Episode #172: Why Your Back Is The Most Important Part Of Your Core Workout, And What You Can Do About It.

In this podcast is the Paleo diet good for cross country runners. How to improve your bike times using CrossFit endurance. How to address Sever's disease. Magnesium or Epsom salts, which is better? Which type of protein is best? Should you only supplement with Omega 3 or are 6 and 9 okay too? Should you target parts of the body or do full body workouts? Can and should you track your insulin levels? And does the bite tech mouth guard help you eliminate snoring? Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com hey everybody. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Here we go for another episode. How's it going, Ben?

It's going well, Brock. Welcome back. By the way, I guess it's a good sign that you're actually here for the second episode. Yeah, I'm proud to be back. You didn't get canned.

I didn't get canned. And we did get some really nice constructive feedback from the people too. It was nice.

Yeah, we did. And for those of you who may have been wondering, Brock is actually, and perhaps I wasn't clear about this in the first episode that we did with Brock, but Brock isn't taking over the show from me. Always be the Ben Greenfield of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. But probably the best way to explain what Brock's doing here on the show is he's the announcer sidekick. Oprah had a sidekick. Johnny Carson, Howard Stern, Conan o', Brien, Batman. And now the Ben Greenfield show has a sidekick announcer. So that's what Brock's role is on this show. And Brock is actually, for those of you who are interested, doing a lot of behind the scenes work. Now that's incredibly valuable when it comes to the production of this podcast on a weekly basis.

I'm actually just a huge nerd. This whole talking in front of people kind of thing is a little unfamiliar to me.

That's all right. You'll get it down very quickly. Trial by fire. So Brock, last week you talked a little bit about some of your background, primarily in the arts and also the geek work that you do, but you actually have a little bit more going on in terms of your personal health background. And we are going to jump into the special announcements here in just a little bit but really quickly, can you kind of go over what happened to you and what got you into what you're doing today in terms of your health history, specifically? Because I think it's an interesting story.

Well, I think what got me into endurance sports in the first place, I have always been interested in sports, always played hockey, always loved running, interested in all of that kind of stuff. But what really got me into the endurance sport was actually just a completely flippant, glib remark that was made by my cardiologist a number of years ago. And the reason I was seeing a cardiologist was because I actually got a viral infection in the pericardium, which is the. The sac that goes around your heart that basically holds it in place, doesn't. Stops it from colliding into your lungs and everything. So I had a viral infection that moved into there. It's called pericarditis or myocarditis. The myocardium as well, was inflamed. So basically, my heart was enlarged. It was very rigid, very. Just not. Not working correctly. And I actually had. I went. What do they call it, Afib a few times, which means I had heart failure. And I spent a good year and a half in and out of the hospital. I had what is a very textbook relapse. It's just exactly what. What normally happens is what happened to me, where I was over it, feeling a little bit better, starting to make a recovery, and then was hit with it again and ended up spending a whole bunch more time in the hospital. So once I finally got the okay and found out that there was no damage to my heart, I was very lucky that there was no damage to my heart. I kept having the symptoms. I kept feeling like there was still something wrong with my. With my heart. I kept coming into the cardiologist and saying, no, no, still no good. And they'd wire me back up. I don't know if you've heard of the Holter monitor system, but they. They basically put the heart monitor on you for 24 hours. And you walk around, do everything you normally do, monitors, everything your heart does. You push a little button every time you feel a symptom. So it marks on the tape where you felt the symptom. And then they download all that information. And after about the third time I went in and had one of those tests, the doctor finally, like the cardiologist finally said, look, Brock, you're fine. It's over. You have to figure out a way to convince your head that your heart is okay. And I was like, well, what am I going to do? He said, I don't know, why don't you run a marathon or something like that. And looking back, I doubt he actually meant that I should go and run a marathon. I think he was just like, sort of grasping at straws and being desperate. But I took him on his word. And a cousin of mine, he had done Ironman a few times and seemed to know what he was talking about. So I contacted him and he coached me for my first marathon. And that's. That all started it off. And it actually blossomed into a much more in depth sort of liking for this entire sport. Not just running the races, but actually getting the certifications and learning more about nutrition. Nutrition and following people like you yourself, Ben, and really getting into the whole health aspect of everything, because really it's the most important thing we've got.

Yeah, well, kudos for you for taking charge of your health like that. And folks, for you listening, in pericarditis, myocarditis, typically you're gonna see that stuff happen in somebody who's maybe had a heart attack or has an autoimmune disorder like rheumatoid arthritis or something of that nature. But it can actually happen. And it did happen to one of my friends as well, just from getting flu and having that infection spread into the sac that surrounds the heart. So it is a very interesting condition that I find it amazing that it can kind of come out of the blue like that and attack your cardiovascular system. So, Brock, thanks for sharing that with us. And you know, folks, if you have questions about pericarditis myocarditis, feel free to leave it as a comment underneath the show notes for this podcast. And with that being said, what do you think, Brock? Should we jump into this week's special announcements?

I think so. Special announcements. All right, special announcements. Ben, what's been going on at Ben Greenfield Fitness?

Well, over on the website, Brock, a couple articles this week, one on chest muscles and specifically the title of the article was three ways to Get a Better Chest that Looks and Performs like an Olympic Athlete. So definitely go check that out. That's again, one of the articles I'm writing in the series of articles leading up to the release of the trial. I ripped triathlon training plan. And then also I released a video that I shot shortly after I slipped and injured my knee last week about injury recovery tools to get you bouncing back as quickly as possible. And I went over the 10 things that I think are the most important when it comes to bouncing back quickly from an injury. So those are over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com so how are you bouncing back?

You're off to Thailand, what, tomorrow?

Exactly. That was actually something else I wanted to announce in the special announcements for anybody who happens to just be in the Phuket, Thailand area this weekend. I'm on my way down there to race The Asia Pacific 70.3 World Championships in an attempt to qualify for Kona down there. So tomorrow morning at about 3:30am I'll hop on a plane and head down to Thailand and the knee is feeling better and I should be ready to race when that race rolls around. So that was just a little slip.

On the ice that did that to your knee, wasn't it?

Exactly. Just a run. And the leg kind of went out from underneath me going around a corner and as much as I can tell, it just kind of tweaked the IT band. So that's a first for me to actually hurt the IT band doing anything else other than just running too much. But apparently it can happen because it did. The other quick thing I wanted to mention to folks was that although my book that I put a lot of work into last year called Weight Training for Triathlon does not come out in print format until February of next year, it actually is out as of this week. The Kindle version, the Nook version and the Apple itunes version are all available and I'll put a link to each of those versions in the show notes for people who actually want to get into their weight training for triathlon early on here in the off season, those are now available. The book is full of the science behind weight training and why it works and dispelling a lot of the myths and a lot of the arguments that people bring up against people who are weightlifting to get better at endurance sports. And then goes into everything you need to know about how to get started in weight training or how to get more bang for your buck out of weight training. And finally, probably most importantly, in the part of the book that took me the longest period of time to write, goes into routines for every single part of your training year. So in my opinion, invaluable tool for triathletes and endurance athletes. And we'll put a link to that up@BenGreenfieldFitness.com so it's ready now. The publisher wrote me an email, told me that they had it out on all those venues and I checked and sure enough it's there so people can grab it.

Me too. I was very happy to see it on itunes. Good price, too. $9.99. Beautiful.

There you go.

News flashes. All right, welcome to the brand new section, the Newsflash section. This is when Ben's going to talk about all the biggest advances in health and fitness and all that good stuff that you tune in to hear in this section. And hopefully this will be an ongoing thing so we can keep everybody up to date on the newest and greatest stuff. So what have you got for us, Ben?

Absolutely. That's why I want to start doing this typically. And those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I am constantly tweeting the latest and greatest when it comes to what's going on in the world of health, fitness, and nutrition. And I want to start making podcast listeners aware of these things as well. Everything that I bring up here, I'll put a link to in the show notes. And you can, of course, get this stuff fresh off the press. If you follow me on Twitter, I'll put a link in the show notes, but that's just. Twitter.com BenGreenfield.

There'S one thing that I just. Before you get into it, one thing I noticed on Twitter the other day, you posted something about you playing guitar, playing a stained song. Now, I've been listening to the podcast for a long time. I had no idea you played guitar.

Yeah, I was actually. I was in a band all through high school and was a lead singer in a rock band for. Well, up until three years ago when I had my kids and I quit. But I still strum on the guitar.

Now. Is this something you're gonna put the. Put a link to in the show notes?

Absolutely not. No. But that. But there you go. That is a news flash, I guess, for those of you who weren't aware.

Sorry to derail the. The thing there. I just had to bring that up.

No, that's okay. I'm one of the few members of my family now who is still not in a band and playing frequently. So that being said, there are a few things that I found really interesting this week that came across my desk. And I'll put a link to these in the show notes for those of you who want to learn more. But the first is the idea that for a long time it's been floating around in sports performance arenas that there is a link between higher levels of testosterone and estrogen in individuals who have a longer or a ratio of the second digit. Okay, so that's your second finger, your index finger. The ratio of that to your ring finger is negatively correlated with sports performance. Basically meaning that the longer your index finger is in relation to your ring finger, the better at sports you are supposedly supposed to be. And there was actually a study that came out that looked at this, and this was an addition to several studies that have come before it that looked at performance in male surfers particularly. And it did find, as many other studies have found in the past, that there is a significant correlation between that second digit to four digit ratio and sports performance. And it's very, very interesting just because you look at this from the very, very beginning when you're starting off as a baby and you do have higher levels of prenatal testosterone and prenatal estrogen when it comes to the ratio between your second digit and your fourth digit. So those of you who want to look at your hands and also look at the research, I'll put a link to that in the show. Notes. Oh, go ahead. Oh, you're screwed.

I'm looking at my hands. I'm screwed. I may as well just quit.

Well remember, you can always beat genetics with hard training.

So I can wail on my finger too. Just make it longer.

There you go. Another interesting study came across my radar about the Wii and I know a lot of people are kind of using the we for fitness. This studied three months of home Wii Fit use and changes in physical activity. So how much you actually move around and exercise and also how high your levels of fitness are when you are using the WWII on a three month basis. And fitness was measured with a treadmill test, push ups, flexibility test, a balance test and then body fat. And it was actually found that there was no significant benefit of using the Wii versus just engaging in day to day physical activity. So I do not doubt that the Wii is probably better than simply sitting and playing Nintendo or PlayStation. But at do not, especially if you're a parent, count on the Wii being the sole way to get your child fit or to get yourself fed. There's something to be said for it, but I don't think as much can be said for it based on the results of this study that I'll put a link to. As a lot of people would think.

That'S kind of sad. I was really hoping I was getting some extra cross training in when I was playing with my Wii.

It's not going to make you a faster marathoner, I'm sorry to say. Antioxidant supplementation during exercise training. This was a meta study, meaning it was a study of many other studies that came out this week and essentially it looked at whether antioxidant supplementation was beneficial or detrimental. And this was one of the bigger looks at over 150 different articles that have been published on this topic. And the main findings of this study was that loading your body with high doses of antioxidant actually blunts the positive effects of exercise training and it interferes with many of the things that happen as you get fitter, specifically like vasodilation or growth of bigger blood vessels and your response to the hormone insulin. So while I thought that that study was interesting, at the same time, if you go back and look at all of the studies that they referenced, there's been very little done in terms of looking at a full spectrum of antioxidant supplementation in elite athletes or in people who are simply exerc a lot, lot more than the average individual. And I would still like to see some studies come out that look at a full spectrum of antioxidant supplementation rather than just like high doses of vitamin C and high doses of vitamin E. And also look at those in relation to people who are exercising a lot versus people who are maybe not doing so much.

Yeah, you've been saying for a long time now that taking the antioxidants just purely in, like, a vitamin C or a vitamin E form is not doing what the broad spectrum would be doing anyway. So, yeah, really, the study needs to be done.

Exactly. Yep. Building a beverage for recovery from endurance activity. I saw this study, it piqued my interest, and I looked into it and basically it was reviewing all the previous studies that have been done on the use of recovery beverages. And the researchers came to the conclusion that about what you should be drinking after Exercise is about 1.2 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight immediately after exercise and every hour thereafter for four to six hours post exercise. And frankly, I think that's just ridiculous. What it means is that you're essentially drinking a few hundred calories of pure sugar every hour after exercise for four to six hours post exercise. And the fact is that all of the studies that they look at to build a case like this, to do something like that were done on people who were completely starved when they exercised. And they don't take into account the fact that if you just kind of eat when you're hungry and you eat real food and you have a few meals after you work out, then within eight hours after you've worked out your storage, carbohydrate levels are just as high as they would be following this protocol of taking in what amounts to a lot of sugar every hour for four to six hours post exercise. So what annoys me most about studies like this is that a lot of times kids are going to read this, high school athletes, junior high athletes, whatever, and you're basically just going to get people sucking down way too much Gatorade or Powerade or sugary drinks and sugary smoothies, when really there's absolutely no difference between doing that and having some rice and broccoli and chicken and a few other types of real meals for a while after your workout.

Having all that sugar has got to wreak havoc on your immune system as well. Just pounding all that sugar back constantly.

Dr. They don't look at that stuff in these studies. They don't look at the health of the teeth or the health of the immune system or the net acidic load within the body. So it's very interesting. A few other studies that came across my desk, time course for recovery of peak aerobic power after blood donation. This is interesting for people who are donating blood because what they found was that there is a significant decrease in your maximum oxygen consumption for two to three weeks after you donate blood. Before you take in that sharp breath of air and never go donate blood again before you've got a race or a workout, you should know that although that happened, there was absolutely no effect on performance, meaning that it's very, very rare that in any race or event or sport you're ever actually working out at your peak oxygen utilization. So ultimately, even though that peak oxygen utilization decreases for two to three weeks after you donate blood, it doesn't matter. You're still able to perform just as well. And they actually looked at that in this study was what happened to the peak oxygen utilization, but also, did it affect performance? And the answer was no.

All right.

The last thing I wanted to bring up was aging and factors related to running economy. And this was a study that looked at aging athletes and ways that they could increase their running economy or things that were directly correlated to running economy. While there was a lot that came up in this study, I thought that the most interesting thing was that the variable most correlated to maintaining your running economy as you age, if you're a runner, was strength, and specifically the type of strength you would develop with things like squats and lunges and leg extensions and leg curls. And so there's quite a bit to be said there, especially if you're an aging athlete and an aging runner for weight training. That was the variable most associated with with maintaining your running economy. And Staying a better runner as you age.

You put that one in for me, didn't you?

No, no, I put that one in for all of the listeners, including myself, to encourage you to weight train. And there you go, go pick up the book Weight training for triathlon. I didn't purposefully plan on that, but it ties in nicely. And really folks, you probably know that I'm a big fan of weight training, but this once again solidifies the fact that it is very, very beneficial, especially as you age, if you're a runner. Especially so. Those are the news flashes for this week, Brooke.

Now, Ben, why don't you tell us about the interview that we're going to be playing a little bit later on here?

Yeah, well, after today's Q and A, I am going to be putting out an interview that I did with a gentleman named Eric from foundationroots.com and Eric Co wrote a book on core training with Lance Armstrong, strength conditioning coach. And Eric, very unique approach to core training. I'm not going to give away the farm here in terms of what Eric describes as far as his core training protocol, but all I can say is that it's very, very important and it's stuff that a lot of people don't take into consideration when they're working their core. So I would highly encourage you to listen in after this week's Q and A to that interview with Eric from Foundation Roots.

Sounds like some valuable stuff. Well, let's get into the Q and A so we can get to the interview.

You.

Listener Q and A. All right, first question. Are you ready, Ben?

Let's do this.

Hello, my name is Shannon. I'm a freshman in high school and I run cross country competitively. I run anywhere from 240 to 380 minutes a week on average and I eat very healthy for the most part. But lately I've been doing some research into the paleo diet and I'm very interested. I've done quite a bit of research on it and I really want to give it a go, but I just don't want it to affect my performance, level of intensity or my goals. I feel sluggish at times with my regular diet and I have stomach related problems such as gastritis and duodenitis. Is that how you pronounce it?

Probably duodenitis. It's an inflammation of the duodenum, part of the small intestine.

There you go. And she's also hypothyroid. She said, I know that the paleo diet, I'd have to alter some Things like you and Rob Wolf discussed in episode 120, but I'm still not really sure where you stand on it. Now she goes on to talk about one of her teammates has made some really big, impressive changes by going Paleo and she's, she's really tempted to try the same thing, especially since eating certain foods messes up her stomach sometimes. But she's scared of jeopardizing her season, so she's looking for some feedback on that.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, the Paleo diet of many of the diets that are out there is a very healthy diet. If you were eating a typical American diet, the standard American diet, which is abbreviated sad, then if you were to switch to the Paleo diet, you would immediately see changes in your body. However, there are aspects of the Paleo diet that I disagree with. And probably the biggest aspect of the Paleo diet that I disagree with is the idea that you need to cut out all grains. There's a lot of kind of anti grain talk and kind of grain bashing activity that goes on in Paleo circles that I think is unfounded. And you'll see many arguments out there as far as Paleo goes. But ultimately, before I go into my thoughts on this whole grains thing, I would tell Shannon that if you switch to the Paleo diet and you are an endurance athlete, probably your biggest risk is not getting enough carbohydrates to support the high amount of calories that you're burning and the massive amount of glycogen, storage glycogen or storage carbohydrate that you're going through. So I would tweak the diet. If you need to, you can upgrade the carbs that are allowed in something like the Paleo diet. And that would be things like sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, beets, a lot of these root vegetables, parsnips, things of that nature. Or consider including grains, but doing so in an intelligent manner in which you prepare grains the right way, you soak them, you sprout them, you do things to them, that removes a lot of the effect that they can have on the digestive system. For you, it may be a matter of experimenting because you. Because especially with something like duodenitis, you may find that certain grains, especially wheat in particular, may still cause some inflammation in your gut. But what you usually see when it comes to grains is. There are several arguments made in the Paleo community. The first is that grains are to be blamed for all the obesity in society right now. They kind of try to draw that parallel between the growth in obesity and the growth in grain intake. There really are no epidemiological studies that correlate grain intake with obesity or with a gain in body fat percentage. If that were true, if grains really were fattening, then probably some of the more obese people on the planet would be vegetarians because they're actually eating a lot more grains than their meat eating or paleo counterparts. And, and that's actually the opposite is what you see. Vegetarians generally have a lower body mass index or body fat or body weight compared to non vegetarians. So as far as the link between grains and obesity, it's really not there. You also hear a lot about grains containing what are called phytates and oxalates. And those are essentially anti nutrients. And they exist in, they do exist in grains. They can reduce the availability of a lot of different minerals in the foods that you're eating. But the issue is that phytates and oxalates and all of these basically anti nutrients, they're not just in grains, they're in a ton of different plant foods, including foods that are allowed in the paleo diet, quote, unquote allowed in the paleo diet. Green leafy vegetables have a lot of these phytates and oxalates as well. Spinach is one example. So if you claim that certain plants such as grains shouldn't be eaten because they have the ability to resist consumption or to say, cause damage if they aren't prepared properly, then that makes about as much sense as saying that you shouldn't eat a lobster because it has claws or pretty much anything with scales or shells or teeth or the ability to bite, that you shouldn't eat it because it can do harm to you. But the fact is that if you prepare it properly, if you go out and you hunt an animal and you skin it and you cook it and you avoid it doing damage to you in the process, then it certainly can fall into the diet. And I think it's silly to say that you shouldn't eat grains because they have the ability to do damage to the human body, when in fact, if they're prepared properly, such as soaked and sprouted, many of them don't really have these adverse health effects. Another thing that you hear is that grain is to be kind of blamed for vitamin D deficiency. And this is based off of a study that happened way back in the 80s when they found that in people who were eating a higher fiber or higher grain diet, that vitamin D was eliminated from their bloodstream a lot more quickly. And really, if you look at the actual total vitamin D levels in both groups, it's very, very insignificant in terms of the actual vitamin D3 levels, the type of vitamin D that we're concerned about in both groups. And so, first of all, there's not much to be said for that study that a lot of paleo proponents kind of claim when they say that grain decreases vitamin D or causes a vitamin D deficiency. And the fact is, there's a lot of different variables when you're looking at vitamin D3 deficiency that goes beyond simply grain use. And that can be everything from the penetration of UV rays, from less direct sunlight, the use of sunscreen, population shifting to higher latitudes, a lot of different issues, as well as simply, when you get older, you decrease your ability to absorb vitamin D from the sun. And interestingly, as you gain weight, you also decrease your ability to absorb vitamin D. So it simply can't be definitively said that grains cause a decrease in vitamin D. There's an argument that grains cause inflammation. And again, if grains are prepared properly, you can really decrease inflammation. And what's most interesting is that refined grains, grains that are, say, like white flour, that is positively correlated with inflammation. But in just about every study out there, grains that are more of a whole grain are inversely correlated with inflammation. They're considered to be things that can actually decrease inflammation. And if the grain is prepared properly, again, there's not much evidence out there at all that it's actually going to cause any amount of inflammation. And I think that the whole idea behind inflammation is kind of blown out of proportion, especially in healthy populations, people who don't have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity or something of that nature. And then probably the last thing you hear is that grains have lectins in them. And lectins are these carbohydrate binding proteins that you find, again, in all plants, not just grains. But the concern is that lectins can be like this defense mechanism that plants have and that they could potentially cause again, inflammation in the gut, binding of insulin receptors or leptin receptors, which could potentially cause weight gain. But again, there's very, very little data that actually supports this. And most of the data is kind of speculative. You take something like quinoa, which I eat quite regularly, and it has something very similar to lectins in it. It's got these, what are called sapon, which basically act as almost like a detergent in your gut. And if you soak quinoa, it gets rid of the saponins. People have been doing that for thousands of years. So ultimately I think that there is a way to eat foods that your grandparents would have recognized or that humans have been eating for a long period of time. And also not do damage to your body by including grains as well. You just have to choose them properly and know that you need to have a raised eyebrow. Any diet that just across the board says you can't eat a certain food group, especially if that food group is found in nature.

There you go, Shamo. So I guess go Paleo, but don't skip the grains.

Yeah, which technically wouldn't be Paleo.

Wouldn't be Paleo at all.

Ultimately, if Shannon does have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease though, that's something totally different. That's a health condition and there may be an issue there with eating grains. So, you know, it's the same as me. I'm lactose intolerant, so I stay away from milk. So, you know, you do need to take into account those factors as well.

Absolutely. Okay. Our next question comes from Ken. He says, hi, Ben. I trained CrossFit Endurance for my first Ironman and finished in 14 hours with a smile on my face. Since I was beyond a beginner, I spent extra time working on my swim. My question is for my New York City Ironman, how can I turn my bike from a seven hour ride to a six hour? I'll be training CrossFit endurance again, but I'm considering doing traditional longer hour bike training to cut down on my time. What do you think of this approach?

Yeah, there's a lot of different things you can do to get faster on the bike and certainly CrossFit endurance kind of that minimal training, training, maximum results type of approach is great if you press for time. I have some other issues with it that I actually talk about in my recent article that I wrote in Lava magazine and you can go check that out. The name of the article is Unconventional Triathlon Training and it just talks about how I trained for Ironman this past Ironman Hawaii with minimal training time. But ultimately the idea is that Ken wants to get faster on the bike and is thinking about doing it it by doing longer hour bike training. And I really don't know Ken's fitness levels, the amount of particularly aerobic fitness that Ken has. So if Ken has never ever in his life really spent a lot of time doing long bike rides. Yeah. He may want to work a few in to his protocol. You know, like in the triathlon Dominator plan that I wrote. There are several times during the year where you find yourself on an indoor trainer or outdoors riding at a constant power or pace for three to four hours. And those kind of sessions really are very good at improving your aerobic fitness. I personally do not and don't think that anyone really needs to ride over four hours. Unless you're planning on going pro to be ready for an Ironman triathlon. There's really not a ton of benefit or anything magical that happens in going from four to five or six or seven hour bike ride. If I were Ken, I would focus on a few other things. The first is think about bike racing. Think about hopping into some local criterium races, or local cyclocross races, or local group riding races, or even local time trial races. Because hanging out in the bike racing community will teach you a great deal about handling your bike better, making better decisions on your bike, and ultimately getting faster on your bike. So I would look into doing that. I would look into, if you've got a little bit of money to burn, getting a CompuTrainer. And the CompuTrainer is simply kind of like the Cadillac of indoor training devices. And it allows you to, and this is something I used to do quite frequently when I trained in a CompuTrainer, kind of plug in the power that you want to ride at and simply have the computrainer keep you at that power, no matter how hard or how slow or how fast you pedal for X period of time. So, for example, there were sessions where I'd put that CompuTrainer on 225s, 225 watts. And I would simply tell myself, okay, I gotta maintain that wattage. I'm gonna stick in this movie. And I gotta maintain my wattage till the end of this movie. And then, you know, stick in two to three hours of television and just sit there and work at that power. So computrainer kind of keeps you more honest compared to a lot of other indoor trainers out there. And there are a few other trainers that can do something similar. But computrainer that I know the most. Getting a power meter, if you don't have a power meter already, can help you a lot because it really helps you to quantify how hard you're pushing against the pedals. It allows you to do your intervals a little bit more precisely, more accurately, and it teaches you a lot about how you ride. For example, you may find that you go a lot easier on the downhills and the flats than you thought that you were doing. And then you go way, way too hard on the uphills, when in reality you should be be kind of maintaining a constant power throughout. As far as a few other things to do, consider aerodynamic equipment, aerodynamic helmet, aerodynamic wheels, aerodynamic shoes, wearing tighter clothing. You can just save a ton of time by making aerodynamic changes to your bike. And don't leave that off the table. I mean you can literally for an Ironman triathlon just by making equipment changes. You can shave anywhere from, from 10 up to almost 20 minutes depending on how unaerodynamic you were before. And then finally look at your nutrition. In most cases I see that people who have slower Ironman bike splits tended to not eat enough throughout the bike split so that they're really burning or running on fumes towards the end. So in most cases you can get away with eating a lot more than you think that you should be eating, especially on the bike portion of an Ironman triathlon. And a lot of folks I'm working with are doing upwards, especially guys up on upwards of 400 to 500 calories an hour on the bike during Ironman and feeling really, really good towards the end because their energy levels are staying up.

I think I'm gonna shave my beard off before the next marathon because it's not very aerodynamic.

I would do that. And I would also kind of put tape on your face to make sure that it's super duper smooth.

Really Tape.

People tape their shoes. So I would imagine taping your shins is probably just as, as good.

All right, next question. John writes. Hi Ben. Do you know you have some devoted fans in New Zealand Kiwis? Yeah. Love your stuff. Having a clue how you fit all this into your life, mate. You never stop. Huh? You know, I can attest to that. Ben does not ever stop. I, I wish I could read the rest of this in a, in a proper Kiwi accent because the phrasing is definitely.

I don't, I don't even want to hear a Canadian dude accent.

Oh, come on, mate. All right, I'm not going to do that. I have a question on behalf of my 11 year old son. He has pain in the bottom of both feet, around the heel and rating up his Achilles tendon to try and massage around the bottom rear of his heels has him in much pain. I've researched and found that Sever's disease seems to be the closest to his symptoms. Symptoms. He has been to see a podiatrist friend and she's given him some heel wedge type elevators which have taken some of the pressure off his heel area and this has been going on for about three years now. He loves to run, but he has brought his running style onto the front or the balls of his feet, which I fear is going to give him more problems. How can I train him to correct the toe gait when he still has the pain in his heels? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. John Callahan.

Sever's disease is interesting. You're going to see it in a lot of kids who are doing endurance sports and running. And I imagine with the advent of iron kids and triathlon getting more popular among the young population, that this could turn into a bigger issue. And basically what it is, it's an overuse injury, but it's specifically related to growth plates. You've got growth plates all over your body as you're growing, as you're an adolescent and a child. And what can happen is that if you are working your growth plates over and over again or working the bones where those growth plates are over and over again, you get this micro trauma that develops, and it's essentially like an inflammation in a lot of these tendons or where a lot of these tendons are attaching to the bone. And in this case, it's an inflammation down in the calcaneus or the ankle bone. It can be caused from actually too much weight bearing on your heel, too much heel striking, which is why the physician would have actually used heel wedges or heel lifts in this case to keep too much weight bearing from occurring on the heel. So shifting to running more in the front of the foot or the mid foot is actually kind of better than a heel strike in this situation. You're going to find something like this to be more common in kids who tend to be over pronators. So I would focus more on the actual shoe that's being worn here than I would on the running gait, which I would actually say is taking a direction that could help rather than harm this issue more. Meaning that you'd want to look into maybe a custom orthotic. You can get your foot casted. Anybody can do this at a physical therapist and get custom orthotics that you can put into your shoes. And also look into a very stable shoe that's designed for overpronation. Rest is really the best thing to do when it comes to this type of situation. Something like Sever's disease, inflammation in the tendon related to overuse, inflammation in the growth plates, and rest period of at least a few weeks. I'd prefer to see like six to eight weeks. If this were my kid I know it's kind of hard in somebody who's already running, maybe already successful, maybe already participating in a lot of different sports or runs or cross country. But ultimately what's going to make this go away the fastest is shifting to non weight bearing. And maybe use this as an opportunity to introduce them to something like a weight training circuit in the weight room. Come out with a little bit of swimming, maybe a little bit of aqua jogging or some elastic band work. As long as you're not going too heavy. That's just fine for an 11 year old. And combine that with just avoiding running completely. The other thing that can really be an issue here is actual flexibility in the heel and flexibility down in the lower calf muscles. Stretching is going to help with that, obviously. And I would also look into a lot of the measures that you would use for something like plantar fasciitis and that would be doing things like, like working on your toe flexibility. One interesting drill that you can do for this is to pick up marbles with your foot and place them into a cup and then pick up more marbles with your foot and place them into a cup using your toes. And this actually works the little ligaments and tendons that run on the underside of your foot and are related to your heel flexibility. I will be sure to put a link in the show notes to this, but I would also recommend you look into another. And a night splint is something you wear in the foot to improve heel and ankle flexibility while you're sleeping, especially for something like a tight plantar fascia or plantar fasciitis, as well as tight heel and lower calf muscles. So I would put that into the protocol, especially in combination with rest. I really do not want you to misconstrue this as medical advice. I have to put that disclaimer in there. A podiatrist is definitely going to be someone, someone that would be able to help you out a little bit as well. But if this were my kid, I would be working on the flexibility. I would be incorporating a great deal of rest here and recovery and then focusing more on the orthotic and the type of shoe that's being used than I would on the running gait, which seems to be actually progressing in the direction you'd want it to progress.

There are so many awesome things for 11 year olds to do out there. Just letting him take some time off his feet and do some swimming, do some stretching, do some cycling, anything like that will probably help him mentally as well as physically.

Anything but we.

Anything but we. All right, next question comes from Will run for Food. I like that.

That's a nice.

I don't know if the person's name is Will or they're just declaring that they will run for Food.

I think that's probably their email address is Will run for food. Because I've seen somebody by that email address email me before, and I don't remember what their name was, but I don't think their actual given name is Will run for Food.

That's disappointing. Anyway, the question is. Hi, Ben, I'm a big fan of yours. Thanks for doing what you do. The question is, my husband is considering using magnesium. However, he has also checked out Epsom salts, and the price is much cheaper. What more benefits would he get from magnesium versus Epsom salts? That's the first part of the question. So why don't we dive into that first?

Okay. The benefits of magnesium I've talked about before on the show, it can massively decrease soreness, relax a muscle, help you to recover more quickly, and it's something that I incorporate on at least a weekly basis, some type of magnesium soak or magnesium bath or even like a spray on magnesium oil. The issue is that the type of magnesium that I use is a magnesium chloride, and it's very, very well absorbed compared to other forms of magnesium. Magnesium sulfate is what you're going to find in Epsom salts, and that's a combination of magnesium and sulfate, and it's decent. It will decrease soreness. But the issue is that, that you don't get a lot of the benefits of magnesium actually competing with calcium quite as well because the magnesium sulfate isn't as well assimilated or metabolized in the body. So what happens is you get a lot of calcium kind of collecting in a muscle area, and that's what can contribute quite a bit to muscle soreness. Magnesium chloride, because it's better absorbed, is going to be better able to displace some of that calcium and decrease the soreness. Compared to a magnesium sulfate, however, magnesium chloride is more expensive. I'll put a link to the magnesium flakes that I personally use in the show notes, and you'll see they're more spendy than the Epsom salts. I think they're like $40 or $50 for a big canister of them. Maybe a little less than that. It might be 30, but whereas Epsom salts, I think are going to be closer to like 10 to $15 for an equivalent supply, but you're not going to get quite the Benefit of, of the Epsom salts versus just kind of the gold standard magnesium chloride flakes. And the other issue is that after a magnesium chloride bath, you're going to find that your skin is super smooth and it's still moist. And after an Epsom salts bath, your skin tends to be drier. So those would be the issues to not use Epsom salts compared to a magnesium chloride. But if Epsom salts are all you have around, then they'd work.

Interesting. Yeah, I was, I was really curious to know the difference there too. I use magnesium a lot myself, but I've been tempted to use the Epsom salts on for the same reason. They're, they're quite a bit cheaper. But I have noticed the, the skin drying is, is quite considerable.

It's. It's kind of like fish oil. You're still going to get some benefits out of like a fish oil that's. And I've talked about this before on the show that, you know, like a fish oil that's in. It's what's called ethyl ester form. However, if you, if you spend a little bit more money and get a fish oil in a triglyceride form, the absorption is far better and you're doing a lot more for your body. Yeah.

All right, well, the second part of the question, and you've covered this in other episodes as well, but maybe you can just quickly answer, what type of magnesium do you suggest? A lotion spray? Oral. He's a road cyclist, rides hard, rides long, and has some calf cramps and some tight IT band issues.

I would recommend both topical and oral. So topical through the use of a bath as well as a spray, and then oral through the use of something like natural calm that you can take at night before you go to bed.

For sure. Okay, so next question is from John. John says getting protein through healthy food is best, but sometimes that is not possible and I have to use powder. I'm looking at ordering a customer to mix a protein powder to use before or after workouts and as an occasional snack. There are a lot of different kinds of protein powder available, such as whey, soy, egg, beef hemp, calcium, casein, pea, rice, isolates, concentrates, hydrolyzed, etc. Etc. I can also add any many different kinds of carbs and supplements. He wants to know what kind of mixture you would recommend.

Yeah, there are a lot of different ones out there. Whey is the most popular. It's the one that you're going to see the most. And whey is very, very well Absorbed, it has what's called a high biological value. And you're going to find a whey concentrate or what's called a whey isolates to both have a really high biological value, meaning that the proteins that are in it are very well absorbed and utilized by your body. A lot of people are allergic to whey, though. A lot of the same people who would be allergic to dairy are also allergic to whey. And the issue is not like a lactose intolerance because you really don't find that in whey. It's more the actual protein fractions that are in whey. So you have these proteins, they're called beta lactoglobulins, there's another one called alpha lactoalbumin and a bovine serum albumin. And you can mount an inflammatory or an allergenic reaction to these proteins. Interestingly, I interviewed Joe Stout, who is the scientist and formulator behind the Mount Capra products. And those are goat based proteins. The protein you find in goat milk and goat based whey is smaller and better absorbed by the body. So a lot of people who have allergic issues or just don't feel all that hot after they use a regular whey protein from a cow do just fine with a goat based whey protein. And so that leads me into the first type of protein that I take and I use that one from Mount Capra, the goat based protein. It's just called Mount Capra double bonded whey. And I put some here on my desk. The ingredients are goat milk protein, organic cocoa powder, xanthan gum. That's just a little bit of a thickener. And then stevia is what they use for a sweetener. So whey protein, if you're going to use whey and you don't do too well with a cow's whey, I would say use a goat based protein and make sure it doesn't have artificial sweeteners or a lot of additives in it. Egg based protein is another one that you'll find. And egg also has a really high biological value. It can actually be more allergenic than a whey protein. More people are allergic to eggs than they are to whey. So again, if you don't do well with eggs, then you probably wouldn't do too well with an egg protein. You also get a lot more gas with an egg based protein powder because of the sulfur content in eggs. As long as you're willing to put up with that, maybe carry some air freshener around with you, an egg based protein would work as well. If you're just looking at pure biological value. Soy actually in terms of biological value is not too bad. But I'm really not a fan of soy. It's got a lot of phytates in it and I know I just got done talking about grains, but the issue with soy is the way that it's prepared is an issue. You have to prepare it properly. Soy needs to be fermented. So tempeh, miso, natto, those would all be examples of fermented soy sources. Tofu or soybeans or soy protein powder. That's not fermented soy. So unless it's been fermented, soy protein is not really good for your body. It has a lot of enzyme inhibitors in it. It can actually cause a lot of gas as well because a lot of these enzyme issues and I really do not recommend the use of soy protein. So that one will be out in my book. And then you kind of get a lot of these plant based proteins that you find in many vegan protein powder sources. So spirulina is one that you find. Spirulina is great. I'm a huge fan of spirulina. It's very digestible. Its biological value isn't as high as like a whey or an egg based protein. But spirulina is expensive. Any protein powder you take that has spirulina in it, you're going to pay more for it. That's why, for example, one meal replacement you've heard me recommend before is the Living fuel super greens. It's not the cheapest meal replacement source on the planet and that's because of the spirulina in it and chlorella. Kind of the same issue. You'll usually find find either or both in a vegan protein powder, chlorella or spirulina, if you can afford them. They're really, really good sources, but they are more expensive. And then you have hemp and pea based protein and hemp comes from a hemp seed. It's really easily digested and absorbed and utilized. It is not quite as high in terms of its biological value or how much of the protein actually gets digested. But I am a fan of, of hemp based protein, especially if you mix it with some other proteins to get a little bit more complete amino acid intake like a rice based protein or a pea based protein. So pea based protein, I like that as well. If it's mixed like I mentioned, with some other proteins, but it doesn't taste all that good. That's another reason that needs to be mixed with some stuff. It's kind of chalky and kind of blah. And it's tough to find a good taste of tasting pea protein that's just pea protein. But if it's mixed with rice, then a mix of pea protein and rice protein actually tastes pretty good. And when you combine those two, you do get a good biological value and a good absorption rate in amino acids. I do use a vegan based protein. I use the living fuel living protein. I've got that sitting right here too. And it's got a lot more ingredients than the Mount Capra that I listed off off. But the major protein sources in it are a brown rice and a yellow pea protein. And then they add fiber, prebiotics, probiotics, and then to help you digest the proteins a little bit better, a digestive enzyme. And I'll be sure to link to both of those types of proteins in the show notes. But that's what I take is usually I do the mountain capra in the morning with breakfast and then living protein I'll do later on in the afternoon or the evening. And living protein is also the one that I tend to travel with. Like I put in a Ziploc bag and take with me when I'm traveling.

Yeah. So the vegan protein that you were just talking about, the vegetarian protein you were talking about, sort of leads into another question that we got from James that says, I know you prefer real foods, but what are your thoughts on corn and mycoprotein? An example of that is the naked chicken cutlet. As a vegetarian source of protein, the.

Naked chicken cutlet, in my opinion, is not all that healthy. Basically, corn is just the brand name of a mycoprotein food that you'll usually find in the UK or in Ireland. And it comes from fungi. Mycoprotein does. It's really cheap to make. It's not quite as healthy as the type of protein that comes from a spirulina or a chlorella, which probably from a biological standpoint or the closest to the fungus that they use to make the mycoprotein. But they just grow this fungus in big vats and they use glucose to feed the fungus and then they add some vitamins and some minerals and some nitrogen like ammonia, and you basically get these spores growing and you draw off the spores and then separate and purify and you get this mycoprotein. It's a super, super cheap way to make protein for the food industry. In this case, like the chicken cutlets that were mentioned, they put mycoprotein in that. They put basically rehydrated egg white protein in it. Egg white protein is nutrient void. It's protein, but it's got nothing going for it other than just protein. And I have some concerns about any rehydrated type of products like that just because they have a lot of potential to be really highly oxidized, meaning they have a lot of free radicals in it. And then they put some wheat protein in that and some wheat starch. Which of all the grains that I mentioned earlier is the one that if not treated properly, soaked and sprouted, et cetera, is the one most likely to do some damage to your body, cause you to gain weight or cause that inflammation. They put some whey protein in there, there, but it's really, really low down on the list. And then they add canola oil, which is a vegetable based oil, really, really chock full of more natural forms of omega 6 fatty acids. And I personally wouldn't go, well, let's put it this way, if I had to choose between a naked chicken cutlet and some of the other things I've seen out there in terms of TV meals, this wouldn't be the worst thing on the planet to eat. But I certainly would not go out of your way to eat it if you've got other choices.

So it's no tofurkey.

It's no tofurkey. No.

I looked at the ingredients list of a tofurkey this Thanksgiving and it just blew my mind. I didn't recognize hardly any of the ingredients.

Yeah, no. I'm a fan of the real thing.

Awesome. Okay, so our next question comes from Michael Harris and he says you stated in an earlier podcast that we should avoid Omega 6 because we get plenty of it in our diet via veggie oils and because it is pro inflammatory. Unfortunately, I recently bought a bottle of Nordic Naturals complete Omega 369. Did I waste my money? Should I have just bought the Omega 3? I did the same thing. I rushed out and I bought the Udo's oil, the 369 blend, and had the same thought like, oh no, did I totally screw up here?

No, you didn't. The concern with Omega 6 is really is first of all getting them from a lot of really oxidized sources where the Omega 6 has been heated or exposed to really high temperatures. So like a soybean oil or a canola oil or the type of oil where the Omega 6 really gets put through the grinder, extracting it from the plant or the seed based source that it's coming from. So that's one issue. And you're not going to get that in the Nordic naturals or like in the Udo's oil. And I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes. You can go back and listen to the interview with Udo erasmus. But essentially omega 6s are naturally found in things like seeds and nuts and they actually can have, have a very, very important effect in your body. They're used for a lot of reactions within your body and in some cases can be kind of anti inflammatory. But the issue here is that when they are oxidized, they're pro inflammatory, they're more prone to contribute to things like atherosclerosis and that would be when they're consumed from things like vegetable oils. And the interesting thing here is that there's really, really not a lot of proof that a high amount of omega 6s is really bad for you as much as there is a lot of proof that a low amount of the omega 3 fatty acids, the anti inflammatory fatty acids, is really bad for you. So I wouldn't be focusing as much on decreasing your intake of omega 6 fatty acids acids, especially if your intake of omega 6 fatty acids is from seeds and nuts, as I would be focusing on making sure that you're getting a lot of the omega 3 fatty acids. The reason for that is you're going to find a lot of really healthy omega 6 fatty acids in nature. For example, there was one study that they did on almonds and they found that an almond rich diet actually really lowered the tissue levels of, of a marker that's related to heart disease and also C reactive protein, which is really related to inflammation. And they found that almonds, even compared to walnuts and olive oil, which are lower in omega 6s, almonds had the greatest cardioprotective effect and they lowered that LDL cholesterol the most. And the almond ratio, the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio in almonds is really, really high, high. It's like 2000 plus to one. And you look at some other healthy fats out there like coconut oil, that's like over 3,000 parts omega 6 fatty acids to one part omega 3 fatty acids. And olive oil is 20 parts omega 6 to one part omega 3. And avocados are 15 parts omega 6 to one part omega three. But you really can't say that omega 6s across the board are bad. Again, this comes down to what I started off with in this podcast and I responded to the grains question depends where you're getting them from and what they've been exposed to. And eating an avocado is a lot different than eating a few tablespoons of canola oil. The avocado omega 6s have not been exposed to the same type of harsh treatments as what you get in a canola oil. So they're not oxidized to the same extent. So the issue here is not watching Omega 6 fatty acid intake as much as making sure that you're getting lots of healthy omega 3 fatty acids. Cold water fish is a perfect example. The Nordic naturals or fish oil or the Udo's oil is another good way to bump up your omega 3 fatty acid intake. I personally focus on that and I enjoy my almond butter, my seeds, my nuts, things of that nature, my olive oil, my coconut oil, all these other things that are chock full of Omega 6s and I'm not concerned. As long as I'm getting enough omega 3 fatty acids which are anti inflammatory to balance out any of the pro inflammatory effect of the omega 6 fatty acids, I'm good to go. Go. And that's, you know, if I were Michael, that's what I would focus on.

Yeah. So the Omega 6 isn't the evil villain that we were, we were thinking it was at all.

Nope. In most cases it's really not. Wearing that black hat.

That's great. Okay, so let's move on to the next question here from Jenny. And Jenny says. Hello, Ben. I do strength training three to four times per week. I like to vary my routines and was wonderful. Is it better to do overall body workouts or to cover specific body parts separately with more exercises such as chest and triceps for one session? I do triathlons but I'm currently in my off season. Thanks.

Yeah, this is a good question. The idea of splitting body parts into specific workouts and working specific body parts on specific days comes from bodybuilding. So you would, for example, you do a chest and shoulders workout on one day, you would do a arms like a biceps and triceps workout on another day, you would do a back workout another day, you'd do a quads workout on one day, a hamstrings workout another day and maybe an abs workout on a few of those days. That type of training works really well if you have a lot of time to devote to those specific body parts. But if you are pressed for time or you want to get as much bang for your buck out of your weight training routine, you're going to get A lot of. A lot more benefit out of doing full body exercises every time that you go in and lift or splitting it into something like upper body, lower body. So in my case, for example, right now I do about anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes of upper body training on Monday and about 30 to 50 minutes of lower body training on Wednesday or Friday. And then I also include in those sessions core training training. In Both sessions, about 10 to 15 minutes of core training. If I were to try and squeeze body part specific workouts into that amount of time, it simply wouldn't work. To really benefit and say, get a nice body or get really good results from body part specific training, you got to be able to devote a lot of time to those specific body parts. And you can generally get a lot more bang for your buck out of doing squats, deadlift lifts, bench presses, cleans, overhead presses, things of that nature.

I certainly don't want to turn this into a commercial or sound like I'm blowing smoke or anything, but when I first Got yout Shape 21 book and started doing the exercises that are in there, which are very much a full body workout, I have to say that's the quickest improvement I've ever seen in my physical. Like in the look of my body anyway. Like, as far as the strength and stuff went, it was, it wasn't that surprising. But actually like seeing the fat loss and the muscle tone that happened. Like you were saying, the bang for the buck was. Was really, it was over the top.

Yeah. And an interesting thing about that book is I wrote it after I finished bodybuilding and I was sick of the gym and didn't want to step in the gym for the entire summer. All I had at home was a set of dumbbells. And so I wrote shape 21 as a way to keep me in shape with the without stepping foot in a gym.

Nice. Well, it worked. Okay, so let's move on to the next question which comes from Raminta and she asks. I've heard many times from various sources that carbs cause an insulin spike and that if this spike is too much, your body stores the carbs as fat. I've also heard that really most foods like protein cause some sort of insulin spike, but the carbs, and especially processed carbs cause a much faster insulin spike. But I've not seen many people quantify how much of an insulin spike is undesirable. So the question is, is there a way to determine if and when I have had an undesirable or fat storing insulin spike? Could I use a blood glucose meter that diabetics use to see how my body responds to certain foods and meals?

You, in most cases, really can't measure insulin. And ultimately it doesn't matter too much, and I'll tell you why here in a little bit. But just recently, just this year, they did come out with a home urine test that you could use to measure your insulin levels. And it was specifically designed for diabetics to monitor their insulin levels for people who are having to do insulin injections. Ultimately, though, the rate of blood glucose rising after you eat a meal or the extent to which blood glucose rises after you eat a meal is a better variable to look at. And you can do that very easily with the home blood glucose monitor. You can get those. I'll put a link in the show notes to a bunch of them on Amazon where you can find them. You can also get them at your local Walgreens. It's very, very easy to learn how to use a blood glucose monitor. And for anybody who wonders whether or not a food or a meal is actually spiking your blood glucose levels or how long your blood glucose levels are staying spiked after a meal, you can get a little booklet or a little chart and simply log your blood glucose levels after you eat certain meals. But this question is more about insulin levels. And the fact is that a lot of people don't know that insulin doesn't just go up when you eat sugar. So you eat a sugary or carbohydrate laden meal meal, and your blood sugar goes up, and then your pancreas releases insulin so that that blood sugar can preferably be shuttled into muscles to be stored away as energy or possibly brought into the liver to convert into other types of storage fuel. But when you eat protein and when you eat fat like meat or like eggs, you can still get a spike in insulin, even when there isn't a spike in blood glucose. And the reason for that is that insulin, you know, it's completely necessary to life. It helps you store your nutrients, and that's an essential process. So what the insulin does when you say eat an omelet is it helps to bring amino acids into your muscle cells, but in order for it to actually do that properly, in order for insulin to actually do that properly, it needs carbohydrates to assist in the transport of amino acids into your muscle. And the way that insulin does that is it causes a rise in another component. It doesn't really cause a rise in another component, but when you eat a protein rich Food, you get a rise in this component along with insulin. It's called glucagon. So when you eat protein or fat, you get a rise in glucagon and you don't get that with carbs because glucagon is just basically a hormone that's going to take the storage carbohydrate within your body and cause some of it to be released so that you get a rise in blood sugar that can allow insulin to, to drive proteins into muscle for repair or recovery or for storage. So you get this glucagon release and this insulin release that comes along with the higher protein, higher fat meal, and that's completely normal. It's to be expected. If this didn't happen, then the protein or the fats that you would be eating would be totally useless. And really, I don't think that it's necessary to track insulin levels from that standpoint because it's going to happen anyways. And you don't have to be tracking insulin to know that it's going to spike in correlation with a spike in blood glucose. So rather than using one of these brand new urine insulin measurement tests, which isn't going to tell you much because it's just going to be hard for you to go pee 30 minutes after a meal and pee 60 minutes after a meal, and pee 90 minutes after a meal, you're going to get a lot more benefit out of just looking at your blood glucose levels. That being said, you can get your hands on an insulin index. And there was actually there was an article way back in 1997 that was in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in which they looked at what type of foods, or they looked at about 40 different foods and the effect that they had on insulin release. And they called this the insulin index of foods. So if you're really interested in how much insulin is actually right after certain foods that you eat, go check out that index. I'll put a link to it in the show notes for you. Most of it's not going to surprise you. You'll see that in most foods that are super sweet and higher in carbohydrate, you're going to see a spike in insulin. You'll also see a fairly decent rise in insulin in some of the protein and the fat based meals. But that's completely natural and you don't really have to worry about it.

If anybody's completely confused about this question and doesn't really understand how the body reacts to it, there's an awesome. In the movie Fathead there's an awesome little animation section in the middle of that movie that explains exactly this process. I thought it explained it really well.

Yeah, and Fathead, the guy who made that was Tom Naughton and I interviewed him on the show. You can go do a search for fathead@bengreenfieldfitness.com and you'll find that.

OK, well, that's our last question. There was a a little exchange between William, one of one of the listeners and Mark Mustare from Bite Tech that I just wanted to throw in here. William hall asked after listening to your podcast 169, I was wondering if the mouthpiece for athletes could be used to help with snoring because of the increased oxygen and better airflow. A natural assumption on my part. But I would appreciate just a quick email. Thanks for listening. So I should have explained Mark Master from Bite Tech. He was the fellow who came on the show. He was talking about an actual mouthpiece, like a mouth guard that you wear during exercise and not just for impact, but actually to increase the VO2 max, wasn't it?

Yep. And decreased lactic acid levels.

Yeah, it's very interesting stuff. So go back to podcast 169 if you didn't listen to it. But the response from Mark was even though the mouthpiece is not a medical device, I wear mine when I sleep and my wife has reported that I don't snore. But as I said, it's not approved by the FDA for that use. But it's certainly worth a try. So there you go. And it could help you in so many different ways, apparently.

Yep. And it wasn't designed again for help with snoring, but it's certainly something to look into. And you can get mouthpieces that are custom designed and designed as medical advices to help with something like sleep apnea or snoring. I have one client that uses one very, very successfully and has completely eliminated his sleep apnea through doing that.

Great. Okay, before we jump into the big interview, we've got a little audio testimonial from a listener named Chad.

Hi there Ben. This is Chad Sabo calling in from Toledo, Ohio. Just wanted to take a minute to personally thank you you for your amazing marathon Dominator program, which really helped me to dominate my recent New York City Marathon performance with a PR time of 3:19:40. Compared to my performance at last year's Columbus Marathon where I ran a 3 hour 56 minute race, this was an improvement of 36 minutes and 20 seconds. Everything that you have included in the design of the program from the focus on quality over quantity, strength training, nutrition strategies and rest was just all perfectly timed out to ensure that I was ready to go for race day. To help set my new pr, I also integrated the Extreme Endurance Protocol into my training, which we have recommended from time to time on the podcast. I firmly believe that this supplement allowed me to race stronger and faster and be more consistent in hitting my speed, especially during the latter miles of the race. It also significantly helped me with the recovery after the race. Again, thank you for designing such a fabulous program that has really changed my running. And for anyone out there planning to run a marathon, please make sure to get the Marathon Dominator program. I promise you you won't regret it. Thanks again Ben, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.

Featured Topic.

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield, and I've got Eric Goodman on the call. Eric actually is a doctor of chiropractic, and he also has done quite a bit of study in physiology and in nutrition. He has a pretty cool approach to human performance and movement and specifically the core that we'll be talking about today. He's worked with elite athletes. He actually co wrote the book Foundation Redefine youe Core, Conquer Back Pain and Move With Confidence. He co wrote that with Lance Armstrong strength conditioning coach Peter park. And so he's actually got a lot of experience when it comes to core training, what he calls foundation training. And he's going to be sharing some of his thoughts on core training today with us. So, Eric, thanks for coming on the call.

Dr. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Well, let' slet's jump right in. You know, I've heard you say that sitting at desks, working on computers, waiting in traffic, that you're continually contracting your abs when you're doing those type of things, which I guess at first thought a lot of people would think that's kind of a good thing if you're continually contracting your abs. But you say that it throws your shoulders forward and it shuts down the back of the body. And I'm kind of curious if you can expound on that and what you actually mean by that.

For sure, I'm very happy to so it's not that the muscles of the abdomen are contracting and supporting you in the way you would think if you were thinking of a plank or something like that. Your ab muscles are very important, no question about it, but they're actually not supposed to shorten nearly as often as we allow them to. In fact, what I talk about When I say that people are sitting too often and kind of what I call complacently adapting to the convenience that we have in our daily life, to sitting in chairs, sitting at the computer, sitting in a car, sitting on the couch, we really sit far more than we're supposed to. And in that sitting posture, our body is literally adapting to folding in on itself. And it's less of a contraction of the abdomen than it is a passive shortening of the abdomen, which is really the concern that I approach the most. And when the front of your body is constantly short like that, when the front of your body is not really in the position that it's designed to be in, the back of your body is literally shut down. The spinal erector muscles, the quadratus lumborum muscles, the glute muscles, the hamstrings, some of the most important muscles in the body, are not able to function as they are designed to function when that front of your body remains short. So that's more of what I'm talking about with that. And I understand the idea that when somebody says, well, the abs are strong that way and that's good for you, and it is. But unfortunately, they're strong in a way that is so out of balance with the back of the body that it's literally throwing us out of our everyday movement patterns. We are not moving as our bodies are designed to move anymore.

So when you say that continual contraction of the abs kind of shuts down the back of the body, why would that even really matter? I mean, what's the implication in order.

For us to move properly? And this is for everybody, from the desk jockey to the professional athletes that we work with. And some of these athletes, they don't sit at all. They're professional triathletes, professional runners, and they really do not sit at all. But they have the same issue that a lot of these people sit at desks all day have and sit at chairs all day have, which is bending at the spine, allowing their spine to be the fulcrum of their movement, shortening the front of their body, kind of lengthening the back of their body, the back of their spine, as opposed to hinging at the hips, which is basically an adaption that we have. Our bodies have adapted to bending at the spine, which is what we're not supposed to do, shortening the front of the body, strengthening the abs entirely too much, not properly utilizing the back of the body. And the back of the body is the core of the body. If you look at how we are really Designed to move anatomically. We have this junction at our lower spine. You know, we have this very nice natural curve of our lower spine which we're literally pulling ourselves out of when we sit all day. And without that lower spine curve able to function properly and remain strong, our butt muscles and hamstrings are not able to do what they're supposed to do, which is be our primary moving muscles. We have gotcha over the past 20 to 30 years, really pushed out of that typical human primitive movement pattern which allows the glute and hamstring to be our primary movers. And one of the reasons that we've had the success that we have with people, and again, it's every different kind of person that we work with from really severe chronic pain to people that are needing to retire from professional sports because of injuries, especially chronic injuries. The reason we have the results we do is we simply bring them back to a primitive movement pattern.

Uh huh. Gotcha. Okay, so, you know, this kind of seems like when you're describing the, the relationship between the back of the body and the rest of the body, like you may be hinting at. What I've seen on your website is what you describe as the spiderweb theory of the core. And by the way, for you folks listening in, I'll put a link to Eric's website in the show notes. But what do you mean the spiderweb theory of the core? What is that theory?

Well, the spider. And this would apply if you were defining the front of, if you were defining the core as the abdomen, or if you were defining the core as the abdomen plus the lower back muscles, glute muscles, hamstrings, and a few other muscles as we tend to describe it. But basically, you know, if you picture a spider web, you have this ring of concentric circles and there's this center circle where the spider tends to go. And every time there's a movement on that center circle, in our case the core, in our real case the back of the body, in addition to the front of the body, if it's done properly, that force that you exert at the center is going to affect, affect everything all the way down to the toes, the nose, the fingertips. I mean, it's going to affect every aspect of that spider web. That's really all we're talking about with that, is that if you're doing it properly, when you strengthen the core the right way, it makes every single part of your body stronger. It's not about strengthening the abdomen, it's about strengthening the center of the body, so that when you make a powerful movement, it affects every part of the body, including the far out extremities.

Okay, okay. Gotcha, gotcha. So you wrote this book, you co authored this book with Lance Armstrong, strength conditioning coach. The name of the book is Foundation. I've seen it before at the bookstore. It's the one with kind of the back of the body, the shirtless back of the body on it. So in that book, can you describe, or in your practice, can you describe some of the exercises that that would be kind of different than what people might traditionally imagine as a way to strengthen their core that you've got people doing to kind of get the back active and take advantage of this whole spiderweb theory?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Every one of our exercises is a unique exercise that is actually a bodyweight resistance exercise. We have literally nearly 100 different exercises that utilize this system of movement, this idea that integrated movement, integrating chains of muscle, as opposed to compartmentalizing individual muscles or even individual groups of muscles is much more effective. So all of our exercises are based integrating an entire chain of muscles, often the posterior chain of muscles, which is, I mean, if you want to get really anatomical with it, it's everything from the lateral band of the arch to the posterior tibialis to the anterior tibialis to the hamstring, to the glute, to the quadratic lumborum. Image this whole chain of muscles all the up to the back of the neck. But for layman's terms, for easy understanding, I want you to think of the posterior chain as the hamstring, especially the hamstring, where it inserts onto the butt muscles, the glutes, and then the all important lower back muscles. And what we teach is how to get these isometric and also repetitive movement postures that integrate those muscle chains, Especially starting with that posterior chain, you really can't be properly strong and properly powerful without the posterior chain of muscles being one of the driving forces in your movements. So the exercises are based solely in the postures that allow those muscles to be tensioned properly.

Gotcha. What would be an example of some of these exercises?

An example? The one we teach just about everybody, everybody has to learn this first before they really do any exercises. Otherwise it's called a founder. And the founder is very similar to a chair pose in yoga. But the subtle differences that we make are the difference literally between doing it right and wrong. And I've talked to a number of very high level yoga practitioners that would wholeheartedly agree once they do this, they start changing the way that they teach a forward fold and a chair pose in their practice. And what it does is it teaches you to very powerfully hinge at the hip joint, keeping your spine braced, as opposed to letting your spine bend while you bend forward. And it then reproduces the. That tensioning of the muscles. So during the entire thing, you're holding isometric holds, you're bending a little bit further forward, holding that isometric hold, bending a little bit further, and then really teaching yourself to get up from a bended posture the way that your body is designed to, which is, again, strengthened spine, strong spine braced, lower back, glute contraction, hamstring contraction, lifting the entire upper body up instead of just hinging at that one spine joint, that L4, L5, that area where. Where most people have herniations and most people have back pain because of improper repetitive use.

Right, right. Okay, cool. So these are not exercises where you're, like, necessarily, like, down on a mat, doing variations of the crunch. You're talking like standard exercises.

There are exercises like we have an example of a very common exercise that we just manipulated just a little bit is a back extension. We have people laying flat on their stomach, and we teach them. Them how to extend their spine properly without going into hyperextension, using the right muscles, the proper speed to do it, the way that those muscles are designed to be utilized. Even though it's a back extension most people have done, it's a much safer, much more effective version of it. And that's basically what we've done for a lot of exercises. We've seen what's out there, and we've made them much more efficient.

Okay, that's awesome stuff. The core is so important. It's always, always great to hear different ways to work it.

Yeah, it was a good twist on the core. I would highly recommend, folks, check out Eric's book. I'll put a link to it in the show notes for this episode, episode number 172 over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and as you know, Brock and I'm sure most people listening in know by now, if you're a longtime listener, we try and put everything for you in the show notes in terms of resources and materials for you that. That go into what we've talked about on the show. So everything I went over in the Q and A, from the nice blend for the plantar fascia to the proteins that I use, to the magnetic flakes or the magnesium flakes, I'll put a link to all of that in the show notes, as well as a link to the Weight Training for Triathlon book that I'd highly recommend that you check out.

By all means. If we do miss something in the show notes or if you're curious about anything else that was meant to leave a comment or leave a note on Facebook or just get in touch with us any way, we're always happy to respond. And of course, when it's something that requires some real knowledge, it'll be Ben. And if it's something flippant, it'll be me.

That's right. And if you do want to get those news fleshes hot off the press, just follow me on Twitter, twitter.com BenGreenfield so that's about it. Brock, do you have any plans in this holiday hiatus between Thanksgiving and Christmas?

No, I'm just training away, trying to. I'm actually getting really excited about my new coach giving me my new training plan. Hint, hint, hint, hint. When he gets back from Thailand.

That's right. That's right. I'll be working with Brock, getting him ready for the Disney Marathon and beyond some triathlons next year. So, folks, if you've got a triathlon goal, a marathon goal, a fitness goal, a weight loss goal, it doesn't matter. Our goal is to help you with that here on the show. So be sure to tune in next week where hopefully there is a podcast episode awaiting you as long as I'm able to record it as I airport hop back from Thailand. And our desire is to keep you motivated over this holiday season to arrive at the new year ready to rumble and ready to hopefully set a goal other than weight loss. So that's the ideal way to start the new year, is to feel really good about your body, about your belly, and to basically be ready to jump into the new year, fit as a fiddle and ready to rumble. And that's what we're here to help you do.

Fantastic.

So until next time, this is Ben Greenfield From Ben Greenfield Fitness.com Signing up.