The Passive Biohack for People Who Sit All Day - Brent Yates | TUH 313

18 years ago, I lost my health. I was self-injured. My body had broken down. At the same time, I went, all right, how am I going to fix my body? But once I decided it was weight, get my body back faster, I needed a tool. And so I ordered every weight vest on the market, and it not only hurt my body, but it compromised my movement.

The way that people think about rucking and weight as being something that could be incorporated into their lifestyle rather than just something they go do at the gym, I think is a reframing for me that's had very positive consequences.

Especially as you age, like, you have to look for every tool you can find. Father Time is staring you right Smack in the face. And when I invented it at 62, I gotta have more tools, man. And I thought, what if I could tap into my metabolism every day, tone a little bit all day, and look good doing it?

There's science around compression. There's science around weighted exercise, improving metabolism, raising body temperature, and increasing the rate for this adaptive response.

Most weighted vests give you weight because of the compression, heat, and the load. We give you a transformational body.

Someone listening to this podcast, new to weight, new to rucking, sort of piqued their interest about a lightly weighted lifestyle. Where do they start?

I think the biggest thing is—

Ultimate Human. Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest, not only a New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestselling author, he's He is a partner of mine, and he is a partner of mine in a project that I think could change the landscape of how you walk through your daily life. You know, as a mortality scientist, we knew a long time ago that sedentary lifestyle was the leading cause of all-cause mortality. Today, sitting is the new smoking. And I've asked Brent to come on and talk about his invention. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's an amazing partner. And what we have to talk about today may reframe the way you think about how you go through your daily life. Welcome to the podcast, Brent. Hey, Gary.

Brother, pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you on to be my partner. You're looking good too, brother, by the way. Yeah, thank you.

What have you been

doing

every day, right? Way to vest. I mean, you every— if you follow me on social media, you see me on stage talks, podcasts, lectures, interviews, and people see me in the airport. You like— you really wear that thing every day. And I do. I really do wear it every day. Um, and before we get into the whole discussion today about lifestyle and, um, how weight and compression— I want to get into some of the science behind it. Um, I, I do just want to put right out there up front what was my trigger, um, you know, for partnering with you. Like I say, we knew the data on sedentary lifestyle was not good. We've engineered movement out of our lives, you know, walkways, escalators, elevators, uh, moving walkways, cars, everything. We know that sedentary lifestyle is the leading cause of all-cause mortality, but some people just don't have time to go to the gym.

Yeah.

And your philosophy of a lightly weighted lifestyle really set off a light bulb for me. And I've been an ION advocate ever since, and it was an easy transition for me. And if you look back, uh, my videos and podcasts and lectures over the last few years, I'm always in this thing. So I love it. But There is a common theme that runs through nearly everybody that sits in that chair, and they may or may not be the most credentialed, but the most passionate, purpose-driven, and powerful people that I've ever met have solved some kind of problem in their life. And I'd love to know the backstory, you know, what led to this. I've never asked you about that. And, you know, what was the problem that you solved in your life? I know you were on your way to a great golf career.

Yeah, yeah, I was, I was, I was.

You're a big guy for a golfer, dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so I solved that problem. But, but truly the backstory would be like 18 years ago I lost my health. And, and I think when I built up my health through a lot of people coming into my life, which we'll get to, um, at 60 years old, when you mentioned like, hey, you had a golf career going on, I was doing long drive golf ball contests professionally.

Oh, professionally?

And tore my supraspinatus. And so, uh, that kind of, that kind of, yeah, that kind of ended that. But, uh, it was the time after, and it wasn't COVID. And so the protocols to get PT, all that stuff, I couldn't get in. I knew I had a problem, uh, but I had to keep going. So in one swing, I'd just gotten a 48-inch driver, um, so a little more torque with that. Uh, but I really— I found myself trying to optimize, right, distances. Like, like, you— it's, it's acquired. Like, the stronger you get, the more torque you have, the better shape you're in. And I found myself in the look back working out wrong with a TRX bar. Like, I got it up here, my shoulders overwhelmed, my core overwhelmed my shoulders, and I think that was part of my pitfall. But ultimately tore my supraspinatus, um, 4 to 5 months trying to get surgery in COVID. Um, as I mentioned, the protocols were pretty messed up, and I immediately lost my body that I had worked 13 years to get at age 60 because I'd lost my body at 47. And so here I am watching my body degenerate in front of the mirror, which, you know, once you lose it and you get it back, like, that's all I worried about. Like, I don't want to lose it again. I wanted to be the very best I could be. And so when I saw that going on, uh, first I wrote the book. At the same time, I went, all right, how am I going to fix my body?

Yeah. Um, tell me about the, uh, Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Gravity of Up. Um, was this This injury, this recovery journey you were on, is that the inspiration behind the book?

No, sir.

Okay.

No, sir. And so Christina, who you've met, my wife, 10 years— I've known her 11 years. We got married almost 10 years. Yes. One of the reasons I sat here today—

Way

to

hear me, dude.

Dude, when I pray, it's like I know I have purpose because of who he put beside me. And so I had that conversation with her the other day, and I'm like, baby, Like, do you know? Do you understand what power that gives me and a feeling of gratitude that you're beside me?

That's amazing.

Anyway, but what was the question now? All checked out.

What was the inspiration behind the book? Because lots of people write books. Not a lot of people write number one selling Wall Street Journal bestsellers.

Christina met me 11 years ago. My transformation happened almost 19 years ago, and when she met me, I'd already transformed into who you see today—the guy that thrives and wants to be better and looking for more and. Always knowing the right people around him are going to get us where we want to go. All those things that I hope we get to cover. But ultimately, when that occurred, when she met me, she'd heard the stories, and then we were a year together, she started meeting the people. And then after we got married, really meeting the pastors and the life coaches and the trainers that finally she got to meet and understanding the transformation by those people that I told stories about. But now they got to tell their stories to her. And so for about 5 years, she kept saying, You need to document this in a book. And I kept saying, I kind of get it, but I don't wanna take the time. I don't wanna really reveal why, how I lost my health. You know, that's not an easy thing to do. And I just didn't wanna take the time. But then COVID hit. And can I tell you why I did it right then and there? Mm-hmm. When COVID hit, I tore my shoulder. All that was occurring at the same time. And I kept whining to God, like, I've transformed my life. I'm doing all the right things. And why did you tear my shoulder? And so I got back 2 nights in a row when I'm whining, what are you going to do now? And that second night I got that, I knew it was time to share my story.

Wow.

And so I asked Christina to go get some big notebooks, and in a sling, I'm writing over the pool table my book. So 3 months later, we got it to an editor, we brought in a ghostwriter, and we brought it to life.

That's great. What would the audience— what would be the main topics that your audience would get from the book?

Yeah, so the main topics are obviously my transformation, but the bigger thing are the people that come, that came, that I wasn't looking for. Trainer comes, a life coach comes, a church comes, community comes for me.

Community, love.

And it really, I think we were having a conversation earlier, and it's, my story is, don't know, you don't know that's coming. You don't know what you need. You have to open your mind to, I need something, but you don't really know what it is, or I'd already went and got it.

Right.

When I'm breaking down, when my body's leaving me, I was going through a divorce, a lawsuit. It was right in the financial crisis. A bank had taken my note on a new project I had started in Alabama, and I'm going through a divorce. I'm losing community.

And you're injured.

And I'm injured and I'm losing community. Yeah. No, this was at 47. I was self-injured. My body had broken down. Convulsions, MRSA. I was on a crutch. And when the trainer found me, he was 47 years old. And first was a trainer in Arizona finds me. There's more to it, but I'm looking up at a mountain. I'm looking at Camelback Mountain. Never been up it. I'm on a crutch. And a trainer that worked at the Montelucia Spa puts his arm around me. I'm kind of on his level. His gym's on the second level. And I'm looking at this mountain in awe. Have you been to Paradise Valley?

Oh yeah, yeah. Beautiful.

And I'm looking at it in awe. Not— never thinking about climbing that. That's way beyond me. And he goes— and I'm on a crutch— and he puts his arm around me and goes, how you doing? And this beautiful spirit that he had. And the ego kind of kicked in a little bit, but I go, well, you can kind of see. He goes, you gonna work out? And I go, how am I gonna work out? He goes, come see me tomorrow. A year and a half later, I'd lived with him for over 8 months. Wow. He poured into me everything that he ate, everything that he thought, how he trained. This guy was like superhuman. He finds me. Nobody have met it. No one like him today, still to date, like this guy. When you walk into a restaurant with this guy, like he just floated. He loved on everybody.

Yeah.

Nobody even knew I existed.

Serendipity.

And I thought I had a little bit going on, but nobody, nobody saw me. He was so beautiful and powerful.

That's amazing.

And he tapped into me. Nobody else that I see him tap into.

That's the power of community, the power of connection. So at some point you, you transitioned to address another major problem that I think you saw in the health industry.

Yes.

And, you know, created what I'm wearing right now, which I think is amazing. You made weighted lifestyle functional and fashionable. Yeah, pretty well got it. I do hate to say it wasn't fashionable. I don't know if I couldn't get away with wearing it in public, I don't know if I'd wear it.

Right.

You know, and, but I want to go into the genesis of that, but more importantly, because my audience, you know, is always wanting to know the why. Yeah. I want to talk about the science behind I want to go into the why behind compression, behind weight, how the body responds, the adaptive response, hormetic stress. I want to go into the whys. So how did, how did the journey begin to what's now ION*?

Yeah. And so after the surgery, I'm writing the book, my body had lost 10 pounds of muscle and it went right here. To get the body that I had lost, that I wasn't willing to give up even through a surgery. Somehow something triggered. I'd never worn weight before, but I was triggered that I was my biggest when I was doing construction, carrying my tools. You look at the Roman soldiers, like, they carried their armor. All those things were in my mind, like, is there something to that? And when I saw people in the gym doing that—

I mean, rucking had been around, right?

Rucking had been around, but I wasn't around it. I've seen it a couple of times, but I kind of went, Why would you work harder? You're already doing something really hard. Why would you make it harder?

Right.

And so, uh, with that in mind, I also knew about neoprene. I knew about the sleeves, and I'd used them on the planes for the blood flow. And so the first thing I did though is I ordered every weight vest on the market. Once I decided it was weight could get me there faster, get my body back faster, I needed a tool. I wasn't sure it was that tool. I ordered every weight vest on the market and It hurt my body basically, right? And, and it looked terrible, right? The ones I ordered, I had beanbags shoved in it,

and,

uh, I would not wear it out of my gym.

You know, I, I, I've been rucking for a while, um, and before I rucked with a properly fitted weight vest, it did used to really always bother my low back, and it always bothered my shoulders because the weight kind of just hangs on you. Um, I had the kind that had the plates in the front, and they would kind of slap against you. There was no jogging in it. Um, there's only rucking, but It would kind of slap against you in the front, slap against you in the back, and then it would just kind of bounce up and down on your shoulders. And so I always felt worse coming back from something like that, like I'd done something bad to my body, not just stressed my body.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so that's what I found out real fast, is it not only hurt my body, but it compromised my movement. And so vertically it hurt. I'd go this way, the vest would go that way. You could really cinch them up, but then that hurt. And so I was like, all right, how am I going to fix this? And so— Yeah.

So,

yeah.

So the combination of having a fabric that creates compression and it's the distribution of weight, which was the big thing for me. I mean, it's almost like the same way that your body would put on the weight if you just gained the weight. Yeah, right. I mean, it's a very natural way of layering weight onto your body instead of just piling it onto your shoulders. But what is the science? What does the data say? behind, uh, compression and, and weight.

Yeah, I think for us it's multimodality, and, and that's how I got my patent, was the compression first. To me, more blood flow, more oxygen, right? We're compressing our lungs, we have to work a little harder. And I want to go into the optimal weighting part, and that's what you said at the beginning, was the lightweight, the right weight. I call it the optimal weight. So you got the compression, which is more blood flow to the tissues, Then you've got the heat, which is thermogenic. It's made out of neoprene. The neoprene was the key to keep it to my body where it didn't hurt my shoulders. I just had a shoulder surgery and that hurt. I couldn't wear any other vest for more than 2 minutes before it hurt my body. And so then you got the fractional load. So your entire body, 40% of your upper body is touched by weight.

Mm.

So you're engaging your inner core, you're engaging your obliques, your back, your chest. It's all working with you versus maybe a typical weighted vest,

right? Which is just your shoulders.

Yeah,

just weight hanging down on you.

Yeah.

So, but there, there's, there's science around compression. There's science around, um, uh, weighted exercise, you know, uh, improving metabolism, raising body temperature, and increasing the rate for this adaptive response. Because, you know, my audience is very familiar with hormesis, right? You apply stress and the body strengthens in response. That's the whole concept of exercise. Tear muscle, grows back larger. But Where, where I think most people don't think about— like, they think about weight as an event, right? I go to the gym, I lift weight, or I put on a ruck and I go for a ruck walk. They don't think about a weighted lifestyle.

Yeah.

Um, and conceptually, I know you didn't just design this Boardroom Vest out of the gate. Um, where did that come from?

Yeah, so golfer. I, I kind of thought of it and saw it, and I thought, man, What if I could— what if I could tap into my metabolism every day, tone a little bit all day, and look good doing it? And I was like, okay, what, what benefits would that have? Could it be an off day? Yes. Could it be when I don't have a chance to work out? Yes. Could it be all the time? Yes. But always wanting more, a little bit more, especially as you age. Like, you have to look for every tool you can find. Father Time is staring you right smack in the face.

Oh yeah.

And so at 65, And when I invented it at 62, going, I got to have more tools, man. I got to stay up with the Gary Breckas of the world. And so, you know, that was— I want to stay in the game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the— you want to stay in the game, but the— you know, it's an attractive vest. I mean, what are— for someone that's had so many of these out there in the market, um, what is number one, a common misconception about weight, um, especially around women? And number 2, what are some of these stories that you get back, like the testimonials that you get back from people who have made this a part of their lifestyle? I mean, I know what my own testimonial is. Yeah, sure. And it's the reason why I always have it on.

Yeah.

Even when I just do podcasts, because I just— I don't take it off.

Yeah.

But what, what are some of those that surprised you?

Yeah, well, I think the biggest thing is most people thought they looked terrible and they hurt their bodies and/or They thought it was just for rucking. And because the military, you know, that started the rucking, when you think of rucking, you think of the military. Is it really part of our daily lives?

We also don't think of it very much as a female sport. Like when I told my wife about wearing a weighted vest, she's not for it at all initially.

Yeah. Like, like I would say less than half of 1% of women have ever, ever worn weight. It's probably a much smaller number than that. But when you— when some of them have, the, the bodybuilders had worn weight, right? And so there was a misconception, oh, we're going to get big. That's what the bodybuilders wear. Not true. And so I think if it— if it's done right and incorporated into cardiovascular and movement, it's, you know, it's all about what you eat and how you— how you train in your body as a whole, whether you're going to get big. But for the most part, women are not going to get big. They're going to get lean.

If you're a woman that's like starting out and wanting to add weight to her lifestyle, like, where do you start?

Yeah, you start— you start, if you've never done it, around, uh, it's about 3 to 5% of your body weight. And that's what we carry. It's about 5 to 8 pounds depending on your size. And so we think it's optimally weighted, a great place to start. It's an everyday weight.

3 to 5% of your body weight. So 120-pound woman is going to wear about 6 pounds?

Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

Um, and, and how are they— how is that distributed for, for women? It's just across the shoulders, or is it all down?

Same way. It's all fractionally loaded. No, we do make a crop vest, so it's a little more shorter, backloaded. The weight's up there. But on the full vest, it's just like the man's compression vest.

It's fractionally loaded. After putting so many of these out on the street, like, what has surprised you?

Yeah.

Um, with the testimonials that are coming back from men and women that are, that are wearing weight, like, was there anything shocking in the data to you about Transformation that you didn't expect?

Yeah, I— it's not that I didn't expect it. I think it's more of the acceptance of it. Then you're going to hear the stories. It takes a moment to do it. It, you know, we've only been out until you came. We might as well only been out a year. And so 28,000 vests later, now people are starting to have testimonials a year later. Complete trust. The big thing is the weight loss, right? We're going to lose it off our gut, but you're not going to lose weight overall. You're just redistributing. Now you've got muscle, now it's lean. And now we got the things going on that we all want to be. We want to, we want to look better and we want to stay healthier longer.

Yeah. And, and, you know, for me it was just the, uh, the slow incorporation of it into my daily lifestyle. The only times that I really noticed it was one time I was really late for a flight. I was actually in the lounge and, and the gate was right across from the lounge where, uh, I was, I was eating. But I went into the wrong terminal and then I heard them paging people for the flight and I ran like half a mile to get to my gate. And that's when I really noticed that I was—

sure,

that I was wearing weight. But what is the advantage of the combination of not just weight, but weight and compression?

Yeah.

Why do those 2 have to go to the same parties?

Yeah. So weight and compression. And I would say that weight, compression, and I like to add heat because it's— because it's the 3 things that really make it up. But it's really, it's your blood flow. Like, it's the circulation. And when you look at that, when I go back to the OG of it's oxygen, and I think we're all talking about oxygen, more oxygen, how do we get more oxygen? It is really the lifeblood for me of the body.

And

if I'm going to get more healthy, it's my metabolism, it's my health, right? And it's oxygen flow and oxygenized blood to your tissues. I mean, that's, that's anti-inflammatory, that's growth, that's more healing. Uh, it's all those things. So for me, it's all oxygen. Yeah, heat is— heat trap, load on, and compression. And it's, it's transformational.

Yeah. So, so for men,

yeah,

um, that are already doing, uh, you know, ruck workouts, like weighted workouts, which has been around for a long time— I mean, I was, I was rucking with CrossFit at a CrossFit gym way back in, in 2013, 2014, 2015. I ended up selling because the injuries were so high. Um, and yeah, I didn't like the idea of speed and heavy weight, but we did a lot of weighted, uh, types of, of workouts back in the day. But we were limited on what we could do because, um, the way the weight swung around.

Yeah.

So you do a lot of static things like static pull-ups, um, you know, static push-ups. air squats, you know, walking lunges, things like that. What I like about a light lifestyle is that you put it on, you kind of forget about it, and your body's just pushing a little harder all day.

Right.

And that extra boost in metabolism, you know, our bodies are so adaptive. You know, the body's just an amazing thing. If you push on it, it'll push back. Right. You know, if you consistently get in cold water, you trigger this hormetic response, you get a consistent improvement over time. And I would put this in the category of things that I call passive biohacks.

Yeah,

like the biohacks that don't take any time away from your day. Because a lot of— if you walk around my apartment, you know, it's like a lot of these things take a lot of time.

Sure.

Um, but throwing this on in the morning and, and just getting out the door, you know, it doesn't take any time. I, I know too that you're, you're trying to address some challenges that we have with our military.

Yeah.

As well. What does that look like?

Yeah, so we were tasked by a group that takes human performance kits to the Department of War. It's a cool story. This is probably one of the more— it's a recent kind of a God story. And it's a recent— like, Brent has a lot of businesses and he's figured out a lot of things, but when things happen that you don't expect, this is one of them. 2 and a half, 3 years ago, before I opened the company, I was looking for a physiologist to do the data, the analytical data. And there was a guy in Phoenix—

On what? Like metabolism?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, caloric burn, all the stuff, all the biometrics. And so I gave a guy a vest that was a physiologist in Phoenix, and he said, hey, I'll get back to you. I'll get a proposal to you. By the time he got back to me, it already Gone on. I'd found another physiologist to do it. And, um, spin a year and a half, almost 2 years later, an associate of mine said, hey, this physiologist got a hold of me and he has given your data to somebody that does human performance kits and gets them to the Department of War on your vest.

Hmm.

I'm like, okay, what does that all mean? He goes, well, you might have a talk with him. And so there was 5 or 6 people on this call. And here he was, this guy that I'd given a vest to, never did the work, but he did the data. And that was just like, how often

does that

happen?

When you say he did the data, what data did he do? What exactly?

All the biometrics. So how long in zone 2, caloric burn, all the measurements that you measure, right? Heart rate, body fat, all the stuff that the vest produced.

And what was the outcome of that?

The outcome of it was incredible in his eyes. Because no other weighted vest had ever done that. And he'd been doing weighted vests for a long, long time. And so most weighted vests give you weight because of the compression, heat, and the load. We give you a transformational body.

So he looked at— I would love to look at that data because I come from a data science background. So anytime that you have data behind something like real data, it becomes different than just a tool for strength gains. It can become a tool for healthy metabolism. And depending on what he was measuring, which I would love to see, you may have sort of a backdoor into metabolic health. Because if you look at the state of America today with 85% of chronic disease, in the opinion of Health and Human Services, being preventable, mainly through dietary and lifestyle changes, um, you know, incorporating a lighted, weighted lifestyle to me is one of those things that would be easy, easy to do and would have tremendous results. So, so he puts, he puts together this data set, um, and reaches out to the Department of War on his own.

It was a group that takes,

takes,

uh, products to the Department of

War.

A human performance kit. They put together 2 or 3 things and go, okay, I think we can help our people be better through this kit.

Okay.

So it's 2 or 3 modalities. One's a resistance cable machine, and one's some technology that'll measure the biometrics and send it to a centralized data point, which is huge. And so what their goal is to get the recruits— 250,000 recruits are coming next year. I think the rate of failure is like Attrition rate's like 16% against— through all the branches of the military.

16% that enter the military don't make

it to boot

camp. Don't even make it to boot camp.

Don't make it to boot camp. So they paid them $50,000. They're probably on now disability. It's a multibillion-dollar problem. And we lose good men and women that had we done some progressive loading for the musculoskeletal, they may still be here being warfighters for us today. They don't even get to boot camp.

Is it because of injury?

It's because they're overloading them.

Ah, too fast.

Yeah, they're too fast.

50-pound rock right out of the gate.

Throwing it right on 'em. And so their goal is to get these recruits in our vests and then work through programming, days off, the whole thing. What they're eating, what they're putting in their body, what they're listening to, the whole body. We wanna work— a human performance is not just, hey, how physical can you get? What's your body gonna operate like under stress? What's your body gonna operate next week like? And what does that programming look like? And so we've been tasked to figure that all out and try to get all, or a lower attrition rate for sure, rate to boot camp.

So what is it? What is an on-ramp to a 50-pound rucksack look like?

I think it looks like 15 pounds for 3 or 4 weeks. It depends on the person, number one. What they're also seeing over the last few years, there's these high schoolers coming in, they're 20 years old, they're soft. It's real fricking soft, Gary.

Yeah.

And so the concern is for all of us should be—

Not too easy, that would be millennials.

Yeah, can we train and deploy these guys? And the answer is the number's getting larger that we can't. So the problem continues to get bigger, not just monetarily, but who's gonna protect us, right? Who's going to the front line for us? And so I'm totally tapped into how can we help them progress through progressive load, musculoskeletal, the tissues, the ligaments, the tendons that are breaking down in their feet and their shins. It stops them, especially when they throw 50 pounds on them immediately. So it's about a 90-day program, train with weight on, but 3 weeks.

What's the weight? How does the weight—

I think it's 15. We think we're working through that. I mean, we've been in this maybe a month, but we're working through that with another physiologist. What is that weight? What's the optimal weight to start? My thought is it's 15, 25, 35 pounds, and then they're into the 50. When they, uh, and then from there, the idea is they can, if they take the vest on with them, and now they don't have to put so much, uh, unfunctional load on them with a ruck pack, they can keep that vest, get rid of the ruck when they go ruck, or, you know, they add weight, but then they can go train in our vest and it's amphibious wherever they want to go with it. They can go in the water with it. They can go wherever they want to go in our

vest. Like 12 pounds of weight doesn't sound—

I just did it with 25 pounds. I just did it with 25 pounds, which is the military.

Gives you some buoyancy, dude.

A little bit.

A little bit does not sink you.

Okay. Come back up. But the resistance going horizontally is pretty tough.

Yeah,

in 25 pounds.

That's great.

Yeah.

So just to kind of land everything we've talked about so far, someone listening to this podcast, new to weight, new to rucking, um, uh, you know, it's sort of piqued their interest about a lightly weighted lifestyle, man or woman, where do they start?

Yeah, I— they start with our OG weight. They start with lighter weight, whether it's us or somewhere else. You'll hear out there, oh, they need to wear 15 pounds, 10 pounds. I don't know where that comes from.

How much am I wearing right

now? You're wearing 6 pounds.

6 pounds.

6 pounds. That's all day.

I feel like I'm adapted to this.

Yeah, right?

I don't even notice it.

We're going to fix that too. Oh, we are? We're going to fix that. Yeah, that progressive load thing. But you start where your doctor tells you to or what you think you're capable of. If you've never done it, you want to start with a lighter weight and then progress into a heavier weight. We want to build your tendons, your ligaments, your fascia up before— we want you to go forward, not backwards.

Right.

And especially as we age, we don't have time to go backwards.

So what does that look like on— An average female?

I think 3 to 5 pounds. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's, it's 5 to 8 pounds for an average female, and then we'll progressively load you from there, or however you want to do that. You could add all kinds of different weights, but ultimately it's what your body has done. What did it do at 5 pounds? Is it good? Are you ready? How long have you worn it? Wear 8 pounds and then maybe 2 days off. And, and I think that's where you're reforming, uh, the tendons and, and the ligaments.

Yeah.

Um, and it takes some time. It takes the recovery. That, that it's not every day.

I

mean, when I started wearing mine, I've worn mine, I don't know, 250 days a year. I never thought about the recovery piece. And, you know, I'm a knucklehead, but, but really, truly, the recovery matters, right? You talked about your sleep last night. All that matters in this equation, especially if you're introduced to weight at probably a young age.

Yeah.

Where your body's not, it's not really ready to go yet.

Yeah. You know, I, I was, I'm 190 pounds now. I was at one time 240 pounds. Some muscle, probably a lot of fat. Um, you know, when I was younger, I tried to get big.

Yeah.

And now when I put on, um, you know, some of your heaviest vests and I just go through a regular workout with it, I'm like, wow, dude, just 12 pounds is a game changer. Um, you know, for how much intensity it adds to the same time frame. And, and for me, it's always about How do I get more out of the same or less time? You know, like, what's that tipping point of getting the maximum result for the minimum amount of time commitment? And I think everybody would is in that same bucket.

Yeah.

How do I how do I improve my results by not you know extending my amount of time?

Yeah.

Um, you know the tail end of this book you said it also talks about leaving the weight topic for a second. Talks about you know meditation and how big of a part of your life that that's been. What brought meditation into your life? And I'm always fascinated by people who start meditating later in life because everyone that I've ever met that meditates on any kind of regular basis, founder of Whoop, I mean, all of these folks I've had on my podcast say that that is the, or one of the biggest game changers in their life. Do you give it that high of a mark in your life too? And what does meditation look like for you?

When you start it and when you, you know, it's like anything that needs a lot of reps and a lot of practice, might be golf, might be, whatever your job is, there's no end to how good you can get to clearing this thing out. Like, like, life is coming at each and every one of us every day and pretty hard, especially with social media, especially with your job. I think males a little more. We've got to provide, we've got to defend. At least that— I felt like that was my role when I started all that 40 years ago. But until you can clear your mind,

Mm-hmm.

nothing new can really come in. where it comes in, but then it deflects. And so when I went through my problems at 47 years old, my life coach had me write down what I was thinking about every day. And it was embarrassing, all the thoughts that continued to revolve in my mind. Most of them were not good because people were taken from me. I wanted to fight. I, you know, that was kind of my mentality.

Mm-hmm.

And, and he got me to slow that down, find some love and compassion for myself and others in my journal. Like on every other page, it states that. It states love and compassion for yourself and others. But to get to that place,

it

takes a little work, especially for a knucklehead like me.

Well, what does that look like? It's like meditation, I think, to most people is like, you close your eyes, you imagine you're on a beach, or, you know, there's a long hallway with a light at the end of the hallway. Like, where did it land for you?

For me, it got to a place where I could clear my mind and actually Not have a conversation with the man above, but trigger one and listen. When you can actually listen or hear the water or hear a bird, I would challenge you to go out and breathe and calm your mind and know when you walked out there, what you hear, what you feel. And then take some time, go through some of your breathing methods, whatever the breathing method is. Right. And it continues to escalate the better you get at it. Once you see the results, you're going to want more of it, you know, more oxygenization or slowing it down, or, you know, there's different ways to do all this. But what I'm truly after is to feel my body again and to forget everything else. And then there's a moment where I know I'm at that place and I get grateful, and then I talk to the man above, and then I'm cool. That's the place I'm trying to get to.

Yeah. Um, so Brent—

But not so much talking but listening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

In that moment of peace, you actually can—

Not always, but something good comes, whether it's thought from me, whether it's peace around me, whether it's a bird, whether it's breeze that I now feel that I wouldn't have felt had I not got quiet. So it's appreciation of nature.

Yeah.

That, that I'm really looking for.

So hard for us to just sit in silence now. It really is. I mean, I try to do it for a few minutes every day. Right out on my balcony, try to get sunlight and do it too. And it's something I really wanna get better at. I've never been really good at meditating. That's probably a weak point for me.

Yeah.

Maybe somebody can teach me how to do it right. But everyone I know that's meditated on a regular basis says it is top 1, 2, or 3 things that I've ever incorporated into my life. I think reframing the way that people think about rucking and weight, As being something that could be incorporated into their lifestyle rather than just something they go do at the gym. That again, back to that passive biohack, I think is a was a reframing for me that's had very positive consequences. You know, I wind down all of my podcasts, and then I know you got a gift for me. So I've been looking at it on the floor, so I'm excited to find out what's in that box. But I want to ask you this question first: What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

Well, somebody asked me the other day how long would I do this, and I feel like this is my purpose. When I sold my company, uh, 9 years ago, I knew I had a greater platform. And so as long as I can show up like I am today, healthy, tapped in, wanting to help people, like, let's go.

Okay.

That's, that's the feeling I get. Like, really, I get to do this?

So an ultimate human is somebody who's on their purpose.

Yeah, yeah, they're on their purpose. They're healthy, part of the human platform, the human performance. Like, that's what we've created. Like, I feel like as long as I'm healthy, vibrating high, uh, working on my health, and I can show up and I can emit that, and if I can do that, I'm on my way.

I love that.

Yeah.

All right, so before we transition to the VIP group, what do you got in the box for me there?

All

right, so it says move with intention. But hold on, let me read this again. It says, to stay at the top of your game, it has to become a lifestyle. I like that.

And my name's on that.

Like, like, see that too?

Like, I gotta, I gotta represent. I gotta show up, right? And that's what you ask about the human.

Yeah.

But your vest, Gary, has been, uh, 5 or 6 pounds. The boardroom vest, the casual vest, the passive weighted vest. And now we've increased that weight. So obviously you've proven And I've watched your body.

I've earned it,

by the way. I've watched your body over the last year.

Yeah.

Like, how old are you?

I'm 56.

How are you getting better? It's everything. We go all in.

Yeah.

I think that's the big thing with human performance. No matter what's going on in your body, in your mind, like, let's take it all in. Let's not take just little steps, right? Let's find adventure in the change.

Yeah.

And so here's change, brother.

All right. I love this. Oh, I'm feeling serious.

So if you go running in the airport, I wouldn't suggest that just tomorrow. I would take some adaptation time to that.

So what is this one?

That's 8.5 pounds.

This is only 8.5?

And also think, Gary, a lot of the things I've learned from you, like it's nonlinear. What's that really gonna feel like, right?

Should be a picture of Gary Brecka right there. I don't know who this dude is, but.

That weight gain, that, that's so cool that, um, you know, that's gonna feel like maybe 10 pounds, 10 pounds to your body. So take it easy with that bad boy.

That's, that's a big transition, man. I'm excited for this. All right, this is, this is going on every day from here, from here forward. You hear that? That is so cool. Brent, thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast, brother. I'm proud to be your partner and excited about this journey together.

Back at you, brother. And if I had to ask one question, how does it feel like for you to be the Ultra Human. You got the name. I just showed up as kind of your brother here. Like, you have the name. That's a lot of pressure. I thought about that before I came in, and I thought that, like, you got to show up, like, on the top of your game, just like we're saying, not just with the vest but with your mind.

Yeah, it's, it's just, you know, it's about being authentic and intentional. You know, I think when, when most people either meet me or they come into my ecosystem, I don't know why it's so surprising, but They're like, wow, you do all the things that you say you're going to do. I'm on my 4th night in a row of 100% sleep scores. I, you know, hit a workout with my kids this morning. You know, I came home and ate the same breakfast with, you know, with like fermented vegetables and everything. Um, and, and I think, I think being authentic in your journey, transparent and intentional, is, is what makes you an ultimate human. Yeah, right. I mean, the disconnect between what you say and what you do, or what you advise and what you do, I think that creates an authenticity void that sadly exists in a lot of the market, you know, and it forces people to take the position that I'm good because everybody else is bad.

Right.

And so it's been a life-transforming journey for me too, you know, and I know that I have a responsibility to my audience now. So.

100%. Everybody asks me like, what's Gary Brecka really like? And I said, What you see is what he is. He shows up, he's prepared, he's already worked on his body, doing things that you would never dream to be the ultimate human.

Thank you.

And so, and so I've taken a little bit of that, and I appreciate what you've shared with me.

Yeah, it's been an amazing journey. And until next time, guys, that's just science.