Building Strength in Mind, Body, and Soul Part 1 with Adam Berry

Today's guest is Adam Berry, also known as The Gym Starter. Adam is a personal trainer who teaches people how to build strength in their mind, body and soul. His process rewards attitude and behavior rather than focusing on results.

Adam pushes himself to always be learning and uses that knowledge to help his clients because he recognizes that every body is different and true strength looks different for each person.

Connect with Adam online: https://www.thegymstarter.com/

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Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au

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Transcript

Magic Barclay: 0:59

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host magic Barclay. And today I'm joined by Adam Berry known as the gym starter. He teaches people how to build strength in their body, mind, and their soul. Adam has a very unique view on fitness, which comes from his acting background. He teaches people to disassociate with expectation. But to get into the gym, not to lose weight, but to get strong focusing on behavior, not results above all. He helps them build their confidence. Adam's been in the industry for nearly 10 years and works my science-based background, using all that he knows to apply empathy to everyone's fitness journey. Welcome.

Adam Berry: 1:44

Thanks for having me

Magic Barclay: 1:45

folks. Let me just tell you what I'm saying. A very young fit, happy young lead in front of me. He's not getting old.

Adam Berry: 1:54

It's my birthday on Saturday and I turned 35. So I'm getting the I'm feeling it. Excellent. That's

Magic Barclay: 2:02

amazing. Yeah. I didn't know. Applying past 21. So it's bonus.

Adam Berry: 2:06

Oh, well, there we go. That's probably the best way. No expectations.

Magic Barclay: 2:10

Exactly. Now I love asking all my guests the same three questions here, and I'm always amazed by the array of answers that I get. So. The first one is what can your expertise do to accelerate health? Now, before you answer, we're not just talking physical health, but also the mental, the emotional, the spiritual health of a person.

Adam Berry: 2:38

that's a big, big, big question. Um, Ah, that's where accelerate health. I mean, I, I always get a little bit caught up in the word health, um, because from everything I've studied and everything I've seen and everything, but I've done sort of as a personal trainer and in life, I understand health is a very subjective thing. And we're not all adequately afforded health in the same way. So we all have, um, like there's many, many, many different circumstances. Play on health now, I think, I think very much so. So sciencey at large congenitally, make people think that there is one ideal version of health. Like there's kind of this optimal position that you, you need to be in in order to be regarded as an inverted commerce healthy. Well, I know that not to be true because of what I know about genetics, what I know, but also more importantly, and probably less important than, than genetics in terms of health, because that's. We have no control over. I think we very much have, um, it's got more to do with living status and things like that. And therefore, I mean, I'm just a partial trainer. I'm just a fitness coach. I'm just the guy who, you know, is a ex professional actor. Well, I'm not even actually, I still am a professional AXA and needed to find a way to make some money and really loved working with people and wanting to. I'm wanting to just build people's confidence up and make people feel better about themselves. And I think health is for doctors and nurses and people who have very much trained in health. And I think my, my role is not necessarily to, uh, be a, a voice in somebody's life for that, but is I suppose the most healthy thing for them, especially their mental health is just to let them explore. What feeling strong and fit can feel like and how that feeling of achievement can roll into. Although there are aspects of the way they feel about themselves. So I can't sit here and say, you know, if you have X body fat percentage, or if you have, if you can lift X amount of weight in a gym or whatever, like it, there is no, there's no idealization of health because we're all subjective, independent beings. Like something I always say to people is like, everybody is different and every body is different. And therefore everybody's version of health. Is completely an awfully subjective to them. Like I have a, I have a genetic heart condition. I can't change that. Um, and therefore my health is more compromised than someone who doesn't in that way. That doesn't mean I'm not a healthy human, I just have a heart condition. And so I just think my expertise, I suppose, is coming in and trying to make people realize that try and make people feel good about themselves is trying to meet people. Just understand that. Regardless of what society says, you can experience health in whatever position and state you're in, in your life. Because you have the ability to do certain things that we know can help trigger health, like ate a little bit more nutritiously. Um, however that looks like eat food that nourishes you. And that's a whole other topic that we could get into, or, you know, it's just like doing something physical is very good for your overall health. That doesn't mean that what I do physically is better than what someone else might be able to do physically. It just means. Well, I do announces my health and what you do might enhance your health. It might, it might not. I don't know. Um, and so I suppose my expertise really is helping people realize that it's helping people understand that they can have more control over it and they can do very accessible things for themselves and still find success in their feeling of health, rather than it being this kind of overloading. That we're trying to kind of make people conform to.

Magic Barclay: 6:46

I'm so glad you mentioned about, you know, every body is different and I think many people think, oh, well, you know, I can't go to the gym and lift a whole lot of weight. I know for myself. I did own a gym and I was very fit and I could lift a lot of weight and I loved weightlifting strength training, but then I got sick and things changed and ended up having an operation, which structurally changed things for me. And I kind of, even though I knew this, I fell into a funk of, but I can't do what I used to do. And it was for me, a whole learning experience to relive it. What strength meant. So now it might mean some hand weights and a walk, whereas before it would mean a three hour gym session. So I'm glad you mentioned that because everyone's starting point is different and sometimes things happen and you need to move that starting point. You need to restart going for the goal, but it just might look different.

Adam Berry: 7:55

I totally does. And it looks different for everybody and there is no ideal. There just isn't um, because we all, we all have, as we said, we will have different bodies. There's not one thing I can say that will determine whether you are healthy or not. That just isn't. Um, and, and I think as long as we're always engaging in behaviors that make us feel. Strong and confident about ourselves as long as we're always engaging in behaviors that might, that help manage things like our mental health and our physical wellbeing. Um, then as far as I'm concerned, you're healthy. Um, I just, there is no there's no, there's no way of measuring it other than. Really, whether you, I don't know, you're sick by the decree of a doctor, not by the decree of a personal trainer. Um, and, and then yeah, being able to redefine it, reframe what success is in, in, in a fitness space is a suppose, a lot of my job in the same way. You're saying, you know, like I, you know, I have clients who are more capable than others, and that doesn't mean that they're better than others, or it doesn't mean that. The M more healthy. It just means that they're different and they have different, a different skillset that I, the I don't have. Um, you know, and that's just, it's just, this one is like, it's really like, it all comes down to an exploration. And I think for as long as somebody's a listener, a client, whatever is always trying to investigate something in relation to. The physical health and then allowing the connection between the mind, the body and the soul, the mind, the body, and the space allowing as long as they constantly investigating that, constantly trying to educate themselves on that. Constantly trying to. Find out new things about what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy about what they're doing, what they might do, what they don't do like and how it all kind of fits into their life. Then as far as I'm concerned, you're healthy. Like as long as you're on an investigation, as long as you're on a path, as long as you're on some kind of journey, then I think you have nothing to worry about.

Magic Barclay: 10:09

Exactly. Right. You really do have to be invested. In your health and your strength and your physicality, your mental health, the whole thing. If you're not invested, if you're doing it for someone else and not for you, you don't have that real personal connection. It's not going to happen.

Adam Berry: 10:27

Yeah. I'm, you know, we see this all the time. Um, trainers put in their goals onto someone, um, people trying to associate. Their success onto somebody else, or necessarily aligning their behaviors with the dependency of somebody else. And, and whenever you offload that responsibility, you, you disempower yourself. You don't, you don't live through autonomy. You live through, um, I suppose, reliance and, and people pleasing. And, and then, and then. Uh, the chasm that, that can lead you into both, not just for lack of adherence to your physical health, but then the issues that were concrete with your mental health in the long run, when it comes down to when you start investigating things like, you know, not being adherence. So then you felt like a failure and then that cycles into something else and all kinds of other things like the web, the web goes goes full circle. So you have to. You very much have to feel empowered and you very much have to feel like your, your in charge and you're making the decisions for yourself. Now that can be guided by someone that can be shaped by someone. It can be bounced off of someone, but that someone is. The responsible person in that relationship to make it happen, you must always be autonomous. And some people find it a lot easier to become autonomous. Some people find it a lot harder, but as you said, as long as you were investigating how to feel empowered and take charge of that, that is all that matters.

Magic Barclay: 12:04

We also talk about wealth here, Adam. So when we're talking wealth, it's not just the financial, which everyone thinks that's what wealth is, but also the emotional wealth that someone can have the, you know, the personal depth. So what does strength training do to build wealth?

Adam Berry: 12:24

Uh, creates humility. This is probably the best answer I have. There's nothing more humbling than, um, Then failing the lift. There's nothing more humbling than feeling, just exhausted after a session. Um, and that humility is really important for your life. That humility, that like the ball, that there's a really great monologue that I've, I I've only just found recently, but it really feeds into this. Um, why guy called Henry Rollins, which I'm not sure if you've watched sons of anarchy, but he's in that he was an ex punk rocker from the states

Magic Barclay: 12:58

that

Adam Berry: 12:58

show. Yeah. I mean, he was, he was horrible and it wasn't the, um, yeah, he's an a, and it's called the iron and the soul. And in, in this monologue, he wrote, he wrote it for like some kind of body building website, a few years back. Um, and in this, he says like the bar is your friend. It, it, it becomes your best friend in the sense that it gives you empathy, even though it's like still an iron and it can't be lifted. Like it's, it's always looking after your best interest. If you're not ready to lift there, it won't let you lift that if you know, and if you push it too hard or if you do something that you're not ready for, you're gonna end up, it's going to teach you a lesson and, and this constant humility of, of coming in and really. But yes, you are capable. Yes. You are doing it. Yes. You're constantly trying. It's almost a battle between being able to, and not being able to, and constantly treading that path and pushing yourself slightly outside that comfort zone so that we can grow. So you're kind of constantly in what we call the stretch zone. Um, and you kind of plotting little moments of confidence all the way down. Every time you attempt a new way, every time you you'd go for something a bit different. Every time you walk out the gym, I'd say to all my clients. I want you to come out of the gym, feeling two inches taller than when you walked in. And if I've achieved that with them, um, then they're going to be motivated for the next session and that kind of drive in your life. That kind of the humility. Strength training builds in you is incredible. I mean, in terms of delayed gratification, in terms of, um, accumulation of results over time, uh, just generally being in the middle of a process and learning to enjoy a process, as opposed to necessarily always get an, a result equally builds a whole wealth of. Development within someone, um, compared to just, you know, compared to just chasing results and, and results. When you, when you can throw yourself into the joys of the process and when you can throw yourself completely into what, building that relationship with the bar is that Henry Rollins talks about, you know, there was. It becomes so insignificant that it is the minutia and the more you can make the result that insignificant, the more you can reframe the perspective of why you're doing this, then The more emotional wealth you will gain simply because your being awesome and, and that's going to help you grow more and more.

Magic Barclay: 15:33

So when I had my gym, Adam, we made incremental plates. So to add to the bar, there would be tiny plates you could put on the end that were quarter half and three quarter kilos. And, you know, I used to say to my clients in the next session, I want you to do more. Like your goal is to lift 30 kilos. The bar is 20 and they, so in their heads they would say, well, so the next goal is 25 or 22.5 because that's what standard plates are. And so we'd start with the quarter killer. And then we'd go to a half and then we'd go, you know, to a three quarter, then we go to a one, then we'd go for the standard plate. And before they knew it, they were at the 30 kilos now. So where you've reached a goal, what's your next one? And they were so invested to get from point a to point B in a millisecond that learning to take incremental steps and build that emotional wealth. It was like a whole different lesson that they got from the bar.

Adam Berry: 16:43

I mean, the problem with only focusing on the result is you're missing so much from the journey. And then you won't realize how you got there. And there's no fun in that as a it's like driving, it's like driving somewhere and never looking out the window. You just suddenly appear where you want it to be. It's like, well, you've missed out on a whole wealth of. Views of things that could inform you of amazing sites that you might have never seen before, you know, like, but you've just missed them. And, and it's true. Like, I mean, and, and it also, it also fundamentally with someone in the example you gave it fundamentally undermines the system of progressive overload because you know, what they're not doing is if they're, if your only goal is to lift heavier than. Your progressive overload could be argued into that, but because that is progressive overload, but then, you know, if you're not improving your form, if you're not actually moving better in order to lift that weight in a more efficient way, then you're actually truncated. The result that you're going to get, because you're not gonna be able to grow past that point. You're going to have a glass ceiling. Um, whereas taking it slower, throwing yourself into the process, know really understanding how lifting can be more effective for you by looking at all the aspects of progressive overload include. A better range of motion, much better technique in terms of skill development, in terms of lifting will, will reveal so much more to you than just getting the tick in the box of lifting 30 kilos. When you're on 20.

Magic Barclay: 18:16

So Adam, on this podcast, we do talk about weight loss as well. And I think many clients going to a gym or going to a. Kind of resent the trainer a little bit to start with because they think, well, you've never been where I've been. You don't know what my body's going through. So this is a multi-part question. The first part is, have you ever battled your weight? And so what was the trigger to losing it? And if not, how do you get around that disconnection with clients? Because that really. An issue for people that are, you know, more than just the little bit fluffy This is something that they've dealt with for so much time.

Adam Berry: 19:03

Yeah. Uh, it's a good question. I personally, just being completely transparent. I've never battled with trying to lose weight. I mean, I've gone through phases of losing a bit of weight gain in a bit way and stuff like that. My battle has always been with my body. being a skinny, tall lanky, personal trainer, isn't the best look in terms of how other personal trainers view you sometimes. And so I've had great battles with my body image and my life, um, just because of how long and lanky it is. And I think really the truth knowing that I wanted to work a lot, my career like focus. Early on in trying to work with women because I had imposter syndrome. I, I didn't think men would take me seriously in the gym because I don't like the whole king master muscle. and therefore I was trying to find where I could fit into the fitness industry. And I found that little niche. Yeah, mainly probably moms in a sort of thirties and forties who were just looking to get a bit fed all, probably looking to lose weight and stuff like that. And so what it's done is it's created a huge amount of knowledge in my brain, and I've spent an awful long time. Studying it, understanding it and looking at it from a very unique perspective of objectivity, as opposed to subjectivity. Now, when a trainer loses weight themselves. Yes. There's a lots of credit for that. And there's a lot of people who can use that. knowledge and that self experience. And they can work with clients to help them realize that as well. But with me, I've had to learn, I've had some basically learned fitness from the ground up, and I've had to learn every little aspect of my new show. What it is to lose weight or had to learn it objectively. I've had to look into all of the science of how to understand all of the mental, psychological aspects of it. And I've basically studied it for eight, nine years. And what that's done is it's created two very interesting perspectives on the world. It's created the understanding that everybody is different. And therefore we must always have a completely client centered approach to everything rather than a train of centered approach to everything. So when a client comes to me and they're trying, they want to lose weight, I'm not going to go well, just, you know, reduce your carbs, ate the same amount of protein I used to eat and it worked for me. There you go, job done. I can go. Okay, well, how do I. My knowledge of how weight loss works and how we can help somebody grow from that point. How can I, how can I make all of my knowledge applicable to them? And because I basically built a flight call, like a fitness five-way in my mind, but I have all these different lanes of. I've experienced and knowledge combined. When someone comes to me, I know what I need to learn from, in terms of my education, in order to help them in the best way possible in a very client centered way. Um, and the other thing has done is it's created huge amounts of empathy for me because I've worked with everyone and I've had to figure it out for them. Um, and therefore I'm always learning, always studying, always driving myself forward to make sure that. What I am, how I'm approaching each client. It's not a cookie cutter approach based on my subject of experience. It's completely, and honestly they're in control and that how I, that, that how I'm going to come up with a system for them in order to figure out, um, now there's, you know, obviously we will have systems in place or we, you know, this certain rules of science that we call them. Uh, we call it denial and then it's helping people understand how they can use that knowledge and relate that knowledge to their own personal journey. So I think really, yes, I don't have subject to have empathy, but I probably only, I mean, I think in finished, you only have to look at any of my work and you can see on probably one of the most empathetic coaches out there for people who do struggle with this topic. Um, simply because. Of my experience of understanding that I need to know this inside out, back to from, and I need to be able to demonstrate to people so I can see it from their point of view. And I think, I, I think I can, because of all of the knowledge are done rather than just see it through my own worst instinct glasses through my own personal journey.

Magic Barclay: 23:21

Thanks for the honesty. Now look, we love freebies here, Adam, so freebies. So what can you offer our listeners to get them started on really recognizing what strength can do for them?

Adam Berry: 23:38

One I'd say, well, I mean, you could just head to my website, um, in fairness and I have downloaded a complete free workout guides from me. Um, there's three, there's two workout on there. One's called the strong, confident program, which is also more than one training. One is forward, um, is the beginning of body weight guide to working out, which is something that they system, um, just what do I, our home just to get started and see how that. Uh, you also get a calorie calculator and you'll also get a book I wrote called 27 ways to foster fat loss. and you get all that just by putting your email address into my account. You can also read my blog and that will give you probably more help than you'll ever need on this topic, And in terms of, for anyone listening, who doesn't want to do that, I completely understand. And all let's say. The most important thing you need to remember is you can't get it wrong for as long as you'll try and like, even if you've had POS failures, even if something has not worked previously, by listening to this podcast, you're already putting yourself in a position to win. You're already putting yourself in a place. Well, you're still trying to investigate what might the solution be. And therefore you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for your past experience. And every decision you've made previously has led to you being here right now and listening to my voice, this podcast, and that is a win. And from this point on, don't look at your past as a failure, look at your past is leading you to this experience. So hopefully find a solution if something. My have resonated with you. Also, magic has said, might resonate with you. This could be the start of something very new for you. And that I think is probably when you can reframe your past. If you struggle with previous photo, you can reframe that post and put it into a more positive place for your future. And as probably one of the greatest gifts I could offer you.

Magic Barclay: 25:30

Thanks for that. That is brilliant. Now Adam's website, what's your website there, Adam.

Adam Berry: 25:36

And it's www.thegymstarter.comorifyouwanttobeozzycentricandthereisa.com the AEU version as well.

Magic Barclay: 25:44

Excellent. Thank you so much for your time this morning in, uh, chatting with. Now listeners, this was your episode 1 0 6 in 1 0 7, Adam. We'll be back to share more insights on building strength in body, mind, and soul for now. Listeners. Thank you for your time. Go forth and create your magical life.