Episode #15 of Intentional Wealth:
Personal Fitness with jessica cline

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Welcome to Intentional Wealth, a monthly podcast where, alongside notable financial professional guests, Private Wealth Advisor and Founder of Braun-Bostich & Associates, Amy Braun-Bostich, delivers useful insights and strategies that help YOU live your best financial life! Remember, when your goals are meaningful and your wealth has purpose, you can truly live with intention.

Now here's the host of Intentional Wealth, Amy Braun-Bostich.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Welcome to another episode of Intentional wealth. Today we're joined by Jessica Cline. Jess is ACE group fitness and personal training certified. She's been a personal trainer for over ten years in group fitness and personal training with a specialty in kickboxing. She is head trainer and manager at 9Round Kickboxing. 9Round is a 30 minute kickboxing workout where you spend three minutes at a time, at nine training stations, getting a full body workout. Jess will be discussing with me the advantages of physical activity at any age, but especially at your retirement age.

In a New York Times article, becoming more physically active may help to avoid thousands of dollars in healthcare costs later down the road. A study of exercise and Medicare claims found people who start to exercise before or during middle age, on average, save anywhere from eight hundred and twenty-four dollars to one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four dollars annually on health care costs after retirement. So, the transition to retirement has been recognized as a turning point in determining physical activity because age accelerates the loss of muscle and bone mass, which can lead to weakness. With that in mind, please welcome Jess today and thank you for joining us.

Jessica Cline: Hi, thank you, Amy, for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Well, to start off, I'd like to hear a little bit about your background. Tell us how you got interested in personal training and specifically kickboxing.

Jessica Cline:  Sure, so as a young adult and a child, I was into softball. I played for about twelve years of my life. So, my fitness passion started early on. I worked through college as a player and as a coach, moved to a high school coach, and I just developed a passion for training and instructing people. So probably as early as 22 years old, I realized I had the ability to coach, and instruct, and guide, and support, and motivate other people. So, after college, I ran about, like, ten half marathons, I did a full marathon, I've done a triathlon, and I dove into Beach Body. So, this is when Beach Body was just up and coming and I never looked back. I fell in love with the workout with Shawn T., which was insanity 2012, and all these years later, I've taken it to a full career of working out and training and teaching people. I've taught classes, high intensity interval training, I've taught Tabata classes, insanity workshops, like I said, bootcamp, and now into kickboxing. This is my third year as a formal kickboxing instructor, or kickboxologist, as we like to call it. And personal training has been sprinkled throughout all of this. I've always had personal clients on the side where I would either write workouts, I'd visit their homes, I'd meet them at a gym, I'd go to different locations. It's always been people reaching out to me that are in need of more of a one on one connection and guidance. Personal trainers are kind of like your financial advisors for your fitness. You're not going to entrust your money to a CPA that you don't trust yourself, just like you're not going to entrust your body and your overall physical health to a person or a trainer that you don't see as someone who you can trust. That's my background.

Amy Braun-Bostich: That is awesome! I'm tired just listening to it.

Jessica Cline: Most of the time. I had a full time job, too during all of this. It wasn't until I got into kickboxing did, I have, you know, just that as my job. I was always in sales.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Oh, that's, that's great. What kind of sales did you do?

Jessica Cline: I worked for the Hyatt Regency Pittsburgh International Airport, so I booked events and hotel rooms, and I was with Topgolf out in Bridgeville and I booked events there and I was a promotions director for KDKA radio, and I would help book events for the radio station.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Oh, that's awesome.

Jessica Cline: Oh, yeah.

Amy Braun-Bostich: What age groups do you see at 9Round?

Jessica Cline:  So right now, we see pretty much everyone. We could have children that come in with their parents as young as ten years old. We always recommend that the younger the age, the more on the parents it is, you know, how much do you think your kid can do? You know your child best. We'll see high school sports teams come in together, and then we see everyone as old as 80 plus. We'll have clients that come in with very limited mobilities. Sometimes they'll have physical or mental limitations that we have to try to overcome, and it's, it's not, it's not easy in any means. It's definitely something that you have to take with experience. And after all these ten years of me doing this, I have that knowledge to on the fly look at someone and you never want to make them feel less if they can't do the exercise, so, you just immediately go to like, all right, so here, this is the workout we're going to do today, me and you, right? It's not what's, What is Maddie gonna do on this round? What is Joe gonna do on this round? It's what are we doing right now? What are me and you gonna do right here? So really modifications for all levels because we see from the youngest at ten all the way up to 80 plus.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Oh, that's great. Yeah, that is wonderful. So, I guess what you're saying is you're modifying workouts based on client limitations and strengths. And what are the differences between high impact versus low impact activity? Are there positives to each? Is it good to mix both? What would you suggest?

Jessica Cline: So, high impact would be things like running, or sprinting, jumping, squat thrusters, anything that's going to add a lot of, like, impact or strain on your muscle joints and maybe put tension on your ligaments, things like plyometric exercises as well. Low impact would then be the alternative. Where we're looking at maybe like a high plank hold, a squat, maybe slow squats up and down. Yoga is more low impact. Barre, for the most part. The isometric motion of doing a small exercise for a longer period of time adds greater muscle strength, but it's more muscular endurance. So, you're trying to hold something for a really long time, maybe a minute or two, but you have zero to very low amounts of weight with you. And I think both are necessary to actually have a good physical well-being, and overall fitness and health, because if you consistently do the same exercise, you're going to see a plateau, you're going to see your weight plateau, you're going to see your abilities, your level plateau, and it might bother and discourage you, and that's when I'll say to clients, have you tried to switch it up? Like, have you thought maybe to add, like, a day of Pilates, or like a yoga class, or just a stretching class or, even go running, because that's a different exercise, too. And then you'll start to see your cardiovascular endurance change. A good example is I took a bodybuilder friend of mine, young, 20 plus year old kid, real physically fit, and I took him to a yoga class with me. He could out bench, he could probably bench press my whole body, right? But when he was doing the yoga stretches, he couldn't get into those positions. And he just said, I just don't do this enough. Like, this is something I could go and lift at the gym and I forget that I need to add stretching. I have a friend who does the professional bodybuilding competitions and I asked her to come to the gym and try the workout and, you know, give a good, get a cardio workout in. And she said the way she keeps her muscles and the toning and the career she's in cardio is too much like she can only do 30 minutes of cardio a week, but she still adds it in. So, she has to limit what she does. But even someone who is doing that is adding different exercises in to make their body completely developed, you know, not just focusing one thing.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, I can see that I'm not really flexible, even though, you know, I'm trying to get into different stretches and things. Do you think people stretch wrong? Do they hurt themselves stretching or do they just not do it?

Jessica Cline: Well, a number one probably reason is timing. A lot of people will pick the timing of what they want to do to work out. So, if they know they have a 45-minute workout, if you don't include stretching in that 45-minute workout, as the trainer, your clients are probably not going to do it, too. So, you have to add maybe five, to five minutes, at the beginning, five minutes at the end. I normally do six minutes in the more, in the beginning, and six, actually, so I do like twelve minutes, but that guaranteed stretching and I build that into my program. But there's a difference, because when you start with a workout, you want to do dynamic stretching, which is more like jumping jacks, high knees, plank jacks, something that's going to get your heart rate up, but it's not so much that it's a workout, right? It's just going to get your heart rate going because that's just going to reduce your risk of injury, make you a more efficient workout. You'll have a more functional workout. Your range of motion might increase just by doing 30 seconds of jumping jacks. When we get into the actual workout, you might be able to do more than you would have had you not stretched like that before. So dynamic stretching makes a better workout overall. And then at the end of the workout, you add in that static stretching and that's where you're doing more of the, you know, standing with your leg pulled back, cross arm body pulls behind your head, holding lunge positions. That is going to lengthen your muscle that you've just put all this tension on and that you've just worked out and it'll help it slowly contract. A lot of times when people don't stretch after they go sit in the car now, their muscles have just kind of like, shrunken up real quick. They've not done that nice in and out. Think of like a massage therapist. What is she doing? She's rubbing your muscles and she's lengthening them. She's helping rub out all the joints in there, all the ligaments, and stuff in your muscles, right? Not your joints, but she's helping her rub all that lactic acid out. That's what you need to do by the stretching afterwards. So dynamic stretching before, static stretching after. That's how I always program my workouts.

Amy Braun-Bostich: So, if I do more muscle lengthening exercises, could I get taller?

Jessica Cline: No, not so much, no. I mean, they do say your muscles. Do you two tend to shrink a little with older, with age, I don't think you're going to get, like a whole couple feet taller, though.

Amy Braun-Bostich: My daughter swears I'm shrinking, so I just thought I'd throw that in there.

Jessica Cline: Yeah!

Amy Braun-Bostich: Alright. So, the CDC recommends adults 65 and older need 30 minutes a day, five days a week of moderate intensity, and at least two days a week that strengthened muscles. So, what workout routines do you recommend that someone in that age group achieve and what exercises should be avoided?

Jessica Cline: So, moderate intensity, I'll start kind of like, variably, like, moderate intensity is kind of where you want to start. When you look at a workout, you want to look at the level that you're going to be at and where you need to be, right? So, a level would be, are you going for high intensity interval training, that HIIT workout, H, I, T, T, or do you want to go to moderate intensity interval training? So M, I, T, T. So that is somewhere where I would live for the 65 and over crowd, not something that's low, because unless you have a physical limitation, whereas you are physically hurt and cannot do an exercise, you still want to try to push yourself just a little bit higher. So, I would live in that moderate level with the ability to go down and the flexibility to go up, right? Like I said, modification is key when you're working with clients. Flexibility workouts are good. We talk about just generally, like, if you just stand next to a wall and you just lift your toe up and try to straighten out the back of your knee, do a nice hamstring stretch, hold it for five to 10 seconds, release, and then repeat maybe three to four times. Stretching workouts are good. Same thing with, like, sequencing yoga. After you work out of doing some sort of cardiovascular exercise, if you do, like, a cardio workout for 30 minutes, maybe the next 15 minutes, you throw in some yoga stretches afterwards, again, though, we're talking about that lengthening of the muscle just like we talked about with that static stretching afterwards. Actually, 80% of adults over 65 live with one chronic disease, and then if you 50% of those 80%, then half of that actually have two chronic diseases. And almost anyone that has diabetes over the age of 65 also lives with one other chronic disease. So, the real important thing to think about is that you need to work out, no matter what you're doing. Like being physically fit will help reduce the risk of that chronic disease at any age. And the earlier you start it, the better off you'll be. Your longevity will go better, you'll live longer, you'll have a better way of life. Just things are going to go against you the older you get. And it's just a fact. It's just aging. It's just something we have to live with. So, if you're able to continuously reduce those, that's great. Wall exercises are also really good. Leaning against a wall with your back against the wall. Chair sits as low as you can get. X positions in there, upper body twists, or arm rotations. Same thing with using a chair. I do a lot of seated exercises where I'll have the clients do bicep curls, seated leg lifts. You could do a lot of sitting or using the back of a chair as like a handrail, and you could do squats with that. Right? So, there's always ways of adding support so that you have a stability unit or piece of equipment with you that you trust. That's great. Heavy weights help with activities of daily living. So if you can add heavy weights, and by that, I mean if you're a three pound person, when you want to do, like, something easy, maybe go to five or eight, because your activities of daily living as someone over 65, you start to feel a little depressed because maybe you can't lift the tray out from the oven like you used to be able to. You have a casserole in there, and you can't lift it up like you used to. If you start training with weights that just as heavy as that casserole, and you start doing squat pickups, like we set on the table, a dumbbell, and you've got to pick it up and push it up over your head and then set it back down so you're not going all the way down, but you're still using an activity of daily living motion, and you're learning and you gain confidence, especially too. Group exercises are huge for the 65 and over crowd. A lot of times they're lacking socializing, and they live maybe on their own because they don't have, like, a lot of people nearby, so maybe their family works. They're just lacking that socialization. Hiking, swim classes, Tai Chi, balance exercises, or anything that's going to be a functional movement class. If you see something like bodies in motion, kind of where you're doing maybe more slow exercise, low weights, but you're in a class setting, that's going to be great for the 65 and over crowd.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Well, just learning new exercises, I thought I read, helps your brain, right, because you have to create neural pathways to learn the motion.

Jessica Cline: Right. It's basically a brain booster. There is called IGF-one, and it's a hormone, and it's something that, it's basically a brain boosting neuron, and it comes from exercise, physically. Another one is testosterone that you get from exercise. And testosterone is a natural muscle boost or muscle healer. So, after you work out, you get that rush, that boost, all of that. So, you're literally healing your brain, creating new neurons, and you're healing your own muscles just by actually working out.

Amy Braun-Bostich: I thought I read, too, that they started 90 year olds lifting weights and they actually had a lot of improvement. Did you?

Jessica Cline: Oh, I haven't seen that. I'll have to look at that.   

Amy Braun-Bostich: You would think by 90 it might be a little bit too late.

Jessica Cline: Oh, no. I mean, I would say silver sneakers is a big program for the over, like, 65 crowd, and they do wonderful things, and their whole goal is to get up and move. There's classes I've taught where I went into senior centers and worked with those, like, they set up the chairs and we'll do exercises, and they're ranging. Like I said, unless you have a physical limitate, like limitation or maybe a mental one that can't allow you to lift weights. But even then, I mean, I've seen trainers that have worked with clients with down syndrome that are also older of age, and you can, the big thing is you can be exercise, you can do exercise, and you can be active at any age, and you can improve your exercise and fitness at any age. Your cardiovascular actually decreases by 1% your endurance every year, just naturally as being a human. So, a lot of times, once you get to be 65 and older, you add those chronic conditions in, so your cardiovascular might drop more. But, as someone who has worked out or continues to work out every day, they might not feel like they seem different or they're not seeing results. What they're actually doing is they're slowing that decline and they're actually reversing the process because you are going to decline. It's just human nature. It's just the better way of putting it. Your decay of your body, it is just getting older. So, you have to try to stop it, and you want to try to slow the process down. And just by doing cardiovascular exercises three to five times a week, 150 minutes in a week, you can succeed in that.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Now, well, they call that zone two, right? Where you keep your heart rates, like, 60% to 70% of your maximum. Can you increase VO Two Max doing a zone two?

Jessica Cline: So, you absolutely could. The thing is, like, you want to take your heart rate. So, for example, where you're at right there, you're at, like, 82% of your heart rates. Like, the max that gets to, like, 80, you get up to, like, the 90% of your heart rate, then you struggle with anything, like medications that you might be on. You need to be aware of that. So, it's hard. So, if you are someone who is on, like, a beta blocker, you need to be aware of where your heart rate is. So, you always want to try to push it a little bit harder and then take it back down. I really live with, like, the talk test, when I talk, when I teach clients, and I'll do things like, how you feeling today? How's that? How's that bicep curl working? Okay, you look good. And then really reading their face. But even that's secondary. If they can't talk to me and they can't say, like, “I'm okay, Jess”, like, you know, a couple sentences, then I know they're kind of too far up there, and I want to, like, take it down a little bit. You can also see their eyes. Like, their eyes will start to, like, swirl. And that's when also you'll start to think, like, okay, they're getting a little bit, like, they're getting kind of dizzy. Especially being over 65, it's really imperative to pay attention to balance exercises. And you don't, they're just more prone to falling, because they can get thrown off balance quickly. So, you have to be aware that if you start to see their eyes going, you need to also be like, okay, what are you doing right now? Maybe let's take this. Let's not do this exercise. Let's do it this way instead to try to take them back down to where they're comfortable, and then we put them back where they're at, right.?

Amy Braun-Bostich: Well, that's interesting. Yeah. I think I read that VO Two Max is just one of the most predictive measurements of longevity. Like nothing else really is predictive as VO Two Max.

Jessica Cline: I could say. I'm not sure about that one. I didn't read that, yeah.

Amy Braun-Bostich: So, you had mentioned the effects on mental health. Now, May's mental health awareness month, and the evidence is showing that physical activity and exercise can prevent depression and anxiety. Do you see mental health improvement in clients that you work with?

Jessica Cline: Yeah, I have. There are clients that will. They just get more excited to come to the gym. They're more committed, and they're more aware. I mean, really, like, I talked about being in a group setting. I think that's why 9Round specifically is nice because you're in a group setting, but you're all doing different exercises, so really, it's your level, it's your ability, and it's your workout while you're there, and you can see how people just feel better. It's nice, the camaraderie, too, and I think that increases it. You know, maybe they complain. My daughter hasn't called me in the last week, so I don't know what she's been up to, but they can come into the gym, and then they can tell us about it, or they. We could talk to them. Well, how are you doing today, Jessica? How's everything been going with you? You know, and it's just nice to have somebody there as well. Definitely seen that their self-efficacy and they've improved tremendously. And, like, that kind of thing will include with working out, you know, lowers depression, anxiety, prevent functional limitations, along with overall just well-being. Like I talked about with beat, like, taking a casserole pot out. A lot of people, they always use the, you know, opening the ketchup, or the jar of jelly, or something, and you got to go over and help your mom whenever they're able to do that, or you personally. Like, I just can't imagine being older and having to call someone and ask them to do those things for me. So even then, just being able to do the normal routine of your day-to-day life just improves tremendously, because the more you start to take away all of those abilities, the more depressed someone will become, the more, you know, down on themselves they get.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, I've seen that, too, where, you know, it just seems like as you get older, it's like a series of losses. Loss of balance, loss emote ability, loss of strength. So, anything that can help that would, would probably make somebody feel pretty good about their life.

Jessica Cline: Right. And it's just, again, it's, you're not having to rely on somebody else. You're able to do it yourself. Just one less thing you now have to rely on someone else to do. Yeah.

Amy Braun-Bostich: How do you, how do you keep people motivated and disciplined? It's really, it's easy to start a program. It's really hard to stick with it.

Jessica Cline: Right. I mean, the sticking with it. My number one thing is do something you like to do. Do something you enjoy to do. First of all, and foremost, do something that is in a timeframe that you like. If you sign up for a 45-minute yoga class, but you know deep down in your heart you hate 45 minutes of anything, so then why would you sign up for it? Because you're just setting yourself up to do something you don't like to do. So, start off with something slow. And I. I always tell clients it's all about a habit and a routine, and then that will create the discipline of working out. So, look at your week or look at your day. Like, so today, look at tomorrow and be like, okay, tomorrow's Thursday. What do I have going on? I've got this in the morning, I've got this in the afternoon, and this in the evening. But I have these two hours here where I'm not doing anything. But I also need to do the dishwasher, and I need to vacuum, and I need to take the kids to the grocery store. You start to think of all these justifications, but then you have to look at yourself and say, when can I fit in like ten minutes of exercise? And there's so many ways to work out now that the Internet is, you know, a great resource. I hate to say it like that, but you can really YouTube almost anything or reach out to a local gym and say, I'm looking for, you know, a workout. How long is your workout for? But that's where personal trainers come in as, like, really key, because we can keep you accountable, we can schedule the workouts, and then it's on your workout based on your body, and you're getting the most out of the whole workout. So personal training becomes that next level of, like, customized workout. And if you're someone who feels like you want that one-on-one attention more than you want, you know, then you know what to do. I'm really good for that. I've had clients that before they go into a group setting, they're scared, but working out with me just to learn the basics like bicep curls and shoulder presses. They feel the confidence to be like, okay, Jess, I'm going to go do group classes now. And I said, that's okay, that's great. Like, that's what you want to do. You want to build up their confidence, their ability, their strength, so that they feel like, I can do this now. And that's how I know I've succeeded, because I've pushed someone to be motivated enough that they don't need me now. Like, they're ready to do it on their own. But in other cases, there are clients who work too much and know that if I'm not going to be the one texting them, to be like, hey, I'm meeting you at the gym yet? Are you there yet? You know I'm here. When are you coming? They're not going to go,

 Amy Braun-Bostich: That’s me.

Jessica Cline: So, it’s really about reading the room. That’s you?    

Amy Braun-Bostich: I have to have a trainer to be accountable, or I just, you know, I don't do it.

Jessica Cline: At 9Round, we do challenges which also hold you accountable. So, like, at each round we'll do like, x amount of exercises every week. So that's kind of nice to be accountable. So, like, if you come into the gym and you'll see me and I'll be like, hey, what, did you get on the CHOW this week? You look at me, you're like, I didn't do it. And I'll be like, why didn't you? Have you done it yet? Let's do it. You know, then they feel guilty saying yes because now I presented them with the problem, and the problem is they didn't do it. So now you're like, all right, I'll do it.

Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah.

Jessica Cline: Another one is rewards are pretty big. Rewards. I don't want to say that you want to, you know, like a dog with a treat, but, like, rewards is something that's towards the gym that they like, you know, if it's like, I'll do like, free personal training sessions if you complete x amount of days, if you've come in x amount of days at the gym, and I won't go by, like, how many reps you've done or the best of like, you know, 300 squats. I do, did you do 30 days? Did you do ten days in this month of exercise? Then you get a reward because you committed to coming. So those kinds of things are big to keep people coming in. Referrals are really nice, too. Referrals at any gym will keep clients coming and they'll keep them motivated that they can bring a friend in/ They get $5 off their next month? Great. They're going to try to bring a friend in. They get a five pack of workouts. They're going to keep coming in. They're going to try to bring people in, and then that just grows your community as well.

Amy Braun-Bostich: I noticed a lot of things are being gamified, too, right? Where they make everything sort of a competition, or a game or, you know, you get this month's blank award. You know, it's just like, it's all like a big game anymore.

Jessica Cline: Oh, yeah, I would agree. I think it's because of the, honestly, I think it goes back to really, like, I don't want to get like crazy here. Political, right. But maybe because the cost of everything is increased, people feel like they're just being taken from, and taken from, and taken from. So mentally they're complaining about the cost of this. You know, the McDonald's is now double what they wanted to pay or something like that. I'm just using that as an example.

Amy Braun-Bostich: But, like, they're not recommending one of those!

Jessica Cline: Right! I just think that people comply. People do it because it's cheap and it's really not anymore until they come, they complain. So, I felt that you want to feel like you're giving them something back in return. You're giving them an appreciation; you're showing them a reward for being here. We, I mean, we used to do pictures with like a belt that we had and like, that was really fun. People would put on a 9Round, like, you know, whatever, like a wrestling kind of belt, and they would be like, oh, they finished the CHOW. They won the CHOW this week. So those are good rewards, too. I don't, you don't, It doesn't always have to be like some sort of financial thing, but you're right, it has turned into the accountability is like that. I really leave it up to the trainers, too. I really firmly believe it's the trainers. If you stop connecting and stop following up and don't have that rapport with your clients, they're just going to fizzle away because rapport is just like, that's the number one thing we are taught. Anytime, whatever, trainer. If you look at the healthcare continuum, the one thing they'll teach us about is rapport. And have you built a rapport with your client? You could be a fresh, just finished the test kind of trainer, and you could have ten years in you. But if you are just not someone who can relate easily to people, you're never going to get any clients, you know, nobody's going to stick with you for long, too. I've had clients that have been with me for five years, three years, and they've seen tremendous growth. And I always laugh. I'm like, you're stuck. You're still with me. But it fits their schedule, it fits their needs. I create the workouts. They don't have to think about it. They've got me right where they want me. Anytime they need me, they could text me, Jess, hey, you know, my back hurts. What stretch do I need? And I'll be like, all right, I got you. You know? So that is something that makes personal trainers the top tier of being able to help with a physical fitness level.

 Amy Braun-Bostich: Yeah, I think, I think that's absolutely right. Well, Jess, you know what? Thank you for taking the time to inform our listeners about all the health benefits of starting or sticking to an exercise routine. I really appreciate this advice and I believe our listeners, too. How can they get in touch with you?

Jessica Cline: Sure. So, I am on Facebook, Jessica Cline – that's my name. There's 9Round Kickboxing in McMurray, that's on Facebook as well. I'm also on Instagram. It's JabCross_Jess, if you're looking to get ahold of me, you can find me on social media, or certainly I can send you my links if you want to reach out to me that way.

 Amy Braun-Bostich: Sounds great. Well, listen, thanks again and you have a beautiful day.

Jessica Cline: All right, thank you! You as well.