Podcast Episode #71: Can Electrical Stimulation Devices Make You Fit or Help You Burn Fat?

In this podcast episode, electrical stimulation devices, amino acid supplements, high protein diets, food allergies, barefoot running, a movie called Fathead, creatine cramping, and much more.

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

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and I gotta tell you, I'm a little sore right now. I actually just this day, today, earlier at noon, I was playing basketball and then I went to the gym after I finished playing about an hour of basketball and I did those little machines at the gym that a personal trainer I used to know called birthing machines, because you basically sit in them and you kind of put your thighs on these pads and you contract your legs and your thighs go in and then you move to another one and you sit down in that and you kind of swing your hips out and open your legs and just back and forth. I did back and forth between those things about five times. And so I'm not only sore from basketball because I just got into my triathlon off season and that's something I haven't really been doing much of. And then I also, I just wanted to try out those things, see how they actually felt when you went through a few sets on them. And I do have a little bit of a strong opinion that they're probably not all that great for sports performance. As a matter of fact, I know they aren't. And they don't burn that many calories and they really don't do a lot for you unless you are practicing to have a baby or I guess engage in the process of making that baby happen. But unless you're really trying to improve your performance in those two areas, there's probably better ways to train your legs. Anyway, speaking of the triathlon off season for you triathletes out there in the show, notes to this podcast, number 71, I just published the Healthy Triathlete Off Season Seminar. It's called Get Fit or Get Fat and it's a 70 minute audio seminar taken from a lecture that I gave a few weeks ago and I am putting that up on the Internet. Available to you pretty much only on the show notes of this podcast, but it's on special for four bucks this week, meaning that you log in and you have full access to the complete 70 minute seminar that tells you exactly how to swim, how to bike, how to run, how to cross train if you're so inclined, how to play, play basketball and work out on the pregnancy machines. But basically it gives you exactly what you need to know to get faster this winter if you're a triathlete or to prepare for your first triathlon if it's something you've never done before. But you want to know what type of things you should be doing this winter to actually get your body ready. Because what it comes down to is that you really aren't supposed to be doing traditional swimming, biking and running workouts this time of year. There are some better ways to be spending your time and I tell you how in that seminar we go over the nutrition and the workout components. So check that out. That's in the show notes. And we have a really interesting interview today about electrical muscle stimulation and whether that works for everything from burning fat to healing injuries faster to improving your performance and making the muscles stronger. You're going to find out what works as far as electrical stimulation goes and what doesn't, and who actually needs to avoid it. We've also got a bunch of Listener Q&As, a few special announcements before we get to those Listener Q&As. So let's go ahead and jump right into those.

Special announcements.

Well, I already went over kind of the big special announcement, that 70 minute seminar that's available to you in the show notes, but in terms of other things, posted a couple of photos up on the show notes of this podcast, podcast number 71. And they're photos of one of my clients who went through some training with me and we took some before photos of her and some after photos. She did one of the fat loss programs that I offer to my clients and we went for about. It was actually about 63 days and her photos were so amazing that I put them up for you to look at. So they're posted in the special announcement section of the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com I also put in the show notes your link to the Healthy Holiday Gift Guide for those of you still doing your Christmas shopping. I still have that out there and all 17 of my top picks for my Christmas gifts are out there. And the gifts on there include everything from super inexpensive books and DVDs all the way to the laboratory testing that you can get done for food allergies to hormone evaluations. Just cool stuff that would make somebody on your Christmas list, think, wow, I actually got something kind of new, kind of different. So check that out. There's a link there in the show notes and the other couple of items for you triathletes until January 1st first, anybody, anybody who picks up my Triathlon Dominator package for themselves, which is the huge collection of books and CDs and DVDs that basically take you and walk you step by step on exactly how to get ready for a half Ironman or an Ironman. It gives you the meal plans, the nutrition, the workouts, and the main idea behind it is it allows you to accomplish all that in about half the time of the normal person. It's basically what I've done is I've taken the way that I train myself and I've put it into a program. And obviously I'm taking into consideration the fact that there are different levels out there and the program accommodates everything from the beginner up to the advanced triathlete. But anybody, anybody who picks that up between now and January 1st automatically is getting $97 as a ticket to my triathlon training camp down in Austin, Texas. So you automatically get a $97 ticket that you can use. You get a special code in the email that allows you to go to the camp sign up page and redeem that on the camp. And remember that camp is all inclusive and you can read about the details on it. I put that up in the show notes as well, but it's going to be a blast. I'm really looking forward to it. It's December 2nd right now. That camp is on January 18th. That gives you time to sign up to grab a ticket down to Austin, Texas. You can get them right now for about 99 bucks and show up for a week of fun in fabulous weather. Training, nutrition, lectures, seminars, everything is planned. So definitely email me if you want to get in on that. Ben Greenfield, fitness.com and remember to also check out that triathlon off season seminar. So we're going to go ahead and move into this week's listener Q and A. There are a lot of listener questions and there's some really good ones. So you're not going to want to miss this week's Q and A.

Listener Q and A.

As you're listening to the questions for this week, remember, if you have a question, you can email me Ben greenfieldfitness.com you can call 877-209-9439 and leave a voicemail or you can Skype to Pacific Fit. And the other thing that I got to tell you is if you're listening to this podcast and you like this whole Q and A thing, you are definitely going to want to go over to the website if you haven't yet, and subscribe to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Newsletter. I've got some very exciting announcements about some very, very cool things that are coming down the pipeline with a bunch of pro triathletes coaches. There's going to be a pretty groundbreaking website that will be available to you by next year that's going to basically allow you to get customized triathlon coaching advice whenever and wherever you need it for pretty much next to nothing. So sign up for the newsletter and subscribe to that and keep your eyes and ears open because I'm going to be giving you more information about that in the weeks to come. So this week's first listener Q and A regards a post that I made to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast called if you could eat the equivalent of a steak in one pill, would you? Because when I went down to Clearwater, Florida a few weeks ago, I met with a doctor who I happen to know. He works out of a place called the LifeWorks Wellness center and he showed me this patented product that he had called map, which stands for Master amino acid pattern. And it's basically this pill that's full of protein, very dense protein sources different than protein powder. It's an actual amino acid. So you take a protein powder, you take all the tiny little amino acid building blocks out of that and that's what MAP is and it's a very, very dense source of amino acids. And I interviewed the doctor about it and put a video up on the blog that you can go over there and view. But listener Patrick wrote in. He said, ben, I have a question regarding map, the product you featured, as well as your most Recent post on BenGreenfieldFitness.com I've seen the product advertised in magazines for some time now and I've always been interested in its potential benefits. On a recent trip to the local health food store, I saw several different amino acid supplements, all costing between 12 to $15 for a month's supply. What's more, they all claim a serving size to be 2 to 3 pills and caution use of more than 4 to 6 compared to MAP's 20 to 30 per day depending on age, size, diet and exercise loads. What are your feelings on MAP versus other amino acid replacement supplements? Is MAP the clear winner across the board and and does it justify the 50 plus dollar price tag? So if you go to the MAP website, they talk about how it has what's called 99% net nitrogen utilization. And what that indicates is the amount of absorbable protein that's in that amino acid tablet. So if we compare that 99% to the other dietary proteins and protein supplements that are out there that they went through, tested in the lab, those were found to be 16 to 32%, about anywhere from 24 to 96 times lower than what is in MAP. Now, the idea behind amino acid mixtures that are sold everywhere is that if they have a nitrogen utilization rate like that, that's very low, and especially anything under 20%, that means that the product doesn't get turned into a protein in your body, it gets turned into essentially what amounts to carbohydrate plus nitrogen waste. So what the master amino acid pattern product is, is they've actually patented this process of having all eight essential amino acids in there and in the correct ratio at high quality pharmaceutical grade at a very, very high net nitrogen utilization. So the reason that the other supplements tell you not to take more than three or more than five capsules per day is that if you took more than that, because so much of the nitrogen doesn't get utilized and instead gets released into your body, causes kidney damage, gets converted into carbohydrate, they have to warn you not to take that much. What I've been doing with the MAP, because I brought a bottle back from Florida, is I've been taking 10 after workout just to ensure that my amino acid levels get a little bit higher. Now, other than map, the only product I'm aware of, and I'm not sure about the studies that have been done on this one, the only one for which I've seen studies have been the MAP is a product from Bio Letics. You'll remember, that was the company that I got laboratory testing done on myself to actually find out if I was deficient in essential amino acids. And they have essential amino acids in a powder form. So the MAP product is a little bit different, it's in a tablet form. But essentially what it comes down to is that the reason that you have to take so few of the other products and the reason that they're so cheap, more or less, is because they have a very low net nitrogen utilization. And that's the defining characteristic of the map. So I'll put a link to the post that I wrote about it, to the video and to the product itself in the show notes. It actually comes right out of there at the Florida location. Moving on to a question from listener Amy. She says I guess this is another kind of protein oriented question. I was wondering what your thoughts are on a high protein diet. I'm not referring to the Atkins. There has been some buzz again about high protein diets. The suggestion for a typical day is oatmeal with protein powder and soy milk for breakfast. Then a mid morning protein shake, two slices of whole grain bread with a thick layer of organic meat, no mayo and veggies, and then salad or steamed vegetable with brown rice and lean organic meat for dinner. The day's snack suggestions are raw veggies and or fruit or raw almonds. I have heard mixed feedback on whether this is an ideal lifestyle choice. I recently heard that too much protein, regardless of combining with carbs, can be toxic. Is this true and will excess protein pack on the pounds? Let's first address the first part of your question about too much protein and whether or not that's toxic. Yes, it is. What happens is that if you're taking in too much protein for a lot of people, that can be anything above about 40% of your caloric intake. It can cause a buildup of what are called ketones, which are the protein breakdown byproducts. So what these ketones do is they essentially put your kidneys into overdrive because your kidneys have to flush ketones from your body. So your kidneys are getting rid of these ketones. And the way that they're doing that is they're flushing them out with water. And so you not only feel this toxic load from the ketones and your kidneys having to work overtime, which is bad for your kidney, but you also get dehydrated so you feel weak or dizzy. A lot of times you have bad breath. Your breath kind of smells like fingernail polish. It's what's called a kid ketogenic breath. And that can happen in a high protein diet, especially one that's, that's high in protein and void of actually using that protein and exercise and void in carbohydrates. So in terms of what you can actually utilize for protein for a non athlete, right around 0.3 to 0.6 grams of protein for every pound that you weigh is fine, is adequate. Now, I know there's a lot of athletes listening to this show, and I gotta tell you that most of the athletes that I coach and most of the meal plans that I write, and not only the athletes that I coach, but anybody who I have exercising a lot, whether that be to burn fat or improve performance or put on lean muscle, we're up around 0.8 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. I wouldn't put a sedentary person on that, but someone that's constantly breaking down their muscle and exercising, they can do that and they're not going to get necessarily a protein toxicity. Although you do need to make sure that you are drinking a lot of water and staying hydrated and also being aware of the fact that you have to continue to take on carbohydrates, that your body doesn't operate on protein as a fuel very well. And that leads to the second part of your question. Can excess protein pack on the pounds? Well, there is a process called gluco. And what gluconeogenesis is, is where your body breaks down its own protein or breaks down protein and turns it into blood sugar to be used as fuel, or as we mentioned in the previous question, breaks down nitrogen and converts it into carbohydrate. You would have to be eating a lot of extra protein in order for all that extra protein to be converted into sugar and then converted into fat. What you should be more worried about is the saturated fat levels or any other amounts of fat that you might be getting in along with those proteins. Because if you're relying on a lot of dairy foods, eggs, cheeses, et cetera for your protein intake, then those come along with fat that can add up quite quickly calorically. Now, the sample meal plan that you gave me, that sounds fine. I wouldn't consider that really a high protein diet because you got oatmeal in the morning and soy milk has carbohydrates in it and the whole grain bread that you mentioned has carbohydrates in it. And all that is fine. That's really what I consider to be more of a paleo diet or just a diet that consumes almonds, nuts, seeds, vegetables, small amounts of fruit, limiting bread, limiting starch intake, that's fine. That's what I consider to be what's called a low glycemic index diet. And those type of diets have been associated with not only better weight loss, but also better overall health, reduced risk of reduce risk of chronic disease. So, you know, you need to just make sure that if you, if you're doing the calculation, counting calories, try not to exceed 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight, or try not to exceed 40% in terms of your intake. So moving on to Listener Miguel. He says, I have bought your book Holistic Fueling for Ironman. I find that you're really capable to Change people's views about Power Bar and other brands that only care about profitability. I never said that about Power Bar in the book, Miguel. All I said was that they do have genetically modified wheat in their products and a lot of other stuff that I list in the book. But Miguel goes on, he says when I drink milk or eat whole wheat bread, one to two hours after when I head out to run, I have GI distress. Does that mean I have allergies to cow milk or wheat gluten products? It could mean one of two things, Miguel. The first is that you could have a lactose intolerance which is different than an allergy. Straight up allergy to the proteins in cow's milk is going to be a little bit different than lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerance is going to cause GI distress. It'll cause bloating, gassiness and can be controlled by simply supplementing with a lactase based enzyme that helps you break down the lactose sugar. Something like I think Beno has lactase, but there are lactose specific digestive enzymes that you can supplement with. The other thing that you could do is fuel with a non lactose based milk like a rice milk. Soy milk. I'm not a huge fan of almond milk would be another good one. If it's an allergy, there's a lot of other symptoms that you can have. Everything from the gas and the bloating, but a lot more severe. Diarrhea, constipation, high cortisol levels which is kind of your body's stress release hormone, low blood sugar, which is called hypoglycemia, low energy skin problems, acne, chronic fatigue, really heavy legs. There's a lot of stuff that goes on when you are consuming a diet that's high in allergies. I actually have a good primer on food allergies and what they do to your body and a better way for you to understand food allergies and what happens with food allergies. Over at my website, shape21.com if you go to shape21.com all that is, it's a non food allergy based nutrition program that I've designed and if you just go read the website, you don't have to buy the book but just go read what I have written on the website. It gives you really good introduction to food allergies. But the short answer to your question is yes, that could indicate food allergies but it could also indicate something as simple as a little bit of lactose intolerance. For me personally, it's not an all or nothing approach. I can handle a certain amount of dairy product and wheat product per day. Before I personally start to get GI distress. I can get the equivalent of about a small container of yogurt, like a cup of yogurt, and about one to two slices of bread. If I do any more wheat product or any more dairy product than that in a day, that's when I usually start to have issues. If I'm getting ready for a triathlon or something like that, I completely avoid those food groups that entire week. Moving on to listener Lisa, she says, just wanted to write in with a question of my own this week. It has to do with Running Gear what are your thoughts on barefoot and minimalist running shoes? Out here in Southern California, there's been a lot of hype lately about barefoot running and minimalist shoes such as Vibram Five Fingers. And for those of you who don't know what Vibram Five Fingers are, those are the shoes that literally you pull them over your feet, they fit over your toes and they look like a barefoot shoe. They kind of spread out your toes. They're interesting. Barefoot enthusiasts claim that the most natural way to run is barefoot because the foot naturally knows how to land in order to be most efficient at running. Shoes, they say, are to blame for a lot of running injuries because they force the foot to do something that it's not supposed to do, like excessive heel striking. Do you have any experience with barefoot running or running in something like the Vibram shoes? I typically train in very minimalist shoes like the Nike Freeze or racing flats, and just got a pair of Vibrams. I'm trying to figure out the best way to incorporate them into my workouts. Well, I have two thoughts, Lisa. The first is that this is probably enough to fill an entire podcast the idea of barefoot running. I know lots of people have written books on it. Lots of people have done audio or video programs on barefoot running. I personally, in my own workouts during the warmer months when I have access to a grassy park or a softer surface area to train, will go out and do some barefoot running repeats on that surface. However, you know, if you come at this from, you know, like the caveman approach and you say that the foot naturally knows how to land in order to be most efficient at running. Yeah, that's true. But is our natural running surface asphalt and concrete and glass and all the other type of nasty things the foot's going to be exposed to if you're constantly running Barefoot? Well, the answer is no. And that's where the Vibram shoes come in, is they do give you kind of that padding against that. And then you ask the second question. Well, is the natural running for a human supposed to be running 26.2 miles or pounding away 10 miles on asphalt? And I'm not convinced that barefoot running is going to protect you against the type of stress fractures that are associated with that type of what you would almost call unnatural exercising. Yeah. If you're out farming on grass and dirt all day and you're wearing the Vibram five fingers and you, you're not pounding the pavement, sure, that's one thing. But if you're a runner who's running regularly, who's training for a marathon or a triathlon, it's my opinion that barefoot running does expose you a little bit more to the elements and put you at a higher risk of not only injuring your foot, but also getting a stress fracture. So I'd be cautious with them. If you're going to switch over to them, do so very gradually. And then the other thing is, I have a friend, his name is Telman Knudsen, and Telman running across the entire country right now barefoot, okay. He's made it about as far as Ohio and he started a couple of months ago. Here's what I'm gonna do, Lisa. Next week I'm gonna call up Telman while he is running. Okay. Which I've done a few times. I've talked to him. It's kind of funny because he's running along, he's talking at the same time, he's got a cell phone and you know he'll shout ouch when he steps on a rock. But I'll interview him. I'll give you guys about a 10 to 15 minute interview with Telman and we'll talk with him him about what he's experienced running barefoot. And I can tell you right now that he just came off a two week hiatus from running barefoot across the country based on doctors orders to stop. And now he's back at it. But we'll get an interview with Telman and we'll give that to you sometime in the next couple of podcasts. Probably podcast 72 or 73. And he's a very, very entertaining guy. If you go to his website, runtelmanrun.com very entertaining and interesting guy. So we're going to move on to question from listener Corey. And Corey asks. I enjoy your podcast and find it very informative. I have a question about nutrition during an Olympic distance triathlon. This distance usually takes me around two hours to complete, depending on the course. I normally don't eat anything during the event and I finish okay. So I guess I can store enough fuel to get through two hours of racing. But would there be any benefit to eating anyway and topping up during the bike leg? Yes, there would be. Even though most males are going to have around 2000 calories of storage energy, most females around 1500 calories of storage energy. And most people will not. They'll burn through that kind of towards the end of an Olympic distance race. There are benefits to keeping your fuel stores topped off when you have high blood sugar levels or when you have high caffeine levels, either one, it decreases your rating of perceived exertion. What that means is that exercise feels easier and you can push yourself harder while feeling less pain. So even if physiologically you don't need the sugar mentally, your brain likes that feeling of knowing that sugar is on board. As a matter of fact, they did a study on cyclists who saved over 60 seconds in a 40 kilometer time trial. That's a little over 26 miles biking hard. And they were simply flushing out their mouth with a sugary product. They weren't even swallowing it. So that shows you how powerful the presence of sugar can be to your brain during exercise. You're doing something like an Olympic distance triathlon. Now, what I personally do is I don't eat anything during the run of an Olympic distance triathlon. I have a little bump in blood sugar, typically like an espresso flavored gel right before the swim to give me both caffeine and sugar. And then I'll eat the equivalent of about 300 calories on the bike, sometimes a little bit less than that. And I'll try and make sure all those calories, or the majority of those calories come on the bike before I'm even halfway through it. So I don't have any calories bouncing around in my stomach or not much bouncing around in my stomach when I get to the run. Ultimately, it can help you quite a bit. So we're going to move on to listener Chuck. Kind of a long question. He says, I watched a movie the other night called Fathead. Essentially it is a response to the movie Super Size Me. But instead, this guy shows how he lost weight on a McDonald's diet, not by eating purely salads, but by eating the real foods, just not gorging himself. The film somewhat tongue in cheek. But what I really found interesting was the research he did and his Interviews with doctors concerning the intake of saturated and regular fats. His main focus became to avoid highly processed carbs. Later in the day, for example, a double cheeseburger for dinner, but no additional sides like fries. At the end of his diet, he had actually lost weight and had healthier cholesterol and body fat levels. Obviously, I won't recap everything in the movie, but I was wondering if you had seen it and what your thought on it were. And then he goes on, he tells me to get it from Netflix. I'm not a Netflix member. The reason I'm not a Netflix member is because then I would watch movies just to use my membership. So I'm not a Netflix member. And then he also says, well, he moves on. And he has another part of his question. But let's answer this fathead question first. Okay. The idea is that if you're looking at fats, there's not a lot of credibility to the idea that when you avoid animal fats or you consume a low cholesterol diet, you reduce your risk of heart disease. One of the things that you can look at is that the consumption of animal fat in the American diet, a lot of it due to us becoming more aware, aware of the dangers of cholesterol or saturated fat, it's plummeted in the past century. But at the same time, our level of cardiovascular disease has gone through the roof. So in 1910, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of butter a year, and now they consume closer to about £3. We've cut our fat consumption way down, but we're still having a lot of chronic disease and a lot of cardiovascular disease at the same time that we've brought down the animal fats and we've brought down our cholesterol intake. What have we replaced those with? Vegetable oils, More processed fats, like what you find in crackers and cookies and the Starbucks bakery case. And shortening refined oils, and of course, refined sugar, higher carbohydrates like the fries that you talked about. There's really not any studies that have shown a direct link between natural fat consumption and heart disease. And if you look at all these cultures that are lasting longer and living healthier than us, like the Mediterranean cultures, the Japanese, they all have lots of rich saturated fats in their diet, like butter and cheese and eggs and fish and meat. And even the French have high fat sauces. But all those cultures, they have a lower rate of coronary artery disease than we do here in America. It sounds like the guy who did the fathead movie is on the right track. Because the big issue with cholesterol is not necessarily the natural cholesterols that you get from natural food fats. Yeah, natural fats are very calorically dense. And you need to be careful if you don't want to gain weight, not to eat too many of them. But what is more dangerous to us are the vegetable oils that have very, very high amounts of free radicals, which are more damaging to our bodies than the natural fats that we consume, like butter or coconut oil or gently treated olive oil. And then the thing that all the refined sugars have is what's called a very small, low density lipoprotein form of cholesterol. And this very small, what's called oxidized cholesterol is what is responsible for creating inflammation in the arteries. And what scientists and what the medical profession is discovering to a greater and greater degree is that it's this small oxidized cholesterol that's a bigger issue, that's a greater threat to us when it comes to heart disease and overall health. Excuse me, when compared to the saturated fats. And so, yeah, if you were eating at McDonald's and you were eating what I guess would be considered more of like the protein McDonald's diet and staying away from a lot of the refined sugars, then you'd be okay. Now, you know, there are other issues. The hormones in the meat, the antibiotics, the bun, some of the sauces that are on there. But technically, yeah, the guy in super size Me probably did more damage to his body on his, I think it was a 30 day or a 40 day McDonald's diet from the french fries and from the carbohydrates than he did from the meats and the saturated fats. So let's see. Good book. Even though we're doing an interview on essential fatty acids and fats here in a couple weeks, good book would be one called Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill by a guy named Udo Erasmus. That's a great book that talks about fat. And there are other books out there that kind of go over some of the stuff that I just mentioned. But yeah, the whole idea is that natural fats are definitely not as big of an issue as the factory processed fats or the refined sugars. So. Good question, Chuck. And then the second part of your question, you say, my other short question is about the triathlon dominator package. You say, it's a great plan for people who have jobs or still want to have a life and not neglect loved ones while they Train for Ironman. But for those who might actually have the extra time, is this still the best training method? In other words, if an athlete had infinite time in their day to train, would this still be the best plan or would that vary? You know what, I hate to say this because obviously it's a product that I created and I profit from the sale of the Triathlon Dominator package, but no, it wasn't created for the person with infinite time. Chuck, if you have infinite time, if you're able to roll out of bed and just do what you want all day and train all you want, and you don't have a family and maybe all your friends are athletes too, so they're out there training with you. There are other ways to train more along the lines of the way that a professional triathlete would train. More hours, more time spent training, more time that you're able to devote to recovery. We're talking about being able to train four hours or five hours or six. Six hours a day. Yeah. That's not the person that the Triathlon Dominator package was created for. It was created for the working Joe or Jill who has a family who wants to still be able to do an Ironman triathlon, or the person who is not a pro triathlete but wants to get faster at Ironman Triathlon and maybe have an hour and a half a day that you're able to train, or maybe two hours a day or maybe a few extra hours on the weekend. If you have unlimited time to train, go to my coaching website. I'd love to coach a person who has unlimited time to train because that's about 1% of the people I work with right now. That would be a blast to just be able to tell somebody, okay, go out and ride your bike for six hours today. Have fun. Call me when you're done. My coaching website is pacificfit.net so go ahead and visit that check and look me up. And if you have infinite time to train, I'd love to give you some workouts. So, next question is from listener Paul. He says, I love the podcast, which I discovered about five weeks ago. I'm now enjoying my 40 minute drive to work for the first time in years while I trawl through the podcast archives. The first thing I do as I switch off the engine is jot down all the changes I'll make to my protocols. Then I check your show notes. That's great. That's why I put them up there. Anyways, on to my question. Having read some research about Glutamine and creatine supplements. I bought some. I take one teaspoon of each once a day with juice. I've been loading one month on and one month off, and during each on cycle, I've developed an episode of cramping on the outside of each shin within 10 to 15 days. Is it possible that these supplements are causing the cramps? It's not something that I suffer regularly and this is my only change to my routine in these months. Having listened to the Magnesium Miracle podcast, I know this is something I really do need to be taking. Keep up the great work, Ben, and thanks for making a difference to my running and well being in general. Well, Paul, there's not a lot of evidence that glutamine could cause your cramping and that's great that you're taking magnesium, but if your cramping is creatine related, which it probably is, it's going to come down to actually looking at the type of creatine that you're taking in. So the whole idea is that the cramping that you get with conventional creatine powders is caused by what's called creatinine, which is what's produced in your body when it breaks down creatine. So the theory is that when creatine, when any type of creatine is exposed to the acidic environment in your stomach where there's all that acid, the acid actually breaks down the creatine and degrades it to creatinine before the creatine actually gets absorbed into your body. So you've got these high levels of creatinine. And what that does is it draws water from the muscle to dilute the creatinine. So the same type of thing we were talking about earlier where your body has to, when you take in a low quality protein source, it has to bring more water into the kidneys to help it filter out all the nitrogen byproducts. Is the same thing with the creatinine that occurs from the breakdown of creatine. And so that's also why people tend to conserve water or put on anywhere from five, some people up to 10 pounds of water weight when you take creatine, is to make sure that your body has enough water on board to be able to dilute that creatinine. Okay, so what you would need to do, and this is what I personally ended up doing because I had the same problems when I used to bodybuild and I had to research all this myself and find out why it was happening and what I needed to do. You need to find a creatine source that will not get broken down in the acidic environment of your stomach. So you need to get the creatine into the less acidic environment of your small intestine where it gets absorbed without being converted into creatinine, so that you get less water taken out of your muscle so you don't get the cramping that's occurring from dehydration at the muscle level. So what is available now in creatine sources is, is called an enteric coated creatine. And the enteric coating on creatine actually allows it to bypass the acidic environment of the stomach before being degraded in the small intestine. So the product that I use, the enteric coated creatine product that I use, is called Creo 2 and that's put out by a company called Millennium Sports. I'll put a link to that in the show notes Paul. But the glutamine should be fine. The creatine, I'd consider making that switch. Okay, so next question is from listener Clay. And Clay says, I've purchased your triathlon dominator package. I've set a goal for a half Ironman next summer, and I'm currently three weeks into it. I enjoy the depth of information as well as a thorough workout spelled out from day to day. It is exactly what I need to stay focused and and motivated. There is, however, a few times throughout the 36 weeks that I will be on vacation out of the country, away from my bicycle or pool for up to 10 days at a time. What are your suggestions for maintaining training intensity when you cannot logistically maintain a training plan? How do you adjust your training when you know you won't have access to a cycle or a pool? So, great question, Clay. Let's address the pool part first. Whenever I travel, I take an elastic band with me, just like a simple, portable elastic band. You can put that around the bedpost in a hotel room, around a stairwell or whatever. You can face towards the object that the elastic band is attached to and you can actually do like a rowing type of motion. So if I'm at a hotel, I try and do this in front of the TV and I'll just like row during the, during the program when I'm watching the tv and then I'll turn around and I'll push the opposite direction during the commercials. And so you can go back and forth like that. And if you're using an elastic band, you can do literally hundreds of reps and simulate a pool workout. And you'll finish and your shoulders and upper body will feel much like they do after you've finished a swim workout. Yeah, you don't get quite as much of the cardiovascular stimulation, but if you throw in a few sets of jumping jacks throughout, it's a great kind of swim based, dry land strength training workout. And that's one that I do quite often. It sounds simple, but it works. And the nice part is that you're facing towards the television or whatever you're looking at, so you can stay entertained while you're just standing there rowing. And then you can get the presses in facing the opposite direction when the program is on that you're not quite so concerned about. So as far as the bicycle goes, that's tough. But stair climbing is probably the best activity that you can do. One thing I'll do when I'm traveling, whenever I can take the stairs, I do. If I can find a stadium and run to it and do stadium stairs, that's a great alternative to a cycling workout. If I'm at a hotel or a motel and there are stairs, I can do stair repeats. The other thing that I'll do if you're really limited on space is lunge jumps where you get down in a lunge position and you jump and switch legs to an opposite lunge position and you can do like five sets of two minutes of lunge jumps. When you do that, you're going to feel like you rode your bike for about two hours. So that's one of the keys is if you're going to do a substitute for bicycling, typically a high intensity activity for the legs that make the legs bend a little bit more than they would when you're say running is a great alternative to maintaining some of that strength and cardiovascular intensity for bicycling. And then, you know, in a pinch, you can always use a recumbent bicycle or stationary bicycle at a hotel. I do that all the time because I travel a lot and speak and you know, I'm stuck a lot of times without my bike or without a pool and you just learn to make do. But those are two things that I do is the elastic band and then lunges or stairs. So, so, and then running, of course is easy. You can run just about anywhere. And then. Final question is from listener Eric. And Eric says it's not a question, it's a comment. And I wanted to put this in there. I just posted this on Facebook, but I wanted to write to let you know that thanks to the Ironman Dominator plan, I've already shaved off 10 seconds of my 100 meter pace in the pool from 148 per 100 meters down to 138. That's only five weeks in and a full seven minutes off my anticipated Ironman swim. Congratulations, Eric. So, yeah, I just want to put that in there. I like it when people write in. They tell me that the program that I work, that I wrote is actually working. That's what I want to hear. So anyways, those are this week's listener questions. And remember, if you have a question, Write in Ben greenfieldfitness.com let's go ahead and go on to this week's interview on electrical stimulation devices.

Featured topic.

Hey, podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield.

And I've gotten several requests to talk about whether or not you electrical stimulation devices actually work, what they are, what.

The science behind them is, and if.

They can be used in the way that they're advertised for either performance or recovery or even in some cases, enhancing fitness.

So I have somebody on the other.

Line who has quite a background in the, in the use of and an understanding of these electrical stimulation devices. His name is David Markovic and.

He'S.

Basically going to tell us right now a little bit about his background and his history with the use of these devices. So, David, thank you for coming on the line.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.

So tell me a little bit about.

How you came to be familiar with these.

Well, electric stimulation in the physical therapy realm is very common. Physical therapists who go to school are trained in different modalities, including ultrasound, heat massage, different modalities like that. And of course, electric stimulation is one of the modalities that we learn in school. If anybody knows about electric stimulation, if you just even googled it, you'll see that it dates back to way back to, I think, the 1930s, even if my memory serves me correct. So electric stimulation has really been around for a long, long time, of course used in different, different types of venues. But in the physical therapy realm has been used a long time. And of course, since time has gone on and technology has advanced, of course clinicians have figured better ways to use electric stimulation and of course they've learned how it helps the body and the results that it gives the body in terms of recovery, tissue healing and muscle healing.

So at a muscular level, what actually happens, you know, when I take one of these devices and I'd like you.

To kind of tell me a little bit about too, about how I would Actually hook an electrical stimulation device up to my body. But what happens to my muscles when I hook one of those up?

Well, probably one of the first things that people should realize is there's so many different nomenclatures out there and terms that you hear. You hear TENS unit, you hear electro therapy unit, you hear muscle electrical therapy unit. So the nomenclature is something that I think most people have to get straight. A TENS unit. Typically what most people know of is literally the size of a transistor radio, runs on a 9 volt battery and a TENS unit, which TENS pens, which stands for transcutaneal electric nerve stimulation. T E N S. That just means electric therapy or electrical current applied through the skin. Now an nmes, which is a neuromuscular electric stimulation, is a little bit different in that it actually stimulates muscle. A tens unit as we know of them do not. But when you think of what an NMES is, which is what sports guys use, things like that, a neuromuscular stimulation unit, it in itself is also a TENS unit because it is transcutaneous or through the skin. It's a TENS unit, but not in how we know it. But most of us, when we hear TENS units, the small ones given by doctors, people put them on their back, all they are is a small electrical current given by a small 9 volt battery which just sends a little stimulation to the skin. And if you're going to, let's say you have back pain, you put it on your back, it just sends electrical current to the skin so that you feel in your body in that area of pain, senses the electrical current, which is a slightly little noxious type stimulation. And all it's meant to do a tension, all it's meant to do is just to stimulate the sensory pathways to the brain to flood them with this noxious little stimulation so that your brain will not feel the pain. You only have so many sensory pathways to the brain. And so if pain is taking up multiple sensory pathways to your brain and you're feeling pain in your back, if you apply a TENS unit to that area, it just will give the nerve pathway something else to carry to the brain. Thus the brain will not feel that it's analogous to somebody coming to your back and just rubbing your back. And that feels really good and it feels like the pain is going away. But it's just that your brain is something, something different. So that's what a TENS unit does. Medically, it does nothing. Physiologically, it doesn't do anything. It just takes away the pain. It just masks the Pain. So it just tricks your brain into feeling something else. And so when people who have chronic pain have that and they get tens units, that's what it is. It doesn't cure anything. And again, it doesn't physiologically do anything. Now, an nmes, again, neuromuscular electric nerve stimulation, that is your interferential, your Russian stim, which was used back in the day, D.C. galvanic. There's also an alternating current stimulation. That is something that is deeper, it's more advanced unit, it's a bigger unit, works on bigger power and that actually stimulates the nerves, the muscle, and depolarizes the muscle, which causes the muscle to contract. So 10 units I won't go into because obviously I just talked about that. We know what that is. The neuromuscular units, those are typically the ones that are used in sports facilities, in neurological conditions, stroke patients, spinal cord patients, things like that. That is a neuromuscular unit. And typically what that does is stimulation is given to the body. The machine itself, whatever type of machine it is, has a particular waveform to it, has a particular current to it, and it is modified such that it can depolarize the muscle, causes the muscle to fire and therefore getting a contraction in the muscle. So that's how an NMES electric muscle stimulation works, which I believe is what the audience is wanting to know about how you apply it to your body, whatever units you have. And of course the units that are across the board in variation, small ones, little bigger ones, little powerful ones, how you apply it to your body is the area of pain you apply, typically one channel or two channels. Each channel typically is divided into two electrodes. So each channel has a pair of electrodes and you just apply it on the body to where the pain is in a particular area that usually somebody or a doctor or somebody can show you, or even the companies who are providing you, the stimulation unit will show you in diagram how to connect the pads in a picturesque type form. It is different when you're doing tendonitis and actually doing clinical diagnosis on patients. There are actually specific specific spots of tendons, muscle tendons, that you want to stimulate when you are trying to cure an injury such as a tennis elbow, golfer's elbow, Achilles tendonitis and things like that.

So by producing a contraction, it seems pretty intuitive that it would just increase blood flow to the area or help to reduce inflammation and thus assist with something like recovery. But would someone just put one of these on after a workout, like directly after workout? Would you, would you sleep with Something like this, or what would be the best way to use it for recovery?

Well, since you're talking recovery, then we're talking sports realm, Right? I'm sorry, since we're talking recovery, I said I'm assuming we're talking about sports. We'll talk sports medicine.

Yeah.

Let's say somebody's going out on a long run and they have one of these. You know, what seemed to be becoming more popular, like one of these home units. They're not going to the physical therapist. How would they use something like that?

Well, how they would use it is, again, it depends on the type of stimulation unit that it is. The reason why it depends on it, because it depends on what it's going to do to them physiologically. And I'll talk about VCare, which is the company that I'm involved with, an electric stimulation unit that was developed by a NASA engineer and. Exactly. It's the exact technology that was used on Christopher Reeve before he passed away. A lot of people saw him walking. They saw him walking with that apparatus on his legs. That is the same technology and the same gentleman, Steve Petrofsky of NASA, who actually designed that machine. And he's also the one who designed our machine. But I'll talk about that later. But your question was how somebody would use it depending on the stimulation unit. If you were a walker, you were a jogger, and you came home, even if you don't feel any pain, an electric stimulation unit is great to put on those exact muscles, be it your quad muscles, be it your calf muscle, wherever you may have any kind of area of problem that you've had previously. And using electrostimulation on that for 30 minutes each session could be 30 to 45 minutes a couple sessions a day. That just helps, as you said before, increase blood flow to the area, increase perfusion to the area, help to wash away, metabolite to that area. Using that in conjunction with ice or heat is also a great therapeutic benefit to muscles that have just been worked. It's been used quite extensively, actually, in baseball, where pitchers would actually use electric stimulation on their shoulder, obviously would be hooked up in strategic areas of the rotator cuff of the muscle in the shoulder and use electric stimulation on the muscles of the shoulder after they've pitched, along with some ICER heat as well. So decreasing perfusion to the area, again, just helps to bring healing aspects to that muscle. Because as hopefully everybody knows, whether you walk or whether you run, whatever sporting event you partake in, when you get done, you've actually Got some small micro trauma to those muscles and tendons. If you worked them hard enough, they may not be noticeable to you or to myself, your brain, but your body does sense it, and that's where healing takes place. And electric stimulation, a specific type of electric stimulation, can enhance that healing aspect.

Now, taking it a step forward, could something like this actually help with the fitness of the muscle or muscular endurance?

I personally don't believe that it can. I think from an injury standpoint and from a recuperation standpoint of an injured tissue, I believe it does help. But once you've got healthy tissue, I have not seen studies that show that taking healthy muscle tissue that you can stimulate it can make it even healthier or stronger. Excuse me. Of course, back in the day, many years ago, I remember Bruce Lee would use. If you've seen documentaries on Bruce Lee, he would use muscle stimulation on his pecs and I think on his stomach. You've seen those gadgets that have been out there that show that you wear this belt that has muscle stimulation on it, stimulating the muscle, that it actually will give you a six pack. I don't believe that that is true. I've never seen studies that show that that is true. And I think the reason why is because you need to use the body's resources. You need to utilize the body's resources, that is cardiovascular, burning muscle sugar in order to get the effects of exercising. So from the healthy standpoint, healthy muscle standpoint, I don't believe electric stimulation can actually enhance that. So if you were putting stimulation on a healthy bicep and, you know, you stimulated that, you know, seven days a week for a month, I don't, don't believe that you can have stronger biceps after that. It does just work like that, Doctor.

As far as something like fat loss. And you mentioned putting the pads on your abs and getting a six pack. You know, I guess I've heard some people say that you're increasing the heat or making that muscle just produce tiny little contractions that might heat it up and make the, make the fat burn away more quickly. Do you put any credence into a claim like that or have you seen that at all in your profession?

I've seen that. I've seen that. And I've seen those gadgets on TV where they show putting the stimulation on the belt on, we'll call it, that I've seen on tv. And then they've got a thermal device there which shows the heat providing or the heat that's being generated in that area. The heat may be generated, but it may be more from a stimulation going in. And you have to remember too, that some stimulation, and since I work in the medical field, not all stimulation is good stimulation, because if you've got, let's say, and I'll sidetrack for a little bit, if you've got an injury, let's say an injury to an abdominal muscle or any muscle in your body, if you apply a particular stimulation to it and that stimulation is too noxious or it's too harsh, you're actually causing more of an irritant to a tissue that's already irritated. And that's the difference between certain stimulations. A lot of people, if they go to, say, a therapist's office or a chiropractor's office, and they get stimulation on their back while they're getting their back treated, and generally they can only keep it on for 20 minutes because it just feels a little too harsh and you want it off. That's the kind that you've got to be careful of because if you're trying to treat tissue, you can actually cause an irritant to that area and doing actually the opposite of what you want to take the inflammation out.

Interesting. So as far as muscular fitness, muscular performance, you're more along, thinking more along the lines that you would use this to enhance recovery so that you could bounce back quicker the next day and go into a workout. Same way that, like, an ice bath might work or something of that nature.

Yes, exactly. I agree. I think using stimulation, muscle stimulation to the body, to certain areas of the muscles, can help increase and enhance recovery of that muscle, give you a little bit better recovery, shorter period of recovery time, so that when you go back to doing the next bout of exercises you're wanting to do, some of that soreness is out of there and maybe a little bit better performance. And that's exactly the sort of hypothesis that I'm sure pitchers use. And the reason they do that is because they're wanting to come back into rotation quicker and sooner. In fact, I'm not sure if it's been done, but that would be just a fabulous study to see if stimulating a pitcher shoulder under a certain protocol can actually bring a pitcher back in a sooner rotation. I mean, that would be phenomenal to any baseball team.

Yeah. And in my personal experience, ESIM has actually been something I've used in conjunction at the physical therapist with ice and ultrasound to actually really, really helped me get over, in this case, a knee injury, but then also for some little aches and pains I actually had this VST unit at home for about four months and used that off and on. And it really seemed to help as well in terms of just pain reduction. And I even hurt my back once and used a little bit on that. And there's obviously a lot that you can do with it, but I think a lot of people might not know.

How to actually get their hands on.

Something like a home estim device. So can you go into that a little bit?

Well, in the vst, I'll touch on that real quick. Since you mentioned the VST and you used it, the VST is a huge change in technology. And what Steve did and I talked a little bit earlier about the harshness or the noxious stimulation that you can get from a current. What Steve Petrovsky did was he tried to develop a stimulation unit or current or a waveform that would mimic the body's waveform such that when the stimulation was applied, it seemed like a more natural type stimulation applied to the body. The body accepted it much better. The result of that was a more physiologic reaction, a more natural physiologic reaction. What he did is develop this E stim with VST with a particular current, a rounded. A rounded waveform of the current, which makes it very comfortable, very accepting by the body. That's why I think if you used it, you were told to use it for an hour. Did you use it for an hour, Ben?

Yeah, it has like this little, this little time clock on. I would usually use it for about 30 to 60 minutes while I was working on my computer or watching TV or something of that nature.

And that's why we keep it on for an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, because it's so comfortable to the body that the body accepts it. And the longer it's on like that, actually, the more benefit that you get and the longer the benefit will remain once it's taken off or once it's taken off your body. And also previously I mentioned to you that if you apply a noxious stimulation to an already injured tissue, all you're doing is just irritating the same tissue that's already irritated. The vsp why it's so great in muscle healing and tissue healing is because it applies a natural, non noxious, non harsh therapy to those injured tissues, allowing for a natural physiologic result, bringing blood flow to that area, helping to heal that tissue without irritating it even further. And that's where the healing aspect comes in so well with the vst. And that's really, what's been honed in on and what's been trademarked with the vst. And I've taken the vst. We've used it at University of Texas football. I've used it myself on the PGA Tour on different players. We've used it all over the place. I work for a foot and ankle surgeon right now and two orthopedic surgeons. We use it on almost everything and anything that requires some tissue healing. So you mentioned the vst. That's just the crux of why I want to get out to your folks there about what kind of device they get, because not every device is going to do the same thing. And that's why it's very important for them to be sure of the type of device they're getting. And you know, typically if they're going to get a device that's $50, $60 or something like that, it's probably not the device they're looking for. Unfortunately, the devices that give you the best therapeutic physiologic benefit from yeastim are going to be your more expensive units that are generally just found in physicians offices, therapists or chiropractors offices.

Okay, and so for somebody who wants to get their hands on a home unit, how would they do that? I mean, is this something again, like.

That you can say like anything else? Yeah, you could probably Google, you know, electric therapy units or even just go to your local hospital or go to a local sports medicine physician and or sports medicine physical therapy clinic and see what kind of units they use. Because typically some of the manufacturers of those units will also provide or also manufacture a smaller home unit that can be purchased by individuals at home. Because of course, the units that clinicians purchase, of course are multiple thousands of dollars. So that would be my best, my best advice to somebody. I do not have specific units or machines that I, that I use or I would recommend. Of course, the VST is one I've been using for the last five years that I wouldn't use anything else. But of course I'm biased to that because I know exactly what it is and what it does, and I treated thousands of patients and gotten just great results with it, especially in the sports realm. But that'd be my advice to your, your folks is to either talk or consult with a physical therapist who's in the sports medicine realm and see what kind of units they use. And I'm sure that any orthopedic surgeon who sends their patients to a physical therapy clinic, that that clinic is recommending certain types of E stim units for the patients at home. And you could probably bet that those are pretty good units. And since they're rehabbing surgeries, they're getting the results they want to get. So that'd be my best case scenario in getting something that they're looking for. But in this type of thing, definitely cheaper is not better.

Now, kind of probably one of the most important questions and one of the last things I want to ask you today is is there anybody that shouldn't be using something like this? You know, I mean, is this something where you shouldn't use if you have a pacemaker, heart condition, or anything of that nature?

Yes, great question. And of course, with any device like that, there are contraindications. Whether it's a small device or big device. Anybody with a pacemaker should always contact the cardiologist and let them know what they're using, where they're using it, and how they're using. Used to be that certain types of pacemakers were a contradiction. But for myself, no matter what type of pacemaker that person has, I make sure that I consult the cardiologist and get an okay. Even if they got a pacemaker and you're stimulating the toes or the feet or the calf muscles, electric stimulation in the body will travel. You cannot control where it travels to. So you definitely want to make sure you're not disrupting any other electrical activity in the body, such as a pacemaker or an atrial fibrillation type device. So definitely pacemakers. Consult your cardiologist first. The other thing with what we do with perfusion, since you're increasing perfusion, you don't want to have any type of infection going on in the skin. And also with myself, anybody who's undergoing any type of cancer treatment or is in fear of any cancer treatment or any cancer going on, I do not treat anybody with that. I do treat cancer patients, but that is only after I've gotten the op from their oncologist. If they've got current cancer going on, but any kind of cancer or cancer treatment going on, the person needs to finish that cancer treatment. And then of course, consult their oncologist on what they're going to do and where on their body they're going to use it. I said any other skin infections going on, you don't want to spread any infection. If you've got infection in the skin area where you're trying to. Of course, I'm talking about where you're trying to treat. If you've got. You're trying to treat your calf muscle or an ankle injury. If you've got any kind of skin ulcer or infection going on and the area you're trying to treat, do not do that. Make sure that is all healed first before you do that. If you're treating anywhere on the leg, from the hips to the legs to the thighs to the feet, the calf muscles, if anybody out there has any history of blood clots in their legs, that's definitely something you want to consult your doctor for. Any blood clots can be moved with electric stimulation to the legs, so definitely consult your physician if you've had any history of blood clots and the lower leg.

So it sounds like synopsis is recovery, yes. Performance in that enhancing recovery will help Performance, yes. Fat loss, probably no. And then make sure that you don't get some cheap unit that doesn't actually work, but invest the money and then make sure that.

You'Re not one of.

Those people who shouldn't be using it.

Exactly. And like I said, it behooves your folks to research the type of stimulation units that will provide tissue healing, which is what you're wanting. And that it's not just a tens unit. So if it's running on a 9 volt battery, folks, it's definitely not what you want. The little stimulators are again, are just tens units and it's just giving you a little stimulation to, to trick your brain into feeling something else. So again, depends on the application, depends on what they're using it for. But I think in our discussion what you said, we're talking about tissue healing, recovery from sports and things like that. Definitely research which type of stimulation that they would want to get. Again, there are interferential. There are different units out there for home units. I wish I was a little bit more educated on what's out there in terms of home units that I can suggest to your folks. But I hope I gave them a little bit better background on what stimulation really does and how it can really be effectively used.

Absolutely. You did well. I'd like to thank you for coming on the line today, David, and for giving us the information about the estim. And this is Ben Greenfield and David signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com well, if you.

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