Holistic Fitness: From Foraging to Functional Living with Tim Clemens

Andy:

Give me your best shot on Biotine.

Tim Clemens:

Damn it. I don't have it. I don't have it on the spot. I just want to say Biotine.

Brought to you by Northrop Grumman.

The following interview was recorded for the Poor Proles Almanac podcast with guest Tim Clemens, also known as MN Forager, on Instagram. That's like Minnesota MN Forager, who's the founder of Ironwood Foraging Company. Tim's one of those voices that feels like an endless string of optimism and energy, and I think that really comes through in this conversation. It's not about what you're missing, but rather what you already have and what you can do to add to your skill set, and I think that's something everyone needs.

Andy:

Tim, thanks for coming on. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tim Clemens:

Thanks for having me, Andy. Yeah, so I live in Minneapolis. I'm a professional forager and mushroom hunter. I own a company called Ironwood Foraging, whose mission is to offer hands-on foraging experiences to build connections to the land in the Minneapolis metro area.

Andy:

That's awesome. I love to forage. I don't do a whole lot of mushroom foraging because I don't trust myself, but it's one of those things I think when people talk about it can be really scary. And then they get into it and it's like, " oh, this is super cool, but there's obviously a lot to it, and one of the pieces that I think gets a lot of attention is the physical aspect of it. So, like I just had COVID, like two weeks ago, and I went on my first hike since I've had COVID with my kids yesterday, and there's a 1.6 mile hike around this little marsh area that I live near, and I'm telling you I was beat after it.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, for sure, I completely agree with you. Also, that was my experience with COVID too. I got it and, as someone who is very physically active, can notice very small changes in my physical abilities. Yeah, I noticed my abilities kind of went off a cliff there for a while. I'm back in the saddle now but I definitely do not want to dance with that again. As far as fitness goes, I mean getting outside is extremely important, I mean, that's what foraging is at its basic, you know, is finding resources on the landscape and harvesting them. That's something we do passively.

I don't really talk about it in my workshops, but it's like this passive understanding that, hey, you need to be able to, you know, travel over terrain. I'm starting to make it more of like a forward-facing thing that I talk about, because I do feel like fitness and physical activity is somehow lacking in the foraging community, the gardening community, the mushroom hunting community, because physical activity and fitness are two slightly different things, or physical activity and exercise.

Andy:

Yeah.

Tim Clemens:

A lot of people think of, say, hey, I'm going mushroom hunting, I'm hiking, you know, that's my exercise, but it's actually just physical activity, which, not to say just physical activity, it's very important. But exercise is different because it relies on progressive overload and that's going to give you things like more muscle mass, bone density, and increase your proprioception.

So proprioception for anyone who doesn't know that $5 word that's just adjusting stimuli, adjusting to stimuli from the outside world. We all need to do that to be healthy. It helps you stop from falling. Maybe it'll help you catch yourself when you fall. You know most people get injured because they're losing a battle against gravity. You know gravity is the opps. So you know fitness is really important in that way.

Andy:

Yeah, I think of functional fitness and that is important. But functional fitness, I think, is not quite the same. Even though we're just like well, yeah, like some people get into working out and like there's their muscle mass, what they can do is not really related to living on the earth, and there's some validity in that. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other parts.

I think we kind of go wholesale on it where, because there's this disconnect between aesthetic and functional, that means maybe as long as we're busy, physical, active outside, that's enough. I'm not sure if that's the case, given that the rest of our lives are so disconnected from how we've lived on the landscape before.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, totally. You don't have to go full muscle, mommy, if you start a fitness journey, and that is kind of, I would say, going more towards the aesthetic rather than the functional. But both are extremely important and there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think many people want to get into fitness or physical activity because they like how it makes them look and feel.

I would say, at the end of the day, a happier person looks better. So, however, that works for you. If you're happier in your life, you're just going to, you know, radiate that.

Andy:

Yeah, I was watching you on TikTok like a couple days ago at the time of this recording and you were just like crushing some pull-ups and I was like god damn it, I need to. I need to start doing more physical stuff, other than digging holes, cutting down trees, and splitting wood. All that's great, but like it's not the same. And there there's a fun part about it that once you're in it if you've never really been into fitness and I've gone through phases of it that like you get in it and you get in this grind of like working out and it's like sometimes it's like the best thing it can seem really intimidating from the outside.

So I'm really interested to see how that progresses in doing, incorporating fitness into the outdoors aesthetic or whatever. You end up kind of letting that play out.

Tim Clemens:

You mentioned it. Chopping wood I think that's exactly what part of this is, and hey, start your wood. Chopping tiktok who's that guy that's on tiktok?

Andy:

He just like posts like I don't know text, yeah text over him just splitting wood. But I swear to god, whenever I watch those guys, I wonder why your wood splits so much easier than mine? Like, are you that much more in fit, or is it just like my wood sucks?

Tim Clemens:

I watch those guys, and I have that exact same thought process, too. I'm like, is it the wood, is it me? It's definitely intimidating, you know.

Andy:

Yeah.

Tim Clemens:

Because he doesn't look like he's swinging it too much harder than I can, I'm really giving it my all. But it's like he gives that grunt and then you know, a million comments later he splits it.

Andy:

It's brutal. I'm just like he, just like splitting these massive logs and I'm just like God damn it, like why don't you ever have knots in your wood?

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, you know, it's all so curated.

Like I think that's a big thing in the fitness community too, is everything we see online, which I think is how at least most people under 40 are like interpreting our world nowadays, is this little rectangle in front of our face. You're getting a curated sense of reality that it definitely instills FOMO, it's like I should be somewhere else, and it also instills this idea that I should be something else than what I am, like it inherently.

It's like I'm not enough, but I think if you get on your fitness journey, it will build self-trust. I think that's one of the most important things, like aesthetics, functional strength, and the emotional aspect of it, too. You will learn to trust yourself and your ability to handle life's challenges, and that'll lead to only positive things. Being able to split wood and make a thirst trap tiktok is the next step.

For the Poor Proles, the thirst traps outdoors. I'm very surprised that you guys haven't gotten into that niche yet.

Andy:

Yeah, I got to get in shape to do that first. But it is interesting; I'm a bit older than you. I think I'm nearing 40. I think about, like what I was doing when I was in my early 20s and even mid 20s, that you know you could just get away with your body, right?

Tim Clemens:

Like you could just beat on it and it would just take it.

Andy:

Totally Like when I get out of bed in the morning, now it sounds like I'm trying to deadlift 400 pounds.

Yeah, like I remember just like working physically.

I was in the trade when I was younger and I'd work, go out drinking, be up until one in the morning, then be out the door at 530, like multiple days a week and you'd be like, oh, I'm a little bit hungover, but by like 10 o'clock you were back to normal, basically right, and like those days are gone now, and even you know, a couple months before I started thinking about my physical health much more holistically, taking it more seriously in terms of not necessarily like physical activity, but just like paying more attention to the food I'm eating, taking vitamins, which is something that I never thought I would do, because there's always kind of like, yeah, I eat kind of healthy, pretty healthy, like I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and you know all that kind of good stuff, but then you know actually taking the time to think about it.

You know what I mean. So, thinking about my health a little bit more holistically in that way, and I do think you know now, obviously I'm still coming off of COVID, but I do feel in a lot of ways, a lot better than I did, and it's not just the vitamins, it's being better about not being on social media. I basically only check it when I get messages or I'm posting, sleeping, and trying to make time to sleep, which I think is really difficult, especially if you've got kids.

So, like you know, making time for sleep, because it's like you spend all this time with your kids and it's like, well, I want some me time, really starting to engage with the limits of your body's physical capacity, I think that's something we all need to get better about and more thoughtful about. And it's not really like fun and sexy, like a lot of that TikTok content we're talking about, but it is really important to incorporate all these little things.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah for sure, especially that idea of engaging with your body's capacities. You know, I think, so many people, their own physicality is completely hypothetical to them. They don't oftentimes put themselves in on that like border of what they're capable of, for whatever reason. It's stressful, embarrassing, difficult, or they feel like they don't have time for it. But that is really the idea.

Like, for instance, I would say, we didn't even have to go to like the edge of our physical capacity. If you ask the average person if they can do a pushup, I think people would be surprised at the answer. And then also, if we even maybe lower that a little bit, like when was the last time you jumped and both of your feet left the ground at the same time? Like it's not really necessary in life, and you'd be surprised to see, like, oh man, I can't even remember the last time I jumped or ran as fast as I could, you know, above a jog. And so it's just so odd, the lives we live now that we call normal.

Andy:

Yeah, and that comes back to what I was saying, though. Like yeah, I know we talk about like, yeah, I go out and go on hikes and do these things, but because the rest of our life is not doing the other things that we've historically done, we're sitting at a desk instead of like chasing a elephant for three days you know whatever, you know what I mean like historic, what we've evolved to do, that we have this like functional part of our health that we're not really addressing, and you know.

So I mentioned that we went for a hike yesterday. A few days ago, my daughter had a birthday party to go to, and it was at a rock climbing gym, and I love rock climbing. I used to do it all the time and I haven't gone in years, since, basically, since my son was born five years ago. So, like you know, the kids are all doing their thing. And then there's the free climb area and I was like I can probably do a little bit I know I'm getting over COVID, but like I could probably do something and I like jumped up and I went to like reach one arm up and I like was swinging and like it's, it's been a little while and like that like reality of, yeah, I know you think you can still do these things, but maybe you need to like actually go and be a little bit more fit, push yourself a little bit more.

Tim Clemens:

Totally. Yeah, physicality is one of those things in life that is self-evident, like you can talk about it as much as you want, you can equivocate, but at the end of the day you can either do the thing how you want to do it or you can't do the thing how you want to do it, and so it is that simple and that difficult to you know. Have those capacities. Goal orientation is extremely important in fitness, and that's what a lot of people, I think they approach fitness as if it's something they can kind of casually do, which you can. I'm not trying to gatekeep or be dogmatic about fitness. It's also a journey. Everyone's in their process. What I find is really helpful is establishing SMART goals, the acronym so specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals.

You know you want to figure out, okay, if you know, what do I want my life to look like in terms of fitness? And then you want to be able to measure that both subjectively and objectively. So subjective, how do I feel? How does this make me feel, both in terms of is this the right thing I should be doing? Do I feel a sense of accomplishment? Am I doing this out of shame or am I doing this out of self-love, you know that's important too, because one is sustainable and one is not.

I'll let you figure out which one is which. And then, objectively, you want to be able to measure and actually like quantify. Okay, where am I like, say, I want to bench press 225 pounds, which seems to be what everyone wants to do nowadays. Well, okay, how much can I bench press now? And then follow that week by week and put yourself on, you know, at minimum a 10-week program, and then maybe do a three-month program and then maybe an eight-month program. You'll find that if you actually stick with these, you know attainable goals, and then make them realistic and set a timetable, you're going to reach your goals.

Andy:

Are you familiar with Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis? If not, it was really eye-opening for me. It articulated a lot of issues I felt around healthcare and personal care, like kind of what you're talking about.

Tim Clemens:

I'm not aware of it, but, yeah, tell me about it.

Andy:

So basically, and I'm probably going to butcher this story because I didn't really prep for. it, talking about it too deeply, but this guy, who's a fitness writer, started doing some stuff, and he realized a problem in the United States, and I think even globally. He makes the argument that we've become too comfortable. It's affecting our health not just in the way we think of as being overweight and all the stereotypical type of you're out of shape kind of things, but also how it's impacting how our immune system works and the neurology in our body works, because we're not pushing ourselves the way our bodies are designed to be pushed.

The same way, like you know, if you have a dog that doesn't do anything all day, has all these health issues, versus the dog that's, you know, always, you know, running around like a maniac. The reality is that health isn't just the physical aspect of being healthy, of doing physical things. Pushing yourself to that limit is really important because your body needs it for a number of reasons, not just the physical piece. It was really interesting to see him kind of break it out as, like, how much of the diseases we're experiencing are because we're too comfortable, and that comfort is such a risky thing.

In a lot of ways to our needs as humans, we think of comfort as being this great thing that, like, we can live in the comfort of, you know, modern housing, but there's so much more to it the importance of being exposed to cold weather and hot weather, all these different elements, not just again, how many push-ups can you do? And that has numerous health implications.

So, I don't know if you have any thoughts about that. I know I'm just giving you the synopsis, but if it's anything that ticks boxes that you think about.

Tim Clemens:

I think it will probably touch on critical parameters for lifespan and wellness span, the emergent properties of all those practices, are like grip strength, leg strength. You know you're getting these like classic markers VO2 max, which is the you know volume, oxygen maximum that your, you know your body's ability to like use oxygen. Those are all like their classic metrics of health. I imagine it ties into that a little bit, but in a more metaphysical way, like hey, what is the human animal and what are the optimal parameters for most of those human animals to live what we would call a healthy life?

Andy:

Yeah, what really stood out to me is that I've never really been into the whole, you need to take ice baths or be exposed to heat and all this stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like a hot tub, but, like you know, I never thought of it as a health thing. And I mean it makes sense, like, wherever humans have lived on the earth, we've been exposed to temperature extremes, and while we've been ingenious in navigating around them, we are still exposed to them.

I think, with climate change, having the capacity to like engage with those, especially going to this temperature idea, I think is really valuable and you know, it was really eye opening in that sense. I think it's something that I have tried to incorporate into my life. The way I live, especially like in the winter, of like letting myself be exposed to the cold temperature and like really trying to go through some of the steps of how to like regulate your body's heat production and things like that to deal with the stress of those temperatures that we don't normally do. We just throw a coat on and run into the house as fast as we can.

Tim Clemens:

So this winter has been pretty big for me in terms of, you know, I live in Minnesota. It gets fairly cold here and I'd say I've been resenting the winter for the last decade. I feel like I can't forage as much as not, you know, a ton to forage in the winter, although there is some cool stuff, but I find myself staying indoors more often. I can't run outside or trail run, which I enjoy doing. So I feel like my life kind of comes to a stop for about six months out of the year here.

But just like you were saying, like putting yourself in touch with, like, the natural rhythms of the world, whether that be perceived as stress, whether good stress or bad stress, you know, but like putting yourself face to face with just your actuality.

You know, going outside and being like it's cold. I'm not immediately going to run from that, I'm going to experience it because you're actually, when you think about it, you're extremely lucky that you get to experience that sensation called cold; it means you're alive and you're able to take in these stimuli.

You walked out there, you're standing, could have lost your legs at some point, you know. So, it's just teaches gratitude and I think you know these kind of get like into the woo-woo area of life, that, maybe a little new age or whatever, but like it's also the fundamental. You know some of the fundamental, like mental states that humans are capable of experiencing. Use those for good. You know that attitude towards your circumstances is likely always better than having a purely negative view of it. If you can't change it, I have no power to change that it's cold outside, I can put a coat on, but I should at the basic be happy with the fact that it's cold outside and then put a coat on, in that order. It seems like a pointless step, but it's important.

Andy:

Before we started recording this winter, we were talking about how wildly warm it's been in the northern half of the United States, and a part of me is like, oh, this is great, I also hate the cold. But then that deep-seeded part that's like, no, this is not a good thing, is like eating at me from deep below. And the last couple of years I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I've been trying to. I've always hated the cold. I've lived in the South and I've wanted to go back for a number of years. I'm trying to learn to accept the world as it is around me and that, like these seasons are so important, they all offer something uniquely good, even if it's difficult to enjoy because you're busy shivering.

And, like you know, even to that point, like you know, I mentioned rock climbing and I guess I'm just going to tell a lot of stories. Today, after I got home, it was a really cloudy night, the stars were shining, and my daughter wanted to stand outside and look at the stars, and I'm like, it is like 30 degrees out. We were just running inside after being at the rock climbing gym, and she was just standing out there, like the cold didn't really bother her. And you know, one of the things that becomes more apparent to you as a parent is that the capacity of children to withstand things that we cannot as adults, whether it's like their flexibility, their arm strength, like the way my daughter can like swing from things and just like grip things like unbelievable, like all these skills that I think humans have. Then we just let them like totally rot.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, oftentimes I spend my days just like, even though I am physically active. There are days that I'll just rot in bed, you know, and I'm like, despite all the like, oh, this is your only life to live. And you know you should be like optimizing your fitness. I'm like.

You know what? Today is a rest day, and like it's just like the atrophy that I think happens because of the way we live, from four, four years old to 25, 30, you know, whatever the rest of your life basically. And then we're like, we spend every moment from like adulthood on trying to at least some of us trying to like reclaim that capacity.

There are a few people on TikTok that I see, who like to climb trees and they just whip themselves around. I think we look at that and say, like, wow, that's like beyond the normal state of humans, like this guy is really good at what he does. But I want a little part of me wonders if, like, if we, if people had, like you know, never really lost that physical capacity as they're growing up and it was still incorporated in their lives, if that would be something that would be more the norm.

Tim Clemens:

I think people would be extremely surprised about what their body is capable of. But, just as you say, we're using that more as children, although I don't know about, like the current situation with the youth in front of screens, unprecedented levels of distraction and stimulation available from our screens these days. But if you'd never stopped, you know, if you prioritized being like this extremely athletic, extremely functionally fit individual from the time you're a child. You never stopped, like it has these emerging, like you will hit them. I guess what you would call them, what we colloquially called them in bro science was slingshots.

You would hit slingshots and strength, like, say, if you played football, on a football team, you'd be in your weightlifting program, and you would notice that, like, hey, around the age of 14, you suddenly got a lot stronger. Okay, then the age of 16. And then you're saying like, oh, wow, and then, like the age of 19, you would be at like this plateau where you'd know generally how strong you are and you're getting stronger and whatnot, because you're working out, but then you just experience this massive like seemingly unexplained.

Obviously it's like puberty and adolescence and other things happening. But yeah, if you never stopped that, you would be also one of these people. You know, swinging limb to limb off of trees, and it's just hard to claw that back. And's why it's better to, you know, not lose it in the first place.

Andy:

It's wild.

I mean, we think about like physicality as, like this thing that's divided from the way our day-to-day lives in a lot of ways, right, like you go to the gym or you have a gym in your basement, it's not like, unless that is your identity, and I think, like you, you see that manifest in a lot of people who, like get into the gym and then they like become fitness trainers.

Right, because that is their excuse. Otherwise they will fall off the bandwagon. Like they get that high from working out, and they love it, and like that's great, but the way we live isn't really conducive to making the free time to do that, unless that is your job. There's like this very clear delineation between, like that is your job and there's, like this very clear delineation between, like having access to that time and those resources, and not for better or worse, mostly worse, I think.

As somebody who has been on the left for a long time and somebody who has been in and out of sports in some capacity, I've always had a really hard time merging these worlds together, right? Being politically active, caring about all these other things, and also being into sports is really unfortunate, because I think there's a lot that we can all gain from finding joy in being physically fit and exercising.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, absolutely. And to speak about, you know, being on the left and having, you know, seemingly, that dichotomy, you know, my personal journey with athletics has largely been, you know, field sports and team sports. It's only now that I’ve gotten older have I done more individual sports, typically martial arts.

But in the past, I was on a team, so you're in like a collective, essentially toward a goal. So you get really used to operating as a collective, thinking as a collective on the football field. You think of, where do I fit in the hole and what do I have to do to make this work? And you think of, like, essentially, your team as your extension of your will and body. You know, like you're one. I think that's what a lot of people who may be like you know it's 2023 and it still doesn't make people cool to not like sports. We're going to see a lot of that today because it's the Super Bowl today.

Actually, a lot of people could learn something from quieting the individual ego for a little bit and putting that effort toward a collective goal, and that's classic team field sports, right there, so they don't have to be separate at all. And then, hey, I mean, I was always kind of an outlier in my sports because I'm not your classic jock. I was definitely super interested in history.

I was like the bookworm on the team so I never really felt like I belonged. I had like one foot in, one foot in, one foot out and that could always be like sensed by the more classical jock types, but I saw beauty in all of it, you know. I don't think they're separate and I think a lot of people could learn things. So maybe joining like a rec league soccer team or you know, probably don't join football at this point, you know, if someone's maybe over 30 or 40 or something.

They probably shouldn't be joining in a contact sport.

Andy:

I totally feel you, though, on that. When I was in high school, I played basketball until I broke my ankle, and then I just kind of never went back because they found out there were a whole bunch of issues why I had broken my ankle, and it was just like this long, arduous thing. By the time I was back to normal, it was like two years later, and I was like, I'm not, I'm not going back for one more year.

And you know, I do think I feel a lot of what you're talking about like this, like you're a part of the team, but you're also, like, fundamentally a little bit different, and I think it's like really apparent to everyone on the team, even if, like it, never like manifests in any particular you know activity or anything like that. But on the left, what I've experienced is that, like people will get curious about fitness and sports, but it comes with so much baggage because of those experiences when we're younger, because of the cultural norms around sports, especially in the United States.

I don't know if you've had any similar experiences, but especially around soccer, I think, is kind of where you see globally a much different relationship with sports, where in some ways it is political. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I think at least where I went to high school, the soccer team was very different culturally than any other sports team.

Tim Clemens:

Are you saying it brings people together more, or are you talking about the hooligans who fight after the games?

Andy:

Yeah, I'm talking about like the fact that like it's an accessible sport in a lot of the world. I think that also draws a very working class experience to what soccer is, and not necessarily maybe like England, but, like you know, especially during the like the World's Cup, I think like there's a lot of political implications when you know these marginalized countries are successful because, at the end of the day, like soccer is much different in terms of how to, in terms of like, how people can scale up and be successful.

It's much more a level playing field in a lot of ways, I think, than other sports. Because of that, and yeah, I don't know, I think soccer is really interesting because it is, I think, much more supported by international leftists than American football or basketball or any of these other sports. It always kind of stood out to me as kind of this aberration in terms of like sports, at least from an American perspective.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, I'm like having a lot while you're talking. I have a lot of like half thoughts about that forming but nothing really percolating, you know, into, you know coalescing into like, an idea. But no, I get what you're saying. Yeah, there is such a difference towards how soccer, which, hey, is a sport, is viewed by these people who classically don't like sport. Huh, that's very interesting.

Andy:

Yeah, it is, and like you said, I can't really fully articulate how I feel about it, but like there's something there that I think is really important to like at least acknowledge. And you know, I think about like when I talk about like you know, like football let's talk about soccer, like on an international scale, my first image in my head is like Fidel Castro, like with a soccer ball right, and I think that like really speaks to like some really deep-seated like understanding of the sport from a global perspective.

And I think that really speaks to a really deep-seated understanding of the sport from a global perspective. And I love soccer and I like when the World Cup was coming through and to go back to like this weird division between, like the left and sports, it's like you know, there's all this argument about like the slave labor that was used for the stadium, for the FIFA Cup, the FIFA Cup, and like that is all very valid, but like that shit happens in every sport, in every you know every Olympic game throughout the course of history.

And suddenly, like the sport that is particularly more amenable to marginalized countries and support, like you know, on a global stage, criticizing people for supporting it or like at least just being engaged with the sport itself, is like a really easy way for like a lot of the left to just like dig at sports as a whole and like have this performative activism about something they weren't going to watch anyway and I don't know it's. My whole point is that like it's all really like weird and the left is just, generally speaking, uncomfortable with like talking about fitness and you know, sports.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, do you think that's probably well, first of all, just to talk about the soccer. I think there's a split between you know, like FIFA, and then the common man playing sport, you know, playing the sport, as, you know, just like, how there's a difference between a government and the common person. I mean, like you have two like countries that are outright engaged in a war, chances are that the common person is going to meet another person from the other country and be totally chill.

Andy:

Let's go back to, like, the FIFA example, the World Cup. It's, you know, this opportunity for people or for communities that otherwise never have a voice on a world stage, to finally have this opportunity to like exemplify why they're unique and why they're I don't want to say why they're valuable, because that makes it sound like it's only about the sports but just an opportunity to give them a global stage that we are so used to in places like the United States and Europe that we don't see the significance of it. And I don't know, we have these blinders on about like what it means to have an opportunity like that because it's so normalized here.

Tim Clemens:

I wonder if, like this leftist, maybe like anti-sport, which, hey, I actually might just I'm not even sure if I'm perceiving it correctly, but maybe it's seen as too individualistic, like, is that maybe just like a predilection towards?

Andy:

Yeah, I think so and I, you know, I really think a lot of it stems back to like how we relate with sports in high school and in middle school as kids. Like we were talking before, we knew we were kind of different than the rest of the kids on our sports teams, right, and I'm assuming anyone else in our position probably also felt that.

And then, of course, I think, people that didn't play sports or wanted to but didn't feel they were fit enough or whatever it might have been, they might have also felt that and looked at it as, like this survival of the fittest type mentality that I do think permeates a lot of sports, but also like isn't inherently a part of the sport itself. Because you know you can be specialized and not necessarily be the best right, like you can be very good at a particular thing, but not like all around a good, you know, basketball player. You could just be a big guy that's rough in the paint and can get the ball and rebounds. Like you know you don't have to be the best shooter.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, totally. Like, I played rugby. That was a huge sport for me for 15 years and you know, the cool thing about rugby is, first of all, everyone on the field has to run for about 90 minutes but at the same time, you still have like really heavy guys called props and then you have like really tiny guys called wings. You know, and we're all expected to do roughly the same stuff. Just, we all have our own capacities. Rugby taught me, like, a little bit of like, hey, everyone has something to offer, like I already knew that, but it was just another way of hammering home that everyone has something to offer.

So, this idea, I always thought that you know people who had these like negative formative experiences toward, especially field sports. I think a lot of people have much less negative experiences towards, like individual sports at those times, because you are competing against other people. But in those individual sports, but it's much more like you versus you at the end of the day, like my outcomes versus my outcomes, whereas like the team sport, it's like there's all this politicking a little bit, like who's starting, who's getting play time.

And then it's like there's much more shame too, like you can feel guilt over, like, maybe, bad performance in an individual sport, but in a collective sport you can feel shame, you know, because oh, I dropped a ball, oh, I missed a shot, you know. So maybe that reinforces why people have these negative experiences.

Andy:

Yeah, I'm not really sure. The reality is that the left isn't engaged with sports in terms of the proportion of the population it should be, which is really counterintuitive because of the reasons we're bringing up, like the benefits of teamwork and things like that. Not to get too cheesy, but there is a really interesting dynamic that has played out.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, and I don't think it's cheesy. I'm all in for teamwork.

You know, I think a huge thing nowadays is we all want community, we like there's so much lip service paid to the fact that we want to build community, I mean, especially on the left, right, I mean, but everyone's saying it right now. I think we have a genuine yearning and upswell of yearning for community and to feel. I think underneath that is like a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose. My life is not just an interchangeable unit traded by nation states on the world stage, but it actually is a meaningful and valued entity to the people around me, you know, and by me there's a piece of it that I think, or the piece that I think is holding us back in a lot of ways, is a lot of vulnerability and humility.

Andy:

You know, as a 30-plus, almost 40-year-old man who's going to go play some pickup basketball like I'm five or seven and I'm getting over COVID, like I haven't touched a basketball in a decade, like I'm not going to be good, there's some humility that comes with that, right?

Tim Clemens:

Totally. I think Gen Z has us on that. They're so welcoming, like in their own like kind of weird and cheesy way, which I find incredibly endearing, and like I'm honestly like a little bit envious of that, like I wish we had almost had, like for better or for worse, I almost wish we had this like flattening experience that the internet has done to people nowadays, because it also does spread. It can spread bad, but it can spread good too, and I think it's given people unprecedented insight into how other people are living.

And so Gen Z is making the most of that and they're forming their psyches based upon, like, they see people's mistakes all the time. They see people bouncing back from mistakes all the time. They see people bouncing back from failure all the time, whereas we might've thought it was the end of the world, because we're only around and influenced the most by the people we're around who would have maybe been the ones to shame us.

But like Gen Z is resilient as hell. You know, yeah, and they love each other, like in the gym. You know their culture is like hey, you're here, that's great. You know, like, whatever you're doing, that's great.

Andy:

I remember being in college and going to the gym for the first time as a freshman. All the kids on scholarship, they just lived in the gym, right, like again, I'd go and I'm like 5'7", like tiny little white dude, and my roommate was actually the center for the basketball team. He was 6'10, a black dude, so it's like we're like the odd couple, like when we would stand next to each other.

I would go in the gym and like I like we're totally out of place, and like he came over and he's like, all right, like let's go. You know, do some stuff.

Tim Clemens:

And but like he was happy to work with, there's definitely like a clear like what are you doing here? Kind of thing, and if Gen Z's not doing that, that's awesome.

I went to the suburban gym that seemed to be like a Gen Z gym. There was a smattering—I want to say there's a smattering of people, you know, over 30—but it was almost all just like straight Gen Z high school. I recently graduated from high school, and I have never experienced such a welcoming environment. The vibes were immaculate. I mean, everyone was so happy to be there.

Everyone was talking freely, too. Yeah, the gym's not usually the talking place. No, it's not right, and everyone's talking freely, too. The gym's not usually the talking place. It's not right, and everyone's kind of like, what you do every once in a while, have the guy in the hoodie that's just bent over, and you're always going through it, but yeah, but no, this was. Everyone was so happy.

I think there's a real change going on, and we can't travel back to the past. That's very frustrating, so we have to make a change now. But if someone did have terrible experiences or just less-than-good experiences with fitness in the past, I always say it's time to try again.

Andy:

And you know you think about it like and this is kind of maybe even be a little besides the point, but I do think it plays into why maybe the gym that you went to is having this experience is that, as a kid today not to date myself too much, but there's not a lot of options for things you can do that are cheap or free right. And a gym membership is like, depending where you're going, it could be 10, 15 bucks a month.

If you're going there four or five days a week, you really can't beat it in terms of like, I want to go out with my friends and go be someplace and we don't have to do anything. It's not like you go to a movie. You have to be quiet or you go to wherever. You're kind of limited by the scope of what you're there for. You can go to the gym and between sets you're just shooting the shit for five minutes, and I think that's something that the gym offers this very communal space, while also having these like really obvious benefits of health.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I guess I've never thought about it before, but this is one of the most, one of the cheapest like entertainment forums. I mean second only to probably just going outside. And yeah, I mean here. We can only do that for like probably six months, so half of the year.

Andy:

Yeah, and loitering is a thing if you live in the suburbs. Where are you going to go? You know what I mean. Like, hang out in the Walmart parking lot, you know?

Tim Clemens:

I don't think mall rats exist anymore.

Andy:

Yeah, there's not many malls anyway, because malls don't exist. That's something that maybe is becoming more valued and more important to a new generation. Now I think, well, a lot of my listeners, our listeners, are probably a little bit older than Gen Z. I'm sure there's a decent amount of Gen Zers.

I've been thinking about how to get myself to do more fitness-type stuff. You know, I like kayaking and rock climbing. It's really fun and great, and obviously, for folks who have done them, they're not very cheap things to do. You get a rock climbing gym membership. It's usually like 100 bucks a month. You need to have a kayak, a vehicle to move said kayak, and access to places to go kayaking.

How do we get people to, especially older people, to start thinking about actually making sports, and I don't mean like going necessarily and pumping iron, but like just being interested in getting physically fit and looking at it, something that's exciting and enjoyable, as opposed to like, well, yeah, I gotta go to the gym because I need to get healthier, but more of I want to go to xyz. You know what I'm, do you know what I mean?

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, I do, and I also feel like maybe my internal biases are standing in the way. Because I love physical activity—you know, I'm excited about it normally—that's definitely just because of my habituation as a child and good experiences being a general positive reinforcement throughout my life.

But I would say you know you want to think about what is your actual goal Enjoyment, if that's something that you want to do, you know, be more healthy. I think that's, you know, maybe a secondary goal for a lot of people, because it's so ambiguous. What metric do you know, etc. I would just suggest, especially people you know I'm 34. So I'm not much behind you. I would just suggest people your age and older, just get out and walk, if that's where you need to start.

Also, if someone is a wheelchair user, maybe that looks like getting in your standins a machine that helps people replicate all the benefits of standing. You know that will open up your hips and stuff, but you know anybody sitting in their office chair or driving a ton. Maybe you're an Uber driver or a truck driver, and you need to st’ you need to stand.

You know you need to simulate that movement. So, if you can walk, go outside and walk for 30 minutes. And if it is winter outside, be careful; it's icy, but just walk for 30 minutes. Maybe that looks like walking around your block. Maybe you go to the YMCA or something like that and walk around the track, and you need to allow yourself the grace to figure this out.

So you're not gonna, you don't wanna start with the carrot so far out in front of you that you get sad that you're not there already. So a lot of people are like, okay, I'm gonna change my life. You know, it's the new year, or it's going to become once it's spring, and it starts getting nice out there, like I want to totally change my life. That works for less than 10% of people. I want to say it's probably 1% of people, right?

So you want to put the carrot close enough that you think you're going to get it, but far enough that you get better and more towards your goal with it outside. And then if you, um, maybe want to add some stuff to that, like, hey, it's foraging. If you want to engage the intellect a little bit instead of the physicality, walk and maybe notice the plants around you, how about that. That will keep you going. Maybe every time you walk, you get to teach yourself one plant, like just put little carrots all over the place.

Andy:

Yeah, I love that. Go look for all the black cherry trees and identify them all.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, totally. You know. If you want to get like iNaturalist on your phone or something, or map out your route on fallingfruit.org or whatever that shows you all the edible trees in your area, yeah, just like be like, okay, I'm getting to the. What is that, a Black walnut tree? You know? Like, just engage yourself, and it doesn't have to look any certain way.

Anybody who tells you it has to be a certain way likely doesn't even know what your goals are, so they're wrong right off the bat. You know. And they don't know your idiosyncratic physiology, either. So, there is no one size fits all. We're not even at individualized medicine yet technologically. So, just send it, ultimately.

Andy:

Yeah, I love that, Tim. For folks who want to follow you, what are your handles on TikTok and Instagram; we’ve done a couple of collabs in the past, and I'm sure we'll do some more by the time this comes out.

Tim Clemens:

Yeah, you guys can find me at MN Forager, like the abbreviation for Minnesota MN Forager. Then you can find me at ironwoodforaging.com.

Andy:

Awesome, Tim. Thanks so much. This has been really fun.

To listen to this interview, tune into episode #173.