Transcript of Episode 166: How To Get 6 Pack Abs
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra and Kevin Rail
Meredith:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I'm your host, Meredith Dykstra. This is episode number 166. We have our resident cellular healing specialist, Dr. Dan Pompa, on the line, of course. Today we welcome special guest, Kevin Rail. I know you and Dr. Pompa have been friends for awhile, so this is really exciting to have you on the show today. You're a fitness expert and have a lot to share in that realm, so it's going to be a really fun conversation.
Before we get started, let me share with the listeners a little bit more about you, Kevin. Kevin is an internationally known and sought after fitness coach featured in the documentary film, The Motivation Factor, by Doug Orchard Films. He's also the founder of My Six-Pack Challenge and specializes in functional training, core training, three-dimensional movement, motivation, and restorative arts. He has a BS in sports management and fitness and wellness and is a strong first level one kettlebell instructor and is certified through ACSM, NASM, FMS, and ACE. That's a lot of acronyms. Kevin, welcome to Cellular Healing TV. We're so excited to have you on the show.
Kevin:
Thank you, Meredith. It is my pleasure. Any time I have the chance to talk smack with Dr. Pompa, particularly anyone who thinks or talk like him, I jump at the opportunity. We talk smack a lot, believe you me.
Dr. Pompa:
There's a little echo on Kevin's end. Kevin, I don't know if you have earphones, but that would help.
Kevin:
If I had earphones?
Dr. Pompa:
Maybe. Turn your volume down.
Kevin:
Let me see. That might be the missing link right there.
Dr. Pompa:
It's already better, actually. Hey, Meredith, I want you to look up the show that Kevin did. What did we title that show, Kevin? Do you remember?
Kevin:
Yes. I don't remember the exact title, but I do know what we spoke about. It was all about disorder eating. It might have been orthorexia. Was it orthorexia?
Dr. Pompa:
Look for orthorexia in the title. Kevin told a story, and that episode touched a lot of people. If you haven't seen it, go back and watch it. It really affects more people than you think. One of the first questions Kevin and I always ask people is how did you get into this and why? I kind of want you to restart just by retelling some of your story. Like me, my passion runs deep because of the suffer from pain to purpose. I'll tell you what, you have a really amazing story that makes you unique, and it makes you the great trainer and educator that you are. Start there, Kevin.
Kevin:
I appreciate that, first of all. I don't think that everyone is designed to struggle to become stronger and to get further down the road in life, but I am definitely one of those people who have struggled quite a bit to get to where I am. I think you do become stronger from all your struggles, and that often defines you as a person.
Just like the Rocky Balboa said, it's not hard you can hit, it's how hard you can get hit and keep getting up and keep moving forward, and that's how winning is done. Although he's a fictional character, that statement just reverberates through my brain every single day, every single hour, all the way to this present moment when I still struggle with things. I just know just to put that little effort forth, and you're always going to come back out on top.
Ever since I was five years old, I was touched by fitness and exercise. That was one of my things. I grew up in a family where my dad was always worried that me and my brother were going to get fat and out of shape. He was old school, so he would use terms like that. He would say I don't want you guys to have pot bellies. I would always try to do whatever I could to please him and stay in shape.
I also recognized something else, and we talked about this earlier off camera when we were talking about the Sevin Dust and all these other things. I know I'm going to be jumping around like a Quentin Tarantino movie here, so just bear with me. Food has always been something very important in my life for fuel and for recovery and all these other things. Back when I was a young strapping lad, I really didn't care too much about my diet because you feel you're indestructible when you're 15, 16 years old.
I see your son, Daniel, at the gym, and he's just like ripping weights out left and right and all this stuff. I remember when I was his age, and I kind of had the same mindset except I would come home from school and I would have a can of soda and a package of Krimpets. They were cupcakes, and I would run right down stairs and start hammering the weights. I felt like I was going to vomit five minutes into my workouts, and I couldn't understand why.
I'm like I need to get big and strong because I'm going to be a professional wrestler, WWE. I'm going to be a champion. I did whatever I could to get bulk and get bigger, but it just didn't really connect the dots with me. I always felt like I was going to vomit and throw up. My heart was pounding through my chest. I was breathing really heavy, but I didn't really care. I was indestructible.
Lucky for Daniel, he's got you guys as role models and tutelage, and he knows about it. He's got it down. What is he now? Nineteen, twenty, somewhere in that ball park?
Dr. Pompa:
Nineteen.
Kevin:
I was just fended off to figure it out on my own. When I turned 19, my father got colon cancer, and I saw the impact that had on not just him but our family and our close network of people in the neighborhood and our friends and everything. People would come into the house all the time to see him and say hello and pay their last respects so to speak. That really was a huge turning point in my life.
I think everyone who is really serious about fitness and nutrition, there are people who are hacks, and there are people who are genuine. Those who are genuine usually had an instance like this happen where they really did come from nothing, and they went through the learning curves and they went through the hard work and they went through the struggles. They saw people die right in front of their eyes and saw them take their last breath. They didn't want to become just like that. That's one of the things that happened with me.
Even further deeper down in the layers when I was five and six years old, I was always wanting to be in great shape because of what I was telling you before about my dad's attitude. He had a high expectation for us, so I wanted to appease him. One of the things that I noticed was when he was out there in the gardens dusting the plants with Sevin Dust, wearing his yellow uniform from head to toe made out of rubber and a face mask and everything, telling me and my brother we couldn't be outside when he was doing it.
Something clicked inside my head. I was like oh, my God. If you're going to put that stuff on those plants, they're going to grow into vegetables and you're going to harvest them. Then you're going to want me to eat those things at the dinner table. It's not happening. Not on my dime. I would just rebel, and I wouldn't eat my vegetables and all that stuff, and I wouldn't eat the fruits from the trees we had in the yard. That actually started the nutrition thing in my brain, although I used to drink soda and eat all the crap. In the back there was this voice shouting to me don't eat that stuff.
When he finally got cancer, I was actually 15 when he got diagnosed. I was 19 when he died. It then started clicking in my head that perhaps all that stuff that he was using out in the yard and in the gardens was not so good for the body. I looked back on it and wow, thank God I didn't eat the carrots and the rutabagas and the tomatoes and everything else that had been sprayed and dusted. Perhaps that is what caused his illness and his sickness.
The connection points started coming together, and then as I got in my early 20s, I started fusing the connection between eating more healthy and my workouts. I started figuring out that whole dynamic. Then I started getting into fasting before my workouts. We've had many conversations about that, and that's probably a whole other show in itself and the benefits of that. Fasting and working out on an empty stomach is my A number one thing these days.
I went through this long learning curve and all this experimentation. What it boils down to is you always want to feed your body as high octane fuel as you possibly can and try to do that in conjunction with your workouts. Whatever system works best for you is the one that works best for you. That's plain and simple.
Fasting works really good for me, and it may not work good for someone else. They might need to eat a banana before their workout or some organic yogurt and peanut butter. I don't really care. If you can eat something and tolerate it, that's fine. That's your prerogative and it works for you. What works for me is working out on an empty stomach.
All this information that I've accumulated over the years, I try to push forward. I don't want people to go down the same path as my father, including myself. I try to do every single thing I possibly can to avoid cancer, inflammation, disease, brain function problems, dementia, and all these other things that everyone just complains about all the time.
Anything that I can to try to make myself a 100% healthy human being from head to toe inside and out mentally and physically, I will do it. That's where I based all my workouts from going forward, and that's what I do when I train people as well with my program that Meredith mentioned, My Six-Pack Challenge. It's chalk full of all these different movement patterns, complex movement patterns.
Dr. Pompa:
I want you to talk about that is, what that looks like, where our viewers can get the Six-Pack Challenge, and also talking about these primal movements. If people watched you in the gym, you're always doing different things. It's very different from what most trainers or people are doing. I want you to talk about that. Before we leave the chemical conversation, let's bring that to a close. You had a conversation with somebody who is basically defending glyphosate, Monsanto, Roundup. Talk about that because I want you to share that conversation with our viewers.
Kevin:
I posted a video on Facebook this morning. I'm not going to mention names about who I got in a scrap with and all that stuff. I wouldn't even call it a scrap. It was just a conversation. Let's put it that way. When you're in a position like myself or you, we get haters all the time. We always get conflict, and we get people that are acting like they know more than we do. They have more initials past their name, more degrees. They went to this university or that one or they know this person and this expert and that expert. It's like my guru can beat up your guru is what it comes down to in the end.
That's just a big smoke and pile of fluff, in my opinion. You can't fool Mother Nature, and you can't beat common sense in the end. That's what it all boils down to all the time. I took a stand. I did a video, and I was talking about baby spinach and the benefits of it. I said always go organic because you don't want to have GMOs and chemicals and pesticides floating through your bloodstream and causing all kinds of problems. I don't want to have to deal with you when you get sick.
Dr. Pompa:
Spinach, by the way, is one of the most sprayed vegetables, if not the most. Spinach, don't ever not eat it 100% organic.
Kevin:
That's one of the top five. That's why I threw that out there. I was showing this clamshell container of baby spinach, organic, I got at Costco for four bucks yesterday. You can't beat that deal. I was going on about 100 calories for the whole thing, then I said be careful of the pesticides, chemicals. You always want to go organic.
This guy decided to challenge me on that. He's like there's no proof that organic is better. Everything has chemicals. GMOs are not bad for the body. It's been proven. You should read up on this guy and read these studies. I'm like whatever.
Everybody's got a study. Everybody's got a journal to read and all these other things. That's just how it works. Everybody has a specialist they think knows it all, but what I found out over the years is there no one size fits all. There is no perfect solution to anything. There is common sense, and there is Mother Nature.
Anytime you alter anything out of its natural state, there's something going on there. There's a process. That's what refined means, and that's why I stay away from that kind of stuff; refined things, GMO products, all these other things. Splicing seeds with species that you don't even know where they're coming from or what they are, that's against Mother Nature 100%. I try to keep away from that stuff. Something tells me that's bad, and we've talked before about there are studies.
We went back and forth a little bit, and he wasn't backing down about there's nothing wrong with GMOs and organic is not better. Yes, I know there's a scant amount of chemicals used in the organic production of crops because the bugs will eat them to death, but there's also different methods they use. They don't use conventional things that are way better and way healthier for the body. Those who believe don't believe, there is no explanation. Those who do believe, don't need an explanation for anything. They just believe, and they go along their way and do their thing.
I think the brain has a magical power of attracting that which it needs. Whatever you think is to be the truth is probably going to be your reality. I'm going to go on believing that organic is good because I feel it is, and I'm going to do my research on the companies that I buy this stuff from, which I also do. I'm going to make sure they're clean and legit. I'm also going to avoid GMOs every chance I get. I truly believe that that's the devil and that's poison and it's garbage.
Dr. Pompa:
Organic is cleaner. Can there be overspray? Of course. All in all organic is far cleaner. I didn't even know people were still making that argument because that's such an old time argument. I read you this study. I did a Facebook Live a few weeks ago. This came out a few weeks ago, Monsanto polluted with EPA, was unable to prove Roundup does not cause cancer.
It says in this newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly revealed a startlingly effort on the part of Monsanto and the EPA to work in concert to kill and discredit independent inconvenient cancer research conducted by the World Health Organization, and they did. When that was happening, I was talking about that. I even did a Facebook Live on my Merily's thing probably eight months ago about how they were working together to cover up the research that showed that this chemical is causing cancer, leak gut, and other problems.
This came out, but did you hear about it in mainstream media? Of course not, but absolutely you can get these court documents. You can look at this cover up yourself. You can look at the research showing by independent studies that glyphosate is linked not just to cancer, but multiple diseases. Look at Stephanie Seneff's work, senior scientist at MIT. It's very hard to refute. She has no axe to grind other than figuring out what's going on and why children are getting sick with autoimmune and other conditions.
There you go, man. That to me ends that argument. You know what? I think you're right. I think this guy wants to believe what he wants to believe, and I don't think you could ever change him, Kevin.
Kevin:
I never try to change anybody. They have their choice to choose what they want.
Dr. Pompa:
Kevin, a lot of it comes from our major premise, our philosophy. You could show me things saying this chemical is absolutely safe. My mind's going it's a chemical. If I ingest this every day, this is a problem. I don't care if you don't have a study yet showing that it causes problems. My major premise comes from it's a chemical and I'm ingesting it daily.
If I ingest it periodically, can my body deal with it? Of course. If I'm doing something daily that's a poison and a chemical and if it's a manmade chemical, your body has to deal with it some way. Our major premise is wrong, and I doubt you're going to change him.
Kevin:
That's true. This really makes sense if you think about. Roundup is used to kill weeds around a plant. It starts out as a seed in the ground, it's sprayed with Roundup, and then it grows. The corn just comes up nice, and this beautiful stalk appears and all these ears come out of it, and all the weeds are dead.
If there's a chemical pounding on that crop that starts as a seed that goes through its whole adult life and kills all the weeds, do you really want to be consuming that? Are you foolish enough to believe that you can wash it off and get fruit wash or whatever? That's the biggest hoax I've ever heard in my life. It's ridiculous. I don't buy that stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
It absorbs. I remember years ago reading a study from Penn State University. They showed how the corn stalks pull in the glyphosate. I saw pictures. I read the study. I can't remember because that was so darn long ago. That's all I needed to know. You're not washing off glyphosate. The fact is if you have any idea how it works, how it binds the minerals that these plants need to survive and thrive, it doesn't take much to go wow, this can't be good.
Kevin, let's talk about some of your unique training strategies, which are very unique. Our viewers always want to say great, but how can it help me now? You can lead them to your website. What about the Six-Pack Challenge? What about these primal movements? Why are they different, why do they work, and why should we do them?
Kevin:
You call them primal movements. I just call them complex movement patterns.
Dr. Pompa:
I call it primal because that's what it looks like. I've heard you say that, actually.
Kevin:
I used to use that word every now and then, but if you do think back to primitive times, we weren't linear creatures. We don't stand up straight and just do things most of the time. It's easy to stand up and drink a glass of water or something like that. If you think of life's situations, take -inaudible-, for example. Nothing that's in a linear pattern is that complicated. That's fine and dandy, but we can stand still and do bicep curls all day long and do overhead presses with dumbbells.
Anybody can get strong in those positions where the body is strong, but what happens when you're in the compromised position? What happens when you're playing a sport and you get hit, and you're on one foot and you've got to rebalance yourself, re-correct your position, and keep on running? What happens when you're out in the grass years and years ago in primal times, and you're crawling through the grass because you're trying to lead an animal to you or something like that to live for the next month, to survive on it?
You're in a compromised position. You're slipping on rocks, you're climbing trees, you're jumping over things, you're rolling, you're rocking. Nothing is linear. In life, we've gotten lazy and we've gotten linear. Linear is dangerous, in my opinion. It causes rounded shoulders, it causes weak shoulders, it causes weak backs, it causes back pain, it causes fat stomachs, it causes weak knees and joints.
Dr. Pompa:
You're saying this is linear. I'm just showing our viewers.
Kevin:
A linear pattern, just think of the word line. You're moving in one line. A bicep curl is like this, it's a line. It's a linear pattern. When you get on the ground on your hands and knees and you're moving in a crawling position, your opposite hand and foot is moving. We'll use Merily for an example. I taught her how to crawl awhile ago, and she struggled mightily at first.
Dr. Pompa:
She just walked in. I'm not kidding, but she was not able to crawl.
Kevin:
Hey, Merily.
Merily:
Hey, you.
Dr. Pompa:
Neurologically she didn't crawl as a kid. She kind of went right to walking.
Merily:
Kevin taught me how to crawl.
Dr. Pompa:
Our children, Daniel and Izik, saw you doing this crawl thing. They were cracking up and making fun of her. Meanwhile, it helped her probably more than anything because her coordination working with you honestly went through the roof. Her mountain biking went through the roof. I throw stuff at her now, she catches it. In the past when I would throw stuff at her, it would hit her in the head. I'm not kidding. She has coordination now because of you.
Merily:
Hey, Kevin. My workout partner is in Hawaii for the next two weeks. I'm on the way to the gym right now. Daniel's in training. He sends me workouts whenever I'm supposed to go to the gym. I'm on my way there now, but man, I miss him. This is a good time to revisit some stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
I'm telling you, he changed you.
Merily:
Kevin really taught me neurological equilibrium or balance or synergy or something that I didn't have. Shame on my kids because I did everything right for them that my mom didn't do for me. Dads are heroes.
Dr. Pompa:
Moms are heroes later, trust me.
Kevin:
See you, Merily.
Dr. Pompa:
My wife when she would mountain bike, she would stop and get off and pick her bike and go over a root or a rock. We were mountain biking just the other day through a massive rocky section, just blowing through it. Her coordination was from the training you did. We saw that difference. She said that helped her the most.
Kevin:
You were saying earlier what you have differently that other trainers don't have, and that's one of the things I specialize in is I want to make people better at the things they do outside the gym predominantly. Like I was saying earlier, when you're doing things standing up with two feet on the ground and you're just doing a movement or whatever, that's easy. Anybody can do that.
What happens when you lift one foot off the ground, you put your hands on the ground, you crawl out into a position, you do a push up, and then you kick your leg under your body, lift your arm up, and spin around in a circle? You've got to think about every single movement you're doing including the hand walk downward. These are the kind of movements that I incorporate into my Six-Pack Challenge that I have been working on for years. I finally feel like I cracked the code on how to build a super body.
I want to make people better at what they do outside just like Merily is a perfect case in point. She came to me awhile ago. She had tight hips, and she had a problem concentrating all this stuff. She was telling me she likes to bike. I know how outdoorsy you guys are, so I took all that information and built a program around that for her specifically.
I said to her, you've got to learn how to crawl. When I first said that to her, she looked at me out of the corner of my eye like what the heck are you talking about? I got down on the floor, and I described it to her. We took it in pieces first. I showed her to do an alternating arm and leg raise from the crawl position with your knees off the ground. You must learn how to crawl first before you do anything else. That's the way that I look at things.
When you crawl, you're doing a complex movement pattern, and you're also doing a cross body pattern. Your opposite arm and leg is moving at the same time. That's going to have way more feedback on the body than a linear pattern like a bicep curl because it's really easy to do this. I could watch YouTube videos all day long and learn how to do this, no problem. You could watch a crawl video, but you may not get it at first unless I'm standing right there talking to you about it.
When you learn how to crawl, that's just the basics, in my opinion. Then you start learning three-dimensional movements where you're spinning around in circles. You've got to memorize two and three movement patterns combined and the reps that you're doing. Your brain lights up like a Christmas tree when you do this.
She said the word neurological, and I'm glad she did because that's called a heightened neurological load. That is the secret science to keeping your brain fresh and preventing Alzheimer's and all these other diseases that occur as we get older. I've seen my grandparents go through it, and it's a horrible thing. It's really sad to watch people in perfectly good physical health get dwindled down to a wheelchair and not even remember their names or the names of their kids or recognize no one because of brain problems. I want to try to reverse that and change it and nip it in the bud right now before it gets any worse.
Dr. Pompa:
What do these patterns look like? Can they go to your website and see some of these movements? Can they see you doing them? Can they get the Six-Pack Challenge there? Do you need to stand up right now and actually show some of these movements? I want to give them something now that they can add in to what they're doing even in their home. These are movements. I've seen you do them. These are things that they can do. How do learn how to do it?
Kevin:
First of all, you can go to my website. It's called RestoreYourFitness.com. On there you'll see a little triangle button. Click on that triangle and there's a trailer that I've made on there where I explain the workout a little bit more. You'll see me doing some of the patterns on there. I'm willing to do a little intro for you all right now, if that's cool. Let me try to get some space here.
Bear with me. I'm going to do an exercise called the rail breaker. This is one of my favorites. I'm going to add a pushup in. I'm going to single leg ham lock rail breaker pushup. That's a lot of words. Just bear with me. This is what I'm talking about.
We're going to step back and stand on one foot. Now I'm going to do a ham lock down like this. I'm going to kick my leg under my body. I'm going to kick all the way around -inaudible-. I'm going to kick it back under, lift this foot back up, walk all the way back up, maintain my balance, and switch sides. Go back down and switch sides. Keep this leg under, push up, take it back, walk back up. There you go. My heart rate just went through the roof.
Dr. Pompa:
I was just going to say that. It does. You're in shape. You're huffing. By the way, Kevin made it look easy, but it may take you several times to get it. You'll get it. Don't say I can't do it. If Merily could learn it, you can learn it. It's like riding a bike. You're going wait, what? Let me see that again. That's the whole point.
Kevin:
There's a lot of things going on right there. You've got balance going on, you've got brain function going on, you've got a complex movement pattern, you're working your upper body, you're working your core, and you're improving your flexibility all rolled into one. That's only one exercise I did. I only did one rep to each side, and my heart rate is through the roof.
Dr. Pompa:
Is that part of the Six-Pack Challenge?
Kevin:
Yes. You will see stuff just like that in my Six-Pack Challenge.
Dr. Pompa:
People don't think of that as an ab workout, right? That doesn't look like a sit up to me.
Kevin:
That's another thing. Sit ups and crunches are boring. There's so many other ways to work the abs, it's not even funny. I see people on the crunch machine at the gym all the time, and it's dreadful. It's almost as bad as someone doing American swings with kettlebells. I try to push the edge and make things a lot more fun and a lot more holistic than your average crunch or sit up or plank hold.
You're always moving around, and you do so many other activities with your body that you really don't even focus on your abs until way after the workout's over. All of a sudden your stomach is solid as a rock in a couple weeks. You're like wow, that's actually working. When you walk down with one leg in the air, your core is working right there, but you're also working your posterior -inaudible- suspend your legs. Your hamstring and gluts work. Then you kick your leg under your body, you roll over, and you're working your shoulders.
You're improving your posture. You're improving your brain function. That's one exercise right there, and I built the whole entire program around this premise. I'm not trying to toot my own horn or use this as a cheap plug. I'm just being honest. I've seen it all come and go. I still see it to this day. This program and that one, 20 minute this and 10 minute that, drills and whatever, that's all fine and dandy. What I've devised is a program that's going to improve your balance, your brain function, your lean muscle mass, your core strength, your posture, and it's also going to burn a ton of calories all rolled into one in a nice package deal. You can do it in five to ten feet of space.
Dr. Pompa:
It's fantastic. It's very popular. People think it's amazing. Meredith, I've seen it action. You probably have questions that our viewers and listeners have questions about.
Meredith:
I want to try it too. I'm super motivated because I've found some challenges with eating such a clean diet and taking a lot of supplements that I find it very easy to maintain a lean body mass without really exercising at all. I hate to say it, to be honest I'll go weeks and not exercise at all and not feel like I look any different. Part of it is I get bored with exercise.
I love how all this ties into diet variation, your concept of varying our meals and our food and the timing to optimize our hormones. I think the exercise variation piece of this compliments it so well. With that being said, Kevin, -inaudible- with your diet, with the exercise variation, maybe some supplements you take just to give us an idea of what the implementation looks like in real life for you.
Kevin:
Usually I work out first thing in the morning or the first chance I get to work out. Normally I'm able to get to the gym rather early between 5:30 and 6:00 AM. Oftentimes I'll have a client at 6:00 AM or 5:30 or something, and then I'll have to wait. It's either first thing in the morning or my first available chance to work out. I just feel I get the most brain function spike from working out first thing in the morning. If I workout late in the afternoon, I have to drag myself to workout.
I try to do it as close to first thing as possible, empty stomach always. It's not even a question. Once in awhile I will do a greens powder or a pre-workout formula because people give me samples of things all the time. There's always company reps always trying to get me to promote their stuff. It needs to get through the K. Rail seal of approval. If it's got acesulfame potassium, red lake #40, blue #5, anything artificial in it, I see it in a nano second.
People come to me all the time. Oh, this is clean, this is natural. Try this out. I've just got to read the ingredient label and if it has any of that stuff, -inaudible-. Sometimes I'll try those things just to try them because I have a lot of clients who use pre-workout formulas and all these other things. I try to stay current on what's going on out there just so I can give them a good healthy option to use when they're looking for it. That's really the only reason. I don't need pre-workout formulas, I'm glad to say.
A lot of people ask me if I drink coffee because they're like man, you have more energy than two people put together. I'm high on life, and I'm passionate. That's all there is to it. I don't drink coffee. I'm not against it. I don't throw anyone under the bus. I don't judge people. If you want to drink coffee, that's great. It's the second biggest commodity in the world next to oil, and I'm cool with that.
Usually it's empty stomach, water, workout, train people, come home, write some articles, work on my site, go back to the gym and train more people, then it's off to the races, and then repeat. As far as my diet is concerned, I try to eat as high octane fuel as I can. I try to get as many alkaline foods in my diet as possible, and I try to keep things as clean as I can.
Every now and then I'll do a longer fast. I fast usually 12 to 16 hours. Sometimes I'll do longer ones, 24, 48, and so on. I don't have a lot of body fat, so I have to be careful about doing really long fasts often. I just schedule them in here and there. I also use a good quality protein powder as well. That's pretty much it, supplement wise.
Meredith:
You don't do any other supplements other than a protein powder?
Kevin:
Not really. Creatine I'll us as well, plain creatine, which comes from a good source that I know of. My workouts are usually an hour and a half, and they're pretty high intensity. It's really good for my recoveries. I'll use protein powder, creatine, and every now and then a greens formula or sometimes a pre-workout formula. That's pretty much it.
I don't do B6 in the morning, multi-vitamin here, liquid vitamin there. The only reason why I don't do that is the reason why I don't drink coffee. I know so many who survive on coffee, and that's how they survive. To me it's kind of a crutch. If I'm out camping or something in the woods or if I'm out traveling somewhere and I don't have access to coffee in the morning, I want to be able to function. I don't want to be like I need coffee. What am I going to do? Some people are like don't even talk to me. I haven't had my coffee yet. I'm like seriously?
If you sleep better, get more alkaline, drink more water, and drink some kombucha during the day, you don't have to worry about bloody coffee every single minute of every hour. These people that have to have coffee first thing in the morning to survive, I don't want to be one of those people. I don't want to be a statistic. I don't like the after taste and what I feel it does to your teeth as well. I don't want to walk around with a toothbrush all day long brushing my teeth after drinking coffee in between. Those are some of my deals right there.
Dr. Pompa:
No doubt, people should get the Six-Pack Challenge. It's more than just the six pack, trust me. That's just a way to get people's attention. Much of it is about the brain. You can see just by that. Like you said, Meredith, we don't have to work out to stay as lean as we are. Working out for me means a heck of a lot more than staying lean. I stay just as lean whether I work out or not. There's so many more benefits to working out. It's absolutely remarkable.
Kevin:
A lot of people only scratch the surface when they're talking about exercise and workouts. Oh, get in shape in 20 days and do this workout and burn this many calories. They don't really get the big picture. There's not a lot of people I know of that talk about the mental aspects, the real deep mental aspects of fitness like the complex movement patterns. Some people are like you get an endorphin release. It's great. That's only part of it.
It's like what we just talked about. You come into a new trigger and you turn the switch on that you didn't know you had. Doing something like I did there for seconds even, it's that fast. Do any complex movement pattern for two minutes in the middle of the afternoon from your desk cubicle, and your brain is going to be refreshed like that faster than a cup of coffee will give it to you. It's going to be a clean, natural brain freshening that you're getting. It's a whole different ball game.
Dr. Pompa:
That's what I wanted to share with the viewers. You've got to bring my people that challenge and those movements. Go ahead if you were going to say something.
Meredith:
I was just curious too for those of us who just want to try some of these complex movements, when do you incorporate rest days? How often are you suggesting to do these movements?
Kevin:
As far as my program is concerned, how it works is you get a workout sent to you through email, and you follow along with my videos on there. You do that three days a week on alternating days. The reason I built it that way is because I've done the research. I find that it takes the first workout someone does when I do this class live, they're figuring it all out and they're kind of clueless. The second workout they do, they're starting to get it. Oh, yeah. I remember this. By the third workout, they finally have it down.
Then as soon as they get it down, I change the questions again, and I send them a new workout the next week. You get a new workout sent to you every single week that's going to be unique. As the weeks go on, the intensity level goes like this. They get harder each week, which is a lot of fun as well. It usually takes you three workouts just to figure it out and get into the pocket.
On the three other alternating days I suggest you do a minimum of 30 minutes of cardio. It can be as small as brisk walking or it can be high intensity Tabata drills. It can be whatever you want it to be. It can be longer than 30 minutes, but it has to be a minimum of 30. That's the method. On a Sunday, your seventh day, which is your off day, I suggest that you do a minimum of 30 minutes of activity with some friends and family members. I'm big into unity.
That's another thing I talk about in the motivation factor we mentioned earlier is how exercise brings people together, it helps reduce crime, and it helps improve test scores with kids in school. It does all these wonderful, magical things for the brain. It also helps with your personal life as well. I say on your off day, do something with your friends. Go to a park, play Frisbee, play volleyball, go bowling. Do something active, even if it's fishing. It's still active. You're in Mother Nature. You're surrounded with ecotherapy, and that's part of the solution whatever the problem is, the crime, the obesity, corruption, government. It's out there.
I try to shift all my focus to the positive. How can I contribute to make things better? I want people to come together and love each other and hug each other and be with each other. It just helps in so many ways. It's overlooked. I think exercise is panaceia. It can be used as that ingredient to get everyone together and stop the feuding, stop the fighting, the bickering, and the irrelevant childish gibberish that goes on around us all the time that I see every single day. That's how -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Movement is missing and so is that. Listen, Kevin. Not everyone can hire you as their coach, but they can all go get the Six-Pack Challenge. Then you'll be their coach. You're sending them these workouts. Do it. It's all the rage here. The fact is you can do it right in your own home. That's what's so cool. Go to his site. Remind them how to get it again on your website, Kevin.
Kevin:
It's RestoreYourFitness.com. It's called My Six-Pack Challenge. I'm easy to find. I'm on social media, Kevin Rails. Just look for me. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, all that stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
Get it and he can be your coach too. It's all the rage here. It will absolutely change not just your physique, not just your abs, more importantly it's going to change your nervous system. That's where people need the greatest change, no doubt about it. Kevin, thanks for coming on. I wanted you to deliver that, and you did. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.
Kevin:
Thanks, Dr. Pompa. I appreciate it. Meredith, thank you too.
Meredith:
Thank you so much, Dr. Pompa and Kevin. Amazing message and amazing information. I'm really excited to try your workouts myself. Everybody go to RestoreYourFitness.com and check out Kevin's program. Thanks again, Kevin, for sharing your wisdom.
Kevin:
Absolutely. Have a great day, everyone.
Dr. Pompa:
Talk to you. Bye.
Meredith:
Thank you, everybody. Bye.
