Tattooed Crossfitter To Bearded Monk: How Mushrooms Rewire Your Brain, Yoga Tune-Up Balls & More With Mike Bledsoe

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. I'm podcasting from PaleoFX today. The episode that you're about to hear is with a guy I've had the opportunity to hang out with a few times at PaleoFX. Mike Bledsoe. You're gonna learn a lot more about Mike in today's episode. Everything from how he got started into CrossFit to his journey into plant based medicine and far beyond. I really dig this dude, and I think you will too. And now onto today's episode. Starting right out on the porch in front of PaleoFX in Austin, Texas, with the great Mike Bledsoe. Enjoy. In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness show, if it's something that I don't like that's happened to me, it didn't happen to me. I did it myself. The good things that happen, I made those things happen. Everything that is going on around me, I have some control over. Through these experiences, I care less about my own personal gain. And what I find is when I serve people, more, more goodness comes into my life in ways that I could have never imagined it. Like my life is a dream. And the more that I am looking out for others, the more really good stuff just happens to fall in my lap.

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

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movements get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now, on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

We were just talking about explosive diarrhea and baking soda.

That's usually where you want to start.

That's a perfect place to start a podcast. No, like. But there is, There is good research behind baking soda.

It works.

Yeah. And decreasing lactic acid. But the problem is you have to from. From my experimentation with it. Teeny tiny do doses over two hours leading up to whenever you want to blast off.

Gotcha.

Unless you literally want to blast out your backside, which means a whole bunch all at once.

Yeah. There's always a trade off.

Yeah, seems so. Mike Bledsoe, how did you first become interested in baking soda?

It was brought to my attention, actually. I was attending the University of Memphis. I was in the kinesiology department. I was constantly signing up to be a lab rat for all the Studies being done, which is a great way to learn science, huh?

You get paid for that?

Hell, yeah.

When you're in college.

Yeah, I was getting paid by college students listening in. Yeah, like 50 bucks or 100 bucks a pop.

It's a lot of money in college.

I mean, I used to, like. I've got like, nine scars in my vastus lateralis from muscle biopsies, which I think I made less than a thousand dollars total for. For donating my muscle.

Muscle biopsies hurt.

Yeah. They're not fun.

Yeah. Yeah, I still have scars.

Yeah, exactly. Worst biopsy ever. I went up to Ball State up in Indiana, and they were doing a study and they, they had done a lot of. They were doing tendon biopsies. They were taking a patellar tendon biopsy, and they had been taking them from cyclists, endurance athletes, and they were like, oh, yeah, two weeks later, you're fine.

Right.

However, we've been getting a lot of endurance guys. We need to get some weightlifters in here. So my background's in Olympic weightlifting, and we need to get some guys who are, you know, a squat, heavy load. So we understand things might be a little bit different for y'.

All.

So we want to, we want to get your tendons. We're like two weeks. Right on. And we happened.

Two week recovery period doable.

And my friend Dr. Andy Galpin, he was looking to go to school there, so he was up there visiting the school. And Doug, Andy and I all decided to give tendon biopsy samples. Two years. Because.

Two years to recover from giving a biopsy.

Yeah. So. And they actually, after that, they stopped doing them for that reason is. And, you know, again, they were working with cyclists. And not only was I a weightlifter, so it didn't bother me when I was weightlifting is when I was doing jiu jitsu, and I'd be wrestling and I would drop my knee to the mat, right. I would drop that patellar tendon. I'd put on my weight on my patellar tendon in a. In a very dynamic fashion and shooting pain, like, like a tear coming out the side of my eye type for that long.

For, like, years after the biopsy.

Yeah. Doug experienced the same thing, you know, and I. And it's not a big. It's still not a big deal. It's like I just wouldn't do it again.

Yeah. Still, though, 50 bucks, I mean, for a couple years, that's not bad.

Not bad at all.

My, My, My biopsy experience, my, My one biopsy experience was I did the. Have you heard of Jeff Volek's faster study?

No.

Where he, he took a BU athletes and had half of them follow a strict ketogenic 90% plus fat based diet for a year. And then another group did just a regular.

Were these college students regular endurance?

No, this was just athletes. Some of them may have been college students, I don't know. And I was one of the high fat guys. And so they took me in and they did a fat biopsy out of the right and left upper butt cheek and then a muscle biopsy off of the hamstrings and the quads. But what they had you do right after the biopsy was run on a treadmill for three hours. Whoa. And it was, it was pounding. And for those of you who are listening, if you haven't had a biopsy, basically it involves shoving a needle that's got like a mini guillotine in it into the muscle and then shaving off part of the muscle, drawing it back out. So you can look at things like how much glycogen is in the muscle tissue before or after exercise.

You can get a direct look at like fast twitch to slow twitch. Yeah, there's all that. Yeah, there's a. Well, you get any data that you want out of it, you can learn a lot.

But yeah, it hurts a lot. So.

Yeah, the, the one that I had shoved my leg was about the size of a number two pencil. Yeah, it's got a little window in it.

Yeah, they're big.

So they got to like make an incision and then they put it in. And the thing about muscle biopsy, they go about an inch deep is they can put lidocaine on the surface, but they, you really can't deaden anything happening in the muscle. A, there's not a lot of things going on in there. And then B, if you put, if you deaden that area, like you're impacting the study.

Yeah.

So you got. And so you gotta like put, put like a number two pencil into your thigh and then you gotta like push it to the side so muscle slides into that window. And then it's called like a suck and chop, I think is what it's called. Suck and chop. So it's like somebody pulls a little bit, creates a little suction, pulls the muscle in and chop. Yeah, it's got the guillotine as you described.

Suck and chop is such a horrible term. And they call like the knee procedure the lavage and debridement, which sounds very scientific. You're gonna go get your knee cleaned out. Suck and chop. And they always tell you, they always tell you right before the bio. Because the two people that did my biopsy, both before and after, they always tell you right before, this is not gonna hurt, right? Like lidocaine, we're. Numb it up, you're just gonna feel a little pressure.

Science is full of liars.

And by pressure, they mean intense nine.

Out of ten pain, my friend. I was his first subject.

Really?

Dr. Andy Galvin. The first time he was in the master's program and he comes up to me in the lab and I had already been a subject before, and he was like, hey, I got something I want to ask you. And as soon as he said, I was like, yes, I'll do it. I'll let you. I'll. I'll be your first subject ever.

Yeah.

And it was funny because he had to go in a few times, then get it the first time. And then as he was digging in, I was like, no, you're going to have to push more this direction. No, not like that. I was like having to guide because I. I had experienced it before, so I knew how it should feel. So I'm sitting there in excruciating pain and like guiding the. Helping him guide the procedures. It was kind of funny.

When I was a kid, my dad owned a non emergency medical transport business. So he competed against the city to transport people to the hospital. So he had a bunch of employees, EMTs who worked for him. And I used to go hang out at the station and I would get chased around at 10 years old for guys who wanted to practice sticking me for IVs. That was my childhood. So, yeah, people practicing medical procedures on you. Unless you're getting paid at least $50. I'd say $50, Mike.

Yeah, at least 50 bucks. You know what people wonder, like, how did you get to where you are? You know, you just gotta like do a bunch of dumb shit along the way.

Yeah, exactly.

You'll learn something.

I was a kid getting chased around by EMTs with needles. What about you? What was your childhood like?

Construction.

Construction?

Yeah. My dad owned a remodeling and like a home remodeling and home improvement business. Yeah. So my days in my childhood were re roofing houses, replacing windows, hanging siding, tearing out walls, building new ones. Yeah.

When I first met you, you were hanging out with a bunch of the guys from the Barbell Shrugged podcast.

Yes.

Doug, who you already mentioned. And who was the other guy?

Chris Moore.

Doug and Chris Moore. And my impression of you when I first met you was that you were just a dyed in the wool, tattooed crossfitter. Although I have to admit, I believe it was. It was on this very porch where we are standing at Paleo fx when I. When I came across you, you were tucked away in the corner, I think, with the. With the Headspace app or some kind of meditation app or something like that.

Quite possibly, yeah.

So I knew you were wired a little bit differently because you were tapping into some of the woo Woo stuff.

Yeah.

But as far as the whole Barbell Shrugged podcast and the whole crossfitter crowd, how did you get plugged into doing that podcast? And where did you. Where did you go from construction working with your dad into doing stuff like CrossFit?

Yeah, it's. It's actually a really long journey. I'll try to make it fairly short.

Because I'm sure you told a million times on other podcasts that people go download, just. Just tell the cool stuff.

Yeah, I'll tell the cool stuff. Yeah. So throughout high school, I did a little bit of that. I ended up lifeguarding. I was a big. I was actually a big swimmer. Like, I loved being in the water, and I decided I was gonna go in the military. And I was like, well, I'll go in the Navy. I love the water. I'll try to be a Navy seal. Cause those guys, I mean, I get paid to dive and blow things up. So, yeah, I'll do that. Go in. Didn't quite make it through. Buds got hurt and they were like.

Oh, so you started to go through buds?

Oh, yeah. I went into hell week. I did three days of hell week. There was about a 24 hour period. I really jacked up my hip flexor. Just poor running technique, obviously. I was 19 years old, didn't know any better, and. Well, you're carrying around boats and logs.

Yeah.

And so my hip flexor just got just. Just shot to pieces, and nothing was like, permanently torn. But it just. It wasn't. I couldn't keep up with the group. And they were like, all right, we're gonna roll you back. You're gonna do it over again. Like you're gonna start over at the beginning. I was like, ding, I'm out.

Last thing you want to hear at Buzz is you gotta start.

You were three days in, three days in the Hellwick. And they wanted me to start over Phase one, which I was like the fifth week into phase one, I was.

Like, at that point, what was the hardest thing you'd done?

You know, the thing that actually the most. The thing that was running with weight. I just wasn't prepared to run with weight. The cold water didn't bother me.

You mean like. Like rucking?

Yeah, like rucking. Carrying a boat on my head, long in my arms. It was just. It was the. I was a good runner. I was a good swimmer. The. The cold water didn't bother me. The sleep deprivation, I was cool with. I'm a person who, when I'm experiencing a lot of stress, I have a hard time eating. So two things were happening during Hell Week was I. I didn't get enough calories, and I. And my running just broke down under the load. So I wasn't used to running with weight. And, you know, in retrospect, it's obvious I should have trained for that more. But, you know, that's how life does. So I spent time in the Navy. I did a lot of running, swimming, lifting. I tried to get back to buds. Never happened. Because when you're in the military, you don't exactly get to make all the choices. I start going. I get out of the Navy, I start going to university in Memphis, and I go, oh, there's exercise science dope. I didn't even know that, like, you could do that. I love exercising. You know, I love being physical.

Right.

So I started studying that. I was super fortunate that they didn't.

Call it physical education.

No.

And that. That's what attracted me to exercise science as well, because that's. That's what I studied was. It wasn't called P.E.

Right.

Nobody wants. Nobody wants a major in P.E.

No. Right.

But exercise science makes you sound smarter.

Exactly. But I didn't even know what I was going to do with that. I'm like. I'm like, all I know is I like this because I started off doing a business major, and I was like, I did an accounting class. I'm like, this is not for me.

Right.

I'm going to go. And I was like, exercise. I can do that. First Class Weightlifting 101. And I'm like, I know weightlifting. I've been. I've been in the gym for, like, nine years. Walk in, I get handed a PVC pipe and my in. And the guy who ended up being my weightlifting coach was like, all right, we're going to do the snatch and the clean and jerk, starting with pvc. I was like, what is going on? An hour later, completely fall in love with the lifts. Snatch and clean and jerk. I became a weightlifter, started training with him all the time. He was actually one of The. He's one of the. He has some of the. Most of the research published on Olympic weightlifting in the United States. Dr. Brian Schilling worked under Dr. Andy Fry.

That was the name of this guy, Dr. Brian Schilling, who was teaching this weightlifting one on one class.

I lucked out that he was teaching it because that class could have been taught by somebody else and I would not have gotten the benefit. So I get into weightlifting, and then one of my Navy buddies comes like a year later and goes, hey, there's this CrossFit thing going on. So I go, oh, that looks really dumb. Like, he's like, show me. He's like doing wall ball shots and box jumps for reps. And I'm going, I don't think that's right. You know, everything that I was this.

Like, early days of CrossFit. Like, how long?

2006.

2006. So pretty early, right?

Yeah. Nobody in my town was doing it.

Not. I profess to know when CrossFit started because I've. I've done maybe 10 CrossFit workouts in my life.

Yeah.

So that's my level of knowledge of CrossFit.

So six months later, because I'm also doing MMA at the time, six months later, I'm like, you know what? I don't have any competitions coming up for weightlifting. I'm gonna try this CrossFit thing out. I'm gonna go do a work. I'm gonna go do Fran or something. I did it. And I was actually considering opening a gym at the time. And I did Fran and then I did Diane. I did some of these names. I go, this is a lot of fun. So a lot of fun. I was like, if I'm gonna open a gym, like, that's the kind of gym I want to run, you know, and teaching people how to move. Like, like I'd been a personal trainer at that point and like, you know, in a gym full of machines and some dumbbells and.

Right. No PVC pipes.

Yeah, no PVC pipes. No bumper plates, you know, no kettlebells. So I started like, really digging on this gymnastics rings. All this stuff is, like, just blowing my mind. And I'm like, you know What? There's no CrossFit gym. I'm going to open one. And I don't think there was 150 gyms open when we opened our box. We were the first ones in Memphis. So I had a lot of CrossFit gyms open up. And they don't have that background. Like, you know, they. Their first Introduction to Fitness is CrossFit.

Right.

I had already had, like, a really good education around just strength and conditioning. So when I found CrossFit, I had, like, this advantage as an athlete and as a coach. And so we opened up the box and we got rolling, and we were doing really well. And my business partner now, Doug Larson, he joined me, and he's very complimentary to help me run the business. And we started getting. We were producing good athletes. And then we were also. We started studying business, and we were running our gym really well. So I had a lot of people calling me, like, in the region, like, oh, how are you doing this? All this? And I was like. I was. I found myself doing, like, freak consults, like, two or three hours a week, and I would really enjoyed it, and I loved giving advice, and I was, like, coaching guys in a different way.

So you guys were making a lot of money with this CrossFit box?

We were making good money. Yeah.

What is good money with a CrossFit box? Like, in that day, like, what would be considered.

I think anything over 30,000amonth would be. I mean, that's fair amount of money, you know, with the typical model, which is all classes and stuff like that. Not a lot of personal training going on.

Right. Is that gross revenue over the course of a month or.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so, you know, there are some gyms now that are, you know, they break a million dollars a year.

Yeah.

They're doing.

Yeah.

You know, 80, 90, $100,000 a month.

Right.

It's possible, you know, but there's overhead.

Expenses with running a gym like that as well. Right.

Not as much as a lot of other gyms, though. I mean, the equipment's relatively cheap.

Yeah. It is pretty basic.

Yeah. I mean, ropes, kettlebells, I can start 20, $30,000 and have all the equipment I need. Whereas some gym, you walk into a.

Gym, you don't have to hire someone to come in and fix the elliptical trainer every week.

Yeah. I mean, you walk in it. A good treadmill is $10,000.

Yeah.

You know, so we were doing that, and I was, like, getting so many phone calls. I was like, you know what? I'm going to change my phone number and I'm going to start podcasting. I heard Rob Wolf's podcast, and I was like. And I liked it. I really enjoyed listening to his stuff.

And then you're going to change your phone number. What do you mean?

People were calling me.

People were literally calling you for advice.

Yeah.

So. So your. Your gym members had, like, Your personal phone number.

Not my gym members. These were other gyms.

Oh, really? Okay, so other gyms are calling you up for advice and you thought you'd start a podcast to start giving them that advice?

Yeah, it's like I'll just, like I'll just blast out. Out of a megaphone instead of like one on one calls.

Make it scalable.

So we were like. So we just started podcast and it really sucked in the beginning. Like, I was really bad at it. And then.

Was that what it was called? Barbell shrugged.

Barbell shrugged. From the very beginning. Yeah. Me and my buddy Chris, we. We screwed around with it. We. We called it chit chat with Mike for a while, but that was. We never posted that. So maybe I'll bring that one back.

That's a winner for new and noteworthy on itunes.

That's right. That's right.

By the way, for those of you who wanting. Who are. Who are wanting to get into podcast, Mike, do you know. Do you know the. The secret to getting on new and noteworthy and itunes?

Yeah, yeah, I'll give it away.

Let's. Let's hear it.

No, it's. I think, I think most.

I know what it is. Yeah, it's called start a podcast. That. That is how you get on. And I'm not kidding.

But there's a strategy, though, which is record five and get people who have followings as your first five interviews or 10, and then release them all at once and then notify those people. Hey. And then they should post it too. So what that's going to do is just get you a lot of downloads at once, which is going to like itunes. The way the algorithm works is it you're preferred if you're new and if you get a lot of downloads, then you'll shoot to the top for a short period of time at least. So. But yeah, you just start doing it. I don't know how many people are like, you're right though, Ben. They're like, they're waiting for the perfect situation. They're waiting till they can afford the equipment or this or that. I was like, I. I mean, I was lucky enough, I was doing well in business, so I was like, I'm gonna spend a thousand dollars on this equipment. So I went out, I went to Guitar Center. I was like, what will a thousand dollars get me? And now my setup's a little more expensive and because I. I'm a huge believer and really high audio quality. Because if you have shitty audio quality, no one's gonna listen.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, don't worry. We'll give you the voice of God on this podcast.

Yes, you got the filter on.

Oh, dude. I mean, like, I remember my first podcast nine years ago. I sat down in front of my. I don't even think it was a Mac at that point.

I think it was recording on tapes.

And I was in my. I was in my personal training gym, and I was using the. The webcam on my computer, and I started a video podcast. I was one of the first podcasts that. In itunes, I was doing video.

Holy shit. I didn't know you were around that.

I did two podcasts. It was me with the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, and I had the journal open with all my highlighted sections. I was just going through geeking out on the journal, like, the latest research.

That's a good idea.

And it was me. And I had my shirt on with my logo and my hair done and everything. I did two podcasts. And then I realized this.

Back in the bodybuilder days, this was.

This was. This was actually a little bit after the bodybuilding. I was a bodybuilder, like, 11 years ago. This was. This was a little bit after that. But I started into the triathlon days. This was Skinny Ben. And I got two video podcasts in and realized that if you do audio, you don't have to take a shower. You can be naked like you and I are right now.

Yeah, obviously, buck naked.

Yeah, we are buck naked right now, for those of you who want the visual. And you can just talk. And so I converted into audio. But, yeah, I mean, like, back in the day, the wild, wild west of podcasting, there were no health and fitness podcasts. At least not as many as there are now.

Yeah, well, you know what opened my eyes, though, is Rob Wolf was doing it. I was like, man, this guy Rob Wolf's like, first guys, like, I don't want to do. I don't want to do just pure content. And then I heard Joe Rogan. I go, oh, you can do whatever you want. And that's when I was like, okay, I'll do it.

Yeah. Yeah. So you start up this podcast. Barbell shrugged. And from there, you've been basically just podcasting for the past few years or.

Yeah, doing podcasts. We created some. You know, we have a good following, and we have training programs online. That's how we funded a lot of things. We do. We travel the world, visiting, like, some of the best coaches. And I. I've been really fortunate that. Because we always do our shows in person. I get in real deep. You know, for every hour you see me podcasting with somebody, that's probably a day or three that I spent with them and eating meals and, like, talking philosophy of training. Like, the show, like, just taught me more about training and life than anything I've ever experienced before.

Yeah, it's amazing. Well, my apologies that I haven't taken you out for a meal prior to our podcast. I know. Seriously, I'll make that up.

My favorite story about Ben. I like to tell people I want to tell this right now, even though we haven't, like. You haven't taken me out for a drink or anything like that. The. I was up in the. Up in Vermont for something Joe Disena was putting on. Yeah, we were both there, and Joe had brought in, like, all these authors and speakers and all this stuff, and I. I came in late because I'm cool like that. And then the next morning, we all woke up early to go hike around the mountain. And I'm talking. We'd already hiked to the top, my wife and I.

Is this out of Joe's farm in Vermont where he does his Death Race and everything?

Yeah. So I'm, like, walking through. So I. I start, like, going on Discovery. So I'm, like, walking. I'm going off the trail, and then all of a sudden, I hear, like. Like, a grunting and. And, like, just leaves shuffling around. I'm like, dude, I think there's a bear out there. And I'm like. I'm like, all right, be careful, Ashley. And I come up, and it's Ben with his shirt off. And I think you had headphones in. And I was like, what the. I was like, what are you. And you had this giant stone in your arms. I was like, what are you building? You look up at me and go, I'm building my body. And then you look away and just keep walking. I was like, that's probably the funniest thing.

I actually. I remember that carrying the rock up the mountain at Joe's farm. Yeah, that was back after World Championships a couple of years ago. Yeah. And the crazy thing about his farm was that was right after the Death Race. And my keenest memory of that particular foray into Joe's farm was that my kids went out and played in the woods, and they came back in, and their feet were covered in human feces. Because when people are doing Joe's Death Race, they're just, like, taking a dump out in the woods. When they gotta go, they gotta go. So be careful of human Poo out at Joe's farm.

I'm now gonna look out for that. I've been out there a few times and I was not looking for that now.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll be focused.

Yeah. You don't need to take your probiotics out there. Get them for free. Let's go back to you sitting in the corner of the Porsche we're standing on. When I. When I first saw you, slash met you, we actually recorded a podcast together. I was on your podcast. Barbell shrugged. Best episode you have ever had?

I think it was the best episode ever.

Or the least number of downloads. One of the two.

I'll tell you this. My audience doesn't like endurance or they just like CrossFit and weightlifting.

Yeah, yeah. But, well, you know, you know what I say?

Expose them to things are a little bit outside of that. It doesn't always get the most following. And I think it should. I think. I think if I. As part of my job is exposing people to things that they aren't looking for.

Yeah. The one thing that I think that CrossFitters should do, because I know now we're gonna get a ton of CrossFitters listening in since. Since the Mike Bledsoe is on.

Yeah, probably is.

Every once in a while they need to put on a heavy backpack and go out for like seven or eight hours in the woods. Just do the stamina component.

Or seven or eight days.

Yeah, I mean, that's the one missing component. Right. You want to make sure if you get dropped in the middle of nowhere with 100 miles all around you, that you can make it out alive. And I think that's where the endurance athlete might be able to win, depending on who can kill the bear with the bare hands.

Yeah, there's the whole Neanderthal component.

Yeah, the Neanderthal component feeds in. You were sitting in that corner right over there behind us. You had your eyes closed, you had a headset on, you were doing headspace meditation, etc. When did you start to delve into what some people would consider the woo woo? The mental game, the mindset game.

Yeah. It's funny is I think I was, like, getting into it when I was in high school, but I didn't even. There was no teachers available to me. The Internet wasn't, like, out there teaching people meditation. And I had some interest in. When I went in the Navy, I kind of like dropped all of it. I was like, ah, that's just silly stuff. I was like, thinking about when I was a kid. But what really happened is about three years ago where I really started deciding to dial in the inner game. And so, like, I had pretty much. I wouldn't say I mastered the outer game, but I had put my entire life's effort into building my body building and in different ways, very exterior facing. And then I started playing around with meditation because I was being stressed out. I'm running multiple businesses, I'm having to do shows. Because doing a show is not easy when you're interviewing.

What do you mean doing a show? Like doing a podcast? Yeah.

When you're interviewing people, it can be very stressful. I mean, you gotta be on top of your game. You gotta figure out what the audience needs to hear, and you gotta stay engaged with the person you're talking with. And there's a variety of things going on. There's a lot of distraction you might have. You know, I was up late that night, up early the next morning, going on. You know, I was experiencing slept deprivation. So I was doing things like meditation to try to focus my mind. And it was all about performing at a higher level. And I had watched a TED Talk where the guy who started Headspace gave this TED Talk, and the way he described meditation was just like, oh, this actually makes sense now. This is something that I need to invest some time in. And they developed the Headspace app. And so that was like my first dive into that.

Now guided 10 minute meditations. That's the Headspace app, right.

It starts off with 10 and 15, and then 20 also fools you. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah. So, you know, after you do the 10, 10 minute meditations, then you're gonna pay, right? You know, 80 bucks a year or something like that. So many pounds. I think it's like £60 because it's English.

Right.

But so I was getting into that, but what really, what really triggered that is I was, I was interested in that for productivity. But I had listened to Joe Rogan's podcast. I'm just gonna tell a little bit of a story here. It's a little bit personal, and I think some people might go, holy shit.

That'S okay, we're naked. You can get personal.

So I was listening to Tim Ferriss on Joe Rogan's podcast. And Tim Ferriss is a guy I respect. And, you know, his four hour workweek is like, really changed my life in a lot of positive ways as an entrepreneur. Like, it really caused me to think about how to approach business differently. And so when Tim Ferriss speaks, I listen and they start talking about magic mushrooms. And Tim Ferriss Goes, oh, yeah, like every six months I eat like a, like a half gallon bag of mushrooms to kind of hit the reset button.

That's a lot more than the standardized 3 gram dose of psilocybin.

Yeah. I mean, and Joe was surprised by that. And who knows what really the dosage he's talking about.

Right?

And I was like. And up to that point, I was like, I thought all that stuff was dumb. Like, yeah, I'd been in the military. I had that mentality.

Or dangerous or unhealthy.

Exactly.

That was my, that was my impression of it was, it's just, again, destroy your liver so you don't go near it.

Just like. Exactly. And so I. He says that. And so it came up on my radar. I was like, what is going on? Months later, I go to a conference. It's a marketing conference. Seven days long, super intense. And there's a psychedelic art that is around this conference. And we were doing these exercises on empathy at the conference. Because if you're studying marketing at all.

What conference was this?

Accelerate by Evan Pagan. Oh, yeah. So I'm sitting there and I'm going, and we're doing these empathy exercises because if you have a lot of empathy, then you can connect with your audience better. Right?

Right.

I could not do the empathy exercises. Like, we're teaming up with people. I've got this worksheet and I'm looking at somebody and I'm like, struggling. I've never been so frustrated in my life. The whole week goes by and I learned a lot and I just feel like I had to digest it. And for some reason I had like this intuitive understanding. I was like, I was like, I think that if I eat mushrooms that it'll help me digest this information and figure out what's really important and what's not.

Nobody told you that. You just thought of it.

I think it was like I had heard people talking about things, but I was like, I just had like this. It was like. It just hit me on Saturday night, I'm walking down the street to go get dinner and I'm like, I. I'm supposed to eat mushrooms. Like, like, I don't know exactly why I couldn't place it. So I, I got some. I went to the park and I ate a bunch and, and I didn't even know what like a proper dosage was or anything.

When you say you got some, what'd you do, just like wander into a mushroom shop off the street or like, where? Well, get mushrooms.

So one of my friends, right, I was Aware that he had some.

Right.

And he had talked about the benefits of it before.

I only asked because, like my experience with a lot of these mind altering plant medicines is the source can tend to be a little bit important.

Yes, my source was extremely reliable.

Right. I guess if you're listening in, don't Google online for pharmacy mushrooms. Go for a reliable source.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, go to another country.

Right?

Go to Amsterdam, Thailand. Yeah.

Go.

Go somewhere where it's legal. Because if you don't know somebody you trust that's actually doing the work, then yeah, you know, it's not, it's not worth the risk. So I eat them and then I realize I'm looking with the sky and it completely goes fractal. And I'm in this park and then the entire world falls into my head and I realize that everything that I experience is inside. Like. Like everything I see is being computed in my brain. Like, everything is just like, this is all kind of like my creation in a way. And, and where I'm sitting right now is, is completely in my control. Everything my entire life up to this point point is my own doing. If it's something that I don't like that's happened to me, it didn't happen to me. I did it myself. The good things that happen, I made those things happen. I. It is everything that is going on around me. I have some control over what's going on. And, and it's. Things don't happen to me. I happen to things. And so there was like a level of understanding of like, oh, like if things are jacked up in my business, if my relationship with my wife isn't where I want it to be, it is 100% my responsibility.

Yeah.

It's my actions and behaviors up to this point that caused that.

And whereas up to that point, what were you following? Fate?

I was nothing. I was like, I would be like, if a relationship wasn't going right with business, I was blaming other people. I'd be like, it's not the gym down the street. It's their fault. Why I don't have as many members or, or, you know, my wife just doesn't understand me. It's like, it's like all this stuff, you know, like, I was frustrated with the world. I thought other people were dumb. And you know, I'm like, I'm like, why can't they see it? Like I see it like. And so I had that and then I had. That was a beautiful realization and I just cried. And then I, I look, I'M in a dog park, actually, and these people are getting off work at five o' clock and they're bringing.

This is where you were at when you were doing the mushrooms in a dog park?

Yeah. I'm a genius.

Interesting place to choose.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't do that. I mean, yeah, first time. Don't do that. So, like, these people come in and they're bringing their dogs in and they're playing with their dogs, but they're on their phones at the same time.

Right.

And I can tell the dog's frustrated. And I can imagine. I'm going, oh, this dog's been cooped up in the house for, like, 10 hours. This person's been at work, they're throwing a tennis ball or a stick, and they're on their phone and the dog is frustrated that they're not getting their undivided attention. And I'm sitting on top of this hill watching all this go down, and I'm getting pissed. I'm like, holy, I can't believe you're not giving your dog. It's your full attention. It's been sitting at home. It's frustrated. Can't you tell? And then I go, oh, I do that to my dog. Oh, I do that to my wife. I do that to my. My mom. I do that to my business partners, my clients. And I decided in that moment I was, I'm going to start giving people my full attention. And I realized I'd never given anyone my full attention. I was always waiting to say the next thing, or I didn't shut my mouth long enough to hear what people were saying. And so I go home and I sit down with my wife and I listened to her for the first time ever. It might have been the first time anyone ever listened to her. And I just ask her questions, I want to know more about you. We've been married for, like, three years, and I'm like, asking her questions.

Were you still tripping on mushrooms at that point or was this, like, later on?

This was later on. And I started asking her questions that I was afraid to ask her up to that point.

Interesting.

And so I started asking her questions. And it was like, the first time she felt like I really was interested in getting to know her, even though we'd already been married three years and up to this point, we were actually considering divorce. Like, that was a discussion.

Wow.

And. And I went home, I started asking her questions and learning about her and just asking and not responding with anything other than another question. And she looked at Me and was like, what is going on? Are you. I mean, she knew what I had done that day, but she was like, this is really weird. And I was concerned at that point. I was like, I don't know if this is gonna stick. Like, I hope this is permanent. So I'm like, but, you know, whatever. So I wake up the next day, still there, the next day, still there, the next day, still there. So I was starting to get a handle on this empathy thing.

And so is that common? Like, have you looked into this since then? Like. Like the. The biochemistry of psilocybin or mushrooms. And if they can actually permanently affect neuronal wiring in the brain or something.

Like that, that's exactly, exactly what's happening.

Really?

Yeah. So psilocybin allows those connections, the neurons, to disconnect and reconnect more rapidly.

Really?

Yeah. And so it changes.

So it can literally rewire neurons.

Absolutely, yeah. Interesting. And psilocybin is not the only thing like that. So since then, I've gone to places like Peru and done ayahuasca, which does the same thing. Now, because you're rewiring the brain, you have to be very careful because you can set yourself up for success or you can set yourself up for failure.

What do you mean?

So I had been. I had set myself up for success because I had been at a conference all week talking about empathy, talking about relationships, because business is nothing but relationships. So I was set up for success. Now, if you go into it thinking, I'm just going to have a good time, and you had had a bunch of discussions before that that weren't. That were negative in nature, or you're listening to death metal before you go in, where the lyrics are basically sending a negative message about hate or whatever, then you're kind of setting yourself up for failure. So if you want to rewire your brain in a certain direction, you go in with an intent. You go in with an intention of saying, hey, this is what I want to get out of this journey. And if you go in with a pure intent, you'll get it on the other end. But you have to be in the right environment, I highly suggest. And so now, after having that experience, I travel outside the country to do this, because in the United States, it's. It's like, you know, a lot of these things are schedule one and travel.

Outside of the United States for psilocybin, for ayahuasca, for just everything.

All of it. Yeah. So I don't like to screw around with it in the United States. Just because there's risk associated associated with this.

Do you have specific places that you go that you research? I mean, let's say somebody's listening in, they have no clue where to start, but they are interested in that type of setting. A good intention neuronal rewiring, trying some of this stuff. What would be your recommendation?

I think that you got to do a lot of research. And I went to Peru for ayahuasca. There are quite a few ayahuasca arrows down there. And there's just shamans, and some are better than others. Just like anything. There's some chiropractors that are good, some that aren't so good, you know, and trainers that are good and not so good. Same thing happens with shamans. It's the. And so you can find guys in Amsterdam and go to Amsterdam and do the math.

There's no like online Yelp shaman directory for good shamans.

Maybe we should start one. You know, maybe there is one. I just haven't known it. But what, what I found is if I just kind of put it out into the universe, if I go, look, this is what I'm looking for, and I have enough conversations with people, someone will go, oh, I know a guy. Oh, I know a guy.

And next thing you know, that's what's happened to me. Like. Like, I did a podcast a few weeks ago on my first silver psilocybin experience. And it was literally with one of my good friends, James Rodina, who's on the podcast. And he had a very, very good, reputable source of psilocybin down in Kauai. And we set extremely good intentions. And it was one of the most life changing decisions I've made for my business in the past five years. As far as realization.

I would not be standing here right now without it.

Yeah, I mean, same thing with. Have you ever microdosed with lsd? Yeah, I tried that as like a neurohack. I had my first experience with that. I'm working on a podcast about it last week. Same thing, set intentions and took it, got it from a good source. And, you know, it's one of those things where you either have to know somebody or set that intention and then just begin to talk to people.

Yeah, do it with somebody who has a lot of experience and who has had a lot of good experiences.

Yeah.

So I know a lot of people who. This, this is the situation you should avoid for your first time or you know, is like, don't go to a concert and decide you're Gonna eat a bunch or.

Yeah.

Or a little or whatever. Like your first sit with somebody who has used these for personal development specifically. And if you start talking to people, you might be surprised at who is doing these things. If you just kind of put it out there.

Do you find that this starting down, down the road of plant medicine and perhaps what many people in the physical exercise culture would consider to be taboo or not interesting, has brought you out of the world of CrossFit and fitness? I mean, where are you at in terms of your fitness protocol and your gym and all those type of things right now?

I will tell you this, all right? For the gym and for coaching, it's helped me care about other people more, which has made me 10 times the coach I used to be.

And you're still running a gym?

I own a gym. I don't run a daily, but I. I have 20 people on my team who I'm coaching.

Right.

I. I coach gym owners, so I have a barbell business, which is basically a business set up for CrossFit gym owners, so I'm coaching people on.

You went from owning a gym to starting the Barbell Shrug podcast to now running barbell business?

Yeah, got it. Yep. And so I. It allows me. It allows me to come from a place of service and wanting to help people more. Through these experiences. I care less about my own personal gain. And what I find is when I serve people more, more goodness comes into my life in ways that I could have never imagined it. Like, my life is a dream. And the more that I am looking out for others, the more really good stuff just happens to fall in my lap. I can't complain in regard to my training. One of the things that really took a major shift is I did stop competing.

You stopped competing in CrossFit?

Yeah, and weightlifting too, like, because it wasn't serving my purpose anymore. And those experiences with the plant medicines really did allow me to access my purpose in service. And I found that by competing, I found that I could be doing other things that would be more beneficial. And. And I also started considering the long term more, so I started taking care of my body. So I went from, like, having a mentality of when I went into a training session is, I'm not good enough. Like, oh, I'm not, you know, I. This isn't big. I'm not big enough. I'm not. I'm not at the right weight. My shoulders are jacked up, My hips aren't where they're supposed to be. It's not good enough. I Gotta like beat my body in a submission. I've gotta like, I'm gonna, I'm going to beat my body in this mission because I don't like my body and it's not good enough. It's not what I want it to be. I was comparing myself to other people and then after I kind of went through this transformation where the plant medicines really help facilitate. I now approach all my training from. I love my body. I'm super grateful that this is the one I have. You know, there are things about my body like my feet are flat. My right foot, you know, my right leg lacks good internal rotation so I end up with back problems. My shoulders, I have to work on them every day for, to keep them from being internally rotated and. But my approach is different. I now find it much easier.

Your beard also, by the way, I was going to tell you it's a little more trimmed on the right side than the.

Oh, dude. Now I'm all, now I'm all. You can take a break. Yeah, but I used to, people could, people used to be able to with me and go, dude, your right quad looks bigger than your left quad. And I'd be in right here, like, what, what, what's going on? And so like now it's all about being healthy. It's all about like I, I can perform at a higher level than I used to be because my approach to training now is different. I don't, I do things that, that are healthy for my joints, not because I'm just trying to get stronger. No matter what I'm, I'm capable of taking a longer term approach. I can go, oh, I want to still be healthy in a year. It's not about this 12 week cycle. It's about where do I want to be in a year, three years, five years when I'm 70, I want to be moving really well. And that means that I have to like really love what I'm doing with myself. Even though it's not fun, like working on my diaphragmatic breathing and like, yeah, every morning is not. It used to not be. I wasn't interested in it because I didn't, I couldn't see how it helped me and everything, every aspect of my life and it, and in that respect, like, so all my training is like, I'm loving it, I'm feeling it. I'm not, I'm not thinking about what I have to do before or after my training session. I'm not like, I'm not doing a training session because I feel like I should do it or I have to do it. There's no obligation. When I'm moving, I'm moving because I love to move. And I'm putting all my focus into my movement practice. And it's, and it's all about increasing the quality of my movement versus how much weight am I lifting, how fast am I going? It's about, there's so much more focus on the quality of my movement because I know that if I'm operating at the highest quality, then the results will come. I trust that.

Yeah. You're looking at the world through the lens of not just performance, but also health and longevity. It's interesting because one of the things that's happened to me and I don't know if it's because I have begun making more forays into plant based medicine and opening myself up to that. I don't know if it's because my spiritual life has gotten stronger. It's probably a combination of a lot of those. But one of the things that I used to be obsessed with was performance and was that narcissism and was seeing myself running or a photograph of me doing a spartan race and not liking the way my foot turned out. And one of the I mentioned I had, for example, a realization with psilocybin, for example, my purpose in life is not to go out and kick and take names on a race course. My purpose in life is to actually inspire other people to go out and climb their own personal Mount Everest. And that, that's been a huge, huge realization for me. It's not even about my, my own personal health and longevity.

It's probably changed how you podcast.

Yeah.

Change how you do social media.

Changed a lot.

Yeah. I mean like my post now none of my posts, posts or for like, hey, look at me.

Yeah.

It's like, it's like, hey, like I do selfies.

You got a Snapchat gym Sal, if you want to, if, if you want to be a Snapchat. You, you talked about diaphragmatic breath work and you told me yesterday when we were at this little health entrepreneurial gathering that we were at that that was one thing that you were getting into now is breath work. I've talked to Brian McKenzie on the show. He's talking a little bit about the use of, to the training mask and diaphragmatic breath work. What is it that you're doing when it comes to breath work that you think is something people should know about?

Yeah, I do a variety of things and I'm always tweaking so I'll do something for like a month, and then I'll, like. I'll layer another 10% on top. So I'm talking to guys like Brian McKenzie as well, and trying to pick their brain on what they think is working right now. Actually, the thing that I find works the, like, the thing that's made the biggest impact to me is. Are you familiar with Jill Miller?

She, like the yoga. Yeah, Yoga tuna balls.

Yeah, yeah. She has this gorgeous ball is what it's called. It's a big.

It's called a gorgeous ball.

Gorgeous.

Oh, gorgeous cord.

Yeah, it's for your core.

Gorgeous, guys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She.

I think we should invent a gorgeous ball, too, though.

Definitely. But it's a big, soft ball, and when you look at it, you're like, I'm supposed to roll on this. And so using that and breathing into it has been. If you lay on top of it, you lay on top of it and on your front and back, and you learn to breathe into the ball. So it's like you're trying, like. So I might be laying on it over my belly button or something like that, and I lay on it and I relax and I breathe into the ball. Like, I'm trying to feel the ball. And it's teaching you some proprioception that is kind of tough to do otherwise. And you can do it on your own. You don't have to have someone pushing on you. So if you go get therapy a lot of times around your breathing, someone will have to push on your belly, and they're like, hey, breathe into my hand. But what I love about the ball is I can do it every morning and I can breathe into it, and I can actually feel it expanding because I'm crushing this ball. And when I breathe into it, it does expand. And so, you know, I. I use that ball to really warm up my torso every day. Because if I start my day off with really good breathing patterns, then I have more energy all day. Like, I'm not. I'm not wasting energy breathing into my upper chest.

Can people find this protocol online?

I'm not sure. If you just buy her book, you go to Amazon.com yoga tune up by Jill Miller, and you can buy, like, the book and the ball set and all that kind of stuff. I wish I had an affiliate.

If you guys go to Ben. If you guys go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike Bledsoe. That's M I K E B L E D S O E. I'll put some. Some Links to Mike's website and some of the stuff that we're talking about in the show notes. But this breath, does this also help with like, like a morning bowel movement, Things like that? I mean, are you, are you doing it for that purpose? Yeah, I do it before, like for enhancing digestion.

I do, I do find that does help with that. Yeah, I do it before I eat. I get things moving around. I, I find that, you know, I do go take a shit afterwards. Words.

Yeah, you're actually, you're gonna laugh. You've seen these new, like, they're basically glorified car buffers that people are selling now for. Oh, yeah, Self massage.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I've gotten a few of those mailed to me. Everything from like the hyperice foam roller vibration ball to car buffer. I've actually tried the. You know how your, your colon travels from the right side of your rib cage to the left side, down the left side over, across to the right side and then down, and that's where it empties. I've started experimenting with these car buffers just for like two minutes when I wake up in the morning, right? You take the car buffer, cross left side down, cross to the right side and down. And dude, I mean, you, you go take a giant, glorious baby, like, dump, dude.

I have a feeling you and I are gonna be. We're gonna be like 100 years old because we're taking care of our bodies every morning like this.

115. 115.

You know what, by that time, biotech's gonna get to a point point where you know, we'll just basically, they're going to inject little nanotechnology and then our, our brains will. They'll attach to the neurons and then we'll have access to all information all the time, and we'll be operating from pure consciousness.

So making that up or no. You really, truly think that?

Yeah, I really think that. I think if we can, if we can live long enough for that technology to come online, it's going to be an interesting time.

Yeah. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. A couple of the questions I want.

To ask you people, people just went, yeah, no, Mike's crazy.

Any listeners who are left, some of the things that I've seen people tap into when they get into plant based medicine, when they get into that deeper connection with nature, things like wild plant foraging, hunting, sit spots in nature that, you know, things like that. Have you, have you gotten into any of those type of things?

I have not. I definitely, I wouldn't say I feel guilty, but I feel drawn to more hunting and gardening both. And I do recognize that I feel very disconnected from my sources of food. And I live on the road most of time, so there are some challenges there. But there's, you know, I can make up excuses and I. But what I really need to do is I really think that we are missing that connection with nature and that is, you know, I think that's part of a spiritual journey. Yeah, I think that's.

That's actually one of the problems with the conference that you and I are at right now, Daily effects.

Yeah.

Is if you look at the actual schedule of talks, there's not much talk about growing your own food and about hunting and about wild plant foraging. I think that that's a little bit of a disconnect.

We'll talk to them about it maybe.

Yeah.

You know what? Yeah.

And don't get me wrong, I love.

This conference I'm going to. This is my favorite conference conference every year, actually. The. I. I'm gonna go fishing up in Oregon this fall. Some salmon fishing. My business partner, his. His dad is just an expert up there for that. I want to start getting into spearfishing. I've been starting to research that. I live down in San Diego where you can just take a kayak out, anchor out, and. Have you done that before?

Just put the finishing touches on my koa roller with the reel so I can step up the. The weight of the fish that I'm going after.

Nice.

I did a week long freediving course to get my breath hold time up to five minutes so that I can go deep enough to get basically breath hold time to five minutes and, and depth to 80ft, which is what you need to get decent fish. Wow.

Are you doing the Wim Hof at all?

Yeah, Wim's been on the show a few times and. And you don't want to use Wim Hof breath for free.

No, no, no, no. That's a different thing.

Yeah, you breathe out a bu.

I find the Wim Hof stuff can help me get more comfortable. Like I do Wim Hof, so I do the cordis ball and then I do Wim Hof after that.

Okay.

And then so I get the breathing patterns going with the ball and then I. And then while I'm doing my power breaths with the Wim Hof, I actually am focusing on breathing properly when I'm doing those power breaths. But I could see where the Wim Hof stuff. I was down in Cabo last Week and doing some, some snorkeling. And I actually, and that was the first time I'd gone snorkeling since I adopted the WIM HOF breathing method. And, and I noticed that I was just more comfortable holding my breath longer. Yeah, just the mental thing. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, I know. I do the same thing. I do, I do cold pool swimming in the morning and use some of the WIM HOF stuff. But hit me up after we finish and we'll talk. I got a lot of spearfishing and freediving resources for you. I want to ask you one other thing that's kind of related to that morning routine and that is sleep. Are you doing anything to kind of wind you down? I mean, you're, you're a driven, high achieving guy. A lot of folks I talk to in this industry who are wired that way, they do have their own special protocols to help them wind down at night. How do you get to sleep at night?

All right, so stay asleep. Staying asleep is the hard part. Yeah. So I don't do the electronics for 90 minutes before I go to sleep. In fact, I have a lot of windows in my house. I don't have to turn my lights on during the day. And when the sun starts going down, my body starts winding down.

No electronics at all? No Facebook, Nothing.

So what?

No.

No Facebook? No. I mean, unless, I mean, it's got to be an emergency.

What do you do for those 90 minutes?

Oh, I'm reading. You know, like, you know, I, I, I just put on a, a dim light and I read.

What do you read?

So usually in the evening I read some spiritual text or I read a sci fi novel. I read things that help me relax or get me out of thinking about the business. And I meditate in the mornings and then in the evenings, if I'm having a hard time, if I feel like I'm getting stuck in my thoughts, then I do some meditation. And yeah, I keep a little bit of cannabis on hand too. So I have a little vape pen that's mostly indica and actually have this really great indica.

Works really well for sleep.

So what I do actually have, it's a two to one ratio of CBD to Indica. So we, we now have the technology to vape cbd, which is fantastic. You could take it orally. I know you have a. I do, yeah. You have a cbd.

No. I'll send you some. You can, you can try it. Compare it, compare it to the vape. Because I've, I've Actually vaped into CBD and taken the nano CBD that I make now.

Nice.

And I think the nano CBD kicks in. But I'm obviously jaded too because yeah, I sell it.

What I really like about it is I can. It's easy to travel with.

Yeah.

So I. It's a 2 to 1 ratio of CBD to indica. So it's just highly relaxing. The CBD helps you relax anyway and then you have that indica which helps your, your. It's a deeper relaxation with the indica. And so I do that most days. I mean I think CBD is just. It's so good for you and you know, anti inflammatory properties and everything is. It's like, it's dumb not to take like CBD is just dumb not to do.

The endocannabinoid system is totally underplayed right now as far as the amount to which people tap into it. And it's. It's literally just as important as your endocrine system or your cardiovascular system.

One of my favorite things about the CBD is that it's sustainable.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, like fish oil. Like I'm a huge fan of fish oil, I take it. But. But it's not necessarily sustainable. There's like overfishing is an issue. Cbd, man. We can just grow more of that.

Yep, exactly. Not in the US strangely enough. Just dumb. I mean. Well, you don't see a lot of like industrial hemp grown.

Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from Latvia.

Yeah, yeah. So if you guys want to try out Mike Bledsoe's routine, basically in the morning, he's using that ball all across his. You're basically laying on it. Stomach, digestive organs, all that jazz. You follow that up with Wim Hof breathing. Then in the evening, 90 minutes before bed, no screens. Use a little bit of indica cbd.

Yep.

Boom. Lights out.

Yeah. And after the Wim Hof breathing in the morning I do about a 30 minute sitting Zen meditation, that style. So after you've had. If you've played around with plant medicines at all and. Well, in my experience, after having played around with some plant medicines, my meditation is, I've been able to get more deep with it and it becomes more meaningful. And in my experience, especially with mushrooms, it's kind of shown me where I'm supposed to be going when I meditate, which is nice.

Yeah. See, he's not just a tattooed, bearded crossfitter, he's a deep man. I'm gonna link to Mike's website And also some of the, some of the materials he has out there. Everything from barbell shrug to barbell business. Just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike Bledsoe and you'll be able to dig into all the goodness that is Mike and get to know this guy a bit better. He actually gave a really good talk at the entrepreneurial conference I was at that happened the day before Paleo fx. And it's really good. For those of you out there who are business owners, gym owners, definitely look Mike up in terms of the advice that he's dishing out on that front too. Mike, thanks for coming on the show, man.

Thanks for having me on, Ben.

Alright folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Mike Bledsoe. Should we go put our clothes back on now?

Yeah, they might want us to do that before we get on stage.

Let's go get dressed. And thanks for listening in, folks. Check out Mike BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike Bledsoe and 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.