#227: How To Grow Your Own Superfoods

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast, how to grow your own superfoods. Also, the benefits of training in the heat. Does a minimalist training schedule work? The best way to treat ibs and constipation. How to stay fit and feel good while pregnant. And are plyometrics more effective after lifting weights.

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfield Fitness.com.

Okay, Ben, before we start, I gotta ask, are you wearing a shirt right now?

I'm wearing like three shirts right now.

Because it's kind of you're making up for all those other times you weren't wearing a shirt.

Well, usually we record in the morning and it's like, I don't know about other people, but like I, I burn hot in the morning. Like my body is hot in the morning and, and then like as the day goes on because we keep our house a little cool, like my body kind of, kind of cools off a little bit. So like by the time it's the afternoon and we usually don't record this in the afternoon, but we are. And then not only am I wearing a hoodie and a shirt and some pajama bottoms, my lucky charms, pajama bottoms. But I've got a nice piping hot cup of coffee which I rarely drink in the afternoon.

Yeah, it's like what, three, four o' clock in the afternoon you're drinking coffee. Is that gonna spell disaster for bedtime?

Possibly. But I got this new aeropress coffee maker and it just makes these little tiny almost like cups of coffee. And we're talking about caffeine a little bit in today's episode. So I figure I better celebrate and make myself a cup.

So just channel the caffeine. Sounds good.

Channel the caffeine. I've got some Simon in in there to regulate my blood sugar and yeah, I'm ready to rumble, dude.

Let's rumble then.

News flashes.

Alright, to get these and other interesting news flashes every week and sometimes even every day, make sure to follow Ben on Twitter, twitter.com BenGreenfield and also make sure to go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and find out how you can follow the Facebook page and the Google page and get all of this Stuff hot off the presses.

Wow. Somebody ought to hire you.

Yeah, I'm working on my FM radio voice too.

I figured I might as well lead off with this since I recently just got done getting the hell shocked out of my abs down at the biohacking conference that Dave Asprey had in San Francisco. But there was a timely study that came out in the National Journal of Strength Conditioning association that looked into electrical stimulation. And what this study actually looked into was whether or not these electrostim units, like the Compex Electrostim is a perfect example of one that's kind of popular, even though you.

Yeah, we talk about that a lot on the show.

Yeah, Whether or not they can elicit an aerobic response when you use them. So they took all these participants, it wasn't a ton of folks, it was eight men and eight women. And they put them through what's called an NMES protocol, which stands for neuromuscular electrical stimulation. And they did this for nine separate sessions. And these were pretty significant protocols. It was one hour long. Each session was, and I think I said nine sessions, but it was 12. They did it three times per week over a four week period of time. And they had the actual electrodes placed on their legs and their primary muscle groups. And they found that the following things, oxygen uptake, blood lactate and subjective discomfort, of course, all went up when they were utilizing this protocol. Even though the discomfort was low enough to where people did not claim that it was something that would have like caused them to consider this as like an exercise modality. They wouldn't try torture. Yeah, but basically there was an aerobic training response to this. And this was something we actually talked about when I was down at the biohacking conference. How when you use something like electro stem, you actually produce lactic acid. And you can literally train your body how to, how to produce a bunch of extra lactic acid, which you can then shuttle via what's called a CORI cycle, back up to your liver where the lactic acid can get reconverted into glucose and be shuttled back down to the muscle to be re utilized as a fuel. So you know, the units we were using down at that conference, they were like $13,000 arc wave electrostim units. But since I got back from there, I've actually been using my, my Compex Electrostim. It comes with like preset sessions. So I literally did a 30 minute workout for my abs yesterday, just hooked up to electrical stimulation. And what I plan on doing is one workout a week with it on my legs to improve, like my. My running and my cycle. So I'll put the electrodes on my quadriceps, on my hamstrings, and basically train my legs that way.

Not.

Not necessarily, because, you know, I think that that's, like, the best way to train now, but just to do something new and fun. Yeah, fun in quotation marks. So, so.

So to get an aerobic response, don't you need to have an elevated heart rate?

No, not necessarily. I mean, even though heart rate was elevated in these individuals, remember that aerobic fitness is a combination of different things, like your lactate buffering capacity, your ability to regulate your blood vessel diameter, so your blood pressure. Meaning that if you can increase blood pressure by doing something other than like running or biking or swimming, then, you know, we talked about this in the interview we did with Doug McGuff about how super slow training, where you're moving a weight really, really slow, can actually elicit an aerobic training response. And part of it is a slight increase in heart rate, but it's also all that lactic acid that's being produced and also the actual blood pressure that's being produced itself. Okay, there you go.

Yeah, I do those super slow workouts, and I often get a little out of breath when I'm doing them, and I also get a couple of beads of sweat dropping onto my yoga mat. So that's sort of the same idea.

Yeah. And that's another thing, another study that came up, this was in the Journal of Aging and Physiology, and I tweeted about this how basically moving a lighter weight slower can not only give you this aerobic training response, but in this study, they looked at doing it not with heavy weights like we talked about with the Doug McGuff protocol when we had him on for the Body by Science podcast. But you can do it with your own body weight or with a lightweight. And in this study which just came out this month, they studied older people, 59 to 76 years old. My apologies to anyone in that age range who I just called old. But you said older. Older, yeah. Anyways, they had them do low intensity movements or low weight movements, either super, super slow, and in this case, it wasn't really extremely slow. It was three seconds up, three seconds down, versus one second up, one second down. And what they found was that there was a significant muscle gain response even in the absence of using, like, a heavy weight, when they used just a lighter weight, but moved slowly. And so there's something to be said here, not only for super slow training, even if you don't use heavy weights. But also, and this was another thing we talked about done at that biohacking conference, what's called extreme isometrics, where you would do like one single, say, squat or push up, but you literally take like five minutes to do it, meaning you're moving inch by inch, your whole body in this contraction. And actually, and now we're going to get a little bit geeky, and this is stuff we don't have to expound too much on right now. But you can combine something like that with electrostim for an even added, you know, a better training effect. So, for example, you could put the electrostimulation patches, like on your quads and your hamstrings and do a super duper slow squat under body weight or like for a more advanced protocol, under a barbell, and get an even more enhanced training response. So we're getting the extremes here, but those are just a couple examples like electrostim and isometric or super slow training as ways that you can get more done in a shorter period of time, basically.

Now if you could mix that with being hypoxic as well, that would be even better.

Yeah, so you could hold your breath or you could breathe through a.

Just don't hold your breath for the entire flight.

You could breathe through a straw. Actually, that's something they do in physical therapy, occlusion training, where you literally tie a tourniquet above the joint to cut off blood flow to it to enhance the training effect. If listeners start losing limbs, my apologies, but if you want to try it out, knock yourself out. Not literally figured it out. Be careful.

Don't put the tourniquet around your neck.

All right, so let's talk about cold thermogenesis and enhancement of fat loss. There was a study in the Journal of Nutrition where they looked at the effects of green tea extracts on non shivering thermogenesis during cold exposure. So what they did was they took the epigallocatechin3 gallate, that EGCG compound that you see in green coffee that's a little bit different than caffeine, but has some of the similar effects. And they had folks ingest that along with caffeinated green tea and looked at what happened in a group exposed to the cold that used that protocol versus a group that just got exposed to the cold. And they found that acute energy expenditure, meaning your metabolic rate in response to cold was 10% higher in the group that used the green tea extract in conjunction with being exposed to the cold. Versus the group that didn't.

That's significant.

Yeah. For people out there who are using the vest from coolfatburner.com or people who are maybe, whatever, doing ice baths or cold showers or stuff like that, if you're doing this in the morning, get up, have your cup of coffee, or have your cup of green tea before you go into that kind of protocol. After we finish this podcast. This really isn't why I'm drinking caffeine. I'm more drinking caffeine just so I can kick butt. But I'll be putting my 1200 Lumen headlight on my mountain bike and hitting the trails in the dark and the snow and the ice out here for about 60 to 90 minutes for workout this afternoon. And sure, I'll be shivering a little bit during that workout. And I guarantee the caffeine I'm drinking right now is going to enhance that thermogenic fat burning effect even more. So.

There you go.

Awesome. So here's a related study if you want to take this one step further. Caffeinated gum. And this study also came out in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research. Just dip your gum stick in a cup of coffee. Actually, I'll tell you some brands of caffeinated gum here in a second. But they took a group of cyclists and they gave them caffeinated chewing gum either five minutes before they started writing, 60 minutes before they started writing, or two hours before they started writing. And then they had them do a time trial. And the folks who got the gum five minutes before they started writing performed significantly better in the time trial than the people who didn't get gum, the people who got it 60 minutes prior, and the people who got it 120 minutes prior. And in this case, they were getting 300 milligrams worth of caffeine in the gum that they were drinking. So this is some pretty caffeinated gum.

Little more than just a regular cup of coffee.

Yeah, it's like twice that. Oh. But there are a ton of gums out there that have caffeine in them. The most popular one is used by the military. It's called Stay Alert. It comes in this camo package, and it's a caffeinated chewing gum. There's another one if people want to Google these or try them out during a workout. There's another one called Go Fast Gum. Those are the two that are highest in caffeine. They have 100 milligrams in one piece. If you chomped three of these before you went out for workout, literally you'd want to do it if you were going to do it. Based off what they did in the study, five minutes before you work out, you're looking at an amped up training response.

So the idea is that by chewing the gum instead of having a caffeinated beverage, it's actually getting the response faster.

Yeah. And I think what's interesting is that you could also continue to get that caffeine as you're riding. Whereas, you know, I have a hard time putting my coffee mug on my handlebars. I don't know about you, but I.

Got pretty good at that back in the college days.

Nice, nice. I do remember that writing to some classes with holding my coffee mug in one hand. So a couple other studies. I know we've got a lot of them today, actually, don't we? Boron. You know, boron is interesting. And there was a study in the Journal of Toxicology that looked at the effects of dietary boron on hormone activity and biochemical parameters. And in this case, they studied in rats. But it was still pretty significant, which is why I wanted to bring it up. This one kind of turned my head. They noted that when rats were supplemented or their diets were supplemented with boron, which you'll find in some multivitamins, typically in very trace amounts, not in very high amounts, but it decreased their leptin, it decreased their insulin, and it decreased their glucose levels. What that means is that all of these parameters that are associated with body weight, body fat, can actually be affected through the supplementation with boron. And they did find that the body weight of the rats was found to be much lower in the rats that got boron at the end of just four weeks. So those of you who haven't heard yet, I'll be bringing a kind of like a multivitamin type of thing to market here in about May. June is the target. And one of the items that will be in there in addition to higher doses of vitamin D and epa, dha. Just a bunch of stuff so you don't have to keep a bunch of pill bottles in your fridge. You can just take one thing. I'm ensuring that it has boron in it to take care of some of these metabolic parameters and hormones. So there you go.

Sadly, if you take too much boron, you get really, really stupid.

You get really, really stupid.

Oh, wait, that's moron. Sorry, sorry. That's a terrible joke.

Moving on. Speaking of morons, let's talk about smart kids. Vitamins for kids. You want to make your own kids. Vitamins and not go out and buy vitamins. You can actually do it. I'm going to link in the show notes to a recipe I came across on wellnessmomma.com and what you do is you need some gelatin powder. And this is the same stuff that you can use if you don't have time to make bone broth. And we've recommended a few different gelatin powders on this show before. As far as being like healthy gelatin powders. Great Lakes is an example of a good gelatin powder that's just unflavored gelatin that doesn't have a bunch of nasty compounds added to it, but it's basically collagen. You know, it's the same stuff you'd get if you made bone broth, but it also gelatinizes things. So you get gelatin powder, you get like some fresh natural juice. You know, you could use whatever flavor you want. I mean, you could use carrot, pomegranate, whatever. Just make sure it's juice, not like high fructose corn syrup. And then you can add some raw honey to get some of those amino acids and preferably something local. So you're helping out with your kid's immune system as well. And then you can add some vitamins to it, like a good whole food source. Vitamin C, you could do some probiotics, you could do a little bit of magnesium. But basically what you do is in a little saucepan over low heat, you mix the juice, the gelatin and the honey and you stir that all together, you heat it until the gelatin is dissolved and then you remove it from the heat and let it cool just a little bit. You whisk in vitamins. If you're going to use vitamins, even though you don't have to, you could just, you know, use this as like a fruity bone broth for your kids. And then you can pour it into molds, like popsicle molds or a little glass dish, put it in the freezer for a little while to harden, and then you take it out and it's like these chewable gummy bear like vitamins that you can give your kids as their vitamins.

So it's like good for you. Jello?

Yeah, basically. I mean, you still wouldn't want to overdose on it if you added a bunch of vitamins to it. But kind of a cool idea, I thought, you know, I don't know if I'll go out of my way to do it because I give my kids the liquid stuff. They get the. Sometimes I Take it because it tastes really good. But it's the kids calm. Multivitamin. My kids have been taking that since they were literally one years old. It's magnesium and amino acids and DHA and EPA and just basically everything a kid needs to get smart and have improved mental focus. And yeah, I mean, when they were first born, we were rubbing fish oil and flax oil into their feet and then as soon as they were old enough to take a vitamin, we started giving them. Giving them that kid's calm. And now I don't.

They are both 7ft tall and attending university.

Yeah. And I don't even write any of the articles that you see on BenGreenfieldFitness.com I just have my kids like, yeah, their ankle is chained to a desk and they just do all the writing and research for me. So chalk one up for having smart kids. Just keep them away from moron.

Yes.

Special announcements.

I'm excited about our recommendation this week for our audible pick. And for those of you who don't know, you need to go to audiblepodcast.com Ben and when you go there, you can sign up for a free trial. Basically, you sign up and you get a free book. And I would suggest that you download this book. It's called Stiff and it's by Mary Roach. And before you get a sex help book or. Yeah, I was gonna say before you get concerned, it's not called Stiffy, it's called Stiff.

Stiff.

And it's actually about everything that they've done historically and even today over the last few centuries and right up to the present times, what people have done with cadavers in terms of figuring out like what happens to the human body as it decomposes. Like the decay rate of a human body laying in the sun and in the fridge and all these other places. And it's very odd, but it's also very interesting. So that's my suggestion for you all. It's called Stiff by Mary Roach.

Wow. You know, I dissected cadavers for two years in college. I was the TA for anatomy and physiology class.

And how do you feel about that?

Human cadavers aren't pleasant. I've got one nasty story. I was dissecting one and it was one of my first months in the lab and I had my big lab coat on and my glasses and, you know, had my scalpel. And I was sitting there, I was working on an arm, exposing all the arm muscles. And as you work on fresh cadavers, you not only get a lot of formaldehyde that builds up around them. And basically it's more or less like a tarp that they're laying on on top of a stretcher. But they also tend. They lose a lot of fat, globules, and just human fluids that tend to build up in this tarp along with the formaldehyde. And I wasn't paying attention. I'm working on this arm. I'm concentrating on exposing the pronator and the supinator. And you gotta kinda label them as you go through so that the lab students can come in and learn each of the muscles and all this fluid and human fat was building up in the tarp. And I was wearing flip flops underneath my lab coat. And it all came splashing down onto my feet like a liter of human fat and formaldehyde. And I think I washed my feet for a good hour after that. It was just nasty, nasty stuff.

So, yeah, if you like that story, you'll love this book. Yeah.

So if you like stuff like that, go to audiblepodcast.com Ben and we'll take a break now. For everyone who had to go and throw up from our stories, There was, of course, a bonus episode that came out yesterday in which I listed a bunch of special announcements. We won't spend a long time today on other special announcements, but couple of quick things. First of all, I picked a listener for next week for our bonus My List episode. So we're gonna be geeking out with Craig about the list of things he uses to travel with. He's a traveling lawyer and he's got a ton of cool little travel tricks and tips that he uses. So we're gonna feature him as the bonus at the end of next week's episode. Cause he's got a My List going. And you can check that out over@mylist.com BenGreenfield and we also make my lists for each of these podcast episodes. You can get links to our caffeinated gum choices and, you know, electrostim units and cadavers and all that other good stuff. And then the other couple of quick things I wanted to mention, one was Vietnam is coming up soon. And I know there's some listeners out there that like to travel the world, that like to see new things, that like to do triathlons and adventures. And you can join me for a trip to Vietnam this April, April 10th through the 16th. We'll be doing a triathlon over in Vietnam. Hanging out, eating good food, doing some. Some excursions and adventures over there. I hear it's beautiful. Even though I haven't been yet. And if you want to join me, go to the show notes and you can get all the details. I've got a link to the itinerary in the show notes for this episode. Which is 227, right, Brock?

Yes, that's right.

Cool. And then the last thing is Become Superhuman. And really the way I like to explain this is if you want to transform your body, lose fat, gain muscle, and learn how to squeeze every drop of potential out of you and your mind and your body, then what we're doing is basically going into the cutting edge techniques that get you results as fast as possible. Cutting through all the bowl, so to speak. The stuff that doesn't work, you know, the stuff you see people doing on the the biggest loser and Dr. Oz and all this pop culture stuff. And instead cutting straight to the chase, cutting to the stuff that flies under the radar. The real true ways for you to get what you want out of transforming your body and your life. And it's going to be two life transforming days. Become Superhuman. The conference, the live event is March 8th and 9th. It's coming up soon. You need to register right now. There's nine days left to register as of the time this is being recorded. So you got to get in basically by the end of the first week, end of January, it's gonna be, well, it's actually gonna be the first week in February is what it comes out to. But you need to get in soon. Get your plane ticket out to Spokane and come on out for a couple days at Superhuman Live. And yeah, we'll play you right now a couple other things about that and then we'll meet you on the other side for the Q and A.

Want to get personal access to all of Ben Greenfield's secrets Live this March in Spokane, Washington, Ben is bringing the world's best speakers straight to you. You're going to get step by step blueprints for performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, brain sleep and hormone optimization. And get insider access to private parties, special sessions for podcast listeners only, and of course, delicious locally grown organic meals. The conference is called Become Superhuman and it's already filling up fast. But you can get in now@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Superhuman. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com superhuman. You'll come away from this live two day event completely separate life to achieve everything you want for your body, mind and performance. Whether you want to maximize fat loss, achieve an Ironman triathlon, or push your body and mind to the absolute limits of human performance. So visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com superhuman and we'll see you live and in person March 8th and 9th, 2013. Listener Q and A. Yeah, G', day, Ben.

This is Adam from down under. Mate, how you going?

I thought I'd try something new for.

The podcast and record while I'm out.

Running the trails with my dog Chester.

By the way, he loves the podcast. It's 42 degrees at the moment and.

So I was bloody hot and I'm sweating it up.

Just got a question.

Whether it's smarter to actually train in.

The morning when it's not so hot or go out and train in the.

Heat of the day just to try.

And get some of that added benefit. I just recalling a study that you did, you read out actually not long ago regarding training in the heat and.

The similarities or some of the same training benefits you get as if you're training at altitude.

So yeah, just that question, mate.

Am I better off getting up and doing me runs in the morning or am I better off doing them in the heat? Whether I'm base training or whether I'm doing interval work or whatever I'm doing. Thanks for your help, mate. Okay, well, thank you Adam for letting us know that Chester is a big fan of the podcast. I appreciate dog being interested in the show.

It's good news. I'm sure Chester enjoyed that discussion about dead human bodies.

Yes, that would be his favorite dogs.

That's right. So Adam, this is a great question, you know, whether the risk outweighs the reward basically of training in the heat, of running in the heat of the day, versus doing your training, maybe when it's cooler out. And this is something I've always thought about, you know, when I'm out there, maybe training for Ironman and getting my long run in, for example, for Ironman or something of that nature, you know, getting ready for Ironman, Hawaii. Do I go out and wait until it's 2 o' clock in the afternoon and train in 100 degrees, or do I not put that stress on my body so that I could recover faster and do my training session in the cool of the day? And of course there's risks when you are training in the heat. There are things that happen when you're training in the heat that you gotta be aware of. So let's start there. There was a study that was done that looked into the inflammatory response to exercise induced heat stress in relatively trained males who are running in the heat. And what they looked at was hot Running vers cool running. And these were fairly difficult sessions that were done at a decent aerobic pace, about 60% VO2 max, and they were only 30 minutes long. They had what's called a thermo neutral condition and then a heat stress condition. And I believe I said runners. These were actually cyclists, but some are training aerobically. And what they found was that in the thermo neutral condition, that there wasn't really that significant change in terms of inflammation. But when you looked at exercise induced heat stress, there was an increase in what's called coagulation activity, which means you have enhanced clotting activity during exercise in the heat, which could put you at risk for a cardiovascular event and inhibit recovery. Because the higher amount of clotting factors that you have in your bloodstream, the, the more decreased your ability is to do things like remove inflammatory byproducts after the session. Think about your blood just being more sludgy, so to speak, after a hot exercise session. It's a combination of the heat, but also production of what are called heat shot factors as well as production of what are called cell adhesion molecules.

There'd be a little bit of dehydration as well, adding to that.

Exactly. Your blood gets thicker as well. So the other thing that they noted in the people who are exercising in the heat was a decreased production of fibrinolysis. Fibrinogens are one of the markers that you would test. Like if you're going to get a biomarker test, look at your levels of inflammation. They're also really high. And people have just had surgery, people have broken down muscle. And when fibrinolysis decreases, that means your levels of fibrinogen are going to be higher, which can also inhibit your ability to recover. Now, interestingly, inflammation, you know, markers of inflammation like creatine kinase and what's called interleukin did not go up significantly. It was primarily the fibrinolysis that decreased and there was the enhanced clotting activity that occurred in the heat. So, you know, what this tells you is that when you're out there running in the heat, if you're going to take advantage of the enhanced, enhanced acclimation to heat, you know, the enhanced cooling capacity of your body that's going to occur when you're out there training in the heat, you should come at recovery after that hot training session from a standpoint of addressing some of these parameters that you know are going to be affected by you training in that heat. So one thing that I would consider is in Addition to doing your usual things that I'd recommend after, like a long hard ride in the heat, like getting exposure to ice or a cold bath, getting some compression, getting your feet up and getting some elevation in, I'd consider, for example, particularly supplementation with things that are going to assist with clotting factors or things that are going to assist with breaking down fibrinogen. For example, fish oil is a perfect example of something that can, you know, essentially thin the blood and enhance your ability to not clot, but enhance your ability to decrease some of these clotting factors, like a good triglyceride based fish oil or keeping your omega 3 fatty acid intake up throughout the week. If you're vegan or vegetarian, get things like your algae, your spirulina, your chlorella sources, walnuts, stuff like that. If you're not, supplement with a fish oil. The other thing I'd look into is something that can break down fibrinogen. Proteolytic enzymes are the top thing I'd recommend for that on an empty stomach at some point later in the day after your workout. So recoveries is the one that I've recommended in the past. Wobenzymes are another, but I would make sure you've got that stuff in your body body. I would also make sure that you attend to rehydration with a full mineral spectrum, trace minerals, not just sodium, table salt, which is basically just a bunch of caked up aluminum with sodium, but a full mineral spectrum. So use a Himalayan sea salt, use a trace liquid minerals, use something that's replacing all of your minerals after that workout too, to address the hydration components. Because while you don't necessarily need electrolytes to avoid cramping, they're involved in a lot of other metabolic activity that you're going to want to keep your body engaged in throughout the rest of the day after that hot workout. So I'd recommend a trace mineral. And then, you know, the other thing to consider here is the fact that if you don't want to beat your body up in the heat, let's say you do decide that you don't like the way you feel. You feel like your body's taken way longer to recover after those hot, hot afternoon runs, which is true, it is going to take longer to recover. You can do what's called passive heat acclimation rather than active heat acclimation. So you could probably guess what passive heat acclimation would be, right, Brock?

Just laying there in the sauna?

Yep, exactly. So steam room sauna the difference between passive acclimation and active heat acclimation. And this is something I'll be talking about in the webinar I'm doing on January 31st with USA Triathlon. We'll put a link to that in the show. Notes. But active heat acclimation, let's say you want to heat acclimate for an event, you can get away with just doing 45 to 60 minute sessions for seven to 10 days in a row. With active heat acclimation, okay. Exercising in the heat continued for up to about four to six days prior to your event. But with passive heat acclimation you need closer to four to eight weeks and you know, minimum of 10 days and you're not going to get much of a response where you're doing, you know, like anywhere from 30 to 60 minute sauna sessions, you know, every one to three days. So understand that if you're using passive, it's not quite as powerful as active heat acclimation, but you recover faster. And you know, for example, what I'll do, I've got this one workout that I do where I just want to make sure that I'm not going to get injured. So I've got like some easy external rotation with, with like elastic tubing for my shoulder and like doing the like the side lying leg raises for my hip and doing a little bit of planking for my deep abdominals. And I'll just go into a sauna and do that, that you know, boring workout that would otherwise be relatively non stressful, you know, and I'll bring a magazine in there and finish up that 20 minute session with reading a magazine for 20 minutes and you know, before you know it you've got your passive acclimation session in. So that's an easier way to do it.

So in terms of like he did ask about doing speed workout versus like base training, does it really matter what, what kind of intensity you're working out at?

Yeah. This is interesting and Tim Noakes gets into this in his book Waterlogged, which is an excellent book. But your, your core temperature or what you know, really what, what they measure is your rectal temperature during exercise, which is going to be an indicator of how high your risk for heat stroke is. Really it's not based off of your hydration status, it's not based off of how, how long you're exercising, anything like that. It's based off of how hard you're exercising. And people who run a 10k are at just as high a risk of heat stroke. As people who do an Ironman triathlon, because again, it doesn't have to do with dehydration or electrolyte loss, simply has to do with total core temperature, which is going to be higher the harder the workout that you do. So understand that the more speed training that you do in extreme heat, the higher your risk of heat stroke is going to be. So, you know, if you want to do a heat acclimation session and you're worried maybe you're out there running alone, you don't want to take risks with, you know, pushing your body too hard. I would keep things relatively aerobic for a session like that and understand that that your heart rate's going to be higher than it would normally be anyways. I mean, you may not really have much of a need for speed, so to speak, when you're out there in extreme heat. Hey, Ben and Brock, this is Amy. So I've heard you talk about minimalist training, I think is what it's called, as well as some different marathon training programs that don't require as much running as what I done in the past than historically what I've been instructed to do. Maybe you can explain a little bit more about the benefits of the minimalistic running and not needing to run as much mileage in training, because I'm really not sold on that idea at all. I've PR'd at every marathon I've done and I've actually increased my mileage for each race that I prepare for. So just curious, wondering if others have the same question. So, love the podcast. Thanks for all the help. Bye.

I don't know if everybody's listened to it, and I don't mean to point people away to a different podcast, but you went into this quite thoroughly on the Rich Roll podcast a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, we should link to that in the show notes. Of course, we'll link to everything that we talk about. But yeah, let's put a link to that in the show notes if people want to geek out on this for a couple of hours. But I'll give you the Cliff Notes here. I don't think that minimalist run training is the only way to go. Okay, so there are two different ways really to get the most bang for your buck out of training. For a marathon, you either use the 8020 rule, meaning you do 80% of your training at a very low intensity, low aerobic intensity, like the Kenyans running to school every day, and then you throw in every once in a while. And this is the 20% high intensity intervals and you do very, very little of your training in the moderate zone, the moderate junk mile zone. So that's one way that you can do things. And when I go to like halhigden.com and look over the Hal Higdon running protocols, that's one of the first things I look for is does it follow this 8020 rule? And the answer is not necessarily. When I look at it, there are run runs every day of the week except Friday. So it's a six day a week running protocol. And you know, you've got your combination of hills and tempo runs and just like kind of like mid distance training runs. You know, there's lots of tempo, there's lots of work done in kind of that 50% range rather than like it being aerobic or else high intensity. So, you know, I don't know if it's, if it's the best way to go versus just doing, for example, aerobic runs a lot, even up to twice a day, which is the way that a lot of this aerobic training protocol works, with a few high intensity interval days thrown in, like a couple high intensity interval days thrown in. The issue I have with this whole approach though is that just takes a ton of time. And unless this is your job, this is your career, or unless you just have lots of time to burn. You know, my whole thing is, you know, I've got, I like to play the guitar, I like to cook, I like to, you know, drink wine, I like to play with my kids, I like to play tennis. I've got all these other things that I do. And I don't have time for this 8020 approach. You know, unless you consider my 8020 approach to be like the 80% being when I'm, you know, standing at my workstation and staying physically active throughout the day. And then the 20% being the fact that just about every workout that I do is, is high intensity to make up for the fact that I'm not working out that much. So, you know, that's the first thing is that there's one way to do, it's the 8020 approach. The other way is, you know, kind of like, you know, in my, in my marathon dominator program@marathondominator.com, you run three or four days a week. Most of it is high intensity intervals. You include weight training, you take care of your body from a recovery and a nutritional standpoint, and you just run less. And that's, that's kind of the other way to do things. So, you know, the answer Is, yeah, you can still PR while increasing your running mileage. You can still do fine in a higher mileage plan, but you know, you just gotta have that, that crazy amount of time in order to have that work better than a minimalist approach with just high intensity efforts and good recovery.

You know what, Dee? I'm trying this minimalist to training for the first time this year. And I'll let you know in October if it worked for me because I've been, I'm with you. I've done traditionally, I've done Those like the 80, 20, the much more higher volume, like 150 kilometer week kind of training. So I'll let you know in October how it works out.

Although you do need to find a coach who knows what they're doing.

Yeah, I, that's my biggest problem. My coach just doesn't know what he's doing.

Hi, Ben, this is Johnny Clement. I want to ask your advice on gardening. This year I plan to grow a garden and I am trying to decide what to grow to give me the most bang for my buck. I have a small section I want the most superhuman fit garden as possible. Blueberries really grow well here. Maybe I should use that space for all blueberries. Thank you. Well, we love to garden here at the Greenfield house household. Although our garden is covered with about 2ft of snow right now, mine do. But in the summer and the spring and some of the fall, we have a huge garden. We've pretty much dug up our entire backyard and it's all just garden. And in terms of creating like a, like a superhuman garden, some of the things that I would recommend, and my wife would probably be even better at this because she's a real green thumb. I mean, she's back there there for literally like two or three hours with the kids during the spring and the summer, just planting and cultivating and hanging out in the garden. But the first thing to understand is your soil is going to be super important. You want to make sure that you've got adequate organic matter in your soil. And one of the things that we do is we go up to, it's actually a local goat farm and we get a bunch of their like black gold composted soil. And what you want to do is ideally test your soil PH first because if the, if the PH is really high, you're going to have to add really sulfurous compounds. If it's really low, what you add is actually lime. If you add too much manure, you're going to get very acidic, very low pH soil so you want to be careful. But about a third of organic matter, like a really good manure for every meter or so of soil is a good way to get go. So a third, a meter of organic matter for every meter of soil. So think about that. Like if you just eyeball it, one third of it should be like organic stuff and it can be manure. Some of that can be like grass and straw. Some of it can be like bark, mulch, you know, compound or comma, whatever you call it, compounds. Compost.

Compost.

But yeah, so you want to make sure that you've got that. The other thing that's really, really important, and this is something that gets neglected, I think, think, and that's minerals. A good garden soil that's going to go a long way for you should have minerals added to it. And the whole idea behind minerals is that minerals and a lot of these trace elements like boron and silicone and calcium and magnesium and potassium and a lot of this stuff, you know, these days we try and get from multivitamins because over fertilization of soil has essentially depleted mineral content of a lot of the fruits and vegetables we buy from the grocery storage store or even sometimes from like organic farms and stuff like that. But a lot of this stuff you can add to your own soil. And because you're adding it to your own garden and it, you know, it's a smaller square footage than, you know, what a commercial farmer would have to use, you can actually do it for not a ton of money. I mean, you can get your hands on stuff like sea minerals and other good sources like volcanic rock dust, and you can add this stuff to your garden to restore mineral balance. And, you know, whereas a commercial farmer would literally have to use tons of the stuff, you can get away with relatively little when it comes to mineral restoration. But when you add minerals in the form of these, like trace minerals, you can buy in the bag and literally just sprinkle across the soil that you've added the compost to as well. You're adding a bunch of trace elements that all of a sudden are taking foods that are already good for you and turning them into real superfoods. And especially for athletes, this is super important because of perspiration and sweat loss that you add minerals to your soil. I'll link to it in the show notes. But there's one company called Azomite. It's a Z O M I T E. And they're a source for minerals and trace elements that you can buy and add to your Soil and they'll have a list on that website site. They're only in the States. So my apologies to international listeners. Although you could probably find something similar if you search for like, you know, if you googled for your area, like trace minerals, trace elements, gardening products, stuff like that of stuff that you can add to your garden to mineralize the soil. So you go and get this stuff, you add about one third compost to your soil and then you add in the minerals as well. And it's going to depend on what brand you get, how many minerals you use. But usually it's like a bag that you're spreading across your garden. And so you've got your mineral restoration going on, you've got your organic material going on. And then as far as what I would actually plant in a garden like this, main things you'd want to do and these are some of the things that we would do. Sweet potatoes. Sweet potato is a super nutritious vegetable and it's, you know, you've got your carotenoids and pigments and a lot of your natural antioxidants. It's also a great carb source that you can go and grab and you know, fry up when you're, or cook or bake or whatever to support your workouts. Blueberries definitely, if you're in an area that can support them, those are definitely, you know, they're a known superfood, you know, quote unquote superfood. Just because the antioxidants and that, you know, the flavonoids and all that jazz that's in the blueberry kale. We always have a ton of kale. If you want to get really, really hearty kale, there's a brand called Siberian Kale that's really good. Good. It's, it's one of the hardiest. And kale doesn't require much care. Just make sure if you have dogs like we do, that you wash them well because dogs seem to like to pee on the kale or keep it, keep it surrounded by a little fence. But kale, super useful. I'd include that. I'd include cabbage again. Cabbage is pretty easy to grow. It does tend to attract a lot of like worms and things, things like that. But as long as you're willing to put up with that. Cabbage is another one that I would definitely include just because of the amount of anti inflammatory nutrients in cabbage and its extreme versatility for cooking carrots. Again, great beta carotene source and if you've got a juicer, a great Thing that you can juice as well. So I do carrots. Another thing that we do is Brussels sprouts. So you can do Brussels sprouts. Sprouts, those tend to not be super hardy with the cold. But that's another thing I would include. You get some good anti carcinogenic effect with the brussels sprouts. They're a good detox as well. Cilantro, by the way, is another really, really good detox to plant. So cilantro and brussels sprouts to support your liver and your detox. Sunflowers. You can easily harvest sunflower seeds from some of the big sunflowers. Those are easy, easy to grow in your garden. Garden. And then the other thing we do is we do a lot of radishes. I mean, you can do like daikon radishes, red radishes, you know, black radishes, whatever. But you can slice them, you can grill them, you can juice them, you can saute them, you know, put a little salt on there. And radishes are also super easy to grow. Yeah, those are some of the things that I would do, you know, in like, like your dream garden or at least something to start off. So get your organic matter going, mineralize the soil and then, you know, throw some of that stuff in there and you know, if you got a bigger garden, I mean, heck, throw in some, some free range chicken and get a couple of goats and I mean, you know, who needs to go to the grocery store?

Yeah, I'd, I'd add fresh oregano and fresh basil. You just can't beat it. So throw that in there too.

Yeah, definitely. As far as the herbs go. Yeah, I mean, you don't even need a garden. You can do herbs on the, you know, in your kitchen counter by the window. So. But yeah, absolutely. Hi, Ben, this is Bob Suter. I read your information on your website about the fiber menace. I just want to let you know that I think that's really misleading because it makes it sound like all fiber is not really a worthwhile thing, which in my experience is absolutely contrary to what, what I've experienced. I suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, in addition, constipation, and I take vacillum husk powder as a fiber supplement. And it just works wonders. It has for many years. I understand what the author here is trying to get at in terms of vegetable source for fiber. That has not worked for me. And also I would encourage you to take a look at Dr. Park's article. And he did a study with the National Cancer Institute. In conjunction with art, and they found that fiber did have a link as an anti cancer supplement and some other benefits. So I don't think this author is on base. Thank you.

Well, you certainly aren't the only one who took exception to the Fiber Menace post.

Yeah, the comment section kind of blew up on that. And for those of you who have no clue what Bob is referring to, go ready read that post. And I read the book. I read the Fiber Menace book and it goes into way more detail than the post. I don't think the post did justice to the true argument, which is why I think, you know, I think a lot of people left comments, maybe didn't read the book because he gets into a lot more detail in the book. But just, you know, to address Bob's question a little bit. And by the way, I'm getting the guy that wrote that post, the 12 Myths About Fiverr post on the podcast so we can delve into this in more detail. Great. When I get him on, I think I'm interviewing him in a week and a half, so that'll come out in a couple of weeks. But he's not saying there's anything wrong with consuming minor quantities of fiber from natural food, natural unprocessed food. So small amounts of dietary fiber, he's not saying, are going to be an issue with obstructing your intestines or causing diarrhea, especially if it's mostly soluble fiber. It's not a lot of psyllium husk and psyllium seeds and overdosing on flaxseeds, but just like basic soluble fiber. And a lot of that will get fermented in the large intestine and create a lot of these short chain fatty acids that your body can turn around and use as a fuel. And you're not going to bulk up the volume of your stool high enough to cause a bunch of damage from roughage when you're just getting basic quantities of fiber that you'd naturally get from eating a few servings of fruits and vegetables and eating some seeds and some nuts, but not like using like a high fiber source and that type of thing. So that's one thing is they're not saying, like go on a low fruit, low vegetable diet. Mostly what Khan Stanton is saying in that post is that a lot of these, like metamucil supplements, psyllium husk supplements, a lot of this stuff that they sell to people for constipation may actually make issues worse. And you know, Bob says that it's worked wonders for him for many years. And when he quits taking psyllium husk powder, he gets symptoms of constipation, stuff that reappears. And what Constantin outlines in his book is that this stuff can work sometimes for up to a couple of decades, but they're masking an underlying problem, which is typically what's called dysbacteriosis, meaning you've got an imbalance in your gut flora that's contributing to the constipation and irritable bowel syndrome. And the fiber is masking that. But if it is, isn't fixed and it's left untreated and you're just basically trying to band aid it with fiber, there's a lot of issues that go on. Like it eventually can create neurological disorders as your gut becomes barren and you aren't creating the neurotransmitters that you need. It can create immunity issues due to leaky gut syndrome and undigested food particles ending up in the bloodstream, causing damage to blood vessels and blood glucose fluctuations. So ultimately, you want to address what he's saying, the underlying issues, the dysbacteriosis and the gut flow flora, rather than just like covering stuff up by taking in a bunch of fiber. Instead, Konstantin's approach would be more like take a good probiotic, get yourself on some bone broth, maybe take some digestive enzymes, stuff like that, go after that stuff, rather than just nuking everything with a bunch of fiber. So that's another thing here. And then as far as this study with the National Cancer Institute that found that fiber had a to link with some anti cancer properties. One of the things that occurs in the book, the fiber menace book, is there's a whole chapter that's devoted to the fiber and cancer connection, and it's got a ton of studies in there that point out really the complete opposite, that high intake of fiber is not found to protect against colorectal cancer or to protect you from colon cancer risk. Risk, and particularly there was a Harvard study that followed. It was like 700,000 men and women, some of them for up to 20 years. And they did not find that intake like a high, high fiber intake or use of fiber supplements. Especially high intake of dietary soluble fiber was really assisting with decreasing risk of colon cancer. You can knock yourself off by going through those studies. Studies, but what it comes down to is that you're going to do yourself a bigger favor by engaging in sane amounts of fiber intake and then making sure that you take care of your gut using a lot of these Other gut fixing methods that we've talked about on this podcast, bone broth, probiotics, digestive enzymes when the case is necessary, fixing stomach acid by using a little bit of hcl with pepsin until you've stabilized and restored, restored your stomach acid levels, staying adequately hydrated. Just basically all these little things that people kind of leave on the table when it comes to gut health and instead try to nuke with a high fiber supplement. So I'm not necessarily expert on fiber, but we'll definitely get the doctor on to talk about this stuff. And those are just some of my thoughts in terms of Bob's questions. So, Bob, I hope that helps and points you in the right direction in terms of maybe looking into some other fixes that you could look into for IBS and constipation. Hi, Ben and Brock, this is Frances in Brooklyn. I am 35 years old and 9 weeks pregnant with my second baby. Though I know it is generally advised that pregnant women can remain at the same activity level they were at before pregnancy. I'm having a very hard time in this first trimester. I 2 months ago I was in the best shape of my life as I was preparing to run the New York City Marathon, and now I can barely lift my head off the couch. So assuming I feel better soon, what can I do to get in and stay in the best shape possible so I can continue training right after I have the baby to, you know, run another marathon? Also, if you have any idea about any mood boosters that are safe for pregnancy, I'm feeling, like I said, I'm feeling pretty depressed and anxious and I also have some insomnia. So thanks so much for your help. I appreciate everything that you guys do. Okay, thanks.

Bye. Bye. You know, I know being pregnant is always difficult, but it really sounds like Francis is having an extra tough time here. Yeah.

And a lot of times, you know, you get a combination of the lack of physical activity that someone might be used to depleting them of a lot of the endorphins and the, you know, the happy brain chemicals that they're used to producing through exercise because they can't do it as much, you know, especially with endurance athletes who get pregnant. But you also get, you know, you get increased depletion of nutrients as you shuttle stuff towards, you know, making a human body inside your body. And that also can affect your brain neurotransmitters. And so, you know, you can come at this from both an activity and a supplementation standpoint. First of all, we had a great Interview with Cassandra Forsyth. It was episode 141. And we'll be sure we link to that in the show notes where she outlines a good pregnancy exercise routine that's primarily comprised of strength training exercises. And I think that that's a really, really good recommendation is to focus a lot on strength and even some of the core exercises that I go into in another article that I wrote about good ab exercises. And we'll link to that in the show notes as well. And the reason that I'm a bigger fan of that versus the endurance exercise is the endurance exercise can cause a lot of bouncing up and down and impact. And a lot of that jogging is hard on the body, especially the joints, because your body produces this hormone called relaxin after you get pregnant. And that makes your ligaments really stretchy, which can make it pretty uncomfortable when you're out pounding on the pace pavement. The other issue is that endurance exercise is basically catabolic and can break down muscle. And whereas some light swimming, which is very therapeutic for a baby, and they like that environment when you're moving in the water and like doing yoga and especially relaxing type of yoga poses and yoga exercises that don't put you in like a recumbent position that can put a little bit of stress on, on the blood vessels that lead into the placenta. And then like breathing exercises, just literally deep, deep breathing exercises that train your body how to relax and fill you with oxygen and can give you that same type of high that you get from exercise. Those are some of the better things to focus on if you're looking at stuff that goes above and beyond strength training. And for the strength training stuff, I would point you to the podcast that we did. And you know, it's just basic stuff like doing some basic barbell and dumbbell exercises. Exercises. But if you're having a really hard time just moving, you know, swimming, breathing exercises and yoga would be kind of the three top things I would recommend to at least get you moving. And you'll find that when you get through the first couple of minutes of that stuff, it, it can become a little bit easier to do. At the same time, it may still be pretty tough to get into if you've got some neurotransmitter issues going on with your brain. So a few things that I would look into. One, I would make sure that you get yourself adequate levels of copy. And choline is going to be critical for your brain function, but it's also really critical for fetal brain development. And choline is basically something that all of us use for our brains. But it's especially important for pregnant women and for growing babies. Eggs are a really good source of choline, especially eggs with the yolk. You got to make sure that you take the yolk in because that's got choline in it. You know, it's like poached eggs, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, stuff like that. I'd be including a lot of that in your diet. There's also a supplement called Alpha gpc. And GPC stands for glycerol phosphorylcholine. And that's a choline compound that's found naturally in your brain and it works in conjunction with your body's own growth hormone releasing hormone to stimulate the production of growth hormone. And it can be really, really good for enhancing your mood but also enhancing the brain development of the fetus. So that'd be one thing I would look into would be Alpha gpc, which is a supplement that you can take. Another one that's really a super abundant amino acid in your body, really, really important in supporting physical activity during pregnancy. But also something that can cross your blood brain barrier and help you with producing adequate amounts of neurotransmitters and literally help you out a lot of times with chemical changes in your brain is glutamine. And glutamine is another type of amino acid you can get your hands on in powder form or capsule form. That's a supplement I would think about just a couple more. One would be acetyl l carnitine. And acetyl L carnitine is something that helps to keep your cells functioning by supporting your mitochondria. But it's specifically the acetyl part of acetyl L Carnitine is used to produce a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine in your brain. And that's another really, really important mood chemical. And so that's something else that you could consider supplementing with because it's able to cross the blood brain barrier and helps you to produce acetylcholine in the brain. Along with that choline that I talked about earlier. It's going to help you and it can also help with your fetal brain development, or not your fetal brain development, but your fetuses brain development. I don't think you can go back in time and affect your fetal development.

Oh, that'd be great.

Phosphatidylserine was the last one I would recommend. It helps memory, it helps cognition. You can supplement it while you're pregnant. It's not like a lot of these herbs. Like I wouldn't. For example, you've heard me recommend TNT for helping with brain function. But that's got a lot of herbs in it. And you gotta be careful with that stuff when you're pregnant because different herbs like Huperzine A is an example of something that's in TNT and that's something that you'd want to be careful with if you're pregnant. You know, ginkgo biloba would be another. And you know, some of these are great for brain function if you're not pregnant, but not handled very well by the fetus.

So what are the risks with the fetus?

What's that?

What are the risks if you take that and you are pregnant?

You know what?

Or does it just vary widely?

I'm not quite sure of the mechanism of action of what goes on with a lot of these herbs that can affect affect fetal health or basically fetal health. But I do know that there are contraindications to taking a lot of different herbs during pregnancy and stuff like ginkgo biloba and Huperzine, which could help with brain function when you're not pregnant, are something that may not be helpful when you are pregnant or at least maybe deleterious to the fetus. So I'd be careful with those. But phosphatidylserine, acetyl L, carnitine glycol, glutamine and alpha gpc along with including eggs and a lot of fats in your diet, I'd highly recommend. I'd also be careful with lots of artificial light exposure just because the light spectrum that's in a lot of basic fluorescent lights that we tend to keep around our houses, it can contribute to a drop off in melatonin later on in the day. It can contribute to seasonal affective disorder. You could go to a website like lowbluelights.com and I'll link to that in the show notes. And you can replace some of the bulbs in the room rooms that you're spending a lot of time in with these more mellow low blue lights that don't have these harsh amounts of the blue light wave spectrum and that a lot of times can significantly affect your mental function if you install those in the rooms that you're spending a lot of time in. Last thing that I'd highly recommend, I'm getting this guy in the podcast to talk about his book. But there's a book called the Better Baby Book. It's a new one. It's written by Dave Alone Asprey, who actually did that biohacking conference that I was at. And I actually have read his book. He gave it to me and I read it on the plane, which is why all this baby stuff is so fresh on my mind. Not that I personally plan on having more kids at this point, but I wanted to be able to give out some good advice to other folks. Excellent book, Highly recommend it. I'll link to the Amazon version of that in the show notes for you as well. It's called the Better Baby Book and anybody who's thinking of having a baby should. Should definitely read that, in my opinion. Hi Ben, My name's Isaac and my question is about plyometrics and speed training. And that is, would plyometrics speed and quickness workout, would that be even more effective if done after a hard lower body weightlifting session? It seems possible that if the strong slow twitch muscle fibers are fatigued from the lifting, then your fast twitch fibers would have to work that much harder for you to jump and do the other explosive movements. That's my thought process, but I don't know if that's actually true. I know you've talked about the benefits of doing an explosive exercise immediately after a lift, like doing barbell squats followed by bodyweight squat jumps, but I'm wondering more about an entire plyometrics workout following a weightlifting session. Like any athlete, I'm always looking for ways to maximize the effectiveness of my workout. So thanks guys.

This is the second week in a row we've had a very smart question.

Smart, smart.

Listen, somebody who's been reading their books.

That's right. And we also have a smart dog too. So Chester and Isaac are our podcast champions this week. Congratulations. Doing an explosive exercise immediately after listening lifting versus doing an entire plyometric power set after an entire weight session. Kind of differ. You may recall an episode, I think it was, a few months back where we talked about something called post activation potentiation. For those of you who use P90X, I think P90X has like a whole workout devoted to post activation potentiation. It's a phenomenon that's, that's been around for a while in terms of something we've been aware of. But essentially what it's is is it means that after you've done a heavy resistance exercise, your body is better equipped to do an explosive exercise, essentially because the prior heavy loading induces a higher degree of central nervous system stimulation. So you get greater what's called motor unit recruitment and force production. And that can Last for anywhere from five minutes up to 30 minutes after you've done a heavy weight training session. So I would be talking about doing like a set of head heavy squats before you go out and do 100 meter sprint or doing a set of heavy bench press before you do some explosive like clapping push ups. So you're activating more muscles and creating a faster contraction rate and faster rate of tension development in the post heavy lifting power set. Okay, so that's the idea behind this. And so an example of a way that you could, you could use this concept would be your workout might be be you're going to do a set of bench press and then follow that up with a set of explosive medicine ball throws. And then you're going to do a set of squats and follow that up with a set of explosive vertical jumps. Then maybe a set of, you know, like lunges, like heavy lunges. Follow that up with a set of explosive lunge jumps and then maybe a set of overhead presses and follow that up with a set of explosive medicine balls throws to the sky. You know, that's, that's an example of using the, the benefits of post activation potentiation to be able to produce more beneficial explosive power movements. Now one of the issues here is that plyometrics require good biomechanics so that A, you don't hurt yourself and B, you can move at a high rate of speed. The idea behind plyometrics is you want to minimize the actual time that it takes to complete the rep. So if I am doing like a plyometric box jump, when I step off that box, as soon as my feet hit the ground, I want to reverse direction and jump as high as possible, minimizing ground contacts time. And when I'm doing an exercise like that, the practical aspect of that is that when I go out and do like a run, I'm training my feet to spend less time in contact with the ground. So for any given run I have less ground contact time, meaning that I'm able to transfer more of my force into getting from point A to point B. You're basically improving your almost like your muscle tension every time the foot strikes the ground. Now if you exhaust yourself during a hard, say a lower body weight training session prior to doing your plyo set, not only are you affecting your ability to have good biomechanics, meaning if your quads are just bombed from all the squats or lunges or whatever that you've done, you're not going to be able to perform a good vertical jump or a good, you know, ladder sprint or whatever else it is you're doing for your plyometrics, but you're also increasing your risk of being able to just do them with good form and produce enough explosiveness. So I'm a bigger fan of either doing your power sets or your plyometric sets as their own separate work workout. If you're going to do them all as their own separate workout or else doing them in the way that I just described. That complex set is what that's called where you do a strength set and then immediately do a power set and you bang out all your complex sets for one muscle group or one body area or one movement and then you move on to the next. I would not recommend exhausting yourself with a full strength session and then going into the power set. As an aside over at the Ben Greenfield Fitness Recommends page, which you can can get to if you just go to BenGreenVefitness.com, you click the Start Here button, there's a link to everything that I've ever recommended. There are things that can help with enhanced nerve function and enhanced reaction time. Interestingly, a lot of them are the similar things that I just recommended for enhancing brain fetal development. You know, a lot of this stuff is just nervous system support. Choline for example, fantastic supplement to use before you go do a plyometric workout or a power workout workout. A good triglyceride based fish oil. You know, another good healthy fat that can help to enhance nerve function. A couple other things that have come up before in this podcast, egcg. That's that green tea extract that helps you to enhance your fat burning in the cold that can also enhance power. So that's another one. And then the last thing I'd look into as far as like a good thing to help you out with power and nerve transmission and speed of nerve transmission would be a good vitamin B complex. Like you know, for example, Life Shots is one. Delta E is another. But something that has good high amounts of vitamin B in it because that can really help you with nerve transmission. So especially before like a power workout, you can use some of that type of stuff. You know, if you want to go try one of these complex sets and just get full benefit out of it. You know, enhance your neural recruitment with something like smart supplementation. And that's another good way to go. So awesome.

Well go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and click on the Start Here button and check all that stuff out. And also go to episode 227 to see everything that we talked about. Link to all of the interesting stuff. Make sure you check out the special announcements so you can find all about the superhuman event happening in March and trip to Vietnam and a bunch of other cool events and campsite Ben's putting on what the hell am I talking about? And make sure to go to itunes and leave a review and a comment in there and help us out a little bit as well. And what else, Ben?

I've got cinnamon stuck in my teeth because I'm digging it out of the bottom of my coffee cup right now. There's that.

Delicious. Make sure you go to the website and let us know how you feel about that.

I'm one of those guys that if I get a coffee, it starts Starbucks. I dump like half their cinnamon shaker into my coffee and then like eat the cinnamon out of the bottom that's been saturated with the coffee. It's a grosser.

Well, I actually got in trouble once for putting cinnamon on my cappuccino at one of those, like hipster coffee shops because apparently putting cinnamon in your coffee was supposed to cover up the. The bitter crappiness of the coffee.

It's probably because you, you masked the beautiful flour that they made in the foam on the top.

I did. They made the beautiful heart.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, folks, well, we'll, we'll see you next week. Like Brock said, leave a rating, Leave a review. Remember, everything's transcribed. You can get everything over@mylist.com BenGreenfield if you want to see a list of any of the cool things we talked about in the show, leave a ranking, leave a review in itunes and go.

To audiblepodcast.com ben and get your cadaver book.

That is gross. But if you do read it, leave a comment. Let us know how you like that and we'll catch you all later.

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