The Best Remedies For Hot Flashes, Does N-Acetyl Cysteine Increase Glutathione, How To Increase Shoulder Mobility And Much More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, the best remedies for hot flashes. Does N acetylcysteine increase glutathione, how to increase shoulder mobility, getting rid of scar tissue, and much more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Are those your teeth I hear?

Seriously? My. My teeth are still chattering and I finished my cold water morning swim almost an hour ago. And I'm okay with that because I know my body's churning out lots of nitric oxide and creating all this new special brown adipose tissue, etc. But I got to tell you, Brock, I have this new strategy that is pretty killer for every Wednesday morning. So you're gonna have to put up with this now every single time we record.

Okay, tell me about it. I want to, I want to know what this is.

So. And if you're listening into this podcast and you want to go out and replicate this setup for yourself, knock yourself out. And you can even email me and I'll fill you in on how I put all this together. But basically, I have a 19 foot, what's called an aqua fitness pool. And this is like one of those endless swimming pools.

Oh, I was gonna say 19ft. That's like, that's like two of you.

It's pretty long, but I mean, by the time I'm stretched out, you know, with my arms and my legs, you know, I'm, I'm already getting, you know, moved around that thing pretty rapidly because it's got high speed jets. And so I swim against the high speed jets. And I've got this half hour routine that I do where the pool is at 59 degrees and that's Fahrenheit. 59 degrees Fahrenheit. I swim for eight minutes and I do a combination of freestyle swimming and like underwater hypoxic, no breath swimming against these jets. And then next to that aqua fitness pool, I have what's called a J470 Jacuzzi. You can look up this model, but this particular model of Jacuzzi allows you to have a, a hot tub without having to add much chlorine to it. It's all ozone treated, so you avoid all the chlorine chemicals. So I go eight minutes in the cold water and then two minutes in the hot water. And for the two minutes in the hot water I try and hold my breath underwater for the entire two minutes. So basically I'm getting that hypoxic oxygen deprivation effect and then I jump back into the cold pool. So you could replicate this kind of like cold water swim at your local health club if it has kind of a colder pool. But ultimately that's my new Wednesday morning routine is eight minutes cold, two minutes warm, three times through for this killer 30 minute routine. And that's why my teeth are still chattering.

You know where else they do that workout?

Where?

Guantanamo Bay.

News flashes. Speaking of jumping from cold to hot pools, Brock, I tweeted out this week about crazy endorsement Lawrence quests that the the Outside magazine website published. So I'll go through a few of these with folks and it's Some of these quests are pretty crazy. But if you want to tune into what I release on Twitter each week, just go to twitter.com BenGreenfeld and you can get these news flashes right when they come out. But here's a few of the things 13 toughest endurance quests that Outside magazine published this week. We've got the jungle ultra. That's 142.6 miles through the Peruvian jungle in a self supported race. And they describe the course as dropping 10,500ft to the jungle floor as you cross 70 rivers. So it's called the Jungle Ultra. I thought that one looked pretty interesting. How about this one? The Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic in which you trek over a hundred miles across wild Alaska terrain and there's no route and there's no gps, but apparently you can carry a satellite phone, so there's that.

I, I think that's just sending a whole bunch of people out to get lost.

Here's an interesting one. This one's called the Self Transcendence 3100 mile race. It's held in an unassuming Corner of Queens, NY and it tests competitors mental strength as much as their fitness. You must complete 3,100 miles in 52 days by completing 5,649 mind numbing laps around one city block. It's called the Self Transcendence and It's lasted for 18 years.

Wow.

I'd be curious if any of our listeners have ever done that one. I wouldn't be surprised. We've got a lot of listeners in New York. I'll bet at least one or two of our crazy listeners have done the Self Transcendence.

I hope so. I want to hear about it.

How about this one? The 6633 Ultra. This is a self supported 350 mile race in the Arctic Circle in which you have to cross the Arctic Circle and it lies at 66 degrees and 33 minutes. Apparently that's the, I don't know, I guess the latitude longitude of the Arctic Circle. Temperatures hover around 25 degrees below zero and you must complete the course in 191 hours or less, which is basically eight days. Only 11 people have finished it in seven years.

And only eight people or maybe nine people signed up for it.

That's right. So if you want to check out some of these crazy endurance quests, I'll put a link to all of them in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 298 so if you're bored, you're twiddling your thumbs, you're sitting around on the couch and you feel like a crazy endurance quest, go sign up. So there's that.

I like it. I think we should choose one to do each year.

That's right. And just see how long we actually live. I'd give us a couple of years before we get bitten by some giant Peruvian bumblebee. Or drown in the Arctic Circle.

Exactly.

So here's another interesting thing I tweeted out. This was an article that appeared last year entitled do Olympic athletes train as in the Paleolithic Era? And it's really interesting because this article goes into how some of the best athletes on the face of the planet seem to naturally progress towards training in a way that's very, very much like our hunter gatherer ancestors would have trained, for example. I'll go ahead.

I was just gonna say. So lots and lots of just low level activity.

Exactly. With a few sprints like this 80, 20 rule, there's this polarized training type of approach where if you look at they're characterized by the prevalence of daily bouts of prolonged low intensity aerobic based activities interspersed with periodic short duration high intensity bursts of activity. And sure enough, if you look at some of the best Olympic athletes, and especially if you look at endurance athletes like marathon or cyclists, et cetera, you see a lot of low level aerobic training, a lot of physical activity not performed at a super high intensity, but performed regularly and consistently. And then every once in a while, extremely high, high intensity interval training sessions that push them very, very hard. You know, such as you would do if you were fighting a lion or defending your family against a saber tooth tiger or running Worm, a rhino, one of those giant elephants with the tusks. What are those ones called? The big mammoth. Yeah, the woolly mammoth. So you tend to see that same type of ancestral movement pattern replicated in the training patterns of some of the best athletes and teams on the face of the planet. Another point that they make out is that a lot of times these activity patterns in the hunter gatherer era were undertaken with low carbohydrate availability. And it's interesting because a lot of modern day research shows that this concept of like train low, race high, meaning you train in a state of relatively low carbohydrate availability and then you make carbohydrates available during like a race or an actual competition. It turns out that that can actually upregulate the production of mitochondria when you do something like that. And it also helps you fight off free radical and a lot of oxidative stress from exercise. So it's interesting that we tend to see that physical activity in the state of low carbohydrate availability also displayed in hunter gatherer type of activities. So there was that. Another thing that they mentioned is that if we look at the Paleolithic era, a lot of times strength and power, such as say like finishing off a wild animal that you may have killed or fighting after a long day of hiking, we tend to see strength and power typically performed after sometimes an exhausting aerobic activity. And so it turns out that after you, for example, run or worn yourself out from a practice or something along those lines, it can actually help from a fitness standpoint and also a mental toughness standpoint to still have to perform some kind of a strength or power activity afterwards. So this entire article is really interesting. It was published in the Journal of Sports Medicine, but it's called do Olympic Athletes train as in the Paleolithic era? And I think it's worth a read. It's just really, really interesting how some of the best athletes kind of tend to train like cavemen, whether they know it or not.

I like it. Yeah, it's the sort of goes against what, what we talk about for sort of the. All those folks who have jobs and have families and lives and stuff like that. Not doing that really low level. But it's specifically for those people who are doing this for a profession.

Right? Exactly. Completely flies in the face of sitting at your computer all day in a seated position and then drinking a Jamba Juice and then doing a workout. Right. Like it's, it's completely the opposite. So there you go. Not that we have anything against Jamba Juice. Of course. We love Jamba Juice.

I don't know if we have Jamba Juice in Canada.

I don't know.

We have other. We have other offenders.

I throw Jamba Juice under the bus a lot, so. Sorry. Jamba Juice. And they deserve it. And Power Bar. Okay. So another thing was a really interesting article and this is a great read. It appeared over at the Suppersity website. And this was an article that went into a lot of the latest research. It was just like a quick review of a bunch of the research. And a few of the things that I thought jumped out at me was, number one, there were two different things they talked about that could increase cerebral perfusion or increase blood flow to the brain or act as a smart drug, neurotropic, in terms of increasing performance on cognitive tests. And these two things, number one was cold water. Drinking cold water prior to an exam actually helped participants do better on a cognitive test. And so we talked about cold water before as increasing blood flow throughout the whole body, including the brain. It turns out it's not just like taking a cold shower or doing like I did this morning going for a cold water swim. It's also just drinking cold water. And the other thing that they found could increase cerebral blood flow was a high flavanol cacao drink. In other words, like a dark chocolate type of drink. So you could eat dark chocolate and you could drink cold water and you could just be a smart little cookie just based off of those two little lifestyle changes.

I keep my chocolate bars in the freezer with that.

That's probably the ultimate nootropic. The other thing that I thought that was interesting in this article was they talked about the water trick. And a lot of people think that it's a total myth that if you drink a glass of water prior to a meal that you'll eat less. But they actually did this study where they showed that when folks Dr. Equivalent of it was right around 16 ounces of water prior to what they describe as an ad libitum porridge breakfast, which is basically eating as much porridge, eating as much porridge as you'd like. Well, it turns out that folks ate much less of that ad libitum porridge when they had this water intake immediately before a meal. And so therefore, water intake may actually be an effective strategy to suppress energy intake. So if you're gonna eat something and you think you might overeat it, try to drink a huge giant glass of water first. And if you happen to have an exam afterwards. Make sure it's a cold water and have a little bit of chocolate. So there you go. Listener Q and A. Hey, Brock and Ben, It's Graham from Adelaide in Australia. My question is actually for my wife, who's experiencing hot flushes as part of early stages of menopause. Now, most of the supplements out there seem to go down the estrogen path, which we're not really comfortable with, given the links to breast cancer and stuff like that. We've been experimenting with magnesium and vitamin E and been getting some really good results. But I was wondering if you could recommend any other supplements that actually might help with hot flavor flashes. Thanks, guys.

Hey, it's nice to hear from Graham.

It is nice to hear from Graham. And you know what's interesting about hot flashes? Brock, did you know guys can get hot flashes?

I didn't, but I believe that because I get really hot sometimes. I'm sitting on the couch.

Yeah, it's actually something that can happen to guys as well, because basically, hot flashes, the way that they work for those of you who are unfamiliar with or haven't had the pleasant experience of getting a hot flash happens is blood vessels in your head and your neck expand really fast. And this can happen during the day or during the night, and you don't have to get all the sweating and the dizziness and the high heart rate and the headache, et cetera. Sometimes it can just feel like you're just really hot, and sometimes it can be sweating and dizziness and a faster heart rate and a headache. But it's basically just blood vessels in the head and the neck expanding really quickly. And in women, you tend to have this happen more often leading up to menopause or during what's called the perimenopausal years. And one of the reasons for that is because estrogen levels sharply drop. And when that happens, you can get more of this rapid blood vessel expansion, increasing blood flow to the head and the neck. And it's just all a result of the hormonal changes, specifically that drop in estrogen that occurs. So part of it may have a little bit to do with another thing that can increase blood flow to the head called luteinizing hormone. And you can get some surges in luteinizing hormone that also happen during these perimenopausal years. So in guys, you typically tend to see hot flashes occur if there's a dramatic reduction in testosterone levels. So in women, it's a sharp drop in estrogen levels that can cause it. In men, a sharp Drop in testosterone levels can cause it.

So that doesn't bode well for me.

So if you're a guy and you're having hot flashes to get your testosterone checked out, there's a lot of different remedies that they've looked at. Obviously, hot flashes are something that women have been experiencing for a long period of time. And because it can disrupt sleep and create insomnia and create a lot of discomfort, especially at night. There are a lot of things as far as alternative remedies that folks have looked into that go above and beyond some of these estrogen therapies that you might see prescribed more in traditional Western medicine or the use of phytoestrogens. And Graham is right, using things like phytoestrogens and even using a lot of times things like soy and other sources of estrogens that can create some downstream issues as far as increased risk of breast cancer and other cancers, simply because estrogen is so pro growth and so trying to band aid the issue with just a bunch of estrogen exposure is not necessarily the best idea. So as far as some of the alternative remedies for hot flashes that actually have some decent research behind them, one incidentally, is not really a nutraceutical at all. And it's simply acupuncture. And there was a really, really interesting study. This was actually a study done by Turkish researchers. And I know we all have a special place in our hearts for the good old Turkish researchers.

Love them Turks.

That's right, we love them Turks. So in this study, they actually recruited a bunch of postmenopausal women and they put them through a course of acupuncture. And at the end of the study period, and in this case it was a five week course of acupuncture where they were doing acupuncture two times a week for 20 minutes, the women who got the acupuncture showed significantly more relief from their symptoms compared to another group of women who got sham acupuncture. I'm not really sure what sham acupuncture is, but. And in all seriousness, I think what it is is they actually use blunted needles that don't actually penetrate your skin. So, yeah, so you think that you're getting needles poked into you, but you're really not. So anyways, though, the real acupuncture versus the fake needles turned out to actually decrease the symptoms of hot flashes and other uncomfortable symptoms of menopause as well. So acupuncture is one thing that you can do, even though I know that can Be inconvenient to go out of your way to visit an acupuncturist a couple of times a week for 20 minutes. It is something that has been shown to be effective. And I'll put a link to that particular study in the show notes if you want to check it out over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com298 so another thing that has been shown to be useful for this is maca. And maca is just basically an adrenal stabilizer. You can get it in like an organic powder form. You can add it to smoothies. You can take it in like a capsular form as well. But it's basically, you know, it's great for guys actually to increase testosterone, but in women it may actually cause a little bit of a natural surge in estrogen that can relieve some of these hot flash symptoms. So maca root is another one to look into. And you definitely want to get the organic variety, but you can typically find the organic variety. You know, for example, on Amazon.com you can get some, some good organic varieties of maca root. And it also goes by the name lepidium. Lepidium L E P I D I U M is the scientific name of maca. But most of the time you're just going to find it as organic maca or maca or maca root, if you want to sound more refined. M A C A M A C A.

So I know there's that matcha stuff that makes sense.

Not matcha green tea, but maca root. So there's another thing called black cohosh. And I think black cohosh just sounds cool, but it does. The root of the black cohosh plant has actually been used for many, many centuries. And it's actually an old Native American remedy to help relieve menstrual cramps and the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes and irritability and mood swings and sleep disturbances. And they've done clinical studies with black cohosh and found it to be a safe and effective alternative for women who cannot or will not take hormone replacement therapy, which would be one of the more modern remedies for hot flashes in menopause. So black cohosh is actually this, this flowering plant that you find in some mostly eastern areas of North America, which is why it's a more of a Native American remedy. But it can be found in capsule form, tablet form, and like a liquid tincture. You can find it in a dried root for tea. But it's, it's something that would definitely be considered A proven, clinically proven and effective remedy for hot flashes. So black, black cohosh would be another one. Now when I'm bringing up some of these things like black cohosh, maca, there's also interestingly, some studies on vitamin E and hot flashes in menopausal women. Vitamin E you got to be careful with. You always want to make sure it's balanced out with vitamin C and other natural antioxidants because high dose synthetic vitamin E especially can lead to increased risk of stroke. So you need to be very, very careful with the overuse of vitamin E. But in its natural form, balanced out with vitamin C, vitamin E would be another thing that along with black cohosh and maca root can help out quite a bit. Anyways, though there is one supplement called Metabalance. It's called Metabalance. You should be able to find it at many health food stores. You can find it on Amazon. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. But that's one that's made by Thorne and Thorne is one of those companies that I really, really admire in terms of their avoidance of using nasty fillers and their adherence to very, very high quality additives in their supplements. And this particular one, Metabalance, it's got black cohosh in it, it's got something called Vitex in it, it's got something called dong quai in it which acts very, very similar to maca root. And it's got some wild yam in it which helps provide you with a little bit of natural progesterone which can help to decrease a lot of the symptoms of a lot of perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms. So it's got all of that in it along with, I believe it has a little bit of vitamin E and vitamin C in there as well. But it's just something that you can take. It's relatively affordable. It's like 25, 30 bucks for a bottle of the stuff. But it's called Meta Balance. Metabalance, that's another one that I'd look into. So those are taking.

That would mean you wouldn't have to worry about all the, all the dosages because all that stuff you were listing, I was like, okay, so how much.

Do you need to add in? Yeah, so it's one of those convenient, those convenient things that you can just add in. The other thing I'd look into would just be like a basic Chinese adaptogenic herb complex. A lot of times with hormonal fluctuations, adaptogens can help out quite a bit. They help to produce more hormones when there's hormonal deficits, produce a little less. You know, for example, if you have excessive cortisol, help to decrease cortisol production a little bit. And one of the adaptogens that I recommend and use myself called Tian Qi, that's got a lot of components in it that help to regulate blood flow to the brain as well. So that's another one that you could look into. And that's just something you would take like mid morning on an empty stomach or even early morning on an empty stomach. It's called Tian Qi. So those are some of the main things that I would look into if you didn't want to go out of your way to do acupuncture. I'd look into black cohosh maca, this thorn metabellence stuff if you wanted a mix of that and some of the vitamins like vitamin E that can help out with regulating hot flashes and then this Tian Qi. So that's what I would do and best of luck. Hello, Ben, my name is Brian Bowles. I'm calling from Martinsville, Virginia and I have a question regarding the supplement NAC N acetyl Cysteine. I've been reading some articles about it and saying that it covers a wide variety of health issues on, you know, helping to make things better for the body. And one of the major, you know, thoughts that I had about it was what are your comments on how it works to reduce the during and post exercise oxygen sedative stress? Also if you could recommend a pure quality product that would be greatly appreciated. And also too if you know of any research that there are like any major side effects from taking this supplement, I think that's all I have. I appreciate your input and your time. Okay, have a great day and hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.

So we have talked about N acetylcysteine in the past, but this is a very specific kind of question about the oxidative stress. So he's looking for sort of an antioxidant side of things.

I think we've talked about it in the past as a pretty significant liver detox type of thing to add into your protocol if you've, if you've had a heavy bender. So for all of you getting ready to put on your Halloween zombie costumes and go out and drink a lot of shots of hard liquor.

Your sexy zombie costumes.

Yes, of course, your sexy zombie costumes or nurse costumes as the case may be, what are you gonna dress up for as Halloween?

By the way, I'm gonna dress up as the guy who hides inside his house with all the lights turned off. I do that pretty much every year. It's my staple.

I love it. I'm gonna dress up as, as the dad who walks his kids around. And yeah, I think my kids are.

Knocks the candy out of kids hands.

I think, I think I've got a like a Dracula, like a vampire kid. And then my other guy is something cute, he's like a squirrel or an ewok or something like that. So yeah, pretty random. So I like it.

It's good.

Anyways though, that has nothing to do with ns. So N acetylcysteine is just the. You may have heard of the amino acid cysteine before and N acetylcysteine is basically the amino acid cysteine, but there is what's called an acetyl group attached to it. And when you do that, when you add an acetyl group to cysteine, it makes cysteine water soluble. So normally if you were to just take oral cysteine, which isn't water soluble, it's not well absorbed by your intestines. And so if you're just taking a cysteine supplement, it doesn't really get absorbed and it doesn't really have any of the effects of cysteine that I'll tell you about in a second. Now you can get dietary cysteine as the breakdown product of proteins and peptides, like whey protein, for example. Like if you supplement with whey protein, you get, and you may have read about this, a little bit of an increase in glutathione synthesis. And one of the reasons for, for that is because cysteine, if it is absorbed, is one of the amino acids that contributes to the synthesis of glutathione. And you may be familiar with glutathione as one of the most potent antioxidants that your body makes. It's important in your liver detox pathways. It's important in fighting free radicals on a cellular level. So glutathione is really important. But the problem is that if you're just taking like a cysteine supplement, you are not really going to get much absorption to form glutathione. If you're eating like whey protein, you actually do get some cysteine absorption from that. But the trade off is of course, maybe whey protein might cause some GI side effects for you, or maybe you just don't want the calories that come with whey protein. For example, if you're trying to supplement with cysteine. The other thing is that you would have to eat a lot of whey protein. We're talking like dozens of scoops of whey protein to get a very high intake of cysteine. If you were looking for more of a therapeutic or a pretty big liver detox effect. So this is where something like adding an acetyl group to cysteine comes in handy. So what happens is, like I mentioned, N acetylcysteine is a precursor used by the body to produce glutathione. And glutathione is this really important and powerful antioxidant that helps protect you against free radical damage and serves as a liver detox. So when you add this acetyl group to cysteine, then what you allow for cysteine to do is get quickly what's called deacetylated and metabolized in your intestines and in your liver. And then it combines with a couple other amino acids, one called glycine and one called glutamate, to form glutathione. And so really, the main reason that you would take an N acetylcysteine would be to get to that end goal of producing glutathione. Now, there are some forms of N acetylcysteine that are very, very well absorbed compared to other forms. For example, if you look at, like an N acetylcysteine capsule, which is where you're going to find most N acetylcysteine supplements packaged in, what happens is N acetylcysteine is really easily oxidized when it gets exposed to the air. So an open bottle of capsules is really vulnerable to oxidation and degradation. And so it's kind of an issue if you're getting your N acetylcysteine in, like, a capsular form. You can also get N acetylcysteine in effervescent form. And this is a form that, like, I personally, I'll tell you right now, I don't take N acetylcysteine. I take liposomal glutathione instead. I use the bulletproof, upgraded glutathione. And so that's my way of getting glutathione rather than going the N acetylcysteine route. But basically, an effervescent form of N acetylcysteine is the way to go. Because what happens is not only does a solid capsule or a tablet get dissolved really gradually in your stomach, and can't really fully dissolve. It can cause some irritation in the gut, especially in the mucous membrane of the stomach. But it's very, very prone to oxidation. An effervescent tablet gets absorbed very, very well. And one of the forms that I like is there's this company called Pharmanac. It's a P H A R M A nac Pharmanac. You can get it off of Amazon. It's an extreme, extremely well absorbed form of N acetylcysteine, if you wanted to use that as a route to increase glutathione levels. So that's the way that I would go if I were going to use acetylcysteine to boost glutathione. But like I mentioned, I'd. I don't use effervescent N acetylcysteine like Pharmanac. I use the liposomal glutathione. And this is the stuff that tastes like liquid dog farts, basically. So it's not, it's not pleasant. But what you do is you put it in your mouth, you hold it for about 30 to 60 seconds, then you just chase it with a glass of water or you swallow. And it's a great way to get targeted glutathione into your gut cells and do so in a way that doesn't allow your stomach enzymes to degrade the glutathione before your gut is able to. To absorb it and deliver it to the cells. So the way that liposomal glutathione works is glutathione binds to this peptide. This peptide called lactoferrin. And lactoferrin bypasses stomach degradation and delivers glutathione straight into the gut. It crosses your intestinal mucosa through this process called endocytosis. And basically all that means is that you don't get degradation of the glutathione like you would with a capsule or a tablet, and it just gets absorbed. So kind of two different ways to skin the glutathione cat. One would be to use something like N acetylcysteine. Well, three different ways, really. One would be to use N acetylcysteine in its effervescent form like this Pharmanex stuff. One would be just to take craploads of whey protein. And then another way would be to use like a liposomal glutathione. So if I were going to take N acetylcysteine though, I would use this pharmanac stuff. So I'll put a link to that and the liposomal glutathione in the show notes. You can check out those ways to live better through science by upgrading your free radical buffering capacity.

Hi Ben. Hi Brock. It's Mark from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. So good old Canadian. Welcome to. And hello to Brock there. Anyways, in June of this year I did a tough mudder and I felt good and had a really good time. And the next day I played two back to back softball games and I felt a tweak in my shoulder every time I threw. And at the time I thought, oh, nothing of it, probably just a strain. But from that day on I kind of felt some tightness in my shoulder and my range of motion was very limited. I had trouble playing golf to start and various other things like reaching for high things became difficult. And even at times playing things like my dreadnought guitar was difficult. And so anyways, it's gotten better. My range of motion has almost come back. And what I'm wondering is that why is it that it's taken this long? It's now the middle of October and I wonder if there's anything that Ben, that you could suggest that could help me with the tightness and soreness that I feel initially in the, in the morning. And I want to thank you both for the great work that you do and I really appreciate all the hard work that you do. Thanks.

I like how Mark just so ever so subtly let us know which kind of guitar he's playing. Yeah, I do enjoy a dreadnought.

I do enjoy a good dreadnought. I don't even know what a dreadnought guitar is, honestly.

Oh, it's one of those big fat acoustic guitars. So I can see why that would actually crank his shoulder more because he has to reach around it a little.

Yeah, yeah, of course. So as if doing a tough mudder and then the next day playing two back to back softball games wasn't enough, he's now adding the dreadnought guitar into the equation. I could see why his shoulders are complaining.

Exactly. He's probably got some long flowing locks and I'm sure he was singing a love song to some hippie girl.

Yeah, I mean, the problem with, with the shoulder is that because it's a complex joint and there's so many different muscles and tendons that kind of travel underneath the clavicle and through that with what's called that glenohumeral joint. And also on the top of and the inside of and underneath the shoulder blade that just resting the shoulder or just stretching the shoulder typically is not going to get rid of pain. And as soon as you start to throw, or as soon as you start to move, or as soon as you start to do whatever you do in the tough mudder, the Arctic enema, or the giant, huge Mount Everest wall that you climb over, you're gonna feel it again. And so I have two different things that I do for my shoulder that I swear by, and there's this really, really good website. So you've probably heard about the book Becoming a Supple Leopard, right?

Brock Scott, I own it.

Great book. I own it too. And I love it. And anytime I've got a tweak or an ache or a pain in a specific area, I literally just use Becoming a Supple Leopard book like a cookbook. I flip to the specific area that involves that area I'm feeling pain in. And I pretty much do every mobilization and every technique that's in that book. You know, he's got everything from like voodoo flossing to deep tissue mobilization to gosh, like, you name it. The book is just chock full of all these methods that you can use. But there's also also just if you want to take the lazy man's route, there's a website that has a lot of the moves in that book on the website. I'll link to it in the show notes, but it's just called allthingsjim.com as in G Y M dot com, not to be confused with allthingsjim.com which would.

Also be very interesting.

James.com that's probably like a, like a devotee site to Jim Carrey or something like that.

I thought it'd be Captain Kirk.

Yeah, our Captain Kirk. But anyways, they've got a mobility section. It's the allthingsgym.com mobility101 and they split it into like, you know, shoulders, ankles, calves, feet, hip openers, hips, you know, back, etc. And a lot of times actually with some of the clients that I work with, I'll send them to specific sections of this page. And we've got little aches and pains that we're dealing with just to have them do specific, what are called, called mobility wads or mobility movements that are on here. Two of the ones though that I really like to do for my shoulder that I use frequently that I've found to be very effective for the shoulder. One is to really work on the elements of the rotator cuff that tend to travel underneath the armpit. These would be muscles like the infraspinatus and the teres minor. If they are adhesed and if there's lack of range of motion in them, they generate and radiate pain to the front of the shoulder. And a lot of times in throwing athletes or in obstacle course type of athletes who are going over walls and stuff, when you get this tightness in the shoulder, it's all starting back in there, kind of underneath the armpit and at the bottom of the lat. So there's one mobility move called a lacrosse ball shoulder mobility wad. And you just take a lacrosse ball or tennis ball or a ball about that size, you lay on it so that you're kind of like laying sideways on it, and that ball is kind of tucked underneath your armpit and pinning all that soft tissue in the armpit, the lower lat area, and you just move through every area of tightness in through there. And what works really well is if after you've gone through all that teeth grittingly tough work underneath the armpit and the lat, you then stretch the shoulder across the body and do a few shoulder stretches. Like that would be the time to stretch the shoulder after you've done that soft tissue work. And then you, you hit the other side. So that one's called. And again, I'll link to these in the show notes for you over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com298 but that one's called the lacrosse ball shoulder wad. The other one that I like is called shoulder flossing. And this is really cool. You need one of those big bands. Tooth floss simply will not do the trick. You could try tooth floss, but I think you'd probably break it. Use, use a big band like a rogue fitness band. And what you do is you attach one end of the band to an immobile object, like, you know, a pole or a beam or something that's not going to move around or even like a bedpost or something that's not going to move much. And then you hold on to the other end in your grip. You kind of wrap it around your wrist and then hold onto it with your hand. And then you move your shoulder through a variety of different ranges of motion, like internal rotation, external rotation, horizontal flexion, horizontal extension. But as you're moving your shoulder through all these different ranges of motion, that band is maintaining tension on your shoulder and it's doing what's on going called traction, right. So it's distracting your shoulder joint and kind of opening it up and almost milking inflammation out of it as you move through these different ranges of motion. So it's called shoulder flossing. That's another really, really good one. And I would actually recommend you do that after you tack down all that soft tissue in your shoulder with a lacrosse ball or with some, you know, softball, tennis ball, whatever you can use to break up that tissue. There's even these really, really cool balls with little spikes coming out of them called beastie balls. If you were to search for beastie balls, B E A S T I E balls, you'd be able to find those. Or else a very offensive website, I don't know which. But either way, beastie balls are pretty cool too. I use those and I always travel with one in my bag. But I do a little cross ball shoulder or I do the shoulder flossing with the rubber band. And I mean, like, you know, all the other things that can help with inflammation, you know, we've talked about before on the show, like doing some cold with some electrostim and, you know, doing. What else have we talked about, you know, like acupuncture and all that kind of stuff. The top two things I'd start off with before I do any of that stuff would be some. Just some deep tissue shoulder work with a ball, some shoulder flossing. And that'll generally free up a lot of that inflammation that can collect in that soft tissue around the shoulder. And that really isn't going to go away no matter how much rest you do, unless you actually start to do some of these other methods. So check out the links that I'll put in the show notes to that stuff. Oh, yeah. My name's Yvonne Heaton. About a year ago, I ripped my thigh muscle doing an aerobic workout, which I have now. A lump of scar tissue at the top of my leg, which the doctor told me. But a lot of the time I keep getting a burning sensation in my thigh muscle and I was just wondering what it was, if you could tell me. Thanks. Bye. That just sounds painful. A thigh muscle rip. This is a case where case of ripped muscles is not a good thing, not fun.

Oh, yeah. As opposed to getting ripped or getting ripped.

Exactly. So it ripped thigh muscle. Yeah. So what happens here is when you, when you tear a muscle, you sprain, you know, a tendon or you strain a tendon, you sprain a ligament, whatever, you can get scar tissue. It also can go by the, by the term adhesion or fibrosis and the the words are all different, but the concepts are pretty much the same. You get this dense fibrous tissue that's an underlying factor in many, many injuries. And it's one of the reasons that you can injure an area and keep on injuring it afterwards. Because when you form this scar tissue after an injury, it binds up and it ties down other tissues in the area that need to move freely. So as scar tissue builds up, muscle will become, become shorter, it'll become weaker. You'll get tension on tendons that have scar tissue or that are surrounded by areas of scar tissue that can cause tendinosis. You can get nerves that become trapped in areas of immobile scar tissue, and that can cause things like tingling and numbness and weakness, reduced range of motion, loss of strength, the loss of mobility. And there's kind of two different ways that scar tissue gets formed. One is a mechanical injury, right? A muscle or a tendon or a ligament gets torn by getting stretched too quickly, or it gets crushed and the body creates scar tissue to basically, you know, more or less glue those torn pieces together. And that's a necessary part of the healing process. But if you don't pay attention to some of the things I'm going to talk about in a second here as far as making sure that that glass glue is laid down in an aligned pattern, then you get some of these issues with a lack of range of motion and nerve tissue becoming trapped, etc. And a short and weak muscle. Now, scar tissue can also form in areas of your body that don't receive enough oxygen. And this actually occurs more often than what we may think. Like, for example, sitting for long periods of time during the, the day can create hypoxia in your hip flexors and cause scar tissue to form in your hip flexors, causing pain in your low back and muscle tension and weakness and nerve entrapment. Even if you haven't torn your hip flexors or strained, you know, your, your hip flexors. So anytime we increase muscle tension by keeping a muscle in a shortened position for a long period of time, we get hypoxia or we get reduced blood flow to an area. And once that reduced blood flow happens, that means less oxygen, and that means hypoxia. And when you don't have enough oxygen being delivered to a muscle area, that leads to free radical accumulation. So, I mean, you could take all the glutathione on the face of the planet, but if you're not actually getting oxygen into an area, those free radicals attract specific cells that produce scar tissue. And that scar tissue gets laid down in greater and greater amounts over time. And it can begin affecting, like I mentioned, you know, surrounding muscles and tendons and ligaments and fascia and nerves. And, you know, sometimes it can be a matter of, you know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Like, you could be sitting for a long period of time with shortened hip flexors. Go for a run with shortened hip flexors, create hypoxia, create scar tissue, and then just have this vicious cycle where you get less lactic acid drainage, you get more burning in those areas of hypoxia, you get an increased risk of injury to that area because it's not mobile or it's not able to produce strength. And it's just this vicious, vicious cycle. So the trick here is to somehow figure out a way to actually get rid of this, this scar tissue or to remove this scar tissue. And in my opinion, there's only two really effective ways for getting rid of scar tissue. One is not quite as effective as the next one that I'll give you, but I'll give you the first that's slightly less effective method first, and that would be just basically using waves to break up scar tissue. So typically, ultrasound waves are really the number one way to do this. And this would be the type of ultrasound wand that you'd find at, for example, a physical therapy institute. And they move that ultrasound wand around and around in an area like a knee or an elbow that has built up scar tissue. And those sound waves literally assist with breaking up the scar tissue. So that's one way that you can do it, in my opinion. Not only is that a little bit annoying and, and expensive, but it's not as effective as the second method, which is actually just to use deep tissue therapy, like deep, firm strokes that are moving in the direction of the muscle fibers and helping to realign scar tissue and to move oxygen back into an area. Now, deep tissue sports massage is really the best way to do this. You can, you can self administer that with things like foam rollers and lacrosse balls and a lot of the other methods that we talked about. You can have someone else, like someone who is well versed in deep tissue sports massage, do this to you as well. The specific form of deep tissue sports massage that I think is best at mobilizing areas, reducing scar tissue and realigning tissue in a pattern or in a direction that it should be aligned, is active release technique, or art. That's the number one form of deep tissue massage that I, that I would recommend as far as something that you should be able to find relatively close to you in your area. And that can really work to break up scar tissue and get rid of hypoxic areas. I'll put a link in the show notes to the part of the active release therapy website that lets you find a practitioner in your area who can work on you. But that's, that's what I would recommend. And I mean like it's, it's easier than you would think to find an art therapist and this is where you can go to a clinic. And I mean like for me, even like before Ironman, I had a lot of little injuries in areas that I knew were hypoxic, like especially in my knees after racing the Spartan World Championships. And I actually had a deep tissue sports massage therapist come to, to my home. And it's actually less expensive than you think. I basically kind of like bulk paid him for, I think it was like four, five sessions to just come to my house and treat me. And he kept his table in my living room closet and just pulled it out every time. He showed up and worked on me a few times and that was, it was convenient for me because I could just, I could be doing my work, working at my office and then he'd show up and I'd do my 45 minutes immobilization and he'd leave. And I followed that up even with some foam roller and some lacrosse ball work. But getting deep tissue massage is so therapeutic at removal of scar tissue. And frankly I've been talking about this with some of my clients. Most of the folks I train people think I work with pro athletes. I mostly work with about 40 to 60 year old male and female again executives who, who still want to perform and go out and do things like triathlons and obstacle races and you know, ultra runs and mountain bike races and things like that. And you know what I find is that not just for myself, but also for these folks that folks that I'm working with, it becomes so important to even replace workouts throughout the week with deep tissue work to where we'll, we'll full on skip yoga sessions or we'll full on skip workouts, weight training workouts, et cetera, and instead just do deep tissue mobilization. You know, spending like 30 to 40 minutes on a foam roller or a ball, just hunting down spots and eliminating them. And I think that that is an oft neglected focus of training that helps to nip a lot of this in the bud and get rid of it before it Happens. I mean, I've got two days of the week now where I do. And it's kind of funny in Kelly Starratt, he's the guy that wrote the book Becoming a Supple Leopard. He also wrote this, this newer book called Ready to Run and he calls it goat herding, where you're just basically sitting down with all your different, you know, like a muscle stick, a foam roller, a lacrosse ball, et cetera, and you're just finding all those areas that hurt and just going after them and essentially, you know, putting force into them to remove them and to realign those areas of scar tissue. And so I've got two full days a week now where I'm spending a long time just doing this goat herding and I just put on a podcast or an audiobook and listen to it and just sit on my living room floor and go to town. So really, really important if you want to be in this for the long game and if you want to get rid of a lot of the nagging aches and pains that a lot of athletes and weekend warriors and exercise enthusiasts have to deal with. So that's, that's what I would do for this. And again, I'll put a link to that active release technique practitioner search in the show notes for you.

Well, that's fantastic.

Fan frickin tastic.

I think you solved some serious problems today.

That's right. And by the way, speaking of fantastic, we did get a review this week and as usual, if you leave the podcast a review over an itunes, we will send you the exact gear package. You can go check out the gear package@bengreenfieldfitness.com gear as a matter of fact, you can even for $47, support the show and buy one of those gear packs, a cool Ben Greenfield fitness beanie, a BPA free, guilt free water bottle, and a cool tech T shirt that makes you look all muscular and sexy. You can check that a lot at Bengreenfield Fitness. But if you leave a review and you hear us read your review on the show and you email us and let us know. Just email Ben BenGreenfieldFitness.com Let us know your T shirt size and we'll actually get a gear pack out to you straight to your front door, possibly with Brock jumping out of a cake and singing you a song if you're probably.

That's what usually happens.

Yeah. So anyway, our review this week comes from.

Don't count on that.

Our review this week comes from I Murder Kale. And oh, that says Kale I thought.

It said I murder Kate.

No, I murder Kale, actually.

Okay, that. That's better.

Yeah. So. Yeah, why don't you read this one, Brock?

Well, the title of this review is I think of these guys every Time I take a shower. Which I think we don't even need to read the. The whole review now because that's better than anything.

Yeah. Okay.

This podcast has done at least two things for me. Number one, it provides my brain with the perfect balance of humor and stimulation for the solid hour it takes for me to fold and put away laundry.

Nothing like stimulation when you're putting away laundry.

Yeah, I, I always take that as my sort of Zen time, but if you need stimulation, that's okay. And it continues. And number two, it has also successfully turned my daily bathing routine on its head. Showering will never be the same for me now that I know all the super cool benefits that comes with cold thermogenesis.

Oh yeah, baby.

Warm, luxurious showers and baths are the thing of the past as I now keep my tap on the coldest setting possible. So thanks guys. You've turned one of this stay at home mom's only luxuries into a battle of wills. Fire breathing freak fast.

That's hot.

P S. My husband thanks you for lowering the energy bill. Keep up the great work.

Well, we're going to think about you now every time we take a shower. So go stay two ways.

I gave up taking showers a long time ago, so.

That's right. Well, for all of you stay at home soccer moms out there who are taking showers and thinking of Brock and I, thanks and of course be sure to leave us a review in itunes. And thanks to Imurder Kale, we'll send you a very cool beanie that you can wear while you take your showers.

So it is important to keep the extremities warm while doing cold thermogenesis.

That is correct. And also we'll put a link to everything from the crazy endurance quest that we talked about at the beginning of this show should you want to sign up for one of those to Everywhere I'll Be from London to Dubai, etc. As well as all of our recommendations for increasing glutathione and improving your mind mobility over in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 298 so thanks for listening in. And also of course, be sure to support today's sponsor by going to trainingmask.com and using code GREEN1 to get a 20% discount on your third lung. And while you're at it surfing around the webs, go over to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com and check out the brand new Nature Colostrum. So thanks for listening in and happy showering. Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice. It.