Digital Detoxing, Travel-Proofing Your Immune System, Underground Body Weight Workouts & More With Joe DiStefano.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. I think you're really gonna dig today's episode with Joe DiStefano. And by the way, I wanted to apologize for Wednesday's podcast where my voice sounded very echoey. I had my microphone settings way messed up, and now I have a giant piece of tape in front of my desk that says microphone on it in black Sharpie, reminding me to ensure that the microphone settings are indeed set up to make this a good listening experience for you in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

When you put your body, no matter how injured or old you are, into this correct position, your brain has a tendency to say, oh, oh, I remember that. And more or less accelerate your strength, your rehab, your performance, your posture, your breathing. If I'm in the airport, I'll just drop down, put on a Rage against the Machine song, and hold a plank, a high plank, a high push up an flr, whatever we want to call it, I'll do five minute holds of that. When we take a real proper breath, as an infant does. Our kidneys, our organs are moving matters of centimeters with those proper breaths.

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

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

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

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And last week I went totally off the grid and went rafting in the Grand Canyon. And part of that I didn't really realize this until I got about a day in involved a forced digital detox because the Grand Canyon doesn't really have any cell phone reception and there aren't exactly computers or Internets or Starbucks at the beaches that you pull into. So I came out of that digital detox experience pretty nervous about, like, what my email inbox would look like and how voicemails and text messages I'd have and what kind of fires that I'd need to put out on the business front. But amazingly, things were pretty good. It took me maybe two, two and a half hours to catch up on email, and none of my clients died. And most of them got through their workouts just fine without me. And the post office was still delivering mail to my home. And More importantly, my body and my brain felt very good. They felt clean. They felt detoxed. And my guest today, Joe distefano, he's all about the digital detox and we're going to talk about digital detox and a whole lot more in today's episode. But Joe is not, despite being someone who does certainly endorse having at least some point during the year where you step away from your cell phone, he's not a hairy hippie living in the woods, as I've been accused of. Instead, Joe's actually the co founder of Spartan Coaching and that's the world's first international obstacle race training certification program, which, by the way, I'm actually headed down to Dallas in two days, or not in two days, in about a week to take myself that certification program. Joe studied sports science at Fitchburg State University. He's got a master's in sports psychology. He's certified in a ton of things. This guy has more Alphabet letters after his name than most folks I know in the industry. He's a performance enhancement specialist, corrective exercise specialist, strength conditioning specialist. He's trained at the CHECK Institute in holistic nutrition. And he's worked in everything from health and performance to serial entrepreneurship. And he's really known as the go to guy at Spartan Racing when it comes to coaching, learning how to do obstacle courses, learning holistic nutrition, et cetera. And I love talking to Joe. We're friends. We geek out. Joe, welcome to the show, man.

Hey, Ben, what's happening, man? Thank you for that intro. Very, very nice. Good job.

Yeah, well, I try to make you sound good when I can. We'll see how the rest of the podcast goes, though. If I decide to throw you under the bus. It'll happen. Anyways, though, the last time. Let's, let's start in here. The last time I was over at your house was like, right. I went and did the Agoji, the Spartan agoji at like 38 degrees below zero over in Burlington, Vermont. But you and I had a chance to hang out at your house for a little while and you were big time into this concept of using a ski ergometer, like this stand up ski ergometer device. You were swearing by it for like your Go to fitness device. Is that still your weapon of choice for getting fit?

It is, man. It's definitely my weapon of choice. I don't plan on hanging it up anytime soon. I just think that concept two just really nailed it with this machine. And like you saw in my house, it fits right up against the wall and creates beasts. So anything that does that is good in my book.

Okay, so how does this thing, like, why would this be better than like an air assault bike trainer or a Concept 2 rowing machine or anything like that? Like, why this upright ski erg?

Well, yeah, you know, and I'm always looking at things through the lens of an obstacle racer, right? So right off the bat, you're upright, you're not cramped into rower, you're not sitting on a bike, you're upright, you're on your two feet, just like you're going to be during the races. So right away, you know, anytime a machine or quote unquote machine kind of gets you up, I'm into that. You're on the ground, you're grounded. Second to that, right? It's, it's almost the opposite to me of everything else we do. And when you think about kind of my whole philosophy on fitness and training and more importantly, kind of level setting people's posture, diaphragm function, etc. The skier just ties so nicely into that because it is kind of countering almost everything else we do. If you compare the skierg to a kettlebell swing, it's almost the exact opposite. So instead of pushing the weight, you're pulling yourself almost into that same hip hinge position. So from a sort of muscle balance perspective, we've got it nailed. And then, you know, as an obstacle racer, you know what, what better machine? Something you're standing on two feet, building a ton of strength, endurance, and really using the up in almost any way you want. You can do. You can do heavy stuff, you can do short sprints, you can do to 2K 5K. I just, man, it's a magical machine. I could probably talk all day about it.

Are they, are they super expensive?

No, man, I think, what was it, 800 bucks? Something like that. It's really inexpensive. I think it's cheaper than almost any other.

Like a home gym compared to a.

Home gym compared to a treadmill. I think my treadmill is like 3,500 bucks.

Well, you know, you know, my, my go to device for my go method for any of these fancy devices is I'll go to Craigslist because usually there's some rich person who bought it and it's sitting in their garage and they'll like almost pay you to come get.

It from them, without a doubt. And actually, since you brought it up, the air bikes, Craigslist, I picked up, I've picked up three AD4 Airdynes over the years for between 100 and 150 bucks. So, yes, Airdyne.

Airdyne bikes are amazing. I was actually, I was down in Austin, Texas at Paleo Effects and the guy I was staying with had an Airdyne bike on the patio of his condo. And I went out there every morning and did a Tabata set on the Airdyne. Just four minutes of 20 seconds all out, 10 seconds off. And I mean, when it comes to getting a huge amount of non impact bang for your buck, if you can grab an Airdyne aerosol bike, like even off Craigslist. And again, like, like you said, Joe, there's people practically giving them away. Dude. Awesome, awesome tool in the fitness arsenal, without a doubt.

I mean, the two things that I currently have in my house are the AD4 Airdyne bike and the skierg. So if that's any testament, awesome.

Now you also had over at your house this new coffee pot that you're messing around with. Because I know that you're big into coffee and like trying out all sorts of new methods of making coffee. And it was like a, like a hand pump kind of like espresso machine. Is that what you're still using to make coffee?

Yeah. You know, Ben, that thing got a little laborious.

It seems kind of annoying.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm all about espresso. I have a. I really believe that, you know, caffeine is more or less like a, almost like a medication. Right. That I like to pack a punch. I like espresso. I like the most benefit with the least amount of volume. Right. So I'm super into espresso. That particular machine, the handheld pump thing, I don't even. I think it was called the waka something or rather. No, it's a little laborious. The shots are a little bit, you know, I don't know, I hung it up. It's on the, the shelf of forgotten coffee makers right now. Yeah.

So what are you using now as a, as a coffee aficionado?

All right, so, well, this might be a little bit funny, but ironically, over the years I. Well, let me kind of rewind. I think that rituals are super important. I think that making coffee is, you know, it's. It's like sitting around a fire. It's just something you need to do. And I think that grinding the beans by hand is kind of the most important thing, no matter how you make them. Take five minutes in the morning, grind the beans by hand, think about your day. It's very cool. It's ritualistic, it's Something we need to do to kind of slow down and start our day. And then however you make the coffee, I'll mix it up. I'll do an aeropress sometimes, or I've got a few other types. But you know what's hilarious is more often than not, and in a house with 10 different ways to make coffee and five different coffees to choose from, typically I go cowboy more often than not over the past couple of months. And. And I know you had some content that kind of went into how the filtration of coffee can rob some of those cognitive boosters and things like that.

Yeah, especially paper filtration specifically filters out thethe coffestol and the Kahlaol from the coffee, which are two cholesterols that actually they act similar to caffeine, but differently in that, you know, caffeine blocks the adenosine receptor that makes you sleepy. And these other two molecules enhance cognitive performance in different ways. So, yeah, when you, when you do like a paper filter method, any paper filter method, I think the Aeropress actually has the option for a metal filter. You. You get rid of these coffestals and kahliols. So, yeah, cowboy coffee is what you're doing now.

It's what I do more often than not. And I'll do one of two ways. You know, if I don't feel like chomping on any grounds, then I do have a. A tea. A tea bag filter. Like a little. It's kind of like a. Looks like almost like a coffee scoop, but it's got a filter on the end. And occasionally I'll pour it through that. So no filter. You still got that. That at the bottom of the mug, you'll still get some sludge, but I stir it up. And yeah, more often than not, I go cowboy. If I'm at home.

You'll laugh at why I became such an expert at making cowboy coffee and not getting grounds in the actual vessel that I poured the cowboy coffee into. It's because of the article that I wrote a couple years ago about how to give yourself a coffee enema. I don't know if you saw this, but there's an article called how to give yourself a bulletproof coffee enema on my website. Yeah, and coffee enemas, by the way, just full disclosure. Twice a month I do a coffee enema. It's great for your liver, your gallbladder, cleaning out your colon, blah, blah, blah. And I know some of you probably are about to quit listening because of what I just said, but either way, the go to method for making your coffee is 13 minutes of cowboy coffee style where you put a bunch of grounds in a cast iron skillet and you pour a bunch of water over that and you just let it simmer for about 13 minutes and then you pour that ever so carefully in the case of an enema into an enema bucket or in the case of normal consumption into a mug. And if you do it right you actually don't get a lot of the grounds and you get all of the bioactive components of the coffee. Plus you feel like a. Because you're making cowboy coffee until you put it up your and feel like a woo woo hippie anyways though, so hand coffee grinder plus aeropress or cowboy coffee. I like it. One other question while we're geeking out on coffee. Have you seen the Chemex, the automatic coffee maker?

Yep.

Beautiful, beautiful machine that's on my list of machines that I want to get. Although I believe that that still has a little bit of like a paper filtration option to it. I think you can do like a slow drip method with that one as well. Or they have like a stainless steel type of filter you can use. But it's a beautiful, beautiful coffee maker. I'll put a link in the show notes if people want to see what it looks like. But it's called the Chemex C H E M E X Automatic because my. I had a Wilfa coffee maker and that one kicked the can. So now I'm just French press or cowboy coffee.

Right.

All right. I didn't know we were going to talk so much about coffee anyways though, let's get back into fitness. So you, the other thing you were talking about the last time I were at your house was this Prague method of training and there was this guy named, named Raj, Dr. Raj from London, who I interviewed a few weeks ago and he also brought up this Prague method of training and I'm not too familiar with it, but can you describe it and why it's something that you're interested in as a training method right now?

Yeah, you know, the Prague School is, you know, they are just brilliant people. I've had the opportunity to take two, three, maybe four of their classes. I've done a few PRI classes as well. If folks are familiar with PRI here in the States, it's a similar methodology. It's not exactly the same, but DNS is in a nutshell. It's sort of this theory that's based on what we can call kind of positional mimics of developmental milestones that babies go through, right? So when you are an infant, you are. You're going through these developmental milestones. When you're three months old, you can, you can pick your head up a little bit, right? And maybe look around. When you're nine months old, you can begin kind of getting into like a three quarter squat. When you're 12 months old or more, you can kind of get upright. So what they've done is kind of created positional mimics of these that are kind of their. Their whole premise is essentially based on two things. Let me kind of rewind. The premise behind the DNS and the Prague School method is maximizing the efficiency of intra abdominal pressure and more or less maximizing, as best we possibly can in a sedentary culture, proper joint, namely in the hips and shoulders. And then the underlying theory, like I said, it's based in these different positions that you would breathe in and create intra abdominal pressure that are based in this developmental idea that your nervous system controls everything. No matter how old you are. And that nervous system, the development of that nervous system in the first year or so of life is so profound that when you put your body, no matter how injured or old you are, into this correct position, your brain has a tendency to say, oh, oh, I remember that. And more or less accelerate your strength, your rehab, your performance, your posture, your breathing, exponentially.

Yeah, the website's weird. The website's almost humorous for it. Like, if you go to rehabps.com, there's like, posters of babies at like, 3 months old doing, like, what would appear to be like the happy baby pose in yoga or these different lunge positions that they're doing as they're crawling and developing and learning to stand. And then it's showing a human, like a human woman mimicking each position that the baby is in. So is that more or less what you're doing is getting into all these different developmental positions and learning how to breathe or train in those positions?

That's exactly it, Ben. So super interesting when you go to the workshops, when you go through their education, you know, you spend a lot of time looking at babies and understanding how they move and how they progress through different movements. And you know what's funny is. So I was a client of. People on the show have probably heard of Eric Cressy. Eric Cressy was my coach maybe seven, eight, nine years ago. And I was actually coming out of, like, a serious problem. I had fractured my skull. I had some residual kind of dystonia and My right side. So my right side wasn't really moving all that well. And, you know, my issue was I wanted to walk in a really straight line, and I couldn't do that. We went to the mall together. You'd be like, dude, get off me.

How did you fracture your skull?

Kind of a long story. I was playing a sport that I should never play at my height and weight. And it was basketball. And randomly the hoop decided to fall down. No, I wasn't dunking. I'm five, six. The hoop fell down and landed on top of me and basically crushed my head. So, yeah, it was looking pretty grim for a while. I don't tell this story very often, but now it's out there. So, yeah, like, the right side of my head is a big plate in it, and I'm, you know that it might explain a lot, right. But kind of rewinding a little bit. So I went into some rehab and started trying to work on this because my issue was right, left, my right was very hypertonic. And after that I progressed and I decided to go, you know, hey, what better guy than Kressy? He's kind of a rehab guy, works a lot of pro ball players. I had played baseball growing up, so I went to him. He was up the street from me, and he had me doing. He was my first touch with the DNS and pri because obviously baseball guys have a lot of this pathology that really ties in nicely to this, whether it's posture or whatever. But I just decided at that time, I'm going to do whatever this guy says. And the DNS stuff he was putting me through was way over my head. I just decided to shut up and do it. And what I noticed was it was accelerating my progress faster than anything I had done. And I had done a lot of stuff when I was trying to get my brain to fire. I was taking whips of peppermint. I was dripping coffee in my ears. Like, not coffee, but I was dripping hot water in my ears from, like, all this wild stuff. I was. I would listen to anybody that say they could fix my right side. So this breathing stuff. So I would go like heavy set of trap bar deadlifts. I would come right off and go into one of these developmental positions, breathe for 7 or 8, 9, 10 cycles, go back into the deadlift and have exponentially more strength because you're maximizing joint intra abdominal pressure. And honestly, the DNS is what catapulted me. So I started to dabble. And then, I don't know, three and a Half years ago, started going through their education myself. And yeah, I'm using it now. I mean, it has transformed how I look at everything. I mean, I have athletes that I don't even stretch anymore because they're tight. This or that is only because they're not pressurizing well in their abs and they're, dare I say, more.

And so when you say DNS, by the way, it stands for Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization.

Yeah, exactly. That's the Prague School's system.

Interesting. Well, I'll link to this Prague School in the show notes, but it sounds very much like this guy, Dr. Eric Goodman, who I've had on the podcast before, and I recently read his new book, which is called True to Form. And it's comprised of somewhere between 15 and 20 different exercises you can use to decompress the spine. Typically, you're doing like a deep, what he calls a decompression style, breathing from deep within the navel as you perform these specific movements. Like, he has one called the Woodpecker and another one called the Core foundation exercise. And typically they're either lying on your stomach on the ground, they're lying on your back on the ground, or they're standing in like a squat position or standing with either your right leg or your left leg forward in a lunge position. When I look at these posters on this Prague School website, some of his exercises actually look very familiar. Have you tried these Core foundation programs at all?

Not his, but I've done all the Prague School stuff, and they sound like they're awfully similar.

They sound very similar. As a matter of fact, I'm working on a blog post right now about how I've changed up my morning routine. I used to do a bunch of down dog yoga and sun salutations and just basic stretches for my morning routine. And I've begun using the program in the back of Dr. Eric Goodman's new book, this true to form book, for my morning routine. And so they're more like these isometric positions that you hold as you do this deep decompression style breathing. And the goal is to decompress the spine, open up the organs and blood flow throughout the body, and then finally to, for lack of a better phrase, turn on the butt.

Right.

And get. Get the glute firing for the day. And. And it's. It's changed my posture throughout the day, so it's. It's really interesting. It sounds very similar.

Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. And what you'll find, Ben, too, is that what I've noticed with the DNS stuff is that certain people do better in different positions. So there might be, you know, 10 exercises that you know are good for this person, and you might get 80% of the benefit from two of them. And so those are the two that you tell somebody, hey, you know, if you got one second at the airport, this is the movement you do or this is the position you get yourself into. And, and to your point that that whole breathing. I'm obsessed with breathing. I mean, it was the focus of the, the TED talk I did recently. It's. It's everything. It's replaced stretching, it's replaced meditation. Not entirely, but there is so much we can learn from breath and understanding that when we breathe, there's. There's a lot of theories out there, right? Like, draw your belly button in, push your belly button out, belly breathe. Just don't just breathe, you know, do this or do that. To your point, about the organs and everything else, when we take a real proper breath, as an infant does, our kidneys, our organs are moving matters of centimeters with those proper breaths. The way that things more or less get out of the way when we fill that entire cavity with air. And that's what keeps them vital, and that's what keeps things moving, and that's what keeps them healthy. I've had to, you know, in the past, I've had like, visceral manipulation done in my stomach. I've actually got it done down in Central America, which sounds crazy, but it's not. But people's organs literally adhere to each other internally because they're not getting that daily massage from this proper breath cycle. So there is, I mean, the benefit.

Super interesting. So. So you've actually had visceral manipulation done to assist with organ. Organ function?

Yes.

And you can do the same thing with proper breathing techniques.

Yes. There are people that are going to be so locked up viscerally from, you know, 30 years of dysfunctional breathing and having that lack of what I can call massage. And in those folks, just like I did, you just got to get someone to dig in there, whether it's a Rolfer or someone that's really trained in visceral stuff, and then this stuff will take on. But most of most folks, they start doing this stuff religiously. It took me three or four months to breathe into a certain place. So some of my DNS friends will be like, you know, breathe into this place and maybe they'll put their finger, you know, way down, like in your pubis, and you'll have to breathe right into that position, right into that spot. And when you start getting to the point where you can breathe exactly where people are putting their fingers, that's when you've really got it. That's when you're really dialed in.

Interesting. So can you give an example of how you would actually breathe into a spot? Like what exactly are you doing? Is it like through your nose? Deep breathing? Are you like drawing in sharp breaths to target a specific spot? Are you jumping in an ice bath and doing Wim Hof style breathing? I mean, what exactly is the breath protocol?

Yeah, so. Well, the underlying theory is that when you take a proper breath, you should really get kind of 360 degree expansion of the entire torso. So if we wanna say that the kidney should move a centimeter or two with a proper breath, that means if I put my hand on my back, then I should be able to feel that breath, Right?

That's interesting because usually you hear that it's just your sides that are supposed to expand.

I say if you, I say the goal is 360 degree expansion sides, you should be able to breathe into your back, you should be able to breathe into your stomach, and most importantly, you should be able to breathe into your, almost your genitals. You should be able to get the air so down there. And kind of to your point, right, There are things that we can do if we think about different ways to activate pelvic floor and things like that. So I'll have people actually get into a developmental position. Maybe it's a kind of a supine legs up, hip centrated position. Have them curl their toes. And this is another kind of developmental hack, right? Like a baby's laying there, their knees are kind of bowed out a little bit, their toes are curled. That's kind of activating pelvic floor. Because a baby, from an intra abdominal pressure standpoint, how long can you lie on your back with your, with your knees and feet in the air? Probably a minute. I know I get tired quick, but a baby can sit like that for 10 hours, right? So a baby has just perfect joint, perfect intra abdominal pressure. And so we can take an adult, we can have them kind of lie on the back, supine, knees up, feet up. We can have them curl their toes. That's going to help them kind of activate some of their pelvic floor. And then I'll have them also purse their lips and breathe in through pursed lips. And typically between the toes and the pursed lips, that'll help get the air to the deepest areas of the torso.

But do you show any of this in your TED Talk, by the way?

I don't get too into it, but I do. I don't jump on stage and curl my toes or anything like that, but I speak to it and we can link to that if you guys want.

Yeah, no, I already found the TED Talk and I'll definitely link to it in the show notes. And by the way, for those of you listening in, I'll take copious notes here and put them at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jody BenGreenfulFitness.com Joe the letter D, as in D Stefano. Anyways, though, so the one thing that comes to mind when you talk about visceral manipulation and this breathwork is fascinating and I think that everybody should watch this talk. Looks like it's about 16 minutes long. And I had forgotten that you were going to give a TED Talk, so I haven't even myself seen it. So I'm going to be watching that later on today on the plane. But anyways, what I've been using, and don't laugh, especially after my mention of enemas, is car buffer. So I got a car buffer on Amazon. You can get the. I know I've seen them being sold at Spartan races for ungodly amounts of money, but you can just purchase them or like a handheld vibrator device on Amazon. And I've done car buffering on my abdominals, all right, like complete relaxation and literally just gone in there the same way as a massage therapist might. And I've gone left to right, like basically followed the entire large intestine left to right and then back over the lower abdomen to the right at the very bottom. So just basically these giant left to right, these giant, like clockwise circles of the abdomen. I've been doing this for about a week and frankly, I've been pooping like a baby. Have you had any experience with visceral breathwork or the use of a car buffer to enhance digestive function?

My experience with car buffers is limited, however. Exactly what you're saying I have done on a lot of people. So just recently that works even without the car buffer. If you just have somebody lay down and take their shirt off or lift their shirt and you just massage in the exact same way that you just said, just with your hands, it works similarly, I would imagine. You're doing the car buffer on yourself, I assume.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just like standing there relaxing. I haven't tried it lying on my back. That's an even better idea.

Yeah, so I do have experience with that, but I don't have a car buffer. But, man, I'm gonna have to jump on Amazon and get a.

Why is a car buffer? Or the little. If you. Because I know you travel a lot. The little handheld massage devices, you know that, like, they have, like, three little balls coming off of them that you'd use on your back or your traps. Right. You see them at the. At the stores that sell the giant fancy massage chairs that you can go sit in at the mall while your wife is shopping. Not that I've ever done that, but those. Those tiny little handheld vibrators. Right, that would also work. Now, speaking of travel, Joe, I know you travel a lot, and I wanted to ask you because. Because I know you have all these little, like, sleep hacks and everything for travel, and we've talked about sleep quite a bit on the show, but immune system, do you do anything special to ensure that you don't get sick when you're traveling all over the world for all these spartan events that you're helping to put on?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, Ben, a lot of the stuff that I do currently have ripped off of you, so this might be a repeat for some of your listeners, but generally speaking, you know, I do. And this actually ties into. Paul. Check Paul. Cech always said, you know, oregano oil is. Is the key to immune health on the road and when you're traveling. And so I load up on the oregano oil. I got oregano P73, super strength. I'll take that before.

Why'd you call it P73?

Yeah, it's called P73.

Huh? What's the P73 refer to?

That's a good question. I just buy it.

Interesting. Yeah, just buy it. You don't ask questions. Oregano. Yeah, I see it on Amazon. Oreganol P73. Interesting, because I. I sell, like, a wild Mediterranean oil of oregano at Greenfield Fitness Systems that, frankly, my aunt is my oil go to. She does, like, our skin serum and our oregano and stuff like that. But I have never seen this P73. So do you go, like, straight sublingually, or do you mix it in a glass of water? What do you do with it?

Yeah, and definitely go super strength. Well, I guess if you're just starting out, maybe you don't. But I'll do it all sorts of different ways. Typically, I will drip it. It's a. It's an eyedropper, which I recently. It really sucks. But the third time that a Bottle of oregano oil explodes in your, in your bag is, is when you say I'm gonna switch to pills, even though I don't think that the pills are as good because I think that four or five, six, seven drops of oregano into a, an ounce or two of water and then just shoot that swirl around your mouth for a minute, let it kind of trickle down your throat and then swallow. I think that, that you're kind of covering all your bases. So I really dislike the pills.

Yeah, well, the other thing with the oil is that I've found that some residue of it remains in your. And yeah, it is annoying, by the way, when it spills in your bag. That's happened to me many a time. But when you get it in your mouth, whether you're doing a sublingual dropper under your tongue and swishing it around or in a glass of water, and then you're in a crowded space like an airplane or a subway or whatever, any airborne contaminants are hitting that oil of oregano in your mouth as you're breathing in. Whereas with a capsule, you know, you're actually not filtering quite as readily through the oregano.

That's a great point. And yeah, I mean, I've spilled so much of this stuff that I smell like a pizza no matter where I go anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But yeah, and to your point, you know, I started just chewing. The capsules are gel cap, so I just chew them now and then you get a similar effect. But yeah, so best way to go, just couple drops in an ounce of water and you're good to go. So that's kind of my big thing that I've been doing for years. But I also take, I take a lot of liposomal glutathione and vitamin C when I'm on the road, which I think I took from you. And then when you get off the plane, you do the activated charcoal that I know I ripped off of you.

And although the activated charcoal, the one thing you have to be careful of is if you're taking supplements or you're doing something like going out. And this is another thing I'll recommend like a really sulfur rich meal that has like garlic and broccoli and cauliflower and any sulfur based glutathione precursors in it to fight the type of oxidation that builds up during airline travel. You want to separate your activated charcoal from any of your meals or your other supplements because it'll tend to absorb not just the bad stuff from the Bloodstream, but also the good stuff. So the timing is important. With the charcoal, you're preferably doing it in a fasted state on an empty stomach or separate from any other supplements that you take.

Yeah, without. And so I've been doing at least, you know, five or 10 minutes. But what do you recommend in terms of if I'm getting off the plane, dropping some charcoal?

Yeah, at least 60 minutes.

60.

All right. So, yeah, exactly. So I, that, that's why I'm, I'm kind of careful. A lot of times when I'm on a plane, I'm not eating a ton anyway. So if I do the charcoal like right when I get off the plane, it'll be a good hour before I'm say at the local Whole Foods making myself a big ass salad with a bunch of garlic and broccoli on it. So I've got some time. But yeah, yeah, the separation. What about vitamin C? What are you using for vitamin C?

I do Live on, which I am not endorsed by Live on, but we'll talk about Live on labs. Vitamin C. There are these little packets that travel really well. It's almost like a gel and you just kind of. I just eat it. Basically. I just put the wrapper in my mouth, pull it out, leave the vitamin C in there and tip it back with a little bit of water. It does not dissolve or mix in water well at all. You end up wasting half your packet and they're a dollar or two each. So just kind of eat it and then just swish that back. I take that, I'll take a month off of the vitamin C every couple of months, but generally I'm taking that throughout the year.

And similar to the glutathione that, that' sthat's lipospheric. So it's. So it's fat soluble and it actually absorbs.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean unlike a lot of the vitamin Cs, the emergencies, whatever else is out there, the liposomal stuff, you'll, you'll feel them. You can feel the difference. You take it for a week or two. It's like, you know that stuff is.

Liposomal or lipospheric, they're kind of doing the same thing. Anything like that is going to be a little bit more fat soluble for things that would normally be water soluble like vitamin C or glutathione. So yeah, solubility is definitely important for sure. That's why the cannabidiol, for example, that I use. Cannabidiol is actually very fat soluble, unlike vitamin C or Glutathione, it's got the opposite issue. Right. Like it's not very soluble in water, so it'll get into the fat based tissues in your body but not into the water based tissues. So that's why I do like the nanoparticle based CBD because it's actually water soluble. So it gets into the sections of your body other forms of cannabidiol normally wouldn't.

Right, right. Have to give that a shot.

Yeah. So anyways, another thing that of course I know that you do quite a bit of, I think, think you and I hung out for the first time at the Ancestral Health Symposium a couple of years ago in Berkeley, California. And by the way, there's another Ancestral Health symposium coming up in Boulder, Colorado that'll be at. Those are very cool. Those of you listening in the Ancestral Health Symposium is like a very didactic based lecture and poster immersed conference basically. But it's a little bit geekier than say like a, a Paleo effects or a fitness expo or anything like that. It's very steeped in, in research and poster presentations and I don't know my. Am I describing that in the right way, Joe?

No, you're, you're right on. I mean it's a, it's a deep dive. There are some, some very heavy hitters there and the audience are ready, you know, they're ready for the next big thing that, you know, won't really hit the, hit the news channels in the mainstream for another year. Two, three, four, five years.

Right. And the AHS 2016 is, it's in Boulder and so that'll be a good event. But anyways, when I met you at the one in Berkeley, I remember everybody was basically like staying in the dorms in Berkeley and when you got there, I think you were like running up and down the stairs, doing burpees at each landing or something like that. Some body weight workout. And I know that you have methods to keep yourself in shape when you don't have your ski erg. So what's your, what's your go to body weight workout that you do when you're, when you're traveling or when you're, when you're in an airport or when you're somewhere where you don't have access to a good gym?

Yeah, so I've got a, I've got a few kind of go tos. Number one. Just like, you know, it kind of ties into what we were saying earlier. I am big on kind of isometric stuff. So if I'm in The airport. I mean, I'll just drop down, put on a Rage against the Machine song, and hold a plank. A high plank, a high. Push up an FLR. Whatever we want to call it. I'll do 5 minute holds of that. That's. That's kind of a go to. Like I said, if I'm waiting on my plane, I'll also do a lot of whatever position I can get myself into, whether it's a tripod headstand or whether it's a. I do a lot of planches now and I'll do like a reverse tabata planche. So I'll.

What's that? What's a planche?

So a planche is when you're kind of in a, in a cannonball position with your hands on the ground. So you're supporting your entire body with just your hands and your, your knees are tucked to your chest like a cannonball and you're facing the floor, if that makes sense.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. You see this in yoga. Sometimes, like, people will do a planche. I know, like a gymnast will do a planche with like their legs straight up behind them, right?

Yeah, exactly. That's way too advanced for me.

Okay, I'll put some images of planching in the show notes for those of you who want to know what it looks like. But you'll do this in the airport. You'll just hold this planche position.

Oh, yeah, def. All the time. And I'll do reverse tabatas. So I'll do 10 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest. Because that's a, that's a. Seriously, after three, four, five minutes of, of 10, 20 planching, you're pretty smoked.

That's an intense isometric hold. But I like this concept. I hadn't thought about doing this too much. I don't, I don't know why, but this concept of doing isometric holds, because frankly, you know, like, I just posted a video to the, my Facebook page of me doing like sprints and skips and burpees in the airports with my kids. But sometimes that annoys people. Whereas holding isometric position seems like something that you could, you could do without bugging too many of the other folks around you waiting at the gate.

Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? I, you know, I get the, the random security screening often enough, so I try to stick with, I try to stick with isometric stuff when I'm in the airport, but, you know, that doesn't mean I won't do. I'll do push ups. I do a Lot of emoms and stuff too. So I'll do like, if I've got 20 minutes, I'll do 10 push ups on the minute for 20 minutes or seven burpees on the minute for 20 minutes. I did that one recently at the Vatican, actually. There was like a 200,000 person line and I did an emom standing right there because we weren't going to move for a couple hours. Yeah. So, and then 30 30s are my big favorite. So if you've got, you know, maybe you've got, maybe you're out in the field, wherever you might be, probably not in the airport, but if you really want to get after it and you have absolutely no equipment, you know, pick five, six, seven bodyweight exercises. So you've got push ups, you've got lunges, you've got squats, you've got squat jumps, you've got lunge hops, you've got burpees, you've got hand release burpees, you've got isometric holds you can mix in like a tripod headstand. And I'll just go 30, 30. I'll typically do two or three, four rounds of each movement before I switch. So it might be like 3, 30 30s of squats. And I'll say that I have to get at least 22 reps each set of 30. Right. And I'll do three of those, then switch exercises. And you can just repeat that all day if you want. So that's kind of my. If I really want to get after it, it's going to be a 30, 30 kind of chipper with five or six exercises.

Nice. I like it. You publish a lot of your workouts online, don't you? Somewhere?

Yeah. Yeah, I do. So Instagram and stuff. I usually post the entire workout because I wonder if people care. But I typically post the highlight.

And you, you do that to your Instagram page primarily for your workouts?

Yeah, primarily Instagram.

What's your handle on Instagram, which is JDI Spartan. Okay, got it. I'll link to that in the show notes. By the way, speaking of doing burpees at the Vatican, did you know that the best gelato in the entire world is in the shop right outside the walls of the Vatican? And did you have a chance to go try it?

I should have assumed that, but I did not.

Okay. So for anybody listening in, Old Bridge gelato is the name of the shop. And my wife and I researched this heavily prior to going to Rome because we're both gelato aficionados and I Do indeed actually travel if I'm in Italy with lactase digesting enzyme pills, because I'm not that great at digesting lactase. But I will not forego a good cone or cup of gelato. But it's called gelato Old bridge outside the Vatican. For anybody who happens to be visiting the Vatican anytime soon and wants a little cheat meal.

I did have a cheat meal over there. And I, I read reviews. I said, you know what? I'm in Italy. I'm going bread, I'm going big. So I decided, after reading countless reports that Rome has the best pizza on the planet, I decided that I would find the best pizza in Rome because that means you're eating the best pizza in the world. And so I decided to go for that. And I did have that with a nice half liter of wine.

And so the carafe of wine, which is actually their house carafes of wine over there are better than much of the very, very good wine in the States. You know, the thing about Italy and wheat and celiac disease is, you know, celiac is actually a growing issue in Italy, but it's because they've changed up their wheat production techniques to be very similar to what we're doing in the U.S. now, where we're, for example, you know, genetically modifying these dwarf stocks so they can hold coke, copious amounts of the actual wheat berry, and extremely concentrated amounts of gluten. Whereas old world schools of growing wheat, you tend to get a little bit more natural amounts of gluten. You tend to see slow fermentation processes being used in the pastas and the breads and stuff like that. A lot of places aren't doing so much of that anymore. And I think that's why celiac disease and pasta in general is becoming a bigger health issue in Italy. So. And you're Italian, right, Joe?

I am, I am. And I definitely will report, though, I can get away with eating more bread over there. So I'm a big, I'm a big believer in olive oil. I think olive oil, maybe it's because I'm Italian and I was raised drinking it, but I, I do believe that olive oil is, is if there were, if there was a magic bullet oil, right? And obviously coconut's great and butter is great and, and, but I think if we wanted to choose a, a, A oil that would, that we could recommend to the absolute most people in high quantities as, you know, like all the APOE stuff and just the modern convention, the beliefs about saturated fat. I wonder if olive oil is sort of that kind of middle ground, I think it's very, very good for you. And I think that, I suspect that using. Even if you're. I don't want to sound crazy, but if you are eating bread, my thing is I'm gonna, I'm gonna drown that slice of bread in olive oil. Like, yeah, it's gonna be sopping. And I think that, that you get enough, you get more benefit than harm. If you're in Italy eating nice bread that was prepared well and it is absolutely soaked in olive oil, I think.

Yeah, no, I'm a huge, huge fan of olive oil for the reasons that you've described. The problem is real olive oil only gets into the US it trickles in extremely small amounts. I don't know if you knew this, but olive oil is extremely adulterated in the US So you get olive oil that's mixed with other vegetable oils, you get rancid olive oil. You get olive oil that has way fewer of the polyphenols and the flavanols and a lot of this content that we don't know that much about, gluten digestion, for example. But it could be that some of this stuff is protecting you against, you know, some of the potential deleterious effects and certainly against the blood sugar spiking effects of something like wheat. But I'm a member of this olive oil club, so. Have you heard of this before, Joe, this olive oil club?

I have, and although I'm not a member, I got a guy that hooked me up.

Okay, okay, so you got a guy. I don't have a guy, but I'm a member of this club. And for any of you listening in, I'll put a link in the show notes. But it's like magic. Every three months, I get three enormous bottles of olive oil in these glass, non transparent containers that show up at my house. And they're always from some different region of the world like Chile or Argentina or Italy or Spain. And it comes with this booklet that walks you through the actual farm and the person who made the olive oil, and you dump it into a shot glass and it's always green or has stuff floating in it. And it's the real deal, olive oil. And it tells you the tasting notes and everything like that. So. So it's for people who geek out on olive oil. It's a pretty cool, cool club to be a member of. So it's called the olive oil club. Anyways, though, let's get back to what I actually wanted to talk to you about, Joe, before we Got sidetracked by coffee and enemas and the Prague method and breathing like a baby and car buffers on your abs and everything else. And that is detoxing. Digital detox. So I know that you recently did some kind of a digital detox in Costa Rica, and you came back and seemed to be very excited about it. I think you were at my house like a week or two later. Can you go into what exactly that was all about, this digital detox that you did?

Yeah. So there's this thing has just started. I've always kind of believed in this throughout the course of my life, is that when you reach a point as. And we reach that point faster and faster in a kind of modern world, when you reach a point where you're just losing productivity because you are either tired or stressed or overstimulated, you got to take a break, you got to reset. And so kind of serendipitously, about three years ago, which was kind of the. What I call the hockey stick of Spartan race. It's when we went from like 16 races to 80. You know, I think I was on 70 some odd flights, or it was high 60s, whatever the number was globally, right? So Spain, Australia, all these different places that were just really burning the candle at. Not just both ends, but there was wicks coming out of every. Every which way. And I was. I was definitely just really burnt out. So, long story short is I got. I got signed on to speak at an event in Costa Rica, which was super random for me. I wasn't doing a lot of speaking at that point. Someone was just like, hey, we want you to come speak on this topic. And so I said, sure. That's great. Book my travel. Well, about six weeks out from that event, I get an email that the event, it was a small, intimate thing. The host was extremely ill, and she decided to postpone a few months. But I already had the time off. I had everyone squared away. I had my. My itinerary, I had my travel, and I needed the break. So I went down and by myself and ended up because the event was canceled. I basically had this entire center to myself. And, well, I ended up meeting one other person. Her name is Jules. Maybe I'll get to her later. And so what I did was I said, I'm gonna go down. I already have the time off. I am gonna charge my phone, but I'm not gonna bring the charger because I want to use this thing so little on this week that I'm not even gonna need another charge. I'm gonna save it for an emergency. I'm not even gonna bring my computer. We're just gonna detox this thing. I need a break because I identified that my phone and computer were sources of stress. I was super burnt out. And I identified that I was at times checking my email just to. Just to elicit a stress response. And I was like, this is just, this is just madness.

It's addicting. People do it now every four minutes. That's actually how often most folks are now checking their phones every four minutes. That's the entire day.

It's crazy, right? So I go down there and it was just magic. So I go down, I'm like, this is gonna happen. I'm gonna detox digitally here. I go down, I meet a woman named Jules who is probably one of the best yoga instructors on the planet. Best yoga instructor I have ever met. She will, she will teach an entire class in Sanskrit. Her energy is just palpable.

What kind of yoga?

She does kind of a, almost like a proprietary style that's a combination of a lot of different types. But it's primarily a hot vinyasa flow, okay. With sort of notes of Bikram and notes of Baptiste and notes of other things. So it's just a. It's a magical experience. So I meet with her, she's down there, much to the same reasons as me. And we have this retreat center together. So basically what we ended up doing was we did yoga every morning and every afternoon. So we roll out of bed, different rooms, just still any rumors. Roll out of bed, you go have some tea or something, watch the sunrise, go do a 90. Sometimes we would go up to two hour flow yoga session. Then I would leave and I would go ziplining. I would go paragliding, I would go hiking, I would go waterfall repelling. I would get some insane spa treatment that you can't even find in the US Maybe like visceral manipulation or there's a few others I can speak to. Then I'd come back, do another yoga session with Jules. All the while we were eating just the most amazing organic foods professionally prepared by ridiculously talented chefs. It was just an amazing week. And I did it for eight days. And honestly, it was funny because eight days, Eight days of that. No phone, no computer.

How many hours a day were you actually doing the yoga part?

There were days that we would do five hours. There were days that we would do two hours. There were days.

I've actually, I've always wanted to do something like that where you're just Doing. I mean, this sounds like, you know, some couple of, I guess you might say, like metrosexual pampered men talking to each other. I've always wanted to do five hours of yoga just like day after and just see what happens to my body. So that's really interesting. So what happened?

It's seriously amazing. But and also keep in mind too, on days that we would do five or six hours of yoga, which is a lot for some people, there might be a two hour block where we just worked on handstand patterning. We just worked on kind of drills and skills to improve our yoga practice. So it's not like you're flowing for six straight hours, but the effects on your body are just unbelievable. But so anyways, if you imagine this, you go from like this high strung, I'm traveling too much, I'm not sleeping enough, I'm burnt out, I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm aggravated all the time, whatever the problem is. And then you just dump yourself into the jungle for eight days. And I came back just what I. The only word to describe it is reset. I was. And it was in December, so it was right before 2014 or 20, whatever it was. And I decided about a week after I got back, which is probably around the time I saw you, like, the world needs this. Oh, you know what? So you were actually a year after this. But I said, the world needs this. So I said, I'm going to go back. I called up that same place and I said, I want to go back next year and I'm going to bring 20 or 30 friends.

And what was the name of this place?

Well, my event is called Runga, but.

It takes place at this center in Costa Rica that you were at doing all this yoga and stuff.

Exactly. It takes place at a place called Pura Vida, which is in Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Pura Vida, okay.

And so I went back the following year, brought 30 people with me and we did the exact. We mimicked exactly what I had done with Jules organically. And of course Jules came back. I invited a couple other rock stars, like kettlebell gurus from the, from the RKC and sfg, brought some running coaches that work with really high end athletes all the way down to average folks, some rehab people so people could get just remarkable treatments, whitewater raft guides from the States that just are rock stars. And so we ended up having about 22 guests and about eight staff members. Every single one of them was just a rock star. And we just did it again. We did it for eight days and we're actually, I think you might be coming. I'm going back this year and we're going to bring 30 people.

Oh. I mean, when you told me about it, I really, really wanted to come. I guess the clincher for me was I have to talk my wife into it, and I'm pretty sure she'd be up for doing five to six hours of yoga a day along with these other. So you're doing a bunch of these other things that you talked about, right? Like the zip lining and the white water and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah. And so, and the thing about runga, the way that it's evolved is it is a digital detox, but it's designed to give people. It's like a choose your own adventure. So we're gonna put all of this stuff. We have twice daily yoga, zip lining, waterfall repelling, hiking, whitewater rafting. We have all this stuff. But one important thing that I kind of tell people the day they arrive is that you need to do whatever you want to do. So if you don't, if you want to do once a day yoga, you go ahead and do that. If you want to go zip lining, but you don't want to go whitewater rafting, I need you to finish this week reset. I don't want you to feel, I want you to do everything that you need to do.

So, yeah, that's, that's important because that's one thing that annoys me sometimes when I go to these conferences is you're, you're obligated to join into this strict schedule when half the time, you know, I would imagine after doing four hours of yoga or whatever, you just want to go curl up in your hotel room for a two hour nap because you don't have your cell phone and no one's there to bother you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing, man. You really, you really start to gain perspective. So having brought 22 people last year that were just, you know, not really understanding maybe what they were getting themselves into, here's how it goes. It's like day one, they're shocked because you really are going to take their cell phone and put it in a safe deposit box for the week. Yes. Okay. So they're a little bit shocked. Day two, they kind of got that anxiety. They're reaching for their pocket. They kind of, they're, they're stair crazy. I'm telling you, on the eighth day, they do not want their phone back.

So you actually take the phone when people Come in.

We actually take the phone. It's safe. There's a thousand phones around. If there was ever an emergency, we've got all the phones we need on staff. And I did do it willingly. I let people last year, like, if you're really not comfortable with it, you know, I know, I understand some people have kids and all that. Like, I'm not going to force you, but I urge you to put your phone in the box. And almost everybody did, but it's. You start to realize the effects, the preoccupations, the amount of time that you have spend. You spend thinking instead of searching for something to think about, if that makes sense, or the time that you allow your, your brain to calm. And honestly, like you said, sometimes you do a two hour yoga class, you feel tired more often than not at Runga because of the environment. Sometimes you might. But honestly, the energy is so different. You have, by the third or fourth day, it's a completely new you. It's a completely new mindset. You're in a new place. I can't even explain it. But the last thing I'll say to kind of tie this all up is that we want you to get in touch with your primal side, right? So we'll split a couple bottles of wine at dinner among the crowd or whatever. But then we will get, at night when it's dark, we will get a absolute raging bonfire going and we'll bang drums, couple people will dance around the fire. It's an amazing primal experience that all I can say is that it resets you. And when you come back, you're looking at things a lot differently.

Nice. Nice. I like it. I have it blocked out in my calendar to be there. I personally plan on going. I also plan on bringing Jessa, possibly bringing the boys. But yeah, man, I mean, what Bluetooth does to your blood brain barrier, what WI Fi can do to your cell's electrochemical signaling, I mean, there's more and more research coming out about this. One of the best guys to follow, in my opinion, to get the most cutting edge information in terms of what electromagnetic radiation, radiation can do to Your body is Dr. Jack Cruz, who's constantly putting out blog posts that dig into European research that frankly, we don't even see in the US when it comes to what this stuff can actually do to your body. And so this concept of a digital detox, you know, the reason I felt so good when I came out of the Grand Canyon, the reason I want to rinse, wash and repeat the experience down in thisin this Costa Rica location that Joe went to is because we really, really need to do this for, for our bodies and for our brains. Joe, is there to finish up here websites, anything like that that you want to share with folks to allow them to get in on this thing. Is there like a limited number of people? When do people need to register by? Just give us the details on this.

Yeah, so, well, the dates are December 3rd through the 10th. The website is uranga r u n g a2016.com. All the information is there. One thing I didn't mention is last year, you know, we had a lot of support from really cool sponsors like Bulletproof Coffee and Epic Bar. And this year I haven't announced all of our sponsors yet, but this is actually the first sponsor I'll announce is just for your guest, Ben, Human Charger, which is a product you and I, you actually introduced me to them and.

Yeah, it's the in ear light therapy for resetting your circadian rhythm.

You got it. So they are coming on board this year and actually everybody that registers before July 15 is going to get a human charger and you don't even have to use a code. Just starting today, everyone's going to get a human charger. The bad news is that there is actually already about 23 people registered so I'm capping it at 30 because I don't think many more than that. I don't want to change the experience so there aren't a ton of spots left. So folks that want to get in should register soon. Just read up on the website, send us an email if you have questions. And yeah, the perk is you're going to get a human charger which is a super cool device that we'll actually kind of talk about at Runga.

Awesome. Cool man. I love it. I love it. Well, I will put a link to the Runga retreat in the show Notes. I've also been taking a ton of notes on everything that we talked about. The planching position, gelato, old bridge, the vitamin C, your TED talk, the coffee makers, everything. So if you're listening in, first of all, block out December 3rd through 10th. It sounds like you might be one of I guess seven lucky people who are going to get in. Considering 90,000 people will listen to this episode. We'll see if you make it in. If so I'll see you in Costa Rica in December. But everything go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Joed to get access to that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Joe the letter D. And Joe, it's always awesome geeking out with you, man.

Hey, right back at you, Ben. Always a pleasure, man.

All right, folks. Well, cool. By the way, for those of you listening in who are also interested in Joe's coach coaching certification programs for Spartan, et cetera, consider joining me in Dallas. I'll be down in Dallas literally the week after this podcast comes out. They're doing Joe's SGX coaching certification. I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. There's a few more going on around the globe if you want to become like an obstacle course racing specialist. So check those out. Everything else BenGreenfulFitness.com Jod Joe, I'll catch you later man.

Take it easy, Ben.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.