The Crackin' Backs Podcast

Rebuilding Strength After Injury: The Strategies That Fuel Resilience and Success with Jon Ham

• Dr. Terry Weyman and Dr. Spencer Baron

Share episode

In this episode of the Crackin Backs Podcast, we welcome Jon Ham, a remarkable fitness expert with an inspiring story of resilience and innovation. At just 16 years old, Jon suffered a life-altering neck injury, breaking his neck during a gymnastics routine. This episode explores how that traumatic experience shaped his perspective on resilience, mental toughness, and the power of determination, leading him to achieve incredible success as a Division 1 gymnast.

Jon shares the strategies he used to rebuild his physical strength and confidence after his injury and how these same principles have become the cornerstone of his approach to personal training. Discover how Jon transitioned from competitive gymnastics to a successful career in personal training, adapting his skills and discipline to help everyday individuals reach their fitness goals.

With over two decades in the fitness industry, Jon discusses his evolving approach to nutrition and the key components of a sustainable, healthy diet. He provides valuable insights into how nutrition can support long-term health and fitness, emphasizing practical and sustainable changes anyone can make.

Jon is not only a fitness expert but also a pioneer in the digital fitness space. Early in his career, he recognized the potential of eCommerce and expanded into online platforms with a YouTube channel, and now an Amazon vitamin store. Jon shares how this digital expansion has allowed him to reach and inspire a broader audience, breaking down barriers and making fitness accessible to people everywhere.

Crackin' Backs Coffee (Stark Roast): https://www.starkroast.com/products/crackin-backs-podcast-blend

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Welcome to the cracking bags podcast today, we have a story that will leave you inspired and ready to take any challenge. Imagine breaking your neck at 16 years old and rise again to division one gymnasts. Our guest John Hamm shares this incredible journey of how he had the resilience and the mental toughness to fuel his comeback, and the strategies he used that you could use too to rebuild your strength and confidence, whatever it might be, learn how he's now helping others achieve their fitness goals and pioneering new paths and being innovative in E commerce. Stay tuned as we explore how this fitness expert is shaping the future of fitness coaching, nutritional knowledge and transforming the world.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

All right. Well, I'm excited about today because we have my good buddy John ham on and I've known this guy for a long, long time. And, you know, with the Olympics just ending, every Olympics are on everybody's mind. And this man was a high level gymnast at the probably that one of the highest levels. And, yeah, I love gymnastics. I mean, I've dreamed to do an Iron Cross, and it's never, I've never been able to leave the dream, you know, to make it into a reality. And this man is gymnast is with life. So before we get going into some other meat, can we just talk about your gymnast as a gymnast, your earlier career, and what is transformed you into the man you are today. Well,

Jon Ham:

my mom did gymnastics for Cal State Northridge, and she got me out of trampoline and diving and during gymnastics when I was literally three years old. So I've been doing it my whole life. You kind of have to to get to that sort of collegiate level, your flexibility, strength, your joints have to be able to take that abuse. So I've been doing it my whole life. When I was 16, I actually had really bad injury. I fell off the high bar and landed on my head and broke my neck. Spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, had surgery on my neck. They put me in a halo for three months. And for those that don't know what a halo is, it's kind of like a body cast. And those that can see on video, you can see they they screw it right into your forehead and then in the back of your forehead, and it's kind of goes down in your waist so you're it's so you don't move your neck or move your head and your bones can heal. So spent three months in the Halo, a couple more months in hard collar, went back to training because that's what I wanted to do, and a few months later, I ended up getting a full ride to the University of Illinois, where I competed for them for four years. Was team captain, co Captain my last year, and I got my degree in food science and nutrition, met my wife, who was also a gymnast at Illinois. We met when we were freshmen, and so, yeah, it has kind of shaped my life, I would say, quite a bit, quite a bit. So

Dr. Terry Weyman:

you broke your deck at 16 and still came back and made it to the d1 level as a captain.

Jon Ham:

Yeah. And my last year, I got third place on the high bar the event that I broke my neck in the Big 10 championships. I got the video online. It still gives me goosebumps. And I didn't have, like, all the difficulty. I took the sport as far as I possibly could with what I got. I can honestly say that, but it was darn perfect. So I got third behind two Olympians. So that was that was pretty great. And you know, for those the audience that just watched the Olympics, the Olympics is such the next level, and what they're doing today is so much harder than what we competed against 20 years ago, and it's so darn cool to watch. It is so much fun. And I am so glad I'm done, because what they're doing now is so impossible I can't imagine what they're what they're doing now, what it takes to do that. It's amazing.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

So when you break your neck at 16, we're still at 16. We're still trying to develop mental toughness. We're still trying to develop our identity, right? And so how did that injury affect you in form of mental toughness in life that you still kind of can go back to today. How did that? How did it kind of alter that part of your, your being, well,

Jon Ham:

you know, during where the halo could. To sleep at night, I would literally just watch Olympic tapes, 92 Olympics, over and over and over again, and do a lot of visualization and try to put myself in those shoes. I had nothing but time. All of a sudden, was reading a lot of books on sports psychology and visualization attitude, what to say when you talk to yourself. And you know that event could have been something that, you know, I could have got down on myself about and given up, but I chose the other route and said, I still want to do this. How can I do this, well, okay, you have to brainwash yourself into telling yourself the opposite, that you can do these things, and it's like you to have success and not fall and not have injuries. And you really got to do a lot of affirmative affirmations. I had a printout from this one book that I read that made me fill out the things of all the things I wanted to do that year, and I put it in 15 different places around my life. So every time I brush my teeth, I had to read this affirmation to tell me who I am and reinforce the positive. So doing that over and over and over again throughout the day was What did. But yeah, I just got my license to drive in high school. Was getting made fun of. Had to go to school with this halo on. Luckily, I had some cheerleader friends that were able to carry my books around for me, so that helps. And, you know, kept, kept the spirits up, for sure, and everybody in general was, was really fantastic. Very supportive. Teachers were great. Family was great. So, but, yeah, it was tough. It was tough. It was tough. That's, I remember when the day I got that arrow off, like, it's like, Man, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. That was so brutal. You know, just not being able to take a shower for three months was, was gnarly. Like, anyway,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

so John, that that, that is how you built the mental toughness, which is really, you know, probably more important than anything. But what about physical strength and confidence there? What did you do for yourself, and maybe even something that you parlay into how you train your clients?

Jon Ham:

Well, physically, it was, you know, gymnasts train in a pretty unique way where we do a lot of mostly body weight exercises. If you've seen rings, you know that, like you're like Terry was saying that Iron Cross. It's not just one muscle group that you train, it's it's your joints have to be strong enough to not allow your elbows to snap. You know, as your arms are straight, straight. Arm strength is a big deal, so it's a lot of like planches. They call it. When you're a handstand, you come down halfway, you have a coach spotting you. There's planche presses, there's rope climbs, of course, cross training, inverted cross training. There's a thing called the Maltese cross that is like this, but you're in a white arm. I recommend you guys watch Liu Yang from China in the last Olympics. He did some just out of this world, levitation. I don't know how that happens, but it's it's all body weight training, a lot of handstand push ups, like I said, pull ups, dips, walking across parallel bars, back and forth, just with your with your arms, with, you know, dips in between. There's so many different exercises. And if you even just doing Pablo works, how many circles? We call it, how many circles you can do in a row, and work your strength and endurance that way. And let me tell you the wrist problems and elbow problems I have just from problem horse alone, and the broken fingers and joints that are all messed up from missing your hand, you know, things like that. You can't just go to a gym. And do we have to train in a very specific way, and it's three to five hours a day. Five to six days a week, is what we were doing.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

So body weight resistance activities are something that you are a real strong component or a proponent for regular folks, just Yes, yes,

Jon Ham:

yes, and I guess so. After college, I became a personal trainer. In the last 23 years, I've been going to people's homes throughout Southern California and working with them one on one, you know, a couple. Couple days a week. And yes, we do. We do a lot of body weight training. I do a lot of core training with my clients, a lot of planking from cobras, side planks, push ups. Imagine that, just a lot of things like that, where you take a lot of these average jurors, they haven't been doing any of that. A lot of people would just go straight to some gym and do bench press or like a machine press, or something like that. Or it doesn't necessarily integrate all your different muscles to work together to perform a movement.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

And even you do different for the aging population.

Jon Ham:

I do a lot of balance training. Terry and I actually have an acquaintance, Hunter Jocelyn, from indoor board, and I get them on the indoor board doing exercises, whether it's squats or even just bicycles, whether they have to stand on a balance board to coordinate movement. I think it's great for the brain, for the older people, and it's also great for their balance.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Oh, that's fantastic. Now you also install nutrition so you not only take care of the body, but also, you know, internally as well. Yes, your approach with that.

Jon Ham:

You know, I meet people where they're at. My degree was in food science, human nutrition, and I've, you know, when you go to people's homes and you're in their environment, they're a little different than you would see out in public. You get to see how they actually are. You can identify the problems pretty quickly. And you realize also that, you know, for some people, it's a cultural thing. And I've been cussed out of people's homes where they say, don't tell me what to eat. John, really like this is cultural to me. So I've had a lot of experience with the last 22 years, three years that from the gamut of a spectrum of people that are very willing to make any change. You tell them, like Dr Terry and I complained Bodhi can say, like, He'll do whatever I tell him to do. Is fantastic. I love it. He's cut out the beer, he's cut out the sugar. He's eating more vegetables. He's doing sort of time restricted eating, and he's lost a bunch of weight. He's really great, whereas I've had some, let's just say, religious folks that don't have any vices at all, except for sugar, which they don't see as a vice. And I've gone in there in the kitchen and thrown away all the candy. They weren't too happy with me. So it's interesting when you meet people and they're you get to see how they really are and work with them for year over years, couple days a week, they become sort of family, and you just try to nudge them to do better and make better choices as they go. That's kind of my approach.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Well, I know chocolate chip cookies is a religious experience for me, so I think what is like, one of the more basic things that you might be suggesting to somebody in our listeners that would be a startup, you know, that they can, you know, Is it certain number of times to eat during the day, or there's certain, you know? Do you have any like little key points to throw out there?

Jon Ham:

Well, just a few basics would be to cut out refined sugars grains and try to eat more vegetables. I recommend people focus on different colored vegetables. They all represent different vitamins and minerals from the different colors. So well rounded approach where you eat the rainbow with vegetables, cut out refined sugars and grains and focus on good sources of protein. And I know there's different people's tribes about that as well, but in a perfect world, we only grass fed organic meats if we can. So,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

you know, John, I think a lot of people, and you and I have talked about this. A lot of people know what to do. You know, they read about it on their feeds and and they talked about and they know what to do. And, like you mentioned, go in their homes, and you're like, Oh, crap. You know, you talk to talk beyond walk the walk. You know, I think a lot of the time, fear is a big stop that people can't get past. They can't get past their old patterns. They can't get past their old ways, even though they know what to do. I mean, you talk to anybody in the street, they know processed foods, get rid of sugar, get rid of alcohol, they know that, but they don't do it. You faced a fear from when you broke your neck. You had to face the high bar that broke your neck, and you had to. Do the routine that you broke your neck on and you had to face one of the most fearful things on the planet. Have you taken that experience of how you learn how to fear and what's your strategy to work with people that have a fear or they can't change, even though they know what to do, they just don't do it. That

Jon Ham:

is a loaded question. You know, if they're scared of making these changes, you just have to encourage them to be positive about these changes and really change the habit. And changing habits is really tough, and so doing that requires a little bit of that, that fear, mental ninja sort of approach, where you have to brainwash yourself to to change the habit and say it is likely to do the right habit, it is not likely to do the wrong habit. At least that's the way I look at it, where you take a positive approach to encourage yourself to make that good choice.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

How did you get back on the high bar?

Jon Ham:

Oh, hey, there's a few days where I couldn't. So I had some mental breakdowns where I said, you know, not today, and I would get in the car and go home, and that was okay. There were tough days. There were some tough days, but go back to the the affirmations, and go back to it, and get back up there and visualize and think about it. I don't know if you guys saw the men's competition this year in the Olympics, last guy up in the comp, in the whole meet, we brought a pommel horse specialist named Steven metaross, and he's from Penn State. He only had one routine to do, just pommel horse. That's it. Out of the six the men do six events. Pommel horse happened to be the last event the US men did, and he was the last guy up. So he waited and waited and waited, you know, he said in a later interview, like three four hours for the competition to go through, and he was the last guy up with all the pressure. And if he hit his routine and didn't fall, the US men would get third place, which is amazing for the resident, I guess, fantastic. They came in at fifth and qualified fifth, and we had a perfect meet. It's all up to Steve, and he has the hit, and everybody's joking. Is this guy sleeping? What's wrong with this guy? He's sitting in his chair with his eyes closed, and what he's doing is controlling his breathing. He's visualizing his routine over and over and over again. He must have done 100 routines in his head while he was sitting there, supposedly sleeping. And this is what it takes, because your brain doesn't really know the difference of whether you're doing it or not. There's a thing the story of a guy in the Gulf War that went to Iraq, and he loved to play golf, and he would do 18 holes in his head every day that he was at war, when he was sleeping or laying down in his buck. Whenever he had downtime, he'd be playing golf. And He came back from the war, it was a better golfer than when he went to war. And the same thing happened to me. By the way, after all this visualization and watching the Olympics over and over and over again, I can do things right away. I was picking up skills that I had been thinking about, even though I wasn't training. They would just come really quick to me because I was visualizing doing them. So I believe that when it comes to even lifestyle changes, food changes exercise habits, if you visualize yourself doing it over and over again, and you have little help and support doing it, you can do anything really. I've seen it done, people can make big changes in their life.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

So if you're listening, I mean, if you have a somebody listening, and even if they're a doctor and they're trying to give advice, and they've never visualized, they've never tried it, you know, some people will tell me, Well, I'm, I'm so add, I just, I close my eyes and I can't get past the first step. You know they, you know squirrel, you know that whole thing. How do you give advice if you have somebody wants to lose weight, or they want to transform and and you know that they don't transform, they're going to have a diagnosis that's going to scare the crap out of them. And how do you get them to make that choice? And how do you teach them about visualization. Who's never had to do it?

Jon Ham:

Yeah, that's tough. I mean, they, first of all, they have to want to change. I can also tell you, like, I've been to a lot of people, so this is the best example, a husband buys a package of training for their wife. It wasn't. The wife's decision to work out she's actually pissed off and offended and hates her husband for hiring a trainer. That's an awkward hour. Oh my. It is an awkward hour to go to that house so that that wife hasn't made a decision to change her lifestyle. I can't do anything about that. I can keep showing up, but chances are they're not going to rehire me after those sessions are up, because she never wanted to do it in the first place. And the husband expects me to do a miracle, and I can't do that. The person has, you know, there's the there's different phases of change, pre contemplation, contemplation, action, and I forget who, which psychologist at the time thought of this, but it's true, like, unless they're ready to make the change, I'm wasting my time. But maybe this session will start getting them to think about it and start pre like contemplating change. Well, you know, it's actually kind of how we built our business. We gave out gift cards to the gym equipment stores, and when they sold a piece of equipment, I'd go show them how to use the equipment for free. They would actually, the client had already made that decision to exercise. They don't know what to do, but they they've already, they're already mentally ready to ready to make a change, ready to do something good. And I knew that was like the most targeted customer I could possibly get was someone that had already made that decision for themselves to make that change. And once they made that decision, then you could say, Okay, here's the plan that we're going to go through. And if they're interested in talking about visualization and changing some like self esteem or self image issues about who they actually are, like, Oh, I am not the person that drinks every night. No, here's what you do every night. You eat dinner, then you go for a walk with your wife. That's a big one. That's a different self image shift that can be a positive thing for that person.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

You know, something I've always liked about you that I want to pull out is you've always been ahead of the curve. You haven't been the trainer that does what everybody else does. You've always thought different. You've always been to that. And I think that a lot of that comes from being a d1 athlete. I think I love it comes from adversity of coming back from a neck injury. You've always thought differently because you've had to survive. And you did something 20 years ago you you were selling stuff and doing stuff on E commerce. And I even know what e commerce was, and so, and you always like, we're, you know, I remember our mutual friend has a that also a trainer, going, Oh my God, he's this. This guy is selling stuff online, doing stuff online. I'm like, What the hell is online, you know, and so talk us through a little bit about how you'd like to try and look ahead of the curve, how you see fitness and how you want to approach it differently. For those that are aspiring to be trainers, or those who are aspiring to get into nutrition, how do you try and look at things before they become a thing.

Jon Ham:

So thank you. That's awesome. But I've been driving to people's homes now for 20 some years, and in that that downtime of driving, I've made a commitment to be a lifelong learner and listen to books while I drive or podcast. So what you guys are doing is awesome. Like, I suck all this up. It's awesome. Like, I listen to podcasts every day. I have my guys, and I just go through, like, Mondays I know he's having a new episode. And so when this thing called YouTube came out, I started making some fitness videos. I read a book on these YouTube influencers, the very earliest influencers, and how they were building these audiences. And I thought that was just fascinating. It just blew my mind. I went through this thick book in a weekend and said, I gotta do this. So I started putting YouTube videos up, and I had one video that was me standing on a Swiss ball to win squats or something like that. That kind of went nuts, and, I don't know, like that just became the thing that took it to the next level. And YouTube actually sent me an email and said, Hey, we're doing this YouTube Next Up trainer, we would love for you to apply to it. So I applied. They accepted me and 16 other people around the world to get a scholarship through YouTube. They sent us video equipment. They taught us SEO. They. Put us through this little boot camp on Google Hangouts before Google Hangouts was a thing, and it was a blast. I learned a lot, met a bunch of neat people. I got accepted in this little YouTube Network, which was a whole different thing, and I was affiliate for a bunch of brands, and I was putting in like 50 hours a month that I didn't have at the time. But I loved doing it. I was editing video, writing scripts, and then trying to do a new show every week, even though it was like five minutes long. And then one of my buddies said that he was learning about Amazon, and his 12 year old daughter has been set up an Amazon store and bought an iPod within three months. That was her goal, to save up sell enough stuff to buy an iPod. I want to learn about that, so I kind of just shifted gears and started an Amazon store and started selling fitness equipment and other things that my clients had. Clients had, you know, brands and products that they were selling, and they were sort of behind the curve on a lot of things. So I helped them get ahead of the curve. I started buying from them, wholesale, selling retail on Amazon, and I've been doing that for about 12 years, and selling anything from Plumbing Supplies, car care products, fitness equipment, heart rate monitors. And now see, here's the thing, like I'd build the brands up, spend my money on ads. Do the SEO, do all the things that I've learned, and then for one reason or another, the brands would either sell, the businesses would sell, and the buyer would have their own Amazon store, take it for themselves, and I'd be out of the picture, which has happened quite a few times. Or you sit, you name it, I'd always sort of get the sort of the sticks, it wasn't my brand. So now I have started my latest venture in the last year is selling vitamins and supplements under my own brand, second springs, that I can control and come up with the products myself, market them the way I want to, and sell stuff that I believe in from for myself and my family. And it's it's been a blast. It's been it selling supplements online is generally regarded as suicide, and I know that going into it I have, like no delusions that it is the most competitive marketplace out there. Amazon is cut through.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

It's become very competitive. Even my son did the Amazon store thing and it and then Amazon changed their whole, you know, their approach, and knocked out a bunch of those Amazon stores and so people that had been really doing well with it ended up zero. Yeah, it's interesting, yeah. But if you keep ahead of the curve, it seems like a good ball game to to work with. So, you know, regarding, you know, I want to go back to The Healthy Diet thing. And you know what, something sustainable. Because, you know, there's all these diets on the market today. And I mean, they could fill a library with just diet books, and some of them really were, some of them not at all. And it depends on the person. How would you start somebody out? You know, when you obviously, you need to ask them and cross examine them on what they do. Is there certain questions you ask and certain approaches you take for that?

Jon Ham:

Well, getting people to start with a food journal would be like the most success I've had with people is those that will write down their food and try to estimate what's in their food. Energy wise, like using my fitness pal has been great for a lot of my clients, and they've gotten a lot of great results. It keeps them accountable to what they're eating, and before you know it, you've had I mean, if you don't write it down, it just sort of goes in the ether and no one knows what really happened. So getting to do a food drill would be, I would say, number one, so we can actually look at what they're doing.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

You know, an interesting little strategy for those healthcare providers that are listening is, when you get, when you how many times you've had someone come up to you and go, Hey, can you give me a diet? And then, if you turn it around and go, Listen, give me, you know, a log, a five day log, of what you're eating time of day, and how much of it you're you know, the portion size. If they do it, they're truly interested. If not, then you. Not wasted any time, because you know how serious they are, yeah,

Jon Ham:

I mean, because you can say, Okay, I want you to eat this, this and this, well, I don't like that. Okay. Well, you know, I only eat Indian food on Mondays, and we do Taco Tuesdays on Tuesdays, you just never know what where people are at. So the food journal, I think, is very, very effective. And you get a win here and there, when you can replace a, you know, bagel and cream cheese first thing in the morning with maybe some like an omelet with some veggies, you know, or something like that, where we can get some more protein first thing in the morning, instead of just a bunch of refined grains, that would be a great sort of replacement, and a way that the food journal can really help identify some of those things that we can switch.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

We would like to thank Stark roast for making the best organic coffee and supporting our efforts to keep you healthy and happy. Click on the link to start enjoying your fresh roast today. What about the millions of people that have coffee as their first kickstart of the day? I mean, before they do anything else, they

Jon Ham:

have that cup of coffee. So I'm up at 4am and I need that cup of coffee. So you're talking to the wrong guy for this one. Sorry, yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

I got you. We all have those habits.

Jon Ham:

I will say, though, that one of the changes I've made is getting rid of the creamer and the artificial creamer, the flavored creamers that have all the bad things in them. So that would be a big one. Making sure people aren't having sugar in their coffee would be a big one. Black Coffee is, you know, in my opinion, not so bad, but in moderation, of course, not all day.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Dare you drink coffee? Yes.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Oh, sorry, moving right, moving right along as early as you guys and I still need my my coffee in the morning, I have my omega three, and I have my coffee, and then I have my water, and then I do my work, and then I'll have some food. Yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

so John, how do you see the future of E commerce and digital fitness? What do you what do you see in the, you know, role of, I guess, virtual fitness or virtual coaching? Well,

Jon Ham:

as far as those are a few different questions there, but I think to answer your first one, the future of E commerce. My my gurus that I follow are all about building audiences and serving your your your who's like if your audiences think about a normal avatar of who's your customer. And for example, I do. I have a My wife and I have been doing vacation rentals in Arizona since 2016 and we get people out there. And before we put the houses together, we say, who? Who are we trying to serve here? And in that situation, it's a snowbird with a dog and maybe two kids. So we need to design the product, the house for that who that avatar? So we put in dog crates. We have a house with no carpet, for example, a hunting green in the back for the kids pool and a Jacuzzi that that who would really like to go visit that product. So designing products for your who identify who that who is, and then serving that who with what they want and what they need is really the future of E commerce. So building your audience of your who's creating great products for what they want and what they need, and building relationship with those individuals, even though you don't even see them or know them, is the future of E commerce, in my opinion, so making sure that you communicate with them through regular newsletters, giving them great information so you're providing actual, real value to their life, even If it has nothing to do with your product, but maybe it's great restaurants, for example, when they're in Arizona, I use that as an example all the time. We've got a lot of content on our site for things to do in February, things that are happening in Scottsdale in March, to go visit, and hikes to do, and different events to go see. Well, the same thing goes with E commerce, and it's not just selling and hooking products, it's building relationships with your your customers to provide value to them.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

You know, I have something, you know, in 2018 19 people were kind. Of doing their thing. And then the shutdown, and everybody got stayed in the housing and started absorbing more content, if we want to call it. So the rules changed. And then now you're getting this hybrid. Some people are going back, some people are staying in their old habits. And you know, Dr Spencer and I were seeing fitness people doing zoom, you know, workouts, when prior to 2019 you never saw that before, you know, and and, and the thing I would see even on telemedicine or until, you can't really control their movement patterns because you're trying to rely on a camera to just see what they're actually doing. How have you navigated the world of E commerce and and the and the rules have changed, and now we're entering this hybrid world, how you navigate what people trying to take the easy way out, to actually getting them healthier, and those who were stuck in this world where they they never went back to work, they they're they their job said, Nope, you can stay at home forever. Now. How do you navigate this? Well, me, personally,

Jon Ham:

I still go to people's homes and make them do the work. It's different. When someone shows up, gets you out of bed, said, let's do let's go do the work and get work to do, and you'll feel better afterwards. If, if it were virtual, I tried a little bit of that during the pandemic, and I didn't have much luck or success. Neither did my clients with that. And fortunately, I was so darn busy selling heart rate monitors during the pandemic that I could take a little time off and not actually have to go train clients to earn a living. So now that I'm back to in person training, I I think it's the most effective way to do it, because, like you said, you can't correct form in the same way having someone right there with you is it's a different animal, different animal. It's not just all about making corrections in form, and it's motivation, it's encouragement. It's having a smiley face show up to start your day, which goes a long way for people. We need that connection.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Did you have a cooking show at one time. Well, that was

Jon Ham:

actually one of my favorite things to do, was film videos making recipes.

Unknown:

I loved it.

Jon Ham:

I even have one with my oldest daughter, who, at the time, was maybe four or five years old, and she watches it every day. Now, she's got a YouTube channel. She's 13. She's 13 now, and she's a gymnast, like both my daughters are gymnasts. Imagine that. And she's doing workout videos on YouTube, and it just blows my mind. You know, she's getting hundreds of 1000s of views and just killing it.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

That's cool. So, Abby,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

did you ever take that, that, you know, cooking show and have you, how do you teach people how to eat Barret and cook Barrett that I've never cooked before, that, you know, got used to ordering a DoorDash. Yeah,

Jon Ham:

that's it's crazy. Like everybody eats out now, like I have clients that still will not cook, they will not cook for themselves. And how do you teach that? Well, I think showing them how easy it can be for one and also to get some enjoyment out of it, to slow down, like spend some time in your family and and just take an hour to make dinner, or 30 minutes. It doesn't have to take long. Takes a little bit of thought to plan ahead, to go grocery shopping and and go get the things. Meal planning is a thing, and, you know, I realize that, but it can be enjoyable to turn some music on and get the kitchen nothing better,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

you know, with kids in college and all that, you know, they want to run down to the habit, or they want to run down to Chick fil A, or they want to run down like that and just grab something quick to eat, yet trying to teach These kids that it's actually cheaper, yeah, right. David, trying to teach these kids, it's actually cheaper and healthier to cook for yourself. What's some quick for the college kids, since college is starting right now, for the person that's on the very limited income, what's some recipes or foods that you think is really easy to prepare. They don't need a lot of equipment. They don't need to have a big kitchen. What's some things as a from a guy, from a foodie who had a cooking show, who had a diet has a degree in dietex? What's some foods that people can make they make their lives a little healthier, that they can make in a dorm room or an apartment? Yeah. Well,

Jon Ham:

easiest thing to do would be to grab some fruits. Fruits and veggies are always going to be kind of the easiest thing to do that people don't want to do for whatever reason. It takes no equipment to make it it takes no time to cut something up. I don't know what that was, David, but

Unknown:

it's, it's a salad. I'm eating a salad right now. There you go. Yes, lettuce, salad. Lettuce,

Jon Ham:

salad. Okay, so something like that. But grabbing a peach, an orange apple, a handful of blueberries and strawberries, all that would be sort of your, I think, your easiest and best option for those that are in college. Unfortunately, you know, before we knew better, when I was in college, it was Robin because we were poor and, you know, probably beer was the second most important staple in our diet. But yeah, fruits and veggies are always going to be your best choice. Grab some eggs in the morning if you have time and the ability to cook some eggs. Add some veggies to your eggs. That's also important. But yeah, a daily salad, if possible, add some chicken or fish on top of it, oil and vinegar. David, oil and vinegar. What do you got there? Ranch?

Unknown:

You got me on that one that you mentioned that I like Caesar salad dressing, so

Jon Ham:

Okay, well, it's probably going to be better than burgers and french fries, so we'll give you that. So yeah, it's still better than burgers and french fries, so you made a better choice. So yeah, things that are, that are Whole Foods, are always going to be your best option.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Dave, did I see you hold up a cam Bucha kombucha?

Unknown:

Yes, yes. Cam Bucha too, that that was worth making a comment. It's a serious stuff too. It's ginger Berry. Yeah, yeah.

Jon Ham:

The fermented drinks are great. Yogurts with no no sugar and life cultures, fantastic for your body. Anything with chia seeds. Flax seeds, great for your omega threes. You can put that in your yogurt. That's kind of my morning ritual. Is some plain yogurt with flax seeds and chia seeds and a scoop of protein powder and blueberries.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Very good. All right. Well, let's see. We've covered quite a bit and usable information that we can start installing today, if not as soon as we're done with this podcast, to eat a little bit better, which I am starving, and I'm thinking about lunch while you're talking, John, we're gonna go over our rapid fire questions. It's gonna require you to think quick. Come

Dr. Terry Weyman:

on, you're a gymnast. You can think on your hands and your feet.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

You're catapulting off the horse, or whatever you want to call that thing, and you can apply all right. So we got five questions, and if you're ready, question number one is, are you ready, John,

Jon Ham:

I sure hope so

Dr. Spencer Baron:

you easy stuff. What's your favorite exercise? Bursting or muscle ups. For muscle ups, yeah, all right, that was easy. I hate burpees.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

I think I hate Stan burpees.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

I think I actually have seen a shirt that says burpees suck.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

I train so hard on spurt racing, so I don't have to do a burpee. Because if you come off an obstacle, you have to do a burpee. I go overboard, just so I don't have to do a burpee. Rob, people gone after I do Alice, knock off 20 burpees. I would rather die than do my 20 burpees. So Yeah.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

John, question number two, what is one thing, even those who are close to you would be surprised to learn about you.

Jon Ham:

Oh, wow. One thing that people that would be that I get a lot of anxiety. No, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I'm always in my head, and it takes me constant, you know, I gotta go sometimes just ride the mountain bike and get it out, or sit down and meditate. You know,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Have you always been like that? Or did that come on more as you got older?

Jon Ham:

No, it's definitely I've always kind of been like that. So yeah, it takes a conscious effort for me to chill out.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

How do you stay cool when. You're ready to do an event.

Jon Ham:

Well, it compounds the nervousness that that you, you know, and so it results in a lot of falls. It's hard, you know, controlling

Dr. Spencer Baron:

for that matter, question number three, when you have a client who wants to lose weight or get fit for the first time, what is your go to advice to get them there,

Jon Ham:

to commit to walking depending on where they're at, to get some form of exercise in each day.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Oh, that's good. That's good. Start off with little I call it chunking it down. Chunk it down little bite sized portions to get them moving. That's good question. Number four, as a personal trainer, you have heard at all. What is your favorite excuse that has tried on you?

Jon Ham:

I fell asleep. I literally had someone protect I mean, I'm sitting right there. You know, husband and wife, for example, you turn your head on the husband, the husband's asleep.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

That's an excuse. Actually, it's

Jon Ham:

followed closely by, Oh, I gotta go to the bathroom, and they're gone for 20 minutes. What else I've seen? Some stuff. Anyway, I

Dr. Spencer Baron:

actually at the gym at five in the morning the couple years ago, a buddy of mine who wasn't sleeping well at night, but he would show up at five o'clock, and he would actually fall asleep on the exercise equipment. And a lot of it was because he was told he needed one of those cpaps. But he was he had so much dairy that he would, you know, drink milk and, like, the ice cream and all that, I told him, just, just cut that out. Man, he instantly had the best night's sleep. Oh,

Jon Ham:

that's a good one.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Yeah, we didn't, we didn't see but it was fun to watch him fall asleep on the exercise equipment. So, you know, we want to take photographs of that anyway. Question number five, can you still, can you still do the Iron Cross?

Jon Ham:

No, I cannot do the Iron Cross. My elbows would snap in half. Terry,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

can do the Iron Cross? Yeah,

Dr. Terry Weyman:

no, I think my shoulders would be still on the iron crossing my body would be laying flat on the ground. Yeah, two arms hanging, and I'd be wobbling on the ground.

Jon Ham:

I still do a lot of handstand push ups. That's kind of my something that still feels okay on my body, but doing anything straight arms on with anything with rings. Forget about it. Forget about it. I actually have stopped doing rings My in college because my shoulders would sublux And they would lead to, I'm sure I do shoulder surgery at some point in my future. So

Dr. Spencer Baron:

this is not a question from the rapid fire, but can you even do a cartwheel? Of course, yeah,

Jon Ham:

I can still do standing back. You know, some, some other things, but it's not something I practice in every day anymore. As far as, like, doing floor exercise or pOH horse. I don't have access like I could could if I sought it out. But you know, it's not something that would feel good on my body at this point, and there's nothing good that would come of it.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

Do you see a lot of gymnast post like Olympic that are have a lot of issues as they get older because of the stress to their joints. Oh

Jon Ham:

yeah, you should see our our reunions, you know, they go back to, I go back to Illinois, you know, I try to go every year. I don't do it every year, but basically, for a tailgate, an alumni tailgate, at a football game, but everybody's complaining about how everything hurts. You know, we've got hips, shoulders. One of the guys just had ankle surgery. The amount of short landings that you take and how brutal they are on your joints are. It's, it's phenomenal. I heard that there are more injuries per person in gymnastics than football, and I believe it, the amount of things that hurt. But you know, I tell you this, the more homework, I call it, the more, the more homework that I do. I have a set of exercises that I do for my neck, and if I don't do those exercises. I sit at the computer too often I'm in pain. So as long as I do my homework and I keep my posture good, I feel great. Not everybody is in those shoes. Not every gymnast is doing personal training and has the knowledge to do this sort of housekeeping exercises. Every week they're doing financial training at behind a desk or something. And they're, they're, they fall victim to everything that my clients have fallen victim to throughout the years, where they sit too much and don't move enough.

Dr. Terry Weyman:

You know one thing I want to end this show with you. You've you always practice what you what you preach, and you've always been that guy that's like, you know, you look ahead for the future, and you try and do something that is, you know, you like cooking, you put on a show. You like this, you did a show, but yeah, and everything you everything you produce, is from a personal standpoint first, and that's why I think you're so believable. So I want to end the show with your new company and how it was created. You created because you had long covid And you were sick and you didn't like the products that were out there, and you started using your knowledge and started creating some not only to help yourself, but to help other people. Can you talk about that little journey, and I will leave a link in your your description, about your your company. But can you tell us about the journey you kind of share with me a little bit of how you went down this path and why you decided to create something different.

Jon Ham:

Yeah, well, I could start with, you know, I got sick early on and early on during the pandemic, and I happened to be I got better. The actual infection wasn't bad. It was hardly anything for me. But, you know, a couple months later, I was out in Arizona in the 120 degree heat, setting up a house, and I would work all day, and in the heat, I just bottom line is I burned myself out just working too hard, and started developing a lot of symptoms. And these symptoms persisted for about a year and a half where I couldn't exercise more than 15 or 20 minutes without getting sick, and then being on the couch for three days. So I didn't feel good, and sought out a lot of different doctors. One of them told me to go see a psychologist. And I'm like, Really, no, I feel no. This isn't in my head. I feel terrible. So I started through a friend of a friend told me about seeing this functional medicine doctor out here in Westlake. I started getting my blood tested every three months. And she was a lifesaver. She started putting me on different vitamins that I was deficient in, and like, my numbers were all over the place, like, just total train wreck. But I looked I looked normal, like I didn't physically look sick, which was why the guy said, go see a psychologist. But my blood said a different thing. And through taking these vitamins, like, Man, I'm spending a lot of money on vitamins. You know, I sell things online. I need my own brand, and I'm going to do it the way I want to do it. So I took a lot of the things that she was taking us having me take I found a wonderful, wonderful lab out in Georgia that is so awesome. They've been a joy to work with. And we came up with this line of mostly multivitamins, but also things like things for helping you sleep that are natural so that your body can get the rest it needs to recover. We're all a lot of us are deficient, like I was in vitamin D, so I made a vitamin D, something that I take every day. I've fallen in love with ashwagandha, so I haven't adapted to the product to help me with my anxiety. It helps me calm down. That's one thing that has been a lot of help for me. Anyway, I've come up with this line, second springs, the two two Indy springs. And I think this has been one of the most personally rewarding and fun things that I've done. And I always do things that I am interested in that are fun for me, then it doesn't feel like work. If you keep that motto, I think in life, it will serve you well. So that's kind of been my approach. This is something that has been personally fun and interesting to me, and it goes right along with my education, my passion and my career? It made perfect sense,

Dr. Spencer Baron:

John, we wrap it up with that, and I thank you so much for sharing so thank you tidbits of knowledge from your past experience and moving forward. Thank you. That was a great, great time.

Jon Ham:

My pleasure. Thank you guys. We. Shit.

Dr. Spencer Baron:

Thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at cracking backs podcast. Catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time you.