How To Strip Fat Fast, Single Sets To Failure, CBD Dosing, Boxing For Fitness & More: The Jay...

Oh, hello.

I didn't see you there.

That joke never gets old.

No, it actually does. I should probably stop and find something new to make you laugh. This is Ben Greenfield, and today's show.

Is pretty cool because it is with a guy who I was able to.

Spend some time with in Santa Monica recently and I was on his show there. We recorded in his giant skyscraper apartment that's like blue and white and made me feel like I was in a fish aquarium. But we made this amazing like CBD mushroom tea. And then I. I sat next to his 200 pound ish kettlebell and podcasted with him. But that episode was on his podcast. The episode you're about to hear is when he came on my podcast where.

We talked about how to strip fat.

Fast and single sets to failure. CBD dosing, boxing for fitness. A whole lot more. His name is Jay Faruja. Jay Faruja of Renegade Radio. So cool. Cool show. Man after my own heart, if I don't say so myself. I don't know why I just said that, but I did. This podcast is brought to you by Joov. Can't say that without saying it like that. Jove. J O O V is how you.

Spell that, which is why I pronounce it like that.

You guys already know. Guys and girls hopefully already know that I use this thing called a juv light literally every day in my office. I pull down my pants and I shine this infrared light on my bowls to increase my testosterone. Balls isn't a bad word if you say it like you're from the Bronx. So anyways, there's some fascinating studies on infrared light and specifically red and near infrared light and activation of the Leydig cells in the testes for increased testosterone production. But they've also found more than a 50% increase in the European Journal of Applied Physiology on on muscle thickness and peak exercise torque when using this concept of photo biomodulation. As well as a significant delay in onset of muscle fatigue, less lactic acid buildup. There's been some very interesting studies on collagen and skin health. The list goes on and on both men and women alike. Women, yes. Even if you don't have a ear musk kids ball sac. You can also use this on your own nether regions or anywhere else on your body. And including scars, stretch marks, et cetera. These lights are amazing. And I have an offer for you. You can use the code BEN25 to get a nice little discount on your purchase over at Joovv. That's 25% discount Ben25 how go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Joovv that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com JOOVV and code Ben25 get you that sweet discount. This podcast is also brought to you. Not that I want to kick this horse to death, it's a horrible analogy, but another way that you can improve your sexual health dramatically. Gainswave this is a new way for men and women to optimize their sexual performance. I am actually on my way to Florida at the time that you're listening to this episode for my third gainswave treatment where they're going to do what's called a platelet rich plasma injection into my again, earmuffs kids. Quit putting the earmuffs on your kids. They got to know these words anyways eventually in my penis and they're also going to blast it with acoustic sound waves. And that allows for the growth of new blood vessels and it basically repairs a lot of the old blood vessels, which is one of the reasons that you lose orgasm quality as you age.

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This episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

If that's all you're doing is training and looking to make those goals, it's awesome. But after about three or four weeks, if you also want to be playing pickup sports and boxing and doing martial arts and stuff, doesn't really work that great with that. The fatigue just builds up. I got on it and honestly I think it works better than turmeric or anything else I've tried. When I take CBD for inflammation, I wake up the next day feeling great. I sleep better and my whole body feels Great. I was 217 at the start of that summer. I was 217 at the end of that summer. I felt so much better. My conditioning was Better, moving, better.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Green.

Power.

Speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Floor Fitness Podcast.

It's not often that I open the kimono and let you hear what happens when I actually call a guest up on Skype and launch into the interview. But I'm going to do just that right now. So this guy has no clue he's being recorded from the get go. But it. It's. It's J. Faruja, so honestly, what could he care? He's a. He's a killer. I don't really mean he's a killer. I mean he's a killer. Like, he's a. He's a cool guy who can take being recorded without knowing it. He does know I'm calling him for an episode. He just doesn't know him. Let me hit the call button here.

Pick up, pick up. Jay, come on, Come on.

Jay.

Don't run from me. You can't hide. Beck. Oh, hey. What's up, man?

Hey, Ben, can you hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you.

Hey, what's up, man? How you doing?

I'm doing well. I was actually just recording for. For the people listening in. I figured I'd. I'd make this fun and actually tell them I was recording as I called you up. So I just totally opened the kimono on us and, and let people hear, hear, hear the ringing and the. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Part of things. So we're actually. We're actually recording right now. Just a warning. Put your pants on and do your makeup, bro.

Awesome. Well, I've already done that, so. Well, not the pants.

Oh, okay. All right, cool. Okay, goodbye. Okay, let's try him on Skype again. Here we go.

Jason.

Come on, baby.

Dude.

Yo. What happened?

That was crazy. The power to my whole house shut off.

That's crazy.

And I figured out why I walked out of my office and we're recording again, by the way. I walked out of my office and into my gym and my wife was in the. Speaking of not having your pants on, she was in the sauna, like doing push ups in her panties and I had the sauna blasted full blast with the music turned on and everything. And I think she threw the breakers. Oh, wow. With the, with the, the like this 200. I think it's a 225 watt pole infrared sauna. And like, she, she doesn't use it very much, but I think because it's the new year, she's on kind of like this, like she's been running and she's been cranking out, you know, these calisthenic body weight workouts. So, you know, she's, she's caught up in the whole New Year's crate, I think. But we, we just learned that you can't run all my mixing equipment and an infrared sauna simultaneously without stuff exploding.

Ah, okay.

And don't you have a great start?

Yeah. Tony Jeffries was telling me about your place. Don't you have like some crazy power system that's that you built yourself or something?

You know what? I do.

So don't throw my power system under the bus, bro. I'm sure it's just perfect. No, well, I've got solar and theoretically the battery storage that I've built in the garage to switch to solar when the power goes out on the main inverter is supposed to work just fine, but it for some reason didn't kick in just now. And it might be because it's the middle of the winter and we're on like a north facing slope where we only get sun. I mean, honestly, I haven't seen the sun in several days, so it's possible that my, my batteries are drained or something. But either way, the funny, the funny thing is it's pretty rare that I'll. That I'll record the process of me like calling somebody up and beginning the recording. So again, speaking of opening the kimono, our entire audience got to hear everything that we just went through. So anyways. What an intro, dude. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, man. I really appreciate you having me.

Yeah, yeah. Our mutual friend, Craig Ballantyne. If those of you listening in aren't familiar with Craig Ballantyne, I'll put a link to the episode I did with Craig on building your perfect day in the show notes. But he introduced.

Jason and I. Jason, you pronounce your last name Farugio, right?

Yes, sir.

Yes, I got it. And do you like to be called Jay or Jason?

I mean, it tends to be pretty much just my mom and a few other people call me Jason. Everyone always call me Jay, but it doesn't matter.

All right, well, that kind of sucks because the pretty link that I've created for today's show is actually BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jason.

All good.

So if any of you listening in want to go stalk Jay or go to his website or listen to his. His podcast. What's the name of your podcast?

Renegade Radio.

Renegade Radio. You can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jason and I'll put links to that and all the other goodness that Jason and I cover. I mean, Jay and I cover in today's show since I'm not. I'm not Jay's father. Anyways, though Jay's been in the industry since 1994, which basically means he. He predates yours truly, which I'm finding tougher and tougher to find these days, unless you're freaking like Mark Sisson or Arthur Devaney. But you may have seen Jay's work pretty much everywhere. Men's Health, Muscle and Fitness. Men's Fitness, Fast Company, HuffPost, Shape Entrepreneur, ESPN, CBS. He was doing group training back in the 90s, the hardcore underground warehouse gyms that are so popular nowadays. He had one of those, I believe, back in 1996. He was doing like the whole strongman, tire flipping, sled dragging, log pressing, using rings, literally, for the past couple of decades. He's been in this industry for a long time. He's been to hell and back, so to speak. So I'm actually pretty stoked to have you on the show, Jay.

Thanks again.

Yeah. And you actually wrote the foreword to this book that randomly showed up at my doorstep. I don't even think the folks at Dragon Door knew that I was interviewing you, but this body weight workout book showed up on my doorstep called Pushing the Limits. And it turns out I'm flipping through it, and lo and behold, you wrote the foreword to it. And it turns out that I'm interviewing you right now. And you talk a little bit about your experience back in the day with body weight training, which is actually something I'm kind of, kind of a big fan of and try and do once a week. I do some kind of weight training on Mondays and Fridays, but then Wednesdays are kind of like my body weight calisthenics day right now. So. And you tell kind of an entertaining story about what happened when you didn't touch a weight for, I believe, something like 12 weeks, and you just did body weight. So what happened? What got you into this bodyweight training thing and what happened when you didn't touch the weights for 12 weeks?

Yeah. So. Well, first of all shout out to Al and Danny Cavadlo.

Yeah, those. Those are the guys that. Those, like, the. The tattooed little ripped guys who wrote this book.

Yeah, yeah, Great dudes. I had, you know, I had my own hardcore gym forever. And it was the first time I hadn't trained in my own gym. I moved into New York City for a year because it was what I always wanted to do. So I didn't have access to my own gym, my own music and whatnot. The first time in a decade. And I decided, you know what? I'm gonna go outside because I cross the street from Tompkins Square park, which is where those guys train. And all the guys you see on YouTube just doing crazy stuff. Before there was YouTube, those guys were out there every day, like the Barbarian Brothers and the Bar Brothers and all those guys. I was like, well, it's right here. I hate training in public gyms. I couldn't find a gym in the city that was kind of, you know, my style and my vibe. So I went out there and just did that. Walked across the street every day. And it was the craziest thing. I mean, I probably hadn't gone a week without doing heavy squats and deadlifts. I was largely influenced by powerlifting and west side. It's always going heavy, 52 weeks a year, pretty much. Not a lot of deloading. And that summer, not a lot of.

Air squats, in other words.

No, no, no, no.

A lot.

A lot of one rep max squats. But I could not believe halfway through that summer how much faster I was running, how much higher I was jumping. And I was in my early 30s at the time, and it was. I mean, it was just crazy to me. Like, my hips all so much better, my knees, my lower back. And it kind of was. Was a thing where I just assumed that that's how I would always feel. You know, I just kind of was always like, oh, it's always kind of hard to get up now. And my hips and lower back will always be tight. My knees will always be a little creaky. But taking that 90 days off and doing that, and I don't necessarily know that I gained any size, but I was 217 at the start of that summer. I was 217 at the end of that summer. I felt so much better. My conditioning was better, moving better.

So the funny thing is, Jay, in hearing your story about how you switched from, or actually didn't switch from, but experienced body weight training, after hitting the iron hard for so long, I had the Same thing happen when I was a bodybuilder. I bodybuilded for a couple of years and then one summer decided, screw it, I'm sick of the gym. I'm sick of the barbells, I'm sick of that, you know, leg extension machine I've been doing for my, for my quad toning every freaking Monday and Friday. I'm just gonna work out in the park across the street from my house for the next 12 weeks. And that's actually what I did. I even invited my mom up to follow me around the park and take photographs and videos of me so I could create my first ever book on basically like training with just your body weight. And then I had one set, they're still actually in my, in my garage, one set of old rusty 40 pound dumbbells. And the entire program was based around body weight and a couple sets of dumbbells. So. And I, similar to you, felt fantastic afterwards.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So it's funny because I did the same thing when I moved here because I, you know, after that year in the city, moved back to Jersey and I had my gym and I was, you know, back in the gym, training hard as normal. Then I moved to Santa Monica and again, it was just that thing where I wasn't used to training in public gyms. Couldn't find a kind of small hardcore gym that I like. So I just went outside to the rings at Muscle beach for probably six months and I had the same experience again. So finally you learn, right? And I was just like, okay, I'm not going back to training the way I used to anymore. So kind of was just the evolution of dude, now, now I'm 43 and I, I want to feel good as much as I want to look good, so I do more body weight. Dumbbells, kettlebells, may do some barbell stuff here and there, but a lot different than I used to train.

Being a guy who is as immersed as you are in the health and fitness industry and is also 43 years old and staying in good shape, what are, what are your thoughts on this? On, you know, kind of like the emerging anti aging and longevity industry? There's all, you know, there's people like popping NAD plus pills, there's, you know, biohackers, you know, injecting stem cells. There are people banking stem cells. There's all sorts of, of fringe things that folks are doing, from teas to enemas, to, you know, infrareds to everything else that really I would classify as like something that falls into the anti aging bucket. Are you personally immersed in any of that? Like, are you using any fancy biohacks or strategies when it comes to your own longevity to stay in the game?

Yeah, I mean, I do, I don't get over the top with it. Some of the things I do on a regular basis are that I didn't do years, years ago. I meditate. I, you know, obviously sleep way more. I take cbd. I go to cryo quite a bit. I go in a infrared sauna at least three times a week for 30 minutes. I go to a float, a float tank at least once a week for two hours. Those are about, you know, that's about all I do. And obviously, you know, pay more attention to my nutrition and whatnot. But I just think that if you look at people, you know, cultures that live the longest, like blue zones and stuff like that, it really comes down to, you know, happiness and connection and less stress in your life. And that's the thing that's been the biggest difference maker for me. Like, I've always been just a type A East coast guy to go super hard all the time. And so now for me to be able to get in a flow tank and meditate and then do yoga and like, normally I would just train super hard, but now for me to go to do yoga, like, I think those things are making a big difference and hopefully gonna help me out long term.

I don't know, man. There's folks like, you know, Jocko Willinka and the Rock posting photos of themselves in the gym at 4:00am and I, I talked to some people who are super inspired by that, but these are the same people who are just burnt to a crisp after like three or four months and. Yeah, what do you, what do you think about that? That whole just like, like, you know, set your jaw, nose to the grindstone, get up at 4am type of philosophy when it comes to fitness, do you think that flies in the face of longevity or do you think that these guys are basically gonna live longer than the rest of us because of that philosophy they live by?

I think it's a little both. I think there's a balance and I think those guys are outliers. Right? Like, the Rock is an outlier. Arnold. Certainly an outlier. I do believe that fitness.

No, no, no, no. They're, they're built just like any of the rest of us walking through the mall. Obvious.

I do believe that, you know, having that, that, that mindset and that relentless kind of attack mode definitely helps you achieve things. But, like, you said you're gonna burn out. Like, it's physiologically impossible for most people. Like, I have a good friend who's like that. He can sleep four hours a night and train three hours a day and never get sick, never get burnt out, read three books a week, and I try to do that and I have the flu in like two weeks. Like, it just doesn't work for, for me. So, you know, it depends, you know, who you are, who your parents were, but I can't imagine that that's good long term for longevity.

Yeah, I mean, well, I think part of it is the way you're wired. I think part of it is genes. I mean, there's that. I think it's the gene deck 2 is the one they found on mice that actually allows mice and certain people with this rare genetic mutation, not that I think it's like 0.04% of the population or something like that, can actually truly get by in less sleep. On the flip side, these people, I know a few people who are like that. They're like, yeah, I feel fine, three or four hours of sleep, boom, I'm ready to go. They have night terrors because you go through your dream cycles more quickly. They also suspect that a lot of these people wind up with nervous systems that are a little bit more fried as they age because you miss out on a lot of the repair and the recovery that occurs during these longer sleep stages. So I think.

I think it'll come back to bite a lot of folks. And you know, for me personally, like, the way I raise my little boys is I want them to get used to doing hard things, to kind of like eating the frog in the mornings, but then, yeah, allow them to strike a balance between that and like getting, you know, eight to nine hours of sleep and a 24 hour sleep cycle, even if that means a nap, you know, like, like you can't just be in hyper drive 24. 7.

Yeah, I agree 100%. I, you know, I think everyone tends to glorify the hustle and that mentality too much. And I used to train like that super hard with excessive volume and intensity. And I always kind of felt just like, you know, overstimulated and over fatigued and I was super tired half the day, but I couldn't sleep all night and all that stuff. So I know for a fact that changing all of that about the way I train and live has made a huge difference. And hopefully we'll add some years to my life.

Yeah. How'd you wind up in Santa Monica. You have kind of an interesting story.

I was just kind of getting burnt out. I couldn't take the winters anymore. And I was always just that angry kind of east coast guy, fired up, intense all the time. And then I just kind of was wanting to get away from that. And I knew that environment triggers behaviors, so I kind of just wanted to get away from a lot of the things that I was around for the previous 36 years. And again, the weather and new opportunity, chance to reinvent yourself. So that was how I ended up out here. I was actually gonna come out sooner because I had some really cool opportunities for work. But I met my wife and we stayed a few more years in Jersey, but moved out here.

Interesting. And so. So you're out there basically running gyms now?

No, no, I had. I kept my gym in Jersey for the first couple years we were here, and my brother was running it. And you know how business and family doesn't always go so well, So I just sold it to him. He took over, did his own thing with it. And so I haven't had a gym now. I guess it's been three or four years. So it's mainly just, you know, more online and podcasts and events and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's. That's pretty similar to the switch that I made basically the year my kids were born. I switched more into writing and authoring. And I don't know how you feel about this. There's a lot of Instagram bodies out there and folks who are running online personal training programs who really have maybe trained clients in a gym, you know, one or two years max or never, and really haven't actually operated a brick and mortar facility. I don't know. Do you feel strongly about that?

Yeah, no, definitely. I think it's a shame for so many of the people who are kind of buying into that and buying their programs. I remember Alan Cosgrove and I had been both training people for at least 10 years at the time. We collaborated an article together, and we're saying it's kind of criminal to be putting out programs if you haven't trained people years, maybe even 10. But I don't think even think I wrote an article about training until I've been in the gym 12 hours a day for at least eight years. And I don't think I said selling any training programs. I was doing it for 10 years. It's really hard. Like, if you have great genetics or you're using drugs, you're just in great shape. That does not qualify you to write programs for other people.

Yeah, I completely agree. And you know, I personally spent seven or eight years in the brick and mortar fitness industry working my butt off. I mean, literally like 4am up till about 9 or 10pm Speaking of hustle and you know, granted, not a super healthy approach, but when you're around people, seeing them move, doing biomechanical analysis, doing functional movement screens, learning how people actually respond to specific loads and how they move in certain ways under certain loads, you learn a heck of a lot that you can then take into the online fitness industry. But I think a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of kids these days, they see guys like, let's say you or me online, you know, doing, well, whatever, writing books or, or doing training programs. I think you even have like a, like a renegade, what's it called, your renegade membership program.

Strength club. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Renegade strength club. And people like, I just want to go online and make money that looks great, you know, sit at home in my underwear while my wife's doing push ups in the sauna and ruining the power to our house. And, and that sounds like a pretty good life. But I mean, the, you know, you have to be able to see how people move. And even when I. I don't know if you do this, Jay, but when I go around to a lot of these conferences, like, I jump into movement sessions, I lead movement sessions, I still try to scratch that itch of getting around people and teaching certain things that you simply can't replicate online.

The same thing I love teaching. I'm sure you'd agree it's one of the best ways of learning, is to teach something that's part of what I live by. Like, as soon as I learn something in order to retain it, I teach it to people after I've experimented it with myself. But you know, more to your point too, in addition to how people move, it's also, you know, different personality types and how they respond to different training. Like if you're working with a type A guy versus a guy who's, you know, kind of fearful, you can, you can look at science all day. But if you're not in the gym working with people, certain things that, that look right, you know, from a scientific approach, they're boring as hell or people just hate doing them. So you have to take into account all that kind of stuff too.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the things that you talk about on your website is this idea of minimalist workouts. And you even have some, some Writings that you've done on getting in shape, getting good shape in, I believe, just like three to four hours a week. What would, what would a program like that look like where you were going to get in shape in three to four hours a week? Like, what are, what are some of the biggest kind of like tools in your toolbox or tricks of your trade?

Yeah, I would say for most people, full body workouts would be the best way to go. You know, and do a put an upper body push, an upper body pull, a hinge movement, a squat movement, and some kind of loaded carry. That's enough for a great workout. You don't have to go excessive with volume. Maybe three to five sets of six to ten reps. And progressive overload, I think, is always important. So make sure you're tracking your workouts. Make sure you're getting stronger. If you're just going in there and it's kind of vague, you know, you're just randomly mixing it up and you're not keeping track of PRs and not adding weight or adding reps, it's hard to get anywhere and it's hard to go in just focusing on physique changes. That's why I always like to focus on performance changes. So get stronger, add weight, do things in less time. There's a lot of ways you could focus on performance gains. And then I also recommend for most people, too, to train in a way, and I'm sure your training is designed for this too, where you kind of minimize excessive soreness and fatigue and excess of spinal compression and joint degradation. So you feel good. I mean, if you're just going in and doing super heavy power lifting or Olympic lifting with questionable form, you're never gonna feel that great. That doesn't carry over where you always feel good. You're always kind of ready. You could always jump into a pickup game or go for a hike without saying, oh, it was leg day yesterday, so I can't move. I gotta wait three days before I can come play volleyball with you.

Yeah, but what does it look like? I mean, if you were just gonna do like three or four hours a week, like in terms of, you know. Well, well, let me, let me give you a for example, right? Like I personally try to do at least once a week, I'll do a mitochondrial set, right? Where I'll go 30 seconds, extremely hard, about three to four minutes of recovery, based on the research that shows that that's the best way to increase mitochondrial density. Right. So I want to, I want to knock down that pin and have that be a part of my fitness routine each week. Same thing for VO2 max. Right. Like once a week, unlike I used to do back in my triathlon days, which this would have been like, every day I'll do a short series of like 4 to 6 minute efforts to focus on VO2 max. And then that's it. That's the only, like, really intense cardio session for that week. Or twice a week I do, like I mentioned, like some, some relatively intense weight training that's heavy and very slow. And then once a week I do more body weight style calisthenics that are very explosive. Like when you sit down and you structure a program that really is designed to be a minimalist program, what kind of strategies are you using? I mean, are you looking at isometrics, eccentrics, plyometrics, certain periods of time for the cardiovascular work? Kind of blueprint it for me.

Yeah. Cool. So there's so many different ways to set it up, but one of the most basic ways that I always go back to because I'm old school and I like old school, basic simplicity is kind of what, what Mark berry started in 1930 and Bill Starr popularized more Only the strong shall survive when he was the strength coach of the Baltimore Colts at around the time Super Bowl 5, I believe. So basic, heavy, medium, light. So the way I would set that up would be, let's say on Monday you go in and do some kind of heavy pressing exercise, let's say a dumbbell press, a deadlift and a chin up, and do five sets of five. So that's your heavy day. And then you can finish with a couple accessory movements. And then Wednesday you go in. That's going to be your light day. So maybe you would do inverted rows, push ups and reverse lunges, let's say. And that would be, let's say three sets of 10 to Friday is a medium rep. So four sets of eight, something like that. Again, we could play with it so many different ways. Sometimes what I'll do is some days will be max effort, someday dynamic effort. Some days will be repetitive effort. So if it's a dynamic effort day, we might just do an Olympic lifting variation, a jump, a medicine ball slam, things like that. So I change it over time. But each day's, you know, got a different focus like that. And, and to your point, with the isometric stuff, some days we'll have a maximal strength day, a rep day, an isometric day, lots of different ways to set it up.

But.

But that's basically your strength workouts and I keep those 30, 30 to 45 minutes max. Again, not a ton of volume, just focusing on progressive overload. And then I believe a huge proponent of hill sprints, Walter Payton, was my favorite athlete growing up. I started doing hill sprints. Yeah. In the late 80s, I started doing hill sprints. Probably, like, I'd say, well, probably 85, 1985, that was the year the Bears won the super bowl. And I was just obsessed with Walter Payton. So ever since 1985, I've run Hill sprints. And I honestly believe it's the best thing for conditioning and fat loss. So I always stick with hill sprints. So once a week, hill sprints, and then once a week for me, I do kind of low intensity stuff like go for a hike or something like that, or a long bike ride. That's basically a. Three strength workouts, one high intensity sprint session and one lower intensity session. On top of that, me personally and most people I work with, you know, we'll play ourselves into shape too. So I'm always kind of playing some kind of sport, going swimming, surfing, yoga, boxing. I box with Tony now. Tony Jeffries, our neutral buddy.

Yeah, with Tone. Tony Jeffries at Box and Burn. He was on the podcast. I, I love those workouts because it allows you to get a full boxing workout without actually getting hit in the face, which I, I don't know about you, but I, I tried to get into the ring. I was training for the cage a couple of years ago, and I got an orbital eye fracture during one of my sparring sessions. And it took me two weeks to be able to see straight, to be able to think straight, to be able to write, to be able to provide for my family. At that point, I was like, okay, I'm. I'm gonna do heavy bag workouts if I want to scratch that itch of hitting stuff or, you know, when I happen to be in Santa Monica, I actually swing by Tony Jeffries gym and I'll, I'll do like a boxing session over there where you're literally, you know, not only does he kind of like pre fatigue you, so you're not hitting that hard, but then when you're doing the workout, it's just, you know, sparring on, on his mitts as he calls out combos. So I do that now and then I play tennis, which kind of involves.

Wait, Tony doesn't actually hit you.

You know what he. I mean, for Tony, it's, it's, it's hard for me to say. It's, it's like it sounds like narcissistic for me to say, yeah, step into the gym with the, the UK eight time BO champion and he hits me. He probably for, for him it's like toying with me. For me it's like, oh crap. Tony just like scraped me with his fist and my entire abs just felt like they got, you know, hit by a freight train. So yeah, it kind of depends on your definition of hit. But you know, I play, I play tennis now, which is kind of like the same thing. It's mental chess without having to get hit. But you're still kind of getting that, that feeling of striking something. When you describe your routine to me, it actually sounds similar to a lot of the things that I kind of try and do. Short, very effective strength training sessions. The hill sprints. I absolutely agree with you on, as a matter of fact, the best shape I was ever in, which was when I won a gold medal for the USA in the 2013 Long Course Triathlon Championships that involved a 20 mile run, which is basically where I won the race and passed most people. And all I was doing was three times 30 minutes a week. And then that's, that's a warm up and everything. Very intense hill sprints. And that, that was. Two of them were on the treadmill. I was doing like a 30 or I'm sorry a 10 by 30 seconds at max incline and max speed on the treadmill. And even though they're painful, I, I completely agree, man. Low impact, extremely high heart rate, short period of time. I'm on the same, same, same page as you with the hill sprints and also with the stamina work. That's something that's, that's neglected. I don't know if you've noticed this in kind of like the CrossFit circles especially, but there's, there's almost, almost like a fear of going long. Like it's like it's too catabolic or it's too fasted or we hear this message about chronic cardio decreasing testosterone so we just don't do it at all. Do you think that that endurance is, is not emphasized enough in some cases?

I would say so. I mean, I was definitely guilty of that myself years ago because of the meathead in me. I was kind of with the mindset you just said, right, that it would just make you small and weak and you know, decrease your testosterone. But I think that's been disproven by guys like you and Alex Viada and numerous other people over the last few years.

Yeah, I've Never had Alex Viada on the podcast. But for those of you who haven't heard of Alex, I'll link to his website over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Jason. But Alex Fiat is the guy who, who, like, what is he, like deadlift 600 pounds and he runs ultramarathons. And he's kind of like got the whole strength, endurance thing to the extreme very much figured out. Yeah, I think he is. His program is called the Hybrid Athlete. Right.

Okay. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's. I was trying to think of it. That's what it is.

Yeah. Got it. Okay, cool.

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Yeah, I mean with the, with the stamina stuff, you know, one of the thing that, that I notice happens, you know, a lot of these spartan races and these obstacle course races, a lot of the people who aren't maybe going out for once a week training their bodies how to be fat burning machines, maybe even doing like a fasted longer cardio session, like a two hour hike with their kids, you know, in the morning on a Saturday, without having had breakfast, they just, they, they, they poop out after, you know, whatever, you know, a half hour, 45 minutes. And I guess I live life by the rule that if you had to, you should be able to like head out your door and hunt for a day or two without having to have a bunch of trail mix, have an energy bar and just be able to move low level movement for long periods of time.

Right? Yeah, I love that and it's fun. Years ago when I was in that mindset of just power and strength, power and strength, I remember I really respected saying, you know, even football, you really got to focus on conditioning more. So and that was not my mindset at all. And we used to use, I don't know if you remember Earl Campbell. There was a lot of guys, but Earl Campbell was one of the examples where he would always fail his team's conditioning test. Yet he was one of the greatest running backs of all time. So years ago I downplayed it and plenty of people downplayed it. But I'm much more on the same page as you now. I think it's super important. I think people don't do enough.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. Now, when it comes to diet, obviously a lot of approaches out there. We just mentioned ketosis briefly and how that's kind of like the darling of, it seems, the nutrition industry right now. But what's your dietary philosophy? What's your approach with your clients or with yourself when it comes to macros or micros or your dietary philosophies?

So I pretty much done it all. I started in the 80s doing bodybuilding diets, you know, low fat, high carb, high protein. Then I did keto and psycho keto. I think, I don't know, I don't remember exactly when Dan Duchene and Mauro de Pasquale had those books. I think it was like 95, 96. So I did keto and cyclic keto diets for a few years. I was vegetarian for two years. I was vegan for a year. I got hardcore into Paleo for a long time.

So I've been doing pretty much everything. And I really, at the end of all that, have come back to just kind of a moderate, kind of sane approach where it's I, I call it a plant based diet with the side of meats. So I have more seafood than meat. I'll usually have, you know, mainly fruits, vegetables, yams, white rice, that probably makes up the bulk of it. And then I'll have eggs, I'll have a plant based shake during the day, I'll have oysters. My biggest meal is at night where I have basically whatever my wife is cooking, which will be some kind of meat, fish, you know, wild game, something like that, veggies, and a pretty good amount of either white rice or sweet potatoes. That's. I don't believe in high anything. I've done high fat and I didn't feel that great. Herbs, didn't feel that great, did super high protein. I think there's kind of negatives to anything excessive. So as unexciting as it is, I kind of just you know, follow kind of a balanced approach where, and I do. But I do feel better when I'm conscious about lowering my protein intake.

Yeah, it's kind of weird how it seems like a lot of folks who I talk to in the industry, once they've gone full circle, once they've gone high protein, low carb, which, which I did For a while and then like gone super high fat and done the whole ketosis thing and, and I even experimented with veganism for a little while on a raw plant based diet where I lost a good 10 pounds of muscle in the ketotic diet. Thyroid and testosterone issues. Just getting dogmatic about any diet seems to cause some amount of damage. But when I talk to guys like you or a lot of people in this industry who have gotten it figured out, a lot of people really have returned to most likely what our earliest human ancestors would have consumed. High amounts of dha, honestly from sources like algae and fish, more than supplements or even more than grass fed beef or animal.

Land based animals. A huge emphasis placed on something that pairs quite well with DHA from a mitochondrial standpoint. Beginning to emphasize the things that you mentioned when you were talking about longevity, good clean air and sleep and even some of the things in my own life, which is why my power imploded this morning. Mitigation of, of a lot of electrical signals and making sure that the lighting is taken care of properly. And when you pair good DHA intake and then the other thing you mentioned, high plant intake, which is again something I run into over and over again in this industry, guys who have it figured out have returned to DHA high plants. Not necessarily drooling over the steak every single night or doing 10 eggs in a blender in the morning. Combining that with hair, water and electricity. I mean, like Jack Cruz, who I've had on the podcast before, he gets into this concept, you know, where he describes the human body. The, the human body as a battery. You know, the, the, the idea that light and nitrogen interactions determine how carbon is assimilated in your body. And a big, big part of that is freaking dha, chlorella and plant based matter. Light, good air, good electricity and good water.

Yeah, I love it. It's, it's funny, I noticed too when I do more of a plant based diet, I seem to recover a lot better. And it's. For so many years I was like, oh, just eating more protein will help me recover faster. But I actually recover faster and seem to have less inflammation. I mean I have far less inflammation and recovery issues now at 43 than I did 10 years ago or even 15 years ago. Obviously a lot of that's based on how I train, but I think it's my nutrition too.

Yeah, but at the same time, and you know, I was talking with my wife about this actually the other day. Do you find that. And I found this happen about the time I turned 35 or so. Stuff just stays sore for a longer period. Like you got to do more. You got to do electro stem and infrared or massage therapy. All these things that you just didn't even pay attention to when you were younger because it seemed that everything from satellite cell proliferation to DNA repair and recovery to, you know, post workout protein synthesis, all that seems to happen at such a more rapid rate when you're young. Even with a properly based training program, you know, I, I find it, it'll take me sometimes two to three days longer than it used to be to recover from, from just that, you know, the same workout.

I agree, it definitely does. But I'll, I'll be honest, I thought it would be worse. I remember in my 20s training guys who were my age and they would say, wait till you get to my age. And I was thinking, oh no. But I honestly just thought it would be worse. I take longer to recover, but I don't get as banged up as I used to be. Where or as if I, you know, in regular training, you're training hard, you're gonna tweak your knee here and there, you're gonna tweak your shoulder. Those things actually don't last as long for me as they used to. And I feel because in my 20s and 30s, I was eating 5,000 calories, but most of it was junk. Every day, maybe 7,000 calories, most of it was junk. And I wasn't doing a lot of the things you mentioned that I'm doing now. So hard to say 100%, but I really feel great. And I'm not just, you know, saying that like I honestly feel better than I ever had my entire life.

Yeah. Now, what aboutwhat about supplements? Are youare you a big fan? You mentioned cbd, for example, which is actually something I take every single night. But are there, are there other supplements that you use pretty frequently or. You can even talk about CBD if you want to and why you use that, but I'm just curious what kind of pills you're popping.

So I, I get blood work done regularly and whatever it shows I'm deficient in, I'll take that. I take magnesium, vitamin D. I take a plant based protein powder. I take turmeric, a mixed greens and cbd, and that's about it here, here and there. I might mess with something, you know, experiment with something new once in a while, but I find those to be the most effective.

And if I could interrupt real quick.

Sure.

When you're saying you get regular blood work, you Know, a lot of people are doing like fricking, you know, micronutrient analysis and spectracel and urinary organic amino acids and all sorts of stuff. Like what, what are you monitoring anything specifically? Are you doing like a basic blood panel or what does your blood work actually look like?

I do a basic blood panel and then I do. Yeah, micronutrient analysis and.

I think that's it. Yeah. Nothing like, too crazy. Yeah.

What about, what about genetics? Have you gotten, have you gotten genetics measured?

I have not, no.

That'd be an interesting one for, I mean, just in terms of finding out whatever genetic predispositions. Right. Like I have a higher than normal risk for prostate cancer, so I go out of my way to get lycopene into my diet. Same thing with type 2 diabetes. Right. Like, I'm very, very cognizant of controlling my glycemic variability throughout the day, you know, coffee metabolism rates, whether you're a power or an endurance responder, which can dictate, you know, set rep weight ratio. There's a lot of interesting things. I mean, considering it's a what, Like I think it's less than a hundred dollars sometimes. When 23andMe does specials, for example, I, I think it's a good test to kind of have, have tossed into your lab results folder.

I am writing that down right now. I'm gonna do it. Is 23andMe the one you, you go with? Is that what you recommend?

Well, 23andMe is restricted from releasing certain health data. And so because of that you get kind of like this basic like 6th grader overview of your, your ancestry and your genetics and your health parameters. But you also get your.

Well, that's my reading level anyway.

So yeah, okay, there you go with lots of pictures. But you get your raw data and you can download that raw data. And then there's a website. One really good one is 23 and you.com and 23 and you has a whole list of like free and low cost websites like Genetic Genie or Promethease or Strategene that allow you to then export those DNA results. And then, I mean, the fricking world is your oyster. You can, you can find out the nitty gritty details on, you know, genetic predispositions for any different disease markers, your endogenous antioxidant production, you know, which could influence like, you know, whether or not you need to like take a bunch of glutathione, which I personally do. My body doesn't make a lot of superoxide dismutase or glutathione. So I have to supplement with that or I get to supplement with that. But you. Yeah, when you take those results, Those raw results from 23andMe, download them so that you have them and then export them to one of these other websites on 23andyou.com, dude, you can find out a lot.

Awesome. Thank you for that recommendation. I'm gonna do that for sure.

Yeah. But you, you were talking about cbd.

I started using cbd. I think I heard you recommend cbd. Actually, maybe. I don't know. I remember it seemed like there were very few people speaking about it. So I think when I, when I first heard of it, you know, your stuff came up and I got on it and honestly I think it works better than turmeric or anything else I've tried. When I take CBD for inflammation, I wake up the next day feeling great. I sleep better and my whole body feels great again. I'm Talking about at 43, I feel so great. I would attribute some of it to that. To regular use of cbd.

Yeah, it's interesting with CBD as an anti inflammatory drug, I mean even GlaxoSmithKline for example is trying to, to patent the use of CBD and trying to put a lot of these CBD supplement companies out of business by patenting the use of CBD as a very potent anti inflammatory in terms of down regulation of cytokines. And I mean it acts on a lot of different receptors. I mean there are glycine receptors that it acts on to modulate pain and it can reduce intestinal inflammation via, you know, interacting with the neuroimmune system. And it can, it acts on what's called glucose induced endothelial cell inflammatory responses, meaning that it can, it can basically shut down inflammation on more levels than just about any other compound that exists out there. Which is probably why GlaxoSmith is trying to, trying to downregulate it. The only thing I've noticed with cbd, which is why I'm careful not to, not to use it excessively. Like high, high dose appears to in men slightly down regulate the activity of Leydig cells in the testes. But I mean you gotta, you gotta do a lot of CBD every day. You know, like, kind of like, what do they call them, functional potheads? Functional weed users. You know, guys who just like all day. Yeah, those guys are pretty hypogonadal in a lot of cases. Unless they're also taking, you know, unless they're they're taking testosterone injections or creams or lotions or, you know, or. Or a pillow.

How much CBD do you use?

So what I do is I use the, that, that CBD that currently, at the time we're recording this, my, My company makes. But I don't know if I'm gonna. Honestly, I don't know if I'm gonna stay in the CBD business because payment processors and the federal government and regulators make it so difficult. It's. It's almost not even worth the uphill battle for me. But currently what I do is I pop two to three of those capsules before bed at night, which equates to 20 to 30 milligrams of C CBD. But because it's water soluble.

It'S extremely absorbable. So you got to take about anywhere from four to eight times less than you do from a normal CBD supplement. So I'm at about 20-30mg each evening of CBD. And then occasionally on the weekends, I'll crawl into the infrared sauna with a good book and vape for a little while and use something that's both, a thc, a CBD blend, like an indica or something like that. But, but, but, yeah, that's about the extent of my usage.

Do you ever use indica to get focused for work?

I don't, I get, I get a little bit loopy. There was actually one podcast episode where I smoked beforehand and, and I think we published it because it was so funny. But I mean, I get, I probably find it somewhere in our archives. It was when I was recording a Q and A episode with Brock. I just quit the podcast halfway through. I was like, dude, I just died. Done more. Can't find my words. So, yeah, I don't, I don't really use it for focus. You know, I'll use. I'll microdose with LSD occasionally if I've got a, you know, usually like on a sleep deprived day or a day where I need a lot of focus. Aside from that, man, you know, I use some lion's mane mushroom sometimes from the four Sigmatic guys. Yeah. Cup of coffee. Yeah, I'm a fan of that big, big coffee man. And, you know, this, this qualia stuff, I call it the God pill. You know, I'm still taking that two or three times a week. It's kind of like my go to nootropic just because it's. It cuts straight to the chase, right? It's got like everything in the kitchen sink. In it. So it just kind of, it kind of hits everything without causing you to crash because it also repletes everything at the same time that you take it.

Gotcha.

What about you? Are you using anything for as like a smart drug or a nootropic?

Not really. I've experimented with so many of them. I do use the four Sigmatic. I'm a big fan of theirs. But. But I experimented with so many different ones and I never really, you know, sometimes I thought it was doing something and I was like, I wonder if this is just in my head. And it. None of them really seem difference for me. So not so much. And I haven't gone. I mean, I know a lot of guys are, you know. Now that's why I asked you about. I think I said Indica, I meant Sativa. A lot of guys are, you know, using a little bit of Sativa with. Okay, yeah, like microdosing LSD and stuff like that. And I haven't gotten into that whole scene.

Yeah. The only thing I've found with Sativa is if you can. I learned this from Paul. Check. You can actually blend it with a little bit of organic tobacco and then you can put a really uplifting oil in there, like a cinnamon or a mint or like a rosemary oil, the same type of essential oil you diffuse for enhancing memory or cognition or focus. And you can actually, you can vape that and that actually gives you a real, real uplift in. In mood. With my only complaint being this sounds silly but like, I'm always like typing, talking on the phone, moving, shaking. Like I just don't have time to like, have a vaporizer going all the time and, you know, be right. I just, honestly, it's just like clunky and so that's something. Again, I'll do that on like, you know, the weekends, for example.

Yeah, gotcha.

So you've also got quite a bit on your website when it comes to fat loss, which I get a lot of questions about. And I know it's something you delved into. Everything from reasons people don't lose fat to fast ways to lose fat safely. And if I could put this in context for you, people ask me, I'm like, one of the best ways I've found to strip fat off your body is you wake up in a fasted state, you do some aerobic cardio and preferably you have some caffeine in your system beforehand. So you mobilize fatty acids and you finish up with a cold shower. So you convert some adipose tissue into into brown fat. And like, like that's the top tip I give to people when they tell me, you know what, what can I do to burn fat? What do you have something like in a similar category? Like that would be kind of like your, your go to program for fat loss when nothing else seems to be working.

It's funny, I would say pretty much that exact. I, I don't normally add the cold shower to it, but I, I, I think that's awesome. I agree with you there a hundred percent. I think that's great. And then in addition to what I mentioned before is hill sprints. I mean if you're doing hill sprints, you are going to get ripped.

What about if you're overweight? Like, do you have, do you have substitutes for hill sprints? Like do you like the bicycle or something else?

Yeah, I like the, like the Air Dyna, the air assault bike. Those are great. So, so doing sprints on there. So I think when anybody starts sprinting, usually they haven't sprinted since high school and they always, you know, get hurt. You got to be smart about, about it and really underdo it even if you're doing a hill. So if you were super overweight, I would say just walk fast up a hill and then walk down and then over time you start losing weight. And of course the steeper the hill, the less impact. I'm lucky enough here that in addition to running up grass hills and trails and mountains, we have sand dunes, which is amazing. We talk about low impact. You sink into the sand, there's, there's no impact at all. If you have that near nearby, certainly do that. But anytime you start doing sprints, you have to ease into it. Like literally do a 15 minute warmup and do three sprints. You know, do a few warm up sprints at 50% and maybe three hard ones. Short distance too at first because you're more likely to break, have your form break down and get injured if you go more than 20 yards or so. So it's way less than you would expect. And it's not really even a workout. You're going to walk away and say, well, that was a waste of time. But the next day, your Achilles, your feet, your calves, everything's going to be sore. So you really got to ease into it slowly. I like pushing a sled or dragging a sled. If you can't, you know, if you can't sprint anyone, no matter what way you are, you can push or drag a sled and then you just walk with it. Walk fast with it and then eventually work up to running with it. And the cool thing is if you don't live near any hills, a sled kind of does the same thing where it reduces the impact so it slows you down and it's just way, way more joint friendly. So. And even if you don't have a sled, you can always, you know, tie a tire up behind you. There's, there's ways you could rig something up. You can push your car. There's all kinds of ways. So just push or drag some kind of loaded object. Object if you don't have a hill. And that's old school and it works every time.

Yeah. I actually have this exercise strategy I want to ask you about in a second, but related to isometrics, but there's actually a host of really fantastic fitness devices out there that I think fly under the rail. Like you mentioned the Airdyne, perfect substitute for sprints. Jacob's ladder. Jacob's ladder is another one that we're literally just like crawling. I mean you could. People sell those on Craigslist for nothing because they buy them and they hate them, so they want to get rid of them because they're just so freaking effective. And, and you know, they give you this full body bear crawling style workout. You know, even the, even the, the full body like elliptical trainers with the arms and the legs moving, you can, you can get a very good cardiovascular, you know, high calorie, metabolic boosting type of workout. On one of those rowing machine would be another one. And then actually, Jay, you'll be interested in this. Some of the best spartan athletes that I've talked to who are doing a lot of like running up and down slopes and doing a lot of high VO2 max work, they use the, the ski erg. Have you seen that one before? The one where you just stand and you're like kind of like skiing in place?

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I've actually never, I've never used them.

Yeah. That's crazy. That, that one surprised me.

It's kind of boring. But you understand why cross country skiers and skate skiers are endurance athletes that happen to possess some of the biggest VO2 maxes on the face of the planet because you work up your heart rate very quickly on one of those ski ergs. This other thing I was going to ask you about was kind of this emerging concept of.

One single set to failure.

Either isometric training using these ARX fit machines are very popular. I have a isometric training machine I'm working with Called a Peak Fit Pro, where basically once a week for one of my heavy lifts, I go in and I do one single set to failure. I tie it to my phone app. The app beeps when I reach 60% of my original force that I was trying to produce at the beginning. And you're just all out. Like you're trying to rip a car, you know, like off of a, like a burning car off of a baby. Which is a horrible analogy. It's just what came to mind. But you're trying, you're trying to like, you know, rip a car of a baby. You're generating thousands of pounds. It tells you, you know, how many pounds per second that you're lifting tells you total force generated during like a, you know, the longest I've ever gone is about 75 seconds for a single lift before I can't maintain 60% anymore. But then that's it, you're done. I did one, one deadlift set, one squat set, one shoulder press set. Joints aren't moving at all. It's all isometric. One lap pull down set, one bench press set. And I think that's it. And yeah, just, it's single set to failure. You know, Art Devani talks about this. You know, Doug McGuff has a book, Body by Science about this. What are your thoughts on this? On this concept of just do like one single set to failure and then full recovery?

Yeah, so, I mean, certainly not a new concept. Arthur Jones popularized that years ago and then Mike Menser really brought the forefront. 93, Dorian Yates won Mr. Olympia and that was his whole thing. And I experimented with it for years. When I had done, when I started lifting in 85 or 86, I was doing high volume bodybuilding and I got introduced to Mensner stuff. It was the first time I ever made progress. And then I strayed away from it. Then Yates won Olympia, Mr. Olympia in 93. And I went back and started making progress again. I love it. If you give me somebody for anything, get getting ready for a season, getting ready to play a superhero. And I only have six to eight weeks. That's gonna be my go to low volume, super hard to failure, high intensity. However, what happens is after about six to eight weeks, you tend to be pretty fried. Like you just, you know, you just have that kind of residual CNS fatigue all the time. You're tired, you start to get moody or, you know, you just feel that all the symptoms of overtraining and you gotta shift to something else. Like at first it works so well. Your, your likelihood of saying this is the only way I'm training ever is pretty high. But then you always get fried at about six to eight weeks. And I remember even Yates said, you know, when, when we were around him back in the 90s, he said, I, I can only train this way for six to eight weeks and then I take a two week deload. And there's a really popular training system for years on the Internet called Dog Crap. And it's based around the same concept. And Dante Trudell is the guy who started that and he's, you know like £300 jacked out of his mind. But he always said the same thing. You can only do this for six to eight weeks. Then you got to take two weeks either off or where you're just training super easy and then ramp back up again over time. I think anyone that's done it for a very long time religiously kind of comes to that same conclusion. Even Justin Harris was a pro bodybuilder and he followed those concepts. And you know, he said after years of doing it six weeks and even, even the first two to three weeks after that kind of deload or cruise period, you're still easing into it, especially when you get really strong. You know, for me, I was never really strong, but I was able to squat.

15 for 20 doing that bench 315 for 11 doing that 405 on a trap bar deadlift for 20. Like that adds up. Ken Leisner was another guy, Dr. Ken Leisner, who was a big fan of that stuff. And I always got my best progress, I always got my, my client's best progress. But again, you just get fried. You got to be smart about it, you got to cycle it. And.

I think here's, here's the other caveat to like if that's all you're doing is training and looking to make those goals, it's awesome. But after about three or four weeks, if you also want to be playing pickup sports and boxing and doing martial arts and stuff, doesn't really work that great with that because you're kind of the, the fatigue just builds up. So I've become a bigger fan of more sub maximal training. Not maybe Pavel would recommend or someone like that, but a little further away from failure throughout most of the year. And then when you have something you really, you want to set a pr, you want to get ready for something. I love that low volume, high intensity stuff.

Yeah, that's where HRV monitoring comes into, into play, dude. Like monitoring neuromuscular fatigue, which is something that, that I do. So those type of sessions, single sets to failure, plummet my heart rate variability. But then if you look at like a super compensatory response, if you actually allow for adequate repair and recovery. And I've found I can only do one per week. Right. Like this is not like a. Right Wednesday.

Yeah. Okay. So exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Certainly. Yeah. I'm talking about if you do it three, four days a week, you don't have long on that kind of program.

Exactly. Yeah. So I monitor HRV for neuromuscular fatigue specifically because that seems to really allow me to not over train with that type of workout. And.

It does seem to produce some pretty significant fitness responses though. However, I gotta say, at this point in the winter, my favorite routine that really does make me feel like a bad is to just tackle the kettlebell for 30 to 45 minutes and then traipse out through the snow and jump into a cold pool because I feel like a badass Russian soldier. And so that's that, that's my go to these days in the, in the winter in Spokane, Washington.

What is that kettlebell workout usually look like?

Right now I'm training for the rkc. And so it is bottoms up, presses its swings, snatches clean and jerk and get ups and goblet squats. And I'm hitting, depending on my time availability, three to five sets of each heavy explosive with.

To mention him again, what Paul Check would call working in, in between each of those sets, like very slow moving, nasal breathing, isometric squats or opposite arm, opposite leg extensions or mobility work or side lunges or hip openers. And then I'll go back to the kettlebell and I'll just weave through a workout like that. And yeah, I learned a little bit from Paul, a little bit from another guy I had in the podcast about kettlebell training, Mike Salimi, and then Chris Holder who combines, he's a fascinating guy. Combines like qigong and tai chi and breathwork and Ricky with kettlebell training. He's got a pretty good episode on our archive somewhere. Somewhere back there. But yeah, that's, that's what my kettlebell routine looks like.

My friend Ben. Do you know Dr. Mark Chang?

I know that name, but I don't, I don't think I've actually ever, ever.

Hung out with him because he, he does a lot of what you just described and he's in the. He was one of the original RKC guys and he's really brilliant guy. I think you guys would hit it off. He was Always. Pavel's second in charge in the rkc and now he's, he's that at strong first. And he was Greg Cook's number one guy with the. I can't think of Greg Cooks thing. The, the functional movement stuff.

Uh huh. Functional movement screen. Yeah. Interesting. Mike Chang. Introduce us, dude. Introduce us.

Yeah, I will, I will.

Okay, sweet. Perfect. Well, for those of you listening in, Jay's got a podcast, Renegade radio. He's also got some, some of those like body weight books that he was behind as well as some other materials on his website, his, his renegade strength club and a lot of really good articles along with like I mentioned some fantastic audio episodes on his weekly podcast. So I'll put a link to all that stuff in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jason, just as Jay's mother would call him. And I'll also link to all those podcasts I mentioned with Chris Holder and Mike Salemi, Craig Ballantyne, who introduced Jason and I, the Tony Jeffries Box and Burn podcast. I'll link to some of the lab tests that I recommend that we mentioned. And then what else do we bring up? Alex Vieda and his juggernaut training in hybrid athlete systems cbd. I'll try and get everything in there in the show notes for you guys. And that's all over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jason and thank you everybody also for putting up with the, with the slippery audio connection we had today. But hopefully you got something out of this episode. So Jay, thanks for coming on the show, man, and sharing all this stuff with us. Your wealth of knowledge, man.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Ben.

Awesome. All right, folks, well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Jay Faruja.

Is it jasonfaruggia.com yes, jasonfarugia.com, i'll link to that as well. Signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week.

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