384: The Best Biohacks For Joint Health, Best Warm-Ups & Cool-Downs, How To Increase Your Body...

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, the best biohacks for joint health, the best warmups and cool downs, how to increase your body symmetry, healing, nerve damage and much more.

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

Is Ben Greenfield.

Power.

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

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

Well, Brock, I made a drastic alteration to my morning routine this morning.

Oh, did you hit snooze and I don't know, order waffles, room service waffles?

Always. I always do that. That's, that's wouldn't be breaking my routine. What I did do though was based on all of this talk, we're even talking about this today, intermittent fasting and longevity and ketones as a calorie restriction mimicker and all these things that happen when you perhaps skip your and I'm not saying I do this. Well, I do this. Skip your 800 to 1000 calorie big ass smoothie in the morning and instead opt for a cup of caffeine and ketones with a little bit of oils and things thrown in.

I'm going to see how I fare. In the past, I've tried that strategy and by the time you get to the afternoon hard workout of the day, you're a little bit drained. But at the same time, I'm doing this more as a time hack. I've discovered that on some mornings, the process of making said smoothie, consuming said smoothie and cleaning up the Wendy's frosty esque mess on the counter after said smoothie kind of tax on maybe an extra 20 minutes or so to my morning. So instead I just threw back a quick, fast, piping hot cup of coffee and here I am. So if I die of like hypocaloric low blood sugar, which is very likely, very likely, right? It's highly likely. No, I'm very fat adapted and you know, but, but I am a fan of a big breakfast for, for athletes and for maintaining circadian rhythm. So we're going to see how this goes. I told my wife I'm going to, I'm going to try it for two reasons. I'm about to leave for Hawaii for a Week anyways to hunt, you know, out at the base of the volcanoes down in Hawaii. So I'm not going to be making smoothies anyways. I'll be throwing back a quick, you know, cup of coffee. Probably same thing with some, you know, ketones and, you know, poi. Yeah, some poi. Some leftover refrigerated poi. It's like cold pizza. The Hawaiian equivalent of cold pizza.

Absolutely.

Yeah. No, I did, you know, a little bit of very, I guess, bulletproof esque. Right. A little bit of MCT oil. I actually put a little bit of nut butter in there. I put a little bit of vanilla stevia in there. I put, of course, my coffee in there, a little bit of mushroom extract, a touch of cinnamon, and I may or may not have dropped a packet of fat fudge in there. So now that I think about it, it actually probably was about 1,000 to 2,000 calories. It's good, though.

And Dave Asprey's rolling in his grave when you call that bulletproof.

Well, I was, like, drinking. Yeah.

Not that he's dead. I didn't mean to spread the rumor.

It was. It's like drinking a.

Piping hot milkshake for breakfast, I guess, is what it was. But. But backpedaling, I did save a lot of time, which was my initial goal. So there you go.

News flash.

Brock, are you standing right now?

I'm always standing.

Really? Pretty much always. I love standing. I don't. And I have this standing desk. And right now I indeed am standing. I kind of have like one foot up and one foot down and almost like a half. What do you call it when your foot's propped up on something, Captain Morgan? Like George Washington about to cross the Potomac River.

Potomac. Potomac.

Back in the history of the US I'm in my stately one foot up, one foot down pose. But there was an interesting article that came out on the New York Daily News website about standing desks and what they call brain drain.

Yeah.

This was a small but somewhat provocative study that suggests that standing at a desk for a prolonged period of time can lead to significant discomfort and mental sluggishness. And they studied 20 people who did two hours of standing computer work. In a controlled laboratory study. They found that discomfort significantly increased in all body areas and sustained attention reaction time experienced a deterioration. And I've personally found, and this is backed up by a 2016 report, an increase in back tightness. And other studies have shown an increase in the risk of varicose veins. And so the reason I'm Saying this is not so that everyone rushes back to their couch, takes a torch to their standing desk and rushes out to, yeah, to their lazy boy crash on the couch with their laptop hovered over their gonads. But the idea here is that as I've said before on shows, shift positions throughout the day to move into a variety of positions. And if you have a standing desk, even if you're not going to lunge or kneel, do my George Washington pose or get one of these, there are different topo mats. I got a board called a fluid stance. There's all sorts of things you can stand on. And I recommend that for two reasons. Number one, of course, we get rid of some of these issues associated with brain drain and back pain. But two, when you're balancing and you're moving, my friend Paul Check actually recently did a blog post on this. You get almost like a merging of left and right brain hemispheres. And so there's, you know, very similar to taking lsd, I suppose, which is what that's, you know, purported to do to your brain when used as a microdose. Smart drug balancing, you know, and shifting and being in a position where you kind of have to, have to, you know, it's like brushing your teeth with your left hand instead of your right. And it just kind of keeps the brain turned on. So there's that. Yeah, I poo poo.

This whole thing about the, the brain drain thing, I kind of look at it the same way as becoming fat adapted. Like if you, if you're used to sitting all the time and you start standing and somebody asks you a whole bunch of questions and you're not used to it, of course, like it's going to seem, you're going to seem like you're not able to engage your brain more, focus more, because you're, you're not.

Used to it, right?

A lot like eating fat instead of sugar, if you're a sugar burner, you're going to, it's not going to work for you very well. But after time, after a little while, and I experienced this, like, man, I started standing about seven or eight years ago. I had a standing desk and I experienced that for the first two months. I felt like I was never completely engaged with my work because my body was like, we're standing, we must be on our way to go somewhere. But then that shifted and now seven years later, I can, I can focus just as well. And it didn't take the full seven years. Don't get me wrong, it took like.

A few Years, I suspect, and this is why I hang from an inversion table or yoga swing in the mornings, that part of it might be a little bit of extra blood pooling in the feet. Less to go up to the precious cranium, less for the orange on the toothpick. What did that joke just go over your head to? Haven't you seen.

So I married an axe murderer oh man. In 1982, but his head looks like.

A giant orange on a toothpick. All right, well anyways.

I do type.

With my feet, so maybe that's the whole difference right there.

That could be a problem. Yeah. Anyways, the carnivorous diet, it turns out that this thing was getting studied way back in 2006. I came across a study because I've been looking into this carnivorous diet that's so sexy of late. And it's an interesting study. I'll link to it in the show notes. But what they looked at specifically was the amount of something called carnosine that's found exclusively in animal tissues notoriously deficient in vegan and vegetarian bodies. And it suppresses things like protein oxidation and advanced glycation end product formation, which essentially can cause accelerated tissue and joint aging, cross linking of fibers and. And a whole host of other health effects that suggest that the high amount of carnosine found in the carnivorous diets that they studied in this, it was a 2006 study, could suppress diabetic complications. And this was in a rodent model. But they also suggested that the carnivore diet should be studied up on with respect to neurodegeneration because of course when we hear something like advanced glycation end production, that's something that we tend to see in Alzheimer's or in early dementia. So it's very interesting that this idea of carnosine and granted you probably could supplement with carnosine and save yourself some money on a giant ribeye steak each night. But I thought it was interesting, especially when paired with the idea that there was another study when I was looking up some of these carnivore diet research studies that showed that when you're consuming a meat rich diet, well, a lot of people get concerned about what in the presence of a meat rich diet.

Brock nitrogen balance potentially.

Yes. I was thinking cancer, colorectal cancer. The idea that, I don't know, Elvis Presley died with 40 pounds of impacted fecal matter in his colon from excessive meat consumption. I don't know if that's an old wives tale, but I thought he lived on fluffernutters possibly. Anyways though. So the idea was that on a low calcium diet in this study it was found that the low calcium diet actually promoted colorectal carcinogenesis again in rats because they have to use rodents in these studies because everybody knows it's cheaper to feed a rodent at tiny, tiny steak rather than a human, a very large steak. The costs add up in these studies.

Exactly.

So anyways, what they found was that the absence of some of these dairy based compounds or specifically calcium based compounds could actually cause some of the potentially carcinogenic effect of excessive meat consumption. Based on the interaction with calcium and hemoglobin that I won't go into right now but ultimately it turns out that if you're eating a meat rich diet, I've said before, the inclusion of polyphenols and antioxidants and even potentially some plant rich compounds. And there was another study that showed even something like green tea polyphenols could protect against some of the carcinogenic effects of excessive meat consumption. It turns out that dairy might be the, the same case if you look at for example the Maasai. Do you know about the Maasai, Brock?

Yeah, the tribe in, in. I think it's Nafrica, right?

Yes. They, they subsist on a high amount of cow's blood which obviously has a lot of this iron and hemoglobin in it. That was of concern in the low calcium diet in that study. But what else do they subsist on?

I don't know.

Milk. Do they milk? The Maasai tribe blood and milk is, you know, drunk raw as a part. Milk is part of almost every meal. They drink the blood. It's kind of nasty. They actually will drink the blood straight from the cow's freaking vein on the side of the neck and it doesn't hurt the co. They figured out how to like open a hole and get the blood and drink it and move on. Almost like a, like a yogurt shop in America. Right. You choose your flavor. Chocolate vanilla, chocolate vanilla swirl. Go up, pull down the handle and put it into your cup. Similar thing except for their similar. It's cows, knives and veins. Very similar anyways though. So they do quite well. I mean they've been studied up on when it comes to their own health and of course they supplement with things like tubers and raw honey and foraged plants and soups and stews. But yes, they do quite a bit of blood and milk in a traditional Maasai diet and it might be that they're onto Something right. They figured out that when you didn't do the milk, maybe you got cancer and when you did do the milk, you didn't. I don't know. But I'm just saying we can learn some things by observing ancestors who are tapping into cow's necks.

I'm not doing that. I'm. I'm sorry.

Yeah, you can just keep getting yogurt.

That probably works too.

Anyways, though the last thing regarding this whole idea of a. I guess it's kind of related to a carnivore diet is a brand new article that came out that again, I'll link to all these if you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 384 Everything We Talk about we'll link to. High cholesterol is associated with a longer life. Hooray. And I remember, gosh, remember that event that I put on, the Becoming Superhuman event up in Spokane, Washington, where we.

Do I ever.

You were there. And this was when I decided that live events are not for me and they're extremely stressful. But I put on the bet. I lost about $30,000 putting on this event where I brought in. Who did I bring in? Norg at Goudas and Ray Kronice and Dave Asprey.

Phil Maffetone.

Phil Maffetone, a host of people. And we paid him the big bucks. We flew them up. They spoke from stage. We had this amazing theater and amazing parties and food. And I remember sitting there in the audience listening to Nora Gedgaudis give a talk and say that higher cholesterol, cholesterol above 200 is associated with an increased IQ and that low cholesterol is associated with being more or less stupid, probably because of the fatty acid deficits and the neural myelin sheath deficits that can build up when you go long term with the fatty acid deficits. Well, it turns out that it might also be associated with longevity. So what I mean by that is in this recent study, they found that 3,090 adults age 60 and up in a Swedish national study, when they had their cholesterol measured, there was a very significant inverse association between high total cholesterol and reduced all cause mortality, and those with the highest cholesterol, meaning cholesterol above 240, which would get you put on a statin. Over here in the states, they lived the longest and those with 200 to 240 were in the middle. And those with cholesterol below 200 had the highest death rate. And it's quite interesting that those who had high Cholesterol but took cholesterol lowering drugs like statins got zero survival advantage from that. So yeah, it's pretty interesting. It just, just pumps out more of this, this fuel on the fire for shutting down cholesterol lowering insanity and realizing that cholesterol is a, is a natural molecule synthesized by our own bodies.

I'm scrolling down trying to see if there was. I know they mentioned LDL cholesterol versus the other cholesterols because the, the main takeaway was total cholesterol. But did they get further into whether.

Or not you mean like, like measurement of ldlp? Yeah, for example, or lp. I believe that all they measured in this was low density lipoprotein LDL cholesterol concentration. So granted they didn't take a deep dive into cholesterol particle size to my knowledge or LP or some of these other factors that may make high cholesterol a potential mortality risk factor. But the big picture is that it turns out that high levels of LDL are definitely not an issue to be concerned with. And you may instead, as I've said before on shows, if your cholesterol is high, want to look into making sure you have low blood glucose and low inflammation and low what's called LP. And.

What'S the last one? A low hemoglobin A1C. Those are some of the biggies. Omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acid ratio. There's a lot of things that you can look into. Probably one of the guys I like the best when it comes to this. I've been kind of seeing him around the Internets quite a bit lately and he's pretty smart on this stuff when it comes to cholesterol. This guy named Dave Feldman. Shout out to Dave Dave if you're listening in. I like your website. Cholesterol Code is his website. He's got a great website where he's figured out that long story short is when you eat a high fat diet it seems the cholesterol at least the deleterious cholesterol is slightly lower. And when you eat a low fat diet they kind of raise and obviously that's painting with a broad brush. And there are people with familial hypercholesteremia and an inflammatory response, a saturated fat and other issues. But ultimately it turns out that me putting those 8 billion different forms of fat into my coffee this morning was probably a good idea.

Probably. We'll see.

Special announcements.

Well, Brock, like I mentioned, I am about to take off to hunt in Hawaii to bow hunt in Hawaii. But I just realized that by the time this podcast is released, I will have already returned, hopefully victorious, holding sheep and goat and pig and scrub cattle.

Yeah, chest freezer full of stuff.

I will I will have a Meet a Palooza and couple days of spearfishing. I'm heading down there with Ryan Mickler, the host of the Order of Man podcast, along with Seth Spears, who is Katie, the wellness mama's husband. And we are going to go out with Beau and we'll be up at 4am out of the base of the volcanoes. And then once the evening rolls around, we'll be hunting pig that come out in the evening and they feed on, you know, mangoes and avocados and wild plants and everything there is great, wonderful place to hunt.

I want to be a pig. Damn.

Well not. Not if I'm hunting you, you don't. Anyways, though, a couple of things I don't know.

I'd be pretty wily. I think I'd I'd be. I'd fare okay.

Couple of things coming up that that are that are not in the past. Probably my favorite event annually on the face of the planet, and there's still time to get in. Paleo FX It's April 27th through the 29th in fabulous fun Austin, Texas. It's like the Woodstock of the health movement, and you don't need to be Paleo to be there. You may get punched in the face if you walk in slinging a baguette over your shoulder or holding a gallon of 2% milk. But aside from that, it's a great event and you should come. It's. It's literally just one of the best places to eat and party and learn and socialize with folks who are really on the cutting edge of wellness and health and nutrition and fitness and sustainability and fricking everything from ayahuasca to shamanism beyond. So it's a very interesting event. Paleo FX we'll put a link in the show notes over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com 384 along with a link to all of the different races that I'm going to be at over the next several months, including I'll be out at Montana at the Spartan Race out there. I'll be out at Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, at the Train to Hunt competition out there. Awesomeness Fest, which is a great name in Sardinia, Italy. Head out to that. Plenty more a biohacking conference in Toronto in October. If you just want to see everywhere that I'll be and the places that I find cool that I would recommend you go to. Just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com calendar. It's all there. BenGreenfieldFitness.com Calendar.

Did you say a biohacking conference in Toronto?

Ah, yeah. In Toronto. Huh. It's new.

It's my old hometown, hopefully.

Yeah. Well, we'll have links in the show notes. I just found out about it and was invited to speak along with Jason Fung and Ryan Lowry and a whole host of folks who are a lot smarter than I am. So it's going to be a lot of fun.

A lot of fun. For them.

For them. Okay, so this podcast, one of the things that's brought to you by is. Is Rover. Do you know about Rover?

They. They give you a pet sitter, a five star pet sitter. So if you need like pet sitting or dog walking or daycare, what they do is they connect you with a sitter who they vetted almost like a babysitter for your dog. Except of course, it's called a pet sitter. And they have premium insurance. They have 24. 7 support. They have this super easy to use app and you can even get photo updates of your pet while you're away. And they will do everything from rub your pet's belly to play tug of war with it, to take it out in the middle of the night to pee if you happen to be out of town. Pretty much anything that would involve giving your pet Cadillac level service, they do. And they're called Rover R A V E R. They're the nation's largest network of five star pet sitters and dog walkers. How cool is that?

It's so cool. I actually applied for a job there. And you know what the one question was that they asked me before I got the job?

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No. It was who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?

You're good at that. Yeah. Who's a good boy? I'd hire you. Rover.com Ben. You get $25 off your first booking at Rover.com Ben. Use promo code Ben during checkout. Rover.com Ben and use promo code Ben. And whenever I repeat stuff over and over again like that, I feel like a used car salesman.

But I get hypnotized when you do that.

Like this.

It's also brought to you by Fisher Wallace. So they make this, this stimulator that's cleared by the FDA to treat depression, to lower cortisol. It fixes anxiety. It works on insomnia, which is great because I travel with it. This little Fisher Wallace stimulator. I have the one called the Circadia. You just slap it on your head if you can't sleep or you gotta duck away for a nap and it settles you down in no time flat. They have a ton of research. Over the past decade, thousands of doctors have used this thing. It's really one of the only sleep aids and antidepressant, anti anxiety, anti insomnia aids backed by the FDA or approved by the FDA and backed by clinical trials. It's a medical device, but you can buy it without a prescription and you can do so@fisherwallace.com Ben. You can try it for 30 days. If you don't like it, you can just send it back. But you save 150 bucks over@fisherwallace.com Ben and we'll have a link in the show Notes as well for that one. This podcast is also brought to you by something I mentioned that I dumped into my coffee this morning. The one that I put into my coffee is called the power of 10 mushrooms. Because sometimes I don't want to worry about all the different beta glucans and adaptogens in turkey tail versus Chaga versus Rishi versus Maitake and shiitake. Instead, I just want to dump them all in one fell swoop into a cup. And that's what the power of 10 mushrooms does. It allows dummies like me to just basically take a whole host of mushrooms, keep our fingers crossed that we're not going to get explosive diarrhea and just dump it all into one coffee cup or blend it up with all those other things I blended this morning.

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They're great. My vowels are wonderful. All right, they're twitching.

Who's a good bowel?

Yeah. The 10 mushroom blend they have is, like I mentioned, 10 of the most prestigious medicinal mushrooms on the face of the planet. And then they blend it with rosehip, which provides a natural source of vitamin C. And that helps you absorb the mushrooms so you don't have to like squeeze two lemons into your cup of coffee in the morning. These blends that they make are amazing. I have interacted with these folks quite a bit and even picked mushrooms with them in Finland. I should say harvested mushrooms in Finland with a pocket knife, sides of trees. It's a lot of fun and there's pictures of me doing it. If you go to 4sigmatic.com/BenGreenfield, 4sigmatic.com/Bengreenfeld and also over there, automatic discount code when you go to four Sigmatic.com/BenGreenfield One other thing before we jump into this week's Q and A and that is the delicious Cacao Mint Paleo friendly Gluten free, GMO free, soy free, corn free, no fluoride so there's no government mind control going on here. No xylitol so there's no toothpaste farts. And no SLS so there's no man boobs or female issues with excessive levels of estrogen mimickers. It's called MCT Oil toothpaste. MCT Oil Toothpaste. I probably could have drank it in my cup of coffee this morning. As a matter of fact, in a pinch I could likely just put a little dab of there that in there. It tastes really good. It's a cacao mint flavor. It's made by our friends at onit onnit and if you want to get 10% off of it or any of the other fabulous personal care products from Onnit like the defense soap that my kids use after they go to Jiu Jitsu each week so that they don't get flesh eating bacteria eating away their skulls. That's how I got them to do that. You don't want flesh eating bacteria eating away your skull. Son. I love you.

I'll go shower kids.

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You just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Onnit that saves you 10% BenGreenfieldFitness.com/On it does that make you want to brush your teeth or what?

Brock Everything makes me want to brush my teeth. I just. I have a problem.

Listener Q and A.

Hi Ben, I'm a longtime listener of your podcast. I really enjoy it. Thanks for all the information. Here's my question. I'm 52 and I've recently had two, not one, total hip replacements. I'm a former competitive tennis player and a longtime athlete, so my hips have had a lot of wear and tear. I also discovered through DNAFIT that I have a genetic marker for osteoarthritis. So my question is about taking care of my joints moving forward. In terms of what exercise you recommend, diet as well as supplements. I'm particularly curious about diet and whether food sensitivities or allergies play any part in osteoarthritis I haven't found much good research on the links between diet and osteoarthritis, except for typical studies that point out not to eat the standard American diet, which I really don't. I'm lactose intolerant, so I've taken that out of my diet. I've taken gluten out too. But I'd rather not be so restrictive, you know, avoiding nightshades and things like that if there's no correlation between osteoarthritis and food sensitivity. So my question is, is there a connection between food sensitivities and osteoarthritis? And if so, what's the best way to test for that? Also, what forms of exercise and supplements would you recommend to keep my joints healthy in the future? Thanks a lot.

That's interesting that she has the genetic marker for osteoarthritis. Did you know that those exist, Brock?

Well, you know what, I don't think I did actually, that that one specifically. But it doesn't surprise me that there is one.

Yeah, I found a pretty fascinating study. For those of you nerds out there, there's over a dozen different genetic markers that are associated with osteoarthritis. And this is not something that means that if you have that gene marker you're going to get it, but it does actually exist. You can thank your parents that your joints hurt, basically, is what it comes down to. And Kelly alluded to things like food sensitivities and allergies and of course those play a role because there is an autoimmune reaction. And she also asked for recommendations for exercise, for diet, for supplements. So some of the things that I would recommend, first of all, one would be of course, an anti inflammatory diet. Now, I don't want to insult people's intelligence by telling them not to eat gluten and soy and commercial dairy because most people know that those are associated with inflammation along with excessive soda and.

Coffee and sugar, refined sugars.

However, some of the things to include that I'm a really big fan of. One would be any of the very dark berries, especially the small ones, the small, ugly dark berries that are somewhat tart and sour.

Why are they ugly?

Well, the ugly fruit is often better for you. It's higher in antioxidants, it's been attacked more, it's been beat up at recess and it's just, it's more hardy and it passes on more of its hormetic benefits to you. And so there are of course farmer's markets where you can get the really small, ugly ones that aren't bred for huge size and large amounts of sugar and that's always better. But if you just have to go to the grocery store, you know, of course go organic because berries are part of the dirty dozen fruits that you definitely want to buy. Organic blueberries, blackberries, tart cherries, a lot of those are fantastic. Dark red grapes are another. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower are fine. If you have stomach issues such as sensitivity to what are called fodmaps, some of these fermentable foods, you want to be somewhat careful with some of those cruciferous vegetables along with some of the other things that can help like beans and lentils. But when soaked and sprouted and cooked properly, a lot of times chopped up.

And Left out for 90 minutes, exactly.

Like we talked about in a previous podcast, 90 minutes. Leave them out for it turns out that it was a range of time that was beneficial. But yes, you enhance the availability of things like sulforaphane and some of the antioxidants when you attack that plant prior to eating it. Turmeric, cinnamon, spices and herbs like that have been found to be beneficial of course for osteoarthritis and anti inflammatory diet. Again, you can let me google that for you. Right. There's a great book actually the Inflammation Free Diet Plan. It's an oldie but a goodie. A Monica Reinagle, somebody else who spoke at that superhuman symposium that I put on. I think this is actually what she talked about at that symposium she did.

That was her presentation.

Yeah, the Inflammation Free Diet Plan. She has a pretty good book and some of the foods that you would expect expects to be anti inflammatory are in fact inflammatory in that book. I found it quite interesting. I'm trying to remember. There was one that really surprised me. I don't remember if it was like it may have been kale or bok choy or something like that. Something you would expect to be anti inflammatory was inflammatory. So that's an interesting book by Monica Reinagle. We'll link to that one in the show notes. The anti inflammatory diet plan. There are other anti inflammatory diets out there, but that one is a good one written by someone who we know and who we trust. So that would of course be helpful as far as supplementation is concerned. A high dose omega 3 fatty acid supplementation from a good.

Rancid free fish oil source. I like super essentials fish oil Green Pastures does a fermented cod liver oil barlings does an omega swirl. When you look at folks like Charles Poliquin, for example, who is a really good strength coach and kind of on the cutting edge of a lot of the nutrition and strength research he recommends, in some cases, 40 grams of fish oil. High dose fish oil. And I ordered recently from my friends over at the place that makes super essentials fish oil, which I actually also have available at Kion. I ordered six bottles because I'm going to gradually ramp myself up to 40 grams a day of fish oil because I just want to see what happens and what it feels like. So I'll report back on that. It's kind of like my 40 grams of collagen dare that I took from my friend Mark Sisson. I started taking 40 grams of collagen and my skin and my hair and my nails all started to get out of control. I got like hooves.

Now it's weird.

I've had to clip my nails about every 10 days. My skin feels good and so I. I'm a fan of this whole 40 grams. I don't know how sustainable that is for the rest of my life, but right now I like it. 40 grams of collagen a day. So there you have it.

I'm guessing with the fish oil thing you're gonna grow gills.

Probably.

That's my guess.

Probably gills and antlers, yes. So collagen is of course good. Speak of the devil. And you can indeed take up to 40 grams of collagen. You want to split that up into a few different 10 to 20 gram portions throughout the day. But that's another great supplement. I like some of the research I've seen on glucosamine sulfite and chondroitin. But in many cases those need to be combined with polyphenols and antioxidants for them to work effectively. There are a variety of these antioxidants. Polyphenols, glucosamine, chondroitin, collagen precursors, a lot of stuff in the Flex supplement. And again, shameless plug. But I have a collagen blend, a Flex Pro blend, a mineral blend and an enzyme blend, all kind of mixed together. So it's proteolytic enzymes which break down a lot of the fibrin and help with joint health. Mineral electrolyte extract from grass fed goats over in Western Washington. I've got that in there for a bunch of potassium and magnesium and phosphorus for the bones, which is really important. And then it's got everything from boswellia, white willow bark, hyaluronic acid, Turmeric, ginger, cherry juice. If you just want everything in one fell swoop. This is one I knock back about 12 capsules of if I get injured, but also as daily maintenance. And this, you know, this is not a medical claim or anything like that. This is not going to fill fix arthritis, in my opinion, but it can be supportive for joint health. I think I'm allowed to say that it's called Kion Flex, and I'll put a link to that. It's over@getkion.com so that would be a few of the things that I would recommend from a supplementation protocol. There are some other interesting things that you can do. For example, topical capsaicin cream, which is just what it sounds like. I used to use this when I would race in triathlons in cold water or in cold conditions because it can actually keep muscles and joints warm. What I discovered was when you put it on, make sure that you've already used the pre race Porta Potty. Because if you've got capsaicin cream on your hands and then you go to wipe and your hand kind of smears across your ball, bad stuff happens. Not comfortable. Touch your junk, you're gonna be running on hot coals. So my biggest recommendation for you, Kelly, would be that if you use topical capsaicin cream, don't put your hands down in your crotch afterwards. Not that you would ever do. So I'm just suggesting though. So that's, that's another one. The type of training that I like. Big fan of Doug McGuff's book Body by Science, which is very super slow sets. Single set to failure on the. For example, leg press, lat pull down, chest press, seated row. There's one other I'm forgetting now. What did I forget? The leg press, chest press, leg press, shoulder press, lap pull down. I think seated row, those five. But that's a great program you can do two or three times a week. His book is called Body by Science. I'll link to that one in the show notes. Not even moving the joints through range of motion can also help. It's a little bit more expensive. I think it's a four to $5,000 device. We get a little bit of a discount on it with our link that I'll put in the show notes. There's this device, though, that you may have seen me using before in videos as I grunt and groan and scream and drive all my neighbors crazy even though they live 10 acres away. It's called the Peak Fit Pro. Again, single set to failure Training. So you're just pushing against this thing as hard as you can in different ranges of motion for anywhere from 10 seconds, which is an effective dose, surprisingly enough, up to three minutes, which is freaking hard. And then you're done. It's a 12 to 20 minute workout. So I'm a fan of isometric single set to failure training and also super slow single set to failure training. So either of those would work. Swimming, Huge fan of swimming. When I'm injured, you'll find me quite often, you know, near a pool or in a pool during aqua jogging, doing swimming. I think that it is one of those things that many athletes especially neglect as a really good part of a recovery protocol that allows you to train without beating up the musculoskeletal system. There's still a little bit of a neuromuscular and a cardiovascular strain, obviously, but swimming is very easy on the joints.

But you wouldn't want to do that in isolation. You need to have the weight bearing or the isometric.

You want to get your bone density. So those are some of the biggies. If you could go for the lowest hanging fruit, I would say a whole bunch of collagen, a whole bunch of fish oil, about 8 to 12 or so of those kion flex capsules on a daily basis. An anti inflammatory diet. And then your workout would primarily be swimming and super slow training or isometric training, either one. And then, you know, smear on some of that topical capsaicin cream. If you have any workouts that kind of hurt the joints a little bit, that's. That's where I would start.

Hey guys, this is Trent. Love the show. Keep up the great work. My question is this. I work out fairly regularly, usually three times a week, resistance training, twice a week with high intensity interval training, and then once a week yoga. And I've noticed that all the muscles on the left side of my body seem to be a little bigger and have better definition than those on my right. I mean, it's all over my body. My back, chest, arms, legs, shoulders, even my abs too. So I was wondering, is this maybe some type of hormonal imbalance or is it maybe something else I'm doing? If you have any ideas or suggestions as to what could be causing this, be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bye now.

Pretty much everybody always has like one leg that's a little bit longer than another or their arm is a little bit longer. One eye is a little bit bigger. Like that's just. We're just not perfectly symmetrical beasts, right?

Yeah, things, things hang lower on one side than they hang on the other side. And fingernails grow longer on one finger than another. As a matter of fact, I was at dinner. I went down to Sacramento and recorded a podcast with Mark Bell. And we had dinner with the guy who recorded the podcast before me, the founder of Quest Nutrition, Ron Penna. And Ron intrigued us at dinner by analyzing our fingers and noting that discrepancies in finger joints, specifically the ratio of the ring finger to the index finger, indicates the amount of testosterone that one can produce. And the shorter that the ring finger is relative to the index finger, the higher amount of testosterone that one typically was exposed to while in the womb. And when you look at males who have a shorter ring finger relative to their index finger, they tend to be very good at math and direction finding and sports and competition. And when you look at females who have a shorter ring finger relative to the index finger, they tend to be. Lesbian. No, I'm just here. He actually did mention lesbian. But it. They tend to possess, you know, male competitive. It's like my wife, right? She's a total tomboy, and she's. She fits that. That bill. And when your ring finger is longer than your index finger, you tend to be more yin. You tend to have more effeminate characteristics. You might have more creativity. You might be a little bit more emotional. And when you. When they're equal. Mine are. Mine are about equal. My ring finger slightly shorter. You just kind of have a, you know, balance of yin and yang. So it's interesting. Kind of a. Kind of a rabbit hole slightly longer.

So I guess I'm. I'm a little more creative.

We might have to take a deep dive into that in a podcast in the future. But in the meantime, you're talking to a guy who spent two years of his life posing in front of a mirror for 20 minutes every night while my wife laughed at me as she lay in bed watching me practically so routine as a competitive bodybuilder. So I certainly analyze my body quite a bit to the point where, and yes, this exists. It's a clinically diagnosable disorder in the DSM 5 category. Body dysmorphic disorder is something that I certainly dealt with for a long time now. It's kind of weird. I'll go for days and days without so much as glancing at my body in the mirror. I think I've kind of beat that body dysmorphic disorder by placing a lot more importance on functional fitness, on the way that I feel, on whether I can pull back my bow or race my kids. Up the driveway than I do on my body, which I think is just natural as you age. Right. But ultimately, body dysmorphic disorder is something that you need to be careful with. As we delve into this discussion, I will link to the, to the Wikipedia page for that, should you question its existence. It's also known as dysmorphophobia, which is something that many people deal with these days. Dysmorphophobia, not a mutant superpower. So anyways, there are a few things that you can do. First of all, the idea of using free weights is a good one because you can target certain areas that have that discrepancy. So dumbbells, of course, force one side of the body to take full responsibility or most of the responsibility for that part in the movement. So what I mean by that is you can do uneven weights on the weaker side of the side. That needs more development. You can hold a dumbbell that is a little bit heavier and you can train that side a little bit harder. A five or a ten pound difference is all you would need. So if your chest is smaller on your left side, you can do a laying dumbbell chest press with 40 on the right and 35 on the left. You can also, of course, do an extra warmup set or just an extra set for the side that you want to work a little bit harder. So you could do, for example, for, let's say.

Trying to think of a good example. Well, we could even say curls, right? You're going to warm up with curl. Not that I'm a huge fan of curls, but let's just say you want your biceps to be equal. Maybe your bodybuilding, I don't know, you would do your warm up set of dumbbell curls and then you do an extra warm up set for, let's say the left side if the left bicep were smaller, and then you would do an extra set at the end of doing, say three rounds of 40 pound barbell curl or dumbbell curls. Most of that is pretty straightforward. It's kind of intuitive. It's not going to hurt your body or ruin your body to do those type of things. Although you need to understand that these discrepancies in many cases are perfectly normal. Humans are not necessarily completely symmetrical. Now, there are things, and I've talked with Kate Shanahan before about this lack of vitamin D and vitamin K. As one grows up, or even as one ages, the timing of birth, like babies born too close together, can produce some asymmetries. Lack of adequate amounts of Some of those cholesterol supporting compounds that we talked about earlier that can create asymmetries in the face and especially like the teeth and the jaw. But when it comes to muscles and bones, a lot of it really can be kind of like this, you know, nature versus nurture. A real, real, real big part of it can be nurture, right? Like, my right side is stronger. My right shoulder is posed forward compared to my left shoulder. My right obliques are stronger. My right plant leg is stronger. Why? Because I was a competitive tennis player for 10 years, right? I just torqued that right side over and over again like a baseball pitcher. And you know what? I'm cool with that. And if I really wanted to, I suppose I could do a lot of kind of like free motion training and cable training with that left side and a lot of swinging with that left side and catch it up. But ultimately, I'm not too concerned because that would actually affect my tennis game, right? Like, I still play tennis every Wednesday night, and it helps me to have that be able to torque a little bit more with that right side. So that's. That's something to think about. Now, of course, sometimes the muscle imbalance can be due to a lack of innervation, and we'll talk about nerves here in a little bit. It can be due to a lack of circulation. It can be due to fascial adhesions. Right? There can actually be anatomical issues that are causing the muscle imbalance or causing you to not use the muscle. Case in point, I recently posted to Facebook a video of me. And this is over on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Facebook page, which you can just search for on Facebook, a video of Me with Dr. Craig Bueller in Salt Lake City, and he was doing muscle testing of my right and my left gluteus Max. My right gluteus max was extremely turned off, less developed than the left side. Well, it turned out that that was actually due to some issues way up at T12, like an actual nerve root compression up at T12 that was turning off the glute lower down. So in many cases, nerve root issues up in the spine can affect ability to use or to what we would say, recruit certain muscle groups, as can a lot of muscle adhesions, right? Like if your left hamstring has a lot of cross linking in it and you're not using it because your body is guarding against that, and maybe using a little bit more of the external rotators or a little bit more of the calf muscles during an exercise, you would want to do Deep tissue work on that left side and free up some of those cross linking and adhesions. Nerve issues can also arise elsewhere outside of the spine. And we'll talk about nerve flossing and some of the other things you can do for your nerves in a little bit. But ultimately it's multifactorial. And I guess my biggest message I would send to Trent would be know that it's somewhat normal to have a slight amount of asymmetries. Look at your nerves and your spine, look at your deep tissue work. Consider.

The idea that this just might be entirely natural based on your movement patterns. I don't know what kind of athlete you are, what kind of history that you have. And then also consider looking into innervation issues, cardiovascular issues for blood flow, some of the things that might affect this. And then you can train just a little bit extra on the side that you want to build up if you want. Just like I have poor balance on my left side compared to my right side, so I stand on my left leg when I brush my teeth. Right. Like it's as simple as that. Little things that you can do throughout the day. So hopefully that helps. And hopefully you can, you can very soon pose in a Speedo with perfect symmetry on stage, like I used to be able to do.

I hopefully I. Unless this is really, really pronounced, I bet Trent's the only one who actually notices this. It's probably not something he's walking down the street. People are like, oh my God, look at that guy.

Yeah. You're your own worst critic, Trent.

Yeah.

Hi, Ben, I'm Connor from Australia. Love the podcast and all the work you do. Keep it up. So my question is, what are the best warm ups and cooldowns? Do they differ depending on what you're working, such as cardio, muscular endurance or strength? I would like to know how to best prime my body for a workout and then what to do afterwards to improve recovery. Thanks, Ben. Can't wait to hear your response. Cheers.

Yeah, I am the biggest fan of the cooldown and I will soapbox about cooldowns given the opportunity at any time.

Why?

I just, I think they are the most neglected part of workouts.

So how do you cool down?

Well, I. And I guess this plays right into Connor's question. It depends on the workout, but for the most part it's some sort of, some sort of foam rolling, some sort of light stretching, deep breathing, and also looking over, making some notes of your workout and looking over your next workout so you're sort of winding down.

Sounds Like a lot of stuff to do. I like to grab my Jamba Juice and go home. Yeah.

And that's what everybody does. And then they're like surprised by their workout the next day and they haven't taken any notes from their workout the day before. And how are you supposed to make good? And this is I guess partially me being a coach and being frustrated with the lack of data that my athletes or my clients are collecting for me. But. But it also just. I think you're selling yourself short if you're not spending that extra time.

Right. Well, it doesn't take that long until I actually started hanging out with some of those folks in Malibu and I went to one of these XPT events. Folks like Laird Hamilton and Brian McKenzie and Darren Olian and that whole crowd on those very into breath work. Right. And they originally came up with that because Laird's so into surfing and wanted to be able to hold his breath for a long time when he got crushed underwater by a wave. And then it eventually became a recovery protocol and a training program.

I thought you were going to say whale there for a second. He got crushed water by a wave. Laird.

Anyways though, interval breathing recovery protocols, they'll finish up a workout and do like five sets of 20 seconds of hard breathing followed by 40 seconds of easy breathing while laying on the ground or 10 sets of some type of breathwork protocol. For example, Deep Wim Hof style breathing. Sometimes wearing a training mask and then taking that off and doing slow breath work. I mean often like a 10 to 15 minute cooldown where you're just laying on your back breathing. I interviewed Brian McKenzie and we actually talked about this. I'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 384 but simply laying on your back doing breathwork to activate the parasympathetic nervous system after you've done some of the cool down things that you just alluded to Brock. And that I'll mention here in a second, that's something that's quite popular with these folks. And if you have the time to do it to activate the parasympathetic nervous system in that sense, I mean even something as simple as elevating the legs inverted against the wall for two minutes and doing deep breathing through the nose, in through the nose, out through the mouth to activate parasympathetic, something like that can be highly efficacious.

And grab a little piece of paper and a pen and write down what your workout was, how it went and review what tomorrow's workout is right now.

Backing up, though. First of all, when it comes to the warmup, one of the best warmups that I have found of late was designed by my friend and former podcast guest, Chris Holder. It's available online and especially because I tend to have very tight hips and I tend to have a hard time turning on my glute meds and some of my glute muscles, like I mentioned.

And I'm pretty sure you're the only one who has that problem.

Only one. It's called the Cal Poly hip flow. The Cal Poly hip Flow. It's about a five to six minute sequence. They use it with all the varsity teams there at Cal Poly. And it's not just the hips, right? You start off with hip circles, then you'll do a tall reach, a downward dog. You step your left foot through, you step your right foot through. Do the hokey pokey pokey. Exactly. And you turn yourself around. Anyways, though the whole video is online, you could memorize it probably. If you did it, I would say one week, every day for one week before your workout, you'd have it memorized. That's a really good one. I really dig that warmup. So that's one that I would look into, is the Cal Poly hip flow. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Another thing that you should consider when it comes to the warmup, first of all, you actually want to. In the same way that you want to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system for the cooldown, you want to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system for the warm up. And so a proper warmup actually does get you anaerobic. And honestly, one of my favorite ways, and I'll explain why I don't do an elaborate amount of stretching and swinging and prepping prior to a workout. One of my favorite ways to activate the sympathetic nervous system is I do 30 burpees. Once I've done 30 burpees, I'm ready to go to battle. Totally. I can take on the rest of the workout. My sympathetic is engaged. I've been down, I've been up, I've stood, I've jumped. That's one of my favorite quick ways to warm up fast for a workout. Plus, when I don't feel like working out, I just tell myself all I gotta do is get to 30. And once I've gotten to 30, I'm ready to take on the world. So that's one thing when you're looking at a lot of the Deep tissue work or the extensions or the balance work or some of the things that Brock alluded to. There's a lot of mobility and stability drills that you can do prior to a workout, and it just depends on your specific body, your injury patterns. For me, I mentioned my hips, my vertebra around, my T12 is another one. So I'll throw a little foam rolling peanut underneath T12 to L1 and L2, work some of those areas and, you know, and then sometimes just go straight into the 30 burpees and go. But the idea is it should be more than just five minutes on, say, like the elliptical trainer, so some deep tissue work is good. Now, like I mentioned, I don't do a lot of that right before the workout because I spend the first 10 to 15 minutes of my morning stretching, breathing, and doing deep tissue work. Why? Because I am one of those guys that is active all day long. I hack my environment to be physically active all day long. So I view my entire day as a workout. Walking on the treadmill, going outside, and swinging the kettlebell a few times in between phone calls. I have a hex bar deadlift in the room next to me that I'll walk into and lift a few times by the time the day has ended. A formal workout. A formal hard workout for me is an option and really only something I highly prioritize if I have a big race or an event coming up. Just pretty much most of the time.

Yeah.

However, the idea is you should arrive at the end of the day with exercise or a formal workout being an option rather than a necessity. And so I do a lot of these warmup things in the morning so that by the time I launch into a formal workout, sometimes it is just 30 burpees and go. All right, so we mentioned asymmetries and addressing weaknesses with isolation work. I'm a big fan of things like these. They call them crossover symmetry. Crossover symmetry. Shoulder rotation drills, shoulder internal rotation drills, shoulder extension, shoulder abduction, adduction, shoulder flexion. I really like those, especially for upper body work. And you'll see crossover symmetry bands at a lot of, for example, CrossFit gyms now. So that's another one that I like. And yeah, those would be some of the biggies when it comes to the warmup. I guess the only other thing I would mention, and this is again, I mentioned CEO or the founder of Quest, Ron Penna. We were talking about this the other day, and as a matter of fact, I have a bet going with my twin boys right now about who can get into the full splits first. He was talking a lot to me about PNF stretching, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, Contract, relax, contract, relax. And every time you relax, you drop more deeply into a stretch. And apparently that really helps to prime the nervous system. That's another one that, for example, Charles Poliquin is very into this idea of PNF stretching. And you can just do a search for PNF stretching shoulders, PNF stretching quads, PNF stretching glutes. Right. Anything that you would want to stretch. It's very similar to another form of stretching called resistance stretching, which is based on a book written by Bob Cooley that I'll link to in the show. Notes that I keep on top of my sauna when I go in my infrared sauna. I do Bob Cooley's resistance stretching a lot, where you'll, for example, grab your hamstring, resist it with your hands, get into its deepest stretch as you can and move through a range of motion rather than statically stretching that hold. So that's called resistance stretching. It's a really great book written by Bob Cooley. Anyways, obviously you could spend hours and hours just warming up. But the idea that I like that, I personally do, if I'm going to throw my own flavor on this is I warm up in the morning, then I just don't let my warmup subside the rest of the day, and I just stay warmed up. It's a great way to start the day. As far as the cooldown goes, we mentioned activating the parasympathetic nervous system with specific breathwork patterns. Another person that I would mention is Paul Check. He calls this working in. Working in instead of working out again. Yeah. He describes breathing as something that acts like the positive pole of a magnet, and water is something that acts like the negative pole of a magnet. And the way that he describes it is that your heart, after you get oxygen from your lungs, it acts like a generator, and it produces this electromagnetic field and sends out energy and blood to the rest of the system. And then the muscles energize by producing more electromagnetic energy and acting as pumps to assist the action of the heart and to get blood back to the heart and actually the muscles themselves. There's a great book about this by Jerry Tennant called healing. I think it's called healing is voltage. But when you place tension on the connective tissues and the fibers of the muscles, there is actually what's called a piezoelectric current. That's produced a piezoelectric current. So when you move, you're creating this current, this electromagnetic field. And that's very related to the flow in Eastern philosophy of Qi energy. It actually really is an electrical flow when we look at something like Qi energy. So what Paul is into is circulating that energy throughout the body by doing very slow Tai Chi or Qigong esque movements called Working In. He has a whole list of them in his book how to Eat, Move and Be Healthy. How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy. And these are things that he'll use as movements to do in between sets, like a set of kettlebell swings, followed by a set of very slow, smooth Tai Chi esque movements, then back to the kettlebell swing. So you're working out, then working in and working out, then working in and you're assisting. He describes a lot better in his book, but you're assisting with this electrical current flow throughout the body when you do that. So I like that approach as well of just moving the body very slowly and systematically in a Tai Chi esque movement as you are cooling down. So biggest resources, I would say for you would be Resistance Stretching by Bob Cooley. PNF stretching, which you just do a search. There's not a book that I recommend on it just as much as like an online Google search. Chris Holder's Cal Poly Hip Flow, Paul Check's Eat, Move and Be Healthy book, especially the Working in parts of that, my podcast with Brian McKenzie and then those are the biggies. And then just considering just using your morning as your warmups, you can just jump right into your workout once you're ready for your workout, assuming that you stay physically active throughout the day. Hi Ben, I have an acute spinal cord injury and severe nerve damage in my spine. In your research, have you found anything that can help heal nerves? I've completely dedicated my life to recovery. I use CBD daily. I adhere to an all raw and whole food diet and work out every day. Please tell me you found something in your travels that can help me. Thanks so much for everything you do, Ben. Yeah. If you have an acute spinal injury and severe nerve damage in your spine, you may want to get that checked out. I'm just saying I. I assume that he did.

I hope he did, Brian.

I don't know.

I hope you did.

Yeah, yeah. If there's a large growth forming on your rectum, don't call that into a podcast. Go to the doctor. Go to the doctor.

You can call later into the podcast, but first, go to the doctor.

Right. First of all, I have a whole podcast on nerve damage with a guy named Dr. Fletcher. I also have a whole podcast on nerve training with another really smart guy named Dr. Eric Cobb, who founded something called Z Health, which, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to train the nerves. Z Health is crazy. You can use it to wean yourself off glasses, for example, based on nerves and small muscles in the eyes. They have something called the vision Gym, but they have lots of other great training. And one of the things that Eric is into is what's called nerve flow. And it's kind of based on the concept of gliding the nerves or flossing the nerves. Now, it's hard for me to demonstrate, so I'll link to some videos on this. But basically what it does when you nerve floss, it eases neural tension. It's also known as nerve mobilization. And when you have hypersensitive nerves, and that can include hypersensitive nerves due to a nerve injury, and you've got pain or tingling or numbness or weakness or inactivation. Like we mentioned, with muscle imbalances of the nerves, the body will protect the nerve by contracting the muscle that lies close to the affected area. And a lot of times you think that it's your muscle that hurts, and it's basically an issue with the nerve more than it is the muscle. You can also get what's called nerve entrapment. And nerve entrapment is when the nerve actually gets trapped within the surrounding tissue. And nerve flossing can also help with that as well. The way that you would do it is you, for example, let's say you were going to do nerve flossing for your shoulder, right? So you would put one hand way out to one side and one hand way out to the other side. And then you would flex your wrists as far back as you can. I'm doing it right now. And then you kind of almost imagine that a PVC pipe is going through your ears and you're moving the shoulders to one side of that PVC pipe and then to the other side of the PVC tpip.

If you've.

If you've seen Eldoa stretching, where you're just getting into these intense positions and full extension or full. Usually it's not full flexion, usually it's full extension. So you're putting the nerve on stretch, that can kind of stretch the nerves as well. And again, it's very difficult for me to podcast about it versus me saying look up nerve flossing. Yeah, I'll put links in the show notes. But nerve flossing is amazing. It's amazing for fixing nerve pain. Before you pop all the fish oil and do all these other crazy nerve things, look at nerve mobilization and nerve flossing. I'll put some very helpful links in the show notes to give you examples of nerve flow, examples of what's called nerve glide and kind of a nerve flossing guide that has a lot of this stuff in there. So that would be probably the number one thing I'd recommend for nerve pain. And I, I do some form of nerve flossing, you know, as, as I'm just going throughout the day. Right. Like after recording this podcast with you, right. Like I'll do probably one Aldoa move, a little bit of nerve flossing for the shoulder, a few kettlebell swings, then move on to my next appointment or just go drink a massive 1000 calorie.

Cup of coffee again, more likely.

Yeah, yeah. So there are a few other things that are interesting. For example, acetyl L carnitine. Some very interesting research on that neuropathy. So researchers have looked at it and found that it's a very natural way to make nerve pain completely subside. They had a study on over 1200 people that showed acetyl L carnitine to be able to repair nerves. There was another study that showed that it reduced nerve pain five times better than a placebo. Now, you find it primarily in meat. It's especially high in mutton. So hopefully I'll have a lot after I go bow hunting in Hawaii. Cod has a lot, chicken has a lot, asparagus has some. But ultimately you can just supplement with acetyl L carnitine. Thorn has one called Carnatil that I like. I'll put a link to that one in the show notes. But that's one thing that I would highly recommend would be acetyl L carnitine. That's a biggie. There are a few others. For example, Dr. Jack Cruz, who is a neurosurgeon, has a whole treatment protocol that he's written about before for peripheral neuropathy and some of the things that he highly recommends for peripheral neuropathy. One would be a high amount of what's called gamma linoleic acid. You're going to find that in borage oil, in black currant oil, in evening primrose oil, and when combined with fish oil, it's very efficacious. There is most of those compounds. Remember how I mentioned that? Super essentials fish oil. I'm going to start Megadosing with. Yeah, it's got a lot of that stuff in it. It's. It's got the blend of oils along with the fish oil along with astaxanthin. So it's got quite a bit in it that could, that could help reduce peroxide generation and it increases blood flow and what's called the vasa nervora to decrease a lot of the cellular stress.

Okay, so that's the connection. I was a little confused there. You're talking about like peripheral neuropathy, right. In terms of nerves, like that's, that's the narrowing of blood vessels, isn't it?

Peripheral neuropathy involves a lot of nerve issues as well. Okay. I mean, just, just based on, on the title of it, it's a damage to a lot of nerve cells. Okay. So. Yep. Now a few of the other things that I would look into. One would be iodine. Iodine is something else that can help reduce a lot of the cellular stress that occurs with nerve pain or with nerve damage. And when iodine is low in your nerves over time causes low levels of vitamin D, low levels of vitamin K and a loss of proper nerve signaling. So iodine would be another one to look into. There's a supplement called Lugol's. Lugol's Iodine. That would be one that you could look into as well. Liberal replacement of all your B complex vitamins, especially B12. Use of a full vitamin B support. Again, Thorne has a great vitamin B complex that I would look into for all the vitamin B's even over and above a multivitamin. You want some extra vitamin B in my opinion. A few others I would look into. N acetylcysteine. I mentioned acetyl L carnitine. N acetylcysteine is a little bit different. It's a precursor for glutathione. It helps to rid the nerve of a lot of the free radicals that are produced by what is called the polyol pathway, which is something that uses what are called polyhydroxyl alcohols. It's one of the things that again, allows for membranes of nerves to actually work properly. So that's something else you should look into either glutathione supplementation or N acetyl cysteine supplementation. And I'll link to a few sources of this type of stuff in the show. Notes. A few other things I would look into would be coenzyme Q10. That's another thing that's very important for proper nerve function. So coenzyme Q10 would be one and then another one would be some form of Resveratrol. Resveratrol appears to be quite helpful for nerves also. And Thorne again has one called Resveracel. I tend to rely upon some of these companies like Thorne just because they, they're trustworthy. They have in them what they say is in them. I've toured their facilities, I've seen their hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of chromatography equipment and filtration equipment and you know, the way that they label every single bottle and track every single bottle to make sure it has exactly in it, what it says it has in it. So I, I'm a big, big fan of Thorn for a lot of this stuff. So I would say if you were to look at a stack, a perfect stack, you do a really good fish oil like the super essentials, you do some iodine, then you do something like Thorn Carnotil, Thorn R Lipoic Acid, Thorn Resveracel, Thorne Q10 plus and Thorne Vitamin B complex. So that's basically. I know that's seven supplements, but that would be like the stack that I would use along with quite a bit of nerve flossing and nerve gliding. And I'll put links to some of my favorite forms of doing that in.

The show notes just to pick up on something you just said about liking Thorn because you trust their manufacturing and their labeling and stuff. A lot of people don't understand how important that is. But there was actually a, a thing in the New York Times not that long ago where 4 out of 5 supplements found on the shelves of. And I'm not going to say the name of the place, but it's three letters that sound like gnc actually didn't have what the label claimed to have in it. So you're buying like Vitamin D. It didn't have any vitamin D in it. Four out of five of them. So when you find a company like Thorne that you really trust, it's, it's quite important.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Same thing with other companies that we won't mention. But it rhymes with Walgreens. There's another one that rhymes with P, V S. No, see? Yes. Yeah, A lot of them out there anyway. So yeah, be careful, be careful.

You might be getting grass clippings.

Here's something you don't need to be careful with and that would be going to itunes and leaving this show. A review. Now, a five star review will definitely get you into the running for a free gift pack sent out from me to you to your front doorstep. But even a four star review, as is the case today, will get you in the running. So if you hear your review read on the show, all you need to do is email gearreenfieldfitnesssystems.com that's gearreenfieldfitness systems.com and we'll hook you up with a T shirt and a sexy little beanie and a bottle, bottle, bottle, bottle. If I can get a water bottle. What were you gonna say, Brock?

I was just gonna say like, and, and make sure that I don't know if people are trying to game the system or if they just don't understand the rules. But you have to hear us read your review in order to write to gear@greenfieldfitnesssystems.com and get the stuff. You can't just write to it.

Yeah. Although I'm tempted to just start. I think that's against iTunes rules to just start sending out goodies to everybody who leaves a review. It's called bribing anyways, though we can, of course, I guess this is kind of sort of bribing.

It's kind of bribing.

But yeah, the reviews really, really help the show. It's one of the top ways you can help the show. So we have a review left by running Rhino, who calls this an informative and health centric podcast. Four stars. I don't know why four stars, but take this one away, Brock.

Yeah, it doesn't really elucidate why only four, but okay, it goes like this. I love this podcast because Ben is willing to try all kinds of stuff that most of us wouldn't. Ain't that the truth. And then report on the results. Always chock full of fitness and longevity data that I can write down. Oh, that I can't write down or remember. Oh, come on. Running Rhino. But it's usually in the extensive show notes which you can find@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 384 yes, for today's show.

So I'm willing to try all kinds of stuff that most of us wouldn't. Including all the headlines that went out recently that apparently I injected my junk with stem cells to make my junk bigger.

But you didn't bother to measure it before or after?

No man injects. I think the my favorite headline was man injects perfectly healthy penis with stem cells in an attempt to make it bigger.

I thought it actually said guy. It wasn't even like as respectful to say man.

Yeah, the Gizmodo reporter called me up and asked me all these questions and then she's like, well, did it get bigger? And I'm like, well, funny enough, I think it actually did get bigger. She's like, did you measure it? I'm like, well, no. And she's like, well, how do you know? I'm like, it just kind of looks bigger. And so she takes that and the whole story is man attempts to make dick bigger. So there you have it. Gotta love journalism.

You should have known, though. Gizmodo is like just one step above National Enquirer. So you see that there?

I don't spend a lot of time on those websites.

Yeah, just don't answer the phone if you see that on your call display.

Live and learn. Live and learn. If Gizmodo calls you, be careful. No, I love you, Gizmodo. And honestly, it probably, yeah, probably drove a lot of traffic to my website, honestly. So I think everybody who wants more traffic to their website should just take needles to their junk. They have it. There's one thing that you learn. Anyways, thanks for the review running Rhino. I really appreciate it and of course appreciate all the reviews that you guys can send. And you can check out everything that we talked about from the studies on meat and carnivore and drinking milk and blood to the best way to warm up and cool down, videos on nerve flossing, the kion flex stuff that I talked about, how to increase your body symmetry. Plenty more. Just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 384 check it out. And Brock, it's time to go drink some more of my calorie free coffee. Hooray. Hooray. For calorie free coffee.

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Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.

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