Fitness Files: Wayne Caparas
Wayne Caparas is the author of the heavily-researched book, "BioLogic Revelation: The 10 Minute No-Sweat Anti-Aging Workout." Caparas established himself as a fitness industry pioneer during the 1990s and has served on the American Council on Exercise and IHRSA. In the late '90s he was a Co-Publisher and Contributing editor to the newsstand magazine Vie (a women's fitness magazine), which led to a role in the development of Oxygen Magazine as a Contributing editor and writer. Caparas shares more of his fitness background as well as his ups and downs in his Fitness Files interview below! He is the perfect example of staying focused, being determined and training the mind and body at the same time.
NMF: Has fitness always been a major part of your life or was there a catalyst/point in your life when you made it more of a focus and priority?
Wayne Caparas (WC): Mine is a comeback story, so this question is especially meaningful to me. For this, I hope your readers will learn from my mistakes as they read how I made "beauty from ashes." Fitness has indeed always been a major part of my life. As a four-year three-sport athlete while a prep, I earned scholarships in both track and football (sprinter and wide receiver), and went on to set a couple of speed and strength records as a member of the Furman University football team. It was the early eighties when training protocols were brutal and life-consuming, so injuries and other interests cut my college football career short. A few years later, despite my wide receiver build, I was competing as a power lifter while working as a gym equipment broker and health club designer. I was also playing basketball or tennis at least five days per week for two or more hours per session, and despite the frequent injuries, I was a true high-volume, high-impact junkie during my twenties.
By the time I turned thirty I had launched a chain of very innovative health clubs in Charleston, SC and was emerging as a fitness pioneer of sorts. It was just before the turn of the century, and my team and I were quickly becoming media darlings for the many awards and published stories we gained through several high-profile initiatives we promoted to international audiences. Fitness publishing magnate, the late Robert "Bob" Kennedy (bestselling author and founder of MuscleMag International, Clean Eating, Reps!, and many others) was my dear friend and mentor at the time. Having already broken into women's fitness publishing through my role in the award-winning Vie Magazine, Bob asked me to help him formulate the "perfect" women's fitness magazine for the true enthusiast, and Oxygen Magazine was his resulting brainchild. From there I served as contributing editor and research journalist for Oxygen's first three years on the newsstand. During this time, under Bob's reciprocal guidance, I began pioneering obstacle course fitness events for television, and ESPN praised our team for advancing the sport well before any of the popular broadcast obstacle course events existed. I was also lecturing for ACE and IHRSA, and it seemed my fitness trajectory was locked in, until... my body began breaking down. That was the turning point when my fitness interests stopped being about making money and reshaping an industry and started becoming a mission to right some wrongs and reveal the truth.
First, several fitness related injuries destroyed my knees and caused significant damage to my back and my left shoulder. Then the unthinkable happened. In 1997 I was diagnosed with an often-debilitating thyroid disorder (Graves Disease). These combined breakdowns pushed me to look beyond the contemporary definitions and most popular means to "fitness," as they were without question complicit or entirely to blame for prematurely "aging" my joints and my endocrine system. I was just thirty-four at the time. So I liquidated all of my interests in the fitness industry and began researching and experimenting with the "revelation" that had struck me several years earlier while (ironically) rehabbing from my first serious knee injury. In time, startling research that supported or proved my theory began pouring in, and by the time I turned fifty, I was stronger and healthier (and feeling younger) than ever. That's when I decided it was time to share the profound wealth of groundbreaking research that is the basis for my book, BioLogic Revelation. Today I'm well into my fifties, and I am no longer alone in my effort to flip the table on segments of the fitness industry that base their cash-cows on high-volume, high-impact training programs, yet we are still a very strict minority. Where fitness is concerned, the scientific community and common human genetics have proven "less" truly is "more." I hope you'll join us in our effort to get the truth out there and start setting the masses free from all the abuse and neglect that is so prevalent in an industry that is desperately in need of a revolution!
NMF: What are a few of your go-to healthy snacks/drinks that help keep you on the straight and narrow?
WC: Avocados, a variety of raw nuts, Organic black bean burgers (I nuke'm with red chile sauce... yum!), occasional Greek yogurt and organic berries, lots and lots of clean spring water, and ginger Kombucha.
NMF: How do you train your mind and stay motivated?
WC: Above all, by remembering daily that life is a precious and fragile gift, and that my body is the only temple I will ever have to sustain and honor this precious gift. From there, remaining cognizant throughout the day that every cell of my being wants and needs to be stimulated in some way. To that end, I've learned to bridge the mind-body gap to connect to the life systems, organs, and even the very cells that comprise them. This connection keeps me motivated to feed each with the nutrients they need and to ensure I engage each in activities they were designed to perform. I know—just as research has proven—that this is true for every system and element in my body; from my brain and nervous system to my most precious muscle fibers to my glucose metabolism to my endocrine system to my cardiovascular system, etc., etc. Every bit of me. It was this realization that most empowers the stimuli taught in BioLogic Revelation as well as the life-giving chain reaction the stimuli trigger.
NMF: How do you change your body? What are your fitness favorites?
WC: By leveraging the principle of orderly recruitment, I train the full spectrum of muscle fibers in each of my six major muscle groups through a ten-minute no-sweat training methodology comprised of four distinct protocols. These protocols target my super fast twitch muscle fibers in each of these groups; all to ensure these typically neglected super-human fibers receive the stimuli necessary to burn their incomparable glucose stores. In BioLogic Revelation I translate the science behind this remarkable physiological phenomenon through a very simple metaphor I call "the lobby, the hallway, and the golden door." The muscle hypertrophy (compounding strength and growth), increased fat-burning metabolism, and enhanced insulin sensitivity sparked by the BioLogic Method, in turn, triggers optimal hormonal responses that "wake up" critical lines of communication between all body systems that—for most—are being ignored. So not only does this method change my body composition to more closely align with my actual genetic design (that of a sprinter/dancer), but as detailed in my book, the latest research has shown it also slows or reverses the aging process while catalyzing what I call the BioLogic Cascade of health benefits across all body systems. Having researched and experimented with every known approach to fitness over the past thirty years, performing BioLogic ten-minute no-sweat strength protocols through a variety of controlled exercises are not just my "fitness favorites," but all any of us need to "change our bodies." More important, the research shows that the BioLogic Method works for (and is needed by) all adults of every age. From there, as is true with any fitness program, it's really all about proper nutrition and a more active lifestyle, which I gain through walking, hiking (especially while playing disc golf with my family!), light cycling; occasional sprint intervals on foot, cycle, or in the pool; the "tai-chi-like" mind-body connecting protocols I call "resting movements" (detailed in BioLogic Revelation), and playing lots of low-to-no impact sports and other "play" activities. I don't sit on my butt all day, but when life as a writer forces me behind a computer for longer periods, I take frequent walkabout breaks while employing resting movements as often as possible... and I NEVER skip recess!
For more information on Wayne visit: www.BioLogicRevelation.com