Intro
NOAH: All right, we are live. Welcome back to Physical Education. It is our Five Questions on Fitness series — me sitting down and talking to folks in my orbit. Today we’ve got Lumos member, turn landlord, turn member, turn coach, turn member, turn back to coach — a butterfly who’s gone through so many metamorphoses. He’s both butterfly and caterpillar at the same time. Mr. Rio Tomlin. Hello!
RIO: Hi, what’s going on? Not much. I just finished this workout. I PR’d my clean.
NOAH: Hey! How long have you been doing this stuff?
RIO: Twelve years.
NOAH: Twelve years — PR’ing your lifts with a separated shoulder.
RIO: Yeah, yeah. A couple months ago.
NOAH: You’ve been joking — very minimalist Rio, discarding the ligaments he doesn’t need as he becomes more experienced.
Question 1: Background & How Rio Got Started
NOAH: Today I wanted to bring Rio in and chat a little bit because he’s a great example of somebody who has been really consistent over a long period of time and hasn’t fallen victim to what I think a lot of people do — kind of getting into the weeds. I know I fall victim to this: being like, ‘Oh, maybe I need to be doing more of X,’ and going down that road for a while. It can be helpful, but often it turns into a detour. You go somewhere, see a little scenic thing, come back, and maybe you’re better for seeing it — but really you’ve just added time to your route. I think Rio has done a really good job of staying on the route. Just driving and not getting distracted or second-guessing. So let’s start with your background. What was your fitness life before? How did you get started?
RIO: Sure. I grew up playing a bunch of sports. I was an outdoorsy kid — baseball, basketball, soccer. My parents wouldn’t let me play football.
NOAH: Good — hindsight is great for injury purposes and long-term health.
RIO: Big swimmer, did karate, gymnastics. I was doing stuff all the time. The one that stuck most was soccer, which I played all through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. Then after I graduated, I was slightly active. I worked in the scuba diving world for a while, then spent about three years as a car salesman. And I wasn’t working out at all. I wasn’t running. I wasn’t doing anything for three years. Then I moved back to New York and I just felt my body changing — losing that athletic body I’d had my whole life. I felt it going away. So in an attempt to get back to being healthier — and honestly, more importantly at the time, it was just to look good. I was in my early twenties, I was single in New York, I wanted to look good. I was walking down the street in Brooklyn and I saw two beautiful physiques ripping pull-ups. I’d never seen a butterfly or kipping pull-up before. I watched these two people just ripping them in the sun at street level, on this gate system outside of CrossFit South Brooklyn. I immediately walked right past them and in through the front door. ‘What is this? How do I do it? How do I look like that?’ And that’s how I started.
NOAH: Yeah — I met Rio probably a couple of weeks after that story. I was a coach at South Brooklyn, so I’ve basically known Rio since he started training. I didn’t do his foundations, but within a couple weeks we were in classes I was coaching. That’s how we became friendly, and we kept going after we both moved here. I’ve seen him develop from that kind of scrawny guy who hadn’t done a lot of lifting.
RIO: I had never touched a barbell. In soccer training they probably made us pick one up and I phoned it in. So yeah — zero real interest or agency with any serious lifting.
Question 2: Approach to Training — Then and Now
NOAH: So from that beginning point to now — what has your approach been? It’s been pretty consistent. How did you start approaching your training, and how has that continued over the past ten-plus years?
RIO: I think it helped that when I was playing sports — in high school, coach had practice almost every day, if not every day. So I was used to: this is a physical thing I do, and you do it regularly. After foundations, I knew I wanted to go consistently. The best way to do that is to pay for a service you feel is a good value, so you want to get the most out of it. I did the cost-benefit analysis: if I pay a monthly membership and go this many days a week, my cost per class goes down. So I want to go as many times as I can, because then each class ends up being cheaper. That’s how my brain worked. I didn’t want to lose money — New York is expensive — so I kind of tricked myself into going all the time by paying for it. I had a gym in my building that was free, and I never went for months. It was free, so I had no motivation. That’s part of it: I knew I was going somewhere, and then I found out that this style of group classes with coaches creates a level of accountability that I didn’t know about going in. I figured that out a month or two in.
NOAH: Did you start with a plan — like ‘I’m going to go five days a week’?
RIO: Yeah, I made a plan and started executing on it. And at a certain point it seems like it inverts. The exception becomes the rule. Instead of thinking ‘I need to go five times a week,’ not going five times a week becomes the strange thing.
NOAH: It becomes a habit.
RIO: Exactly. I’m a firm believer in habits being tied to your identity. Once it did that, it was like: people like me do things like this. This is what I do. The more I wouldn’t do it, I’d start to not feel like myself — uncomfortable in my body. That’s as mental as anything. I’ve noticed in times when I’m traveling, or work is really busy, or there’s an injury — it really messes with my identity, which messes with my mental space. I get irritable. A little cranky baby. And my self-talk becomes really negative. But it morphs into that — it becomes habit and routine. Just showing up, even on days where you might be tired or not feeling it. If I signed up for it, I said I want to do it. I don’t want to let myself down because something else would be easier. You’re not always going to get the best training day. It’s better to go and maintain consistency. Even if I didn’t go as hard, I can treat it as active recovery. Just go in, move, work on mobility, and know how to scale and modulate. Showing up is 90% of it — especially when you start, but even once you’re going regularly.
NOAH: I think you’ve always seemed like someone who has goals and things you want to work on — ‘I want to get better at this lift, figure out this skill’ — but the primal goal is always: I need to show up consistently. I need to be here. And that’s the key that unlocks all the doors. The concept of cycles is really strong because it puts things in manageable, foreseeable chunks where you can have goals during that time. That helps with consistency. The reason you were able to do what you did today was because you came every Monday for the past six weeks.
RIO: Yeah, I knew going into the cycle these are the days I want to hit. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays — I definitely want to hit those every time. The others are flexible. And I’m a big believer in tracking. When you track, it makes you want to go the next week because you want to see how you progress during the cycle. At the beginning I was on the whiteboard, then I kept notebooks, and I still have them. It’s really cool to see how excited I was to go the next week — to see my numbers go up or workouts get faster over the course of a cycle. That helps a lot with consistency, especially once you get over the initial hump. You see a cycle and think, ‘I really want to work on my back squat. I’m going to go every time that comes up.’ And then all these other things happen organically — you build a relationship with a coach you see every day of that cycle, so there’s accountability. The coaches are invested in seeing you do that. You don’t want to let them down. You have training buddies who show up. Whether you’re sharing a barbell or just watching each other grow — even if you’re at different levels — you’re both getting better at the same time. I don’t want to not show up because my gym friends will be there. I want to see them. If they’re going to hit a big lift, I don’t want to miss that.
NOAH: It’s like you build contingencies — multiple layers of reasons to show up. I feel better, I’ve been consistent all cycle, I’m invested in someone else’s experience, the coach is expecting me. If one goes wrong, you still have all the others. You’ve built yourself multiple layers of interest in each training day. I think people often build just one reason — ‘I want to be better at cleans’ — and if that one thing suffers, they’re like, ‘What’s the point?’ But if it’s part of a larger ecosystem — you’re interested in what other people are doing, you have a relationship with the coach, all of that — it’s way more durable.
Detour: Group Class vs. Outside Programming
NOAH: So let’s take a quick detour. In twelve years, you’ve almost exclusively done group class — but you have at times tried other programming. Tell me about that experience and why it’s always led you back.
RIO: In twelve years, I spent a short period doing an Olympic weightlifting program — about two months — to get a little better at the Olympic lifts, which always supplements everything else. That was the first time I tried something outside of group class. Working alone is really hard for me. I didn’t enjoy that part of it, so I couldn’t continue. I did John’s Compete program for about a year a few years ago, but at the time it was in a group format — we were all meeting together twice or three times a week. So that was basically group class in a different form. I also ran a half marathon, but I was still doing group class the whole time. I just swapped out one workout and added two runs a week — and I was running with two people from the gym. Still social. At the end of those periods, the goal was never to fully shift away from group class. For me, I like the varied aspect of it. Today we’re lifting heavy, a couple days later we’re doing interval training, then gymnastics. And the whole time there’s that social aspect — which is another contingency, as you said. I think it’s really hard in our current society to be really good at your work, be physically fit, and also have a great social life. Balancing all three is hard. By putting two of those together — getting a really good workout in while also filling up the social bucket — that’s a nice life hack. I didn’t figure that out intentionally. Someone else pointed it out to me. ‘Oh, that’s why you like going even when you can’t really train.’ There are times I’ll come when I’m not even working out. I know two people are going to be in that class, I just want to watch them.
NOAH: You come back from a soccer game and you’re like, ‘I know the class is doing this, I just want to watch.’
RIO: Exactly. Just checking in. Pure social. And then you get to cheer them on, which is fun.
Question 3: Training Through Injury
NOAH: So we talked about this a little before, but you’ve had injuries along the way. I know John likes to joke that all of them happen playing soccer, which is mostly true. When you take fitness into an arena where other people are also exerting control over your body, it does things you don’t want it to do. But you’ve always been really good about scaling, about still coming to class, about not pulling yourself out entirely. What’s your approach when something isn’t feeling good but you’re still committed to showing up? Use what’s going on right now as an easy example.
RIO: I know this gym — the coaches are very willing and happy to work with scaling, whether it’s every movement in a workout, the intensity, or working around a body part or movement pattern issue. I know I’m not inconveniencing the coach by doing that. And I know it’s not going to bother any of the other members. If someone’s bothered by another person scaling, that’s their problem. So I can still come in and get a really good workout. Right now I’m not using my shoulder at maximum effort and I’m avoiding certain movement patterns — but I can still get sweaty, still work other systems, still move. Just show up. If I don’t, my social life is going to suffer, my mental health is going to suffer. Just because my shoulder is hurting doesn’t mean everything else has to fall apart. It’s hard — when you’re injured, it can feel like your whole body is failing. But it will feel worse if you don’t show up.
NOAH: People think: if I can’t do one thing, I can’t get better at anything. That’s really not the case. Even practicing sub-maximum reps — even if the injury just means doing everything at half speed or weight — you will still get better. There’s literature showing that working one side creates co-equal development in the other side as well. And you PR’d today after an entire cycle training lighter.
RIO: Right. I didn’t expect to PR at all because I’d been training lighter all cycle. But that’s actually where the work gets done — you get more efficient at the movement, more neurological, more technical. Any sport or fitness discipline has a huge neurological component that has almost nothing to do with raw muscle. If you’re just going through the motions, practicing the movement at light weight, you are still getting experience. Especially for less experienced people, getting an extra five hundred practice reps at lightweight is probably more valuable than grinding heavy. And at the very end of it, having that translate to more weight than I’ve ever lifted before — and probably training smarter toward the intent of the cycle anyway. You can show up, do things a certain way, and still make yourself a better athlete.
Question 4: Tips for Building Consistency
NOAH: My last question was about tips and advice for creating your level of consistency — but I think we’ve covered a lot of that already. Making it part of your identity, showing up even when you’re not at a hundred percent, understanding that showing up is itself the goal. Anything else you’d add?
RIO: I’d mention preparation. The night before, I look at the workout. Sometimes I check my past numbers and get excited about what’s coming up. My bag is packed, my clothes are ready, my drinks are premixed in the fridge, the alarm is set. By the time you wake up, you’ve already taken two or three steps toward going. There have been times where I was training with someone unofficially and we’d text each other the night before: ‘Hey, you going to be there? This is what I want to hit.’ That prep matters. Don’t try to pull it all together after getting home from work at five o’clock and then rush to the gym. Do it the night before.
NOAH: We’ve been talking about that in staff meetings — how preparation is really important, and the more you do it, the more consistency and intention you’ll have. There’s a downside to too little friction — if it’s so easy that you stop thinking about it, it can slip. Bracketing it a little — whether that’s identifying the days you want to come at the start of a cycle, looking at the schedule at the start of each week, or just doing the night-before prep — all of that helps. Saying ‘make it part of your identity’ is a pretty hard instruction. It’s something that happens over time. But the night-before prep is a concrete step. It gets you excited on the weekly front, the daily front — all of it.
RIO: It’s cheesy, but once you’ve done all that prep, there’s nothing to it but to do it. Just go. Even Olympians, even professional athletes — some days it doesn’t feel good. They went anyway and did the best they could with what they had. That is always better than not going. The pre-work means you’re already a quarter, a third of the way there. When you think you’re making the decision ‘am I going to the gym today?’ — you’ve already made several micro-decisions toward yes. You’re already rolling down the mountain. If every time you make that decision at zero, it’s much easier to back out. That’s why scheduling, tracking, and preparing all work together.
Outro
NOAH: Excellent. All right, that has been five — maybe six, possibly six and a half — questions on fitness. Thank you for your time.
RIO: Thank you.
NOAH: Unknown to viewers out there — we recorded most of this already. We had a beautiful walk on Friday on the trail in Roy G. Guerrero Park. We walked the whole thing, talked about all of this, and we have beautiful video but no sound. Which is shameful. So thank you for doing it twice, and thank you all for watching. Peace.
