Episode #93: Swimmer Dara Torres “Secret Fitness Weapon”.

In this podcast episode, resistant stretching, the best temperature for ice baths, skipping meals, exercise headaches, runner's knee, slow metabolisms, hay fever and exercise, more on carbo loading, sodium phosphate supplements, V8 juice, the health effects of alcohol, altitude training, and trouble sleeping.

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast 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 BenGreenfield Fitness.com.

Hey podcast listeners, it's Ben Greenfield. And I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the nice weather, people getting out and about more, people thinking about their health more. But I have gotten a lot of questions this week, so I'm not gonna waste too much time jumping right into the content. We also have an interview with one of the trainers who travels with Olympic swimmer Dera Torres. And Derra Torres has something that she calls one of her secret weapons for fitness. And, and I was able to track down and interview the person who actually invented the program that Dara uses. So you do not want to miss that interview. It's pretty cool and it's something that I've actually started to implement in my program. So we're going to start off with a few special announcements, move on to this week's huge listener Q and A, have that featured topic and of course, keep you entertained along the way.

Special announcements.

I'd like to make you all aware of a free book that's available right now. If you're listening to this podcast, the week that it comes out, this is Mother's Day week and there's a free book on mothers, and specifically mothers who exercise and do triathlons. It is an anthology of different essays that were written by kids about their mothers, husbands about their wives, and mothers about themselves. And I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes. You can just go download it for free and check it out. It'd actually be a great thing to download and then send to your mom on Mother's Day as a little gift for her to read. So check that out. I will put that as a link to the show notes for this. For this episode, episode number 93, the Summer Body Challenge only has one week left for you to actually get in and then it officially starts and lasts from May 15 through August 1. And this is the challenge that I'm going to be judging based on your photos and your videos of how cut, how toned you can get your body over the summer, how much weight you can lose, how much better you can look. But I'm going to be keeping you accountable along the way. All you have to do is go to the Show Notes and click on the link to make sure that you get into the Summer Body Challenge so that I can help you out this summer to achieve the body transformation that you want. In just a week and a half is the Ironman Coeur d' Alene Triathlon camp that I'm going to be teaching. If you want to get into that, you can still get in. Just shoot me an email and I'll take care of you. As you may have heard, if you listen to previous podcasts, I'll give podcast listeners precedence in terms of not charging you the extra fee that comes with late registration. So if you email me, take care of you. Finally, as you know, if you text the word Fitness to 411247 then I will hook you up with a bunch of insider tips and discounts from me. Just this week, the people who were part of my VIP text club, which is free to join, got one day unlimited access to my body transformation club and they also got a free copy of how to change your life with magnesium. And so there's quite a bit going on there in terms of what you have access to when you're part of the VIP Text club. So that being said, let's go ahead and move on to this week's Listener Q and A. And oh wait, there's one other thing. If you hear anything that you want to comment on or leave a question about and you go comment in the show notes, I actually have a new comment feature that lets you do things like link your comment to your Facebook account, your Twitter account, your profile photos, your website, basically anything that you want to do to get other people to maybe know you a little bit more. We kind of have a core group of commenters that are always chatting along for episodes or articles on BenGreenfieldFitness.com and you can go over there and join the crowd. I've just made it a lot more fun to leave comments and I do highly encourage you to leave comments and questions right there on the show notes for the episodes. And once again, this episode is episode 93.

Listener q&a.

If you have a question, then all you need to do isemail ben greenfieldfitness.com As I mentioned earlier, just leave a comment or you can call and Leave your audio question toll free to 877-209-9439. And the first question this week comes from listener Tina. Tina Hey Ben. In training for my Ironman, I finally decided to try the dreaded ice baths and I was amazed at how well I felt the next day. I've tried it by running down to the lake, which is close to my home, and standing in up to my hips for 10 minutes. I've also sat in lukewarm water in my tub and slowly added cold water up to the big dump of the ice tray from my freezer. So my question is, is there a certain temperature that ice baths work better in? If I'm still sore the second day after a hard workout, would another ice bath be beneficial? Well, that's actually a great question. With ice baths, which are perfect for recovery and effectively eliminating a lot of that tiny microscopic damage that occurs to your muscles during exercise, more is not necessarily better. Most of the research points to about 54 to 60 degrees as the ideal ice bath temperature range. And 54 to 60 degrees is definitely uncomfortable, but it's not so cold that its teeth grittingly numb to even be in for 15 or 20 seconds. It should be cold to the point where it is slightly uncomfortable, but it doesn't feel like it's actually doing damage to your limbs. Believe it or not, you can do damage by sitting in too cold of water for too long, and you can also cause things like spontaneous fainting, which can occur when you're exposed to cold for long periods of time. Almost the same if you were becoming hypothermic. So don't worry about getting any colder than 54 degrees. And you can just use like a, let's say, type of thermometer that you'd use in a pool to measure the actual temperature of your ice bath if you'd like to go to that range. Typically what I'll do is just take one freezer tray full of ice, dump that in a bathtub full of cold water, and that generally gets it pretty cold. I'll also do a cold shower or as you do, go down to a lake or river and and just stand waist deep after a tough run. And it really is one of nature's best anti inflammatories and very, very inexpensive when it comes to a recovery method. So great question. Listener Fitz asks Ben, how do you feel about Paleo Primal diet proponents who advise skipping meals, avoiding carbs, or even skipping breakfast? Seems like there's a lot of science behind it. Skipping meals or skipping Breakfast is not necessarily going to do something magical to your metabolism. Contrary to popular belief, it's not necessarily going to shut down or slow your metabolism. But there's also really nothing special that happens physiologically, aside from the ability to to enhance caloric restriction and also the ability to burn a little bit of extra fat as you're moving around because it's likely that your carbohydrate stores are depleted. Now the problem that I find with my clients is that if I have them skip meals too often or if I do not stay on top of them in terms of making sure that they prioritize getting a nutrient dense breakfast into their bodies, they end up getting hungrier later on in the day. Their exercise sessions, especially in the mid morning or the mid afternoon during, tend to suffer because they aren't able to bring themselves up to the intensity that they'd be able to if they had ample carbohydrate on board. And they usually have less resistance to some damaging snacks later on in the day. A snickers bar at 11am Looks a lot more appealing when you haven't had a bowl of quinoa with blueberries and a little bit of ALMOND Butter at 8am in the morning when you get up. Now the times that I do encourage people to skip meals would be if they're going to incorporate, for example, a mini fast protocol. And this is something that I'll do to lean up prior to, for example, a triathlon. I'll go to bed at 8pm or I'm sorry, I'll eat dinner at 8pm and then go to bed at 10pm, get up at 6am by then it's been 10 hours since I've last eaten. I'll exercise for about 45 to 60 minutes with some light aerobic cardio and then I'll go eat. And doing that light aerobic cardio in the morning after the overnight fast really helps you burn through some fat stores and fires up those fat burning enzymes in the liver. So that's where I'd recommend skipping meals. For the most part, people tend to adhere to their diets a little bit more when they're eating frequently and not engaging in irregular eating patterns. I'm going to move on to a question from listener David. David is a personal trainer and he says one of my clients complains of headaches halfway through the workout. I train him pretty hard, usually circuits with minimum breaks in between sets. He doesn't drink coffee or tea and keeps caffeine intake to a minimum. He's 30 years old, in good shape and of average weight with no special conditions. No diabetes, no high blood pressure, no high lipids. I'm working to build his upper body strength and improve his core. I think the headaches could have something to do with his breathing technique, but I do watch him and it appears that he's exhaling on concentrics and inhaling on eccentrics. That just means that he's doing as he's supposed to. He's kind of exhaling during the difficult phase and inhaling during the relaxation phase. David goes on, so maybe he's not breathing correctly or deep enough. What other possibilities do you think could be causing his headaches? Could be low carbs or lack thereof. Usually glycogen depletion isn't going to be a big issue with headaches. If it were going to be depletion of any type of nutrient per se, it would be water and dehydration. And that would be just kind of. The big red flag would be. And I'm going to kind of assume you've already looked into this, make sure that he's drinking enough water. Specifically his body weight divided by half is how many ounces of water he should be drinking at a minimum per day. That being said, I don't know how his eyesight is, but people who have sensitivity to bright light or difficulty focusing can get headaches no matter where they are, including exercise. Sensitivity to noise can cause headaches. It's possible that if he has a very good hearing or if he's especially sensitive to weights dropping or loud music in the weight room, that could cause a headache. There are certain anxiety disorders if he's very tense in social situations that can contribute to headaches, as can muscular tension in the traps and the shoulders, which could be eliminated with foam rolling or a massage, or even just a little bit of trigger point work, which you can do as a personal trainer. I mean, you can put your hands on your client's traps and basically massage the traps. You don't have to be a licensed massage therapist to do something like that. And then finally, I look into magnesium as well. Magnesium deficiency can cause quite a bit of symptoms, including headaches. And I'll put a link to topical magnesium that he could rub into his shoulders or his neck. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. The other thing I'm going to put a link to is a breathing article that I wrote that focuses on breathing drills that can really help outside of exercise, ways that you can breathe to assist with potential problems with too Shallow of breathing or not having the right habits when it comes to getting deep breaths in whether you're exercising. So I'm going to put a link to that article, David, and you can link or you can click on that in the show notes to this episode, episode number 93. And I'd consider some of those things, the eyesight, the hearing sensitivity, the magnesium, the breathing and the hydration. Those are some of the things that come to mind right away when you describe what's going on. Listener Mike asks two questions. Question one, I was hoping you could point me in the right direction on your recommended brands for vitamin D, magnesium, omega 3s and greens. And I don't want to be a supplement whore. I don't want to necessarily tell you that there's one single supplement that's best. All I'm going to do, Mike, is tell you what I take in terms of those supplements. For vitamin D, I take the bioletic stuff that I spray under my tongue. For magnesium, I take ancient minerals. That one that I just put a link to for David. For omega 3s, I take the flax seed oil from impacts called NREFA. And I also take the oil from the fish oil from Bioletics. And then for a greens, I use Ener prime as a greens powder and I use something else called Living Fuel Super Greens for like a meal replacement powder that has greens in it. So there you go. Now question two, you ask, do you have any treatment or supplement recommendations for jumper's knee? I developed a severe case playing volleyball a couple years ago and still, still struggle with it. Number one thing I'm going to recommend to you, Mike, that has helped me tremendously. I used to play competitive volleyball, played for a couple years at University of Idaho, discovered this, and I've used it for both IT band and for jumper's knee. And that's something called a pat strap. That's P. A T, T strap. It's a little strap. You put it over the front of your patellar tendon during activity and it eliminates a lot of the friction and the rubbing that can lead to the inflammation and the, the pain. And for the IT band, you can actually put that about 2 inches above the knee. I've even worn two before, one for the IT band and one for the knee. But that would be my top recommendation for something that you could use for runner's knee or jumper's knee. And I found that it works really well. Listener Lance asks, are there any other sunscreens worth considering other than the scape product? From podcast number 92. You know, Lance, the only real sunscreens that I've experimented too much with are that scape product which I actually wore in a triathlon last week and was really very impressed with it. I had, I had interviewed Dr. Martens about it on the podcast and tried it out during the Wildflower Triathlon. I was very happy with it, not stinging my eyes, helping to cool my core temp, or helping me not to feel like my temperature cooling capabilities were being inhibited. And then also zero sunburn lines or tan lines from my triathlon jersey. So in addition to that one, the only other thing I've done is gotten coconut oil, jojoba oil and zinc and basically made sunscreen my kitchen. And that's something else that you could do. As a matter of fact, if you went to YouTube and did a search for my name plus sunscreen, you'd find that video where I'm making it in my kitchen. But that's something else that you could do. And other than that, in the past, you know, I've been the guy that wanders into Walgreens and buys whatever's on sale. So I'm kind of sold now on this scape stuff. After interviewing the guy about it, finding out it was really designed for people doing what I do, exercising hard in hot weather. So that's what I do. I'm probably not going to end up making any more in my kitchen just because of the opportunity and time costs versus just getting some from Scape. So there you go. Second part of your question. You say in podcast 92, I was puzzled by your fat recommendations. The research I have looked at indicates we need single digit percentages of daily calories from omega 3 and 6s. Why do you recommend 15 to 25%? The short answer is I don't. I recommended 15 to 25% for total fat intake, which means that if you take the fat that you're getting from fish oils, flaxseed oils, omega 3 sources, omega 6 sources, you take the fat that you're getting from coconut oils, you take the fat that you're getting from monounsaturated sources like olives, olive oil, avocado seeds, nuts, you put all that together plus whatever fat you might be getting from dairy and meat, that should come out to the 15 to 25% mark. So I wasn't saying that just for the omega 3s and omega 6s. That's total fat that I recommend at 15 to 25%. Listener Josh asks, it's been a mantra in my Family that slow metabolism is a curse. Is it true that some people struggle with a slower metabolism? Or do those people, like me, just eat a little bit or a lot more and slowly add to their body fat? Before I progress to the second part of your question, Josh, it is true that some people do struggle with a slower metabolism. You can get your metabolism tested via something called indirect calorimetry. It's done in a resting metabolic test where you sit down or you lie down after you've been fasting. So there's no thermic effect of food that's skewing the results. And you simply sit there and breathe for anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes and you find out how many calories your body is burning at rest. It spans the gamut. I've had some lean people come to me with slow metabolisms, and I've had some very overweight people come to me with fast metabolisms. And so that's actually how you can get it measured versus using something like an equation online. So your local university might be able to hook you up with that. You could also do a search on Google for from metabolic testing wherever you happen to live. Now you move on and you say, no diet or meal plan seems to really be able to help me drop my body fat. My physician says my blood tests don't indicate a slow metabolism, but even his dietary advice doesn't work. Can you help? Your physician should not be giving you a blood test for a slow metabolism. Now your physician can give you a blood test for thyroid or for anemia or something that's going to kind of indirectly affect your metabolism or directly affect your metabolism, but those don't measure your metabolic rate. Those are just measuring parameters that influence your metabolism. The only way your doc can directly test your metabolism is via the measurement that I just described. So I'm not sure why they're telling you that, other than maybe they're just trying to tell you in some other way that your thyroid is normal. And let's say that your thyroid is normal and you're still having trouble dropping body fat. I mean, I can tell you right now that when my clients come to me and they complain about this, or when potential clients come to me and they complain about this, usually I'm suggesting a range of tests from food allergy tests to yeast tests, fungus tests. I'm looking at their full nutrient profile a lot of times, looking at not just the nutrient intake, but also the supplement intake, the hydration status, the actual exercise program that they're utilizing, as well as their lifestyle, their stress levels, their sleep levels. There's so many things at play here that you just having a slow metabolism could pretty easily be overcome if that's all it is. But when you say no diet or meal plan seems to really be able to help, it doesn't tell me much other than that we would need to dig a little bit further to see what's going on. And those are some of the ways that we would do it. Now your second question is how far in advance do you plan your workouts? How do you anticipate muscles that you're over training when you're planning ahead? I plan out my swimming, cycling and running workouts in a macro perspective for the entire year, meaning that I sit down, I look at the triathlons I want to do, I look at the shape I want to be in, I look at possibly maybe being a little bit heavier over the holidays, a little bit more body fat in the winter, a little bit less in the summer. And I plan out the big picture based on that. Knowing the time of year that I'm going to be focusing more on strength. Knowing the time of year, I'm going to be focusing more on cardiovascular endurance or fat loss. And knowing the time of year, I'm going to be focusing more on explosive racing type of fitness because I do triathlons now. From there, if I know the macro perspective, what I do is at the beginning of every week and this is the same thing I do with my clients. I sit down and plan that week's workouts based off of where I need to be from a macro perspective for that week. So if it's a race week, then I'm planning lots of short, very intense sessions without much volume. If it's a fat loss week, it's a lot of early morning workout sessions on an empty stomach that are slightly lower intensity, usually followed by some type of resistance training session or cross training session in the afternoon. If it's a strength building week, usually it's a lot more time in the weight room with lower reps and higher weight. So as long as you know the general direction that you want to go, for me, it's usually on a week by week basis because what I find is if I plan out my entire month specifically, or if I plan on one of my clients entire month specifically, we end up running into stuff two weeks in and I'm having to go back and reinvent the entire program because they remembered they had a family reunion or their foot starts to hurt or you know, we have to do any number of things to modify the program based off of the dynamic things that are happening in their lives. So I wouldn't plan too far ahead in terms of the workout details, but I'd always have a big picture in terms of anticipating muscles that you're over training and avoiding overtraining. Generally, you want to give a muscle enough rest to where it's not sore the next time you work it, and that's just a matter of knowing your body. For most people, it's 48 to 72 hours. So if I'm, say, working my chest muscles with bench pressing or push ups, then the way that I'm planning out my week, I'm not going to be bench pressing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm going to be doing it on, for example, Monday and Thursday. So there's a lot of different ways that you can split up body parts. One would be pushing exercises on Monday, pulling exercises on Tuesday, cardio on Wednesday, back to pushing on Thursday, pulling on Friday, and then core on the weekends along with cardio. That's just one example. Another example would be three full body workouts during the week with two cardio sessions. So as long as you plan it out so that you're not doing the same thing every day and allowing 48 to 72 hours between muscle groups, then it tends to be pretty effective. So good questions. Listener John asks, what's your opinion on V8 juice? The 5.5 ounce cans are really convenient for eating on the go. Should I be concerned with BPA like most other canned tomato products? Well, John, I couldn't necessarily find any studies for you that would indicate that you do need to be concerned about bpa. However, there's really nothing that could truly replace the type of fresh juice that you'd get from making your own juice at home and then carrying that in, you know, whether it be travel coffee mugs or water bottles or whatever is convenient, because V8 is made from processed vegetable juice concentrate, so it's heated a lot of times, it's reconstituted and they've added a bunch of salt to it, as well as natural flavorings, which in many cases can basically just be repackaged MSG. So if you look at the ingredient label of V8 juice, you're getting water, tomato paste, reconstituted vegetable juice blend, which is carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress and spinach, lemon juice, salt, vitamin C and citric acid. You can easily make something like this at home and also save yourself the salt because you're getting almost 500 milligrams of salt in a V8, which is not doing your blood pressure or your health many favors. You're almost getting your daily recommended dose of sodium from just a couple of V8s. So in terms of making your own at home, there are recipes out there. One of the things that you could do is get a Vitamix or even a Magic Bullet or a. A blender like a food processor. And you can get a bunch of the vegetables that you turn around and see on the can of the V8. So you're looking at getting some tomatoes, celery, onion, you can do some garlic, like the whole garlic, cloves, and any other number of vegetables that you care to add and just boil them, put them over heat for about 20 minutes, and then once they're boiled, throw them into your food processor or your blender and blend them. And then the things that you could add to kind of, you know, make it Taste More like V8 would be the same types of things you'd add to a Bloody Mary. You can add a little bit of a sugar or brown rice syrup or a molasses or whatever sweetener you would prefer to use. You can use salt and generally not more than about a tablespoon for anywhere from 3 to 4 servings. You can add some pepper, a little bit of horseradish. You can put some lemon joyce in, lemon juice in there, Worcestershire sauce. But basically you mix all this together and you can batch, produce a big batch of fresh juice, throw it in the refrigerator, and just hit on that during the week from your water bottle. And it'd be a good way to go if you kind of like that flavor of V8 without actually getting the reconstituted vegetable juice and salt that you're getting from the canned product. That's what I would do if you're going to be relying on vegetable juice as one of your primary snacks through the day. Now, listener Casey asks, I have to work and go to school full time right now, and I often lose sleep and can't wind down until very late because of it. Not to mention the mass consumption of alcohol, which has become my main goal to eliminate. Do you have any suggestions that do not involve quitting my work or school? I know that stress is slowly killing my body. I suffer from heartburn, fatigue, anxiety, high stress, etc. And I am only 21. I would just like a real world solution to what I'm sure is a pretty common issue. Casey, you've kind of answered your own question that you are working, going to school full time, which in and of itself is doable. But mass consumption of alcohol combined with that scenario is probably holding you back just a little bit, especially when you have some of the symptoms that you're describing. Now, alcohol, in terms of a glass of red wine a few times a week has cardiovascular protective effects and de stressing effects. On the flip side, mass consumption of alcohol in the way that you describe is not all that great for you. Of course, weight gain from the empty calories is going to be an issue, but hypertension or high blood pressure is an issue. You can get dry skin because of the dehydrating effects of alcohol. You increase your risk for cancer and psoriasis of the liver. You affect your kidneys, not just the high blood pressure, but also metabolizing all the other things that you're getting in when you're drinking alcohol and mixed drinks, including the toxic byproducts of metabolism of high amounts of alcohol. Alcohol can interfere with your body's ability to absorb calcium. So you're going to affect your bones and your bone density. And as far as your mental health, alcohol consumption is directly correlated with depression, anxiety, personality disorder, schizophrenia, disrupted sleep patterns, essentially that would, that would be the number one modification that you could make to your life right now to help you out. When I got serious back in college, I was drinking quite a bit. I was probably about a three or four night a week partier. So not that much different than most of my friends at school, you know, hitting a few frat parties during the week and hosting a party or two on the weekend. And usually each of those average anywhere from five, 10 drinks. And once I decided that I wanted to get a little bit more serious about my education and my life, that was one of the first things that I quit doing. And after that point, I was working full time and averaging 24 credit hours per semester. And I really didn't change that much in my life other than quitting my partying and late night drinking. My social life was still great, my health was still great because I was working out. But that was one of the biggest things I did to affect not only my stress levels, but also my ability to be able to concentrate and focus and excel at my studies. So I would recommend that you kind of tone down the alcohol a little bit. And if that means that you gotta start drinking sparkling water and maybe even switch to some of the things I've talked about in this show before, like the Flavored Noon or EU Hydration effervescent tablets that you can add to beverages that you still feel like you're drinking. Something flavored, you know, that can help out quite a bit. So ultimately though, you kind of answered your own question. During your question, listener Jeff asks, what are the benefits of sodium phosphate? I'm thinking of trying a product called Race Boost from Hammer. Any thoughts? Yeah. Sodium phosphate is one of those classic supplements been used for a long time. It's a buffer. It's highly alkalinic, which means that it can help your body deal with all the acidity from the hydrogen ions that get kicked off from lactic acid when you are exercising. And there's been multiple studies that have shown sodium phosphate to be effective in lowering the rating of perceived exertion or increasing the time to fatigue. The only problem is that most of that was done with short term activities like 800 meter sprints and there was not quite enough time for the GI distress to set in. That's going to set in when you're taking that stuff long term during endurance exercise. And that's the issue is that in most cases the gastrointestinal distress that occurs with the level of sodium phosphate consumption necessary for an ergogenic effect is typically not worth taking the sodium phosphate. You'd be much better off focusing on improving your ability to tolerate large levels of lactic acid and sating the sodium phosphate supplementation for a master's track and field meet where you got to run a very short distance for a very short period of time and you aren't having to dump that stuff down the hatch. Even for a sprint triathlon. That's a long time to be taking sodium phosphate. So understand that in a lot of supplements the dosage that they're going to recommend might not give you GI distress, but that means that it's probably not a high enough dose to actually help you out when it comes to buffering acidity. Of course ultimately you are your own case study so you can try it out and see how you feel. But most research points to the necessity to take quite a bit of that stuff to really see a good result. Now listener Rich asks just a quick question. I have had a good diet helped by your tips and advice which focuses on the anti inflammatory foods and wondered if you had any further tips on reducing my hay fever symptoms. I can deal with the extra mucus and itchy eyes using topical homeopathic remedies, but it is the system systemic effect that really kills my performance. I notice a dramatic change in form throughout May, June and July in my running cycling and rowing times and recover more slowly after a tough session. That's something that's pretty tricky. My wife actually deals with hay fever a little bit as well. And the idea behind hay fever is it's basically your immune system overreacting to what would normally be harmless airborne particles. But you've got enough allergens running through your bloodstream and enough sensitivity to them that it causes, you know, the runny nose, the sneezing, the watery eyes, the coughing, all those things that you might be able to tolerate when you're sitting at your office. But once you're on a bicycle, it becomes a whole different issue. You know, you mentioned some of the homeopathics, and there's definitely some out there that can help out a little bit. Specifically things like the butter. Bur that's one that's typically used as a natural allergy treatment, and that's something you can get as a homeopathic remedy at your local health food store. Quercetin, which is, interestingly, an ingredient in the FRS energy drink that Lance Armstrong uses, that's actually an antihistamine, but there haven't really been many studies done on it in terms of its direct influence on hay fevers. It would be between about 200 and 400 milligrams of that three times a day, though. In terms of the antihistaminic effect, I'm not a doctor. I'm not prescribing this as medical advice. I'm just saying the amount that's been found to actually show an effect on the histamine production. Carotenoids, that's basically a family of plant pigments. And you're going to get that from a lot of the darker vegetables. And also things like apricots, carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash, and. And then of course, all those darker ones I mentioned, like the collard greens, the bok choy, the kale, the spinach. Taking in carotenoids or carotenoid rich foods can be a good idea as well because those can actually promote the opening of the airways and eliminate a little bit of the inflammation there. Identifying any food sensitivities outside of the hay fever that you might have an issue with, specifically all the things that you've probably heard me talk about before that people tend to be allergic to, to peanuts, soy, wheat, dairy, gluten, even tomatoes in some cases, eggs in some cases. Those are some things that I would get looked at. You can do a skin prick test for food allergies, a stool test for food allergies There's a company out here that I work with called Unikey Health Systems. They have you send them a stool sample. I know that that's fun to think about. And then they analyze it and send you back your results. And you could call Unikey and tell them as well. And I think they do give a 5% discount if you mention my name, which I guess probably just saves you on your poop shipping. Moving on. Omega 3 fatty acids, those are something that they're useful for a variety of health conditions, but basically what they do is they can reduce the production of inflammatory chemicals in your body, specifically something called prostaglandin and cytokines. And taking an omega 3 fatty acid supplement is something that I would highly recommend, either a fish oil or a flaxseed oil, or do what I do and do both. So I would recommend that. And then finally, acupuncture, believe it or not, is something that's used for quite a few allergic type of reactions. And it'd be worth giving a try. You could go ahead and Google your local acupuncturist. I believe that the new program similar to Craigslist, called Angie's List, actually has reviews of local healthcare practitioners. I tend to like to review and research practitioners before I go visit them because some of them can be really kooky and some of them can actually be good people who are well educated and have done quite a bit of what they practice. So I would research that before you see an acupuncturist, but that's something that would be important to consider as well. Listener Chuck asks, I was wondering, for what distance should one do a carb load? Obviously for a foal or a half ironman, but should I implement for an Olympic distance triathlon, or is there a certain point where it's just not necessary to do at all? Well, Chuck, basically you can look as a guy at storing anywhere from about 1900 to 2500 calories of carbohydrate on your body. And so if you know that going really, really hard, exercising really hard, most guys are going to burn like around 1,000 calories an hour. You know, you've got enough to last about two hours in terms of carbohydrate stores on board. So no need to carbo load for anything under two hours. Once you get up to that point, though, you can definitely start to carboload and see the benefits of that up to 60% additional glycogen that you can store in your body from a Carb loading protocol. Now, carb loading is a little bit logistically intensive. Trying to figure out your percentages and gradually increase your carbs throughout the week and also do your carbohydrate depleting session a week before the exercise. Listen to podcast number 92 if you want to hear more about what we talked about with the carbohydrate loading. But for a shorter race, I really only focus on eating a high carb diet for two days leading up to that race. It's the only carbo loading that I do and then making sure that I of course get a high carb diet for breakfast the morning of a race. Really, there's not necessarily a tried and true rule that I follow for carb loading for for a shorter distance event like a sprint or an Olympic distance triathlon. It's just basically upping carbohydrate intake for those last two days. And typically the carbohydrate intake is replacing proteins or fibers in my diet. So for example, instead of having a salad, I'll have a couple of sweet potatoes or instead of having for example, a protein smoothie, I'll have a fruit smoothie. And so I just throw things in here and there's to replace some of the foods that I would normally be eating. So, you know, that's about as scientific as I get when it comes to carb loading for a shorter distance event just because it's not super important. But you know, a lot of people don't do Olympic distance triathlons in under two hours, so obviously you can get some benefit from carb loading a little bit for that distance. Listener Chris asks, I just got my butt royally kicked this past weekend at the Devil's Punchbowl bike race. I believe that the altitude, which was 3,800ft at the start, had a lot to do with that. As I live and train at sea level, my heart rate was skyrocketing the entire race much higher than it ever had in the past. Do you have any practical advice on how to prepare for three days of hard racing at a similar elevation in mid June? You've got a couple of choices when it comes to that, Chris. First off, if you get to your point place of competition just like a day prior to the event rather than two or three days prior to the event, your body doesn't really have a chance to react to the altitude and you really don't struggle with it quite as much. So one strategy is to get there as late as possible. The other strategy is to get there two to three weeks prior and acclimatize to the altitude, which is logistically a lot more difficult to do for most people. People. Now for altitude training, living low, meaning living at your normal altitude and training high, meaning training up at the higher altitudes is a very good way to do things because you get the physiological benefit of training at altitude, but your body is given a chance to recover when you drop back down out of altitude. And that's kind of the gold standard for altitude training. Problem is that means that you got to live near a mountain and you can drive to the top of the mountain to train and then go back home down to sea level when you're done. And so again, that's logistically difficult to do. You can get full on altitude training systems where you have like a tent that you train in and some people use those tents for sleeping, not training. And I actually frown on that. I don't encourage the sleeping in the hypoxic tents just because it can inhibit recovery. But I do recommend training in them and that would be an investment, but that'd be something else that you could do. There's not much that you can do to really get your body ready for the type of things that occur at altitude other than training at altitude. But I would make sure that you have adequate iron and ferritin in your diet. Ferritin is a storage protein for iron and iron is of course essential to your red blood cells ability to carry and deliver oxygen to your muscle tissue. So I would make sure that you're eating a diet that's, that's high in iron. You don't necessarily have to supplement with iron. It can be actually toxic. And it's pretty easy to overdo the iron. And basically you're looking at things like sesame seeds and dark leafy greens and eating some of the more heme containing meats, like the red meats, the dark red salmon, the steaks, things of that nature, making sure that you take in those type of foods and then focus on your breathing. Look at that deep breathing article that I recommended to David earlier in this podcast that I linked to from the show Notes. Read that too. So that you make sure that you're getting as much oxygen in as possible when you are at altitude because there are fewer molecules of oxygen per breath of air. And so you gotta breathe more to get more oxygen. Even though, you know, if you're a physiologist listening in, I know that you're jumping up and down right now, waving your hands in your air, talking about the partial Pressure affecting the actual absorption of the oxygen at the alveolar level. But again, there's not a lot that you can do about that other than training at altitude. So I'd focus on the breathing component if you're not able to train at the altitude. So listener Ken asks. I am having problems staying asleep. I'm going to bed around 10 or 10:30. I'm waking up to go to the bathroom and I am not able to fall back asleep. I'm very wide awake after four to five hours. Also, I am drenched in sweat when I wake up. I do not work out before bed. Most of my stuff is done morning or early evening. Is this normal and what can I do about it? This to me, again, not a medical doctor, but this sounds very much like an overactive thyroid. Hyperthyroidism is another way that you can describe it. Your thyroid is a little gland right underneath your Adam's apple and it influences a ton of your body functions, including metabolism and body temperature. And if it is overactive, then there are a variety of metabolism and body temperature symptoms that can occur. And this would include the type of things that you're complaining about. Being really drunk, jittery, having lots of energy, but it not being like a good type of energy, like more like a nervous twitching type of energy. Laying awake at night, trouble sleeping, cold or clammy skin, sweaty skin, all of these type of things can occur with hyperthyroidism. Now, if you were to go see allopathic medical doc, they tell you that what you could do if you do have that is take an antithyroid drug that will prevent the thyroid from producing its thyroid hormones. You could get a radioactive iodine treatment, which basically means that the thyroid cells that absorb that radioactive iodine get damaged, basically get killed. Or you could surgically remove the thyroid gland or the thyroid nodule. Now, those of you who listen to this podcast know that I am not a huge fan of those options. Unless we're talking about a very serious case of Graves disease or hypothyperthyroidism that simply cannot be managed. What I would instead recommend is you look into homeopathic treatments. Herbal or homeopathic treatments. There are a few out there. Lemon balm is one. Bugleweed is another. Motherwort is another. And I know all of you are snickering because it sounds like I'm talking about Harry Potter herbs, but bugleweed, lemon balm and motherwort are actual names of herbs. I would look into acupuncture once again, using some of the recommendations that you heard about earlier in this show. I would look into massage therapy as well and I would have a very serious visit with a naturopathic physician. And once again, you'll want to research a naturopathic physician. That is good. And you could again use something like Angie's List for that. But everything that you're describing to me sounds more like a hyperthyroidism or overactive thyroid type of issue. So I would definitely go speak with a medical professional about that. Now I know that you're all waiting with bated breath at the edge of your seat to see who won the free membership to my Bodi Transformation Club based on the question that they asked. And that's actually going to go to listener Josh with the question about the slow metabolism. So, Josh, if you email me, I'm going to give you a special code that lets you into my Body Transformation Club for free. Just email BenGreenfieldFitness.com now we're going to go ahead and move on to this week's featured topic after a brief special announcement.

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Featured.

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and on the other line I have somebody from a company called Innovative Body Solutions. And if you watched the last Summer Olympics, you may have seen Olympic phenom swimmer Dara Torres, the woman who won several golds, five time Olympic swimmer, gold medalist, 28 time All American, American record holder, one of the best swimmers we've ever produced. If you saw her warming up before her swims, or maybe you watched the video that was out there on TV of all the different protocols that she uses to keep her body tuned, you may have seen her being stretched and worked on by a couple of individuals. And one of those people was Ann Tierney, who I have on the other line. Not only was Ann over there at the Olympics with Dara, she was also with the Olympic gold medalist gymnast Nastya Lukin and has worked with a huge number of collegiate athletes, recreational athletes, professional athletes, incorporating something called resistance stretching, which we're going to talk about today. So Anne, thanks for coming on.

Hi Ben, thank you.

Well, I guess the best place to start for people is to ask you a little bit about what resistance stretching is and how you got into this.

So what we call it is basically Kihara resistance stretching. What it is, is it's all based on eccentric training. So typically when people stretch a muscle, they just lengthen a muscle. That's what you think of as stretching. You lay back, you pull your leg up. What we consider stretching is that as you lengthen the muscle, you contract it. This helps. Actually, it works as a safety mechanism. If you can't contract the muscle as you're lengthening it, then that means that there could be substitution or weakness there. So it's a safety mechanism that doesn't allow you to overstretch the muscle. So it actually keeps muscles longer and stronger.

And for the people listening, can you go back and explain real quick, what do you mean when you say to lengthen a muscle or to stretch a muscle? How do the muscles actually work in that sense when they're being stretched or lengthened or contracted?

Okay, well, most people know, like when you go to a gym and you lift a weight, weight lifting or strength training is a concentric movement. So you know you're going to do a bicep curl, you lengthen your arm where the muscle's long, the bicep will be long. You put 15 pound, 20 pound, whatever, have you weight in your hand, and you curl it up, and that will be strength training or concentric movement. And so what we actually consider the stretch is when you lower that weight, the eccentric movement. So it's actually lengthening the muscle while maintaining contraction. And most philosophies of stretching simply just go for lengthening the muscle, just trying to get it as long as possible. And we want to make sure that as you're trying to get it as long as possible, it can still maintain the contraction.

Okay, so basically the concept behind resistance stretching is that you're actually contracting that muscle as you lengthen it.

Exactly. It's kind of very. Actually is very counterintuitive. It's not what most people think. Most people think you relax as you stretch or you relax the muscle, but that can lead to injury and overstretched muscles. Whereas if you contract it while you stretch it, then it keeps it in a safe range and you won't overstretch the muscle.

Okay. Is there anywhere that somebody could go to actually see something like this in action for the visual learners out there.

To see something like this in action? We're actually working on it on our website to develop some. I mean, there's videos, et cetera. But if they want to see a diagram of the muscle Lengthening, et cetera. We're working on some animation for that that will be up on the website eventually in the future. Right now there's obviously videos. The hard part is when people see our video that we have there for us, it looks like the person isn't doing much work. Just like during the Olympics or during any TV show, et cetera, that we've been on. It looks like, oh, they're just lengthening their muscle when actually there's a contraction going on. It's a lot more work than what it looks like.

So let's say that you were going to stretch my hamstring using resistance stretching. How would that work?

Yeah. So say we're going to do a bent leg hamstring stretch. You'd lie on your back, you know, you'd bend your, say, your right knee into your chest. We're going to do a central hamstring. I would first lengthen your leg up to a long position to see what kind of range you have at the point where it starts to shake or you start to feel a tug. That's kind of our pinpoint. We'd have you kick down. So we'd have you strength train the muscles first to help warm the muscle up, to teach the muscle the movement. And then what we'd have you do is keep kicking down. So you would keep kicking your heels to your butt and as you came down, creating that contraction. If I was stretching you, I would then beat the force of you kicking down to lengthen your leg only as far as I could feel you resist. The key there is that because people hear the word resistance, they think I should kick down as hard as I can. So really you just need to kick down at like a 5 or a 6 out of 10 and you just keep a steady contraction. And it's almost like a magnet, like a magnet between your heel and your butt. So they want to stay together, but I'm the force in between them, lengthening your heel away. And that's kind of how that works.

If I didn't have you there to produce the force, could I actually do resistance stretching on myself?

Yes, of course. Those phenomenal self stretches, what you do is instead of me producing the force, it would be your own hands. So your own hands would be on your heel, your heel would be kicking into your butt and your hands would be beating the force of your leg. So in this situation, obviously your leg is stronger than your arm, so you would have to regulate it, not resist too hard. But because your arms are working to stretch your Leg against the contraction, your arms are actually going to get stronger because you're working your upper and lower body at the same time. The core is engaged the whole time for stability. So it ends up being a really intense full body workout.

Gotcha. So when you're doing a resistance stretching, you know, you describe it as a workout. How long would a typical resistance training or resistance stretching session actually take you? Is it, is it like yoga where you can just choose a few moves and do a few moves, or do you have an entire program that you go through?

Yeah, the great thing about it is, you know, it's portable. Obviously all you need is yourself or if you're with a trainer, it depends. Most of our trainers end up doing an hour and a half session because we try to get the upper and lower body as well as a technique of massage we call mashing in as well. But sometimes with professional athletes, we'll work as long as two hours. And sometimes we can get a solid workout in with somebody in 30 minutes as well. Or if you're going to do it on your own, you can pick and choose. Oh, I'm going to go boxing today. So I'm going to do my chest, I'm going to do my back, I'm going to do some lats, I'm going to do quads. Pick and choose. Or like on our DVD, there's 16 self stretches that can be done five to seven reps, both strength and stretch in under 20 minutes. So it's pretty easy to get. You can make it as long and as hard as you want, or you can kind of make it as short and quick as you want.

And the DVD just walks people through a resistance stretching workout.

Exactly. It's a 2dd set. On the first one, it's like you learn the concepts of resistance and eccentrics and why this works and balancing muscle groups and some problem solving. And then it goes through in great detail, probably excruciating detail each stretch. And then on the second disc, it's just Dara Torres leading you through all 20 stretches in a row. Basically eight arms. It's, sorry, 16 stretches, eight legs and then followed by eight arms.

Gotcha. Okay, I'll make sure that I put a link to that in the show notes to this podcast. Now, I know some people are worried about flexibility and the potential for an athlete becoming too flexible, not being able to produce as great a force as they should be able to. Is that an issue with resistance stretching, getting too flexible?

No, that's actually the benefit of this is that you can't overstretch the muscle. As long as while you're lengthening the muscle, you have a contraction, you can't overstretch it. So that's a major thing is oftentimes people end up overstretching muscles and then that leads to pulls or injuries. And this, it's its own safety mechanism. If you can't keep a contraction and you try to keep going, you're going too far. And that's as far as you go. The other thing is that it leads to more explosive muscles because of eccentrics. It basically creates more tears in the muscle than typical weight training does. So it can actually build stronger muscles as well. It builds longer and stronger muscles, which leads to more explosiveness. It's been really great for the athletes. We have a lot of triathletes that we work with who have found it to be very beneficial, not only keeping them not injured, but also keeping them improving in their time even as they get older.

Gotcha. Okay, so could you actually substitute resistance stretching for a workout? Because the way you describe it, it sounds like it's actually kind of tough on the body if you're actually giving yourself the resistance and resisting your limbs as you move through space. I mean, do you actually get a workout when you're doing resistance stretching?

Yeah, you definitely get a workout. I think the thing that we hear the most. I can't believe I'm sweating. I don't even think you're supposed to be stretching right now. So it's definitely a workout. But our philosophy is that we think it's a great compliment to anything you do. So if you like to do yoga, great. Do this. With yoga, you'll probably get into some positions that you couldn't get into before. You like to weight train. Perfect. This helps take that tension out that you just put in your body weight training. You, like, run good, you're going to get to run longer, et cetera. So could you do it on its own as a workout? Yes. Do we have people that do that? Definitely. And have I done that for, like, periods of time as experimentation? For sure. But is it the be all and end all? No, I don't believe that at all. I think that there's great to have diversity in your workouts to strength train, to do other forms, other modalities of functional training. But it can be a workout. So, yeah, definitely you'll get a burn in.

Gotcha. Now, would you want to do this if you're going to do it before a workout or as a supplement to a workout? Say a swim session, is it something you'd want to do right before a swim session, earlier in the day, immediately after when is the best time to do resistance stretching?

We have all sorts of different. We kind of piece that on people themselves, on individuals, what they like. For myself personally, I like to do it before I go workout because then I feel so much better when I'm working out. So I feel like it's such a better workout in. I don't feel stiff, I don't feel tight. I'm not thinking, oh, you know, I'm cramping here. Other people like to go get their workout in, like Dara for instance. She likes to do all of her other stuff that she's going to do. Swim for her two hours, do her functional training, do her dry land, etc. And she likes the last thing she does to be getting resistance stretched and mashed because she feels like it takes all the tension out of her body so the next day she can start fresh again. Whereas other people like to do it as soon as they wake up so that they're just fresh for the day or right before they go to bed. It kind of depends on how you feel. So we like our athletes or anybody we work with to experiment with it, what do they like? And we can adapt it to that. And that's the great thing about it. You can do it before or after or both. And it's quick and you can do it that way.

So if someone isn't an athlete and they just, let's say they have whatever low back pain they've been told they need to improve flexibility, is this something that somebody like that would be able to handle or is this just kind of limited to athletes?

No, I would say it's actually probably 50 to 60%. Our people come to us either just regular Joes, they stand a lot, they're, you know, they sit a lot at their jobs, whatever it may be, or they have injuries, you know, tons of back injuries, knee injuries, whatever it may be. This is actually great for it because it's a way to do it without. It's a way to kind of get stronger without weight bearing. So we do have like an older crowd. We have some clients in their 80s, 90s, et cetera, because they can do this, they can strengthen their body without load bearing. But the great thing about it is that there's a problem solving formula. So a lot of people think that their hamstrings are really tight, they can't touch their toes, whatever it may be. But what that Is is it might not be their hamstrings at all. It could be the balancing or agonist antagonist muscle group, their quads, the front of their legs, the hip flexors that are actually in the way. So the reason why this has worked so well is it kind of gives people an answer or a way to problem solve and fix it instead of, oh, your hamstrings are tight. Well, just keep holding that position for another 20 minutes and maybe you'll move. We have an actual formula that says, hey, if this muscle group doesn't feel like a good stretch, let's go try this muscle group. And then when you come back, I bet it'll feel better. And almost 90% of the time you can get a pretty dramatic change in range of motion by just doing a couple of the other exercises based on how it's laid out. So that's a major thing. And the back problems come a lot from hamstrings and hip flexors, of course. So we've had a lot of success with the injury angle of it because it's not weight bearing and it is your own body and you can control it.

Gotcha. Now, I want to ask you one more question. And this is kind of the personal trainer in me. And this is for the trainers or the instructors who are out there listening. How would something like this be different than like pnf, which for those of you listening, Proprioceptive Neuromuscular facilitation, where you contract and relax a muscle as you're stretching someone.

So with pnf, it's usually at the very end range. They take you to an end range and then they have you contract and then relax and then they move you further. With resistance stretching, you're actually contracting throughout the entire range of motion. So it's not just at the end range, it's through the entire range of motion. The other thing is the problem solving formula that I described, which is something that's intrinsic in our system as well, as we like to stretch in rotational movements as well. So a lot of stretching is done in linear patterns and we like to add rotational movement because every muscle has three functions. It either flexes or it extends, it abducts or adducts, or it externally or internally rotates. So to truly stretch a muscle, reversing all three of those. So that's what we really get into as well, working on rotations. And we kind of think of that as like if you have a towel that's wet and you squeeze it, you get some water out. But if you squeeze and twist it, you get a lot more water out because you're grabbing more muscle fibers. The rotational component of the stretching is huge for us. Grabbing more muscle fibers that way.

Okay, so cool. Alright, so those of you listening in, if you want to hear more, what I'll do is I'll put a link to this DVD that Ann talked about on the show, notes to this podcast, and I'll also put a link to their body Solutions website where you can, you can find out more about what they're doing and some of the, some of the really cool concepts they've got in terms of making the body more flexible, more athletic, it's, etc. So, Anne, thanks for coming on the call today and explaining this resistance stretching to people.

Thank you, Ben. I appreciate it.

Alright, have a great day.

Thank you too.

Bye. Well folks, that's gonna wrap up this week's podcast. Remember to go to itunes and leave a ranking and also tell me what you like about the podcast. That type of feedback helps other people find and listen to the podcast as well and really does me a favor for the work that I put into this. And if you have any questions or any feedback or anything else you'd like to talk about, email me. Or even better yet, leave a comment on the podcast and get some conversations going. Ask questions. It's okay to disagree. It's okay to be disruptive if you want to. I don't mind having some arguments going on over there. But be interactive and you'll get a lot more out of BenGreenfieldFitness.com so check it out. And until next time, this is Ben Greenfield signing out.

Have a great weekend.