All right, welcome to Headroom. My name is Jim Owens. I'm a licensed professional counselor at Lansing Community College. I'm the host of this show, and this is a place where we talk about all things essential to mental health and well being. I always bring a guest on the show and we always have something different to talk about in relationship to mental health. Today I have Darrell Gaines, the chief of LCC Police, with me. We're going to be talking about physical fitness and some of the connections, what we all learned in elementary school, middle school, high school, college, about taking care of ourselves physically and how that matters for us mentally. So with that being said, let's get into it. And just so people can learn a little bit about who you are. Bring us up to speed.

Came to LCC in June of 2021. Came from Baltimore, not from Baltimore, but I was with the police department, Baltimore police department for 20 years. I started in 2001, came out of the academy. I kind of moved through the ranks in Baltimore. You know, started as regular patrol officer and then I moved to the drug units and moved to a couple of specialized units. And then I started to get promoted. Sergeant, 2008, lieutenant, 2015. Got promoted to captain in 2017. Yeah, I think 2017. And then I only spent like six months at captain. Got promoted to major, and then I finished out my last three years at major. The wife, two daughters. My wife is from Michigan. She's from Flint. And so that's kind of what brought me this way, gave her an opportunity to be closer to family and. Yeah, yeah, I wasn't ready to kill the law enforcement career just yet.

So I appreciate that. You know, we appreciate having your experience on. Yeah, I mean, Baltimore prepares you for Lansing, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah. You're gonna get the gamut in Baltimore.

Exact. Exactly. So, you know, we have a police academy here at LCC. And when I go out to West Campus, sometimes when I go out there for events or whatever, I see those cadets, I think we call them, running up and down the stairs, so.

Right, Yeah.

I mean, there's a paramilitary, as you just went through the ranks, physical fitness that's required for law enforcement. And it's not just, I think, for chasing bad guys and bad girls. No, I mean, what do they talk to you about when you're coming in your training? Like you got to be fit for this job?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's a job where you have to be fit because you never know what situation you're going to be in. But it's also you know, this. This job is very high stress. And so your mental health is really important. Your physical fitness is. Is important to help you manage that stress. And so I think most police departments probably encourage it, you know, some kind of a regular workout routine. I don't think you have to be necessarily in the gym lifting 500 pounds every. Every hour, but there's different ways of getting that sort of. That fitness. And in this line of business, this line of work, it's important that you're strong somewhat. It's important, but it's also, your endurance is critical. Just like you said, you never know when you may have to run, and you don't know how long you could be running. I myself have been in a lot of situations where you may have a resisting subject and you find yourself in some kind of a wrestling match for exactly. Sometimes five minutes can feel like five hours when you're. When you're dealing with that kind of thing. So, yeah, for me, I. I try to get, you know, I used to be in the gym a lot lifting weights, and I realized that that is not always the best way. I mean, I probably got injured a couple times doing that, but, yeah. Yeah, I get my physical fitness with my bike because I love being out on the road. I love biking.

Yeah.

And, yeah, that's obviously an endurance.

That's where you're at now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think. Yeah. So speaking of endurance, being an officer for 20 years is endurance in and of itself. That's a physical and psychological endurance. Yeah, my dad went into. He was in law enforcement. Actually, he was an MP during Vietnam. And so when he got out of the army, he was like, well, I'm qualified to be a cop, so I'm going to do that. So then he went into, you know, county police work, and then eventually the state trooper in Michigan, he was a state trooper, did investigations and stuff like that. Eventually he got out of that field. I don't know how long he spent in law enforcement. Fifteen years, probably. But I grew up until I was about 10 years old with a cop.

Wow.

That big shiny black belt, you know what, the house, that duty belt and all that. Yeah, yeah. I was around it for a while.

Yeah.

And all of his buddies growing up, they were alpha males, you know, like, they were just.

That's. That's something that's attached to us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. And it is not just catching people because, frankly, he spent a lot of time driving around in a car. Yeah, but it's defending yourself.

I. I think that's that's the biggest part of it. You have to, you know, especially depending upon where you police at. But it's an inherent risk for all police, no matter where you're policing at. But yeah, most of the time when you are trying to keep yourself physically together and keep yourself fit enough to do the job, I think a lot of the times they talk about doing the job in terms of being able to handle yourself. If you do get into a situation, you have to, you have to come out of it. Yeah. And if you're not in shape and, you know, it's unfortunate because we do see that there's departments that have officers that aren't in the greatest physical condition. And I've always believed there should be some kind of a mandate, but I think there's a lot of, you know, state laws about the type of mandates you can put in place for physical fitness. So. Yeah, but I, I always, you know, promote it. I encourage it. Yeah, it's almost a necessity as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, I think that's. Yeah, man. I think about, you know, just, you know, in law enforcement there's a. What weight rooms and workout fitness centers in police departments now that there really weren't even before your time, you know, 30, 40 years ago. That was not the, you know, you got a Lansing pd they got a weight room and stuff.

Oh, man. I, I remember when I first assignment out of the academy when I was in Baltimore, I remember what our weight room looked like. It was like some strewn, A few strewn like the hotel, like the hotel room. It was worse. It was worse. I mean, literally, like, you know, rusted out plates and, and kind of strewn. Nothing matched. There was like rusty barbells. And I think now it's, it's emphasized a lot more now and justifiably so. I mean, I. We see more often now. Officers are having heart attacks on the job. They're having medical episodes. And believe it or not, a lot of that is related to not taking care of yourself. But it's also directly related to the stress of the job, and you have to find ways to relieve that.

There are very few jobs where part of your job involves having to protect yourself in your own life. There are a lot of people who are first responders. Paramedics, nurses, counselors. We're first responders sometimes to things, but usually nobody's coming after us in those. Except in your role.

Yeah, I think there's. We, I think we understand that when we sign up. I mean, I think everybody sort of has an Idea of what, what it is to be a police officer, even if you're not one. You have an idea of what it's like to be one. Just in terms of, you know, the things that you see and understand and the things that we deal with. I always hate using this because you hear it all the time. But we know what we signed up for.

Yeah, we do.

But at the same time, even, even with understanding that there's still an obligation. Right. To keep yourself fit enough so that you can actually do your job. Yeah. And I think that's important, so.

Well, there's different ideas about fitness now probably too, than there used to be. I mean, as I just said, you know, you know, this was like the 70s and 80s when I was looking at my dad and his buddies, and it was primarily a male workforce then, which it probably still is now, but they were all, you know, reverse. They were like V shaped guys and just huge dudes. And that's kind of what I grew up with, is an image of strength. But now we understand there's kind of aerobic strength, the big power lifter, but then there's these marathoners and endurance and cyclists who they go 120 miles a day for three weeks. Like in the Tour de France.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's a different kind of strength where it doesn't look like the bodybuilding images we saw in magazines growing up, but it's a different type.

It's. It's a different type. And there is a different type of sort of mental fortitude that comes with that. I mean, you, you know, I mean, you're out there on the road just like I am, and there is something about pushing through. Yeah, it's, it's a little different when you're pushing through in the weight room because you can always put the weights down. You know what I mean?

That's right.

When you are out on the road, there's nobody else that can help you. There's no spotter.

That's right.

You basically, once you get yourself out there, you got to get yourself back

home, get yourself home.

So you gotta push through. And for me, that's a totally different challenge because like I said, for a lot of years I was accustomed to just being in the weight room and just getting strong, but sort of neglecting my endurance, neglecting that part of the physical fitness. And I think if you really think about it, when it comes to police work, the thing that you're gonna tap into most is probably your endurance. It's not even so much your strength. It's more your endurance. It's outlasting. It's, you know, depending upon what situation you're in. But yeah, once I kind of tap back into that endurance part of my physical fitness. Yeah, Yeah. I feel so much better. I just feel like I can kind of, I don't know, I think there's like a flexibility with it too, even just, just being out on the bike. I don't know, it's just tapping into a whole different area of my physical fitness that I really kind of neglected before.

So how did you get turned onto that from the weight room to the bike? How did that switch happen for you?

In all honesty, probably injuries. Okay. I needed, I needed a way to keep myself fit, but not, you know, put myself at injury risk. The last time I was really in the weight room pretty regularly. I ended up tearing my rotator cuff and my shoulder and I had fat little tweaks and things before in the weight room. But that was, that was the first time I was like, you know, I'd, you know, I'm not 20 anymore. You know, I need something that's a little, a little less stressful on my body that will still, you know, keep me to where I need to be. And so I've always been into biking. I had, I actually, when I was, when I was in Baltimore, I had three years where I actually supervised a mountain bike unit. So we were on bikes all day. Wow. Patrolling around. We were probably logging anywhere from 30 to 40 miles a shift. Wow. And we, we, you know, we loved it so much that we actually entered ourselves into the Livestrong race out in Philly as a unit.

Sweet.

And so we went out there as a unit and ran that. I think it was like a. It was a hundred miles, I think cut it short by a couple because of the weather, but, yeah, I've always loved it. Wow. And so now I've just been able to get into it on a. On a different level. Now you're getting all the bells and whistles for the road bike and really getting into it. So, yeah, I'm out there pretty regularly now.

Maybe a little bit lighter bike.

Lighter, lighter bike that can move a little quicker.

Yeah.

You know, yeah.

Drop bars for a little more aerodynamic.

Exactly as I told you. I'm going out today. Yeah, Yeah.

I know for myself, I was a runner all through my 20s and I got into mountain climbing, rock climbing, that sheer straight up stuff. But the running was kind of what I considered my way of staying fit. I was never into weightlifting, but then I noticed you know, late 20s, my knees weren't feeling real good hitting pavement and I did not have good running for form back then. I didn't know anything about it.

You just ran?

I just ran. And I did my minimum runs four days a week and just, you know, two, three miles, it wasn't much. But then I started noticing like, man, if I want to try to do something like this in my 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, a bicycle is very low impact.

Low impact, it's sustainable. You can literally ride a bike into your 80s. You see older people out there riding around right now. It's just like you said, it's the perfect exercise if you're looking for something low impact on your body, but you're looking for a good workout. Workout, yeah. So it's perfect.

And probably most of us learn how to ride a bike when we're a kid. And in Lansing, there's a bike path system here that's 40 some miles you can ride without ever getting on a road if you don't want to. I like you. I like to do a combination of getting out in the country and riding outside the city. And then in the city I'll ride the bike paths and I do a lot of mountain biking.

Yeah, but absolutely.

So let's talk a little bit about the mental health, because you were getting into this. There's a couple things. There's some fortitude and I know about this and you know about this. Doing an endurance sport.

Yeah.

When you're out there pushing yourself, and that's why I do races, it's not to win. I do it because it's hard.

It's the challenge, it's challenging yourself. I think for me, that's where I really get the most out of, you know, being on my road bike. It's just trying to achieve new, you know, you're trying to reach new levels. You're pushing yourself constantly. So I can go out and I can do a 40 mile ride and I don't know, I can average, you know, 18 miles an hour on one ride, over 40 miles. But I get out, my ride is over and I feel like I still have some more to give. So the next time I go out, okay, well, I'm gonna try and average 19, 20 miles an hour for 40 mile stretch and see how that. And you just constantly finding new goals, constantly pushing yourself. And I love that part of it because it is mental. You're out there, you know, you're sucking air, you're exhausted, but you know, you still have 15 more miles. To go. So it's just a constant mental fight. And then you're hitting a block headwind, you know, a 14, 15 mile an hour headwind. And you're like, okay, well, I'm not getting off my bike and I'm not gonna start walking my bike. So I'm gonna find a way to push through it.

You gotta finish.

You have to finish. That's part of like the. That's like one of the unwritten bike rules.

Oh, yes.

If you have a mechanical, that's one thing. But you are not allowed to come off your bike if you're tired.

Can't get a dnf, did not finish.

And there's no spotters and there's nobody out there to push you from behind.

Yeah.

Figure it out and find your way home.

It's funny, I'll have done these things, especially in the winter. I'll ride year round. I've got a Fat Tire bike for the winter and a gravel bike, which is like a road bike, a mountain bike. But in the winter, I'll plan these routes out and plug them on my computer, take off. And I'm like, I want to do 35 miles today. Yeah, it's like 25 degrees out and I live way down at the south side of South Lansing, like Holt. And I'll be up around Lake Lansing, which is 15 miles away on a bike. And it's miserable out and sleeting. And I'm like, I still got an hour and a half before I get home.

Suck it up. You still got a long.

I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm getting rain. Sleeping on.

I've been in that situation. Situation. I've been there in the, in the heat. I mean, you get some really hot days in the summer here.

Yeah.

And I remember I took my bike through it in the back of the car and I went out to some. I can't. It was when I first got, you know, it was one of the first years that I was back here in Michigan. I can't remember the town, but I had mapped out like a 50 mile ride for myself. And I think I got to mile 35 and I was like, wow, I'm exhausted, I'm ready to stop, but I'm out in the middle of nowhere. I have no choice. I have to fight to get back to the hotel. I gotta go. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, I love that part of it though, man. That's a constant battle.

It's fun, isn't it?

Oh, yeah, I love it.

The feeling of accomplishment on the other end of this thing, I used to tell my students when I was teaching in the classroom, counseling is a hard job because you're dealing with people's trauma not all day long, but all day long.

Right.

And you have to get into that space with them. That's difficult.

Yeah.

The next hardest thing I told them was teaching classes is harder than that because there's more resistance. Honestly, when your clients want to help the students, they kind of, you know, they have their own idea about things a little bit more. They want to direct things a little more. There can be more pushback. The pressure's a little bit higher for me there, but I always said the hardest thing I do in my life isn't counseling or teaching training counselors. It's riding. It's racing my bike, it's racing. Nothing even compares to what I have to put out mentally and physically to do that, man.

You'd agree. I would definitely agree. I've played multiple sports. I've played football. I've played baseball and basketball. And each sport has its own challenge.

Yeah.

But never mentally have I been challenged. Yeah, like, I. Like I'm challenged when I'm biking. And it's. Like I said, it's a constant mental war going on.

Yes.

You're constantly having conversations with yourself out on the road.

Yes.

I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired. Why did I come out here today? This was stupid. I knew I wasn't feeling great. But once you're in it, you can have all the conversations you want with yourself. You still have to find your way back, and that's there. I don't. I can't think of another sport I've ever played where. And you know, what's interesting is people that are. That are not into cycling or, you know, not into, like, that. You know, everybody sort of has pulled a recreational bike out every once in a while, but people that are not into it competitively, I think they have a tendency to. When they think of the hardest, most grueling sports, you think of things like football and, you know, the contact sports. Not a lot of people think of cycling, but until you start doing it right, you start realizing, like, I always have these fights with my brothers and. And we always fight about, you know, where are the greatest athletes, like, who are the greatest athletes? I have a completely different appreciation for how wide that. That, you know, who's a certain contention. Yeah. It's not just about football. And try riding 40 miles on a bike at, like, 18, 9, 19 miles an hour and sustain that for the whole ride. And then you tell me, by the end of the ride, those guys that we see in the Peloton, Tour de France, Giroud Italia, you know, all those, those guys. And, and we're struggling at 18, 19 miles an hour. Those guys are literally sustaining 25, 26 miles an hour over the course of like 100 something miles.

Five, six hours.

Five, six hours on a bike, 25 miles an hour. And you tell me that some of the greatest athletes in the world are

not on bikes and they're going up

mountains, they're going there, what, 5,000, 6,000ft of climbing during the course of a ride? Yeah, Come on, man. That takes a special individual to do.

It's a mental. It's a mental thing. And actually, I was looking up some of the research in preparation for this podcast on the connection between mental health and physical fitness. And I was going to bring in some dazzling statistics and stuff, but you know what, the more I sat and I was highlighting things and starting to take notes, I was like, nobody needs to hear this. Everybody knows, right? Everybody knows that physical fitness is good for you. Psychologically, physically, emotionally, relationally, socially, in every possible way. You cut it. Yeah, there's just no, there's almost no downside.

There's no getting around it. I mean, it's so funny because, you know, you grow up thinking that this is good for you, and then you find out later in life, oh, it turns out this is not good. Physical fitness has never changed. Physical fitness has always been good for you. And it comes in all different forms. And so I think the higher. The more higher stressed your job is, the more important it becomes for you to be physically fit. And it's not just police work. There's plenty of professions that are high stress professions. And it's one thing about being physically fit, but there is another thing about your mental fitness. And I think being physical fit and being physically fit helps with your mental fitness.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah. And I think that's another reason why I really started to prioritize it again, you know, because especially like I said in the field that I'm in, those two things have to be connected.

Yeah, I was. I mean, this is one of the places I like to kind of humble my profession a little bit. We're not that much better than exercise counselors are not that much better than exercise for anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress, schizophrenia. We're not that much better than exercise.

Yeah, well, you know, but in your field, even the same. I mean, you guys can get worn out and stress from dealing with so many different issues. So your physical fitness is directly connected to your mental.

Absolutely, yeah.

You know?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think it's really important for all of us who do this kind of work to take care of ourselves. Like you and me, we show up, we're the instrument that's going to be used today to do our job right. I need my mind and my body. I need to be well rested, slept, hydrated, fed and physically charged up enough to do my job. I don't just sit in a chair and listen people talk.

No, you're burning a lot of glucose

up here trying to keep up where we're going and what needs to be. Be where we need to go next.

Yeah. And all like, like you said, all of that's connected, you know, eating, not just, not just watching your weight, but eating properly, you know, not stuffing your face with a bunch of junk and, you know, it does you no good to go ride 40 miles and then come home and eat a bag of Doritos.

Well, exactly.

You sort of defeat the purpose of the ride. So, yeah, everything needs to be in sync.

People are like, you know, they'll see me walking around with these weird protein shakes at the office here.

What are you doing with those things?

I'm like, what's the point of me lifting weights and cycling if I'm just going to put garbage on top of that? I already heard, I already suffered through something.

And your suffering should be rewarded.

Exactly.

I'm not going to come suck down a milkshake after I just, you know, did a 2000 calorie ride and I mean, what am I doing?

Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. It's one of these, like the difficult thing in this is for people. Everybody listening to this will know or watching this will know. Yeah, I should probably do a little more physical activity. In fact, I've stopped using the word exercise recently with my clients and I use the word activity.

Yeah.

Would you, would you be willing to do some physical activity every day? Yeah, because exercise, they're like, wow, what does that mean? I gotta go lift, I gotta run.

That's the first thing that comes to people's minds. You literally can go out and do a two mile walk and have a great workout.

Swing your arms and you're good to go.

I actually, outside of my bike, that's one of my favorite things to do. I'll just, you know, oh yeah, grab my wife and we'll go on a three, three mile walk. And it's, it's a great. It's also a great way to recover. Like, I've taken walks after I've ridden like a 30 mile ride and then go take walks. But yeah, it's just relaxing. And they say that walking is some of the best exercise you can get. So you don't have to, you know, we talk about physical fitness and keeping yourself, you know, in some decent shape. Your mind doesn't have to go to the gym, it doesn't have to go to running 10 miles or even biking. If you're not, if you're not into biking, just do something. Yeah, just move.

There's a doctor who's got a really cool one of those YouTube videos that all sketches and describes things and stuff. And he says basically the punchline is this. If you can just limit your sitting and sleeping to 23 and a half

hours a day, 100%, just get up.

I just need you to limit your sitting and sleeping to 23 and a half hours a day.

Yeah, if you can do that, then, you know what, even, you know, it's funny, I have even talked to my personal doctor and he said if you never touched your road bike again and if you never hit a gym again, if you never ran again, whatever, you just walking up and down the steps of your house for a period of time is suffice for a workout. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. So you can just be creative with your work.

Getting that heart rate up a few times a day.

Absolutely, yeah.

Hesitant to share this, but I'll share it with you and with the public here. Like when new employees will come and get hired here, they'll come around, say, oh, go talk to Jim. He knows about the retirement plans. And they'll come and talk to me. And I have this little game I play. I go, yeah, yeah, I can talk to you about the 401s and the retirement and a pension, but tell me about your exercise routine first. And they'll go, why? I go, well, what's the point of saving money for the future? You're not going to be there.

You're not going to be here anyway.

Like, that's morbid. Well, look, not everybody can do the same kinds of physical exercise. And we won't be able to do the same kind of stuff our whole life. You can find something that's good for

you, something that you can do.

And you know, I appreciate you coming on talking about this because I want to encourage people that this is just how we take care of ourselves, whether we're students, we're professionals.

Right.

We're both spouses, we've got family. We've got pressure and stress everywhere.

Yeah.

You know, mental health rests on physical health. Or they go together, at least, if one doesn't rest on top of the other.

Absolutely. I 100% agree. And just like you said, it's not. You know, me and you, we bike.

Yeah.

But there's so many different things that you can do to get some sort of exercise during the course of a day. Yeah. Even like we said, even if it's just walking, this is just what. This is just how we choose to get our exercise. But I love it.

Yeah.

And I will always promote it and. Yeah. So get out there and do something.

Something. Because I think some people think it's not enough if I didn't do. If I just walked. And it's like, no, that is pretty much your foundation. If you can at least do that.

If you can do that. Yeah. Just go walk a mile and a half, two miles. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. You got your workout for the day.

All right, cool. Well, believe it or not, we're out of time, went by fast, so thanks for coming on and everybody. You know, if you want more information about mental health, physical health, you can always come to LCC's counseling office. We've got free licensed professional counselors there. We'll be happy to talk with you about physical fitness, health, mental health, and all that stuff. And I want to thank our producers here at LCC, Connect, the Daedalian and Jeremy, and wish you all a great day.

Thank you.