Strength Renewed

00:20
Jess, I'm so pleased that we're actually finally doing the podcast. Hi. I'm super, super pleased with this. I love it. Although I was excited. I dressed all fancy for it. And then you're like, but I'm not even going to see you.

00:36
I'm just going to hear you laugh because you're good at that. Yeah. However, I just think there could be good potential for this to go in to the portal as well. So we'll see how that flies, but certainly audio. Well, that's good. And you're wearing a necklace and I'm wearing earrings, so it's a big deal. Normally you and I are just on our Aviator's Nation sweatshirt, so there's that. Exactly. And you won't know this, but I've actually got, I've got a Trilis Cooper t-shirt on, and she is a fashion designer here in New Zealand. And I'm like, I'm bringing the coupe up today.

01:04
Cause I'm doing a workout. You're looking fly sister, of the 90s hip hop girl. We'll do an episode on what you should listen to when you're training. We're gonna have a talk. Oh what a great idea. I'm gonna give you the best soundtrack of your life. Oh my gosh, you should, because right now I'm deep into country. I love country. I love that you love country. I think that everybody, like I can't say that I've been a big country person, but I think like the way country sort of has evolved into, I think now we're all a little bit country. I think so.

01:34
Yeah, totally. It has moved on from Kenny and Dolly, that's for sure. I know, never say that I never wanted to move on from Kenny and Dolly. They're the best. So, should we do make this one a little intro, actually? Like I think this would be good, because there will be people who know me and there'll be people who know you. But I think that we'll also have people who are unaware or unfamiliar with the other person. So, kick us off, Jess, why don't you give us a little brief background on who you are and what you do?

02:04
And yeah, who you work with. I mean, just the fact that I'm like a, you know, neurotic Jew who likes to drink a lot of coffee. And I'm just kidding. I'm also, I am Jessica DiBiase. I have owned Jessica DiBiase Fitness now for about 14 years. I always start my health story, which I was thrown into a pool, not literally, but figuratively with, by my parents before I could walk. My dad was a...

02:33
We'll call it almost Olympic swimmer. But he was just super, super disciplined and health was the way of life. Sports were the way of life. Water was the way of life. So I was in a pool before I could walk. And it really was kind of how my dad believed that we should be. And that's essentially we should be moving. Like he believes we should be moving all the time. And so we did.

03:01
So then from there, I got into gymnastics and I became a competitive gymnast. And that was very exciting. And then I was very tall. And so gymnastics kind of petered out and then I ended up finding tennis and just the love of sports. And then I went on to go off to college. And I all the while was always kind of loving health in some way and started doing triathlons. It was kind of like basically to me, health and wellness has always been like a salad bar.

03:30
My eight year old in the background, who's also a mover and a shaker, just got out of the pool herself. But I wanted to try a little bit of everything, so I did. Then when I graduated from college, I went on to grad school and I got a master's in organizational communication, so I loved communication and entrepreneurship. My family not only loved to move, but they also loved to run businesses. So I had this

04:00
this sort of need early on to want to run a business. And so I did. And so I started us with DBSC Fitness and I had partners as well. And we had a brick and mortar gym, but I was always doing kind of the personal training and coaching. And I just loved the intimacy of it. After sort of getting all of my certification, where the first thing that I did when I was in grad school is I got a spinning, I was a spin instructor. So I was like, which was great because I was doing that.

04:27
all over the place. It was like a wonderful way to like pop into all these different gyms and sort of just understand the community of fitness from that standpoint. And then I went on to get certified as strength and conditioning coach. And then something kind of cool happened during that time. The two business partners that I had at the time we started, it was right when CrossFit was getting very popular. And so we kind of wanted something that wasn't...

04:55
CrossFit, but we kind of wanted our own niche. We wanted to find a sport that all ages could do. And so we found this cool thing called kettlebell sport, which was, you know, still like, you know, I think people are certainly like, so, you know, well known and popular to a point now, but really nobody knew about it. But I always say it's the oldest newest sport. The kettlebell was used in the first Olympic games. And so we got certified by.

05:23
kind of the master of kettlebell sport, this guy named Valeri Fedorenko, so it was like super popular in Eastern Europe. And then we just decided to form the first ever women's kettlebell sport team in the US. And so we did, and everybody thought we were kind of crazy, but that's sort of the way an entrepreneur's brain works, right, like you want to find the need that isn't there and everybody kind of looks at you crazy. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not sure what you're doing, but you just.

05:49
kind of put your head down and you go. And that's what we did. And so we created this team. We traveled all over the US. We traveled all over internationally and we competed in the sport of kettlebell lifting. And people are like, well, what the heck is kettlebell lifting? And I always say, it's just like cardio power lifting. It's cleans and snatches and jerks. And you do this for time. So there are time sets for a total of 10 minutes and it's five minutes each side. And it's one of those amazing sports that was very,

06:19
you know, high in intensity, but didn't have a lot of impact, right? Like it wasn't like you're pounding the joints constantly, but it kind of worked just about every freaking muscle in the body. And so I just thought it was the most versatile sport I'd ever done. And remember, I had done a lot of them. And then and so we kind of just started building that and you know, my training business kind of, you know, took off and, and, and we've kind of, you know,

06:45
gone from there. And then in time, we've evolved into now, you know, what you and I are doing, which is just really believing, of course, that strength and muscular skeletal health, right, is the nucleus of everything. It's, as Gabrielle Lyon says, it's the organ of longevity. And so now we're really just, I think, scratching the surface. I think there's so much to understand about the human body, but certainly how very important muscle is and essentially how we keep it on our bodies. But I'm so glad from the beginning of the

07:14
my life that it was whether my parents knew it or not, I think they stressed the importance of building not only your physical muscle, but I think also just building your relationship muscle. 100%. And Jess, I never knew that about your past actually, and about your dad. And obviously, I know that your daughter's like super active and you yourself, but did you find it hard, I wonder, to sort of move from the environment in the gym where oftentimes it's...

07:42
endurance based, it's more, you know, like the more you do, the better it is. The more, what is it? I don't know, you seem to have moved from like spin class and gym based stuff to the short sharpness of kettlebells. Like, was that a hard shift for you? Because I'm an, as you know, and I'm an endurance girl. Like I, more is actually better in my mind. For me personally, I feel better when I do more. Like,

08:10
Did you ever have that sort of, I don't know, that thing going on in your head going, I should be doing more, but 12 minutes is enough? Like, how does that look? A hundred percent. And I actually love that you even asked me that because I don't know that anybody's actually asked that question to me. Because I think I didn't even really know that about myself, but I definitely, and I've said this a lot to even, you know, my clients at my training and my coaching, as I say, I think I just help people transition from being.

08:39
cardio queens to strength kings, right? So I used to think that like longer was better, right? Or if I had the choice, do I go, you know, for do I do a spin class, you know, do I run? Do I do kind of more traditional cardio or do I strength train? So I think like I, for the longest time, I was like, well, obviously I'm gonna do a spin class. I'm gonna do cardio, I'm not gonna do the strength work because that's not gonna get me that kind of feeling that I'm looking for that sort of sweaty. But when I started kettlebell lifting,

09:07
The answer sort of was easy because, well, because the workout was so unbelievably total body. So like, even to this day, I'm like, how in the world in 10 to 12 minutes could I be this sweaty and exhausted? So it was kind of mimicking a lot of what I was getting from the longer aerobic exercises. I was getting that in shorter durations of kettlebell.

09:37
because I'm a coach and I'm an athlete, I wasn't just showing up and doing 10 minute workout and then going home. I was doing still all the ancillary strength work that goes alongside kettlebell lifting. So I'm doing my traditional kind of strength work, I'm doing warmups, I was still kind of running on the treadmill in addition to getting in and doing my lifting and my set. So it wasn't like my whole workout is only 10 minutes. That's not true. But...

10:05
the actual kind of mean potatoes of the sets aren't very long, but they were just, they're just, they were so comprehensive, that's the best way to put it, that I didn't really feel like I needed to go do like a 10 mile run after I was done with the kettlebell set, because I'd already kind of did it. And that's why I, sort of in the same way that you and I talk about, you know, just the importance of, you know, nutrition and resistance training, kettlebell and how sort

10:34
what a golden nugget that is. Kettlebell sport was kind of that way for me. I was like, well, Jesus, this is like a total golden nugget. Like, you mean you get cardiovascular and musculoskeletal like strength all in one workout? You know what I mean? I thought, well, it really just sounded like a perfect swirl of an ice cream cone or something, right? Like I'm a person who never gets one scoop, I get two. Cause I can't decide which one I want. See, I reckon that- I get the chocolate and the ice cream.

10:59
I think I'd be the same. This is why I'm looking forward to us actually meeting up in person so you can actually take me through what you do. You're going to love it. You're going to be total comfort. Well, maybe. I say maybe. I put a little asterisk beside it because how do you change a lifetime of habit? I'm talking about 30 years of doing... I'm interested, and you know I do strength work, but I also love running. I can't even put into words how much I love running, albeit even this morning, both husband and I were saying to each other.

11:29
I just really wish that I could, I can't think back to a time when it didn't hurt when I ran. And it's not enough to put us off, but you know, you just, as a runner, you're always either about to be injured, coming off an injury. Like there's no in between there. There's always sort of features. And maybe it's just an age thing. I'm not sure. Well, I don't, you know, the thing about it is, is that I've heard that, and I don't ever want to take away, this is what I'll always say to my very dear friends like you or to my clients or whomever.

11:57
I never want to take away what brings people joy. Because at the end of the day, you have to love what you're doing, whatever that is. So I don't ever put a right or wrong. I think that if you're doing something and it's bringing you joy, you should keep doing that because there's really good psychological benefits to that. So keep doing it. I don't necessarily believe just knowing you and our friendship and how we engage with our life together.

12:23
I think that you are actually quite open and to new experiences and trying things. And you have kind of that salad barbering too, right? You're gonna take a big bowl and I think you'll try a little hearts of palm or a little artichoke or whatever it is when you're going through. Maybe you wouldn't normally put that on your salad, but I see you open to trying it. So I think you have to look at it this way.

12:46
Do you do it? Should you give up running? No, of course not. It brings you joy. You and Barry love it. You love it. You love to do with your friends. It's a wonderful part of your life. It's a part of your history. It's a part of your future. It's part of your present. Do you would kettlebell sport be something that you might really enjoy? I think so because it's new. It's crazy as it sounds. I love the fact that like, like running, you don't need a lot of equipment. You know what I mean? Like it's like, you can kind of get right to

13:13
you know, right to it. So there's not a lot of like things I have to prepare in order to do this workout. I can literally pick up a kettlebell. I mean, I brought it just about everywhere. I travel with the darn thing, you know what I mean? On an airplane. So it's, I think it's again, it's really like, you know, everything can kind of happen with this one piece of equipment. And you said injury, you know, crazy as it is too, injury rates are low. They're low in it. You know, I have managed to stay relatively injury free.

13:41
my clients have, can stuff happen, of course, but not in the same way. Again, I think you elicit that high intensity experience that you would when you're out there on the track and running hard and sprinting. You're really pushing your lungs. The guru of this sport, the one on the kettlebells, Valeria Fredrenko, who I mentioned to you earlier, always, he compared kettlebell sport training to running up a hill with a backpack of weights.

14:10
No, I probably didn't sell the sport, but for a runner, you can understand what that feeling feels like. Oh my God, that sounds epic. That sounds exactly like something that I would want to do and have aspired to sort of do. I love that, Jess, actually. And so interesting about that injury thing, because I don't, you know, with running, as everyone knows, I mean, I'm not telling them anything they don't really know, but it's overuse. You know, that's often where it comes through. It's imbalance, it's weaknesses, and then it's overuse.

14:40
I never buy into the fact like, you know, you go to some physios and they're like, oh, you just need to switch your glutes on. It's like, well, you know, or work on strengthening them. Like, well, there are muscles there already. There's just something about the way I'm doing it that makes it hard to engage them. But if you're not having that, I suppose, the length of time you spend with the kettle is unlikely to elicit that same overuse issue. That's right. So much easier. That's exactly right.

15:09
And there is an element like running or you're like pushing off on to one legs. You're always kind of like fighting for that balance point. Kettlebell sport is based on symmetry because a lot of kettlebell lifting, not all of the lifts, some are done with two bells at a time. But for a lot of lifting, certainly the 98% of my career as a kettlebell athlete, I think

15:34
has been one arm. So the goal is 10 minutes, okay, let's just say. So what I'm training right now is a 24 kg kettlebell, which is approximately 53 pounds. So that's what I lift, and I lift that with one arm, okay? My goal is to get to 100 snatches. So some people go, what the hell is that? But if you know, you know. Also, you can look all this stuff online, but right. So my goal is to get.

16:01
and it's to do it equally on both arms, right? The goal isn't like 70 reps on one arm and 30 on the other, could you, yes, but we don't advise that. So the sport does have like an element of like five minutes on the left side and five minutes on the right side and to try to keep as much equality of sides as possible. So there's a lot of breath work. But yeah, I mean, I once read, you use like, I don't know, over 300 muscles or something in a kettlebell swing. There was some like cuckoo number

16:31
a lot is being recruited at the same time. So I just think by the sheer amount of muscles being recruited at the same time, you just, you kind of have to be engaged as much as possible. But there is that symmetry involved. It's kind of cool. Yeah, it is really cool. And I have to say that something like kettlebell feels intimidating to me the way that CrossFit feels intimidating to me. I...

17:00
I can see how it would. I mean, they're not, well, kettlebell sport, at least they're painted different colors, right? Like the hard sport of kettlebell, there's kind of a difference in between two. There's like sport style, which is what I compete in. There's hard, hard style. And hard style is kind of what you'd see a lot of the gyms or even in CrossFit, it's black, it's kind of, like it's this big, heavy handle. The sport bells are actually hollow on the inside.

17:28
And ironically, they're colorful. So I don't know if that's just like, you know, something that puts the brain at ease, but they're different colors. They're pink and blue and yellow. And all of those colors are a different weight category. But in some funny way, that kind of just eases the nervous system. Like, okay, I don't have to freak out. What there definitely is, Mickey is a learning curve. And so I could say that that could be the most challenging barrier to entry for the sport. But then again, if you're like a good runner,

17:58
there's kind of you probably need to learn the mechanics before you go out and run to most people don't. But if you wanted to kind of be good in any of your crafts, there is an element of like, legit coaching that you need to be able to have. But I would say for kind of a sport for sure, you can't just like pick it up and just do it yet you can once you know how to do it. That makes sense. I totally make sense. And there are so many synergies with diet as well, because people expect to be able to

18:26
Pick up a diet plan and go with it. Pick up a way of eating and just nail it first off. But there's always an element of learning there. And at the minute I'm coaching people through it with one of my plans. And I know that there are like a lot of my people are like that Taipei personality who expect to be able to dial it in and be perfect from the get go and are really hard on themselves when they're not and feel like failures. So it's similar, right? Like there's always gonna be that, it's always a learning curve.

18:56
There's always a learning curve and I wish, well, I don't want to wish I would like to help people you and I understand that like, why would we not want to learning curve on something? Why is it that we assume? I think assumption and shoulds is like the root of evil. You know what I mean? Like, all this assuming and should like why in the world? Whoever told you that the need for information quickly, I think, obviously has come in the last like,

19:23
you know, 10, 15 years with just all of the technology. I think 20 and 30 years ago, there was just a slower pace of information that was being disseminated to us. So that's a different category. But I think the like, you know, I should, and why do I not know it already? And like, just because you're, you know, a type A personality or you're an exec at your company or you're a world-class triathlete, doesn't mean that you're gonna like, that everything in the universe, like.

19:50
fits that same thing. And I guess for me, I would, you know, just what I said earlier, I mean, you know, why is sort of a steady plan and program? Why would we even resist it? What's the point of it? Like, why don't we just kind of enjoy that there's a ramp up to everything that we're going to potentially get better, diet plan included, the more time we spend with it, right? It's just, I think that it's this need to have it so, you know,

20:19
for it to happen so quickly that we kind of forget that the way anything changes in our brain is over time. Habits are formed over time. They're not quickly. I want to say one last thing you said that you can feel intimidated by. One thing that was really unintimidating about it was going to kettlebell competitions where there legitimately would be kids, kids nine and 10 years old. Okay. And then there would be

20:46
I think I competed against somebody who was 82. So the range and CrossFit is great. And maybe now and then people will say what they want. Again, if that's also your passion and love, go be it my friend, you CrossFit yourself. Like I love it. I don't wanna, again, I never tell anybody what they can and cannot do. I just don't think you will see quite that range of, you know, ages or.

21:13
exercise. I've always kind of, maybe now, but certainly when we started the first women's kettlebell sport team, there was not that happening in CrossFit. Maybe it's happening now, but it was always there for kettlebell sport. It was always there. There was just this, so I would go and I was like, well, God, that's great. I have a client now, she's 76, I'm training her and she just competed at like world championships. So I mean- That's amazing. It is amazing. Yeah. And Jess, I just really want to highlight what you said earlier about

21:42
the immediacy of information now and how that can almost give us this sense of, like we should know it because the information is there. And that was never like that before. You were so right. There's such that link. Just because you've got the information there doesn't mean that there's knowledge yet. You have to take that step to make it knowledge. Knowledge is what you know and understand and can execute. Whereas information is everything else that you've got at your fingertips, right?

22:11
Definitely, I think we're picking too much information, Mickey. Yeah, yeah. I also think it's like, just because there's so much, you're like, you don't need all of it. You need like our plan, hypothetically, right? Like I think we have a pretty good one. I think you need our resistance plan or our plan for nutrition. Like you don't really, you can consume till you're blue in the face, but I'm not sure how much that's going to help you. So at some point, pick one.

22:40
Who cares if there's 50 to choose from? Pick one. Yeah, and also pick one with the foundations. Pick one with the foundations that are setting you up for success. And I think that's what we are wanting to do here is we've put together a plan that has the diet structure, it has the training structure, but importantly as well, it's got the coaching structure, which you and I are both so passionate about helping people to build a better path for themselves moving forward. Like they've got,

23:09
a potential solution now and it absolutely works the way it's intended. It helps people lose weight, which is great, but it needs to be the type of weight that they lose is weight that they want off and they don't want to be losing muscle and they don't want to be leaving themselves for a weaker, more vulnerable future that leaves them the doors wide open for them to regain. But more importantly, leaves them less stronger than what they sort of started with.

23:38
I cannot stress this enough, but like, they literally, you are nothing without muscle. You know what I mean? There's like nothing that you will be able to accomplish in your life. So this concept of like losing weight and not gaining muscle, I think is really, really, really detrimental to people. And also I think you and I not only come up with like,

24:06
the right strategies and plans. But I also think we understand people. And I think that that's really important because we're not robotic. So even with the best of plans and the best of coaches, we're still at our core humans. And so we get distracted and we have other things that kind of come into play. And I think it's important. You know, we've spent many years, you and I like really just understanding human psyche. And I think there's something to that because this is not, you know, so straightforward. I think you pick your plans.

24:33
you work with your coaches and then there's a lot of organicness that comes into play. So I think really being able to understand, I think where you are from an emotional standpoint makes a really big difference. We're living at UNI, we have these conversations but we talk about it and I think we're here, we not only can understand but we're trying to understand ourselves. Yeah, 100%. And what I do find quite hilarious though Jess is that whenever you and I jump on Instagram, it's more often than not nutrition related that we discuss.

25:03
But at the fundamental core of it, the thing that keeps muscle on is strength training. And it is your ability to engage in a program that stimulates that load and fatigue that's required in order to break that muscle down and build it back. And of course, nutrition is important, but you cannot build a better body based on diet alone. You have to do the training as well. That's right. They literally have to be.

25:31
married together. I mean, as we've talked over and over and over again, there's two ways, right? To keep that freaking muscle on your body. And there's lots of things I think we should, we should, you know, this is the other great big thing. It's very uncomplicated. You know, it's, it's, it's enough protein and it's enough resistance training to keep the muscle on your body. End of story. Those are the two ways, right? But I think there are so many ways. So there's two ways to keep on your body. And there's a million ways.

26:00
to remove it. Oh, I love this so much. Right? I mean, how about that? How about that for the easiest way for all of you guys to think about it? There's two very straightforward ways to keep it. And it's the most important thing you will keep on your body and just literally. Without it, there's nothing else you'll really be able to do. But there are so many ways, so many things that you can do that remove it. It's crazy when you think about it. It is 100%. And I think, Jess, given that we've spent 26 minutes on...

26:29
understanding a little bit more about you. Let's leave this here and the next one we do, we'll do a bit of an intro on me. And then this has kicked off our Strength Renewed podcast series, which I'm super stoked about. Amazing. I told you what happens when you have a bestie who's Jewish and drinks a lot of coffee. This is what you get. This is totally. You get 26 minutes of me. No, no, and you know what? Too short, far too short. But I'm pulling a Jess and I'm cutting us here. And next time for people who aren't sure about.

26:57
my background, we can do a bit of a dive into that. And then we'll get onto the super interesting stuff that people also wanna chat about. I love it, strength, the strength renewed is coming and it's gonna come with a vengeance. I'm excited about it. Yeah, me too. Awesome Jess, thanks so much.