The Effects Of Beer On Hydration, Cross Country Running Tips, Home Remedies For Hernias & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, the effects of beer on hydration. Cross country running tips should you use wraps, sleeves and belts for weightlifting, home remedies for hernia, how protein spikes, insulin, 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.

Greenfield Are you trying to kill me?

Possibly. Yes. As I thought.

So I really, I think last week we talked about how you're more. You're sort of putting me into an overreaching phase of, of my training at the moment. And. Damn it, man, I. I'm. You know when you have to, like, use your hands to help yourself lower onto the toilet and then getting off the toilet, you have to, like, grab onto something and pull yourself up? That's me today.

Why?

Because you gave me this crazy workout. Not even yesterday. It was a day before. So I'm at the peak of doms right now. It was an obstacle workout. Do you recall that one with the bear crawls?

Running, stopping bear crawls, Burpees. Yeah. Yeah. Grow a pair. It was hard.

It was, it was awesome. It was super fun. And then yesterday I did my sprint workout and was like, yeah, I'm a little sore. But this morning I got up and it was like, holy crap, I'm just.

Making you resilient to the pending zombie apocalypse.

And I appreciate it.

I really do. Well, I'm picking coconut flakes out of my teeth this morning. Delicious. I'm. I've, I've tried a few new things with my, my morning breakfast protocol. I actually just finished a book, really good book. I'm. I'm going to get the author on a PODC soon about, like, ancestral eating patterns, wild edible plants, the response of plants to certain preparation methods, et cetera. And one interesting part that the book goes into is about blending food, particularly blending vegetables, and how, like, heat and oxidation can potentially occur when you're just like pulverizing the hell out of your kale.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's why they do the. Oh, it's a masticating juicer instead of the old school juicer.

Masticating juicer. Or like a mortar and pestle would be like kind of like the really old school. I'm not gonna make my breakfast with a mortar and pestle, though. I Just a hammer. I refuse to do that. However, I have been simply blending anything that I'm making far less on a little bit lower setting. So I used to just like pulverize stuff, right, for like 60 full seconds. Now I just kind of blend it for about 20 to 30 seconds. So my smoothies, you know, they were already a little chunky. They're even chunkier, but, you know, I simply need to chew them a little bit more, hence the. The coconut.

So you're having. You're having, like, straight up gazpacho for breakfast.

It's kind of like gazpacho, like a thick, chunky, kale, green gazpacho that my wife says looks like cat pool. So it's good stuff.

Delightful. Jess, as a classy broad. Speaking of classy broads, I have seen some pretty awesome tweets going across twitter.com out of your Twitter account.

And you're lucky that my wife. Lucky my wife does not listen to the Ben Greenfield fitness show. Anyways, yeah, I have been tweeting out some interesting things. Let's start here. Here's a fun one. The effects of a moderate intake of beer on markers of hydration after exercise in the heat. This was a crossover study in which they took a bunch of active males, and they were relatively fit males. Their VO2 Max was up close to 60, which is pretty fit considering that's like almost double of a sedentary population. But they had them perform an hour of running at a pretty, pretty intense pace. And they had them do that hour of running two times. But the run sessions were three weeks apart. Both of them, however, took place in a hot laboratory setting. Quick math, brock. It was 35 degrees Celsius and 60% humidity. What does that come out to for us Fahrenheiters?

105.

Good podcasting. 105 degrees. Yeah. So 105 degrees. Running for an hour. And then during the two hours following the exercise, they either consumed mineral water ad libitum. And I love that word, just because it makes you sound smart. Much smarter than saying whatever the hell you want. Yeah. Or up to 660ml of beer. Just regular old beer. And the beer was followed by water ad libitum, but not until they actually drank their 660ml of beer.

660Ml? That's more than a pint.

Yeah, it's more than a pint. It's a decent amount of beer. And they followed things like their blood serum and their fluid balance and their urine excretion before, after exercise and after rehydration. And what they found was that the folks who had the beer and then had the water experienced no deleterious effects of drinking a bunch of beer before they had their water. Their hydration status did not change. They were just as hydrated as the folks who drank water had libidum. So it turns out that having a cold one after a tough exercise session in the heat really doesn't influence you deleteriously from a dehydration standpoint.

Yeah.

From a hydration standpoint, contrary to popular belief. Yeah. There may be other things that happen I wouldn't necessarily, you know, drive your car home from the park after you slam a couple of cold ones following an hour running at 105 degrees. But aside from that, there's, there's no worries. Now. I think the next experiment that they should do is see what happens if you mainline the beer right into, like the radial, you know, vessels via intravenous injection. Yes.

Yeah, that's. Well, actually, no, no. I enjoy the taste of beer way too much to waste it like that.

It's quite possible that you could taste it in your mouth. I mean, when you do a coffee enema, you can sometimes taste coffee. So goes to say, perhaps a beer IV would allow you to taste beer.

A beer enema, perhaps.

And by the way, if you're listening, in any of the research that we cite, the studies, the resources from today show you can access@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 3 2, 3. And here's the next one. Whey protein. I have talked before about the difference between whey protein and amino acids, particularly like whole amino acids. Right. Whole amino acid powders. Whole amino acid capsules. They're sometimes also called essential amino acid capsules or powders or EAAs. I'm personally right now tapering for the Pennsylvania Sprint Spartan and the Super Spartan. I'm going to do back to back Spartans this weekend up in the Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania. And when I'm tapering, one of the things that I'm aware of, and we'll talk about the insulinogenic effect of protein this show. But one of the things that I'm aware of is of course is calories because I'm exercising less. But I still want to enhance recovery. And so one of the tools that I use during a period of time like that is I will often substitute for portions of meat or portions of protein powder instead. Essential amino acids capsules or essential amino acids powders because they are very, very low from a caloric standpoint, but contain all of the building blocks for muscle. Now granted they're not going to have it as say as big an appetite satiating effect as say, you know, like, like protein would because they're void of calories. But from recovery standpoint, theoretically up until this point they could help with recovery. But what a recent study in the American Journal of Physiology and Endocrinology Metabolism looked into was a comparison of these essential amino acids with whey protein. And they, they particularly looked at the anabolic signaling. Right? So if you take in a bunch of whey protein, in this case they used, I believe, yes, it was 20 grams of whey protein and they compared that to 3 grams of these amino acids, which was interesting to me because I've been using 5 to 10 grams of amino acids. Granted this study wasn't. Was in women. So who are tiny little women. Tiny, tiny little women. Like tooth fairies. Anyways though, what they looked at was plasma, insulin and amino acid concentrations. They looked at microvascular blood flow and they looked at muscle anabolic signaling, particularly like your post workout protein synthesis, meaning your ability to take amino acids and repair and rebuild muscle. What they found was that the anabolic response was similar to both whey protein and amino acids, meaning that the whey protein offered no anabolic advantage over the amino acids. And the whey protein from a caloric standpoint is of course much, much higher than an amino acids compound. So what this means for you is that if you need to rely upon something like amino acids for repair and recovery and you're concerned that it might not be as anabolic or might not allow you to have as much of a muscle repair and recovery effect as say whey protein or whatever your protein choice happens to be. Turns out the amino acids are just as good. This is the first study I've seen, you know that, that, that was done by an independent organization. Not, not the people making the supplements. Right, not the people making the amino acid supplements. So yeah, yeah. And then the question just becomes do you want powder or do you want capsules? I use both the stuff I use, I use the exos. Exos aminos powder. And then when I want a capsule I use the, it's called the perfect health aminos which is very, very similar to, to the, the master amino pattern aminos.

But anyways stop making the master amino pattern and, and just turned into the perfect one now.

No, I just found a much better deal. The perfect amino is basically made by the same lab, except it's just cheaper. So I've got both of those listed at greenfield fitness systems.com if anybody wants to go delve into them. But yeah, interesting stuff on amino acids.

Yeah.

And then the last thing was workouts. What I tweeted was that if you're tempted to finish up a workout with an extra set of bicep curls, leg extensions, et cetera, there's no need. So perhaps this is leftover thought from my old days of bodybuilding, but I'll often finish up a weight training workout that, you know, say like deadlifts and I'll be tempted to, you know, like throw in an extra set of bicep curls because I got 10 minutes. Or you know, finish up some squats with some leg extensions to get a little bit more burn for the quads. Right. Make it burn before I go drink my giant creatine shake before you go and chug your beer and get swole. Anyways, though, what a recent study in the Journal of Applied Physiology and Metabolism looked into was what happens when you add a single joint exercise, right? Like a bicep curl. And that's actually what they use in this case was, was bicep curls to a multi joint exercise program, what it does to muscle strength, what it does to muscle size. And in this case they use trained men and they had one group do multi joint exercises without finishing up with single joint exercises. And then they had one group do multi joint exercises with single joint exercises. And they measured things like arm circumference, you know, your bicep circumference, your elbow flexor strength, et cetera, when you, when you threw in the curls. And it turned out that there was absolutely no difference between the two groups in terms of muscle strength and muscle size. And the takeaway was that the addition of single joint exercises to a strength training program that already has multi joint exercises in it does not give you any additional benefits and is not very time efficient. So it turns out that you don't need to be doing all those curls, Brock.

So you could, you could spend, or I should spend that extra 10 minutes in a cold shower perhaps instead of.

Doing bicep curls in a cold shower or maybe just doing extra multi joint exercises. I don't know. Pick, pick your poison. But ultimately coils are, as I think I heard a strength and conditioning coach once say, curls are for girls. And that's just like super sexist. And I'm sorry to all my female friends and listeners.

Yeah, what do you think this is? Obstacle dog?

That wasn't what I said. That's what he Said curls are for girls. Okay. Listener Q and A.

Hi Ben, my.

Name is Stacy and I'm calling about my son. He is going to be a junior in high school and is a cross country runner. He is on the edge of moving up to the next level in the sport and I wanted to know what things he can be doing to achieve faster times and how to eat properly. We are still struggling with that. When to eat, how to eat, what to eat for performance and to increase his speed. So I would appreciate any of your insights. I love your show. I just found it this week, summer and have been listening to so many of the podcasts. I really like it. I've learned a lot and I really appreciate what you're doing. It's been super helpful. Thanks.

So a junior in high school, that's grade 10. So would he be like 16 years old?

Yeah, something like that.

Okay, so pretty much finished growing or almost finished growing. So yeah, pretty much treat them like a. A grown man?

Pretty much. He's a grown man. Yes, probably Full face, beard, hair on his legs. We'll call him a grown man. Anyways, I was just bringing that up.

Because of like the hormone stuff or the growth plates and stuff. If he was super young, then you don't want to be pushing him too much.

But yeah, absolutely, I wasn't creepy. Good consideration anyways though, as far as cross country runners go, I would say, and I talk about this quite a bit in my book beyond training, there's kind of like five neglected areas that I tend to see, especially like endurance runners and cross country runners run into. And it either holds you back in terms of speed or it affects things like balance, coordination later on in life, sets you up for injuries, etc. So some of the things that I would say that Stacy sun should focus on for cross country running or anybody listening in should focus on if they're wanting to become a faster cross country runner and they already have a good running program in place. Right. Like a good base running program. One would be strength. You know, I recently interviewed the folks from that university, I forget which one. On using strength training protocols to enhance endurance performance because of the increase in motor neuron unit recruitment and also the increase in movement efficiency and economy. And the basic idea behind this is that during the off season you should be lifting with high force, low velocity and then during the on season you should be lifting with low force high velocity. So high force low velocity would be like multi joint exercises, heavy six to ten reps, et cetera. Low force, high velocity would Be things like plyometrics, skipping, hopping, leaping, bounding, etc. But for a runner, my recommendation is anywhere from one to three times per week spent in strength training. So strength would be the first thing. The second thing would be power. Now power obviously is something that you're going to hit a little bit with. Something like your, your, your low force, high velocity type of training. But as far as other ways to improve power, I would say one thing that tends to get neglected is the strength of your nervous system. And specifically things like neuronal health, adequate fatty acids, fish oils, stuff like that. So making sure that you're really taking care of things from a nervous system standpoint, sleep, high fat diet, that type of thing. But then also I'm a big fan of having some things around the backyard. Things like agility ladders, like speed and agility ladders, weighted jump ropes, some kind of a plyometric box, right. So you can do a single leg or double leg plyo hops. I'm a big fan of medicine balls for things like slams, throws, et cetera. Anything that allows you to just basically throw stuff around or move your body quickly, especially from, from an explosive standpoint would be beneficial and possibly things that, that a cross country coach may not have available or be using in something like their own cross country training program.

So here's the question. When you, when you're buying those boxes, when you're getting like stuff to do box jumps with, would you, what would the height, what would the optimal height be?

Generally about the height of your knee or higher, right? So I mean like a really good athlete is going to be able to get up onto a box that's a hip height or higher. But I recommend you start with about knee height or higher. Now for a single leg hop, that's still going to be a little bit high. I mean some, some people, you know, like the height of a treadmill belt, right. From a ground up to a treadmill belt is high enough for a single leg hop, but for like a double leg jump, depth jump, things like that, I would go for knee or higher in terms of height. So. So yeah, you just basically need stuff that you can throw and swing around without breaking and boxes that you can jump up onto. So that's power. And again, I get into a lot of detail in my book about strength, power and some of the other things I'm going to talk about here. Speed is another overspeed training. Okay? Downhill, running on soft surfaces, getting on a treadmill that pushes you at a speed that you would not normally run. If you were on grass or track or field and jacking that thing up and running at overspeed. Even overspeed repeats on a bicycle, right? Like 120 RPM. All you're doing is trying to get yourself, get your central nervous system to send that message to your muscles as quickly as possible so that running at a rate of 90 plus RPM, which is really how fast you want to be running for, for really good speed, movement, efficiency, economy, et cetera. So that that becomes second nature. And. And the only way to do that is by doing overspeed training where you're working at 100 plus RPM. So I'm a big fan of some of those strategies. And Brock, it sounds like something was funny.

I just. You don't recommend the. Dropping the. Dropping her son off the back of a truck while you're driving along? Like, who was that you had on the show that was talking about doing overspeed training where you're like driving along in the back of a truck?

Yeah, that. That was when I interviewed the guy who does J. I forget his last name. I met him at the Bulletproof Biohacking conference and he trains folks using like electrical muscle stimulation and super duper overspeed training where yeah, he was like, I think it was his son. He was like dragging him behind the car. He used that and a single speed bike, right? So you'd ride around town on your single speed bike and when you're going downhill, you have no choice but to pedal as quickly as possible. And those are two methods that he used for overspeed training for his son. But yeah, I think like an overspeed treadmill or running really fast downhill on a golf course is a better idea than dragging your kid behind you in a pickup truck. So, yeah, thanks for clarifying. The next one is mobility. So, you know, mobility is something I've talked about quite a bit on the show before. I think every athlete should own like, you know, Kelly Starrett's becoming a Supple leopard book along with a foam roller. Some kind of like a ball, right? Like a massage ball. And preferably, you know, some kind of like mobility type of traction equipment, right? Like elastic bands that you can attach to the feet to pull apart at the knees for knee traction or that you can attach to the hips for hip traction, etc. So yeah, I would definitely say using those type of strategies is good. I mean, case in point, this morning my quote unquote workout was 20 minutes on the foam roller along with this thing called the Battle Star, which is like a. I Use a rumble roller and I use a battle star. A battle star, is this really hard. I don't know what kind of plastic is used on it, but it's almost like roller blade wheels all attached together. And Kelly Starrett, the same guy who wrote the Becoming a Supple Leopard book, he sent me one of these. And it's incredibly hard. You think the rumble roller is tough. And this one's very, very good at separating adhesions in small areas like your calf, like your soleus and your gastrocnemius. It can separate those muscles to help with the calf Does a really good job at separating a lot of the hamstring muscles, some of the quad muscles, but man, it's a incredibly hard piece of equipment. You could Google image, search it, see what it looks like. It's called the battle star. Anyways, though, great name, by the way, doing mobility work like that. So this morning I spent 20 minutes, full body foam roller along with the battle star. And because I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, I had my hypoxic air generator hooked up to my mouth. So I was doing all that at about 13,000ft elevation. No, I had that one set on 18,000ft elevation. So it's kind of cool because I can put a pulse oximeter on my fingertips and watch my blood oxygen saturation drop from like 98 down to 87 as I'm going through my foam rolling protocol. So I'm building a bunch of new red blood cells while I'm foam rolling. So I.

Building red blood cells, killing brain cells.

Yeah. So exactly. No, I have gotten a headache for a while after some of those sessions and wondered how many, how many brain cells died.

No doubt.

Anyways, though, the next thing that I did after that was I hung from my inversion table, right. So after I foam rolled everything, the knots out of the rope, so to speak, I stretched the rope out by hanging from that inversion table. So I was elongating, you know, my knees, my hips, and I kind of swing from side to side a little bit and just basically provide traction on all those muscles that I've just kind of freed up in terms of the fascial and connective tissue sheaths surrounding those muscles. So that type of mobility work is not necessarily going to make you faster, but it's going to keep you in the game. Right? And that's really, really important when it comes to everything from, like, overuse injuries to stress fractures to, you know, arthritic, like, symptoms, et cetera. So you've got strength, you've got power, you've got speed, you've got mobility. And then the last neglected component is balance. And balance would be things like, you know, single leg exercises. You know, for example, right now as we are talking, I am standing on my little anti fatigue mat that's at my desk. And so your son could easily have things like a standing workstation in his room or these type of mats and for example, a gym. And I use one called a kai bounder. And I stand on this on one leg and then I stand out on the other leg. It was built based on inspiration from a guy who walked around Korean rice paddy fields and noticed that he had to. Not only did his feet feel fantastic and got very strong, but he had to work a lot on his balance. These type of single leg balance exercises on mats that move around a little bit are really good. Incorporating single leg squats, incorporating hip hikes. Anything that kind of challenges your son from a balance standpoint is really important too. Even visual perception and what's called vestibulocochlear perception, which is like the strength of your ears, that's also very important. I mean, making sure that you take computer breaks to look off into the distance to train your eyes to see something more than two feet ahead of you, or making sure that you don't listen to extremely loud music on your headphones so that those tiny little bones in your ears are able to make micro adjustments much better as your head and your body moves. And then of course, doing the single leg exercises or standing on unstable surfaces trains kind of like that third component of balance called your somatosensory system, which is the balance component in your joints. And once you put all three of those together, you're really going to take care of yourself from a balance standpoint, which is important for everything from stability on more technical cross country courses to decreasing your ground contact time as you're running. So there's a lot of benefits to including balance as well. So strength, speed, power, mobility and balance would be the five areas that, you know, if, if one of my sons were really wanting to get good at cross country and I already knew that their cross country running program was sound as far as like what the coach was programming from a running standpoint, I would focus on on those components. So that's where I would start. And then as, as far as the diet goes, you know, I've talked about this on, on podcasts before, but you know, read, read the article I have@BenGreenfieldFitness.com about 40 easy meals for busy athletes. And then read the one about how much carb, protein and fat that an athlete needs. And I'll link to those resources in the show notes for you over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 323Please send me a check when your son wins the world championships of cross country running. And.

And he better be wearing a Ben Greenfield fitness T shirt when he does it.

That's right. Or those really shorty shorts. Hi Ben and Brock, It's Hammer Slammer from the Shipyard Sirens in Saint John, New Brunswick Roller derby team. And as cross training, I do a lot of strength training and I was wondering what your thoughts are on using wraps and sleeves and belts while lifting. I usually tend to do this later on in my sets when it gets a bit heavier. And I was wondering if you think that's a bad habit or, or I should continue doing stuff like that. Love the show and I look forward to hearing what your your thoughts are on this. Thanks.

Hammer Slammer.

Hammer. It's a good name. So the deal, the deal with these, by the way, roller derbies. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, I would not want to mess with a roller derby girl of the roller derby girls that I have seen. So anyways though, as far as belts, wraps and sleeves go, you know, they have their specific function and it's important to use them properly and just not like indiscriminately use them in every workout, even though I will admit that they look pretty damn cool. And when I walk into a gym wearing my weightlifting belt, my bright sleeves, the wraps around my wrist, maybe some kind of like weightlifting shoes, I look pretty badass, at least in my opinion. Sometimes just walk around the house that way just to feel better about myself.

Walk around the backyard.

Yeah, we've done an episode on weightlifting shoes, so I would go listen to that episode. So we won't cover that. But let's talk about belts, wraps and sleeves. So belts, these weightlifting belts, what they do is they give you something to brace against during a lift. And when you use them correctly, they can actually help you lift more weight. I mean, essentially what a belt does is it makes it easier for you to create intra abdominal pressure, like you're breathing against the compression of that belt. And as a result, you're able to maintain a good position under heavy loads such as say, like a back squat or an overhead snatch or a deadlift. And what some people will say is, okay, well weight lifting belts can help you lift more weight, so why not just use them all the time? What's the problem with that? Well, you don't want to rely on a piece of equipment like a weightlifting belt to create a strong and stable core. Especially if you find yourself consistently unable to keep your torso strong or to stay upright when you're doing a back squat or you can't maintain a strong back position during a deadlift that is less than a, like a single rep deadlift. There's probably an underlying weakness or a problem that you have to deal with and all a belt will do is cover that up. And sure, it might help you in the weight room, but as far as functional activities and activities of daily life, you know, it is a little bit of a band aid. The time and place to wear a belt in the weight room would be like I mentioned, when you're doing very heavy wraps near or at your max. I wouldn't wear weightlifting belt for any weight that you can do more than three times, period. It's just not really not necessary. So that's one thing in competition. You know, let's say, you know, this is very similar like breaking out the, you know, whatever the aerodynamic wheels during a triathlon or something like that, right? Like you, you can train your back to become very strong in training and then break out that extra assistance during competition. So let's say you're competing at like, you know, whatever crossfit regionals or nationals and you're doing two minutes deadlift at body weight for time, right? Like I would not recommend a weightlifting belt for that for, for a deadlift that is only your body weight in normal circumstances. But for something like that where it's competition, you're going to be pushing your the max and you want that extra little bit of help, then something like that can come in handy. You just don't want to use it as a crutch for every training session. And sometimes if you're having an off day from training and you want a little bit of extra support to help a muscle repair and recover. Some people do swear by using, you know, after a tough day of squats and deadlifts, the next day, using a weight belt in the same way that you would use like compression leggings, right. Or compression tight as just a way to take some stress, the stress off an area, keep it compressed and assist with recovery. But those would really be the only situations in which I'd recommend using a weight belt.

So I thought they were primarily just for keeping your intestines inside your abdominal wall.

No, I mean, sure, if you are someone who's had to Deal with hernias. For example, they can keep hernias from protruding through the abdominal wall, perhaps keep a hernia from developing. But ultimately, the most important reason for wearing them is they give you something to brace against so that you create intra abdominal pressure so you can lift more weight. That's interesting. The number one reason that a true weightlifter would use something like that.

So it's sort of like strapping a Smith machine right onto your body.

Yep, exactly.

Is that a terrible analogy?

It was a really, really bad analogy, even though I said exactly. Wrist wraps. So if your wrists get very, very sore because of the amount of weight that you use, then a wrist wrap that helps you attach your wrist to a bar so that you can grip that bar more readily can come in handy to decrease some of that pain and get you to the point where you can lift a very, very heavy weight. If you're the type of person who has just, you know, anatomically extremely skinny wrists and that's something that's holding you back, or if your hands are so torn up and blistered from weight training that you're having a tough time.

Or roller derbying.

Yeah, or roller derbying, that you're having a tough time actually gripping the bar, that would be another case where either weightlifting gloves or a wrist wrap would come in handy. But let's say, you know, you're somebody who just has a weak grip, Right? Like using grip strengtheners, like captains of crush grip holders, or like, you know, thick bars, things of that nature, to get a stronger grip is a much, much better strategy than using a wrist wrap. So it's the same analogy here as using, you know, like a weightlifting belt. It's like there are some scenarios where it would come in handy, but in most cases, unless you're competing and going for every advantage possible on the floor of competition, a wrist wrap is, in most cases, a crutch. Again, unless your hands are just so torn up and you need to work out, but you can't grip the bar. So. And that can be the case.

It seems like in competition they wouldn't be allowed to use that kind of stuff. That seems like. Like cheating.

No, in most cases you are. You're allowed to use everything from, like, weightlifting shirts to straps to knee sleeves to wraps. I mean, especially in like an Olympic weightlifting or a powerlifting competition, you'll see a lot of that stuff used quite, quite a bit in order to, you know, basically get the most out of the body in the same way that it's legal during a triathlon to use fast wheels and a skin suit. So. And straps kind of fall into a similar category as the wrist wraps. Right? Like, they can help out a little bit if your hands are shredded. If you don't know what any of this stuff looks like, I'll put a link over to. The best place, in my opinion, to get this stuff is the rogue fitness website. If you want to look at, like, belts, wraps, sleeves, wrist wraps, stuff like that, or, you know, you want to educate yourself on them a little bit more, you can go check them out over there. But straps would kind of fall into the same category as wrist wraps. And then the last thing would be like, knee sleeves or knee wraps. And these are like, solid tubes that are made of, like, neoprene or nylon or some other kind of material, and they go over the knee and they provide a little bit of warmth in the joint. They can give it some support. And especially if you're doing, like, snatch, where you're lifting a very heavy weight overhead and then dropping underneath that weight and getting extremely low and needing a little bit of extra support to kind of like, you know, push out of that deep squat or, you know, or even just doing like, like a back squat, for example. That's where you'll see a lot of folks using knee wraps to, to help them and. And to keep them from, you know, blowing out their knees, for example. But again, it's something that you don't want to use to mask an underlying weakness. So the. The knee wraps, I would say, if you're using, if you're doing, again, like any very, very heavy weight in which you're dropping your knees below 90 degrees, that's where that kind of stuff can help out a little bit. The, the risk is that there is some potential for the knee sleeve to push your patella slightly out of position. And so when you lift with your patella out of position, you can produce some. Some grinding and some potential for, like, arthritis in the knee joint. So you got to be careful with overuse of those as well. So ultimately, in competition, yeah, under very heavy loads. Yeah, for the knees, under loads that might not even be like, an extremely heavy load, but that. That's past 90 degrees can help out a little bit if your hands are completely shredded. Right. Like a wrap or. Or a wrist strap can come in handy. But, you know, in most cases, it just kind of depends. And I definitely wouldn't be using this stuff in, you know, in. In every workout. But, you know, Hammer Slammer says she tends to do it later in her sets when it gets heavier. That might be a case where if, if biomechanics are really going to pot, you could use a little bit of extra help to get through those last few sets. Just don't rely upon this stuff as a crutch to mask underlying weaknesses. And that is what I have to say about that. Hi, Ben and Brock, this is Will in Seattle. I've been dealing with what I believe to be a hiatal hernia for the past few days, which I believe I got from some combination of heavy lifting and copious amounts of lemon juice, which kind of shoved my stomach up above my diaphragm. And it's been uncomfortable. Like I'm getting some symptoms of gerd and it's kind of harder to take a deep breath and I can't eat much food without feeling like it's just gonna come right back up. And I wanted to get your take on it and see if you know of any kind of natural ways to remedy this and kind of get the stomach back where it needs to be in its proper place so I can get back to doing all the stuff I love doing, especially heavy breathing and eating. So I look forward to your response and I really appreciate everything you do. And take care.

Wow. Will gave himself a hernia by drinking too much juice.

My wife got a hernia. What kind it was? It's one of the abdominal hernias. She got it from the Herculean hoist at a Spartan race.

Oh, no.

So the Herculean hoist, for those of you who don't know what this is, you run up on it and it's like a hoist that you pull down with a rope. And my wife, bless her heart, doesn't actually train for these events. She just shows up and does them. And so she started doing the hoist and it was obvious within like 20 seconds that there was no way in hell that she was going to get this, this sandbag lifted all the way up to the top of the, of the bars that she had to lift it up. It's like 20, 30 foot hoist, something like that. However, even though she could have just gone and done 30 burpees and lost two minutes and kept going, she refused. And she actually wound up wrapping her legs, both legs around the rope, lying on her back, pulling this thing one inch at a time, resting, recovering, pulling it again. And she was at the hoist for, I would say probably a good eight to 10 minutes, working and getting. And just to put that in perspective for you, most people will run up on it. And if they can do it, they've got it done within about 30 to 60 seconds and they move on. And she fought this thing for freaking ever. She was having a baby and she got all done. And a week later she's like, my stomach really hurts, and there's something poking out of it. And it's been feeling this way since the Spartan. I'm like, yeah, you probably. Probably herniated. So she's staying away from crunches and planks and stuff like that for a little while.

I think that's called a tenacious hernia.

Tenacious hernia. There you go.

Too much tenacity.

A hiatal hernia is a lot different, though. Hiatal hernia occurs when part of your stomach pushes upward through your diaphragm. So your diaphragm normally has this little opening in it called a hiatus. And that hiatus is where your food tube, your esophagus, passes through on its way to connect to your stomach. But the stomach can push up through that opening and it can cause a hiatal hernia. And in many cases, you don't even notice a small hiatal hernia. But a large hiatal hernia can allow food and acid to back up into your esophagus. And you can get things like heartburn, for example. That's one of the more common things that you see arise with something like this. And there are a variety of treatments and drugs, as well as a variety of tests and diagnoses to go after something like this. And some of these things you really gotta be careful of as far as symptoms in addition to heartburn, a lot of times, like, you'll belch a lot, you'll have difficulty swallowing, you'll sometimes get chest or abdominal pain. You'll feel really full after meals. If it gets really bad, you start to. Your stool can appear a little bit black. Like, if you have a combination of heartburn and black stool, that can indicate some actual gastrointestinal bleeding that can go along with a hiatal hernia. Traditional medications that they'll usually give for something like this would be anti acid or medications to reduce acid production, which of course have issues, because once you reduce your acid production, you're not able to actually break down proteins. So you get amino acid deficiencies, and it's just not fun. So you can also get surgery. So an operation for a hiatal hernia involves like pulling your stomach down into your abdomen, making an opening in your diaphragm smaller. And then you can also reconstruct your esophageal sphincter or you can remove the hernia sac. Sometimes a surgeon can use a teeny tiny camera and just go through several pretty small incisions in your abdomen. So it can be somewhat minimalist, but still not fun. And you may want to give a go to some alternative remedies before you jump right into, you know, getting a, getting a surgery. So some of the things that you'll see recommended as far as lifestyle changes that can help out with the acid reflux you can get from a hiatal hernia would be to avoid really, really big meals, like eat several smaller meals throughout the day. Avoid things that trigger heartburn, which would be like chocolate, onions, spicy foods, tomato based foods, Grandma's pasta dinner, that kind of stuff.

Pasta, all my favorites, Olive Garden.

Avoid alcohol for sure. And coffee as well. Should be something you want to be really, really careful of. Definitely don't smoke. And some people even swear by like elevating the head of their bed about 6 inches. Like the head's lower than the, for example, so that you're not getting much pressure on the head as you're sleeping. Now, in terms of alternative medicine, you'll see like a very interesting fixes kind of out there in the hiatal hernia alternative medicine world. And one of the ones that is recommended is to get your stomach out of the hole without surgery by doing a special morning exercise. And the way that it goes is this. You drink a glass of room temp or slightly warm water when you get up in the morning. And then when you're standing, you bring your arms straight out from your sides and you bend your elbows so your hands are touching your chest. Okay, Arms straight out from the side. Then bend your elbows so your hands are touching your chest. Then you stand up on your toes as high as possible and rapidly drop down, like slam the heels down into the ground. You get a pretty good jolt while your hands are still touching your chest. And you drop down like this ten times, like rapidly. And then while still standing up with your arms up in the air, you breathe short quick breaths with your mouth open for about 15 seconds. Now what that practice does is you're forcing your stomach out of the hole, out of the hiatus. And the warm water that you drink beforehand acts as a little bit of weight in the stomach to help as you jolt it down and relaxes the stomach muscles a little bit too. And then the breathing at the end helps to close the diaphragm and the hole where the stomach was lodged. Now that's something you can try. I Am not a physician. Do not misconstrue this as medical advice, but some people swear by that practice to cure the hiatal hernia. And so, you know, it's something that you can certainly you can give a go to, but, you know, I can't guarantee results, but, you know, I'm a fan of this kind of stuff to at least try prior to surgery. You know, let's take, like, another thing that a lot of people deal with is like a. Like a prolapse, right? Like a vaginal prolapse or a rectal prolapse. And in many cases, things as simple as, like, biofeedback or Kegel exercises or things of that nature can eventually fix the problem, rather than you going in and getting like, you know, part of your. Your colon cut out to fix the problem. So, you know, I'm always a fan of before you cut out body parts or, you know, stick tubes in your body to first try the natural alternative methods, even though I should warn you that sometimes they just don't work and you have to go under the knife. So hopefully that helps you out a little bit, though, and that's what I would at least try.

Hi, Ben. I was wondering if I could get some help understanding protein intake and insulin response. I currently eat more on the low carb side and mostly use carb backloading. I'm concerned about eating too much protein, especially multiple times a day. I've heard that the higher protein intake.

Can raise insulin even more than carbs.

I'd like to keep some muscle mass as I try to lose some weight, but I don't want to do it at the expense of high blood sugar and health problems down the line. What's the balance here? I always train in the morning and 50% of the time I train at night. Again, should I eat my protein like.

Carbs more after workouts or in the evening and then less in between?

I appreciate your help, Ben, and look.

Forward to listening to the podcast.

Thanks so much. I remember when you had Jimmy Moore on the podcast and he was talking about his new book, Keto Clarity, and he was very against. Well, not against protein, but he was very measured in his protein intake because it caused such an insulin spike.

Yeah, yeah. And Jimmy, of course, is famous for his images online eating entire sticks of butter, which, by the way, kind of a rabbit hole. But there was an interesting study that just got released, actually just tweeted about it, where they compared, like, whole milk consumption, like milk fats, dairy fats, et cetera, with butter, and butter actually had a very deleterious effect when consumed in excess on cholesterol particle count compared to like whole fat dairy. So it's interesting when you drink like the fat globules in like an unhomogenized dairy source, it's actually better if you are doing like the whole fat thing and you tolerate dairy than butter. But anyways, that's not the question that we're answering. Protein and the insulinogenic effects of protein. It has been well proven that like whey protein for example, and many other protein sources, including meat, you know, a steak, whatever they are, what are called pro insulinogenic. Pro insulinogenic. And there was one very interesting study where they compared glucose, particularly glucose from white bread, which is essentially what white bread is, it's almost just pure sugar. So they compared a white bread meal with an amino acid based meal and in this case they used those.

Both sound delicious.

Just like grandma used to make whey protein with white bread. And they did this and then they took multiple blood samples at 7 and a half, 15, 30 and 45 minutes after the meal. And what they found was that both meals produced a significant increase in, in insulin. And we're extremely pro insulinogenic. And it's been proven in many other studies that you get a very big insulin spike in response to whey protein and many other protein sources as well. Now, whey can still be better than sugar. And one of the reasons for that is that amino acids, when you take in amino acids, those have an effect on what's called your GLUT4 transporter. That's your glucose transporter. So the shuttle that carries glucose from the bloodstream into the cell and the increased expression on skeletal muscle cells in response to a protein based meal with Respect to that GLUT4 transporter means that you actually drive far more of the glucose that you may take in along with the whey protein, or even the glucose that the protein turns into, that's called gluconeogenesis. You'll drive that sugar into muscle tissue far more readily than if you were to eat glucose or a carbohydrate source. So the effect of amino acids is to upregulate the GLUT4 transporter so that if you have say a steak with a potato, you're more likely for both the potato based starch as well as the glucose generated from the steak to get driven into skeletal muscle rather than for it to say, get converted into fat by the liver. So there's that upregulation in GLUT4 from protein that makes that Spike in insulin a little bit more likely to drive things into skeletal tissue. The other thing that you need to be aware of is a insulin is not necessarily the devil. So if your insulin spikes, and let's say you're not insulin resistance or insulin resistant, meaning that you don't have full blown insulin insensitivity and you're able to respond to that insulin, what happens is your cells suck up glucose, your blood sugar drops, and then your insulin drops. So really, one of the more negative side effects would not necessarily be getting fat or having chronic high blood sugar. It would simply be a possible postprandial hypoglycemic response in response to eating too much protein. Right? So you would have too much protein before bed and then you'd wake up with hypoglycemia at 1am or you'd have too much protein in the. Let's say with lunch, right? Like way too much chicken and fish and steak with lunch. And then your energy levels drop by 2pm in the afternoon because of a hypoglycemic response after insulin has done its job. Right. Assuming that you're insulin sensitive. In pre diabetics, that increase in insulin release from a protein source can actually improve their postprandial glycemia. Meaning that in a pre diabetic who is prone to hypoglycemia after a meal, that increase or hyperglycemia after a meal, like high blood glucose, that insulin can help drive some of that glucose out of the bloodstream and into muscle tissue and cells. And so it could help in someone who is prone to a hyperglycemia or a high blood glucose response to a meal. You also have to take into account the anabolic effect, which we talked about earlier in the show, where when you eat white bread, there's not much of an anabolic effect. Right? Because there aren't any amino acids, there's no maintenance of skeletal muscle mass. And because skeletal muscle mass can allow for greater intramuscular glucose stores and a higher amount of fatty acid oxidation, better lipid metabolism, et cetera. When you compare like protein to white bread, you can't say that they're equal simply because the protein is going to assist with assuming you're active skeletal muscle formation. And so there's that as well. And then there's also the fact that, that you get. Even though the insulin response is similar between pure sugar and whey protein, the whey protein does have a better ability to induce satiety. So you get an increase in a hormone called GLP.1. And when you increase this hormone, GLP1, you feel full much faster, which is why in many cases higher protein diets, even though they can result in gluconeogenesis, high blood glucose, high insulin response, et cetera, they can also cause you to eat less. And so when compared to say like a high carbohydrate diet that induces the same glucose and insulin response, you still would technically lose weight or eat fewer calories on the higher protein meal, even though there are some negative effects from the insulin. Now, the negative effects from the insulin are something that I actually recently talked about. Both the negative and the positive effects of insulin are something that I recently talked about in an Endurance Planet podcast. We will link to that in the show notes. But we took a deep, deep dive into both the benefits of insulin, right from like an anabolic standpoint and the ability to increase muscle or to improve recovery. And also the detriments such as potential for creating insulin insensitivity if you have frequent surges of insulin from protein or from sugar, or even the potential to decrease longevity due to constant anabolic activity, constant activation of what's called the MTOR protein, which technically puts you in a constant pro growth state and increases the rate at which your telomeres shorten, which is technically anti longevity or, or decreases your potential for a longer lifespan. So ultimately the trick with protein and I'm going to put another link as well, I'm going to put two links for you in the show notes. One to that Endurance Planet podcast that we did, another to an article that I just recently wrote for Active.com and the Active.com article goes into the fact that with a few small doses of protein spread throughout the day, about 20 to 30 grams spread throughout the day at different times, such as at breakfast, at lunch, with a pre or post workout snack and at dinner is really all that you need. You're shooting for about 0.55 to 0.7 grams per pound of protein that comes out to about 20 to 30% of your daily calorie intake coming from protein. And if you do that, you're generally going to avoid too much of the insulin or too much of the of the constant pro growth effect. So as far as insulin spiking from protein consumption, yeah, it's true, not a myth. But there are other things to take into consideration that go above and beyond a simple comparison of protein to white bread and saying that it's just the same because it's not because of the satiety effect, because of the upregulation in glute, four transporters, et cetera. So. So there you go. That's how protein spikes insulin and what you can do about it.

And insulin is not the devil.

Insulin not the devil. That's what we should have called this podcast episode. Insulin is not.

We still could.

We still could. But I'd rather call it the effects of Beer on hydration. I think that'll get more clicks. It's all about the clicks. So, speaking of clicking reviews, if you leave this show a review on itunes, not only is it great karma, especially if you say something good. From our Science Babe episode on Saturday, we had both the good and the bad. A lot of people had some interesting thoughts. Although, you know, I just read yesterday there was a list of people who had been in the Pocket of Big Pharma released and guess whose Facebook paid page appeared on someone who was on the in the pockets of Big Pharma.

Yours.

No. Yes, mine. This podcast brought to you by GlaxoSmithKline. No, the science Babe was on there, so I don't know what, you know, maybe she has her own defense, but I did notice she was on there, so yeah, there's that along with.

I'm not really sure what that means.

It means that at some point she would have accepted money from a pharmaceutical company. But, you know, that could mean anything. I don't know. Anyways, though, kind of a. Kind of a rabbit hole. The thing I was getting at was the reviews. So if you leave a review and you hear us read your review on the show and you email geergreenfieldfitnesssystems.com with your T shirt size, we'll send you a cool tech T shirt, a beanie, and a water bottle. A BPA free water bottle. So there you go.

What a deal.

You'll look good and you won't get cancer. So we have a review this week from Sadie.

You might get cancer.

You might. Yes.

Just not from.

Just not from the bpa. We have a review from Sadie James, a mom of a one year old who's trying to have optimal health, who left us five whole stars. Brock, you want to give this one a read?

It's a long one. We have to read it quickly.

You can do it. Okay. Do we want any music for this one? Just because it's long to enter.

Maybe I need some kind of like Benny Hill kind of style music.

Let's do it.

I found Ben after he was on a podcast for wellness Mama. I have always tried to live cleanly and make as much of our food and beauty products as I can. I was very interested to learn that my home may need some of my attention as well. So after the podcast I switched over to Ben's podcast and it's been a whirlwind ever since. Also, my husband and I started Shape 21 program with amazing results. I've always been active and tried many diets. Don't interrupt me.

Okay.

I've always been active and tried many diets and workout programs with the results being temporary. We finished the program and started at the beginning again and we are loving it. It's a program we could live on. I'm a mum of one year old and turning 40 this year, so I need things that are not complicated and also do not break down my body but have. But having optimal health is a goal. Man is a fountain of knowledge and can sometimes go way over my head, which gets me to google some of the topics. But I can keep up with many, many of his talks and be inspired on and on. I can say that I haven't turned on my TV since I found Ben Greenfield and I find myself just turning on the podcast instead. I would recommend him completely.

Wow, that was quite a mouthful. Now what you forgot was all the multiple exclamation marks throughout that review. So trying to shift more Sadie, your excitement is palatable through the airways. Palpable. Palatable.

Palatable. Tastes good.

Ah, palpable, yes. Which means you can feel it, I think. Palpable, yes. Anyways though, that's interesting. So I have that to say about the exclamation marks. Also, it's very interesting that she and her husband are using Shape 21 because.

That'S an old program.

Shape 21 was the first book that I ever read or that I ever read that I ever. I think the first book I ever read was Dr. Seuss. I'm guessing the first book I ever wrote was shape 21. When I got out of bodybuilding and decided that I wanted to work out with the only pair of home gym equipment that I owned, which was two dumbbells, and I wanted to do it in the park across the street from my house and I spent four months getting as ripped as I could with a set of dumbbells and my body weight and I recorded everything and I wrote this book called Shape 21 and I designed a 21 day beginner, a 21 day intermediate, and a 21 day advanced program incorporating these exercises. And I remember my. I had my mom up for the weekend to film all the videos and photos for that book. Which actually are the same the book has, in terms of, like, the photos and the videos. It hasn't been redesigned. Now the book has gone through redesign because it also includes nutrition for each day. Like, it tells you what to eat for each day. I've redesigned it once to go from like the oatmeal on the whole wheat phase into more of like a, you know, quinoa and amaranth and millet phase as my own personal diet has evolved. However, I have not yet reinvented that book to reflect like, kind of like a. A lower carbohydrate, higher fat approach. You know, like, the book still uses phrases like lean protein, for example. So I. I do eventually need to reinvent the. The diet portion of that book. But the. The exercise part. If all you have is a pair of dumbbells and you want to see me at whatever, 22 years old, shirtless in the park, getting filmed by my mom doing exercises, and the very first book that I ever wrote, you can go check it out. It's at. Well, if you just go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com all my books are over there, including Shape 21 if you want to get ripped this summer.

So that was actually the first program that I used of yours as well, back before I was on the show.

There you go.

Yeah, like, probably a year before I started being on the show, I bought that book and did it faithfully in my living room.

It's a great name. Shape 21. I don't know.

I think next time when you release again, sell that.

Just add a couple decks.

Couple days.

Yeah. Shape 23. What is it? P90X. That does that?

Yeah.

Yes. We need to add an X. Shape X 23. Shape 23 X. Shape 21 X. All right, so this podcast is degrading quickly, so we better stop. But this weekend, tune in to a very interesting episode on. Actually, it's not the one on how exercise makes you depressed. No.

Supplements.

That's right. Oh, yeah. I interviewed a guy in the supplements industry.

He's very passionate about his supplements. I appreciate his passion.

He is passionate. We talked about, like, stacks, we talked about chromatography machines and all sorts of ways to analyze what's in your supplements, etc. Really interesting chat. And also why he doesn't like Labdor, which was interesting. So check all that out. It's coming out this weekend. In the meantime, head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 323 for the show notes and everything that we talked about in today's episode everything from the Finland Biohacking Summit to the Beer and hydration study to, of course, shape 21 and have a healthy week. Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.