Podcast INSIDER - A Sample One-On-One Consultation With Ben Greenfield

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

Nate, how's it going? This is Ben Greenfield.

Hi, how are you? All right.

Can you hear me?

Yep. Cool.

You were in Ari Meisel's course and actually got this consult as part of that course. Past that, you know, we haven't exchanged a lot of information back and forth as far as your exact goals and what it is that you want to achieve. But I'm curious, tell me a little bit more about yourself and what it is we're going to go after in today's consult.

Sure, I guess. Well, one of my favorite hobbies is sort of powerlifting, so just want to hear your take on that as a profession. I work in a startup in health it so here in an incubator in Baltimore. And so life is pretty all over the place all the time putting out fires and so health has always been on the back burner and try to get in the gym whenever I can, but it's not a, you know, as anything set in stone.

Right.

So working around a sort of crazy schedule while still trying to have a good time and stay fit.

Right, Exactly. Got it. Now, in addition to powerlifting, do you have specific health parameters that you're looking at? Fitness goals, things in the horizon for you. Are you just trying to stay healthy and get stronger for powerlifting?

Yeah, I'd say that it's more of a hobby than anything else. You know, stay healthy.

Gotcha. So tell me about what kind of approach you have right now with your, with your life and with health as far as the type of diet that you're eating, the type of supplements that you use, the type of lifestyle that you lead as far as like sleep versus lack thereof. Stress, that type of thing.

Yeah. So I would say somewhat high stress, but I put make sleep a priority. So I probably get six to eight hours a day sort of diet. Sort of. I don't eat much for breakfast. I have a smaller lunch and a bigger dinner type thing.

Do you eat specific foods?

I mean mostly salad and protein. So I guess for lunch, salad and some chicken and dinner depending on if I worked out or not that day. Meat and carbs or vegetables.

Right. And as far as your dietary approach, do you restrict certain foods. I mean, are you one of those people that eats Paleo, or are you eating specific types of carbohydrates or anything like that going on?

I try to avoid processed foods, but I wouldn't exactly put myself in one box or another.

So when you say you have a carbohydrate with dinner, what type of carb would you typically have?

Anywhere from rice, pasta, or potatoes.

Okay, gotcha. And then as far as, like, you know, salad with chicken at lunch, are you looking at, for example, you know, whether or not the salad is organic, the source of the chicken, that type of thing, or are you more just kind of like getting in and getting your vegetables and protein?

Yeah, I'd say more of the latter. So generally cook a lot of chicken on the weekends and get a big box of salad and throw them together for lunch.

Gotcha. What are the sources of fat in your diet?

I'd say avocado and red meat, sometimes for dinner.

Gotcha. Now, how about supplementation? Are you doing anything along those lines?

Take, what is it, animal pack in the morning, whey protein after I lift. But vitamin D. Got it.

Okay. How much vitamin D do you take?

5 to 10,000, I use.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Now, what does your actual training plan look like? Like, are you. Are you doing powerlifting kind of spontaneously with the set schedule multiple days per week or so?

It's sort of. It's sporadic, but it's three times a week. So sometimes I try to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but sometimes it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, or something like that. Generally in the afternoons. I would say around this time slot, I took a little break from just straight powerlifting. Went on an Ian King type protocol. Are you familiar with him and what.

Type of protocol did you call it?

Ian King? It was a men's health book that came out a while ago. It was pretty interesting. Sort of every three weeks you did something a little bit different with frequency and. And weight.

Got it.

Focusing on compound movements.

So as far as your actual routine, are you getting in and going straight into powerlifting, or do you have a specific, like warm up stretching or routine that you're doing before or after any foam rolling, anything like that? Or is it pretty much just powerlifting?

I mean, I do about five minutes on the bike beforehand, I find. And then warm up on the weights. I do foam rolling at night.

Okay, got it.

One thing I want to talk about later is some. I messed up my shoulder a while ago. And so any advice you have on that.

Okay, got it.

They Call it weightlifting shoulder. So in college, when I was much more into that, I got. What is it called? Distal clavicle osteolysis. So it's just basically inflammation around the AC joint. Mm.

Does that usually present itself after weightlifting or is that after a night of sleep or when do you usually get it?

So, I mean, bench pressing has been an issue, so I've converted the dumbbells on that. But sometimes if I sleep on, it's my right shoulder, sleep on the right side. It does present itself. It's gotten a little better. I got a cortisone shot a couple months ago, but that was great for a while, but it's worn off.

When you do your soft tissue work, like foam rolling, that type of thing, are you targeting that area? Targeting the back of the shoulder, targeting anything around the scapula or rhomboids or rotator cuff or.

So I do foam rolling and lacrosse ball and so I guess it was a great book. The Supple Leopard or something. You heard of that?

Yeah. Becoming a Supple Leopard.

Yeah. So they had some good stuff with the scapula and the shoulder and the back.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, that's. That's kind of like the gold standard for hitting those areas. And since you started doing that, do you still experience the shoulder issues or has that helped?

It seems to have helped. I've also sort of cut back on bench pressing, so attributed to both.

Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Well, as far as your overall scenario, I think that when we look at everything from inflammation in the shoulder to optimizing your diet, to your goals for increasing power, one of the first things, one of the biggest wins for you is going to be decreasing inflammation, particularly from a dietary standpoint. And fortunately, the same type of things that you do to both eliminate inflammatory foods and present your body with more anti inflammatory foods are also the type of things that support your nervous system. And when you support your nervous system, that influences everything from the speed with which your nerves communicate between your brain and your muscles, to the wrapping around your nerves called your myelin cheese, which is going to help for power production and nerve transmission when you're lifting. And when we come at this, we can come at it from a supplementation standpoint. But I like to look at things from a dietary standpoint first. First of all, omega 3 fatty acids, especially DHA, are really important for myelin sheath formation. And then some of the best dietary food sources for enhancing power are going to be omega 3 fats, amino acids and B complex vitamins and when you look at your diet, one of the things that would really help you first of all is beginning your day by actually presenting your body with a bolus of amino acids, which is going to put you in more of an anabolic state. And it will also basically give you a little bit of a chance to perhaps put into your start of the day some of the fatty acids that are going to help with that nervous system repair and recovery as well as nervous system optimization during your powerlifting later on.

Just branched chain amino acids or whey protein.

You know, for breakfast, I'm a fan of getting a whole protein source, preferably a very biologically available protein source. So if you were to go with like, you know, like, like a non meat based source, then either a mix of pea protein and rice protein or hemp protein, pea protein and rice protein works really well. If you were to go with more of like an egg based source, non heated eggs, rapid heating of eggs or egg powder causes a lot of oxidation of the cholesterol. But the kind of stereotypical scrambled eggs with vegetables for breakfast is another scenario. And then I'm really a bigger fan just because of their speed of utilization. Like the smoothie shake approach, where you can combine anywhere from 20 to 30 grams of protein via eggs, via protein powder, via seeds and nuts, typically around a handful or so of the seeds and nuts, or any combination thereof. And you put all that into a blender or into a smoothie. And then preferably you would also add some things, some nutrients that will also help you with your day. Greens, dark leafies. I'm a fan of adding in some nutrients, such as cinnamon, vanilla, cacao powder, things of that nature. But you can start your day with a really nice smoothie. I've got some videos over@YouTube.com BenGreenfield Fitness, probably one of the ones that would be ideal for you to watch, even though you're not going after what's called ketosis per se, is the ketogenic kale shake over there. And I recommend that one because it's pretty high in fats, specifically these types of omega 3 fats and DHA derivatives that I mentioned. So that would be a really good one. And that also includes some protein in it. It's got about 20 grams or so of protein in it, actually closer to about 25 grams once you take into account the Brazil nuts and the almonds that are in that. So that would be a really fantastic way to start your day and to get into a habit of doing and you could do something like that. And alternate between like that and doing like a, like a nice egg omelette with a lot of vegetables, like tomatoes, spinach, other dark leafies, mushrooms or onions, that type of thing thrown in. And if you were to do something like that, I actually like to add in some really good iodine sources. Like when I do scrambled eggs or eggs, we'll get the seaweed wraps that you can get from the Asian section of the grocery store. It's called nori.

What's your opinion of just seaweed? Not seaweed. Iodine tablets.

You know, iodine tablets are okay, but they're going to be a little less biologically available than seaweed. Like in order of absorption, seaweed's going to be your tops, like nori, kelp, dsea, even like chlorella and spirulina are going to give you some. And then liquid iodine. I like this stuff called nascent iodine made by a company called Magnetic Clay and that at around six drops a day on any days that you didn't eat seaweed. And then tablets are kind of like the least bioavailable. But I personally primarily do seaweed. Like I get the nori sheets and go through about two to three of those a day, typically using them as a wrap for salads or a wrap for eggs.

I remember I was in Korea for a bit and they haven't met all the bars.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And like, if you get them, like a lot of they're getting kind of sexy these days as far as being like a go to snack. And so a lot of times they're coated with oil and they add all sorts of seasonings and even MSG to them. If you just get regular plain old nori wraps, it's a really good way to go.

Where did you juice from?

Our brand. It's from the local health food store. I forget the brand because my wife buys them. I don't. But they're just basic, like no frills. Nori, you know, that's not the brand name, no frills, but it's just nothing fancy. There is one brand called Sea Snacks. S E A S N A X. And that one, they use olive oil. They use some seasonings on it. It's a little more expensive because they add all these frills to it. But it's safe at least it's not bad for you. So that's another brand that would be okay. So breakfast would be one thing to get those omega 3 fatty acids and amino acids. Another thing that's going to be important is for you, preferably to tweak your lunch a little bit so that rather than it being like vegetables and kind of like lean protein, it's for you to do more fatty sources of protein. Or if you're gonna do something leaner like chicken, actually add in an oil, for example. I've actually found that MCT oil really helps to bring out the flavor of meats and the flavor of chickens and also add a lot of good fats in, you know, some caprylic acid, some lauric acid, things of that nature. It's a really nice flavor enhancer. You could also use, of course, like an extra virgin olive oil, an avocado oil is really good, a macadamia nut oil. A lot of times I will use a can of sardines and just use sardines and olive oil and that will be like the fat dressing that gets dumped over the vegetables. And then I try to encourage athletes especially to. Instead of choosing lettuce, unless you've got like a really nice dark like red leaf lettuce or romaine lettuce to go more after spinach, kale, bok choy, dark greens, mixed greens, arugula, a lot of these more nutrient dense greens. And then typically add other vegetables in if you're able to. Even if you have to prepare it beforehand and put it in a Tupperware or a glass dish or a jar, like a mason jar when you go to work. Tomatoes, carrots, celery, even some liver detox type of nutrients like cilantro and parsley are really good for that. But basically trying to get a lot of different nutrients from a lot of different sources so that lunch kind of provides you a shotgun or a cocktail of superfoods, so to speak. But really kind of trying to get a lot of nutrients in for both breakfast and lunch is really effective.

And this is all pre workout too.

Assuming if you were working out in the afternoon or evening. Yeah, but you'll feel like a million bucks if you get this stuff into your body. And you'll also be, you know, everything that I'm going into, you know, these are all sources of omega 3 fatty acids, of B complex vitamins, and a lot of things that are going to be anti inflammatory. If you really want to take things to the nth level, you ensure that the vegetables are free of herbicides and pesticides. When you can, you know, choose the organic varieties or make sure that you wash them.

Do you find that to be effective for you and your clients?

Yeah. Or you can wash them in a mix of water and vinegar when you first bring them home from the grocery store. Like you can take the veggies, you can put them in the sink, fill up the sink with about 10 cups of water or so and about a cup of vinegar. Or if you don't have many vegetables, just a 10 to 1 vinegar solution. So about 10 parts water to 1 part vinegar. Let it soak for a few minutes. As you're putting away some other stuff, come back, rinse it and put it away into, into the crisper in the refrigerator. There are some things that soak up herbicides and pesticides. Like if you were to go online and do a search for the dirty dozen, you're going to see a lot of things of which you'd eat the skin. Peppers, peaches, strawberries, things like that. Those tend to not even be effective if you wash them. It's better to just buy them organic if it's something of which you're going to be that's thick and kind of fleshy. And then as far as the meats go, kind of a similar scenario. It's like when I'm traveling a lot of times I'll eat vegetarian or vegan just because I have no clue where the meats came from. And that meats are one of the quickest ways to get a huge amount of inflammatory corn and soybean oil derivatives and omega 6 fatty acids into your body along with any of the hormones and, you know, other issues that go along with eating a non organic or a non naturally raised meat that's free of things like hormones or that was fed grass or pasture raised or that type of thing. So I generally will either ask when I'm at the restaurant, you know, was this wild or was this grass fed? And if it wasn't, I just order something that's more along the lines of like vegetables. Sometimes I'll do fish. And again, a lot of times restaurants that don't have a grass fed beef will have a wild caught fish. But when I'm shopping, same thing. Hormone free pasture raised for the chickens, hormone free grass fed for the beef. But these are decisions that really affect full body inflammation. We don't tend to think about something like that. And shoulder injuries is going hand in hand. But it's certainly really important to think about. Yeah, so that would be another kind of big win for you. And then another source of inflammation that I would really take into consideration here would be, you know, you mentioned like pasta for example. Like if you're going to do pasta because wheat can be quite Inflammatory. I'm a bigger fan of either going with like a, you know, if you're, if you're making your own noodles or cooking your noodles at home, just using like a zucchini or squash type of like a julienne or a noodle maker that relies upon those. Or else going with like a quinoa based pasta or a rice based pasta rather than a wheat based pasta. And kind of like the same thing for rice. Like white rice is really clean and burns clean and is, you know, has fewer lectins and less arsenic than like a brown rice. That's another quote unquote safe starch. Sweet potatoes, yams, those are another really good starch source if you care for it or if you can find it. You know, taro, carrots, parsnips, beets, all of these type of things. But you know, the traditional wheat pasta type of approach really when you're going for every win possible and trying to shut down inflammation, that's a better way to go. So if you're, if you're dinner or post workout, generally you can get away with kind of almost like a carbohydrate reloading post workout type of approach where dinner is kind of like the most carbohydrate rich source of the day. That's certainly the case for me because I work out in the afternoon or evening, so most of my carbohydrates come in the source of typically with dinner, one of those safe starches that I just mentioned, plus a glass of red wine and sometimes a little bit of chocolate or something after dinner. And I know that my body's in a pretty insulin sensitive state right then, but they're still safe. I mean, even when I say chocolate, it's like 85% plus dark chocolate or one of the gluten free, dairy free types of chocolates like eating. Evolved.com for example, is a really good site for getting like chocolates that are really clean.

Okay.

But basically, you know, thinking, thinking not just about the total macronutrient profile of your meals, but also kind of like the source, which is just as important in my opinion.

So what do you use like to feel for inflammation? Is there anything, I mean, do you just feel it? Is there anything that you've come to means just recognize it in your body that you've done something wrong.

Sometimes some people actually show physical manifestations like acne, like red face, a little bit of difficulty sleeping or insomnia. A lot of folks though, it's more under the radar, like propensity for getting injured. Joints that tend to be sore, especially like kind of in the middle of the joint. If you really wanted to track inflammation, one thing that I found to correlate well with actual actual blood measurements. So you can measure inflammation in your blood via a measurement called hscrp. One thing that I found to be pretty effective is heart rate variability measurements. Meaning that you get like the one I use is Sweet Beat. So it's called, what do you call that? Sweet Beat. And what you can do is it's an app that you download to your phone and you can do like a five minute measurement every morning and you have to get a heart rate monitor along with it. But what happens?

Is it a special one or just any old one?

It has to be a Bluetooth enabled. So Sweet Beat has a list on their website of their, their Bluetooth enabled monitors.

I guess a Wahoo heart monitor.

Yeah, Wahoo. I think Wahoo is compatible. I'm pretty sure that's one of the ones that's listed. It's like a Polar H7. They've got a Wahoo. There's a couple others on there. And by the way, I take notes during our call. So I'll be sure and send you links to some of this stuff so that you don't have to go to the four corners of the planet and hunt it down.

Appreciate that.

But yeah, I'm a fan of that because if your heart rate variability tends to fall, that's a pretty good sign that you are either over trained or there's some type of inflammatory condition settling in on your body. So I generally for the athletes who I work with, I focus on getting heart rate variability above 80. And in an ideal situation where you're trying to be as recovered and have as good a day as possible above 90 for the actual total score. So that's a really good easy measurement that you can do.

Something I've heard about but haven't really looked much more into it.

Yeah, and that's the way that I do is with the Sweet Beat, the other one that works really well. Do you have an iPhone?

Yeah.

So there's another one called the Tinky. And that, that one I know kind of a funny name, but that one is, is a fingertip based measurement. And that one works pretty well too. It doesn't require a heart rate monitor. It uses the infrared. It actually doesn't use the camera. The Tinky has its own more accurate infrared measurement on it. It plugs into the dock of your iPhone. They have it available for 5s for iPhone 4 as well. And that one will measure breath rate, pulse rate, heart rate variability. And there's one other measurement that that one does, it's breath rate, heart rate, heart rate variability. Oh, pulse oximetry is the other one. That sort of look at your actual blood oxygenation, which is more important for like, you know, endurance athletes are really big on that because it's an indication of your potential for like anemia or low hemoglobin. But it's also if your heart rate or if your pulse oxygenation is low, that can also just affect like your day to day thought focus, that type of thing. So that's another kind of, kind of cool little tool for measuring. Those are my top two though would be the sweet bead or the tinky for those.

Yeah, definitely look into one of those.

Yeah. And then another really good resource for this is the website inflammationfactor.com and they've got a really good list of foods that are inflammatory and foods that are not inflammatory. And some of it's kind of surprising like blueberries are inflammatory because even though the anthocyanins and blueberry are anti inflammatory, once you actually eat a huge handful of blueberries, there's so much sugar in it that it's actually technically an inflammatory food. It's kind of interesting. It's like I kind of think that that's like one of the least damaging inflammatory foods that are out there, blueberries versus like pasta and processed sugar and stuff like that. But it is an interesting site to kind of dig into the inflammatory content of your food. So you know, you feed someyou go look at some of the staples in your diet and you see if those are inflammatory. So that's, that's a good way to use that side is you just say, okay, well I havei have kale every day so I'm gonna go look at that. Or I have chicken every day, so I'm gonna go look at that. And you try and get a net anti inflammatory effect in terms of your food intake.

So what do you find with whey protein is there? I know I switched to a, there's a concentrate I've been using for a while and I just realized it's been wrecking my insides. The new tub I got, so I threw it away. But do you have a preference that you like?

Yeah, if you do okay with whey, you know, if whey doesn't cause a lot of constipation and stuff for you, then I like a brand called Deep 30. And the reason for that is it's A goat based protein which makes it a little bit more bioavailable upon digestion and also has probiotics in it and digestive enzymes in it. So it makes it a lot easier for you to actually digest the food. It's also got a specific. This sounds kind of nasty but it's actually got a spore in it called gonadin bc and when you ingest the whey, that spore basically releases when it gets into your small intestine and kind of coats the lining of your intestine, helps you to digest the protein a little bit more efficiently. So people who have difficulty with you know, feeling like they're crapping out a straw after they have whey protein, they do okay with this stuff. So that one's called Deep 30 and it's also like I mentioned a goat based protein. So that's another really good one.

So.

Kind of along the line of supplementation, protein, stuff like that, you know, as far as power goes and for power lifters, you know I mentioned vitamin B complex and you're going to, if you're, if you're not vegan or vegetarian, you're probably getting enough vitamin B. There are some people that like to take a higher dose vitamin B derivative prior to doing power training or really hard efforts. And that can actually be a nice little biohack like something that kind of like is a high, high dose vitamin B. And you know that would include like vitamin B12, vitamin B6, niacin or B3. So use that as a pre workout acid. Yeah, you do like a full on vitamin B complex about 30 to 60 minutes prior to a power training workout. And again it's not because you're deficient in vitamin B if you're eating enough meat. It's more like the extra oomph that that gives you if you're especially doing like heavy sprinting, powerlifting, quick efforts, that type of thing. Because of vitamins B's role in the nervous system, the benefit of radioactive P. Yeah, exactly. So I'm a fan of, of life shots for this. It's like a packet that you just dump into your mouth or dump into a glass of water. It's also got a pretty good antioxidant effect. So that's one green tea, like if you can get about 400 to 500 milligrams of the active component, which is epigallocatechin. Yeah. EGCG, like green tea isn't gonna give you that much. But if you get like an EGCG supplement or a green tea Extract, Extract or they even make this stuff called edible green tea.

Yeah, I had that once. It was pretty gross.

Yeah, well actually if you, if you get the powder, like the powder, edible green tea, you can mix that up with like stevia, you can add a little coconut milk to it.

You can. Is that like matcha or is that.

You can hack it in tasting good? No, it's, it's even denser than Matcha. Even though matcha is pretty dense stuff. This is even denser which is why it actually has that tannic kind of flavor to it. But that stuff's really good as a pre workout. You can take that at the same time as a vitamin B complex as a stack and then the last one that works really well, especially in combination with those is choline so it's used as a neurotropic. There's this stuff called Alpha gpc. There's this other stuff called cytocholine.

Yeah. Do you have a preference? Do you like bitarterate or.

I do, I do cytocholine. I get it from, from this stuff called tnt, which is a Chinese adaptogenic herb complex that, that has like trace amounts of caffeine in it and some other, some other brain nutrients in it and that, that one stacks really well with like a green tea extract and a vitamin B complex. Another way to do it would be like Alpha gpc. Alpha gpc.

I take that now.

Yeah, like you can get it in bulk form from like peak nootropics is where I get it and you know around 500 milligrams or so of that because it's expensive and it's spendy. Yeah, it's definitely an expensive supplement. It's really effective.

I think I can make my own tablets.

I save it for like high priority workouts, honestly. But you know, Alpha GPC is traditionally like really potent when combined with paracetam and, and aniracetam is like a full on stack. But you know I, I don't really play around with that so much on only every every very once in a while when I have an incredibly hard kind of like cranial task to perform. But generally I go with the cytocholine that I get from the, from the tng. So that one works pretty well. And you can even mix like the EGCG or the edible green tea into that. You can mix a vitamin B complex into that and, and that's a good, once you suck it all down that's like a, you know, a good five to six dollar stack a pop. But for like the Higher priority workouts or like if, if the money isn't an issue kind of thing. That's a, that's a really good stack for like a power training workout or like a, like a harder weightlifting or sprint type of workout.

I mean right now my pre workout is a cup of coffee, so.

Yeah, yeah, I mean you can test it too. Have you seen like the CNS Tap test phone app?

No.

Yeah, the CNS Tap test phone app is basically this phone app that you, I believe it's just for iPhone, but it gives you a 10 second tap test for the, for the right hand and, and the left hand. And generally if you're tracking your tap test on a daily basis, a higher number of taps is associated with better neural adaptation and kind of like a more responsive muscles. So it's called the CNS Tap test. But that's, that's, I think it's like a free or you know, one of those like 99 cent, $99 cent kind of.

I love this kind of stuff. Mechanical engineer by training.

Yeah, it's a cool one. I've got it on my phone. I'll, I'll, I'll send it to you. Um, I'll, I'll send you an itunes link to it. But yeah, you just tap and it keeps track and it'll give you like a daily running graph of what you get for left hand, right hand. And it's kind of a cool little way to, to measure the, the strength of your central nervous system.

So I mean, so can you like track CNS burnout through that or you.

Could technically, but I'm a bigger fan of, for CNS burnout just doing like the, the heart rate variability testing because that's a direct look at your central nervous system strength. So. Yeah, and yeah, I'll send you that one along with some of these other things I'm talking about. So based off of that, that stuff will help quite a bit with the shoulder issue. The other thing that I would consider would be if you're already doing a lot of the mobility work from Kelly Starrett, one thing is shoulder stabilization via scapular strengthening. Generally I try, you know, I follow this really simple rule of pulling twice as much as I push at the gym. Once I started into that rule, I, because I used to injure my shoulder all the time playing tennis and swimming, that got rid of 99 of the issues when I combine that with soft tissue mobilization.

And so you mean like the same day, like you know, bench press 100, you row 200 type thing or no.

Not necessarily weight, but more like ratio. So let's say, let's say you've got four sets of bench press, then you would also on that same day have four sets of pull ups and four sets of seated rows. Or if you had four sets of bench press and four sets of overhead press, you might do the pull ups, the seated rows, and then also a single arm cable row. Or you can also do those type of things later in the day or as a separate kind of component. One of the things that I do to kind of get rid of having to spend a lot of time in the gym doubling up, doing twice as much pulling as pushing is I just have a pull up bar and have that in my home, in my home office and just do pull ups pretty much every time I walk underneath that thing like anywhere. Three, four or five pull ups. Sometimes I'll knock it down to like a horizontal pull up for a change of scenery and do more of the horizontal pull up type of stuff scenario. But that works really well. Another really good one for shoulder stabilization and scapular strength is the Foundation Exercises by Eric Goodman. Have you seen those? The Core foundation book. That one's really, really good. I mean, it was originally designed for like low back pain and core stability, but it works really well for shoulder alignment too. And it's just this book, it's got 10 exercises in it. You do the exercises two or three times a week. And that one works really well also.

So that's a book?

Yeah, that's a book. They're coming out with a DVD program too. I don't think it's actually released yet. But that's another pretty good one is the Core foundation exercises. So that one I look into as well. And I'd keep doing the stuff from Kelly Starrett. The other thing that works really well is the company that makes the. The foam roller, the rumble roller, which is the foam roller with all the ridges coming off it. They make one called a beastie Ball and that comes with this little metal contraption that allows you to reach back behind your back into your scapula. Your shoulder region carries minor and infraspinatus, which tends to kind of radiate to the front of the shoulder. And what you do is you just basically do a pressure point with that for about 30, 60 seconds, basically until the pain or discomfort subsides from holding that on there. And that one works really well. I actually keep one of those next to my desk. And sometimes, you know, when I'm actually doing consults like this Sometimes I'll reach back and hit it for a little while. It's a little bit painful. It's a little bit teeth gritting. But I know when I got the.

Book and was lying on the floor, I started crying. My girlfriend was laughing at me.

Yeah, you mean with the Becoming a Supple Leopard book? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is a similar feel, basically. So, yeah, I know it's an issue.

I mean, looking in the mirror now, I can definitely see my, like, right sides drooping a little more than my left, so I need to fix it before it gets too out of control.

Yep, yep, exactly. It's a big deal with power lifters, and a great deal of it comes down to soft tissue work and fascial adhesions, and a great deal of it comes down to scapular work and scapular mobility. So if I were in your shoes, I would be continuing with the Becoming a Supple Leopard book. I would make sure you add in daily soft tissue work, even if it means like, grabbing one of these beastie balls. And they even have, like, a wall attachment for it where you can lean into the wall and just, like, keep it on the. On a wall in your house or in your office and kind of, you know, like a bear rubbing its back against a tree, basically. And then you can also. What I would recommend is incorporate that whole just life philosophy of pulling more than you push, and then try these foundation exercises to just realign your body, because a lot of the shoulder issues can arise from poor movement kind of up your entire posterior chain from your glutes up to your shoulder blades. So that's another area to focus on.

I've seen it started to affect my squat, just where I put the bar on my back.

Yep, exactly. Exactly. What other questions do you have for me?

I guess, training wise, is there anything that you found to be effective or any preferences you have on that end.

For an actual program or for specific lifts?

I guess? Program, yeah.

As far as a program goes for power, I'm not familiar with that one by Ian King that you mentioned. Westside barbell puts out some good stuff, but a lot of that is a little bit more specific to strength. Basically, you know, for power kind of depends on your goals. But one of the better programs that I've seen out there is Dan John, and he has a book called Intervention, where he's heavily influenced by a lot of the Russian power athletes and kind of like the Eastern bloc philosophy of periodization and development of power via the use of simple exercises. Lots of hip hinging, lots of squatting, some high volume work, quite a bit of single side loading and that's one of the better programs that I've seen out there. So he's got a book called Interventions that really goes into what he calls course corrections for athletes. He has also kind of a book more on like philosophy of life called Never Let Go.

Yeah, seen that one. But Mass Made Simple.

Yeah, he did Mass Made simple too, which is actually, I mean with the, some of the complexes and stuff in that are so exhausting that you, you aren't quite lifting fast enough to develop power. But in his book Interventions, he has a whole chapter in there with some really good complexes that are, that are quicker, that provide for a little bit more rest and that are more conducive to power formation. I'm a big fan of his program just because it's a little bit more holistic, ties in some of the single side loading, some of the mobility work like the Turkish getups that a lot of these other programs don't incorporate and kind of has more that philosophy of training to be an athlete rather than training to be a powerlifter. And when you look at a lot of these Russian athletes, they are like Russian powerlifters are also doing some bodybuilding, doing some gymnastics. There's some of them that are doing triathlons and they're actually incorporating a mix of full body activities and using more of that philosophy.

I started doing yoga a couple days a week. I found it really helped.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's a little bit of a fine line because you can obviously get to the point where you increase joint mobility to the point where the muscles become a little bit lax. So you have to be careful with that. But yeah, I mean just a little bit here and there, like you know, for example, like one Bikram yoga week or like a flow yoga class, that type of thing can be really effective. And you know, a lot of, a lot of the times like if you're doing to do something like a Dan John kind of program, you wouldn't really need to do yoga quite as much because a lot of his stuff just has mobility already worked into it.

Okay, yeah, I'll definitely check out that book.

Yeah, so Intervention would probably be the one that I recommend most. He also has a DVD that is, that is also based off of some of the stuff that you see in Interventions. And then he also has like a warm ups workouts and barbell complexes DVD as well. So he would be a guy to look into and to Maybe even like go to. Go to his Amazon page and kind of dig around in that and see some of the stuff that he has. It's. It's definitely interesting. And, and he's the one guy I would follow and that I have followed in the past when it comes to both strength and power. Just because he's kind of, kind of been around a while and he's got one foot in the world of lifting and throwing, basically. And then he's also really academic and kind of understands his stuff. So he's a good dude.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like a good book.

Yeah. So what else? What other questions do you have?

I mean, do you find frequency? I mean.

Yeah, frequency. You're looking at about a 48 to 72 hour recovery period for the central nervous system. So I'm not a fan of doing power more than three times a week. That doesn't mean that on the other days there can't be something present, you know, like yoga, like lower intensity work, like, you know, swimming or, you know, some light bicycle work, that type of thing, or even some of the mobility stuff, like those core foundation exercises that I talked about, some of the fascia work, some of the breath work, if you're doing anything like meditative or focused breathology type of work. That's another really good book, by the way, for powerlifters. Is the book Breathology just in terms of learning how to direct your breath properly?

I've started trying meditation. It takes practice.

Oh, yeah, it definitely does. I mean, it's one of those things where if you turn every session that you do, whether it's a strength training session, a yoga session, a mobility session, or just driving in your car into a focused practice of breathing and doing some box breathing where you're doing a deep nasal breath, holding for five count or so and then exhaling for a five count, you can pretty much turn life into meditation without actually going out of your way to do meditation every day, per se. But yeah, it's definitely very powerful. Life hack, really. And then, yeah, that breathology book is really good. I'm actually trying to get the author of that one on a podcast soon. And there are other books out there, but in particular just for like, breathing.

Or does it have a focus towards exercise? Or is it just.

It's focused on what they call efficient breathing, but particularly like deep nasal diaphragmatic breathing. But it's a really, you know, the way that they teach is a little bit more involved than just like, you know, your basic nasal breathing technique. So they really get into the nitty gritty of how to do it. Specific exercises that you can incorporate throughout your day. You know, I personally have been using the power lung quite a bit as one thing that helps me really engage in more deep diaphragmatic breathing. I use it when I'm in my car. I just keep it in my car and whenever I'm driving, you know, I was driving to and from the airport well two times last week and pretty much was able to work in almost a 20 minute breath training routine both there and back. So that's a really good, good little tool to keep around too. Is just one of these power lungs.

What is the power lung? I thought it was one of those chambers. I guess it's not.

No, the powerlung you actually breathe in and out of. It's a spring loaded breathing device. Yep. You do like for example, 10 seconds of or 10 rounds of three breaths in, three breaths out, that type of thing and you feel a lot different. You feel more oxygenated the rest of the day after just one set. But I mean I can start, squeeze in, you know, for example, on, on the way to the airport. I can go through that, those 10 sets of three seconds in, three seconds out a good five or six times and really, you know, get in a full workout, you know, in just a 20 minute drive. So that's another really good, good little tool to have around is the power lung.

So yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I guess another question, so what was it called when each side of your body is a little like due to my shoulder, my chest, my left side has gotten a lot stronger than my right. Do you have any recommendations and sort of repairing that or your know, the.

Single side loading kind of stuff that I just talked about with, with the Dan John protocol is really good because a lot of times you are just doing bilateral loading when you're powerlifting. You know, everything from, from your push press to your overhead press, your bench press, you know, to even some of your protocols like your deadlift and shifting that to include some like unilateral lifts such as rather than a deadlift, a single arm kettlebell deadlift or single arm dumbbell deadlifts with a hold, those type of things can really help with some of the left right system imbalances. And this is going to sound simple and stupid, but whenever I've injured either a leg muscle or an arm muscle and had to rehab and played catch up with one side or the other, I'll just use unilateral loading and do one extra Set for the affected side. And I mean, it's a simple technique, but it actually works, for example.

So you find that was enough for you just doing an extra set on one side?

Yeah, if it is a true strength issue, if it's a scoliotic issue, or if it's a pelvic alignment issue. There's two other things. One is strengthening of the posterior chain using those foundation techniques that I talked about. The other one is a lot of times it can be a sacroiliac or a hip malrotation, in which case you would actually either use thethe part in Kelly Starrett's Becoming a Supple Leopard that teaches you how to self adjust your sacroiliac joint. I don't remember which page it's on, but he's got a section in that. Yeah, if you go to like YouTube and do a search for SI joint self adjust, you could also find a video there. And a chiropractic doc will do a real good adjustment for you, but that's a little bit more involved. And it is possible to self adjust. Like, it basically involves putting pressure on your right foot, push pressure on your right foot with pull pressure on your left foot, or push pressure on your right leg with pull pressure on your left leg and alternating resistance so you're providing the resistance with your hands. So pushing with your left leg, pulling with your right leg, providing resistance with your hands while you're lying on your back, alternating between both sides for about three to five second holds for a handful of times for each side, like three times through each side, and then putting a foam roller or a hard pillow between your legs and squeezing as hard as possible. And if you've done it correctly, what you'll feel is like a clunk in your low back when that happens. And sometimes you got to do it a few times before it kind of sticks and stays with you. But a lot of times that also contributes to left, right, upper body imbalances.

Yeah, I'll have to look into that. I know something that just recently happened when I squat now is I have to do low weight until I sort of hear pop in my hip and then I can start loading up.

Yeah, Yep, exactly. So you probably do have some SI joint issues that you could look into.

This is turning out to be very helpful.

I know a big, big laundry list of things to do, but I'm keeping notes as we talk, by the way, typing furiously so I can make sure I get all these over to you. And there's not too much for you to Remember? What else? What other questions do you have?

Let's see. I mean, this is, I mean, all this is sort of just for fun and a way to keep my mind off work. I don't know, I guess I've never been big in the cardio, but I mean, I've run like half marathons every once in a while just because I told people I would, but never. It's never been a joy, is there? I mean, cardio. Do you think it's necessary if you're doing, I mean, heavy lifting like this, or do you have any recommendations on that regard?

No, it's not necessary unless there's a functional need for it. So cardiovascular exercise has certainly been shown to do things like decrease visceral fat better than say, like powerlifting. So if you've got issues with the beer belly or if you're concerned about like, you know, arterial fat buildup, that can be effective. That's more of like a weight loss strategy that I'll use with some folks is they do the combination of lifting and then, you know, like fat burning, fasted cardio in the mornings. Another, another area where it can come in handy is if you're trying to build endurance for a specific life goal. Like if you're powerlifting, but you also want to have stamina, you know, for whatever, you know, anything from hunting to golfing to that type of thing, in which case, you know, doing like I mentioned on the off days from powerlifting, a little bit of low nervous system involvement work like low intensity, lighter cycling at anywhere from 60 to 70% intensity. I'm not a huge fan of running or catabolic work for people whose main priority lies in weight training. Just because there's, there's too much potential for dipping into muscle's amino acid stores or cannibalizing muscle. But light cycling, light swimming works really well. Even for example, if you're doing like a three day a week or a two day a week powerlifting type of program, having an extra day where you're just doing a little bit of super slow lifting to build up a little bit of peripheral resistance in the arms and the legs. As far as vascular, peripheral resistance can help out like a 10 second down, 10 seconds, seconds up type of routine. Working with four or five different full body moves, like a super slow bench press, a super slow pull up, a super slow overhead press, and a super slow squat, for example, that can have a really nice cardiovascular training effect while also lending itself to a little bit of the strength building that you might not be getting during some of the power lifting sets and I have a.

Kettlebell swings some nights. I find that sort of my way of getting it in.

Kettlebell swings certainly have been shown in research to outdo sprints when it comes to cardiovascular benefit. So that's another thing. I mean for me in terms of just like the little bit of the hormetic effect, a little bit of the cell turnover type of effect that it can have. My best recommendation for cardio, if you're going to do it, is something easy in the morning before you eat breakfast, before you get your day going. For me, it's a combination of deep breathing and yoga that gets my heart rate up a little bit and generally just about 10 minutes or so every morning. So that by the end of the week I'll have amassed 70 minutes of low light load work in a fasted state, which gives you both the fatty oxidation as well as some of the benefits, like the hormetic benefits of kind of like fasting and caloric restriction without it turning into a huge life suck or like an extra workout to do every day.

Cool. Yeah, no, it was just something. I mean, sometimes I'd run on weekends, but. Yeah, I don't know, it's never been. I mean my brother loves it. I'm just not a huge fan.

I don't know. There's really no need for you to run unless you have a specific goal that involves running. I mean, you can take somebody who hasn't run in years and years and years and then go out and run a mile just fine. It's kind of weird. The human body is pretty good at this stuff that we had expected to be weak at and that same person just wouldn't be able to lift a heavy rock off the ground. So strength is a bigger limiter than endurance in most human bodies, I guess.

Totally off the wall. Question, clothes. I have a tough as hell problem getting clothes that fit. Do you have any things that you use especially for dress shirts?

Yeah, just for life simplification. I only shop on express and Calvin Klein for clothes. I only use those two websites. I subscribe to their newsletters, I shop when they have their sales and I know that I'm a slim fit on both sites and that's pretty much all I do as far as the actual fit itself. I don't believe I got lucky. Just kind of doing okay with, with choosing what I kind of figured would fit me. And they've got really good return policies and everything. But there are, there are sites out there that have like, you know, Clothing fit engines or you know, whatever you call them. But I actually am probably not the expert as far as that goes. Although I was, I was, I was reading recently about one, one site that has a pretty good like fitting profile where you upload all your, all of your metrics or your measurements and they actually design a wardrobe for you. But I don't remember the name of it.

I'll have to google it.

Yeah, you could probably google something like clothes fit website and I might recognize it if it comes up. This might be it. Fit me. That might be the one. It's like an online.

You get the slim dress shirt and you. It's not even slim, it's just annoying.

Yeah, this actually, this fit me. Looks like it's more for, for women than men. But yeah, anyways, I like for me I just only shop ever on two different websites and that's it. And I just know if I stick to those two brands that it's gonna fit me so.

Cool. I'll have to keep on looking.

Yeah, sorry I don't have more direction when it comes to fashion.

Off the wall. Let's see. Anything else? I mean that's really helpful. I appreciate taking the time today for doing that. Yeah, no problem.

Build off of and I'll shoot you a follow up email here with my notes and my thoughts and comments and then if you have more questions after, just hit reply for anything that you forgot to ask or anything that needs clarification and I'll be happy to help.

Cool. Well I appreciate you taking the time and hopefully I can get the shoulder thing over and done with.

Yeah, yeah, just working the anti inflammatory foods mobility core foundation work, the pulling work and you should be good.

Have you ever heard of art therapy?

You mean like actual like drawing and art therapy and that kind of thing when they like. Oh, active release technique you mean? Yeah, yeah, Active release technique is freaking awesome. That stuff works really well. I mean it works for everything from tissue pain to constipation. I mean it's an amazing protocol and they've got a really good search engine on their website to find an active release therapist that's near you. I forget the name of the website. If you do a search for active release therapy and then just go to their website and they have a provider search on there where you can find someone and yeah, that's, that's really, really good stuff. In my opinion. Advanced muscle integrative technique is a little bit better or Amit, but that one is. It's harder to find a practitioner. There's only a handful of them around the US but, but active release therapy is, is a close second. So that'd be another thing that you could certainly look into if you were going to meet with a practitioner and kind of go that route.

So it seemed just a little weird. But you're saying it works. Oh, and someone recommend, what is it? Colostrum or something like baby milk.

Colostrum, Yeah. I take Colostrum. It's good for healing up the gut lining, sealing up any issues with leaky gut. It's also a good growth hormone precursor. I don't find it's good for necessarily injuries and it doesn't lend itself necessarily directly to power formation. But it's like a good, it's more of like an anti aging, longevity, gut healing type of supplement. So I take a goat based colostrum called Caprocolastrum. Just.it's in a capsule, take four a day. Just as like a daily, not year round but usually I've got. Typically it's over the winter and sometimes in the fall as well. I'll use Colostrum. So there are some supplements that I definitely don't take year round just because I think that sometimes you need a break from taking specific things.

Yeah, cool.

Yeah, a lot of really good questions though. So I'll shoot over my notes to you and then you can just let me know if you have any questions.

Oh great. Well, thanks for your time and all right, cool.

Nate, I'll talk to you later.

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