Why Digital Weight Makes You Stronger plus our interview with Quan Bailey

Last Updated: April 20, 2023By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Exercise Program, Personal Trainer, The Superset, Tonal, Train With Quan, weight training, weightlifting

Why digital weight makes you stronger.

T-Locks are back in stock.

Tonal celebrates Black strength.

Tonal has a new workout guide on their blog.

Coach Jared was on a recent Tonal Talk.

Roland Pollard will be on an upcoming Tonal Talk.

Tonal has tips on how to change your batteries.

Resorts are creating personal fitness pods to replace gyms.

Bloomberg writes about the future of gyms.

New Content including Full Body Knockout, Extreme Burn, Postnatal Boot Camp, and more!

Wish Coach Allison a belated Happy Birthday.

All this plus our interview with Quan Bailey.

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Why Digital Weight Makes You Stronger plus our interview with Quan Bailey

We are tired. We were up all night with a sick puppy.

When we say we were up all night, I feel like I was up all night.

You were up more but I had difficulty going back to sleep.

I was at the emergency vet. She’s okay.

Everything’s okay that’s why we were able to laugh about it.

There would be no laughing. She has a sprained tail.

I thought that only happened to Tigger’s.

Honestly, I think it’s because she acts like a Tigger. She jumps all the time. I have this feeling that’s what happened. I really do.

That could be. She’s the jumpiness dog.

People will stop me on the street whenever I’m out walking her because when I walk, she randomly will turn back around and jump into my arms.

She jumps in and is staring at you eye to eye for a split second as she hangs in there.

She’s not that big.

No, but she’s also not tiny.

She’s not like a Pomeranian.

She’s like a mid-sized dog. All of a sudden it’s just like boing and she’s like 5 feet in the air.

Our little Tigger puppy. She’s going to be okay. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks with bed rest.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

Do you want a comprehensive list?

Just the highlights so people know what they have to look forward to.

There are articles about Tonal and there also lots of new programming that we’re going to talk about. We’re going to discuss what’s going on from a Tonal talk perspective, book clubs, all of the new stuff in general, plus our awesome interview.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, wherever your podcasts are found, you can find us. If I missed one, let me know, I’ll fix it. You can also find us on the interwebs, Facebook.com/supersetpodcast. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Of course, wherever you’re getting your podcasts from, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you would be so kind, maybe leave us a review so people know that we’re worth checking out.

I want to clarify, we’ve gotten people who have read The Clip Out, they know this, but The Superset, they’re new. They may not know that a one word or even stars is helpful. You can just rate us with the stars. You don’t have to write a whole bunch of a big paragraph.

You can give us five stars and go, “Love it,” that’s it.

We’re not assigning you homework. I want to be clear about that. It can be super easy. We love a paragraph, we’re not going to turn it away unless it’s a mean paragraph.

That we will turn away. Also, we have a YouTube channel. All of these episodes live on our YouTube channel in their full HD glory. You can find that at YouTube.com/TheClipOut, which is the name of our Peloton podcast and everything lives under that umbrella. You can go over there, subscribe and watch these in video, if you would like to do that. Also, if you happen to be reading this blog because you’re interested in a Tonal and we convinced you, there’s a discount.

$100 off. All you have to do is when you buy your Tonal, in the discount code, type in Superset.

All one word. It’s nice and easy. I guess that’s all that. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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The Tonal blog had an interesting post about why digital weight makes you stronger. We’ve seen some discussion about how sometimes it’s difficult to do the poundage one-to-one. What some people think should feel like 100 pounds or 20 pounds, and then where you’re at in your journey, they feel like it doesn’t quite match up. I’m sure it’s an inexact science too. They had a very interesting blog post about why that is.

I want to note that in our interview with Quan, he talks about this very thing. This is one of the reasons that his video about Tonal went viral because people are that confused. This is a really interesting thing and I think it’s really good to be able to put out there among friends who don’t necessarily believe that the Tonal is “enough weight.” The thing is that there are a couple of things. One, it’s the same amount of weight. If you could weigh them side by side, it’s the same, but what feels different is that there’s no momentum. If you have a free weight or even a barbell, you’re swinging it to some degree as you move through that eccentric portion of the move. When you do that, it makes the weight lighter. With Tonal, it doesn’t do that because it has gravity. You’re being pushed down on the whole time. If you have it on 20 pounds, it’s 20 pounds from the beginning all the way to the end.

There’s tension and it’s fighting you in a way that a freeway won’t because you can get some movement on it.

That is why, in a nutshell, Tonal can make you stronger. Quan talks about this too, that his bench press has actually improved. He’ll tell you all about that in his own words. The thing also is that since there is only gravity, you’re not swinging it around, that means you can’t cheat either. 100 pounds is truly 100 pounds. 20 pounds is truly 20 pounds. It completely changes it and the cool part about Tonal, because it’s digital weight, you can do things like my favorite mode Smart Flex. If you have a bicep curl for example, the move at the bottom is the easiest and the move at the top is the hardest. I might have this flipped, but it doesn’t matter. The point is that Smart Flex on Tonal allows you to add a little bit of weight at the easiest part, take off a little bit of weight at the hardest part.

Your stress throughout is equivalent.

That means that your tiny joints, the things that connect your arm to your body, those in-between muscles are getting more work done to them, more growth done to them than just a bench press on a free weight system, because it’s working those pieces, that connective tissue.

I believe the proper term for tiny joint is roach.

That’s a different kind of tiny joint. Not that I was using the correct word either. I love this article because this needs to be shared with everyone that anybody knows. Any of us who have friends that are looking at Tonal.

Maybe the friends that are giving the Tonal a side eye.

Send them this article. This explains it so well, I’ve loved this blog post.

Everyone should be excited to know that T-locks are back. I always think that sounds like a rapper T-lock. “I saw T-lock open for 2 Chainz.” It still sounds like Tonal, right? I could be talking about hip hop, I could be talking about Tonal. You have no idea.

T-locks are back, but this is a big deal because these things are constantly out of stock. I don’t care how much Tonal puts in stock, they sell out fast. People love these things because you can then swap out other accessories with the proprietary ones or the Tonal ones, and it’s amazing. You can use a carabiner to use these to attach to a third-party accessory, and anything can then be used on your Tonal.

What would you use if Tonal hasn’t provided you?

There are different bars, for example, the rope that we have, there’s also a straight bar that you can get that could help with some moves whenever you’re doing it. It would be almost like a very short barbell.

Do they have programs where you need that?

It would be more for custom moves. It also could be for people that have trouble with the movements, for example, some people, their hands hurt whenever they use the rope for Goblet Squats or the handle when they’re holding it. There are different attachments you could use that might feel more ergonomic. Everybody’s a little bit different. That’s the benefit of that. I found out that there are people out there who do not know that if you have an Apple Watch, you can turn the weight on and off on any move. That becomes important because if you are using accessories that aren’t Tonal, it doesn’t have the bar clicker thingy on it that turns the weight on and off.

Tonal is celebrating Black History Month by celebrating Black Strength.

They put together these stories of strength. There are all these different stories that we’re going to be hearing throughout the month of February. They’re going to be uplifting, they’re going to be on all the social channels. We have one on February 12th at 5:00 PM Pacific, coach Allison and coach Jared are going to reflect on the cultural shift of 2020 and the year ahead. That’s a doozy. On the 19th at 3:00 PM Pacific, coach Paul and coach Allison are going to look forward to 2021 and discuss everything that we can do to support the Black Community. The book club is called Read Between The Reps and they are reading David Goggins’ memoir Can’t Hurt Me for February. He is an ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete, motivational speaker, and an author who has inspired many people with his story of strength. That’s coming up as well.

While we’re combing through the Tonal blog, they had a post about The Ultimate Tonal Workout Guide.

This is like a wealth of knowledge. Everyone who has a Tonal needs to bookmark this. I told you a while back that coach Nicolette had made a post in the Facebook Tonal community where she went through and said, “If your goals are to get lean, here are several workouts you can do back-to-back. Here’s a program build onto the next program, build onto the next program. If your goal is to get stronger, here’s another pathway that you can use.” They took all of that wealth of knowledge and they put it in a blog post so everybody can share it. This is amazing because she tells you also how to figure out which is your goal, which is the best one for you. She also explains in this blog post, “You can use it a multitude of ways.” There is so much great information here. I love it.

February 3rd, there was a Tonal talk. It’s out there if you want to go check it out.

All the socials have this. This was a cool one, they all are but I have my favorite favorites. This one is all about heart rate zone training on your Tonal. The Tonal now supports heart rate zones and you can see which zone you’re in. Coach Jared goes through and explains how to use the information that you’re getting. How do I know which heart rate zone I should be working in? Depending on what kind of workout you’re doing. You definitely need to check this out because this is good information. There are people that go too hard all the time and they don’t think they do. They’re probably not losing weight because they’re not eating enough calories and their body is always depleted and they’re not getting to recover. This is another treasure trove of information.

I like the way Tonal has all sorts of different information in different mediums. If you want video, there it is. If you want audio, we’re kind of that and we’re video as well. If you want to read it, they’ve got their blog posts. That’s pretty spiffy.

One of the things that they impress me with is that they communicate well with their customer base. They communicate by telling you all of the new features and they tell you a million times so you cannot miss it. I love it.

While we’re on Tonal talks, there’s quite a few upcoming Tonal talk.

We have one coming up. By the time this episode is published, it will have already occurred. It is talking to Roland Pollard and his four-year-old daughter, Jayden, they became a viral sensation because they did these father-daughter cheer stunts together. They are doing a Tonal talk with Kate all about family fitness. Isn’t that cool? I liked that. There’s another one that came up, there was Ask Coach Paul Anything. Hopefully, everybody got a chance to submit their questions. I talked about the book club, the Zoom call that’s going to wrap up the book club discussion is coming up on February 25th. I think that is it for the rest of February.

There’s also some important tips about how to change your Tonal Arm batteries.

If you ever get to the point where your Tonal is saying, “You need to change batteries.” In the moment, that can be a little frustrating because you’re like, “I’ve got to remember to do this later.” If you’re like me, you will completely forget that that’s a thing. What I try to do is stop what I’m doing and put a reminder on my phone right then, because it’s even more annoying if it completely dies. If it does, the arms of your machine will stop moving completely and they’ll stop rotating. If that ever happens, that’s probably what’s going on. It’s very simple to do. I’m not going to walk through the process, but there is a fun tutorial in Tonal support and also on the Facebook group. Kate Telge does these Tonal tips and she did one that walked through how to change it. It’s really fun. She uses a reels mentality where it’s like one moment it’s not working and the next moment it is. It’s awesome and you need to check it out, but all the step by step directions are there.

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It’s interesting to see that there are a few stories about Tonal in the news, it’s starting to creep up more and more. We were talking about this on The Clip Out how originally years ago, whenever Peloton popped up in the news, it was like, “There’s a Peloton news story,” and now it’s every week and we don’t even get to them all because there are many.

Tonal has that to look forward to.

I feel like we’re starting to see that Tonal is getting mentioned in more and more places. We’ll start with the website Islands.com. They should start their own music service and they could call it, “Islands in the stream.” They had an article about how wellness is the word of the day and changes that you could expect at the Waldorf Astoria in Hawaii.

This is my dream resort because it’s beautiful. It’s on a beach, it’s in Hawaii and it has Tonals and Peloton. Can I live there? That would be amazing. I don’t think I can afford to live there.

I can promise you, you cannot afford to live there.

Making an impact on people’s lives will keep your business going over time because people will gain trust in you. Click To Tweet

I cannot wait until it is safe to travel again. The Tonals in this particular place are like the ones we talked about in Silicon Valley, they’re in pods. Whenever you go in to work and out in the pod, it’s your own workout space for the Tonal. That’s cool. You’re not sweating all over everybody.

It’s one little confined area too, that they can go in and clean up and then they’re done. It’s a good idea. I think Tonal lends itself to that as does Peloton because it can fit in a smaller space. If they can buy 8 or 9 of those things and just stack them together in little cubicles, for lack of a better word, I guess you could call it pods but we’ve said it 50 times now. I think you’ll see more and more of this.

It’s very exciting.

Bloomberg had a story about the future of gyms.

This was exciting for a couple of reasons. One of the members of Tonal, Ilias Siafakas, I probably totally butchered that. I am sorry.

He’s probably used to it.

That’s one of our fellow members. I only saw this because he posted in the official Tonal group. He was super excited about it because that was really him working out with coach Pablo and doing I think it was the Shred and Sweat. That was cool. It’s awesome. There’s a whole video about it. Of course, Alli was on it and all of the instructors, there were several people that were in it, but it’s just the amazingness of Tonal all encapsulated in one video.

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It seems in every episode there is tons of new content.

I’m going to skip around a little bit here. I’m going to start with the most recent one that came out because by the time that this is published, it will have been a couple more days so it won’t seem as exciting, but it is very exciting to me. Coach Pablo just dropped a new program and it is called Full Body Knockout. The program is 2 weeks and it lasts for 3 days a week. A total of six workouts. It’s awesome because it’s a little bit different than what you’re seeing on your standard Tonal programs. This one is all about how training for boxing performance is done. You get strength, you get muscle building, but you also get conditioning.

The cool part about this is since it’s all encapsulated, it’s also another beta program where it’s all done live. He’s working out with you. That was announced on February 11th. It’s already on trainers. There is another great workout, new Tonal High Intensity, it’s extreme burn with coach Gabby. It’s advanced full body, eighteen minutes. This is going to challenge you big time. You definitely want to check that out. You have Super Sweat with coach Jared, another full body advanced workout. This one is 43 minutes. If you are up for a challenge, this is the one to do. It is going to push you and leave you nice and exhausted. There is more postnatal programming. There is a postnatal boot camp with coach Amy, and this one is a full body beginner, 26 minutes and then you have postnatal sculpt with coach Amy, another full body beginner, another 26 minutes.

That is super exciting. On our last episode, episode seventeen, we talked about that the next Tonal challenge was going to be with coach Jackson and it was Go Big or Go Home number two. We did not mention that there’s going to be all of the exciting content that Nicolette had done in the first challenge of the year. There was going to be a whole group for accountability and support. There’s going to be Facebook Live Q&A sessions. There are going to be four of those and four virtual group workouts, those are also done over Zoom. You can work out with everybody at the same time. At the end of it, a big celebration on Zoom. It’s a nice fun, happy hour. I absolutely love that Tonal is doing that.

Coach Allison had a birthday on the fifth of February.

She did. Happy birthday, coach Allison.

You should wish her a belated happy birthday.

You absolutely should.

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Joining us is Quan Bailey. You may know him from his Instagram and all various channels, @TrainWithQuan. Quan, how is it going?

I’m great. How are you doing?

We’re good. We’re super excited you’re here. I want to start with how did you decide to become a personal trainer? That’s not easy.

I was in college, 2010 was my freshman year, and I got hurt. I had a couple of concussions and a few other things happened. I started hanging around in the athletic training room and started hearing more about personal training. It started booming online and I was like, “It would be cool to try that.” Two years later, I got a job as a trainer and never looked back. 2012 was my first official job. I started training people in 2010.

You’ve been doing it a while.

Who was your first client? Who did you count into doing it being your guinea pig?

I was training one of my fellow teammates. We go to the gym together and I do my workouts and it was fun.

Was it hard to get somebody that you already knew to listen to you?

No. I was in a pretty good shape. I’m playing football in college and stuff. It was more of myself understanding that it was something I could do for a living long-term.

I could see that if it’s a buddy that you used to work out with, and now you’re like, “Do this, do that,” and him being like, “Whatever dude.” I know how guys are.

That’s how it goes.

I am curious though. I became a Certified Fitness Trainer through NASM, but I’ve done no training of anybody. I haven’t done anything like that. I have a confidence issue with that. How did you get the confidence that you were ready to start training somebody?

I don’t know if I was ever ready, especially when I took that full-time job. It was, “I’m here. I have to train people. Let me use the knowledge that I have and go from there.” Will you make mistakes? Absolutely, we make mistakes, but you’ve got to learn how to face those mistakes and keep moving from there.

You make it sound easy. That’s great advice. How did you originally find Tonal and decide to start including it in your personal training?

You don’t know the story yet. It was funny. It was random. It was my girl’s birthday and we were at the mall. There’s not a lot to do here in Southern California. Most of our stuff was super shut down. I was like, “Let me go grab her something from the mall as a present.” I bring her with me so I don’t mess it up, typical boyfriend stuff. We were on our way out and I saw the Tonal store. I was like, “Let me go and check this thing out. I would love to be able to train clients out of my house.” With COVID and everything, you don’t know when you’re going to be able to do certain things. I was like, “Let me add this.” We went to check it out. I had her take a video of me bench-pressing on it and I can bench press like 355 is my max. I can bench some good weight. They put it on 150 and I could only hit 2 or 3 reps. I posted that video to TikTok and it went viral.

That’s insane. When you say it went viral, it was like 21 million crazy hits. It was a lot.

That’s across multiple platforms too. It was crazy how it took off. I’m having all these companies like House of Highlights sending me messages like, “Can we use your clip?” I’m like, “Sure, I guess that’s fine.” It’s me sitting there struggling to push this bar up. It’s not that impressive, but it got a lot of hits.

There’s a visual juxtaposition in the clip. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re in fairly decent shape.

You can say that.

It’s because in Tonal, there’s nothing to see. It’s electromagnetics with the weights, so there’s not big, giant weight to look at. Here’s this guy who clearly can lift a lot of weight, struggling with something that is essentially invisible. What is happening here? It’s visually interesting.

I’m going to be honest. I’ve never had something go that crazy before. I’ve had a few posts go wild, but nothing like that. People’s responses and the messages I was getting for a month after were ridiculous. People were like, “You’re faking,” or “They paid you to do that.” I’m like, “No. I went to the store to check out a product that I wanted to add to my business at some point, not even that day.” People don’t believe me.

That’s interesting. We were perusing the comments.

Why do we subject ourselves to that?

I don’t know. I should never look at the comments.

The comments sections are like when you have a sore tooth, but you can’t stop poking it with your tongue.

I don’t want to know what they’re saying but you’re like, “What are they saying?”

You can’t not look. How do you deal with that? I noticed you didn’t respond to people’s comments.

I want to be transparent. I do an exercise because my social media blew up after that, more than it had been in the past. Across multiple platforms, I gained 40,000 or so more followers in almost everything, almost 10,000 on Instagram, some more on TikTok, just across everything. I sometimes will voice respond to a comment that’s mean. I just want to let it. Sometimes it’s tough when you’re working out. I’m a trainer, I’ve been doing this for over a decade. I love working in my class. I’m trying to be positive. You guys are seeing my socials. I’d like to be positive and help people. To have people call me names and all sorts of stuff for no reason. It’s not like I’m even trying to scam anybody or anything. I tried a product and it was an interesting situation. Sometimes I’ll voice say it. I’ll respond over but I never hit send, and I’m like, “That’s off my chest. I said what I need to say. They don’t have to see it.”

That’s smart. I might have to remember that.

I’ve done that a couple of times by accident where I’ll type something up, and then I close up the window by accident or something, and I’m like, “God.” I’m like, “I’m too lazy to type all that again. I got it out.”

What are we going to get out of it? An argument? They’re going to argue with you now.

You’re never going to change somebody’s mind, not on the internet. It’s not going to be a thing. That’s good advice. How are your clients liking Tonal now that you’re adding that in?

They are obsessed, I would have to say. Most of my clients hit me up and they’re like, “Can I come over and use the Tonal again?” I’m like, “Sure. Let’s do it” I have an apartment right on the beach in Santa Monica. From the Tonal, you can look out and see the pier and all that good stuff.

That sounds nice. We’re in Missouri.

What part?

St. Louis.

My girlfriend is from Missouri.

Where is she from?

She went to Mizzou. She’s from one of the small towns around there. She’s going to kill me because I forgot the name of her town.

That’s crazy because I’m from Jefferson City, which is in the middle of the state.

Her parents live in Jeff City. That’s one of the only places I’ve been in Missouri. That’s why I knew when you said it. I was like, “Oh, crap.”

That’s a small world.

When you said she lived in a small town right next to Mizzou, there’s not a whole lot option. You live pretty close together.

That’s where I grew up.

Her family is there.

My whole family is still there too, but the Midwest is boring and sad.

We moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in April of 2020, right when the pandemic hit.

I bet that was huge.

We want to move here in July. We were scared because at the beginning they were talking about shutting down state lines and all this stuff. We were like, “Let’s sell everything we have, get in the car and drive to LA.”

That’s brave. He wants to say that’s ballsy. I’ll say it for him.

I don’t think we realized how long COVID was going to last. Honestly, if we knew what would have happened, I don’t know if we would have done it, but we got through it. It’s been interesting.

You’ve had a lot going on in 2020 then.

That’s going to be tough for you as a personal trainer because you can’t take your clients with you.

If I didn’t have an online business, I would have been in a tough situation. I’ve been training clients online since 2017. I was able to have some income. I’m not saying it was life-changing or anything, but it was enough where I can pay some bills. We can do some things. Believe it or not, because gyms were closed and I live on the beach, I started doing a beach class for $20 a head and it was suggested donation. Sometimes people would pay. Sometimes they wouldn’t, but it allowed me to build a small client base and I train all those people to this day.

Why suggested donation? Is that politeness or is that the rules of the beach that you can’t make it an official business?

During COVID, because of everyone’s financial situation, I felt suggested donation was better to say. There were days where no one paid at all, but I was able to create a content and market with that. I would tell people, “If you can’t pay anything, just like and share it to your story. If you can help me out and do that.” People are like, “Yeah,” and that just goes from there. At one point, we had 25 people coming out. They were spread out. We weren’t like hugging.

Hopefully, that means that when their situation changes, they’ll circle back around and take a paid class because you were there for them when they didn’t have the means.

That’s exactly what has happened. I have a full business now, and I’m very thankful for that opportunity.

Going through COVID, I feel you probably have a unique perspective trying to run an online business, especially in fitness. How has it changed through COVID for you?

A couple of things. One thing I learned through COVID is you cannot compare yourself to other people. Some people took COVID head-on and grew to ginormous size online because they were attacking it, but we all went through different types of depression. We all went through different levels of things during in 2020. I can’t say to myself, “I wish I had gone harder in the beginning. I wish I had done this or that.” You can’t do that. From a business standpoint, being consistent is everything like posting the free workouts, hosting the lives, doing all the things, even if two people show up, making an impact on those people’s lives keeps your online business going over time because they trust you. They know you. They want to work with you. It’s not just, “Here’s a PDF of a workout to do.” They’re like, “I know Quan. He’s on every day and we joke and laugh. I tell him how much I hate burpees.” It’s almost like that in-person feeling but distanced.

Whoever said that is right, burpees are evil.

Is there anyone who doesn’t hate burpees?

I don’t hate burpees.

I guess that’s why you look like that.

I don’t say I do it. I just said I don’t hate them. I can do a few.

How do you run your business prior to COVID, during COVID-19, and I know we’re still in COVID but toward the end of it? How’s that looking?

In Chicago, I used to rent at a gym. You could pay rent to a gym and train your clients there. I had 7 to 8 clients a day. It was a very busy business. I’d been training there for many years. Good book on business. Moving here, I do not have access to equipment. What drove me to go into the Tonal store is I didn’t have anything. The weights are super expensive. The price of 20-pound metal dumbbells was $100. You couldn’t get equipment. Luckily, I got into some good conversations with SKLZ, TRX, people like that were able to help me out when I didn’t have money to buy equipment. Even that I just have one TRX, some hurdles, some ladders, and I was training people on the beach with that.

You have to get more creative. You have to use your certification. You have to use the knowledge that you would gain no matter how long ago it was. You couldn’t just have someone get on a bench press, a machine, or a treadmill to warm up. You’ve got to warm them up on the sand. You’ve got to be more attentive, more immersed like the actual art of training. It made me grow up as a trainer and think, which was pretty interesting at first. Now, I look back on it and say, I’m thankful for that.

It sounds like you’ve grown in a positive direction from it, despite that it’s been a crappy year for most people. It feels like you have a lot of positive things that have come from it.

I try to keep it mentally positive. There were a lot of dark days as well. I’m not making money for months on time, but we chose to come to a very beautiful place and that’s what saved us. Even though I’m scrapping up pennies to pay for everything, I look outside and it’s like Ferris wheel and the ocean. I remember one day, we had a class at 6:00 AM and we could see dolphins. It might be $7, but that dolphin is priceless. I said that to the class to make a joke but seriously, it was beautiful.

Rocky trained on sand. That’s how he beat Clubber Lang.

Tom doesn’t know anything about sports, but if you ask him about pop culture, he can tell you more things there.

I feel Rocky is sports and pop culture combined.

Yes, absolutely.

It’s like, “Are they movies though or are these sporting events that happen to all of us?”

That’s true.

Rocky movies are a weird franchise in that it started off as an art house movie, then it turns into practically a Saturday Morning cartoon. Now, with Creed, they’ve brought it back to an art house movie again. It’s been a fascinating cycle, but that’s me getting nerdy.

I’m here to have fun with you guys, I agree.

I’m curious about what’s your favorite aspect of Tonal?

The versatility. The built-in workouts and stuff are amazing. Honestly, I hope to be one of those trainers in there someday building a relationship with the brand at this point. That’s my main goal. I don’t mind if they hear that, I want to work with them because their interface and everything is so amazing, but being able to set up your own blocks. When I have a client come over, I’ll put five exercises on a block, and they can go through their sets. We’ll do like 3 or 4 rounds, and then they’re on the balcony doing different things. It’s so versatile. It’s like having a whole gym in my living room. I’m surprised that it has not caught on yet like I think it will. It’s not that ridiculous. Not over time, I feel like if you have it for 2 or 3 years, your gym is going to cost that much over that amount of time, I would think.

Two things there. One, there are a lot of people who are intimidated by weights. That was me. I never did any weights turning before I got my Tonal. Now, I love it so much. Two, there are people who do weights. They use free weights and they do not believe that the Tonal can do what people say it can do. They don’t think it’s going to be enough weight for them. Those are two big things.

I was one of those people. When I first saw it and she said it only goes up to a max resistance of 200 pounds, I was like, “No, that’s not going to do anything,” but because gravity is taken out of the equation, you can’t compare it to weight. I honestly think they got to have their own term because it’s not the same. Honestly, resistance is a better word than weights because it feels different. For the super fitness enthusiast, I feel like they’re going to get excited by that. People who are afraid to do all the way on the other end are more nervous or intimidated by weights. They have a whole new area they can explore that people don’t know about.

If you don’t like weights, it’s freeing because you don’t get to think about it. You don’t have to keep track of what you lifted last time. You can just pick a program and go. It’s so much easier than wandering into that end of the gym and trying to pick up a weight. It’s intimidating for people built like me to walk into the end of the gym where people who are built like you are and do it. You feel like you’re in their way and you don’t have a right to be there.

Guys and girls who are in great shape are a little intimidating. When they’re in the zone, they look like mean people, I would say for sure. I don’t look mean, but masks are on now in gyms, you can’t tell what someone’s thinking about at this point. I think leveling the playing field and making people feel comfortable in their own skin, and comfortable with even attempting an exercise regimen or program is a key factor for them.

That’s a good point. When you work out, are you using their programs, their workouts, or do you create your own for yourself?

I create my own, but when I use their programs, I don’t want to make them upset, I feel like there’s too much talking. That’s the only thing. I understand it and explain, but sometimes the transitional period, I’m like, “I want to go now.” That’s why I build my own, but the 4 or 5 programs I’ve done from a workout perspective is amazing. They’re not for me to say that I don’t like that one aspect, but the people who are programming for them are definitely good at what they do.

I love how they do explain the why of why they’re putting it in a certain order, and the in-between recovery exercises. Somebody who is experienced with weight training like you are, I can understand why hearing them explain it would get frustrating, but I will say for somebody like me who’s like, “I have no idea what I’m doing, walk me through this the first time I use it.” It must be difficult to find a balance that works for both ends of that spectrum.

I would rather them over-explain than not explain enough. From a consumer aspect, the way they’ve done it is perfect. For me personally, sometimes when I’m all hopped up on caffeine and ready to just get after it, I don’t want to talk to Tony Horton like, “I love you, Legend, but why are we talking?” P90X used to be the thing. I love it and you’re in here now, that’s so cool but let’s go.

That makes sense. You’re at an advanced level and you don’t need those bells and whistles. That’s not designed for people at your level.

They do cook me though. The workouts do put me on my butt though. The difficulty is definitely there.

What’s the hardest one you’ve done?

I have terrible shoulder mobility. It was one of the shoulder mobility workouts. I remember the guy, but I don’t remember his name. They have a whole program and it’s all upper body mobility and I’m trash. I need them to explain it because I need the break because I’m struggling. That’s a lot of experience from years and years of training. It’s just I need that stuff honestly. One of my other favorite features is the fact that they have things like yoga in there. You dim the lights and you turn the yoga and stuff on.

I was wondering if you used any of the other content?

When I get something or spend time getting it like with something I like to try to get involved and see what it all can do. I want to make sure that if I’m telling someone that I like this or I’m letting my clients use something, I want to make sure that I know what it can do at least.

Are you comfortable with sharing your strength score, just out of curiosity?

Someone in the Facebook group asked me that, and I totally didn’t even respond. I was like “What?” I’m going to have to get back to you on that. I don’t even know.

I was curious because I figured it’s probably pretty high.

Do you want to go look?

He does. He’s curious.

I’ll put all of these things out the way. You might be able to see it. I’m going to turn it on.

You don’t want those people in the comment section saying that you faked it. You got to show them the actual score on the Tonal in real time.

I have let my clients use my profile. It only says 604 but I guarantee it’s higher than that.

I guarantee you it is too.

I believe that.

I am not going to lie, it says on the screen 604, but I had two clients on it.

You need a guest profile.

I know. I was excited at first and I was having a blast.

Was that an Iron Man helmet you just moved?

Yes, it is.

Be patient with yourself. Don’t compare your Tonal numbers to your numbers in the gym because Tonal is a whole different animal. Click To Tweet

Very nice.

It’s not alone. There’s another helmet. There’s a Black Panther.

That is so cool.

Thank you.

Did you see that’s going to be the next Marvel series? They’re doing a story about Wakanda for Disney+?

No, I did not, and now I’m excited.

It’s going to be overseen by Ryan Coogler, the guy that directed Black Panther and directed the aforementioned Creed movie that brought back Rocky in such wonderful fashion. I’m a big nerd, so we’re always talking about stuff like this. When they said they were going to do a Black Panther TV show, I was like, they’ve got to call it WakandaVision because the big show on Disney+ is WandaVision.

I haven’t watched WandaVision, I can’t do it.

I haven’t watched it yet.

Do you guys like I Love Lucy?

I’m a huge TV nerd. I love old-time television. We just got done binge-watching M*A*S*H and now we’re going into The Bob Newhart Show. I grew up with Leave It To Beaver.

I Love Lucy is a little over the top with the physical comedy.

In the gym, I Love Lucy with magic.

I haven’t watched it yet. From what I understand, each episode moves forward in time in terms of sitcom style tropes. It’ll be I Love Lucy, and then the next one it’ll be maybe I Dream of Jeannie. I haven’t watched it, but I think she’s trapped in some alternate universe and it’s based on sitcoms. They keep doing different sitcoms styles within it.

I only made it through the first two episodes so that’s probably why I feel that way.

I think it evolves, but I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve heard nothing but good things but I’ve also heard that from some deep nerds.

I love it.

How are you incorporating Tonal with other workouts that you’re doing?

I like to create my own blocks and I train twice a day. It’s like a stress relief thing for me, especially with the gyms being so overrun because certain gyms are not open than they are. I usually get all my dumbbell work, everything except my extremely heavy organized lifts at home, on the Tonal. Agility movements like bicep curls, triceps extensions, deadlift, working on my form, I’m doing it at home because in the gym it’s different. I feel like even as I’m deadlifting, as I stand up, the tension never releases. The 150 pounds on there feels like I’m lifting 300.

How long have you been working out steady on the Tonal?

I want to say a month and a half.

I was wondering, and it’s probably too soon to tell, do you feel like it’s training your body differently? Can you see your body developing in ways that it wasn’t with free weights previously?

All my lifts had gone up. I haven’t even said that on social media or anything yet. I plan on at some point because I’m dealing with a few injuries. There was a three-week period where things started to connect that I was like, “This is cool.” Because of the whole bench press fiasco, I was like, “Let me see. What if I train on here, and then use a bench press at the gym and see what happens?” My bench went from 335 to 355. I have a better control of the weight. Because of the way the suspension works, I had a better control. I’m using the Smart Flex on there. Smart Flex is a game changer even when the weight goes up 6 or 7. Those modes are the modes that I’m most obsessed with from a plateau busting perspective.

I love Smart Flex because there are moves that I struggle with anything over my head like my upper body strength, I just suck at it. The Smart Flex makes me feel like I’m making progress because it’s so slow when I don’t use it. Using Smart Flex, I can see it happening and I feel a lot better about it. I love it. It’s my favorite thing.

My client also loves Smart Flex. They hate it now, but they loved it.

Do you have any advice for people just getting in to Tonal?

Be patient with yourself. Don’t compare the numbers to your numbers in the gym, in your other time in other gyms and stuff. It’s a whole different animal. Immerse yourself in the community, the Facebook groups and stuff. I don’t speak much, but I read a lot of people’s comments. It’s cool to see people of different fitness levels coming together and talking. No one’s trying to sell you anything. No one’s trying to get anything from you. It’s a safe space to talk about your fitness journey. I feel I would pay for that by itself, that part of it, just like the Tonal users are pretty cool people from what I’ve seen. There are many different people across many different areas.

Thank you so much for joining us. Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you on social media.

YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, @TrainWithQuan.

I love your branding, all platforms.

I appreciate you guys so much.

Thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this and for having fun with us. It’s been a fun conversation.

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That brings this episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people next time?

During the next episode, we are interviewing Katie Curran, who is another of our Tonal members. That’s Superset exciting. That should be publishing on February 24th.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe and they can find me on Instagram or Twitter, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. Find the show online at Facebook.com/supersetpodcast. While you’re there, like the page, join the group, and don’t forget wherever you’re getting your podcasts from, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. That’s it for this one. Thanks for reading. Until next time, keep lifting.