Kettlebell Yoga, The Best 5 Cardio Machines You Can Use, How To "Reset" Your Body With An...

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In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

One of the lessons that you know, we all know and we all learn, but we all try to forget is that you can't really get good at more than one thing at once. You can't get significantly stronger and faster at the same time. A couple of years ago I tried to give up coffee and after a couple weeks I noticed I had a really hard time focusing and everything else. I did not think I was drinking tea or something lighter and I totally did not even consider that it was the fact that I had given up coffee that I was getting all these ADD symptoms.

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 Greenfield.

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And yes, he's back. No, I'm not referring to myself in the third person, even though I'm back too. I'm referring to my good buddy and a former podcast guest, a fellow biohacker and geek slash student when it comes to all things related to human body and brain performance. The previous episode that we did together, we talked about everything from digital detoxing in the hills of coastal Costa Rica to travel proofing your immune system, to underground little known body weight workouts, and a whole lot more. This cat has also introduced me to two former really, really surprisingly popular podcast guests. A guy named Eric Remonsberger, who basically healed himself of cancer using kind of an approach of giving a big middle finger to conventional medicine and instead using alternative approaches. That was an interesting episode. And also the guy who's with me today introduced me to Scott Dali, who you may remember from the episode fascial fluffing and protective chakra energy balls. He was also an interesting fella, but my guest today is equally as interesting. He is the head of Sport for Spartan Race. He is the creator of something called Runga, which you're going to learn a lot more about in Today's show. He has a degree in exercise and sports science, and he' certified as a performance enhancement specialist, a corrective exercise specialist, a strength conditioning specialist. He's trained at the Czech Institute. He has more Alphabet letters after his name than I do. And his name is Joe D. Stefano. Joe, welcome back to the show, dude.

Hey, man. Thanks, Ben. Really appreciate the intro. And you got to add RKC to that list of the Alphabet after my name there.

Okay. I actually want to ask you about this whole RKC thing, and I'll have you explain what that is to people who aren't familiar with it here in a second, but based on your recommendations, because you kind of like, you're like the granddaddy of our Spartan pro race team, meaning you're always throwing little tips at us and posting things to a private Facebook group page that we have. You went on there a few weeks ago and you gave a recommendation about kettlebells. Like you were waxing positive about kettlebells. And just based off of that post and your recommendation to choose just a few key exercises and use them for mobility, use them for strength, trying to get distracted by 8 billion different moves and instead just kind of grease the groove with these specific kettlebell exercises two to three times a week now, I've been going out on my patio in the morning, and instead of yoga or deep breathing or mobility work, I've just been doing some very light kettlebell swings, some relatively heavy but mobility enhancing Turkish getups, and then also some very, very deep slow goblet squats. And I feel like a million bucks after I've gone through a few rounds of those. So I take what you have to say about kettlebells with seriousness and with heart. So tell me about this rkc, right? Rkc.

Yeah, rkc. And I'm glad to hear that, Ben. I think that bells are uniquely.

They're just. They create such a great training adaptation, right. So we can. It's like loaded yoga, right? So I've got some YouTube videos that I call kettlebell yoga. And like you said, it's just grease in the groove. I think that was a quote from Pavel. And they're just such a great tool to combine movement under load. So you're getting stability in the context of strength and strength in the context of stability. So the rkc, you know, is the Russian Kettlebell Challenge. Now, I think they call it the Russian Kettlebell Certification. It's a tough three days. Dan. John, you know, one of the best, most renowned strength coaches on the planet taught it and I was really fortunate.

He's been on the show before, by the way. Author of Mass Made Simple.

Yeah, I mean, he is just full of just incredible insights from his career, both as an athlete and as a professional. And on top of that, he's hysterical. So he's a great guy to learn from. He just makes it so much fun.

I don't, I don't remember him being that funny during our interview. I remember him just basically intimidating everyone with his recommendation to do like insane 30 to 40 rep barbell squat sets.

Right. Well, maybe, you know, maybe he's, he's growing past those things now. He, I feel like a lot of the stuff that he's doing now, I think he's, he's really focusing. Him and I are really kindred in the way that we look at training today. And I think historically maybe coming from just such a strong athletic career where I think, you know, in easy strength, I think he wrote about a workout he did in 1979 where it was 30 reps at like 325 and then 30 reps at 295 and then 30 reps at 225 or something like that. So I think in his past he's definitely, you know, he's definitely kind of put himself through the wringer in the name of training. And maybe he's evolved this thinking now. I think over the last few years he spent a lot of time with Grey Cook and some of those guys. So I think he's maybe he's shifted a little bit, at least from my view. He's a hysterical guy. He's got incredible stories of success and failure and those just really add to the, to the experience, learning from him.

Now you mentioned, by the way, Joe and I actually wanted to ask you, in addition to asking, asking you about this, about this RKC test, but you mentioned kettlebell yoga. Did you say that you had some videos up on kettlebell yoga or that Dan did?

I do. So I mean, Dan might too, but.

Okay, walk me through kettlebell yoga. Like, how would this look just for somebody listening in, give them the visual.

So as an example, you know things like halos. So that's if you would, if you were to grab a bell by the horns, which means the handles with your hands on either side and just kind of do some halos around your head. So kind of moving your arms so you pull your head through the window and then down the other side. That would be an example of one exercise. You might do 10 of those. Then you might drop into a goblet squat and do 10 of those. @ the bottom. You might stand up and do a couple, you might do a couple hip hinges, things like that. I've got a few circuits where we would actually go from a goblet position, drop into a reverse lunge, then onto both knees, do a hip hinge, then stand up out of that, maybe do a press or two. So it's just about this sort of fluid movement. You might grab one or two light bells and you might just try to move for 10 minutes or so under that light load, moving in as many different controlled movements as possible or.

Directions. Interesting. Okay, and you have a few. Can you send me some videos that I could put in the show notes for people of you demonstrating a little bit of kettlebell.

Yoga? Yeah.

Absolutely. Okay, cool. Folks, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Gi Joe because that's Joe's handle on many of his accounts. Gi Joe BenGreenfieldFitness.com GI Joe and I'll link to those kettlebell yoga videos from Joe. Joe, in addition to the kettlebell yoga. And by the way, I sometimes feel like when I get out there on my porch and do the Turkish getups, it opens up my hips just as much as a full on yoga session. Just doing like 15 get ups per side split into like three sets of five. Super duper effective. So for those of you listening in, I mean, even if you start with something as simple as a get up, go for it. But Joe, you also talked about the RKC certification and I'd like to hear about that. And I believe it was a couple of months ago that you told me you actually, you kind of like failed certain sections of that and you had a really hard time with it. So dig into this RKC certification, why you like it, why you feel people should look into it, and also what you experienced going through.

It. Yeah, well, you know, the RKC is funny. You know, when I, when I decided to do it again this year, I realized kind of how much I learned from it. And about four years ago, maybe five, I had signed up for it and I did it pretty. It was kind of a reactive thing. I was home and I saw that it was going to be in Boston in one or two weeks time. And I just, I've been through so many of these certifications and survived and always passed and always felt good about it. And so, you know, I signed up and I, at the time I was doing a lot of, you know, tire flips and A lot of high intensity training. So although I hadn't been training specifically for the snatch test, which I'm sure we'll get to, I felt like I was fit and I was going to be fine. So I showed up and I got my kicked. Man, it was about a thousand swings a day. It was just this brutal three day workshop. And then at the end everything was going well. My hands were completely shredded. But the last thing is what they call the snatch test. And yeah, I failed.

It. And what, what is the snatch.

Test? So the snatch test is 100 snatches. You have five minutes and you use a very specific weight. So males use a 24 kg. 24 kg, 53 pounds. Women I believe use a 16 or 20. I'd have to check. But you have to do 101 arm snatches. With a 5 minute time cap. You can switch hands as many times as you want, which is a pretty burly test. If anyone's ever done 24 kilogram snatches. Doing 100 of them in five minutes is no.

Small. Yeah, that's.

Legit. So I got 83. And you know what was funny is afterwards I had failed, yes, but I still expected to kind of reap the benefits of the workshop, to be totally honest. I remember when I was leaving I went to grab a T shirt because they had a stack of them there and people were grabbing them and the instructor was like, oh, I'm sorry, you know, you didn't pass the snatch test so not today you don't get the red shirt. And I was shocked. I was like, what? You know, this is, this is outrageous. And I spent. What's so funny about it is I think I spent the next couple of months just really kind of spiteful towards them because I watched a bunch of 190 pound guys, I think I was about 120, 50 at the time. Bunch of 190 pound guys, 200 pound guys just rock this snatch test. And using the same weight as I was. And so I had this like just pity party for the next few months. Like I don't know how they're ever going to have an RKC under 175 pounds because I don't, I don't personally know anybody in my weight class that could handle that test. And I think that I've got, you know, this many years of experience and, and I don't know how they're going to move forward. And I was so like spiteful about not passing, but as, as it kind of came around again this year, I kind of grew some respect for the not everybody gets a trophy mindset.

Right.

Yeah. You want to do this, you got to take it seriously. And, and although the test is hard, I think that it's, it's doable for anybody if you commit to it. And it's not something to be taken lightly. You can't walk in and expect to walk out. And I think there's very few things in life left like that. So it resonated with me. And when I saw Dan John was teaching it, it was just, it was a no brainer and I pulled the.

Trigger. Yeah, I like it. I've looked over their registration page before because frankly, Dragon Door who puts on a lot of these workshops, they've reached out to me and asked me to come out to assert sometime. And you learn everything from suitcase carries to dragon walks, to single leg deadlifts, to step back lunges and tactical lunges and all these different kind of old school Russian moves with the kettlebel. And then of course you have to pass these. I think it's a, what is it, a hard style pushup test and then a snatch test that you have to.

Do. Yeah. So you, you have to pass almost every major exercise. Right. So you might learn the one leg deadlift and stuff. Those aren't gonna be tested. But you have to pass the clean, the snatch, the get up, the press, the goblet squat, I believe the double bell front squat and then the snatch test, which is a performance test. And yeah, I think there's some push up tests and things like that. They do a really at sneaking those assessments throughout the weekend. So there's a few that they sneak in and mark you as passed or failed that you might not have even, you might not have noticed that that was a test. But the snatch test is the one truly performance based test. So the rest are skill based. So can you do a perfect get up? Can you do a perfect press? But yeah, that snatch test is something you need to train.

For. Now, one of the things that you said not to kick the kettlebell horse to death too much, but, but you talked a little bit when you were giving all of us pro Spartan athletes some tips on our Facebook page about some other little things that you took away from Dan John, that certification. And I believe that, well, there were two big takeaways. One was you talked a little bit about the number of reps that you thought people should really be doing when strength training. And the other was how it relates to, I know a lot of our audience, they do running or they do marathoning or triathlon or Spartan racing, something like that. Why would kettlebells be something that would be beneficial for something like that? So kind of, kind of a two part question, like tell me what you were, what you were kind of harping on when it comes to sets and reps. And then also where's the crossover there that you think is so beneficial for somebody like an endurance.

Athlete? Right, Ben? So, so yeah, you know, I think Dan has this. And it's so funny how the universe works, right? Like sometimes you, you know, and I know you've dealt with this is you've got a, you've got an idea in your head and you're kind of moving your training in a certain direction and then you hear something that sort of just, just it kickstarts you. Right? So it's like you, you suspected you might be onto something and then somebody you really respect says something that just kind of catapults you in that direction. And, and that was my experience with Dan John and, and he has a, a rule of 10. So his, his theory with his athletes is that that if the weight is appropriate, you probably can't do more than 10 really good reps. And whether you do five sets of two or two sets of five or a set of five, a set of three and a set of two or whatever it might be, there's 10 good reps in the tank. And that's what training is all about. It's about those 10 reps. So I kind of took that into the context of what we're seeing at Spartan and I think that if you look at the rates of injuries in Spartan race or in endurance sports in Jay. Dai. Daicy. I'm not sure exactly how to say his name. Anatomy for runners. He talks about how 82% of runners get hurt and it's, it's like, geez, imagine if football was that high or car accidents or what have.

You. That's what it.

Is. 82%, 82% of runners get hurt. So if you imagine, like I said, anything else in life with that kind of stat, it would be considered the most dangerous activity on the planet. But we take it for granted and we move forward. But, but I think that Spartan over the years there's sort of two pieces of this. Number one is we've got 200 races this year and the first place prize is going to be anywhere from 500 to $3,000. So there's an incentive to run as much as possible. So that could be dangerous for an athlete trying to make Ends meet on an athlete income. Right. And then the other piece is because the event is scary and it has running, but it also has some heavy lifts. It's. I think athletes took that as well. I need to train as an endurance athlete and a strength athlete at the same time. And one of the lessons that we all know and we all learn, but we all try to forget is that you can't really get good at more than one thing at once. You can't get significantly stronger and faster at the same time. And in my training of OCR athletes and Spartan athletes, I think what's interesting about that is there's two reasons to. One reason is that.

The level of work it takes to improve in one of those areas.

Makes it challenging to recover from. So if you're doing two things simultaneously as a high end athlete, you might get away with it for a little while, but you can't get away with it forever because over time you just can't recover from intense strength training and intense endurance training simultaneously. And that's again, one of the things that I think is leading to injury. And the other thing that's interesting about that point is if you're getting better at both simultaneously, then you're not all that close to your potential in that realm. Right. So if my body could at some point in my life deadlift 500 pounds.

If I'm less than, say, three quarters of the way there, I might actually be able to improve. But if I'm even three quarters, I don't have the exact number. But if I'm the closer I am to my genetic potential in one of those realms, the more I have to just focus on it and not focus on anything else specifically. So I guess we don't have to go down that rabbit hole too long. But that's my hypothesis about.

That. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. I mean, most of the evidence that I've seen on combining strength exercise with endurance exercise is kind of what you've allud too. And it may sound simple and stupid, but that is that you can't get as strong as possible when you're training for endurance. And you can't get the increase in mitochondria and oxygen consumption necessary for endurance when all you're focusing on is strength. That's why I do like this idea of keeping the strength and the endurance somewhat separate for many of your sessions and having that time when you devote yourself purely to kettlebell, having that time when you devote yourself purely to things like running efficiency and running economy. And then I also like having Those, especially for a Spartan athlete, those couple of workouts or more per week where you are combining the two, but it's more like running and stopping for burpees, or running and stopping to drag a sandbag for a distance and not necessarily running and then engaging in some extremely biomechanically complex.

Exercise. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the way that I've kind of done it, if we're going to try to do concurrent training, is sort of assess the athlete, right? So look at their power, look at their strength, look at their endurance. If we distill it to the simplest kind of variables, and whatever their weakest link is, that becomes priority one, whatever the worst is, is priority three. And then there's priority two. And then from a training perspective, they might get a whole bunch of training plan workout, a whole bunch of workouts and a whole bunch of different complexes. And the rules are simple. A lot of times it's do one of these workouts two to three days a week. Do one of these workouts two to three days a week. And the only rule is that a priority one workout has to be at your best condition. So you can't have the effects of a priority two or three workout impact your performance in a priority one workout. And as long as you abide by that simple principle, you can run concurrent training pretty.

Well. Yeah. And by the way, most of the evidence on concurrent training to date, based on the most recent analyses that have been done on this idea of athletes who combine strength training or just exercise enthusiasts in general. I know everybody listening in, you're not like a professional Spartan athlete or triathlete or something like that. But this idea behind doing strength training and doing endurance training all in the same training program on a weekly basis, what they've shown is that for strength and power athletes, you do see a pretty significant reduction in strength, strength and power and muscle hypertrophy associated with resistance training or normally associated with resistance training. When you add in a lot of endurance training or you add in a lot of high intensity interval sessions. On the flip side, what they've shown with endurance trainers or endurance athletes is that when you add in the strength training, you don't see as much of a deficit in the endurance response. You get enhancement of strength and power and muscle and even your basal metabolic rate, weight, because the addition of lean muscle fibers. But you don't see as much of a decrease in actual endurance performance when kind of the tables are turned. So it appears to be more beneficial for endurance athletes to do strength training than it is for strength Athletes to do endurance, endurance training, with the exception of that being that a lot of times you can avoid some of the deleterious effects of endurance training on strength training. When you do very, very short efforts like 10 to 30 second high intensity interval training efforts, you can still maintain a pretty good aerobic capacity as a strength athlete and not have, not have endurance hold you back. So that's, that's some of the latest on concurrent training that I'm aware of.

Joe, quick question for you before we move on. You mentioned 10 reps as being something that, that Dan John talked about. Is that 10 reps total for any given exercise or is that 10 reps for a.

Set? So that would be 10 reps of a given exercise. Right. So just yesterday I was doing, I'm testing out a new block of training right now. And so it's kind of based on this principle and I think it's going to be how I'm going to structure a lot of the offseason training for this coming year for the OCR athletes I work with. But so I would do two to three warm up sets of five to ten reps and then start the five, excuse me, the ten reps. Quality reps that are considered.

Workout. I was gonna say that that makes sense because in Dan John's book the warmups are pretty comprehensive. When you get to the actual set, a lot of times you're only doing just one single set. But what you're saying is, you know, I could do, let's say I was going to do Turkish getups. I could do five sets of two per side or I could do two sets of five per side. But according to Dan John, if you're using adequate weight, 10 reps, no matter what, your set rep scheme, should be about the most that you could handle with with quality reps. But that doesn't include the warmup.

Right? Exactly. Does not include the warmup. And that actually the only exception to that is if you're doing singles. So the 10 rep, I believe that the 10 rep kind of hypothesis thrives and doubles and singles. So things like five sets of two or.

A set of five and then a set of three and then a set of two. I think the one exception if you are doing singles, because there's, according to Dan, if you're doing singles, you want to just do six. If you're doing really heavy stuff, then you can't expect more than six.

Quality reps. Six sets of one rep, six sets of one exact thing. Okay. So for those of you listening in if you want to go to this RKC certification, I'm gonna do one at some point in 2018. I have it on the radar. I mean, for me, I'm lucky. Dragon Door actually reached out and I think they wanted to kind of like comp me one just to. To go somewhere and do it. So I'll take him up on that at some point in 2018. But one other thing before, before I jump into another question about your training. Really interesting and unique approach to your training that you've recently told me about. Joe. Have you seen. Because I know he's on our Spartan pro team and he's like one of the top obstacle racing athletes in the world. But have you seen Hobie calls DVD on Amazon called How to Train for Obstacle Course.

Racer?

I think he made that thing like in.

2012. I got it and I watched it. And when we're talking about concurrent training, here's an example. He'll just go for a run for an hour and a half with a heavy rock and pretty much the whole. It's not even a run, it's like a walk. It's like a heavy rock walk. And he'll just walk and throw the rock and then crawl to the rock and then pick up the rock and turn around backwards and throw the rock and do 10 burpees, then walk to the rock again and throw and just walk along and walk along with this rock. And it's the most hilarious video ever because he's got like the music behind it, you know, almost like.

And just him throwing the rock, walking to the rock, throwing the rock. It's. It's actually, there's some gold in that video too, though. He. He gets into like how he does his, his treadmill sprints wearing a weighted vest. And he does a copious number of walking lunges and he does almost no endurance work and almost all focus speed work with a weighted vest and then these weird things thrown in, like going on a walk with a rock. But anyways, kind of a rabbit hole. But I just thought I'd mention that I saw that DVD recently. It's actually kind of.

Interesting. Oh my gosh. I've seen bits and pieces of it. Not for years, though. But Hobie is. I mean, he's a special case. I mean, he's a guy. I think he said he ran his first marathon at 8 years old. He has the world record. I don't think it was sanctioned by Guinness, but he beat the world record for walking lunges. He walking lunged knee to ground, full reps one mile in the low 20s, 23 minutes.

Maybe. Yeah. And you know what? It actually makes sense, his idea about walking lunges being one of the best low impact ways to strengthen your legs. We used to do copious numbers of walking lunges when I played collegiate tennis. And our team had incredibly strong legs. I mean, we would do walking lunges for like 35, 45 minutes after practice, just walking around as the coach lectured to us. We'd just be doing walking lunges around the court. And they are, they are a good exercise. One of the things that you told me, Joe, was that your training is kind of interesting these days in that you're doing a ton of. And this might sound like it, like it's a counterintuitive approach to this idea of low rep, high weight, high quality kettlebell training. But you said to me, you've been doing a lot of high volume, low intensity. Can you get into what you mean by that and how you're incorporating that into your training routine? Because it sounds like you're having a lot of success with.

It. Yeah, man, I feel pretty fit right now. And I just switched my training to test out this, this rule of 10, because I do think I'm. My interest is sparked enough in it to really using it for a lot of the athletes in the off season. So I just shifted my training. But when I was preparing for the rkc, I was kind of looking at it and you know, the 24, the 24 kg kettlebell, I mean, still, I just did it. I just did snatches with it this morning. I mean, it never gets easy. It's, you know, it's, it's a weight that it's, it's appreciable and it, it takes no prisoners. So when I went into the RKC before, I just got so gassed. Just like if anybody's ever done the five minute burpee test, if. And actually it ties into what you just were talking about. So five minutes, that's an aerobic bout, right? So I decided that I was gonna have to get aerobically capable of handling a 24 kilogram kettlebell. It wasn't. It wasn't. I wasn't gonna try to do the, you know, put it down, do a few reps, get super acidic, and then try to do a few more and try to do that for five minutes. Cause that is just misery. I kind of decided I need to be able to keep this thing moving for as many of those minutes. Minutes as possible. And one of the kind of insights to that kind of tying into your walking lunge approach was last year when I was looking at the NBC TV show stats. The heavy carries, that Spartan race are often won by the best endurance athlete. Right. So I think if, if we were just to talk about, you know, who's going to win an 80 pound up a hill bucket carry, is it going to be the 185 pound guy or is it going to be Hobie? Is it going to be the 140 pound guy? And I think most people, if it's carrying an 80 pound bucket, would assume the big guy would win. But the big guy cramps up, the big guy moves slower, the big guy's great for two minutes. But if it's a seven to nine minute bucket carry, the little guy's gonna win because the little guy is using aerobic energy to control that bucket. And so that was really interesting to me to see that. And so I got obsessed with this idea kind of over the course of the year that everything in Spartan needs to be aerobic. And then I started to dabble with this 10 minute approach. Like anything in Spartan, any, any strength training, I need to be able to do for 10 minutes. So if it's a kettlebell swing, if it's, even if it's a rowing machine, I mean, I would never get on a rowing machine or a fan bike or anything else for less than 10 minutes because that's the time domain where magic happens and that's both directly to the obstacles, but also.

Just. You mean once you've exceeded 10 minutes, that's the time domain where magic happens from an aerobic standpoint.

Point? Well, yes, but I think that Also just that 10 minute mark, it's sort of, if you can handle something for 10 minutes, I think that that's a pretty good indicator if it's challenging, it's a pretty good indicator of your strength, endurance. So if you, if you do it for 25 minutes or an hour, I mean that's full on aerobic, but I think it really kind of breaks through this, this metabolic, this metabolic demand and kind of, it kind of gets the body whether. Let's talk about a kettlebell swing, right? So if I'm doing kettlebell swings for 10 minutes, that is an aerobic activity. Now I'm not going to try to swing a kettlebell for 25 minutes. So I just decided that things like carries, things like swings, they were going to revolve around that time frame. And then when I signed up for the RKC and I knew it was a five minute test. I dropped a lot of those numbers to five minutes and I would do multiple rounds. So it would be my carries would then be say two 12 kilo kettlebells and I would do five minute carries with them. If I jumped on the fan bike, it would be maybe 20 rounds of five minutes at a certain intensity. If I was doing snatches, it would be five minute.

Blocks. 20 rounds of five.

Minutes.

Yeah. So you're on the bike like.

The whole day, no big deal. Put a minute between.

Each. Oh, okay. So you've got pretty short recoveries going full aerobic. So what you're saying, if I understand correctly, is that you're doing like steady state aerobic work for 10 plus minute or for 5 to 10 plus minute intervals as an integral part of your training program every.

Day? Yes, for a long.

Time.

Wow. And that was testing this hypothesis. And when I signed up for the rkc, I shifted that to five minutes.

Okay. With the hypothesis being.

What? Again, just trying to maximize the aerobic contribution to my strength. Right. So not trying to get stronger unless I could sustain it. And I know this might seem weird or it might seem kind of off the beaten path or maybe it sounds silly to some people, but.

It really was transformational for me because now if I'm doing something, it's the work doesn't begin until the second minute or the third minute. And I think for an aerobic athlete that's really important. And the other thing is just like Hobie, if Hobie wants to go toss a rock for four hours or two hours or however long it is, he's got 30 years of marathons and things like that under his belt already to kind of build from. And I think that's part of the reason. Whereas my approach, I've done a lot of strength training, I've done a lot of deadlifts, so I've got some maximal strength. I've definitely got more than a double body weight deadlift lift. And so I'm kind of now kind of shifting that into strength endurance. So kind of dovetailing our early conversation, if someone doesn't have as much strength as a baseline, then maybe this would be tricky. But I'm definitely a believer in.

It. Okay, so the way that I position this, because I work with a lot of people who are just looking at anti aging and longevity and wanting to look good naked and live a long time and aren't necessarily necessarily racing for Spartan, the way that I program this is, I call it stamina. And the way that I do it is typically once a week to once every two weeks in the program of the clients who I coach who fall into that category. I simply have one workout that involves a combination of load and endurance, right? They're putting on a weighted vest and going for a long fasted hike on a Saturday morning. Or they are taking like Don Wildman, this guy who they did a feature on in Esquire magazine, the former owner of Bally's Fitness. He has this workout that he does for about two hours in his basement. He actually does it three times a week, but it's essentially kind of like light to medium resistance weight training over and over and over again from machine to machine to machine, never letting the lactic acid decrease from building up in the muscle. Or occasionally it'll be a new sport that I have someone go and play for a couple of hours under load, like some kind of rowing or paddleboarding or something like that. But it kind of sounds similar to this concept that I have of working in something that requires stamina and this mix of strength and endurance at least once per week. So that you're targeting that energy system that a lot of like crossfitters don't target, for example, because they don't really go for one to two hours in many cases. And also that endurance athletes don't target a lot of times because they'll go for a long time, but then not under load. So it's that combination of, of it sounds to me like, and correct me if I'm wrong, going for a long time and like having something heavy on your body when you're doing.

It. Yeah, absolutely. And.

So some of the workouts, right, just to kind of add some color. One of the workouts I would do all the time would be step ups and my push up, pull up concept where you do two push ups, then one pull up and then you would repeat that for maybe three minutes or four minutes, depending on how long that particular interval is. So, so let's say it's a step up, it's a push up, pull up and then it's a fan bike. It might be a five minute fan bike right into a three minute push up pull up and a two minute step up and then back on the five minute fan bike, right. And during that time, I think the most important thing here is to calibrate with a very specific measure of performance. So it might be 24 or 26 or 28 steps a minute on the, on the step ups, depending on the athlete. And it might be six, eight to ten rounds a minute of the two push ups and one pull up throughout that time. So hopefully that makes sense. So if I'm doing a three minute block of push ups and pull ups and it's eight rounds a minute, then I've got to do 24 rounds in those three minutes. And then I got to do two minutes of 24 steps a minute on the stat on the stair, which is 24 inches. And then I got to maintain whatever it is, 65 RPM on the fan bike, like for the next five minutes. And I might do that for an.

Hour. For some reason, I had the impression that you were doing a lot of this high volume, low intensity stuff while at work, like while working on your computer or taking phone calls or things like that. Are you doing this stuff while you're actually working or is this like an actual workout where the phone's off and you're not working, you're just working.

Out? Well, yeah. So that's kind of the other piece of it. I've now basically put a fan bike almost everywhere that I frequently. And if I'm on the phone, I'm on the.

Bike. By the way, a fan bike being like an, like an air assault or an air dying type of.

Bike. Right. So I've got hard. They're hard. They're very hard. I. I particularly don't gravitate towards the assault bike. I've got two Airdyne AD4s, which are the old air dynes with the big flywheel. And then I've got two AD pros, which are the new ones, which I really.

Like. They're amazing bikes. Like, for those of you who are looking for an amazing piece of exercise equipment, in my opinion, for a full body workout like that or a rowing machine, less than a thousand bucks on Amazon, you got like a full gym pretty much, aside from something.

Heavy. Yeah. No. If you're a guy and you've got a 20 and a 24kg kettlebell on a fan bike, or if you're a woman and you've got a 16 and a 20 or maybe a 24 or two. If you're strong and a fan bike, I mean, you're good to go. And last time we spoke, Ben, we were talking about the skierg, and I also have one of those. I love the skierg. I think one of the reasons why I've gravitated towards the fan bike is just that, like you said, I can literally be on the phone, whereas the skierg, it's a training tool, it's hard to multitask on it both because you can't sustain a conversation and your head's moving all over the place and everything else. So in the convenience of my life I spend five or six hours a day on the phone for work and now I'm on the bike for a lot of that time. So. So yeah, I mean my goal is to accumulate 10 hours a week on the fam bike which sometimes I.

Hit and usually it's 10 hours a week. That's a pretty solid goal. Yeah. I mean what I tell people when they ask me which piece of cardio equipment could give them the most bang for their buck, The Airdyne or the bike with the arms and the legs is always up there. As silly as it is the elliptical trainer with the arms and the legs, that thing can give you a pretty killer workout out when you really get pumping on it. So that's another one. Huge fan of the, of any rowing machine. Although for a lot of people who struggle with like low back issues or who are sitting with their hip flexor shortened already on airplanes or at desks, I'm not as big of a fan of that approach versus like a, you know, like an Airdyne bike where you can kind of lean back on and then also the, the Versaclimber and then kind of like a close cousin to this Versaclimber in a way I suppose pose because you're, you're vertically up and down the ski erg that you talked about. So for those of you listening in as far as like best bang for your buck cardio machines, if you aren't just going to go for a hike in the freaking woods, would be, would be one of those in my opinion.

Hey folks, as you know we get a lot of professional athletes on this show who are crazy stunt daredevils who jump off mountains and swim through shark infested waters. But there is this guy who is a complete legend in the extreme sports industry who I've never had on the show, but who my friend who is right here with me, Jordan Harbinger of the Art of Charm has indeed had on his show and that is the one and only Tony Hawk. So Jordan, what did you and Tony actually talk about when you had him on your.

Episode? Tony was a cool guy, man. He was really accessible and down to earth. Although super busy as you might expect. And it took friggin forever to get him on the show. One of the things that was super funny, we talked a lot about branding and sports and stuff too. And one of the things I thought Was really funny. Was, you know, we've all seen crappy like Tony Hawk backpacks for sale at TJ Maxx that, you know, made it their way from some Walmart in the Midwest that doesn't sell them anymore. And I said, man, there's so much stuff with your brand on it. How do you keep track of it all? And he told us this amazing story about one day he walked into this agent's office who was representing him at the time, years ago, decades ago, and he saw a roll of toilet paper with his face on it. And he goes, what the hell is this? I came in here to complain about a cheap Velcro wallet that I saw that you guys put my name on. And I see my face on some toilet paper. And the agent goes, ah, the joke around the office is that we could print you on toilet paper and it would sell. And he's like, you are fired. So that's how he learned how to protect and that he needed to protect the Tony Hawk brand to avoid it just getting. Yeah. Printed on toilet paper and used to wipe people's butts. So there was a lot of business lessons in there, a lot of risk taking lessons in there. His story of how he went from beyond broke to what he does now at the Tony Hawk foundation and everything else. And he really goes through his business, the craft of skating, the timing that he needed to get right to make everything take off. And so it's super, super.

Interesting. Amazing you get a lot of crazy cats on your show. But I thought his interview was. Was pretty entertaining. So I believe it was episode 575, the Tony Hawk episode. And if you listening in want to hear this one, you can go to theartofcharm.com or you can just go to Apple podcasts or wherever you find podcasts and you can look up the Tony Hawk episode with the art of charm. Hey, I want to interrupt today's show to tell you about health gains. A concierge that means it's really fancy age management practice, meaning keeping you from aging. Owned by this guy named Dr. Richard Gaines. I've been to his clinic. It's a bang up fantastic clinic. And he is the leading practitioner of the rapidly evolving science of physician guided age management. In case you want to do the whole whole Benjamin Button thing. He specializes in everything from hormone therapy to innovative sexual wellness treatments to wellness counseling. He's Harvard trained. He's a pioneer in the use of hormone replacement therapy, testosterone therapy, growth hormone therapy. And they are pretty much one of the go to sources for longevity and anti aging in the U.S. they also specialize by the way in drug free surgery, free sexual wellness treatments like the P shot and the O shot and the gainswave, which I've done and my crotch is very happy because of that. And you can get any of these anti aging or sexual health services or testosterone or HGA services or any of those at their Aventura Florida location where I'm actually going in a couple weeks to do a few more services myself. Text the word word gain to 3131. 31. You get 250 bucks off of health gains when you text the word gains to 31. 31. 31.

Joe, a few of the things that I wanted to ask you about that kind of are going to stray away from exercise. The first is this whole no alcohol thing. Last time I talked to you, you were swearing off alcohol. How'd that go for.

You? It went awesome. Till the dry farm Wines party at PaleoFX.

No, it was a great experience. I think a lot of us were in this health and wellness world. But because we're in this world and because we travel a lot and because we have a lot of meetings, we end up in scenarios a lot where we frankly drink too much. And I think that that doesn't mean we're getting drunk, but I mean if you've got three dinners a week with different people, you're probably having a glass of wine, maybe you're grabbing a beer. And I think that I just kind of had a realization that I didn't want to do it anymore. And I wanted to see what my body was capable of if I completely gave it up. And it was also kind of just a test for my own, my own sake because it's not easy to be the guy at the table that says, oh, you know, I'm good, I'll stick with soda water. Soda water and stevia, right? But yeah, so I immediately, within like two weeks of absolutely no alcohol, I felt a difference. And again, it's not like I was drinking all that much, but I think my sleep improved my consciousness. I would wake up in the morning completely clear. And even having just one drink at night definitely affects your sleep. So I started to get, you know, it was great. Did a couple months. It was also during a really tough training block right before the rkc. So it was a good time to do it. I'm still doing it. The only difference is I've now incorporated some dry farm wines.

Right? Those being like the micro filtered wines produced Using the old world methods where you're not getting a lot of sulfites added, they're filtering out the 80 plus chemical derivatives that would normally be allowed in wine. And I believe I don't do the dry farm as much as I use this brand called Fitvine. But they filter it through diatomaceous earth. And the grapes are grown at this really high altitude to eliminate the potential for mycotoxins or fungi and also to concentrate the antioxidants. And yeah, you feel a lot different when you drink that wine. It almost doesn't count as alcohol.

Almost. Right. A lot of it is lower in alcohol too. So a lot of these wines are 12% or.

Something. Actually, that's the thing about the Fit Fine wine, it's like 13 or 14% because they ferment a lot of the sugars out of it. So it's lower in sugar, higher in alcohol, which I give a big thumbs up to. If I'm gonna have a glass of wine, I want to spin some dials in my brain, baby, and not have a lot of sugar in it. But that's just me. There was this guy who we did a two part series on the show with Jason sissel who did 30 days of no alcohol. And I don't know if you remember that, but we took him through Wellness fx, we hooked him up with Wellness fx. We took all of his blood parameters. And I'll link to this in the show notes. If you guys go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

You can view the results from this guy. But his triglycerides plummeted. His vitamin D went through the roof. His sleep score, especially like his deep sleep score and his propensity to fall asleep at between 1 and 3am disappeared. And his deep sleep score went way up. His testosterone went up. His liver enzymes of course plummeted. His thyroid increased. I mean, it was pretty crazy what happened after just 30 days of no alcohol. So it's a challenge that I would issue to anyone out there. Although I'm doing something different right now. Joe, like we were talking about before we started recording is I'm not doing much coffee right now.

Man. That's not something I'm ready to give.

Up. Well, I went to New York City and I hung out with this chef named David Boulay who's big into Japanese cuisine. And this dude's got like these like tiny little bags of Japanese green tea that cost like 200 bucks from some, some, you know, random mountaintop pagoda in Japan. And he's showing Me how to prepare them and how to measure the water out and get it between 140 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit. And you use these special pots to, to put it in. You only brew it for like 60 to 90 seconds. And then you pour it into a glass and there's like a whole drinking ceremony that you do. And it's almost, it's almost kind of.

Zen.

Yeah. And it's also. I mean, I'm not a. I like a good coffee coffee. And I'll come right out and say it. I'm in the process, hopefully here at some point of developing like a new coffee for my company. But at the same time, I wanted to see what it would feel like to just quit coffee for a while. So I've been on this green tea kick and I feel pretty good. And I've been tweeting out a lot of these studies on the egcg, the epogallocatechins in green tea. And in terms of accelerated lipid turnover and drop in triglycerides and, and an increase in a lot of different hormones responsible primarily for the burning of adipose tissue and the activation of lipase, along with a lot of the cognitive benefits, there's a lot going for green tea. So, I mean, even if you're gonna do like maybe green tea in the morning and coffee after lunch, I'm kind of. I'm liking this idea of tea in the morning. So it's just. I'm drinking this super high quality Japanese green tea. Maybe that's.

Why. Yeah, yeah, man. I think it sounds like that tea is amazing. Granted, it might break the bank.

But. Yeah, he gave me a few bags for free. Once those run out, we'll see how long that habit.

Sticks. So I would consider. And I think that sometimes I do green tea in the afternoon, but I would. I think coffee in the morning is just.

It just gets the brain.

Going.

Right. You know what's so funny is when I was a kid, you know, I was one of the kids that was always told that I should. Should be on ADD medicine and I'm jumping off the walls and everything else. And you know what's funny about that is ADD medicine is actually they're all stimulants. And a couple of years ago, I tried to give up coffee. And after a couple weeks, I noticed just my productivity. I had a really hard time focusing and everything else. And I did not think I was drinking tea or something lighter. And I totally did not even consider that. It was the fact that I had given up coffee that I was getting all these ADD symptoms and I was talking to somebody and they're like, you know, what have you done different? You know, what's, you know, what's going on? And I'm like, the only thing is I gave up coffee. And they were like, switch to espresso, have two shots in the morning and see what happens. And lo and behold, I'm cured all of a sudden, you know, that was it. So I think that that was kind of an interesting experience for me. And I think that coffee, really good coffee is important because I think, I think if it's burnt or if it's not good coffee or it's paper filter, if it's paper filter, then all of a sudden you're kind of worse than you would otherwise be. But I think that it's the potency of a really strong coffee in the morning. I think it's just critical to productivity. And I'm not sure I would get that from green tea. Although maybe you can prove me wrong at some.

Point. I do a lot of green tea. And I was actually just. I was just posting this on my. I did a Facebook live this morning about what you just alluded to. The paper filters on the fact that that is important. If you use a paper filter, you filter out a lot of the psychoactive components in coffee. The cholesterols, like the coffee all or the coffee stol is one and another one is the kawai all. And these are cholesterols that, yes, slightly increase your blood cholesterol levels. Not that that's an unhealthy thing or associated with heart disease and the absence of other risk factors, but they cross your blood brain barrier and they actually improve the ability of coffee to induce wakefulness compared to, say, if you filtered through a paper filter. So like a French press or an aeropress with the steel filter or any other method that doesn't use a paper filter will actually give you a little bit more of a cognitive boost from coffee. And I, by the way, do not plan on giving up coffee for good. There's something about that comfort food aspect aspect of coffee that I just can't get away from. Even if green tea could do all the psychoactive parts of it for me, I still just, I love that cup of coffee, so. And I know you're complete. We. If you guys listen to the other episode I did with Joe and I'll link to that. We geek out on coffee for a while on his different preparation methods. So go listen to that one because I Have another question for you, Joe, and that is sleep habits. You like have status on every frickin airline on the planet because all you do is travel around the world going to spartan races or.

Going to these certifications or setting up this runga thing that we'll talk about in a little bit. What are some of your top sleep tips for people? Because I know you're always exploring this.

Stuff. Yeah. Sleep is just. It's so important. And I don't know if you remember Ben, but when we first met, whenever it was that day, I think it was at the Ancestral Health.

Symposium. I remember exactly where we met. Yeah, we met at the Ancestral Health symposium in Berkeley, California and we had a discussion about.

Sleep. Right, right. Because I was struggling at that time and it was after again, like you said, quite a bit of travel and blah blah, blah, blah blah. And I'm happy to report I just hit mosaic on JetBlue. So now my travel experience is going to be that much.

Better.

Mosaic? Yeah, Mosaic. It took a long.

Time. Well, what's that.

Mean? It means I get free drinks if I want.

Them. Oh, so it's like.

Status. It's. Oh yeah. And yeah, it's. You get the early boarding speed pass, whatever they call it. So it's. It's great. You get the even more space seats. But actually I just flew from LA to Boston and some JetBlue flights now have something called Mint, which is like JetBlue first class, which is extremely awesome. Yeah, it's fancy schmancy. So anyways, so I think, you know what's interesting is I think number one light is just so powerful. So I think one is I've been wearing the Swannies quite a bit and these are something that you introduced me to as.

Well. The Swannies blue light blocking.

Glasses. Yes. And what's funny about the Suannees, Ben, is that for years, you know, I believed in two things. Number one is, all right, like the blue light thing, you know, I'll make sure I get the bulletproof thing for my screen on my iPhone before iPhone had that option of getting rid of it. But I just, you know, I got some $2 construction glasses that are orange. Like these are going to be fine. And it turns. I've note it's a notable difference with the Swannies. I'm not really sure what they did, but they're definitely more effective at making you tired more quickly than $2 construction glasses that happen to be.

Orange. Yeah, I mean my kids were em. Dude, they have little kids. Swannies actually make some Pretty, pretty freaking fashionable versions for kids. And my kids wear them every.

Night. Right. And I think what's awesome about the Swannies, too, is it's a little bit of a stoic exercise, because when you're in public, you look like a.

Weirdo and it's birth control for your.

Head. Yeah, man, totally. It's when I'm traveling, I got my Jumanji hat on with my Swannies, and, you know, it's nighttime in Los Angeles. People are, you know, not many people are striking up conversations with me, so. Not that I.

That. But you're that.

Creeper. Embarrassment is what people fear most. And I think that's probably Swanee's biggest opposition. Right. Is that people.

Don'T. But let's. Let's face it. I mean, most of the people listening into the podcast right now, they know that they should be blocking blue light for sleep. I mean, is there anything else that you've been doing that you would say is a little bit more. More fringe or flies under the radar or. That would surprise.

People. Yeah. So CBD I think we've talked about as well. I'm not sure if we talked about it last time, but it's one of my go tos now. But at Paleo Effects, I was introduced to the guys at Omica Organics, which is. I mean, their quality is extremely high and their CBD is.

Tremendous. I buy their stevia. I didn't know they made a.

Cbd. Yeah, they've got a. They've got a CBD that is CBD.

Tonic. I mean, granted, I make a CBD too. My company makes a cbd, so that's probably why I stay pretty horse with blinders on with my own product. But I didn't know they made a CBD. That's interesting. Is it one of those CBDs that you could buy anywhere in the world.

Legally? I think you'll have some trouble finding it. You can get it on their website. I actually kind of stocked up and I do love your product, Ben. You got me hooked. But then I had an opportunity to get a large amount for a low cost at Paleo Effects, so. It's got lobster in it, by.

The way, for getting yourself off of alcohol or weed or any other drug, like targeting the endocannabinoid system via. It's technically like a CB1 or a CB2 antagonist, like CBD. It works like gangbusters. I mean, if you're listening and you're like, I don't want to drink coffee or I want to try this 30 days, no alcohol thing. Like that's a really good way to do it is to hit the endocannabinoid system, especially for the sleep.

Component. Yeah, no, absolutely. And make sure you go through like pick up Ben's CBD or Omega's or whatever. There's a lot of CBD products coming out now and having kind of dabbled with a few of them, I'm not quite sure of both the quality and if they've been third party.

Tests. Yeah, some of them will get you high. That's a pretty good sign. They may not have been third party tested. Seven had some people, because they know I'm in the CBD business, they'll send me CBD and I'll take like the equivalent amount I'd normally take at, you know, right before I go to bed or whatever, and I'll wake up high and I'll be like. That definitely was not just cbd. So, yeah, you have to be careful. But. But I do like, oh my Goganix. And by the way, Joe, have you ever tried their butterscotch toffee.

Stevia? Yeah, man, I. Their stevia, I mean, they're not using. And you could probably speak to this more clearly, but their stevia doesn't have that. What's that in my mouth aftertaste?

It's something to do with the fact that they don't use.

Hexane. They don't use hexane. They don't blend it with maltodextrin. It's like a really good, clean form of stevia. And yes, if you work at Omica Organics or own it and you're listening in, you can send your check later on for the podcast sponsorship.

Exactly. So, Joe, what about in addition to using something like CBD and blue light blocking, is there any third thing that you'd throw at us for sleep enhancement that you've been doing.

Lately? Yeah, you know.

I've been kind of obsessed with breath for a long time. When we go free diving or what have you, you know, we talked about apnea tables and things like that. I think that breath is just every day I'm more impressed with just how deep it can penetrate into our health. And so whether it's on planes or whether it's in the office or wherever it might be, sneak 10 minutes and do some quick breathing exercises. And I think for me, being a guy that I'm pretty high energy and I have trouble calming down. Sometimes things like apnea tables are just extremely effective. So what that means is you might hold your breath for 30 seconds and then breathe for 30 seconds, hold your breath for 30 seconds, breathe for 30 seconds. And as you kind of improve, you can exaggerate either one of those sides of the coin. But I think that sort of breath control, deep breathing, long exhalations.

That just completely calms the nervous system. And I think that's probably one of the biggest pieces that I'd recommend that people do because we all have too much on our mind, especially at night. And it's just a great way to calm ourselves in combination with quit watching crime dramas and turn off your social media and stuff that I'm positive you've talked about quite a.

Bit. Yeah, yeah. The breathwork is really amazing. And of course there's all sorts of different things that you can combine that with, like a sauna or cold, etc. But these sleep apnea tables, they actually make apps that, that walk you through them. And the thing that I like most about using these apps that will say it'll give me a little ding or a little vibration when you're supposed to hold your breath and then when you're supposed to breathe and typically there's two different forms of apnea training. One is you hold your breath for increasingly longer periods of time and you keep the interval in between each breath hold constant. So you hold your breath for 45 seconds, rest 30, 60 seconds, rest 30, a minute 15, rest 30, so on and so forth. That's called oxygen based apnea training. And then you can also do the thing where you hold your breath for a certain period of time. You keep the breath holds constant like a minute every time, but then you decrease your recovery periods. So you would hold for a minute and then recover for a minute, then hold for a minute and recover for 50 seconds, then hold for a minute and recover for 40 seconds. And it's not something you'd want to do while operating heavy machinery or driving, but even for something like a walk or, you know, multitasking while you're watching a movie, for example, or doing anything where you can just hold your breath. Or even on like a recovery day where you just want to work your breath, it' sit's a pretty cool way to train. I'll try and find a link for the app that I use. I have a static apnea app on my phone. I'll try and find a link to that and put it in the show notes for you guys. But yeah, I'm on board with you, Joe. That breathwork and especially like working in things like that, that prior to Sleep can be super, super effective. A lot of people just don't breathe when they get into bed, which is, you know, and they instead take Valium or Ambien or try all these different sleep supplements or sleep techniques when sometimes all you gotta do is just like lay there for 10 minutes, work on your.

Breath. It's crazy 100%. And my suspicion right now is like you just alluded to the CO2 tolerance stuff is I think where it's at, that's at least my current kind of idea. So the reduction in rest period, say keep the, keep the hold at a minute or however long you can hold it for comfortably and reduce that, the rest period from say a minute and then you can reduce it by 10 seconds across time. And I suspect that getting more CO2 tolerant is sort of where a lot of people need to.

Go. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, so in addition to these breath hold apps and CBD and blue light block talking, are there any other kind of like supplements that you've incorporated or found a lot of success with since our last.

Chat? Yeah, let's see. I got a couple of things just came in the mail today, so I'm looking at them. Liposomal vitamin C. I just met Eric the other day actually, who you alluded to in my introduction and he's got me doing a weekly high dose of vitamin C. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try that. So I've been taking a gram a day off and on. I'll do like a three month block and then take a.

Month. A gram is not that high for liposomal diet.

Dude. No, no, that's just been mymy sort of routine. I.

Just. Well, I would recommend if you wanna experiment with high dose vitamin C, which by the way, I should warn you guys not to do this in conjunction with hard training because it can blunt some of the hormetic response to training. So if you do this, you'd want to take your vitamin C on recovery day so that your body still is able to produce its own endogenous antioxidants on your training day day. Or else, let's say you're training in the morning, save your vitamin C for for example, the evening after your body has had its own chance to mount its own inflammatory response. But that being said, your body can actually absorb close to about 5 grams of vitamin C a day in about 1 to 2 gram portions. So you can do like a few. For example, a typical high dose vitamin C protocol orally would, would be like taking one and a half grams of a liposomal form of vitamin C three times a day, like breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Right? Yeah, no, absolutely. So I think that's where I'm gonna shift to. I think I'm gonna do. And you can let me know what you think of this. But I think I'm gonna take it once a week and I'll drop like 10.

Grams.

That's something you can do. That works with vitamin D too. That's usually something someone will do because of the absorption issue because you're gut can only take on about one and a half grams at a time. That's usually what someone will do with like a Myers cocktail injection or vitamin C IV therapy, which is very easy to hunt down in most cities these.

Days. Yeah, yeah, so we'll dabble with that. And then you know, when I travel I'll do, you know, all sorts of stuff. I'll take some glutathione before the flight, about half an hour before the flight. When I'm on the flight, I still use the oregano oil. I take some charcoal when I land and maybe a little more glutathione.

Day to day coffee. And I've been actually dabbling with ketoprime, which is Bulletproof's new product, which I'm really liking and I'm wondering if it's some kind of placebo or if this stuff really rocks. But it's the oxaloacetate that I think they used to have in their anti aging.

Product. Oxaloacetate is really interesting stuff. I mean it can accelerate the rate at which you burn ketones and so technically it can cause you to shove more fatty acids through that cycle. It's got some other cool properties as well in terms of being able to. It acts on glutamate, I believe it's a glutamate, what would be called a scavenger, meaning that it can convert glutamate into other things like aspartate and alanine kind of have this sports performance enhancing effect and you know, reduce signs and symptoms of like brain injuries and tbis and stuff like that. But, but with that particular supplement, ketoprime, they're combining the oxaloacetate with like ketones and things like that. Right, like exogenous.

Ketones. Yeah, so there's. Yeah, absolutely. There's some vitamin C in it, there's some B12 in it. There's not a lot of the exogenous ketones in here though. It's not like the, the OS.

Stuff. Okay, gotcha. The other interesting thing about ketones and I just released a blog post about this today is there's some fascinating new research about ketones and longevity. Meaning, like even if you're not restricting carbohydrates and you're just like taking exogenous ketones as a supplement, there's this gene called Foxo. It's the same gene that you Hear, for example, Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about when she discussed discusses like the longevity enhancing benefits of a sauna and all these studies in Finland that have shown people live longer when they do the sauna. One reason for that is this protein called Foxo is getting enhanced and activated and calorie restriction can do the same thing and cold exposure can do the same thing. But now it turns out that regardless of whether you're restricting calories or whether you are eating carbohydrates or not eating carbohydrates, just the simple act of consuming an exogenous ketone source like one of these beta hydroxybutyrate salts, there's a lot of companies that sell them now like Pruvit and Keto one. And I think Bulletproof might have one as well. But there's this longevity effect that up until pretty recently was not really known when it comes to ketos. So that's another interesting benefit of, of having some kind of like a ketogenic powder or a ketogenic capsule or liquid that you have on hand. And of course, it's also very good for sports performance as.

Well. Yeah, without a doubt, man. I've dabbled into that world a little bit, kind of opportunistically, but it's not currently part of my regular routine, the exogenous stuff. But I'm definitely kind of.

Interested. You should read that recent post. I'll link to it in the show notes because I've actually started to use. I've started to use ketones in the afternoon when I normally go into a workout, fasted, not because I'm hungry necessarily, but because it gives me that slight extra boost. But then also this longevity effect, because I'm really getting into my goal right now with this whole telomere testing thing I'm doing, is to have a biological age of 25 by the time that I'm chronologically 40. And so that's one of the things that I'm beginning to implement a little bit more is like clean ways to get into ketosis and the use of these things like beta hydroxybutyrate salts. So anyways though, Joe, I wanted to ask you about a few other things here with Regard to just you and what you're up to. Because the last time that we talked.

We had come back from doing this digital detox, hot yoga adventure routine treat in Costa Rica. One of the best times of my life last year, where me and you and. I don't know, how many people did we have.

There? Gosh, we had about 60 people in Costa.

Rica. A whole bunch of people spearfishing. And we. We had, like, this resort up in the hills with this amazing food every day, and we were making, like, superfood smoothies that may or may not have occasionally had tequila added to them and doing fire dancing around the fire at night with drum circles. And it was just like. It was amazing. It was, like, surreal. And you call this thing.

Do you say runga or runga or runga? How do you say.

It?

Runga. Runga. What's runga.

Mean? So you know what's so funny is the name runga actually started from the yoga pose, Chaturanga. Jules, who taught yoga with us last year, and she continued, oh, yeah.

Jules was the instructor.

There. She's amazing. She's amazing. And she used to. Because of my spartan ties, she used to call me Mr. Spartan Face because I could get into whatever poses that she wanted me to, But I would do it with a grimace, not with a smile, and my face would always be just contorted to kind of maintain this posture. And what was so funny is after one of the poses that would make me especially sort of uncomfortable, we would go into Chaturanga, which is sort of the reset, and she would go, chaturanga aru. Because that's what Spartans do.

Right? Of.

Course. I always had this kind of. Chaturanga was always in my head. And when we were trying to name this event, which, you know, for the first two or three years, it was just me going on vacation, asking if anybody wanted to come. And so it didn't have a name. And then we named it Runga and chopped off the chudda. And it worked. People started immediately saying, oh, you know, why do I like my ears? Well, it's a runga.

Thing.

Or. Or why do I dance around a fire almost naked? Well, that's a runga thing or.

Whatever. I wasn't also almost naked. I was wearing cargo shorts. I put on pants for once. I think I wore a speedo all week and put on pants for five.

Days. Yeah, that's true. There's a pretty funny picture of us checking into a hotel, and I got no shirt. You have no pants. It's outrageous.

So Anyways, that became the name and then when I researched it, you know, there's a, there's a tree in Australia called the Axe Breaker and it's a really hard, dense tree and it's called the Runga tree. And so that was cool and it just kind of stuck and, and here we are. And that's, that's definitely the name.

So. Okay. So this year it's not in Costa Rica.

Though. No, we, I wanted to kind of take this thing to the next level because I think one of the things it's, it's not like anything else. You know, there's, and there's been this emergence of yoga retreats both because there's more places to host them and it's getting easier and easier to do so and so I decided that runga, it's so different than that, that I really wanted to kind of separate it from that world. So the traditional yoga retreat these days, not to kind of put it down, but a lot of times, you know, it's 20 minutes from the airport and you do some yoga and eat some good food and you stay for a week and you go home. Whereas, whereas with Ranga, yoga is a big part of it, but to me it's a little bit like runga is a runga, it's a skyscraper. And yoga is like the elevator. And when we're talking about the skyscraper, we don't really talk about the elevator. Of course we have one, but there's so much more to it than that. So this year was a little bit of a test. Admittedly I found this incredible venue. It's a tough job, but I had to scout a few venues throughout Central and South America. And when I got to Sansara in Panama, I immediately just fell in love with it. And I had traveled for 17 hours to get there. And it was like the fact that it could blow me away. And aside from that, the people there are like nobody I've ever met before. Just such amazing people. So I decided, you know, we're going to do this thing.

We're going to make the anti yoga retreat. We're going to do this thing at a tough time of year. We're going to do it the two weeks. We're going to host two weeks because 60 people last year was too many. So we're going to do two 25 person weeks. We're going to do it the two weeks directly before.

Christmas. Do you have to go for two weeks or can you choose which parts you want to show up for? Because a lot of people can't go for two weeks.

Dude. No. So it's one week. So there's two.

Groups.

Week. One week, two. So yeah, it's a one week trip. It's in Panama. San Serra is, it's not 20 minutes from the airport. There's quite a drive once you land in Panama City, which is beautiful, and you go past the Panama Canal and you can learn so much. But this is an off the grid adventure Reset, where you're surrounded by people like you and I and Eric and a lot of the other amazing people we bring, like Scott, who you called the Scraper. And we're all there. All these amazing people I've met over the years, I basically just kind of keep them at arm's length and then try to talk them into coming with me.

To. It's pretty cool. For some reason they all show up and this thing flies under the radar. Like obviously it's only a limited number of people that can even get in. I think from what you told me before the call, it's almost full, but I'm going. So I'm, what I'm doing is I'm going down to Kauai to teach this, this XPT certification with, with Laird Hamilton. And then I'm hopping on a plane and I'm going straight over to Panama. And I think I'm going to be there like December, I want to say December 12th through the 20th, I'm going to be there. And it's like, it's freaking amazing because you have all these adventures. Like last year we were doing obstacle course racing and I know you got like volcano hiking worked in. And, and of course there's like the whole like white water rafting, zip lining thing. But then food, amazing food and amazing adventures. And I believe we're also going to be doing some spearfishing this year. Is that correct?

Yeah. So, I mean we, we literally raised the bar in every single way for this year.

So. What do you.

Mean? So now we're directly on the beach. All the activities, you know, they're very, they're completely custom. Like we just figured out what we could make work with what we had down there and put together this amazing week. So it's not, you know, zip lining at a place that a million people have gone ziplining before. It's spear fishing with local fishermen in some of the most exotic, beautiful waters that you've ever seen in your life. It's horseback down the beach from when I was there a couple months ago. It was one of the most gorgeous beaches I've ever seen and I was the only one on it for a mile. It's, you know, there's a lot of benefits to going to a place that nobody wants to go or it's, it's, excuse me, they want to go, but it's not easy to get to. It takes work. So I can go fly to Panama and find somewhere 25 minutes from the airport. That'll be really easy. They'll pick me up. Runga is about creating a non replicatable experience and doing all the heavy lifting for you. So even down to the kettlebells. So I just shifted, shipped 3,000 pounds of Russian kettlebells to Panama and I could have bought a few in Panama that are probably a lot worse, but it would have been a lot easier. But everything at Runga is about being taken to the next level and being something that just you won't find anywhere else. And real quick, because you mentioned the food last year and the year before, the food has been amazing. But this year you're actually able to submit your dietary preferences and your meals will be, your menu, excuse me, will be planned accordingly. So you'll order off a menu for each meal and if you're keto or if you're vegan or if you're somewhere in between, you'll have a menu that's custom for you. And so your meals are just going to be outrageously on par with what you want. And on top of that, we'll make sure to get some of that really good wine we talked about down there with it in case you want to.

Indulge. I love it. I'm in. There is, I believe, some kind of an incentive or discount that the folks who are listening in right now get, are gonna get that nobody else gets.

Correct. That is correct. A.

Free. Okay, fill me in on what it is because I don't. I want to make sure I say this the right way because I think last year when I mentioned the one in Costa Rica, I may have, may have described what people are getting incorrectly. So I want to make sure folks know exactly how to get into this thing and then like where to type in a code or whatever so they can save money and get like the free. Because everybody there got like this. They got like a Human charger and all these amazing gifts when they signed up after hearing the podcast. So what do people do and what do they.

Get? Yeah, I mean Human Charger came in strong last year. They gave everybody from your podcast to Human Charger and that was just amazing. Such a cool opportunity. This year, it's a lot easier. So there is a code. It's Ben. If you register just Ben Ben. You can also just choose your name from the dropdown so it says where you referred by and then Joe or Ben or Scott. So if you choose Ben there, it's going to do the same thing. People that sign up from your podcast are going to get a movement assessment when they get down there. So one of our experts is going to actually assess their movement and give them a prescription as to what their movement needs are. And there's of course a lot of things you can do about that right in the week. But just so you really understand your body and where your limitations are physically. So we're gonna give everybody that assessment, which is whether it's from you or Scott or Dr. Spider or anybody else. We've got some rock stars that very few people actually get to work with one on one. So it'll be a one on one assessment for.

Them. Awesome. I love it. Well, the URL for the show notes for everything that Joe and I just about talked talked about, including Runga, you can find@BenGreenfieldFitness.com GI Joe. That's BenGreenfulFitness.com GI Joe. I will link to everything. My previous podcast with Joe and also some of these other very interesting folks who he introduced me to, who we also get to hang out with at Runga if you're lucky enough to be there this December. I'll put a link to my interview with Dan John and this RKC certificate that Joe and I were talking about. Some of those pieces of Cardio equipment, the 30 days no alcohol experiment, my article on ketone salts and some of my favorite sleep apnea apps, and of course Arunga 2017. And by the way, not to project you guys too far out into the future, but I'm just gonna throw a teaser out there for you. In addition to an amazing time at Runga in 2017, we're planning on some freaking amazing New Year's parties I think the following year and maybe might move this thing into like a full on new year celebration. So it's kind of like this little family. Like we got our own little Facebook page and it's, it's like a cool event to go to. I recommend it if you like, like these tiny little intimate adventures in a global hotspot. Joe does a fantastic job with it. I'm going to be there, like I mentioned, for a full. I'll be there like seven to nine days. Ish. So, so come on down, hang out, have a good time, party, eat amazing food and just kind of check out for a little while this December. So we'll put a link to that as well. Joe, thanks for coming on the show.

Dude. Thanks for having me, Ben. It's always a pleasure. It's always a ton of.

Fun. All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Joe Distefano signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com GI Joe have a healthy.

Week.

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