Episode 2 Transcript

Kiki: “Welcome to All The Little Things, the podcast where we explore the small habits that create big results. Today, we're diving into the power of movement. How small, intentional adjustments to your daily routine can make a huge difference in your overall well-being. Whether it's incorporating a short walk, stretches between tasks, or finding creative ways to stay active throughout the day, even the smallest movements can lead to long-term health benefits. It's not about overhauling your lifestyle overnight. It's about making sustainable, simple choices that add up over time.” 

 

Brooke: “Our guest today is Will Sullivan, OCC at Director of Strength and Conditioning at High Point University. With years of experience helping athletes enhance their performance and build lasting health, Will understands the power of movement at every level. But here's the thing, fitness isn't just for athletes, movement is for everyone. Today we'll uncover simple, effective ways to integrate movement into daily life, proving that you don't need a gym membership to feel stronger, healthier, and more energized.” 

 

Trae: “Well, we're excited to have you here, brother. Your work with athletes goes beyond just building strength. It's about long-term health, resilience, and performance. But before we dive into all that, let's take a step back. What initially sparked your passion for strength and conditioning, and how did that journey lead to where you are today?” 

 

Will: “All right. I appreciate you all having me. So it actually started out completely different than most people would think. Because when I got out of high school, instead of going to college because my mom was sick, I decided to be a chef. And not like a nice, I was like, oh, sorry, by the way. Like not like a real nice one, right? So I did that for a while. And then I saw a picture of me. I was 21, and I looked disgusting. And I stepped on a scale and I was 297. And I was like, nope, I'm not doing that anymore. I didn't really know what to do about trying to lose weight. So I kept fluctuating when I did. So I decided to go to school for exercise science. And then from there is how I ended up getting into strength and conditioning.” “Because when you get done with your last 500 level classes or whatever, 400, whatever it is, you got to do an internship. And then so the internship turned into I had an exercise, a physiology lab professor, and he was the assistant string coach at UNCG. So I figured, why not? And then from there, it just kind of turned into I like to train. And then being with athletes is like, when you personal train is a little different, but being with athletes, you actually get to help people grow. And growing up, I didn't really have a male father figure at all. So I figured, okay, well, maybe I could help out other individuals that were like me growing up. That's kind of the beginning of it. And then from there, it just took off. And I was moving around all over the place for different jobs. And parts of time when you're like, damn, should I really keep doing this? I'm not making any money.”  “I'm living with like six other people in Houston, Texas. Right. Or wherever else. That was basically the beginning of it. It had nothing even to do with me wanting to work with athletes. That's sick.  

 

Trae: So you got super passionate about your own thing, and it just so happened that that turned into your career. That's like the coolest thing that you could ever do.  

 

Will: Yes, sir. It's how, yeah. Some things, I guess, are just meant to happen. That was one of those things.” 

 

Trae: “100%, man. That's awesome. So how many schools have you worked at?” 

 

Will: “Let's see, UNCG twice, but UNCG, Houston, South Dakota, La Tech, I guess High Point twice as well. So five. 

 

Trae: And how many different sports have you worked with within those schools? 

 

Will: It's about every sport you can think of. 

 

Trae: Really? 

 

Kiki: Which one's the best? 

 

Will: The best.” “I guess that would, that's subjective. Depending on where you're looking at it from. Personally, I think when I worked with bowling, it was really cool because I didn't even know that was a collegiate sport. 

 

Trae: I didn't even think that was a collegiate sport either. Yeah. It was fun though? 

 

Will: Yeah. I had no idea. That was, and it was women's bowling at La Tech. And surprisingly, those ladies always wanted to lift, and they had to lift at 6 a.m. And they had a good attitude about it, huh?They did. Now, a couple of them, a couple of them that weren't big fans of the 6 a.m., but they still, they actually loved to train, and that was really surprising. And that was probably my favorite one because I just didn't even think that, you know, I didn't even know bowling was a, I knew it was a sport, but I didn't know we had it on a collegiate level.” “So that's a, yeah, that's why I bring that one up, because it's surprising, because most people wouldn't even think of that. 

 

Trae: Right. So this is going to be a biased question. Hopefully, you answer it right, but what's your favorite school you've worked at?  

 

Will: Of course, it's High Point University. Hey, how about, actually, it's, let's see, I've been working with men's or I guess, men's and women's basketball for 12 years now. It's the first time I've ever been to March of Menace. I appreciate the Detroit Middle.  

 

Trae: How sick was that? So for the listeners out there, if you guys don't know, High Point men's basketball and High Point women's basketball, both on Sunday, punched their ticket into March Madness. So it has been an absolute joy to see not only all the student athletes and the coaches and the faculty, but also just all the fans and the followers.” “It's really cool to see. And me and Will, with tears in our eyes, ran to each other, gave a big hug to each other, said we loved each other, and now we're going to go make history. And it's been really cool. It's been really fun. It's been awesome. 

 

Will: Yes, I'm man enough to say I did cry. 

 

Trae: You were bawling your eyes out. That was so funny. 

 

Will: I did cry, man. 

 

Trae: Okay, so I got a question. What's one thing that you do every morning that helps you stay engaged physically? 

 

Will: So, well, I will say every morning, for me, I have shoulder issues. It's like in the morning when I get up, I always try 10 pushups. That's just me, just to see how my shoulders feel in the day. And if it hurts real bad, then I know I need to already start doing some shoulder stuff. Because if I don't, then it's going to be pissy for the rest of the day. But that's just because I know my body.” “So I know that that's probably going to be a limiting factor if we're doing stuff in the weight room. So I always make sure I do that. Now for my health overall, and this is also because everybody has their own issues, right? Even though I would say a lot of people would say I'm in really good shape. I have body image issues, which is I think a lot of people deal with. Which is interesting to me to talk about being 38, and well not 38, that'll be like March 23rd, but basically almost 40. And then I still go look in the mirror every day. I like to see myself. And then from there, I try to remind myself that just because what I see in the mirror doesn't always necessarily line up with what other people see. Maybe I do. Maybe I am putting this weight on my shoulders about what I think I should look like. And I've done that forever. And I try to remind myself that sometimes what you see and what's real is two different things because of how you see yourself. So, let's say emotionally and physically, now that we've “sent her a talk some, that would probably be the number one thing I do. Is I do it and it doesn't matter even if I try not to do it, I'll do it, but then I just try to remind myself. And even if I am feeling down, then I try to make sure that that day I just try to think positive thoughts, and then also make sure they end up. If I'm feeling some way, I'm like, okay, man, just make sure you don't have any candy today, which I don't eat candy anyways. Or try not to have as much XYZ, whatever. I try to do that for mental health and physically, because if you start to think negative thoughts about yourself, it's probably going to bring you down for the rest of the day.” 

 

Trae: “100%. And that's a challenge for everybody, every athlete, and just people in general. They try to correlate who they think they are according to what other people think. And in reality, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. And we talk about that all the time in the weight room. We talk about it as a group of guys. It really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. We play and we serve God and God alone. Me and you have talked about that a lot before. And whenever you have an audience of one, it allows you not to really care what other people think. And then you just go out and you're free. In life, in sports, and it's the most important way to play. It's the most important way to live. And it allows you to really just excel and be the person that you've always been called to be. And that mental health is a...” “It could either be very negative or it could be very positive. However, you talk to yourself, however you look at yourself, is something that's really big. But my next question that I have for you is, you work with high-level athletes every day, but for the average person who doesn't have structured training, how does movement impact overall health and well-being? 

 

Will: Well, just in general, I would think most people, well, maybe not most people would agree. But even just, usually if you just go outside and start walking, or you just be active, you tend to feel a little bit better. The number one thing I always tell everybody when they ask me about working out or what program or what I should do, how to lose weight, et cetera, I'm like, just pick something and be consistent at it. Because if I give you a program, and let's just say it's the best program on the planet, it doesn't matter if you don't buy into it. If you don't buy into it, it doesn't matter, because you're not going to do it. Just because I said to do it doesn't mean you're going to, right” “But if you, let's say, every day you like to get on the treadmill and walk, 10 minutes, okay, cool. Well, eventually at 10 minutes, it's going to turn into 15, then turn into 20. And then maybe after you've walked a bunch, maybe then you'll start to feel more confident in yourself, and you'll say, hey, maybe I will try some body weight exercises. Maybe I will try something else. That's really good. So that also doesn't mean that I won't help individuals out, but I'm not going to give you a program when I know 75% of it, you're not going to want to do. You don't like. Nobody wants to do that. I don't want to do that. I mean, honest, unless you actually have a goal to obtain. I mean, think about this. When we're in the weight room, right? We have lifts that I put on there, do it, but we need to change up or do something just because you're just not feeling it that day. I always allow us to change it up.” “It's never like you have to do this. No, because if you're not locked in or bought into it that day, we're not going to get much out of it. So we might as well do something else that you will put effort into because you're going to get more out of it, not only physically, but mentally, because now you know that instead of you failed, you succeeded for the day because you were able to finish a workout. That's really good. Most people will look at it being a failure if they weren't able to complete the workout. So just because it says you have to do X, Y, Z, okay, if we can find something different for you to do, and you can finish that, then you're going to feel positive by yourself. Wow. Which if you feel positive by yourself, we all know how it is. 

 

Trae: Will Sullivan. Will Sullivan, man, dropping bombs on us this morning. That's big time.” I love that. 

 

Will: “Yeah, everything comes to a mental aspect, in my opinion. If I can get an athlete or I can get someone to buy in, then that means more time, like I would say probably nine times that. Almost always, we're going to get substantially more out of it. Well, moments-based, physical-based, mental, whichever one we want to talk about.” 

 

Kiki: “You talk on consistency. How do you combat when people reach plateaus or when they, I don't know, we have like school breaks and we go home, when they don't really feel like working out or maybe they forget to for a day, how do you kind of re-motivate people to go back into it? Like, where's the line of, okay, this is still like I'm still working out, I'm still doing all the movement, I'm still getting everything done that I need to, versus I've now stopped that and I have a new thing that I'm working on that's no longer exercise. Like, how do you get them re-motivated into exercise when they stop?” 

 

Will: “Yes, ma'am. Are we, are you asking just more generalized or more for athletes or just general popular, like just everybody combined? 

 

Kiki: I would say everyone because we've talked a lot about athletes, so let's go more generalized. 

 

Will: Yes, ma'am. So I run into this myself of working out. There's plenty of times where I'll do really good in my eyes. I think most people's eyes of working out. Sometimes people say I work out too much, but and then there's times where I'll take a week off and it wasn't planned. It just so happened that I didn't get my workout in earlier in the day.” “I became busy. And then to motivate myself, I just literally will go back and say, okay, well, just because you missed a week, that doesn't mean you have to go back into the weight room or go back into the gym or go on an hour long run. I'm like, just go back and get, again, just like I said before, just go back and try to get 15 minutes of work in. Because for the majority of time, if you just go and get a little bit of work in, once you get a sweat going, you kind of get that good feeling again, which will get you, that 15 minute workout might turn into a 30 minute workout. One issue that I know I have and others have, is they take that week off and then they feel like they have to go back to exactly what they were doing the level. And so, let's say you do that. Well, if you're taking a week off and you try to go right back to the amount of volume or workload, like the amount of reps and sets that you do, you're probably going to be pretty beat “up the next day. And then you're going to hurt and you're going to feel discouraged because you can't come back in the next. So for anyone who ends up taking a day off, just remember we all have setbacks. Take a day off, okay, whatever. I have tomorrow, but I take two days off. Okay. It's no worries. The main thing is just go back and get something in. I do the same thing.  

 

Trae: It's not so black and white.  

 

Will: No, it's not because unfortunately, all that which I've discussed, everything comes back to, okay, so even when I was personal training individuals and myself and with the athletes, everything comes back to the mental aspect.” 

 

Trae: “Because if you don't want to do it, they're not going to give any effort and they're not going to have any passion, and then they're just not going to give the thing that we all are supposed to give. And whenever you've talked about this before, like whenever you actually give everything that you have, even if it's stretching or rolling out or strength training or sprints, whatever you do, if you go as hard as you can at it, it's going to be so much more beneficial if you just give like 50% at it. And that's literally all mental. It all goes down to if you want to do it. And the reason we'll all want to do it is to know the why. And if you know the why, like what you were saying earlier about like, whenever we eat clean, if you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, oh, like I don't feel as right about myself. It's not even about what I look like. It's about what's the best thing for me and what's the why. And whenever you have your why down, then you'll have passion and make a decision[…]” “So it's all mental. 

 

Will: Yes. That's why I could sit here and we can go over like an hour of me talking to you, health benefits, breaking down, breaking down all that. But at the end of the day, people, we all want that, want to be healthier, right? But it tends to be, that's not what locks us in consistently. You need a lot of things in life, right? You need an outline. Yeah, you need something on there that you can get behind. Whatever that is, right?  

 

Trae: Mountain biking, it could be hiking, it could be walking, it could be weight training, basketball, soccer, bowling. 

 

Will: Whatever it is that you can do, that you enjoy doing or at least don't hate.  

 

Trae: Lean on to that.” 

 

Will: “Yes, sir. Because otherwise, whatever we're doing is it goes back to, again, me telling you this is going to be great for you and it's going to help out X, Y, Z. But again, that isn't aligned with where you are because just because I can tell you those things doesn't mean I know how you process stuff in your brain. 

 

Will: You got to meet them where you're at. I'm not you. I don't know how you understand things, just like most people are not going to know how I, when you tell me something and how I relate myself to it. 

 

Trae: That's really good. Okay, so what is an underrated habit that you think people should pay more attention to? I know you were talking about walking earlier, even if it means just to start walking 10 minutes a day. What's an underrated habit, even if it is walking or walking around the neighborhood? 

 

Will: Water. 

 

Trae: “Water? Break that down. Why is water so important? Because everyone has access to it. 

 

Will: Yeah, I'm actually a little parched right now, I would say. My lips are a little dry, which is, just so you'll know, a lot of times, if your lips are dry, it's probably because you need to have some water. Like, that's why during the winters, you'll start to get chapped lips, because it draws up, you know, it draws out moisture in your body. It's, you know, 20% humidity because it's so dry out there. That's why your lips get chapped.” 

 

Brooke: “How much water is too much water? Because I could out drink, like, anybody in water, and my friends are so concerned. But, like, I go through a lot. 

 

Will: So, actually, you can drink too much water. But I don't want to... Okay, and this is... This hardly ever happens. And it happens with people who are doing things they should not be doing. But, yes, you can drink too much water, and it can put you in the hospital, and you can possibly die from it. But we're talking about, like, gallon, like two gallons in, like, a gallon an hour, like, over a gallon of water an hour, which is just, for the most part, it's just unfeasible. You can't really drink that much, because it just saturates your body. But they're just drinking water, because if you drink water, a lot of times when you think you're hungry, you're not actually hungry.” 

 

Trae: “Yeah, I do that sometimes. 

 

Will:  You're actually thirsty. So a lot of times before I eat, well, I also do a long fasting window, but that's a whole other story. 

 

Trae: intermittent fasting? 

 

Will:  Yeah, yes, sir. 

 

Trae:  We won't go down that path. 

 

Will: No, yeah. We could talk about that for four hours. Yes, but a lot of times before I eat, I drink water. I'll drink a big cup of water, and then just rest for a little bit. Because a lot of times when you think you're hungry, you're actually not hungry. Because we can go a lot longer without food than you can with water. Roughly 72 hours depending on heat and humidity and et cetera. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more.”“But without food, you can go a week. And for people who are overweight, can go even longer because you have fat stores. Water you cannot because there's no replacement for it in your body like there is for food. So that's why a lot of times when next time you end up thinking you're really hungry, drink like 20 ounces of water, and then just wait 20 minutes. See how you feel. A lot of times you still be hungry, but you're not going to be as hungry as you were before.I have to do that a lot myself because if not, I can definitely overeat. But water would be a big one because it's so small, and it's basically almost inexpensive. It's not like water. 

 

Trae: It's accessible anywhere. 

 

Will: Exactly.” 

 

Trae: “So the biggest takeaways for today is there are some really small changes that every single person listening can make. One of them being just go out there and walk for 5, 10 minutes a day, and just start small. Or start whatever you want to do. 

 

Will: Whatever it is. 

 

Trae: It's super simple. You don't have to overthink it. If there's anyone out there that wants to start being more active, wants to start taking their physical health more seriously, don't look at it as a huge challenge. Look at it as whatever you want to do. Go out there, have fun with it, and start off small. Allow that to just trickle down like a snowball, and just allow it to snowball into more and more and more.” “The same thing with little tiny habits with water, like an example that you gave. So the keys to today, guys, is the simplicity is very simple. Just start small. Start with what you want to do, and start with small little changes, and allow that to just overtake your life, and allow you to just walk in the freedom that being physically locked in has to offer you. So, for our wrap up, Will, we are so grateful that you've been on today. You've been awesome, man. You've given us so many gems, so many awesome little things that we can take away, little tokens that we can take away. Is there anything that's on your heart that you'd like to share? And if not, then we'll talk about that later. But is there anything on your heart that you'd like to share? 

 

Will: Yeah, I want to basically thank, well, you, but men's basketball, women's basketball, athletic department, High Point University, Nido Quibein, because without...” 

 

Trae: “Without him, we wouldn't even be here. 

 

Will: Exactly, exactly. Well, we really appreciate having you on, man. It's been awesome. Where can people find what you do? Is there an Instagram account? Do you have a website? Do you have Facebook? Is there any kind of platform that you have where you express all this stuff? 

 

Will: Not really. People have been on me for a long time to do it. On there, we do have a... Well, kind of. We have a HPU strength page on Instagram. You can go on that one. My personal...  

 

Trae: What is... HPU strength page? What is it? Is it any underscores or...?” 

 

Will: “No, it should just be HPU strength and conditioning. 

 

Trae: Okay. HPU strength and conditioning. If you guys want any tips by Will Sullivan, he's got the goods right on there. Will, we really appreciate you having us on, brother. You are the man. Will is my good friend.I'm really grateful that he's been on here. You've given us a lot of really good gems, a lot of really good little tips and tricks and little tokens to take away. We appreciate you having it on, brother.  

 

Will: Oh, thank you all for having me.”