July 8, 2015
Podcast #323 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/07/323-the-effects-of-beer-on-hydration-cross-country-running-tips-home-remedies-for-hernias/
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Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show: The Effects Of Beer On Hydration, Cross Country Running Tips, Should You Use Wraps, Sleeves, And Belts For Weight Lifting, Home Remedies For Hernia, How Protein Spikes Insulin and much more!
Welcome to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain, and hormone optimization. So whether you’re an Ironman tri-athlete, or you’re just wanna shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill, cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.
Brock: Greenfield, are you trying to kill me?
Ben: Mmm. Possibly? Yes.
Brock: That’s what I thought so. I really I – I think last week we talked about how you’re – you’re sort of putting me into an over-reaching phase of my training at the moment and damn it man, I’m – you know when you have to like use your hands to help yourself lower on to the toilet and then getting off the toilet you have to like grab on to something pulling yourself up?
Ben: Hmmm.
Brock: That’s me today.
Ben: Hmmm. Why?
Brock: Ahhh, ‘cause you gave me this crazy workout not even yesterday, it’s the day before. So I’m at the peak of DOMS right now. It’s the obstacle workout do you call that one? The bear crawls, the burpees, the…
Ben: Hmmm, yeah, running, stopping, bear crawls, burpees.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, grow up pair! It was not that hard.
Brock: It was- it was awesome! It was super fun! And then yesterday I did my sprint workout and was like “Yeah, I’m a little sore”, but this morning I got up and was like, “Holy crap!”
Ben: I’m just making you resilient to the pending zombie apocalypse.
Brock: And I appreciate it. I really do.
Ben: Oh, I’m picking coconut flakes out of my teeth this morning.
Brock: Delicious.
Ben: I’ve tried a few new things with my morning breakfast protocol. I actually just finished a book – really good book. I’m getting at the author on a podcast soon about like ancestral eating patterns, wild edible plants, the responsive plants to certain preparation methods, etc. And one interesting part that the book goes into is about blending food, particularly blending vegetables on how like heat and oxidation can potentially occur when you’re just like pulverizing the hell out of your kale.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: So…
Brock: Yeah, that’s why they do the – oh what’s the masticating juicer instead of the old school juicer?
Ben: Masticating juicer like a mortar and pestle?
Brock: Yeah, like cold press.
Ben: And be like kinda like the really old school, I’m gonna make my breakfast with the mortar and pestle though, I just…
Brock: Just a hammer. (chuckles)
Ben: I refuse to do that. However, I have been simply blending anything that I’m making far less on a little bit lower setting. So I used to just like pulverize stuff right? For like 60 full seconds. Now I just kinda blend it for about 20 to 30 seconds so my smoothies you know, they were already little chunky. They’re even chunkier but you know, I simply need to chew them a little but more hence the coconut… (murmuring)
Brock: So you have it, you’re even like straight up gazpacho for breakfast now?
Ben: It’s kinda like gazpacho like a thick, chunky kale, green gazpacho that my wife says looks like cat poop, so it’s good stuff.
Brock: Oh, delightful. Just as a classy broad.
News Flashes:
Brock: Speaking of classy broads, I have seen some pretty, awesome tweets going across Twitter.com (chuckles) out of your Twitter account, Ben.
Ben: Man, you’re lucky that my wife – lucky my wife does not listen to the Ben Greenfield Fitness show.
Brock: (chuckles)
Ben: Anyways, yeah! I have been tweeting out some interesting things. Let’s start here, here’s a fun one: the effects of a moderate intake of beer on markers of hydration after exercise in the heat. This was a crossover study in which they took a bunch of active males and they were relatively fit males. Their VO2max was up close to 60…
Brock: Hmmm.
Ben: …which is pretty fit consider it’s like almost double of a sedentary population, but they had been performed an hour of running at a pretty intense pace. And they had them do that hour of running two times but their run sessions were 3 weeks apart. Both of them however, took place in a hot laboratory setting. Quick Math, Brock, it was 35 degrees Celsius and 60% humidity, what does that come out to as for Fahrenheiters?
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Brock: A hundred and five?
Ben: A hundred and five degrees, yeah. So, a 105 degrees running for an hour and then during the 2 hours following the exercise, they either consumed mineral water ad libitum – and I love that word just ‘cause it makes you sound smart – much smarter than saying whatever the hell you want.
Brock: Yeah, just like as much as you want. (chuckles)
Ben: Yeah. Or up to 660ml of beer, just regular beer. And the beer was followed by water ad libitum but not until they actually drink their 660ml of beer.
Brock: At 660ml, that’s more than a pint.
Ben: It’s – yeah, it’s more than a pint at least on a beer.
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Brock: Like two cans.
Ben: And they followed things like their blood serum and their fluid balance and their urine excretion before, after exercise and after rehydration. And what they found was that the folks who had the beer and then had the water experienced no deleterious effects of drinking a bunch of beer before they had their water. Their hydration status did not change, they were just as hydrated as the folks who drank water ad libitum, so it turns out that having a cold one after a tough exercise session in the heat really doesn’t influence you deleteriously from dehydration standpoint.
Brock: Yep, from a hydration standpoint.
Ben: Contrary to popular belief, yeah there may be other things that happen I wouldn’t necessarily you know, drive you car home from the park after you slam a couple of cold ones following an hour of running at a 105 degrees, but aside from that, there’s no worries. Now I think the next experiment that they should do is see what happens if you mainline the beer, right? Into like the radial vessels via intravenous injection.
Brock: Aaah, like IV drip, nice! Well, actually, no. No, I enjoyed the taste of beer way too much to waste it like that.
Ben: It’s quite possible that you can taste it in your mouth. I mean, when you do a coffee enema, you could sometimes taste coffee so, I guess to say perhaps a beer IV would allow you to taste beer.
Brock: Like the beer enema, perhaps?
Ben: And by the way, if you’re listening in, any of the research that we sight, the studies, the resources from today show, you can access at bengreenfieldfitness.com/323. And here’s the next one: whey protein. I have talks before about the difference between like whey protein and amino acids particularly like whole amino acids right? Whole amino acid powders, whole amino acid capsules, there’s sometimes also called essential amino acid capsules or powders or EAAs. I’m personally right now, tapering for the Pennsylvania Sprint Spartan and the Super Spartan – I’m going to do back to back Spartans this weekend up in the Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania. And when I’m tapering, one of the things I’m aware of and we’ll talk about the insulinogenic effect of protein later on in the show. One of the things I’m worried is of course is calories because I’m exercising less. But I still want to enhance recovery, and so one of the tools that I use during a period of time like that is I will often substitute proportions of meat to a portions of protein powder instead essential amino acids capsules or essential amino acids powders because they are very, very low from a caloric standpoint, but contain all the building blocks for muscle. Now granted they’re not going to have it as… say as big an appetite satiating effects as say, you know like protein would because their void of calories, but from recovery standpoint, theoretically up until those point they could help with the recovery. But what a recent study in the American Journal of Physiology and Endocrinology Metabolism looked into was a comparison of these amino acids with whey protein. And they particularly looked at the anabolic signaling right? So if you take in a bunch of whey protein in this case, they used I believe… yes, it was 20g of whey protein and they compared that to 3g of these amino acids which is interesting to me because I’ve been using 5 to 10g of amino acids and granted this study was on women. So…
Brock: Tiny, little women.
Ben: Tiny, tiny, little women like tooth fairies. Anyways though, what they looked at was plasma insulin and amino acid concentrations. They looked at micro vascular blood flow and they looked at muscle anabolic signaling, particularly like your post-workout protein synthesis meaning your ability to take amino acids and repair and rebuild muscle. What they found was that the anabolic response was similar to both whey protein and amino acids – meaning that the whey protein offered no anabolic advantage over the amino acids, and the whey protein from a caloric standpoint is of course much, much higher than amino acids compound. So what this means for you is that if you need to rely upon something like amino acids for repair and recovery, and you’re concerned that it may not be as anabolic or might not allow you to have as much of a muscle repair recovery effect as say, whey protein or whatever your protein choice happens to be. Turns out the amino acids are just as good. This is the first study I’ve seen you know, that was done by an independent organization not the people making the supplements, right? Not the people making the amino acid supplements, so yeah. And then the question just becomes “do you want powder or do you want capsules?” I use both. The stuff I use, I use the Thorne (e-x-o-s) Aminos Powder and then when I want a capsule I use the – it’s called the Perfect Health Aminos which is very, very similar to the Master Amino Pattern aminos but anyways…
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Brock: Did they stop making the Master Amino Pattern and just turned into the perfect one now?
Ben: No, I just found a much better deal that’s perfect to me as basically made by the same lab except that it’s just cheaper.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: So I’ve got both of those listed at greenfieldfitnesssystems.com if anybody wants to go delve into them but yeah, interesting stuff on amino acids.
Brock: Yeah! Yes.
Ben: And then the last thing was workouts! What I tweeted was that if you’re tempted to finish up a workout with an “extra” set of bicep curls, leg extensions, etc. there’s no need. So perhaps this is leftover thought from my old days of body building but I’ll often finish up a weight training workout that you know, say like dead lifts and I’ll be tempted to you know, throw in an extra set of bicep curls ‘cause I get 10 minutes or you know, finish up some squats with some leg extensions to get a little bit more burn for the quads right?
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Make it burn before I go drink my giant creatine shake.
Brock: Before you go and chug your beer?
Ben: Get swoll. Anyways though, what a recent study looked into was what happens when you add a single-joint exercise, right? Like a bicep curl and that’s actually what they used in this case was bicep curls to a multi-joint exercise program. What it does to muscle strength, what it does to muscle size and in this case they used trained men, and they had one group do multi-joint exercises without finishing up with single-joint exercises, and they had one group do multi-joint exercises with single-joint exercises. And they measured things like arm circumference you know, your bicep circumference, your elbow flexor strength, etc. when you threw in the curls. And it turned out that there was absolutely no difference between the two groups in terms of muscle strength and muscle size and the take away was that the addition of single-joint exercises to a strength training program that already has multi-joint exercises in it does not give you additional benefits and it’s not very time-efficient. So it turns out that you don’t need to be doing all those curls, Brock.
Brock: So you could spend or I should spend that extra 10 minutes in a cold shower perhaps instead of doing bicep curls.
Ben: In a cold shower or maybe just doing extra multi-joint exercises, I don’t know. Pick your poison but ultimately curls are as I think I heard a strength conditioning coach once say “Curls are for girls.” And that’s just like super sexist, I’m sorry to all my female friends and listeners…
Brock: Yeah, what do you think, this is Obstacle Dominator podcast?
Ben: That wasn’t what I said, that’s what he said: “curls are for girls.” Okay, we better move on.
Special Announcements:
Brock: There are biohackers summits happening in all over the damn places this fall.
Ben: Well, I’m gonna be at the one in Finland and so that’s the big special announcement for today.
Brock: That’s, yeah. That’s gonna be it. That’s gonna be cool.
Ben: biohackersummit.com you can check it out, I think its biohackers or biohacker? Actually I think it’s biohackersummit.com, anyways though, September…
Brock: biohackersummit.com, yeah.
Ben: September 23rd to the 24th if you feel like jet-setting over to Helsinki, Finland. I think it’s gonna be a pretty cool event. So there will be everything from like gym therapy to biometric shirts, shirts? Biometric skirts?
Brock: Shorts?
Ben: Biometric shirts, food prep cooking, science and kitchen chemistry, molecular gastronomy like all sorts of really, really cool kinda like cutting-edge biohacky stuff. So check it out if you feel like going to Helsinki, Finland. A few other places where we could meet up or you could say ‘hello’, I’ll be in San Francisco July 17th for the Spartan Race there, like I mentioned I’ll also be in Pennsylvania this weekend for the race in the Blue Mountains there. I will be at the Train to Hunt National Championships in Colorado, the first week of August and I’ll be in Washougal, Washington for the Spartan Sprint over there. The… I don’t know one that is, I think it’s like August 1th, 12th, something like that I wanna say. So anyways, if you happen to be in those places, come say ‘hello’, I’ll try and wear my giant Ben Greenfield Fitness t-shirt, beanie, carry around the water bottle, etc.
Brock: (chuckles) All the gear.
Ben: Oh, the stuff that I do. Okay, what else? If you feel like catching up on the work of fiction, I’m almost ready to release the third chapter of my book “The Forest” and this third chapter is a monster. You can check that out over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/theforest, you can read it for free serially, chapter by chapter.
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I’m also releasing the audio book version as well. And you can get all the details on all that over at benfreenfieldfitness.com/theforest to…
Brock: You’re like a modern day Charles Dickens.
Ben: I’m just like a modern day Charles Dickens, exactly. I don’t know what else about….
Brock: He released his books in like chapter by chapter.
Ben: Oh, that’s right! He released them in like the newspapers.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, I’m just like him except no newspapers wanna publish my book, so I just put it online on Wattpad which I didn’t realized this but Wattpad’s actually like the world’s top most visited website for consuming free books online.
Brock: Hmmm, nice!
Ben: So, there you go. And my book is free online.
Brock: There you go.
Ben: I have no clue why it’s free, I’m just writing it out of the goodness of my heart because I love to write. Writing it for my children but it isn’t technically a kid’s book, it’s for adults, too.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: And the last thing that I wanted to mention was that we shipped our first Quarterly Box and now it turns out that the second one is going to be shipping quite soon and you can get it on all the goodness of having Christmas roll around every quarter from me. With a nice hand-written letter – well it’s not hand-written; it’s in PDF-form, typed but hand-written sounds nice – personalized letter from me. You can get in to all that at bengreenfieldfitness.com/quarterly. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/quarterly.
Hey, it’s Ben Greenfield and yes, this is a commercial but don’t press fast forward because it’s actually something that I think is really gonna benefit you. See, every day I write down every single workout that I do and I upload it to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Inner Circle, now that’s not all. Each month, my wife and I sit down and will make an entire list of the food, the supplements, the gear, the productivity hacks, the health hacks – everything that we have found to be interesting, random, entertaining, etc. and we have a glass of wine, we get in front of the camera and we talk about all those things live for you while we answer your questions as they come in. It’s like coming in to our living room and sitting by the fire, heading to the coffee shop with us. Now, there’s also inside the Inner Circle something called ‘The Healthy Home Workshop” and let me give you an idea of what the Greenfield house looks like each week. My wife is constantly carrying a video camera around and recording what she cooks, how’s she’s working in the garden, how’s she’s creating a healthy home. Well let’s just give me you an example of what came out just this week inside the Inner Circle Healthy Home Workshop that she does each month, it’s like an online video magazine with PDFs she did something on guilt-free treats that keep you cool. In other words, how to create things like healthy icies, ice cream, popsicles, etc. that don’t spike your blood sugar – she did an episode called “Everything but the Root” where she talks about how to take root vegetables like say turnips, carrots, etc. and it was way more like the stems, the leaves, what you can do with them, their nutritional value, etc. She did an entire video on natural waste to clean your dishwasher completely toxin and chemical-fee ways to make your own dishwasher detergent – everything you need to know about your dishwasher and then she finally did amazing ways to use a lowly planter pot where she goes on how to take old planter pot, pots and to everything from making tiki torches to string lights to umbrella holders with them. It really is pretty amazing which she puts together every month and even if you’re not interested in Healthy Home Workshop, the daily workouts from me, the monthly Q&As and intimate workshops with my wife and I are well-worth being a member of the Inner Circle. So, sorry for the long commercial but you can check all this out over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/innercircle, it’s a buck to check out, it’s $14 a month to be a member of which is a drop of the bucket compared to what you actually get as far as value. Yes, you’ll get full access to all the archives and everything we’ve ever produced in the Inner Circle. So if you pretty much wanna have your house run just like mine, if you wanna do workouts just like me, if you wanna eat the foods that I’m eating and prepare the dishes that my wife is making etc. – the Inner Circle really is the place to do it so check it out: bengreenfieldfitness.com/innercircle and it really will change your life, I promise. So, see you inside!
Listener Q & A:
Stacy: Hi Ben, my name is Stacy and I call about my son. He’s going to be a junior in high school and is a cross country runner. He is on the edge of moving up to the next level in the sport and I wanted to know what things he could be doing to achieve faster times and how to eat properly?
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We are still struggling with that when to eat, how to eat, what to eat for performance and to increase his speed. So I would appreciate any of your insights. I love your show. I just found it this summer and have been listening these so many of the podcast. I really liked it, I’ve learned a lot and I really appreciate what you’re doing. It’s been super helpful, thanks!
Brock: So junior in high school, that’s grade 10?
Ben: Mmm-hmm.
Brock: So what he’d be like, 16 years old?
Ben: Yeah, something like that.
Brock: Mmm, okay. So pretty much finished growing or almost finished growing so…
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: Pretty much treat him like a grown man.
Ben: Pretty much. He’s a grown man. He’s probably full faced beard, hair in his legs – we’ll call him a grown man.
Brock: Okay.
Ben: Anyways, so…
Brock: I was just bring that up because of like, the hormone stuff are ready in the growth plates and stuff…
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Sure.
Brock: …and he’s super young and you don’t wanna push him too much…
Ben: Yeah, absolutely.
Brock: I wasn’t being creepy.
Ben: Good consideration. Anyways though, as far as cross country runners go, I would say and I talk about this quite a bit in my book “Beyond Training”. There’s kinda like five neglected areas that I tend to see especially like endurance runners and cross country runners run into, and it either hold you back in terms of speed or affects things like balance, coordination later on in life sets you up for injuries, etc. So some of the things that I would say that Stacy’s son should focus on for cross country running or anybody listening in should focus on if their wanting to become a faster cross country runner and they already have a good running program in place like a good base running program.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: One would be strength you know, I recently interviewed the folks from university I forget which one on using strength training protocols to enhance endurance performance because of the increase in motor neuron unit recruitment and also the increase in movement efficiency and economy. And the basic idea behind this is that during the off-season you should be lifting with high force, low velocity and then during the on-season you should be lifting with low force, high velocity. So high force, low velocity would be like multi-joint exercises, heavy six to ten reps, etc. Low force, high velocity would be things like plyometrics, skipping, hopping, leaping, bounding, etc. but for a runner, my recommendation is anywhere from one to three times per week spent in strength training. So strength would be the first thing, the second thing would be power. Now, power obviously is something you’re gonna hit a little bit with something like your low force, high velocity type of training but as far as other ways to improve power, I would say one thing that tends to get neglected is the strength of your nervous system and specifically you know, things like neuronal health, adequate fatty acids, fish oils, stuff like that. So making sure that you really taking care of things from a nervous system standpoint you know, sleep, high fat diet – that type of thing. But then also, you know I’m a big fan of having some things around the backyard, things like agility ladders like speed and agility ladders, weighted jump ropes, some kind of a plyometric box right? So you can do a single leg or double leg plyo-hops. I’m a big fan of medicine balls for things like slams, throws, etc. – anything that allows you to just basically throw stuff around or move your body quickly especially from an explosive standpoint would be beneficial and possibly things that a cross country coach who may not have available or be using in something like their own cross country training program.
Brock: Okay, here’s a question.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: When you buy those boxes, when you’re getting like stuff to do box jumps with, would you – what would the height, what would the optimal height be?
Ben: Generally, about the height of your knee or higher, right? So I mean, like a really good athlete is gonna be able to get up onto a box that’s a hip higher but I recommend you start with about a knee height or higher. Now for a single leg hop, that’s still gonna be a little bit high, I mean some people you know, like a height of the treadmill belt right? From ground up to treadmill belt is high enough for a single leg hop but for like a double leg jump, a depth jump – things like that, I would go for knee or higher in terms of height.
Brock: Alright.
Ben: So yeah.
Brock: There you go.
Ben: You just basically need stuff that you can throw and swing around without breaking and boxes that you can jump up onto, so that power. And again I get into a lot of detail on my book about strength, power and some of the other things I’m gonna talk about here.
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Speed is another particularly over-speed training. Okay, downhill running on soft surfaces, getting on a treadmill that pushes you at a speed that you would not normally run if you’re on grass or track or field and jacking nothing up and running at over-speed. Even over-speed repeats on like a bicycle right? like a 120RPM – all you’re doing is trying to get yourself, get your central nervous system to send that message to your muscles as quickly as possible so that running at a rate of 90 plus RPM which is really how fast you wanna be running for a really good speed movement efficiency, economy, etc. so that become second nature. And the only way to do that is by doing over-speed training where you’re working at a 100plus RPM – so I’m a big fan of some of those strategies and Brock, it sounds like something was funny?
Brock: I just – you don’t recommend the dropping and the – dropping her son off the back of a truck while you’re driving along, like who was that you had on the show that was talking about doing over-speed training while you’re driving along in the back of the truck?
Ben: Yeah, yeah. That was when I interviewed the guy who does – Jay… I forget his last name, I met him at the Bulletproof Biohacking Conference and he trains folks using like electrical muscle stimulation and super-duper over-speed training where yeah, he was like… I think it was his son; he was like dragging him behind the car.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: He used that and a single speed bike, right? So you’d ride him on top of your single speed bike and when you’re going downhill, you have no choice but to pedal as quickly as possible, and those were two methods that he used for over-speed training for his son but yeah, I think like an over-speed treadmill or running really fast downhill on a golf course is a better idea than dragging your kid behind you on a pick-up truck.
Brock: (laughing)
Ben: So, yeah. Thanks for clarifying. (laughs with Brock) The next one is mobility. So you know, mobility is something I’ve talked about quite a bit on the show before. I think every athlete should own like Kelly Starrett’s “Becoming a Supple Leopard” book along with a foam roller, some kind of like a ball, right? Like a massage ball and preferably you know, some kind of like mobility type of traction equipment, right? Like elastic bands that you can attach to the feet to the full part of the knees for knee traction in order you can attach to the hips for hip traction, etc. So yeah, I would definitely say using those type of strategies is good I mean, you know, case in point, this morning my “workout” was 20 minutes on foam roller along with this thing called the “Battlestar” which is like you know I use a Rambo roller and I use a Battlestar. A Battlestar is this really hard – I don’t know what kind of plastic is used on it but it’s almost like roller blade wheels all attached together and Kelly Starrett, the same guy who wrote “Becoming a Supple Leopard” book, he sent me one of these and it’s incredibly hard. You think the Rambo roller’s tough and this one’s very, very good at like separating adhesions in small areas like your calf, like your soleus and your gastrocnemius that can separate those muscles of the calf. Those are really good job at separating a lot of the hamstring muscles, some of the quad muscles but man, it’s an incredibly hard, hard piece of equipment; you could Google image search and see what it looks like, it’s called the Battlestar. Anyways though, great name, by the way. Doing mobility work like that you know, so this morning I spent 20 minutes of full body foam roller along with the Battlestar, and because I wanted to kill two birds at one stone, I had my hypoxic air generator hooked up to my mouth – so I was doing all that at about 13,000ft elevation. No, this was – I had that one set on 18,000ft elevation, so it’s kinda cool because I can put up a pulse oximeter on my fingertip and watch my blood oxygen saturation drop from like 98 down to 87 as I’m going through my foam rolling protocol, so I’m building a bunch of new red blood cells while I’m foam rolling. So I do all…
Brock: While do red blood cells killing brain cells.
Ben: So exactly. Now I have got a headache for a while after some of those sessions and wonder, “How many brain cells died?”
Brock: No doubt.
Ben: Anyways though, the next thing that I did after that was a hang from my inversion table right? So after I foam rolled everything and I got all the knots out of the ropes so to speak, I stretched the rope out by hanging from that inversion table so I was elongating you know, my knees, my hips and like kinda swing from side to side a little bit and just basically provide traction on all of those muscles that I’ve just kind of freed up in terms of the fascial and connective tissue sheaths surrounding those muscles. So that type of mobility work is not necessarily gonna make you faster but it’s gonna keep you in the game, right? That’s really, really important when it comes to everything from like over-used injuries to stretch fractures to you know, arthritic-like symptoms, etc. so you’ve got strength, you’ve got power, you’ve got speed, you’ve got mobility and then the last neglected component is balance.
[0:30:09.4]
And balance would be things like you know, single-leg exercises you know for example, right now as we are talking I am standing on… on my little anti-fatigue mat that’s at my desk, right? And so your son could easily have you know, things like a standing work station in his room or these types of mats and for example, a gym and you know I use one called a Kybounder, and I stand on this on one leg and I stand on the other leg, it was built based on inspiration from the guy who walked around Korean rice-paddy fields and noticed that he had – not only did his feet feel fantastic and got very strong but he had to work a lot on his balance. This step of single-leg balance exercises on mats that move around a little bit are really good incorporating you know, single leg squats incorporating hip hikes – anything that kinda challenges your son from a balance standpoint is really important to even visual perception, right? And what’s called the vestibulocochlear perception which is like the strength of your ears that’s also very important. I mean, making sure that you take computer breaks to look often to the distance to train your eyes to see something more than 2ft ahead of you, or making sure that you don’t listen to extremely loud music on your headphones so that those tiny little bones in your ears are able to make micro adjustments much better as your head and your body moves. And then of course doing the single leg exercises or standing on unstable surfaces trains kind of like that third cognitive balance called your somatosensory system which is the balance component in your joints. I want you to put all three of those together, you really gonna take care of yourself from a balance standpoint which is important for everything from stability on more technical cross country courses to decreasing your ground contact time as you’re running so there’s a lot of benefits to including balance as well. So strength, speed, power, mobility and balance would be the five areas that you know, if one of my sons were really wanna get go to cross country, and I already knew that they’re cross country running program was sound as far as like what the coach’s programming from a running standpoint, I would focus on those components. So that’s where I would start and then as far as the diet goes, you know I talked about this on podcast before but you know, read the article, have a bengreenfieldfitness.com about 40 easy meals for busy athletes and then read the one about how much carb protein and fat that an athlete needs and I’ll link to those resources in the show notes for you over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/323, please send me a check when your son wins the world championships of cross country running and…
Brock: And he better be wearing a Ben Greenfield Fitness t-shirt when he does it.
Ben: That’s right and those really shorty-shorts.
Hammer-Slammer: Hi Ben and Brock, it’s Hammer-Slammer from the Shipyard Sirens in Saint John, New Brunswick Roller Derbies Team and as cross training, I do a lot of strength training and I was wondering what your thoughts are on using wraps and sleeves and belts while lifting? I usually tend to do this later on in my sets when it gets a bit heavier and I was wondering if you think that’s a bad habit or I should continue doing stuff like that? Love the show and I look forward to hearing what are your thoughts are on this. Thanks!
Brock: Hammer Slammer.
Ben: Hammer Slam. It’s a good name. So, the deal with this, by the way, Roller Derbies, that’s pretty awesome.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: I would not wanna mess with the Roller Derbie girl of the Roller Derbie girls that I’ve seen. So anyways though, as far as belts, wraps and sleeves go, you know they have their specific function and it’s important to use them properly and just not like indiscriminately use them in every workout even though I would admit that they look pretty damn cool. And when I walk into a gym wearing my weight-lifting belt, my bright sleeves, the wraps around my wrists maybe some kind of weight-lifting shoes – I look pretty bad-ass at least in my opinion.
Brock: (chuckles)
Ben: Sometimes just walk around the house that way, just to feel better about myself.
Brock: (chuckles) Walk around the backyard.
Ben: Yeah. We’ve done an episode on weight-lifting shoes, so I would go and listen to that episode, so we won’t cover that. Let’s talk about belts, wraps and sleeves. So belts, this weight-lifting belts, what they do is they give you something to brace against during a lift and when you use them correctly they can actually help you lift more weight. I mean essentially what the belt does is it makes it easier for you to create intra-abdominal pressure right? Like you’re breathing against the compression of that belt and as a result, you’re able to maintain a good position under heavy loads such as say like a box squat or an overhead snatch or a dead lift.
[0:35:06.9]
And what some people will say is “Okay will weight-lifting belts can help you lift more weight, so why not just use them all the time? What’s the problem with that?” Well, you don’t want to rely on a piece of equipment like a weight-lifting belt to create a strong and stable core especially if you find yourself consistently unable to keep your torso strong or to stay upright when you’re doing a back squat or you can’t maintain a strong back position during a dead lift that is less than like a single wreck dead lift. There’s probably an underlying weakness or problem that you have to deal with and all the belt will do is cover that up and sure it might help you in the weight room but as far as functional activities and activities to daily life you know, it is a little bit of a band aid. The time and place to wear a belt in the weight room would be like I mentioned, when you’re doing very heavy wraps near or at your max – I wouldn’t wear weight-lifting belt for any weight that you can do more than three times, period. It’s just not…
Brock: Oh, really?
Ben: Not necessary, so that’s one thing. In competition, you know, let’s say you know this is very similar like breaking out the – you know, whatever, the aerodynamic wheels during a triathlon or something like that, right? Like you can train your back to become very strong in training and then break out that extra assistance during competition. So let’s say you’re competing at like you know, whatever, CrossFit regionals or nationals and you’re doing 2 minutes dead lift at body weight for time right? Like I would not recommend the weight-lifting belt for that – for a dead lift that is only your body weight in normal circumstances. But for something like that where it’s competition, you’re gonna be pushing yourself to the max and you want that extra little bit of help, then something like that can come in handy, you just don’t want to use it as a crutch for every training session. And sometimes if you’re having an off-day from training and you want a little bit of extra support to help the muscle repair and recover, some people do swear by using you know, after a tough day of squats and dead lifts the next day, using a weight belt in the same way that you would use like compression leggings, right? Or compression tights as just a way to take some stress, distress off an area, keep it compressed and assist with recovery. But those are really be the only situations in which I recommend using a weight belt so.
Brock: I thought they were primarily just for keeping your intestines inside your abdominal wall…
Ben: No.
Brock: …when you’re lifting.
Ben: No, I mean sure, if you are someone who’s had to deal with hernias, for example, they can keep you know, hernias from protruding through your abdominal wall; perhaps keep your hernia from developing. But ultimately the most important reason for wearing them is they give you something to brace against so that you create intra abdominal pressure so you can lift more weight.
Brock: That’s interesting.
Ben: That’s the number reason that like a true weight-lifter would do something like that.
Brock: So sort of like scrapping a smith machine right onto your body?
Ben: Mmm-hmm. Yep, exactly. So…
Brock: That’s a terrible analogy.
Ben: (chuckles) It’s really, really bad, now hearing what you said exactly. Wrist wraps. So, if your wrists get very, very sore because of the amount of weight that you use, then a wrist wrap that helps you attach your wrist to a bar so that you can grip that bar more readily can come in handy to decrease some of that pain and get you to the point where you can lift a very, very heavy weight if you’re the type of person who has just you know, anatomically extremely skinny wrists and that’s something that’s holding you back. Or if your hands are so torn up and blistered from weight training that you’re having a tough time…
Brock: Or from Roller Derbie-ing?
Ben: Yeah, from Roller Derbie-ing. That you’re having a tough time actually gripping the bar, that would be another case while either weight–lifting gloves or a wrist wrap would come in handy. But let’s say you know, you’re somebody who just has a weak grip, right? Like using grip strength in the wrists like Captains of Crush grip holders or like you know, thick bars, things of that nature to get a stronger grip is a much, much better strategy than using a wrist wraps, so it’s the same analogy here as using you know like a weight-lifting belt. It’s like there are some scenarios where we come in handy but in most cases, unless you’re competing and going for every advantage possible on the floor of competition, wrist wrap is in most cases a crutch – again, unless your hands are just so torn up and you need to work out but can’t grip the bar so and that can be…
Brock: It seems like in competition they wouldn’t be allowed to use that kind of stuff ‘cause that seems like cheating?
Ben: No, in most cases, you are. You’re allowed to use everything from like weight-lifting shirts to straps, to knee sleeves to wraps – I mean especially like in Olympic weight-lifting or power lifting competition you’ll see a lot of that stuff used quite a bit in order to you know, basically get the most out of body in the same way that it’s legal during a triathlon to use fast wheels on the skin suit so.
[0:40:00.1]
And straps kinda fall into a similar category as the wrist wraps, right? Like they can help out a little bit if your hands are shredded. If you don’t know what the end this stuff looks like, I’ll put a link over to best place in my opinion to get these stuff is the Rogue Fitness website if you’re all looking like belts, wraps, sleeves, wrist wraps – stuff like that or you know, you wanna educate yourself on them a little bit more, you can go check them out over there. But straps would kinda fall onto the same category as wrist wraps. And then the last thing would be like knee sleeves or knee wraps and these are like solid tubes that are made of like neoprene or nylon or some other kind of material. And they go over the knee and they provide a little bit of warmth in the joint, they can give it some support and especially if you’re doing like a snatch where you’re lifting a very heavy weight overhead and then dropping underneath that weight getting extremely low and needing a little bit of extra support to kind of like you know, push out that deep squat or you know, where even just doing like a back squat for example, that’s where you’ll see a lot of folks using knee wraps to help them and to keep them from you know, blowing up their knees for example. But again, it’s something that you don’t want to use to mask an underlying weakness. So the knees wraps I would say if you’re using, if you’re doing again like any very, very heavy weight in which you’re dropping your knees below 90 degrees, that’s where that kind of stuff can help out a little bit. The risk is that there’s some potential for the knee sleeve to push your patella slightly out of position and so when you lift with your patella out of position you can produce some grinding and some potential for like arthritis in the knee joint, so you gotta be careful with overuse of those as well. So ultimately in competition, yeah under very heavy loads, yeah; for the knees under loads that might not even be like an extremely heavy load but that’s past 90 degrees can help out a little bit. If your hands are completely shredded right, like a wrap or wrist wrap can come in handy but you know, in most cases it’s just kinda depends and I definitely wouldn’t be using these stuff in you know, in every workout but you know, Hammer-Slammer says she tends to it later in her sets when it gets heavier. That might be a case where if biomechanics were really going to pot, you could use a little bit of extra help to get through those last few sets, just don’t rely upon the stuff as crutch to mask underlying weaknesses and that is what I have to say about that.
Will: Hi Ben and Brock, this is Will in Seattle. I have been dealing with before I believe to be a hiatal hernia for the past few days which I believe I got from mix combination of heavy lifting and copious amounts of lemon juice which kinda shoved my stomach up above my diaphragm. And it’s been uncomfortable, like I’m getting symptoms of GERD and it’s kinda harder to take a deep breath and I can’t eat much food without feeling like it’s just kinda come right back up. And I wanna get your take on it and see if you know of any kinda natural ways to remedy this and kinda get the stomach back where it needs to be – its proper place so I can get back to doing all the stuff I love doing especially heavy breathing and eating. (chuckles) So I look forward to your response and I really appreciate everything you do and take care.
Brock: Wow. Will gave himself a hernia by drinking too much juice?
Ben: My wife got a hernia.
Brock: What kind?
Ben: It was one of the abdominal hernias? She got it from the herculean hoist at a Spartan Race.
Brock: Oh no.
Ben: So the herculean hoist for those of you who don’t know what this is, you like run up on it and it’s like a hoist that you pull down with a rope and my wife – bless her heart – doesn’t actually train for these event, she just shows up and does them. And so she started doing the hoist, it was obvious within like 20 seconds that there is no way in hell that she was gonna get this sand bag lifted all the way up to the top of the bars that she had to lift it up. It’s like 20, 30 foot hoist something like that. However, even though she could’ve just gone and done 30 burpees and lost 2 minutes and kept going, she refused and she actually went up wrapping her legs – both legs around the rope, lying on her back, pulling this thing one inch at a time, resting, recovering, pulling it again and she was at the hoist for I would say, probably good 8 to 10 minutes working again and just to put that in perspective for you – you know most people will run up on it and if they can do it, they’ve got it done within about 30 to 60 seconds and they move on. And she fought this thing for freakin’ hour like she was having a baby and she got all done and like a week later she’s like “My stomach really hurts and there’s something poking out of it. And it’s been feeling this way since the Spartan” and I’m like, “Yeah, you probably herniated”, so she’s staying away from like crunches and planks and stuff like that for a little while.
[0:45:14.8]
Brock: I think that’s called the tenacious hernia.
Ben: Mmm-hmmm. A tenacious hernia, there you go.
Brock: With too much tenacity.
Ben: Hiatal hernias a lot different though. Hiatal hernia occurs when part of your stomach pushes upward your diaphragm. So you diaphragm normally has this little opening and called the hiatus and that hiatus is where your food tube, your esophagus passes through on its way to connect to your stomach, but the stomach can push up through that opening and it can cause a hiatal hernia. And in many cases you don’t even notice a small hiatal hernia but a large hiatal hernia can allow food and acid to back up into your esophagus and you can get things like heart burn for example, that’s one of the more common things that you see arise with something like this. And there are variety of treatments and drugs, as well as variety of tests and diagnoses to go after something like this so, and some of these things you really gotta be careful of. As far as symptoms in addition to heart burn, a lot of times like you belch a lot, you have difficulties swallowing and sometimes get chest or abdominal pain, you feel really full after meals – if it gets really bad, you start to – your stool can be a little bit black like you have a combination of heart burn and black stool that can indicate some actual gastro-intestinal bleeding that can go along with the hiatal hernia. Traditional medications that they’ll usually get for something like this would be into acid or medications to reduce acid production which of course have issues because once you reduce your acid production you’re not able to actually break down proteins, so you get amino acid deficiencies and so… not fun – so you can also get surgery. So an operation for a hiatal hernia involves like pulling your stomach down into your abdomen making an opening in your diaphragm smaller and then you can also reconstruct your esophageal sphincter or you can remove the hernia sac. Sometimes a surgeon can use a teeny-tiny camera and just go through several pretty small incisions in your abdomen, so it can be somewhat minimalist but still, not fun and you may want to give a go to some alternative remedies before you jump right in to you know, getting a surgery. So, some of the things that you’ll see recommended as far as lifestyle changes that can help out with the acid reflux you can get from a hiatal hernia would be to avoid really, really big meals right? Like eat several smaller meals throughout the day, avoid things that trigger heart burn which should be like chocolate, onions, spicy foods, tomato based foods, grandma’s pasta, dinner – that kind of stuff.
Brock: (chuckles)
Ben: Pasta.
Brock: All my favorites.
Ben: All of god. Avoid alcohol for sure and coffee as well should be something you want to be really, really be careful of. Definitely don’t smoke, and some people even swear about like elevating the head of their bed about six inches like the head’s lower than the feet for example so you’re not getting much pressure on the head as you’re sleeping. Now in terms of alternative medicine, you’ll see like a very interesting fixes kinda out there in the hiatal hernia alternative medicine world and one of the ones that is recommended is to get your stomach out of the hole without surgery by doing a special morning exercise. And the way that it goes is this: you drink a glass of room temp or slightly warm water when you get up in the morning, and then when you’re standing, you bring your arm straight out from your sides and you bend your elbows so your hands are touching your chests. Okay, arms straight out from the side, then bend your elbows ‘till your hands are touching your chest. Then you stand up on your toes as high as possible and rapidly drop down or like slam the heels onto the ground – you’ll get a pretty good jolt while you’re hands are still touching your chest and you’ll drop down like this ten times like rapidly. And then, while still standing up with your arms up in the air, you breathe short, quick breaths with your mouth open for about 15 seconds. Now, what that practice does is you’re forcing your stomach out of the hole, out of the hiatus and the warm water that you drink beforehand access a little bit of weight in the stomach to help as you jolted down and relaxes the stomach muscles a little bit too. Then the breathing at the end helps to close the diaphragm and the hole where the stomach was lodged. Now that’s something you can try, I am not a physician. Do not misconstrue this as medical advice but some people swear by that practice to cure the hiatal hernia. And so, that you know something that you can certainly give a go to but you know, I can’t guarantee results but you know, I’m a fan of this kind of stuff to at least try prior surgery you know that’s take like…
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: …another thing that a lot of people do with this like prolapse right? Like a vaginal prolapse or a rectal prolapse and in many cases things as simple as like bio feedback or Kegel exercises, or things of that nature can eventually fix the problem rather than you going in and getting like you know, part of your colon cut out to fix the problem.
[0:50:20.8]
So you know, I’m always a fan of before you cut out body parts or stick tubes in your body to first try the natural alternative methods even though I should warn you that sometimes they just don’t work and you have to go under the knife. So hopefully that helps you out a little bit though that’s would I would at least try.
Stephen: Hi Ben. I was wondering if I could get some help understanding protein intake and insulin response. I currently eat more on low carb side and mostly use carb backloading. I’m concerned about eating too much protein especially multiple times a day. I’ve heard that a higher protein intake can raise insulin even more than carbs. I’d like to keep the muscle mass as I try to lose some weight, but I don’t wanna do it at the expense of high blood sugar and health problems down the line. What’s the balance here? I always train in the morning and 50% of the time I train at night again. Should I eat my protein like carbs more after workouts or in the evening and then less in between? I appreciate your help, Ben and look forward to listening to the podcast. Thanks so much.
Brock: I remember when you had Jimmy Moore on the podcast and he was talking about his new book “Keto Clarity” and he was very against – well, not against protein but he was very measured in his protein intake because it caused such as an insulin spike.
Ben: Mmmm, yeah. Yeah and Jimmy of course is famous for his images online eating entire sticks of butter which by the way kind of a rabbit hole, but there’s an interesting study that just got released – actually I just tweeted about how they compared like a whole milk consumption like milk fats, dairy fats, etc. with butter and butter actually had a very deleterious effect when consumed in excess on cholesterol particle count compared to like whole fat dairy. So it’s interesting when you drink like the fat globules in like a homogenized dairy source – it’s actually better. And if you are doing like the whole fat thing and you tolerate dairy then butter, but anyways that’s not…
Brock: Interesting.
Ben: …the question that we’re answering. Protein and the insulinogenic effects or protein, it is been well proven that like whey protein for example and many other proteins was including meat you know, steak, whatever, they are what are called pro-insulinogenic. Pro-insulinogenic and there was one very interesting study where they compared glucose particularly glucose from white bread which is essentially what white bread is it’s almost just pure sugar.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: So they compare to white bread meal with an amino acid-based meal, and in this case they used…
Brock: That supposed sound delicious. (chuckles)
Ben: Yeah. Hmmm.
Brock: Hmmm.
Ben: Just like grandma used to make. Whey protein with white bread and they did this and they took multiple blood sample at 7 ½, 15, 30 and 45 minutes after the meal. And what they found was that both meals produced a significant increase in insulin and were extremely pro-insulinogenic. And it’s been proven in many other studies that you get a very big insulin spike in response to whey protein and many other protein sources as well. Now whey can still be better than sugar, and one of the reasons for that is that amino acids, when you take in amino acids, those have an effect on what’s called your GLUT4 transporter that’s your glucose transporters that shuttles, that carries glucose from the bloodstream into the cell. And the increase expression on skeletal muscle cells in response to a protein-based meal with respect to that GLUT4 transporter means that you actually drive far more of the glucose that you may take in along with the whey protein or even the glucose that the protein turns into that’s called gluconeogenesis – you’ll drive that sugar into muscle tissue far more readily than if you were to eat glucose or carbohydrate source. So the effect of the amino acid is to up regulate the GLUT4 transporter so that if you have say, a steak with a potato, you’re more likely for both the potato based starch as well as the glucose generated from the steak to get driven in the skeletal muscle rather than for it to say getting you know, converted into fat by a liver. So there’s that up regulation in GLUT4 from protein that makes that spike an insulin a little bit more likely to drive things into skeletal tissue.
[0:55:07.4]
The other thing that you need to be aware of is a.) insulin is not necessarily the devil. So if your insulin spikes, and let’s say you’re not insulin resistant or in insulin resistant meaning that you don’t have full-blown insulin insensitivity and you’re able to respond to that insulin – what happens is your cells suck up glucose, your blood sugar drops and then your insulin drops. So, really one of the more negative side effects would not necessarily be getting fat or having chronic high blood sugar, it would simply be a possible like postprandial hypoglycemic response in response to eating too much protein, right? So you would have too much protein before bed and then you’d wake up with hypoglycemia at 1 a.m. or you’d have too much protein you know, in the let’s say with lunch, right? Like way too much chicken and fish and steak with lunch and then your energy will almost drop by 2 p.m. in the afternoon because of hypoglycemic response after insulin has done its job right?, assuming that you’re insulin insensitive. In pre-diabetics that increase in insulin release from a protein source can actually improve their postprandial glycemia meaning that you know, in a pre-diabetic who’s prone to hypoglycemia after a meal, that increase or hyperglycemia after a meal like high blood glucose that insulin can help drive some of that glucose out of the blood stream and into muscle tissue and cells and so it could help in someone who is prone to a hyperglycemia or a high blood glucose response to a meal. You also have to take in, have to take anabolic effect which we talked about earlier in the show where you know, when you eat white bread there’s not much of an anabolic effect, right? Because there weren’t an amino acids, there’s no maintenance of skeletal muscle mass and because skeletal muscle mass can allow for greater intramuscular glucose source and higher amount of fatty acid oxidation, better lipid metabolism, etc. and when you compare like protein and white bread you can’t say that they’re equal simply because the protein is going to assist with assuming you’re active, skeletal muscle formation, and so there’s that as well. And then there’s also the fact that you get even though the insulin response is similar between like pure sugar and whey protein, the whey protein does have a better ability to induce satiety. So you get an increase in hormone called GLP1 and when you increase this hormone GLP1 you feel full much faster which is why in many case is higher protein diets even though they can result in gluconeogenesis, high blood glucose, high insulin response, etc. they can also cause you to eat less. And so, when compared to say like a high carbohydrate diet that induces that same glucose and insulin response, you still would technically lose weight or eat fewer calories on the higher protein meal even though there are some negative effects from the insulin. Now, the negative effects from the insulin are something that I actually recently talked about of both the negative and the positive effects insulin or something that I recently talked about in on Endurance Planet podcast. We will link to that in the show notes but we took a deep, deep dive into both the benefits of insulin right? from like an anabolic standpoint and the ability to increase muscle or to improve recovery and also the detriments such as potential for creating insulin insensitivity if you have frequent surges of insulin from protein or from sugar, or even the potential to decrease longevity due to constant anabolic activity, constant activation of what’s called the M2 protein which technically puts you in a constant pro growth state and increases the rate at which your telomere shorten which is technically anti-longevity or decreases your potential for a longer lifespan. So ultimately, the trick with protein, and I’m gonna put another link as well, I’m gonna put two links for you in the show notes. One of that Endurance Planet podcast that we did, another to an article that I just recently wrote for active.com and the active.com article goes into the fact that with a few small doses of protein spread throughout the day about 20 to 30g spread throughout the day at different times such as at breakfast, at lunch with a pre or post-workout snack and at dinner is really all that you need. You’re shooting for about 0.55 to 0.7g per pound of protein that comes out to about 20 to 30% of your daily calorie intake coming from protein. And if you do that, you generally gonna avoid too much of the insulin or too much of the constant pro growth effect. So as far as insulin spiking from protein consumption, yeah, it’s true – not a myth.
[1:01.08.0]
But there are other things to take into consideration like go above and beyond a simple comparison of protein to white bread and saying that’s just the same because it’s not, because this tidy effect because of the up regulation in GLUT4 transporters, etc. So there you go, that’s how protein spikes insulin and what you can do about it.
Brock: And insulin is not the devil.
Ben: Insulin, not the devil. That’s what we should have called this podcast episode: Insulin is not…
Brock: We still could.
Ben: …the devil. We still could? But I’d rather call it “The effects of beer on hydration”, I think that’ll give more clicks – it’s all about the clicks! So speaking of clicking reviews, if you leave the show a review on iTunes, not only it’s a great karma especially if you say something good from our Science Babe episode on Saturday, we had both the good and the bad.
Brock: Hmmm, not bad.
Ben: A lot of people had some interesting thoughts although you know I just read yesterday, and there’s a list of people who had been in the pocket of big pharma released and guess whose facebook page appeared on someone who is on the pockets of big pharma?
Brock: Yours?
Ben: No.
Brock: (chuckles) Mine!
Ben: Yes, this podcast brought to you by GlaxoSmithKline. I know that the Science Babe was on there. So I don’t know, what they you know, maybe she has her own defense but I didn’t know she was on there, so yeah, there’s that.
Brock: I’m not really sure what that means, but…
Ben: Ahh, it means that at some point she would have accepted money from a pharmaceutical company.
Brock: Oh. Okay.
Ben: Well you know, that can mean anything, I don’t know.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Anyways though, kinda of a rabbit hole. The thing I was getting is it was the reviews! So if you leave a review and you hear us read your review on the show and you email [email protected] with your t-shirt size, we’ll send you a cool tech t-shirt, a beanie and a water bottle – a BPA-free water bottle. So, there you go.
Brock: What a deal.
Ben: You’ll look good and you won’t get cancer. So we have a review this week from Sadie…
Brock: You might get cancer.
Ben: You might, yes.
Brock: Just not from the water bottle.
Ben: Just not from the BPA. We have a review from Sadie James, a mom of a 1 year-old whose trying to have optimal health, left us 5 whole stars. Brock, you wanna give this one a read?
Brock: It’s a long one.
Ben: Hmmm.
Brock: I have to read it quickly perhaps.
Ben: You can do it. Okay. Do we want new music for this one just because it’s long? To entertain…
Brock: Yeah, maybe I need some kinda like Benny Hill kinda style of music.
Ben: Hmm. Let’s do it.
Brock: “I’ve found Ben after he was on a podcast for Wellness Mama, I have always tried to live cleanly and make it as much of our food and beauty products as I can. I was very interested to learn that my home may need some of my attention as well so after the podcast, I switched over to Ben’s podcast and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. Also my husband and I started Shape 21 program with amazing results. I have always been active and tried many diets…”
Ben: Hmmm.
Brock: Don’t interrupt me.
Ben: Okay.
Brock: (chuckles) “I have always been active and tried many diets and workout programs with results being temporary. We finished the program and started at the beginning again and we are loving it, it’s a program we can live on. I’m a mom of 1 year-old and turning 40 this year so I need things that are not complicated and also do not break down my body but having optimal health is our goal. Ben is a fountain of knowledge and can sometime go way over my head which gets me to Google some of the topics, but I can keep up with many, many of his talks and be inspired on and on. I can say that I haven’t turned on my TVs since I found Ben Greenfield and I find myself just turning on the podcast, instead. I would recommend him come completely”.
Ben: (laughs) Wow. That was quite not awful. Now what you forgot was all the multiple exclamation marks throughout that review.
Brock: Yeah, I was trying to shape more.
Ben: So which turns me to great Sadie we – your excitement is palatable through the airwaves. Palpalpable? Palatable?
Brock: Palatable – be taste good.
Ben: Ah, palpable, yes. (chuckles) Which means you can feel it, I think? Palpable?
Brock: Yes.
Ben: Anyways though, that’s interesting and so I have lots to say about the exclamation marks, also it’s very interesting that she and her husband are using Shape 21 because…
Brock: Yeah, that’s an old program.
Ben: Shape 21 was the first book that I ever read or that I ever read, that I ever – I think the first book I ever read was Dr. Seuss, I’m guessing. The first book I ever wrote was Shape 21 when I got out of body building and decided that I wanted to work out with the only pair of home gym equipment that I owned which just two dumbbells and I wanted to do it in a park across the street from my house, and I spent 4 months getting as ripped as I could with the set of dumbbells and my body weight and I recorded everything and I wrote this book called “Shape 21” and I designed the 21-date beginner, a 21-date intermediate and a 21-day advanced program incorporated in these exercises and I remember I had my mom up for the weekend to film all the videos and photos for that book which actually are the same and the book has in terms of like the photos and the videos that hasn’t been redesigned. ,
[1:05:05.2]
Now the book has gone through redesign because it also includes nutrition for each day, like it tells you what to eat for each day. I’ve redesigned it once to go from like oatmeal and the whole wheat phase and the more of like a – you know, quinoa, and amaranth, and millet phase as my own personal diet has evolved. However, I have not yet reinvented that book to reflect like kind of like a lower carbohydrate higher fat approach you know, like the book still uses phrases like “clean protein” for example. So I do eventually need to reinvent the diet portion of that book but the exercise part, if you only have is a pair of dumbbells and you wanna see me at whatever 22 years-old? Shirtless in a park, getting filmed by my mom doing exercises in the very first book that I ever wrote? You can go and check that out at a – well you just go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com. All my books are over there, including Shape 21 if you wanna get ripped this summer. So…
Brock: That was actually the first program that I used of yours as well.
Ben: Hmmm. There you go.
Brock: Not before I was on the show. Yeah, like probably a year before I started being on the show, I bought that book and did it faithfully in my living room.
Ben: It’s a great name. Shape 21.
Brock: It is.
Ben: I don’t know.
Brock: Next time when you release it again just add a couple days.
Ben: Yeah, Shape 23.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Was it P90x that does that?
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Yes, we need that an X. Shape X 23, Shape 23X, Shape 21X. Alright, so this podcast is degrading quickly, so we better stop but this weekend tune in to a very interesting episode on actually –it’s not the one on “how exercise makes you depressed”.
Brock: No, it’s the supplements.
Ben: That’s right. Oh yeah, I interviewed the guy in the supplements industry.
Brock: He is very passionate about his supplements.
Ben: Yeah, he is…
Brock: I appreciate his passion.
Ben: He is passionate. We talked about like stacks, we talked about you know, chromatography machines, and all sorts of ways to analyze what’s in your supplements, etc. Really interesting chats and also why he doesn’t like lab door, so it was interesting. So check all that out, it’s coming out this weekend. In the meantime, head over to bengreenfieldfitness.com/323 for the show notes and everything that we talked about in today’s episode – everything from the Finland Biohacking Summit to the beer in hydration study to of course, Shape 21 and have a healthy week!
Visit bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition, and performance advice.
[1:08:12.3] END
July 8, 2015 Podcast: Cross Country Running Tips, Should You Use Wraps, Sleeves And Belts For Weighttraining, Home Remedies For Hernias, and How Protein Spikes Insulin.
Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page.
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News Flashes:
You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.
- Science has spoken. That cold beer after a hot summer workout doesn’t do you any damage at all from a hydration standpoint.
- Think your whey protein offers any muscle building benefits over essential amino acids? Here’s a clue that it doesn’t.
- If you are tempted to finish up a workout with an “extra” set of single joint bicep curls, leg extensions, etc….no need.
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Special Announcements:
Sep 23-24, 2015. Ben is speaking at the Biohackers Summit in Helsinki, Finland. Discover the latest in wearables, internet of things, digital health, and mobile apps to increase performance, be healthier, stay fit, and get more done. Learn about taking food, preparation, cooking, and eating to the next level with the latest science and kitchen chemistry. Even delve into implanted chips, gene therapy, bionic arms, biometric shirts, robotic assistants, and virtual reality. Two days with an amazing crowd and a closing party with upgraded DJs to talk about. Click here to get in now.
New Greenfield Longevity Panels. Working closely with WellnessFX, America’s top laboratory for concierge blood testing and online access to all your blood testing results, Ben has developed the “Greenfield Longevity Blood Testing Package”, which is the most complete blood testing package that money can buy. There is one package specifically designed for men, and one for women. This is by far the most comprehensive blood testing package that exists, and Ben created it for the health enthusiast, biohacker and anti-aging individual who wants access to the same type of executive health panel and screening that would normally cost tens of thousands of dollars at a longevity institute. Virtually all hormones and all biomarkers are covered in this panel.
Ben Greenfield has officially launched his first work of fiction: “The Forest”. Twin brothers River and Terran discover a portal to a hidden forested world attacked by parasitic fungi, dark shamans, and serpents. Along with an assembled band of unlikely misfits that includes coyotes, whitetail deer, wood thrushes, and fox squirrels, they must unlock their unique powers to control the elements of earth, air, fire and water, and save the forest before the evil they’ve uncovered can spill back into their own world. Click here to read it now! (or click here to listen to audiobook version inside our Premium channel). New chapters released every 7-14 days.
The BenGreenfieldFitness Quarterly box has officially launched! When you sign-up, you’ll get a Quarterly handpicked box jam-packed with Ben’s favorite fitness gear, supplements, nutrients and research-proven biohacks.
Grab this Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.
And of course, this week’s top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – click here to leave your review for a chance to win some!
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Listener Q&A:
As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.
Cross Country Running Tips
Stacy says: She is calling for her son. He is a Junior in High School and a Cross Country runner who is moving up the ranks. What should he concentrate on, as a cross country runner, to make him faster? What can he add to his training and is there anything special he should do with his diet at his age to increase his performance and keep him healthy.
In my response, I recommend:
–Beyond Training book (especially the chapters on 40 Easy Meals, How Much Carb/Protein/Fat, and the strength/mobility/power/speed/balance sections).
Should You Use Wraps, Sleeves And Belts For Weighttraining?
Hammer-Slammer says: She competes in Roller Derbies and as her cross training she does a lot of strength training. She would like to know what you think of using wraps and sleeves and belts while lifting. She tends to do this later in her sets when it gets heavier. Is that a bad habit or should she continue to do it?
In my response, I recommend:
–Rogue Fitness
Home Remedies For Hernias
Will says: He believes he is dealing with a hiatal hernia. Which he got from heavy lifting and copious amounts of lemon juice which shoved his stomach above his diaphragm. He is getting symptoms of GERD and he can’t take a deep breath or each much food. What is your take on this? Do you know any nature remedies for this – to get his stomach back in the right place? He would love to get back to doing normal things like breathing deeply and eating.
How Protein Spikes Insulin
Stephen says: He wants to know more about protein intake and insulin response. He eats low carb and mostly carb backloads. He is concerned about eating too much protein because he has heard that it can spike insulin even more than carbs. What is the balance here? Is it more about timing the protein (after or before a workout)?
In my response, I recommend:
–This EndurancePlanet episode on insulin
–This Active.com article on protein
hey guys, can't find that Perfect Health Aminos that you mentioned, doesn't come up in a search on greenfieldfitnesssystems.com, so where do I get it?
Bit of a misunderstanding sorry, I have been using Perfect Health Aminos which are very similar to MAP (same stuff as at GreenfieldFitnessSystems.com)…that's what I would do…just use MAP for now, until the new NatureAminos come out. ;)