TMGP Ep 06 with world record holder and Ninja Warrior Ginny Maccoll

oo another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral hi Gaines gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 6 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Ninja Warrior Jenny mcll onto the show Jenny is an actress dancer and competitive athlete in both Ninja Warrior and swimming she began her career in New York City as a dancer in the hit Broadway show Pippen in 1974 then transitioned into the commercial world and did over 100 National and Regional commercials throughout the70s and 80s after a 20-year Hiatus to raise her family and work in radio Jenny rekindled her acting career in retirement in Southport North Carolina and also began strength training inspired by her daughter Jesse graph who has gone farther than any female on American Ninja Warrior at 63 years old Jenny did her very first pull-up and later competed on American Ninja Warrior season 9 10 and 15 making history at age 71 as the oldest person to complete an obstacle she was named the oldest competitive female ninja athlete in the 2024 G gu's world record book Jenny continues to compete regionally in ninja competitions and local state and National swim meets she also appeared as Evelyn one of Diane Keaton's eight cheerleaders in the movie poms Dorothy in USS Christmas on Hallmarks movie and Mysteries Channel Agnes Miller in Stars fell on Alabama Beverly in and just like that and ma ma in you cord invited in today's episode we can look forward to advice from Jesse graph discussions about it never being too late or too old to start your fitness journey slow but continuous progress the importance of pull-ups Ninja Warrior woman lifting weights discipline and commitment strength being ageless and movement being key given that brief glimpse into Jenny's extraordinary life let jump right into the show hi Jenny hey good to me here thank you so much for coming on can you briefly introduce yourself and your journey into the world of Ninja Warrior well it's it's not a brief story because I'm 72 years old so I have a lot of history that that brought me to where I am right now but I would say very first I was a dancer and I went to New York to be a professional dancer and I stopped that when I was around 30 years old I had two children and you know married had two children and lived in New York City and then I transitioned to doing commercials uh playing the housewife and Mom and many different you know commercials like for jordash or um uh folders uh Mr Clean all these um major uh Network commercials which was a great way to um have a light so it kind of transition from uh being a dancer to being an actress and moving on to doing a Broadway show called Pippen in 1976 starting in 1973 and going to like 1976 in that time period and from there I actually got a divorce and so I became a single mother which was a hardship and an obstacle in its own way and from there uh I moved on and having a dream to always get back to to acting so my second love after dance was acting so I knew that it wouldn't happen right away that I could get back to it but I thought even if I was a granny I would be sure to somehow find a way to get back into my true love which was acting and when I retired that's what I did and that's when I discovered Ninja n through my daughter she uh is one of the top ninja warriors in the show American Ninja Warrior and has gone the farthest of any female when it comes to completing uh different stages and I saw her and I saw how beautiful she looked and how healthy she looked and she had muscles and she flew through the air and I was there cheering her on always cheering her on but I looked at her and I went I want to get stronger and in my generation in my day women were not encouraged to lift weights I didn't have the upper body strength dance gave me strength in a different way but it certainly wasn't upper body you know strong muscles uh so I looked at her I said I want to get stronger and she said many different things but what stuck in my mind was do pull-ups so I tried as hard as I could to do pull-ups I got the bar and I put it in the you know the closet which was uh in between the the door frame and I worked on it and worked on it and I sent her a video and she said oh Mom I love what you're doing and how hard you're working on this but that's not a real pullup a real pullup is when you get your chin Over the Bar and when you go all the way down to your arms are straight so I went to a personal trainer because I knew this was not going to happen and you don't just work on you know pull-ups you've got to strengthen the chest and the back and the arms and the shoulders and all around so it took me about seven months before I really started to see any definition and people noticed and that was that was fun that kept me going you know I think you need you need to see something and I think that's why so many people stop early but I didn't get a pullup until an entire year had gone by and in the meantime you know I did more lifting and more strengthening and leg work uh what we call it as Push Pull and leg day so you're all around getting stronger and that sort of led me to Ninja so is that brief enough no it's fantastic and that's such a great intro what age were you when you did your first pullup well I started working on it when I was 63 I don't think I got it until I was 64 and I went on American Ninja Warrior when I was 65 and I could only do um a few pull-ups at that point I certainly wasn't ready to be on American Ninja Warrior but I tried once I was there I was committed and then I see at 69 you did your first uh salmon ladder I did that was such an accomplishment for me because it seems to me that that is the hardest thing to accomplish and it eluded me and I kept trying and trying and trying I tried in a smaller way so I wasn't having to lift so far up and I tried and it and that took me forever to get the first one and then forever to go to the second one because you're high up and I didn't have a harness or anything to get started on and I was on an outdoor course so you don't really have PS and a lot of you know you have mattresses but then that can be its own danger too so yeah that was that and that's a hard one to keep consistent on like pull-ups if you don't you know continually do them over time you know you lose that that um muscle development that know how to to do it again that mind muscle connection yes so what was going through your mind when you got at the first time oh I think I I screamed and I kinked and I jumped up and down and I uh was like I did it uh it was dramatic wow I I always used to watch um I don't know if you know the show that green arrow um Oliver Queen he always did that in the intro he did the salmon lad and I was always like I want to that's so cool that's epic and now you've done it you now the real um the the real green arrow in real life yes well you know I went to a competition recently and they had the salmon ladder as the first obstacle which is what yes but I was I was um you know just warmed up and I wasn't exhausted after doing six obstacles so in a way it turned out good for me so I only had to do two rungs to get to the next step um and I was able to just do one wrong and then go on and they're going hey you got one just do another I'm like oh I don't want to temp fade I don't want to fall on the first obstacle again so so how does that work sorry I don't know the rules of Ninja Warrior how does it work like um you said you only have to do the first two what why is that how does the different obstacles work in American Ninja Warrior you go from one obstacle to another and it generally starts with some kind of steps generally not always and there are like six different obstacles and they get harder as time goes on and some of them have to do with balance so in um American Ninja Warrior if you fall you're done because you fall in the water and that's it so you know that's as far as you get to go um in Regional competitions some of them are that way they have a lot of different uh rules and regulations and I like the ones where you get to keep going and they're Point based so if you fall on an obstacle like the third obstacle then you just don't get the points for it and you go on to the next one so you get a chance to continue on and that's the kind I like the most because you know you've traveled to get to a competition and you've spent money to be in a competition and you want to get a chance to get on the obstacles so and you've been training and all of that and then you have one slip up and and you're over that's that that's very difficult and and challenging to overcome that yeah no it's not easy I believe that you did overcome that in season 9 I think that you um that you fell in one of the obstacles and then you came back because you have a very supportive husband who believed in you and said that you're going to come back and do it and I believe you did it two more times after that that is correct um I fell on the first obstacle two times season 9 and 10 season N9 I barely could do a pull-ups and it was I remember getting right up there when they go 3 2 1 and you go and I just went what am I doing here because it's overwater and the steps were far apart and they were on an incline so it was like it was like what have I done but you have to go and try it and my foot slipped on one of the steps and I was in the water and I I was like I this couldn't have happened I felt like I had you know let everybody down my family my friends all seniors everything it was just devastating and I it took me a long time to get over that I kept reiving it like if you've ever been in a car accident you just keep hearing the sound of the metal crashing you just keep feeling the water and the slip and how did it happen and it went over and over and then when the show came on on air on TV um they didn't show me which I was grateful for but I saw all these athletes doing that obstacle and they made it look so easy and it really wasn't it's not as easy as they make it look so then I went through the whole season watching it going oh my gosh and just but yes my husband he says you'll you'll do it again and I'm like why why do you think I'll do it again and he goes because you can and my daughter also was very instrumental in it she said don't let one fall Define you look how far you've come look how strong you've got and you know I really dwelt on that a lot like yeah I enjoy it and I know I can do it so I practice and practice and practiced and I did it the following year after having practiced those steps over and over again and I fell again and this time I wasn't as mad at myself because I went I i' practiced for this something is is my legs are just not strong enough and so from there I tested obstacles for other regions on American Ninja Warrior so I was able to get on the obstacles and I discovered that just one of my legs was Far weaker than the other and if I pushed off the same leg going to each of the steps then I was able to get through it okay so I learned a lot and Plus testing the obstacles for American orer was a great time because you don't have the pressure and you can you can get up there and do it several different times so that was a great experience for me but it took me another like five years before I did it again yeah at that time I did finish the the first obstacle which was very different now see they usually keep the the same obstacle for several years like they had the steps that I fell on for several years and then they switched it to a different type of Step so you jump to the you you leap through the steps and then you grab a rope and you uh swing to a platform I had that down packed but in season 15 when I just did it this past year they changed it so totally different it was like a pole vault where you jump on a mini [ __ ] to a pole and the pole goes down to a platform so you have to climb very fast in order to reach the platform so now I'm not that's not something I've practiced a lot in my my past I'm not a gymnast never have been I don't know how to do mini tramps that well so I tried to practice that the day before um having gotten wind of of kind of what it was about you're not able to see the obstacles before you go on them you can't touch them or anything or you're you're out so um you just try to think best of how to work on the mini [ __ ] and so I was able to get to the pole from the mini [ __ ] but not high enough so I had to really really really yum climb very fast and I was able to reach to the platform and go to the second obstacle and is that what your guine world record was was completing the F that first obstacle and being the oldest person to or oldest is it oldest person or oldest female to complete a um obstacle at American Ninja Warrior it was I am the oldest person to complete an obstacle on American engine Warrior which was I didn't know it at the time if I known it I probably would have been more nervous about it because I I thought maybe I was could have been the oldest female but I certainly didn't know I was the oldest uh person um but no that was not the Guinness record at all because um I was talking my daughter I was like I don't understand how they got me at 70 70 years old because I did American Ninja Warrior War War for the first time when I was 65 so where did they come up with 70 and she's like Mom this isn't American Ninja Warrior this is the world and it suddenly dawned on me that this was huge this was the entire world and they get that information from these leagues that we do we have World ninja League we have and those are separate from American Ninja organ which is a TV show um where you need skill and personality and it's it's made up of different different things entirely but for the Guinness Book of World Records it was uh the oldest female in a ninja competition in the world wow that's absolutely incredible I was congratulations thank you I was you know it's it brought me to possibly you and people all over the world have spoken to TV stations and and um London and in um Mexico I've talked to podcasts in India and now South Africa and so so it's been a whirlwind to see that really people and and women in in general who have the same problems I did that we weren't encouraged to lift weights um so you know we're we're all the same even though we're all different all over the world uhum trying to deal with health and fitness and diet and sleep and and how to get stronger can you go more into detail about those um factors you just mentioned about diet sleep um training in the gym that kind of thing well as a senior it's very difficult to get enough sleep because you wake up all the time and then you can't get back to sleep so it's a very difficult thing I'm sure a lot of people have the same kind of issues so it's it's my goal to get at least seven hours of sleep and if I can't do that I'll have to take I want to take a nap but there are some days where you know you just are exhausted the next day and you just have to try your best to get through it so sleep is you you want to get enough deep sleep so you get and and REM sleep so you get your mental and your physical recovery time especially if you're doing a lot of exercise um so sleep is important hydration is key and that's something I don't think I ever did growing up because um well I mean as a child that's a different story but as you get you know as a dancer we didn't walk around with water bottles like you're taking out right now we didn't do that you know it was coffee in a w didn't take care of it we didn't know uh to do that so that's a good that's a good I've got mine right here oh good good good good yeah it's hard to get all that uh water during the day and to get the electrolytes so it's not just plain water but sometimes you need to find the and you know what all those drinks that they have out there they have things in them that are not necessarily what you want to be putting in your body that's a whole different issue but like sucros or arre ariol are in tons of drinks and I see those and I go I can't have that and so it's very difficult to find the right kinds of hydration to have um what else you were talking about diet okay that's a big issue because so many people have different ways and things and issues they're dealing with their bodies I can only tell you from myself what I've gone through and it's it's basically to get a half a plate of protein a half a plate of vegetables that's that's it in a nutshell I do a lot of fish I I live on the coast in North Carolina and the US and so I'm able to get fresh fish and that is really my biggest staple and I'll tell you what brought me to that was um I have heart disease in my family my mother had 11 stins in different in her arteries my brother has recently just had five stin put in so I um was very cognizant about how that would affect me and in one of the tests that I had they they said that in my karate I had 50 to 70% uded plaque all I heard was 70% and that terrified me and actually when they do the the test you can you can see it I could watch it I could see that clump of plaque in there and it just terrified me so they sent me to a vascular surgeon and he said uh they ReRe they read it wrong um you know we don't worry about this until it's 80% I'm like what is there nothing I can do no no there's nothing you can do and I'm like whoa and I I read this book where I had to be very careful about everything that I ate it was called prescription for life and that is a whole different thing that a lot of people would probably not want to do but because of the issues I was dealing with which was I stopped meat all red meat I stopped all d I tried to stay away from saturated fats or anything that had cholesterol in it and um that's no sodas but that wasn't a problem I never had sodas very little sweets and you know I love ice cream so that was really difficult for me so um there was nothing in the house to eat really so it was a a a period of transition where I really I went on that diet for two years it was a strict diet and so I went back to the vascular surgeon they did another test and they said it was 40% um I'm like okay so was that how you read the report was that the machine that you used or um and was a diet and she said it was probably all three things so I've modified that now so I still have mostly fish and you turkey chicken whatever and I'll I will have meat I think it's it's a good protein builder for exercise but I only have it like maybe once a month um and the same thing with dairy I don't have dairy but if I'm at somebody else's house and they use butter I'm not going to like shove it aside you know I I don't have a an allergy to these things I just try to stay away from them as much as possible so my diet is uh is I'll I'll use uh cashew milk and stad of regular milk I use um you know some of the yogurts and ice cream that uses oat milk or cashew milk or or various things like that and I I feel good I feel energetic and it works for me I have nothing against the carnivore diet I have don't quite understand it but I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian so um you know I I I think all of those have their their pluses and uh depending on what you need in your life I guess you'll know if things aren't working well you you'll know so that so your diet's that so yeah so that's pretty that's pretty much it yeah so your diet you say is based on your health first and then performance secondary yes definitely indefinitely Health First I had to think about that for a minute um and performance with all the protein that was one of the hardest things when I started uh preparing for the first Ninja Warrior was how do I get enough protein and so it's difficult I try to get one gram per body weight so I I try to get about 120 125 grams of protein a day and that's not easy because in each meal you might have 25 35 grams of protein in a meal so that's not going to get you there um to start with I I got those bars that you have that are supposed to be high protein and then I saw all the sugar in them and I I was like that's I don't want to replace it with that so I I find different ways of of getting that protein in that fourth meal um that's that's really important so you're right um Health First and and exercise fitness second so did you say protein 1 gram per pound of body weight that's what I said yeah that's what I work towards that that's perfect if you're getting that that's been shown in lots of studies to be optimal and great for your muscles great for your health so that's that's exactly where you want to be that's what I like to hear um in terms of health I believe that you were diagnosed with um I'm probably going to butcher it but osteopenia that's it osteopenia correct all right osteopenia is a step before osteoporosis so when I started lifting weights I mean you do read you know they do say lifting weights helps with the bone mass and so when I went for my first bone density test after lifting weights I was just so ecstatic like oh I wonder if this is going to change anything and I asked the technician and she said no she's never seen that happen before only with medicines um the statins and I'm like hm but the report came back and it had rever statistically significant changes it the the report read and it was back to normal so I can't say that that's going to continue all my life as I age because I mean the studies say that you lose one to two% of your um bone mass per year after age 50 um I think it's like yeah so I don't know that I can continue that but I'm so far so good and I can't say that that would pertain to everyone but I certainly tell people you know it's not going to hurt you unless you you you hurt yourself and you're not doing it right which is why I always say get a personal trainer CU if you're like Ming and you've never lifted weights I didn't know what I was doing and it's so easy to do it wrong and hurt yourself there's a lot of injuries in lifting if you don't know the proper form to take so it's important to do that and I will shove that to the world is it's so important to lift weights at any age there've been uh studies done of people in their 90s that do resistant resistance training and have had improve like crazy Improvement and been able to get rid of their canes or their walkers so and we just we didn't have those Role Models growing up of of people you know taking Fitness to this level where you're really able to reverse an osteopenia but wouldn't it be wonderful if people younger people you know in their 20s and 30s had this habit that they did the exercise and maybe maybe maybe they wouldn't ever get osteopenia or osteoporosis wouldn't that be great I mean if you don't try how how do you know so I I constantly am trying to shout to the world you know do this and do the weightlifting have instruction with proper form and you're going to reduce so many different health risks out there you know your heart is a muscle so you got to pump that heart and get the blood flowing what well the bones you balance balance is a huge issue as well so you want to try to do I saw something somewhere where they said can you um balance on one foot when you're 50 years old for 40 seconds and when you're 60 years old for 20 seconds and when you're 70 years old for 10 seconds you want to be close to a table or a counter or something to catch yourself but I don't want anybody hurting themselves but try it see where you stand in that that level um balance if you fall you could break a bone so you know these things are are just so important to practice on a day-to-day basis absolutely and I agree I think resistance training is incredibly important and I think that it's one of the major keys to longevity I've done quite a lot of research with regards to longevity and muscle mass is one of the most important um factors with regards to not slowing down your aging obviously everyone ages at the same rate but um biologically aging it down um but but I think that that the muscle loss um it you don't lose muscle unless unless you don't use it so exactly yeah you lose 30% of your lean muscle by 60 and 50% by 70 that's that's horrible it's not you don't want to do that you want to be able to open jars and that's another thing is grip strin you know I saw my mom not be able to open something I that's that's terrible in this day and age to go to aivary store i' not be able to open it or the pill bottles they just so difficult or let me not say pill bottles but unless needed but supplements um they're so difficult to to handle and I was just reading about um grip strength is overall um it shows your overall health and I was trying to to read and find out why exactly they say that grip strength is the thing that is going to help you or show what health that you have so it's interesting absolutely and I know you've got insane grip strength um from training I saw some really really good strength well I work on it a lot the truth I take um well I have it right here if you're on video you can see I take this is what you get on Broccoli when you go to the grocer no ways and I I kind of an exercise when you're sitting and watching with an elastic band exactly no ways that's incredible I do that and then I have what I rip colors where you go you twist and you twist different ways um but I do a lot of finger exercises um I have arthritis if I have like huge Knuckles they're like I if I didn't move them I don't know where I would be but I am constantly trying to keep them active cuz they say um what did they say mus um oh they say they don't rust active muscles don't rust so that's what I try to do a lot and then you know in Ninja Warrior we hang by our fingertips on uh the Cliffhangers so all of that you know hanging from a bar is great for your grip strength too I do a lot of that I try to at least hold a minute um hanging from a bar wow a minute's very long to hold from a bar it gets yeah yeah I have Calles to show it yeah me me as well they don't clean the bars at gym enough and they always make my calluses really dirty which is really nasty oh my gosh yeah you have to shave them actually because if they don't shave them or keep them down because they get big and then if you're doing Leets which is when you throw the bar behind you and catch another bar four five feet 6 feet some people 10t on me but um you can rip it and then if you have a ripped Palace S no that that that that is no good I I want to go back to your curing of your bone mineral density I think you said it or I well I know so you didn't say but it was only a 2-year period that you've been lifting Wast that went from from the condition the diagnosis normal levels yes and that's Absol Ely incredible and like you mentioned it might not happen to everyone but I've seen um quite a bit of data at least anecdotally that has shown that people that do resistance training that gym and lift weights in particular they can reverse their bone mineral density declining and actually increase bone Min mineral density all the way through um many many years I yes and that's so important you don't want the bones to be uh too soft like I said all you need to do is just fall the wrong way and you can fracture a bone so these are things that again I wish started early that should just be a part of everybody's training is to do you know proper formed uh weight weightlifting I wish I done it did you everyone should do it it's it's it's crazy that it's not more mainstream and like like you said you're happy that it's becoming more mainstream and I agree I'm very stoked about the fact that now it's not just the jum Bros it's everyone and um Lots like you mentioned in the 60s it wasn't um it was it was frowned upon to lift weights for for females and nowadays it's actually everyone should be lifting weights every human should be lifting weights and that's an incredible transition that we've gotten from I would say it's a lot mental because these cultural norms are very difficult to get out of your head and if you feel that you're going to get too bulky it's like well I don't want to you know I'm not going to do that but we have to get rid of stereotypes like it's not feminine to sweat or you're going to get just ridiculous or but in reality we didn't have here and I don't know how what it was where you are but we didn't have lifting power lifting until 1978 for women um and title it's Title Nine I think Title Nine is that the one where women's sports you couldn't discriminate against sex in sports and that's when they started having um in colleges they would have female sports teams but you see in 72 I was already in my 20s so all that time growing up you know you have a whole different mindset and it's hard to change that and I think all of this I think um lifting or ninja or swimming all these different kinds of sports it's a lot mental this is this is what hurts us the most that's what makes us quit it makes us like oh I'm not going to try anymore I can't do that instead it should be well I can't do it now can't do it yet but you can do it it's just You' got to have that determination you've got to have that you know not going to stop attitude and you know fight through the negativity that says I can't do it or I'm too old or it's too late for me or I used to I can't now you got to fight through that and um but stop if you're starting to hurt if you feel the bad hurt yeah you know the good hurt and the bad hurt the one that's you're getting stronger and the one that like Oh no you're pain yeah yeah that's my shoulder sore all the joints they you know we have to take care of those joints so much my daughter used to say my daughter used to say she wanted to build armor around her joints to protect them has she managed to do that oh I think so but you know she's had so many different surgeries she's a risk taker she's a she's a stunt actress as well as a ninja and uh does oh wow yeah yeah so there's a a lot of whiplash a lot of a lot of crazy things that she goes through but she's she's getting stronger again she's gone through um a couple of years ago she did three different surgeries at the same kind of at the same time she did knee shoulder and when that healed enough for her to be able to push herself up she did the other shoulder so she did those three huge surgeries in a year's time is is that from being a a stunned person or is that from Ninja Warrior or combination of both probably a combination of both but yes she initially uh almost dislocated her shoulder she did some tearing in Ninja Warrior in a in the competition and so she was out for a while with all that but you know injuries happen um they accidents but you want to get as balanced um as you can possibly get in your uh training so that if you you know I always liking it to a tennis player or a baseball player they're always hitting to the same side if they're uh you know batting or using their racket so you in your training you have to balance your body out because well we're not perfectly balanced anyway so if you get imbalanced on one side then you make up for it with the other and then you start to have injuries so that's another good reason to to have good training absolutely and on that tennis note um tennis is apparently the sport that promotes longevity the best out of every sport the science says that tennis is the sport to play if you want to live long obviously it's not swimming in general I believe you do swimming I believe you Balan swimming I think swimming you say science as tennis is indeed indeed I swimming because you can do it for so long um I did uh yeah I do a lot of competitive swimming and I did uh the uh national game or Olympics as they call it and that's for people 50 and above and I saw people in their 80s and 90s and hundreds there's a lady in 100 101 that are still swimming and they have a good range of movement so I don't know that you can play tennis that long um my my granddad is a um octogenarian and there's four of them they're all 80 plus and they all go play doubles twice a week and it's very cute but watch in I I don't think it's tennis to the level where it's um anything close to fedro or Nadal but it's it it's you know they get out they move and and they hit the all about they actually they actually do play two full sets of tennis which is it's not easy to to do that at at any age actually no tenis is most is great cardio I am I had so that's the thing yeah I had to uh be uh learn tennis take tennis lessons for a movie that I was in um well it's not a movie it's a TV series and so I uh have never seen anything so exhausting if you take a lesson for an hour and you're running around that court now this is singles uh it was totally exhausted it it is that was my sport growing up was tennis um my mom actually played um for the University of South Florida wow and yeah yeah that's where she she was based for University okay nice she was on the tennis team yeah yeah that's something to shout about yeah exactly um so it took you three years to do 10 pull-ups and that shows incredible determination how many pull-ups can you do now uh the most I'm done is 17 strict pull-ups but I've kind of haven't done them on a regular basis so I would say around 12 to 15 is kind of what I have stayed at I'd like to get to 20 I really would like to get to 20 so I'm going to start upping that again it's really such a great upper body workout and strengthening um and when you get to that one where you can't pull up anymore and you're just like just like straining to get up that's when you get your most strength so I always think just hold on for just a little bit longer and then that's where I'm going to do the the muscle growth I hope exactly that's that's exactly the point of of failure as it's known in the muscle muscle so I have a funny story when I was doing I I I climb ropes and I was climbing uh for the first time a really high rope I was going up I was about like at 35t high with a harness this time and my daughter was shouting down below I could barely hear go one more and so I'm thinking okay I I haven't reached 40 yet so of course I'm going to do that so I I take another two two pulls get a little higher and she goes do one more I'm like what the heck so there I do one more two more I went she's got to be satisfied now and I asked her later what why did you say do one more after I made 40 and she said because that's when you get the most strength just try to do one more so I hear her low voice in my head as I'm doing pull-ups or whatever it is do one more so is it her voice in your head that helps you with mental resilience and um mindfulness that kind of thing is that your daughter's voice in the back of your head saying come on come on you can do this is that is that what it is or what else I think it's both of us we we have this absurd determination it's like I can't it's like a game it's like a challenge I can't let it get the best of me so yeah I mean I do hear that and do one more that would definitely be her voice but I think she would hear the same thing from me one more I think that's an excellent point that you made about gamifying it um my honest research project was actually on gamification and and you sound like you've managed to use damnification techniques in real life and that's that's really interesting for me one of the big things I've found and made it more fun is that's exactly what we do is we make it fun so a lot of times when we're balancing it's like okay who could go the farthest who can do the most this who let's go and see how many different grips we can do a pullup on let's it's it it all becomes a game and fun and it's so much more fun when you have a part partner which is another thing I tell seniors all the time is start walking and get a buddy because you know you got somebody to talk to and also that you you can't stop when they knock at the door and say let's go it's like you got you know and a cability partner you want to yeah and um and then that partner might help you go the step further like walk a little faster or a little farther or maybe oh one day you're going to put wrist weights on or ankle weight you know so you have you know these challenges and and somebody to to learn and grow with that's an excellent idea and the Studies have shown that working out with a partner leads to um more significant gains than training by yourself and that partner could be a personal trainer or a friend they didn't I don't think they're specified in the study but they showed that you and again it's all generalized like not everyone's the same but most people will get better gains working out with a partner and be happier hopefully for sure for sure and it's more enjoyable like you mentioned and it's cool to compete as well as long as it's um fun competition I guess as long as it's not too like I hate that guy I need to do better than not not not the right energy but again that actually still might be good one of the things in ninja that I find so um encouraging is that they always at every competition I go to they're so welcoming and they if you've never done it before and you're terrified like oh my gosh I'm the oldest one in here they welcome you they just think it's great that you're there you you got here you tried so you fell on that one that's all right you know we've all fallen on the first obstacle at some point or another and it's just such a welcoming community and that's that's so important absolutely and I think I think I might be completely misquoting but I think it was Michael Jordan who said look at a baby they they fall like 50 times and you think what after the fifth year's time they're just going to give up like no they keep trying and that's super important and baby steps and everything in life I do say baby steps a lot to people yeah progressions like don't try to do a salmon ladder the very first time or run up a warmth W wall because so many people will hurt themselves after not warming up so it's yeah you want to you find a good progression to get to the next step you know maybe if you're learning a leche you can just throw the bar and touch the next one or just you know one step at a time so um I was no I was just going to go to a different subject and well first of all you sounds like you've done a lot of studies and scientific research I'm going to have to pick your brain um but I tend to do like I said earlier Push Pull um and leg day and I try to do those um so you have a day of rest in between so the muscle can grow so you're you're basically let's say you have a chest day where you're doing push-ups or something you're you're working that muscle and you're you're doing micro tears you can tell me if I'm right or not because I think you you know the science better than me but you're doing micro tears so the day of rest gives it time to grow stronger so you don't want to keep you know um te caring micro tear every single day cuz it's going to take you so much longer so that's why there's a day of rest if you're going to do the um chest um triceps shoulders one day and then maybe uh your back and biceps another day um legs another day so you're working the whole body for abs you can do that and you can do cardio at at the same time as you do all that too so I usually say like three times a week um for strength training and for five days for cardio and a day of rest um kind of as a general rule uh some people do more but you just you need the day of rest too and that's absolutely yeah so I think help you grow stronger quicker absolutely no you you need to be resting um you don't need to be resting so long like for example you mentioned that you do push pull legs um a more optimal in terms of muscle growth like you're not training strictly for that but the science has shown that trying to train a muscle twice a week is significantly better than training a muscle once a week so for example doing a chest day or or training chest on Monday and Friday is better than just training chest on Wednesday for example but totally agree you don't want to train every single day you need at least one two three or 4 days rest every single week between oh okay yeah in between so if you can give your muscle 24 to 48 hours that that's great and then you it will it doesn't even have to be a specific time frame the the exact well not the exact science but what they recommend is um when you're ready when your muscle feels ready and you're not sore anymore that's when you're ready to train it again basically yeah that makes sense yeah so it's all about listening to the body which is not a not an exact Signs by any means but that's what it's very important you because we just you know I'm so close to getting an obstacle and you just want to get it so badly but your muscles are sore and you're like I try to tell myself okay let's go over and do some balance for a while like let me just walk away from it because you know then you start to do damage and you don't want to do the injury and be out for longer yeah if if you s stuff it's like or like if it's a like if you're not sure rather just be safe in general obviously it's not true for anyone everyone like sometimes I'm feeling that's not that's not feeling 100% but then I do it and it actually almost fixes itself because you're just I don't know but don't do it if it hurts if it hurts stop stop that exercise do a different exercise like you said work on balance do Mobility do something else well I got to say that I would say you know for being a senior I've seen we touched on this earlier is I've seen so many people that are now working out so much more as they age and I'm heartened by that I see these senior games of are amazing to watch somebody who is you know 90 100 years old breaking World Records um and staying active I I I I love that I wish they would show that more to the general public so that we would get that as our own way of living and diet of course diet goes right along with it you know so once you start your program of exercise whatever your passion is and you commit to it and you make it a habit then the diet comes along with it because you want to eat to be able to you know do more perform yeah so they fit together so well and then you're exhausted so you sleep it's a fantastic synergistic um effect it's a trior like you mentioned the sleep I I struggle to sleep if I don't exercise in the day cuz I've got so much energy and it's like I'm not tired and then you sleep badly and then the next hour you actually don't have energy because you messed up on your sleep so it is important to try and get the different um factors going um when you can don't overdo it all at once but like you said they will pick up the more the more you get into your fitness journey right right yeah so anyway it's been a it's been a long journey but um I I just hope that uh more seniors will will see from what I post or others like me there plenty of people that are out there at my age and older and we'll decide to make that part of their routine in some way even even if it's only 20 minutes in the morning before they go to work I think there's that period when people are raising their family and they're working and the exercise goes out the window but you know there are plenty of people who who exercise with their kids exactly yeah kids are not an excuse to to not exercise in fact um I believe that a mother's Fitness level directly correlates to their child's health i' I've heard that yeah I've heard that I haven't seen that study I I've also heard that that's not something that I've seen in in an academic study but I I also saw that just a disclaim yeah yeah but that make that makes a lot of sense that does for me that makes a lot of sense yeah well when you look at Jesse so she's yeah exactly I didn't I mean she did she didn't see me always exercising and I didn't teach dance for a while when I was single um so she she you know got got a lot of that into her system right then and there as she did gymnastics when she was young so I think that certainly gave her you know a one upmanship when it comes to exercise absolutely and a oneup on Ninja Warrior and being a stunt person doing gymnastics is a fantastic sport for those two um activities exactly yeah yeah many people believe that age limits physical ability what message would you like to convey to those people who think they're too old to start or excel in physical activity first and foremost you're never too old and it's never too late to chase a dream um and if you fall get up and try harder uh and say make a commitment be consistent um make it a habit have fun with it um you know find what you like um have fun with it be safe make a plan and enjoy the process don't always go for the gold but see what your progress has been um so you need to take baby steps and I always make attainable goals like when I went to the personal trainer I went I want to get five pull-ups and I felt that that was doable I didn't say 100 pull-ups i s five so you know you may not want to go in and say I want to lose 40 lbs right away that's a long-term goal but I mean got to give yourself you know the step by step um we can we can accomplish a lot more than we think we can but you'll never know if you don't try uh I would say to seniors to to get up to start walking to walk a little faster get the heart pumping hug to find that sport or or just exercise that you enjoy find somebody to do it with don't let the negativity uh creep in and don't compare yourself to others it's you know you it's it's you want to do a little bit better each time um so I I think if you like keep at it you can make what seems impossible possible don't give up after 6 months isn't that what the studies say that people absolutely people give up yeah I think it's even I think it's after the first month um most people give up and like you mentioned you you only saw gains after I think you said seven months I noticed or you noticed at seven months people people noticed oh people other people they said you look like getting more toned and more defined and I yeah and that that was just at seven months but that was huge that kept me go that's an awesome feeling yeah yeah it absolutely yeah so um anyway I I hope um that I can Inspire women men all ages um I'd like to be a role model for my my grandchildren so that they can see what's possible and I how old are they H what was that how old are they oh um how old U my granddaughter is eight years old and my uh grandson is Oney old oh wow so we'll get him hanging from a bar pretty doing are these Jesse's kids no my son has two oh oh sorry yeah okay okay yeah sorry I I don't know family Dynamics yeah yeah that's right yeah so um let's let's keep trying to get the message out there around the world uh I don't know what is the dynamic in if you mind my asking in South Africa do you does everybody fit or are they like in us where they you know overindulge let's say what what is the level of Fitness that you see um so the level of Fitness that I see is a very elite level because that's just my kind of sphere that I'm in I'm in the fitness I love Fitness I gym five six times a week I've played grow I've grown up playing tenth and squash and Sport my whole life so I was at a very um sporty school I was a sporty kid so from my perspective perspective my individual perspective I see South Africans as incredibly fot and you see the rugby you see the cricket you see the top athletes and they they really sport is a huge huge culture in South Africa correct I believe I believe that the statistic show something different so that's my very small and group of people um from where I've grown up in my situation but I think the general statistic is that obesity is well on the rise um malnutrition is huge because unfortunately um we have a very big income gap that we suffer from a lot of poverty and um that that poverty unfortunately leads to really bad diets um and a lack of resources to be able to JY and train and that kind of thing and um these people most of them are struggling to survive so the last thing on their mind is Fitness and being uh healthy and it's really it's awful and terrible and really sad but I feel like these people have more um are more important because I think Fitness is very important but that it's not a priority at the moment for them and it it is something that South Africa needs to change and um the only way we're going to change it is with huge government uh intervention and new policies basically right well yeah I mean I I think in the 60s uh in the US there was a big push towards physical activity so they did start a whole program in all the schools but then with budget costs and stuff that went away uh but I think that kind of a thing would be very helpful um now when I was growing up I never did sports like I said yeah I mean we didn't have many for women in in high school um I think there were only three different sports for for women and i' never been in a gym until I was 63 so that's that's my main message to to you know seniors is it's never too late because you know sometimes you think you can't grow muscle when you're older but you can't so you know whether you've stopped working out or you never did work out you definitely can get that going right now at any time preferably as young as possible but then as you age you know you could always start it's just never too late absolutely what were those three sports available to females the three this was just in my my uh Community oh okay okay okay okay it was a volleyball track and swimming now the swimming wasn't in the pool in the school they had to travel out to do the swimming but I never did any swimming of uh in a sport related uh activity so I was a majorette in high school so I was active that was the kind of thing mostly I think for women the big thing was Cheerleading majorette that kind of a thing but not not I'm sure there are people that played tennis but it wasn't uh you know competitive I understand I love your message of um strength is Ageless and you can build strength at any age um and I like that you say age and experience should not be a barrier and I love the way that you use baby steps to make the impossible possible I think that's truly inspiring yeah than well there Believe It or Not AB Lincoln who is one of our presidents said it's not the years in your life that count it's the life in your years I like that one too I think that's simple but very succinct um and I think the strength also comes from within you know the outer muscles show all the hard work but the Inner Strength is what gives you the driving force so that's you know that's something I don't know that you can be taught but if you're taught that you can chase that dream if you're taught that that is possible then perhaps you can build that strength that inner strength absolutely and what are your plans for the future okay well I'll go on American Ninja Warrior again because I have to get past you know the second obstacle so at some point I will I don't know if I I will this next year because that's already been filmed um I will I've got some ideas for doing some more Guinness Records so I just have to apply them and see if they will accept them um I want to keep doing my personal best in swimming I really like I think I like competition because you I mean it seems like I I'm competing in every direction I go to so it's like a personal goal but in swimming I'm swimming against myself I want to keep getting better and like ninja like tennis like everything there are so many things to learn about it to get better so I hope I keep getting better because I'm not sure what I'm going to do if I don't keep getting better that would be that would be a tragedy I'm just kidding now but it does help you keep going um I also want to do some more rock climbing I I do enjoy that bouldering and rock climbing uh so I think I think you just I still want to get stronger I think that that probably just about wrecks it up 100% those are some awesome goals and I look forward to hearing about these new world records and um I'm sure you're going to achieve everything that that you want to and you're going to get those goals for swimming um I'm very glad that the times have changed from from the 60s and that people are now encouraged to work out and uh my message obviously want to get your message after this but to the to the female thinking they're going to get too bulky um most men try their whole lives to get too bulky you're not going to get too bulky by accident um well I mean I mean maybe like not a strong bulky I mean like like musly bulky um if you do please let me know tell me your training plan I I want it um and uh oh my trck plan for for what for not getting too bulky no no no so if someone uh if someone figures out how to get too bulky by mistake I I want to know I know about it okay and then I I think it would be awesome to show more um older people doing doing games doing activities and um it should be televised and shown more often than than it is I totally agree I think the Masters Olympic Games those kind of things should be a way bigger deal than than they are at the moment I would agree with that definitely definitely as as as we see more and more older people doing more Sports it doesn't have to be EXT extreme like ninja but Sports in general uh are just going to make you feel better they give you more confidence Ence uh and self-esteem um you're just capable of doing more things and and I think I think it certainly would raise people's Spirits exactly there there are good examples of that like yourself like the um Masters The Wimbledon guys those guys as well as bodybuilders now 0 in the 80s and 90s going on shows and that the all of you are incredibly incredibly inspiring um what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are looking to embark on their own journey of muscle growth and health oh wow so um well never too late never too old uh strength is Ageless um the body doesn't break down just because we age uh that we need to uh constantly work on movement uh it start slow and just move more and more each day if you go you know a block one day then maybe the next day you can go further and further and and uh get the heart going get the muscles working but work on balance is so important work on your grip strength get those rubber bands out um I think that any kind of movement is going to be good for you I think also to work on the diet uh get get the Sleep uh and you're going to feel better for it and you're it's going to determine the quality of your life so yeah so I I think also I have a saying that I I like a lot too and it's by Winston Churchill and it's success isn't final failure isn't fatal it's the courage to continue that counts goodbye Gaines gurus thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of tmgp