How To Make Yourself Physically & Mentally More Gritty, Resilient & Harder To Kill With Jeff Banman Of Brute Force.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, cognitive function, impairing awareness, impairing decision making, their rate of recovery, how fast it took them to get back to probably 80% of their base, who.

Also is able to withstand rigors of hypoxia, rigors of cold, rigors of heat, and rigors of unstable objects. You're going to operate as a more impactful human being, right?

The more willing I am to extend myself into the unknown or the levels of discomfort because I'm developing kind of an internal power or confidence help, performance.

Nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, folks, occasionally, as you know, I like to interview badasses on my show, folks who are doing some pretty cool things in the realm of human performance and in this case also human behavior in high stress environments. My guest on today's show is a guy who helped to develop the equipment out in my garage that I have a love hate relationship with. These sandbags which I use and which my sons, when I have them out training, drag up and down the driveway, you know, chock full of sand. They're like these kettlebell shaped bags and overhead bags and all this crazy stuff made by a company called Brute Force. And Jeff Banman is my guest on today's show. By the way, Jeff, do you pronounce your last name Banman or Bonman or Bonman?

Ban man. Okay, yeah, it's not just straight ban.

Man, easy fancy French or something if we wanted to Bon man. Anyways, Jeff has over 30 years of experience across a lot of stuff like the fire Service, the U.S. army Special Operations Command, the Central Intelligence Agency. For those of you unfamiliar with that, it's also called the CIA. Jeff serves as the coo, like I mentioned, and the chief human performance officer for this fitness brand called Brute Force. So he's got experience conducting counterterrorism operations in like 23 different countries and different combat zones and a whole bunch of other high threat or what are called non permissive environments. And he has had the privilege of dissecting human behavior at a pretty intense level in those pretty intense situations and has even studied up on things like the minute shifts in heart rate variability that occur in a stressful scenario and how the central nervous system can be managed under periods of significant stress. And so not only does he really know his way around physical performance, but also around mental performance. And because I'm a fan of grit and of developing humans who are resilient, and not only resilient, but in the way I'm educating my own sons. Free thinking and independent and able to survive in unpredictable scenarios, which I think is a very handy skill for a human being to have these days. As a matter of fact, I think two skills that every young human should learn is how to operate without producing large amounts of stress in high stress scenarios. And then secondarily, I think that a young human should be able to filter information and digest information through a specific filter or lens, because we live in an information era where you just gotta be able to do that. So regarding the latter, I'm not sure Jeff and I are gonna talk too much about that, but the former, absolutely. So, Jeff, welco the show.

Hey, Ben, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, look forward to today.

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. So. So, I mean, like, I, you know, I always wonder when I talk to guys like you who are just like so deep in the trenches, especially in, in, in these high stress scenarios and in many cases, you know, working with the armed forces and the CIA and working as a firefighter, is this something that you have always been into? Because people ask me that and I'm like, no. I grew up like reading the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and programming, so. So did you grow up as somebody.

Who'S just in all this stuff? Yeah, you know, actually, it's funny, I did. I mean, I. My mother tells the story, like when I was, you know, four or five, whenever I could change my own clothes, whenever that age hit. Like, if I was playing army, I had to have my brown corduroys on. Or if I was playing fireman, I had to have my blue corduroys on. Like I was very distinct, like in character from a very young age. And you know, I will say on that side of the equation, I've kind of gotten to live out all my childhood dreams and I don't really know where those came from. That's not a family thing. That's just who I kind of showed up to this planet to be. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, I'm curious, you know, with that childhood where you actually kind of cross the threshold into beginning to work with some of these high performance communities. Can you walk me through how you got plugged in, so to speak?

Yeah, man. You know, I gave a keynote a couple years ago to one of the firehouse conferences and I kind of in it, I just jumped in and kind of said, you know, my life, when I look back, beautifully orchestrated, completely unplanned.

You know, as I say, God's God Draws straight with crooked lines.

Absolutely right. So, I mean, I was a 16 year old kid working at Domino's, slapping pizzas and doing my thing, and one of the drivers one day came by, like a Saturday or something, comes in the. Comes in the store and is like, hey man, come here and check this out. Like what? We walk outside, he pops his trunk and he's got fireman gear in his trunk. Where'd you get that? He's like, I joined the firehouse down the street. I was like, what? Yeah, you can do that. Next day I hopped in the car, I was like, let's go check this out. Next day I hopped in the car, drive down the firehouse, you know, 16 year old kid, stupid haircut, hey, I want to be a fireman. And filled out the application because in the Northern Virginia area at that time, you know, big volunteer system, big structured departments and a lot of opportunity to do that.

So.

And then back then they changed the law now, but back at 16, you could join and ride, you know, straight up and do everything. So it went pretty quick. I mean, I filled out the paperwork, got voted into the department, was in fire school like a week later, and off I went. And you know, I wasn't a big fan of high school. Just wasn't my gig. Was my thing. My senior year, I only take two classes to graduate, so I was the county's first intern. Petitioned them to do an internship with them so I could get out of school early, and then got hired like 32 days after I graduated as the 14th career fireman hired in Loudoun County, Virginia, which they're now like a department of 800 plus people. So. So yeah, it was, it was an, it's been an interesting stage and then get bored, meet a recruiter a couple of years in, kind of feeling like, hey, am I going to be stuck being a fireman, you know, and doing this stuff and, you know, not in the best shape, not super healthy. Kind of could see the writing on the wall that if I stayed at that time in the fire service, health and fitness wasn't really a key thing. Wasn't a big driver and met this freaking recruiter who had just come out of Ranger battalion and thought, hey, that sounds like a cool idea, let's go get pushed to the limit physically. So joined the army, went in, spent my time, did Kosovo in'99, part of the first guys on the ground there, and then got out shortly after, was back in the fire service, actually on duty the night of September 10th, having coffee the morning, September 11th and then spent kind of the next four days in response down to the Pentagon. Yeah. And then, you know, just because of the work I'd done and the unique things that I had, skill sets that I developed over time, was doing some projects with some people. Guys from the agency were there. They were like, hey, what are you doing? I said this. They said, you want to come to work for us? I said, sure. And six months later was in Africa working my first counterterrorism operation. So it's kind of been a wild ride.

Wow. So. So in terms of these counterterrorism operations, is that where you got into the whole mental game and performance under high stress scenarios, or was this something you were already kind of mulling on as a firefighter?

Yeah, I mean, I think I was always mulling on it. You know, Ben, I was always kind of the pain in the ass, the. The different thinker, the hey, we can do this a little better kind of guy. And the unique thing was kind of our. Our responsibility had both an external responsibility and an internal responsibility to train and develop some of our people. And kind of, as we were progressing, beginning to look at things, you know, there was a, what I would say, kind of a rudimentary education going on around mindset that they would teach in some of the programs. And I sat in one of those classes one time, super smart guy, former, you know, SEAL Team six guy. But, like, looking around the class, everybody, it was just missing everybody. And. And I got it because I understood that world because I already kind of been reading and researching and really diving into some stuff, and we just had to figure out a better way to deliver to get a connect. And so actually I called my uncle who did the Cheesy Mom's Choose Jeff peanut butter campaign back in the day. What did you remember? Cheesy Mom's Choose Jiff.

Oh, geez. Now I'm feeling a little bit dumb. Even though I don't consider myself a peanut butter aficionado, but perhaps a peanut butter addict for much of my life. But no, not familiar.

But that was the big, huge campaign that Jeff came out with back long time ago. So he's a big marketing guy, right? And he's a big emotional intelligence marketing guy. And I called John one day and said, hey, I have about an hour to deliver highly scientific, yet highly emotional content. How can I do that? And he was pretty integral in helping me understand how to develop a class with a certain flow that engaged people's emotions and then dropped into logic and science and then brought them back in and just kind of rode this wave. And then that compounded into okay, how do we train and develop our people better? And you know, out of that we were really up against, you know, some of the things during that time, post 911 had to understand we're kind of a what I would call a head up force. So we're a very thinking culture. Right. Everything kind of goes on in the head and we're dealing with a nose down culture where it's very much about intuition and instinct. You know, you show up in the environment. If I've got to meet people from the other side, like they're going to smell the nervousness or the energy on me instantly. So this is where we kind of just started down the line of discovery of how do we develop people to be capable to operate in those environments more effectively.

So obviously there's a lot of different places that we could start. But what I thought was kind of interesting, that caught my eye when I was looking over some of the things that you've done is how you have kind of delved into the quantitative aspect of what's going on with the nervous system in a high stress scenario and how you're calculating that and then how you're then implementing specific tactics to be able to manage the central nervous system in those scenarios. And obviously that's kind of a big question, but I'd love for you to kind of dive into how that actually looks.

Yeah. So, you know, a couple things I'm kind of a guy that, you know, okay, what's the question we're trying to answer? What's the problem we're trying to solve? How do I take people and get them more in body, more regulated, more, you know, and begin to understand what's going on inside at any moment? You know, traditional things, even in fitness. Right. And even. Because this is all ethical. My thing is everything we're talking about is apical though every aspect of life. So normal patterns of development are really more task based. Right. Can I do this, can I do that, can I do this, can I do that? I learned something, I develop a skill, I can demonstrate it now. It's like, okay, cool, now go out in the world and produce me results. Well, there's, there's a big gap between, you know, stepping out of something and then producing quality results that really matter. And that was the place of play and discovery really. And I needed tools and resources that I could leverage in the field. I didn't have a lab, I didn't, you know, I needed the uncontrolled space to see what was actually happening, what the behaviors were that were being exhibited in very specific conditions. And so, you know, we went to Horary Variability. Polar Electro was really the, you know, Polar Electro HeartMath were the primary games in town at the start of it. And then I got to know the kid who developed the Zephyr bio harness. So we started using that because that gave me heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, you know, all kinds of goodies and the ability to see it live, which is a big one.

And by the way, the use of that bio harness, the Zephyr bioharness, which I'm familiar with. And for those of you interested, it's a Z, E, P, H, Y R if you want to look it up. And I'll put all this stuff in the show notes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com bruteforce podcast. I know that it does some pretty advanced monitoring of things like central nervous system variables and hrv, but was that prior to the advent of some of these smaller wearables like the Aura or the Whoop or the, or the bio strap?

I always joke and say, you know, if I could have published my documentation back in the day, I'd own WHOOP today. But you know, it was all done for another reason. So yeah, they didn't, yeah, they didn't exist back then. And, and really at that time, heart rate variability was a fairly new part of the equation. I mean, HeartMath was really the leader in discovering heart rate coherence and stuff at the time. And you know, their science is pretty solid in a lot of ways. And so we began to look at the methodology, began to understand shifts in heart rate variability and what those were. And then I needed to develop a training methodology or scenario methodology that enabled me to apply very distinct stressors in certain conditions at certain times and then measure output, right? So measurement, information gathering, awareness, actions, behaviors, decision making, all those criteria, right. Of what is actually coming into result. What we found was a couple unique things. One, using heart rate variability in that methodology, we started to outline what we call the stacking effect, which was interesting. For instance, if I've got a group of, you know, operational people going into a scenario, very hyper realistic, a lot of work to it, and I'm laying in, you know, I'm laying in like small things like you know, old man and guard walking across the street in front of the car and extra little people hanging out there or kids playing soccer, whatever it is, right? I'm, I'm adding in all these kind of peripheral stressors that have no impact on what they're about to do, but start to cause the brain to separate its thinking process. And in data, what we're able to see is each application of stress, either that's an indirect satellite or direct stressor. At each application was the individual recovering from that heightened experience, were they integrating specific techniques to maintain control of their central nervous system?

Now when you say recover, do you mean like I'm met with a stressful scenario and you know, let's use a very small example, a bunch of lines jumping out from the email inbox on my computer. And you know, we know that you can do like just say three settling breaths, right? Two, count in through the nose, four count out through the mouth three times and you can measure, and I've done this, you know, a pretty significant near instantaneous shift in heart rate variability. Now is, is what you're alerting to the fact that that can be trained or is better managed in certain individuals. And you're, you were starting to measure that.

Yeah. So that's really, I mean ultimately it's, you know, I kind of, I joke after I teach a four or five day class, I'm like, hey, we just spent five days together. And really all I did was taught you how to breathe because that is, that's the primary course of action, right. And a, a rhythmic releasing breath process very similar to what you described. Few mods to it, few distinct characteristics to it. You know, it is, it becomes the primary source for, for regulating the central nervous system. When I begin to combine that with anchoring into the present moment. Right. Getting off the thought trains, not getting spun into a different direction. When I return to now, whatever condition I'm in, I'm able to begin to regulate that system. Now you also have to, you know, understand that's not like going from oh crap, we're about to get in a firefight to like, oh, I'm totally chilled out on the beach that, you know, you need to use the advantages of your system however you want to keep it in, in zone, right. Just like fitness, just like we're working out, you want to be in the zone that you need to be in to perform at the level you want to perform. So even applying the same techniques, no matter what the conditions are, my system is regulating to the optimal space. And you know, and then we're able to see that on data. I'm able to actually measure impact and severity of the stressor on the individual. I'm able to Measure the, what I would call the time under threshold, or you know, slang term dragging the bottom, which is the time that they are dropping their heart rate variability, comparing cognitive function, impairing awareness, impairing decision making, and then their rate of recovery, how fast it took them to get back to probably 80% of their base. Right. And I'm able to see that on the data. Does that help or make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Now, you refer to a couple of things there. I've obviously treated breathwork pretty extensively on prior podcasts. Kind of kicked that horse to death. But you mentioned a few other things, like you said anchoring in a specific moment and then you said something after that. So in addition to breath work, what would you say are, when someone is in a high stress scenario, whether it's physical or emotional or mental stress, what are some of the other big wins that you found through that quantification process that just work like gangbusters for managing stress in those scenarios?

Yeah, man. I mean, most times what happens is when we, when we experience, and I like to refer to as load on the system, you know less about stress and it's very individualized across the board is what I found in all of these studies. So. But when there's a load on the system and the system kind of starts moving into a state of arousal, right. And things start kind of working, I'm stressed, I'm feeling a certain way, there's some real distinct tactics to use because what begins to naturally happen in the untrained or undeveloped person is my systems start to work in conflict, meaning my brain, my thought patterns are skewing off into more than likely a future based outcome. Right. Fear is just a projection of the future, of what may or may not happen. So my mind is getting ahead of myself then, and it's triggering things that haven't even happened yet, which my body is trying to move into alignment, saying, hey, I may be under threat or something's going on. There's a perception that something's going on and I need more right now, in this minute. So central nervous system's kicking into queue, you're getting all the chemical dump, you're doing all those things. Mind starts shaping forward into creating kind of worry, doubt or whatever it might be, conflicting back and sending disconnected messages back down to the central nervous system. So I'm operating a conflict at that point. And you know, you said something interesting about the way you want your boys to grow up. Right. And I really like to, when I'm teaching, I break down the difference between Perception and discernment. I believe discernment is really a gateway to seeing what is actually happening, being very flat about it, versus a perception which is going to go through our filters, which may go through our biases, which is more interpretive, if you will. So utilizing the right breath work, coming back to the present moment, anchoring into what's actually occurring and dealing with the challenges at hand, kind of being very, very flat about it. You know, you used to call it, you'd see guys out of SEAL Team 6 or Delta who, you know, guys have been in combat. We call it the thousand yard stare. It just looks like they're burning a hole right through you. They are. They have trained over time to be extremely discerning. They're just assessing factually what's happening. So when I can get to that place that actually starts to bring brain, heart, central nervous system into alignment, rather than this kind of disrupted space fighting against each other, compounding the effects. And now I am actually more settled and I'm allowing my body to do its natural course of action to give me the energy or the blood flow or the breath, whatever it is, I physically need to deal with it in that moment.

Can that be trained? And if, if so, how would you.

Train something like that? Oh, yeah. So, I mean, some of it's fairly easy. I mean it's, you know, it's been crazy across the board. There's really no difference between, you know, a pro golfer, an operator, a guy on the stock exchange floor, a CEO running a public traded company. You know, one, the breath work is key now. And I know you've exhausted this, so I'll just do this quickly. Our technique is, you know, nasal breath in roughly about a four count deep into the diaphragm. Right. Fully engagement. I find a lot of people have to actually learn to re engage their diaphragm because there are more shallow chest breathers than they are diaphragmatic breathers. So there's the practice of that. So fundamentally I'm taking control on the way in. I feel good about it. I'm controlling my breath deep into the diaphragm, full expansion, and then I just do an open mouth, relaxed jaw. Allow the breath to leave the body at its own pace.

And by the way, it's interesting I should mention the open mouthpiece because a lot of people will tell me, why don't you, why don't you breathe out through the nose the same way that you would breathe in through the nose? Because you breathe in and you get the nitric Oxide and the filtering and some of the better oxygenation, but then breathing out. It's interesting that there's a few different things that happen biomechanically, but one important one is you actually see a little bit more movement of the diaphragm when you breathe out through your mouth. It seems to somehow incorporate more of those diaphragmatic muscles and also allows for a little bit more control. Meaning you've almost got this, this built in meter, meaning your purse lips and how forcefully you exhale through those pursed lips of the length and the intensity of the exhale. It's more difficult unless you're reaching out and pinching your nostrils through a nasal exhale to be able to modulate the outflow as opposed to breathing out through the mouth. So I'm typically 90% of the time doing breath work unless it's getting into a real hefty pranayama.

Right, right.

I'm usually going in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's really. I call it the, the return to the original breath. Right. You look at your kids till about age 5, 7, they're belly breathers. They don't care. They don't have anything about it. Then they hit the playground, they got to start posturing. You know, shoulders rise, chest comes up, I move my breath up to the upper chest and there I am, shallow breathing. Right. Because it becomes more about posturing and demonstrating. So return to the original breath. And the other thing that you're doing in that, in that giving up control kind of. I almost describe like letting gravity pull the breath away, allowing the breath leave the body. You're also triggering the vagal nerve and you're sending signals of safety to the brain. So you're actually checking in with yourself going, hey, I'm safe. And this is another kind of core aspect of what we discovered. I fundamentally believe now, and I've said it several times, there's really only one question that matters to every being on the planet, and that is, am I safe? Like, that's the, that's the constant check. Am I safe? Am I safe? To say this, be this, do this? Right. Am I safe physically?

So, right. Well, am I safe? Am I. What are the three things basically? Security and control? Am I loved? Meaning am I being seen and heard? And there's a third. Why am I blanking on the third? It's to be loved, it's to be in control. And it's to be.

Is that to be acknowledged or be. Well, you Said be seen. Right.

So jumping through the podcast right now, screaming it at us.

So. So fundamentally, here's what we're doing when we align, when we bring everything together. You know, safety is a matter of perception. Most of us don't have quality anchors of safety from growing up. Right. It's skewed. Safety is not necessarily. We don't label it good or bad. It's a sensation in the body that we're radically unfamiliar with. And so when I align the breath with the cognitive tools, with the anchoring in the present moment, I'm validating the sensation being experienced in the body. Like right now, I'm sitting at my computer, I'm sitting at my desk. I get to look out at the beautiful backyard. We've got eight inches of snow on the ground right now. It's snowing like a fiend. It's wonderful. And I get to breathe, sit in and anchor into this present moment, going, oh, how cool is this? I'm. I'm in the experience of the moment, and it's registering down into my lower systems as I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm good. The more I develop that, the more comfortable I become being in uncomfortable situations. Right. The more willing I am to kind of extend myself into the unknown or the levels of discomfort. Because I'm developing kind of an internal power or confidence that I will be able to figure things out, that I will be able to deal with it, that I will be okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And that reminds me, when you said that, that jogged my memory. It's control. So basically, you want to be safe and secure. You want to be loved, accepted, noticed, seen, and heard. And then we desire control. Those are the three basic things. Safety, love, and control. That makes sense. And I understand that through breathwork and through anchoring into the present. Mom. We can begin to develop this ability to be able to operate well under significant stress. Would you say there's anything else, mentally or emotionally, that are big, big things that you focus on?

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things. So we won't get into it today, but I've got a math equation for what kind of this looks like. I had to figure out a way. I had to figure out a way so not only to develop, like, the systems and the understanding, but then how do I train operators? How do I train anybody? How do I communicate this effectively so people get it and got super smart people around me. I mean, guys from Wharton, the head of human performance at the Pirates, who was working at the Navy at the Time doing some things with us, like really big brain people. And I would send them things like, hey, does this work? And we came up with this math equation for how do I develop certain behavioral traits that we identified through about 300 interviews that exist in the top tier performance formers and either don't exist or exist in very small forms and fashion at the lower end of the spectrum. And what we found was these. And I kind of just talked about them. I call it their C3, which is a extreme level of comfort in very uncomfortable or dysregulating situations. They just can go anywhere in the world, anytime, just because they're good, because they've anchored that model of safety and trust in themselves. Which leads to the second C, which is confidence, a true faith in self, a true faith in their own abilities and their training. Which then leads to the third level, which is creativity. Right. The, the ability to figure it out. I mean, I spent my life being dropped into various countries with crap information, half stuff this, that, and like, okay, go sort it out and, and you just learn to natively do that over time and experience. However, following to the distinct process, you can begin to speed that up rapidly. But in that component, the key aspect that is the developer of that is a person's level of openness which can be measured. And openness is a, is a kind of a composite of curiosity, use of imagination and humility. And so when I have those subtle factors behind the scenes when, when people are truly open to experiences, open to learning, they're not coming with, you know, all their judgment, like, oh no. Well, somebody else taught me this and this is the way it goes. You know, it's like breath work. I mean, it's all valuable to me. Right? I mean if you, as long as it's practice, as long as it's developed, as long as there's some data behind it, you got to find what works for you. I'm not a, like, you have to do it this way kind of guy. So those key aspects at the underlying aspect of human behavior are the catalyst for real performance, real change, real capability.

Yeah, yeah. And there's kind of a corollary here, and this is kind of a perfect segue because I wanted to get into this whole idea of unstable physical loading because I know that's something you're also kind of expert in because that's where this whole like idea of sandbags and sand filled kettlebells and things that you guys have at brute force come in. You know what I've found is when training with kettlebells and sandbags and kegs and so called strongman training. I still think one of the better books out there I read back in the day and I interviewed on my podcast. I'll find a link and put it in the show notes for you all@bengreenfieldfitness.com bruteforcepodcast Strength coach named Zack Evanish I think has one of the best strongman training books out there. It's kind of like how I learned to build up my little garage gym chock full of equipment that is full of unstable loads. I've found that when I wind up in the average hotel GY nautilus machines and symmetrical barbells and dumbbells that it feels so easy. But mentally and physically compared to this unstable, unpredictable loading. And you know, obviously from a very broad standpoint, most people get it that when you use an unstable load or something that's slightly asymmetrical like a kettlebell, that you are going to develop the ability to perhaps recruit muscles in a manner that allows for more stability. But I'd love to take an even deeper dive into what's going on with so called, I think you guys at brute force call it ULU training.

Yeah. So that's kind of the core fundamental process. Right. The unstable load odd object was what was developed.

Unstable load odd object.

Yep. Unstable load odd object. So that was the program that one of our team members, Chris Lane, came up with. Phenomenal guy, super beast, way forward thinker and put it to the test, took it to the universities, started laying it out. We're going to be launching the level one certification course online here in about three months I think. But right. So this is kind of the fundamental context of the, of the sandbag or whatever shifting load work you're going to do. For me, I love it. Now 47 years old, a lot of damage to the body, you know, a lot of, a lot of use on this kid over time. And you know, for me what I find is fundamentally because it is, you are, no matter what your movement is, your body is always regulating. You know, I compare it to like the new way they design cars. You're driving the car. However, what's going on underneath of that is suspension's constantly shifting, tire pressures may be shifting. Like if you're buying a, you know, fully upgraded car. The calculations that are being done to make that a smooth ride for you are incredible. And that's really a good comparison to working with the unstable load to working with the sandbags. You're taking very specific Basic movements that you may do on CrossFit or other environments now, but you're adding a level of complexity because you are internally managing this load that is constantly moving back and forth. I mean, it's. It's always funny to me when I see other sandbags out there or people out there who, like, pack their sandbags so full, it basically becomes just a weighted bar.

Yeah, that's a funny thing. If it's too full, it's actually paradoxically easier. It's heavier, but easier.

Absolutely. And so because you are firing all the neuromuscular connective tissue, all the activities inside, all the internal stuff, you're actually. And I'm being the geek that I am, I'm now putting data to this to look at what's actually happening within the central nervous system. Heart rate raises faster, increases recovery time at a faster rate if combined with breath work. And we can talk about some of the things that we're doing. So I'm literally laying out now, taking the fundamentals we learned, the things we did in the operational environment, now truly breaking them down into this fitness model. And, you know, we've been in conversations about what's next beyond functional fitness, what's next beyond what's out there. And we're testing it out in the challenge now with a lot of people moving more towards this idea of instinctual fitness. Right. This idea of full body, brain, mind, breath work, alignment in the activity so that I am re anchoring points of safety, I'm extending my point of comfort. I'm willing to be a little more discomfortable or. Excuse me, uncomfortable. More uncomfortable. Yeah. Sorry about that. Coming from a couple days of brain fog. Sick a couple months ago. Still not far and on all cylinders. I'm glad we didn't do this yesterday. I canceled a show yesterday that I was going to be on because I was just not functioning.

Why?

So willingness. Say again?

Why were you not functioning?

So, I mean, post. Post my covet in. In November.

Oh, it was like post Covid. Brain fog.

Yeah, man. And some days it just comes out of nowhere and it's like I'm just. I feel like I'm, you know, an idiot.

Yeah, there's. There's, there's. There's certain things that can help, like a lot of those. Those intranasal peptides, like C Max and Cerebralysin. Those are amazing for that.

Yep.

I think that's like, top of the totem pole. And then the other thing is, from a technology standpoint, like the two things, because I've had People with like brain fog and even post Covid issues who visit my house and down in my basement I have all these toys and the hyperbaric chamber. And then there's this other device called a biocharger that combines near infrared, radio frequency, PEMF and infrared light. And there's some settings on there that are directly correlated to frequencies for stimulating the brain. That, and then there's this thing called a V light. V, I E. Light. It's developed for dementia and Alzheimer's, but at a 40Hz signal, it just turns on the brain. They have a 10hz alpha more relaxing signal. But like that, that's, that's like kind of some of the more advanced stuff a lot of people may not know about is intranasal peptides, hyperbaric biocharger and the V light. Like you stack those and you, you can beat back just about any form of brain fog.

Well then I will, when we're done here, I will get on the line and get some stuff situated.

Yeah, okay. Anyways, though, I, I derailed you, so you. So you're talking about how stupid you are. No, I'm just kidding.

And then, anyway, right, so extending to be uncomfortable, right? To be. Because that's where growth occurs. We know this, right? I mean, you serve yourself up daily to, you know, what's next. I mean, I, I've curated my Instagram feed to, to get what I want, you know, and actually enjoy my time. When I do have the moment to scroll through and every point is like, of value. Somebody I appreciate, somebody I want to learn from, somebody who's bringing something to the table, you're in that stack. I'm going to have to have been for, for quite some time to get some tips from.

I've never scrolled through Instagram in my life. I have yet to figure that out. I post to it sometimes, but I, I've never, I've never actually scrolled through Instagram. I've never even played around with that screen.

Now, man, I've kind of figured out how to curate that so it's effective. But part of the job being out there. So anyway, so this whole process, right when we begin to align a more disruptive movement pattern, you know, for instance, we had the big guys in the gym the other day, the big boys. We said, all right, you know, why don't you kind of do a warm up set with 135 barbell clean, impress, just go, go until you're kind of like, okay, I'm good, I'm functioning. Ready to go. And then we break out the 135 pound sandbag and said, okay, now you got a max, you got to meet the same rep things. And it was halved. And one of the big guys, he's a big strong man guy, Olympic lifter, he literally threw the back down and was like, I'm now clear, if I need to get stronger, that's what I need to do. You're seeing them by seven, like grabbing other handles, trying to figure out how to manipulate the bag, trying to get it up, just sweat pouring off of them. So it's not a one for one correlation. We tell people that all the time, don't try to start off at 100 pounds of sand. It ain't going to work. Get your ego out of the way.

Yeah. And what's interesting is this unstable load training. A lot of times people will find despite lifting lighter weights, they'll be more sore. And when you think about it, there's actually a concept in exercise physiology called inhibitory postsynaptic potential. So what that means is basically when you're using all these big prime movers, these big muscles that you're used to using, a lot of times you get used to using and stabilizing using those big muscles, but once you add in an odd asymmetrical object, it shifts a lot of the load to different areas in the joint. You get different neuromuscular recruit and you're going to begin to recruit all these tiny stabilizing muscles that inevitably result in kind of an increased delayed onset muscle soreness post workout, but also results in using your beautiful analogy about the car, a better ability of the body to be able to modulate itself under stress, almost like a Ferrari. And so the only thing I've really found that simulates that type of, oh, gosh, I didn't realize I have all these muscles I haven't been using. I'm sore. Type of effect is electrical muscle stimulation training. Right. Where you're basically just overriding the brain and going, bypassing the brain that's really working during the unstable load. Odd object training instead. Just saying, all right, we're just going to shock you into submission and you use an external controller rather than the brain. But it's a similar concept. Both electrical muscle stimulation and unstable load training wind up with a neuromuscular recruitment that often, even if you're thinking about using those other stabilizing muscles, like thinking about, say, turning on your glute mead by driving your knees out at the bottom of a squat and externally rotating Your hips. Even then it seems that once you throw an asymmetrical object in or once you throw electrical muscle stimulation in there, there's no choice. Right. It automatically shifts the body into using those muscles, whether you like it or not.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's why we're, you know, we're big proponents of, you know, integration of this. You know, we've got some people in our community that are 100 sandbag all the time, you know, every day. That's just their thing. That's what they have in the garage. Right. That's where they, that's where they live and operate. But we've also seen this massive influx of, you know, big time crossfitters, big time lifters now moving to a two or three day a week kind of sandbag integration. And again, I, you know, going through the process here like I want to, I'm curious to see now if, if weekend we're going to get a bunch of crossfitters, do a huge study on it, that we're going to take some core movements where they're plateauing, move them to certain sandbags exercises for a distinct period of time and then come back and see the gains. My, my theory is they're going to be pretty, pretty solid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you come back to that bar after working sand for a period in time, it's, it's like, you know, what is this thing?

Yeah, yeah. And then like boots on the streets. For people who haven't ever done this type of ULU training, you know, what we're talking about is equipment. Like if you were to go to your website, Jeff, basically you've got sandbags which we've established you shouldn't overfill, keep them kind of loosey goosey, but still at a load that challenges you. You've got balls which are sand filled, adjustable Atlas stone style balls that are also obviously somewhat unstable. And then you've got your kettlebells that you can fill with sand, which I kind of like because you can also take these when you travel and just fill them up whenever you get to where you're going and not pay an ungodly, you know, 70 kg TSA fee. And then you've got weighted vests. Now let's say that somebody's like, okay, we're gonna, I think you guys even have like a garage gym bundle on your website. Let's say somebody like grabs that bundle, they've got all this shit laying around in their garage. Walk me through what in your opinion, like a gold Standard typical training session would be for the folks who are kind of like the 80 20s. They're like, all right, there's probably 100 different workouts I could do with these things. But what would be an example of like a go to workout in a scenario of ULU training using these type of. Of using this type of equipment?

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things before we get in, I'm going to tell you, I mean one of the things I love about sandbag personally, just coming from my background, it is, it is definitely a more visceral based workout. Like you. There are things you get to do the sandbag, you don't get to do it everything else. And so one of the, kind of, one of the cool. Throw it in the garage, go hit it. You know, basic 20 minute AM wrap, many rounds as possible. And we like to start off with are push up drags. So literally your say you're going to plant your bag to the right side of you, you're going to do a push up on the up, you're going to reach through with your left arm, drag that bag all the way through and across. So you're actually, you know. Yeah. Right. Back down, back through. Right. So we got 10 push up drags. Then we're going to get up, we're going to do 10 shoulder slams, which is really a cool engagement in the body. Right. So I get to pick this bag up, up onto the shoulder and then just full power force slam to the ground and just let it rip back up and slam to the ground.

So rather than like an overhead med ball slam, you're just going to the shoulder then slamming.

Yep, yep. Up to the shoulder, you know, and then using a full. So you know, for me, like I'll rotate, I'll do one, one on the shoulder. So come up to the shoulder, kind of anchor in for a second, power up, move down, align force, drive all the way through and just bam, right to the ground, just with full energy. Then you know, pop that thing up, do 10 shoulder to shoulders, which is really developing that entire system. So literally it goes from grabbing the bag, gotta manage it, gotta figure out where I want to hold it. Up, full extension, overhead, back to the other shoulder, up, full extension over the head, back to the other. And then we, and then we close that out with probably, you know, 10 jump squats with the back, which is a humbling experience.

For the jump squats you have the bag like back rack.

Okay. Just back rack you can do. I mean we do have front rack, jump squats so you kind of can modify it up. You know, it's a great thing about it. And, you know, this is what, you know, we're in the process of refining gear right now. That's kind of been our primary effort is how do we refine what we have and make it more functional, etc. So the small bag, which will now be called the Scout, that's going to become a recommended 20 to 50 pound sandbag. The mids tier, which is the athlete that'll sit probably about 30 to almost 80 pounds when we're done with it. Then the strongman, the big one, the Georgia State Police, you know, more, more police academies, fire academies use these things. They've got a couple of them and they call them the bag of woe. So, you know, that thing goes from about 75 to 140, which is gnarly. I mean. Yeah, gnarly.

Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of like a garage gym. Amrap style workout. I love to talk workouts. So I'm gonna throw a more endurance style workout at you and then maybe come back at me with one of your, one of your favorite endurance workouts using this stuff.

Sure.

So there's a guy named Brian Johnson, the Liver King. I'm having him on podcast soon. He has a workout called the Barbarian, in which you, you hold two kettlebells, you know, one in each hand and then weighted vest sled ankle weights, and you just do a drag for a mile holding the kettlebells, you know, kind of, kind of a brutal farmer's walk with a whole bunch of extras added in. And then my, my, my Ben cares about his joints and is 40 years old now and, and, and, and, you know, maybe wants to go a little bit easier is this new one I've been doing where I've got these four pound hand weights that just like strapped to each hand and then weighted vest and resisted breath training device. Meaning like I use one called a relaxator. And I've got a mile out, mile back course where I hold the hand weights. You pump those vigorously the whole time. Got the weighted vest on. It's all nasal breathing with resisted exhales. And your only goal is to go two miles without taking that breathwork device out of your mouth while pumping your arms the entire time. And that like, that one's surprisingly tough. But all you need is a weighted vest, four pound hand weights, and this little breath training device called the relaxator. You know, I'm always just sitting around coming up with dinky, fun little workouts like this. But for you, from an endurance standpoint, what would be an example of how you'd use some of your guys equipment for something a little bit more endurance based?

Yeah, I mean so you know, weight invest is always great, right. When you can just add a little more to it, add it to a run or do like a burden run with the sandbag, you know, any of that stuff. I mean some of the things that we are trying to develop our people around is understanding the various models, understanding how to slow certain things down to actually, you know, operate in a little bit lower zone and function. You know, speed is not always the, the right thing to be doing. Right. I don't need to rush through this workout. Right. And be distinctive. So we have been adding in a lot of breath work to the challenges to the workouts that we're putting out. So whether that's box breathing or whether that's nails, nasal breathing, adding a lot of that function in. Because the value of that is it naturally causes somebody to think about what they're doing. Right. And really concentrate on managing breath under load under work. But you know, we've done a variety of things. I mean I think a lot of what we, you know, we took over when we acquired the company was more kind of garage gym, blow it out. You know, like the whole CrossFit style work, right. Go out and crush it. So you know, we've just onboarded really a phenomenal coach here who's redesigning everything. They run a Jim Darns program at the gym where they do, you know, very much, you know, kind of zone two work. You know, he made, we just interviewed him the other day. He made a great sign like you're, if you're trying to build that endurance level, you know, you should be able to clearly communicate I'm okay, I feel fine without taking a breath. Right. So we're actually looking at how we begin to do that in, in more limited space because a lot of our people are garage gym people are home based people. And so you know, in this time of year it's like they're not going to get out in the snow and go run or go out snow and go do those things. So you know, a lot of the efforts are slowing down, focusing on breathing and doing movements like you know, bear crawl drags for instance, which is gnarly. I don't know if you've gotten your kids doing those yet. Make them do that when they're, you.

Know, shooting bear crawls with a sled.

So no, what you're Doing is you're doing bear crawls and it's kind of like the push up drag. So bag between my legs, hand forward, drag the back all the way forward past my head, then bear crawl up, left arm move, bear crawl up. And so I'm dragging that bag forward as I'm bear crawling.

But the bag is between the legs.

So think about it, right? I'm getting.

Oh wait, you're not holding it between your legs. You mean it's like under your body and basically you're doing it essentially it's.

Like pulling it forward.

Yeah. So it's like bear crawl from point A to point B, but that bag's got to stay with you the whole time. Right.

Underneath you, the whole.

Okay, so it's basically like a drag.

Yeah. Right. So if we slow that down and then we add nasal breathing to that right one body position, body position head down becomes radically difficult. I'm going to have to slow down my movement. I'm going to have to get more distinct. I'm going to have to moderate myself to stay in a lower zone rather than trying to just speed through the workout and really functioning on those things. So we've been looking at and exploring a variety of ways to step that up. That hasn't been something we acquired the company at the mid-2021, early 2021. That's just something that hadn't been fully nested per se. And really understanding the value of that level of workload on the system and then continually exploring the gear and equipment in the most effective ways to, to really achieve that.

So my 13 year old sons are going to hate you after this podcast because I write out their workouts every week. I guarantee I've been taking notes next. Next week's workouts are all going to be some bear crawl drags. And.

Oh man, we did. Mike and I did a thruster ladder the other day. Just straight thruster ladder with the sandbag with one to one ratio. So one thruster, one nasal breath. Two thrusters, two nasal breaths and you could breathe in open mouth any way you wanted to during work, but you had to be nasal breath on recovery.

I like it. And by the way, if you have any key workouts that you want to send over, if you send them, or if you have a little PDF or anything like that, I'll totally put it in the show notes for people to download. If you go to BenGreenfulFitness.com bruteforce force podcast and also include. I think you guys are giving us like a discount code to Some of the, some of the sandbags and equipment. I'll toss that in there as well. I don't know it off the top of my head, but I'll put it in there. Obviously, fuel, you know, what's in the gas tank is a big part of this. I'm just curious, are you just like a full on, like MRE cheeseburger guy or do you have any specific nutrition protocols or specific diet that you use in the, in your training or the, or the training protocols you recommend?

Yeah, you know, I mean, it's interesting. You. I didn't grow up in healthy environment. I actually grew up in the antithesis of that and, you know, wasn't, wasn't really guided well in health and fitness growing up. So it's always kind of been the struggle for me and, you know, now having kicked into my 40s, really starting to pay attention to what my body says, what's going on, what I need to do, the things I need to really take on to, because I want to be a guy at 80 that you look at and you're like, dude, that guy's 80. You know, that's important to me. I want to be functional and capable all the way through the end for as much as I can. And so for me, I've made some mods recently. You know, I've been using the Kion stuff for a while now, which I know you're a big fan of. Clearly.

Yeah, I'm a little biased, but I'm a fan of Keon supplements.

Yeah, well, you know, and, yeah, and so, you know, my protein, I had to shift a little while ago. Yours is better than most. Keon was better than most on the market. However, I moved into a full plant based stuff. I've actually moved to almost, I would say, 90% plant based diet this last year. Just really getting in touch with my body and how food was affecting it. I just, I've kind of, it's felt better in the system, honestly.

You still doing all right with protein though? You're finding that you can get protein without producing, you know, gut upset from excess plant intake?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's actually, it's, you know, and this is a big thing to me, like individualized stuff. Like it has, it has really shifted a lot for me and you know, and I'm a big, hey, you know, eat steak, do the ribs. Like, you know, I mean, that's the, you know, I was always that way and it's just been one of these things that has been inching in over this last year especially. And so I'm just playing with it now. Right. I'm just, I'm, you know, it's probably been four or five months of real solid consistency around it. I'm feeling much better. My energy levels are up. I feel like my body's in more of alignment, My gut's flowing better, but at the same time I'll just pay attention to my body and if it doesn't seem to work for me, then we'll shift, you know, forward to what needs to be done.

Well, definitely, definitely stay on the key on creatine at least because you're need that in the plant based.

Well, and I'm still using the colostrum. Right. That's why I say I'm you know, about 90% or so. I still drop that into my shake in the morning.

Good.

Still on the creatine. Doing the aminos.

Yeah, I was gonna say the aminos for a plant based diet. Like that's so many of my vegan clients asses for protein because it's like lazy man's protein. You just do a few scoops. You're good.

Yeah. I mean the stacks in. I come in in the morning, I start my coffee. While my coffee's starting, I put my shake together. You know, open the cabinet. If you open my cabinet, it's all kion stuff. Stuff sans the protein powder. Yeah. You know, but, but that's the stack and that's my morning routine. That's what I go through and, and it has more than you know, and I've played and tested supplements over time of what works for me. I will say more than any other one I can actually. I feel connected to the results.

Yeah.

You know, I mean I, that's what, that's what I've noticed.

Wait, for which one?

Well, just for kind of the spectrum. Right. Adding the. Right.

You're stacking.

Yep, just stacking them in, just putting them in place, following that protocol and, and just being consistent around it. I've definitely just. It's like, oh, okay. Like whatever I'm doing in conjunction here seems to be working really well.

Yeah, I mean that, that's, that's my go to as well. Like I've, I've got my colostrum creatine fish oil in the morning along with, with the, the whey protein isolate. If I am going to do a smoothie and then I basically got my immune if something's going. I don't take the immune every day. I just take it like on, on you know, days where there's something going through the house and then the flex I do, I kind of overdo the flex. I do six of the flex on an empty stomach before I go to bed at night for soreness. That's freaking amazing. I'm probably gonna need to upgrade it after I wind up doing these workouts we're talking about. But. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's so easy. So, yeah, I mean that's. Honestly, I'll quit tooting my own horn here in a second. But that's like my whole goal with the company was I just wanted stuff that would allow you to pretty much have it all covered with one brand and have it be. Let me put this way, we're kind of a budget brand. Like it's not super expensive, fancy, you know, fringe, you know, from some, you know, corner of the Amazon, harvested by a one armed monk stuff. It's just human clinical research based stuff that, that tastes good and works. So, yeah, well.

And I, and it's the. I will say, outside of the supplement stack, the coffee's amazing. Like, I'm a big, you know, black coffee, you know, two cups in the morning. Yeah. I transition to it. It, man. I. That, that medium roast, like it is just. I'm, I'm a, A black coffee. Stop. I don't put anything in my coffee ever.

I haven't, I haven't had the coffee in like a week because I'm experimenting right now with Kratom. So I've been doing a little bit of cradle and it does not blend well with coffee. So I'm, I'm missing my coffee. But I'll, I'll return soon, I think.

Yeah. And it's great. I mean, that's. Out of, out of everything that's out there. I, I've really enjoyed it. It's been fantastic.

Yeah. Well, look, for me, the big message I'm getting here is let's say that I want to make myself more gritty and resilient, both mentally and physically. Like typical morning. What it could look like, for example, is get up and once you've taken care of, and I highly emphasize this, your spiritual fitness, like take care of Bible reading, prayer, meditation, devotions, always care for that first. I cannot overemphasize the quality that that's brought into my life.

Life.

And then like morning, for example, heat stress, cold stress and breath stress. Right. I really like that kind of stuff in the morning versus getting after the heavy stuff right off the bat in the morning, when I think you're a little bit more susceptible to injury. And I just think that other stuff fits better in the morning, if you have the luxury of time to do it two a day, and then afternoon, you could do something like anchoring into the present moment. Breathwork, warm up, get your unstable loads in, try to do nasal breathing throughout and stay present while you're doing some of these moves that we talked about. Maybe finish with some recovery breath work and a quick dip into an ice tub for increased resilience. And I mean something like that. I mean, you could do that with your kids. I mean, that's similar to what I've done with my son since they were five years old. And I've been able to witness in a young human being, when you start young, I mean, their ability to be able to function in high stress environments I think is good. And for me personally, my ability to be able to function when standing in line of the airport and they announce that the flights delayed four hours, or when I open up my emails and I think I'm done with work, and all of a sudden there's like 30 emails, scenarios like that. I think those type of routines help to build that grit and resilience, which ultimately, I mean, if we step back and look at things big picture, our goal in life is to love others most with whatever unique skill set we've been given in life, life. And if we're freaking out and flopping around like a Muppet every single time shit goes south, that's not gonna happen. But I mean, if you can be that, that present, Zen, fully mindful, anchored person who also is able to withstand rigors of hypoxia, rigors of cold, rigors of heat and rigors of unstable objects. I just think, like, you're gonna, you're gonna operate as a more impactful human being, and especially in the times that we're living in right now, a human being who can react to unpredictable scenarios pretty rapidly without, as we were talking about early in the podcast, these disturbing shifts in heart rate variability or central nervous system adaptation.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's really it. I always say three distinct qualities that separate the top 1% from the top 10%. So the top tier, their abilities, they have actually taken on and developed a core set of abilities and fundamentals that they know, work and work for them in what they want to accomplish. Two, their willingness to actually put themselves up there, serve themselves up, take it on, and the discipline to stay in or in the work. Right. And that those things, you. You see those things exist, you begin to take those things On I live and die by my calendar. I, you know, integrate, I integrate my rhythmic breathing process all day, every day now when I tell people to start. So just put in the calendar three or three to five times a day for like three minutes. That's it. Just give me, give me three minutes, five times a day of rhythmic breathing for the next two weeks. That's all I'm asking for.

Right.

You know, because sometimes the stack gets too big for some people. So how do we bring that down? Yeah, I mean just, just give yourself that grace for the day and give yourself, you know, even three, three minute segments, five minute segments, that's it doesn't take much. The body will start to realign. And to your point about the kids, I agree with you. I'm watching it with my son. You know, I went back after, after two girls and 12 years later did it again. Got a four year old now and I watch it in him. Those are the same traits that I want him to remain as much in the natural breath work central nervous system regulation as possible because that is the key fundamental that he's going to grow up with and carry out into the world and be able to then navigate all the garbage that's going to show up. Yep.

And that, my friends, is how to make yourself physically and mentally more gritty, resilient and harder to kill with Jeff Batman Brute Force. Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna link to all your stuff and for sure if you send over any workouts, I'll put those in the show notes as well. We'll put, we'll put some of our, our discount codes for any of the garage gym unstable load type of stuff from Brute Force, the same stuff that's littered around my entire garage. Now in the show notes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com bruteforcepodcast remember folks, get out there, get cold, get hot, challenge your breath, lift unstable, unpredictable loads and stay physically and mentally gritty. Thanks for coming on the show, Jeff.

Thanks for having me, Ben. Really appreciate it.

All right folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Jeff Banion from Brute Force signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items. But the price is the same for you and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion llc, the makers of Kion branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support and with full authenticity and transparency recommend. In good conscience, I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body and spirit, and I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.