Fitness Expert Rishabh Telang on Fat loss, Exercise and Food |  @cult.official   | Health Shortzz EP.2 - Season 2  

In this episode of the Health Shotzz Podcast, we dive into an insightful conversation with Rishabh Telang, Co-Founder of  @cult.official . We discuss exercise, fat loss, and nutrition strategies to help your body become fit and perform at its best.   

First-day First show contest is over. We will be announcing the winners soon. Stay tuned to our Instagram stories - http://www.instagram.com/ryan_nutrition_coach/  

Rishabh Instagram:  

https://www.instagram.com/rishabhtelang/  

Enjoy the transcript

Rishabh:My first experience at the gym was quite bad. I didn't know how to lift weights. And at the end of the session, he told me,

What I really care about is do I wake up without aches and pains? And that's what people are telling. I feel very stiff in the morning. What I really care about is

And if I'm eating anything upside down, he won't eat it. There's no need to tell the kid what to do. The parents need to know what I'm doing. All of us would typically start losing 3 8 percent of muscle mass for a decade. Women, especially, after they hit menopause, they lose muscle mass and bone mass really quick.

Now, there will be people who will say, don't lift dumbbells, you'll get muscles. Muscles don't really have a gender, right?

Ryan:What are the qualification tick marks required to become a good trainer?

Rishabh:Being a customer of fitness and being a trainer. Both are different things. Just because you're enthusiastic about fitness, fitness does not make you a I wouldn't sleep for weeks together and it was tough.

Ryan:What's your recovery routine? The best. Recovery tool is yours. Hey everyone, it's Ryan Fernando here, and I'm beyond excited to bring you a powerhouse episode featuring none other than Risha, the co-founder of Cult from Kick-starting India's fitness revolution to running marathons and crafting game changing workout formats.

R'S Journey is as inspiring as it gets in this episode. We dive deep into how he built India's biggest chains of gyms, Kalfit, a single studio to now at 600 plus locations. Sit down with your notebooks because in this episode, Rishabh spills his top tips on everything from cheat meals to home mobility exercises.

Whether you're a fitness newbie or a seasoned pro, this one's packed with insights you won't want to miss. Let's get fit and have some fun along the way.

So Rishabh, great to have you today here on my health podcast. You're a very fit guy. You've been my client for a long period of time. We've done your diet, nutrition, but I've never asked you this question. Why did you get into this world of being a fitness influenza guru and even having a world class business about it?

So what's the story? Where did it start?

Rishabh:It actually started quite early. When I was growing up, we were living in a joint family. And my dad's younger brother used to be a great table tennis player. We had a table at home and every day in the evening, some 15, 20 of his friends would come home and the vibe used to be

Ryan:Once again, 50, 20 people would come into your house to play table tennis.

They would play for three to four hours. Right. And all the kids would be watching this.

Rishabh:Yeah. All the kids would be watching and

Ryan:playing also.

Rishabh:So. We had no option than to, you know, just pick up the bat and play because playing a sport was so glamorized back in the days in my house. So that is where it actually started in table tennis is a fast sport requires a lot of agility and things like that.

So it started there. I picked up table tennis. So my fitness journey started with playing a sport. And then because I had an opportunity of playing with people at home, there were many good players who were coming to my house. So I just got into playing table tennis well and was the ICSE champion at some point very early in my school days.

And then later I picked up basketball loved that sport, played that for many years in junior school. So for many, many years I was just playing sports. What also happened, I started lifting weights around the age of 14 and that was a very different story. So I was a very skinny kid. And because of that I was subject to bullying and a lot of body shaming and you know, all kinds of unpleasant experiences, especially to do with how you look.

So I wasn't very happy about it. Where was

Ryan:this? Which part of India?

Rishabh:I, I'm from North India. I was born in Agra. I studied in partly in Nainital, partly in Dehradun, a little bit in Agra. So it was All in all those places. So quite a bit of you know, unpleasant experiences happened. And someone told me that if you go and start lifting weights, it'll probably help you bulk up because that's what happens and it'll maybe help you in what you want to achieve.

Ryan:So what is the starting point in this lifting weights? Like it was on small, dingy gym in the school or in the city or something like that? Yeah.

Rishabh:So it was a very small very small gym in the city, in, in Dehradun. And my first experience at the gym was, quite bad. So I went, I was very skinny. I had a lot of experience in playing a sport, but lifting weights, nowhere close to doing that.

And in the first session the trainer pushed me quite hard and I couldn't, I didn't know how to lift weights. So I just couldn't do it very well. And at the end of the session, he told me, It hurt my ego. The next day I was so sore that I also got a fever.

Ryan:I'm sensing, I'm sensing, you know, if you go back in your time capsule, this is where when you decided to start your fitness journey, this thought was in your head.

Don't overpush people in their first workout.

Rishabh:Exactly. So this

Ryan:trainer overpushed you and then what happened?

Rishabh:Then I was I just couldn't, whatever he was asking me to do, I couldn't do that much. So he just told me, this is not for you. Not. in a very rude way. It did hurt my ego. Went home, wasn't very happy about it.

Next day I got fever because of so excessive soreness and excessive fatigue. And then I thought maybe lifting weights is not for me. Done. But then at some point later, another six or seven months or so, my brother, my younger brother, who still works with me he told me, just give it one more shot. So there was another gym called power pack gym in, in Dehradun.

And we've walked into that gym. It was 400 rupees a month of membership. Very expensive for me at that point. Then I thought, let it be. Anyways, this is not for me, I've been told. They said, no, let's do it. Let's, let's give it one more shot. Okay. And then I started going to the gym. The first day I walked in saw a bunch of bulky very muscular guys.

Guys, I was intimidated. But then all of them were so helpful. They taught me, you know, how to go about it. You were still

Ryan:about 14, 15 years of age.

Rishabh:I was still 14, 15, 14 years of age to be precise. They were like very helpful. They, you know, taught me the right kind of movements. They also told me not to go crazy about it.

They told me a little bit about nutrition at that time. I mean, nutrition advices were just flowing a little all over the place, but whatever they knew, they were helping me out with it. What I took away from it is just eat a lot of food. So I did that. I lifted weights and I started bulking up. All of that happened.

And throughout so many years, I've been through those journeys of gaining weight, losing weight, and all of that has happened with me. But that is not important. What is important is that weightlifting was something that came as magical to me, actually a personal transformation experience, not from the point of view of how I look, but from the point of view of how I, and.

Then I decided that I'm never going back. This is something that I just want to do for the rest of my life. So I continued. lifting weights.

Ryan:Awesome. So, you know, somebody didn't inspire you, then a group of muscular guys inspiring you, you were young, you were impressionable. And then featuring yourself to understand that this is something that gave you a good vibe.

And it's not about looks, but it's about how you feel. So Wonderful words of wisdom. Obviously this journey that you started when very young in terms of weightlifting. Today you are one of the co founders of one of the largest chains in the world of gyms and health clubs. Tell us a little bit about your cult filled story.

Where did that start? So you obviously gymed on your own. How did you start this gym business and what's the story?

Rishabh:Yeah, so this was around 2009 is when I finished my MBA and I started working in one of the biggest home and personal care brand in the world in sales and marketing great experience.

I worked there for two years, learned a lot, but since it wasn't sales, I was, you know, an FMCG. I was out there on the road a lot. While that was happening, I was eating food outside, not the best food from a health standpoint, my lifestyle was all over the place. So from, from being very fit, I realized that I've started to gain weight.

And my lifestyle is, you know, it's not healthy. It's, it's actually very unhealthy. So I wanted to make some change while I could really see myself growing in that job. But I thought my health and my fitness is something that has done so much for me so far. Whatever I am is because, you know, I've been into health and fitness because that gave me the confidence to do anything at all.

So I need to do something about it. So I started looking for another job where I could be in a you know, sit in an office and work still wanted to create the right kind of impact, but I wanted a very different workplace for myself. Fortunately, got a job here in Bangalore. So that was in 2011. I moved to Bangalore, worked here for four and a half years in corporate, but during those four and a half years, I got to travel a lot to different countries, mostly in Europe.

So I used to go for assignments where I would. stay in Amsterdam for three months or Finland for three months, work there. And while I was there, I just found, striked good amount of work life balance because of how people used to work there. And I got access to some really good fitness options. So I got exposed to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu while I was And because I came from a sporting background, I just picked up the sport quite fast and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is quite skillful.

It's got a lot of grappling and you can't just loosen yourself up while you are grappling with somebody because the moment you do it, you're gone. You, you'll have to tap it out. So from a fitness standpoint, really good sport. So I started doing Jiu Jitsu. Then I got exposed to CrossFit while I was in one of those places.

And then I realized that, you know, versus going to a gym. Where there are machines and things like that, nothing against it. I, right now, you know, as of this morning, I lifted weights on, on the machine. That's really good. But then CrossFit was very differentiated for me at that point. It also allowed me to work out at a pace that I love to work out at, at that point, so had, I just started going deeper into the science of fitness because just from.

Coming from the point of view that this is something that I love to do a lot. So I did a bunch of courses. I started taking time off and, you know, go to Thailand for three weeks and just train, do Muay Thai and lift weights and nothing else. While I was doing all of that, I just thought that this is something that I love to do.

If and only if. I know that this is something where I can create a lot of impact because if people are healthy, if they are fit, they will be happier. There will be more productivity around and there will be better relationships around. So this using health and fitness as an, as an anchor can really help me do help me create the kind of impact that I want to create in this world.

So I thought that let me quit my full time job and become a full time fitness professional.

Ryan:One second. So, guy with MBA, traveling the world, building businesses, sales, marketing, desk job, helping companies grow their businesses, because you love fitness so much, you said, let me jump into this career.

Rishabh:Yes.

Purely because I could see myself creating the right kind of impact. What did

Ryan:your family say?

Rishabh:Yeah, they were very supportive. They

Ryan:were supportive? They

Rishabh:were supportive. Yeah. In fact I mean, I got a lot of help from my family when I was starting the first cult center.

Ryan:Okay.

Rishabh:I got a lot of help from my, from my family.

So

Ryan:they knew you were passionate about fitness, even in your younger days.

Rishabh:Yeah, a hundred percent. In fact, my mother was, she's been into fitness. I keep posting about it on my Instagram and she lifts heavy weights right now, but her fitness journey also goes way back. So we were very inspired by you know, what we'd seen at home because I felt so passionately about becoming a fitness professional.

There was a lot of support from the family. So been very fortunate from that point of view. So

Ryan:you decided to become a fitness trainer in which city and at what timeline?

Rishabh:So actually started to get into deeper into fitness around 2012, 2013, started doing courses, started, started teaching part time in different places not for money, just for experience.

I had a job and money was not the top of mind. The top of mind was learning and experience working with people in fitness. In that process, I also, you know, got a lot of mentorship from coaches. in different parts of the world. Some of them helped me set up the first cult center here. Their facilities became the inspiration for the first cult center that I had set up.

So the first center that I had put up in Sarjapur was a warehouse. And if you go to Thailand, you'll see a lot of warehouse gyms. So the inspiration was coming from different places where I'd where I trained. So 2015 is when I decided to quit full time and start the first cult center. May 2015 is when we had started it out.

Ryan:How did you find the first place? Because there are a lot of people out there who are into fitness and you know, they're like, what's his story? I know. How did you find your first warehouse? And did you have enough money for a deposit?

Rishabh:Didn't have enough money for for the investment that had to happen.

So the place we found was not a warehouse. It was an empty piece of land. We created that from. Scratch. We are still running that center. So

Ryan:I would say it is very much love. It's like your, your, your first baby.

Rishabh:Exactly. Correct. So the, how I found it was, I just get on a bike and just go around and see where there are To let boards and boards or, or anything that I can find.

I didn't want to get a broker because you would have to pay that much money and I didn't want to pay that kind of money at that time. So I just go on the bike and fortunately the security person in the building that I was staying new. Someone who owns a piece of land a little on the inside, typically, if you see gyms are on, you know, the main roads and also that there is visibility, but then rental, they said, I've always

Ryan:thought about that.

I don't think your gym needs to be on the main road in today's day and age, because you have a social media. And when you see one fit guy, he will tell 10 people where he goes to train. I agree with you. Yes. So, wow, wonderful. So you went on your bike and I'm seeing you driving your bike and you're going and okay, you find, you found this off the beat place and then what happened?

Rishabh:Then just negotiated with the landlord and said, we want to open a gym here. He was confused. What kind of a gym will you open? You know, here in this lane and it was just a

Ryan:plot of land.

Rishabh:It was an empty piece of piece of land. We cleared it off, did the foundation and we built that fabricated structure.

The landlord was like, fine. Do it. I don't really see this working out, but if you want to do it, do it. We got a pretty comparative rental because it was inside. The landlord wasn't planning to do much with that piece of land. So, the rentals were quite good. And that was, and you continue to

Ryan:be there today.

Rishabh:We, we still run, we still run that facility. We have many other centers now in and around that area. But we still run that facility. So I had a great rent advantage. I could, the money that I was saving in rent, I could use that money to get some coaches from other countries. So some of the best people that I had trained with for the first center, for the first few months, I got them from those places to, to Bangalore took up a flat on rent for all of them.

So they have a comfortable stay here. So there were people, for example, there were two coaches from Thailand, both of them could not speak Hindi or English. Oh, they could just speak Thai, but they were brilliant in what they did. So they would take their sessions in their language, but people here understood.

everything they said, because it was just coming from the heart. And there was people respected those coaches so much. People just listened to all their instructions patiently, and they were all getting better at, at the sport and at, at fitness. So that

Ryan:is, that is

Rishabh:how

Ryan:it all. So it goes to say that if your heart and mind is in fitness, no matter the type of fitness you will connect.

And I think this is an important point that you're making, which is that a lot of people enter into fitness with this sole weight loss goal in mind, which is in my opinion, Arriving from a place of negativity, you're unhappy with your body. Therefore, you might be unhappy with this fitness activity taking up.

But what you're telling me is when these coaches came in, and in spite of a language barrier, people took up the training and loved it, and they were able to progress forward. How did you go from one gym? A few formats. So you had Muay Thai. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm presuming Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was there.

Maybe some CrossFit was there. What else was there in the first format?

Rishabh:So when we started, it was

Ryan:Were there dumbbells in your gym?

Rishabh:There, there were dumbbells. There were, there were barbells and there was a boxing ring. There were no machines though. And that was, the people used to walk in. It was very different because of, it was very First of all, it's a warehouse and then it's an open space.

There are climbing ropes and there is a boxing ring. There are dumbbells, et cetera. There are no machines. Inquiries would come in and they used to ask, it's great, whatever you told me, I loved it. Your trainers are super fit. I can see people are enjoying here, but cardio Kro, t he , . That was the,

Ryan:well, that's hard.

Rishabh:We used, we were running boxing classes. It's like intense cardio for,

Ryan:it's, it's even worse. In fact if I can share with you and your viewers I think basically skiing, karate, and boxing have the highest calorie burn when I start planning a diet shot. Wow. So it's not treadmill running at the end of the day, you know, but, okay.

So you had this, and people were you getting scared key or was membership really good? So you were able to sustain. So we were

Rishabh:I mean, while people had these questions we were like, aap ek baar try kar lo. We're giving trial classes for free. There's no harm in doing it. Trial karke aap decide kar lena ki aapko if you want to go to the gym that is just down the lane here that has treadmills and all kind of machines you may need.

It's also cheaper than, you know, much cheaper than the kind of membership that we are charging for, but we are charging for coaching. People who train here have done their art for more than 20 years, at least there was a coach that we had 25 years of age, his total Muay Thai experience was 21 years. So he started training at the age of four.

He started fighting in Thailand at the age of six, fighting as in in the ring. So that's the kind of experience that people were coming with. That's the

Ryan:Muay Thai classes today?

Rishabh:We don't, we don't do Muay Thai right now. We've we over a period of time we zeroed down on. What, what works

Ryan:for the Indian audience, basically.

So what's working for India today? I understand you have hundreds of gyms. So your cult filled centers have evolved. Let's not call them gyms. The centers have evolved. Your fitness studios have evolved. So. What's, what's the formats that are available if somebody wants to do a training? So right now,

Rishabh:So we have two kind of, we also have gyms and it's a pretty large footprint for us right now.

Group class is what we started with. Within the group class centers, we have strength and conditioning and we have HRX workout, which we created with Hrithik Roshan. That is where people predominantly lift weights. And the footfall in those formats is quite, quite good. People are loving lifting weights.

There are so many people I know who are, who are starting their weight training journey with these formats. Then there is dance fitness again, another. Top favorite of our members. It's so much fun. You're, you know, there's music, our trainers are great. The atmosphere is amazing. So dance fitness is, is there.

It continues to be a great format for us. And then we have yoga because we also need to focus on recovery and improving their mobility, stability, balance, and everything. And we have boxing. So these are our all in all, these are the major formats that we've zeroed down on over last so many years.

Ryan:So when did you know. that you're going to go from a one cult fit center to hundreds. How did that journey happen? Was it family and friends that came in and gave you a lot of cash and then you started or your employees invested or there was that one person that you met along the way that just, you know, said, okay, let's do this.

Rishabh:So initially it was to set up the first center. It was a lot of help from the family. I requested my sister to invest in the first center. She agreed and she did that. I asked my wife to that. I'm going to live off her salary. She said, fine.

Ryan:I think all of us have done that at some point. We also as an entrepreneur, I remember the first year, my entire salary was paid by my wife when we started businesses.

Rishabh:Yeah. So that, and then I had some savings, so I thought, let me make sure that I have no, I'm going to And

Ryan:you had, you didn't have your baby by then, right? No. This was long time ago. I was

Rishabh:very recently married. Just one year back, I'd gotten married.

Ryan:What did your in laws think about you starting a gym?

He was an MBA guy working for a top shot company, consultancy company. And now suddenly he's opening up as a gym. You know, people think gym trainer, right? Yeah. So was there any resistance from your in laws side? No,

Rishabh:I think they were We were pretty chilled out about it. So they're like, fine. I mean, I've, I've never had that discussion with them, but I'm sure Asta had.

But I, I think they were like, whatever you guys are happy doing, do it. We've done our part. So, so,

Ryan:so, you know, you're taking your bike and searching in the bi lanes to find this gym. How did it happen that, you know, you got expanding?

Rishabh:Yeah. So, then very fortunately I met Mukesh Bansal.

Ryan:The Mukesh Bansal?

Rishabh:The Mukesh Bansal. I, he was one of our first few members. For

Ryan:those who don't know, Mukesh Bansal was the founder of Myntra and he sold that off to Flipkart. And then Rishabh happened to meet him. Yes. In the training.

Rishabh:In, yeah, he he happened to walk into the first cult center. So there's a lake, we opened opposite a lake.

And at that lake, a lot of people come there for running and Mukesh also used to come there regularly to run and walk and things. So he just saw this and saw, you know, our, it's looks, looks like that these people are doing MMA and boxing and they're doing something which is a different, very fit person.

Very, very driven from, you know, from a workout standpoint. So he just walked in I took his trial session and he bought the membership over a period of that journey. I just realized that he, he was very supportive. And I realized that if I'm just getting some time from him, that's a big deal because most early stage entrepreneurs don't get that kind of mentorship.

He was very supportive in terms of mentoring me. Just telling me the best practice in terms of customer experience, how to scale the business and everything else else around it. So I just learned a lot from him. And finally, you know, he decided to start a you know, healthcare venture called CureFit.

And I just wanted to work with him. So we, we got talking. I was anyway, you know, working with him from, from the, from a standpoint that I was reaching out to him for mentorship, for guidance whenever I need it. He was going to help me scale the business from the outside to a certain extent, but when CureFit happened we decided to.

This partnership to a much deeper level. And that is when cult got acquired by Curefit. And I joined the Curefit team, started working with with Mukesh. The thing was that Mukesh has built businesses in the past. He is a very seasoned entrepreneur and he knows how to scale businesses. That's not what I know.

If I had to scale it on my own, I can guarantee I wouldn't have been able to do it. But what I know is how to train people the right way. And I could see this as the lifetime opportunity for me to be able to train millions of people. I couldn't have done it on my own. So I thought this while I understand right now, I own this gym tomorrow.

I will not be the owner of this gym because I'm going to end up selling it. But that's fine. Eventually, if you create the right kind of impact, that's it. That's what we all need to do. So I made that call. And that is where the journey of actual cult that people see right now started.

Ryan:So that was one phase of your life where now you went, you met Mukesh and you've gotten this expansion going and you're part of the team that sits in the driver's seats and says, okay, we want to make an impact on people.

How has it had an impact on your personal life now that cult is almost visible in every neighborhood across the country? How is it that it's affected your personal life? You recently had a baby. Yes. About a year ago. So. Becoming a father. So one is you had the first baby, which was the gym. Now you have your own baby.

So what's life and how has it changed for you?

Rishabh:Yeah, I think first of all, cult has had a major impact on my life. My life can easily be divided between what was before cult and what is after cult. I, I know for a fact that I'm a changed person after that. I know for a fact that people who know me, they can just, you know, validate this statement that Rishabh is a changed person after cult happened.

And it's just the, because I was so passionate about this business, I just started spending a lot of time at the gym. I also started to, because I was around equipment and very fit people all the time. So I just started working a lot on myself. I also never had the opportunity to, because we employ like so many trainers across, you know, so many, so many of our centers and I never had the opportunity to inspire people.

The way I do right now. I was never in a role where people would look up to me. So it was very important for me to lead by example, to walk the talk. So I had to really, really work on myself, my own fitness, my health my knowledge, my, scale upgrade, et cetera. So I just really had to spend a lot of time doing all of those things, which meant I couldn't spend time meeting people and socializing and all of that.

But fine. That if that change had to happen for good, that had to happen. No regrets. On that Angad my son was born 18 months ago and that was another transformative experience. I just like my mindset just changed overnight. Everything changed for me. It happened in, in, in. multiple ways. He's just clarified the priorities for me again, because I want to make sure I understand that how important health is in anybody's life.

I very strongly feel health and exercise and fitness and nutrition should be the top of mind for pretty much everybody because that drives everything else in your life. So, I, and I really want Angad to be following a healthy path. I want him to probably pursue

Ryan:a sport. I'm just, I'm just visualizing that Angad is going to have a table tennis in your house and he's going to like my crazy dad's invited the whole neighborhood to play table tennis.

In fact

Rishabh:so, so he's never seen any kind of you know, the, the kind of content that keeps floating around on, on, on, on phones and iPads and all right now. So he's not seen any of that until now, but he sees his dad work out, right? He sees me work out. And the only thing that he sees he's so far seen on TV is So he thinks this thing is cricket.

You know, you turn it on and so he's now he's just 18 months old. He picks up a ball and he's trying to do some bowling actions. And after he bowls, he says, how's that? So, so I'm just saying that I just want to give him the best environment possible so that he can make the right decisions for himself.

So I've just started again. working a lot more on myself. I wake up at 4. 45. I finish my workout. So what time do you go to

Ryan:sleep?

Rishabh:I sleep by, so he sleeps quite early. He would like, we start winding down at 7 p. m. Which means our dinner is done by 6. 30, 6. 45. Wind down starts at 7, 8 p. m. is when he sleeps off between eight to nine is when I would just sleep off.

So when he sleeps off, I do my just next to him. I do my foam rolling and some amount of mobility. So you're

Ryan:around, but he's like, he's sensing the parent's presence and he's nodding off to sleep.

Rishabh:Yes. And then I would just get into bed put on my reading light, read a little bit and then fall asleep.

So it gets to 830, 845, but that's, that's the max wake up at 445. I don't eat anything in the morning before workout because mentally I want to work out. I want to move before I, Put something into your mentally. It just, it just works better for me. It just. It just connects better with my identity.

Ryan:For everyone out there, at some point of your life, you would have eaten before a workout as a trainer, because everyone says that, right? But now you've evolved, like you've evolved in your business, you've evolved with the sun, you've also evolved in your choices of eating, this evolving. How did you feel when you ate and worked out?

And how do you feel now without working out? Because I want to know your perspective. I don't know. I've been doing

Rishabh:fasted workouts for a while now, and I love my energy in the morning. When I eat food first thing in the morning, You feel sluggish? I feel a little because it probably takes time to digest and things like that.

So I'm just better off using what I ate in dinner as my pre workout first thing in the morning. But for sure, if I'm working out later in the day, I'm pretty sure I'll need to need to load some food, but I generally don't work out that late. I just work out.

Ryan:It's, it's, it's amazing that you're doing this because most of the clients that I've worked with, including you they all evolve and they always ask, what's the right type of workout and what's the right type of diet.

But if you dig a little bit deeper, you'll begin to figure out what works for your body. What is your bio individuality? You know, this idea that you work out so early in the morning to, to India, this is foreign, you know. Getting to bed at nine o'clock. I don't think anybody on the planet does that. Right.

And so like, how can this guy do it? And, but it's part of your life. Yes. You run a very successful fitness business, fitness gyms and studios open up at 5am in the morning. Obviously you want to lead by example. One of the leading by example is getting up that early in the morning. Do you take a nap in the middle of the day?

Rishabh:I'd love to take a nap, but I'm not able to do that because I have to be at work. through the day. So not able to take a nap, but weekends I do for sure. Again, Angad takes a nap in the afternoon. I just go and use that opportunity to, you know, snuggle up and take a nap with him 20, 30 minutes, but that's golden.

If I can do that every day, I'd love it.

Ryan:So now that you've identified your space with your family and your business, you know, your son is the center of your universe. We see a lot of unhealthy children. You mentioned strongly that I want to give him the best opportunity for fitness and that word came in very strongly.

A lot of our Indian children are not healthy. You're a father today. You run a very successful fitness business. What is your advice to India? from their children's upbringing, right from, you know, you said you put your son to sleep at eight o'clock. I used to put my son to sleep at eight o'clock when I tell my clients, put your children to bed early.

Oh no, 1030, 11 is a normal time. Can you give us a message as one of India's leading fitness gurus on how important it is to bring up our children correctly, how important it is for parents to lead by example?

Rishabh:That's the most important thing. If you think about it, they are the future of the country. They need to be fit.

We got them into this world. It is our responsibility to make sure that we give them the best environment possible. All we need to do is give them the environment. Everything else they will pick up and they will do what you do. So very important for us to walk the talk, lead by example. We can ask them to play a sport or to go for a run in the morning.

I mean, of course, when they grow up a little bit, we can ask them to do whatever we want to do. But if we don't do that ourselves, they will just not be interested in it. So we have to be out there doing those things ourselves. For example, I would be very happy while Angad has all the independence in the world to do whatever he wants, but I would be happy if he pursues a sport.

For that, what's important today? Today, it's important that his dad plays a sport. So I play basketball once a week. I go for swim a couple of times a week and I make sure that I compete at some level. Of course, I'm not competing at a very high level right now, but wherever there has to be some competition, some sport in my life.

So Angad can see that my dad's, you know, getting me a medal at home and he's so excited about it.

Ryan:And that is how that's, that's very inspirational because if your child, you know, constantly tell your child, you need to come first in class, you need to come first in running race, you need to be good in basketball.

But if as a parent, you're kind of leading by example. So that's so inspirational.

Rishabh:That's what's needed. I mean, we need to wake up early. If you want them to wake up early,

Ryan:we need to wake up early. So now that you've established everything, your business is set, you have a child, and he's the center of your universe.

In our country, everyone goes to IIT GE class. They study, study, study. How important is fitness? You're one of the health gurus of the country. So in your mind or in your thinking, when the members come to you, Gym membership, your fitness membership, , how do you inspire them as parents to work out? How do you inspire them to take care of the children?

What is the routine? Kar routine? Let let us know how you can inspire India.

Rishabh:I think this is one of the most important things that we can do as parents. K. Kids, our children, are the future of this country.

Ryan:True. They are going to, you know, define. But going to IIT class is also smart, but no one looks at fitness.

Ha ha, fine, I mean,

Rishabh:nothing against education and, and pedagogy and things like that. I feel that, in your children's lives, never let sport go. Let the sport be there. Because sport teaches you everything. How?

Ryan:If

Rishabh:you play team games,

Ryan:then

Rishabh:you understand how to work with people. How do you be really coordinated?

Like Dhoni.

Ryan:Master leader. He didn't go to IIT, but look at him.

Rishabh:Look at him. Like how he, you know, makes decisions on the fly.

Ryan:But if my child is not like Dhoni. Very shy, very thin, weak. Like even I was very weak. I was on the volleyball team. So, what should parents look for to advise their children in sports?

I think You're talking about teammanship in team sports, right?

Rishabh:The rest, the parents don't have to tell the child what to do. The parents need to do what I'm doing. So what I'm trying to say is, if I don't play a sport, I mean, I can ask Angad as much as I can to go and play basketball and to go for a run and things like that.

But he will only do it when he sees me doing it. Now, He has all the independence to be whatever he wants to be at a later point. He can choose his career. But I think that I will be happy if he pursues a sport. What is important for him is that I play a sport. For him, it is important that I win a medal from somewhere and bring it for him.

So that he thinks that he has won a medal for me. Papa has

Ryan:won a medal for

Rishabh:me. And how do you get a medal? You play sports.

Ryan:Purple. Papa, aap toh orange belt hai, main toh purple belt hoon. Competition ho gaya. I actually as a father felt I have to do better.

Rishabh:Exactly. At some point they'll start giving us competition like you said. But we have

Ryan:to be inspirational.

Rishabh:It starts here. Agar main chahata hoon ki mera beta healthy khaana khaaye.

He eats from my plate right now.

Ryan:Do you smoke?

Rishabh:No, I don't.

Ryan:Do you drink

Rishabh:very rarely,

Ryan:but not in front of your kid?

Rishabh:I mean, I do it in front of him because I think as long as I have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I would let him see it. The problem, however, gets to the point where the relationship with alcohol is bad.

My father was an alcoholic and everything that I saw with alcohol was like really bad. It was just a lot of stress. And which is why I feel I can't keep him away from things like that. I can't keep him away from having to see people drinking alcohol. But you're

Ryan:also disciplined. You're very disciplined in your diet.

Yes.

Rishabh:Okay. I mean, even if I drink, I can't drink more than a pint. I'm done. You're done.

Ryan:But is this true that gym trainers or fitness trainers or fitness gurus are so disciplined or visionary? how to build the body and all, that they know that the nusha of alcohol is not helping them in their workout the next day or for the next 10, 15 days.

So is this a common thing among all your trainers and all that, you know, alcohol consumption is kept to a low because it affects the body?

Rishabh:Yeah. Our trainers are you know, by design, very healthy and fit people. They also work very hard. They may it's necessary classes linear, but they are on their toes.

They also have to be mentally sharp because we are very focused on customer experience as a brand. They can't really, when people can't really in that job, people can't afford to be drinking alcohol regularly. Okay. At least, I mean, I know there is, I'm sure you will support this point. Alcohol, pehle. True.

And then next morning you wake up dehydrated you don't feel fresh, your workout is not that great, so it's, your entire next day is gone. And if your day is gone as a trainer, then that's just impacting so many other people.

Ryan:So you are saying that a trainer, a lot of people in our country, who don't have a job, are thinking that, I can become a trainer, because they are passionate about fitness.

What are the criteria that you as Rishabh look for when recruiting a trainer? I mean, what are the qualification tick marks required for, let's say, anybody listening in to become a good trainer? First thing I look for is purely passion for passion, passion, passion, calm, passion, fitness, skill, passion,

Rishabh:fitness skill, definitely.

That is definitely one checkpoint for me. I need people to walk the talk. But even before that, I use somebody who would like to teach. People. Are you somebody who gets excited? Not like that first

Ryan:gym trainer. Exactly,

Rishabh:exactly. That guy. Maybe he's really fit, well built, but he's

Ryan:not a teacher. They need to be fitness.

Do I have the ability to teach? Yes, exactly. To be a guru to somebody. People

Rishabh:generally get confused between being. Enthusiastic about fitness or being a customer of fitness and being a trainer, both are different things. You have to be enthusiastic about fitness, I agree, to be a trainer. But just because you are enthusiastic about fitness, fitness does not make you a trainer.

Toh woh temperament chahiye. Fitness also is a hard thing for people. When people come into the gym, I mean, we are asking them to move. We are challenging their movement pattern. We are asking them to, you know, lift heavy weights, etc. It just requires a lot of patience to, you know, teach people the right way of moving.

Ryan:Patience. Exactly. So teaching patience. Confidence. Confidence. Why confidence? Because I mean, when you

Rishabh:have to be, you have to have a very strong point of view about things that you are telling. People, there is also so much information all over the internet, , science, and all of those things are there. So as a trainer, you need to make sure that you know your thing and you're able to communicate really well in case of group classes.

If you're taking a class of 25, 30 people, and if you're not confident about what you're saying, why should people even, why will they even listen to you? I think they, they will not follow you, then they will not be able to follow you. So jam interviews trainers. So there was until many centers I used to interview.

Each and every trainer coming into cult. So we used to go to Guwahati, Calcutta, Haryana, all these different places to just find talent and interview them. So we used to do interviews in open fields. Recruitment drive, we told people that there is going to be a recruitment drive, it's a Bangalore based company, people are coming to do an interview.

So some great athletes and everybody would come. Wherever I saw that there is a guy who's struggling a little bit in explaining things to me, just because. They're hesitating. It's not that they don't know the concept. They're probably hesitating. Toh main kya karta tha ki, usko main bolta tha ki, ab tu ek kaam kar, go to that corner, aur mujhe wahan se squat karna sikha.

Aur, jitne bhi log yahan baithe hain, un sab ko sunayi dena chahiye, mujhe sunayi dena chahiye, main itna door baitha hu. The only thing I wanted to see, is he willing to put himself, or herself, outside their comfort zone. Even if you teach the

Ryan:wrong squat, I will teach you how

Rishabh:to do the right squat. I mean, they've never faced a crowd kind of people that would, you know, come to places like Cult.

They hesitate, they're hesitating in a one on one discussion. And I know this guy will probably not do a great job, you know, from that corner. He'll not be able to, he's just, you know, terribly challenged from, from standpoint that maybe he could get embarrassed is what I'm trying to say. But if the guy made the effort for me, that's a win for me.

That's a checkpoint. Now, let me go to the next stage. I will teach him how to teach a squat, no problem, but this guy has ticked the box for me.

Ryan:Do you think trainers shelf life is also limited because it's based on looks also because you have to look good and so maybe by the time they're 35, 40 their career starts dwindling because this is what I have heard, that I have to make money in 10 years, then there's an injury, It's

Rishabh:not like that.

I think that with experience you learn more and more. And if you're doing fitness, eating good food, and taking care of your lifestyle, then 35 40 is not, it's not old, it's actually very young. So that is an advantage of being in this profession, that at 40 years of age, even from how you move, Even from the point of view of having aches and pains or how you look, you will not be looking older.

So that is one benefit of doing fitness. But otherwise, as you get more experienced in the industry, you become more valuable. You can probably charge more for, for what you do. You don't have to take

Ryan:so many times. That's very true because I remember once I hired a Tai Chi instructor and it's a young boy, 22 23.

So he came in for the first workout and he asked me to do Push ups with my my elbows inverted without even doing a body assessment. And I was like, I'm 45 years of age, and you're asking, I can do a normal push up, I can do a fist push up, but I can't do this push up. Hey, nothing happens, you can do it.

So I think what you're saying about the wisdom, right? So as you get older, you have more experience, you tend to understand people more, and therefore you're able to guide better. So sometimes a more Educated trainer may not be more smarter than a more experienced trainer and I've seen both, you need both, you need a balance of both.

Yeah.

Rishabh:So even for like these 35, 40 year old folks who've been into the fitness industry for a long time, it is very important for them to keep upgrading their skill set. There is, I mean, science is evolving every day. You can't be talking things that were fresh 20 years back. You can't be talking those things today.

So it's very important to upgrade. So you have to study for that. And that's the reality of the fitness industry. So

Ryan:when I'm doing someone's nutrition counseling, I always say that, Bro, there's a lot of science. But what's the problem with the human race? It's the starter's problem. He comes to the gym, signs up.

So I think you don't, you really start implementing science after one or two years of sincere training. First, you get the basics right. Speaking about wisdom and experience. I've seen a lot of videos of your mom doing weight training. Weight training is so important for elderly people, especially ladies.

Because your mom, Really, she lifts good weights. How is it benefiting her? Why is Mr. Rishabh making his mama do weight training? What is the story behind it? What is the science behind it?

Rishabh:So, after the age of 30, all of us would typically start losing 3 8 percent of muscle mass per decade. Then, women especially, after they hit menopause, they lose muscle mass and bone mass really quick.

We all will lose bone mass as, as we age, but women after menopause, they will lose it really quick and which makes it makes them more susceptible to getting fractures and falls. So that's the problem. The problem actually is that it's not, not lifting, you know, losing bone mass is not good for the quality of your life.

We know that lifting weights can really slow that process down and help prevent that Loss of bone and loss of muscle, direct implication on how you move, how you feel you know, get, nobody likes to get fractures, right? So those kinds of things. And which is why I feel it's very important for pretty much everybody to lift weights and even more important for women.

And if you think about it in the early days of human evolution, it was women who kept us alive, right? All

Ryan:the lifting of the food preparation.

Rishabh:Exactly. They would do all of that work, which means they've been lifting weights since then. Not to mention there is childbirth and the fact that women, it's women who carry their children much more than men, even, you know, children, they want to be carried more by, by the mothers.

So they've again, Lifting weights is very natural to them. Lifting and carrying weights is, it's the most natural thing that a woman can do. Now, there will be people who will say, Gym jaoge toh body ban jayegi, muscles ban jayegi. Agar dumbbell uthaoge toh, dumbbell tumhari. And, and then they would say things like, it'll make you look manly, it'll, you know, all those kind of stupid things.

Because muscles, and I'm saying stupid because muscles don't really have a gender, right? Muscles are not reserved for any gender. In fact, muscles only have a functionality. They exist to. to make you move, to make you work, to keep you healthy. And which is why I really, it's very strong recommendation for all the women out there to prioritize weightlifting and they don't have to get intimidated by big machines or the big guys at the gym.

Like I said, some of the big guys were really helpful for me. So just walk in, ask for help and start that journey.

Ryan:So how often does a lady maybe plus 30 plus 40 plus 50 need to work out per week at least three times a week?

Rishabh:I think they should be lifting weights three to five times in a week. That's what my mother does also.

She goes with me five times, five times a week. Was

Ryan:she already working out before you started this cult fit journey? She was always a fit person,

Rishabh:conscious about fitness. So she, used to do aerobics and a lot of endurance training. When she got, she got married at an early age. And at my dad's house, they had this well.

So what she used to do was just pull out water from that well, about 40 buckets in a day. That's, that's like legitimate strength training, right? Most people I know right now won't train like that. She was also young and you know, her body was supporting that kind of activity. So she's been working out since then.

Of course, there was no trainer. There was no gym. Then she got a chance to work with an aerobics trainer. So she worked a lot on her endurance because she was very fit. When my cousin needed a kidney, she was able to. You know, donate one of our kidneys.

Ryan:So your mom does weight training after donating a kidney to one of your cousins?

It's

Rishabh:been 12 or 13 years since she donated one kidney and she's been lifting weights like in a gym. I said, pulling water out of the well and all is also weight training. She would have carried the three of us for me and, you know, my siblings for, for a long time. That's also weight training, but she's been lifting weights at the gym since cult started.

So since 2015, she's been regularly.

Ryan:So speaking of lifting weights and you're talking about moving, how important besides your mother, is it important for everybody in the family to move? 100

Rishabh:percent because when you see people working out is, I mean, there is something about fitness that spills over. So the bottom line is that if you are a fit person, if you're somebody who works out every day, I can guarantee you will be more productive at work.

I can guarantee you will have better relationships. You will be, you will of course be healthier because that's what exercise does to you, but you'll also be happier because you know, you have no aches and pains and you're able to do your own work. You are much better at the activities of daily living.

So there is a lot of happiness around you and what there's one more thing about, you know, doing fitness or, or doing things that are opposite is when you're with people. who are doing that particular thing, you are also more likely to do that particular thing. So if you become somebody who works out, people around you will be working out and then people around them will be working out and that just becomes a chain.

And as a nation, we become much fitter, much happier, much productive,

Ryan:much like going to the movies, you know, it becomes a culture. Hey, let's go for a movie. Hey, let's start moving. You know, hey, let's go for a walk together. Hey, let's go cycling together. So exactly. So wise points. Now, speaking of people moving.

Today we are all wearing exercise wearables, wearing trackers. So everything is getting tech tech savvy and everything. You know, you're in that cutting edge world of expanding your gyms, the exercise industry, the fitness industry. You have Hrithik Roshan on your team advising fitness programs and attracting people to work out.

As you explore, Are there any secrets in technology that are coming out? Or do you see any promising trends as a guru in fitness that you're like, I think this is going to become something good for us to have as part of our gyms or as part of our exercise training regimes?

Rishabh:I think as the awareness about fitness continues to increase, people have started to realize that Working out at a pace which allows them to work out nicely versus just going crazy in the workout is something that would keep them consistent in the workout for a long, for a long run.

And people are also understanding the importance of consistency and compounding over, over many years. So I really see a moderate intensity. workouts from a weight training standpoint where people are working out, taking some rest and then working out again, but making sure that they're recovering enough between sets to get a great workout by the end of it.

So I see that happening. I also see a lot of focus on joint health. I talk to a lot of people because I I really want to be aware about, you know, what's the problem that I should be solving today versus five years down the line. And I just keep talking to people. And I've realized that most of them that I speak to have started talking about joint health, have started talking about the fact that, you know, I want to be fit when I'm 60 years old, I've seen my, well, yeah, only yesterday someone, a woman told me that I'm very inspired by my grandmother.

My grandmother at the age of 90 does all her work. on her own. I want to be like her. I don't know if I'm going to live until 90, by the way, but even if I live till whatever, 60, 65, 70, I want to be like her. And I know that lifting weights, doing cardio is going to give me the energy to be like her. So I, I see people focusing a lot on longevity.

I see people focusing a lot on health span and those things look like the upcoming trends to me from a technology standpoint, of course, there are these trackers, which can track your sleep, trackers, which can track the quality of your workout. And all those things, while it's not necessity, I feel because eventually if you wake up and feel fresh, you know that your sleep was great.

Right. If you, if you feel like, you know, you can, you know, jump out of your bed, get a great workout, then you don't need a tracker to to tell you.

Ryan:That's so true. Actually, you know, I'm, I mean, many a times, if I know I get that eight hours of sleep, the whole of next day is just like so calm. Yeah. And so happy.

Yeah. You feel like doing things, right? So, yeah. So feeling good in the morning, getting up with or without technology. Many people will be watching this podcast and be saying, should I do fitness? Should I not do fitness? What is the maximum goal when people come to CultFit? Like statistically, the beginners come in, what is their predominant goal?

Rishabh:Yeah. So I've seen At a different point in time in life, people have different goals. Now it could be like, there could be a 40 year old who wants to look absolutely shredded. At an individual level or anecdotal references, we will have, you know, all kinds of scenarios. But on an average, what I've found after talking to people is, when people are young, like in, you know, 18, 20, 24, 25 years old, post time, majority of logo goal hair.

Ryan:So what are the looks? I want

Rishabh:to lose body fat. I want to look a certain way. I want to make a good figure. I want to make a body. And that's the reason I'm going to the gym. And I want it fast. This is the goal at that time. But as they keep maturing in that journey, and it goes through a lot of ups and downs.

People go to the gym. After that, they drop off. After that, they feel like going to the gym again. We've all had gone through that. But as they mature in age, the goals start to look like, fine, looking good is going to be a byproduct of lifting weights and doing cardio and eating healthy. What I really care about is Can I, can I move well?

I feel very stiff in the morning. What I really care about is Do I wake up without aches and pains? And that's what people are telling me. People are, and the example that I gave you, right? This woman who wants to be like a grandmother doing, being very independent with her own work and everything else, the lower goals from just looking good, it changes to feeling better.

It changes to having no living a pain free life. It changes to being very healthy overall. Joe health element, Pelle, Logan, about Mila, Osage, but look, botany, Garten, who bought me, okay, the focus comes from just looking good more towards a wellness spectrum. So that is how I see the goals evolving, but I'm pretty sure all of us go through, you know, that that journey.

Most of us go through that journey.

Ryan:Yeah. I remember when I was young, I, my first time I hit the gym was in 10th standard. And I remember I went with one of my friends and the coach said the exact same thing that you got because I was a skinny kid, right? And, and the coach says to my friend, yeah, you can do the weight training, but you're not meant for weight training.

And that really hurt, you know, and I used to be on the college powerlifting team. Okay. Right. And so as a skinny individual, I could lift really heavy and we were the gold medal winning team. And so the younger years was like muscle banana, body banana, protein powder, kika, sub cheese, kika, whatever possible.

I tried and I realized that somehow maybe my, the apple, you know, doesn't fall far away from the tree. The genetics, the mommy, Papa . So they were skinny. But now at the age of 48 I keep telling my trainer. I should be able to touch my toes. You know, I should be able to tie my shoelaces you know, bend down.

I should be able to do a squat and sit down in a squat for two and a half minutes. You know, I should be able to do my Surya Namaskars. I should be able to lift my son who's 30 kgs, right? So small, small things like that are more valuable today than body bananika. But you, you pointed on a point, which was how important that people want to.

burn fat and What are Rishabh Telang's five tips over the years that you have learned for fat loss?

Rishabh:Yeah, I will I keep getting this question. So pretty much top of mind. I'll just sum it up first. Nutrition is the most important thing when you want to lose fat. First thing is eat less food. And we live in a society where Second, eat sufficient amount of protein.

I again spoke to Quite a few people. And I told them, I'd like to help you with your goals. Just tell me what your day looks like. What do you eat through the day? What, what, you know, what are your goals? While people felt that they're eating a lot of protein, they didn't have protein in their diet.

So I feel that there is a change that we can make, and I'm not saying go overboard, but they should eat sufficient amount of protein. Third, lift weights. Three to five times a week, go to the gym and challenge yourself. You've got to work hard. at the gym. Fourth, sleep. Actually, I'll bring sleep on the top.

Sleep is everything. Sleep, bad sleep is going to disrupt your eating behavior. Bad sleep is going to disturb your workout quality. So agar sleep kharab hai, and I've been through a very rough phase in my own life with respect to sleep, but agar sleep kharab hai, then you have no business worrying about fat loss.

Fix that first, because otherwise nothing is happening. And finally, you've got to make sure that you're getting off the couch. So. move a lot through the day. When I was with you on my nutrition plan. I remember you told me to walk.

Ryan:Yeah, because whilst you looked very fit, you had a little bit of a higher visceral fat and that could be your genetic, you know, as a Marwadi you get that genetic.

programming into you where fat deposition is higher. You don't see it because you're pretty flat, but when the weighing scale went internal, and so we realized that walking was the only thing that would help you out.

Rishabh:No, I, and I was honestly, you changed a lot in my eating pattern. I've learned so much just being on a plan with you.

And I learned so much about myself, like the kind of food that just does not agree. With my gut, the, the kind of food that probably disturbs my sleep. So a lot of learning happened in that process. So while I came to you I'm going off topic, but yeah, yeah. Since we've got gotten it while I came to you with the goal of, I don't know if you remember now, but my goal was like, do better at sports, improve exercise performance, build a lot of muscle mass, shred body fat.

And those things happened and I, if I remember it right, I dropped four to 5% body fat in the first month, in the first four weeks of being on a plan with you. All of that happened. So when I came to you, I used to get a little before that for a few years, I used to keep getting a sore throat very often, pretty much twice a month or something like that.

And I went to doctors, they gave me anti acidity pills and Some other medication and someone told me that you may have gerd, we may have to operate it, and things like that. So in my mind I thought maybe I'll have to get it operated. Maybe I have some something going on, which I don't know about. But when I came to you with a different goal, you fixed my food, all of that goals I achieved.

But what I achieved was I like 4 1, 1 and a half, two years after that and get a sore throat. And I realized that it was probably because of the acidity that was. happening and with good food, it just, you know, took care of the acidity and the throat was fine. So

Ryan:the secret pill in all of that is just a simple concept.

Whilst you can have a fitness diet with the right amount of carbs and protein and fat, most people don't do a little bit of a deep dive. into what fat, what protein, what carb. Correct. And the quantity and the timing. Exactly. So once you start getting this aligned, which is what you did, you came and you paid for a six month plan and then you started aligning it and then you started preparing it.

So you already had the knowledge, but probably the execution and the small filtrations of the good, the bad and the ugly did not happen. And I think that's the basic part that most people in the fitness journey should subscribe to. Like you said, no sleep is very important. And one part to fix your sleep is not eating the wrong foods.

After five o'clock in the evening you can never outrun a bad diet and you can't. You know, out eat bad sleep. Exactly. So these are a lot of powerful things that you have done and it changed your health. So I think you evolved to a level where you are now. I'm athletic. I'm pushing my body at the highest level of training.

Let's go back to the ABC of nutrition, which I think most people are trying to wing it. And sometimes they're listening to a huge plethora of advices. Yeah,

Rishabh:that's a problem. Just taking nutrition advice off the internet is,

Ryan:you know, your mom and my mom are both nutritionists at the end of the day. So, you know, everyone's a subject matter expert on that.

And so speaking about subject matter experts, we'll come back to your profession, which is fitness. What are the common mistakes that people make in fitness when they start out?

Rishabh:I think the biggest mistake that people make is going too far too soon. So people, when they start fitness journey, they would probably buy an annual membership.

Like I said, they wanna also achieve that goal fast exercise

support, and then they would,

they will be out of the fitness journey is over for most people, so going too far too soon is a big problem. Second, people just want to. To, and it is maybe because they see things on Instagram and they see things on YouTube, people deadlifting heavyweight. The thing is that they just want to start loading heavyweight and going ahead of the curve.

Well, the reality is if they train slow one step at a time, they will get to that weight. They will get to that fitness level, but they want to do it in that, in that week.

Ryan:Thoran chahiye. Immediate response. Immediate chahiye. Fast food, fast body, fast workout. Yeah,

Rishabh:exactly. And then comparing yourself with, with other people, either at the gym or on social media, that's a big

Ryan:problem.

Even I have this problem and I've never been able to take it out of me. It's like, I always compare myself to a younger kid or a guy's got like beefy muscle. Like, why can't I have his muscles? Why can't I lift like him? So. You're saying don't compare yourself to somebody else. Yeah. I'm just saying, just look at

Rishabh:yourself,

Ryan:have your, How do I do that?

Like, do I keep like a card? Okay. Last month I deadlifted 40 kgs. Then next month I do 45 kgs.

Rishabh:So that is one way of doing it, that you keep a workout log and you know that your overall workout volume is going up, which means the amount of work that you've done. has significantly increased over last month and it is going up month over month.

So you're doing great. If you're doing that, you will obviously build muscle. So you can do your body composition check at a four week interval or eight weeks interval, whatever works for you, but do that body composition check, take your progress pictures because that is the truth. If you see yourself in a mirror or on a camera, and if you think, yeah, I've put on some muscle, that's it.

It doesn't matter how other person looks like, because it is you versus you, you just have to make sure that you are getting better every day.

Ryan:I love that statement. You versus you. That's brilliant. So if somebody wanted to copy you, you know, starting in the gym, let's say a 14 year old is listening in or 18 year is listening in and they're starting from zero and they want to become like you.

quickly, what would they need to do?

Rishabh:Just focus on the fundamentals.

Ryan:What are they?

Rishabh:Things like your mobility, stability. Like I, there's one phrase that I really love. We do mobility first because we didn't show up in the crib doing side planks. You got my point? Yeah. And as children, mobility comes very naturally to us, right?

All those children, they can put their toe in the mouth and all those things they can do, right? So mobility is not a problem. It's only over the years it becomes a problem for us. So make sure that you restore that mobility. You make sure that you get that mind muscle connection in place. You teach your muscles how to fire.

And that happens through movement pattern training. So there are basic movement patterns, right? You and I are sitting on this chair and we'll get, get up from it. What is that? That's a squat. We just need to make sure that we are able to do those movements properly. With the right muscles firing at the right time and then eventually we are able to do that with load on it and that Load will keep going up.

That's the process or Like squat is one pattern hinge is another pattern push pull Carry all those things, you know, we need to just teach our body how to do those movement patterns properly So my advice would be to just take it slow focus on the fundamentals and don't look at exercise as just exercise While you exercise, also focus on eating well.

While you focus on exercise and eating well focus on following a good sleep hygiene, also focus on recovery. Very important part. What's your

Ryan:recovery routine.

Rishabh:I kind of spend a lot of time on my recovery. And especially after having a child. I just changed my workout and I do workout a lot. You would've seen on my Instagram, right?

I'm kind of working out all the time. And which means that I'm spending an equal amount of time doing things that are not there on my social media. So, when it comes to recovery, the first thing is best recovery tool is your sleep. I mean, no matter how much people tell you, you know, do that protocol, do this protocol.

If you're not sleeping well, nothing is going to work. So you

Ryan:figured it out, you figured that out. And that's why by eight o'clock to nine o'clock, you're in that zone to get ready to sleep. Yeah.

Rishabh:I mean, I'm in the zone at seven. Like, I would keep screens away and

Ryan:so, so, so Rishabh at a party is not much fun, right?

After 8 o'clock.

Rishabh:You won't see me at parties.

Ryan:I remember for New Year's my entire family was over and I'm constantly looking at the clock for it to become 12 o'clock and the moment it hit 12 o'clock at 1215, I was telling my whole family, okay, come on, everyone get out, go home. I need to go to sleep, you know, because we were awake by seven o'clock in the morning.

So I get this thing that you, you sleep is a good recovery. Sleep is number one. Anything else in recovery?

Rishabh:Yeah, of course. So after sleep, it is what you eat. If you're eating a good, well balanced diet, that is going to help you recover faster for your future workout sessions. And third, easy and light movements like things like foam rolling, soft tissue work, doing some good amount of mobility work doing deep stretches.

just doing low intensity cycling, all these things, doing a yoga class, for example, these things really help in recovering faster. Once all these things are in place. Consider doing an ice bath and you know, all those protocols that are generally spoken about, they will help for sure, but that's probably the top of the pyramid.

The bottom of the pyramid is, you know, these three things that I spoke about.

Ryan:Yeah. You know, you did say somewhere that you had sleep problems and now you've overcome them. What do you did, what did you do specifically if you can remember to transition from that stressful part, lesser sleep, hectic lifestyle into a more healthier lifestyle, a deeper sleep?

Rishabh:Yeah. So, I had a very rough phase with sleep for like, I wouldn't sleep for weeks together. and it was tough. It was hard. I also in that, but I kept hammering myself at the gym. So in that process I ended up hurting my spine. So I live with a structural spine injury and I live with a structural spine injury.

That's a part of my life, but I feel it happened because of bad sleep and lack of recovery. Therefore, how I fixed my sleep is I just realized that it's behaviors first, that you fix your behaviors and your sleep automatically starts to get better. And sleep is not just the nighttime. Your preparation to sleep actually starts in the morning.

So I started getting in, I started a habit of meditation at that time. And I started with very, it's very hard for me to meditate, to sit that still for like 10 minutes or 20 minutes, but I pushed myself into it. And I used to, the first thing in the morning I used to meditate under the sun. So that exposure to sunlight, which I still do right now, that's mandatory for me and my son.

We have to get that morning sun exposure and evening sun exposure also for him. So I started meditating under the sun. I think that played a really important role in just. Making sure that my day goes very nicely without much stress and everything. I also, second thing I did was an early dinner. So I just finish my dinner off at I mean, right now I'm doing at 6, 6 30, but at that time, early dinner was like 8 PM for me.

So I started doing dinner slightly early compared to 10, 30, 11 habit of feeding very late at that time. That really helped. And just overall working out. in the first part of the day was something that worked well for me. I also limited caffeine intake significantly. I love my coffee. I drink a lot of coffee right now, but after 12.

There's a full stop after 12. No coffee. I

Ryan:remember when we were working together, two things that I knew that were going to affect your sleep was caffeine and the branchine amino acids. And a lot of workout executives will take pre workout caffeine shot at seven o'clock, eight o'clock in the evening, that you get a sleep, but you get a very light sleep.

So when you get up in the morning, you don't feel fully rested because you didn't hit, you didn't hit the deep sine wave sleep. And I've had people who are even sensitive to BCA from whey protein. And so the moment we give the BCA or the whey protein in the morning, Or we change the workout to the morning.

They just started getting deeper sleep. So these, these are small things that, you know, will start popping out with people trying to do fitness. And in the fitness world, you know, you I see a lot of your Instagram videos and stuff like that. What are your favorite movements in the world of fitness?

If you had to choose, like, you know, whenever people come for my counseling, I say, choose only five foods you can eat on the planet. So, Rishabh, if you had to choose only five. movements for fitness. What would those movements? First

Rishabh:is going to be weighted walks.

Ryan:Weighted walks.

Rishabh:Yes. I love weighted walks.

And that's, again, I think that should be the, that can be the starting point. Is it like

Ryan:carrying two shopping bags and walking? No, it's putting

Rishabh:the, it could be that. Yeah. But it's also just you put on a weighted vest and walk. Okay. It's a great way of just getting strength training into your life without having to worry about, you know, form and technique and all of this.

So

Ryan:all the people who go walking in India, can they just put a knapsack on their, on their back and go walking with that? And say about five kg plate in that or ten? Even

Rishabh:lighter. I mean, they can start with just two kgs. They don't have to go five and do their normal walk and just walk. So that's weighted walk.

That's

Ryan:your favorite number one.

Rishabh:That is my favorite number. If there's one exercise I could do, I would choose that because that helps you build muscle. That is low impact. So it's not going to hurt your joints as you get older and it is going to help you build bone mass. Your cult

Ryan:sales manager is not going to like this because everyone's going to go walking and nobody's going to turn up in culvert.

But what's your number two? The thing is, if more people are doing fitness, They'll still turn up in a fitness studio. It's better for any fitness

Rishabh:business in the world.

Ryan:That's true. Because the same thing happened for nutrition. The more people that started running and doing fitness, the more started taking care of their breakfast in the morning.

They turned up for diet plans. What's number two? Number two is

Rishabh:Get to the gym, do squats, do deadlifts do bench presses, do pull ups and do push ups. So these kinds of things I would really include in my, in my training plan. I mean, there's this list can be really long since you asked for five minutes.

So,

Ryan:so, so basically you're looking at, you're just looking at people stimulating their muscle and that's what you're looking for at the end of the day. And I think for me as a nutritionist the movements that you've just given me are predominantly those wherein you say that muscle is the only age reversible organ.

Yes. And because you've asked people to do this movement, they're going to stimulate the muscle, which is not going to grow older, you know, cool. We've had a nice session today, but I can't let you go before I ask you some quick rapid fire questions. What are the top mobility exercises that one can do if they can't get to the gym?

Rishabh:Okay. Surya Namaskar. It just gets the entire body moving, finish that off a few rounds, and then don't just stop at mobility, get pushups done, get some glute bridges done, get bodyweight squats done, and get some burpees done.

Ryan:Awesome. What's your favorite post workout meal or meals?

Rishabh:I love my post workout meals.

So I do basic simple oats cooked in water or milk. I'd have egg whites along with it. And I love a whey protein smoothie or a plant protein smoothie, whatever. So the smoothie would, smoothie would be in with a banana, some peanut butter, and I love my peanut butter in either oats, milk or water with one or two dates.

Ryan:Awesome. Five habits that have helped you grow as an individual.

Rishabh:Waking up early in the morning and working out, first thing. Reading at least 10 pages a day. The mandatory sun exposure that I do with my son. Spending at least doing at least one quality interaction with a family member or somebody I, I love and following a timely sleep hygiene.

Ryan:You know, you've been training for many years. Are supplements crucial to getting that killer body or having a great fitness life?

Rishabh:I don't think so. I think the most important thing would be the quantity of food. And then if you have enough variety within your food, as in you're eating enough sufficient vegetables, You're eating sufficient protein.

You're also including some good carbohydrates, etc. And after that, when you've been into fitness for a long time is when having supplements will probably give you an edge.

Ryan:Three advices, you would get into a time capsule and travel back in time and tell your younger self.

Rishabh:Never let your sleep go off for a toss.

Just make sure that sleep is. Topmost priority for you. Second is hang out more with people who support your goals and are able to push you to be better every day. And third is just travel a lot because I've learned a lot. Whenever I traveled, how much ever I traveled, I think. It could have been a lot more than that.

Ryan:So at Kalfit, you have Hrithik Roshan as a brand ambassador, and you spent many, many hours designing workout programs with him. And he's one of the fittest Indian men that we have seen. What is it like to see Hrithik Roshan work with him and even work out with him?

Rishabh:Yeah. So I've, I've never worked out with him.

I have worked with him, with him on creating workout programs. I would say he is humble. He's intelligent. He knows what he's talking about. And he's deeply passionate about making fitness accessible to this world.

Ryan:Before you go, I know you've searched on that small bike through the lanes and I can always visualize you like, like nice dark glasses, searching for a place.

How did you find Hrithik

Rishabh:Roshan? Okay. So I've been a huge fan of Hrithik Roshan. And so this is much before cult. Okay. And after one of his transformations, I actually tweeted to him, Hey Hrithik, what does your nutrition protocol look like. And I had no idea that at some point I will

Ryan:be working with him.

Rishabh:We'll get to work with him very closely. I will get to create a workout program with him. HRX workout. That is one of the top favorites of people at Cult. While I worked with him things that stood out for me. One was he's very humble. Second, he's very intelligent. He knows what he's talking about. And he's really passionate about creating an impact in the world of fitness.

Why? So what I'm trying to say is that he could have delegated a lot of things on the workout, but he made sure that he spends time with me giving me the insights that he has learned over so many years working out and learning about his body. And that was my experience with Hrithik Roshu.

Ryan:Awesome. So we have gone riding the bike lanes to find your first gym, to waking up and cuddling your son and getting morning sunshine, to how Hrithik Roshan works very closely with you at CalFIT on the HRX program. It's been a pleasure today. To meet with you, Rishabh, you've been one of my clients and then that too, one of my most disciplined clients in your diet and your nutrition.

And hearing today that you go to sleep by nine o'clock in the evening is testament for everyone out there that, you know, if you want a fit body. If you want to be successful in life, sleep does matter, diet does matter, and above all, you need to work out with a smile. So thank you for joining me today.

Rishabh:Thank you, Ryan, for having me. Absolutely enjoyed the

Ryan:conversation. Awesome. Thank you for watching this far. It's been an amazing episode and I'm so grateful to have you till the end. If you like this video, please share this video with your loved ones. Better still, gift me a subscribe, a like, or even a comment, and we'll come back to you.

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