#150 Living Like a Paleo Biohacker with Keith Norris

Keith Norris (0:00)

If people look, if the human body is a machine, right, in a highly functioning machine, you have to ask yourself, what is it that will stress that machine the most in the shortest amount of time and not overstress it so that I can overcompensate and be better the next day? Those exercises tend to be the exercises that people don't want to do because they are very hard.

So this is why you have people running on treadmills and doing bicep curls and things like that that may be fun to do, but they are not as effective as say deadlifts and dips and overhead presses and heavy carries and things of that nature. Those are very, very difficult to do and they are also very, very effective.

SPEAKER_2 (0:47)

Do you want to know what it is?

Siim Land (0:51)

Body Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_2 (0:53)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

Siim Land (0:59)

Everything the body needs.

SPEAKER_2 (1:00)

Control your mind.

Siim Land (1:04)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and our guest today is Keith Norris. Keith is a personal trainer, speaker and entrepreneur from Austin, Texas. He is also a co-founder of Paleo Fx, which is one of the largest health and nutrition events in the US. Before we begin the conversation with Keith, I want to let you know that I'm going to be speaking at the upcoming Paleo Fx in 2020 They're actually having a special free VIP giveaway. You can get two VIP badges to Paleo Fx, two round-trip flights to Austin and accommodation for three nights. That's up to $5,000 worth of value and you can also get to meet me, including all the other amazing speakers. So check out the show notes of this episode at siimland.com forward slash Keith Norris.

And there you can also find a 35% discount code for the event, which lasts only until the end of this year. But for now, let's get to the show with Keith Norris.

Keith, welcome to the show.

Keith Norris (2:02)

Siim, man, the last time I saw you was in London for health optimization. Very, very cool, right?

Siim Land (2:08)

Yeah, exactly. It was a great event. And I'm glad to see that you're not only like spreading your wings in the States, but also coming to Europe. So really, really, really appreciate it for being a part of the event. And definitely, it was very well organized for the first year.

Keith Norris (2:24)

Yeah, that was a really, really good show. And we were happy the way it came off. And like you said, for a first year show, anybody who's been in the event business, like I have for almost 10 years now, it's easy, right? First year shows are tough to pull off. That's why there's very, very few year two shows because they are so hard to pull off.

Siim Land (2:45)

Yeah, that's true. So, you've been running Paleo Fx for quite a few years already. So, it shows that you have seen great success from it.

But before we get into that, can you tell us a bit of like a background? How did you get into personal training and when did you start organizing a Paleo Fx?

Keith Norris (3:05)

Right. So, just the short bio for me, so I was a lifelong athlete, have been training for athletics since I was 11 years old.

I was lucky enough to have some of the best coaches around in the sports that I played. Early on, that was track and field. I was a sprinter early on. Got picked up by a youth organization in the US that is called AAU, Amateur Athletics Union, which is a feeder to the junior Olympics program.

At that time, this was in the 70s, it's a feeder for the US Olympic teams. So yeah, I was a good enough sprinter at an early age to be picked up by those organizations and did very, very well in track and field, mostly, you know, sprint events. But as I matured, I matured into this frame that was a lot thicker, right? So I wasn't a natural sprinter, but was still fast and parlayed that quickness and a big body size into American football. Played American football for many years, played throughout college. And at that point, I went into the military. But I always retained that love of training and, you know, what it took to make athletes better. For whatever reason, I just really, really had an affinity for that. And I wanted to learn more at a very, very early age about how different styles of training could have different effects on the human body and how different diets could have different effects on the human body.