PJ Glassey's X-Gym: Pumping Iron for Jesus

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Our Amazing Greats episode today focuses on the science of fitness combined with the power of spirituality. Our guest, PJ Glassey, was our guest to make the youngest alter call at the age of 6, which launched a life long journey in Christ. From that, combined with his passion for fitness, was the starting place for the birth of the XGyms and the XGym app. His unique approach to fitness was built on 3 characteristics: It is designed for people with a busy life style, it's safe and focuses on strength and endurance, not on body building and bulk. You'll hear the specifics on how his fitness methods work and the science behind it. PJ explains his thoughts on the power of the mind and the importance of faith in developing a healthy and fit lifestyle. He clearly outlines the need to understand your body type and your mental strengths and weaknesses before you launch your fitness journey, and how to be successful in making a healthy life change that can be sustained over time. The Bible says that our bodies are our temple and a gift from God. It is with gratitude for that gift that we are called to take care of it. You'll hear PJ's awesome God moments, and challenges and how fitness can be obtained by all of us no matter what shape we are currently in. I hope you'll find his story inspiring and a call to take our health seriously celebrating God's gifts without consuming our lives. Here is the link to the XGym App https://xgym.com/membership-account/membership-checkout/ And the Home page for the Website: https://xgym.com

"Amazing Greats" is a library of interviews with highly successful people who have amazing career and life stories and who share how God has impacted their journey. Hosted by broadcaster Ric Hansen & produced by Klem Daniels. Available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Google and our YouTube Channel. Please help us grow our audience by "liking", "subscribing and "Sharing". Thanks so much.

PJ GLASSEY AT A GLANCE

Fitness Entrepreneur • Founder of X Gym • Author • Exercise Science Innovator

Topics

Faith • X Gym • Functional fitness • 21-minute workouts • Brain types • Healthy habits • Stewardship • Prayer • Surrender

His Faith Journey

Christian home → Faith at 6 → Lifelong Christian journey → Faith integrated with fitness and business → Living in surrender to God

This Episode Explores

• PJ Glassey’s faith journey

• Why he created X Gym

• The 21-minute workout

• Strength, cardio and endurance

• Brain types and body types

• Building healthy habits

• Fitness as stewardship

• When fitness becomes an idol

• Faith and exercise

• God’s guidance in business

• X Gym’s Christian atmosphere

• Surrender as a way of life

Questions Answered

• Who is PJ Glassey?

• What is X Gym?

• Why is the X Gym workout only 21 minutes?

• How did PJ Glassey become a Christian?

• What are brain types?

• How do brain types affect fitness?

• What are the three body types?

• How can Christians care for their bodies?

• Can fitness become an idol?

• How can faith be integrated into exercise?

• What does surrender to God mean?

• Where can people find X Gym?

Podcast Transcript: PJ Glassey on Faith, Fitness & the X Gym

Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen

Introduction

Ric Hansen:Hi there, it’s Ric Hansen. We’ve talked with authors, actors, musicians, business leaders, and athletes—and now, for the very first time, a fitness guru.

That’s right. PJ Glassey is our guest. He’s the owner of X Gym and the X Gym app. He’s an author and an all-around functional fitness guy. For a busy lifestyle, this is going to be the perfect workout for you.

For the first time, it’s faith and fitness on Amazing Greats.

PJ, you’ve spent your life researching and implementing a unique style of exercise built primarily for busy lifestyles. You started as a personal trainer and then launched successful fitness facilities called X Gym. You’ve written Cracking Your Calorie Code and co-authored several other books. You’ve appeared on radio and television, and now you have the virtual X Gym app.

And, first of all, it’s a good thing you snagged the name X Gym before Elon Musk decided to do that.

PJ Glassey:It’s true. In some ways, he’s tried to capture X as his own. I’m not quite understanding that.

But let’s circle back to that later because it has a lot to do with Christ. The letter X is an ancient symbol for Christ.

Ric Hansen:Okay. Let’s get started with your faith journey. Our audience is yet to know you, and I always love to start there—to find out where it all began and when Jesus became real to you. Take it from the top, PJ.

PJ Glassey’s Faith Journey

PJ Glassey:Everybody has a different age of accountability, and apparently mine was six. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was sitting in chapel. I was raised in a Christian home. I’m a recovering Baptist—and I say that as a joke, not anything against Baptists at all. I love Baptists. That’s how I was raised, and I went to Christian schools all my life. I was very blessed. Very few people get that opportunity, and I thank God for it every day.

I was six, and the pastor was talking about the decision to follow Christ and the plan of salvation. I remember thinking to myself, “Huh. I haven’t done that yet.”

So he had an altar call. He said anybody who wanted to take that step could step out into the aisle and come forward.

I stepped out into the aisle, and my mom was shocked. She was sitting right next to me, so she stood up and followed me. She didn’t really know what to do.

So I went forward, accepted Christ, and I’ve just been loving the journey ever since.

Of course, it’s always had its ups and downs. I’ve never fallen away, but I’ve been more distant and more close—like pretty much every Christian out there. It’s a journey.

When I’m distant, I’ll either be gently guided back onto the path, which I’m very thankful for, or I’ll be disciplined, which I’m also thankful for. Whatever God does, it’s for our own good. It’s to make us stronger.

If He allows us to go through tough stuff—or even puts tough stuff in our lives, which I’ve certainly had my share—then it makes us stronger. And when we’re stronger, we can help each other within the kingdom so the kingdom gets stronger. We can also be more bold and use the gifts He’s given us to bring others into the kingdom so He can save them.

It’s all good.

Finding a Church Community

Ric Hansen:What’s the journey you’re on now in terms of your faith and church?

PJ Glassey:I’m doing a lot of online stuff right now and shopping for a live church. My wife and I are looking around the area and trying different places. I’m kind of the scout for both of us. I go out and check things out, and I like talking to the pastor.

The interesting thing is that, because of the whole COVID thing, the Lord has given me the gift of discernment. It seems to be selective. I have horrible discernment for certain things and really good discernment for others, so I’m not claiming to be all-wise by any stretch.

But with COVID, there were a lot of different opinions and different ways people approached it. So I’m looking for a pastor who has at least as much discernment with that as I do.

I think it’s important to be able to see the world for what it is and, of course, God for who He is—to be able to see clearly through all the stuff that’s going on.

That’s kind of a new litmus test and filter for me. I’m shopping around based on that new filter.

Ric Hansen:Where you end up and the church community you belong to is so important.

I was a late bloomer. You were six, and I was 46—or probably 56. It’s just been a few years. But finding the church and pastors that I loved, the worship group that I loved, and the community—all the people who were there for the same reasons I was—was magical.

PJ Glassey:Good luck on that.

I’m also in some small groups. One example is C3, which is a Christian business organization where you get into small groups. Technically, and I think spiritually, the Bible tells us that anytime you meet together with other Christians, that’s church.

It’s not just Sundays, going to a building and meeting with other people. Yes, that’s church, but it’s also church when we get together with other Christians and talk about God.

It’s good to remember that.

The X Gym Method

Ric Hansen:Let’s talk about the gym—the X Gym. You started out as a personal trainer, going to people’s homes and helping them with their fitness goals. Then you opened X Gym because you had specific ideas about what exercise and fitness could look like.

What makes X Gym what it is?

PJ Glassey:It’s a time-hack workout. It’s also safe, and it tones and conditions for strength and endurance without muscle bulk.

Those were the three things I set out to accomplish.

I got my degree from Seattle Pacific University in exercise science in 1989. I then trained people out of their homes for about ten years while I developed my methodology.

I did that by reading the research, thinking about ideas and experiments to try, and using my clients as guinea pigs. They thought it was fun because there was always new stuff to try.

The workouts kept taking less and less time as the methodology evolved, and they became more effective and safer.

Back in the ’80s, bodybuilding was really cool. Toward the end of the ’80s and into the ’90s, bodybuilders started to look more like cartoon figures than people, and it wasn’t so cool anymore.

People wanted to look more like the cover of Fitness Magazine than the cover of Flex. They weren’t trying to bulk up. They wanted to look fit and feel fit.

They wanted to be strong, have endurance, and be able to do fun things outside—functional fitness—without getting bigger.

Traditional training can also be dangerous because of heavy weights and ballistic repetitions. I wanted to solve that problem too.

And then there’s the time issue.

So I spent ten years and hundreds of experiments—many failed, many succeeded—and boiled it down to the methodology we use at X Gym.

How X Gym Got Its Name

There’s a fun story about the name X Gym.

In 1996, one of my original clients was so excited about the fitness she had acquired working with me that she wanted to open a little mini-gym to help other people.

She didn’t want to use my methodology because it was really complicated, so she used another method that was good, but just a different method.

I helped her on a consulting basis while she was opening the gym.

She was trying to think of a name and bouncing ideas off her husband, who was a marketing whiz. He kept throwing out ideas, and she kept shooting them down.

Finally, out of frustration, he said, “How about something generic then, like X Gym?”

And she said, “Oh.”

That’s how they landed on the name.

Then, in 1998, I took over.

I had been talking with her because I was going to open a gym in Issaquah that would be a rock-climbing and personal-training gym. Training people out of their homes was getting too busy, and I needed to scale myself.

She said, “No, don’t do that. Buy X Gym.”

I said, “I didn’t know it was for sale.”

She said, “Well, it’s not. But you’re right—your methods would work better than the one I selected. And besides, I want to start traveling and learn Italian.”

So we got together, and she and her husband made me this crazy-good offer that you only hear about in stories.

I told them, “You’re ripping yourself off here, right?”

They said, “Yeah, but we really want you to have it because we love our members here. You take good care of them, and your methods are going to be great.”

That was a gift from God.

I kept the name because I liked it. The logo is great, and the name is great.

Then about ten years later, I was at a movie premiere for a Christian movie in Everett. I met a guy and told him I owned X Gym.

He said, “Oh, is that Christian?”

I said, “Well, I am.”

He said, “Oh, because X is the ancient symbol for Christ.”

I said, “Really?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

Apparently I was guided to keep the name, and I love it even more now.

The funniest part is that Melsa and her husband—the people who named the gym—are Jewish.

Ric Hansen:That’s great.

Growing X Gym

Ric Hansen:What happened to the members who were already X Gym members when you transitioned from her methods to yours?

PJ Glassey:There wasn’t really a problem because we were such good friends. It was a great handoff. Everybody was excited, and they enjoyed the methods.

The membership grew really fast. We ended up moving and expanding, and then added online training and the exercise app.

We’ve got a lot going on now.

The 21-Minute Workout

Ric Hansen:To get a little more specific about the method: you talk about how many minutes per session and how many sessions per week, and it all seems almost crazy in terms of a busy lifestyle.

What makes resistance training quicker and safer?

PJ Glassey:What a lot of people don’t realize is that traditional training was invented in 1891. It’s pretty outdated, and it was invented primarily for bulking up and getting bigger.

That’s why some women are afraid of it, and other people think, “I don’t know if I want to do that.”

Eugen Sandow was the guy who came up with it. He was a famous European strongman who came to America to make his fortune. He was incredibly strong and really buff.

Nobody in the late 1800s was buff. They were all skinny guys. Eugene was getting all the attention, so the guys said, “We want that. Show us how you train.”

At first, Eugene didn’t want to reveal his secrets because he didn’t want competition for his strongman shows. But they eventually talked him into selling the system, and that’s when the sets and reps for traditional training were born.

Most people are still doing it.

With traditional training, you’re looking at about an hour three times a week to start. Then, as you get into better shape, you plateau, so you need to add more time.

Pretty soon, if you find somebody over 40 who is in amazing shape and ask how much time they spend in the gym, it’s a part-time job if they’re doing traditional training.

With X Gym, it’s 21 minutes twice a week—42 minutes a week.

That’s equivalent to about seven hours of traditional training without the plateaus because we change the method—the way you’re doing the repetition—every seven weeks, and we change the exercises every seven weeks.

Traditional training is pretty good about changing exercises from time to time, but they don’t change the way they’re doing the repetition. It’s always the same old rep.

The nervous system eventually adapts to it, no matter what you’re doing with new exercises.

At X Gym, you keep getting stronger and fitter, more defined and leaner, with better endurance and all that kind of stuff.

Strength, Cardio and Endurance

Ric Hansen:There’s a video online on your website where you go through the methodology, and it really gives you a clear picture of how it works.

I found it shocking that you get cardio, resistance and something else. What was the third thing?

PJ Glassey:Strength, cardio and endurance.

A lot of people think cardio and endurance are the same thing, but they really aren’t.

Cardio is heart and lungs. Relative muscular endurance is how long you can push hard with heavy stuff. Strength is raw power.

You get all three in one workout, so you don’t have to do separate workouts for each one like you do with traditional training.

The X Gym App

Ric Hansen:Does it translate well to the app? If I lived in Iowa, could I get basically the same training through the app that I would get at one of your gyms here in Washington State?

PJ Glassey:The app is video-based. It takes you through the exercises, and I demonstrate the exercises for perfect form. I also provide verbal coaching through the exercise.

There are videos of individual exercises and full-body workouts.

It’s not as good as live training, of course, whether you’re working out at the X Gym in Kirkland or doing online training with us from anywhere in the world.

But it’s a much better price point, so more people can afford it. And it’s still much more effective than anything people could find with a traditional training app.

Ric Hansen:What’s the price now?

PJ Glassey:We just changed it. We were doing the big fancy app with the engine in the background, and you got it through the Apple Store.

We switched it to a web-based system through our website. It’s very mobile-friendly, so it works just as well or better on phones.

And we cut the price in half.

It’s now $14 a month.

Ric Hansen:Oh my gosh. That’s crazy. That’s more than we spend on a multivitamin in a month.

How can you not at least give it a try?

PJ Glassey:People also find it really handy because they can pick one exercise that takes three minutes, or they can do a whole workout.

They can string individual exercises together and create their own routine, or they can pick one of the full-body workouts that takes 21 minutes.

It just depends on how much time they have.

I’ve heard stories of people waiting in line at the Department of Licensing and doing one exercise right there. Sometimes they get other people in line involved.

I did something similar at a movie theater. I was waiting in line with my kids when they were young. We did a wall sit and had a contest to see who could sit against the wall the longest.

Of course, they were small and I was stronger, so I won.

Then I put my daughter on my lap and continued, and other people were watching and laughing. A couple of other people even got up against the wall.

Faith and Fitness

Ric Hansen:Let’s connect the two—faith, which is where we started, and fitness.

What does God say about fitness? What does the Bible say about fitness?

PJ Glassey:Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That’s number one right there.

We are to be good stewards of that, just like everything else we’re given.

Our health is a gift.

The body wants to be healthy naturally. If we give it the right tools for optimal health, it will get there. But if we don’t, and we’re getting in its way, then it won’t.

Everybody has a different level of health that they’re given. We can all do the best we can.

When somebody comes to X Gym and says, “I want to get that six-pack,” or “I’m getting ready for a reunion next month,” I say, “Okay, that’s all great, and maybe that will happen. But let’s figure out how to get you as healthy as possible and see what happens then.”

When somebody reaches optimal health, it can look different for different people.

For women, one person might be at 27% body fat and another might be at 19%. That’s fine because everybody is an individual. Health is what matters most.

For men, maybe someone will get that six-pack, but someone else might reach optimal health without having a six-pack. That’s okay.

We work on exercise and strength, especially functional strength. We also work with people on nutrition, stress reduction, better sleep and other things that help them get healthy.

When they reach the healthiest level they can reach, the temple is being taken care of. They’re using that gift and treating it with the respect it deserves as a gift from God.

When Fitness Becomes an Idol

Ric Hansen:Fitness can also become an idol. Fitness can become your god. Is that where you get into the obsession with bulk and being bigger?

PJ Glassey:It certainly can be.

There are plenty of people who are buffed and jacked where it’s not an idol, but it can become one.

You can become obsessed with yourself, and that’s another tool of the devil to distract us from the kingdom.

If fitness is taking all your time and taking you away from God—away from time in the Word, praying with others, meeting with other Christians, church—or even if your mind is occupied all day with yourself, that’s a problem.

Our minds should be occupied on God.

Nobody is perfect. We all become absorbed with ourselves from time to time.

But we should constantly strive toward having the mind of God.

As Christians, God is actually living in us. My prayer often is, “Lord, just fill me more with Your Holy Spirit and displace me.”

The more You come in, the less of me there is. That’s exactly what I want.

That’s a prayer within His will, and every prayer we pray within His will, He guarantees that He fulfills.

The Mental Game of Fitness

Ric Hansen:One of the things you’re very focused on in functional fitness is the mental side.

The first chapter of your book, Cracking Your Calorie Code, is all about the mental side. You basically say, “You can dance around this book all you want, but don’t miss this chapter.”

Tell us about the mental game as it applies to fitness.

PJ Glassey:That’s most of it. It’s mental.

This is why people struggle. This is why people start and stop. This is why people yo-yo diet and yo-yo with weight loss and weight gain.

It’s all about the brain.

That’s actually why I invented the Brain Type Test.

Anytime somebody at X Gym has a big struggle, I put them through my Brain Type Test to find out what brain type they are. Then I give them tricks, tips and hacks based on their brain wiring to help them through those struggles.

What works for me might not work for you.

Traditional trainers often coach clients on nutrition and health based on what works for themselves.

But their client might not have the same brain type.

The client struggles, and the trainer says, “Come on, just suck it up and have some willpower,” without realizing the advice they gave wasn’t right for that person.

The only way to really figure it out is to get inside the brain and understand how somebody is wired, then give them advice based on that.

I’ve always been interested in brain hacks and brain-training techniques, but I really dove into the research when my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2000.

Back then, we didn’t know enough to help her. She passed away in 2005, but I never stopped studying the brain because everything was changing so quickly.

That eventually became the Brain Type Test, and I’ve been able to help a lot of people through their struggles with targeted, specific advice for their brain type.

Body Types and Brain Types

Ric Hansen:So people have different brain types and different body types, and that enters into how training should progress too.

There’s a test online where you can determine your body type, correct?

PJ Glassey:There are lots of things you can look up online to determine your body type.

There are three main types: ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph.

An ectomorph is somebody like me who is naturally lean and has a hard time putting on muscle.

A mesomorph is more like the bodybuilders who seem to look at a dumbbell and put on five pounds of muscle.

An endomorph tends to gain fat more easily. They can also get relatively strong, but they gain fat more easily than other people.

So yes, things need to be tailored based on your body type as well as your brain type.

That’s something many other trainers are missing.

This country has the largest per-capita number of personal trainers of any country on the planet, and we’re also the most overweight.

I’m actually working on an online course for other trainers so they can become certified and learn how to do this themselves.

We’re doing great, but the only way to help more people is to scale it.

Starting Small

Ric Hansen:There are Christians, just like the rest of society, who are unhealthy and overweight.

Do you have advice for them?

PJ Glassey:Start small, with gratitude.

I tell people to start a gratitude journal.

It can be harder for some brain types than others, but it works for all of them.

Start with what you’re thankful for and what you’re grateful for. Make that also about your health and your body.

Even if someone is morbidly obese, there is something they can be thankful for. Maybe they’re still alive. Maybe they woke up this morning.

Maybe they’re stronger than average. Maybe there’s something about their body they appreciate.

Write it down.

Focus on the positives—the good things. That’s the starting point.

Then take things in small, doable steps.

What most people do with a New Year’s resolution is go to the gym on January 2 and work out for two hours. That’s way too much, way too fast.

We’re trying to establish a new lifestyle and create new habits, and that’s best done in small steps.

For somebody who is morbidly obese, the first step might be walking around the house.

Write that in your journal. That’s a success. Be thankful that you can do it.

There are millions of people on this planet who can’t do that.

Then walk around the house twice. Work up to walking around the block.

Take small steps and write them down.

It’s a win. Be thankful for it.

You can even do the victory pose: “Yes, I’m awesome.”

We’re also programming our subconscious.

The subconscious brain is the boss of us. It drives about 90% of our actions every day.

I call the subconscious brain our inner toddler because it operates at about the level of a three-year-old. It never grows up.

Our prefrontal cortex is what I call the parent brain. It helps us train the toddler.

So we pray for our toddler, train our toddler and do these little mental things that change our brain wiring and our habits.

The more you do something and develop a habit, the more it becomes unconscious. Eventually, the toddler takes over and does it for us without us having to think about it.

When you first learn to drive, it’s really hard. You have to think about all the steps and actions, look around, maintain situational awareness and do all the things you have to do.

But now you can drive home and arrive without even remembering the trip.

Your subconscious drove you home because it has taken over many of those things as automatic routines.

That’s the goal of building habits—and small steps are the best way to get there.

Integrating Faith Into Exercise

Ric Hansen:How do we apply our love for Jesus to the actual exercise routine? Is there a way to integrate our faith into the actual sweating and doing what we need to do to be strong?

PJ Glassey:Yes. Gratitude to God for everything, because everything comes from Him. All good things come from above.

When we’re grateful, we’re giving Him the credit. Then we ask Him for guidance and help, and He will help.

One of my good friends told me a story. He got out of shape and was in a big funk—down and out, depressed, all of that.

He was at the bottom and said, “God, I need some help here.”

He heard a voice say, “Okay. Start running and take vitamin C and NAC.”

He thought, “Okay. I don’t really know what that’s about.”

He looked it up and found that it was related to brain neurons.

He started running, but he found it difficult. So he got on ChatGPT and prompted it to be his running coach from a neuroscientist perspective and tell him how to establish the habit.

It came back with the same basic idea I was talking about: start with small steps and progress upward.

He lost 30 pounds, felt great, started working out with us, and completely changed his brain.

God honors prayer and commitment.

You can say, “God, I want to take care of this temple, but I’m going to need some help.”

And when you struggle—which you will, because everybody does—you say, “I’m struggling. Tell me, help me out here. What do I do? Give me strength to press forward.”

God knows your brain better than anybody.

Seeing God at Work

Ric Hansen:Let’s jump back into your personal story.

You already mentioned one example—the X Gym name. Are there other times when Jesus has really shown up and been clearly part of the journey?

PJ Glassey:For sure.

It was especially clear through the whole COVID period.

We’ve been around since 1998. We made it through two big recessions and a bunch of other catastrophes, and we made it through all of them by God’s grace.

He looks out for us. He can see the future, so He knows what advice to give me based on the future.

In 2017, we started doing online training.

In 2018, the lease was up at our Seattle gym. The Seattle City Council was making things difficult for businesses, and there was a mass exodus of businesses out of Seattle.

I decided I wasn’t going to renew the lease. I was going to tell all the members that we were going online.

Online training was still relatively new, but a lot of our members went with us because they had already experienced our online training while traveling.

Everybody told me I was crazy because the Seattle gym was doing great.

But I felt like God had told me to do it.

I’m an entrepreneur, so I’m no stranger to taking risks. My wife is not a risk-taker. She does not like risk.

She agreed that it was a good idea, and I was shocked.

That’s when I knew it was God.

People ask, “How do you know it’s God talking and not just you in your own head?”

I say it’s kind of like my imagination, but it’s better than I could do.

When I heard, “Take this bold step,” I thought, “I never would have thought of that.”

So it had to be God.

Then Bev confirmed it with her reaction.

Everybody told me I was crazy, but we shut down the physical location and built the online operation.

Then 2019 rolled around, and COVID came.

In 2020, the West Seattle Bridge shut down, the governor ordered businesses to shut down, and we were ready because we were the original online-training operation.

Our members said, “Oh, we’re doing that now. Okay.”

We had the easiest transition of any gym I could think of during the shutdown.

Discernment and the COVID Era

I question everything. That’s just the brain I have. It’s gotten me in trouble a lot, but it has also served me well.

I started researching what a mandate is, what an order is and all that kind of stuff.

I thought, “Wait a minute. This isn’t law.”

The reason I was looking into it so deeply was because I believed the worst thing you could do for people’s health was kick them out of gyms.

Exercise is one of the most important things you can do for your immune system.

So I wanted to help my people.

I opened up early before the governor said I could. I was ready in case the government came knocking on my door because I had researched what I believed the legal situation was.

People appreciated that we opened early and helped them stay healthy.

When the second shutdown came around, I decided not to shut down again.

We didn’t have any problems, and we kept serving our people.

When the mask mandate and vaccination requirements were in place, I told people that inside the four walls of X Gym, we were going to respect people’s individual choices.

If someone wanted to wear a mask, great. If they did or didn’t want to get vaccinated, that was their private medical decision.

I didn’t even want to know.

We just went with freedom and let people make their own decisions.

If somebody was uncomfortable being at the gym, they could work out from home through our online training.

That allowed us to help everybody.

We don’t judge people. We love everybody.

We have a sign in one of our big windows that says, “Judgment-Free Zone,” and we mean it.

People can come to our gym regardless of their stance on politics, religion or anything else. They’re going to get a workout, and they’re not going to be judged.

We also don’t have mirrors in our gym because it’s not about skin-deep stuff. It’s about health and deeper things.

Everybody feels loved and accepted. We train them, and we get them healthy.

That’s what X Gym is about.

The Christian Element at X Gym

Ric Hansen:Is there a Christian element to the gyms themselves, or do you avoid making judgments about other people? Is there discussion of God or Jesus in the gym?

PJ Glassey:Yes. Sometimes we have what we call X Church on Sundays.

It’s more extended cardio, kind of like open gym. I play gospel music, and if people want to talk about Christ, great.

It’s a very spiritual atmosphere.

I’m certainly not ashamed of my faith, and everybody knows it at X Gym.

I don’t push it on anybody because that’s not my style. I’m not the guy with the bullhorn saying, “You’ve got to be saved or you’re going to hell.”

It’s more about showing them the love of Christ and the light that’s inside me.

There’s also a main video on our website where we talk about God.

There’s definitely a Christian element, but nobody gets preached at and nobody gets judged.

They’re just loved and accepted.

Where to Find X Gym

Ric Hansen:You have a blog—your handle is Page, and your wife is Beege, so it’s Beege and Page’s blog.

You’ve got the book, which was written in 2008, so I think it’s time for you to come up with another one—a revised edition.

PJ Glassey:I appreciate that.

Ric Hansen:And you have the app. How do people find it?

PJ Glassey:Everything is at XGym.com.

We have a lot of good blog articles there. We also have another website, BeegeandPage.com, with more things.

But people can start at XGym.com. There are links to the other blogs, as well as buttons for the app, online training, live Kirkland Club training and everything else.

Final Word: Surrender

Ric Hansen:Thank you so much for your wisdom and your knowledge of functional fitness and functional medicine—even though the fruit thing is still bothering me a little bit.

PJ Glassey:Keep doing what you’re doing because it’s working for you.

Ric Hansen:I do try to keep active, so maybe that’s part of burning off some of the fructose.

Is there any parting word you have for our audience?

PJ Glassey:I guess the parting word is surrender.

One of the videos my wife and I have made is about how we both surrendered and how we came to become one and get married. It’s the state of surrender.

We think of surrender as a negative thing. It seems like a sign of weakness.

But when you surrender to the Creator of the universe, it’s an awesome thing.

If I can surrender my life, my decisions, my business, my marriage—everything—to God, and just give it all and lay it at the cross, surrender everything to Him so He’s in control, that’s way better than I could do.

So just be in a state of surrender.

Even when you’re trying to get in shape, say:

“God, I surrender this to You. Tell me what to do. I’m completely at Your beck and call. You guide me. You direct my steps. Create my path. Everything, Lord, I completely give this all to You.”

We can do that with a lot of different parts of our lives.

And going back to George Toles, he has a great four-step prayer that I tell people about, whether things have happened that are really good or things that have happened that are really bad.

It’s four steps:

“Thank You, Lord.I trust You, Lord.What does this mean?What must I do?Amen.”

That’s a surrender prayer.

Ric Hansen:What a great way to wrap up this episode.

Thank you so much, PJ. I really appreciate your time and everything you’ve contributed today.

Thank you.

Wow. What an awesome conversation with a guy who really connects science with the soul and puts Jesus in your workouts.

Thank you for joining us. If you hit like and subscribe, you’ll help us grow the podcast. We’d appreciate that.

Much love and God bless from Amazing Greats.

See ya.