How to Reach Your Fitness Goals (Hard-to-Grow Muscles, Lose Fat, Busy Schedule & More) | Dan Garner

**Andy Galpin** (0:00)
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life. Welcome to Perform.
Dan Garner.

**Dan Garner** (0:10)
Dr. Galpin.

**Andy Galpin** (0:11)
About time. It is.

**Dan Garner** (0:13)
It's been a long time coming.

**Andy Galpin** (0:14)
Yes, we have no shortage of time on the mics together, but the first time in this format, so super excited to have you here. I wanted to actually start by asking you about the summer. I know you had the opportunity to be at two of, we can just say, iconic sporting events. You were at the Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano Netflix.
Huge fight, one of the largest viewed sporting events and certainly fighting events and a real, like, interesting thing. And then a few weeks later, you were in the White House at that event with Sean O'Malley and his competition and all that. So I want to hear a ton about all that. But my very first question is, what was the difference between those two events?

**Dan Garner** (0:59)
Oh, man. The difference between those two events was the security involved at the White House. Showing up as a Canadian and seeing the US military flex is a different level, dude. So everything went the way it's supposed to go at any typical UFC. I arrive on fight week, we go through the weight cut process, we nail it, and from a, like, nutrition and principles and weight cutting structure, you know, it's business as usual.
But one of the craziest stories from, like, behind the scenes that, like, you don't really see on camera and stuff like that was actually on the way to the press conference. This was hosted at the Lincoln Memorial, which is huge and amazing, by the way. That memorial is freaking awesome.

**Andy Galpin** (1:41)
It's still really weird to hear you say all this, by the way. Like a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial for a UFC event.

**Dan Garner** (1:46)
Dude, it's crazy. Yeah, that has a large chance of never happening again. So on the way to this press conference at the Lincoln Memorial, I'm in this bus and it's like this special security area you got to go through to get into this bus. And then we're driving to the press conference.
And I'm looking and like the road is completely empty. Empty. This is downtown Washington, completely empty. And then I'm looking on the side and they've actually blocked off every single street. So like they've carved the whole path for us on the way. I was like, whoa, this is for me. This isn't for me. You feel like, whoa, dang. And then you're looking and they're blocking the roads with police cars. But then you keep looking, they're also blocking the roads with military vehicles with machine guns on top of them. And you're like, yo, this is actually, this is kind of cool, but I'm also like, whoa. And then when I went bruh, is when I started hearing the chopper above us.
I was like, dude, there's a blood, there's block streets, machine guns, chopper above us. The downtown has opened up just for us to get there. Security, like I've never seen or felt before. No one was gonna be messing around.

**Andy Galpin** (2:56)
Yeah.

**Dan Garner** (2:57)
There wasn't, no one was hearing a peep. That was excellently done security. Everything went perfectly. And that's what separated the two events. One event, like they're both huge, but the other felt like a world event. It was fun. I took in the moment. I've been working with Sean for seven years now, and we've done 14 fights together. So in a heck of a ride.
It's been amazing. We got a tight knit trusted team. So hanging with the boys and getting the job done. You got a second round KO and saluted the crowd before they even hit the ground. So legendary.

**Andy Galpin** (3:28)
There's that whole distraction. There's also the part of your brain is like, we're also here to do our job. And we've got to like stay focused on Sean and all those things.
Tell me more about the Gina and Ronda event. Contrast that, because that's also, in one sense, a super normal event for us. Like this is something you've been a part of many, many times.

**Dan Garner** (3:48)
Yeah.

**Andy Galpin** (3:49)
But I know Ronda was really vocal about your involvement, not only in the fight, but even how you helped her getting back into shape post pregnancy and all those things. So with the UFC event, I know everyone got late, last minute notice, but with Ronda's return, you had a really long time.