Chicken Broth vs. Beef Broth, Home Altitude Training, How To Recover From Overreaching & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. Using baking soda for performance. Is it safe to leave metal plates and metal screws in your body? Chicken broth versus beef broth. What's the best way to do altitude training, how to recover from overreaching, and much more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. That's right, we've already heard him a couple times before we even started recording. And I believe that my rooster may threaten to interrupt us many more times during today's podcast.

So you got yourself a rooster that.

Doesn'T know what time have chickens everywhere. We have a mobile chicken coop and sometimes they're getting out from the chicken coop. But our rooster in particular seems to be a rather confused rooster. His name is Mr. Really Inventive Creative.

Used to be missing part of his name.

No, just Mr. But he crows all day long. Pretty much the entire day. Not just the morning, not just 4am, not just 10pm but just kind of all day long.

So I believe since you started talking about this, I just, I pulled up a. I. I googled why do you roost? Or when do roosters crow? And apparently, apparently they, they will crow at any variety of stimuli. So being fed.

So it's not just that my particular rooster has an effed up circadian rhythm, it's just roosters in general.

Yeah, it even, it says right here, roosters really aren't picky when it comes to excuses for crowing.

Hmm. Well, there you have it. We've shattered a myth about chickens that roosters just crow in the morning. So if you don't learn anything else from today's episode, you now know an interesting fact about roosters news flashes. Well, Brock, roosters crow. But I tweet and over at this one, I know. Twitter.com BenGreenfield Excuse me, I'm losing my voice. I still have too much. I literally just finished my smoothie. I think I've still got smoothie chards floating around my tonsils.

You hear that?

What are you drinking? Scotch on the rocks?

I wish. No, it's a. I've been cold brewing coffee in my French press, so I actually like put all the grounds in, put all the water in, and then just put it in the fridge for like A few hours.

Yeah.

And it's so good.

Less acidic too.

It's totally. Yeah, it's so smooth. It doesn't get bitter. Like if you make regular coffee and then just put it in the fridge. If you actually cool it while it's brewing, it's so smooth.

Yeah, no, I'm a fine scotch fan of cold brew. Anyways, though, a few things that I, that I tweeted out this week that might be of interest to those of you listening in. The first is about baking soda and.

You'Re obsessed with baking soda.

Well, I thought this was kind of interesting because, well, here I was, I was speaking with someone about this this weekend at the Train to Hunt competition, which I competed in. I think I mentioned last week I was going to compete in it after. Well, I'm going to be releasing a podcast this Saturday with more details, but after nearly killing several small forest animals and hikers with stray arrows, I, I managed to eke out a third place in the competition. But it was very, it's very, very intense. Right. Like, whereas a Spartan race might last, you know, an hour up to, to five plus hours, or, you know, a triathlon two hours to 10 plus hours, these events are very, very fast. We're talking like, you know, five minutes to 20 minutes of just like super duper high, high intensity, similar to like a CrossFit wad, for example. And in a sense.

So is it one of those things, like not everybody sort of starts all at once, like you, you go one at a time kind of thing.

There are heats, so, and the heats are relatively small, you know, three to five individuals competing in a heat. So the reason that I was having, the reason I bring this up is, um, we're talking about buffering lactic acid and the fact that especially for these shorter, more sprint like competitions, sodium bicarbonate has a great deal of research behind it in terms of its ability to buffer the lactic acid and the hydrogen ions that build up during extremely difficult efforts. So whereas bicarbonate hasn't really been shown to help you much with, with aerobic activities like say an Ironman triathlon or really anything that lasts much longer than about 30 minutes, it has indeed, especially for high intensity interval training and anaerobic efforts, been shown to give you some really significant increases in performance. I mean, we're talking like 15 to 20% improvements in terms of your speed at which you can complete events. Now there was an interesting study that came out June 4th of 2015, so relatively recently about sodium bicarbonate and its ability to improve exercise tolerance, its effects on high intensity intermittent exercise. But in this study, they actually had a very precise dosing schedule for the sodium bicarbonate, which is, for those of you listening and you haven't yet caught wind of this on previous podcasts, is baking soda. And in this, in this particular study, they took 0.4 grams per kilogram, which is a relatively standard dose of sodium bicarbonate that's been used in other studies.

But grams per kilogram of body weight. Grams, muscle mass.

Grams per kilogram of body weight. So let's say for the, let's say for like an 80 kilogram individual, we're looking at somewhere in the range of like 31, 32 grams of baking soda. But what they did was they spread it out 3.1. No, no, 31 to 32 grams, because 0.4 grams per kilogram, let's say, like, sorry, 80 kilogram.

Move the decimal point over.

Yeah, that's okay, you're Canadian. So what they did was they took the baking soda and they split it into micro doses about 30 minutes or so leading into the competition. Or actually it was, I'm sorry, not every 30 minutes, about every 10 minutes leading into the competition, with the last dose taking place about 50 minutes prior to exercise. And in this case, in the case of this study, the first dose taking place about 90 minutes before exercise. So counting back from the time that the high intensity exercise is supposed to take place, you would, for example, at 90 minutes, 80 minutes, 60 seconds, 70 minutes, 60 minutes and 50 minutes, take in a small portion of baking soda. Now, the total amount that you would actually take in would still come out to, let's say you were taking five microdoses to six microdoses around in that amount. You know, if you weighed 80kg, it'd still come out to about a level teaspoon. Because a level teaspoon contains about 5, 4 grams or so of baking soda. That's the approximate amount. So think one level teaspoon, not a heaping teaspoon, but a level small teaspoon. It's about 4 grams of baking soda. And you would split that out. The reason you want to split it up is so that you don't get the gastric distress that would occur from you taking all of that at once. So let's say you have a race or a very hard event, like some kind of a heat or something like that that starts at 9:00am well, starting at 7:30am you would take a small amount of baking soda and then every 10 minutes thereafter until you'd gotten up to the amount that you're supposed to take in. If you were, if you're shooting for that 0.4 grams per kilogram of body weight, you would simply spread it all out. So for an 80 kilogram person, one level teaspoon spread out in those 10 minute increments leading up to the event or the competition. Now, a few things about baking soda. And of course I link to the study and all these recommendations in the show notes and you can access the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 321. The first thing is that you must consume significant amounts of water when you consume baking soda to eliminate some of the GI distress that tends to occur when you consume baking soda, also known as diaper pants or explosive diarrhea.

That's what I was gonna ask. Are you talking about a poo mergency or just cramps?

We're talking about a serious poo emergency and also potential for cramps. So what you want to do is take in a good 12 plus ounces of water with each of those feedings. And that's not a ton of water, but it's enough to where you know, it's a good reason to be tapering this off a good 50 minutes prior to your competition. So you're not peeing.

Okay, well, just be waterlogged. That's a lot of water sloshing around your gut.

Right. And another couple of things to note. Both caffeine as well as carbohydrates have been shown to enhance the ergogenic effects of sodium bicarbonate supplementation.

Oh, cool.

And so what you could do is, is you can, for example, take in an ergogenic amount of caffeine. And generally that's somewhere in the range of 200, up to 500 milligrams of caffeine. So the equivalent of one large, up to four large cups of coffee as you go through this. And you could count that as your water intake. And also small microdoses of carbohydrate taken at the same time that you take the baking soda can also assist with the ergogenic aid, but also again, reduce the GI distress. So when we step back and we look at this big picture, you could, for example, again start 90 minutes prior to your competition at 90, 80, 70, 60 and 50, or possibly even 40 if you wanted to split it into six microdoses, take in your microdoses of sodium bicarbonate, take in a little bit of caffeine, take in a small amount of carbohydrate you know, such as 10 to 20 grams of carbohydrate from like a sweet potato or a sport drink or a bar or something like that. And you'll be sitting pretty when it comes to actually increasing your ability to tolerate lactic acid by an extremely significant amount. So there you have it. Baking soda.

There you go.

Yeah. So what else? There was another interesting study that I tweeted about, and this was a new study that came out that took basically this crapola of recovery methods that, you know, a lot of these studies they'll look at, like.

That's a scientific term.

Yeah, crapola, Crapola. They'll look at, you know, a lot of studies will look at, say like cryotherapy, or they'll look at ibuprofen, or they'll look at antioxidants, or they'll look at like some kind of a protein carb blend and they'll study that particular recovery method in isolation. Right. Rather than perhaps looking at what happens when you combine a bunch of different recovery methods to get some kind of a synergistic effect or some kind of an additive effect. And what they did in this study was they looked at recovery after high intensity anaerobic exercise, and they found that when you combine a bunch of different recovery methods, and in this case they used vitamin C and vitamin E. Right. So relatively well known antioxidant vitamins, they used ibuprofen. And I wish they would have used a more natural alternative to ibuprofen, like one that I've talked about in the past. Quite a bit has been curcumin.

Right.

Which has been shown to have very, very similar effects to ibuprofen without the potential for gut or liver damage. They used cold water submersion and they used whey protein. So took a bunch of things that have been shown to potentially have a mild recovery enhancing effect, and they combined them all together. And what they found was that when they combined vitamin C, vitamin E, ibuprofen, whey protein and cold water immersion, and it gave a very significant recovery enhancing advantage. Meaning not only did subjects who received that after a morning workout produce more power during a PM workout that followed that morning workout, but they also had a lower perceived pain rating during that second workout. And these were for very, these are for what's called a Wingate protocol, which is a very short but extremely intense power protocol on the bike. So ultimately the big picture here is that let's say maybe you feel as though a cold shower post exercise doesn't really help you to recover or taking an antioxidant post exercise doesn't help you to recover. Perhaps the technique of combining a whole bunch of different recovery protocols all at once is what you really need to be doing. So you might take your, you know, you finish a hard morning workout or you finish a hard race or something like that, you want to recover as quickly as possible. Well, combine a lot of things. Combine a good meal that contains protein with cold water submersion or a cold shower with perhaps compression gear, antioxidants and you know, curcumin or some kind of anti inflammatory. And once you start to put a bunch of this stuff together and it looks like there's a little bit of a synergistic effect.

So which I guess kind of stands to reason if you, if something. Well, I guess it doesn't always work this way. If something, one thing works a little bit, then a whole bunch of things will work a lot.

And well, interestingly, many of these things in isolation, like say cold showers or cold baths have not actually been shown in research to have that significant of an effect on recovery, especially after a short anaerobic. Right, exactly. So the unique part of this study was that it shows that when you take things that normally don't have a significant effect by themselves and you combine them with a bunch of other different recovery protocols that also don't have a really significant effect, you all of a sudden produce a significant effect once you begin to combine them all.

So they do any sort of control.

For placebo, that's pretty interesting. Control for placebo? What do you mean?

Well, I just feel like if you're doing all of this stuff, you're going to all these great lengths, then you're probably easily convincing yourself that you're going to feel better. And we all know that that carries a lot of weight.

Yeah, there may be a placebo effect and, and they didn't necessarily. This would be a study, you know, you can't really have a placebo for a cold shower or you know, some things you can have a placebo for like you can give it a sham, you know, say like a curcumin supplement. Right. You could give it a sham curcumin plus a real curcumin. But once you're combining a bunch of different recovery protocols, it is tough to have a placebo control. But ultimately it looks like there's, there's a very, very good chance that by not just focusing on one thing like say like you know, sucking a protein smoothie down the hatch post workout that by doing a bunch of things all at once, you're going to significantly enhance your ability to recover.

So, yeah, and I don't mean to poo poo the placebo effect either. I'm a huge fan of the placebo effect of it. If it works that way, that's great.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, you know, give me the sugar pill any day.

Tie a dead chicken around your neck and put on a magic bracelet. And yeah, if you feel better, you feel better. So another thing was that our friend Paul Geminet. Paul Geminet, I like his website, perfect healthdiet.com I like the book Perfect Health Diet. It certainly is one of the, the books that I will, I will endorse when it comes to a really ancestrally appropriate diet that works for a lot of people. He's always blogging about very interesting things. I like how he experiments with a lot of stuff. And he recently wrote a really interesting article on the benefits of near infrared light. And in that particular article, he talks about how when you have nitric oxide in your system, nitric oxide can actually bind to something called cox. And COX stands for cytochrome C oxidase. It's a very, very important enzyme involved with mitochondrial respiration or mitochondrial function. Now, when you finished a tough exercise session or you've been injured or you have inflammation, what happens is you do generate quite a bit of extra nitric oxide and that nitric oxide binds to COX and it can actually inhibit mitochondrial respiration, it can inhibit recovery and it can inhibit performance. So whereas that's no good, we a lot of times think of nitric oxide as being like this good thing, right? Like Viagra for your muscles. It turns out that if you have too much bound to cox, it can actually hold you back. Well, what's very, very interesting is, and he goes into the details of this in the article and I'll link to it. The exposure to red light, such as you might get from like literally like a $9.99 red light bulb off of, you know, off of Amazon, which I recommended for, for sleep before, like you put one of these red light bulb heat lamps next to your bed at night and it can help with sleep, it can help with collagen. And so it kind of like has an anti aging effect. But and of course it also provides you light, but not blue light, right, which can disrupt your circadian rhythm and keep you from sleeping. It instead produces just this, this red light. And you can still sleep when you have that red light.

It's good if you want to read a book in bed?

Yeah. Well, these red lights, they also help nitric oxide to dissociate from that COX enzyme. And so you get a decrease in inflammation and an enhancement in mitochondrial respiration with exposure to red light. And specifically this would be near infrared light or the type of light that these like heat lamps will put out. So I, I think this is super interesting and, and the article goes in, in much more detail. But one thing that I'm even, even going into, and this is something I haven't yet released the article on, but I think I've alluded to it a couple times in previous podcasts, I've been experimenting quite a bit with infrared saunas. And I've actually built an infrared sauna in my gym that I've been using and I'm doing a specific. It's what's called a niacin infrared sauna protocol. And I don't have time to get into it now, but it's a really, really interesting protocol. You take high dose niacin, then you exercise, then you sit in an infrared sauna. Well, what I'm doing now is I'm installing near infrared red light bulbs in my far infrared sauna. So I get some of these benefits of dissociating nitric oxide from the COX enzyme in the mitochondria and I get the benefits of both near infrared and far infrared while I'm sitting in my far infrared sauna. So. And yes, I am working on an article about this, this, that, that kind of shows you how to do it too, but ultimately kind of cool that you can do something as simple as just like get a red light bulb and enhance your ability to recover or enhance mitochondrial function.

What I want to know is, are you also tying things around your junk and working out that way?

I am. And thank you, Brock from, for, for making that transition to easy. So if you, if, if you do not subscribe to the free newsletter@bengreenfieldfitness.com and why the heck don't you. If you don't, you need to get on that. I just released an article about how to make your penis stronger. Kind of a controversial article, but it, but it, it goes into.

Not so much controversial as it is just risque. Yeah, I don't think any.

Yeah, you're not causing. It's not controversial. Yeah, I actually didn't get as many complaints from folks as I thought I might when I released that article, but I spent 30 days experimenting with a 2.5 ounce magnet weight designed to enhance the strength of the pelvic floor muscles, the the what are also known as the Kegel exercising muscles and also the the muscles that are involved with increasing the strength of an orgasm and also the the power of ejaculation and which.

Is something every man is concerned about.

That's right. And both women and men will find this post quite interesting. But I just published it. It's a rather long post that goes into 30 full days of experimentation.

It's a rather long one using something.

Called a private gym. So if you missed the controversial private gym post, I will put a link to it over in the show Notes for this episode@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 321It's well worth checking out. So go read that one if you.

Want to do it. I'm just happy after 30 days of doing that that you aren't blind.

Blind. No hairy poems either. I actually go into the article how I I broke the rules that they recommended for the private gym and managed to do the entire experiment without actually utilizing pornography or anything of the like, which I actually am not a big fan of. And I go into it in the article about why and why I feel pornography is actually bad for your brain. But I get into that and a lot more in that particular article. So if you haven't read it yet, head over to the show notes@bengreenfitness.com 321 and we'll link to it. Listener Q and A hi Ben and Brock. Love your show. You keep me company during my long commute sometimes and very much appreciate it. Love all the information. Almost 48 years young and about three years ago I broke my ankle, smashed my tibia and fibula on the tennis court. Have a little metal plate in there. Everything is fine. Recovered truly 100% if not 110%. Got better, stronger, faster. My question don't think it's ever been discussed on the show. Do you recommend having metal plates like that or let's call them foreign bodies inside the body removed or do you just leave them alone? Doc said it was pretty much my choice. Can't seem to find a real good answer or information on it anywhere I look. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. You guys really rock.

I hope you don't say that we have to take our metal plates out because like the one in my head is going to be really difficult to take out.

You have a metal plate in your head?

No I don't. And I probably shouldn't joke about that. That's Mean to all the people who have skull fractures or something. Yeah, I apologize.

Remember the scene in one of the. Not. Not the Avengers movie. The. What are the mutants? The X Men. Yeah, the X Men. The scene in the X Men where the guy who can control metal literally just like pulls metal out of this guy's body and makes like these. These metal balls that he can get out of prison with.

You see that Magneto?

Yes. We just need Magneto to help us all get the metal. The metal debris out of our bodies.

So Mark just has to find Sir Ian McKellen and convince him to suck the metal out.

That's right. Well, they've actually done studies on. On this particular issue, and there. There's a very interesting research article that I'll link to in the show Notes that appeared in the Orthopedic Surgery Journal put out by the Mayo Clinic a couple of years ago. But it discussed this concept of whether or not we should actually be leaving things like titanium plates in fractures and metal implants within bodies, you know, after someone says someone's gone through like a fixation surgery, right, To. To fix a fracture or a broken bone. And in many cases, I don't have.

A thing in my head, but I actually do have two screws in my shoulder. My collarbone from when I was like, like 12, I'm gonna say when I broke my collarbone.

Yeah. A lot of people.

I'm 43 years old now. That's a long time to have those screws in there.

A lot of people have these. And typically it's titanium that's combined with other metals like cobalt or chromium or molybdenum to. To create like a light, durable material.

Mine was done in the 70s, I think it was just straight up. Iron.

Yes, iron. Iron or steel. Yeah. Yes. Well, there are some concerns. So there are animal studies, for example, not human studies, that show that there is a definite effect on suppression of the immune system, an increase in white blood cells called lymphocyte reactivity. Now, that does not really appear to be causing any type of surge in, you know, serious immune system deficiencies or autoimmune disorders in humans. But it could potentially mean that by having the metal plates or the metal implants in your body, that what happens is tiny flakes of the metal chip off. They enter the bloodstream, the nearby soft tissue, or the joints, and that can cause a little bit of a hyperactive immune system response. So all that means is you might get sick a little bit more frequently, and then that's just based on, on primarily these animal studies that show a slightly more hyperactive immune system in response to the metal plates staying in the body. So there, there are a few other studies that have been done on metal debris and metal implants. So there are other studies again in mice that show there is potential for metal wear debris to damage chromosomes, which not only makes it a potential carcinogen, but could also increase the rate at which telomeres shorten, which means that it could cause a little bit of an accelerated aging effect to leave metal debris in the body versus having these removed. Now, of course, we've talked before in the podcast about the potential for heavy metal toxicity from everything from chromium to copper. And, and they have also found that you do have a higher than normal level of metal in the bloodstream. Specifically, one of, one of the things that they've found is chromium, especially for what are called intra medullary nails, which is like these titanium nails that they'll use in many of these surgical situations.

What are they called?

Intramedullary nails. So higher than normal levels of metal circulating in the bloodstream, including this, this chromium. So of course, you know, in, in dentistry, we've talked before on the podcast about all the issues with mercury and some of these, these, you know, other alternatives to mercury that are used in implants. But ultimately it looks like some of these issues may go above and beyond just dentistry and also apply to some of these screws and plates that are placed in the body. So ultimately, yes, you should consider taking the, the plates and the screws out when you're able to do that. And I will link to the, the primary study that's been done on this, the one that I mentioned that, that appeared in the, the Journal of Orthopedic Surgery. The other thing that you can do, and this is just something that I do 30 days out of every year, just as, as kind of a, kind of like a safety protocol for me, a little bit of a detox protocol, I guess.

Is it the penis lifting?

No. And by the way, are we, are we even allowed to say that word? Are we going to have to bleep it out every time we use that term for male anatomy?

It's the real term. I can't imagine that's.

I don't know the itunes rules. We could get banned from itunes. We'll find out. Check. Yeah, anyways, though, Metal free spray. I use this metal free spray. It's a sublingual spray. It chelates metals and allows them to be removed from the body via the urine and the stool without the metals actually being allowed to circulate through the bloodstream, which a lot of these metal chelators will actually do. And so you'll. You'll do a chelation and metals will, say, get removed from soft tissue, but then they'll wind up crossing the blood brain barrier and they wind up in neural tissue. And so you want to be careful what chelators you use for metal. I use this metal free stuff, and that's something that I think would be prudent to use whether or not you have a screw or plate. And I don't. I just do it because, you know, I get exposed to everything from receipts to Chinese toys to car keys to radiation, you name it. So I just. I just do this.

I forgot about the receipt study. That was crazy.

Yeah, yeah, that's like one of the.

Biggest exposures we get to some terrible, terrible stuff.

Yeah, yeah, don't mess around with those receipts. Always. Just. Just tell them you don't want the receipt. Anyways, though, Metal free spray is something I use. I'll link to that in the show notes. So you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 321 to get a link to some of these studies on screws and plates and also that spray. Hi, Ben. First of all, thank you for providing such awesome content. I'm a huge fan. I just listened to your podcast episode about bone broth, and I have a question before I start making it myself. Assuming that the source of the bones is from an ethically treated pasture raised animal, is there a nutritional difference between chicken or beef bones? Should I go for the beef or should I go for the chicken? Thank you.

Well, I think that chicken actually tastes better.

Okay.

So I hope it's got a. I hope the nutrition's either better for chicken or the same.

Well, beef is more macho, though, because you get like the big bones and the knuckles and the marrow. So there's that.

There's marrow in chicken too, but it's more like sucking it through a straw rather than digging it out with a spoon.

But when you order marrow at a restaurant. Restaurant. When you order, like beef mower at a restaurant, they never bring you these tiny little, you know, chicken bones. You get the big old beef bones. So I'm just saying beef is a little bit more macho when it comes to. To. To broth.

Ultimately, though, why we need to sexualize our own broth.

There's. There's a. There's another reason that beef broth is Better. So chicken broth has an inferior omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acid ratio. And the bones are smaller. The bones are weaker. I'm not just joking about this. You actually get less marrow, you get less minerals, you get less connective tissue in chicken broth versus bone broth. However, chicken broth does seem to be easier to digest in people who have compromised guts, people with like irritable bowel syndrome, gastroesophageal reflux disease, et cetera. Chicken broth just seems to create a little less GI distress in many folks who may not be able to, to handle the machones of beef broth. So ultimately we do a little bit of both. We'll do some chicken broth, we'll do some beef broth. I would say if you want to get the best benefits nutritionally and you want the best omega 3 fatty acid to omega 6 fatty acid ratio, you should go with beef. And if you just want some, you want more digestibility, which can especially be handy, like if you're sick, for example, then you go for chicken. Now, for example, one of the places that we will get broth when we're not making it ourselves and one of the places I recommend to my clients for broth is from this guy who I interviewed on the podcast named Chef Lance Roll. And he makes both beef broth as well as chicken broth. Now interestingly, both have a similar simmer time. So the chicken is about the chicken that he does is about 18 hours. So if you were going to make chicken and a chicken broth like using a whole chicken looks like 18 hours. You know, if we look at what the, the experts are doing, about 18 hours is a pretty good period of time for beef. It's closer to a full day, it's closer to 24 hours. So the way that, that they do their beef broth is they take the beef bones and, and they combine them with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, ginger, parsley, bay leaves, peppercorns, apple cider vinegar and sea salt. And basically that, that all goes into the crock pot and you simmer it for 24 hours. Now of course they use grass fed beef. They use grass, grass finished beef as well. And that's where the bones come from. So they're using all kind of organic stuff. But that's, that's the recipe that they use and I'll link to that one in the show notes. And you can, you can use everything from like knuckles to femurs, which are like the marrow bones. Femurs are really good. You can use a scapula, the hooves, the neck bones. I believe they add a little bit of organic red wine to deglaze their, their roasting pans as well. So you know that, that's kind of a really, really good example of how you would do a really nice beef broth. And that's the same one that they sell over at the, at the Broth three. And I'm pretty sure they ship. I don't know if they ship to Canada, but they ship to the US if you wanted this stuff.

I haven't checked because I just make frozen generally.

Yeah. And they're their chicken broth recipe again, that simmers for about 18 hours. So for the chicken broth, what they do is they'll use chicken feet and chicken backs. At our house, we just use the whole chicken. We just toss the whole chicken in there. But then what they put in there is carrots, celery, onions, lemons, ginger, garlic, thyme, parsley, bay leaves, peppercorns, and apple cider vinegar. So not too much different than the beef broth recipe. The only difference is, of course, they're using chicken versus beef for the chicken recipe. And then the beef goes just slightly longer.

So I wonder, does the lemon actually do something like is it an active component or is it just a flavoring? That's the only thing I've never used in my chicken broth.

You know, I, I actually made chicken broth last week and I, I tossed a couple. I, I just quartered them and I didn't even remove the, the, the outer layer or anything like that. The, the peel of the lemon and I just threw it all in there.

Assumed you'd leave it on.

I, I found that it, it gave a pretty good flavor. But I would imagine because lemon can be used in like a ceviche, right. To pre digest the, the fish or the scallop or whatever you're using for ceviche. You know, the lemon or lime. I would imagine that there is a little bit of an enzymatic effect on the, on the meat or in the bones or on the connective tissue that allows it to become softer. I liked the flavor though, when I put lemon in last week.

Yeah, I'm going to give that a try.

It's not something I usually do, but, but the lemon itself actually tastes pretty good as well. And the peel kind of dissolves. You get the lemon peel, which has a lot of really, really good anthocyanins and other antioxidants in it. So, so I'm a fan and What I'll do For folks who want to listen into the previous podcast episode that I did with Chef Lance Roll where we just we geeked out on on broth and its benefits and how to make it, et cetera, for almost an hour. I'll put a link to that podcast episode over in the show notes if you want to take a listen. Hello Ben and Brock, I have a question about intermittent hypoxic training. I I have been using the Alto Lab device for a little over a year. I should note that Alto Lab presented at the recent Bulletproof conference. I find the protocols provided in the instructions quite taxing. Along with a general fatigue. I am getting some eye muscle soreness. These issues pass with recovery. Perhaps it is my age. I am 45, though I did set a PR last year. I ran a 3230 10K. I have heard you mention these types of devices in the past, but you have not gone in depth. I have always embraced the n of one spirit. I am wondering if you have any insights or knowledge on ways to use this device that differ from the six minutes of on four minutes off for one hour several days in a row, if not every day. I see Victor Conti has some videos on the subject, but I don't really trust that guy. Thanks. I love the podcast. James. Well, this is actually something that's kind of on my radar because altitude training, whether you are like going, you know, getting in your car and driving to altitude or moving to altitude or whether you're using one of these home devices, it generally takes about eight weeks to really begin to get the full benefits. And so because Spartan World Championships, which I'm competing in, is in Lake Tahoe this year in September.

Is that like 6,000ft?

I believe that it gets higher than 6,000ft, although 6,000ft is kind of the cutoff, 6,000ft plus is about the point where you're going to really start to feel the effects of altitude. Yeah, right. And that's where you were any, any, any event that takes place at 6,000ft plus it behooves you to figure out a way to either use like, you know, one of these home altitude training devices, or move to and train at altitude or drive to altitude on a weekly basis or whatever it takes. Ultimately though, I was going to begin my personal altitude training at the beginning of July, right. To give me all of July and all of August to get ready for the altitude I'd experience at something like the Spartan race.

OK. Lake Tahoe is at 6,225ft, there you go.

So, yeah, it definitely behooves you, and that may be the actual city. For anyone who's been to surface elevation, many of you know that once you start to ride your bike or drive outside of Lake Tahoe, you get a significant rise in elevation. And so I would hazard a guess that, for example, like the Spartan Tahoe race will probably get as high as 8,000.

Oh, this is the actual lake. This is the surface elevation of the actual lake. So, yeah, the city is likely higher.

Well, the city is about the same level as the lake, but the. But there are a lot of mountains around the city that go higher than that.

Anyway, that's beside the point.

This is just interesting, but I. I just qualified for the, the Train to Hunt national championships, and those take place in Colorado Springs in August. So now I'm pretty much needing to start my altitude training almost right away. Now, I have one of these Hypoxico devices, and the hypoxico is an altitude generator. Now I'll go into this Alto Labs as well, so you can kind of know the difference between the two. So the Alto Lab is this small plastic rebreather device that, similar to any other altitude training advice or device, lowers your body's oxygen to levels that you would find at high altitudes. Now, unlike the big, bulky air generators that you would get when you use a typical altitude simulator, the Alto Labs are these kits that you order. And the kits contain mixers that adjust your altitude anywhere from 2,500 up to 5,40,000ft, depending on, on how high you want to go.

Space.

Yeah, so, so what it is, is you get like, like this mixer and then a mouthpiece and a face mask. And each time that you use that mixer, you know, it's basically like a, what would you call it? Disposable. It's like, like a disposable air mixer where the fresh air goes in one end and fresh air has something, I don't know, it's like 20 some percent oxygen. And then the air that comes out the other end of the mixer contains anywhere from 8 to 12% oxygen. So you're breathing oxygen that's at a, at a much lower saturation in the air than what you'd get at, you know, at sea level without being at altitude. So you combine this with the use of a pulse oximeter, which you wear on the end of your fingertip that tells you what your actual finger O2 reading. And in an ideal situation, as you're doing your training session or as you're even, you know, in some hypoxic training protocols, you're just sitting passively while you use something like this. You can watch the oxygen drop. You know, from usually sea level. You're anywhere from 96 to 99% oxygen saturation. If you were to measure on your fingertip. And once you get to about 6,000ft, that'll drop down to 90 to 95%. And, you know, once you're approaching like 20,000, 25,000ft, your oxygen saturation can dip below 80%. And so, for example, for this Alto Labs machine, you use a specific number of what they call an Alto mixer to simulate certain altitudes. So you'd use one for 5,000ft, and you'd use like three for 15,000ft and something like five or 25,000ft. But basically, you just purchase these kits from Alto Labs. So to give you an idea of the price, I know they sell something called a performance kit that's about $579. And that one includes six Alto mixers that gives you up to 30,000ft and then a bunch of what they call silos and a carry bag. I think it comes out to about a month, Month's worth of training. Right. For. For that price. So, you know, still kind of spendy, but more portable than these kind of like bulky altitude generators. Now you've also got, you know, and. And I actually own one of these, Hypoxico. And the Hypoxico generator is a very big, bulky unit that is several thousand dollars to purchase. You can also rent these things for about 175 to 200 bucks a week. So still. Yeah, still, it is expensive to get your hands on any type of good altitude training system.

And they're like the size of like a air conditioner unit. Right?

They're big. There's one behind me right now, actually. They also do altitude tent sleep systems, and they even build Hypoxico will do entire room conversions. I mean, for those of you out there who just like to own nice things, you know, for example, one of the photos they have on their website is that they. They've taken someone's desk right where they're going to be sitting and doing work anyways and turn their entire desk into an altitude room. So they'll convert bedrooms, they'll convert gyms, and literally you can build an entire room in your house that you keep at whatever you want to keep it at 15,000ft or 20,000ft or 25,000ft. So kind of the sky's the limit. Depending on your budget when it comes to this stuff, you could get these, these Alto Labs are probably the, the less expensive, less bulky version that's going to cost you, it looks like about five to six hundred bucks for a month, whereas the Hypoxico you're probably looking at 800. If we were to look at a monthly price somewhere right around 800 per month on up and then you can full on buy these Hypoxico generators for several thousand dollars. So I understand that this stuff is not cheap, but at the same time, for those of you who are kind of looking at really wanting to perform and compete at altitude, those are the kind of price points you're looking at if you don't want to move to Colorado Springs or Mexico City or wherever. So ultimately, as far as the way that you use these, like, like what? In what it's called intermittent hypoxia when you, when you're using tools like this. And that's the way that most of these are meant to be used. So what intermittent hypoxia is, is it's bouts of hypoxic exposure interspersed with normoxic exposure. So for example, if I were to set up my bicycle next to this Hypoxico altitude simulator, I could ride my bike for five minutes with the mask on and then ride my bike for five minutes without the mask on and do that, you know, four times through, you know, for example, if I were going to do like a 40 minute exercise session. Now they have actually done studies in which they've compared multiple short duration bouts of intermittent hypoxia with longer duration bouts of intermittent hypoxia. For example, one study that they did was one group did 12 five minute bouts of hypoxic exercise with each of Those separated by 5 minute bouts of rest at normal air exposure. And that group was compared to a group that simply exercised for a full 60 minutes at the hypoxic level. And in that particular study they found that there were greater altitude training benefits in the group that actually didn't do the intermittent hypoxia as much as just wore the hypoxia the entire time during the full exercise session. So you know, in that example it turns out that, you know, there were better effects achieved from rather than like putting a mask on and taking it off and putting it on and taking it off during an exercise session and just keeping it on the whole time. However, you'll see most recommendations coming from like Alto Labs or, or Hypoxico to actually use it in a more intermittent Format, meaning two minutes on, one minute off, or five minutes on, five minutes off. Reason being, I suspect, is that it's very physiologically difficult and mentally difficult to just keep that mask on the whole time that you're exercising. You get very short of breath, you get a little bit lightheaded, you get a little bit dizzy. And I personally have a very difficult time doing altitude training without, like, taking breaks to go from regular altitude to ripping the mask off and breathing normal room air, to putting it back on. Now, as far as the other way to use this, you can, of course, do things like sleep in an altitude chant or work at your desk in an altitude chamber. Like kind of the sky's the limit to this stuff. But one thing that you should be aware of, despite the evidence being all over the place as far as the gold standard, you know, intermittent hypoxia time and recovery periods, is that it's always going to take you longer to recover when you're breathing lower amounts of oxygen. This is why hyperbaric, right, like increased concentration of oxygen in the air under higher pressures can improve recovery. Decreased partial pressure of oxygen or hypoxic conditions reduce your ability to recover. So if you are, for example, sleeping in an altitude training tent or training in an altitude training chamber, you're going to take longer to recover. You'll be able to exercise a little bit less. You may have lower quality of sleep. And so there is a, you know, there's a fine line that you have to walk with this stuff. So I can tell you what I personally plan on doing beginning now that I know. I just found out three days ago that I qualified for the Colorado Springs train to hunt, which is going to be at altitude. I'm going to begin three times per week, actually using some form of altitude in my life. Not necessarily in my training, but in my life. So probably what I will wind up doing is twice a week doing my normal sessions that I'm doing indoors, whether I'm riding a bike or on a treadmill. But I will a few times during those sessions be putting on a mask and breathing hypoxic air, you know, for anywhere from five to 10 minutes at a time. And then I'll likely also take one of these sauna sessions that I do where I'm just kind of sitting in there for 30 to 60 minutes anyways. And I'll breathe hypoxic air at even at an even higher altitude than I would while training. So I'll breathe like, you know, anywhere from about 20 to 25,000ft while I'm sitting passively. And then during my exercise sessions, I'll breathe probably in the range of 10,000 to 15,000ft. So. So ultimately, kind of more than one way to skin a cat. I can't say that there is research that shows a perfect recommended time, but I would say that your best bet is going to be to contact the manufacturer, whatever altitude simulator system that you're using, whether it's Alto Lab or Hypoxico, etc, and use the protocol that they recommend, because they're going to know their own equipment best. And that's what I would do were I in your shoes. And I'm in discussions with Hypoxico right now to get a better idea from them as to what they'd recommend for my own intermittent hypoxic training. And then finally, if you can't afford any of this stuff, I always get this question, can I just use one of these elevation training masks? Right? These 50 to $70 elevation training masks. The fact is that those, those, you know, they're the Bane Batman masks that you put on, they will not reduce the partial pressure of oxygen, they will not simulate altitude, but they still will increase your inspiratory and your expiratory muscle strength and endurance, and they will increase your tolerance to the feeling of having to suck air. And so they aren't completely useless when it comes to helping your body to cope with some of the same. The same physical stress that your body's going to face at altitude. They're not going to increase erythropoietin production or red blood cell production or any of the things that are going to happen with altitude training, but they'll at least help things out from a muscular standpoint. So if you have nothing else to use, do those elevation training masks work? Well, yeah. They're going to help you with that feeling that you're going to experience at altitude, even though they may not help you physiologically to, say, create new red blood cells or to stave off some of the effects of altitude sickness. If you can't afford to pay, whatever, 800 bucks a month for altitude training, still, just by having one of those masks, you'll at least be able to help yourself out a little bit. So they aren't completely useless. Plus they look badass, which is a bonus.

That's the important part.

That's right. That's the important part. So if you're listening in and you have your own thoughts about intermittent hypoxic sessions and times and recovery periods that have worked well for you or that you've seen in research. We're always open to hearing from our smart cookie listeners. So if you want to leave any of your comments over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 321 Go ahead and do so. We do not get rid of, delete or filter any of those comments unless they're completely spammy or unless you say something rude about my mother. Other than that, anything goes. So go leave your comment@bengruntalfitness.com 321Hello Ben, currently I am reading your beyond the Training book and I am now on the section related to overreaching. I had several questions with this topic. First one, I am a little bit confused is overreaching and exercising to the failure is the same thing? And my second question is related to when I am doing overreaching and I should recover during that recovery period. Greasing the groove is an okay practice or not. And like in order to have a good recovery. In your book it's mentioned that for muscles it should be two days and for neurological recovery should be three days or vice versa. Does it mean that it's better to have only two workout per week and have a good rest in order to have performance increase on week to week basis? Thank you very much.

Overreaching can be kind of confusing, especially if you confuse it with over training. Yes, I think most people do equate overreaching with over training.

Yeah, it's not. They're completely different. So over training is when you've like pooped out your adrenals. Right? When you've pushed yourself for so long so hard, you've got like relationship stress, you've got environmental stress, you've got physical stress, you're working out hard. You know, that's what you typically see, right? Like the weekend warrior. Or not even the weekend warrior. Right? Just like the, let's say for example, like the ironman triathlete with a family and a job that you know, those are the people you see over trained. They get to the point where they're they've produced cortisol for so long their adrenal glands begin to not even produce cortisol very well at all. They rely on like glucose and caffeine to get through the day. Typically you get to a certain point where you're just not motivated to train and you can't get your heart rate up and it's just like everything, you know, life just begins to suck. That's over training. Overreaching is when you've Maybe gotten to the point where over one to two weeks, you've maybe not had a recovery day in 10, 14 days, you begin to feel a little bit blah. Training begins to get a little bit stale. But you're not stretching that out over a long period of time. And if you did, you would definitely become over trained. But overreaching is actually a good strategy to use when you are training for an event or when you're training to build muscle or significantly enhance fitness. Because if you combine overreaching, digging yourself into a little bit of a hole, maybe having two or three days in a row where you'd normally take a rest day or recovery day, but you kind of push through the soreness and you push through the fatigue, but then you give yourself a recovery block, whether that's a taper for a race or an event, or whether that's a few days where you're just doing yoga and a little bit of cold water swimming and some sauna sessions. You're getting when you do that what's called a super compensation effect, where you dig yourself into a hole and then you allow yourself complete recovery and you actually bounce back with a higher level of fitness, a higher level of mitochondrial density, a greater amount of hypertrophy or muscle fiber growth or muscle fiber addition than you would if you had just say, trained yourself at a comfortable pace consistently year round. So an ideal training program actually is more of a stair stepping effect where you've got a really, really hard series and hard block followed by an easy block. And that's why a lot of times, you know, Brock, you've seen this before with, with me coaching you, I will just like beat you up and spit you out sometimes for, for two or three weeks where I've got you doing like, you know, Murph and a bunch of kettlebell work and some really hard treadmill sprint intervals and tough weekend workouts that are really long. And sometimes I have you going for a good 14 days without a, without a good rest day thrown in.

But then I think I'm in one of those periods right now. I see in my workout schedule next Friday I've got the hardest workout ever invented.

Yes, you do.

And I think I've got a reboot week after that.

Exactly. So then you'll notice I don't have your training calendar pulled up in front of me right now, but you'll notice I think it's in two weeks or so, something like that. I've got you doing yoga, easy walks, a little bit of cold thermo, some sauna, and you've got almost a full week devoted to recovery, and that's the period of time that you'll super compensate. And I guarantee right before you get into that phase, you will be overreached, right? Like, if we tested your cortisol, it would be sky high. And if we tested your inflammation, like your HSCRP, it would definitely be above like that, that 1.0 range and possibly, you know, significantly higher than that, like 2.0 plus. And if we tested your thyroid, it might be slowly beginning to rise. And if we tested your testosterone, it would be slowly beginning to decrease. But that's overreaching, and it's okay to get close to that point. The problem is a lot of people will stay in that for like a month or two months or six months, and that's over training. So that's. That's kind of the skinny of overreaching versus over training. Now, a few questions that Garrick asked. The first is, is overreaching and lifting to failure the same thing? The answer is no. Lifting to failure is just an acute thing that you do during an actual exercise session. So when you lift to failure, you trigger a great amount of lactic acid in the muscle tissue. That's typically what causes you to fail, is acidity in muscle tissue, all the hydrogen ions that build up as you produce a bunch of lactic acid. And when you produce big increases in lactic acid and muscle tissue, that triggers an increase in what are called intramuscular growth factors. And it also causes you to, especially near the end of a set, to failure, to switch to fatiguing not only all of your smaller muscle fibers, but all of your larger muscle fibers as well. So one of the things that this is known as is central fatigue, where you get to the point where you're using as many muscle fibers as possible, you've got a huge increase in lactic acid formation and the nervous system gets completely fatigued. And when you do that during an actual exercise session, it is a great way to get yourself to increase your ability to be able to buffer lactic acid, increase your tolerance to lactic acid, and gain the ability to recruit more muscle fibers. Now, if you overdo training specific muscle groups to failure, then that can decrease what is called post workout protein synthesis. It elevates the levels of something called adenosine monophosphate, or amp, and elevated AMP occurs when you completely drain a cell of energy, and that can cause a decrease in protein synthesis. And if you do that over and over again, then you get really increased Resting levels like later on in the day or later on the next day of cortisol, and also suppressed levels of what's called IGF1, which is one of your main anabolic and growth and recovery type of hormones. So if you lift to failure every day, or what I found with most athletes is if you lift to failure more often than every 48 to 72 hours, you can very quickly not just overreach, but over train. Which is why I'm a fan of, for example, if you're weight training only having sessions where you lift to failure one to three days per week, and definitely no more than that, some people will try to lift to failure. And I used to do this when I was a bodybuilder. We'd take muscle groups to failure every single day. The problem is that even though that was great for, for me, for muscle growth, I was just on that over training edge almost all the time and had low testosterone and high levels of cortisol. So the trick is to lift to failure to get yourself into a slightly overreached state. Right. So you can get yourself into overreach state by lifting to failure, but they're two different things really. Like lifting to failure is something you do during the actual workout. Overreaching would be the consequence of doing that enough times in a row. So.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Totally. Okay.

And then Garrick's last question was, during overreaching, is greasing the groove okay to do? And what he means by greasing the groove is, you know, can you, during your recovery day maybe stop here and there to do five pull ups or 10 pull ups, or maybe, you know, do 100 jumping jacks every hour to boost the metabolism or to make yourself more efficient at certain movements. I tend to err towards more low level physical activity to increase blood flow and lymph flow and to help move metabolic byproducts and inflammation out of muscle tissue on a recovery day? And so what that means is that in most cases, even on an easy recovery day, yeah, I'll stop here and there to do a few pull ups, I'll stop here and there to do some jumping jacks. I'll do some cold water swimming, I'll do some, some sauna, some yoga, et cetera. And as long as you're not overdoing it, as long as you're not pushing through muscle soreness, it's fine to stay active and even to do things like brief spurts of physical activity on a recovery day. And because you're not pushing to fatigue. And because you're not stressing your central nervous system or your peripheral nervous system in the same way that you would if you were, say, like stopping and doing a set of 20 pull ups or doing anything else to muscular failure, it's not as big of an issue. Now, all of this should be put in the light, that the best way to test where your specific boundaries are, what your specific tolerance is, is to use heart rate variability testing. And what I mean by that is, for example, I mentioned that some people can lift to failure and have a very, very difficult session every 48 hours. Some people are every 72 hours, some people can only handle once per week. And it varies quite a bit. There are genetic reasons for that, meaning that there are specific genetic snips associated with your particular glutathione production, your superoxide dismutase production, your level of antioxidant production, and that's going to dictate how quickly you recover. I personally recover very fast. I don't do well with very long voluminous exercise sessions. But I've tested my Genetics, I've gone through 23andMe, I've exported those results to DNA Fit and I've seen what my personal recovery ability is and it's very, very good. But at the same time, I'm unable to handle very, very big workouts. Like I can't do three to four hour long workouts. I have to exercise for 60 to 90 minutes consistently every day. That's kind of like what my body's able to handle. But when you use heart rate variability, you can every morning test and see when your body has recovered from a very, very difficult exercise session. So what I mean by that, for example, is I had the Train to Hunt competition on Sunday and this morning was the first time that my heart rate variability really began to approach very, very high levels again. And so today is technically the first day that I should be training really, really hard. After that, that trained hunt competition and on Monday and Tuesday, those were easier days for me. But I wouldn't know any of this information about when I'm overreached, when I can handle harder training sessions again, et cetera, unless I were using heart rate variability. And on the flip side, you can use heart rate variability to know when you've overreached so that you know when you can super compensate and recover. So for example, you could train yourself into a state of low heart rate variability and rather than taking a day off, you could train through that, right. Like you could do another day at low heart rate variability and another day at low heart rate variability. And even though I don't recommend any more than three days of pushing through low heart rate variability, you can get yourself into that overreached state and then you simply rest and recover for a block of anywhere from three to seven days and you super compensate and your fitness goes up. So it's really cool what you can do once you start to customize your training and identify when you're overreached and then identify when you've recovered from that overreach state using something like heart rate variability. So I personally use the Nature Beat app for that. That's the one that I helped design. It's available at greenfieldfitnessystems.com naturebeat it's one of the only, you know, electrical newfangled devices that I attach to my body every morning to measure my nervous system strength. So that's a really good way to do things. So there you have it.

There you have it.

There you have it. And speaking of having it, we actually have a review that someone left on itunes. Here's the dealio. If you leave this show a review in itunes because we put a lot of work into this. We try and put out some good info for you. And so leaving a review is a great way to get good karma and to not have me and Brock be, be pissed at you and lighting, you don't want that. Lighting paper bags full of poo on fire on your doorstep and running away. Anyways, if you leave a review in itunes, not only does it help the show assuming you leave a good review and some good star ratings, but we also, if we read your review on the show and you hear it and you email geergreenfieldfitnesssystems.com we'll send you a BPA free water bottle, we'll send you a sweet tech T shirt and we'll send you a beanie and you can get any of those things by the way, at any point if you go to BenGreenfulFitness.com gear and that supports the show too. But you can also win this stuff when you leave a review. So we've got a review today from Chris Duncan who says a great way to make non stop talkers be quiet on long road trips. And he left us five stars. So what do you think, Brock? You want to read this one?

I'm guessing from the title that the show puts them to sleep and that's why they stopped talking on the long road trips.

Yes. Or they just, or they, they just are listening intently to hear us say the word penis again, that's.

That's more likely. Okay, well this is what Chris Duncan says is it's entertaining, informative, intelligent and slightly irreverent. Not irrelevant, but irreverent. I just wanted to make that clear. What more could you ask for in a podcast if you struggle to find topics to discuss at cocktail parties? This is for you. If people look at you a little strange when you suggest carrying around a cinder block a few times a day or chopping wood as a way to increase your testosterone levels, never fear, they will soon be calling you to say thank you. Seriously, it's solid information presented in an intelligent manner without getting to penis. I mean, stuffy. In fact, it's so good that if you find yourself trapped in a car with a non stop talker, you can put on an episode for a, for a bit of a reprieve. And if they try to talk over Ben, you can just say, oh wait, this is important. And they will close their mouths. Thanks for creating such a such solid programming. I could just see this. I can see Chris Duncan driving along going, oh wait, this is important. And the person starts talking like, oh no, wait, wait, wait, this is important.

This too is important. I'm glad we've given Chris a way to be antisocial. And Chris, that's a great review too. And carrying around a cinder block a few times a day or chopping wood as a way of increasing your testosterone levels shows that you've been paying close attention to the show. So thanks for your review and if you email gearreenfieldfitnesssystems.com include your T shirt size and we'll get a sweet gear pack out to you. So for the rest of you, what are you waiting for? Quit sitting on your hands. Quit doing whatever it is that you're doing, messing around, scratching the metal plates in your body, making bone broth.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. This is important.

Breathing into a hyper oxygenation device. What?

I just was trying see if I can get you to stop talking over yourself. Cause it's important.

I like it. Yeah, smart.

It's very meta.

Anyways, you can leave a review on itunes. Also, everything we talked about today, everything from the brand new work of fiction that I've just written.

Oh, should we play a little bit of that at the end here?

Yeah, let's play folks. So I'm sitting down and reading it to my children every night. Recording it, albeit not with a super nice microphone, but yeah.

And you can hear somebody doing dishes in the background.

Yeah, somebody's doing dishes in the background. You can probably hear my dog, hear my kids commenting, but we'll put a sample in for you at the end of this show and you can listen in. And again you can go check it out@BenGreenfulFitness.com, but I know there are tons of other things that we talked about, so if you don't want to remember any links and you just want to go grab it all yourself, we spend a lot of time creating some killer shownotes for you. So go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 321 for the show notes. Remember to leave us a review in itunes. And yeah, we've got a great podcast coming out for you this weekend. I threw down a little interview over at the Train to Hunt competition with Will Bradley from the Natural Born Hunter. So listen into that if you like.

He seems like the nicest guy ever.

He is a nice guy.

Enjoyed him.

So if you like to kill and eat tasty animals, listen to that episode and until then, have a healthy week. Now completely soaked from head to toe, his face, chest and pants covered in mud and small cuts on his face from charging through the branches and the sticks turn concentrated with ferocious intensity to move through the ever thickening forest and still catch sight of the small shadow of the chickadee darting from tree to tree. Toe midfoot, heel. Keep your eyes on the bird. Toe midfoot, heel. Brush aside the thorns. Toe midfoot, heel. Glance back to see if Brother is still there. Silence. The bird had suddenly stopped. No call. No movement. Terran squinted through the trees. He pulled aside a clump of branches. He could hear river quietly panting behind him through the thick rain. He tried to focus in the direction he had last seen the black dot of the bird's movement. He couldn't see any sign of the bird, but there was something else. Some kind of dark, shadowy structure, too thick to be a tree and too symmetrical to be a clump of big bushes. It was some kind of a building. Terran moved forward again to a position where the trees no longer blocked so much of his view. Now he could see it more clearly. It was too small to be a home. Not a barn. A hunting blind, perhaps an outhouse. Terran took a few steps forward. Behind him, river sharply whispered, terran, let's go. Terran stepped forward again. Home, Terran, let's go. Terran shook his head and without looking back, took two more big quiet steps forward. Now he could see the structure clearly, about 50ft away. It was an old wooden shed and perched just above the door of the shed was the chickadee, sitting silent and staring right back at Taren with two beady black eyes. Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice. Sam.