How To 20x Yourself: Training & Anti-Aging Secrets Of One Of The Most Bad-Ass Navy SEAL Coaches On The Face Of The Planet.

Hello, folks, this is Ben Greenfield. There is no sponsor for today's podcast episode. As a matter of fact, today's podcast episode is extremely special because it's a bonus episode. I don't usually release a podcast on Tuesdays, but there is something so cool coming down the pipeline that I had to push this out via audio to you. If you follow BenGreenfieldFitness.com, the newsletter or the blog, you may have noticed that yesterday I announced a brand new event taking place at my house for for 100 people July 8th, 9th and 10th, 2016. It is called a Seal Fit 20X event and it is followed up by an obstacle training event. And in this podcast episode, you're gonna meet one of the masterminds behind SEAL Fit. And towards the end of the episode, you're gonna learn pretty much everything you need to know. Physical standards, what to expect, how to get ready, all that jazz for this event that's coming up at my place July 8th, 9th and 10th. So I'm gonna be interviewing Navy Seal Lance Cummings and you can access the show notes for everything you're about to Hear over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com 20x that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com20x and if you are brave enough, I'll see you at my place this July in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

If you've got a lot of plates up in the air and you've got a lot of things in the you don't have two or three hours a day to work out. So you try to do as much as possible in a short amount of time. And you have to make that functional mobile movements to the best of your ability in order to work efficiently identify those dysfunctions. And you can train your body to alleviate those dysfunctions and compensations and become balanced and strong on not just upper body, lower body, but right side, left side, then you're going to live a long, healthy, happy life.

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

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. And about two years ago I wrote an article on my experience at this brutal camp called the SEALFIT Kokoro, which is this 60 plus hour crucible that you can read more about in the link that I'm going to give you in a little bit here to the podcast that you're listening to right now. But anyways, in that article I mentioned this guy whose snarling face strikes fear deep into the heart of just about every person that steps foot onto this Kokoro camp. And his name is Lance Cummings. And Coach Lance is known for probably the single guy that dishes out the most amount of suffering and hardship for anybody brave enough to step into Kokoro. And even though that's what he's known for, there's actually a lot more to him than simply being a guy who could probably kill you with his pinky finger. So technically, Lance is the director of SEAL fit, which is the organization down in Encinitas, California. You may have heard of Mark Devine before, he's written books like Warrior Yoga and Way of the seal and Lance is kind of one of his right hand men down there. But before that, Coach Cummings retired from active duty Navy service with 30 years of combined service. He graduated in Bud's class 124 and had a great deal of experience serving with the Navy SEALs. But he left active duty in the 90s to actually get a doctorate of chiropractic. And so he graduated with a chiropractic degree and then he was recalled to active duty and deployed to the Middle east where he did seven deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq with three different SEAL teams as well as contracting with Blackwater Security. So this guy has been all over the freaking globe. I've had a chance to see him in action down in San Diego and he's, he's one of the fittest most put together and I'm hoping I don't offend him by saying this old guys that I've ever witnessed in action. He's done hundreds of triathlons, he's done multi day adventure races. He once paddled from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the Panama Canal in 15 hours. He's done endurance horse racing. He's been a member of the world championship teams in military pentathlon, naval pentathlon, outrigger canoe and dragon boat racing. He's won marksmanship awards and competition in handgun and carbine, and he also competes in stand up paddleboard racing as well as dabbling in a bit of archery and a bit of mountain biking. And he's still a chiropractic doc. He works with animal patients, he works with people. He does a lot with cold laser therapy and functional mobility and thermal imaging. Some of the things we'll talk about in today's podcast. And he also is a man after my own Heart with two twin children, two 9 year old twins. So he is obviously a wealth of knowledge, not just on survival and warfare, also fitness and taking care of aging or injured bodies and pushing through pain and much more. So we're incredibly honored to have him here on the show. Coach Lance Cummings, welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey Ben, great to be here, man. I appreciate that. I wear that old guy moniker pretty well, hopefully. And that's a relative term, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's all relative. It's all relative. But no, I'm serious. Like you, you, you move like a cat and you've got, you know, when, when I went down and did the Seal Fit Academy, you know, you were doing everything from yoga to TRX to powerlifting to CrossFit and beyond and showing us all sorts of little tricks. So I'm, I'm sure that our listeners will, will get a lot out of this one. But I'm, I'm curious. First of all, I think probably my, my single most burnt memory in my mind of you was you spraying me with a hose in the face while, while cackling as I hung from a bar at about 2am after having spent a few hours in the ocean. And I know a lot of people have similar memories of yours. So I'm curious what it feels like to be the man who strikes fear in the heart of a lot of folks who do these kokoro camps.

Well, I don't know about the fear thing, but my leadership style I guess is I'm never going to ask someone to do something I haven't done before or wouldn't do now. And the fear thing in a lot of people is basically because they know I'm going to tell them to do something that they know they're capable of but haven't tried themselves. And you know, you can take that fear and use it as a motivating primate tool to achieve what you want to do. So the whole thing is just re establishing and re channelizing that fear. And that's what I evoke, fear or some other type of emotion and to get people to motivate it to do something, then whatever it takes. That's what I think. How about that?

So do you, do you actually, do you find that you put on almost even More of a, more of a striking attitude when it comes to really trying to intimidate or to scare folks. Do you have to step into a certain personality or a certain aura when you find yourself in front of a bunch of candidates or in front of a bunch of folks who are basically there to get put through the wringer or, you know, are you at home, you know, basically, you know, as a, as a softer man, I'm curious if you've got a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde side to you.

Well, I don't know, my kids might think that, you know, I'm always on coaching mode, but it's not really that way. You know, when you're standing in front of people and you're asking them, hey, I'm about to tell you to go run to the top of that hill 30 times with, you know, 50 pound log or a 250 pound log on your back. And it's not something that they really relish to do. But after it's over, I think everyone has a really great sense of accomplishment and you know, it's, I think I transcend back and forth and I'd sit there and do it with them and set the example for them. So, you know, and Mark Devine and all of our coaches are the same way. We're not going to tell you or ask you to do anything that we haven't done. So we know what's possible, we know what you're capable of and all you got to do is tell yourself that, right?

Yeah, it makes sense. Well, you know, you certainly can spark people into action, I can tell you that. And later on in today's show, I'm going to tell some of you who are listening in more about some of the camps that Lance puts on and even one that he's going to be doing up here at my house later on in July. But in the meantime, I'm curious, Lance, when did you decide that you wanted to be Navy seal?

You know, Ben, I'm from Macon, Georgia. It's a small town back in middle Georgia. And you know, I'm bebopping around after high school on the four year junior college plan. No real rudder direction or anything. And I'm working a drill wagon for a demolition company and I've got my scuba certification and you know, I'm going out having fun on the weekends and my cousin tells me about, hey, here's this occupation in the military and where you can go shoot and skydive and blow things up and get a paycheck for it too, to me, that just hit all the wickets, man. I said, I'm there. Sign me up. What do I have to do? In my personal case, I had to spend a year in the fleet first, kind of getting to know the game before they could even put in a package. And I think that's a great filter for a lot of people because they think they want to do something. And having a year to work toward that goal and having a lot of different hoops you have to jump through in order to get there, I think helps solidify that. Or it may just let you know that maybe that's not your direction in life. But once I heard about that, then I think I was in the recruiter's office two weeks later, and the rest is history.

At that point in your life, were you kind of into, like, weaponry and fitness and things like that? Was that what you kind of did?

Well, I was into a lot of things, and we won't talk about all of them. Yeah, I'd grown up hunting and riding horses and a lot of stuff out in the country, and just. It wasn't really fitness. It's just going out and having fun and doing things. I really didn't think about it, like, it's working out, but if things started to get heavy, I kind of enjoyed it. And then when you kind of put a science to it, after you go into the SEAL teams, he's like, you determine and you know what fitness is, and that means mission accomplishment or mission defeat to you, then you really know you have to turn it up. And once you get into special warfare, whether it's Navy or Army or anywhere, people around you are at a different level. So you really have to start upping your game to stay there and maybe even set the tempo for the rest of them.

Now, you know, it seems like you've got a lot of irons in the fire, right? You've got a ton of different certifications. I'm gonna list them all in the show notes, but I mean, everything from TRX certified to Functional Movement System certified, like I mentioned, you're a doctor of chiropractic. You spent 30 years in the seals. I mean, the list goes on and on. Do you think, you know, from like, a. Like a high achiever standpoint that that was something that was perpetuated by. By joining the SEALs? Or do you think that you're just one of those guys who's hardwired to always be, you know, spinning multiple plates and. And always adding new feathers to your cap?

I don't Know, my wife calls it ADD or obsessive compulsive, but, you know, there's a lot of different labels you could put on it. I surround myself with people who are. Who are at a higher level than me, and I try to suck everything out of them that I can, and even people. You know, I think when you look at the sealfit academies and the coaches that are there, we get just as much out of the people that are coming to our academies as we do as we try to give them. And for every academy or every event, kokoro camp or 20x that we run, we walk away better people and more knowledgeable because we see movement, dysfunctions and patterns and things, and we try to fix those, but we really tune into the people that are there, and we try to get as much information out of them as possible. So there's a little psychology to the whole thing that we run, and part of that psychology is trying to make people live up to their potential.

Now, for you, growing up, I mean, did you have a lot of siblings who are also immersed in all sorts of activities like this, or are you kind of like a lone wolf?

No, I had an older brother who was into a lot of different things, but I just took off with equine. My mom and dad loved horses, so I grew up on a horse ranch and started showing horses and using them for performance. So I just kind of immersed myself in that world and just tried to take that as far as I could until I went into the Navy. And I think that really helped me a lot because working with animals is a lot different than people, and you can kind of find yourself with animals and you don't have to deal with a lot of the psychology and nuances of other people.

Yeah, yeah, you're telling me. I was chasing goats around this morning, trying to herd up the. Apparently, the kids didn't close the gate on their way up to school. So, yeah, it's interesting chasing around animals, and I would imagine it's interesting trying to fix animals versus fixing people. And I do want to ask you a little bit later on about some of the really interesting modalities that you use, like cold laser and some of these other tools that you use in both injured people as well as injured animals. But I want to ask a little about some of these other things that you've done, like pentathlon. I'm not that familiar with pentathlon. I can't say that I think I've ever seen pentathlon on television or studied it much. Can you explain to people what exactly pentathlon is for people who aren't familiar with it and why you kind of got into that?

Well, for the naval pentathlon, of course, it's five different events and I'm not sure to ever see anything like it on TV because all the NATO countries compete against each other on the same courses. So the courses are all set and there's two swimming events and an obstacle course, and then there's a running event and then there is an orienteering type of event as well. So it's not like Olympic pentathlon that you see, but all five. For the naval pentathlon, all five of those are kind of navel oriented and it takes a. You can have one strong event, but in order to be competitive in the pentathlon field, you need to be pretty well balanced across the board. So even if you're a great runner, if you're not a good swimmer, then you can really push some three foot fiberglass fins as hard as you can and hold your breath for a long time. You're not going to really do well. So the events for the naval pentathlon are completely different from military pentathlon, which is a lot more army oriented. So there is marksmanship, rifle and pistol and then it's huge obstacle course that's probably 800 meters. And then you run that as a team, a three man team.

So it's obstacle courses like hurdles and ropes and walls and things like that.

Yeah, and big pits and tunnels that you have to crawl through. I think I've seen one YouTube video and they had a team of Brazilians running it who were doing quite well. But it is, it requires you to be fairly agile and nimble.

I think I've seen this video you're talking about. It went viral on Facebook because these guys were flying through this course so fast. Is that the one?

Yeah. Well, you're coming off of about a 30 foot rope ladder from the top, you know, landing in pea gravel. But you don't want to spend any time coming down the ladder so you just jump off the top of it.

Yeah. The speed with which these guys go through the course and I'll put a link to it in the show notes for those of you who want to watch because it is pretty nuts. It puts to shame like the best spartan sprint athletes I've seen competing. It's pretty amazing. So pentathlon, you got obstacle race or for naval pentathlon at least, you've Got an obstacle race and then you have a swimming race.

Yeah, you have two swimming races.

What are the differences between the two swimming races?

Well, for one you would have fins on and for the other you wouldn't. And there's actually an obstacle course in the pool that you're going over and under while you're doing a race. And by the way, you've got a set of coveralls on while you're doing it as well. So of course when you're doing that, it starts leveling the playing field out a lot because you can't just come in and be a great swimmer, which we've had some people do. But you know, when you look at the military pentathlon, all the events are, you're looking at what would a great courier be or something. What would they have to do, you know, in order for. To get a message through? You know, they might have to swim, they might have to run and orienteer themselves from one place to the next and throw grenades and judge distances for accuracy. So all those things come into play for the military pentathlon and you know, they make you a better soldier, they make you a better field operator by going through those events and going to those competitions.

Now, do they have anything like this for civilians, like a pentathlon that's very similar to something like, I mean, this one that you've described like that the Navy does like the obstacle race, then the swimming and then the seamanship part of that. That's rowing, correct?

That's rowing, yeah. But you climb a pole and put some pegs into the pole first and then you haul a big 3 inch Hauser rope up onto the deck and tie a couple of knots on it. Then you take off on a rowboat and going in and out of this course for time. So that's all applicable to older, I think, events that someone would have to do if they were in the Navy.

Yeah, it's like sailor skills basically.

Correct.

Yeah. So do you know of any civilian events that someone could go do that, simulate something like this naval pentathlon?

You know, I don't, but I'm thinking about putting one up at our Vail Lake resort where we do our events academies and stuff like that in the coming six months. If we can have a rain down here in California, keep me posted.

That actually sounds like a pretty, pretty cool event, pretty unique event. Now you also, you paddled from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the Panama Canal in 15 hours. What were you paddling?

I was in a Ocean kayak at the time? Yeah, just a self supported trip. I had some. We were stationed down in Panama at the time. I was with a platoon down there and we had a couple of days downtime. So I had a buddy take me up to the Atlantic side in Cologne and drop me off. And it was originally going to be a two day trip, but then I got about halfway and I decided just to press on through. The difficult part was just waiting around for a boat to come and tie on to you so you could go through the locks. The other option was to take your kayak and forward around the locks with your kayak, which was discouraged by the Panamanian security forces.

Interesting. So when you did this paddle, you were just all on your own, self supported, right? Did you bring anything with you? I mean, do you bring food and stuff like that when you're doing these long endurance paddles or you just kind.

Of go, oh yeah, I was set for at least two days. So I had some tunes and some food and everything and gathered all my thoughts and just went for it.

Interesting. So you've also done a lot of other multi day adventure races. What would you say are some of the favorite events that you've competed in or things that you think that people should know about?

I used to do a multi day adventure race up here in Malibu. It actually started at 12:00 clock and then went through until the next day. Also done a couple in foreign countries with foreign military guys. We were a bunch of guys in Djibouti and we were working with the French Foreign Legion. So we came upon a nice little obstacle course, multi day transitional event that we decided to throw together and it kind of pits US Special forces against French Special Forces and it gives you bragging rights. But when you program and go through a lot of these different events and like I said, whatever you do is going to make you a better person, a better soldier. And. And when we throw those together and we work with allied forces, it makes us closer working partners as well.

Now you've got kind of like a big subset of skills when it comes to looking at CrossFit defines power and strength and speed and endurance and flexibility and so on. And one of the things that is my goal, and I know it was the goal of a lot of men and women who listen in, is as they age, they want to move like cats and they want to be strong and they want to be powerful. I'm curious for you, like what your, what your fitness routine looks like and what you do to keep yourself put together and firing on so many different cylinders. And the reason I ask that is, like, I know, for example, a lot of, like, masters, Ironman triathletes, and they could go for miles, but they're just, like, skinny and emaciated, and a lot of them look like Ethiopian poster children. You know, I think it's one thing to be able to just, like, go for long periods of time, and it's another thing to be able to maintain strength and speed and power as you age. So I'm curious if you could share with us some of the things that you do.

Wow. Well, I think my adage that I try to live up to is I want to die young as late as possible, so anything I can do to make that happen. And I want to be around for my kids and when they get married and stuff, I use them as workout routines. You know, I go in there and have my kids sit on your shoulders when you're doing a set of squats or anything. But I utilize a lot of the TRX mobility platforms. I found that about three or four years ago. And when it comes to injuries, I've probably pretty much had everything. But using the TRX really helped me regain a lot of mobility and it helped me work unilateral muscles and maintain balance, I think. And if you're for an obstacle course racer, I think that's huge, is being strong, not only having a dominant side, but being able to work that weak side and being a better balanced person.

How often would you use something like a trx? And for those of you listening in, this is one of those. Those trainers, like a suspension trainer with two handles on it that you hang from. I mean, you can throw it in a suitcase and hang from anything, you know, a tree while you're traveling or, you know, pole in a gym or wherever. But what. How often do you. Do you use the TRX and how do you use it?

Well, you know, when I go to travel, that's the first thing that goes in my bag. So I'll use that daily. I mean, I'll do mobility work even if I'm going to do a lifting set or if I'm going to go out for a hard run, I'll do five minutes of mobility work first just to get stretched out. And then at the end of the day, if I've been traveling all day or something, and I've got a lot of clients that are airline pilots and flight attendants, I make them buy this thing and say, here, once you do, you'll love me forever. But Use this thing at the end of the day.

So what do you mean when you say mobility work? What would that look like with a trx?

Okay. Just some traction work on your back to help relieve all the compressive forces that you get throughout the day, sitting and running and doing everything else. So you just add a little traction and lean back on the handles and help your back traction out. So elongate the spinal muscles, elongate the disc and get the fluid back into there. And doing things, small things like that, on a consistent daily basis is what's going to keep you healthy and happy. Because when you get injured, that's just a setback and then it's a domino effect after that. It's trying to get back into shape and then trying to relieve the compensatory effects of an injury. It's crucial. I see a lot of. One of the reasons I got into FMS and Gray Cook's work is because he's right about the dysfunctional patterns that you see in movement. So if you can identify those dysfunctions and you can train your body to alleviate those dysfunctions and compensations and become balanced and strong on not just upper body, lower body, but right side, left side, then you're going to live a long, healthy, happy life.

So this trx, you do this a few times a week?

I use that every day.

Every day. Okay. What else do you do? Is that the only type of strength training that you use?

The cool thing about that is you can use that for strength training, you can use it for mobility, you can use it for agility, doing dynamic exercises with it. But I do, I do some lifting as well. Probably three days a week. A lot of circuit training. I've got this huge tire that's outside and I go beat that thing up with a 30 pound sledgehammer and flip it around a lot, you know, and try to get as much functional movement in as possible in a short amount of time. Now, I won't go do curls or shoulder presses or something like that because I try to work all those lifts in during functional movement. And then that way you're as efficient as possible with your time. If you've got a lot of plates up in the air and you've got a lot of things in the fire, you don't have two or three hours a day to work out. So you try to do as much as possible in a short amount of time. And you have to make that functional mobile movements to the best of your ability. Right, in order to work efficiently?

Yeah, absolutely. And for Your mobility, like for your flexibility. I think I've seen you do the full splits before. Are you just getting that type of thing from the TRX or are you doing things like Mark Devine's yoga routines?

Well, I do yoga a little bit. I do it with Mark and I do it with the academies. But basically I try to set a pattern where it takes a while to get to do a split or get to do a full, some of the movements that we do. But once you get there, it doesn't take much to maintain it. So I'll take one or two movements and I'll work on that until I get it down, you know, until I can, I'm flexible enough that I can, I can do that movement. And then once you're there, it helps your whole routine and helps your whole agenda. By being more flexible, you recover faster. You know as well as I do that, you know, you're able to do have a wider range of motion so you're going to be able to use your muscles more efficiently for any movement that you do. And for people like obstacle course racers who have to be agile, have to recover fast from one obstacle to the next or one race to the next, that's crucial.

So when, when you are out paddling and rowing, is that part of your fitness routine as well or do you consider that just like, like bonus?

Yeah, that's therapy really. But it serves two purposes for me. I can get on the water with my one man outrigger and I can go out and just pound it for an hour or two hours. And a lot of times I'll just take it and just go straight off the surf and go out and do some whale watching from my house and turn around and now the winds come up and I can surf back. And so it's going to take short quick intervals and to stay on the surf. And then I also paddle with six other guys in a long 40 foot boat. And then we go out and we hit it hard for about three days a week just trying to use a GPS to keep our speed up. And then we start racing next month. And then the racing season for outrigger canoe race goes all the way through October when we go to Molokai for the world championships.

Yeah, that's something that I've started doing a lot more of now that the, the spring and the warmer months are starting to roll around up here in Washington, is hitting the stand up paddle board out in the Spokane River. But I'm always curious, you know, for, for guys have been rowing and paddling a long time like yourself, if you find more benefit out of just like putting the, putting the stand up paddle board in the water, for example, and just going steady state hard for an hour or doing intervals back and forth. I mean, do you have any like favorite routines that you do when you throw a stand up paddle board in the water or you just kind of like going with the flow?

Well, it depends on. I've got several different boards and for different variety of reasons. But I can launch off the beach, paddle up the beach for a while, go hit some surf, you know, surf for a little bit. So that's more sprint work. And then once I off enough of the surfers in one spot, I'll have to move on and go up the beach to somewhere else. But you can also, if you're doing river paddling like you're doing, you can go into a hole and try to surf a hole for a period of time, pull out of it, go down and find another one. So just a little bit of therapy, sprint work. You know, you get a lot of long distance endurance work as well. I tend to, when I go to the Bahamas a couple of times a year and my wife and I work in a clinic there. So I go out for an hour or two at a time and just tend to find the best fishing holes and the lobster holes that are 20 or 30ft down because you can see them from the stand up board. So I use that as a, I guess a method of finding the honey holes down in on the beach.

Very cool, very cool. Yeah, I've seen the stand up paddle board river surfing before, but haven't yet dove into a hole or hitting the white water. It actually, it's a little bit intimidating to me right now. I'm still working on my skills.

You might want to have some body armor on when you initially try it.

Yeah. Helmet, life vest, check. How do you push through pain? Like, you know, I know that you've been through a lot as a SEAL and you've done some really tough workouts and you've done, you know, the pentathlon and you know, these multi day adventure races, et cetera. Do you have any techniques that you use mentally to really push when the going gets hard?

Yeah, I think I do. You know, I've got a positive mantra that you say to yourself. If you're feeling pain. And if I'm in a team event like an outrigger race with a bunch of other guys and obviously I'm sure they're feeling the same thing. So I try to motivate them. That kind of takes my mind off what I'm feeling and helps me generate positive thoughts for everybody else in the boat. I've also got some people in my life that I look up to because they have had injuries or they have certain physical conditions that don't allow them to do the things that I can do. You know, I've got a great buddy I grew up with. He developed scleroderma in his early 40s. And that's a hardening of the skin tissue, but the internal organs also start hardening. So this guy was a beast. I mean, he would do back to back marathons, jump rope for two hours straight, and then he would go and power lift 300 pounds. And he was a beast. So I look to people like that who has to get up every morning and stretch for three hours just in order to continue to do daily activities. And that's my motivation because if not but for the grace of God, that could be me. So why am I not trying to live up to my best potential? My buddy could be out there and he wouldn't be crying about being a little tired or being in pain or anything like that. I've got those thoughts that kind of go through my mind. And I just finished reading a really good book called the Mindful Athlete by George Mumford.

The mindful athlete.

Correct. He kind of analyzes a lot of the mental games that elite athletes play with themselves when they're going through competitions. And he talks about the amount of pain that you're in and your perceived level of exertion during that pain. And your level of exertion is really only the tolerance that you've set for yourself and the amount of pain that you've told yourself that you're willing to accept in order to achieve your goal.

Interesting. Yeah. I'll link to this book in the show notes. It looks interesting. The Mindful Athlete Secrets to Pure Performance. This is the guy who worked with Michael Jones Jordan. Right, Right.

Yeah.

Yes. Interesting.

He worked with a lot of really good endurance athletes and elite athletes in developing the book and talks a lot about the things that go through your head during competition and how to get to somewhat of the flow state in which you're basically in a third person watching the event and it slows down for you, much like Michael Jordan would. And shooting the winning two pointer in the NBA championships, everything just kind of slows down and you go through the motion and you're in a flow state because you're operating in a slightly higher plane of performance than what you feel like you're capable of. You're in over your head, but you're setting a new level for yourself each time you do that.

Got it? Got it. So I'm curious when you, when you get injured or when you're working with somebody else who gets injured, you know, if you do maybe push through that pain a little bit too hard or you've got somebody who needs rehab, you've got a lot of tools in your toolbox. I know you've worked with a cold laser. You do something called thermal imaging. What do you do when somebody comes in with a soft tissue injury? Like, what's your approach as far as some of your favorite tools to use in addition to things like the functional movement screen that you talked about and use of a TRX for mobility?

Soft tissue injuries are something that you have to get through. As a chiropractor, I look at the joints and all the soft tissue that surround the joints. Well, if it's not a joint dysfunction, then I'm looking at the soft tissue that's the supporting musculature and tendons around it. So how do we get those out of the pain cycle? First thing that's going to happen with that muscle tissue is it's going to contract and your body is going into survival mode and it's locking up that joint and those muscles around it in order to prevent further injury. So in order to alleviate that pain cycle that you're in and try to get that soft tissue back to performance level, you have have to break that pain cycle. And in order to do that, you get in there with a. I like using low light laser therapy, class three, class four lasers because it allows you to go in there and expedite the healing process. You get a lot of helper T cells in there and you get the immune system functioning at a higher level, therefore cleaning out all the, all the bad cells that are in there and then coming in and helping remodel that muscle tissue. Instead of creating scar tissue, you want good, solid, smooth muscle tissue back in there. So I use a lot of that. And then range of motion. Once you're out of the pain cycle, start getting that range of motion back into it. And then once you got that range of motion pain free, then and only then can you start the strengthening cycle again. And a lot of people skip that range of motion and they want to start getting back onto their workout regiments. And if there's anything I've learned in a lifetime of athletics and I've Learned it the hard way. It's that you only get one chance to heal, right? And that's the first time you do it. And any time after that, you're just trying to get back over the scar tissue that you created yourself. So do it right the first time. And that's a hard lesson for most athletes to learn.

And so these lasers, is it, is it just a deal where you're, you're subjecting a soft tissue injury to a laser for a certain period of time? Is it like repeated exposures to the laser? How exactly does this laser work?

Well, it's, it's laser light shined onto the muscle tissue. Onto the muscle. So I could, if I had an elbow injury, then I would gently move my elbow in and out of a range of motion while shining the laser onto it. And it could take four or five sessions of three to four minutes at a session. It doesn't take a long time to do, but that will actually help expedite the healing process. And I use an erconia laser. E R C H O N I A and if you go to that website and you can have, you can go to the physician locator and find either a physical therapist or a chiropractor near you who has got that laser, they're worth their money.

It's called a zirconia.

Erconia. E R C H O N I.

A okay, got it, got it. I'll link to this in the show notes as well. And by the way folks, if you want to, want to go check out what Lance and I are talking about, just go to Ben Graham. BenGreenfieldFitness.com 20x that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com20x and that leads me into the next thing I want to ask you about, Lance, is I think a lot of people have perhaps heard of the Kokoro camp, this brutal multi day camp where you're doing everything from night hikes to time spent in the surf, to log carries, to beat downs, to just everything that would make you a stronger person for several days in a row. But you also have this 20x concept. Can you explain what exactly it means to you to be 20x and then what people can expect at an event like a 20x why it exists?

Okay, great question. The 20x is a term that Mark Divine came up with because we think you're capable of doing 20 times 20x more than what you feel like you can do yourself. And we like to try to show you that in a short 12 hours which is kind of like an abbreviated 50 hour Kokoro camp. That 20x is. You train up for it, you come into it, we give you recommendations for physical fitness coming into it. So you come in there and you hit the minimum standards. We take you and put you in a team environment, we put you in individual type scenarios where you have to pull out of yourself everything you've got. And then we keep going. I mean, we keep raising the level. We keep raising the level. And you'll find that even though you feel like you're tired, you still got more in you. And we sprinkle a lot of the unbeatable mind concepts that Mark Divine came up with. And we spread that out throughout the entire 20 hours by telling you and showing you that not only can you do more than you think you can, you can motivate others to do more than you thought that they could. So what happens is, if we do that on a Saturday, you go through the 20x on Sunday, you could take those same lessons and take them home, and you can apply those to your personal life, you can apply them to your professional life with working with teams, whatever you, you do, and the mental lessons that you learn and the concepts will stay with you the rest of your Life.

So it's 20 hours long.

The 20x is a 12 hour event.

The 20x is 12 hours long. So it would start, let's say, you'd show up at 7am in the morning, and from 7am until 7pm you would basically go through a series of both team and individual challenges that you guys and the team at SEAL FIT put together to specifically work on both body and mind.

Correct. And if you don't have the mindset, your body's gonna shut down as soon as you start feeling a little pain. So we teach you how to do that, and we teach you how to set that mental process up in order to, hey, you've got a positive mantra. Find your why. And your why is whatever it's going to take you to get you through a specifically seriously challenging situation. If you're tired and you're hurt and you're hungry and you're behind enemy lines and it's raining like hell, you got to have a why. And everyone has got some personal reason to stay alive and they have to tap into that.

So in terms of, for example, we're doing the Eastern Washington sealfit event, and I announced it on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. And this is where a bunch of SEAL FIT coaches are going to come up and we've got a few dozen individuals who are going to be part of this 20x event that you guys put on. It's actually at my house, I've got about 10 acres out here in the forest full of obstacles and all sorts of places where one could be potentially challenged. But I noticed that what you wanted to do and what you're doing, what you're kicking things off with is a four hour day or a four hour afternoon evening the day before in which people are in a classroom style setting. Is that where you're teaching the why is that where you're teaching like these Jedi mind tricks that you guys are going to use in order to allow people to get through the next day?

That's true. That four hour period, it could be crucial to you for the next 12, the next day. And in that we talk about, you know, we have five mountains that we discuss in seal fit and it's the physical mountain, which is easy, anyone can do that, the mental mountain, you know, and that's all tied together. The emotional side, you know, and that your emotions motivate every decision you make, whether you think they are in play or not. You know, the intuitional side. And then finally it's the kokoro, which is a meld of your heart and your mind into actions. We define all that and then we tie the concepts into why you do what you do, why you make your decisions, who you surround yourself with and all those things come into play no matter what you do. So when it's time for you to go out and even though you could be a physical stud, I've seen some of the best athletes in the world get left at the starting line or get left behind when it came to a team evolution because they weren't team oriented. But when it comes time to dig really deep and you have to find an inner drive within yourself, you're using that emotional concept, you're using that intuitional concept and you're helping motivate other people. You're taking your pity party away from you and you're helping other people. And that's I think from a social perspective and for all of mankind. That's what really drives everybody and makes you do things. You have to analyze what drives you first in order to know what it's going to take to make you come up to another two or three levels.

Okay, so you've got about four hours or so that people show up for on in this case, July 8, they show up in Spokane, check in at the hotel, you've got this this like mind based seminar at the hotel and the next day folks show up at my place at what is it, 7am.

We'Ll start at 3am if you want.

Well, whatever, whatever. Time, time, time to be determined. And at that, at that point how fit does somebody need to be to get through something like this? Like are you. Well, kind of a two part question. How fit do they need to be and is there some kind of a book or a training program or something they should be following leading up to showing up to make sure that they're adequately prepared when they, when they show up on July 8?

You need a good base. I mean you need to. We have recommendations for a 1 mile run in boots and pants at 9 minutes and 30 seconds which is, you know, it's fairly, fairly benign. A lot of people wouldn't push themselves in that time. But you need to have at least that base when you show up. Six pull ups or 10 pull ups and 30 or 40 or 50 sit ups in two minutes time. You need to look at the recommendations, go to sealfit, look at our 20x recommendations for your fitness level when you show up there. And if you don't have that fitness level then you need to start working specifically on getting ready for this event by doing those things and by using the proper techniques, not getting injured. So you don't want to start three weeks out if you can't do a pull up. You don't want to start three weeks out trying to make sure you can get 10. But ramp up your fitness regimen until you can hit the numbers that we recommend at a minimum standard there.

Yeah, I see them here. You can got 40 push ups, 40 sit ups, 40 air squats. Each of those would need to be done in two minutes. So you got to do 40 push ups in two minutes, 40 sit ups in two minutes and also do 40 air squats in two minutes. You need to be able to do eight dead hang pull ups if you're a man and six dead hang pull ups if you're a woman. And then you need to be able to do one mile run in boots and utility pants on the road in 10 minutes.

Yeah. Which are not, not huge obstacles I think for fitness. For anyone who wants to jump in and do something, we don't want you just to survive throughout the day and go from one evolution to the next. I want you to thrive. So if you, the fitter you are coming in, the better you're going to be able to leave at the end of the day. Yeah, I would say that you won't have a lot of tools and you won't have a lot of new developments by the end of the day if you can't reach those. But those are recommendations for you to really achieve optimum capability.

I'll put a link to these physical standards in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 20x if you want to look them up. But I mean, like I can tell you right now, for me, when I did Kokoro, for example, you know, I went and I got Mark's book. The, the Way of the Seal, I think was, was the book that I got, it was to Seal Fit. Yeah, it was eight weeks to Seal fit. And I thought, you know what this is? This was written by the people who actually are going to be putting this thing on. I'm just going to do exactly what it says word for word for the eight weeks going into Kokora. And that's exactly what I did. And so I would recommend that if this type of thing you want to do, if this 20x is the type of thing that you want to do, you go check out those physical standards and start to follow. For example, they post workouts on the Seal Fit page. They've got a little membership area there where you can go in and do a daily workout like a daily Seal Fit wad. And in my opinion, that's the type of thing that folks should be doing. Would you agree, Lance?

I agree. If you can be a master of bodyweight exercises, and that's what we're not asking you to come in and snatch 200 pounds on these 20 Xs, but we're going to ask you to do some log PT and things like that, that your capability to do a good snatch will help you. But these are body weight exercises, stuff you can take anywhere. I've been some of the most obscure places in the world and you don't have anything but a rock to work out with in your own body weight. So you do what you have to do in order to, to stay fit. And if nothing else, your consistency in a fitness regimen is the most important thing. I think then being able to go to the best gym in the world where if you don't know how to use the equipment there, then you might as well be out in the middle of the desert somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Well, what I'm going to do is for folks who are interested in learning more about this. So July 8th and 9th is the actual Seal Fit event. The next day, obstacle racer Hunter McIntyre and I are doing an obstacle racing course instruction where we're going to teach you how to do 8 foot walls, 20 foot walls, traverse walls, 30 foot rope climbs, balance logs, rigs, monkey bars, spear throws, pretty much anything you'd expect in a Spartan race. And so if you want to shove it all into one weekend, you show up on July 8th, you get this mental training seminar with Lance and the team at SEAL Fit. The next day you get 12 hours of really becoming a stronger person, followed up with a nice little barbecue party at the end. And then the following day you show up and it's not really so much of a beat down workout as much as a lot of really didactic instruction from, from Hunter and myself in obstacle racing. And you can shove all that into one weekend. So it's July 8th, 9th and 10th, so you can, you can meet Coach Cummings, you can meet the team at SEAL Fit. And you know, if you're thinking about getting into something like the SEAL Fit Kokoro, or maybe you want to do like a Spartan, you know, death race or what they call the Agoji now, or you want to go out and do something that's maybe longer than 12 hours at some point in your life, or you want the bragging rights slap on the back slash satisfaction of knowing that you have pushed yourself to the absolute limits and turned yourself into a stronger person. This is a pretty cool event to check out. So here's the deal. You go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 20x there you can access the show notes for everything that Lance and I talked about from the Mindful Athlete book that he recommends to the TRX suspension trainer, to his bio and what he's been up to, as well as the sealfit's events page, my three part article series on my experience at the Seal Fit Academy in Kokoro. And then of course this event that's taking place at my house July 8th, 9th and 10th in Spokane, Washington. And how many people do you limit these 20 X's to, Lance?

Well, you've got 10 acres out there, so I think I could spread 100 people out and have them all gainfully employed for 12 hours without a problem.

Problem. All right, there you have it. So there's probably, there's probably we won't sell you, sell you on scarcity. There's probably enough room for you to get in. But I know for the obstacle Dominator event for that next day, we're limiting that one to 30 people for that event. And that's just because we can only have so many people hanging from a 30 foot rope at one time. Unless we get more instructors, which we may, but, but either way, we've got plenty of bonuses thrown in for anybody who signs up by June 15th. So if you're listening to this podcast, get hustling over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 20x check out the 20x page, check out the obstacle training event that's taken place as well as some of these other things that Lance and I have had the chance to talk about today. And Lance, I want to thank you for coming on and giving your time, sharing this stuff with us and also for helping put together this 20x.

Hey, I'm excited about it. This is going to be an all encompassing weekend and it's someone can stay in there and go through this entire weekend and not walk away with something, then we're doing something wrong. But I don't see how that's going to happen. This is going to be an awesome technique. We just mind, body and soul and if you're in one of the best places in the world, how can you go wrong with that?

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be, it's going to be an amazing, amazing experience for any who decide to pull the trigger and show up. Defy your fears and check it all out.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com what's up with you, Ben in 2017? You got any big targets?

2017, that's a long ways off. I haven't thought too much about 2017 aside from getting a few good hunts in. And right now I've kind of gotten bit by the spearfishing bug. So, so been doing a lot of spear fishing. I was actually working on my gun yesterday and I'm planning on a big trip out to Neah Bay near Seattle for some very cold water spearfishing. And so yeah, I've been enjoying putting on the, the big old carbon fins and the mask and working on my breath hold and going down and shooting tasty fish. So that's what I've been up to.

Yeah, there's a big downwinder at the, it's called the Gorge Games on the Columbia river coming up in July where you paddle downwind but upriver on the Columbia.

Yeah, that's the unique part about that area of Hood river is it's downwind but the way the currents run and the reason it's such a big kite surfing or windsurfing area is the uniqueness of the wind and the currents down there in that part of the world.

You'll probably find me there with my outrigger canoe in July.

Sweet.

In some of those big ways.

Easy 4 hour drive from my place. So. Yeah.

And next year, Silphit is putting together a select group of clients to take over to Greece for a Sparta to Thermopylae run ruck for charity. And we're gonna be putting some information out as well on that. But we're taking 20 to 25 select individuals and we hope to raise about a million dollars.

Sign me up. I've got a whole drawer full of chammy cream upstairs, so I'm in.

Yeah, that's big. I can't wait.

Sweet. All right, folks, well, check out all the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 20x where you can learn a little bit more about Lance, more about this 20x event, all the other Sailfit events, the obstacle Dominator event with Hunter and I, and plenty more. So thanks for listening in. And Lance, thanks for coming on, man.

Hey, have a great summer. Can't wait to see you and Hunter in July.

Word. All right, folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Lance Cummings signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

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