How Do Faith and Fitness Relate? A Conversation with Stephen Covert

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm James Spencer, and I am joined today by Stephen Covert. This is kind of our first time meeting. We had a brief conversation before we started recording, but I ran into Stephen's account on Instagram, and as many of you have heard me talk about on the podcast, I'm an old fitness buff and still like to lift. And Stephen is a natural bodybuilder. He runs something called the Iron Therapy Club, which we're going to get into, and he's also a Christian. And so we're going to talk about him and his faith and fitness and probably a number of different other things. So, Stephen, welcome to the podcast, man. It's great to meet you. Great for you to be here, and I appreciate you coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. When you sent me the message, I did some research, and I saw that you had Joel Smallbone. Is that how you say his last name from For King and Country? Luke, Luke Smallbone. Yeah, yeah. Luke. Oh, and I was honored. I'm honored to even be in that lineup. That's really cool. Yeah, I've got a guy who sometimes co-hosts with me, Nate, and Nate used to work for K-Love. And so he worked with all these different Christian bands. And so I think we're going to have, so we had Luke on, and then I think we're going to have Big Daddy Weave on pretty soon. We've had a number of different Christian artists. And then he was also, he did skate ministry for like 20 years or something like that. And so we've had a lot of ex-pro skateboarders and that kind of stuff. But you are our first real fitness guy that we're having on. I hope I do the fitness world justice as the real fitness guy. I used to, Caleb was always on. So I grew up homeschooled, Christian family. My mom, we had a white Toyota Sienna. Caleb was bumping every time she drove me to my big brother's Latin class every morning. So like the three rotation songs every time. I love Caleb. So where'd you grow up at? Where are you from? Virginia. Yeah. Okay. Right outside of Richmond. Very cool. Yeah. I'm running a, I'm running a men's study with several guys, like 18 guys from Virginia now. So I'm actually in St. Louis, but we do it via Zoom as a friend of mine, the guy I hooked up with, he happens to live in Virginia and asked me to do like teaching on Wednesday mornings. And so, yeah, some, some Virginia connections. Hey, Virginia connection. That's awesome. Well, anyway, man, tell us about your story. Like how, you know, talk about, you know, how you, how you ended up where you're at right now, but most importantly, you know, how you came to faith in Christ and what that upbringing looked like. Aside from the bump in the Caleb. Bump in the Caleb was a massive, massive part of my testimony. I, four siblings or three, excuse me. I'm the fourth Christian home grew up, you know, going through the motions, church every morning, had great parents, solid foundation got into high school. Still knew the Lord. Jesus was very, you know, I knew of the Lord, knew Jesus. I knew that there was a God somewhere. My parents told me there was knew all the, like, was memorizing the catechisms as a, as a Presbyterian background. That's what we did. Yeah. Went to college straight away from the Lord. Did a lot of, uh, I was big time partier, big time social guy. And it wasn't till sophomore year of college that I just felt this huge emptiness within the partying, within the dating, within the, the indulgence of college and just re, uh, and just realized the need for the Lord in my life. And that was what bled into, I was big into fitness. So I was very much a, uh, biggest guy in the room, funniest guy relied all on these assets. And there was like a time sophomore year that I just felt this emptiness and, uh, just asked the Lord, come into my life. And then ever since then, he brought in a wife to replace that partying. He brought fitness back in. He's just totally changed my life. And we're on this journey with our therapy club, like you mentioned, which has been a huge part of my testimony, just the conviction around that and, and fitness. Well, talk a little bit about the iron therapy club, because I mean, you know, fitness can be, and I was in it, like I said, I did personal training for a long time and what I loved about it during the personal training was that, you know, I got to interact with people. I mean, that was awesome, right. You know, the one-on-one, you actually get to know a lot of people and you get to know people pretty well when you're training them one-on-one. Um, but, uh, you know, just, I started lifting because it was an isolated activity. I didn't like coaches. I didn't want to be on a team. And so lifting was sort of a thing you did on your own, right? Um, occasionally you'd grunt and ask somebody for a spotter, but aside from that, you could pretty much be isolated in the gym. So I'm interested when I looked at the iron therapy club website, you know, and it, and it's really an emphasis on community and building that non-isolated sort of presence. So talk a little bit about it. Yeah, absolutely. Um, kind of going back to my walk with the Lord, there was a time where obviously the gym is a huge confidence booster. Like, you know, it was like the thing that you do after class. Uh, that's where I met all my friends. Everything had kind of happened, but there was a time in my life. And, um, this is more of a less casual note, but really addicted to pornography going into college. And I developed a lot of shame with it. And it got so bad that I was just like, man, I, you know, I, I need accountability. I need community. Like this is broken me. It was affecting every way that I look at life. It's affecting every thought. It was creating kind of this OCD in my head. Um, and there was just a bunch of shame and I didn't feel like I could tell anybody. And as being a very outgoing gym guy, that was like really hard for me to be like, oh yeah, no, we're doing great. We're doing great. Cause I had all this, all these people around me, but no like intense community, no vulnerability within the community. And I started, you know, did the Christian counseling route, started to uncover the importance of just communicating, just talking about it with Christian brothers, um, and really unpacking it. And I kind of re-entered the gym scene with this new perspective of like we had talked about earlier, just a huge ministry. There's all these guys, all these young men, all these older men, all these middle-aged men that are all kind of going through the same thing or all working out. And it's like, how can we leverage the gospel? How can we leverage this spiritual brotherhood? Um, and that's that kind of the juxtaposition of iron therapy, because you need more than the iron. And there's this like therapy, but it's just like Christian therapy. Like it's this iron therapy club, but the emphasis is on this community. And it's like, use the gym. You can be all big and strong, but that's like, that's chitchat. Like, how are you doing? Like, let's go to the gym. We'll go to waffle house after we'll get into the weeds. Let's, let's pray over each other. Let's talk about it. And we'll go back to like, because it's such a constant in my life, especially with my boys, just going to the gym. It's like, let's, let's turn it into a movement. Let's talk about the hard stuff. Very cool. So how long has that been going on? How long have you been doing it? Uh, it started right before my first natural bodybuilding competition. I met with one of my buddies and he was basically talking to me about the business side of things that I had no idea. And I was stressing the concern of, I want to make a product that promotes vulnerability, like promotes this, uh, Accountability, this community and say, why don't you make like a t-shirt? And I was like, I don't, I don't know anything about making clothes. I work out. I did media communications. I don't know the first thing about sizing t-shirts or doing anything of the sort. Um, and I was like, we'll start small. So I thought of like the funniest thing that I can kind of do that still look cool. I made a t-shirt that said, this is a pump cover on the back, right above the shoulders. And I was like, okay, that doesn't necessarily say this is a Christian oriented community driven brand. But if we can get that on people's back and they can make that as like a talking point. Cause for me, it was really important to leverage marketing, leverage media and tell the exact story of why I'm doing this so that people,

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What I'm going through happens to relate to most of what all young men my age are also going through. So it was like a, almost, you started to really, like I'm not special at all. Like all these men my age are probably doing the same things, so people kind of latched on to the story, and they were just, we all created this beautiful community, and we're on drop like 2.5, and we keep growing, and I'm just making sure that I slow down because I'm a very, like, I get excited about projects like this. I'm like, oh wow, this is great. I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to do clothes. Like, this is going to be amazing. So I'm trying to pace myself right now, but we're coming on year like three, and we're just loving it. Just trying to stay grounded. So how do you cultivate the community within the, you know, within the club, the Iron Therapy Club? Yeah, absolutely. There's a bunch of technical ways, like Discord and using social media. The biggest thing for me was just, like I said, expressing exactly what the brand meant to, you know, just putting it out there. And then hundreds of thousands of people related. They bought the shirt, and then they were able, because initially, like I said, the first shirt said, this is a pump cover. So the first instance I saw of what was capable or what the potential was, I was with my buddy. It was like New Year's of 2022. We were in this gym in Lynchburg, Virginia near Liberty where I was in school. And someone approached him and said, oh, this is a pump cover. That's funny. Like, because in the gym culture, when you get a pump, that means blood's flowing. Right. You got your warm up. Like, you're getting blood circulating. You're feeling good. And he said, oh yeah, it's my buddy's brand. And he was able to translate from that guy asking what, this is a pump cover, to basically talking about how he met Jesus and how he had the same instances. And this other guy was just like, oh wow, that's really cool. And I was like, wow, this is an excellent talking point. And then I just doubled down and that community kind of grew from word of mouth, basic marketing promotions, telling stories, wearing it all the time in all my videos. Yeah, exactly like that. That's cool, man. I think it's a necessary thing. One of my buddies, his son is really into bodybuilding. Like, he wants to get into bodybuilding. And so he and I have had a number of conversations because his son's talked about doing, you know, TRT or going on steroids. And I'm like, he's like 19, you know. But it's become so normalized on social media at this point. And, you know, I remember seeing the video, it's like, you'll never be liked. You'll never be satisfied in life unless you put on more muscle. And, you know, it's like, it's one of those funny, you know, sort of goofy reels, like whatever. But I think there's an element of truth to it, right? Because that gym culture, it is very, it can be, you know, very vain like that. You know, sort of a lot of guys who are trying to make up for other things in their life by going to the gym and hitting it hard. And so it sounds like the, you know, the iron therapy club really helped people kind of get past that aspect of it. I mean, and I think your social media account does that really well, too. And part of the reason I started following you is you don't see a lot of natural bodybuilders who really, or bodybuilders in general, who talk about this aspect of it and, and talk about the balance of life that you really have to strike because natural bodybuilding, bro, I mean, what you do, it's not trivial. You probably know that, but it's a lot of discipline, yes? Yeah, absolutely. And I'd like to think that I'm a professional at it and that I've been seasoned. But, you know, in all fairness, it was, I swam in high school. My brothers were super duper athletic. And there was a point in my life where I was probably like 12 or 13, you know, we were playing video games, loved it. I was just a vegetable. And my brother came in and pulled me out of the, out of the playing Halo and said like, hey, we're gonna go push this sled outside in the snow right now. And he's like, you like, just basically came home from college and just, he was like the like in shape. He's like, come out here and let's try this. And after just feeling that camaraderie and just that connection we have, I'm just like, give some discipline, like working hard. I really fell in love with the gym from some would say maybe too early of like 14 or 15. And then I worked out. I've been consistently for, I'm coming up on 25, so we're getting about 10 years. And two years ago, I kind of fell back into the cycle of just kind of being lazy and I got really out of shape. And I was like, man, I don't even know, like I had to reset because I felt I knew everything about fitness, but here I was not very active, not seeing a lot of progress, being very discouraged. And I found my identity just really wrapped up in that because it was like every workout didn't feel great. You know, I didn't know how to eat right or I guess, you know, going into adult life, my lifestyle just changed and I didn't adapt quick enough. But I just sat there and I was like, man, I really wanna, like, I wanna develop this physical discipline translated into spiritual discipline, translated into this routine that I need because obviously I'm not, like, you know this, it's like, you know, your physical life kind of slows down. You don't really have the same aspirations. You don't really get involved community wise, church wise. You're just kind of sluggish and you just feel bad for yourself. Right. And I called this, well, I texted this coach that I knew from Pennsylvania because I'd seen one of his clients on TikTok and I was like, hey, I have always thought about doing bodybuilding. I've seen it everywhere. Like, I wanna do a competition. So he set me on a 16 week prep is what they would call a competition prep. And I lost 65 pounds, hopped up on stage, like within the same year. It was from July, July to like the end of July to December, got on stage in December, like just felt like those past couple months were just defining of my maturity and my discipline. I was up every morning. I felt so good. I felt like I was very just involved in everything. Felt really great. Got engaged, bought a dog. Like this period was just like sharpening. And I fell in love with it. I was like, wow, this is like, I'm taking, taking the precautions. I'm staying disciplined, staying in shape. And I feel overall really, really, really good. Did the show, got second, I think due to, when you take a competition in December, people are very smart. Like, I don't wanna do a competition in December. Like we got Christmas. So I indirectly capitalized on the fact that people don't really show up for these December competitions. And it was exactly what I needed because I needed that little bit of confidence to do another one. But we got second and got married, went on the honeymoon. And I said to my wife, Betsy, I was like, I really wanna do another one. Like I, I was up every morning. I was bringing you coffee every morning. I was, you know, reading and journaling. You just felt, I just felt overall much healthier. And we did a second show. This was in the middle of summer. So this is when people are prime time doing bodybuilding competitions. We got third. So we went back one. But yeah, and that's been the journey. Like it's almost like these past two years, I would consider myself a natural bodybuilder. And now we're planning on like a third. My wife's doing one right now. We've got a whole cabinet full of different proteins and creatines and everything you need. Our fridge is stocked full of 99.1 ground turkey. Whatever the thinnest meat you can get. And we just fell in love with it. one problem is diet sodas. We're hooked on it now. So we're trying to wean off. But it's been incredible. That's the, that's the journey as of late. That's crazy, man. Yeah. 16 weeks though, is all it took to get, uh, to get to where you were. I mean, what kind of, because so I'm

5456, thankfully, I lived in an apartment in downtown. There was a Stairmaster within walking distance. So I'd roll out of bed, you couldn't, I couldn't have coffee beforehand because apparently that messes with your heart rate at that moment. You know, you don't want to like give yourself any juice. So we would just straight to the Stairmaster with only water and buy I'll give you like an example of the last week. Last week I was doing, so I'd wake up, do 45 minutes of the Stairmaster on like a six. So it was like 140 to 150 beats per minute for your heart rate. And during that time, I was like that repetition, it didn't feel bad at all. Like I was locked in. I felt like I was floating on the Stairmaster. And so I'd usually either bring like my devotional with me, I'd bring a book or my Bible, of course, and that would be because I could just sit there and stare at it for 45 minutes, did a lot of praying on that Stairmaster. Got off the Stairmaster, walked right back to the apartment. My wife is like starting to wake up, so I'd make my 40 grams of oatmeal with my two scoops of protein in it, stir it up. Then I could have my first cup of coffee. Then we'd have breakfast together. I'd go from my nine to five job, bring my meals with me. We'd have probably like three to four meals at work, which was all like asparagus. Like, you know, this much rice, you fill your little hands for as much rice as eating. Turkey, ground beef. Then we come home, we go to the gym again, or for the first time, excuse me, to do the strength training, do this high intensity, low reps, couple of exercises working out. Then I would hop back on the stairmaster, do 25 minutes. Then it was probably like 8 p.m. at that point. So we'd go home. My wife and I would watch something on TV. We'd go to sleep. We start right back over again. So not as much lifting as you'd think, necessarily. No. Yeah. That's pretty crazy, man. And your life, like you said, your schedule now is pretty normal. Like, so do you find that it's, you know, a certain amount of time out from a competition? You really have to ramp it up, but then the rest of the time you can just sort of, I don't know, be a little more casual about life and not be completely insane. I mean, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think I got the itch. I got the bug of being, like, feeling so routine. Like, I almost, I found myself almost wanting to go do the cardio because it's like, once I hit that 30 minutes, I was like, man, the day is gonna be so easy. Like, I got myself on the Stairmaster. Like, nothing's gonna stop me. Like, stress level, like, the cortisol drop, we're feeling great. I'm gonna sit at the desk all day. This is gonna be amazing. But yeah, absolutely. You really get to that point where it's like, all right, we gotta lock in. But I had good coaches in the past, so they made it a very easy transition. And it was encouraging to me because when I got in that rut before the first competition, I felt like there was just no way out. It was gonna take me two years to lose weight because I didn't even recognize the problem. I just had gained a bunch of weight and no one told me. I was just getting big. And after I did that competition, I was like, wow, this is really easy to truly flip your routine, clean up a little bit, habits here and there. But once you break that three-week mark of doing the hard stuff, it becomes kind of consistent and it just almost becomes fun because it felt like a, you're just getting a high score. Like, all right, I gotta hit the turkey, then I'll have to go on a walk. And it was really fun. The challenge now is figuring out a way to stay healthy and stay in shape as if I was gonna do another one soon, but not have to cram it next time around for this like 16-week sprint. So that's what I'm learning now is just how to create a diet that's not uber expensive because 99.1 turkey is like an arm and a leg. How to create this healthy routine that I can really enjoy and also feel productive in the gym and also enjoy that. I feel like, I feel very mentally sharp when I'm in good physical shape. I just feel like, oh, this is like, the workout's so much productive, more productive because I can see the result a little bit better and I feel more healthy and light on my feet, I guess is the way to say it. Yeah, so there's like a baseline you wanna kind of hit and maintain. And then when it comes to shows, you're not, you're, you don't have to be like oppressive about everything. It just, you know, it sort of gradually ramps itself up and then it can gradually ramp itself down a little bit. It's kind of what you're trying to hit. Yeah, absolutely. Especially as summer's coming around, trying to just lean up a little bit and stay prepared in case there was another competition on the horizon. I was gonna say, do you have one coming up that you know of or no? Are they pretty reasonable, man? Or do you like, do you fly all over to do them? Like, what does that look like? They're, they're, the furthest we've gone was Maryland. So that was like a five-hour drive. There's none on the horizon. I, I've had a good, just a rare opportunity of stepping back because my wife, like I said, is gonna do one. So it's giving me an opportunity to see the other side of it and support her from afar as she did for my 99.1 turkey runs all the time. So I get to kind of sit back and know exactly what she's going through to support her in that. And I don't think, I don't think she enjoyed it as much as I would. She probably won't ever do another one. But she just wanted to like also get that, you know, that prove it to herself that she could do it as well. But nothing, nothing on the horizon right now, but I'm definitely feeling the itch. Excited to do it again soon. Very cool. Well, how do you see it? Oh, go ahead. I'll go ahead. I was gonna ask you, you're a, you're a jacked man. You went to, didn't you do, you have a professional education in this stuff, right? So yeah, I did. So I did my BS in exercise physiology was my major. And so I, like you, I started lifting when I was 14. And, um, I, I never quit. So I'm 40, am I 45 now? 45 or 46. One of the two. I can never remember. Um, it's, it's all, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's, yeah. So, um, but yeah, I mean, I, I've spent the lifetime in the gym and I've just loved lifting. And so I never got into the, I never got into bodybuilding, um, natural bodybuilding. When I was coming up, I don't even remember it being a thing. Like you either had professional bodybuilding, which I felt like was probably out of reach for me. Right. You know, and, uh, and, um, and then you didn't have much else. And so, yeah, I went into personal training and did it for a really long time. And, um, it was, I think I first five years of, um, like kind of end of college and then through my master of divinity, um, I was a personal trainer and so I was doing 40 hours a week with folks. Um, trained a couple athletes, but most of them were just like people who wanted to lose a little weight, were, you know, having trouble doing whatever. But I will say, I mean, the best thing I, the part that I loved about the job was, um, just getting to know people. Um, I, like I said, I was going through my master of divinity at the time. And so it was all just, um, like evangelism for me, right? I can share Christ with all my clients and they knew what I was doing. And so I was married at the time and that was odd for them. You know, um, they didn't, they weren't married at the time, you know? Right. So I think I got married when I was 21. And so I was just an oddity all over the place for them. Um, I was this, you know, strange personal trainer who was married and loved Jesus. And so, but it worked out and yeah, now, so I keep doing it. I'm, but I, um, I've sort of had to learn to train smarter, I guess. You know, I don't do the real heavy stuff anymore. Um, I'm, you know, I'm doing more like, I feel like I'm doing old man tricks, like cambered bar presses and, you know, stuff like that with less weight. So my joints don't die. Absolutely. I, I've definitely noticed, I mean, obviously I'm not, I think, have you noticed any, obviously you both started working out at 15. Do you feel like anything's caught up to you? Is there something I need to be proactive about? I've been told that it could have stunted my growth. So maybe I could have been like six, four in another life. Yeah. Uh, I think that, um, I,

whatever other social interactions, because there are so many people who are struggling with it, right? It's odd, and I mean, you're in much better shape. You do this at a different level than I do. But it's odd to find people who are relatively in shape. And also, I think, particularly in the church, but, you know, obviously out in the world, too. It's just not something that most people have been disciplined to do. They don't have the sort of habit, I suppose, of doing it. So I don't know whether you find that as well, but that's been my experience with it is that a lot of people would just like and probably really benefit from some sort of physical activity, not necessarily hitting the weights. But they just don't have the, I don't know. I don't know whether it's just they don't have the motivation to get into it. They don't want to do something wrong. They don't want to, you know, there's probably a whole host of reasons. Yeah. And I think there's two sides of the coin in terms of fitness has become super duper popular with the rise of TikTok and Instagram. I think there's a whole bunch of people, like way more than before. And I haven't even, I say way before as in like in 2015, like it wasn't nearly as popular when I started. And now I see a lot of young men, young guys, young women as well, just starting to work out a ton and seeking answers. And like you said, it's, you know, a lot of people in the church, there's a lot of people that need, like they see, you know, it's a pretty intense thing. It could be a way of life. They want to get it right. But there's a lot of, a lot of new faces in the gym. Yeah. Well, and I think it's it in some ways, the social media aspect, and again, this is why I appreciated your account so much. I think there's a way for social media fitness folks to Accidentally, I'll say, create obstacles to fitness, right? Because on some level, I mean, I've been doing it for a really long time and I'll look at some people's profiles and I'll be like, I understand what it takes to get there. And I also know that I don't have that kind of time. I don't have that kind of discipline anymore. I don't, you know, or I just have, you know, enough other things that I'm doing that it's just not realistic for me. But I can be somewhere in the middle, right? And I can be fit and, but not be shredded. You know what I'm saying? Right. And I think you, you actually address that a fair amount, especially now that you're married and it's like, how do you balance all these different things that you're doing with a natural bodybuilding? It's a really, I think, helpful way to think about it. Yeah. And I think, what can I say? Especially like social media, there's the comparison game. I think I was lucky and blessed enough to start at a time when there was like three big heroes in fitness. You know, there's like the three YouTube people that I would watch. And maybe it was just because it was long form and I had more of a peering into exactly actually what they looked like. But I, and I was conscious of knowing, okay, these people will never look like these guys. Like these are my, I didn't, I don't think I understood what steroids were when I was like 15 or 16, but I was like, oh, these guys are massive. Like what a cool way to like, like I'd go into the gym and feel like I was looking like them. Like it was thinking because looking back at it, I never had this, I mean, I'm sure at one point, but I couldn't remember, not really an unhealthy obsession. It was more like, oh, these guys are like, this is huge. Like I want to look like Chris Hemsworth or whatever at the time or whoever was doing YouTube stuff. And now I think short form content, and there's so many of these heroes in fitness. Like every time I open my feed, there's someone who looks like he'd be the man. Like in 2015, if you were walking around looking like that, you'd be every supplement brand, every supplement brand would be calling your name, but he's just like some guy at the local Gold's. And so I can definitely see how, like there's that, it just creates anxiety. Like if I was 15 starting now, I don't know what I would do. There's a lot of, especially with steroids, it's almost like trendy because people will say like, oh, look at my TRT results or like two weeks on trend. And I'm like, what is going on? Why are you posting this? Right, right. Why are you saying this online? Yeah, it's so strange to see that movement of it. I think, you know, I grew up pre-internet days, so I was looking at muscle and fitness magazines when I was working out and, you know, just getting the workouts out of there, right? And I mean, even back then, it's like these guys are doing two a days. I got to go to the gym in the morning and the afternoons, you know, like, I mean, they're, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. They work out like crazy town, but there wasn't that talk of, oh, these are, this is a lot of this is steroid fueled or a portion of it is steroid fueled. Now it seems like you can turn it on and even the legitimate guys who like know things, right? They're, they're sitting there like, yeah, well, steroids. Yeah, there's side effects, but, and I'm like, I never heard that growing up. Like steroids have side effects, but that was not the way it was framed, right? Steroids are great, period. Right. It's just kind of crazy. So I, yeah, I don't, uh, I don't love that part of where fitness has gone, but I, I will say, I think a lot of what I see, um, does make fitness more accessible, especially at home, which I think is great. Um, but I, I do when I look at, you know, social media or whatever, I wonder, you know, are people really intimidated to go to the gym? You know, which I never was when I was a kid. Like I was kind of like with you. It's just like, yeah, you just go to the gym and if you're the biggest guy in the room, you're the biggest guy. If you're not, no big deal. Now it feels like it's sort of a show. Yeah. I, I, there's, there's this beautiful thing that comes out of so much access we have, like, I know this guy, he's one of my good buddies. His name is JPG Coaching. Like he's got this massive platform of instructional educational stuff. So he's, you know, all this social media pays off because people can go to him if they really want it. Like, you know, it's like, let me see what he has to say. That he's very, like, very knowledgeable. And then there's the other side, like we were talking about, like the, the, uh the SARS steroid monsters. But I think it creates this really cool avenue of those people consuming both sides are going to come to the gym. And it's like if we're there and we're, you know, if you're ready, like, you can help if you can be available, if you can have a conversation that makes a bigger impact than whatever they're seeing on social media. So I try to be very like, I still don't consider myself this big guy, but my best piece of advice whenever there's like a young man, it's like, how do I, first of all, he asked like how to get big. And that's like the biggest question. How do I get big? Well, I don't know, but the best thing I can say is, you know, never turn down mom's chili when she offers it to you. Um, and just show up with a buddy like every day, like get someone to keep you accountable and bring you in because like you said, discipline. I mean, at a young age, you've got a lot of motivation. It's really, really fun. But it's like, you know, you're going to skip it. Like you don't, you're not gonna see the need. And that was my biggest thing was I had a neighbor who could drive when I couldn't drive. And he was like, let's go. So he'd pick me up. We'd go. And then other times he wouldn't show up. So I'd get like mom would drive me. But my mom was really good about just like dumping chili. We had chili and like white chicken chili every night. So I was just eating it all. And it's insane. It's like, it's a cool, the

In the gym, you know, a couple hours a night, you know. It's like killing myself. And now I'm, you know, in and out in, you know, 40 minutes. And it's like, this is great. This is awesome. I love this. But yeah, back in the day, I mean, yeah, Dorian Yates' leg routine, and you're just looking at the amount of, you know, weight that guy's pushing. You're just like, holy smokes. How does this even work? I think it's so beautiful because, I don't know, that was so out of reach, but you tried your very best. And it's almost beautiful that they didn't say they're on steroids because it's like we probably get discouraged and you probably would have been like, oh, I'll never get there. But you're like, it's achievable. They're doing it. Why couldn't I do it? I'm missing some chemical substances. Yeah. And then I love those, like, growing up, the two-hour long workouts that were definitely too long. But we just had fun. Like, the people at the local YMCA, we would all just take a long time not working out and just hit the sets. There's a lot of rest between sets. Yeah. Right. And I think that's so interesting because it was the same way for me. Like, I would download, you know, there was so much, a lot more access, so I could, like, pick and choose from different people's workouts. So it was like, yeah, it was like 5 sets at 15. And then make sure you buy the protein that I use. I was like, oh, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like, and made me be resourceful because then instead of buying their expensive thing, I went to Walmart, learned about, what is it called, like, one-star nutrition or whatever Walmart has. I was like, oh, I'll buy this. Like, this is close. That's where all the knowledge came from was just, like, trial and error. It's pretty sweet, man. And I, let me try to kind of pivot our conversation a little bit because I'm interested to hear your thoughts on, like, you know, some of the disciplines you even just tell in the stories, like having somebody with you and, you know, the guy who picked you up and took you to the gym, that just general advice you'd give to somebody if you want to, you know, if they want to get bigger, what do you do? Well, you, it's consistency. And it's so much of it. I mean, yeah, you want to get your form right. Yes, there's some optimization you need to do there, but so much of it is just about getting there and doing it. Right. And you'll, you'll kind of learn as you go, but if you're not consistent, it'll never happen. Right. It's, you know, you can't say I'm on a five-day-a-week program and only make it two days a week. Right. Yeah. No, you're on a two-day-a-week program. You wish you were on a five-day-a-week. You're like, like, it's that consistency. And so how do you see some of those principles sort of carrying over into your spiritual life? Like, where do you, where do you see some of this discipline really starting to inform your spiritual growth in Christ? Yeah, absolutely. Um, it really came into play with the past bodybuilding shows. Like I said, you know, getting up. Yeah. And it's just kind of like seeing an end goal as opposed to like, you know, like, okay, if this is what I want to do to win this bodybuilding show, I'm gonna have to get up. I'm going to have to get on that stairmaster and I'm gonna have to put the steps in. And then once it's done, it's like that first part's the hardest, like just getting there, sitting down and getting it done. And that's like translated. Like you said, as you get older, time slips away from you. You wake up late and you've got to run to work or you're, you don't get fired. So you've got to get going. So it's like being, being mature enough, having the discipline to, in the same way, getting on the stairmaster, sitting down at my kitchen table and spending time in the word. You know, there's always, there's going to be days where I'm not necessarily like motivated to do it or excited to do it. But if I want to grow in both in the same physical aspect, the spiritual aspect, like I need to sit down. I need to spend time in the word. I need to get to know the Lord. And if I slip up and that guy doesn't take me to the gym or I don't get a ride, like I need to go to those guys and be like, Hey, this morning I slacked off. Make sure tomorrow someone gives me a ride to my metaphorical gym. Like, please keep me accountable. And obviously being married, uh, there's this heightened sense of like, I got to lead my wife. I need to set an example. I need to sit my butt in that chair at 6 a.m. that I have to. Obviously I don't do that every day and it's, you know, I'm not perfect at it, but that's been the way of translating. It's like, you got to show up to the gym. I got to show up to this. You got to show up to my, I got to show up to the Bible. I got to read it and pray. I got to do all these things that will push me to become a spiritually disciplined man. It's just these, I've been reading this, um, have you read Disciplines of a Godly Man or Godly? I think it's just like R Kent Hughes spiritual disciplines. Yeah, yeah. Incredible. Incredible. And he talks about, which is really encouraging to me. He talked about, you know, obviously I think it's in Timothy where Paul says, you know, train to be godly. And his point, you know, he basically said back in the day, these people would strip down. They would train hard for whatever Olympic thing they were doing, but they would, they'd sweat. They'd get it done. And the author of the book was pretty much like, we got to have some spiritual sweat. Like we got to sit there. We got to grind it out. If we're going to go train hard, let's treat, obviously it doesn't have to be this session, but like we have to go, let's go put in the reps. And that was really convicting to me because we all have the same. He basically put it. We all have the same spiritual genetics. Like we're all sinners. We've all fallen short. If we want to get big in the gym, it's going to take reps. If we want to become spiritually mature, it's going to take reps. So that's been the way I've been translating. That's cool, man. Spiritual sweat is what he calls it. Yeah, I like that. I like spiritual sweat. I usually tell people, it's like, you know, whenever I was personal training, I can't remember a time when I had a client come in and I told him, Hey, today, all you're going to do is just sit in, sit in a chair next to the wall and watch me work out. That's your workout for the day. Like their effort is required if they want to see results for themselves. Like we can't make this into a spectator sport because that's not what it is. The effort, the discipline, the sweat, it's not like it's no pain, no gain, but there has to be some effort put in on, on our side in order to see the results for ourselves. Like otherwise it's not going to work. Yeah. And it was so convicting to me because I would go through these 16 week sprints of flawless execution. You know, like every morning I was on that stairmaster and I was like, you know, I was deathly afraid of not winning this competition. But then this day would get away from me and I'd be like, man, I didn't, I didn't sit down and spend any time with the Lord or do any reading. I was like, what am I, where are my priorities at? It was like super convicting because it's like, if I'm going to, if the Lord has taught me these disciplines and obviously I can do it. And obviously he's given me the mental fortitude to spend two hours on the stairmaster a day, which I couldn't even think of before. You know, obviously these need to translate over to some extent. Like I need to be that same drive. And that was really convicting to me. Just like you get that stairmaster. You better come home and also spend time in the word right after don't let that day get away from you because we know you can do it. We know you can get out of bed and do something that is you have to get up a little earlier for. So that was, that was, yeah, I was just convicted of it. Well, man, this has been good. I, um, I appreciate you talking to you because I think it's just a, it's, you know, the fitness world is always a fun world, right? There's a sense in which it it's serious, but it's also like probably the most fun you can have in life. I mean, I tried CrossFit for a while and I, I was like, I don't like this. I just want to go back to weightlifting weights in the gym. Like, you know, I'm like, yeah, I don't want to run around the block. I'll just lift the weights. Thanks. Um, and so I love this world. I love, I love the stuff you're doing. And, um, the iron therapy club

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