Ogie Shaw: Winning the Mental Battle of Physical Fitness and Obesity

Physical Fitness Does Not Have to Be Complicated

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Physical Fitness does not have to be complicated. There are psychological aspects to staying motivated for fitness and then a few rules to adopt for success. The speaker presents his ideas on motivation, measuring your fitness level, and exercises to become fit.

Ogie Shaw is a native of Raleigh, NC. He is a veteran of the US Army and served in Vietnam. Afterwards, he graduated from UNC at Chapel Hill earning degrees in both Speech and Physical Education, later earning certification as a Health Promotion Director from the Cooper Institute® in Dallas, Texas. He served with the Portland Police Bureau and later joined a national network of medical and fitness leaders dedicated to teaching the health benefits of daily exercise. He has been an author, counselor, seminary graduate and pastor to Portland-area retirement homes. He has trained the Portland Trailblazers and Seattle Seahawks, and he has been asked to write a book on his work providing fitness training for paraplegics.

Ogie has had a passion for fitness, health, business, and music all of his life. His career goal is to establish a model for a fitness lifestyle for Americans that is sufficient to impact physical and mental health. He has given over 5000 speeches on fitness motivation.

History reveals that poorly prepared fitness and medical leaders have been placed into power positions influencing our attitudes about exercise. This has resulted in stifling of preventive health care and a fitness movement that has been suppressed except commercially. We’re spending money but not much is happening.

Childhood Obesity is epidemic. “Adult on-set” diabetes is being found in kids as young as four years of age. At least a dozen countries have citizens that live longer than we do in spite of the fact that we spend more money on health care than anyone in the world.

From the question and answer sessions at the end of the thousands of fitness lectures that I have provided all over the country over the past 31 years I have learned what Americans think about fitness:

• We are confused about fitness and nutrition. Experts disagree constantly. The media makes a living by entertaining us with the controversy and disagreements in fitness and nutrition. Which expert do you believe?
• We don’t have time. This is the number one fitness objection in the country yet fitness leaders have been trained to ignore it. Time is a legitimate objection and must be resolved.
• We don’t know how to stay motivated to exercise. “Make exercise fun!,” has been the main solution promoted by mainstream fitness. So now 70 percent of our heart attacks are being experienced by unfit Americans engaging in sporadic weekend bouts of “fun” exercise.

A recent report to the Oregon Health Policy Commission on “Promoting Physical Activity and Healthy Eating among Oregon’s Children,” concluded, “Children’s behaviors are substantially affected by the influential adults in their lives-parents, grandparents, and teachers. Efforts to address childhood obesity in Oregon will not be successful unless they also include interventions that influence the healthy eating and physical activity behaviors of adults as well as children.”

At Ogie Shaw Fitness-Community Fitness Leaders we are dedicated to “Improving The Effectiveness of Exercise Programs“ by providing the following solutions:

• Confusion – Educational fitness lectures and seminars. They may last from 30 minutes to a full day. They clear the air regarding misconceptions and destroy many popular fitness myths. I believe the worst thing a speaker can be is boring so my talks are entertaining as well as informative.
• Time – I demonstrate, market, and instruct Isokinetic/Rope Friction Exercise using the Isorobic Exerciser. I teach workouts that can be performed in 5-20minutes a day. These exercises are so safe yet so effective that I have instructed everything from the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL to paraplegics at the Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon.
• Motivation – “People don’t do what you expect. They do what you inspect!” The surest way to Get and stay motivated to exercise is through weekly fitness testing. So I provide a number of fitness testing services including the exciting new On-Line Fitness Testing Service.

History

Ogie Shaw Fitness is a spin-off from American Physical Fitness and Fitness Motivation Institute of America. These are the organizations made up of the individuals responsible for the development, research and marketing of the isokinetic-rope friction exercise program used in the Apollo 11 moon landing and two other space flights. This exercise program used an accommodating exercise device to condense exercise time from 30-40 minutes to 10-20 minutes. The exercise device we now use for this program is called the Isorobic Exerciser.

I was recruited to become a part of the national network of medical and fitness professionals who were trained to be the exclusive marketing agents and instructors for this exercise program. In the early 1980’s there was a national reorganization that allowed me to work under my own company name and do more research in finding solutions to the problem of motivation to exercise.

I created Community Fitness Leaders training as a way to share my findings with other medical and fitness leaders who shared my commitment to fitness. I continue to speak nationally and meet weekly with clients for personal fitness testing and counseling. Because of the exciting products and services that I continue to develop for fitness motivation I am more optimistic than ever about America’s fitness future. Will you help me by first getting fit, then  participating in my weekly on-line fitness testing program? This will help establish a national fitness standard that all fitness participants can shoot for. Then all fitness leaders can more effectively design exercise programs.