Regaining control of your fitness starts with building a schedule you can actually keep — not waiting for motivation to show up. On this Physical Friday, Captain Justin Napier shares how he did exactly that. When COVID closed his gym, eight years of routine vanished, the weight crept to 233 pounds, and pulling his skiff started to hurt at 34 years old. Then he set his alarm for 4:30, started with 100 pushups a day, cleaned up his eating, and dropped 35 pounds. If Justin can do it, you can do it.
Watch now: press play on the video above, or listen in the player at the top of the page.
He built a schedule instead of waiting for motivation. Justin gets on the water by six most days, so he set his alarm for 4:30 AM and started each morning with calisthenics and 100 pushups. After his charter he eats a clean lunch, then does a second session — another 100 pushups plus weight training. Combined with strict clean eating, he went from about 233 pounds down to 198 at six foot one.
He had been a gym rat for eight or nine years, training three to five days a week — but the gym was the whole system. When 2020 closed the gyms, he tried garage workouts and could not find the motivation, because he was someone who needed to physically go somewhere to flip the switch. Going from years of consistency to zero, he says you do not realize how much you lose yourself until part of who you are disappears.
Super clean and admittedly boring: fish, chicken, and turkey as the staple proteins, beef once or twice a week, measured portions like a cup of rice with eight ounces of meat, vegetables, and a clean protein shake with unsweetened almond milk for boat snacks. Meat, veggies, rice — on repeat. He also set a personal six-month goal of zero cheat meals, and two months in, he says progress is clearly faster without them.
Justin's bodybuilder friends always preached the weekly cheat meal, and eating clean Monday through Friday with one indulgence on the weekend genuinely worked for him when he was starting out. His current experiment now is zero cheat meals for six months, and he reports feeling better and progressing faster without them. The Rock does cheat meals and it obviously works for him — the honest answer is you find what works for you and stick with it.
Because the job is physical and people are counting on you. Pushing a skiff with a stick for eight hours is hard labor, and if someone goes overboard, you have to make a rescue. When I went through my own fitness transformation thirty years ago, the motivator was that I got better at my job — more fish, happier customers, more repeat business. Justin found the same thing: lighter and stronger, he can pole for hours, stay patient, and finish the day feeling good.
Start with the bare minimum that gets the ball rolling, attached to a schedule. Justin started with calisthenics and pushups at 4:30 AM — at first he struggled with 10 pushups; now he knocks out 50 nonstop. It does not matter how old you are or what your current state is. Find something that fits your schedule, your family, and your life, kill the biggest excuse — I don't have time — and the rest takes care of itself.
Here is the actual routine Justin used to drop 35 pounds while running a full charter schedule.
Justin walks through the whole schedule, the numbers, and the diet in his own words in the episode. Press play in the player above.
Because I love celebrating people who take charge of their physical lives, and because his starting point is so familiar. The pandemic threw millions of people off their routines — in Justin's case the gym closed and eight years of consistency evaporated overnight. At 233 pounds he was hopping onto his poling platform thinking, I should not feel like this at 34. The turnaround is the part worth studying. He tells the whole story in the episode, so press play in the player above.
Everything. A guide pushing a boat with a stick for eight hours is doing manual labor in the sun, and Justin says he can now pole a skiff for hours and still feel good at the end of the day. There is a knock-on effect I know from my own guiding career: when the work stops being a strain, your attitude and patience hold up all day, and a guide with a good attitude does a better job for every customer. We get into that connection in the episode — press play in the player above.
One line that stuck with him for years: your body does not know the difference between 280 pounds of muscle and 280 pounds of fat — you still carry the fatigue either way. That reframed his goal from looking big to being usefully strong: pushups, pull-ups, agility, the kind of strength that pulls skiffs and keeps up with his eight-year-old on a longboard. It is a different target than the bench-press number he used to chase. He explains the shift in the episode, so press play in the player above.
Justin calls it what it is. He runs charters, has kids, and still trains twice a day — because he scheduled it instead of hoping for it. The 4:30 alarm is not about loving mornings; it is about creating a window nobody can take. Find the slot that fits your life, put the bare minimum in it, and let momentum do the recruiting. We talk about making the schedule survive a real working life in the episode — press play in the player above.
I am turning 53 this week and I feel like there is nothing I cannot do — climb a mountain with my kids, scuba dive, whatever comes — and that freedom is the entire payoff of taking care of your body. It is also exactly what Justin bought back for himself this year.
It does not matter how old you are or what your current state is. You can absolutely turn it around — 35 pounds, 85 pounds, whatever your number is. Dedication, determination, and a routine that fits your schedule. If this episode is not for you, send it to somebody who needs it.
Captain Justin Napier · COVID gym closures · 4:30 AM routine · 100 pushups a day · twice-a-day training · clean eating · cheat meals · poling skiff · fishing guide fitness · calisthenics · The Rock · bodybuilding
Physical Friday is my weekly fitness series for fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen — the training, nutrition, and mindset to stay in the game for life. Watch and listen to every Physical Friday episode from Tom Rowland.
I'm Tom Rowland, a professional fishing guide based in the Florida Keys, host of the Tom Rowland Podcast, and the longtime host of the Saltwater Experience television show. On the podcast's Physical Friday series I share the training, nutrition, and mindset that keep fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen strong, healthy, and in the game for life — short, practical episodes you can put to work the same day.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 508, featuring Captain Justin Napier...
This Physical Friday segment covers Justin Napier's journey losing 35 pounds through a twice-daily workout routine, the mindset shift that made it stick, and how getting back in shape changed his work as a fishing guide.
Tom Rowland: What's going on, everybody? It's Physical Friday. And on Physical Friday, we talk about things. We all love the outdoors. We all love to be outdoors, and you know what you have to do? You gotta take care of your body so that you can do the things that you love for a long time. I'm turning 53 this week. I feel like there's nothing I can't do. My kids want to go climb a mountain, I can go climb a mountain. My kids want to go scuba diving, great, let's do that. I don't have a physical limit right now, and I think it's because I have taken care of my body. And because of that, I feel like I could do absolutely anything.
Tom Rowland: I love to celebrate people's success when they take charge of their physical lives and make a big change. Captain Justin Napier is here with us today. He has done that this year. Like many people, I guess, COVID... would you say COVID had something to do with a little bit of weight?
Justin Napier: It was definitely COVID. So I was a gym rat back in the day before I met my wife. I was a gym rat, I was always there. I was very into looking big, though, and not actual usable strength. Then I had kids, life happened. I'd still go into the gym three or four days a week, but I was just in this routine where that was just what I did, and it worked fine. And then 2020 hits, boom, gyms are closed. I'm like, okay, now what? So now I'm trying to muster up that garage workout, which honestly, I just didn't have the motivation for. I tried, and I just didn't have motivation for it.
Justin Napier: I needed to physically go somewhere and lift weights, because once I'm there, it's like, okay, it's go time, gotta do something. So going from working out three to five days a week for eight, nine years straight to zero, you don't realize how you lose yourself. And I lost myself. A part of who I am was this guy that just likes to go to the gym to feel good, to start my day. I think I got up to about two hundred and thirty three pounds, and I'm about six foot six one. So for me, that's dad-bod chunky, and I wasn't happy. I was feeling sluggish, and I was hopping up on my poling platform and feeling like, God, that was actually kind of hard. And then my abdomen's hurting, my triceps are hurting. I'm like, I'm only thirty four years old, I shouldn't feel like this from pulling a skiff around.
Justin Napier: I'm trying to hop up on the boat, getting on and off the trailer, and I'm just like, God, I feel sluggish. So I just said, you know what, I'm done with this. I gotta take charge, I gotta get back into my schedule, and basically creating a schedule was the key for me.
Justin Napier: I said, okay, because the biggest excuse everyone has is I don't have time, which is BS, you have time. I'm on the water most days by six, six thirty. So instead of getting up at five, I set my alarm for four thirty now. So four thirty in the morning, I've got a good thirty, forty minutes, I do some calisthenics, and I do a hundred pushups. That was kind of how I got the ball rolling, let me just do the bare minimum just to get the ball rolling.
Justin Napier: And then once I started doing that, I felt good. I was like, okay, I'm starting to feel good. My pushups went from struggling with, like, ten, I'm like, oh god, this is terrible, to now I can do like fifty, and just nonstop, whereas before it was ten or fifteen and I was fatigued out, which is sad. I used to bench three fifteen. So I was like, okay, cool, this is going. And then I run my charter. Luckily, in the summertime, I do a lot of half days because it's way too hot out. I come home from my charter, I don't gotta pick up the kids till later, so now I'll eat a nice healthy lunch.
Justin Napier: And I'll go do round two, which I'll do calisthenics just to warm up. I'll do another hundred pushups. And then now I go into my weight training, whether I do bench, back, legs, shoulders, arms, whatever. And that's my workout day, and that's every single day. That's seven days a week, which I know you do need to rest, rest is very important. So Sundays I don't lift, I just do some light calisthenic work, and that's kind of my chill day.
Justin Napier: I started getting serious probably back in like May is when I really kind of started getting serious about it. And I'm currently, today, one hundred and ninety eight pounds. So from two thirty three to one ninety eight, I like to stay around two hundred. Like I said, I've always naturally been a bigger kid growing up, so once I get below that one ninety, one eighty, I'm just too skinny for my frame. So being six foot six one, I like to stay right around two hundred pounds.
Tom Rowland: You dropped thirty five pounds.
Justin Napier: Yeah, which is noticeable, and how I feel. One thing I told you back in the day, I was really into bodybuilding, and I had friends who are bodybuilders. And one of my friends pointed out this really cool thing that stuck in my head. He said, your body doesn't know the difference between two hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle and two hundred and eighty pounds of fat. It doesn't know the difference, you're still going to feel that same fatigue. And that stuck with me back then, because he was always like, you don't need to bench four hundred pounds, just look like you benched four hundred pounds.
Justin Napier: And now, I just turned thirty five. My daughter's eight, and we're always... she just got a longboard, and I grew up longboarding and riding BMX, and it's just cool to still be able to do all that stuff with her. And now I have this newfound fascination with calisthenics and body strength and just being physically strong and agile, this usable energy. I'm not just benching three hundred pounds, I can do a bunch of pushups, I can do pullups. I'm physically strong, and you can use that in your day to day life, especially with guiding, for me pulling skiffs. I feel good, I can pull a skiff for hours now, and I feel good. I'm not tired at the end of the day anymore like I used to be.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome, man. Thirty five pounds down, feeling better, fishing better, probably.
Justin Napier: Better, yeah, for sure.
Tom Rowland: I mean, if you can pull a boat more efficiently and more effectively for a longer period of time, you're able to do a better job for your customer. And I don't know if you've noticed this, I'm sure you probably have, but your attitude stays good all day long, because if you're straining and it's really hard to push that boat, you can do it for four hours, but eight hours is a real strain. And then all of a sudden you lose thirty five pounds and you're feeling like, man, I could do this way longer, twelve hours, fifteen hours.
Tom Rowland: It has an effect on your attitude, it has an effect on your patience level, it has an effect on everything. And when I went through my big fitness journey thirty years ago, it was one of my major motivating factors, I was better at my job. I was definitely better at my job. I started catching more fish, I started having happier customers, I started having more repeat customers, and I was like, man, I need more of that, because that was what I was doing, I was trying to be better at my job, and it was actually working.
Tom Rowland: And if your job is a fishing guide, certainly the way that we do it, we're pushing a boat with a stick, that's a very physical thing. But I believe you'll also avoid a lot of injuries that you might have gotten otherwise by being stronger and lighter and more agile. So, man, good for you, man, good for you.
Justin Napier: Thank you, appreciate it. I feel good, feel great.
Tom Rowland: So if Justin can do it, you can do it, if anybody can do it. And so many of us are in the same situation, you got thrown off your routine during the lockdown, during the pandemic. Your routine went out the window. In Justin's case, the gym closed, threw him for a tailspin, next thing you know, thirty five. But you can turn it all around, man. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what your current state is, you can absolutely turn it around, and you can drop thirty five pounds, you can drop eighty five pounds. It just takes dedication and determination, and really finding something that fits with your schedule, as we've talked about many times. Justin is a great example, man, he found something he can do in the morning, can do something in the afternoon, pays attention to his diet, the rest takes care of itself.
Justin Napier: It's eighty percent diet.
Tom Rowland: I think so. So what did you change with your diet?
Justin Napier: Oh man, I've always been a semi healthy eater, because I know that I'm an easy weight gainer, so I can't just eat whatever I want. But I was a classic, I'd get a good sandwich, my wife would get the healthier bread and the healthier cheese, but still, at the end of the day, it's cheese, meat, mayonnaise. It's a sandwich, it's not terrible for you, but it's also not the healthiest. So I just went back to super clean eating. I basically do fish, chicken, turkey. I do beef maybe once or twice a week, and rice, but I kind of portion it out, I don't just pile it in until I'm full. I do a cup of rice and eight ounces of meat or fish, whatever, and then a protein shake.
Justin Napier: If I'm on a boat and need a quick snack, I'll do a clean protein shake with some unsweetened almond milk, but basically just the clean diet for me. It sounds boring, but it's just meat, veggies, rice. Meat, veggies, rice.
Tom Rowland: Man, there's nothing wrong with that, and there's nothing wrong with boring either, man. It's all about results, and it's all about finding something that fits with your schedule and fits with your life and fits with your family, and also avoiding kid food. That gets a lot of people, man, eating the macaroni and cheese and the leftover stuff that the kids are eating. That's a great way to put on a few.
Justin Napier: A cool way to ease yourself into it if you're just starting is, and it's how I started back in the day, eat super clean Monday through Friday, and then if you're really craving something, have one meal a week, either Friday or Saturday, have a cheeseburger and French fries, and then hop back on it. You will not have any negative side effects to that. I personally did that for a long time, and I got in great shape doing that.
Justin Napier: Currently, where I'm at now, part of the goal I set for myself was a time period of six months where I just want to work out six days a week minimum, and I want to eat clean the entire time, because it's something I've never done in my life. I've always been told by my bodybuilder buddies, you gotta eat that cheat meal, it refills you and it tricks your body. It kind of does, kind of doesn't. I feel like if you just eat healthy all the time, you feel really good all the time. So that's my personal goal for myself, to eliminate the cheat meals. I've been doing that, I'm thinking two months straight now with no cheat meals, not even a little bite of the cupcake. I'm at zero cheat meals and I feel good, and the progress is definitely faster with no cheat meals.
Tom Rowland: Well, it's obviously working, you're doing a great job with it. And that's what it's all about, it's what works for you. The Rock does cheat meals, and it obviously works for him. There's lots of different ways to do it, you just gotta find what works for you and then stick with that. And Justin's living proof, man, it works.
Tom Rowland: Alright, that's Physical Friday. I hope you'll get some motivation, some inspiration from Justin and his story, and do it yourself if you are in need of that. Otherwise, send this podcast to somebody who might need it. Alright, that's Physical Friday for this week.
Justin Napier: We'll talk to you next week. See you.
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