Pulling 8,800 Pound Fire Trucks By The Hair, Juggling Flaming Kettlebells, Discovering Underground Herbs & More: Logan Christopher & The Lost Empire Herbs Podcast.

Are you ready to learn how to juggle flaming kettlebells? Pull an 8,800pound fire truck by your hair? Do bridges with plates upon plates of weights on your stomach? I know you've always dreamed of doing these things, and you're about to learn how. Let's do this in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

In the common Western diet, we've gotten away from anything bitter. Even our vegetables, like kale's, somewhat bitter. But all these things have been bred to breed the bitterness out of them, because with that bitterness often comes these med components. One of the metaphors that pretty well describes this is that of a candle burning. The candle wax itself is the jing, the flame is the chi, and the light it casts off is the shen. So along those lines, the chi is kind of that everyday energy.

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Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And my podcast guest today is a relatively intriguing guy. He's delved into everything from neuro linguistic programming to hypnotism to energy medicine, psychology, herbalism, whole bunch of stuff. And he actually just got back from a trip to the Amazon jungle to spend time with indigenous people there for a couple of weeks, studying more when it comes to herbology. But he's doing more than just roaming around the Amazon munching on plants and stems. He's actually pretty well known for some crazy feats like he's pulled an eighth firetruck by his hair, juggled flaming kettlebells, and supported half a ton of weight in what's called a wrestler's bridge position. And he's got a great blog and he puts a lot of the herbal formulations that he develops over on his website, which is called Lost Empire Herbs. And I'll link to that over in the show notes. For everything we talk about today, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com LostEmpire that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com lost empire to check out some of that stuff. So, Logan, speaking of Lost Empire, and I don't think I even mentioned to People that. My guest name is Logan. Logan Christopher. Speaking of Lost Empire, you went to the Amazon. Do you find any lost empires there? What exactly were you doing over there?

Yeah, well, really what our name is about, why we ended up going with that is the Lost Empire is actually nature. In so much of what we are, humans are doing, we're kind of getting away from nature. But a lot of the health information that I delve into, and I know you do, is showing just how much these natural things help support our health and performance. So that we kind of think of that. Although people think of empires as peoples, you know, nature's in its own way a lost empire. So that was part of my mission in the Amazon jungle to go to a very pristine environment. I mean, it's pretty amazing when you're flying over on a plane and it's forced as far as the eye can see in every direction. So just getting to spend time in that ecology and with the indigenous people down there. I got to spend some time with the Achuar and just really take in and observe their culture. It's really cool to see that because there's very different things and it gives a good lens with which to look at our own culture just because of the compare and contrast of them. So it was a great time.

So what do you mean, what do you do when you go live with an indigenous people? I mean, what exactly goes on? Do you just stand there with your arms folded watching them do their do their daily routine, or are you actually immersed in their lifestyle?

It wasn't quite immersed. I wasn't living with them like living with a family for extended period of time. We were staying a little ways off and got to go visit them. But for instance, I could tell many stories, but we got to participate in their Yusa ceremony. So every morning about 3:00 in the morning, they did a little bit later for us, at 4 o' clock in the morning, they'd get up and drink guayusa tea, which is a leaf that's heavily caffeinated. So kind of like their coffee. And they drink a bunch of this and actually go out to the bushes and cause themselves to vomit. They purge every single morning. It's just a healthy cleansing protocol.

And then every morning?

Every single morning, yes.

What's this stuff called?

Ayusa Yusa. It's spelled G U A Y A S A. It is available. You might be able to find it some places online. I believe there are a couple companies selling it now from that area.

Wyusa. Yeah, I Looked it up. It's a species of tree native to the Amazonian rainforest. Yeah. Caffeinated holly tree, known for its stimulative effects. But they're actually throwing up after they eat.

Yeah. So you drink a whole bunch of this till your stomach's quite full. And it's, you know, I'm normally like a one cup of coffee guy. So drinking several cups of this stuff and then when you purge it, it's weird. It kind of sort of brings about a different effect of the stimulation to you. You do feel cleansed in a way. So it's interesting to do this because in the west, right, we think throwing up is completely bad, something you want to avoid at all costs. Right. But here they are doing it every single day.

Wouldn't you be concerned about some of the same things you get concerned about with bulimia, like acidic stomach acid ripping up their esophageal lining and things of that nature?

I was actually curious about that myself. I didn't have a opportunity to remember at the time to ask about that. But maybe it's something in the why use of tea? That really it's diluting the stomach acid. And truthfully since you're drinking so much of this, that's what's coming out. Not so much the contents or just the stomach acid. But that is an interesting thing. I'd have to delve into further. But yeah, it's really not about bulimia. I mean that kind of condition is unknown to the peoples there.

Okay. So they get up, they drink a bunch of this whyasa tea until they're just like bloated and they throw up. Was that your biggest takeaway from living with the, with the Amazonian tribe?

No, but then after this they go and they sit around in like community and they, they discuss their dreams, their big dream culture and actually like what they do on their day to day life is oftentimes predicated on their dreams. So yeah, it was very interesting. I've looked at my dreams a little bit. They kind of had a bit of a different take. But it was interesting because, you know, they kind of see the dreaming world as real as our real world. And so it's a very important part of their culture. And this also extends into things like you using ayahuasca and other visionary medicines as well and how those play into it.

Did, did they, did they do ayahuasca as well down there?

Yes, we did have an opportunity to do that.

Okay, got it. Now with the dreaming thing, did they have like a special, like dream recall system that they use, do they, do they write down their dreams when they wake up or, or did you have anything that you learned there as far as how to, how to interpret or how to interact with your dreams more intensively?

So they just grow up in a culture where the dreams are such a big part of it. So for them to not recall their dreams is just like, oh, you know, what's wrong with you? What aren't you doing? So yeah, they did make some recommendations as far as that, like fasting or just really setting the intention to remember your dreams. Because so many people tell themselves, you know, I never remember my dreams. And you know, if you're saying that to yourself, it becomes a belief and then, you know, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. So really just in their culture it's such a big part of it that everyone kind of assumes that's the way it is. And so they remember their dreams pretty easily. As far as their dream interpretation, they're really focused on whatever your dreams were of that day have to do with something going on that day almost always. So that was a little bit different because usually the way I've kind of studied and learned about it is more having to do with the psychology and different themes recurring in your life. And that was certainly part of it. But it was also an issue because we're going through double translation from English to Spanish to Achwar and back. So I'm sure a couple things were lost in translation as well.

What's it called? Achwar.

Atchwar.

And was that the actual name of the tribe?

Yeah, that's the name of the people there.

How do you spell that?

A C, H, U, A R, Achuar.

Okay, cool. So with this Achar tribe and their dream recall, when you come back from a situation like that, are you doing anything differently when it comes to dream recall or studying your dreams or anything of that nature?

I'd say since returning from the Amazon, I'm certainly remembering more of my dreams. This is something I've worked on a bit on and off over the years. So my protocols, I wake up in the morning and I have dreams, I'll go and write them down. I kind of start off my morning routine with that and then I work to interpret my dreams. Sometimes that comes easier than others. But having learned from them and how they tend to look at dreams, I kind of see that as a different lens from which to look at my own dreams. As I said, really focused on that like daily interpretation or how it's going to Operate in the day to come.

Do you use any type of books or anything like that to learn how to recall and interpret dreams? Do you know of any good guides out there?

Let me look at my bookshelf real quickly. Yeah, I've read a number of things. I've studied some of the material from Edgar Cayce. He definitely has some good stuff on that. There is a book called Dream Language by Hoss H O S S that I found was very useful as well.

Dream.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Is it true that there are certain things, like if you're. If your teeth are falling out or if you think you're flying or if you're, like, embarrassed in a public place in your underwear that those mean specific things in terms of, like, the prophetic.

Power of dreams in some way? Yeah, I mean, if you look at it, there's many books on, like, dream symbols, but you really have to look at what's that symbol mean to you, and you have to look at the context of different things. So, yeah, if you're having recurring dreams about those things, then, yeah, I would definitely look up some of the symbology what other people suggest. But just because you're flying and another person's flying in a dream doesn't mean necessarily the same thing. You have to look at the surrounding context of what else is occurring in the dream as well as what's actually occurring in your real life.

A lot of people dream about their teeth falling out. I don't know if you've heard about this, but yeah, it supposedly represents, like, some kind of a transitional period occurring in your life that you might be apprehensive about.

And it could have to do with the communication aspect is what's coming to me. I think I may have seen that before. Just the stuff having to do with the mouth or the throat, being able to communicate freely or being scared to.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. My probably most commonly recurring dream, aside from being in public places in my underwear, is flying. But not really flying, more like running. Usually I'm running down a hill and I'm leaping and bounding, but every time I leap and bound, I go like 20ft into the air. Almost like I'm wearing. Wearing spring boots or something like that.

That sounds pretty fun. That's a good dream to have for you kids.

It's a great dream. Just bouncing around. Bouncing around. So speaking of bouncing around, you've done quite a few kind of crazy physical feats. So first of all, I noticed that among. Among the feats that you've done, including pulling an 8,800pound fire truck by your hair and juggling kettlebells that are on fire and supporting half a ton of weight in the wrestler's bridge that you actually started off kind of like weak and scrawny and skinny. So tell me how you got into like extreme fitness feats from being a relatively non athletic person, Right?

Yeah, I was the proverbial 98 pound weakling entering high school. I literally did not weigh a hundred pounds. And I, I played football, but I was not very, at all, not very good. Neither was our team, but that's a different matter. So I didn't really have much in the way of results. You know, I did some training with football, but still, as you said, like not naturally athletic, not naturally strong. My older brother, he got into bodybuilding, so I was trying to work at that and still not much really. It was when I found out about body weight exercises that I started to see some results. You know, going beyond just like push ups and sit ups, but all kinds of body weight squats, ab exercises, starting to work toward hand stands and handstand push ups, that sort of thing. And from the body weight stuff, I was getting results there. And then I got into kettlebells and that kind of led into old time strongman stuff. So I just kind of opened up this new world of different fitness modalities that I was not aware of before. And kind of, because I came from that weak and scrawny place also like really not confident at all. And I started to gain confidence with this training. I decided to pursue it further. And one of the biggest impacts on me was reading a biography of an old time strongman named the Mighty Adam. There's a book called the Spiritual Journey of Joseph L. Greenstein, which was his actual name. And I don't know what it was, but something about reading that book and hearing that story, I thought, I want to be able to do that too. I want to be able to do these insane strongman feats. He would bend nails, he actually bit through chains on two separate occasions. He stopped single propeller planes from taking off by his hair. He wouldn't recommend that because it nearly scalped him. And it did actually scalp another guy that tried to replicate it. But he pulled vehicles often and that's where I actually got the okay, I have long hair. I was growing it out at the time. You know, why don't I try to actually pull a vehicle by my hair? And of course I started with smaller vehicles, but eventually worked my way up in that. That fire truck is the Biggest thing I've pulled so far.

Oh my gosh. I'm looking at a picture of this guy online. The Mighty Adam, the Life and Time. So his name was Joseph Greenstein. And there's a picture here. He's wearing like one of these old school, like, like, what do you call him? The unit singlet. Yeah, the left. Yeah, the Leopard Prince singlet. And he's, he's. I don't know, he's in like a. He's bending something. It would appear to be like a nail. And you read this book and this is one of those old timey strongman training books, huh?

Yeah, it's more biographical. I mean, if you read between the lines, there's a lot of great training information in there. But yeah, he was a small Jewish kid that literally shouldn't have survived. The doctors all said he was going to die, but he ran away and joined the circus and was tutored under a strongman and wrestler there and became healthy and strong, eventually moved to America and started doing shows in vaudeville until vaudeville died out. And then he was kind of. He was also into herbs, which we'll be talking about as well, and healthy living and how all these things fit together in different ways. So actually going back, there's so much in that book which kind of directed.

My life in different ways that's mind boggling. It's an expensive book. Looks like it's like under 20 books new. It's hard to find.

Yeah, it is out of print right now, but I do, if anyone's interested in that sort of thing, I highly recommend it. It is, it's worth that amount of money.

Yeah. It looks like on Amazon you can actually get a few places in like a used format, but it's still even like 40 bucks used. And I love stories like this where people are supposed to die and they instead defy what physicians have told them and become like amazing physical specimens. As far as this guy goes, were there or any of the other old timey strongmen that you studied, did you happen to. To grab any really specific pieces of training advice or training programs or go to workouts that some of these guys would do that you think kind of fly under the radar these days?

Well, there's so many different old time strong men and I've read so many books on these guys and like you're saying, a lot of them did start from this really weak place and sought to overcame that, and that became the driving force. And although, you know, no doctor said I was going to die when I was a Child, I definitely feel that is the similar sort of thing for me coming from that weak and scrawny starting point, really looking at all these different strongmen. I mean, there's so many. There's Arthur Saxon, Alexander Zas, Herman Goettner, all these different guys, and they really did all sorts of different things. And I think that's an important message because there's no one right way to train, and it really depends on what you're trying to do. So, you know, how you train to pull a fire truck by your hair is little different than if you're doing endurance events and you can get these little bits and pieces from different people. But ultimately, you kind of have to find your own path and what works well for you and also fits in with your motivations and your desires.

So how did you train to pull an 8,800 pound firetruck by your hair? How's the actual workout for that go?

It's pretty simple. If you understand the principle principles of progressive training, it's basically the same no matter what you're doing. So I started with a small truck and pulled that by my hair.

Like a little toy. Like Hot Wheels truck?

No, no, no. Like a normal side pickup truck sort of thing. So really, if you have all the hair together, it is pretty strong. And I wouldn't say I'm starting from baseline to do this feed. It takes a lot of neck strength. And I was at the same time doing all those bridging stuff, which ultimately led to that half ton wrestler's bridge. So I had overall body strength. I was overall in decent condition to start this. And when you have all the hair together, it's as strong as a rope. So I started with a pickup truck, then I went to, like, a much bigger van that was loaded full of equipment for my training. I then started going from level ground to going up a slight incline. So I just worked with progressively larger weights and progressively longer distances. Or, you know, going at an incline is the same as basically increasing the weight. So I did enough training that I thought, yeah, I could probably pull this truck. And I didn't know for sure until I got to that event where that took place. And I got to try it out, and it was not easy. It was not only the biggest vehicle I'd ever pulled by my hair, it was the biggest vehicle I'd ever pulled, period. So it was pretty tough.

Wow. So the. The hair, how does it actually attach to the truck?

I had to. Me and my friend actually came up with. You know, we, like went to A hardware store and got creative. Basically, I have a ponytail and I would loop that around like an iron ring and then zip tie my hair in place. So it's kind of the ponytail looped back on itself with this ring. Then ran a hook to chains leading to the vehicle. So pretty simple setup. But it was very different than the Mighty Atom used to do because he had like a classic Jew fro. It was very curly hair. And he'd have like a comb like contraption that he would use in order to do that. And he also pulled the vehicle the other way so he would face the vehicle and walk backwards. I face away from the vehicle when I pull.

Yeah. I think I'd probably have to use one of these combs. Personally, my hair is not quite as long as yours. That's super interesting. And by the way, for those of you listening in, I'll link to this. I've got this on my must buy list on Amazon right now. The Mighty the Life and Times of Joseph Greenstein, Biography of a Superhuman. I'm intrigued. This might be my next airplane book. It's rare that I'll spend 40 bucks on a hardcover book, but this actually looks like it could be pretty, pretty good one. So you've also, in addition to pulling the fire truck, done weighted backflips, supported half a ton in a wrestler's bridge position, and juggled flaming kettlebells. So that, that was another one that I wanted to ask you about is why on earth you chose to juggle a flaming kettlebell and how you actually do that. Like, just logistically, how does that even work?

Okay, well, first let me address juggling kettlebells. It's not actually juggling them in the standard sense of what you do with three or more objects. Juggling kettlebells involves just the flipping, catching, releasing, spinning of a kettlebell around your body. Typically it's done with one kettlebell, although you can do double kettlebell juggling as well, which certainly makes it much tougher to do. So I've been practicing this just because it's a really fun thing to do. Like, kettlebells are great tools. And when you can really insert the skill component in sort of chaotic movement because you're moving, it's not real linear or two dimensional like most weight training exercises are, but you're really moving in three dimensional space when a kettlebell is flipping around your body. So not only is it building strength, it's building endurance. Hand, eye coordination, all these different things at once. So I think it's a very fun thing to do. And that's the great thing. You go out to work out and you're literally just practicing these skills. And soon enough a half hour's gone by, you've gotten a great workout and you were just having fun the whole time.

Oh, yeah. Kettlebells are very unwieldy. That's why I like them. Me and my kids use the, a lot of these kettlebells from Onnit and they're, they're, you know, in a variety of different weights. But even something as simple as, you know, one of my go to exercises is I'll do walking lunges in the driveway. I'll take justjust double kettlebells and hold them up around my collarbones. And your chest, your lungs, your diaphragm, your inspiratory and expiratory muscles are really heavily burdened. Having to kind of squeeze those kettlebells together up by your collarbones. And I use some pretty heavy kettlebells, I think they're called, they go by poods, right, the weight. So I think these are, I don't know, one and a half, two poods, something like that. Like, they're pretty heavy. I would say 60, 70 pounds each side. And I'll just do walking lunges across the driveway. But even just trying to wield that unwieldy object is really, really pretty hard. And when you talk about juggling, one of my favorite exercises that is a combination of almost like a metabolic workout and kind of like a trance like state is I'll take the kettlebell and just do basic one hand kettlebell swings, but then let the kettlebell leave my hand and hover in the air for just a split second in between each swing, right? So you swing up, you release the kettlebell, catch with the other hand, drop down, swing up, release, switch to the other hand, and you know, a set of about one and a half to two minutes of something like that is actually pretty, pretty metabolically stimulating. And it's a cool way to work out. You know, anybody who has not yet just switched, for example, to ditching barbells, ditching dumbbells and trying to just kettlebells for a couple of weeks, you're missing out on a big way to get a very, very quick fitness breakthrough with, with a lot of functional strength. But how do you light them on fire load? That's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the million dollar question.

Okay, And I'll get to that. Let me just add. So if you want to take that to next Level. Just when you're releasing it at the top, you give it a little bit of a push with the hand and you can get that kettlebell to rotate around and then you catch it like.

That so it flips upside down.

Yeah, you can do it either way. You can push the handle above the ball of the kettlebell or under it and you can spin it to the left. Right. There's tons and tons of moves. I can send you some videos on those first getting started steps. But yeah, that can be really fun to play with. And like you said, it helps you enter into that meditative. I kind of like it. You're really flowing with this. Once you have a number of these different skills, you're just flowing from one move to the next without necessarily thinking about what you're doing as you go along. So the whole flaming kettlebell thing, this actually came about from. I was training with a, basically one of the foremost old time performing strongmen alive today. A guy that was taught by the mighty Adams protege, the Slim the Hammer man, in turn taught this man, Dennis Rogers, who's been really successful performing feats for people. And at this seminar, I forget exactly how we got onto the details, but somehow someone was talking about lighting something on fire. And I don't know if it was my idea or someone else, but they said, oh, you should light a kettlebell on fire. So I thought, oh, that's a great idea. So once again, how do you actually go about doing this? Once again, going to the hardware store, being creative about it, basically came up with, I wrapped the kettlebell in kevlar wick, which is the sort of thing they use for fire dancing. And this was soaked in lamp oil. And so just this kevlar wick soaked in lamp oil, it's just safety pinned onto the kettlebell and then lit on fire. And it makes a big ball of fire. And I was in order to juggle it because it is a big ball of fire. I was wearing welding gloves, I was long sleeve shirt wetted down. Just, you know, if you're gonna be stupid, you gotta be smart about it at least. And it was fun. It's only something I've tried two times. It's not like that's my normal training by any means, but it was an idea I had and thought, you know, this will be fun to do as.

You'Re training your body to do things like juggle these big kettlebells that are on fire and pull the fire trucks by your hair. You know, do the weighted backflips. I Know you, you've put a half ton of weight on your body in a wrestler's bridge position. How much of this is mental? Because I know you're into like hypnosis and neuro linguistic programming and stuff that we've kind of touched on before on the show. But how are you actually utilizing these type of tactics for these old timey strongman feats? How's that work?

Absolutely. So I feel it's from starting out weak and scrawny, not naturally being strong, that I kind of sought to get an edge. Once I got into this stuff, it's like, okay, how can I actually become strong? I'm not naturally gifted. What can I do? I was always kind of smart. So that kind of, I guess led into the mental training. And speaking about the mighty Adam, there is a story near the back of that book where during his shows he would sometimes pull a person on stage, hypnotize them, then that person would be able to bend a nail, which they never could do before or never could do after. So that probably planted a seed for me. So I got into learning hypnosis and neuro linguistic programming or nlp, and just thought, you know, how can I use these methods, these technologies in order to help me become stronger? When you say how much of it's mental, the truth is it's all mental. Right. We like to split the body and the mind or the physical and the mental, but really these two are intertwined and can't be separated. So I feel there's a mental part to everything that I do. That being said, there's certain kind of mental tactics that I've developed and worked with on people in order to get them to become stronger instantly. And I can go over an example of that if you'd like.

Yeah, let's hear it.

Okay. So one of the things from neuro linguistic programming is known as sub modalities. The modalities themselves, these would be your sensory systems. The main ones being sight, what you hear and then your feeling, the kinesthetic. So visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Now submodalities are kind of the smaller quality distinctions of these. And you can do all kinds of stuff playing around with these. NLP was really created by modeling some therapeutic geniuses, some people that were really good in different fields of therapy. So most of NLP is focused on that, but I wanted to get stronger with it, so how could I use it for that? What I found is just by making some of these, some modality distinctions, changing some things up, it can dramatically or oftentimes just subtly change how good you are at a given exercise. An example of this, when I was presenting this information at a health and strength conference, I had a woman come up and she was able to do two one arm push ups, which is already pretty strong, especially for a woman. That's a good amount of strength. Not a lot of men can do that, but she had a mental block about this, so I ended up leading her through. How does she perceive this exercise internally? So if I ask you to visualize yourself doing a one arm push up right now, what do you notice? Some things you can notice. Are you inside your body or are you outside of your body?

I guess when I think about a one arm push up right now, I would imagine myself outside my body. Kind of like watching a person doing a one arm push up.

Okay, so is this life size or is it bigger than life size or is it smaller? Like you're kind of watching it on a screen?

It's like I'm watching on a screen. It's like. It's like me in a room on the floor trying the one arm push up.

Okay, so how small is it then? How big is the screen or how small is it?

It's like about the size of like, I guess like a television size screen, like a small television, like a computer monitor.

Okay, and how bright are the colors? Is this once again lifelike or is it dimmer than usual or brighter than usual?

Probably dimmer than usual. Not super lifelike.

Okay, so if we did something simple like just brighten the colors up on it right now and make it bigger, transform it to life size.

All right, so in my mind's eye, I'm thinking about like the person doing the one arm push up, me doing the one arm push up. I'm wearing like a like. So I'll change up the colors. I'm good at this. I'm a creative guy, you'll find. So change up the colors. I've got a red T shirt on now and black shorts. I'm a little bit bigger, so I'm zooming in now. I fill up the whole screen and the colors are more vibrant.

Okay. And as you're doing this, I mean, normally if I was coaching someone through this, I'd have them actually physically do the exercise first and then after these changes, have them do afterwards. And what you'll often find is that the exercise comes easier to you than so just visualizing it, since that's all we're doing right now. But how do you feel about that exercise having brightened it up and made it bigger.

I feel like we probably should have done a whole lot more than just brightening it up and making it bigger.

Yeah. So these are some general generalities. Oftentimes I have found with people just making it bigger, just making it brighter, that's enough to elicit some change. But if we want to go much deeper than this, then one, we're not just focusing on the visual information. There's all these other things that we can do with it. And we can actually find how a person themselves internally codes a easy exercise versus a hard exercise. And that's what we did with this woman on stage. And at the end, the end result of it is she did seven one arm push ups. So that is a significant increase she got from just spending a few minutes kind of looking into how she internally perceived the exercise. Now there's so.

So was she doing more than just like turning up the vibrancy and the color?

Yeah, we actually, if I remember correct, Lee, what we did was we had her, we looked at how she perceived herself doing the one arm push up. And I don't remember the details of it, but then we compared that to an easy exercise which just a bodyweight squat. And then we took those qualities of the bodyweight squat, how she perceived that, and we mapped the one arm push up into that. So let's say that the body weight squat, for instance, was she was inside the body rather than watching it from the outside.

Okay.

Then we had her see the one arm push up from inside. And a couple of changes here as well, as we allowed new things to emerge. And one thing that was very important, for whatever reason for her, she saw a yellow tint to it all. And then before she went and did the exercise, she heard an internal voice. Whether this was coming from her, obviously it was from her nervous system, but whether this was her voice or someone else voice. But something said, you can do seven of them. And so she heard that and felt it right before actually going into the exercise. And she was able to do seven.

That's really interesting. So I could take an exercise that I find to be easy, let's say like a regular push up.

Yep.

And I could visualize that because I. I can crank out regular push ups all day long.

Right.

I could visualize that and see what it is that I'm doing when I visualize it. Because when I think about that, like I could totally feel the whole thing. I'm inside my body, I'm close to the floor. I could feel the floor getting close to My face pushing up and out and away from the floor over and over and over again. I can see the color, I can see what I'm wearing. I can see.

Is there something that you say to yourself as you do the push ups or before you do the push ups?

No. Should there be?

No. And I'm not saying necessarily something you actually speak out loud, but there might be an internal voice to that as well. And oftentimes all this stuff, a lot of people think they're not good at visualizing. And yes, while some people are better at it naturally than others, it is a trainable skill and it's something you can develop. But oftentimes this stuff just flits by without our conscious awareness being there. But yeah, looking at the internal dialogue is also an important component.

That's really interesting. Can it work in reverse? Like, could it make. The reason I ask this is because one of my, one of my ideas that I use to train for the bucket carry in a Spartan race is I have a huge heavy keg, a really awkward keg in my garage, and I grab that keg and one of my go to workouts is I'll just carry it around the perimeter of my house, then set it down, recover, do some mobility exercises like opposite arm, opposite leg extensions and some sideways lunges, and just some basic easy exercises until my grip and my lungs have recovered. Then I'll carry the keg around again and it makes the actual tiny little five gallon buckets in comparison to the keg seem very, very simple. Could I, for example, take the way that I feel during like a one arm push up and use that to be able to crank out a whole bunch of regular push ups or use like, you know, the keg when I'm getting ready to do a bucket carry and take the harder exercise and visualize the harder exercise to make the easier exercise something I could do even more quickly?

Yeah, this is definitely something that is very open to experimentation. This is something I just found was working out and so I've used it a bit. But here's the thing, everyone needs to find what works for them individually. So for you, perhaps the whole visual component seems to be stronger and you'll want to really focus on that. For other people, it may be more of the feeling or kinesthetic component and there's all kinds of different ways you can play with this that should bring about results. When you were first talking about doing it in reverse, like I was thinking you could actually do this in order to make an exercise harder, just this fun for comparison's sake. But you know, take that picture of you doing the one arm push up and put it so far out in the distance you can barely even tell it's there. And turn the colors black and white and have everything kind of fade to black. And if you did stuff like that, chances are you would actually operate worse at the exercise than if you did the things that just kept it normal.

Why would you ever want to do that?

You wouldn't, except just for comparisons. Because here's the thing, people naturally do stuff like that without being aware of it. If you have a mental block about an exercise, you're telling yourself, oh, I could never do that. That is going to make these sort of visualizations or stuff in the other sentence senses actually do that sort of thing. So just being aware that you can change it in order to make it worse can help bring about that awareness. So you can change it to make it better.

That makes sense. And this is all called neuro linguistic programming.

This is all one facet of neuro linguistic programming. And I've just kind of applied it to exercises in a way that I haven't seen anyone else do at all. But yeah, these submodality distinctions are, have many other uses as well.

Okay. It's called a sub modality.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. So I've got some other questions for you about, about training and diet. You went from being pretty skinny to now you're, you're relatively built. I know you're into herbal medicine and herbs and I want to ask you about those. But I also just want to talk about real food. When you went through the phase of getting really good at these old timey strength training routines, putting on muscle or even now are you following any type of special diet or using any kind of dietary strategies like intermittent fasting or ketosis or anything like that?

Yeah, I've experimented with many different things over the years. I'd say to boil it down to basics, I'm all about getting high quality food that's as natural as possible. My body definitely runs well off of fat as its primary fuel source. I did experiment a little bit with ketosis and found that it was not. Maybe I didn't work at it long, but from what I've seen, the research on people like doing strength athletics where you need that glycogen, I definitely felt a tanking in my workouts as well as actually my libido as well. So that was a fairly short lived experiment. But I do do things like intermittent fasting pretty regularly. A fairly high Fat diet, moderate protein. I certainly eat a fair amount of carbs, but generally as high quality and healthy food, organic, that sort of thing. Lots of vegetables, but a lot of fat as well.

Yeah. That's interesting what you say about carbohydrates, especially with regards to testosterone. I've been looking into this recently and I'm working on an article on it about how the testosterone to cortisol ratio, the free testosterone to cortisol ratio, they've done a study on this and they found that people who eat too few carbohydrates, like, who dip underneath about 30% total intake. And we're talking about active people doing what's called an intensive training microcycle. In this case. These are like men doing some pretty intensive strength training. 30% was kind of like the magic mark where once they got below 30% carbohydrates, their free testosterone to cortisol ratio actually got pretty, pretty unfavorable. And you know, I certainly saw that when I was using something like ketosis and some extreme carbohydrate restriction for ironman. You know, not even a very glycolytic sport, but a relatively, you know, what you would argue would be like an aerobic fat utilizing sport, pretty significant drop in testosterone. And sure, some of it might have been the chronic repetitive motion which we know also, you know, decreases testosterone, but I think a big part of it was probably dropping below that, that 30% carb intake. But to be fair, I don't know if you've seen more recent studies literally in the past couple of months that have shown, you know, like, like crossfitting and ketosis and strength training in ketosis and show that there's not, there's not a huge detriment with like short term explosive strength training and ketosis, probably because there's not enough glycogen being used or you're using a lot of your, like your creatine phosphagen pool and your ATP pool rather than just like strict, strict glucose or large amounts of glycogen. And it's, I guess it's kind of like that middle range where you're doing, you know, like, like two four, six minute events that are really hard where you really start to tap into a lot of glycogen and, and where, you know, if you're like, let's say like a 1500 meter or a miler, that's where something like ketosis might, might hold you back more than just from like a testosterone standpoint.

Right. Yeah. All I know is in my experience and once again, I may not have done because it does take some time for the body to adapt to that, but my workouts were hit or miss and definitely that effect on my libido overall. So I decided, you know, I'm going to bring back the carbs in, but I still do a fairly high fat diet. Like my standard breakfast I had this morning was some pastured eggs and sausage along with some bok choy and kale steamed up and a little bit of sauerkraut on top of that. I do a fair amount of meat coming from grass fed. High quality meats is the best quality I can find. But then for carbs like sweet potatoes, I use honey pretty regularly. Some different sweeteners, I'll do some like shakes and smoothies. I be a good way to take the herbs sometimes, but with a base of coconut milk or some nuts in there as well. So all sorts of different things. But yeah, I'd say overall that's kind of a recap of my diet.

Nice, nice. I like it. And the herbs that we've talked about so far are the herbs that make you throw up or the herbs that induce dreaming. I wanted to ask you actually a little bit more about specific herbal formulations because you have a whole bunch of formulations that you've developed and some of them are pretty unique and contain herbs that I haven't really heard of before. Things with weird titles like the Hercules formula and the Phoenix formula and the Spartan formula, stuff like that. But before I get into the specifics of some of the different things inside these formulas that I wanted to ask you about, one thing, I've been using quite a bit black ant extract, which, which you introduced me to. What. What' swhat's kind of like your method for researching herbs or, you know, I know you went to the Amazon. Are you, when you're in a situation like that, kind of like trying to identify new herbs that, that folks might not have discovered before, are you, are you turning to other forms of research to figure out, you know, what combines with what and how to source your herbs? I mean, how do you actually, how do you actually figure out how you're going to put together herbs or discover these herbs in the first place and especially source them too? Because I know a lot of herbs have not only artificial colors and chemical sweeteners added to them, but they're just stale or useless or old.

Yep. Yeah, it's a fun area to go in. So a lot of questions there.

Yeah, I think I squeezed like five questions in that Question.

As far as learning about the herbs, this comes from a number of places, but hearing about them from other people reading about them. So I basically kind of look at two different areas. There's kind of the ancient wisdom about the herbs. You know, Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, these have been around for thousands of years. Western herbalism, there's different facets of that, but that's been around for hundreds of years. So these are good starting places because these are people that actually, actually knew about the herbs and knew what they did and worked with people in using them. If you think back to a long time ago, but people were kind of using these clinically double blind placebo controlled studies, weren't around yet, but most of that knowledge comes from there. And that's not to say that all of it's accurate, but that's certainly a good starting place to go from then we can also look at the scientific side. And I love science and I'd like to dive into this. And it's also difficult with these herbs because they're not pharmaceuticals, they're not massive amounts of, of money behind them. So many of these herbs have very little amounts of science. Especially if you're looking for the gold standard, double blind placebo controlled studies with humans. Sometimes there are no human studies with a certain herb which may have a great reputation from the traditional uses, but that's not there yet. And I hope more science comes out on these things. And it's also tricky to navigate that because there often is not much.

Yeah, that is so. So something like, let's use black ant extract as an example. Like how do you find that, what does it do and how do you actually source it?

Right, so ant, and it's a specific variation of ant, the Polyrhachis Rogers vincina. Ant is used in Chinese medicine, has been used for a long time. It's known as the herb of kings because kings would actually use this one. And it's known as the Premier Qi tonic. Most people have heard of ginseng, that's a very well known herb, which is also a Qi tonic, but ant is considered even better. Qi tonic. The way I like to describe it is it gives you energy you can typically feel right away. So I learned about it.

Is that like how a Qi tonic works? I mean, is that the definition of a Qi tonic?

You feel it right away, not necessarily chi. The standard translation for that would be energy, of course. You know, you look at Chinese medicine, all different types of energy. And what kind of energy are you talking about? It's a very nebulous term, but yeah, that'd be the standard thing. And so in Taoist herbalism, they, they have the three treasures, jing, qi and shen. Jing is kind of your foundational energy, your essence. That's considered kind of the hormonal component and reproductive system, different things like that. And they say once you run out of jing, you're dead. So it's really that kind of more considered a denser form of energy. While qi is the everyday energy that you burn. You get chi from breathing in and from the food that you eat. So this is kind of your everyday energy you need to get around and do things. Then shen is considered the spirit or the illumination. So this is the mind and the emotions and also, you know, what you're doing out in the world. So one of the metaphors that pretty well describes this is that of a candle burning. The candle wax itself is the jing. The flame is the chi and the light it cast off is the shen. So along those lines, the qi. Yeah, it is kind of that everyday energy Ant just happens to be one that most people can feel that when they take it. I don't know if that's been your experience with it or not.

Yeah, the black ant stuff is actually stuff I've been putting in my smoothies and shakes. Like I'm constantly trying to figure out things other than like ephedra and caffeine and central nervous system stuff, stimulants. And I like a lot of these herbal tonics. I've used them for a long time. Like some of these things from Chinese herbal medicine. Not just the herbs themselves, but even some of the practices, right? Like that jing that you talked about, the life force. I mean, there's this idea, I don't know if you've heard of this behind, not necessarily ejaculating frequently, right? Like with sexual energy, actually being aware of, of how much sexually sexual energy you, you spread around, so to speak. And even considering doing things like, you know, getting erections and having sex without orgasm to increase the amount of jing that you have. Or at least not to, not to prematurely exhaust your, your jing levels. And so there's, there's like lifestyle practices like that where you can hold on to jing. But then what you're saying is that when it comes to key like daily energy, that you would use something like, like an ant extract. Now what about for jing? What if I wanted to say, let's say increase jing in some way other than just like not ejaculating, which we all know is, is Not a lot of fun.

Well, the whole Taoist practice around that is to actually be able to separate orgasm from ejaculation. So you can still have the fun part. That's true. And that's, you know, something I played with a little bit and need to practice a bit more to be able to get there.

It's called the Big Draw. There's actually a really good book about this that I just finished called the Multi Orgasmic Man. I'll link to it in the shownotes. But it shows you how to do that. It shows you how to orgasm without actually ejaculating so that you don't exhaust your jing. But then there's herbs also that you can use to increase jing simultaneously.

Right, Right. So we have a lot of different jing herbs and these are often categorized in two different ways as yang jing herbs or yin jing herbs. And yang is more of that masculine, aggressive, driving force type of energy, like the thing you need to go out there and work out. Whereas yin is more the feminine, the receptive, the recovery. So both of these are really important. Guys tend to get stuck on the yang herbs because they want, you know, better athletic prowess and better bedroom prowess as well. And so they kind of focus on these. But. But you have to understand if you don't have that sort of recovery supportive component, then you're just going to burn yourself out faster by doing that sort of thing. So both of these are really important. And we have a whole bunch of different herbs that are great, like pine pollen. This is a pretty unique substance in that it actually has testosterone, DHEA and other hormones in it. So it's great for helping. It's very trace amounts, but it's great for helping to support the hormonal system. We have different things, like tongkat Ali, the shilajit would be considered a jing substance, even though that comes from ayurvedic medicine, cordyceps. There's many different ones, the cistanche as well. So there's a lot of herbs that can help build this. Well, it's kind of a difference of opinion between some daoists and others. Some say you can't really build your jing, although some say you can. Others it's about keeping your jing good so that you're not excessively depleting it, whether that's through ejaculation or chronic over exercising stress, those sort of things.

Right. There were a couple, though, that you went through that I actually wasn't that familiar with. Like I've heard of rhodiola, obviously, ginseng's kind of like the parallel ant extract is a well known one for increasing ki cistanchi. You actually have a picture of that on your website and it actually looks like, like, like an erect member. Right. What, what is cistanchi?

Well, this has earned a couple nicknames. One, the stalk enlarger and cistanche in your pants. This is. Yeah. So it gives you a clue as.

To what it C I S T A N C H E Cistanch. That's how you pronounce it.

Yep. Okay, so this is has been considered like one of the premier like mental rejuvenative substances for a long time. It was favored by Genghis Khan himself, who supposedly, I believe there's some research looking at the spread of his genes is said to make up 8% of Asia's population. So this was herb that he consumed daily. It is really good for that sexual performance, but it's also good for working out. Basically. If you look at that Yang energy, which is both a jing component as well as qi, the yang component, it's really that driving action and it's the same sort of thing with sex. So anything that helps with athleticism generally helps with sex too. When you're dealing with herbs, it's that same energy behind it. But cistancha is pretty cool because they're doing a lot more research on this one lately and they're seeing that it works on things like Alzheimer's, increasing nerve growth factor, that some of the components, the some of the active components on it really helps improve the naive T cell numbers in the immune system.

Okay.

So there's all these different components that it seems to be operating on. So this is something I've been using daily for a while now.

Okay, got it. You actually have a. One of your guys formulations is called the Thor's Hammer sexual potency formula. And that one's called for testosterone, dopamine, blood flow and nitric oxide and Then also for PDE5. What's PDE5?

Yeah, so this one was kind of formulated looking at what is healthy erectile function look like. What are the different components on it. So you need the hormonal component with testosterone you need dopamine that's kind of triggering that desire in the first place. You need nitric oxide that has to do with the blood flow and also PDE5. This is an enzyme that. This is the mechanism by which Viagra, Cialis and other drugs of those nature work on. They're called PDE5 inhibitors. And the actual aspects of it are pretty complex. But basically, and this is a generalization, there are other steps involved, but PDE5 is going to break down the nitric oxide that's its enzymatic action. So by inhibiting this, you help keep that nitric oxide around longer, and thus other things stay around longer as well. So one of the herbs in there is horny goat weed, and the active constituent of that, the one they've looked at most, is icaran, which happens to be a PDE5 inhibitor. Of course, it's an herbal thing. So unless you have, like a pure extract of this icarine, it's not going to work to the same degree as one of those drugs. But I like to look at all the other benefits that come by having a whole plant extra, so you don't.

Have to have the warning label on there that if you have an erection that lasts longer than 8 hours, go check yourself in the emergency room.

Yeah. We have had some very interesting stories from clients and customers, though.

I like it, but, dude, it tastes horrible. Why does it taste so bad?

Okay, so here's the thing. We deal in herbal powders. We don't sugarcoat them literally. We don't add any sort of chemicals or, or flavoring agents or anything. And here's the thing. These herbs are basically a lot of them. They taste bad by nature. In order to have these components, oftentimes many of them are very bitter. And that Thor's Hammer formula is the worst tasting one by far, because it's a combination of bitter and salty that is just pretty atrocious. But here's the thing about the flavors, because in the common Western diet, we've gotten away from anything bitter. Even our vegetables, like kale's, somewhat bitter. But all these things have been bred to breed the bitterness out of them, because with that bitterness often comes these medicinal components. So most of our food supply is very devoid in this stuff, and we have just lost the taste for bitterness at all. But if you're missing out on the taste of bitterness, you're missing out on all the bitter components that happen to have that taste. So it's actually very important to bring this taste back into your diet, and you can get around it. But there's also evidence pointing to by tasting these things, you're actually cluing your body into what to do with them. So even though it's bitter, we do recommend you take your bitter medicine because it's good for you.

Yeah, that's what makes me nervous about, like, thethe article that was just in Wired magazine about the magical mushroom powder that blocks bitterness in food. Did you see this one?

I did not see that.

Okay, so there's, there's this new mycelia that they've developed. It's like a mushroom extract. And apparently your tongue has a bunch of these bitter receptors on it it called T2Rs that get triggered by a bunch of different molecules and they can sense or they're responsible for a whole bunch of the bitter taste of a food. And this new mushroom that they've developed actually blocks these T2R receptors. But what some scientists are saying is that if you block these receptors, we don't know what happens in terms of the downstream effects in different tissues. If you aren't actually able to get that neurological sensation of that intense bitter taste. Like there's something about the, not just the effect of whatever the compound is that's producing the bitterness, but the taste of the bitterness itself might actually be part of the benefit of a compound. And so if you use this magical mushroom powder that blocks the bitterness in food or blocks the bitterness, for example in your Thor's Hammer sexual potency formula, you may actually notice not see as strong of an effect. So I mean, but I, I'll, I'll drink really, really crappy tasting smoothies and juices. I mean if I know they're good for me. I've got this one I make that's basically garlic and ginger and apple cider vinegar and turmeric root and it's all ground up with somesome sea salt and it just tastes horrible. I've got a YouTube video of me drinking it and it's like my detox formula that I'll use if I've been around somebody's who's had the cold or the flu or I have any type of stomach issue going on. But man, it's, it's not good. It's like, yeah, it's like the Dumb and Dumber scene where the guy pulls up next to the RV and yeah, it's, it's, it's not, not the most flavorful stuff on the planet. So you've got Thor's hammer that has this tonketta Lee, the cistanchi that we talked about, the horny goat weed, makuna and shilajit. And all of those are for. You would use that like pre workout or pre sex. You've got another one called Titan's Formula and one called Phoenix formula. I noticed that both of those have this stuff I hadn't heard of before called morale root in a M A R A L. What is that stuff?

So this is one that was studied by some of the Russians behind the Iron Curtain. And it seems to be another herb that falls into this adaptogenic herb category, one that helps you to improve basically against stress and recover from fatigue, increased work capacity, that sort of thing. There's not a whole lot of really high quality research on it. A lot of it's just looking at the component and it seems to be one of the things they're really looking, looking at is the ecdysteroids, which are these plant compounds and they're also found in some insects as well as that are basically plant or insect hormones and how these may interact with our own systems in order to bring about these different benefits. So this root got a pretty good reputation in bodybuilding circles and was used by Russian athletes to really primarily aid in recovery. That's why we include it in our different workout formulas.

Everybody knows the Russian athletes are using steroids, the Chinese, not morale root. What was the compound in that morale root that you said?

Ecdysteroids.

So it is a steroid precursor?

Yeah, it's not a precursor necessarily so much as different than our own hormonal system like the pine pollen I mentioned that actually has our same hormones, some of them like testosterone and dhea. These, a lot of other plants have similar sort of things that may interact with our receptor sites, but aren't necessarily the exact same hormones or a precursor even to our hormone, which pine pollen has that as well, some braceno steroids and gibberellins. So there's all these different things. And that's kind of the tough part about the research too. These herbs have so many different components and some research may zero in on one of them. And sometimes that's not even the important one, especially for whatever they happen to be be looking at.

Yeah, ecdy. Ecty steroids. It's like a plant based sterile. Yeah, it is interesting. And it's looking at the research on it right now.

Yeah, there's. There's all these different plant steriles. So yeah, there's. That's kind of theorized as to how this mar root is working for the different things that it does.

Yeah, it looks like the ectosterone binds to unoccupied steroid hormone receptors. So it could almost act like one of these newer like SARMS drugs, the selective androgen receptor modulators, where you're getting a hormonal effect without actually having a steroid in your body or without taking an exogenous steroid. Interesting.

So that's moralery other herbs as well, like He Shou Wu, that they're really looking at the still beans in that as far as some of the anti aging benefits, like how it works on the nitric oxide pathway and reduces advanced glycation end products.

Right.

So and that has some of different sterols but similar ones in how it may interact with the hormonal system in humans.

Cool. I wanted to ask you about one other one that you have that's, that's more like for women, like, like women's herbal formulations. I mean we talk about guys and you know, getting hard and increasing libido and all this jazz. But as far as women go, I noticed that you have one specific formulation called you called your Athena formula. And again for everybody listening, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com LostEmpire and I'll link to all these in the books and everything that Logan and I are talking about. But this Athena formula, what's in there to actually help women?

Okay. And just to be clear, all the formulas we've talked about, women can take those as well. Even the Thor's hammer, even though that was designed with guys in mind, many of those same mechanisms are at use in women. So that still works there.

So if you don't have a hammer, you can source hammer.

Yes. Because really a lot of the same things, women have lots of erectile tissue as well. It's just all up in there. They actually have more than men. So that's interesting that not a lot of people know.

So you should be a scientist man, throwing around terms like all up in there.

Athena woman's formula. We really kind of designed this as a foundational formula, so not really geared at any one thing, but really to cover a wide range of bases. And we also designed this one to taste pretty good compared to our other formulas. In general, like you and me, men will take down anything if it's going to have good effects for us. Women tend to be a little more off put by different tastes.

So they have more refined palates.

Yeah. This one has a number of different berries in it. Schisandra, goji, seabuckthorn and longan. And those four berries, while they all have very powerful effects, like Schisandra is one of the top herbs in Chinese medicine. They also generally have a pretty good flavor as well. But the mainstay of this formula is it has the number one women's herb in Chinese medicine, Dong Quai. And then the number one female herb in Ayurvedic medicine, Shadowvari. So that forms the base of it. There's also a little bit of the pine pollen thrown in there for that added hormonal support, because even women have testosterone too, just in much lower amounts than men. So the pine pollen works great for women as well.

Dong Kuai, what is that?

That is a root that it's really considered a blood builder. And blood, in the Chinese medicine way of looking at it is it is the physical blood, but it's also much more than that. And women losing blood every month, this is considered one of their top herbs to help support that.

That makes sense. Interesting. My wife actually just got something that a lot of people think is kind of like a woo type of diagnosis, but it's got some really interesting research behind it, and I'm getting a guy on the podcast to talk about it. And that's iridology, like a study of the iris to determine different medical issues or different deficits in specific organs that you can look at at in the eyes. And one of the things that the practitioner mentioned to her was that she really needed to work on things that would assist with blood flow specifically to reproductive organs, which was really interesting because all the women in her family have had issues related toto blood flow and what do you call them? Like uterine fibroids and some of these other issues that can happen in women's reproductive systems. And so I've been trying to help her look for things that would increase blood flow. But it looks like in terms of some of the other stuff you have in here, like Shatavari, which you say helps to bring moisture to the entire system, helping to keep you, quote, juicy, unquote, see Buckthornberry schisandra. Off to talk to you after we finish. I may have to have you send some up for. For her to take. And then dragon. It has dragon eyes. What are dragon eyes?

So that's the longan berry. This is many of the berries are considered good for beauty, and this may be because of their antioxidant capabilities and just helping support the skin, the hair, that sort of thing. So longan berry is one of these. Also the sea buckthorn and goji. Those are all. All considered good beauty tonics, and they help support that yin energy that I was talking about, which is once again the feminine, but also having that recovery ability. So many of these can be slightly relaxing to the nervous system, not like something that's gonna knock you out or necessarily put you to sleep, but just subtly relaxing so they can help to calm you down. And yeah, this is one of those berries that helps to do that.

Interesting.

Cool.

So we've got the Phoenix formula, you have the Hercules formula, Thor's Hammer. I know you have some pre workout, some post workout and you just basically take these powders and dump them in water, coffee, tea, whatever you desire.

Yeah, just mixing them in water tends to be the easiest way. But it kind of depends on the herb. You can throw a lot of them in smoothies. I do often put herbs in coffee or tea. So yeah, there are plenty of different ways to take them and one thing we make sure to include is a lot of information on our website as far as best ways to take them. Different recipes, recipes. You can even cook with some of this stuff.

Yeah, your website's actually pretty fun in terms like if you guys are listening in, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com LostEmpire and if you use that, I think we've got a link in there where you can get a 15% coupon for any of these powders if you just want to make an order and try a bunch of this stuff out for yourself. But there's some great blog posts on there. I love love your guys writings on everything from like thethe one ingredient PR booster where you talk about beetroot powder to a lot more of the like youryour articles on these formulas are really fun to read. Like it' sit's good, it's good copy. Right? Like it's good. Interesting information on each of these herbs, whether or not you decide to take the herb. It's just kinda, kinda cool to see how these things actually work. Uhm, so anyways what I'll do is for anybody listening in, I'll link to all of these different herbal formulations over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com LostEmpire along with some of these things we talked about. Like the Mighty Adam book which I'm going to have to purchase. I'm just gonna buckle down and spend the 40 bucks on it and get it. It's gotta be good. And this herbal tea in case anybody wants to throw up when you get up and drink in the morning. The dream language book and all that. As well as some entertaining photos of Logan doing his thing with either the fire truck or the flaming kettlebells. I'll have to decide which, which is a better photo to feature.

Oh, you could put the videos in there, right?

That's right.

Available on video.

Yeah. Nice. I like it. Well Logan, thanks for coming on the show man. This is fascinating stuff and you're, you're a fascinating dude.

Well, thanks so much for having me. And for anyone that wants to go deeper information, like you said, on the website, there's tons of information. We link to the available research that's there. We also have tons of information. You know, we write articles just about health in general that don't even necessarily always talk about herbs. So there's a lot there to dive through.

Awesome. I love it. All right, folks, well head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com LostEmpire for the shownotes. And until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Logan Christopher signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

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

Sam.