Rita Black: Our physical mobility is something that we often take for granted until it isn't there anymore. Often the loss of mobility comes so slowly we don't even know that it's happening until it's a major issue. In this episode of the Thin Thinking Podcast, I interviewed Dr. Fitness, an expert, coach, trainer, and teacher in the world of mobility. Dr. Fitness and I explore mobility, how we lose it, how we can get it back, or even better yet, how we can prevent mobility issues from creeping in as we age, stay limber, balanced, and spry into our nineties and beyond. So, ditch the cane and join me in the amazing Doctor Fitness and come on in.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn't start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That's right. The key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I'm Rita Black. I'm a clinical hypnotherapist weight loss expert, bestselling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I'll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need, not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life.

Rita Black: Hello, you beautiful you! Please come on in. How are you doing here in the middle of winter? I hope you're doing well and looking forward to February. February is always that interesting month. You really know you're in the heart and soul of the winter, but there's also Valentine's Day. And even though I really don't eat a lot of chocolate anymore, I ate a lot more when I struggled with weight. So when I think of February, I do think of chocolates and those little heart candies with, you know, the so smart and stay cute and all of that, all those weird sayings. And I remember, I don't know about you, and I'm probably aging myself, but back when I was in elementary school, we had to give Valentine's to everybody. And it was those really cheap Valentine's that you would buy in a package and just, you know, sign your name and you would just give every single one of your classmates one.

Rita Black: And so you would get these brown paper bags full of paper, Valentine's and candies that you would bring home from school. Do you remember this? So yeah. So here comes February, and I know we have listeners from all over the world, so maybe Valentine's wasn't that big of a deal or a deal at all. I remember when I lived in England, I I didn't think it was that much of a thing like it is here. And if you're a listener and you don't even know what Valentine's Day is, let me know. Email me at [email protected] and just let me know. And of course if you haven't subscribed to our podcast, please do. You can find a little place to subscribe on whatever platform you're on. And the best Valentine you can give me is a review for the show on your favorite podcast platform.

Rita Black: And if you take a screenshot of the review and send it to me, I will send you a coupon for a free hypnosis download of your choice at the Shift Shop. So email me at [email protected] with at screenshot of the review and get that download.

Rita Black: Okay. So, you know, when you meet someone and they just love what they do and how they help people and their passion is contagious. Well, I must have caught something from my interview with Dr. Fitness because since we talked about mobility, that is all I can think about, especially my own. I know that this is a time when I'm focusing on my ongoing health. So the timing was great to talk to Doctor Fitness, but I didn't expect to learn so many juicy takeaways and tidbits. So I can't wait to share this interview with you. Max Sturdivant is known to many as Doctor Fitness, and he has had 22 years of experience as a health coach, fitness advisor and radio fitness personality.

Rita Black: Dr. Fitness can be heard on iHeart radio's, 93.3, The Beats Jams. Millions have listened to him finding solutions to a multitude of fitness challenges. His emphasis on supporting the whole person, mind, body, and spirit inspired him to begin a spiritual direction formation program at Eyre and incredible three year program that prepared him to provide fitness and nutrition client space to also explore spiritual solutions for some fitness and nutritional challenges. He has also completed his training at Functional Aging Institute, and currently he serves as the president of the Jacksonville Association of Exercise and Nutritional Professionals a role that has afforded him the opportunity to mentor fitness and nutrition professionals. It has also helped him to better pair clients with fitness and nutrition professionals ushering in this new referral-based program that will build personalized pathways to fitness success.

Rita Black: Hello Max, and welcome to the Thin Thinking Podcast. We are so excited to have you here today, especially to talk about mobility, which is a topic a lot of our listeners are definitely interested in.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Rita, I'm really excited to be here and thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: Oh, well, it's my pleasure. Our pleasure. Maybe you can start by telling me, 'cause I find what you do is incredibly fascinating. Tell our listeners, like how do you help people in general? I know you help 'em in many ways, but you do help with mobility.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): And mobility is probably one of the most important ways that I support people. You know, I deal in a practice that most of the clients that I take care of are 55 or over. And when we get to those ages, we start to notice, you know, one of the things we notice is we make sounds when we move and when we sit down, you sit down and you're like, Ooh, or or all these little moans. So if you ever listen to people that are over 55, sit and move and get outta bed, you're always listen for the little sounds they make. I don't even know why, but it's like, oh, yeah, you know, there the always these sounds. Well, those sounds are really great because they let you know if you catch yourself making sounds, it means that it's time for you to really pay attention, usually to your mobility, particularly when you're sitting down.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Now it's funny, I've come to do this because, you know, as a kid I love my grandmother and my grandparents were like my favorite people in the whole world. And then I built this affinity towards seniors. There's this, they come with this reverent kind of aura, you know, and

Rita Black: Wisdom.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Wisdom. And they love in a very different way. And it's, they're freer in the way they provide love, particularly when you're younger. It's like, oh my God. So you just really appreciate that, that special attention. And so grandparents are really special to me. And I think because of that relationship with my grandparents, I didn't fear the aging process, you know? I saw it as a process and kind of in a way I wanted to get that kind of wisdom, that kind of reverence that people share or have towards people that are in their golden years. And I'm in my late fifties now. So I'm starting to get that.

Rita Black: You look amazing!

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): I coach and I coach a lot of younger and mentor a lot of younger wellness professionals. And so I get that and it's been such a joy for me. But when it gets to mobility, let me get to mobility. And for helping mature adults. And it's always been I went to a program called The Functioning Aging Institute, and they're out in Arizona. And at this point, I went there after, I've been training for 10 years already. But I didn't feel like I had the skillset to do a great job with a more mature audience. But my passion for doing the work was there. But my skillset may have not met or matched my passion. So what I did was I took a course with them and fell in love. One of the things that you realize is once you get information and knowledge to support your passion, it's like the world opens up to you. It's so amazing because you literally see that people's lives change instantly. And mobility is such a foundation of who we are.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): And it's one of the things that we're more challenged by as we get older. And there are real reasons for that. And some of the reasons are the way our brain functions. So our neurological, our neuromuscular activity kind of slows down the speed of it slows down so that we're not able to, when we think something, our brain can't send the signals to that, to your legs and get the signals back after they place the feet. And then, you know, to say, okay, that's good to do it. So that speed of that neuromuscular activity just greatly slows down. And that's something that we need to practice and work on regularly. But most people don't add that as they get older into their exercise programming. So they're not working on speeding up their neuromuscular activity. And so they tend to slow down. If you've ever noticed, older people start to walk slower. And they start doing things slower instead of faster.

Rita Black: This is interesting. Can I just ask you, so, what you're saying is, it's not just, we aren't just being limited by our, as we age, our physical ability to move, but it's a connection with the brain and just the brain signaling to the body, Hey, move, or we're gonna move, move at this pace, or is that correct?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Oh, yeah.

Rita Black: Am I hearing you right? Okay.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Oh, you definitely -

Rita Black: I just wanna get that clear.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Oh, that's, that. Would Rita, that's a great way to describe it. And not only is the brain saying move slowly, there's a cautious thing that happens because the neuro, the speed of that brain contact with the muscles immediately slows the body down because then you're not as sure on your feet. So when you take a step, it takes a minute for everything to settle and process when you get older. Your brain has to catch up to the muscles so that, that speed, because of that speed, you have to walk slower if you're not gonna fall. Because if you try to put your, the, your brain tries to put those muscles before and you try to speed up, well, then you hear people falling and you go, well, that's why they fell, because their brain wasn't able to secure that plan of the foot before having the other foot go, and they were trying to move too fast. So to avoid that, the natural thing that the body does is slow you down to make sure you don't fall.

Rita Black: Okay. Okay. Interesting.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Now, the problem with that is you just continually slow down. It gets to a point where you slow down where you're barely moving. Then you decide, well, it's better that I don't really walk at all, or it's better that I stay seated 'cause I feel more safe. Because there are aspects that fear that start to play too, because now your body is not responding like it used to when you were younger and walking. Your feet, you don't feel really sure on your feet, but you feel safer when you sit. And like anything, we tend not to do things that we don't feel safe doing. Right. And so the, the, the more unsafe we feel when we're on our feet, the less we're on our feet. And as you can imagine, the less you're on your feet, the less you're gonna be able to be on your feet and you can move into a position where you totally lose your mobility.

Rita Black: Wow. So, oh, keep going. I, I, I was gonna say, 'cause I just was in Florida visiting my mother-in-Law, who's definitely 88 years old, sharp as attack, but definitely has slowed down in the last couple of years, which is hard to see. And you know, I, here I am, I'm 59 and I definitely have made some of those noises you were referring to getting up and getting down. So do you see as a practitioner you know, in your fifties, this has gone on in your sixties, this is going on. Do you see it or is it, is it more due to, not chronological age, but biological age, meaning like, if you're more fit, if you are more active, that that connection could have stay more lubricated or what have you.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Absolutely. If you're more physically fit, oh, you don't have to make sounds. You, you, you don't have to slow down. And, and you could do this well into your, you know, I have clients that I work with that are 80 and 90 years old that are fine. They are, they're not slowing down's. They're moving at a normal rate, but they're really fit and they're really strong and part of that is they work on the neurological pieces too, of their training and they use their exercise to address those things. Which is fantastic because it's moving fast. So now harder, their goal is to move more quickly. And that's what we do when we do mobility training of mature adults. It's about getting them to speed up that movement pattern first. They gotta move. And one of the things is getting them to address some of the changes that have happened as they've aged and haven't been aware of it.

Rita Black: One of it is the postural change that happens. So if you've noticed someone older walking, they tend to bend over more. They spend a lot of time looking at the ground. So one of the first things I do when I'm working with a new client is I have 'em walk across the room without looking at the ground.

Rita Black: Is that scary for them? If they've been used to looking at the ground?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): They're petrified. But how can I know it's down there. And I remind them, I have to remind people, you know, even younger. So there are people 50 and 40 that I have to remind not to look down at the ground. And I think it's more of a challenge even now because we're so used to looking at our cell phones that we're developing all kinds of postural defects that put us in the same postural position that it used to. We used to get into when we were in our seventies and eighties. Now we're getting into in our forties and fifties if we're not cautious.

Speaker 2: Interesting.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): So that's slowing the process down. And when you're looking down, you do, it changes your eyesight, it changes your eyesight and your eyes ability to see the full spectrum of your vision. You start limiting your vision. So as I look down, I can see nothing but the ground, but when you're looking up, you notice you can see the ground and you have a wider view of everything that's coming at you. And the ground, you definitely can see the ground as you're walking ahead. And we're designed in that way when we do this. Imagine if you're walking down looking at every step you take and you're back in an area where, let's say you're living in you're living where there are lions, tigers and bears, you're gonna be food 'cause you'll never see 'em coming. So looking down is not really great for your mobility. And in our modern world, looking down, you don't see cars coming, you don't see bikes coming. You don't see kids on skateboards coming -

Rita Black: Or scooters

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Or scooters. And those little devices are starting to move a lot faster now. So everything in the world is moving fast, and when you're walking slow and looking down it's just not a really good position to be in, and you're more likely to get yourself hurt or in danger. The awareness and looking up is really important. So the first thing really for anybody to improve your mobility is to make sure that you're always looking up when you walk. You're never looking down at the ground. Because -

Speaker 2: Point taken, everybody, you hear this, look up!

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Oh yeah. Definitely look up your peripheral vision will allow you to see the ground. So you do not have to worry about that. You'll be able to see the ground and, and you're training your body again to feel things when you look up. So let's say you step on a surface of the concrete that's not level, your foot will feel it and make the adjustment. Now, here's where it's tricky. If your neuromuscular speed has slowed down, your foot may not be able to make that adjustment. And that's when you need to slow down. And that's what people do. But there are ways to speed that process up. So, because you've slowed down in the past, let's say you're 60, 70 now, and you're noticing, oh my God, I'm looking at the ground. I'm really slow when I walk. I'm, I'm in the middle of all these things.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Well, the great, here's the takeaway. The great takeaway is you don't have to stay in that position. You, when you start working on these things, your body does respond really quickly. And it's about reestablishing your, your ability to be balanced. So standing on one leg will help you to reengage that entire system that controls your balance. And you can do that all the time and at any opportunity. So something you can do now to speed up your body's ability to respond, that neural speed, that neuromuscular speed between your foot and your brain is standing on one foot. And you can do it in a safe environment somewhere where you can be next to a wall where if you feel your balance go off, you can touch the wall to regain your balance. But you, every time that you do that, you are working on that system of improving your, the speed of your brain, communicating what your feet. And that's a really important thing to do. So standing on one foot periodically throughout the day, of course, switching between feet -

Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. That would help.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Would be really helpful. But it's important that you do that. So for us, I stand at my kitchen counter. Like you, I'm gonna be 59 this year. So when I'm standing at my kitchen counter, I'm standing on one foot and then I'm switching to the other foot. And just taking the opportunity to do that. Another thing, once you've done that for a while and you're really comfortable there, there are bazo balls and there are those stability pads that you can stand on that provide a little bit of proprioceptive environment. And proprioceptive means not stable. So you get on a, you're stepping on a not stable surface intentionally so that your body can get familiar to doing the adjustment again.

Rita Black: Oh, cool. You know, I just bought a or I didn't buy, but I got for Christmas, I got a standing desk with one of those boards that you stand on that are a little wobbly that keep you, like, that's for that particular reason. 'cause I I thought that that might be a good idea given my advanced tears.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Those are fantastic.

Rita Black: Are they?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Yeah. [Inaudible]. See, you're, you're making our age look really younger, like, you're doing, you're doing our 59, you know? Yeah. You got it looking good there, chief. But that's -

Speaker 2: Well, we're bringing 60 back, right?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Yes. That's the goal, is to make sure that when you get 60 and 70, you don't, you're still able to do all your activities of daily living.

Rita Black: And so what I'm hearing you're saying, I, because I wanna hear more, this is so fascinating, but I just wanted to, to, because I know people usually are coming to you, correct me if I'm wrong, if there's two things that they could be doing, preventative working with you, or corrective working with you, meaning they've gotten, they've gotten down the road, they've lost mobility, and now they're trying to recorrect it. But both ways, like it can be corrected. So the good news is it can be corrected if you work on it and you're working in the particular way. But you can also prevent this from going in the first place.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Exactly.

Rita Black: We don't have to become imobile just because we're getting older.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Exactly.

Speaker 2: I love, I love hearing about your 80 and 90-year-old clients who are just moving around. That's super cool. Do, are they playing sports or anything like tennis or golf or anything that?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): You know, there is some golf playing, but now pickleball is all the rave. It's all about pickleball.

Rita Black: I was thinking of picking up pickleball because I have a tennis elbow, but I feel like pickleball would be a little better on my elbow. And I saw the blue zones, like live to a hundred, and there was some 80 something, or maybe it, it was a late eighties woman just killing out on the pickleball ball cord. And she had this whole tribe of other pickleball players. I was like, that looks cool.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): It is.

Rita Black: So that's what they're doing.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): That's what they're doing. They're out, they're really active. They're doing cruises. They're traveling all the time. They're doing retirement the way retirement should be done, in my opinion. And it's this social life I think is really important. So covid was horrible for people. Not being in, not being active, reducing your social circles, you know, that was really horrible. And during that period, I have to admit, I was really busy. And 2021 was really a busy year because people coming out of our self-imposed hibernation, so to speak. We were so were, especially if you're older, you were really struggling with maintaining your ability to walk because you're not walking as much. And so I found that I was really busy doing that work. And, and some of the interesting work is falls. So I get calls from, from children when their, their parent in their golden years has fallen, and after the fall they refuse to walk anymore.

Rita Black: Oh. Because of the fear.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Because of the fear.

Rita Black: Okay. And so you're working through fear too. You're not just working through immobility, but you're working through psychological barriers. Subconscious, almost barriers too

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): You got it. I mean, it's crazy because once when you see someone looking down as they walk, that's also fear. They wanna make sure that, that they want to pay close attention to everything that they're stepping on or stepping near. Right. So there's a level of fear there. And just having them lift their head, there's anxiety if we don't frame it. So we're working through the anxiety, we pick very safe environments to do this initially, we work through all that anxiety. And that sometimes is one of the toughest parts of helping them come back from mobility. And, and, you know, is, is that fear. And once they get through that fear, they're actually pretty good. And usually it's like, well, what are you afraid of being on the ground? Because you get to a point where you're on the ground and you can't get up. And so that's some of my best work. And I love doing that work when people fall in and now they refuse to walk anymore. And I go for my first visit with them and they're like, I don't know why they called you. I hate walking.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): You know? I'm not trying to fall. And I'm like well, let's just talk about for that for a minute. So usually it's really and I love it because when someone's that communicative, they're actually willing to share a lot of the struggle. So they see it as resistance, but I see it as falling forward. I see it. Oh, yes. Okay. So we're gonna use this to really help us. And one of the first things I do is I have them on the ground because what's that fear? Is the fear of the ground. Yeah. So I say, well, we're gonna just play on the floor today. So I help them get down on the ground, and of course, they're a hundred percent resistant to the thought of being on the ground because the utter fear of falling is still in. And once I'm down there, I just can't get up.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): So fear of falling is once you're down, you can't get up because you don't feel your body's gonna really cooperate. Right. And what's been really interesting in my experience has been once you haven't been on the ground for a while, sometimes you may even have the muscular ability to stand, but you forget how, you forget how to put your footwear and your hand wear and how to maneuver your body to do that. And so when, when it get, when I have the opportunity to get them on the floor, just having them practice how to maneuver their body so they can get up. So I say, Hey, if the, if, if you ever on the ground, well, what would you do? Let's say you were down here and no one was here. Would you just sit here? Or could you scoot over to a phone? What's the plan? And coming up with a plan is huge because that builds in that, that reduces the fear of being on the ground. Yeah. 'cause now when I am on the ground, they're thinking I got a plan. And if I can make that plan three or four simple steps that are really easy to remember, they're good.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): And I get to use their verbiage to come up with those plans, which is really kind of neat. And they get to choose it. So if they choose the verbiage, it makes it easier to remember. I've learned that my verbiage is not usually as easy to remember as words that they really can connect to in their own home. Usually too. They're like, oh, right. That means right hand, I gotta remember goes here because it's near the couch or, but it's, it's just a wonderful experience. And to see the confidence comes back.

Rita Black: Yeah. It's,

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): It's just wonderful. And the next thing you know, well, it took six months and I had her walking again, and she was 88.

Rita Black: Oh, cool. That's amazing.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): So six months of work, she was confident on her feet with her cane. And back to being mobile all of her. Which was wonderful because all of her mental clarity was still there. And and it's a pleasure. It's like, for me, it's like I have all these new wonderful grandparents that I love.

Rita Black: You're surrounded by wisdom, ancestral wisdom. I, you know, I've been, I watched that series, like I said living to a hundred, I think it's on Netflix. And the Japanese really you know, adore their elders. And they, they, you know, the elders who have passed on, they, they spend a few, they meditate every day on their ancestral elders. I just think that that was so cool. I, I don't know, but I love the fact that you're surrounded by wisdom and people who've lived a full life. I know I love talking to my mother-in-law. 'cause she's just, she lived in Mauritius, which is this little island off the coast of Africa. Her husband was stationed there. They're British, you know, so he was a in the Navy, and, you know, and it was a colony. And me, it was just, it's so fascinating to hear her life. And I'm sure you hear a lot of amazing stories about people who've lived amazing lives.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): It's true. It's true. Rita. I think training older clients is really challenging. But it's interesting and it's a satisfying opportunity for any fitness professional. I just think that most are a little bit nervous about doing it. But to me it's incredibly rewarding. I learn so much and and it just helps me to think of my own aging a little bit differently and, and, and not discount the experience. Because sometimes I notice when other trainers are working with the population. 'cause I come in and I work with, I support and mentor younger trainers and and when they're working with this particular population sometimes they can discount what they're being told about the feelings that their client is having where it comes to mobility or pains. Right. or they're like, you gotta move faster, but they're like, I'm doing as fast as I can.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): And so being able to be more compassionate about the experience and what they're going through, because when you're in your twenties, you just can't imagine that you'll, there'll be any reason to move that slow. Or that you'll be having those joint pains or that your body will be doing things like slowing you down in the way that it doesn't, in, in all the neuromuscular efficiency pieces are happening, 20 p 20 somethings it's just not even in their realm of understanding most of them.

Rita Black: Yeah. And they all think they're immortal, so that that's not gonna happen to them as well. Oh yeah.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): They don't, they can't picture themselves at that age, you know?

Rita Black: Not at all.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): I do. I just, I really love it. But I guess two takeaways are make sure you keep your head up and walk with your head up. Yes. Very good. Another takeaway would be make sure as that you do it, you start doing things to intentionally work on your balance by standing on one foot or doing, like you did Rita, get a board or something that provides an opportunity to have a surface that's not balanced so that you can work on that system and get better. That's, and it will get better. That's gonna be one of the things that you realize right away that you stand on one foot for 10 seconds, you stand on your other foot for 10 seconds, always there's gonna be one that's not as good. Okay? Go back to the one for 10 seconds. That wasn't as good. And you'll immediately see improvements. So the improvements that you get from doing these doing these really simple exercises are immediate improvements. So you don't gotta wait six or seven months for that. You stand on one leg, you're gonna see immediate improvement in that same session of doing it two or three times.

Rita Black: Okay.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): You'll be amazed.

Rita Black: And that's, that is daily, right? That's something can just do daily. I love it. I love your perspective on this, and I love learning that this, so much of this also goes on between our ears. You know, that it's so much a mental game as well.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): It really is. And and the other pieces of it where it comes, where it is a physical piece too for us, because, you know, as you lose muscle mass, you lose nerves that are speaking to those muscles. So if someone's atrophying, then it's harder for your brain to communicate with an area that has less nerves to communicate to. The speed is naturally gonna be slower. So one of the other things that would be really helpful to do is to strength train in a way where you build more muscle and well, particularly on your legs, and and that's really important. It doesn't not have to be really tough strength training, it can be with bands. When we get older, we can do bands and position bands in a way where they're gonna strengthen those muscles. But even balancing on one leg, anything that you do to increase neuromuscular communication is going to also incentivize that muscle to grow.

Speaker 2: Okay? The systems -

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): When you nerve start talking to an area, and they're not really getting good feedback, it incentivizes that area to go, oh, we're not able to do this. Maybe we need a little more muscle here. Right? So, you know, you're, you're doing what you need to do. The more you attempt to have your brain speak to a particular muscle groups, it encourages those muscles to grow. So, that's a really wonderful intentional thing that we can do. Really take the time to think about muscle groups and move them. You know. You can do it seated. Where it comes to your glutes, which will also help your mobility. So if you're seated, tighten up your glutes and relax your glutes, engage the muscles, relax the muscles, engage the muscles, relax them, and it's strength training for you. It's gonna improve the neuromuscular efficiency of your glute muscles as well as encourage growth there and improve your mobility.

Rita Black: What great advice. Thank you so much. I, I'm so glad we had this conversation. Now I'd love to, if our listeners are, I know you are gonna offer something for our listeners. Can you tell us what you, you're offering our listeners if they're interested in, in learning more and speaking with you personally?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Absolutely. If if you're listening or if you're listening now and you are interested in having a free analysis of what your current mobility is, I'd be happy to do that. And I can do that by phone, by Zoom. And all you need to do is text your name and your email in the word mobility to 9 0 4 2 3 6 58 58. That's 9 0 4 2 3 6 58 58.

Rita Black: Okay. And we will have that information as well in the show notes. Dr. Fitness. Max, I have one last question. Do you have time?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Of course.

Speaker 2: Okay. So I heard, I don't know who I heard on a podcast, and this was a financial advisor was saying this about your golden years, and he said the sixties are go-go the, have you heard this? The seventies are slow go and the eighties are no go. Now that horrified me. What is your thought of that? So if you work, if you keep your balance, if you work on your neuromuscular connectivity can we keep gogoing for a while?

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Oh yeah. I think we can get, keep gogo and what I, I'm telling you, I've seen people in their thirties that are a no-go.

Rita Black: Yes

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): True. And I'll, and I'm telling you once I've the people that make it to their eighties they have been doing some things right? You don't get to be 80 unless you've done a lot of things right? In my opinion. And, and I really genuinely believe that the later years are the time because the, what, what they've done to what you've done when you've made it to 70 and you've made it to 80 is remarkable. And we're giving you now tips and things that you can do to make that time even more I guess the word I really want is, is more go-go now that we're using that term. I like that. You'll be more go-go by doing these things even in your eighties.

Rita Black: That's very exciting.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): And I, and that's what it's designed. So if you do this stuff, you'll be able to go, go into your eighties, into your nineties, because seriously, if you made it to 70 and 80, oh, the gene situation is there. All we're doing at this point is giving your body the tools that it needs to just continue to thrive. And because you clearly have great genes. So what we're doing is just helping those genes out to continue a very active life for you. I love it. I mean, oh my God, I eighties. Oh yeah. They're go-go in my opinion. Yeah.

Rita Black: Cool. I love it. I'm very encouraged. We, we, everybody, I hope you got a great vision of what's possible and tell us once again the text information. So if somebody wants to get in touch with you.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Absolutely. If you'd like a simple free mobility evaluation, simply text your name and your email and the word mobility to 9 0 4 2 3 6 58 58. That's a 9 0 4 2 3 6 58 58.

Rita Black: Alright, Dr. Fitness, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and advice today.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Thank you. Oh my God, I'm really excited to be here. And it has been an absolute pleasure. You do so many amazing things for so many people and to be able to be on your platform and giving information that I hope people find really helpful, it's been a real pleasure.

Rita Black: Well, the pleasure's been all of ours. Thank you for coming on today, and I will look forward to having more conversations with you in the future. Dr. Fitness.

Dr. Fitness (Max Sturdivant): Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much. Rita Black.

Rita Black: Thank you so much for coming on today, Dr. Fitness, and don't you all feel just more neuromuscularly aligned already? I do. And if you wanna take him up on the free consultation, the text number and the code are in the show notes. This man knows his business and loves his business. So if you need help or someone needs help that you know, please reach out and have an amazing week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will be here with you next week.

Rita Black: You wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release, head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com. That's www.shiftweightmastery.com, where you'll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release tips, strategies, and more. And be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking. Unlock Your Mind For Permanent Weight Loss.