Welcome to the BIMTech Podcast. In this episode Matt sits down with Mike Robinson (The Coach and Co-Founder of SIN-Gym) to talk about what actually happens to your body and mind when you sit at a desk all day. Mike goes through his Top 5 Tips to improve your habits when working a full time desk/office job and what SIN-Gym does to make being consistent at the gym, easier! This and more on Episode 2 of the BIMTech Podcast. Enjoy!
Welcome to the BIMTech Podcast. In this episode Matt sits down with Mike Robinson (The Coach and Co-Founder of SIN-Gym) to talk about what actually happens to your body and mind when you sit at a desk all day. Mike goes through his Top 5 Tips to improve your habits when working a full time desk/office job and what SIN-Gym does to make being consistent at the gym, easier! This and more on Episode 2 of the BIMTech Podcast. Enjoy!
Hi... Right. Yeah. Welcome to episode two of The BIMTech podcast. Today we're kind of focusing a little bit on fitness and health and sort of what things you can do within an office environment to try and promote a bit of health and fitness. And today I'm joined by my PT Mike Robinson. Thank you for having me. I feel honored to be the second guest on the series. So, yeah, you come to strength in numbers. Or SIN-Gym, as we call it, which has been going for three years. We started after lockdown. Before that I was a personal trainer for 13 years. So helping people like yourself, many of whom worked in an office. Just create healthier habits, get fitter, feel more confident in their body, yeah, and I guess maybe counteract some of the stresses from everyday life and do it all in a, I guess our philosophy is to make things sustainable and like a more realistic approach to health and fitness. How have you found it? I found it good, yeah. I think one of the things I found is that working with you and Dave, I suppose maybe one thing I should say is like I say Mike’s my PT, but he’s not a one on one PT now. You've kind of moved into these small groups haven’t you where there’s two trainers and they're looking after a small group generally between 6 and 12. Isn't it? Kind of the size of the groups. So you kind of get that... It feels like you get the 1 to 1 training but it feels more like you're in a team environment. So growing up, I've always enjoyed playing in teams and stuff like that. So it's kind of bringing that to the gym as well. And I think it's the first time I've ever, like you said, I’ve been going for two and a half years. I don't think I've ever stuck at a gym for that long. I've always been one of these who starts off with good intention and then it seems to drift away as time goes by. I'd love to say you've enjoyed it and stuck to it for two and a half years because of me and Dave. But it's like you say, it's probably because of that community aspect, isn't it? It is, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot to do with that. The social side of it is good as well. Yeah. I think, you know, you mentioned there like the, you know, we no longer do one to one PT. I think from our side like you mentioned, we've noticed that when people work out in groups they feel like they're part of a team. Not only do they tend to stick around longer, which means they'll be more consistent, which means they get better results. We can offer personal training as less of a like a luxury and more of a okay, this is a more doable expense for me. So that's one of the reasons that we got into that. One of our goals, like, know maybe you guys and when you think about life, you've got home, you've got BIMTech and then you've got SIN, like your gym life. That's what me and Dave want to try and create. And when we think about people and think about being inclusive, that's massive for us. Yeah. No, it’s all good. One question before we do kick off with talking about the office environment and that because I know there'll be plenty of people watching this and they see these PT’s and everything and... It’s a question you asked me last night. What’s your maximum deadlift?...God! 140kg. Come off it. Yeah, 140kg on a good day. I don't believe that. Yeah. What was yours? 160kg? I don't want to say now. Was it 160kg? Well, just short of 160kg. Yeah, 157kg. I think I might have been counting the plates up wrong or something. Maybe. Right. Anyway, just getting on to kind of what we're here for today. And just want to ask you a little bit about sort of working in an office environment, obviously if you're a bricklayer or whatever on site, you’re getting a bit of natural sort of exercise throughout the day. But, when you work in an office environment, sort of, what detriment does that have to not only your physical body, but your mental body with not being able to get regular exercise in, do you think? So, I guess, you know, you think about the people who come in to SIN. We have a lot of people who either run their own business, office managers, people who tend to travel into town to work. So we do come across quite a lot of your stereotypical 9 to 5ers. I know you guys like to finish early on a Friday, don't you? Sometimes. Sometimes. Okay. So yeah, people who tend to be, I guess you would maybe say desk bound all day. You would think that they would be more sedentary. Okay, so when you’re more sedentary, you leave yourself exposed to a few more potential health issues. So for example, you might be more at risk of cardiovascular disease because you don't spend as much time moving throughout the day. You leave yourself more open to becoming overweight. And then there's the obvious postural changes from being in a seated position all day. So that can cause issues in itself more towards function. So you can tend to get more knee pain, more lower back pain. You'll then find that you try to correct that. So you maybe go out for a run or you know, you'll have a health kick. So you jump into something and because of the postural changes your postural position that you maybe have during the day doesn't necessarily help those new activities. You tend to get injured a little bit easier. So yeah, it might seem like all doom and gloom if you work in an office but that's not necessarily the case if you have the right structure and lifestyle choices in place to help you still maintain a positive mindset, have energy and feel confident in your body at the end of the day. Yeah, is there any things like tips or hints you'd give to people who work in an office of things they could be doing during the day. Sort of, I know there’s obvious ones I can think of myself like at lunchtime, get yourself out the office and go for a bit of a walk. But any other things you can think of, what you could be doing? Well, looking at some things you could do before you get here. You think about how you want to feel during the day. You want to come into work and feel like you can be productive, you want to feel energetic, you want to feel positive. I know what it was like for me staring at a screen during lockdown. You know, we were doing burpees over Zoom and things like that. I remember that well. But listen, you know, 40 minutes is enough for me, and then I need to go off and move. And I can imagine that being in an office environment like 9 to 5, it can be quite difficult. Yeah. So if you're coming into the workplace, feeling energized, feeling a bit more positive, feeling like you can take things on like that's a cracking start. Not just from the exercise point of view, but from a nutritional point of view. There’s things you could do beforehand. You know, it'd be great to do a survey in not just this office, but offices around the country where you think what would most people have, you know, when they leave? Let's say they've got a commute and they leave at 7:00, they maybe skip breakfast. They get a Starbucks on the way with a croissant. So that's going to immediately wake them up with the caffeine. But they might have that sugar from the croissant, which dips at about 11:00. So they're you know, they're immediately feeling low energy. If you feeling low energy, how likely are you to make that sales call? How you know, what's your concentration levels going to be like on a call where you might miss details? So it's looking at things like that and thinking, okay, so could I maybe eat something that will sustain my energy throughout the morning until I take my break and I can go and get something else that’ll almost rather than having like peaks and troughs like that, which we want to avoid, we kind of sustain our energy throughout the whole day. So those would be my first two things that I would look at doing. What can I do before work? And what nutritional choices can I make before I come in? What about on your way to work? Because one of the things I do now is I park, it’s not too far away, but a car park that's a bit of a walk away and I park on the second floor. There's ground first and second. I park on the second floor, and I always park on the second floor. And then I always use the stairs. So I always go up and down the stairs each day and then a bit of a walk into the office just to try and put a little bit of exercise into my commute. Mate, I think little choices like that are really important. So what we would tend to recommend with our members is over the course of the week, something more doable, maintainable would be an average between five and seven and a half thousand steps per day. So like you said, I think being, you know, you guys are in the middle of town. So I imagine most people will park at car parking that's outside of Deansgate. They've got a good commute in. So you know, they can maybe look on their watches on the phones to see what that daily commute is currently getting them and make changes, you know, then if they look at it and it's currently like 3000, like a massive change would be getting to 5000 steps. I think there's other things you can do as well. So you've got quite a big office environment. So if somebody picks up the phone to a client or a potential lead, we're faced with the same things. When we get new inquiries, we pick up the phone, we go walking because especially from a sales point of view, when you move, you feel more positive, you feel more energetic. And I don't know what you're like and well, I can imagine what you're like. But you know, when you're employing people you want guys and girls who show energy don’t you? Who are productive, positive, you know, they’re doers and they want to find solutions. And I think being in that sort of mindset, like movement plays a big part in that. Yeah, well you hear the comment a lot of times, don't you? Healthy body, healthy mind. And I think there is a lot of truth in that isn’t there? I agree with you. I think, yeah that comment you can't out train a bad diet. I think it's all about like setting your expectation. At the end of the day if you know, I know you've probably seen us talk about it before when we’ve done presentations but we talk about like the six pack spectrum. And you know we're not the sort of gym who peddles you should look like this. We're not a body image gym at all, but we are aware that members come to us so that they can, you know, look better, lose a few pounds tone up, maybe. So when we think about like the six pack spectrum. Okay, so if your expectation is to not exercise, maybe go for a walk on a Sunday, not really make any nutritional changes and, you know, have a few pints with the lads Friday and Saturday, what should your, you know, if we're thinking of a body there, what should the expectation be really if you're not going to do much? I think your expectations would be pretty low wouldn’t they? Well, some people's might be high, but realistically it should be lower I guess. You’d be expecting relatively poor fitness levels, poor body composition, so what your body is made up of. And probably more prone to ailments and, you know, other illnesses. But then if we just introduce a couple of gym sessions and then, you know, 50% healthy, 50%, you know, takeaways and bad foods, drinks two or three nights a week, you can probably expect to have a reasonable bill of health. Still not anything exciting and just, you know, properly able to fight off some of those ailments. Then we get into the good stuff where we're talking about what we almost promote and support at SIN is training 3 to 4 times a week. Getting out and being active, you know, with the family in your spare time. We talk about 80/20, don't we? So 80% eating nutritious foods, stuff that's going to give you energy, support muscle growth. And then 20% still being, you know, eating your fun foods like we have a Friday night session where... I know, some people probably wouldn't believe this when you tell them. But we do a really good work out, again like it's a team based one so hitting one of our values in community. But then also cracking open the beers, you know, it's like... And ordering the pizza in. And ordering the pizza’s in. So talking of that, should we go through your order and see how many of the viewers... No, maybe not. I'm the awkward one who orders the pizza without cheese. Is it no cheese or? No cheese. But we do have one person who gets no tomato as well and it's like... I know, we could almost share. Yeah. So, you know, like we sort of think that if we follow that principle, you know, we train 3 to 4 times a week, we've got the 80/20 philosophy. We can set pretty good expectations that, that member is going to get into great shape. They're going to feel fitter and stronger than most people in the office or, you know, in their friend circle. Most importantly, they're going to live longer. And that's, you know, maybe when you're sort of 18 to 25, you’re thinking Brad Pitt in Fight Club, then when you get to 30, I want to be the fittest on sports day. But as you get older, it's all about living longer, isn't it? Yeah, I guess so. I think you've, I was going to ask you, but I think you've probably covered it a bit. About what's the long term benefits of having a healthier diet and a healthier sort of exercise routine? But. Well, I think you've kind of covered it. But, I guess one of the things is longer life. Yeah, I think, you know, this is where exercise is amazing And obviously I can see the benefit and I see how many people we work with and how that carries over into work life. But, if you imagine you've got people in the office, what's the age range in your office? Well, I think I'm probably one of the eldest. All right. So it's probably... Do you feel like one of the oldest, though? I don’t know, when I look around at some of them, the way they sort of mope around, maybe not. One of the reasons getting you in to do this is so that people can maybe take a bit away from it and maybe change a couple of things, like they might not change drastically what they do, but even if they pick up a couple of good sort of hints and tips from it that it might just make a few little changes. I think the best thing about exercise is even if, you know, I'm not on here to make anybody feel guilty about not exercising three or four times a week or, you know, eating lettuce and stuff like that. But the best thing about exercise is you can start tomorrow and still get benefits from it. No it's all good stuff. Just one of the final things then we’ll just ask you before we relieve you and let you go. If you could give, like, people who work in an office environment, sort of five tips, what kind of tips would you give them? Only five? Well, just the top five then. I think first and foremost, you know, there's so many benefits to exercise and following a healthier lifestyle and it really depends on that individual, like what sort of differences they want to see. I think if I was coming into an office environment, I'd be thinking morning routine. So not just thinking my day starts at half 8 most guys get into the office? Yeah but, what time does your day finish? So I don't...Yeah, half 11. Half 11?? No! Come of it. I mean what time did I leave last night? What time was it?
19:00? Straight home to bed? 15. No, dinner wasn't ready when I got home. I had to wait for a bit. But enough about that. So, yeah, office day, what time does it start? Well, we start at sort of between eight and nine. What time does the boss get in? Ermm... Half seven.
So I'd be looking at 8:00. I'd be thinking, what can I do before that to put myself in that right frame of mind. So how can I get the blood going? So, you know, you suggested parking the car a little bit further away. That's a start. There's loads of gyms on the way into town. So, you know, you can obviously park it there. You walk here, I am sort of thinking you could maybe walk past the printworks, there's a gym in there. And then there's loads of other gyms like ours that are popping up everywhere. And that's not just in Manchester, it's all across the UK. So what can I do to get my blood moving? First thing. The second thing is how could I fuel myself? So I know sometimes you split your days with breaks, so I'd be thinking how can I have something first thing that's going to support the body I want to travel in. So something that's protein based, something that gives me energy. So a dish that's got carbs with it and then to be hydrated. So for my breakfast, I would have something like a smoothie that's got, you know, some fruit in it, some protein powder, something that tastes really nice, just some cinnamon in it to add a bit of flavor and some Greek yogurt. So I'd have something like that. But there's loads of other choices you could make. That would keep me going till mid-morning. So we've got moving first thing, we've got a decent quality breakfast. I think something to counteract the working day would be the sales call. So get up and move when you take that call. If you can't do it, if you're not on the sales team. Make sure on you’re lunch break, you're adding to that overall weekly total. So we suggested before, if you're currently hitting about 3000 steps, let's aim for 5000 or if you’re currently hitting 5000, let's aim for 7500 average over the course of the week. So you can almost play a little game with yourself at lunchtime. How close to that target can I get? And I don't know what you're like. But, I'm one of them weirdos. So, you know, when you look on your map, when you do like Citymapper, you know, when you go into London, or around Manchester and it says like, I don't know, 10 minutes to get from here to there, you try and beat it don’t you and you know, you try and... Get a bit of a... You get a bit of a sweat on don’t you? So I think little things like that can help. So increasing the daily movement. I think your nighttime routine is something we've not really touched on, but is also really important. So if we think that the majority of people are getting home
around 18:00 or 19:00 they’ve then might have family. So they've got kids to see too. And before you know it, it's half nine. And I think where we might reach for something like, you know the TV remote late at night or the games console and you play that until half 11. You can imagine, pair that with maybe like a beer or glass of wine like, your sleep quality is not going to be great. And you're going to be almost in a sleep debt over the course of a week. So imagine taking that into the working day. Are you going to be productive? Are you going to be energetic? No. So establish a good nighttime routine is Number four I think. So, do you think it's important to work backwards on that?
So to say like you say, I get up 5:00,
you work from 5:00 backwards and go,
if I know I'm getting up at 5:00, I need to be in bed 21:00. Perfect. And do it that way? Yeah, yeah. That’s Perfect. Not everyone has to get up at the crack of dawn. When you retire, what time do you think you'll get up? Me? Yeah. I don’t know. Whenever I wake up.
I think 7:00 is perfect. I think as you get older, you kind of wake up earlier anyway. I’ve found you go through life where as a teenager you just sleep forever. And then you kind of settle down. You have kids and you have no sleep whatsoever. And then you start, I think once your kids get older or whatever your sleep starts picking up again. But, I've found from, I'm going to say, older people than me, like my mum and dad for example. They seem to live on hardly any sleep. They seem to be up dead early and... Go to bed late. Yeah. Yeah. But they do have them catnaps during the day. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So do I. Not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah, I guess number five, I think, you know, being in a team I guess like BIMTech, you know, we're massive team players at SIN. I think if you're going to make any sort of changes, accountabilities key. So, you know, if you're looking at I guess for us guys at the gym, you know, we set up a, an accountability program called Thrive in Five, which at the end of the day, we're not really doing anything different other than we've got a qualified nutritionist to come in and have a chat with you guys. But it’s still the same training. Just awareness, isn't it, more than anything. Yeah, but you know, one of the big things that you've always suggested with our gym is having that touchpoint with other members. So like the Whatsapp accountability group has been great to share recipe ideas, how people have found workouts, things like that. And it's just created a bit more of a buzz. Yeah. And I think in an office environment you've probably got people in here who do have their own routines that make them more productive, make them more energized, make them, you know, put them into a better shape. So like, they've got really good movement habits. And I think when you hear it from not just a trainer or you hear it from, you know, your mate or Sally at the front desk or whoever, you know, when you hear it from more than one person, that awareness you’re sort of like, you know what, I'll make some changes myself. So I think accountability is key and feeling as part of a team. Yeah, definitely. I agree with that. But like I said at the start, that's one of the things I’ve found great about SIN-Gym is being part of that team environment. And it's like I know when I come to sessions like you say, you make your friends and everything and you have almost like your sort of go to partners because we always get split into little mini groups or whatever. And you know the ones who are going to push you harder. And I mean, sometimes you get involved with some of the rugby lads and flipping heck. Is that why you always stand on the other side of the room to them? Yeah, I try and stay away from them. No, you're not. You're not. You're good. You do get stuck in don’t you? You always say you always feel like you've had a bad time or like you've challenge yourself more don’t you? Yeah, I think you want to walk away from there feeling like you've been to the gym. If you can walk out the door and skip to your car, then I think you've done something wrong. Just going back to like you thinking about people who may be thinking about making lifestyle changes or, you know, maybe joining a gym for the first time or anything, something like what we do. You know, when you do go through that. So that's a choice you make isn’t it, to think, you know what I'm going to work with somebody who's going to push me. How do you feel after it? I always feel Miles better afterwards. Yeah. I mean, it's like when we come on a Saturday morning, because Saturday morning can be an absolute grueller. And I know everyone says the same who goes. Everyone's walking in and it's like, oh God, this is going to be tough today. At the end of it, everyone feels so great. And if you're in one of the earlier classes as you're walking out and the people who are coming in for the next class, you have this big grin on your face, don't you? Like I've just done it. I've finished. I’ve done my bit for the weekend. So it is good. That work out on a Saturday, you feel great and it sets you up for the weekend. And without really thinking about it, imagine setting yourself up every day like that. Yeah. I think that's definitely my take home point is like think about that sliding doors moment. So think about at end of the day we all want to have a great life. We want to do amazing things. So if you can start your day with something that's going to put you in that mindset, then what's stopping you? Yeah, no, it's all really good stuff. Well, thanks for that anyway. Thanks for coming in and chatting to us about it. Good. Nice to get things off my chest. Yeah, you normally have to listen to us lot now. Got to listen to you for a change. Brilliant. That was great. Right, cheers! So is that us done?(Yeah). Ah, I should have finished off by saying shall we go to the pub now?