Episode #158: How To Conquer The Toughest Sport On Earth.

In this podcast, how to conquer the toughest sport on earth. Shakely nutrition supplements, Choosing the right energy bars. Is Gatorade good for anything? Can athletes have a low carb diet? Overcoming open water swim fear, how hot does oil get when you fry eggs, shin splints and the effect of going low carb.

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

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and I gotta tell you, I'm a little bit sore. I did a half Ironman triath over the weekend and actually this is kind of interesting for those of you who listened in to the last podcast episode that I did with Dr. Timothy Noakes about electrolyte intake. I did end up testing whether or not I actually could do an entire half Ironman triathlon in the heat without using any electrolytes or sports drinks at all. And I actually did. Not only did I do the entire race without cramping, but I was in first place overall until about a half mile left, at which point I got caught by a runner and ended up getting second place. But still, the whole electrolyte thing, or no electrolyte thing actually seemed to work out okay. And we're going to return to a little bit more about that in this week's Q and A. But today we have a featured interview with Steven Ladd, who wrote a fantastic article about something called Get Ready for this Neuro Linguistic Programming on Friday, last Friday. And you can read that article@BenGreenfieldFitness.com well, Steven's actually coming on the show today to talk more about how to program yourself mentally for success, particularly in sports and specifically, and I don't want to alienate those of you who are not endurance athletes or not triathletes, but. But Steven knows that I like to do triathlons. And so we talk specifically about how to conquer the mental game of what we both consider to be one of the toughest sports on earth, which is triathlon. So you're going to learn a ton of cool little tips and tricks from Stephen. And I'd highly recommend that you go over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and click on the show notes to this episode, episode number 158, and check out Stephen's website. Okay, so that being said, we're going to move on to a few special announcements.

Special announcements.

So not a whole lot to go over in the special announcements. I just wanted to bring to your attention that I will be in El Dorado, California for those of you in the Sacramento, California area speaking on the evening of August 18th. That's a Thursday at 7pm so that's coming up in just one week from the time this podcast is released. And I will put a link in the show Show Notes to this episode, episode number 158. If you want to get more information or attend that nutrition and fitness seminar I'm going to be giving, it's totally free in El Dorado Hills on Thursday night. And then I will also be coming down to Las Vegas to compete in the Half Ironman World Championships on September 11th. So I'll be in the area between September 8th and 14th. And if you're down in the Las Vegas area, I'd love to meet you. If you're out there at the race or want to come out and spectate, just drop me a line and you can do so by emailing ben greenfieldfitness.com or you can tweet Tongreenfield. There are a few other special announcements in the show notes, but probably the most important is that I will be making that big announcement about a project I am releasing and I will be announcing that too, my VIP Text club. And here's how you can get in to that. And you're going to want to be in by this Friday. And if you're an international listener and you can't get into the VIP text club because it is a US only text club, simply shoot me an email BenGreenfieldFitness.com and I'll hook you up. Get the inside edge from Ben Greenfield Fitness delivered straight to your phone. Just text the word Fitness to 411247 and you'll instantly get exclusive VIP discounts and insider tips that no one else.

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Listener Q and A. Hey Ben, this is Mike in Connecticut. My wife just recently got a bunch of Shakely products as a gift and I have a question about three of them in particular. She got the Shakely Energy Chews, the Physique Shake and the Performance Drink. I was interested to hear your thoughts on both their effectiveness as well as the quality of the nutrition. Thanks for Your time. And I love the podcast.

So Shake Lee Energy or Shake Lee Nutrition. You go to the Shakely website and it is like so many nutritional companies are these days, a multi level marketing company. You know that right away if you go to a website and you see the word opportunity that appears anywhere. I swear every single multi level marketing company's website was designed by the same person because all of them have basically a menu on the top or the side and somewhere on that page it says opportunity. But anyways, that aside, in terms of the ingredients, they were a little bit hard to find. When you go to a company's website and you have to dig and dig and dig for the nutritional ingredients, it's never a great sign. Be sure if you're listening in and you own a nutrition company, make the ingredients evident when you hide them. It just raises an eyebrow. If you go to, for example, my coaching website pacificfit.net and you look at any of the supplements that I have over there, I try and make as detailed a product label as possible available to you. And if you ever cannot find one, then let me know because that's my bad and it needs to be up there. But I've been very careful to try and get you as much nutrition information as possible on that stuff. That being said, let's look at the Shakely Energy. It's got these energy organic dried cane syrup, organic brown rice syrup, organic rice syrup solids. And organic, by the way, is bold on the nutrition label because it kind of draws your attention to the word organic and not to the dried cane syrup and brown rice syrup and rice syrup solids parts. It's got wax palm oil, organic corn starch, and then green tea extract. They do use turmeric to color it, which is nice rather than using an artificial coloring. I'm not really seeing a huge advantage. I don't know how much this stuff costs, but there's not really anything in here that you couldn't get without drinking a cup of green tea or taking some green tea extract like in pill form, and you'd also be bypassing all the sugars that they put into this. You know, there's only 50 calories and 2 chews. But you know, if you were using these things for an energy pickup every day or you know, you're getting an extra hundred calories a day. Not a huge fan of any type of energy chews, you know, by any company, just because they usually do add a bunch of sugar to them, you know, FRS Energy Chews would be another example of such a Thing when we look at the Shakely performance, it is a mix of dextrose, maltodextrin, milk protein, whey protein. So that's basically sugar and protein. And then there's a list of about 20 different preservatives and, you know, added vitamins and minerals and things of that nature. I like that they didn't use any sucralose, any artificial sweeteners. You always look at those as a red flag when you're looking at the ingredients of a supplement. But this is basically nothing more than sugar and protein. I gotta tell you, in most cases with my clients and with myself, I try and encourage people to prioritize getting any type of post workout nutrition from just a real food, a real meal, because drinking your calories leaves you a lot less satiated. Now, I do drink my calories sometimes. I do sometimes rush into the house after a workout, have to be right back to work. And so I'll grab something like a whey protein powder packet and throw it into a blender with some fruit or even drink like a premixed energy or recovery drink with similar ingredients to something like this, which is basically just sugar and protein. But it's not ideal versus eating real food, primarily because it doesn't really satiate your appetite the same way. And so you've kind of got an extra 300, 350 calories in your diet that are probably just going to be extra calories because you're going to want to eat again like an hour later. And then we look at the final Shake Lee product that Michael asked about, and that was the Shake Lee performance. And that is basically maltodextrin, fructose, glucose and then some electrolytes. And we of course had that big electrolyte discussion last week. But this is essentially just like powdered Gatorade. No different than many of the other sports drinks that are out there. I never, ever use sports drinks. I never have. When I have taken electrolytes during exercise, I've used them in capsule form just because I find that it's a lot more difficult to calculate how many calories you're consuming when you're drinking them during exercise versus when you're consuming them from say like a gel. So I'm a bigger fan of using gels. And then if you are going to take electrolytes, electrolyte capsules. But again, based on last week's podcast episode, my experimentation with this half Iron man over the past weekend and also some of the other things I'll talk about today, you know, the whole electrolyte debate is kind of still out on the table, so. Great question though. All right, we're going to move to the next question and it is from Tony, who says you advocate Larabars. I guess I must. Maybe I advocated them in a previous podcast. I don't know. I'm not a spokesperson for Larabars, but I don't have an issue with them. But Tony says you advocate Larabars. However, I've spotted Nature Valley Roasted Nutcrunch gluten free bars which are substantially lower in sugar when compared with the larabar 6 grams versus 19 grams. Obviously the sugary ingredients in Larabars are mainly dates and sugar is listed on the Nature Valley products. So which is your opinion? Which in your opinion is a better bet to grab in the convenience store for a quick energy pick me up? Really neither. If you need a quick energy pick me up during the day and you're not exercising or working out, you should be choosing just to stabilize your blood sugar levels and to keep yourself insulin sensitive and not in a state where you're more likely to convert sugars to fat. You should be choosing fat and protein based snacks. I would be grabbing like a handful of raw almonds or Brazil nuts or some coconut flakes mixed with some of those types of nuts and seeds. And not necessarily a sugar laden product because it's a very, very short spike in energy. However, if you are doing something like grabbing a bar after a workout or you're on your way to the gym and you need to throw something down real quick, the Nature Valley Gluten free bar, that's almonds, roasted peanuts, sugar, sunflower seeds, corn syrup, yellow corn flour, salt, corn oil, and then some added preservatives. So we've got lots of kind of syrups and soy and corn in there. And that corn is definitely not a non GMO or genetically modified corn. And then Larabar. If we look at the Larabar ingredients, you know, for a typical Larabar, it's dates, almonds, unsweetened apples, walnuts, raisins and cinnamon. Just because the ingredients are more natural in a Larabar and it is non gmo, it's vegan, it's kosher. For those of you who care about that, soy free as well. I'm a bigger fan of the Alarabar, far more natural than the Nature Valley product. So that's what I would recommend if you are going to choose one of these bars. But again, for a, for a quick burst of energy in the afternoon, sitting around your Office, you know, out on a drive, whatever. Choose more protein and fat based foods. Question from Alan Alan says, I listened to your podcast the other day talking about the smoke points of oils and I had a practical question. I use olive oil or coconut oil to fry up my eggs every morning. I have no idea how hot the oil gets or how I would find out. Should I be concerned or cook at a mid range temp on my stove instead of a higher temperature. Well, this is a great question. I went over smoke points last week and you can listen to that podcast number 157 to get more details about that or just go read the transcript. Every single podcast is transcribed within 2 weeks after it comes out. You can find the transcripts on the upper right hand side of BenGreenfieldFitness.com but if we look at at temperatures during various cooking processes, if you're simply braising a food and what that would involve is basically frying the ingredients in a very small amount of oil on the stovetop, typically you're looking at about right around 200 to 250 degrees an oil like that is going to reach. In most frying processes, such as frying an egg, you're looking at a temperature getting close to 3 to 325 degrees. So you take your smoke point chart for oils and I linked to one in the last episode, and what you do is you match up 300 to 325 degrees with the common smoke points of various foods and you're going to find that you're still going to be okay with frying an egg in extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil or butter. Any of those would be fine. Once you start to get to the deep frying process, that's where you're looking at something getting closer up to like 350 degrees. And that's where you want to start to choose oils that are more stable at those higher temperatures. Things like lard and incidentally goose fat and duck fat, which are a little bit tougher to get your hands on, they do deep fry it at a little bit more stable temperatures. Now when you get to the saute process where you're really cooking something for a long period of time on a, a pan on the stove on a high heat, you're looking at temperatures reaching up to about 400 degrees. And some olive oils are able to have a smoke point that's slightly above that. And so those would be things that aren't going to really degrade quite so much at that higher temperature. And then finally, if you're going to completely sear something. It can get up to 500 degrees. Really, the only oil that's super stable up at those temperatures is an avocado oil, and hopefully that helps you out with choosing the oils to cook with. But let me say real quick, I'm not trying to create confusion when I talk about it being okay to cook at these higher temperatures with olive oil. It's simply a matter of semantics. You know, I've recommended many times on this show the use of extra virgin olive oil because of all the healthy compounds that are in it. But when I talk about heating an oil like an olive oil at a higher temperature, like during a saute method, I'm not talking about extra virgin olive oil, which has a lower smoke point than regular olive oil. So if you're going to saute, I would actually use a regular olive oil and not an extra virgin olive oil. So hopefully that's not too confusing, but it just means, you know, you have a couple different olive oils around the house. Okay, next question is from Matthew, who says, I just listened to your podcast about electrolytes, sports drinks and water. The conclusions about electrolytes are amazing, though that doesn't change the fact about sugars and nutrition during exercise. Yes, electrolytes aren't needed in sports drinks, but does that mean that sport drink formulas have to be revamped? Do the electrolytes do anything for the absorption or breakdown of the sugars in the sports drink? This is a fantastic question, and it's something that Dr. Noakes and I didn't talk about. Because when you look at a sports drink, not only do the carbohydrates in a sports drink help to stimulate sodium absorption and fluid absorption, meaning that you're going to absorb more of the fluids from a sports drink than you are the fluids from, say, something like water, but you're also going to enhance fluid absorption when you have sodium and chloride added to a fluid. Now the question is, if you're going to absorb more fluid from a carbohydrate and electrolyte containing beverage than you are from plain water, is it really that much of an issue? Meaning, if you're going to switch to plain water from a sports drink because you're convinced that electrolytes really aren't as necessary as we've all been convinced that they are, are you going to have to drink an extra 2 ounces of water, an extra 4 ounces of water, an extra 8 ounces of water per hour to make up for that decreased absorption of the fluids that you are drinking. And the answer is that I don't know. I've actually inquired to Dr. Nokes and I am waiting to hear back. So this is a fantastic question. There may actually be a physiological benefit in terms of fluid absorption from drinking something like a Gatorade or a sports drink. That may mean that you have to just drink less fluid overall. So the other consideration is if you are drinking water at the same time that you are consuming a gel or consuming, say if you are taking them electrolyte capsules with the gel and the electrolyte capsules, even though they're not mixed in with the water, actually still allow for that increased absorption effect. This is another question that I've put out to Dr. Noakes, who is the expert on this, and I'm simply waiting to hear back. So I'll report back to you. But it's a great question, and obviously it points out that there are extra things that we need to talk about when it comes to electrolyte intake. And I guarantee you that I will continue to explore this topic until it really has been completely cleared up. So I don't want to create a bunch of confusion and just leave you guessing because really, and you know, this, this kind of returns to the. To the psychological component of exercise and fitness and competition. You don't want to be second guessing yourself while you're out there. And that was definitely something that I felt during my half ironman that I did was I was just waiting to cramp. Okay. I was afraid that I was going to cramp because I wasn't taking any electrolytes and I'd never done that before. And so it does kind of mess with your head a little bit. And, you know, we want to make sure that we've completely cleared up the air. So that's not happening. Okay. The next question, I think was sparked by my interview with Paul Jaminette from the Perfect Health Diet, who talked about a lower carbohydrate intake and some of the health benefits of that combined with the health benefits of eating higher amounts of healthy fats. And Dorian Ryder writes in and says, besides obese fad diet followers, that you believe you can that believe you can be in great shape as an athlete on 400 to 600 calories of carbs a day. Do you know any real athletes that only eat 400 to 600 calories of carbohydrates per day? Are you trying to tell us that you can restore glycogen on 400-600 calories of carbohydrates a day and eat lots of fat and protein and recover in 24 hours. LOL. You need to play back the Doug Graham interview and learn some basic human physiology. Well, I have to admit it's a slightly hostile question and this same individual left many, many comments on the actual show over@BengruthwithFitness.com he's referencing or she the Doug Graham interview in which we talked about 80% carbohydrate diet made up of fruit. Which of course flew in the face of the other podcast that we did with Paul Jaminette from the Perfect Health Diet, who pointed out the fact that the body's daily glucose consumption is somewhere in the range of 400 to 600 calories and that that number is actually made up of anywhere in the range of 100 to 500 calories that your brain and your nerves need to function in terms of glucose calories. There is a compound in your body made up of glycoproteins called mucan. And mucan is really necessary for things like production of mucus and the lining of your GI tract. And that needs anywhere in the range of 200 to 300 calories to have that glucose part of the protein molecule and mucus. Then your immune and your intestinal and your kidney cells, Those need about 100 calories of glucose. And to burn fat, your body needs about 200 calories of glucose a day. And when you add all that up, it means that if you were just going to sit around during the day and not do anything at all, you'd still need to maintain a healthy immune system and healthy function and basically feel good about 400 to 600 calories of carbohydrates in any given day. And that's actually carbohydrates derived from food that you eat. Now, if you're going to get up and you're going to exercise, you can certainly take fats and proteins and turn those into carbohydrates. Your body can do that very, very efficiently and use those for exercise. But you're not going to be able to reach a really, really high intensity in order for you to go out and do like sprints and weight training and things like that, you're going to need to consume more carbohydrates than that 400 to 600 calories of carbohydrates, carbohydrates per day, or you're going to need storage carbohydrate in terms of muscle glycogen that your body can rely on. And so no, I'm not saying that athletes can survive on 400 to 600 calories of carbohydrates per day all week long, year round. The trick for an athlete or an exercising individual to be able to thrive on a low carbohydrate diet of 400600 calories of carbohydrates per day is to go through refeeding cycles where you restore muscle glycogen. So when you do something like this, you get the physiological and the health benefits of not constantly bringing your blood sugar levels and your insulin levels up through high carbohydrate consumption. But you also get the benefit of being able to restore carbohydrates at key strategic times throughout the week. So, for example, if you were following a low carbohydrate diet, you could eat 406 calories of carbohydrates per day, Monday through Friday and then Saturday and Sunday, step up carbohydrate intake to anywhere from 50 to 70% of your actual daily calorie intake. So there is really no black and white when it comes to just eating low carbs if you're going to be a heavily exercising individual. But you can certainly have periods of time that you go through where you're only eating 400 or 600 calories of carbohydrates per day. I've done it. I'm in the process of writing about it. I have clients who I'm working with who have done it. And there are certainly some pretty massive health benefits that come with limiting your carbohydrate consumption even if you are an athlete. Burning carbohydrates. Okay. Ed asked. I love to do a triathlon, but I'm afraid of swimming in the ocean or lake. I swim an hour twice a week in a pool that is 12ft deep. But can you help me or give me some idea of what to do to overcome my fear of swimming in the open water? Well, this is certainly a justifiable fear. I mean, because compared to swimming in the 12 foot deep pool that you're swimming in, open water oftentimes has reduced visibility or sometimes you can't see at all. And there are always, you know, things like, you know, animals and currents and, you know, other people and boats and all sorts of other environmental variables that make open water swimming something that can cause a lot more anxiety. Now, the interview that I will be playing at the end of this Q and A episode, I would highly recommend that you listen to and I would also read the the Neuro linguistic programming article that My interview guest wrote over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com because that will help you kind of train your brain to overcome fear. But there are certainly some other things that you can do. Now out here in the Spokane Coeur d' Alene area, I teach open water swim lessons, private and group open water swim lessons during the summer. And I have a little beach out in the lake that we go out to. And for the private lessons, I have had people who just kind of stand on the edge, more or less crying, afraid to get in. And what we do with them is the very first thing is we wade out into the water and get to the point where, just as you would when you're teaching a child how to swim, you get very, very comfortable with having your face and your head the water. So you start off by splashing your face, getting water on your face and just taking deep breaths and staying relaxed as you splash water on your face. And if you're trying to get ready for a triathlon, sometimes it actually can be beneficial to have somebody else splashing water on your face as well, just because you're going to have other people doing things to you during a triathlon, you know, bumping you and splashing you and things of that nature. And then the next thing that you do is you just get down and you blow bubbles and you get used to having your face kind of lower in the water, your head a little bit more submerged, and you progress from there to actually getting all the way in the water while you're still in a standing position. Once you're very, very comfortable with that, then you start to experiment very, very close to shore with getting into a horizontal position in the open water, just floating on your stomach again, putting your head underneath the water, blowing some bubbles, getting used to that feeling of being submerged in the open water in a horizontal position. Once you get used to that, you can start swimming horizontal to the shore in an area where you can see bottom, where your hands are almost touching bottom as you swim. And from there, when I've taught open water swim lessons, people have progressed very, very quickly. Usually the toughest part is getting past the being submerged horizontally. And once you're past that, you start to progress very quickly. Now, when you are swimming in the pool, you can certainly do some things like swim with the lane lines removed. So you get used to swimming with a lot more chop, swim with as many people in your lane as possible. So go to the pool when it's busy and try and swim with more people so you're getting used to having to swim around folks, and getting used to a lot of the chop that's going to happen in the open water. And also if you can, try injecting a few periods of time during your pool swimming where you're actually closing your eyes and getting used to swimming without being able to see. So you can just close your eyes for anywhere from three to six strokes and just practice getting used to swimming without relying on your eyes so much. And that can actually help out quite a bit with the feel for the water as well. So in addition to just some of those little suggestions that I've given, I would highly recommend that you implement the neuro linguistic programming that Steven talks about in the article and that he discusses a little bit in our podcast interview today. It's a great question, certainly a legitimate fear that a lot of people have to overcome, and those are some of my suggestions for doing it all right. Cody says Every time I run I experience shin pain. I'm not quite positive it's shin splints though, because it starts almost instantly. When I start my run, it never really gets worse. It's a mild pain, but enough to get me to stop running way sooner than I should be stopping. The weird thing is when I play football or basketball or any other activity that involves me running, I don't get this pain. Well, there's kind of two different types of shin splints. One is a bony shin splint, and that occurs when you've got these tiny little fractures that occur within the bone along the front of your leg, within the tibia, which is basically your shin bone. And it's not like a full on break that you have to immobilize, but you do get a little bit of inflammation from these little micro fractures and they can certainly cause pain in the front of the leg when you get out and run. And I'll talk in just a second about why you might feel these when you're running and not feel them when you're playing basketball or football. Now the other type of shin splint is muscular, and what happens in that case is the muscle attachments on the inside of the front of your lower legs and actually get inflamed. And typically the inflammation is due to high amounts of impact, too much training, increasing your training volume too soon. But essentially it's just inflammation in the muscles along the front of the leg. It's not micro fractures in the bone. But either way, two different types of shin splints. And typically the bony type of shin splint you're going to feel when you touch the bone. The more muscular shin splint you're going to feel when you're kind of running your hands up the soft tissue on the inside front of your leg. Either way though, both types are usually caused by improper biomechanics or that increase in volume that's occurring too soon. So in terms of biomechanics and the biomechanical reasons that you could be getting these shin splints is right after your heel strikes the ground when you're running, your foot starts to pronate. And pronation means that your weight is kind of moving from your heel to the inside of the foot front of your foot. And this allows your foot and your leg to absorb the impact of your foot strike. Now, if you have low arches, then what you can tend to do is over pronate. And when you over pronate, your foot turns too far to the inside after that foot strike. And the muscles, the tendons, the ligaments in your lower leg actually have to work harder to help to stabilize that foot. So an overpronation type of gait can cause shin splints. The other thing that can cause shin splints is just kind of the opposite problem. A real, real rigid foot with a high arch that tends to be what's called over supinated. And that's the complete opposite of overpronation. The foot tends to turn the opposite direction towards the outside of the foot after foot strike. But that can also result in the same issue with the muscles of the lower leg having to work harder to support the foot. And thus they get inflamed and you get shin splints. So when you are playing football or you're playing basketball, or you're doing a sport, typically you're moving in multiple directions. And many times you're on a softer surface as well. For example, a basketball court on a floating wood surface is going to give a lot more and cause less impact force on your foot than concrete or pavement. Football typically is on grass or turf. In addition, you are moving to the side laterally, you're moving backwards, you're moving diagonally, and you're placing stress on your leg in many different directions, which means that you're not hitting the same muscles over and over again. And that's likely why you're not feeling the shin splints when you're out doing these type of activities. But you also are feeling numb as soon as you start to load that muscle with chronic repetitive motion. That muscle or that bone with chronic repetitive motion over and over again when you're going out on a training run. So what I would suggest you do is you lay back on the training when it comes to going out and running and you go after the inflammation. You can do things like ice, you can use compression. You definitely want to stretch your calves. If you, if you go and you Google shin splints@bengreenfieldfitness.com I've talked lots of times about multiple shin splints treatments, but the other thing that I would highly recommend that you do is go look at your shoe fit. Get a good shoe that addresses whether you're an over pronator or an over supinator so that once you've gotten rid of the inflammation in your lower leg and you get back out there and train, you're not recreating the inflammation. Great question. All right. Chris says hi, Ben, in the past you've recommended avoiding all sugars and starches for active people looking to finally achieve that six pack. My question is about what to eat while avoiding sugars and starches. What would the diet of an active person look like without sugars and starches? And how long would a person need to do that? My other concern is energy levels and motivation to work out. Motivation suffering the most when I feel out of energy. Will trying to look good and avoid sugar and starches affect my ability to train my body? Also, I've experimented with severe carb restrictions in the past and always experience an equilibrium loss with dizziness within a few days until I started eating carbs again. What's the deal with that? Well, first of all, let's just address this dizziness real quick. That's pretty common when you really limit the amount of carbohydrates that you take in. And it's a combination of two things. Carbohydrates can carry up to four times their weight in water, meaning that your muscles, when they store carbohydrates away as glycogen, carry a lot of water with them. And when you switch to a low carbohydrate diet, it's very easy to become dehydrated, which can result in dizziness. So make sure that you're hydrating properly. The other thing is that you can become hypoglycemic. Low blood sugars can result in dizziness. That, combined with you not being used to burning fatty acids for energy, can also result in dizziness. And that's why whenever somebody switches to a low carb diet, I recommend that they really taper off initially their levels of physical activity so that they learn how to cope with lower energy levels before they actually jump back into hot and heavy training. Now, if you use the calorie cycling strategies that I talked about a little bit earlier, you typically don't have to worry about that quite as much, but it certainly is a consideration. Now let me clear something up. When I talk about trying to get rid of that last little bit of fat on the waistline and eliminating sugars and starches in order to do so. I'm not talking about going on a low carbohydrate diet per se. What I'm talking about is scanning the labels of any packaged foods that you eat and making sure that you're not consuming any high fructose corn syrup or added sugars, syrups, sweeteners, etc. Just because not only do those tend to really either contribute to fat on the waistline or reduce your ability to tap into that storage fat, but they also can produce some inflammation that results in a bloated, kind of puffy looking waistline. And so what also goes hand in hand with really limiting your processed or refined sugar consumption while you're trying to get rid of those last few pounds of fat on the waistline, is paying attention to other foods that might be inflammatory triggers, namely things like peanuts, wheat and soy. Those tend to be the biggest issues for people. And so I recommend not only lowering sugar and starch consumption, but also eliminating those common allergenic triggers. So I don't necessarily think that in order to get rid of the last few pounds of fat, you got to go on a low carb or a no carb diet. And that certainly can be something that, you know, when you're trying to exercise a lot, that can kind of get in the way of that. So all you need to do is look at, look at your foods and try and eat as many foods that are in their raw, unadulterated form as possible. So lots of vegetables and lean meats and seeds and nuts and don't eat a whole lot from packaged containers or processed foods. So that way you're eliminating a lot of the things that are added to those foods, like inflammatory vegetable oils and sugars and common allergenic triggers. So I think it's a lot more simple than you're actually making it. Now, if you're asking me specifically about strategies and practical implementations of doing a low carbohydrate diet and still trying to stay active, you may need to wait just a little bit because I do have something coming down the pipeline that's Going to help you quite a bit and you'll want to look for that next week in next week's podcast. I'll be telling you a little bit more about that. All right, we've got one little call in question from a listener that I wanted to share with you. I always like it when I get questions or when I get call in comments like this. And then we're going to go ahead and move on to this week's interview with Steven.

Hey Ben, this is Kelly calling. I have been subscribed to your Triathlon Dominator program over the last nine and a half months and it really paid off for me in my first Ironman experience, which was at the full vine man Jul 30. I had a great, great experience. The training was a bit different. I wasn't used to the high intensity training, but I could tell as the months progressed that I got stronger and faster, most notably in my run. I'm a born runner. I've enjoyed running my whole adult life and I thought that I had reached a plateau. But after using your HIIT training protocol, then I was able to even become a lot more faster. One of the best things that I can remember from your training program is the MP3s that you left on what to expect on race day and other tips for Ironman. And one of the best tips I got from that was stripping your bike of the back cage bottle cages on the back of the seat. Now I trained with those and they were full throughout my training, but I took them off for the race and it was the greatest thing because I noticed a huge improvement of my bike time and I was able to refill with just straight water and fuel at the aid station. So thanks for that tip. That really helped me and I know that if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have gotten the time that I got. So Ben, thanks so much. I'm going to continue this HIIT training and use it for just general fitness lifestyle. But my 20 year dream came true finishing my Ironman. Thanks to your training. Have a good day and thanks again. Looking forward to a few more podcasts too. Bye bye.

Well, awesome job, Kelly. Congratulations. And for those of you wanting to find out more about that Ironman and half Ironman triathlon training program that I wrote that allows you to train for triathlon without neglecting your career and your family and your friends, check out triathlon dominator.com and let's go ahead and move to this week's interview with Steven Ladd about how to conquer the Toughest sport on earth.

Featured topic.

Hey, folks, this is Ben Greenfield, and I can tell you right now that when it comes to the sport of triathlon, it is just as much mental as it is physical. I don't care how much training you've put in, the quality of your training plan, the quality of your nutrition. If your head isn't screwed on straight when you get out there and your toes are on the starting line, or if you're not prepared for what your mind is going to have to conquer and overcome when you are halfway through the bike or just starting into the run or halfway through the run or even within just a couple miles of the finish line, then you're leaving a lot of the success that you could have for triathlon really kind of on the table. Now, I admit I am not a psychiatrist. I'm not a sports psychologist. I'm not an expert in mental training for triathlon. So what I wanted to do is get somebody who is one of those things, all of those things or some of those things on the call to talk about mental training for triathlon. And I've got Steven Ladd here. And Stephen specifically is the creator of a system that allows you to actually do the mental training that's necessary for you to be the best that you can be in the sport of triathlon. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about, what goes into the elements of that system today in the interview with Steven. So, Stephen, thank you for coming on the call.

Well, thank you, Ben. I'm thrilled to be here. And I welcome everybody who's listening in.

Awesome. So before we get going into the nuts and bolts of how to train yourself mentally for the sport of triathlon, tell me a little bit about you, like how you got started with kind of working with athletes in this environment and how you got started with sports psychology and especially the unique type of sports psychology that you do.

Well, sure. You know, I was an athlete from early grade school up through high school. I went to college wanting to learn ways to build better athletes. I knew I wanted to be involved in sports as a career. If it was not as a professional athlete, it was going to be in the training element in some fashion. So I took the traditional exercise physiology, but then started to be drawn over to the psychology, the sports psychology side of things. So I took psychology courses, philosophy, and then in grad school, even added in the Eastern religion and the spirituality of the mix. I graduated and I started training all types of athletes, from boxers to golfers to marathoners, Back in the early 90s there wasn't much going on in the way of triathlons and I had good success. But I knew there was something more I'm always looking to add to my toolbox. So I actually dropped everything and headed off to Southeast Asia in India. And there I traveled around and you know, hung out and met some, some pretty amazing people, some might call them gurus. And I saw amazing feats of strength and endurance from, from guys that did not do any training at all and realized this, the, the power of the mind and the power of the mind body was there about a year and a half and I came back and started training athletes again. And this time the results were quite remarkable. The only problem that I had, and it was quite a big problem actually was compliance because I had these athletes follow my program and get great results. But it was a very time intensive and a disciplined regime, like 90 minutes of sitting meditation per day and strict cleanses every three months and even more crazy stuff that I'll skip telling you about. But although my athletes were dedicated, only a fraction could ever really keep that up for any length of time. So I knew I had something, but I knew I had to refine it. And so I started searching out for techniques that would provide the same kind of results but with far less time commitment so the athlete could spend the time training for their specific sport. It was about 1994 where I started interning and taking training in hypnosis, neuro linguistic programming or NLP and meridian energy energy psychologies. And with these techniques, my athletes were able to make the same kind of results, but you know, without having to stare at a blank wall for an hour and a half a day. I then started getting more and more endurance athletes in general and then finally in the mid late 90s started getting some triathletes. And that has kept coming mainly through referrals. And I soon realized that these guys and gals were the most dedicated athletes that I ever worked with and also the most appreciative because there really was nothing out there specific to triathlons. So I naturally wanted to train more of them. And I also have a passion for endurance sports. So it was really a perfect fit.

So I've taken a look at this system that you created and I'm going to put a link to it over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com mental training. But when I go through it, it's pretty unique. When I was a collegiate athlete, about as far as we got in terms of training for sports psychology, was we'd kind of do some visualization a little bit and occasionally relax our bodies and imagine the type of success that we wanted to achieve before. But this goes way beyond that. Some of these audios and this manual that you have. And I know that this approach can seem a little bit out there to me and I'm sure to some of the people listening who maybe really haven't gone in and hacked into their mind this way to get them ready for triathlon. So can you describe the idea behind your approach to mental training?

Yeah, you know, I'd love to. And make no mistake about it, this is not your run of the mill sort of sports psychology that you might have. Might have tried before. And it's not that it works, it can work in concert with all of that. But what we have found is that many triathletes who have tried some form of mental training, be it books or coaches or psychologists, you know, overall, were not as impressed with the traditional stuff as they hoped they were. And we're coaches, we are actually not PhDs, so we're not big into theory. We're totally and completely into results. And that is what so many of our triathletes like about us. We've taken three primary techniques from the alternative psychology world that we feel offer the best bang for the triathlete buck, you know, in terms of ease of use, in terms of time commitment, and again, most importantly, results. Should be clear that we're not creators of any of these specific individual tools. But what we find is most practitioners or coaches that use them with triathletes or athletes in general, only use one at a time and don't really apply them fully to athletes in general, and certainly not to triathletes, because as we all know, triathletes are a whole different breed. They have to be, because the sport demands so much of them physically and mentally. So, in a nutshell, these three techniques deal with the mind, body, the subconscious, and the meridian energy system. And I know that sounds a bit airy fairy at first, but it's really all about results. And so we encourage people to give it a shot. There'll be a free video on the link that you supply so they can test it out for themselves. So I'll just very quickly kind of go into these three techniques. The first one is hypnosis. It's the most popular part of our program. And I just want to clear it out right now. It's not the form of hypnosis that you might see like on the entertainment stage at A state fair or in Las Vegas. You know, they're fun and all, but there will be no renegade triathletes fucking around like chickens if I have anything to say about it. Here's really how it works. Each of these sessions starts out with a relaxation module. And this allows your conscious mind to kind of let go and relax. And it does put you in what we refer to as a light trance. But you are totally awake and completely in control the whole time. I know it's a concern of some people who are not familiar with hypnosis, but you are in control, can stop the process, make decisions at any time throughout the session. And what happens is when your conscious mind can relax and let go, your unconscious mind is more open. And it's open to the positive instructions and suggestions that we're going to be giving you regarding your triathlon performance. And these positive suggestions can become of what we call your deep learning. So it's a totally passive way to make positive changes in how you respond to challenges during events and ultimately how you see yourself as a triathlete. And so with our original system here, we've got four hypnosis CDs sessions. And the first one is on confidence of being able to elicit a state of confidence if you're feeling anxious or nervous. You can use our techniques, hypnosis and program your subconscious mind to elicit states of confidence. And then we have a session for each of the three segments of swim, bike and run. And each of those we take you through in about 19, 22 minutes or so. We take you through an entire segment to perfection. And I also have you meet and encounter the challenges that are most common in those segments of the races. Swimming, being kicked in the face and swallowing water and on the bike, dealing with hills and going out too fast, all the normal stuff and how to deal with them so that you're actually your subconscious mind is programmed and allowing you to stick to the game plan and keep your head about you. The second major thing we use is called neuro linguistic programmer NLP. And back in the 80s and early 90s, Tony Robbins made this a little more popular among athletes, executives and housewives. But it's a way to use your brain and language patterns to literally reprogram your mind for success. So you'll be able to enter peak performance states even in seconds, whenever you need to call upon them. You can clear out sabotaging beliefs. You can program your mind and naturally react to stress in the most useful and efficient manners. And then finally we what's that, oh.

Go ahead, go ahead.

And then finally we use what we call energy mechanics, but it's often known as meridian energy psychology. And what it is is a simple system based on acupuncture, but it's acupressure, so there's no needles. But it's based on the same system as acupuncture. Instead you just use pressure to enhance your biomechanical energy or the flow or the qi, if you're going to use the Eastern world terminology for it, releasing negative emotions, getting yourself into the flow state and actually used for recovery, enhancing power, stamina, et cetera. And these three approaches are what we use. And we feel that for any serious triathlete, adding these in can really be the missing element to take the training that the blood, sweat and tears they put in to training and fully fulfill their potential.

Very interesting. Okay, so I'm wondering this, I'm sure some of the people listening in are wondering this, but I've looked through the entire program and I've listened to the audios you mentioned. You have them on CD. I know they're also available on MP3. And what I'm wondering, because I haven't had a chance to try this stuff out for a race before in terms of what to expect, like what type of benefits you'd receive, what can people expect? What do you see with the triathletes that you work with when they start to implement this kind of mental training?

Well, you know, some triathletes of course, have individual issues that we address for them when needed and we do that with email coaching. But really those are the fine details. And to be honest, after seven years of working with endurance athletes, the vast majority of the hangups, if you will, are pretty much the same. So we've taken that into account, designing our renegade triathlete system to eliminate those issues. And so the common benefits that we hear about all the time and get feedback is that you're able to induce pre race just the right amount of relaxation and energetic stimulation. So you want to, you want to be relaxed, but you don't want to, you want to be a zombie. And so we've, we fine tuned that to quite a degree and allow and teach the triathletes how to induce that state. Again, getting into positive mental states. And that can be confidence, focus, determination, regardless of the race or who you're competing against or how bad the situation may be in the moment. And of course, getting in the zone, getting in the flow state, not just hoping it shows up, but actually being able to induce it and being able to stay in there for as long as you need or want to, being able to mask, delay fatigue and mask pain. We have to be careful with this one, of course, especially with the triathletes, because sometimes it's simply not appropriate to mask pain. But when you're in a vent and you're just suffering from, from the pain we all go through when pushing ourselves that hard, we have ways to turn down the pain receptors and the fatigue receptors. And really being able to take your best training sessions in the swim, bike and run, and being able to carry those over to race day and basically just bring your A game consistently when it counts.

Okay, gotcha. So there's some terms that you use, like if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com mental training, you can kind of see some of the stuff you've got over there. But you mentioned something about eliminating the interference. What do you mean by that? What's eliminating the interference mean?

Well, I have to give props where it's due. I borrowed and then slightly modified that phrase from a book called the Inner Game of Tennis, actually about the mental game of tennis by Tim Galloway. And in the 70s, it was revolutionary. But the version that I use now is peak performance equals talent plus skill minus the interference. And the way I use the term talent is the natural talent you're born with, how athletic you are, you know what kind of card you're dealt. Genetically, skill then is the training, the hard work you put in and you develop the skill minus the interference. And interference is the mental garbage is the blocks, self sabotaging beliefs and blocks you have about yourself, about how good of a triathlete you are, about certain segments. The swim is the most common fear that we deal with. So what we're talking about there is that in order to perform at your peak level, whatever that is for you at the time, meaning your talent plus your skill, we need to get the interference gone down to an absolute minimum so that you're able to more consistently perform at your peak level, which is the combination of your talent and the skill that you've developed.

Okay, gotcha. Now, as far as kind of working on the mental game, you know, a triathlete actually wanting to take the step into starting down this road, how does it actually work? Like, you know, say that I came to you and I was like, stephen, I'm having trouble focusing on the bike, I'm having trouble tapping into the speed that I know I have during the run. You know, what would you do? How do you actually get started.

Well, the very first thing that we do and the very first thing in the manual is we actually do some goal setting. And I can practically hear the groan, the collective moan of the triathletes out there because everybody and every athlete tends to have the same feeling when they hear goal setting. But it's not quite your usual goal setting. And it's vitally important to truly know not only what your goals are, but also what your values are. So we deal with that and then how they work together or sometimes against each other. So once we determine what the ultimate goals really are, we work back from there and then we systematically devise specific techniques to get the triathlete there as quickly as possible. And then we go into the individual trouble areas and areas of need for the triathlete from that point on. And now this can be. Yeah, this can. And that could be things like in nlp we use anchoring, where we teach you how to link up a feeling of success from the past. And through a personalized small physical action, you can regain the same feeling in the present moment, regardless of what's happening in the present moment. You know, erasing bad memories of failures, clearing out self defeating beliefs, and just reprogramming your mind to deal with the areas of greatest concern for you and what are holding you back from performing at your peak.

Now I want to kind of get down into the nuts and bolts even more if there were a couple things that people could do. I mean, obviously your program is pretty comprehensive. But if somebody just wanted to take something out of this interview right now with you in terms of like the two or three, I guess, like the secrets that you would give people to help them be mentally prepared before their race. Are there some things that people can do right now that would get them ready, say somebody's listening and they've got a race this weekend?

Well, you know, I'm not just going to, of course, tell you that everything's in the book and the manual. It is, of course, but what I'm going to tell you, there are about a dozen ways to prepare that are covered extensively in the system. But you'd be surprised. Some things seem like common sense and many serious triathletes don't necessarily make the connections. And one of those is, of course, plan your training and train your plan. As far as confidence goes, you know, the truth is that a good deal of it is acquired through having a qualified coach design the program and then train the program. Your program, of course, allows triathletes to cut down training hours and cut down their race times. And it's a way to have confidence in yourself by following a plan through. And then when you have that kind of confidence, you've done all you can. You can go into the race and let it unfold as it will. But one that people don't think about very often is breathing. Now, I know it sounds kind of funny, but breathing can really be a lost art now. Not when you're racing and training as endurance athletes. You know, we'll all be breathing primarily on the chest. You know, whenever your heart rate is elevated in your training, it's normal, and you shouldn't try to change that. But what I find in doing evaluations that most triathletes that I work with chest breathe all the time. And that's a quite a serious problem. It causes a chronic tension, you know, throughout the entire torso and neck. And many triathletes will take a deep breath or several before a race in order to try to calm down. But in reality, what they're doing is they're still breathing only up in the chest region. And that creates a cycle of more tension, which then can create more mental stress and more anxiety. So what I would advise everyone to do is look into diaphragmatic breathing or check out a yoga class, some of them, folks, primarily on breathing, and practice diaphragmatic breathing at all times. When you're at a more resting heart rate and then use that type of breathing, you know, before a race and when you feel any anxiety in order to help calm, calm the mind and body. And then the biggest thing, this is, of course, what, you know, the. The crux of our entire system is to learn to master your mental emotional states. This means that no matter what the situation and what negative feelings might come up, you're quickly and easily able to clear it out and replace it with your peak performance mind states. It's an invaluable skill that enables you to consistently perform at your highest levels in triathlons, but also in business and your love life. I mean, you name it, and those types of skills are crucial.

So, you know, there's some things that I learned about in sports psychology when I was taking sports psychology classes back in undergrad. And there were a few things in particular that I want to get your say on, because it sounds like you've delved a lot more deeply into this than like, my sports psychology professor. So can you tell me a little bit about what you think about one thing that, that he thought was very important, which was affirmations and positive thinking. I mean, does that stuff work?

Well, you know, I've been known in private with clients to kind of bash the traditional affirmation positive thinking programs. And it's. I'm mostly just making fun a little bit. But they're. I mean, the truth of the matter is to suggest that, you know, a triathlete should stand in front of a mirror and repeat affirmations like, what's the guy, Stewart, Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live, the whole I'm good enough and doggone if people like me shtick. You know, it is kind of a shtick and it's making fun. But it's not that affirmations and positive thinking can't work. They actually can be very effective, but we find not so much in the way they're used by most coaches and by most athletes. And we believe the reason for the lower success rate when these are used in a common way is quite simple because you are asking the athlete to deny the truth. I mean, for example, let's say working with an athlete who was challenged by pre race anxiety and fear, again, very common, especially around the water in the swim segment. We would not simply take the common approach of having him or her repeat something like, I'm supremely competent before each and every race over and over again. And, and why wouldn't we do that? Because quite frankly, it's a lie. It's not true. And even the whole time that they are saying how competent they are, often a little voice in the back of the mind is saying BS it's not true. And so what happens in reality is they can actually be affirming the fact they're lying and create a cycle that way. And this is the reason that we find many triathletes who've given this a shot, have gotten lackluster results, and then come to the conclusion that, you know, sports psychology just isn't for them. The way we use our techniques is what makes a difference for our athletes. Instead of, instead of denying the truth about how you feel, instead we fully acknowledge it. And then we use our techniques to clear out the negative. Only after we clear it out do we go back in and anchor in a positive substitution. This way the positive thought, the positive phrase and image doesn't have to compete with the negative one, so it actually sticks a lot better. Then we go back in with hypnosis and we can program the subconscious mind in the same way for even greater success. So really, it's just a matter of taking out the garbage first and then Replacing it with what we choose instead of what we've developed accidentally or through some, some negative experiences.

Gotcha. I kind of share the same thoughts about affirmations and positive thinking. What about visualization? You know, we do a lot of this and like, I've even spoken with Peter Reed, who won a lot of Ironman triathlons, and he said he would kind of picture his race in his head and, you know, see himself crossing the finish line with both hands in the air, that type of thing. What's your take on visualization?

I think the visualizations techniques are great. Again, it can be very, very effective. The only issue that we have with the way they use by most coaches and athletes is that they stop short of getting the full potential out of them. Visualization is what we consider a first step towards seeing yourself being more successful and accomplishing your triathlon goals. We take it several steps further though, by then connecting your visualizations with your subconscious mind through the hypnotic suggestions and also into your mind body with the NLP techniques. And so we actually, one of my triathletes told me not too long ago that the way we use visualizations, it's like visualizations on epo, you know. But all kidding aside, the most potent legal performance enhancing quote unquote drug really is your brain. I mean, by systematically changing the way that your conscious and subconscious mind are programmed, you will change the way that your brain produces certain chemicals, improve the firing of the synapses, and possibly affect even the hormonal balance in your system. So yes, visualizations are fantastic. We just crank them up a few notches with additional techniques.

Okay, gotcha. I'm sure some people are listening in who maybe have never done a triathlon before. They're beginners, they haven't even signed up for their first race. Or maybe they've just signed up for their first race but haven't done it yet. For the people who are complete beginners, I mean, is this something that they would use? And if so, are there special like mental training tips or strategies that you would give to someone who's about to do their first triathlon or their first event?

Yeah, I guess. My first recommendation, make sure that it's a sprint event. Right? And as we've been chatting all along, it. Once you put in your training time, you know, whether or not it's optimal or not and whether or not you're a pure beginner or quite a seasoned professional, you know, in order to have the greatest chance of performing to your, to your current potential, you need to keep your head about you and accept the fact there will likely be challenging moments, you know, or longer ones that as a beginner you haven't personally experienced yet, but events and moments where it will be, you know, it'd be understandable that you might get upset. So if you've educated yourself on what the most common challenges are, if you've spoken with a coach and other experienced triathletes, you've done some form of mental training about how to keep your composure and have instruction again from a coach or fellow triathlete on how to deal with each one. That'll take you a long way to making your first triathlon a good experience and probably keep you coming back for more.

Okay, cool. So again, if folks are listening in, I'm putting a bunch of information about this type of mental training that Steven has developed@BenGreenfieldFitness.com mental training. And if you're listening to the podcast, I'll also put it in the show notes. If you're listening to to the podcast release of this. But Steven, as far as this actual mental training approach and this product that you've created that you were showing to me earlier, what is it all about? I mean, who would actually use this and how does it work?

Well, great. As a quick recap of what's going on, we've worked extensively now with triathlete specific psychology for about seven years now. We developed this, basically a user manual for the triathlete brain. So this mental training, again, we feel is a missing gap that we're passionate about filling for any athlete, any triathlete, beginner or elite. And again, just a few of the benefits are being able to at will produce the most optimal mental emotional states for yourself and getting to the zone, staying in the zone and getting out of your own way if you will, and eliminating fear, anxiety and delaying fatigue and bringing your A game up to the starting line more and more often. And what we've done is the tools we provide can be very personalized and fine tuned and therefore it's really very suitable for triathletes at any level will find benefit because you'll take it where you are, use the tools again to eliminate the interference and allow your natural talent and all the hard work for skill you've put in there to come to pass. We offer free email coaching, so if you have specific questions on how to use the specific tool for a specific challenge you're having, we're always happy to instruct you on that and get feedback from that. Now, what happened was our Private coaching fees are $300 an hour and we have a three hour minimum. And although those fees seem high to some people, you know, we consistently have a lengthy waiting list. But we decided we wanted to get this out to a lot more triathletes around the world. So we put together the system and our initial launch is in digital delivery format. So this has enabled us to keep the cost way down in terms of printing and shipping because there isn't any, and pass that savings onto triathletes. And better yet, you get the emanual and the MP3 audio hypnosis sessions within minutes of ordering it. And, and look, we are passionate about helping you guys and we're so confident that everybody will experience an undeniable boost in their performance that we offer a lifetime money back guarantee. Ben's going to give you a link to the site and you'll notice on there it says a 60 day money back guarantee, but that's only because that's all we're allowed to put in there because of our merchant provider. We'll personally refund your money anytime on the off chance that you aren't totally thrilled with your improvements and we're quite serious if that happens to be the case, then we'd never think about keeping your cash. We've just launched the system and you'll find it right now and for a very short time at a very steep discount. It will be going up in price though, quite soon and we're just thrilled to be to be able to help more triathletes reach their goals. And it really is a passion of ours to help everybody surpass whatever their highest goals in this tough sport and the best sport in the world. So we're excited to be getting out there in the community and we want to help as many people as we can.

Yeah. And full disclosure, before this thing was released, Stephen sent it to me to take a look at and I read the manual and went through the audios and you know, I've seen a lot of this stuff before and frankly I've always thought it was a little bit cheesy, but this stuff was a little bit more edgy. I really liked it. It's pretty legit in terms of really improving, improving the confidence, reducing a lot of that pre race anxiety. I'm really looking forward to trying it out in my next race, this next Rev3 race that I have coming up. So I'm pretty stoked about this and I'm grateful to Stephen for hooking me up with it to be able to review and then being able to bring it out to you guys again. I'll put the link for it at BenGreenfield Fitness. And if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com mental training, all the components of Steven's program are over there for you to review and for you to look into getting for yourself, which I would highly encourage that you do. So, Stephen, thank you for your time today and for coming on the call.

Hey, thanks, Ben. My pleasure.

Well, folks, I will put a link in the show notes to Steven's website which I would highly recommend that you go check out. And in addition to that, I will put a link to everything that I talked about in this show. Be sure to leave the show a ranking in itunes if you get a chance. Ranking and a comment. And if you'd like, you can donate over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com to support the costs of all the folks who download this podcast each week. Now, if you have questions, you can of course use the Ask Ben form. Over there@BenGreenfieldFitness.com you can download the free iPhone or Android app which you can get on the right side of the page@BenGreenfieldFitness.com you can ask your question through those apps as well. Or finally, you can call toll free to 877-209-9439. So that's going to wrap up today's podcast episode. Have a great week. And until next time, this is Ben Greenfield signing out.

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