Episode 40
Successful career in health & fitness and making great impact with Rob Lyon
My guest today is Rob Lyon, an experienced fitness industry professional with 17 years of experience in industry who has worn many 'hats' over the years - managing corporate fitness centres, working overseas in the field of cardiology, training and assessing both aspiring personal trainers and professional athletes and delivering 1000s of hours of personal and group training services.
He has contributed to media publications such as AskMen Australia as a regular health and fitness expert, and have been featured in CLEO, ELLE magazine and Lawyers Weekly Publications.
I had a great time interviewing him about what inspired him to pursue a career in fitness industry, his career journey and what he does now and impact he makes in the corporate wellness space, executive performance and helping people with special conditions.
Links:
Highlights:
- (00:00:14) - Introduction of my guest today
- (00:02:50) - Never stop learning, we talk about fitness education
- (00:04:42) - What inspired Rob to pursue a career in fitness industry
- (00:11:04) - Rob talks about his beginning in the industry and overcoming the imposter syndrome
- (00:18:18) - Rob's beginnings in running a business
- (00:22:11) - If you've got six things, you're going to spend 15% of your energy on all of them
- (00:26:40) - How to foster wellness initiatives in corporate space and benefits this can have on it's employees
- (00:30:20) - Importance of balancing out fight or flight with rest & recovery
- (00:32:56) - Correlation about health of employees and bottom line in the business
- (00:36:46) - How do you roll out corporate wellness program effectively
- (00:41:54) - Rob shares his definition of success as a dad and having a bullet proof
- (00:48:37) - Rob's public speaking gigs and speaking at the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony rehearsal.
- (00:52:00) - Embracing genuine you and improving confidence by challenging your fears.
- (00:56:36) - What Rob wishes he knew when he started his business, power of networking and professional referrals.
- (01:01:44) - Rob's current fitness / wellness regime to keep on top of his best performance
- (01:05:04) - Contact Rob for corporate wellness help and start 2021 with a bang!
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Transcript:
Vit Muller: [00:00:14] hello everybody. My guest today is Australia's leading corporate wellness educators with 17 years of experience in the health and fitness industry. He is a regular contributor to media publications, such as Ask men Australia, Cleo, Elle magazine, and more.
[00:00:31] Back in 2010, when I was starting my fitness career, he was my teacher and mentor during my diploma in fitness studies. And it's a real privilege to have him on the show today talk about all the great stuff he's been up to in the last 10 years. We had a great chat today about everything that he does, and you'll get to hear many valuable insights learning about effective wellness programs that him and his team do at Lions health, executive performance for both CEOs and CFO levels, as well as his story of overcoming fear of public speaking back in 2000, when he was asked to speak at Olympics opening ceremony, please. Welcome to the show. Rob Lion
Rob Lyon: [00:01:16] Hi, lovely to see you getting made. It has been a while, and I'm really looking forward to having this conversation with you.
Vit Muller: [00:01:23] Great to have you on the show Rob, great to have you on the show. What you've been up to in the last 10 years? We haven't, we haven't chatted for a good couple of years. Have we?
[00:01:30] yeah,
Rob Lyon: [00:01:30] I know. Look, life takes everyone in different directions. No doubt. I'm still, I'm still teaching and educating people coming into the fitness industry, which is still a very much a passion of mine, but I've moved out of Sydney and moved up to the central coast with my young family now.
[00:01:44] So I do a lot of that remotely and online. So I basically built out my business now, which is line health and I focused on three distinct areas in the health and fitness industry. One of them is personal training mainly for clients with medical conditions, because my background is definitely within the special populations and medical condition market.
[00:02:03]I also run a burgeoning sort of corporate health and wellness program where I work closely with a number of our law firms and other businesses within Sydney. Running programs and health consultations and group training sessions and whatnot. And then the third part, like I said, is that fitness education part of my business.
[00:02:19] So it's been great to really sort of build out a business. That's got sort of three distinct arms. I still get to give back to the health and fitness industry as I just turned 37. And I've been doing this for 17 years now. So it has been a while, you know, it's almost time for me to get out of the way and have the youngsters come through.
[00:02:36] But you know, that's still something that I'm really interested in. Interested in and you know, it was great to teach you that I was, we went through the diploma of fitness and you know, anything that you can do to upskill and add value to yourself as a health and fitness professional is really, really important.
Never stop learning, we talk about fitness education
Vit Muller: [00:02:50] Absolutely. It's so important to keep on educating and keep on learning as well. You should never stop learning if you are, if you're listening to this and you're somebody in the fitness industry never stopped that learning process always look and seek more. Look for courses, look for people to speak, to like, like yourself.
[00:03:06]I always remember, you know sitting in the class during the diploma course it was amazing, you know, having you as a teacher and, and talking to us yourself as an experienced also, you know, AP exercise physiologists, you were giving us some really valuable information education around, around that was very specific.
[00:03:25] And yeah, it was really good , it was a great course. I always always reflect back on those studies, right. Great times back then.
Rob Lyon: [00:03:31] Yeah, I think, I think it was really important, you know, when we created that diploma of fitness course at the college, it was to, it was to meet a gap in the health and fitness market for these personal trainers, dealing with clients, with medical conditions.
[00:03:42] And also we spent a whole term talking about injuries as well. So those two areas I think, are vital for a lot of health and fitness professionals to upskill in because it allows you to broaden your client base and allows you to really kind of understand the body at a much deeper level. It's not just sets and reps, but it's really understanding what the most effective exercises are.
[00:04:00]As a sort of a medical intervention, you know, because in exercise science and exercise physiology, which is where my background comes from, we use exercise as a medical intervention. So like a doctor will write a prescription on a pad and they'll say, take these and come back and see me in four weeks time.
[00:04:15] We write prescriptions on pads, they're just exercise programs, you know, and we are, we closely track and monitor. We're looking for health outcomes, such as, you know, reducing reliance on medication improving your activities of daily living, you know, improving overall health and wellness and mood and mental health.
[00:04:30] And so all those things are vital and you know I think it's vital that if you are suffering from health or medical conditions or need a little bit of extra help getting someone that is well qualified in those areas is definitely vital.
Vit Muller: [00:04:41] Absolutely.
Exercise prescription with a more meaningful purpose is more rewarding
[00:04:42] I always remember the specificity. That was the part that I always enjoyed.
[00:04:46] And I'm a, I'm a bit of a technician. And I like, I like things like go in detail when prescribing programs. And I always remember, you know, what you were showing us the sprint drills and, you know, you would. Before that, you know of set three set four, you would just think, okay, sprint, okay, let's run as fast as you can, but then you broke it down and biomechanics level.
[00:05:06] And you know, it was a real structured approach to programming for a sprinter and also programming any other programming. It was like, As if people that we trained with general public as if you train them as an athlete. So it was, I really enjoyed that process. That was really good. So, yeah.
Rob Lyon: [00:05:23] Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's important with that as well. Is that. It really benefits the clients. If you've got someone programming at that level of detail, because if they really understand why each better exercise benefits them specifically and what they're trying to achieve, then they're much more likely to be compliant to the program.
[00:05:41] They're much more likely to stick to it, the muscle, more likely to get more out of it because they're going to. Stay on board with you. And also they really understand I'm doing this, and this is the reason why that's, you know, I sound like a broken record sometimes, but it's all about that sort of features of benefits, language.
[00:05:56] You know, I was a trainer you want to, don't just tell them what they're doing, but tell them why they're doing it and why it's beneficial for them. And as, as trainers, you know, and not to get too much into the weeds, we think that. General people know why all these, what all these exercises are, what, how they benefit you, but you really need to break it down.
[00:06:15] And so your clients can understand ok. I'm doing this for this reason. It's to work this muscle or to improve this health outcome. If you do that, you get much better buy-in and compliance over the length of the program.
Vit Muller: [00:06:25] And more clients as well. Cause you position yourself as a, as a real expert with, and you show that knowledge that you have.
Rob Lyon: [00:06:32] Hundred percent. And like, as my business, you know, I do very little, you know, marketing, very little social media now. I'm, I'm really lucky to be at a point where I have a very strong referral and word of mouth sort of sort of a part of my business and, and it just comes, you know, If you get results in outcomes for one person, especially if they've got a specific medical condition, you end up seeing a lot more people with those same types of conditions, everything from cardiovascular disease, you know, I've got clients that have multiple sclerosis, I've got a client who's completely blind.
[00:07:01] You know, I've got clients who have type one and type two diabetes. And once I started getting results and outcomes for them, then I tend to find more of those types of clients end up coming my way.
Vit Muller: [00:07:11] Now I can't, I can't really resonate to that because I've never trained a client like that. I'm not qualified at that level, but I can, I can assume it must be amazing amazingly rewarding.
[00:07:22]When you, when you help somebody who for example, was blind to be able to have better, better quality of life, right.
Rob Lyon: [00:07:30] Oh, most definitely my, my blind client is fantastic. You know, he's the, he's the CEO of a resources company. He's incredibly busy. He has a photographic memory. But we still train consistently, you know, twice a week, we're doing online sessions.
[00:07:43] I'll see him in person. He'll, he'll literally move his work schedule, his travele, domestic international travel he'll work at around our trading sessions. So for him, our training sessions are a priority. And, you know, as you get a little bit older and you go a bit further into this industry, you know, I don't do a lot of.
[00:08:01] Body composition, make people look good, naked six pack at the beach, chest and biceps. I'm not really into that much anymore to tell you the truth. You know, my, my real real goal. And what really jazzes me is seeing people with those health outcomes. You know, like if I can get someone off high blood pressure medication, if I can read them, have low back pain, if I can make them.
[00:08:21]Functional, you know, in terms of functional movement patterns, like they're the things to me that I think are very important from a longstanding sort of health and vitality perspective. And they're the things that now really motivate me as opposed to, I want to lose five kilos or I want to look good for summer.
Vit Muller: [00:08:37] Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I agree. I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot of great programs for body transformations and there's nothing wrong with having that as a goal. But there needs to be more people that because there is a lot of professionals, fitness professionals do who do focus on that aspect, but like you said, You know, it's, it's, it's also rewarding to help other people that have a real struggle in life and they need to have somebody like yourself to to help them improve their quality of life.
Rob Lyon: [00:09:03] Yeah. Most definitely. Couldn't agree with you more Vit.
Vit Muller: [00:09:05] Now let's wind the clock back abit.
What inspired Rob to pursue a career in fitness industry [00:09:08] When you were starting out, what inspired you to to enter the health and fitness industry?
Rob Lyon: [00:09:15] Well, the health and fitness industry was always a passion of mine. It stemmed mainly from high school and playing sports, I was playing rugby and cricket at, you know, at a semi decent level until a few injuries kind of curtailed my career.
[00:09:27]So I was always interested obviously in the human body, I went to university, went to UTS. A very long time ago in 2002, I did my exercise science degree. And as soon as I got into anatomy and physiology, I remember the first time I learned about the ATP PC system. I'm sure that this rings a bell to you and creatine phosphate and lactic acid and anaerobic glycolysis.
[00:09:47] Like I was hooked, man. I was only in I'm like I was loved. I loved science. Wasn't that great at high school. But as soon as you start talking about the science of the human body, I'm like, man, this is me, I'm all in. You know, and then I was really lucky to to get a job working at the university gym when I was in my third year of university.
[00:10:04] So what was, that was vital for me because I was using everything that I was learning. In real time, straight away. So my health and fitness career really kind of just kicked off from there. I didn't really see myself ever doing anything else. I hate wearing pants, so I get to wear shorts for a living, which is always a good idea.
[00:10:20]And then also, you know, with, with my parents, you know, I've got a bit of a family history of, of some health problems that run in the family. My dad's got epilepsy. He had that ever since he was 18. You know, my, my grandfather died early of Alzheimer's. My uncle passed...
