5 Ways To Get Fit In Your Car, How To Drink Less Alcohol, Are Antioxidants Really Effective And Much More!

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast, 5 Ways to get fit in your car, how to drink less alcohol, natural malaria remedies, headaches from swimming, four ways to avoid heart arrhythmias, and supplements for hepatitis B.

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 BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Good morning to you.

Good morning, Brock. How are you doing?

Despite the fact that I went to bed at 9pm ish last night and then was wide awake between 2 and 4am and then then went back to sleep. I'm actually, I look good. I feel good.

Well, you gotta get your beauty sleep for the podcast. You know what?

I am simply gorgeous right now.

What's actually important, I think prior to podcasting is sleep deprivation because then you get your sexy low morning voice. I think that helps out.

I just smoke a pack of cigarettes.

That also can help out. Speaking of smoking cigarettes and dumping toxins into your body, we just got back from Florida two days ago and there was a notice on my door that they found a bunch of E. Coli in our municipal water supply and they have heavily chlorinated. Heavily, heavily chlorinated the water to the extent where my wife got chlorinated water on her shirt and it like bleached her shirt. So we are, we're boiling the water to kill the E. Coli and then we're letting it sit so that the chlorine kind of waves off the top of the water, which happens if you let it, if it's, you let it sit in like an open jar.

When they call it off gassing.

Yeah, it off gases just, just like me after I've had lots of resistant starch and then adding, I'm off gassing right now. Been doing lots of vitamin C and iodine and stuff to try and mitigate some of the damage of chlorine toxicity.

But man, yeah, it's nice replacing E. Coli with something almost as dangerous in a different sort of way.

In retrospect, you probably could have just gone to the grocery store and bought a bunch of Pellegrino.

News flashes.

Once again, if you do not already Follow Ben on twitter.com BenGreenfield there's something seriously wrong with you because there are awesome news flashes coming out every Day, sometimes twice a day. And you're missing them.

That's right.

Seriously, you don't miss them forever if you pay attention right now.

So here is the first news flash that I put out and it was about getting the most bang for your buck out of high intensity interval training. So there was a study that just appeared in the March 2014 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research on a comparison of an elliptical trainer with the arm. Little things on it with the arm.

Not just the foot one. Yeah, the ones that just have the feet are such a. They're kind of a waste of time.

Those are the ones that women use at the gym while they're reading novels.

Yeah, or fashion magazines.

Yes, exactly.

Actually I've seen dudes doing exactly the same thing.

Yeah, exactly that or watching tv. Although I have to admit that I did some phone calls from the elliptical trainer at the hotel last week while I was on vacation.

Yeah, but you could be using the arm one for that.

Kind of like a standing workstation, except in a standing elliptico station. Anyway, the elliptical trainer was compared to a bicycle in terms of its ability to predict power and be used as a wingate test. And wingate test in sports Science is a 32nd all out protocol designed to predict power. And it turns out that the wingate tests performed on an elliptical trainer was able to elicit a far greater muscular contraction and a bigger contribution from every energy system, meaning your oxidative energy system, your creatine phospholytic energy system, your glycolytic glucose utilizing energy system. Basically it blew the bike out of the water in terms of the amount of energy turnover that occurs when you use an elliptical trainer. So it turns out that if you're going to go do a high intensity interval training session and you're able to choose between a bicycle and say like an elliptical trainer with the arm action or something else that uses arms like, say like a rowing machine or even hopping on like a stereomill, holding some dumbbells or burpees or something like that. Contributing the upper body to the high intensity interval training session does indeed cause a pretty significant increase in energy system contribution during the interval. And also they looked at post exercise oxygen uptake or how long it your metabolism afterwards. Exactly. And it was significantly greater too. So there you go. There is a good use for those funky looking elliptical trainers at the gym. Another study looked at body weight circuits versus strength training for runners and I thought this one was really interesting. What they did was they took a bunch of runners and they put one group through A bodyweight circuit. And this was like squats, push ups, lunges, sit ups, calf raises, back extensions, planks and step ups. And they had them doing.

Those are all my favorites.

Yeah, all of our favorite things, they were doing about 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off, kind of traditional circuit style training. They actually see a lot of endurance athletes especially doing. And then they took another group of folks and they put them through strength training. So they used squat, they used leg press, box jumps, vertical jumps and sit ups. Not my favorite exercise, throwing the sit ups in there. I don't know why they did that, but they were using low amount of sets, just one to two sets, six to eight repetitions, about two to three minutes recovery between each set. Kind of a traditional strength training protocol. And what they found was that compared to the circuit training, the strength training resulted in a significant improvement in endorsement performance, particularly via a greater neuromuscular recruitment of muscle tissue during endurance training. And so it was really interesting. It turns out that if you have to choose between what might seem logical, which would be like a cardio metabolic style weight training circuit or body weight circuit versus kind of like a little bit more slow, controlled strength training with long rest periods, it turns out that the strength training gives you better bang for your buck when it comes to endurance running performance.

Wait, slow strength training?

Yeah, exactly. Well, I should put it this way, not slow strength training, but strength training that is not as metabolically demanding as a circuit training protocol. So really interesting kind of flies in the face of what you would think would be the logical thing to do if you were an endurance athlete at the gym. But it turns out that strength training compared to circuit training, you know, especially like strength training with, you know, a little bit longer rest periods and using a heavy weight, low reps, that actually gives you more bang for your buck. So.

Well, there you go. But I'm gonna just sort of be devil's advocate here if you were to include both, like I, I look at the bodyweight circuits as being more of an injury prevention kind of thing, where the other, like you're saying that this like strength training is more of a recruiting more muscle fibers and getting a little more endurance out of it. So they sort of serve a different purpose, don't they?

Well, I'm going to be the devil's devil's advocate and ask you how the heck would a body weight circuit decrease injury compared to a more intensive strength training circuit?

I'm just thinking, I guess in particular, I was thinking of the workout that they used in the study, like Certainly the sit ups for one, versus like doing some body weight lunges and hip hikes and those sorts of things.

Yeah. I think ultimately both of the types of training that they use in the study could be improved in terms of their, you know, like a strength training program. Yeah. What you could do with the strength training program is you do your full body strength training type of exercises, but then you add in some lighter kind of body weight exercises for injury prevention. But ultimately what it comes down to is bodyweight circuit training versus strength training. The strength training wins hands down when it comes to making you say, like a better runner.

So, yeah, so it's really like we're sort of. I guess I got a little too focused on what the exercises they were actually using versus the idea behind the exercises or the style they were doing it in.

Yeah. You need another cup of coffee?

I've had two.

I don't think I need any more.

Maybe I've had too many.

Well, I've had my aeropress. I got the new steel filter on it, so there you go.

I actually had some real upgraded high, what's it called, Brain octane in my coffee this morning.

Nice.

The real stuff.

Nice. That's. That's like the, the fractionated medium chain triglyceride oil. That's got higher levels of caprylic acid in it.

Yeah.

So you get.

I've been going with just regular limb CT oil and today I went for the brain octane. I did back off by a tablespoon just to avoid some potential disaster pants, but no problem so far.

Well, you're more jacked up on ketones than I am. And keep me posted on the, on the disaster pants as we progress through today's podcast.

Just if I suddenly drop the microphone, you'll know why.

There you go. So sorry.

Derailed everything there.

So the next study that was looked at was combining sprint training and strength training with strength training by itself. So basically putting high intensity interval training in with a strength training session. And traditionally, what folks have believed is that when you combine high intensity cardio with strength training like that, you not only inhibit strength gains, but you inhibit your ability to gain or maintain muscle as well because it's just too much cardio mixed in with the strength training. Well, what this study showed was that when you combine strength training with high intensity interval training sessions done during the strength training session, like doing some sprints at the end of your strength training workout, or even mixed in with some of your strength training sets, not only do you get zero deficit in the amount of strength that you build and the amount of muscle that you're able to build. But you get over a 10% increase in endurance capacity and almost a 10% increase in power production as well. So it turns out that you can actually combine high intensity interval training session. You can do it at the same time as you do strength training, and you can kind of get the best of both worlds. So the title of the study was Maximal strength power and Aerobic Endurance Adaptations to Concurrent Strength and Sprint Interval training. And concurrent training refers to that combination of cardio and strength. When you see that in literature, that's typically what it refers to. So you can have your cake and eat it too.

So is that sort of the backbone of something like CrossFit?

You know, it is somewhat similar to CrossFit, you know, doing some metabolic style training at the same time that you do your strength training. So yeah, absolutely. And you know, like the previous study that we looked into that we just got done talking about, that doesn't mean that you combine like body weight circuits, like lighter weight, higher rep circuits with high intensity interval training. It's looking like from both these studies that really to get the most bang for your buck and to kind of get the ultimate workout, you combine heavier lifting with some metabolic sets thrown in during the heavier lifting. And as long as you don't overdo it, it really gives you some pretty cool performance improvements.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's the key there. Like that just sounds like a recipe for overtraining to me in some ways. But if you can keep it under control, you can really make some gains.

Yeah, and that's where you look at say like a crossfitter, like you mentioned, Brock, that's a great workout done two to three times a week. But once you take a crossfitter, and I've worked with several, and you start to track heart rate variability, which is a really, really good way to track the response of the nervous to a workout. You find that you tend to have a really hard time keeping your heart rate variability and your nervous system recovered once you exceed about three CrossFit workouts a week. So yeah, the stuff is good, but only done in moderation. And in between each of those tough days, you just do some yoga, some light swimming, some easy kind of fat burning type of workouts, that type of thing. That's a really good mix versus doing something very, very metabolically intensive every day. And then another thing I wanted to mention was antioxidants. And this was a really good study over at our friend Mark Sisson's Mark's daily Apple website, where he asked whether antioxidant supplements are effective and looked at a lot of the studies that have been done on whether or not antioxidants actually work. And there were a few things that it really depends on. It depends on how much oxidative stress you have, for one. So he mentioned how giving antioxidant supplements to people who have elevated oxidative stress markers, such as cardiovascular heart disease patients, actually worked, whereas folks who had lower amounts of oxidative stress. That doesn't really seem to do much benefit for it depends on age.

That makes sense if you don't know.

I mean, that one makes really move really good sense. But it also depends on age. So for example, in elderly exercisers, antioxidants seem to enhance the effects of exercise, whereas they don't seem to have as big of an effect upon younger folks who are exercising. It depends on your body composition. So what they found was that obese and overweight people who use antioxidants tend to respond better to them when it comes to fat loss and response to exercise versus folks who aren't overweight and obese. And then they also found that the more antioxidants that you take, the higher your tolerance for greater exercise intensities. Meaning that even though antioxidants have been shown in many studies to either not affect exercise or even to reduce the effects of exercise, once you get into high intensity interval training and very metabolically intensive exercise, that's when antioxidants tend to give benefit. So what most of the studies are pointing to, because I know there's this question that goes back and forth about should I take antioxidants? Should I not? Are they going to reduce the effects of exercise? Are they not? What it turns out to be is that if you are a unhealthy with a high level of oxidative stress from toxins, pollutants, unhealthy diet, being overweight and having a lot of the inflammation produced from fat cells, that type of thing. Antioxidants seem to help in that situation. They also seem to help out in a situation where you are dumping a bunch of oxidative stress on your body from a very high level of exercise or a very intense level of exercise, you know, like Ironman triathlon training or, you know, a ton of, you know, like CrossFit sessions, that type of thing. However, if you're a healthy person who's not overdoing it on exercise, you know, maybe you're doing 30 to 60 minutes of smart exercise per day, not beating up your body too much, not creating a lot of oxidative stress. In that situation, you might actually not be the person who benefits from antioxidants. What I've personally started doing with antioxidants based off of all the studies that have been coming out, is I dose with them accordingly. So on an easy recovery day, like, let's say, a day where I maybe have a yoga session and a light swim, I don't use. For example, one of the brands of antioxidants that I use is this little packet shot that was designed by my doctor called Life Shots. And it's just a mix of 12 different wild plant extracts that help to protect your body from environmental stressors. Well, on an easy day, I don't really need to be taking that type of thing. And it turns out, based on research on antioxidants, that that may actually blunt some of my body's ability to be able to step up its own antioxidant production. Especially on an easy day where I don't need those. But on a very stressful day, on a day where perhaps I am drinking a bunch of chlorine that's been dumped into my municipal water supply, or on a day where I've been, for example, flying on an airplane, doing a lot of travel in a big city with toxins and pollutants, stuff like that, that's when I will say, okay, this is going to be an antioxidant dosing day, and that's when I'll take it. So I think that's what people need to realize is if you have some kind of a supplement that has antioxidants in it, you don't need to use it every day. It would just be one of those things where you kind of. You pull it out and dose as needed on the days where you are experiencing a higher than normal level of oxidative stress.

I've actually been using it when I've had a couple of drinks and then like right before bed, I'll just pound this stuff. This company called Rain International sent me some stuff called Soul that I've been. I've been using occasionally after a couple of drinks, right before bed, thinking that might help clean things up a little bit.

Nice. Sounds like a very emotional antioxidant.

So it is. Yeah, it's very gentle. Hippie.

Do you weep when you take it?

A little bit, yeah.

Yeah, just a little. Little tear.

Just. Just one single tear down my left cheek.

Here comes the rain. Okay, so the last Thing is, I wanted to mention to folks that Wellness fx, the company that I do consulting for, they send me a lot of their, you know, triathletes and crossfitters and folks like that to look at their blood and biomarkers. They have what's called a performance panel, which they, they look at a lot of different performance parameters in athletes like testosterone, triglycerides and cholesterol, inflammation, hscrp, thyroid, blood sugar, liver health, kidney health, and then some of the things that athletes tend to be deficient in or have issues with like dhea, sex hormone binding, globulin, cortis, insulin, vitamin D, magnesium. The price of that panel used to be $699 and they just dropped it to $479. So that's their new price. I'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 276 over to their new panel. But it's pretty significant drop in price. So I thought I'd let our listeners know. It's primarily just for the U.S. but for us listeners, you may want to check out that Wellness F panel. And when you get tested, you can actually request me as your consultant, your friendly neighborhood blood consultant, if you want me to take a look at your results. So there you go.

Special announcements.

So, Brock, you just actually featured an interview in the Ben Greenfield fitness app. Can you tell me a little bit about it? Because I actually haven't listened in yet.

Yeah, well, it's a fellow named Troy Delaney who's from a company called Evolved ns. They make a huge line of supplements. They've got all kinds of stuff. Well, he actually sent a bunch of stuff to you and I a few months ago. And I decided instead of just sitting around talking about how awesome their company is and all that kind of stuff, that I'd actually pick his brain about how supplements are made, how you can get some extra quality control in there, what the steps are to actually get certified as like different certifications for the supplements and all that kind of stuff. Basically put them through the ringer on everything that he's learned from starting this supplement company about.

You grilled him.

We should probably know. I totally grilled him. Yeah.

Cool.

It was good. He knows his stuff and it was pretty informative.

Well, it's very, very difficult to actually get access to those kind of interviews. I'll tell folks how you do it. First you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com app or you go to the itunes store and just search for Ben Greenfield. And then you pay the enormous amount of nothing and download the app and that's it.

That's pretty complicated.

So the Ben Greenfield fitness app is totally free. It gives you access to a bunch of extra interviews that we do, as well as just like having the show notes and all the podcasts kind of all in one place. We've got a Google version, or what do you call it? An Android version. What do the kids call it these days? The Android. And an itunes version or iPhone version. Super easy. Again, free. If you don't have the app yet, you should grab it. And yeah, like Brock. Brock has that new interview on kind of like, you know, the supplements 101 and how they're made in there. And there's a ton, Hundreds and hundreds of other podcasts and insider stuff inside the app. So check it out.

It integrates really well with your premium subscription, too. You just put in your username and password, and all of a sudden, boom, you've got access to everything if you're a premium member.

Yep. So check that out. And what else? Oh, you know what is sitting right in front of me that I. I'm actually. I'm holding it now. You hear that? That is the. The brand new copy of Beyond Training. It has actually shipped. I have, like an advanced copy because I wrote it, so they sent me an advanced copy. They were kind enough to do that. Beautiful book, though, if I don't say so myself. It looks like according to the inside cover here, it's retailing for $29.95. If you pre order off Amazon, I think you get for like $10 cheaper than that. And you can, of course, go over to BeyondTrainingBook.com and as it says on the inside cover. Let me read this to you, Brock. Oh, and by the way, in the acknowledgments, it says Brock Armstrong. Thanks to Brock Armstrong, my sidekick on the podcast and trusted go to man for strange tasks. Delightful. But here's what it says. For those of you who don't know about this book, let me open it. It says, this book is for every high achiever, exercise enthusiast, weekend warrior, gym junkie, biohacker, and health nut who wants to achieve amazing feats of physical, mental, and lifestyle performance without destroying their body, mind, and life. So there you go.

I like how inclusive that list is.

Extremely.

I don't think you missed anybody.

Nobody. So there you go. Check it out. Beyondtrainingbook.com it's real. I'm actually holding it, so it must be real. I wasn't lying. The book was actually written and it's here now. So check that out. Grab that. And what else? We've got the Men's Health contest.

Yeah, yeah, I checked yesterday. I haven't looked today. And somebody's actually ahead of you in the votes.

How many votes do they have?

I think it was like 319 or something.

We gotta mobilize, folks. So if you want to vote for me to be named by Men's Health as a fitness professional who is a top mind in the field and potentially be the next big name in fitness, head over to BenGreenFeldFitness.com MensHealth do us a solid and vote over there. Vote multiple times. You can vote every day. I just leave the little browser window open and go in there and vote every day. So check that out@BenGreenfieldFitness.com MensHealth and anything else, Brock I think that is. Oh, one other thing about the book. I've got a bunch of free hidden chapters in the book, audio downloads, extra videos and stuff totally free over on our BitTorrent page at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Torrent now, if these are too many URLs for you to remember, just hover to our show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 276. That's really all you need to remember because everything we talk about and also all the resources we give out for our questions and stuff like that, the links to the studies we talked about, everything is over there. So if you have an app, you.

Don'T even have to remember that much. You just fire up the app and click on the episode.

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Listener Q and A.

Hey Ben and Brock, I'm Robert from South Texas and I need some help maintaining wellness at work. I'm a police officer and believe it or not, we're not as active as one might think or I even imagined when I signed up because policing is very retroactive and unfortunately sometimes I'll spend up to seven hours sitting in the car. It's a cramped up cockpit full of radios, antennas, computers and then personal gear, guns and tasers. I'M worried specifically about the EMF pollution, posture problems. I got to constantly turn to the right to type on the computer. Sitting. And of course the poor diet, circadian rhythm thing, it's all out of whack as well. Getting up and getting out of the car, it's not always practical. And especially it's not safe for me to kind of walk around and start doing burpees in the middle of a parking lot or some parking garage. Personally, I'm on a ritual inspired, plant based, vegan type diet. I'm into running. I do a lot of that. Like a lot of the other social sports, the kickball, some of the obstacle races and things like that. But you know, sometimes I'll go a whole shift without eating though, because we're just so busy or it's not practical for me to pack my lunch. Sometimes I'll ride my bicycle to work trying to get some help, but you know, I can't carry a big old lunch bag with all my other equipment on the bike. So any help you can give me. I appreciate that, Robert. Thank you very much.

I appreciate. I think it's kind of fun that Robert alluded to it, but he didn't actually come out and say anything about donuts.

Mmm, donuts.

Because really you can't think of policemen being lazy without picturing donuts.

And a little cup of like Dunkin Donuts. Coffee.

Yeah, some really terrible coffee.

Really terrible. Like gas station coffee and a styrofoam cup. Yeah. You know, there's so many different directions that we could go with this question because there's obviously, you know, like Robert talks about EMF exposure and poor sleep and erratic diets. But you know, one of the things that really kind of leaps out at me here, that that's probably pret. Pretty palatable for everybody listening is Robert has to spend a lot of time in his car.

Seven hours, man. Yeah.

Sitting in his car. And like he says he can't just get out of his car and do burpees or, you know, jumping jacks or squats. And so what I wanted to talk about a little bit here was just ways that you could get fit if you are stuck in your car, you know. And there was this really interesting recent study that came out that I'll link to in the show. Notes that the title of the study is that alternating bouts of sitting and standing attenuates postprandial glucose response. What that means in a nutshell is that what they had folks do was they just on an eight hour workday had them alternate between 30 minutes of sitting and 30 minutes of standing using an electric height adjustable workstation. And what they found was that in the group that did the 30 sitting followed by the 30 standing for eight hours versus the group that just sat for eight hours, the group that did the sitting and the standing had much better blood glucose response, especially blood glucose response to the foods that they were eating during the day. So I wish they'd had a third.

Group that was just standing because there's actually part of me that thinks that maybe the sitting and standing combination might actually be better than the straight up standing.

Yeah. Because you're moving around.

Even though that's what I do all day, I stand all day, but I. I get the feeling sometimes I should sit occasionally.

Yeah. Sit down, stand up, kneel, lunge. Yeah. I mean, like, I go through all sorts of positions during a typical workday. I don't just like stand there all day long, which can actually be bad for your back and lead to varicose veins and all sorts of stuff. Like, I'm in all sorts of different positions throughout the day. Like right now, I've got one leg down, I'm in my flamingo position. I've got one leg down on the ground, one leg kind of way up on the desk and my head's tucked into my left armpit.

Tucked under your wing. I get really up by the end of the day. I get such tender tootsies when I spend the entire time standing. That's my biggest concern.

I don't know what a tootsie is in Canada. I can only imagine. The question is, can you still get the upregulation of fat burning enzymes like lipase and some of the control of blood sugar by moving and doing things in your car? And I would imagine, even though studies haven't been done on it, that the answer is yes, you can definitely still engage some muscles, bump up the metabolism a little bit, do some postural type of exercises and still get fit while you're sitting in a car. And I've got some ideas for Robert and the rest of our listeners on ways that you can do that. So the first would be by using isometrics, which are contractions of a muscle without actually moving the joint. And some of the better isometrics that you could do in the car would be, first of all, you put your hands on top of the steering wheel and you do a push down. So obviously the steering wheel isn't going to move or I would, I'd hope it's not going to move. If you snap off the steering wheel of your police car, my apologies. But you, you do push downs so that straight arms or slightly bent elbows, preferably keep your elbows higher than your wrists and your hands. And you do a push down to engage the lats and the chest. You can also do bicep squeezes, where you grip either side of the steering wheel and just basically squeeze as hard as possible. Or even hold underneath the steering wheel and squeeze up as though you were doing a bicep curl. And then the last isometric exercise that you should try is a chest fly, where you've got one hand on either side of the steering wheel, you're contracting your chest and you're doing like a fly type of motion to crush the.

Steering wheel between your hands.

Exactly. So steering wheel isometrics, push downs, hands on top of the steering wheel, bicep squeezes, hands underneath the steering wheel, and then chest flies, hands on either side of the steering wheel.

And how long would you hold those for?

Usually isometrics. It's pretty good to go. Anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. That's a good length of time. That's going to give you a pretty solid workout. How many reps just, I mean, like, you could do one rep. You could do. It kind of depends on how long you're sitting there, case in the joint or whatever it is you're doing when you're sitting in your police car or driving. Body weight resistance would be another really good one where instead of using the steering wheel, you're just moving your body. So one is the elbow squeeze where. And this one you'd have to let go of the steering wheel for. So not while you're actually driving, but if you're just sitting in the car.

Steer with your knees.

That's right, steer with your knees. Or do this in a stop car. Or if you're a passenger, you can do this. You just take both of your elbows, you touch them in front of your body, and you squeeze together as hard as possible. So you should feel a chest contraction when you do this. A pec contraction.

I like how I could hear you doing that.

Yeah. Hitting my microphone. Spazzing out here, what I call a commuter crunch, where you simply sit up as tall as possible, slightly arch your back, and then go through a crunch motion all the way down until you're into as much of a crunch as you can get, and then you slowly come back up while resisting with your low back. So. So it's just a basic seated crunch. Same as you would do if you were using, like a seated crunch machine in the weight room, except you're using your own body for resistance. And if you really do resist yourself, you'll. You'll feel this one and then another one. That'll especially help out Robert if he's having to, like, reach to the right to use his computer in the car and kind of twist his torso one way. It would just be a basic torso twist where you. You put your arms kind of, or your elbows at your side and you twist your torso in one direction, twist your torso in another direction, and again, really resist. And you should feel how you can use your own body weight for resistance as you twist side to side. So for bodyweight resistance, best three exercises, the elbow squeeze, the commuter crunch, and the torso twist. So that would be number two. Number three would be deep core exercises. So for deep core, what I'd recommend is, first of all, the infamous Kegel exercise, which is where you squeeze all those little muscles that you would squeeze if you're trying to stop the flow of urine. I would hope that our listeners aren't forced into situations where they frequently have to stop the flow of urine, but if that is the case, you should know how to use those muscles. They're also used in other situations, of course, and we will keep this podcast pg. But Kegel exercises, squeezing those kind of like urinary type of muscles as hard as possible, holding for about 10 seconds and then releasing. So that's number one. Number two would be again, the infamous glute squeeze, where you're just squeezing your butt as hard as possible, holding for about 10 seconds and releasing.

I believe it's a clench.

A clench, not a squeeze. And then the last one would be the pelvic tilt, where you're simply tilting your pelvis back and then tilting it forward, basically getting blood flow going to the pelvis, kind of holding it in a tilted Forward position for 5 to 10 seconds, then slowly moving into a tilted back position, holding that. And all of our listeners who are driving right now should be able to be practicing these if we cause a.

Lot of absence rhythmic thrusts with their pelvis while they're doing it.

If we get news in the newspaper or the TV that lots of fit people have been driving off the road. This is probably due to this podcast. So that's number three is deep core exercises. Number four would be neck isometrics. I used to do a lot of these when I was trying to get a thicker neck for bodybuilding. I to used. Used a towel for resistance, but you could use your hands for resistance if you wanted to. And this is simply doing a front contraction where you're putting resistance on your forehead and trying to look down as hard as possible. Resisting that and then putting your hands or a towel on the back of your head and doing backwards neck isometrics. And then of course also you can put the resistance on either side of your head and do side isometrics to one side or the other. So that's another really good one is neck isometrics.

That's a good one for all you turkey necks out there.

Yes. And if you get a headache, you're pressing too hard, then the, the last thing I would recommend, and this is something that I'll toss into my car when I know I'm going somewhere and I'm gonna be stuck in traffic for a while, like, you know, la, for example. And I've. I've got one in my truck and one out in the, out in our RAV4 also. And that's a powerless lung. And this is something that we talked about a couple weeks in a podcast with the folks who designed this resisted breathing device. But you can literally wells. Yeah, exactly. You can do 10 reps of 3 seconds out, 3 seconds in using like this, this power lung. And it's a spring loaded resisted breathing device. And we actually have. They give all of our listeners a 25% discount on power lung. What you do is you go to the PowerLung website. We'll link to that over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com 276 and the code is BGF as in Ben Greenfield Fitness 025. So BGF 025 you can get 25 discount on power long. I recommend their. I think it's called their sport model, I believe.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's the green one.

Yeah, the green one is really good. Like you get a really decent amount of resistance.

Yeah, it's really hard.

It is tough if you jack the resistance all the way up. I mean you can go blue in the face. I'll use it on an airplane sometimes too. I've found that after an airplane flight, if I use it while I'm waiting for the plane to deboard, just like again, 10 reps of about 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out. I feel way better when I get off the plane. It almost like re oxygenates your body. So throw a power lung.

I like doing that.

Yeah, it works well. Throw a power lung in your glove box. I mean, next best thing is you could just use box breathing, like do deep diaphragmatic breathing box. Breathing is like 5 second inhale, hold for 5 seconds, 5 second exhale, that type of thing. But really like a resisted breathing device, like a powerlung would work much better too.

Or stop at McDonald's and get a straw.

I was gonna say suck through your straw. We're on the same wavelength. The little tiny plastic straw that you have in your cheapo coffee cup, that's another option.

Oh yeah, there you go. Dunkin Donuts has em.

So there you go. You got steering wheel isometrics, body weight resistant exercises, exercises, deep core exercises, neck isometrics and then resisted breathing. I'll put this list in the show notes over@bengreenfoldfitness.com 276 for Robert and all of our other police officer listeners to listen into. And there we've done our work to stop crime for the day.

Brock, nice.

Hi Ben, this is Jean. I have a question. I was wondering if people are affected differently physiologically by alcohol. My husband and I will have wine in the evening sometimes and if I overdo it, I am a completely different person than I am normally. I get more argumentative and I'm just one of those people that can't overdo it. Whereas he's just somebody that is, you know, he'll just fall asleep. Whereas it really negatively affects me. I also have to be honest, a concern that if I have one glass of wine I want two and so on, so on. He's the same way, I guess. But for me it seems to be harder to control. I'm not somebody that I wouldn't consider myself to be an alcoholic. I don't drink every day or anything like that. But it's definitely more of an effort for me to say just have one glass compared to my husband. And I also feel that there are definitely some negative consequences if I just say decide, oh, who cares and just decide to have more than I should. I just wanted to see if there is a different way that alcohol physically affects people and if there are some people like me possibly that just plain old shouldn't drink because of maybe a genetic issue or so I just wanted to get your thoughts on that and then also maybe some tips on if you're going to have one, making it just one. I look forward to hearing your response. Bye.

I think I fall into the same category as Gene. I get a little grumpy sometimes when I'm drinking.

Aggressive.

Yeah, I'm the guy who pokes you in the chest, goes hey, hey, yeah.

Yeah, you're the guy who I Punch in the face?

Pretty much, yeah. It's happened a couple of times.

So the effects of alcohol are definitely going to be different from person to person. And that's just because alcohol is metabolized differently in people. So genetics is one thing that will affect this. And any of us who have hung out with folks of, for example, Eastern Asian heritage when drinking know that, that they have lower levels of alcohol dehydrogenase, sometimes non existent levels of that. And they can get very red in the face and drunk or nauseous, or get a rapid heartbeat very, very quickly when drinking alcohol. And it can actually make drinking fairly unpleasant if you tend to come from that population. And this is just a genetic difference in the amount of enzymes that are produced. And people from different ethnic groups can have higher or lower rates of alcohol related problems depending on the type of enzymes that they produce for metabolizing alcohol. So there's actually three different enzymes. It's not just alcohol dehydrogenase. I forget the names of the other enzymes. But what it comes down to is that your genetics may affect your ability to break down alcohol or how fast or slow you metabolize alcohol. Interestingly, 23andMe genetic testing kind of allows you to do something like look into your rate of caffeine metabolizing. As far as I know, they don't reveal anything about alcohol metabolizing. But there is an interesting study out there that shows that there is a specific gene that you have. It's the same gene responsible for your response to smoking behavior and your response to nicotine. And what that gene shows is that that some people have a greater, almost like addiction to nicotine than others. And it's based on a specific genotype. It's a gene called RS105 something something.

Catchy.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I would have named it. And what they found is that when you have both copies of a specific part of this gene, that you tend to be more easily addicted to nicotine and more easily addicted to alcohol and be at a higher risk of abusing actually a genetic signature that you can look at in 23andMe and I can link over to exactly which it's called a SNP or an snp. I can tell you exactly which one that is. You can get 23andMe.com genetic testing and go see if you happen to have two copies of that specific marker. And you would know if you happen to be one of those people who might be more prone to alcohol abuse. So there's. That weight is going to affect things Obviously. So the extent of alcohol's effect on the central nervous system is going to depend on how much alcohol is in your blood. And generally the lower your body weight, the less blood you have and the less water you have in your blood. So the more water you have in your blood and the more blood you have, period, the more diluted alcohol that you drink is going to be. And so the smaller that you are, the more that alcohol is going to affect you. Which is one reason that women are going to be more affected by alcohol. Another reason is that women tend to simply metabolize alcohol a little bit more slowly, so alcohol stays in their body for a long period of time. And there are certainly some women that can drink meat under the table. So I don't know that this is universally true. Like when I went to Poland for my brother's wedding, there were 80 year old grandma is drinking me under the table over there. Just because of their tolerance and the extent to which they, you know, vodka for example, is a stable part of their culture. But generally because of weight, smaller size, less water and less blood overall, women tend to be able to handle alcohol a little bit less than men. Age affects things as well. As you get older, you get a higher fat to muscle ratio generally you tend to have lower blood volume and less body water generally. And so any given amount of alcohol is going to result in a higher concentration of alcohol in your blood compared to say, like a younger person who might weigh the same as you. So this can also mean that the older you get, the less you're going to find you're able to tolerate alcohol. Again, there is that salty old person stereotype that I think probably would defy this. But, but in most cases, the older that you get, especially once you get above about 65, you're gonna find that you might feel your drinks a little bit more just because of less water in the blood and less blood volume overall. So that's another thing to think about. The amount of food in your stomach is obviously gonna affect things. Any type of medications like blood thinners or even if you're doing a high dose fish oil, you're gonna be more prone to feeling alcohol because your blood's gonna be thinner, or a lot of antidepressant or anti anxiety drugs can affect this as well. So the type of medications that you take are going to affect your alcohol tolerance also. So ultimately there are definitely some people who, based on their genetics, based off of specific gene markers, based off their sex, based off their weight, based off their age, are going to respond different physiologically to alcohol. One of the tips that I would give you, however, if you tend to have a really hard time having just one drink, would be to come at this from a dopamine perspective. So what that means is that a lot of times substance abuse is based off of you looking for that increase in dopamine that you get when you take any given amount of the substance, alcohol, nicotine, whatever. And there is actually a specific compound called Mucuna dopamine, also known as L dopa that you can get in supplement form. And a lot of times it's used to help with sleep or with insomnia. It can use to simply trigger good feelings. So it can be used for depression like symptoms, but it can also be used to almost give you that same feeling that you'd get if you were like, eat chocolate, eat carbs, drink alcohol, like things that tend to be common food or drink based stimulants for people. And you can take L dopa at a time that you would normally be wanting to use alcohol, like say like at night after work, maybe an hour after dinner or half hour before dinner or something like that. You can get a dopamine release that replaces what you're looking for from that substance. And you can get L Dopa. You know, it's just a natural herbal remedy. You can order that stuff off of Amazon, for example, and I'll put a link in the show notes. But it can be used as an alternative to caffeine, to alcohol, alcohol, to really any stimulant that's going to give you that dopamine fix. So it's just basically stimulating the dopamine producing neurons in your brain. So I wouldn't overuse this stuff, but it's something that you could at least experiment with a little bit to see if that helps you out. So it's called Mucuna Dopa or L Dopa, and that's something that you could certainly try.

Hi, this is Summer from Eastern Oregon, and my question is about GI distress. I've had all sorts of problems in that direction since about 2008, which is when I started running anything over two or three miles. I've read what you have to say about FODMAPS and I think that's useful. But I currently went or I recently went to Uganda and I had to be on a malaria medication. And it's a weekly, it's methylaquin, so I take it weekly. And it's crazy because right after I take it I feel really great. I can run without issues. But by the end of the week, right before my next dose, I'm right back to where I started. And so I'm wondering what that says about my GI problems. And I appreciate your input and thank you very much. And I also want to say that I think Brock is amazing too.

Thank you.

Thanks Summer. I think you're amazing too.

Summer. Brock, Love festival. Let's answer the question here. Don't get too carried away. I'm just jealous I didn't get a shout out. So anyways, yeah, this Mefloquin is pretty nasty stuff. It's better known as Lariam, but it has some really weird effects on mental health. And it's actually described by some doctors as a modern day Agent Orange because of its toxicity. So a lot of times they'll give this stuff to like soldiers or people who are going to like sub Saharan Africa or parts of Latin America or Southeast Asia or areas where malaria is a concern. But like the US military has actually banned Lariam on safety grounds because of hallucinations, psychotic behavior, suicidal inclinations, and then also physical side effects that range from everything from internal bleeding to liver damage to lung damage. So there are neurological issues it can cause, there are psychiatric issues, there are gut issues that would lead me to not recommend this stuff as like the top thing to use as an anti malarial and that you can actually go and look up and read, read a bunch of stories of like military suicides and murders and incidents of self harm directly linked to the use of this anti malarial. So I'm not a huge fan of the stuff. There are pharmaceuticals that are typically prescribed for malaria that are safer. A lot of times they're more expensive. Like you can Pay up to $4 per tablet for the stuff. But like Mallourone is one popular one and that's basically atovaquone or pro guanyl hydrochloride. But the brand name typically is Mallourone. That's a pretty good alternative to larium doxycycline. It's an antibiotic. It's been proven effective in preventing malaria. I'm not a huge fan of antibiotics for a variety of reasons when it comes to gut flora, but I mean even that would be safer than this stuff. You know, there, there are some, some natural alternatives that you could go after for malaria as well. And I'll address the gut issues here in a second and kind of like what you can do, you know, even people who aren't on an anti malarial who are listening in, who just want to address gut issues when they're running. I definitely have some ideas for you and we'll get into, into that in a little bit. But first, let's talk about some natural herbal alternatives that have kind of been out there for malaria. So Chinese herbal medicine has used a specific treatment for malaria for thousands of years. And it's basically a sweet wormwood shrub and it's called artemisinin. And you can get this stuff off of like Amazon, for example, as an herb. And, and it's actually regarded as a very good natural drug against malaria. And it's easy to get your hands on. Totally natural, not a lot of side effects from the stuff. And it's appeared on natural websites like Natural News and Mercola as a pretty decent way that you can have an antimalarial and not get a lot of these neuropsychiatric or gut effects of something like a larium or an antibiotic. Now, there are some other things that you can combine with it to help out with its effects. So arginine, a natural amino acid. Again, something that you can easily get off of a supplement website or a health food store. Arginine seems to work very, very well when combined with this stuff as an antimalarial. And then the other thing that seems to work really well when combined with this artemisinin is garlic. So garlic is obviously active against lots of different viruses and fungi and bacteria and cancer. Cancer. But there was specifically a study back in 2001 that revealed garlic has really good potential in fighting malarial infections. Now this is like the fresh garlic, like the stuff with active allicin. So if you're going to use a garlic supplement rather than fresh garlic, use what's called an enteric coated garlic supplement, which is going to allow that active component to not get destroyed by your stomach when you take it. So that's another thing that you could use. And then the other thing that you could just use is like a natural repellent against mosquitoes would be cinnamon oil. And cinnamon oil has been shown to be even more effective than the traditional. I'm blanking on the name of it. Now, the lemongrass, the stuff that you'd see used a lot of like Eastern Asian countries as a way to fight off mosquitoes. Well, cinnamon oil seems to be even more effective at repelling mosquitoes, obviously, which are going to be some pretty good big carriers of malaria. And one of the main ways that you would get exposed to malaria, the cool thing is that garlic is not only effective in fighting malarial infections, but a lot of times when you have garlic kind of coming out your pores, you tend to be less attractive to mosquitoes as well. So that's another kind of bonus for garlic. And I always thought it was interesting whenever we'd go on family vacations, my mom would never get bitten by mosquitoes. And for blood pressure, because she has, her family has genetic high blood pressure, she's always taken garlic and she would never be the person that got bit by mosquitoes. It was really interesting. So garlic is another one that you could look into. I'll put a link to a lot of this stuff over in the show notes. If you want to look into the enteric coated garlic, the artemisinin that you can get as an herb, the arginine and some of these other things. Now, as far as gut issues, if you have gut issues when you're running and you want to figure out how to run longer distances without GI distress, some of the better things that you can do would be, first of all, this FODMAP diet that Summer talks about, the low fodmap diet. A low fodmap diet eliminates what FODMAP stands for, which is, what is it? Fructans, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. So low FODMAP diet, I actually have two whole pages of my new book that I just talked about where I have this full chart of all the FODMAP foods and which ones to avoid. But you could also, you could Google FODMAP diet and print that out, keep it on your refrigerator, kind of start to get familiar with a lot of these FODMAP foods that, that you might do just fine with until you start running and until you start to get this. A lot of this blood flow kind of diverted away from your stomach and that's when fodmaps can start to ferment and cause some issues in your digestive tract. So we're talking about like, you know, onions, garlic, wheat, apples, stuff like that would be things to avoid.

So really they won't bother you at all until you actually start to do some sort of physical activity?

Well, it depends on the person. But I found that with a lot of athletes, the fermentable foods don't bother them until they start to exercise and that's when it becomes an issue. So yeah, so avoiding FODMAPs, just like for example, on your long run days and just eating really simple, you know, like if you're going to do a starch like A white rice or a sweet potato, even a skinned sweet potato without the skin or skinned yam or just really simple foods and you know, even seeds and nuts, some of the fiber and the shards and those can cause issues. So doing something closer to a nut butter and maybe a little bit of sea salt and things of that nature can be much, much better. And that used to be one of my go to pre run meals was sweet potatoes and yams with a little bit of almond butter and sea salt. And now that I'm fat adapted and I've been doing the high fat thing for so long, I don't eat anything before a long run or a long bike ride. You know, sometimes I'll take a little bit of amino acids, so I don't cannibalize lean muscle mass, but that's about it. So the fodmap, the low fodmap thing can help out quite a bit. Colostrum is another biggie, especially if you find that you tend to get gut issues and you live in a hot area. Because colostrum can decrease gut permeability in hot conditions. And anybody who's doing like a, you know, like an Ironman in a, in a hot location like a Cozumel or a Los Cabos or Hawaii or Thailand or something like that, or a marathon in a hot location like Florida or California, colostrum would be way high up the list of supplements to load with for about two weeks prior to going into a run like that. And it can also help to pop some about one to two hours prior to going out for a run. So colostrum has some really cool effects in terms of helping with the lining of your gut. Another one that really I realized it.

Actually had an acute effect, like taking it an hour or two before the race. I thought it was just sort of a healing.

You can take it immediately before you go out. And what it does is it closes the zonulin lining, which is the little cell gaps in the stomach. So it can help out with that a ton. And that's what it does in babies. Colostrum is kind of the precursor or the early milk that you get for a baby. And it helps a baby, baby's leaky gut that they're born with naturally to heal. And it kind of closes up the gut lining. It's why children who grow up on soy milk or milk formula rather than on breast milk tend to have autoimmune issues later on in life because their gut lining never really closes. So they get a lot of undigested Protein particles crossing through the gut into the bloodstream, and it creates allergy and immune issues later on in the life. And a lot of times people who were raised on formulas as kids or as babies, they can fix a lot of issues by using Colostrum as a supplement. So really interesting stuff.

You're not doomed.

You're not doomed.

You were doomed by your damn vegan parents.

Nice. Okay, so another one is L. Glutamine. L Glutamine is another really good one for healing the gut. Acts very similarly to like a bone broth or like a, like a collagen or gelatin powder that you might get off of like Amazon. But L Glutamine, you know, if you didn't want to go out of your way to make bone broth, it's got pretty good effects. You'd want to do anywhere from 1 to 5 grams of the stuff per day. But L Glutamine can help out quite a bit if you tend to get gut issues when you run as well. And that's one that you could use for a series of days. If you tend to have a really low protein diet. You don't do a lot of whey protein protein, you don't do a lot of bone broth. You would probably benefit from using L Glutamine a lot of times. I find folks who get GI issues when they run, they just basically have leaky gut and they need to fix leaky gut syndrome. And then finally, if you want to just take, take out the big guns and just completely overhaul your gut, push the reboot button, fix everything. I recommend a combination of not just colostrum, but also digestive enzymes, really good probiotic complex oregano to kick out any bad bacteria, yeast, fungus, stuff like that. And then slippery elm bark and some other things that help to restore the mucin lining to your stomach. And that's where the, the detox and gut healing pack over at Pacific Elite Fitness is kind of like the ultimate solutions. That one's not, you know, you're looking at like, it's about 180 bucks for like a month, you know, 30 day fix. But that would be if you just want to put your foot down and just fix everything all at once. You use something like that and that's kind of.

You only use that for 30 days and then you're done. It's not like you have to keep buying it every month.

I recommend one to two months for something like that. Yep, exactly. So. So yeah, that would be another solution for you. So those are some of the things that I'd recommend. And I know that we did get a negative review you in itunes this week because they said that we talk about supplements too much. But considering that for since the dawn of mankind, really, folks have been isolating specific nutrients and essential oils from plant derivatives and from the planet earth and from foods, that's kind of better. Living through science and human beings have done it for a long time. So I wish I could just tell you to eat a banana and everything would be good, but that's not the way the world works. So that's my thoughts on that. Whenever somebody says I'm talking about supplements too much, I mean, that's kind of like what this type of stuff is used for.

Yeah. Speaking as the guy who goes through most of the questions that get submitted for this show, I would not be exaggerating it if I said more than 90% of them involve questions about supplement. Supplements.

Yeah. And I mean, like, that's. You know, my degree is in not just exercise physiology and biomechanics, but it has an emphasis. You know, my graduate degree had an emphasis in pharmaceuticals and nutrition science. I have a nutrition certification. You know, this is one of the things that I study. So, you know, if you don't want to hear us talk about foods and supplements, you know, and exercises and stuff like that, go listen to I don't know, what's another podcast?

I don't know. Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais. There you go.

He definitely won't tell you anything about.

Being healthy, although he was hilarious in the Muppet Movie.

He is hilarious. Yeah.

Hi, Ben and Brock. I love the podcast. I'm having some issues that I would like your perspective on. I'm a competitive masters runner who has transitioned into triathlon, mostly the 70.3 and Olympic distances. I swim, bike, and run three times a week for each discipline. And I usually run right after I swim, but without fail, I get migraine headaches a few hours later after the workout finishes. I also have issues with hand swelling while I'm running. I always drink an electrolyte drink while I'm swimming, and usually while I'm running. I've tried different drinks. I've tried electrolyte capsules, but nothing seems to keep the migraines away. And I'm kind of at a loss of what to track. And welcome your perspective. Thanks a lot.

You know, this, to me, Brock, sounds like classic allergy to running. Probably shouldn't run.

Yeah, Yeah, I hate that.

I sometimes feel like I'm allergic to running, too.

I'm more allergic to swimming, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Some people are allergic to exercise in general. Get very swollen hands when they move. It sounds to me like if. If she didn't have this issue when she was doing a master's running, but she started to get it when she transitioned into swimming, that this is most likely something that's been on the top of my mind lately, a chlorine sensitivity issue. So, first of all, early on in the show, when I was talking about the fact that my water, my local municipal water supply has been heavily chlorinated, I would do some of those things that I'm doing, doing. You know, like we had a podcast where I interviewed a guy named Dr. David get off. And the title of that podcast was how to Reduce the Risk from Swimming in Chlorinated Pools and Drinking Chlorinated Water. Well, one of the first things I did when I got home and saw that notice on my door from the. From the Pasadena Park Irrigation District about the chlorine in our water was I went back to the show notes for that episode and read through that them and the biggest, biggest things in the show notes for that one. And I'll link to them if you want to go check them out or if you want to go listen to the episode. Vitamin C was hugely recommended as one of the top things. And I have a collated form of vitamin C that doesn't cause a lot of the issues that isolated ascorbic acid cause. It's made by a company called American Nutraceuticals. I started taking that immediately at 10 grams a day. So I do 5 grams in the morning, 5 grams in the evening, and I'll keep doing that until the chlorinated water has kind of worked its way out of our water supply for sure. Without a doubt, the antioxidants. I mentioned earlier that this would be one of those cases where antioxidants would be something to do. And if you wanted to see if you for some reason are not producing enough antioxidants naturally, and maybe in many cases like that, it's because you need a liver detox or because you've got some gut issues, like the leaky gut issues that we just got done talking about. Direct Labs, for example, a lab testing company here in the States, they have what's called a metametrix ion panel, and that allows you to test and see which antioxidants you might not actually have adequate levels of and that you might be able to fix by addressing through. From a supplementation standpoint. So that metametric Scion panel can help out if it's just you not producing enough natural antioxidants. You know, if you're able to hunt down a pool that's got like ozone as it, as its primary cleaner. There's, there's another form of filtration called grander, grander water that, that would be really good, but unfortunately it's tough to find a pool, especially in, in like, I've found like colder climates. A lot of pools in like Florida or California, they'll use like saline.

Yeah, we've got a couple of saline pools in Toronto, but yeah, they're like few and far between.

Exactly.

Literally. There's a couple.

Yeah. And in my new house, I'm building an endless pool and I'm gonna be cleaning that with an ozonator. But ultimately if you're stuck with chlorine, you just gotta try some of these other methods. So antioxidants? Yes. Vitamin C. Yes. The only other thing I'd mention that I haven't mentioned yet is some type of binder. You know, charcoal is one. The issue with charcoal is a lot of times it will absorb a lot of other nutrients from the foods or supplements or other things that you might be taking. Chlorella is more expensive than charcoal, but won't cause a lot of those issues. Chlorella is a really good binder. It can bind chlorine. It, it's something you'd find in like a green supplement. A lot of green supplements out there. Like Energy bits, for example. The company Energy Bits, one of the little bite size green tablets that they make is called recovery bits. And recovery bits is just 100% organic cracked cell wall chlorella. And that one would be a pretty decent one to use for something like this.

When you say binder, you mean it actually like literally binds to the bad stuff in your body and then sort of ushers it out.

Exactly. So it's, it's pretty popular like a liver detox. If you've been exposed to the chlorine, stuff like that, that's another one that would help out quite a bit.

It's like the bouncer at the nightclub that grabs on and takes you out of the, out of the club when.

You'Re, when you've been drinking too much like broth and walking around and poking people. Yep, exactly. Hey you. So there you go. Those are some of the things I would look at. We'll, we'll link to that previous podcast on chlorine with Dr. David. Get off in the show notes for.

You as well, if I may, I want to interject just because I actually coached two different swim classes this very week, and at both of them there was the issue of craning the neck in a very odd fashion while swimming, and it seems like that could potentially lead to some head. Now, I don't know if our caller has had her stroke analyzed or had anybody watching her, but getting your neck into that weird position where you're not looking down at the bottom of the pool, you're sort of looking straight ahead, maybe you need to pay attention to the other people in the pool. And also when you're taking a breath, just lifting your head just way too high out of the water could add to some neck strain, which could potentially be giving you some headaches.

That's a really good point. And you know, one of the better tools I've found to help out with neck position in swimmers is just like a front mounted snorkel. So that's something that you could use to kind of train yourself how to look slightly forward while swimming without having to worry about the breathing issue getting in the way. So, yeah, that's a really good point, Brock.

Thanks.

Hi Ben and Brock, it's Oona calling from Ottawa. Is there a supplement regime that won't aggravate an arrhythmia? I was diagnosed with Wenkebach heart blood, supraventricular tachycardia and atrial flutter in 2003, but I had a catheter ablation procedure in 2009 to correct it. But my heart can still sometimes get skippy. I have my cardiologist blessing to maintain my run streak and 75 to 100k training weeks are perfectly fine and I'm told I can run as far as I want. Recent Holter monitor tests show that I can go into arrhythmias fairly easily, which I knew because I can set it off drinking ice water, but I'm able to reset the rhythm really quick. My primary triggers were stimulant related, so I stay away from caffeine and cold meds. Having said this, I'm interested in Tianxi or other protocols, but I'm leery of trying anything that might send my heart into overdrive. I've heard mention on the podcast that some stimulants work on different pathways in the body and don't trigger the same response. Considering it was a ginseng caffeine Foti tree supplement that hospitalized me in 2003, I don't want to take any chances. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks guys.

Hey, wanky back, sister. I've got wanke back. So although I didn't have the supraventricular, I've got the. The opposite. I'm bradycardic.

Now Brock, what has been your experience with, with wankeback? Can you explain that to folks?

Well, what happens? The distance between your heartbeats or the Q and the R or maybe CRNY S? I can't remember. Beats of your heart get further and further apart until basically you just drop a beat. But then generally my heart anyway, and it sounds like unna's as well, just starts right back up again and it's fine. I don't actually even notice that it happens. It's not a problem.

Yeah, and central nervous system stimulants like caffeine. Una is right, would definitely be an issue with something like this. And that's actually especially her svt. Yeah, I suspect that when we are looking at for example deaths during the swim of a triathlon, which are a huge issue nowadays, you get that cold water exposure and some of the mammalian dive reflex and that dropping of the heart rate that you get with the cold water exposure. And you combine that kind of cardiovascular stress with the kind of like the trilogy of three things that are huge issue especially in like hard charging endurance athletes or type A folks, folks, you get the combination of A, stress and just hypercortisolism from stress and the effect that that has on the central nervous system. B, any type of stimulants that have been used and these are very, very popular, everything from Red Bull to energy drinks to a bunch of coffee to all these stimulants that have 100 plus milligrams of caffeine in them. And then C, you throw in electrolyte depletion, especially of magnesium. And over 75% of athletes that I see tested using something like that, that wellness FX performance panel I talked about earlier, they're simply deficient their red blood cell. Magnesium is rock bottom or not anywhere close to where it should be. You combine the high cortisol with the central nervous system stimulation with low electrolytes and that is a recipe for arrhythmias, pvc, basically a host of electrical issues with the cardiovascular system. And so going after that trilogy and addressing that first would be the number one way to start if you're concerned about arrhythmias or if you don't want to be one of those, you know, what's the name of the guy that the healthy runner who's like the classic story, the guy who dropped Dead of a heart attack while running. Was it Jim? Vicky, I think his name was.

And I'm not.

No, no.

Yeah, it's on the tip of my tongue. But I'll anyways, it's, you know, we see these healthy people dropping dead of heart attacks during darts exercise or running or swimming. And a lot of times it is that trilogy of caffeine stress and low electrolytes or low magnesium specifically.

So doesn't low magnesium usually goes hand in hand with high potassium or at least a bad ratio? And that's pretty deadly too.

Yeah. And high potassium goes hand in hand with hypercortisolism. So, you know, so once again it all kind of comes full circle. So a few of the things that you can do. First of all, when we look at this from a central nervous system stimulation standpoint. Yeah, obviously avoiding caffeine would be prudent. And yes, Una, there are ways that without central nervous system stimulation, you can naturally increase energy. And that's where adaptogens come in. So adaptogens are a class of plant extracts that help to balance your adrenals, specifically help to slightly increase cortisol when cortisol is too low, such as might be the case with overtraining or adrenal fatigue, or help to decrease cortisol when cortisol is too high. High. They've got some really cool effects. That's why they're called adaptogens, because they adapt to the state that your body is in. So some really well known adaptogens would be like ginseng. That's one that's considered very potent, especially for the cortisol component. Red ginseng in particular is very, very good. If you're not producing enough cortisol, you're adrenally fatigued, you need to produce a little bit more. Holy basil is another. That one is not only a really potent kind of traditional anti aging elixir, but it can also help you fight stress, specifically ash.

I gotta say it. Holy basil, Batman.

Holy basil Ashwagandha or Indian ginseng, that's another one that really helps to ease anxiety and it's been used in eastern medicine for a very long time for not just boosting the immune system, but helping to lower cortisol levels. Astragalus is another immune burster, but it's also an anti stress compound. Licorice, kind of similar to red ginseng, is something that can be good for increasing cortisol if cortisol is low. But again, if you take like licorice and red ginseng in combination with other adaptogens. It's not gonna like throw your cortisol through the roof or something like that. That's not the way that these, these work. So they're really cool in that they, they actually will adapt to the state that your body is in. Rhodiola is another pretty common one along with cordyceps. You see those added a lot of times to endurance. Boosting type of compounds to help with adrenal activation of lung tissue. But they can also help to combat anxiety. So as far as all these adaptogens go. Yes, I've certainly recommended before that Tian Qi Chinese adaptogenic herb complex is something that I take. But you know, you may do even better with something that has no caffeine at all in it. So the TNT has some caffeine and I love that for a little bit of a mid morning boost combined with a lot of these adaptogens. It's very trace amounts of caffeine, but that's a powder. There is a capsule made by the same company called Inner Peace. Inner Peace. Maybe we should play some lulling peaceful music. As I describe Inner Peace, it is a Reishi mushroom fruiting body and spore. Eleuthero root, Rhodiola root, Ashwagandha schizandra, green tea complex, desert broom rape, which actually doesn't sound all that great.

It doesn't sound really good.

No, it doesn't. Broom rape does not sound relaxing. Astragalus root, epimidium leaf, lycium fruit and Chinese licorice root along with a component called Sensoril. So there you go, Inner Peace. First time I took it, I think I slept for like three hours. I took it and then I went to, I took a nap after lunch. I was just out. So if you're stressed out, the stuff really helps out. But inner peace is not something you take right before like a race or at least I, I wouldn't because it's a little bit relaxing. But it's something you could use as like kind of like a daily tonic or a nightly tonic. And I know like Brock, you're taking it now, right?

Yeah, yeah. I tried TNT for, for a couple of months and it never really. It made me feel really unsettled. But I'm, I'm digging the Inner Peace. I usually take it a couple hours before bed. It's nice. It's good.

Inner Peace.

I feel peaceful on the inside.

Peace. The other thing that I would of course do would be to address the mineral intake. So you could do magnesium a Lot of times I found for folks who tend to have more blood pressure over training, adrenal fatigue issues, they do better with almost a full mineral complex like a trace liquid minerals. I just over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com published an article on salt and like the difference between kosher salt, sea salt and iodized salt. That'd be a good one to go read if you want to kind of read up on which type of salt you should be using and the difference in mineral content and especially trace minerals between different types of salts. So go check that out. It's just one of the weekly articles that I write over at Ben Greenfield Fitness. So check that out. I'll link to that one in the show notes too. Those are some of the things that I would definitely go after.

Hi there, Ben and Brock. My name is Chris. I'm a big fan of the show. Actually. I like your show so much that I've just subscribed to be a premium member. My girlfriend has recently been diagnosed as being a hep B carrier. And the doctor says that she's probably been a carrier for over 25 years as she didn't have the vaccination. One thing is the doctor says that she has a 5% chance of ever recovering from hep B, as in not having it anymore. She's done some further lab tests which the doctor recommended and fortunately it says that it's not life threatening so she should carry on life as normal and avoid just certain foods. I think one of them was chili powder. I have no idea why, but anyway, I was hoping that maybe you could recommend some supplements or lifestyle changes you can make in order to get better because I believe that there must be be something she can do to get better.

Well, at least she's just a carrier and she's not actually sick and it's not like life threatening or anything. That seems, that seems pretty good.

Yeah, right there. Yeah, that's, that's great. And I would probably just get a name badge that says that you're a hep B carrier. Wear it with. Wear it with pride.

Exactly. Show it to the people.

A hep B carrier just means you have a hepatitis B surface antigen in your blood. And technically it means you've had that surface antigen in your blood for more than six months. And a lot of people can be hep B carriers and not even know it. I suspect a lot of people who have had, you know, tattoos and things like that may even be hep B carriers simply because needles are one of the ways that you get that I have five tattoos. I could be, for all I know, a hep B carrier. The problem is that if it's an actual active hep B, that's a pretty serious health condition. That's essentially an infection of your liver. And if you don't treat it appropriately, you can get liver failure or, and psoriasis and a lot of nasty effects on one of your body's very important organs. So as far as ways to cure hep B, you know, I don't know if a lot of the things that are traditionally recommended for as a natural remedy for hepatitis B are going to affect you if you're simply expressing the antigen to hepatitis B but don't actually have an active liver infection. However, I can tell you what I know about natural hepatitis B remedies, and these may have an effect on the actual antigen that's being expressed if you're a hep B carrier. So the things that are traditionally recommended are things that we've actually already talked about a little bit on this podcast. Adaptogens like Schisandra specifically, which just is fun to say. Schisandra, Schisandra. Holy basil Batman. Schisandra, Schisandra. Antioxidants like alpha lipoic acid and selenium, those can help to reduce liver enzymes, they can help to reduce liver inflammation, fibrosis, and a lot of the things that are caused by hep B. A lot of things you'll also see recommended are like these Myers cocktails, like high dose vitamin B12 mixed with vitamin D and vitamin D, vitamin C and kind of like a multivitamin complex with some minerals. There are a lot of naturopathic physicians and medical facilities in most towns. And if you were to Google the name of the city that you live in, plus Myers cocktail, a lot of times you can hunt down a Myers cocktail.

And Myers cocktail is like, that's an iv.

Yep, exactly. It is an iv. Yeah. And I personally have not experimented with any of that stuff for hepatitis, hepatitis B, or have any experience working with folks who have hepatitis B. I'm not a doctor. This is technically not to be considered as medical advice, but I'm just throwing out some of the things that I've seen recommended for this. The number one thing, though, that I have seen recommended for effective treatment for all of the different herpes viruses, including hip B, is actually this stuff called bh. And BHT is butylated hydroxytolein. It is an organic compound. It is an extremely potent antioxidant. You can find this stuff on Amazon, for example, There are certain natural things like phytoplankton. Green algae, for example, is highly capable of producing this BHT stick stuff. Sometimes it's actually used as a food additive just because it has such potent antioxidant properties. And using BHT in its supplemental form for hepatitis is something that is actually used by a lot of natural medical practitioners for viral infections that attack the liver. So there's technically hep A all the way through hep E. And all of these are something that BHT is used for by a lot of natural medicine doctors. So that's one to look into. Again, not something that I personally use or have experience with, but I've certainly seen it recommended. And there are two things that I've seen recommended along with it. Lysine is, number one, is just an amino acid you can take and then high dose vitamin C, like a natural vitamin C, like, you know, like 5 to 10 grams per day of like vitamin C. So again, I don't have a ton of experience with hepatitis. If I had a pretty serious liver issue or found out I had hep B, I would certainly be looking into this BHT stuff along with high dose vitamin C and a Myers cocktail. So those are some of the things that I'd recommend. Again, huge disclaimer here. Gosh, especially since that Kevin Trudeau guy got thrown in prison. That makes me nervous whenever I start talking about medical conditions and natural remedies and stuff like that. That guy was obviously also scamming a bunch of people out of lots of money. But I know that one of the reasons that he got thrown in prison was simply because he was talking about natural remedies to fix medical conditions. So that kind of makes me quake in my boots a bit. But ultimately that's what I'd look into is like bht, some lysine, some vitamin C, that type of thing.

Any idea why the doctor might have said not to stay away from chili powder powder because of the nightshade?

I'm guessing it was probably the same deal. Yeah, with like eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, like possibly an autoimmune issue or some type of liver aggravation from nightshades, but I wasn't really sure on that one. Or maybe he just doesn't like Mexican food. I don't know.

Maybe. Yeah, Chris, if you ever find out, let us know because I'm super curious. I actually googled the heck out of that and couldn't find a single reference.

Yeah, really annoying. Speaking of Mexican food, we actually have a review this week entitled Tin Foil and organ meat goodness. Did you see that one?

I didn't.

I like it though. That's good. It's a great title. It's a five star review called Tin Foil and Organ Meat Goodness. It's from Matlock. And by the way, if you guys leave us a review, we. If we read your review on the show and you write us in to Ben greenfieldfitness.com tell us you heard your review, we'll send you the brand new Ben Greenfield fitness gear package. The cool thermal reversible beanie that is actually quite fashionable in both hot and cold weather, the BPA free water bottle, and our sweet tech T shirt that is not like a cotton tent, but is in fact an actual workout shirt that makes you look sexy when you're at the gym and also spreads the good news of BenGreenfieldFitness.com I think it.

Actually accentuates my pictorials.

Yes. Especially when you're doing chest squeezes in your police car. Yes, you can get the gear package@bengreenfieldfitness.com gear. It's 47 bucks for all three of those things. If you were to buy them, street price, you'd be paying closer to 60. So you save a little bit off the cool tech shirt, the fashion beanie in the water bottle, and also when you purchase one of those gear packs, it's huge in terms of supporting this show, so we really appreciate it. And honestly, we've given most of the gear packs away by reading reviews, and unfortunately, not a lot of people have actually been buying the gear pack, probably because we haven't been talking too much about that option. But go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com gear and we'll send you a pack. So, that being said, shall I read it? Yeah, let's listen to what Matlock has to say.

All right. You have to listen regularly to appreciate the title. That's true. Yeah. We do bring up tinfoil hats on very regular occasion, don't we?

And organ meat.

And organ meat. And just organs in general. It is very rare to find a podcast that makes you laugh while hurting your brain at the same time.

Time.

In a world where attention span is very rare, Ben and Brock managed to keep us listening to one hour plus podcasts almost every week. I enjoy listening while I run, even though I know it's not ideal for my performance with the brain working so hard. Keep giving us long, detailed answers to all the questions. Ben and Brock rock. Nice alliteration.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully we're not hurting people's brains. Literally, just figuratively.

I hope that's just because we're making them think, not some sort of aneurysm causing frequency or something.

Exactly. Yeah. So plus he managed to work a rhyme in there. So we gotta gotta give that review away. So nice 5 star review. If you want to leave a review, go over to our itunes page and leave your review over there. Just do a search for Ben Greenfield Fitness on itunes. Be sure to grab the free app app@BenGreenfieldFitness.com app. Be sure to check out the show notes for everything we talk about over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 276 Tune in this weekend for a special interview that we'll be releasing with one of the athletes I coached for Ironman Hawaii. And also be sure to grab the brand new book at Beyond Training. And just a little hint here, I will fill you in on next week's podcast, but you may want to grab multiple copies and take a photograph of yourself holding those multiple copies because we're going to be doing a pretty cool contest next week starting next week that involves you showing off multiple copies of a brand new Beyond Training book. So check that out. And yeah, I think that's it. I'm ready to go. Drink some more chlorine.

Don't do it man. Don't do it.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

It.