I love Pat Croce because Pat truly embodies what being Renegade is all about.
He doesn’t let anything hold him back from achieving his dreams and he is living proof that making health a top priority is a critical component to achieving your dreams.
It’s absolutely mind boggling to see all that Pat has achieved throughout his life.
He’s inspiring, motivating and exhilarating just check out the video below….
Every time I hear Pat talk I feel like I can accomplish anything and I think you will feel that way too.
So check out the interview and make your health a priority today….your dreams are waiting.
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Option 1: CLICK HERE To Download The Interview Transcript
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Here’s the interview!
Introduction: I am so excited to share this awesome interview with The Incredible Pat Croce.
For those of you who don’t know Pat Croce is an incredibly successful Entrepreneur, former Owner of the Philadelphia 76ers Professional Basketball Team, Author, TV Personality, Restaurant Owner, Physical Therapist, Athletic Trainer and Fitness Fanatic.
Pat began his career as a physical therapist and was an athletic trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers for more than 10 years.
He then founded Sports Physical Therapists in 1984 and grew the business into a chain of 40 centers spanning 11 states before selling it in 1993 for $40 million dollars.
He then went on to become President of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team where under his leadership the 76ers went from last place in 1996 to the NBA finals in 2001.
Pat’s also written 4 books that have topped the New York Time’s best seller’s list and he opened the Rum Barrel Restaurant and a 10 Million Dollar Pirate Museum in Key West Florida. He also maintains ownership in Island Dogs Bar and Green Parrot Bar in Key West.
So Pat’s obviously a really busy guy and that’s why I’m so excited to share this interview with you guys today because Pat eliminates the lack of time excuse and shares with us how he’s been able to make his health and fitness a priority throughout his entire life.
Pat Croce: Hello Tim, Pat Croce.
Tim Murphy: Pat Croce! How are you?
Pat Croce: Doing fine thanks.
Tim Murphy: Pat, my audience is primarily moms and dads that are very busy but they want to get in better shape. As a wildly successful entrepreneur, father, grandfather, husband and also a very healthy person, what advice would you give to my audience on how they can get in better shape and stay healthy while managing the responsibilities of being parents and having full-time jobs, etc.
Pat Croce: I might be a little prejudiced towards this topic, Tim, because I am a fanatic about it being a physical therapist and athletic trainer but I think it has to be a priority and I think you are doing yourself and your children a disservice if you are not in shape because you won’t have the endurance or creative skill sets to do what you want to do with them.
So, people say “Well, I don’t have the time.” No! You don’t make the time; you have the time, you don’t make the time. You don’t understand it’s priority not only for yourself but for your family. I mean, not only will you get in better shape but you will have more endurance, the oxygenation to your muscles also oxygenates your brain so that when your kids need some help with you at homework time, you will be able to afford them that time and that creative spirit. It’s important to lower your pulse rate so you can increase your quality of life.
Tim Murphy: Pat I couldn’t agree more. What would you suggest to somebody that says “Yeah, well, I have, you know, 15 minutes a day that I could maybe do something”? What would you suggest they do during that time?
Pat Croce: You got to make it more. You got to give me two hours a week. I want two hours a week. That’s what I am telling them – give me two hours a week, so half hour four times a week. That’s all. Now, whether you want to walk, ride a bicycle, walk on a treadmill, dance, doesn’t matter but you got to do something that you enjoy so you will continue to do it and then maybe spend even a little more than two hours a week. But at least a minimum of two hours a week.
Tim Murphy: Yeah, I agree.
Pat Croce: I would rather see people commit a half hour. If you are going to get sweaty, you might as well do it longer than 15 minutes because you have to take a shower anyway.
Tim Murphy: Right, right.
Pat Croce: So, you might as well make it worth your while. And you can do anything, I am telling you – a brisk walk, a 2-mile walk and a half an hour buildup to that spot. Make sure, again, before you take any step into fitness that you get a physical first. Make sure you get all systems A OK; that’s vital.
Tim Murphy: Exactly.
Pat Croce: I get an annual physical anyway just for checkup because I like to see my heart rate, I like to see it on an EKG machine. I don’t want that thing crossing 50. I like to see my weight stabilized in the high 160s. I don’t care if I am aging chronologically but physiologically I am not getting older. So, there are great ways. I mean, I can use the same belt I had since college but people say I am full of shit but no, I am telling you, it’s because it’s a priority in my life; maybe I am fanatical about getting that sweat factor every day. I believe that people have to decide what they enjoy doing. I don’t care dancing. I don’t care gardening. I don’t care what it is but you got to enjoy it to continue it. I don’t want you to do what I do because… and I like cross training. Add variety to your program. I mean, if you get a bicycle and a jump rope and a Stairmaster, you can do all kinds of stuff with that. You don’t have to do the same thing. I use what’s called a cardio circuit. I have been doing it for decades. I used to do it with the pro athletes. You can do a rowing ergometer, a bicycle ergometer, upper body and arm ergometer, Stairmaster, Versa Climber or whatever you want to make it and then you do five at each stations or six at each stations or 10 in one station, 5 in another. The more you add variety to you exercise program, the less you will be bored and the more commitment you’ll have.
Tim Murphy: That’s right. I agree 1,000 percent Pat. I’ve been into health and fitness my whole life as well and have been very passionate about it. But when I became a father it was a challenge for me to find the time and space to work out and I basically grabbed a few pairs of dumbbells and threw together a workout that I could do literally 30 minutes a day two to three times per week and I put together a workout that has helped me to get in the best shape of my life.
Pat Croce: You know there is a nice little piece of apparatus called the AeroSling. SmothFitness has it, smoothfittness.com but it’s like the TRX but it has a pulley system and you can do a variety of exercises on that so you won’t be bored.
Tim Murphy: That’s interesting. I haven’t heard that.
Pat Croce: Oh yeah, it’s just like the TRX but the TRX doesn’t have a pulley system in it at the end.
Tim Murphy: Okay, that’s great. We are going to have to check that out and I will include links to that on the website.
So, Pat, you mentioned a couple of things that you do every year to keep an eye on your health, the things that you monitor. Can you tell us what those things are again?
Pat Croce: Oh, yeah, I get a physical. I go to my personal physician, I get a physical.
Tim Murphy: Okay.
Pat Croce: And the other thing I do probably once a quarter lying in bed, before I get out of bed, before I move a muscle, I just turn my head to the left and I look at my clock and I watch and as soon as that number flips, for one whole minute I monitor my pulse rate not using your thumb that has it’s own pulse rate, but my two fingers on my radial pulse and I count. I don’t count and then multiply it by 6. I count for the entire full minute and I want to know what my resting heart rate is. It’s the greatest barometer of your fitness level.
Tim Murphy: That’s a great advice.
Pat Croce: And people would think I am nuts but I weigh in almost every day.
Tim Murphy: Do you really?
Pat Croce: Yes.
Tim Murphy: You mind if I ask what your weight is?
Pat Croce: 167.
Tim Murphy: Wow! You and I are exactly the same weight.
Pat Croce: I get really pissed off if I hit 170.
Tim Murphy: (Laughter) Any idea what your body fat percentage is, Pat?
Pat Croce: I don’t know, I don’t know. I am sorry but it’s pretty good.
Tim Murphy: I am sure it’s very low. I am sure it’s very low.
Pat Croce: It’s harder though. I am 57, so it’s hard.
Tim Murphy: You’re a machine! You’re someone I look up to. You’ve had so much success professionally but not only that to me success is more than making money, it’s the lifestyle. Good family, good relationships, success in a career that you’re passionate about and fulfills you but also your health. Those 3 things are kind of like the key to me for true success.
Pat Croce: The problem is Tim is that I go too hard at it. So my elbows, I’ve had 3 surgeries and multiple injections and one is just coming off, cause I started golfing because I wanted to add a little variety and wanted to do something within my sunshadow. So, I cut my strength training down in the gym from three days a week to just Monday and Friday but I go hard for an hour. It’s what the PX90 is before there was even that tape. So, I have always done aggy tagging all kinds of… I never rest. I go from one front-back, front-back, front-back core, front-back, front-back, front-back core and I just… anyone wants to do with me, come on, my partners I damn near kill em! But that’s Monday and Friday and I just have abused my elbows with too many pull-ups or whatever it is, so it bothers me. I have tried yoga in there. I throw a lot of variety. I still run. I don’t run as much as I used to since my accident but I still run 5 miles at least twice a week, sometimes three times a week and I do a cardio circuit.
Tim Murphy: Wow!
Pat Croce: Or I may just walk 5 miles but I get something in every day.
Tim Murphy: Real quick, I will definitely take you up on that offer to work out with you sometime if that’s still an offer but I want to just a good idea so I know… so you strength train with weights, you run, you walk…
Pat Croce: And my strength training isn’t just… it is with weights but it’s also with stability balls, I do a lot of balance on one leg and touch the floor over the head, just one leg on the ground. I mean, I do a lot of multi-muscle exercises to facilitate a lot of muscles. I do a lot of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation or PNF patterns – you touch your right toe and then you are up on your… So, I do a lot of things that aren’t just on the linear plane, using Stability balls and Bosu balls and mats. I can do a variety of stuff and I add a lot of variety in my hour of strength training but it is strength training because I do each exercise till failure, whether it’s 10 reps, 12 reps, 8 reps, 20 reps.
Tim Murphy: So, aside from the strength training, Pat, and the cardio, do you do flexibility type exercises?
Pat Croce: I always stretch. I can still do a full split.
Tim Murphy: Wow!
Pat Croce: Remember I was a fourth degree Black Belt.
Tim Murphy: I know.
Pat Croce: I did Karate all the way until I was 50 but it was too much torturous on my low back. So, yeah, I still stretch. I stretch all the time after I work out, no matter what exercise routine I am doing and I was doing yoga there for a while there but that was bothering my back, I was getting too… I don’t know whether the heat in the room but I was getting past my bone further than I should have, I don’t know.
Tim Murphy: Wow! That’s interesting because I thought about doing yoga myself.
Pat Croce: I liked it; it’s just that I hurt my back doing it.
Tim Murphy: Yeah. So, if it hurts then do something else right?
Pat Croce: Yeah, skip it. Forget it I don’t want to get hurt.
Tim Murphy: I agree. Pat, we only have a few minutes left and I want to get a little bit into diet because I know that’s a big part of your health routine as well. Can you tell us a little bit about your diet?
Pat Croce: Yeah. I eat three meals a day always, no fail, and then I will like snack in… I have breakfast, I love a multigrain bagel with natural peanut butter and jelly on it. I have Golean with yogurt mixed in and raisins and some granola or I have eggs with bacon. They are things I love for breakfast. I always have breakfast when I come back from working out. I usually have a banana right when I’m done and then breakfast with a cup of tea.
Lunch, I will have… today I had a Cuban sandwich but I can have tuna fish on whole wheat, tomato, lettuce. I love a good chopped cobb salad or chicken Caesar salad. And every once in a while I have a slice of pizza with everything on it. It’s about quantity. You can’t just eat too much.
And then for dinner, my wife is a great cook so we will have fish and salad or chicken and salad or steak and salad and broccoli and green vegetables. My dangerous part, Tim, is happy hour; that’s where I am dangerous because you give me two glasses of good red wine and then I will nibble on cashews and peanuts and pretzels. That’s where I got to watch myself. So, happy hour on a weekend and nice vodka gimlet, heavy on the vodka ya know? I’m a dangerous man there.
Tim Murphy: (Laughter)
Pat Croce: Because then your inhibitions are throw down the cellar and then you know “give me some more of that. I want to eat whatever is in front of me.”
Tim Murphy: Absolutely. I fall into that same trap.
Pat Croce: But then again I know that. The mission is moderation, whether it’s in your fitness workout; I am not talking about doing marathons or triathlons and on nutrition I am not talking about being a vegan. I eat healthy. You know I tried some of the paleo diet and I eat more protein than I want to reduce to but I can’t give up carbs, I don’t want to give up carbs.
Tim Murphy: Yeah, me neither. I tell my readers on my site I follow a mostly paleo style diet but I still love pizza, I love cheese steaks, I mean, all those things. There are just certain foods in life that you just enjoy them. So why not include them.
Pat Croce: You know, I’m all about, the same about religion. I think God is prejudice and he really wants us all to be happy. So it doesn’t matter what religion you preach, it’s the same. I don’t think that food…as long as you are getting a wide variety of foods and it’s just not highly processed, because if it’s highly processed, that’s really where you’re going to have trouble. So you know if there’s a good bran muffin, now I’ll have that and I know that it’s not much different than cake at dessert, but you know what, it’s got some bran in it for me. But that’s not something I’ll have every morning.
Tim Murphy: Right, exactly. Moderation.
Pat Croce: Right.
Tim Murphy: It’s all about moderation and I love what you said, kind of the issue is really the highly processed foods.
Pat Croce: It really is.
Tim Murphy: The more you stay away from that, the better off you will be but obviously you can include a little bit of that to kind of keep yourself happy and sane.
Pat Croce: O you give me a nice piece of chocolate after lunch or after dinner and I love it because that will quench my dessert tongue.
Tim Murphy: Exactly.
Pat Croce: That’s fine.
Tim Murphy: Yeah, that will take care of it.
Pat Croce: Yeah, not to say that every once a while I won’t have a good bowl of Häagen-Dazs frozen yogurt because I can’t eat regular ice-creams – I’m lactose intolerance; So I can’t do that.
Tim Murphy: Yeah.
Pat Croce: But I love ice cream.
Tim Murphy: Me too. I can polish off a container of Ben & Jerry’s before anybody.
Pat Croce: You got to be dangerous there… but even with peanuts, a whole cup of peanuts is 840 calories. So, Häagen-Dazs, even though it’s natural… I remember Pierre Robert when I was training Pierre back in the day and he is a vegan, he eats all this natural stuff but his were Reese’s peanut butter cups and Ben & Jerry’s.
Tim Murphy: Right, right. Pat, listen, I know we are kind of out of time. I want to thank you so much…
Pat Croce: Do you have any more questions?
Tim Murphy: Well, one other on the diet topic if you don’t mind.
Pat Croce: Go ahead.
Tim Murphy: Okay. Supplements – a lot of people obviously want to get healthy, they think maybe certain supplements will help them get there. Do you take any supplements?
Pat Croce: I do, I do. Again, I am all about nutrition but the ones that I do take, I take Vitamin D3 because I think it really does help the quality of your life and longevity and also my physician is a big believer in that and I even have my vitamin D measured when I have my blood work on an annual basis as well as my prostate issue because that’s how my dad died of prostate cancer; but vitamin D3; I take glucosamine for my joints because I beat the hell out of them. I should also tell you I also get a massage once a week too because I believe in massage therapy because I work them so hard I want to make sure that the lactose is out of there and then I take a probiotic mixture.
Tim Murphy: Okay. Do you think that those three are kind of key to your overall health?
Pat Croce: To me, yes, and I used to take a multivitamin mineral but I don’t feel I need that, so I don’t but I use vitamin D3 because all research shows how prophylactically that’s great for your blood pressure and your internal organs and my doctor it was what he recommends. So, I said okay although I get a lot of vitamin D through the summer time but not as much in the winter although I do go to Florida and the probiotic, I have always had some issues with my stomach and so man I don’t anymore issues.
Tim Murphy: That’s great. Again, Pat, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
Pat Croce: You are welcome, Tim. Continued success and keep preaching the mission.
Tim Murphy: Thanks, Pat. I appreciate it.
Pat Croce: Okay, buddy.
Tim Murphy: Alright, take care. Bye.
Tim Murphy: Alright guys I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. As you can see, Pat is such a dynamic person and it was really great to have him on the show to share his tips and strategies that have allowed him to keep his health a priority throughout his entire life. I hope you got something great out of that.
If you have any questions as always feel free to hit me up on the website RenegadeDad.Net. I’ll have this interviws posted on the site as well Ill have it up there in text format and you can ask questions through the comments on the site. Or you can send me an email through the site. Just go to the Contact Form on the website, that goes directly to my email. Or you can ask me questions through the Facebook Page or Twitter.
OK last thing, if you guys could do me a huge favor and tell somebody about RenegadeDad.Net I would greatly appreciate it. Send them a link to the website, tell them about it. If you’ve gotten any good information out of it hopefully you have just let somebody know about it. As you my mission is to really help parents to live healthier and happier lives so that they can raise children that are healthier and happier. So if you guys could do me a huge favor and just let somebody know about the site I’d greatly appreciate it.
Alright that’s it for now guys. Take care and have an awesome day!
<End of Interview>