you’re getting hungry every three

 

hours maybe just eat every three hours. That’ll probably help you make

 

better decisions in the long run. If you’re getting hungry every four hours,

 

eat every four hours. But if your job says otherwise you might have to eat

 

half an hour earlier, things like that. I like to have a bit of a schedule but I do

 

understand coming in and out of meetings you’ll have to make sacrifices

 

sometimes with when you eat and what you eat.

Cameron Francis:

Okay, cool. So if it’s every three, whatever hours, what about the last meal

 

before you go to sleep?

Chris Ackland:

Last meal before you go to sleep is going to depend on what goals you are,

 

what you’re having basically. If I’m, me personally let’s say, I’m in the

 

process of moving up a weight class. My last meal would be very high

 

carbohydrate, high protein. And then if I’ve had a training day that day I

 

might have a slow digesting protein or a protein with a bit of fat because

 

that’ll help digest it nice and slow over night. Because I tend to lose weight,

 

or not even lose weight, I tend to lose muscle really easily. I need to have

 

something that digests a little bit while I sleep, just to kind of keep feeding

 

my muscles because they’re nice and small.

 

But if someone, say my dad, my dad for example he’s currently sitting at 108

 

kilos, he was 116 kilos. We’ve been kind of training, I’ve been training him at

 

my house for four months after he let himself go a little bit. It’s all by feel

 

with him because he’s a little bit older, he doesn’t necessarily know what to

 

do, he started having broken sleep. So what I suggested that he do is, after

 

his dinner, I don’t mind what it is, meat and veg, meat and three veg, easy. I

 

said to him, “Let’s try a bit of protein and some type of fat.” For him, just

 

because it’s tasty for him, I’ll put a little bit, like a tablespoon of peanut

 

butter in it, have that before you go to sleep and see what it does for you.

 

So there’s good information out there that if you, it’s kind of contradictory,

 

but if you have a bit of carbohydrates before you go to sleep, even though

 

that’s going against an old wives’ tale, it helps give you a bit of an insulin

 

spike and it puts you to sleep. But with him, I’m just wanting him to sleep

 

through. Because he would wake up at 2:00 or 3:00. So we just

 

experimented with it for a little bit. One day was high-carbohydrate,

 

high-protein before bed, and one day was a bit higher-fat, higher-protein.

 

When he has the higher-fat, higher-protein, especially on training days,

 

sleeps through.

 

Don’t know why, couldn’t tell you the mechanism for it, and I think that’s

 

probably the best way for people to go about it. Test it out, try it. If it

 

doesn’t work, and not if it doesn’t work night one, if it doesn’t work over the

 

course of 7 or 10 day, move onto something else. Try something else.

Cameron Francis:

I really want to touch on the sleeping aspect. I’m sleeping a lot more now,

 

but I think it’s got to do because I’m working out a lot less.

Chris Ackland:

Okay. Because you’re sleeping longer, more so than …?

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, I’m just sleeping longer. So I don’t know if that’s a good thing, because

 

I like to think that I can survive … I think that if I go back into the gym and

 

when I go to the gym every day and do my 6k …

Chris Ackland:

Doesn’t have to be every day. Just go three days.

Cameron Francis:

But I’m all in. I’m just …

Chris Ackland:

Bloody corporate …

Cameron Francis:

I can’t, I’m just all in. If I’m going to do it I’ve got to be the best at it. It’s just

 

my attitude towards it. If I’m not going to be the best, I don’t want to do it.

 

Or the best that I can be. So when I was going to the gym every day I could

 

really survive off five hours. I still could, you know, there’s some days that I

 

can. But as I’ve stopped going now I’m sleeping more, but sleeping’s good

 

for you. So make sense of that.

Chris Ackland:

There’s a, I think he’s got a TED talk, I know he’s been on a few podcasts, Dr.

 

Kirk Parsley. He’s like the sleep guy. He was an ex-Navy Seal, so obviously

 

they starve people of sleep. And I think he got into health and fitness, and

 

then eventually he became a sleep doctor. He’s got some fantastic …

Cameron Francis:

So is he called Kirk Parsley, or the Sleep Doctor? How do I find it?

Chris Ackland:

Just go YouTube Dr. Kirk Parsley. He’s got some phenomenal facts on sleep.

 

And it’s something like, now what I would say from what I’ve seen is there

 

are some people that can deal with five hours sleep a night. And then there

 

are also people who think that they can deal with five hours sleep a night.

 

And they’re very, very different. But I think one of the stats that he kind of

 

likes to give out … Yeah, that’s it there. Yeah, and there’s another podcast

 

he’s on is, it’s a good episode as well. He talks about, I think they did a study

 

on the effects of lowering people’s sleep. And it was, let’s say he did two

 

hours a night for x amount of time, it was the equivalent of a blood alcohol

 

rating of .05 or .06 or something. So it affects us in kind of more ways than

 

one, just like cognitively and stuff like that.

 

From a performance perspective it’s huge. You are only as good as what you

 

can recover from. And sleep is a massive part of recovery. I won’t say more

 

important than nutrition, but god, it’d be getting pretty close.

Cameron Francis:

So like how many hours? What’s the hours that I should sleep?

Chris Ackland:

It’s just try to stay close to eight hours. I mean, ideally, I just went camping

 

with my girlfriend’s family for Easter weekend. And obviously a lot of

 

business is, programming is calling people backwards and forwards. There is

 

definitely a lot of face to face time, but obviously we’re in front of screen.

 

Now in the four or five days we were away, no reception so my phone was

 

away. Perfect. Every night. So we wake up at 6:00 and every night around

 

the fire at around 8:30 looking at the flame I was falling asleep. Every single

 

night. There was no need for it, no alarm set, it was just like go to bed at

 

8:30, wake up at 6:00, go to bed at 8:30, wake up at 6:00.

 

Which for me, I normally sometimes work until 10:00, 10:30 at night face to

 

face, and I might do another half an hour on the computer. By the time I go

 

to bed I’ve now jigged it so that most of my mornings I have my first clients

 

in just after 9:00. So I would sleep until 7:00 easily, and then sometimes 7:00

 

is probably not enough for me. So for rule of thumb, try to figure out what

 

works the best for you. See what you operate the best on, because

 

sometimes you could have a crappy sleep because you’ve done too much.

 

And it just wasn’t enough for you to recover from because you’ve gone to

 

the gym that morning, you’ve been up since 5:00, you’ve done meetings, like

 

your stress is just through the roof, you’ve just been having meetings until

 

midnight, and your work is not doing what it’s supposed to be doing. And

 

then you go to sleep and you wake up five hours and there was not enough

 

time for you to recover. Or you could sleep for ten hours and it still wasn’t

 

enough time to recover.

Cameron Francis:

So is oversleeping a real thing?

Chris Ackland:

I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know enough about it. I just know what I’ve seen

 

with my clients. And that there is, from what I’ve seen there is definitely a

 

you’ve done too much to recover from in that one night of sleep.

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, okay.

Chris Ackland:

And especially with the way everyone wants to train, like, “If I train one day

 

a week, two days is better. If I train two days, three days is better. If I do

 

five, ten, twelve sessions a week.” The athletes that you see who are

 

training that much, that’s their lifestyle. When I was in China, they would

 

wake up at 8:00 and they would be at the gym by 9:00, which was a bike ride

 

away because it was on campus, Beijing Sports University. They would train

 

for two and a half to three hours, they would go get a massive feed, they

 

would sleep for three hours, they would wake up, walk back into the gym

 

still half drowsy, do their warmup, train for another two and a half to three

 

hours, go get dinner, their phones were taken off them at 8:00 every night

 

to 8:30, and they’re all put to bed.

Cameron Francis:

How old were they? Who was this?

Chris Ackland:

The kids were ranging from 14 to 22 in that gym.

Cameron Francis:

Okay. Interesting.

Chris Ackland:

But that’s an anomaly, right, they have their lifestyle. Their stress is, they do

 

go to school, I’m not sure, I didn’t get to ask them how much their school

 

impacts and what happens there. But if you look at the average person

 

who’s got x amount more stress in their life from the job, the fact that did

 

my kid get a good grade at school this week? Is my kid doing whatever? And

 

then throwing gym on top of it it’s another stress. Which is why earlier I was

 

saying your exercise needs to be something that is a bit of a release for you.

 

It could be stressful, but that’s how we get better, right? Stress isn’t

 

necessarily something to be worried of unless it’s in chronic amounts. We

 

adapt with x amount of stress.

Cameron Francis:

Do you know one of the best sayings I’ve ever heard is pressure, stress is

 

pressure. Pressure makes diamonds.

Chris Ackland:

Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

Cameron Francis:

I love that.

Chris Ackland:

For sure.

Cameron Francis:

When pressure comes and when you’re feeling that stress you’ve got two

 

options, right? You can either take it on and get better from it, or you can let

 

it affect you …

Chris Ackland:

Crumble you.

Cameron Francis:

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Ackland:

And that’s like the basis for all strength training, training in general, is you

 

need to stress x amount, recover x amount. You kind of repeat that process,

 

right? That’s how simple it needs to start when you are a beginner until

 

maybe a year or two into your training, then it can get complicated. A lot of

 

people want to start with what the best people are on, and if you went and

 

actually saw what they did in their first few years, it was simple. They did a

 

little bit of everything. They didn’t want to specialize, like high level sports,

 

they probably didn’t specialize until a little bit later in life.

Cameron Francis:

So it’s really getting that start? Getting in that momentum and letting it just

 

naturally and organically build up and grow.

Chris Ackland:

Have you read The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck?

Cameron Francis:

I have not.

Chris Ackland:

Highly recommend it. Highly recommend it. There’s a part in that book

 

where, I’m sure it’s that book, where he’s talking about he gets emails all the

 

time from people who are like, “How do I start? Where do I go? What do I

 

do?” And it might be like let’s say you’re putting off doing the housework.

 

It’s like start with the simplest thing you can think of.

 

So best thing for me, if I’m sitting around and I’m trying to avoid doing my

 

work, let’s say I work from home Tuesdays and I like to also do a little bit

 

around the house and try to make at least so that I do something around the

 

house once a week. I’ll have to start with something. And the simplest thing

 

for me to do is put on a podcast or an ebook or audiobook or whatever, and

 

start doing the dishes. Because I don’t need to pay attention to the dishes in

 

order, my girlfriend would say otherwise, I don’t need to pay attention to

 

the dishes and I get to still kind of listen. So I’m killing two birds with one

 

stone. Next thing you know, music will come on and the house will be

 

spotless. I have no other option but to do my work for the rest of the day.

 

So step number one when you’re trying to figure out how to start, start just

 

do anything. Like you said, squat in your house. Do ten, that’s a big

 

achievement. And then when you get bored of that, “I reckon I can start

 

with some weight.” Pick up a kid, pick up a pot plant, whatever it happens to

 

be, start with that.

Cameron Francis:

Pick up the kids. Start squatting with Elissa on my back.

Chris Ackland:

And then kind of go from there. I think everyone wants to start at the best,

 

and it’s years of practice. So I think, how do I start? Just start.

Cameron Francis:

How do people get in contact with you Chris?

Chris Ackland:

Email chris@irontribe.com.au, my website www.irontribe.com.au, and

 

Facebook. My Facebook, Instagram. Instragram, I don’t know,

 

instagram/iron tribe and then Facebook.com/irontribe.

Cameron Francis:

I’m pretty sure they could just search for Iron Tribe.

Chris Ackland:

Weightlifting. Iron Tribe Weightlifting is the best way to do it.

Cameron Francis:

Thank you so much for coming in, man.

Chris Ackland:

Thanks for having me.

Cameron Francis:

I reckon you’ll be in again and we’ll try and go through some … [crosstalk

 

00:55:09] … I don’t think if we ever, like when we talk upstairs we go for

 

hours, right? So this was actually a short session.

Chris Ackland:

I’ve probably made people’s heads explode. I’ve answered none of their

 

questions, given them no directives.

Cameron Francis:

No, no. You’ve been really good.

Chris Ackland:

Lots of maybes.

Cameron Francis:

Really, really good. And thanks for coming in, buddy.

Chris Ackland:

Thanks, man.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Digital Cowboys with Cameron Francis and Sam

 

Roshan. Now if you enjoyed today’s episode, head on over to iTunes and

 

give us a five star rating and please, write a review. And also head on over to

 

digitalcowboys.com.au where we post the latest episodes and content

 

pieces for all of our listeners. So saddle up and join us next time for another

 

edition of the Digital Cowboys.

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