 Hello, welcome to Clock Talk. I'm Crystal here in Think Tech. Wow, this is our last show before 2017. I hate saying last because it's never really the last, but we're gonna kind of do something to get you forward to the next level. I'm talking about exercise today. Now, a lot of women, you know, they're all fitness freaks out there. I know, especially in Hawaii, but what happens when you get older and you feel like you want to be fit in a way that will challenge yourself and keep yourself strong inside, outside, be independent and be able to just kill anything you want to do, right? So, today we're gonna talk about that. We've got an amazing fitness freak, I want to say, because she gets everyone out there to really, really bust yourself out and feeling good. Fitness for women of all ages, but we're gonna focus a little bit on what happens. You're all gonna get old. What's gonna happen to you when you have like a less bone mass and when you can't walk up those stairs? How do you keep fit? Well, we've got amazing Amanda Delson. Is that how you pronounce it? Amanda from Kaia Fit here. Welcome to our show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. So, can you give us a little background about why you created Kaia Fit and why just for women? Yeah. So, actually, Kaia Fit is a franchise. So, it started in Nevada about ten years ago. The founder's name is Nikki Warren and she actually started it because she owned gymnastics studios and she would see the moms bring their kids and the kids would do all these fun things and be active. And she thought, you know, the moms are sitting on the sidelines. When did we stop playing and stop being active and having fun? What is your question? When did we stop playing? Yeah, you know, I get women who try jump roping. I haven't done this since I was 12. Jump roping is fun. It's great for you. So, we try to bring those things back in and she started it in Nevada. It's grown. There's 50 something locations now and we're the first in Hawaii. So, we're the only one on all the islands and I brought it over here about four years ago. And yeah, it's been going great since. Well, congratulations. Thank you. So, what do you think about the Hawaiian concept of fitness compared to, let's say, California, where you're from? Yeah, well, I mean, everyone here wants to be outside all the time. So, you know, we have a gym where we are indoors but we try to take it outside as much as we possibly can. Try to be active. You know, you can, we talk about bikini season in California and it's not. That's all year round here. So, people want to stay fit. They want to be active. They're people outside running and being active all the time. So, yeah. So, it's really fun to get out and kind of do that with the community. Yeah. So, I know we're going to go and focus a little bit on aging women, but let's start from like the beginning years. Is it ever too young to exercise or are there certain things that can be damaging to your, you know, growing? You know, I don't think so. I think that it's, I mean, of course there can be things that are damaging. You don't want to send an eight-year-old out there with a hundred pounds of weight right now. Yeah. And before they're, you know, fully developed, but we want you to be active when you're young. If you can start a program young and be active and healthy, aging is going to be so much easier. Yes. It's never really too late. You can join at any time and you can start your fitness journey at any point, but if you can start when you're young, that's fantastic. But there's a big difference with people who have started when they're younger as opposed to starting later in their years? Well, yeah, I'd say you have to start slower when you're older. So, if you start in your 60s the first time you've ever worked out, you're going to have to start from a different place. Yes. You can't compare with the lady next to you who's been lifting. Exactly, yes. That's why it's never about competing, especially with our program. It's about just competing with yourself. So, you're trying to do something better than you did last week, last year. I think we have a couple of photos of your classes. I mean, if we can take a look at them and just to kind of get an idea of what Amanda does in the classes. So, what is this? This is just like a kind of a ball bearing. Yeah, so we have these little weights. We call them handbags. We make them from sand and duct tape. We use kettlebells as well, but this is a really good not intimidating way to start out. So, we're just doing sit-ups and we're passing them back and forth. That's good. Getting that weight bearing exercise in. Right. And it's a little communication. It's the woman thing going on. You have a team thing. It's way more fun to do something when someone's pushing you. You'll also work a lot harder. If, you know, I'm doing a sit-up by myself and I'm tired, I might take it easy. But if you're on the other end and I have to pass you that ball, yeah, exactly. You're a little more accountable. Yeah. Right. But what about older women who post babies, post menopause? Is it true that, you know, with the lack of bone mass, you need to use more weights. But then, if you haven't started with weights, then where do you even start? You just start slow. So, body weight movement is a great place to start, especially if you haven't worked out in a long time. We can start slow and then eventually ease up. But there are now studies that say that weight-bearing exercise and plyometrics, so small jumping movements, actually help build your bone density. So, you know, we slowly start to... Yeah, so just little tiny movements. Yeah, like this one? Yeah. So these are agility ladders. So we just kind of run and jump through them. We usually have at least two set-ups. We have a level, people who want to go a little slower. Maybe if they have any kind of injuries, they can be a little more careful. And then we have the ones who want to go super fast and kind of race through it. So, okay, well, that's the thing. With a team and you're overworking, if you don't know your limit. Yes. And she also, you know, she'll get hurt. And she does kind of, you know, not compare, but she's like, I can do that. I want to do what those women are doing. So she'll do it. And sometimes you get injuries just from, you know, exercising. So she'll have like a foot or ankle injury and she'll push a little too hard. So I'm always kind of like... Back off, do some yoga. I know, exactly. But listening to your body, resting when you need to, you know, and it's just been so huge for her. Yeah. And it's not about, you know, looking a different way or anything. Although she has had physical changes. Right. But it's about having that independence back. She doesn't need help from anybody. I mean, my dad will offer to help her pick something up. And she's like, I don't need it. I got it. That's a very important aspect of independence. Nobody thinks about aging women and how strength training can kind of give you that independence in your big life forward. Yeah, even think about just living alone. And like we said, opening a jar or carrying your groceries or putting something up above your head, getting something down. Being able to do that on your own gives you this, this sense of independence that I think is really important as we age. But to back up a little bit, before you get to that point where you saw that transition in your mom, is a lot of aging people don't get to that point because they feel like they're right it off already. They don't even think they have a chance or the ability to do that. That's where she was, you know, a few years ago. So starting, I guess she was in 64 when she started. And the idea of starting a major program like that for her was was really daunting. But it just I mean, I'm very persistent. So I just pushed her. So just like, yeah, come try it, come try it. But I think starting easy and just knowing that no matter where you are, there's no shame in that, you know, it's we have women who are super athletes, and then we have women who never worked out a day in their life. Right. You know, there's also that middle age kind of heavy area where you kind of feel complacent about life. Nothing's really invigorating or inspiring you to do anything. And you need to kind of kick your butt. Yeah, and just have fun. And the best exercise routine is something that you enjoy. If you say I need to lose weight, I'm going to go run on the treadmill every day. And you hate running on the treadmill. You'll never stick to it. And you'll be miserable. So do something if it's surfing, if it's stand up paddle yoga, whatever inspires you and makes you have fun. That's what that's what will get you to your right, you know, but to put a group of people with all different ages in the same class, as opposed to like catering one to like older women. What do you think the difference in dynamics? Well, what we do is we do three levels of every exercise that we teach. So we'll be working out the exact same time together. Yeah, but we just do it in a different a different way. So we call them balance strength and Kaia levels and what that really means is low impact, a little more intense and then a higher impact. Right. So it can be adding weight, adding speed at the top level. But if you just just are starting out, low impact, take it easy, work on form, work on learning the exercises. But we can be doing that next to each other. And I can be cheering you on and you can be cheering me on, right? And we're not doing the same thing. Exactly. It's when you get into that competitive, you know, when it's a race, we never compete, we never try to finish faster than the person next to us. It's just about inspiring each other and motivating each other to be their best. How do you make it fun? We change the work every day. Okay, so you'll create you obstacle courses or sometimes. Yeah, sometimes we do that. Sometimes we do games. So we'll pull out a deck of cards. Really? Yeah, yeah, each card will I mean, kind of each card will be a different exercise. And you know, you'll end up thinking it sounds fun, but it can be really hard. But this goes back to when we started the interview is you said that a lot of people thinking to moms, hey, when do we get to play? That whole concept is just kind of like, Oh, it's not. Yeah, you know, I mean, some, it's works for some women to go or some people to go to the gym and just do the same machines every day. That works for some people. Right. But it did never worked for me. So getting into a room where I'm now, I know all these women in my class, we're all friends. And I want to know what what they're doing. If I miss a class, I feel like I miss the fun, you know, right? So we change the exercises, we do games, we do, we go outside, we stay inside, we just mix it up all the time. And isn't there the concept that you should try something new every day? Yeah, it's hard to you think. But actually, there are lots of things that we've never done. Yeah, even if you are doing coming to Kai every day, and you just make it a little bit harder one day, maybe add a add a weight or do something a little more challenging. Yeah, and then again, accomplishing that, that challenge feels amazing. Right. Such an accomplishment. Are there a list of things that maybe you can recommend for, let's say women over 60 to do? Yeah, I would say starting with low impact. So squats, sit ups, push ups, those kind of things are great. Yeah. And if they're too hard in the beginning, you just start lower. So start on your knees, you know, start on the wall. So instead of being down on the ground, you just start up with the leading against the wall. Yeah, exactly. So just makes those a little bit easier for you. Yeah, instead of putting all of that weight. And then we do squat jumps, those kind of things, squat, come up to your tippy toes instead of jumping, you know, build up those muscles in your ankle. What if you have knee problems? If you need problems, you just want to make sure you're doing it a little more carefully. So no impacts and no jumping. Okay, you just still bend your knees. Yeah, you still want to bend your knees. Just making sure you have the right form. So and if you're not in a group class with someone, look on YouTube, look, you know, find, find videos that show you exactly tech savvy, too. Well, you know, I mean, squats are pretty basic, just making sure that the knees don't do a little demo later. So don't go away. But before we go, like joints, a lot of older women have problems with joints. Like you said, your mom couldn't open a jar. So how do you strengthen that? Well, she's gotten her strength from when we're doing in the gym, you know, you're picking up the weights, you're holding them, you're doing different exercises, and you don't realize you think you're doing a pushup, but you're using everything. You know, yoga is really great for that. Yes, if you're not ready for high impact exercise, yoga, putting all that weight onto your hands. And then just, if you feel tired, take it easy. Yeah, step off a little bit. But yeah, strengthening, strengthening everybody and your core is really important. Okay, so hold on to that thought, because when we come back, we're going to do like some demos. I don't know how, but Amanda in this small studio space is going to show us how we can kind of strengthen ourselves within even a small space. No excuses, even if you're not outdoors, we'll do it. Okay, so don't go away. Stories that Matter to Tech and to Hawaii. I'm Elise Anderson, and I'm Kaui Lucas. For our show next time, we're doing a Think Tech special, Home Alone and Homeless Alone at Christmas. We want to learn more about the isolated, disconnected people alone in our community. Lots to come on Think Tech. Tune in 10.30 p.m. this Sunday. See you then. Welcome back to QuackTalk. Talking about fitness for all ages, men and women, but particularly women, because we're talking a lot of women on their own when they get older. What's going to happen? People feel like, oh, I'm just so dependent on people. You don't want to be, nobody wants to be dependent, right Amanda? So Amanda from Kaia Fit is here to discuss all that. Before we get into the actual demos, let's talk a little bit about the cultural differences of the concept of fitness, because you know, I lived in Hong Kong for over 25 years and the girls there would always think slim means fit. So sure, they look great in clothes, but you take it off and it's like just bones and skin over the bones. Yeah, they kind of get that. Yes, and there's no shape to that. Here on the other extreme, I'm not trying to diss some, but some Americans have that super bulky, maybe that was more the 80s thing, you know, the real bulk look in now, I think. Yeah, so where do we place that beauty of fitness? I think it just is so important to not focus on that stuff, because especially, like you said, it used to be popular to be this way or that way. Well, it's not, what's important is how you look, you know, and if you focus on, now it's all about strong. So you see those ads, it's less about being skinny, less about losing weight, it's more about looking strong, which is great, because strength is wonderful, but if you don't look that way, then are you not beautiful anymore? Right. So I think just focusing on what makes you happy, what makes you feel good, and what does it mean to look strong anyway? Does it mean you have to have, I know this guy from Hong Kong, he's like five foot two, and he had massive muscles, but he never worked at his legs, so he's got this chicken with like, you know that stuff? Oh, it's good leg day, yeah, a lot of men don't like to work out their legs. It's weird. Yeah, and it's, what's important is being healthy and active, so with our gym in particular, we say we want you to be good at Kaya, but great at life. It's about functional fitness. So everyone's goals are going to be different, but when it comes down to it, is it important that you look good in your swimsuit? Maybe to you that's important, as you age especially, that's not going to be your goal anymore. Right. What's important is what can you do. Do you want to live 105 years of an unhealthy but skinny life, or do you want to live 105 amazing years where you can feel good? Yeah, you feel good. You can do the things you want to do. Keep up with your kids. And you know what, you think about the people who do put too much focus on their image, is they start doing plastic surgery, they'll do everything from outside in, and then at the end of the day, things still kind of droop and do weird things to your body, and it's worse than ever. And what's important is fueling your body with the right food as well, not just about fitness, it's about fueling your body for performance, and that performance could be maybe running a marathon, it could also just be waking up and taking care of your kids in the morning. Right. So whatever you need to do in your life, you just want to make sure that you're the healthiest, happiest person you can be. Exactly. I think you can, healthy and happy, whatever work you do, because I have a lady, I have a friend who does like, you know, spa treatments, and she, her arms are buffed because she uses, but she enjoys it, so she uses her arms. Exactly. Going back to doing something that you enjoy, is if you stick to something because you enjoy it, and if you have a baby, use that as a way. Yeah, in fact, there's so many videos of mom and dads working out with their little infants and kids. They should, growing up in the air. Yeah, that's a great exercise. No, but tell me this, this is the flappy arm thing with the older ladies. No matter what you do, is that something we can't defy? Everyone's body mechanics are different, they're going to depend on genetics, but there are so many exercises for your arms that you can do to help out. Can we do some here? Yeah, I mean we don't have our weights, but we have our water bottles. Water, if you don't have weights, you can use water bottles. We've got two. So obviously this isn't going to give you a whole lot of strength training, but we can show... But it starts with the exercise. Yeah, so if you want to work on upper body, it's kind of boring to just sit here and do bicep curls, right? I like to mix it up. Okay. You can do a curl, you can do a press overhead, and then those tricep extensions. Right? So tricep, this area you're talking about right here. Yes. It's a tricep. Yeah. So you want to make sure that you're working those out. Can you get a heavy can at home and do that? Yeah, you could do that. You could also, obviously we can't do it here, but you can sit down on the ground, you'd have your hands on the ground, you'd be pushing up. So all ages, that's not impact. As long as you're not doing it, you know, if you're doing it up on this table, you're going to put a lot more impact. So doing it on the ground, keeping your hips down on the ground, so you're sitting all the way, you're just bending the elbows slightly. Yeah. You'll instantly feel that in your tricep. Yeah. So just working on... So people who are in the office a lot, they should have a chance to just hold them to their chair and do those kinds of things. Absolutely. Yeah, or even sitting down on the ground if you want a little less impact with it. Yeah. Grabbing a weight resistance to protect. Those are great because they're lightweight. Yeah. You can pack them in your suitcase. Yeah. If you need to go travel or something, there's never really an excuse to not put a resistance fan in a jump or open your suitcase. Okay. They're tiny and you can do so many things with them. And there's usually an excuse people when they say they travel, they're out of their routine, they can't go and work out. Yeah. That's not right. Even adding like 10 minutes in your hotel room before you go to bed. Yeah, it's not going to be the same as an hour intense workout at the gym. Right. But it's going to give you even though we're, it gives, for all ages, again, everybody, you said the bikini body isn't that important, which is true. But at the same time, people still want to keep their butts firm. Yeah. You know, we go in the streets and you admire somebody with a nice, purred bum. That's the new, that's the new thing, too. Right. Before it was... And your boobs are going to sag anyway. That's just age, no matter what. But you can keep your bum tight. You can't. You can't. So how are we going to build that booty for 2017? Okay. So we can do a few exercises in this space. But squats are always a great exercise. All right. So if we want, we can face each other. Okay. Or maybe face the screen. So we can just do some regular squats and make sure that the knees don't go past your toes. You want to sit down kind of like if you think about sitting on a public toilet and you don't want to, you don't want to sit on it, right? And try to squat. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So you're just going to squat down and then as we come up, we can do a little leg lift on the side. So get that outer. Okay. So you would just switch sides each time. But also coordination helps with your brain cells too, right? You're focusing on doing, we got to keep talking and doing it. Because this is a talk test I heard that you have to, like how many are we going to do? Let's talk. Okay, five. They would switch sides. How are we going to switch sides? Well, we're not now, but we typically read. All right. But we'll just work at our other leg. But the talk test, because a lot of people say you have to have the cardio and you have to be able to continue conversation. I know guys can't wait for women. Okay. All right. And then we're still talking about building up our glutes. So we can hold on to something. You can even face forward or to the side. And you just kick straight back. So keeping the foot and engaged. Yeah. Keep your core nice and tight. And then you're just squeezing glutes. You can also bend the knees. We call it donkey kicks. So here. Yeah. Does it really help change the shape or your booty? Because I know like us Asian women are all just to make you Yeah. I mean, that's silly. Right. I mean, right. Thank you for saying that it's culturally again going back. Everybody has different shapes. Exactly. And then focusing on just what works for you with. Right. It sounds cheesy, but beauty is in the eye of the holder. Yeah. It's all in how you feel. So if you feel strong, if you feel accomplished, if you feel like you can do squats, if you could pick up heavy things, I'm so glad that you just bringing it back to the essence of what it means to be healthy. But before you had this healthy concept, when you were a teen, go back to, did you ever have low times when you didn't feel that way? Absolutely. Yeah, I still do. You always do. You know, you have those days where you don't feel good or if you start to compare, you know, social media is the worst for that. It's great for some things, but all it is now is having the best body and showing it on Instagram. Well, this is the scary thing because my daughter's 13 and she's so healthy. She's so healthy. She's so healthy. And you post it up and what does that do to your concept of yourself beauty? It definitely makes you feel less than if you aren't exactly like they look. And when you think about it, you're seeing the perfect angle of that person. You know, they're not going to show what they really look like. They're going to show exactly what they want the world to see. So comparing your every day to someone else's perfect moment, perfect lighting, perfect image on the internet and being happy. How do you get teens to get that right concept? Or is that just the phase that you have to come a little further? You know, that one, that's hard. I don't know. I don't know. But you were one before. I was one and I think I did struggle with that a lot when I was younger. I wasn't as active having them be in sports, having them be active and doing fun things and showing them, especially women, that they can be more than just what the images are of themselves, you know. But Girls on the Run have a local chapter. It's young girls in elementary school. They go and do these Runs 5Ks. And it's so cool to see, they're one of our partners, to see their accomplishment after how long their training is. Right. And focusing on those kind of things instead of focusing on Instagram. How can you look the best in your bikini? It's more about what you can accomplish. Yeah. You know, all the stupid Kardashian shows and all that stuff. Yeah. You know. Have them focus on, you know, accomplishing some major goal. Maybe it's to run a 5K or maybe they want to get into strength and fitness. Yeah. Do that kind of thing outside. Right. So how would you, I don't know, for the 2017 kind of a concept of health and fitness, I know we've gone through many times about the inner beauty and inner strength and being able to be independent and all that. Yeah. You know, don't look at the beginning of the year and New Year's resolutions are wonderful, but they're also a lot of people. Yeah. You know, oh, I want to lose 20 pounds next year. And then they go into like a binge diet or something. Yes, exactly. Ridiculous. Or even something that's not specific. If your goal is to lose a certain amount of weight, focus on how you're going to do it. Don't focus on that weight. Focus on how you can stick to that. That's something you can one, actually write out and see and plan or you can accomplish it pretty easily. You know, if you stick to it for four or five days a week and then those results will come. So stop focusing on the results so much and what you want to get, what you want to look like. Right. Focus on how to get there. So we focused a lot on how women should see themselves and where the beauty and strength comes from. But what about a few tips for the boys out there, the men who support kind of this concept of strength? Always be supportive. I mean, my husband, I call him Kaia husband, you know, team Kaia, he's always supportive of everything that I want to do. You know, if I'm stronger and healthier, then that's going to make our family stronger and healthier. Typically, women and families are the ones in charge of what's being fed, what they're eating. Yeah, exactly. So being supportive and getting out there and doing those things with your spouse and then he goes through phases or sometimes... He goes to your class or do... No, actually right now he's at the gym, we're renovating our gym so he's there right now painting it and doing all that stuff, working on the gym but he can't actually work out there because it's all women. Right. We go sometimes together and work out when... Okay, here's a question. Now transgender is like a big issue now. Yeah. So where does that line cross? Is that okay? As far as our gym, we're open to anything and anyone. Yeah, if anyone wanted to come into our gym and came and talked to me, absolutely. Everyone deserves to be healthy and happy. Absolutely. Yeah. How can people find you? So our website is www.kayafitawahu.com. We're located in Kaimuki. So we are... If you've been to Cocoa Head Cafe, we're right across the street upstairs and on December 31st we're doing a free workout at Alamoana Beach Park. So sometimes we go outside and do fun things like that. We're going to be running in the sand. You know, there'll be options for everyone. Walk dog, run. What part of Alamoana? We're going to meet at the Magic Island side so that Lifeguard Tower 1E. Okay. So hear that. We're all going to meet there. 7am. 7am. Okay, 7am. Right in early. New Year's Eve, the 31st, feel healthy, be healthy, look and feel as beautiful as our guest today, Amanda here. Thank you so much for all your wisdom and... Thank you for having me. Great to have a healthy New Year ahead. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.