Episode #324 – Full Transcript

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Podcast #324 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/07/324-algae-for-fat-loss-biohacking-mental-focus-american-ninja-warrior-training-tips-more/

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Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show: American Ninja Warrior Training Tips, Biohacking Mental Focus, 10K Training And Nutrition, Does Algae Work For Fat Loss 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:  I personally am on my third cup of coffee this morning.  How are you doing for the caffeine intake, Ben?

Ben:  I’m very well caffeinated.  Actually, as we were discussing before we began recording, I have a quite a few different bio-chemical compounds circulating through my bloodstream right now because I woke up this morning wanting to try this new smart drug coffee that someone sent me.  I get all these strange things in the mail and I got this stuff called Kimera coffee which is basically coffee and they’ve added smart drugs like Alpha GPC and Taurine and L-Theanine and something called DMAE which is basically like a kind of choline that you find in fish.  And they have all these things blended into the coffee but then I had a conundrum.I already had a pot of coffee brewed from yesterday so I had a regular pot of coffee brewed but then I had this bag of smart drug coffee burning a hole on my refrigerator just waiting to be brewed.  So, I actually used yesterday’s pot of coffee, I heated that up and then I used it to French press the smart drug coffee, so I used coffee to make coffee this morning.

Brock:  (laughs) I’m scared.

Ben:  And nothing has happened in the choline that would indicate that I have completely blown myself out.  However, if you recall that episode a couple of months ago where I overdosed on THC and halfway through the episode, just kind of dropped off and disappeared, that may happen but in a very opposite way this morning.  I may just go into fast forward and began talking so quickly that the microphones explode, so.

Brock:  That’s… (crosstalk)

Ben:  It’s an interesting episode.

Brock:  We did that episode a few – probably a couple months ago where I had a bunch of coffee, I had a bunch of creatine and Ciltep and then took some Alpha Brain, and I actually got two people wrote to me on Facebook and told me that I sounded weird that day on the podcast.

Ben:  Weird.  Not smart, just weird.

Brock:  Just weird.  Yeah, exactly, I was like “Okay, that didn’t work.”

Ben:  Well, if there’s anything that all of this smart drug and getting high prior to our podcast has done for us, it is one thing: we were actually the top ranked health and fitness podcast in all of iTunes this week.

Brock:  (creates a trumpet sound)

Ben:  So there’s that, you know.

Brock:  Cool.

Ben:  So all of these…

Brock:  Only in America.

Ben:  …drug taking is paid off.  I know in Canada all you guys get our hockey and yoga podcast, but here in America – in the most important place in the world, we were number one – so there.

Brock:  U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

News Flashes:

Brock: In the U.S.A., in Canada and around the world, you can access Twitter.com/bengreenfield and get all kinds of awesome news flashes, right now?

Ben:  That’s right.  There is no place in the world where I believe that Twitter is banned.

Brock:  Ah, I think China.

Ben:  China? Really?  Is Twitter banned in China?

Brock:  They banned a lot – they couldn’t even get Google in China for a while.  I’m not sure what is the state is about it.

Ben:  Are you sure Twitter’s banned in China? Tell you what, while I talk about the first little hack that I tweeted out about this week, why don’t you use Mr. Google and see if Twitter is banned in China?

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  ‘Cause I’m actually interested in that.

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  So in the meantime, while you keep yourself busy with that, an interesting little video came across my radar this week that I tweeted out about – about a cool little freeze sleep hack.  And I’ll link to this as well over in the show notes for today’s episode at bengreenfieldfitness.com/324.  But basically the idea here is that in your feet you actually have special blood vessels, you have these in your hands, too.  They’re called arterio-venous anastomosis –these blood vessels and what specifically…

Brock:  Can you say that again?

Ben:  (laughs)

Brock:  What is it called? I just went away.

Ben:  I need to say it again at the risk of potentially butchering these words and saying something that would get us banned from iTunes in the explicit category. 

[0:05:07.9]

Brock:  (chuckles) Especially in China.

Ben:  Arterio-venous anastomosis.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  So, basically these are special vessels which when coupled with a lack of hair, specifically in the bottoms of your feet, are designed to dissipate body heat very, very efficiently.  And what they found in a study that they did on feet out of the covers versus feet in the covers, was that you could drop your body temperature by about one or two degrees by simply sticking your feet out of the covers when you sleep.  And when you do that, you actually can get deeper more restored of sleep because one of the mechanisms via which you churn out more melatonin as you sleep is triggered by cooler room or a cooler body temperature, or taking a cold shower or even a bath before bed to cool the body.  But it turns out that something is simple as sticking your feet out from underneath the covers can dissipate body heat efficiently enough to drop temperature one to two degrees and enhance sleep.  So if you’re one of those people who sleeps in wool socks with your feet all tucked up underneath the covers, you could be completely screened yourself and the whole reason that you’re ugly and you have a crappy job and you have brain fog all day long and you have appetite cravings…

Brock:  Your parents hate you.

Ben:  …your body fat is just going through the roof is because you’re sleeping…

Brock:  Your feet smell.

Ben:  …with warm feet so…

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  Try that one out and I’ll link to the little video where they kinda introduced that little hack.

Brock:  They really need to make a video to show you how to stick your feet out from the covers?

Ben:  (laughs) I guess so.

Brock:  That seems pretty simple.

Ben:  That’s right.  So I’ve got one interesting about the hamstrings too but before I do, any word on Twitter in China?

Brock:  Yeah.  According to Wikipedia, “access to Twitter is currently blocked in North Korea, China and Iran.”

Ben:  Mmm.  Well, Wikipedia.  They know.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  So.

Brock:  Although, then it says under the China heading – this is confusing, it says, “Twitter is blocked in China however, many Chinese people use it anyway.”

Ben:  Mmm.

Brock:  And it does not going to explain how that’s possible.

Ben:  Well, you can be Chinese and not live in China, so maybe that’s what they’re indicating.

Brock:  Oh, yeah.  Many Chinese people use it anyway, good point.

Ben:  Mmm-hmm!  Yeah.

Brock:  Block you, China!

Ben:  Fleeing China in droves to be able to use Twitter.

Brock:  Then cross the border, tweet like crazy and then go home.

Ben:  That’s right. Okay, so…

Brock:  Anyway, there you go.

Ben:  So here’s one on hamstrings, and there’s this really cool little info graphic that goes into a study that’s not new – study that actually came out in the American Journal Sport Medicine way back in 2011.  But what it is – is an infographic that teaches you how to do an exercise called the Nordic Hamstring Exercise. You heard this exercise, Brock?

Brock:  No.  No, but it sounds intriguing, it sounds like something had to do at a spa.

Ben:  Hmm, yeah.  It’s not really something you do at a spa, believe it or not.

Brock:  Oh.

Ben:  But the Nordic hamstring exercise is an exercise in which you kneel on the ground and a partner holds on to your heels or your ankles.

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  And then you allow yourself in that kneeling position to slowly lower towards the ground until you get to the point at which you simply cannot support your body anymore and then you kinda fall to the ground, you catch yourself with your hands, you push yourself back up…

Brock:  Oh, wait, wait, okay.  So you’re going forward like face first towards the ground?

Ben:  Yeah, it’s essentially…

Brock:  Yeah, okay.

Ben:  …eccentric lengthening exercise that increases the hamstring’s ability to be able to resist rapid lengthening which is when the hamstrings typically tear or sprain or strain when you’re kicking a soccer ball or when you’re sprinting for example.  And so this exercise is – you know it’s pretty similar to the type of training that you’d get if you were to say find one of those glute or ham extension machines at the gym and just lower yourself very, very slowly…

Brock:  Hmmm.

Ben:  …right, you could achieve a similar effect, but this one can be done with a partner.  And the other thing that you can do if you don’t happen to have a partner to help you with this exercise and you don’t have one of those glute-ham extension machines or you don’t want to go to the gym to use one – you could just tuck your feet under anything that would support your feet like a bar or a couch or anything like that, and just slowly lower yourself towards the ground.  And it turns out that in participants following the Nordic exercise program in which they were doing about 30 repetitions of this exercise – I believe they are at three times a week in the study and this was soccer players: a group of folks who are actually almost hamstring injury prone populations on the face of the planet.

Brock:  Yeah, they’re always pulling a hammy.

Ben:  Yeah, ‘cause you’re either kicking or sprinting – two things that tear hammies.

[0:10:10.9]

They experienced a 70% reduction in hamstring injuries when incorporating this particular exercise in the training program.

Brock:  That’s significant!

Ben:  It – I would say so.

Brock:  (chuckles)

Ben:  Yes.  So yeah, so Nordic hamstring exercise: the great hamstring saver and I’ll link to that info graphic in the show notes but it’s actually – it’s pretty cool so, yeah.

Brock:  Cool!

Ben:  Add that one to your repertoire.  And then the last one while we’re doing things like sticking your feet out from underneath the covers and doing hamstring lengthening exercises with a partner holding our ankles, here’s another one to add into your routine: the new swim stroke that this article on the website Nautilus reports could be the fastest swim stroke yet.  It’s called…

Brock:  Oh!  Yeah, yeah!  The fish kick!

Ben:  The fish kick.

Brock:  So cool!

Ben:  An amazing, amazing video on the site showing that compared to any other form of – what you call a locomotion in the water? I guess it could be locomotion anywhere, right? It doesn’t have to be underlying on something to be considered locomotion, right?

Brock:  I don’t think so.

Ben:  Oh, I don’t really know what the word ‘loco’ means, but anyways, let’s say…

Brock:  Crazy, isn’t?

Ben:  Aqua motion.  Yeah, I don’t think ‘loco’ means land.  I’m not sure though.  I should’ve taken my lab…

Brock:  (chuckles) I’m thinking of Spanish.

Ben:  Yeah.  So anyways though, the fish kick.  So…

Brock:  That motion is loco!

Ben:  Most people seen a dolphin kick, where you are on your stomach, right? You’re in this frontal plane and you’re kicking with both feet – some people would do this with like a monofin and usually like if you’re watching the Olympics for example, when the swimmer pushes off the edge, right? They’re using the dolphin kick…

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  …underneath the water to propel themselves as far as possible before coming up and converting into say, like a freestyle swim stroke.  While this new swim stroke is called the fish kick and the way that it works is you actually shift to your side the same way that a fish would kick.  And the hypothesis here is that when you’re doing a dolphin kick, and you’re creating these vortices or vorteces depending on what country you’re from – and a vortice is something – it’s wave, it’s gonna travel towards the pool bottom and towards the pool surface and potentially create a little bit of turbulence that could theoretically slow you down just a little bit more compare to if you send those vortices sideways instead, right? Like parallel to the water surface. And so the idea is that you are creating a form of turbulence that’s not slowing you down while getting all of the airo dynamic benefits of the dolphin kick – so it’s called the fish kick.  And I actually just discovered this article and the kick this week, so I haven’t had the chance to get into a good open body of water and try this form of locomotion – underwater locomotion but it’s a fascinating article if you’re a swimmer or for someone who’s wanting to discover some new swim stroke that might allow you to go faster – I think it actually looks pretty cool and some of the videos are just kinda fun to watch how fast some of these Olympic swimmers go when using the fish kick compared to the dolphin kick so.

Brock:  Yeah, they go a lot faster than – like my favorite stroke is the fish stick….

Ben:  Mmm! Mmm-hmm.

Brock:  that’s not quite as fast.

Ben:  Right, right.  Breaded, fried…

Brock:  Exactly, yes.  Roll around in bunch of bread crumbs.

Ben:  Right.  Little bread crumbs, huh?

Brock:  And some sauce.

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  Delicious!

Ben:  Absolutely, absolutely delicious!

Special Announcements:

Ben:  So, Brock, I just went to my favorite website for ordering heavy stuff and got myself a bunch of sandbells.  You know what sandbell is?

Brock:  It sounds like something you’d decorate a sand castle with.

Ben:  Mmm-hmm.  Yup, exactly with ringing bells – you got it, perfect.

Brock:  Yup.

Ben:  Yeah, I ordered bunch of those.  Love’em.

Brock:  (laughs)

Ben:  No actually…

Brock:  (laughs) Every man needs set of those!

Ben:  That’s right, it’s just a pancake shaped sandbag, the same as you would use in like a Spartan race and the reason for this is that I just got back from competing in the Spartan races in Pennsylvania and one of the obstacles that they have there is a double sandbag carry which they probably have a Spartan World Championships as well.  And the double sandbag carry involves carrying two – I believe there are about 50lbs. sandbags up a very steep ski slope and believe it or not, it’s tough to figure out how to carry two sandbags at once up a steep hill when your heart is pounding out of your chest.

[0:15:01.1]

Brock:  Are you allowed to put them over your shoulders?

Ben:  You can put them over your shoulder, you can grab them at your side – whatever, but it’s really, really more tough than it sounds to say…

Brock:  Yeah, yeah.

Ben:  …than it looks on paper.

Brock:  I’m torn, it doesn’t sound that hard – it sounds heavy but it just doesn’t sound that hard.

Ben:  Yeah.  Well either way, I learned that this is something that I need to practice.

Brock:  Alright.

Ben:  So, I got myself some sandbells.  I can practice, I pile them at the bottom of my driveway in a little, like you know, plastic tub – and just practice every day carrying two sandbags up.  I probably do it like when I go you know, get the mail or whatever – just turn getting the mail into a horrible masochistic exercise of carrying a 100lbs. up the mountain.

Brock:  So it’s quite normally a pleasurable experience going down to pick your bills or overdue notices…

Ben:  I’ll carry the mail in my teeth and the sandbags on my shoulders.  Ultimately though, I went to Onnit to get these sandbells and the reason that I’m telling you this is because Onnit is actually a sponsor of today’s episode.  And any of you out there listening in who wanna get a new thing from sandbells to sandbags to kettlebells to – you name it really when it comes to just heavy crap and go to onnit.com/bengreenfield.  When you go to onnit.com/bengreenfield, you save 10% on supplements like smart drugs like Alpha Brain, you could probably break those capsules open and put them in a coffee if you want to.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  To simulate the mental state that I’m in right now or you could for example – what are some other things I have? They have like nut butter, they this cold little like bison energy bars and the of course, have all these fitness gear.  So the website is onnit.com/bengreenfield, so if you wanna pile a bunch of sandbags at the bottom of your driveway or wherever else you happen to carry heavy objects up and down, you can do that at onnit.com/bengreenfield.  So, there’s that.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  And speaking of Spartan races, do you live in the San Francisco area or the bay area?  Brock, don’t answer that – we know that you do live anywhere…

Brock:  Yeah, I am nowhere near.  I wish!  It can be awesome.

Ben:  Anyways though, I am going to, at the time of this podcast is coming out, to in a couple of days had down to San Francisco and I’m going to compete in the AT&T Spartan Race down there on Saturday, July 18th.  And since I’m not going to fly home on Sunday or fly home until Sunday, I thought it’d be fun to do a little Ben Greenfield Fitness Meet-up in the San Francisco bay area.

Brock:  Party!

Ben:  Party!  Now, since I’m not super familiar with the area and the best place to do this, I’m looking for a handy-dandy volunteer who wants to be boots on the ground to help put something like this together.  And obviously, this is rather time sensitive since it’s literally couple of days after this podcast comes out.  But if you happen to be listening into this podcast the week that it’s released and you live in the San Francisco or the bay area, and you wanna help put together a Ben Greenfield Fitness Meet-up on Saturday, July 18th sometime in the evening on that day, then go ahead and head over to the Facebook Ben Greenfield Fitness page.  That’s facebook.com/bgfitness and there is a thread over there about the potential for a San Francisco Meet-up whether or not you’re doing the Spartan Race – we’re gonna figure that somewhere – bar, restaurant, park, bowling alley, I don’t know…

Brock:  Mmm.

Ben:  What else do they have in San Francisco.  A startup, there’s a lot of startups in San Francisco – I don’t know if there’s a – some kind of a startup lounge, right? Or startup warehouse.

Brock:  Did you say Starbucks?

Ben:  There’s Starbucks, too.  Yes, you name it.  I’m sure we can find a place to all get together in San Francisco.  So, if you’re interested in doing that, go to facebook.com/bgfitness, if you don’t wanna help to organize it but you just wanna be there – go there anyways, comment, say something like ‘in’ or follow that thread and that way when we do decide upon the time and the place, you’ll know.  So…

Brock:  Okay guys, there’s a super cool or super cheesy I should say, tiki bar in San Francisco you guys should go there.

Ben:  Mmm.  I was hoping for chucky cheese in San Fran but that’s just wasn’t me – so the last thing is that I’ve published chapter three of my brand new book.  This is the fiction book that I’m writing about two boys who traveled to a whole new world, (clears throat, sings) a new fantastic ba-na-na – no it’s not, it’s not like that.  Anyways though, you can check it out at bengreenfieldfitness.com/theforest, that’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/theforest – completely free book but I’m releasing serially, seriawy, serially? How’s with that word pronounced?

[0:20:10.6]

Brock:  You’re releasing it serial.

Ben:  That’s right.  I’m releasing it serially at bengreenfieldfitness.com/theforest on reading platform called Wattpad which is the number one platform in the world for digesting and reading free books.  So, you can go there or you can discover my book, you can read it, you can preferably vote for it or comment on it.  And I’m simply doing this because I love to write fiction, and I would love to write fiction that you enjoy, that you read and I’m trying to wrap up a lot of cool little you know, natural living, survival, wilderness, wild, edible type of tips in there as there even though ultimately it’s going to be shifting more towards dragons and (murmurs) – all sorts of…

Brock:  What?

Ben:  …cool little fantasy things like that.

Brock:  Oh, spoiler alert!

Ben:  Spoiler alert!

Brock:  Bam!

Ben:  Anyways though, along with an assembled band of unlikely misfits that include things like coyotes and wood thrushes and fox, squirrels, it’s about two boys who unlocked unique powers of being able to control the elements of earth, air, fire and water to save this parallel world before it becomes destroyed.  So you can check that out at bengreenfieldfitness.com/theforest that has nothing to do with health or biohacking or longevity and anti-aging or nutrition or anything else that we talked about on this podcast.  But ultimately it’s a fun little book, I’m enjoying writing it and you should check it out so bengreenfieldfitness.com/theforest – check, check, check it out.

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! 

[0:25:01.9] 

Listener Q & A:

Trevor:  Hey Ben, this is Trevor and I was hoping you could help out this Ninja biohack.  I have been using your biohacking tips and tricks over the years and I applied it to my Ninja Warrior track.  On my biggest challenge is – is improving my muscle endurance and reduce arm pump during upper body eccentric obstacles such as the peg board especially when combining several different obstacles together back to back to back.  I heard on previous podcast, you suggested using baking soda to buffer lactic acid during intense training sessions.  Do you think baking soda would help the muscle endurance and do you have any other biohacks I could add into my bag of tricks to help increase in muscle endurance and to reduce dreaded arm up on obstacles? Thanks, Ben, Brock – you guys rock!  Oh and look for me in a few weeks in the city ______[0:25:51.3] of the special military episode of American Ninja Warrior.

Brock:  That’s super cool that’s he’s gonna be on American Ninja Warrior.

Ben:  Mmm-hmm.

Brock:  I don’t have cables so I ain’t get to watch that show, I just get to watch the snippets on YouTube but it’s so fun.

Ben:  Me neither.  I just watched either YouTube or Hulu when I see something cool come across like that.  I like that little like five foot tall girl Kacy.

Brock:  Oh, that was awesome!

Ben:  Yeah, she’s pretty cool.

Brock:  Stunning little ninja.

Ben:  If I could be on American Ninja Warrior, I would wanna be a five foot tall female gymnast.

Brock:  Who wouldn’t?

Ben:  Now that you all know my personal fantasy, let’s move on to addressing Trevor’s question.

Brock:  Yeah!

Ben:  So first of all, you know, total disclaimer: I do not profess to be an American Ninja Warrior expert, I know we do have listeners who listened in who have done American Ninja Warrior and done well in it, and I don’t want you to sneaker and think I’m just this guy that they’re dishing out advice about something that I’ve never done and don’t know anything about.  My experience with American Ninja Warrior goes as far as I have done training at the American Ninja Warrior lounge down in Fort Lauderdale and messed around on some of the course obstacles before.  There are American Ninja Warrior esque obstacles appearing with normal frequency now and things like Spartan races, right? Like the Spartan rig where there’s like rings and bars and stuff like that and you know, I do some bouldering, I do some rock climbing and so I at least had my head wrapped around some of the feelings that Trevor’s experiencing as far as like you know, the arm pump, the muscle burn, the specific muscle and finger and forearm endurance that’s necessary for something like Ninja Warrior training.  So…

Brock:  We actually, we know a ninja as well – Angelo dela Cruz.

Ben:  That’s right.  Angelo is a ninja as well.  The guy who works with Mark Sisson and has been at a – some of the conferences Brock and I have…

Brock:  Yeah, he’s got a website called Vita Move – Daily Vita Moves.

Ben:  Yeah. So…

Brock:  You guys check that out.

Ben:  Let’s start here.  There was actually – just a couple of days ago, I was reading the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research which I do when I wanna have a really good time and I was…

Brock:  When you wanna have a really good dump.

Ben:  They actually did or they had an interesting article on the importance of four different muscle groups for indoor rock climbing performance.  And this one kind of caught my attention because it is somewhat relevant to doing things like you know, hanging from bars or doing pull-ups – stuff like that.  And what they did was they looked at a specifically four muscle groups.  The digit flexors which are the flexors of your fingers, they looked at the shoulder adductors which would be the type of muscles that you’d use when gripping walls, gripping pull-up bars, etc. with your shoulders, right? Like that upper body muscle is involved with that.  They looked at the elbow flexors, right? Which would be your biceps and all the little muscles and ligaments that cross your elbow – that assist you with gripping and pulling and then they looked at the lumbar flexors – the flexors of your back which are also – believe it or not, involved pretty intensively when you’re holding on to a wall or you’re hanging from an object this would be considered like you’re – kinda like you’re core hanging muscles.  And what they specifically wanted to see was how important each of these were and the way that they did this study was they took a bunch of male climbers who were familiarized with an indoor climbing route and then they randomly assign them to climb with a pre-fatiguing exercise designed to specifically target those muscle groups that I mentioned and they looked at what happened in terms of climbing performance when each of these muscle groups were pre-fatigued.  So, it actually didn’t really affect the climbers very much at all when their shoulder adductors were pre-fatigued or when their lumbar flexors were pre-fatigued, but when you look specifically at the digit flexors, right?  So the tiny little muscles in the fingers and the wrist and then when you look at the elbow flexors, right? Like the biceps and the brachialis and some of these muscles that are responsible for pulling at the bicep angle or the elbow angle – pre-fatiguing those muscles resulted in significant decreases inability to complete the indoor rock climbing course. 

[0:30:11.5]

And so this gives us the first kind of you know, clue, and this maybe like a kinda like a head slapper for some people who climb, who know how important these muscles are, but it definitely shows that if you are going to prioritize what muscles you train for something like bouldering or rock climbing or American Ninja Warrior training or you know, Spartan training or anything else for which you need to be able to move across objects using your hands like this – like peg boards and pull up bars and things like that.  It would behoove you to focus more on your fingers in your grip strength and also your bicep strength then it would your core strength to your shoulder strength, okay? So fingers – fingers and elbow muscles predominate when it comes to ultimate performance for something like climbing and if you’re not training those muscles, you’re definitely shortening yourself.  So, as far as how to train those muscles…

Brock:  That’s what I was just going to ask.

Ben:  Right.  I have a couple of articles first of all – well, one article in particular that I will link to in the show notes over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/324.  It’s called ‘How to Train Like an American Ninja Warrior’ and all it is – is it’s an article about how to incorporate things like foot speed and parkour style training and grip strength training and all of the different variables – the different physical variables necessary for success on something like an American Ninja Warrior course.  I wrote that over on the Quick and Dirty Tips website, and I get into like balance and flexibility and specific mobility protocols as well.  But in the grip strength part of that, you know, I get into some of the things that have been shown in literature to be the most efficacious for gaining grip.  One of the things is pinch grip – pinch grip is incredibly important and it tends to be one of the tougher forms of grip training that you don’t tend to experience with traditional like pull-ups and dead lifts and things like that in the gym.  And the best way to do pinch grip training is literally with weight plates.

Brock:  Mmm.  Mmm-mmm.

Ben:  You pinch two weight plates and you just carry them around, farmer’s walk style or you do dead lifts with them and what I mean by pinch is rather than gripping or holding an object, you’re literally pinching it between your fingers and your thumb.  That’s a really, really good way to train your grip.

Brock:  That’s sort of like you’re wearing mittens and pick it right like that.

Ben:  Right, right.  That would be number one and if I could give you two other really, really good forms of grip training, one would be thick bar training.  They actually make attachments that you can attach to regular size bars to make those bars thicker and you can also – if you want to make something thicker you can use towels or like you can wrap towels around pull-up bars, you can even hang towels from pull-up bars and then hang from those towels and anytime that you are hanging from something that it’s hard to get your grip around, that really, really helps especially with that digit flexor strength that I mentioned was so important from that journal research.  So…

Brock:  And so in that case you’re still – you’re grabbing onto like it’s a rope, right?

Ben:  The thicker the bar, the thicker the dumbbell; the thicker the kettlebell, the thicker the towel or whatever object that you’re hanging from, the more quickly your grip strength is going to grow, so in fact that would be the second.  And then thirdly passive grip strengthening and I know keep – just because I’m really working on my grip strength for Spartan racing, I keep one of these Captains of Crush grip trainers in my car and also in my bag.  I don’t have a really, really heavy duty one.  I mean of these like that armor slurs use you know go up to like you know, something insane – it’s like 300 and 400lbs something like that.  I just have like the hundred up – I think mine is the 160lbs. and I will simply grip that and I’ll do everything from just gripping, holding one to two second and releasing and doing 10 to 15 reps of that to do doing like a rapid pulse grips where I’ll do like 20 really rapid fire grip or you’ll grip it and hold it close for five to ten seconds.  But I’ll just do that kind of stuff you know – for example you know, I had two hours of driving in Pennsylvania back to the airport this past week and all I did was just you know kinda move that back and forth from hand to hand while I’m driving – it’s like that kind of pass of grip strength thing like that greasing the groove type of grip strength like I know you, Brock.  As a matter of fact, early on this podcast we had to re-record something because your stupid little alarm went off on the phone…

Brock:  Sorry.

Ben:  But that alarm goes off to remind you to do push-ups, right?

Brock:  Yep, every hour I’m doing 30 push-ups today.

Ben:  Right.  So that’s…

Brock:  Except for this hour ‘cause we’re recording.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.

[0:35:04.4]

So you know, greasing the groove, having little things that you’d implement like that to work on grip strength, it’s really important too – but basically…

Brock:  And by the way…

Ben:  Go ahead.

Brock:  There’s really cool – and studies have been done about grip strength or not necessarily the grip strength but doing that kind of isometric grip training and blood pressure lowering.

Ben:  Yeah, that’s right.  As a matter of fact my friend Steve Wood actually…

Brock:  Yeah, yeah.  That’s the…

Ben:  I used to go to church with Steve like down in Moscow, Idaho – Steve lived in Moscow, I lived in Moscow and we were church mates – I don’t know, what do you call somebody you go church with? Fellowshipper?

Brock:  Jesus-buddy? (chuckles)

Ben:  Yeah, whatever.  We were Jesus-buddies but anyways though, he you know, we eventually parted – he went like to Boise or something and I moved to Spokane but then yeah, he’s recently come out with the Zona device which is like a blood pressure reducing device that’s based on grip strength.  I believe that our friend Dave Asprey recently had him on a podcast talking about that Zona grip strengthener.  So, anyways though…

Brock:  So added benefit there.  A bonus.

Ben:  Added benefit – I’ve actually thought about that before when I’m using my Captains of Crush grip strengthener that it does actually help with blood pressures as well.  So anyways though, some of this stuff – anyone who is seriously competing in American Ninja Warrior, this is not news to you – how to train your grip, but those are three good ways you know: the pinch, the thick bar and then just greasing the groove by having one of these grip strengthening tools around.  But the other…

Brock:  I’m intrigued by this towel-thing.  Can we just go back to the towel-thing just for one second?

Ben:  Hmm, yeah.

Brock:  So you said you throw a towel over top like a pull-up bar and then you just hang from it?

Ben:  Well, two different ways to use a towel for increasing your grip strength.  Number one would be: you use a towel to make either a bar, right? Like a barbell thicker wherever you gonna grip it…

Brock:  So you’re backing your – okay.

Ben:  so before you grip, you wrap the towel around or say to go to a pull-up bar or dumbbells or whatever, right? Like you can wrap a towel around anything to make it thicker, but then the other thing that you can do is you can simply take – say like two towels – like hand towels or bath towels or whatever, you can hang them from a pull-up bar and you can do your pull-ups from the towels rather than from the bar.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  It’s simply more difficult, more slippery, thicker object to grip and you know, it’s kind of like hanging from a rope, right? It’s just more difficult than hanging from a bar or a pole.  So that’s the towel trick pretty sure…

Brock:  I misunderstood when the first time you said it, I didn’t realize you were wrapping it around like multiple times just to make the bar thicker.  I was thinking you were dangling from it but you can do both!

Ben:  You can do both, yes.

Brock:  Fantastic!

Ben:  I’m glad that we were able to work the word ‘dangling’ into the show.  It’s always important.

Brock:  A couple of times.

Ben:  So the other thing, well a couple of other things: the first is that anytime you’re doing this type of grip strengthening, one of the things gonna happen is you will develop a cross linking and adhesions and some fascial immobility in your forearm muscles.  And when that happens you can develop areas of hypoxia in the forearm muscles that result in an inability to remove lactic acid as efficiently or to deliver glucose and oxygen as efficiently to those muscle areas resulting in more muscle burn when you are hanging or when you are doing pull-ups or when you are doing your peg board or anything else that you’re doing for your American Ninja Warrior style training.  And because of this, it’s very, very important to do deep tissue work on your forearms.  So for example, there are two ways that I personally do this simply because I really have been focusing more on my grip strength than on my forearm strength.  And the other reason; my grip has been taking a hit, my forearms have been taking a hit just because I’m doing a lot of shooting too with the bow and that actually involves quite a bit of grip work specifically for my right arm which I’m pulling the bow with or pulling the string with.  So I do two things: the first is I keep what’s called the Battle Star on my kitchen table.  The Battle Stars are really, really good deep tissue massage device and I’ll try and link to some of this stuff in the show notes for you – but basically the Battle Star – it’s almost like a bunch of roller blade wheels stuck together that is like an incredibly hard like a polyurethane based type of foam roller.  And the reason that I keep that on my kitchen table is because I can lean over and I can do deep tissue work on – I can roll my arms on it, right?  Like the top of my arms and the underside of my arms and because it’s sitting there right in front of me in the kitchen table, I remember to take few breaks during the day you know, from typing and working to just basically foam roll my forearms. And compare to trying to lie down on the floor and work a foam roller up and down over the arms, this is a much easier way to do it plus it’s a great conversation piece when you have guest over…

Brock:  (chuckles)

Ben:  …and you go by that giant roller blade wheel as simply as sitting on top of your kitchen table.  So…

[0:40:12.4] 

Brock:  And people do that between the courses of the meal.

Ben:  Exactly.

Brock:  You won’t get your main course until you roll your forearms.

Ben:  So there’s that and there’s also this device called the ArmAid and the ArmAid was actually designed by climbers for climbers and it’s an even more impressive device when it comes to this type of deep tissue work for the arms and I have this up in my bedroom and it’s sitting beside my bed so when I get up in the morning and I sit there on my bed, and you know, after I gotten up and I’m done you know like my journaling and my meditation and everything, I sit there and just for like 30 seconds – not a really long time, I work each arm and literally it’s like this device that pinches all the muscles of your arms.  So you slip your arm into it and you just kind of like move your arm through the device back and forth and back and forth and you rotate a little bit to the side.  And it does just deep, deep tissue work on all the forearm muscles – it’s like one of those things that hurts so good but it’s called the ArmAid – the ArmAid.  And I swear by that for decreasing like pain and fascial adhesions, yeah… tendonitis in the elbows, stuff like that in the arms – that’s a really, really important thing.  You know just like when you run right? Like if you train, run fast; if you don’t do any massage work or any foam roller or anything like that in your quads in your hamstrings – they can sometimes feel like there’s just little heavy, right? Like a little locked up or something like that, same thing with the forearms – like you gotta do deep tissue work on those and that’s an area – it seems like people always think “Oh I need to do whatever – foam rolling for my IT band or I need to get my low back massage, but they neglect their forearms and those are really important muscles to work for this.

Brock:  You think you could put the ArmAid around your neck? To work on like your…

Ben:  Around your neck?

Brock:  like your neck muscles?

Ben:  You could not.  Have you seen it?

Brock:  Just the video that you show with it.

Ben:  You would suffocate.

Brock:  Oh.

Ben:  Yeah, it’s not big enough for the neck, definitely.

Brock:  Damn, somebody should make that.

Ben:  Yeah, that would be interesting like some kind of device that you could stick your head into it – a guillotine like device.

Brock:  (chuckles)

Ben:  That you could move your head around it and back and forth.  Yeah, that would be cool – there probably have to be a little bit of liability waiver with that one and you have to have a pretty…

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  Pretty damn good insurance for selling a device like that.  I would imagine so.  Okay, so and then you know and this would kinda fall into more of like a biochemical hack like a supplement type of hack and you know, again I would say that any rock climbers/gymnast work their salt would sneaker at the idea that you could somehow enhance your level of performance in a sport like that by popping a pill, but there’s anecdotal evidence that you could potentially increase your ability to be able to buffer the lactic acids that builds up during something like climbing, hanging, pull-ups, etc. by using some of this same supplements that runners or cyclists will use to buffer lactic acid.  Now one thing that we look at is baking soda and baking soda provides carbonate ions when you take baking soda and we talk about this on the podcast before.  And these carbonate ions circulate in the blood and they stabilize the Ph levels outside the muscle cells.  And what that allows is more hydrogen ions to be basically buffered or shunted out of the muscle cells into the bloodstream. So it keeps Ph levels more stable inside the muscle cells and that’s important because hydrogen ion build up is what’s called – is what causes acidity in the muscle area, so muscular fatigue can be caused by a buildup of this hydrogen ions and this substance get burning that comes along with them.  So the only issue with using something like baking soda as something you stack with or load with prior to something like, let’s say an American Ninja Warrior course to decrease the burn is that none of the studies that have been done on baking soda have really shown much efficacy for very, very short events you know, for like you know, anything from like ten seconds to a couple of minute right? Like most of them are on off like two to ten plus minutes in terms of the efficacy of baking soda for buffering lactic acid, okay?

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  So baking soda is kinda blue sky if that would actually work for something very, very short.  It would definitely work for like a longer event like a 5K or even like a you know – even like a 800m or something like that.  However…

Brock:  Weren’t most of the studies done like time trials?

[0:45:04.4]

Ben:  Mmm-hmm, yeah.  Stuff like that, stuff that wouldn’t be considered as shorter intensities as explosive as something like American Ninja Warrior even though for you know, for like a long rock climbing course – probably it wouldn’t be efficacious as something worth trying as long as you can you know, you gotta load with it in small doses leading up to the event.  A little bit carbohydrate with the baking soda, a little bit of water with it, otherwise you get explosive diarrhea and nobody wants to be on NBC with explosive diarrhea doing American Ninja Warrior course, especially…

Brock:  No emergencies on TV.

Ben:  since most folks who do that wear tidy-tight pants anyways is just a bad combo.  So anyways though, there is a substance very much like baking soda – it’s converted to the body to what’s called the carnacin and carnacin works very similar to baking soda in terms of keeping Ph stable within muscle cells and helping to buffer hydrogen ions but this particular compound and I’ll tell you what it is in a second – that actually has been in very, very short efforts like six seconds sprints and time to exhaustion tests of two to two and a half minutes and things that baking soda that hasn’t been used as much for.  And this particular substance is called beta alanine, beta alanine – and beta alanine you can find in supplemental form of a standard doses you use in most are anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000ml, okay? So 2 to 5g – you get a little bit of what’s called a tingling feeling when you use it – it’s called paresthesia. but as long as you know that’s gonna happen and you’re aware that it’s a completely harmless side effect but it is something that has not only shown efficacy in reducing the amount of lactic acid burn and decreasing or I’m sorry, rather increasing time to fatigue during short sprints.  But it’s also something that in some studies has been stacked with baking soda, meaning you could load with baking soda and load with beta alanine and get kind of a double whammy – the baking soda offering you some buffering for the longer bouts of exercise and the beta alanine offering you buffering effect for the shorter sprint based more American Ninja Warrior-esque bouts.  And so you know, this would be something efficacious perhaps for you know not only you know, something like a Spartan race for example, but also you know as particularly from the beta alanine standpoint – something like an American Ninja Warrior course, so beta-alanine with baking soda.  And the other interesting thing – another substance that’s been shown to improve the efficacy of beta alanine is creatine, and because creatine has been a well studied for its ability to enhance your capability to bang out more reps right? Like do eight reps instead of six when lifting right so you’ll be able to engage in better strength, better power, things like that.  Creatine is certainly something that – if someone came up to me and said “Well what, you know I’m gonna do American Ninja Warrior. What supplements were gonna give me the most bang for my buck?” Probably the first two I would say would be beta alanine and creatine, and preferably combining the two.  Creatine by the way, is about 5g a day and then beta alanine like I mentioned, about 2,000 to 5,000ml – you would take a stack like that, right? Like 5g of creatine with let’s say 2500ml of beta alanine about a half hour before any event that you were gonna do for what you wanted better power and better lactic acid buffering.  Now what actually be a pretty good little stack the baking soda would be optional but if were longer effort, you could throw in the baking soda as well and that little one to three combo could work pretty well.  Again there are no studies that have been done specifically on that American Ninja Warrior training, no studies that have been done on that and you know, like rock climbing or anything like that but it certainly something to try, try in your training before you try in your competition – again, because of the explosive diarrhea potential, but aside from that, yeah well worth the try and those are all well-researched supplementation stacks.  So there you have it.

Craig:   Ben and Brock, this is Craig from Indiana.  So I’ve got a question for you guys that I think bridges across a few things you guys touched on: physical performance, biohacking or brain-hacking and supplements.  As a competitive cyclist in college, I’m 43 right now, I’m able to push myself mentally on doing physical test whether it’s a physical work or physical exercise.  The hard part for me though is getting that same mental push when I’m doing mental tasks instead doing my work – its emails, phone calls, meetings and being able to stay focused is an issue for me.

[0:50:12.7]

Diet-wise, I probably follow the bulletproof diet 70 to 80% of time; I am – supplement-wise using magnesium, zinc, calcium, fish oil which I would change into krill oil – thanks to you, guys.  And I also had a prescription that I take each day 20ml of Adderall which kind of sort of helps from the – that I get my focus perspective, but I still get thoughts that fly in out of my head you know, I don’t know if there’s any help that you guys can offer from that perspective.  Curious to see what you guys may think, appreciate your help and I love listening to podcast.  Thanks guys, bye!

Brock:  I thought that Adderall was sort of the cure all in terms of trying to stay focused.

Ben:  Mmm.  Yeah, but I don’t like Adderall.  (murmurs)

Brock:  No, no, I don’t.  I’m not saying it’s a good thing, I just thought it was like if you wanna solve your focus issue, Adderall’s the way to go.

Ben:  Well Adderall well you know, also known as modafinil can do that with some people but some people they get almost like too ‘multi-tasky’ – I’m gonna make up that word, ‘multi-tasky’.

Brock:  Oh, I like it.

Ben:  So if there’s only we could combine them with the word ‘dangling’ it would be quite good.  So anyways though, they bounce around too much, right?  From task to task almost because their brain is in hyper drive versus focus.  So I would say that for focus, I would instead focus on a – that’s kind of a catch 22, I guess.

Brock:  Focus instead of focus.

Ben:  So assume that…

Brock:  Dangling.

Ben:  Assuming that you can focus, some of the things that I would do when it comes to improving your focus and being able to have that mental push during mental task.  First of all, understand the brain is like a muscle in some aspect, it can be trained.  And that’s the first thing you want to do is, you want to train your brain and one of the best ways to train your brain specifically for focus, not just focus, but also interestingly, IQ.  It’s called Duo n-Back training.  Now you can download, and I’ll put a link in the show notes to a variety different n-Back training apps, but honestly you can just go to the android’s store or the iTune’s store and find this yourself.  They’re cheap and or free and very easy to learn how to use, but Duo n-Back training is a form or memory recall training that typically involves looking at a pattern or a number or a color and then remembering that number and recalling it – and recalling it in a specific sequence.  So for example, when using an n-Back protocol, 1 + 4 might be the first equation that appears on the screen, so you’ll remember that’s 5 and then 3 + 4 might appear and of course you know that’s 7 and then maybe 1 + 1 would appear and that’s 2.  And then you need to remember, okay 2, 7 and 5 – whatever I just said, obviously I’m doing a crappy job of doing it myself.  But then you move on to the next series, the next sequence of things to memorize – you might get to the point where you memorize like ten different things in a row and recalling what appeared like seven times ago and it’s a very, very good and simple way to train simple meaning that it’s just an app, right? It’s not a simple, your brain’s gonna hurt, right? You feel like smokes coming out your ears when you’re doing a Duo n-Back training but it can improve focus and the cool thing is you could do that while you are standing in line at the grocery store or taking a work break, you know or something like that.  So do n-Back training is probably when it comes to all these different brain training apps like lumosity and brainscape and all the different ones out there, that’s the one that I like for specifically improving focus because you pretty much can’t really be doing anything else ‘multi-tasky’ while you’re doing n-Back training – you’re just focusing on n-Back training.  It’s a really, really good way to increase your focus.  Another thing that I would look at as far as focus goes would be smart drugs and nootropics.  And some of the ones that I would specifically look into when it comes to focus, one would be creatine.  Now creatine is a known nootropic I just mentioned dosage and dosage is all you really need for that was about 5g a day.

[0:55:06.3]

Studies have shown that it improved your brain function more so in people who are creatine deficient, right? Like if you’re vegan or you’re vegetarian or you don’t get enough meat but ultimately creatine is the good one to look into, and I’ve talked about one form of creatine called the CRE-02 before which is made by Millennium Sports and is a form of creatine that’s made with cordyceps.  There’s also a company called Natural Stacks and they make a creatine called BioCreatine and it’s creatine that’s been blended with a Himalayan pink salt which purportedly increases the uptake of creatine and then also something called fenugreek.  And fenugreek extract activates your insulin receptors, and that may also increase your creatine absorption.  So when you combine the creatine with salt and with fenugreek, your uptake might be improved or it might be .  And so that’s a form of creatine to look into – this BioCreatine, the stuff made by a Natural Stacks or you could look into this CRE-02 which is like a capsule.  I happen to have both of those forms of creatine in my refrigerator right now.

Brock:  I’ve been taking the BioCreatine that’s – I’ve been taking for the few months.6

Ben:  Yeah, little bit of a creatine junkie.

Brock:  (chuckles)

Ben:  So that’s one.  Another one that you could look into would just be krill oil.  Now omega 3 fatty acids are essential for brain function and brain development and so one specifically that has higher levels of phosphatidylcholine in it which are specifically used was for brain nutraceutical is krill oil.  Now krill oil is expensive compared to fish oil – the extra amount that you pay for krill oil does not give you – you know, let’s say you pay and this would be you know, kinda like ain’t going right – let’s say you pay five times more for krill oil than you do for fish oil.  You don’t get five times more omega 3 fatty acids, but you do get a significant amount of the added phosphatidylcholine and some of the derivatives that can specifically be used to enhance cognitive performance – if you’re just taking something like a fish oil or an omega 3 fatty acid not for health but for cognitive performance or focus, krill oil would be a pretty good choice.  I would prefer krill oil over the fish oil when it comes to neuro-protective and memory enhancing or executive thought processing.  So krill oil and creatine would two to get.  That company that I mentioned Natural Stacks for just looking to save on shipping or whatever, they make both creatine as well as krill oil – that’s the same company that makes Ciltep which is the smart drug that Tim Ferriss where’s buy and so you could – and I’ve never done this before but you could theoretically stack Ciltep with creatine, with krill oil.  I don’t know how that would work out, I do not think….

Brock:  That’s almost what I did the time I was told I sounded weird on the podcast.

Ben:  Hmm.  So there you go.

Brock:  Not the krill oil, I put Alpha Brain instead.

Ben:  There you go, there you go.

Brock:  So you too could sound weird.

Ben:  Yeah.  And then another interesting one and I know most of this is supplementation based but these are all things that I would do and I do ‘do’ (chuckles), I said ‘do-do’…

Brock:  (chuckles) You do-do.

Ben:  …as an alternative to something like Adderall or modafinil simply because none of these are metabolized by the liver, that you only have one of for the rest of your life which is one I’m very careful with something like adderall or modafinil.  I personally stay away from it because it’s a – it’s a pretty big potential damaging hit on your liver.  Anyways though, L-Carnitine, L-Carnitine.  Now L-Carnitine is more known as like the fat that helps you burn fat or the compound that helps the mitochondria burn more fat and the single L-Carnitine is something that’s often sold in like fat-loss stacks or fat-loss supplements, but there is a form of L-Carnitine that actually is used more for cognitive enhancement.  And the particular form of L-Carnitine that’s used for cognitive enhancement is called Acetyl L-Carnitine or ALCAR – Acetyl L-Carnitine.  So when you’re looking at L-Carnitine supplements, there are different forms like L-Carnitine L-Tartrate is typically used for physical performance and power output.  If you’re an athlete that’s a form of carnitine you’d want to use.  And there’s another one that’s used more for blood flow issues or what’s  called a claudication, and that’s a glycine based L-Carnitine. But for cognitive performance this ALCAR or Acetyl L-Carnitine would be a form of carnitine that’s been shown in research to assist with basically like a cognitive performance and also decreasing neuro degeneration. 

[1:00.13.3]

So the dosage on something like that is for ALCAR about a 1000 to 2000ml or a 1000 to 2000ml of a Acetyl L-Carnitine – so that’s the form you’d take and it’s been shown to help with everything from like dopamine neurotransmission to choline neurotransmission, to a memory and learning to – and this is particularly relevant for your attention even though the studies that have been done intention were done primarily in 6 to 13 year old boys however I know many, many men who’s cognitive pattern seem to seem like those 6 to 13 year old boys.  So carnitine would be another one to look into, okay? And in the final thing that I would mention when it comes to popping pills, would be one that have been talking about quite a bit of late or talking about quite a bit of late and that’s cannabidiol.  And cannabidiol is at least in the U.S. is completely legal.  It’s the one that I’ve been using more and more and I’ve been experimenting a lot with that – I’ve been stacking it with different things like Alpha Brain and Ciltep, and you know, I found it to be amazing as far as either magnifying the effective pretty much any smart drug that I’ve used or enhancing sleep.  So for example on my recent flight back from Pennsylvania, I actually took four – I took four of these CBD capsules and was out like a light for two hours on the plane – woke up feeling fan of freaking fantastic.  So that is the nature CBD stuff.  Again it’s cannabidiol, it’s different than THC – I’ve talked about it before and had some podcast and blog post on this.  You can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com just do a search for CBD if you wanna educate yourself more on that one, but that one is particularly efficacious and whereas THC, actually it’s been shown to potentially have some – and Brock and I were actually talking about this before we start recording today about – Brock, you heard on some podcast recently about the potentially deleterious effect of THC and marijuana on a brain performance, correct?

Brock:  Yes it was actually interesting that we – you brought up the Duo N-Back training ‘cause that’s exactly the process they used to test the memory impairments even as it turned out that the people who used THC on a regular basis had the people who were put through that sort of memory test or remembering numbers, if a new number was introduced they were more to likely to think that was an old number where are the number they’ve seen previously if they were a regular THC user.

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  Sort of a weird memory trick that was going on.

Ben:  Yeah, plus they probably thought the n-Back training was really funny.

Brock:  Probably.

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  Like you just didn’t care.

Ben:  Probably they didn’t care.  So you know – and again, I’m not completely against THC use, I mean I personally have – you know I make my own homemade edibles, you know I basically decarboxylate weed by grinding up weed in very, very fine and then I put that in a crackpot with coconut oil and make this nice little like weed-based edible, but ultimately that does not in any way assist with cognitive performance whereas CBD does.  So and the THC would be more just for relaxation or partying basically.  So explain that to your kids if they are listening in and in the meantime, Craig, those are some of the things that I would be going after when it comes to focus and I would be stopping the Adderall if I were you and if it were my liver.  So there you have it, hope that helps and I’ll put links to all that stuff in the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/324.

Brock:  If anybody wants to learn more about why Ben’s talking about protecting liver or you actually had a really good conversation with fellow that the podcast coming out on Saturday.  Will you guys talk about all that stuff?

Ben:  Mmmm.  Oh yeah, that’s right, the one about how exercise can cause depression and also how to give yourself colonics, that episode?

Brock:  Yes. (chuckles)

Ben:  Yes, that’s a good one.  That is coming up, Saturday.

Brock:  It’s a good one, yeah.

Edward:  Hello, Ben! Hello, Brock! I just took the NatureCBD because I thought it sounded pretty cool and I wanted to give it a try for the inflammation of my body.  Getting ready for the 10K coming up and I get some aches and pains.  My question for you is: is there any reason why I should be running 35 on the low end up to about a 47 of a high in miles a week in preparation for a 10k?  Second of all, there are some good hills on the 10K – not really hilly but some good hills – and would you suggest any specific hill sprints in order to do better in the 10k?

[1:05:13.2]

And then thirdly, how would a guy like you fuel for a 10k?  I am very low carb, I don’t eat any real traditional carbs except for a sweet potato once a week, and I guess we should count two shots of Tequila once a week times two as a carbohydrate as well.  So thank you much for the NatureCBD, how many miles for a 10k, specific running or a hilling course like a 10k? Thank you, Ben.  Thank you, Brock.  You’re both great, bye-bye.

Brock:  I think we could answer the – if you were running the 10K, what would you – how would you fuel?

Ben:  Hmmm.

Brock:  We could answer that one pretty quickly.  Let’s say eat a meal sometime that day?

Ben:  Yeah.  So let’s start here: yeah, so the fueling is pretty simple.  A 10K unless you are taking a very, very long time to run a 10K is not something that’s going to deplete your glycogen storage, you could get out of bed in the morning and run a 10K pretty quickly without eating anything and as a matter of fact, even when it comes to like in Olympic distance triathlon which is a 1½K swim, a 40K bike and then ends with a 10K.  Back in the day most pro triathletes do most things pretty quickly like one in like a sub two hour Olympic distance triathlon would do so without eating anything at all and after without even drinking or eating during the race either.  So…

Brock:  Yeah.  I was just at the Pan Am games on the weekend watching the men’s triathlon and the announcer kept saying “And the athletes will be taking in some serious calories right now on the bicycle” and I watch them go by and they don’t even have a bottle…

Ben:  Not really.

Brock:  and kinda like “No, they’re not” they’re doing in 1:47…

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  That’s all kinda trickled down advice from Ironman triathlon.  So you really don’t need to eat much though grand research out there that shows something like swishing and spitting a sugar solution can help with cyclist doing 40K time trial even though they aren’t depleting their carbohydrates stores, there’s something about the taste of sugar that can somehow help your brain to compete a higher level or to not shut down your body so the central governor of your brain does not shut down your body quite at quickly when you taste something sweet.  Something could be said for amino acids, right? Like we could take 5 to 10g of like essential amino acids even though you don’t need them – you’re not like breaking down all the protein in your body and somehow replacing that with amino acids.  It’s just their mere presence in the bloodstream kind of like the mere taste of sugar can help but it’s not necessary – that’s like that little extra like 5% or whatever, ultimately you could just get up and run the 10K at nothing at all.  If I were running a 10K and I didn’t have to get up super duper early to get down breakfast, I would get up earlier in the morning and I would eat the same type of breakfast that I need for anything that’s very glycolytic, extremely glycolytic.  And that would be a very, very simple, easy to digest carbohydrate-based meal.  So for example, like before my – both the Super Spartan that I did on Saturday and the Sprint Spartan that I did on Sunday, both extremely glycolytic right? Like hard efforts, burning lots of matches, going up hills, carrying heavy stuff, burning pure carbohydrates you know doing both of those events – I just had white rice, a little bit of olive oil and sea salt.  I think on Sunday, the day before the longer event, the one that took closer to two hours, I actually had little bit of peanut butter in there with the white rice to just give myself a little bit of more a slow burning fuel and that just happen to be the nut butter that I had around in the house that I was renting, otherwise I would’ve used the far healthier almond butter, but…

Brock:  Of course.

Ben:  Ultimately, you know, very, very simple, easy to digest carbohydrate, gastric emptying of that only takes about two hours compared to four to six hours for like a protein or a fat.  So you know, pretty simple on the nutrition front. You really don’t need much.  Now as far as the training goes, is there any reason to run 30 to 50 miles for example a week in preparation for a 10K?  You will see a lot of professional athletes running with that volume for a 10K and so you could certainly argue that for the higher level competition in order to develop the efficiency and the economy necessary to run extremely fast with a high turnover and a low ground reaction time or decrease current contact time – at that amount of running volume can help if you – you know, if you’re getting paid in a pay check you know, that type of volume maybe necessary for something like a 10K.

[1:10:02.9] 

But ultimately let’s say for like the average person is 10K or the person’s got a job, family, career – obvious and you know they’re running the 10K as you know for fun or to get a good time but not because you’re getting a pay check at the finish line, I would have a pretty simple training set-up where in addition to any cross training or sports that you’re playing and weight training that you’re doing or whatever, you’ve got a three runs a week while you’ve got your strength training based run which is steep hills and hill repeats and you know, using an inclined treadmill or using you know, any other type of hill or a stair climber or stairs or anything else, and you’re focusing on strength.  And then you’ve got another session during the week where you’re focusing on turnover and speed and short sprints, you know fifties, hundreds, two hundreds.  You know, short 10 to 30 second treadmill sprint and it’s just very, very short sprints with high turnover and a focus on speed and then you have one final run that is more of your aerobic run where you’re straining together anywhere from 5 to 10 minute intervals you know, where you’re doing you know, let’s say mile repeats with quarter to have mile recovery periods, and you’re doing that in a volume that’s closer to the actual you know, 6.4 miles that you’d run during something like a 10K.  But ultimately, that’s kinda like your three main running sessions per week where you get your strength session, you get your speed session and you’ve got your aerobic session.  And you know for a hilly 10K, those hill sprints or those stair climb prefer repeats in the strength work would be crucial.  Now, whenever I lay things out in as simplistic way as I just did, it’s important for me to highlight the fact before all the strength conditioning coaches and personal trainers listening in that begin to scream though the airwaves – periodization here is something to bear in mind.  You know I get some people that will ask me “What’s the perfect training program for whatever – my triathlon or my marathon? Like what’s the exact sessions I should be doing each week?”  Well, it completely depends on the time of the year, right? So you know, in a truly well thought out and well-structured training program, you would at some point starting the year be doing lots of long, slow-based aerobic work with strength training.  And then as you’re getting into more of a phase where you’re focusing on more intensive race preparation, you’d be doing slightly longer, higher intense intervals, continued aerobic work and continued strength work.  And then as the race approaches you’d be focusing more in power plyometrics, extremely short sprints and very, very raced specific intervals and that’s going to change throughout the year you know, that’s why frankly, people hire me to put together training plans you know, it’s why I personally will quit to coach to do like my Spartan training plans is things change throughout the year.  You know, otherwise, we could just you know, have a coach right outside our weekly training plans, and sit back and just do that same thing each week, right?

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  You never get faster, you never get slower, you eventually burnout or you get bored but ultimately the idea here is that things change throughout the year.  But for a basic program, for basic 10K program – you’ve got a strength training run, you’ve got a sprint or an over-speed training run, you’ve got your aerobic interval-based training run with race specific intervals and then you know, all of these stuff that’s peppered in the between is just some strength training, some cross training and of course, smart recovery – everything from like you know, foam rolling to cold, to compression – everything else.  So you know…

Brock:  To your point, we’re also just guessing that Edward doesn’t have any races coming up that he’s only training for a 10K.  Let’s say he’s got a marathon in the fall that’s also – but he’s also building for he’s got a triathlon that he’s training for that’s everything changes on that…

Ben:  Right.

Brock:  …priorities as well.

Ben:  Right.  Yeah.

Brock:  Not just the time of the year but it’s – does he have other goals? Does he try to lose weight? Is he trying to put on muscle mass as well?

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.

Brock:  It’s “I love this time of the year” actually like – because we’re into the race season by the way just sort of still early in the race season, so coaching one of my athletes right now becomes such a mathematic kind of juggling artistic versus Math kind of a juggling act – it’s really, it’s really fun to be a coach this time of the year.

Ben:  Yeah, and the last thing I’d say, obviously, like shameless commercial here, but I mean like at Greenfield Fitness Systems, we have tons of coaches who’s specialized in run through.  We’ve you got 15 different coaches over there, you know, as well as  physicians and pretty much anything you’d need for any goals, if you go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com and you click on ‘Coaching’ you know, a lot of people and I do realize… 

[1:15:03.5] 

like for people to coach with me, I’m kind of expensive you know, most of what I focus on now as I train lots of CEOs who want like longevity, anti-aging, some of them are doing triathlons, marathons, stuff like that but I work with people who are you know, relatively well-to-do and just want to outsource everything to me: sleep, heart rate variability, training, recovery, anti-aging, longevity, blood work, lab work – everything.  But I mean, if you just wanna hire like a coach to train you for a 10K, you may not need that level of what I do, but ultimately there are a bunch of coaches at Greenfield Fitness Systems who have you know, their own – you know, including Brock for example, you know, they have payment systems set-up there, different than what I charge for example for training and so you can go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com and check out some of the coaching options there as well if you wanna get into a more detailed periodized 10K program ‘cause frankly, if I were running a 10K, I would necessarily be relying upon the 10 minute podcast answer to from the crocks of my program but hopefully this at least gives you some direction.

Sue:  Hi, my name is Sue.  I bought some of this chlorella, spirulina – trying to take some algae.  I heard that it was good for weight loss. So what I’m trying to find out is, is it good for weight loss or is it just that it’s so high protein, it cuts out the appetite? You know I’m really into it, find out more about it and it sounds like it’s really good for me and healthy – and that’s good.  But I’m taking like 15 pills at one time a day – it doesn’t bother my stomach or anything like that – that’s what I was told to do when I was looking into buying it so, just wanna make sure I’m doing the right thing for me – would like to hear a lot from you.  Thank you.

Brock:  Now you don’t see a lot of skinny whales around?

Ben:  No, you don’t see a lot of skinny whales, apparently eat a bunch of a – well doing more plankton than they are in algae…

Brock:  Oh, that’s right.  It’s more of plankton.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.

Brock:  Can it be like the plankton it’s like the cupcakes of the sea.

Ben:  Get your marine nutrients sorted, Brock.

Brock:  (laughs)

Ben:  Seriously.

Brock:  You can tell I’m land-walk.

Ben:  Yes.  So algae – algae is – so first of all I should say that I use algae almost every day, either in like the green supplement that I take or in this little things called energy bits.  So I use the stuff called chlorella.  Frankly, I use it just because if I don’t have like something crunchy to munch on at night, I would go for dark chocolate, popcorn with butter like you know – I just I get the munchies at night sometimes.  And so, I actually eat organic cracked-cell wall chlorella as my snack at night – it turns my mouth green, my wife hates it, I gotta rinse off my mouth, you know, if I wanna get laid, I definitely have to brush my teeth after the chlorella or else you know, I totally get a shut down.  So…

Brock:  It does taste pretty terrible.

Ben:  Yeah, but chlorella – basically what it is – is that’s a fresh water micro-algae.  It’s got the highest known amount of chlorophyll that you’ll find in anything in nature.  Chlorophyll is the stuff that has a chemical structure that’s very similar to hemoglobin and because of this, it can help to carry oxygen around in the blood, it can increase your red blood cell count and so it can assist with cardiovascular performance when you do something like work chlorophyll-based compounds like chlorella into your bloodstream.  And the other thing that’s cool about chlorella is that like activated charcoal, it can assist with what’s called your Phase 2 liver detox, meaning that it can leech heavy metals, it can assist with the removal of hydrocarbon-based pesticides, herbicide, insecticides and has a really protective effect on the liver which is like we mentioned earlier a pretty viable toxin filter in your body.  So that’s because chlorella has an indigestible cellulose on its cell wall and that just attracts and binds all out of those compounds and they’re simply removed from your body via your stool.  So the other cool thing about chlorella is it’s got RNA and DNA content that can potentially assist with slowing the aging process – you know that’s blue sky – there’s no actual studies that’s been done on the potential of those particular nucleic acids to assist with anti-aging or longevity.  However, they can definitely help with cell growth, cell repair, etc.  So chlorella is about 3% RNA and 0.3% DNA by weight, and that’s some of the highest on a DNA nucleic acid component of pretty much any food on the planet.  So you know, I don’t like to throw around the words super food too much, but chlorella’s very, very good as far as that and because of its nutrient density and its chlorophyll content, chlorella can stave off appetite cravings. 

[1:20:09.3]

And so you know, indirectly could help with fat loss from that standpoint – really, really, really interesting thing is this recent research that’s come out that shown that when you eat, compounds that are high in chlorophyll – dark leafy greens, fresh vegetables, kale – whatever and chlorella would fall in that category.  And then you get exposure to sunlight, it actually sets with your body’s ATP production.  Normally your body would burn calories to generate ATP, but it turns out that similar to plants, humans – if we have a high amount of chlorophyll circulating in our body and we get exposed to sunlight, it can assist with her ability to produce ATP in even the absence of calories and so again, indirectly, you could get energy without eating as much food and hence, assist with weight loss or at least assist with lower calorie intake while maintaining energy levels when implementing something like chlorella or any other chlorophyll rich compound in your diet.  My only beef with chlorella is it’s freaking expensive to get like a good 100% organic cracked-cell wall chlorella.  I get my stuff from this company called EnergyBits – it’s not cheap – chlorella is expensive and anything that has good chlorella in it, is gonna be expensive.  Spirulina is the other probably most popularly known form of algae that everybody holds for you is talking about.  So spirulina is actually higher than chlorella in protein content and because of that has even better appetite satiating properties.  Spirulina does not have the same type of detoxing in like heavy metal and herbicide and pesticide binding potential as chlorella because it doesn’t have as much indigestible cellulose in its wall but spirulina is about 7% lipids, it’s very, very high in gamma linolenic acid acid along with the EPA and DHA.  So if you’re a vegan or vegetarian and you don’t eat fish and you wanna get some of these good fats for your brain and your nervous systems, spirulina is a really, really great source of that.  It’s also very high in most of the vitamins, most of the minerals and it’s got you know, it’s one of those things that has like this dizzying, laundry list of nutrients that it contains that you know – again, makes it known as this “super food” and it really is…

Brock:  I thought you were saying that it actually makes you dizzy.

Ben:  Just dizzy to read about it.  And it’s also got it in extremely high amount of beta-carotine and extremely high amount of anti-oxidants like I mentioned, really, really high amount of omega 3 fatty acids, and so, it’s got over 40 different vitamins and minerals in it but it’s got by one calorie per serving, one calorie per serving.  So similar to chlorella, a good way to ensure that you’re not producing micro-nutrient deficiencies if you’re on a diet and you’re trying to lose weight but you wanna, get you know, enough vitamins and nutrients and minerals.  No studies have shown that by popping a bunch of spirulina you’re gonna lose weight, but if you are controlling calories from other sources: exercising, engaging in physical activity, doing all the things that are kind of like you know, big glaring objectives when it comes to fat loss, you could use spirulina as something you know, for like a nutrient, vitamin, mineral source in the absence of high amounts of calories.  You could use something like chlorella as a detox or an alternative energy source or even as a way to repair and recover more quickly, you could do one, you could do both – the website I mentioned EnergyBits, they have – their stuff that’s called EnergyBits – that’s spirulina.  They have another product called RecoveryBits and that’s chlorella and again, both are expensive but you wanna make sure either way.  If you’re getting algae, get organic because a lot of it does get dose it it’s not organic with lots of herbicides and pesticides just like any vegetable.  They also tend to put a lot of fillers in the gelatin capsules that you’d normally get algae in and so chewable algae like these bits are a little bit better than getting an algae in its capsule form.  The country of or…

Brock:  You don’t have to chew those, it says you can swallow.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, you can swallow.  Yeah.  The country of origin is also very important – a ton of the suppliers of spirulina in China falsify  their paperwork and make claims about being organic when it’s really not, so I would not get a Chinese – sorry, China – form of algae.

Brock:  We’re picking on China a lot.

Ben:  We’re picking on China a lot.  They can’t get on Twitter, they can’t grow anything except crappy algae – just horrible.  Yeah.  So I mean just like beef though, there’s different grades of spirulina and chlorella and the low quality grades definitely a fewer nutrients, lower concentrations of proteins and sometimes need like 10 to 20 times than the normal amount of an inferior grade of algae to get any good effect. 

[1:25:14.5]

A couple other quick things when it comes to algae, cracked – when I say ‘cracked-cell wall chlorella’ all that means is that they can crack the exterior shell of the chlorella to allow the nutrients to be better absorbed by the body.  They do that using a sound chamber and sound wave vibrations for extraction….

Brock:  What?!

Ben:  …for the chlorella.  Yeah, yeah.

Brock:  That’s crazy!

Ben:  I’m serious, yeah.  That’s how they crack the cell…

Brock:  That’s so cool!

Ben:  of chlorella – that’s like…

Brock:  I have no idea.

Ben:  It’s like this 50 year-old technique, it’s how they crack it in Japan and by the way Japanese chlorella – Hi Japan! – far, far better than Chinese chlorella, so that’s an okay place to get chlorella.  You can crack cell wall chlorella using high amounts of heat but that damages the nutrient content of the chlorella.  So like a sound-based cracked-cell wall chlorella is better.

Brock:  Very cool.

Ben:  And similar to that you don’t want to use heat-dried algae just because air-drying is far less damaging in terms of oxidation; heat drying makes it no longer like a real true raw food and can damage it.  And then just make sure any algae that you get is in some kind of a non-transparent container because just like most the fish oil-based supplement, UV rays, heat, light – stuff like that can really decrease its longevity and cause oxidation.  So EnergyBits website the place where I get it, there is a 10% discount code on that stuff, I don’t remember if the discount code is ‘Ben’ or if it’s ‘Greenfield’.

Brock:  Hmm.

Ben:  So, one of those.  (chuckles) Try them both, just go there and try if ‘Ben’ doesn’t work, try ‘Greenfield’ and they might both work.

Brock:  I can look that up if you keep talking for me.

Ben:  Yeah.  Yeah, okay.  Well, either way, so that’s the skinny on algae, is it – it’s – there’s no studies that show it’s gonna kinda ‘cause you to lose fat but you know, you could use it as a way to have a really good nutrient dense energy source in your diet that might help you to eat fewer calories.  So indirectly could help with fat loss – I’m a big fan.  I use both spirulina and chlorella, I like it – it turns your mouth green but you can rinse that out with water afterwards.  So there you go! Now you know everything you need to know about chlorella and about how crappy the chlorella from China is.  So just thought towards China and really bust one more time while you’re looking that up, Brock.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  So?

Brock:  I can’t find it.

Ben:  Yeah, either way…

Brock:  Sorry folks.

Ben:  it’s either ‘Ben’ or it’s ‘Greenfield’.   Just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/324 and we’ll figure it out and put the link there in the show notes along with everything else.  So that being said, we’ve been going on for a while.  Should we leave?

Brock:  Yeah, this is a long one.

Ben:  Yeah, should we read a review?

Brock:  Probably.

Ben:  Alright. Well if…

Brock:  Oh! But we should do it at two times speed just to…

Ben:  Two times speed.

Brock:  keep everybody on their toes.

Ben:  Let’s do – let’s do it two times speed.  Let’s read a review two times speed.  This is not two times speed, this is just me talking faster than normal.  Living2150 left a 5-star review, the reviews from Aj21207 left on July 12, 2015.  If you leave a review on iTunes and you hear us read your review on iTunes we will send you a handy-dandy gear pack with a tech t-shirt, a BPA-Free water bottle and a beanie.  All you have to do is email [email protected] that’s [email protected], give us your address and your t-shirt size and we’ll mail a handy-dandy dear pack to your house or you could just go and leave an iTunes review out of the goodness of your heart, just spread a good karma and now, Brock, will read our review.   Is that pretty good, two times speed?

Brock:  That was pretty good.  I was convinced, Ben, check this out.

Ben:  I know.  I should read disclaimers for pharmaceutical company.

Brock:  (chuckles) “This is definitely a great podcast – digesting all the aspects of fitness, nutrition world, from hard science to bordering on pseudo which you’ll enjoy entertaining the theories and testing them out.  This podcast has practically everything you need.  Download, listen on two times speed, go to the website, read over the notes and start experimenting on your body.  Trust me, you’ll learn and have fun.”

Ben:  Dude, do not listen to us on two times speed.

Brock:  Yeah, why do you in such a hurry Aj21207?

Ben:  There’s two reasons Aj21207 that you don’t wanna listen to us on two times speed.  Number one, is you just wanna absorb as much of the gold nuggets of goodness that we dished out.  Number two, is that you completely lose our personality when you listen to us in two times speed, that’s why I don’t listen to any podcast on two times speed.  I have a bunch of friends who do.  You lose the personality, you lose the vibe – you just – I don’t like it, frankly.  So don’t listen to us on two times speed, if you want us to talk faster, we can always talk faster.

Brock:  I can’t. I’ve tried.  This is the fast that I can talk.

Ben:  This is about fast that I go.  Yeah.

Brock:  And I prefer to go slower and this is me trying to talk fast.

Ben:  Yeah, now I’m really trying to speed things up here.  I’m really, really, really.

Brock:  Yeah. Yeah.

Ben:  So AJ and all of our listeners, have a – it’s almost like Paul, what’s his name? The old radio announcer?

Brock:  Oh, Paul.  What’s his name?

Ben:  Remember him? A good day!

Brock:  Good day!

Ben:  Wow, why am I forgetting his name? Anyways…

Brock:  Oh, I thought you were kidding.

Ben:  No, do you remember his name?

Brock:  No.  No? Maybe.

Ben: If you remember, leave a comment in the show notes it’s at bengreenfieldfitness.com/324, good day, good day!

Visit bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition, and performance advice.

[1:31:30.9]     END

 

 

July 15, 2015 Podcast: American Ninja Warrior Training Tips, Biohacking Mental Focus, 10K Training And Nutrition Tips, and Does Algae Work For Fat Loss?

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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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.

American Ninja Warrior Training Tips

Trevor says: He has been using your biohacking tips and tricks in his Ninja Warrior training. On of his biggest challenges is to increase his muscle endurance and reduce arm pump during upper body obstacles like the peg board (especially after a bunch of obstacles back to back to back). Do you think the baking soda hack would work to increase his muscle endurance? Do you have any other biohacks he could use?

In my response, I recommend:
-My article on American Ninja Warrior training
ArmAid
–How to use a soup can for forearm massage
Any of these smart drug hacks
-Beta-alanine + creatine (+baking soda?) stack

Biohacking Mental Focus

Craig says: He was a competitive cyclist in college (he is 42 now) and knows how to push himself in physical tasks but he has trouble staying focused and giving himself that same mental push during mental tasks. He follows the “Bulletproof Diet” and uses some supplements that you recommend and also takes adderall (which helps a little but he still has issues). What else can he try?

In my response, I recommend:
-Dual n-Back training
-Creatine (I mention this NaturalStacks stuff)
L-Carnitine
-Krill Oil (I mention this NaturalStacks stuff)
Any of these smart drug hacks

10K Training And Nutrition Tips

Edward says: He is preparing for a 10k (and taking some NatureCBD to deal with some inflammation and aches and pains). He is wondering if there is any reason to run 35-47 miles in a week in preparation for the 10k? Also it is a hilly 10k and is wondering if you would suggest and specific hill sprints to prepare? And finally – how would you, Ben, fuel if you were running a 10k (he is very low carb)?

Does Algae Work For Fat Loss?

Sue says: She is trying out some spirulina, chlorella, algae supplements because she heard they were good for weight loss. Do they actually help you lose weight or is it just that they are so high in protein that it cuts down your appetite? She knows it is good for her and very healthy but she is taking 15 pills at a time. Is this right for her?

In my response, I recommend:
EnergyBits.com (use 10% discount code BEN)

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/07/324-algae-for-fat-loss-biohacking-mental-focus-american-ninja-warrior-training-tips-more/

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