267: Plot Twist: Why Training for Vanity Can Hurt You and What to Do Instead with Aaron Alexander

In this plot twist episode, Light Watkins revisits a pivotal moment in the life of Aaron Alexander, founder of the Align Method. Once a personal trainer focused on building muscle to look good in the mirror, Aaron’s single-minded pursuit of physical aesthetics came at a high cost—shoulder dislocations, chronic back pain, and an overall destabilized body.

This wake-up call coincided with a life-changing move to Hawaii, where Aaron was exposed to a holistic approach to health and movement. Immersed in new environments and influences, he shifted from training for appearance to training for functional well-being. His journey included becoming a massage therapist, studying Rolfing, and creating the Align Method, which blends principles of movement, posture, and mindfulness to transform lives.

Aaron’s story highlights the pitfalls of valuing physical appearance over health, the importance of seeking new environments for growth, and the power of alignment—both physically and mentally. From his early struggles with imposter syndrome as a young trainer to his realization that true fulfillment lies in the ongoing pursuit of personal and professional growth, Aaron’s insights are both relatable and inspiring.

Whether you’re a fitness enthusiast, someone seeking a deeper understanding of mind-body connection, or simply curious about transformative journeys, this episode offers wisdom, humor, and actionable takeaways to help you align with your own path to well-being.

Transcript

AA: “ With the bodybuilding stuff, I started to become much less of an athlete as I started to feel like I want to pack on all this muscle, just so I can feel like cool, you feel like loved, all these different things that I was kind of hanging my hat on physicality, my worth on physicality.  And inevitably the pieces, if you push the system hard enough, the pieces will start to wear out or maybe snap or explode or break. And so I started to have that where I was just, it's from such an imbalanced way, training my body, like, really focusing just on like the muscles that I would see in the mirror, essentially, I was a big, dumb animal,  you know. So lots of work on building my chest up and, you know just all the biceps and all things. And then that led to a lot of issues. So I had shoulder dislocation. So I had like pretty much like chronic back pain. I would say I had like a big, I had like an ankle dislocation. Just my joints were like becoming unstable as a product of me really destabilizing them through improper training practices. And so then that turned into me seeking out help.”
 
 

[INTRODUCTION] 

 Today, I've got another bite size plot twist podcast episode for you, which is a shorter clip from a past episode where the guest shares the story of that pivotal moment in their life that directed them toward what ultimately became their path and their purpose. And sometimes that plot twist looks like getting fired from a job or getting betrayed by a friend, or the case of today's guest, Aaron Alexander.

He was a successful personal trainer who focused solely on building muscle and looking impressive in the mirror. But his singular focus on appearance led to multiple injuries from dislocated shoulders to chronic back pain. And this wake up call, combined with the move to Hawaii, exposed Aaron to different approaches to movement and to health, which led him to discover a more balanced, holistic approach to fitness.

He went on to develop the Align Method, which has helped revolutionize how we think about movement and well-being. Let's listen in. 

AA: I started off being a decent athlete. I was lanky and not impressive to look at, but I was decent at ice hockey. In my low-level teams that I played on, I was like, the high scores and all that stuff. I was an athlete. I felt like an athlete. Didn't feel that growing up. I felt like, I never talked to anybody. My uncle called Mumbles, which is so not nice in retrospect. Why would you as an uncle? Why would you do that?

I would just go to family get togethers, or whatever, and I just would not feel in place at all. I wouldn't say anything to anybody, and just be feel out of place. With the bodybuilding stuff, I started becoming much less of an athlete, as I started to feel like, oh, I want to pack on all this muscle, just so I can feel safe. I can feel cool. You can feel loved, all these different things. It's hanging my hat on physicality, my worth on physicality.

Inevitably, the pieces, if you push the system hard enough, the pieces will start to wear out, or maybe snap, or explode, or break. I started to have that, where I was just – from such an imbalanced way to training my body, really focusing just on the muscles that I would see in the mirror, essentially, I was a big, dumb animal. Lots of work on building my chest up and just all the biceps and all things. Then, that led to a lot of issues. I had shoulder dislocations, and I had pretty much chronic back pain. I would say, I had a big – I had an ankle dislocation.

My joints were becoming unstable as a product of me really destabilizing them through improper training practices. Then, that turned into me seeking out help, essentially. Also, moving, I think, again, moving to Hawaii. I got into jujitsu, and started hanging around people that are different stuff, and then just bodybuilding. It's really environment. We're creatures of our environment. Whatever the catalyst was that got me to go to a different pool, go to a different aquarium being Hawaii, I think, just being in that environment and being around different social influences, that started to form my mind and form the way that I operated my body. What I deemed to be optimal for me, or what my goals or desires were, they started to shift.

LW: You were a physical trainer, but you were lifting improperly. Or, what you mean is you weren't considering all of the variables that, I guess, more integrated, holistic people consider today?

AA: Yeah. I just wasn't so interested. I got great results for clients, but I wasn't so interested, or just yeah, I’m 16. 16, 17, 18. I was reading. I got my NFCA certification, again, ACE certification. A lot of my information came out of Men's Health. It was just really basic bitch stuff. I looked impressive. I think, that's your own –

LW: The medium is the message.

AA: The medium is the message. Yeah, for sure. I think, I looked impressive, and so people trusted me. I was fairly decent at putting on almost a front, that I knew what was going on. I think, there was just a lot of acting going on with that. Especially, being me, being a young person and essentially, having an adult job, like working with people that are real people in their 30s, and they do real adult life things. I'm teaching him about nutrition and teaching them about proper lifting mechanics and creating meal plans, workout plans.

It’s an immense amount of imposter syndrome sensation. There's a lot of acting going on throughout that. Ultimately, there's still acting going on. There's acting going on in our lives all the time. I think, we're continually pushing our boundaries. You act into your boundary, and then suddenly, you move through that boundary, then you're not acting anymore. You're there. I think, that was the thing that was pretty present for me growing up.

LW: What was the catalyst that enlightened you to these other dimensions to health and exercise? Did you have an Obi Wan Kenobi figure, whose book you read, or who you met? It was like, hey –

AA: No one particular one. Lots of in-person teachers along the way, and then got into more of specific people, like books. Then the Internet started becoming more of a thing, you know what I mean? My early 20s, it was more like, oh, yeah, social media is popping up. It's more of a common thing to get information off the internet. Yeah, started to have more teachers. I really got obsessive about finding instructors online at least, probably eight years ago was the beginning of that. Before that was mostly just seeking out in person people to help me. There's various different ones, but no one that’s especially mentionable.

LW: You opened up an office, right, in Bend first?

AA: I did.

LW: 2006, or something like that?

AA: Yeah. I was living in Boulder. I moved from Hawaii to Boulder, Colorado, with a girl. I wanted to be a ski bum/trainer ski bum. Hawaii was like, “Oh, I’ll be a trainer surf bum. I'll be a trainer ski bum.” Then went to the Rolf Institute out there. That was, the Rolfing a form of manual therapy, or hands-on body work. Yeah, I've lived out there for about five years and then moved to Bend, again, just to change up. It's like a molting type thing, like a shedding of your skin as a snake thing. By changing the place, I was the student of this thing called Rolfing.

Before that, I was already a massage therapist. I went to massage school when I in Hawaii years before that. Then, transitioned to move to Bend to come into a place of not being the student, but place of like, “Oh, I'm the professional here.” I went to Bend and opened up an office. That was called Align Therapy, eventually. The first one was called, I think, One Body. We did that for a little bit. Did that with some other people, actually, and then opened up Align Therapy. Then in Align Therapy, that was the beginning of Align everything. Align Podcast was the first part that it became something outside of just working one on one with clients.

Before the podcast started, my goals, hopes, wishes, desires, everything was to have a successful practice. Then, I got to that point where I was seeing all the clients that I could see. I had other people working with me and whatnot. It wasn't a thing, because there was two other people that worked with me. It was like, cool. I've reached the goal, and I’m 27, or 20 whatever age that was. It felt very unfulfilling.

LW: It felt unfulfilling?

AA: Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Because you're trading your time for money. It sounds great. It sounded great for me, but there's something about having the ongoing challenge of once I reached the goal, to me, it just becomes really dissatisfying. I reached the peak of what I could do with seeing clients. Then, starting the podcast, that was the beginning of okay, well, now there is no peak. It's this infinite growth potential. Then the mountain just – it got dramatically bigger. Now, there's really no top to the mountain, I don't think.

LW: When you say you reached the peak of seeing clients, that means you were booked all day long, every day seeing clients. You had no more time to trade for your money? There's really nowhere else to go from there, except for maybe raising your rates or whatever?

AA: Yeah. It's just boring. There's not really anything intriguing about that. I have value and appreciation and almost admiration, maybe not admiration, but because it's not – especially admire, but I have appreciation for people that can do that, and just have a practice, or have their 9 to 5, or whatever their thing is. Just have everything organized, and they're totally good with it. For me, I just lose all my motivation. I'm checked out, because I don't have that thing that I'm reaching for.

LW: What do you feel like, was your unfair advantage when you are building that first business? Because I'm sure there are other physical therapists and people working in the same area and people who look good and bodybuilding and whatnot? But why do you think people came to you versus anyone else?

AA: I think, probably my unfair advantage — I was thinking of it from that lens. Probably not just my dad, but weird childhood stuff I had. Being really sensitive to social cues, and how people reacting to what I'm saying. I wasn't really ever physically abused. We’re spanked every now and again, but I didn't have a physical abuse growing up. They learn a lot. You learn so much. Having that that hype, and it can become overdrive, where your acuity becomes something that's like, now it's tormenting you, where it becomes almost a PTSD thing where you hear, someone goes to shake your hand, you think they're going to punch you in the gut. It's like, okay, well, let's draw back a little bit. Having that exposure allowed me to, I think, just become a more sensitive and compassionate person.

LW: Can you recall any stories, where you picked up on something that your client was actually surprised that you were able to detect, but you knew it from your background?

AA: Nothing really particular. There's a weird space in the world of manual therapy, or bodywork, or depending upon who you see, physical therapy, or chiropractic, or maybe doctors, but people that work with clients and patients. There is an intuition that does exist, where certain people have different – you can call it like voyances. Some people might see colors. I don't have any of that stuff.

What I have is I just get these strong sensations to like, oh, work with the hip, or ask them about whatever the thing is, confidence, or just whatever. It's just like, well, say that, or do that. I don't have any specific like, oh, this moment when that thing happened. There was just many consistent patterns of being quiet enough, I guess. Because when you're doing a session with someone, especially manual therapy, especially if it's not just I'm clocking out and massaging the person, but we're actually working on engineering the body. You're being still with that person. It's essentially just the long meditation.

In that timeframe, doing that for five, six hours a day, just going with ooh, with the next person, ooh, with the next person, it really does start to turn on these interesting, intuitive, almost superpowers in a way. We all have access to all of that stuff. If you're a businessman, you would probably have that when you're doing a deal. If you haven't done a deal for a while, you might be rusty, you want to maybe pick up on things that you would. I think, that growing up in unsafe-ish. I was pretty safe overall, but emotionally, not safe environment, I think, was really informative for me to be a more intuitive person.

LW: For you at that time, it sounds like, success would have been equated to getting your time back, while still doing the things that you love to do.

AA: Yeah, big on time. Just big an ongoing challenge. The second that I'm being paid 20 bucks an hour, or 60 bucks an hour, or whatever it is, when it's an hourly rate, I just lose all motivation. When it becomes a thing of, okay, cool, here's this project and here's the amount that you're going to get. Finish the project. Then I start getting, there's all these innovations. Can we do this? It's more efficient. It'll be faster. Just having that challenge of any sort is the thing that really makes me feel more content. It can get me in trouble a bit, especially with relationships. I can start to have avoidant behaviors and relationships, when I feel like, oh, you love me. You really love me.

Historically, that's a thing that I noticed come up in myself, where if someone doesn't love me, then it becomes this game for me, which is terribly toxic. It's like, I apologize for any person that I've done this with. It's something that I've – It's still there for me. I can see it happen. That sensation of okay, you don't love me. You don't want me. I'll make you love me. I'll make you want me. Then once you do, I'm done. Now, I don't know what to do, because the game is over. That's been something that's been a reoccurring theme for me, I think, in general. Which again, harks back to me, actually appreciating people that are good with just living, seemingly like, been all consistent lives, and being totally cool with it, and just loving football and wings and vacations. That's cool. I'm glad that you can be into that.

LW: What inspired the move to Los Angeles? Since you wanted to get out of the time for money situation, you went down there and opened up an office. What was going to be different about this experience?

AA: I think, Los Angeles, I think I moved to Los Angeles same reason most people moved to Los Angeles. I was in granola, crunchy Meccas of North America all growing up, essentially, outside of Pennsylvania. I went to Hawaii and then Boulder, Colorado, then Bend, Oregon. They're all just these really amazing healing spaces, very progressive, which now I don't really align with the term progressive anymore, since last March, or March of 2020. Places where people were into pretty innovative stuff, and lots of different alternative healing, and just –

I had the opportunity to gather, to develop my toolbox of working with clients, and working with myself. I'm still very much in process of putting my own pieces together. It's like, I'm still looking for tools, that I'm still right along the journey, haven’t arrived in any which location. Felt like the toolbox is pretty full enough, and felt I had something that was special, which I think a lot of people moving to LA think they're special.

Anyway, I think that that was a thing for me is like, I want to go in and do something bigger. Do the podcast and interview bigger name people and just be among a group of people that are having greater influence on the planet. Which I think some level of that, it's a combination of maybe insecurity and wanting to be seen, because I think if we really want to be seen, it probably comes from a place of feeling unseen. I think, there was a touch of that, along with a dash of actually having something novel and interesting and wanting to share it and cultivate it and develop it and be around other people that are doing similar things like that. I think, LA was a mixed bag.

LW: You were one of the earlier podcasters, out of all the podcasters that are around to date, myself included, you've been in the game since what, 2015 or something like that, or 2016?

AA: Something like that. Yeah, I think it's been six and change years. Close to seven years.

LW: Did you find it that was the moment where your impact, or your reach really exploded, is through the podcast? Or was it quiet on those early earlier days?

AA: Oh, yeah, when we started podcasts. Especially, I mean, I got lucky, because when I start – well, not lucky. I just did what I did. There wasn't so many podcasts, so I was able to get bigger guests. There was just less competition. There's less things to listen to. If you got reached out to and say, “Hey, do my podcast,” seven years ago, or eight years ago, or whatever, it's like, “Oh, okay. This is interesting. Someone's going to interview me on a thing.”

Previously, if you're going to get interviewed, it was like, oh, okay, it's TV, or some big magazine, or something like that. Then suddenly, everyone becomes an interviewer, or a journalist. I was able to sneak into that time frame and be able to get pretty meaningful guests, when I had zero audience. I think, a part of that really, as well, as just a similar thing of having intuition with working with clients, having a tuition with when you're writing messages, which I did a terrible job, but many times. I burnt some relationships, because I was too persistent. I don't think I know I burnt several relationships, because I was too persistent. Some of those relationships I've recovered.

When you get to talk to somebody in person, you get to like, “This is who you are.” I was just rapaciously just blasting out messages to people when I first started the podcast. I was really, I don't want to say, I was a crazy person. I would get up early in the morning. I was living in Bend when I started the podcast. I get up early in the morning and be snowy out. I go out and have little short shorts on, no shoes, go running in snow. I was way more inspired in a lot of ways than I've ever been. I don't know what it was exactly, but I was like, “Yeah.” That inspiration can be really endearing to some people, but they could also be a big turn off.

I was a little overexcited. I don't know, just young. I think, I still am, in a lot of ways. Again, this whole journey thing is like, “I'm still smack dab right in the beginning of it,” I think, ultimately. Yeah, so I was just messaging everybody. It ended up working out that if I send out a 100 messages to people that would be pretty cool to record with, five of them would say yes. Yeah, it built from there. The big thing with gaining any level, like traction with the podcast really was just doing other people's podcasts.

There was one. Probably the primary one that got to a point of actually garnering me an audience of some sort, to make me like, “Oh, I'm actually doing a podcast. I do a podcast,” as opposed to talking into nothingness with a microphone, was did with Chris Ryan, this Sex at Dawn, the book Sex at Dawn.

LW: Yeah. Yeah. I know the book. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one that popped.

AA: Yeah, so that was really supportive. He had his audience. He was on Joe Rogan's podcast a bunch. He had his audience. Then, he randomly invited me to come on to his podcast, because I was inviting him to come on to my podcast. It's just the way things happen. You got to just throw a bunch of shit at the wall. Then, sometimes some of it works out. I was just hawking. Hawking shit. It's like swimming. You're just trying to tread at waters, trying to keep yourself up.

LW: I was telling someone the other day –

AA: - bumping to a boat.

LW: It's like dating. It's like, you're always trying to date a little bit higher than what you're normally used to. There's a lot of –

AA: It’s a disease, though. It's a disease. I think, that's one of the biggest diseases of modernity is the FOMO sensation and always wanting to date up and friend up. It's like, the friend up, those people that are your super bros, that you know so well, and you guys are homies, you follow each other on Instagram for six months, they're doing the same shit with you. The people that liked you before, you had some avatar and they're just really engaging with the avatar as a means to promote their own avatar, or whatever their thing is. You're trying to build their business, or whatever the thing is. Those people are so invaluable, because they just really – they just like you. That was it. They just liked hanging out with you. They appreciated you.

I think, that sensation of always leveling up, leveling up. It's like, level up some things, but also, find appreciation in what you have. There's a book, The Soul of Money. You've ever heard of that one?

LW: Yeah, I haven't read it, but I've heard of it.

AA: It’s a good one. I really enjoy it. I read it, I don’t know, five years ago or something like that. It's a little blurry. One of the bits that stood out for me with that was, and this is I think, something that's been really supportive of me in my life. I think, it's a law of the universe in a way. In order to get more, it was not a lot. You probably break this one every now and again. Maybe to get more feel, actually content and satisfied. You have to truly appreciate what you have.

If you're always in that place of just like, “Oh, man. This just sucks.” I think, it's like, can you learn how to appreciate this terrible rain? Because the terrible rain is just an idea. That's just a story that you're agreeing upon in your mind. It's also this beautiful, amazing rain. It's like, wow, it's electric. It's enlivening. When you can put yourself in that scenario, that's what meditation is, that's what's doing any type of hard thing. People who do “hard things” tend to lead happier lives, I think. Because when you actually know what it means to suffer, which I don't think I truly know what it means to suffer in comparison to people that suffer-suffer.

You can't measure suffering, because ultimately, we're all having our own version of that. Just because someone on paper, it seemed like they went through something much more terrible than someone else, that doesn't mean the person that went through the thing that wasn't so bad on paper. Maybe their internal turmoil and experience, but it could have been much worse. It's really hard to have measuring sticks on that. Suffering is supportive in a lot of ways. If you can appreciate what you have, I think it allows you to level up in a safe way to more. If you continue to seek more in the expectation that it will bring fulfillment, I don't think it happens that way. It's a gift to be granted a pile of shit every now and again.

LW: That's one of the things that I really admire about not just your work, but your overall presence, right? Because I've listened to several of your interviews, and you can speak to so many different experiences. Like you said, maybe it's because of the background that you had, but it transcends physicality. It transcends even emotional experiences, and you're talking about diet, you're talking about your jaw line, you're talking about your muscles, you're talking about – This is around the time that you and I think crossed paths. I can't remember exactly where it was. Maybe it was at one of those West Side parties, or something like that. I remember seeing you at the old, little grassy, the plot of grass, I guess, is that that old Muscle Beach area, or something like that?

AA: Original Muscle Beach, they call it.

LW: That's the Original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica/Venice. Yeah, you were the acro guy. Go ahead.

AA: Yeah. That’s where dudes in the '50s and '60s see the old school photos of dudes wearing little skivvies, picking girls up above their head and whatnot.

LW: Well, when Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron, when he was laying out with his buddies and those girls, was that where they were – Was that around where they were laying out?

AA: Around that. Yeah, around there for sure. Yeah, yeah. There's like, they have been to the old Gold's Gym. The Gold's Gym that Arnold worked out is actually a different place. It's a cool thing to be in those spaces, just like, being the aura of it. I think, it changes you. I think, that places and materials and all that. I think, it holds – I don't know this in an embodied way. Intuitively, I feel it holds a memory of sorts.

LW: Right. Let's talk about the tenets of the Align Method, and just everything that you stand for in that area.

AA: Yeah. Well, the Align Method is a philosophy. It's not a specific methodology so much. It's really a conglomeration of the consistent principles that you would gather from most any movement practice. Whether you're weightlifting, or dancing, or doing yoga, or maybe the different varieties of weightlifting, Olympic weightlifting, or powerlifting, or bodybuilding, there's consistent golden threads throughout all of that that a person can really easily integrate into their daily life.

For me, the missing link with working with clients was we'd have these amazing sessions, we create change. It was awesome. Like, wow, woohoo. Then, all of their issues, and anybody that's worked with anything in their body is versed in therapists, have probably I've experienced this. I've experienced this. I think, it's pretty consistent. It come back like, cool, pretty much the same. A little better, pretty much the same. Sometimes worse.

For me, the elephant in the room in that conversation is what are you doing for the other 16 hours of the day, the 15 hours of the day? Looking at what's the shape of your home. What's your environmental conditions like? What's the ergonomics of your office? Have you paid attention to the manner in which you breathe throughout the day? Have you paid attention to the manner in which you use your eyes, your visual muscles? Because they’re a continuation of your central nervous system. When your eyes are in that myopic, focused state, it's a beautiful thing. It puts you into more executive function, like sympathetic get stuff done mode, which is awesome.

Then the other side, the duality of our nervous system, the autonomic nervous system would be that so-called parasympathetic side. It’s in that more rest, digest, repair, menstruate, digest, do all the things that your body does, when it's not being chased by a lion, which is the overused metaphor. When you relax your eyes and taking the panorama, look out a window, just allow yourself to space out, literally sends a signal throughout the rest of your autonomic nervous system. Like, oh, okay, cool. Light can calm down. We're chilling right now.

Then all of a sudden, an intruder comes in the door. Do you think you're going to take in the whole room when an intruder comes in the door? You're looking at that motherfucker right in the eyes. You’re probably going to scream. You're going, “Aah!” Your eyes, who did that? What did that? It's your autonomic nervous system, your reptilian, mammalian, deeper self, that's all of a sudden, that comes up and becomes the forefront personality. It's been sleeping there all along. It's been running the show all along.

Then that scenario, that environmental condition will start to draw that out. If you step back and look at yourself, you're just like, wow, I didn't dilate my pupils. I didn't do any of that. I'm just being played by my environment. That's a far end of the spectrum, intruder in my house. Okay, my physiology gets played by that. That's also happening when all of the more seemingly, the gray areas of life. It's still happening. You're still being played by your environment. For the most part, the way that we’re being played is we're hunching over chairs, we're in forward head posture. Our shoulders are being rolled forward, might be developing carpal tunnel type patterns in our wrists. We're probably not getting full, expansive breaths out of our ribs and our diaphragm.

All that sends signals, essentially says like, you're losing, in a way. If you're losing, you might feel a little depressed, which is one of the number one leading causes of disability worldwide. I'm just depressed. If you look at what is the meaning of depressed, it's to pull down. What the hell does a body look like when it's depressed? It's pulled down. It's a one-to-one connection. Once you start seeing the body in these ways, where everything truly is tied together, the way the person use their eyes, with the person – their postural patterns, the way they express with their facial gestures, all of that, it's a window into who they are. It's a window to who they, or who they think they are in that moment. Once you start to see the world that way, you can't unsee it. You're like, “Oh, my God.” More. I want to understand it more.

[END]

If you'd like to hear how the rest of Aaron's story unfolds, including how he developed the Align Method and built his successful practice, head over to episode 86 and start at around the 55 minute mark. And be sure to follow Aaron on the socials at Aaron Alexander to learn more about his innovative approach to movement and well-being. And if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to check out episode 170 with Shawn Stevenson, who defied his doctor's prediction of an incurable spinal condition at age 20 and transformed himself from eating fast food 300 days a year to becoming one of today's leading voices in health and nutrition.

Also, check out episode 76 with Krista Stryker, who created the 12-minute athlete platform, which makes fitness accessible to people intimidated by conventional gym environments. 

 And if you know of someone else who's had an incredible plot twist in their life and they're out there making the world a better place, please send me your guest suggestions.

My email is light at light Watkins dot com. Please take a few seconds to rate and review the show and I'll see you on Wednesday with the next long form conversation about an ordinary person who's out there in the world doing extraordinary things to make it a better place. And until then. Keep trusting your intuition, keep following your heart, keep taking those leaps of faith.

And if no one's told you recently that they believe in you, I believe in you.  Thank you so much, and have a fantastic day