37 – Dr Richard Winett – Award-Winning Researcher, Professor of Psychology, and Life-long Bodybuilder

Richard A. Winett joins me on Corporate Warrior for a second time (listen to his first time here). He is an award-winning researcher, the Heilig Meyers professor of psychology at Virginia Tech, former director of both the Psychology Department’s Clinical Science program and the Center for Research in Health Behavior, and just as impressively, a life-long bodybuilder.

Dr. Winett has published hundreds of articles and studies and has been heavily involved in research funded by many government agencies over the past decades, focused on the intersection of health psychology, personalized behavioral medicine, and public health, just to name a few of his areas of expertise. Of particular interest to us is his focus on resistance training and high-intensity and interval training.

Contact Richard Winett:

• Virginia Tech profile
• Richardwinett@gmail[dot]com

This episode covers:

• Richard’s latest research and future projects
• How to effectively motivate your friends and family to start exercising and start losing weight
• Your questions, answered: Richard’s exercise philosophy, his training regimen, exercise in general, and more
• Why – and how – do some people gain muscle mass faster than others, and can any one way work for everyone?
• Why you might want to exercise and train with a good trainer instead of by yourself
• Is sitting the new smoking?

 

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• Listen to it on iTunes.
• Stream by clicking here.
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This episode is sponsored by Hituni.com, the best online courses in high intensity strength training. I recently completed their personal trainer course to increase my knowledge and become certified in HIT. HITuni offer DIY courses to help you get better results from your training and personal training courses to help you start and grow your HIT Business. Visit HITuni.com and use the code “HIB10” to get 10% OFF.

Show Notes:

• Dr Winett’s research: the positive effect of resistance training as intervention for people who are pre-diabetic [5:43]
• The subjects that Richard teaches in University [11:36]
• How can you effectively motivate people to make positive changes in their diet? [12:45]
• Can a shift in general exercise recommendations to HIT encourage more of the general public to exercise? [16:10]
• What is Walk Interval Training? [18:59]
• Richard’s frustrations with general exercise recommendations today [19:57]
• How many people actually follow exercise guidelines, and how accurate are these reports? [20:45]
• How many people do resistance training, and how accurate are these reports? [21:32]
• Does HIT/HIIT have a psychological barrier to entry that is intimidating to most people? [22:10]
• Richard talks about sustainable training and the mark of a good workout [24:05]
• Where do the benefits of cardio come from (and are they what people think they are)? [28:23]
• The right mindset and approach you should have in order to train sustainably [29:35]
• Does Richard disagree with the general HIT philosophy of training to failure? [29:52]
• People’s bodies respond differently to the same exercise protocols [35:08]
• The importance of supervised exercise and training [36:11]
• Richard’s thoughts on the relationship between heavy-weight, low-rep training and frequency [38:30]
• The distinction between becoming stronger, gaining muscle mass, and body types [41:29]
• Why don’t we see ectomorphs as world’s strongest man types? [43:32]
• Richard’s thoughts on hardgainers, high-volume training, and bulking up [45:44]
• Is sitting really that bad for us? Is sitting the new smoking? [51:08]
• Are there any exercises that can negate the harmful effects of sitting? [53:59]

Selected Links from the Episode:

• Dr. Richard Winnet’s most recent work:
  • Psychosocial mediators of a theory-based resistance training maintenance intervention for prediabetic adults
  • Prediabetes Phenotype Influences Improvements in Glucose Homeostasis with Resistance Training

• National Center for Health Statistics: Physical Activity Guidelines data for the U.S.
• The Norway study regarding fitness and sitting: Sedentary Time, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Cardiovascular Risk Factor Clustering in Older Adults–the Generation 100 Study

People Mentioned:

• Arthur Allen Jones, inventor, exercise philosopher, and founder of high-intensity training

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.