0 (1s):
Hello and welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn. I'm a certified health coach, trainer and author. This podcast is for a middle-aged men and women looking to optimize their health and get their bodies back to what it once was it 10 to 15 years ago, I will give you simple, actionable items to get long-term sustainable results. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. All right, here we are episode number two of the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. And my first official interview, someone who actually interviewed me a few times for his podcast.
0 (47s):
I have Brad Kearns on excited to have you on here.
2 (52s):
Oh my gosh. Bryan, what an honor to be episode number two of the Get Clean Get Clean Eat mean close to Clean Get Lean all of those things and don't those to go together with a rhyme as well as kind of the, the main approach as if you eat Clean. I mean, this is like the latest greatest research. I love Dr. Jason Fung book. Jason Fung is a book, the obesity code talking about, you know, the exercise component, the fitness component doesn't have as much impact as we think on your body composition. And it's mainly about lowering insulin production over time by fasting, of course, and by choosing out of the process carbohydrates and the, the science on the compensation theory is that the calories you burn during exercise are pretty much made up for, by an increase in appetite, in your diet.
2 (1m 47s):
And it doesn't negate anything you're doing in fitness. And I also am a little suspicious of the science saying that exercise has absolutely nothing to do with your body composition, because I have life experience. And so many people where, you know, when you are hitting it hard and doing these, these breakthrough workouts, you can get a benefit in your body composition and take it down from 12% to 90 and a half, which is a huge deal when you're trying to get those incremental gains, but a tool to think about it in terms of just cleaning up your diet is the number one thing you can do. I think that's a good starting point for, for people as well as a podcast title
0 (2m 25s):
Is that you go, there you go. Well, thank you for that. I, you know, I wanted to introduce you before, before we got it and then the content, but that was good. So New York times, best seller author Guinness World Record setting professional Speedgolfer and actually that's how I found out about Brad. He is also a triathlete former triathlete, right? And number three, World ranked professional triathlete. And he's written a bunch of books on died, health peak performance, ancestral living, and it has to get over yourself as well. So also we'll talk a little bit about it, some supplements, and he also has a nut blend that came out as well.
0 (3m 7s):
So a lot, a lot to touch on within the hour or so. I'm excited. Well, why don't we, before we get into all that, why don't we, my question for you is how did you get down this path and that led you into like optimization and peak performance?
2 (3m 26s):
Oh my gosh. I guess I'd have to reference my athletic experience, which started in childhood. I have a, a, a, a funny passage on my website called meet Brad. I figured I should type this thing out and tell people all about my background and what inspired me. So it was kinda fun to, to write that and, and reflect and realize, you know, I was very active and athletic as a kid. All of us were until modern times where now we have kids who were playing with their devices all day, and they're not, you know, running around, outside until it gets dark. And I always want it to be a, you know, a big sports star and dreamed about that. Of course, that was a little guy.
2 (4m 7s):
And when I got to high school, I realized that it wasn't going to happen for me on the basketball or the football team. So I had to do something and I got attracted to the endurance sports long distance running in high school. And luckily I had some great peers around me at that time, Steven dite, Steve , Todd Pearson's and we became buddies and we started to train very seriously in running and we get deep into it and, and became, you know, extreme a runner's and competitors. And I ascended to a pretty good level in high school. I made the national junior Olympics finals. I was ranked I think 12 and the nation as the 16 year old in the mile 1500 meters, I dreamed of going off to college and being a division one, a competitive distance runner.
2 (4m 54s):
And as soon as I got there, I got injured and sick over and over. And, you know, my running career ended with the big whimper. It was really devastating at that time. But luckily I found the sport of triathlon, which was so attractive because you wouldn't get injured, you could go and train and get better in the different sports and not pounds your body, and like the running programs that the collegiate level do even to this day, decades later, they still destroy these poor young athletes. I'm. So, you know, I had this great journey in the sport of triathlon, whereas able to make it as a professional competitor for nine years. And so kind of realizing my dreams not have being on the NFL arena field or the NBA arena, but I was able to be a pro athlete and travel around the world and compete against the best guys and dedicate my heart and soul to training in all of my energy.
2 (5m 44s):
Every single day was just getting up, putting in the work, trying to optimize my lifestyle, right. My diet do what we thought was the best diet back then and get my sleep dialed in and get massage and chiropractic. So I was immersed into this world of healthy living and wellness like we experienced today, but it came from that athletic angle where I was just trying to get the absolute most out of my body. So interestingly, you know, I thought I was a healthy guy. I was sleeping like crazy and doing my stretches and in preparing these nice meals and using all of the supplements, but as, as a, as a professional triathlete and competing at that level and training and traveling so much, I was actually destroying my body from the ages of 20 to 30.
2 (6m 28s):
When I competed on the circuit, that it was just such an extreme training regimen. And so far out of balance from, you know, doing something that's healthy versus pursuing a very narrow fitness competency, which was to go really fast in three sports, swimming, biking, and running. And that's all I was good for basically in life. You know, so if it was a rainy day and I needed to stack sandbags at the old lady neighbor's house to, to prevent her garage from flooding, I'd wake up the next morning, my back was all stiff. You know, I had, no, I had no broad-based fitness competency. I was just to kind of a whip at that. You could turn loose and, and, and go for a long time.
2 (7m 8s):
And so I had to learn the hard way through hormonal imbalances and frequent umm, you know, immune system suppression and things that happened to endurance athletes when they train too hard. That actually what I was doing, wasn't very healthy. And so, you know, continuing that journey, even as I, as I finished my racing career and just trying to live a healthy life, it was kind of nice to recalibrate and realized that, you know, going out there and burning calories, it's just a small portion of what it takes to, you know, be healthy and fit and vibrant. So since that time I've expanded my horizons and pursued other athletic goals, as you know, and I'm sure we'll get into different topics like that.
0 (7m 50s):
Yeah, no, that's a good background. And the one thing I will say from that it's like that people can take is the fact that you really do wanna sort of balance yourself out its, you know, to overtrain like that and I don't need, how many, how many miles you were running? What events did you, what, what have, I know you're a high jumper. What else?
2 (8m 10s):
If you're talking about my triathlon scene, it was mainly competing at Olympic distance, which is a mile swim. Okay. 25 mile bike ride and a six mile run. And so it's an ex it's basically an extreme endurance event, even though we call that a shorter distance from what the iron man is. Right. And I did those long races too, but basically in triathlon, you're out there training for many, many hours a day, building your endurance. And we're also pushing ourselves pretty hard because when you're on the world circuit and racing against the best guys, we're basically going all out from the Ghan. So when you jump on the water and go for a swim, you're not cruising along, you're trying to get into this pack, your sprinting at the start, your getting your position, you get on the bike and you get in your time trial position and you go as hard as you can, 25 miles.
2 (8m 56s):
And then you throw that bike down and, and take off running as fast as you can for 10 K. So it was a very strenuous sport and took a lot out of the body and required a lot of a recovery time and balancing activities. And boy, it's a constant challenge. I think any elite athlete in any sport, right? It's so extreme, right? And the incremental gains are so tough to achieve that. You're challenging your health no matter what. And you know, clearly in the impact sports, these poor guys or taking a beating, but even like a professional soccer player, NBA player, it's a really, really grueling schedule. And so you have to really take good care of your body. And that's something that I've carried forward to today.
2 (9m 38s):
You know, decades later is man, I get my sleep as a top priority and no matter what, and there is nothing that comes before that. And then when you get into these patterns where you have a tendency to overdo it, cause you're a, a goal oriented type, a driven type of person. I got to tone that down and realized, this is not the path to fitness, pushing the hammer at pushing the gas pedal down all the time. So there's a lot of restraint required and a lot of intuition about making the right decisions every day.
0 (10m 7s):
Yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned sleep because on my first podcast I talked about like my top 10 principles and the number one principal that I talked about was making sleep a priority. I think a lot of people just overlook that.
2 (10m 21s):
Yeah. You know, it's funny. It's like we all nod our heads. We all agree with this. We're all highly aware of the importance of sleep. And so it's not like a Brian coming out and saying that a green juice powder is the number three priority and your health because all these beautiful plants, you drink them in and you, you boost your immune function and it's like, wow, what a surprising insight I'm going to have to go try that. You know, everyone nods their head and says, yep, sleep is sleep is so important. But I think when we get down to it, what I see in modern life is like we have a hectic, stressful day. We're working really hard. People are pushing themselves in all different directions.
2 (11m 1s):
You can think of the harried soccer mom carpooling around or the executive who's traveling on a jet and then landing back in his home city and heading back and dealing with kids as soon as he walks in the door or she write. And so we're all juggling all of these things. And then at nighttime we wanna sit back and relax and reconnect with our loved ones and enjoy a show. And some entertainment may be a pint of ice cream or a bowl of popcorn or whatever that, you know, we're finally kind of taking the pressure off in the stress off. And one of those ways to do it is to enjoy that leisure time in the evening and extending into binge watching. When you said you, we're going to watch one show and now your on your third one, but you feel like you deserve it deep down and you don't want to always be in this rigid straight ahead.
2 (11m 47s):
Do what's best for you at all times. And so we make this trade off in our minds that we deserve to have little evening enjoyment time. And that it means extending the bedtime, passed that natural time when we might get tired of we weren't stimulated by the screen. And so boy, you know, it's a constant balance cause I want people to enjoy their life. We hear plenty of people standing up and telling you what to do all day, pointing their fingers while they're doing it. And you're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. So we have to kind of approach these topics gracefully and realize that, you know, we, we, we want to enjoy our lives. We want to have some fun, we don't want to be rigid and strict in these things that aren't sustainable, but somewhere there's gotta be a little give and take where, you know, you, you can kind of have a watch alarm or a phone alarm going off at 10 30.
2 (12m 41s):
And that's really the point where you want to get into the bedroom and start, you know, preparing for preparing for sleep and put some hard and fast rules in place to say, Hey, anything from, you know, 7:30 PM. When I get the little kid down to 10 30 is my free time and I can enjoy it how I want, but you know, have some to have some rules in place so that you can be accountable to yourself rather than, you know, being subjected to free choice and distraction every single day.
0 (13m 10s):
Yeah. I mean just the S the basic principle of just going to bed around the same time every night can make a real big difference and then getting up at the same time as well. I actually, I know that you're a big morning ritual guy I'm as well. What's I know you do a chest freezer, a some cold therapy, so maybe we'll shift to like a more, what's a good what's your morning ritual and, ah, you know, or maybe a few things that you liked from it.
2 (13m 39s):
Yeah. Thanks for asking. And I have to say it to the listener that I'm not a strict and regimented guy. I'm not one of those scheduled guys. I don't have a, a, a, a commute or a job or a place to be at the exact time. You know, I'm an entrepreneur. I can make my own schedule and it's very flexible. So coming from that position, it has been an incredible revelation for me to put this morning routine into place. And I've done something every single day for the last four years. And it's, I call it my morning, flexibility, mobility, a fitness routine, or you can see down on YouTube, I just published a new video of Brad Kearns morning routine.
2 (14m 21s):
You'll find it the 2020 version, because I've adapted the routine overtime. I have a video that has been on their for a few years, but what I decided to do was do something every single morning that would kind of elevate my fitness base for these difficult workouts that I did a maybe once a week, my sprint workout, my high jump workout, which is really strenuous. And I'd always come out the next day from these, these workouts, and that'd be stiff and sore and aching, and it will take a few days to unwind and kind of recover. And I thought, you know, all I do is these moderate workouts during the week. And then I go do this super difficult sprint workout, and I'm not really well adapted to it because I haven't challenged my muscles in that way, except for when I do these hard workouts.
2 (15m 5s):
So I thought if I do something that's kind of challenging every morning and strengthen my core and work on balance and agility and flexibility, then when I go do these workouts, I'll launch from a higher platform and it really worked out well. So the work, the workout you see me demonstrating on YouTube is my custom designed specifically for sprinting and jumping. So it includes like hamstring flexibility and hip flexors and work in that core so that your lower back is not traumatized when your doing explosive work. And you know, it's not, it's not too difficult for me. It's very sustainable. It doesn't take too long, or I feel stressed and encumbered, and it's setting me back because it takes an hour and 20 minutes every morning, you know?
2 (15m 52s):
So I think that's a big point that like, whatever you're doing, make sure that it's really, really doable and easy to fit into your schedule. So at first I made this routine a, what I call it my five minute, a leg movement routine. And I thought it was five minutes because it was so easy to do. And I got accustomed to it over months of time, but it was actually 12 minutes. We filmed it for YouTube, the first one. And I'm like, wow, it took 12 minutes, not five, but I thought it was five, but 12 is not a huge commitment for anybody. I think anybody listening can go, Oh, sure. I can do something for 12 minutes every morning before I go and reach for my phone, like 84% of Americans, that's the first thing they do. And it's a really bad thing for the brain to reach for that device that puts you into reactive brain mode rather than high level strategic thinking and reflection mode, which is what we want to tap into in the morning to kind of plan our day and get some insights and all that.
2 (16m 46s):
So what I've done over time is this routine has been locked into the habit, right? If I did it for John Astra, it says it takes 55 days to 365 days to build a habit. OK. The research, you know, if I do something every day for a couple months, then I'm kind of feeling excited. I got to St going, it's important to me. I can count on myself. I feel good after doing it. So after awhile, what I did was I'd start to add a little challenges and make the routine a little more difficult and longer in duration. And today my morning routine is a minimum of 35 minutes. And I often add stuff on after that because I'm sweating and I'm pumped up and I'm in the mode.
2 (17m 29s):
Then I can go do some deadlifts or some pull-ups or something that actually counts as kind of a form of workout.
0 (17m 36s):
So it just to add on to that, do you, when do you do the cold therapy? Is that accurate?
2 (17m 44s):
And I finish up this morning, a movement routine, right? And I'm a little warm, which is kinda nice because then my next move is to jump into the chest freezer. And I know that probably sounds extreme to a lot of people. And I think cold therapy is something that can benefit everyone. And again, you can do it with these baby steps, so it's not something crazy. And it's not something that you heard from some podcasts guy that immerses his body into the cold icy water. But, you know, someday maybe you can dream of progressing up to that point. 'cause the benefits are, are profound. And the science is a tremendously supportive with a lot of great research showing that even a brief cold exposure can have a huge hormonal boost to being like a natural wake-up call.
2 (18m 31s):
That's better than coffee. There's research out of Finland that as little as a 22nd immersion into 40 degree Fahrenheit water can result in a boost to the prominent focusing motivation hormone of nor epinephrin a boost of 200 to 300% over baseline lasting for an hour. And I think anyone can reference, you know, if you go jump into Lake Michigan on new year's day on the polar bear plunge, and you, you jump in and you get out on the beach, you feel alive and invigorated right away, or even just a short burst into the river or the ocean or whatever you're doing. And so the easy way to get started with something like this would be to turn the shower handle too cold for as little as 30 seconds, and just feel that invigorating sensation a, of a cold exposure.
2 (19m 22s):
That's therapeutic. It's not strenuous. It's not painful. It's not torture is, you know, you can watch me on YouTube getting into my chest freezer where the water is cooled down to 38 all the time. And I go in there and I do my deep breathing practice and I've built up now my tolerance to, or I can last for several minutes, five to six minutes, but I'm not shivering and suffering and torture is in there and compromising my health. I'm feeling comfortable and under control at all times.
0 (19m 51s):
Yeah. I mean, this is something that I've gotten into, whether it's filling up the tub, jumping in a cold pool, or even just doing the showers. I think it's a shame. I think if you've never done it, I think just like take your normal shower and then last 15 seconds, just put it on cold and then just breathe deep, breathe, deep breath, and then just work your way up. And then maybe next time, 20 seconds and 30 seconds until it just, you just sort of like anything else that you just build up your tolerance for it. And it really is a great way to start the day I started doing, like you almost mentioned, I like to do them actually after workouts. I think it's just, you know, it's just a great way to just finish everything off.
0 (20m 34s):
If you could jump in a, a chest freezer or a tub after a workout. And then also, you know, it's a lot cheaper than a crowd therapy, even though CRA crowd therapy does have of benefits. And I've done both. I will say I probably enjoyed the plunging a little bit more. Can't really explain why maybe it's just that the breathing and the, the fact that you are in water. Yeah.
2 (21m 2s):
It's, it's something special. It's known that the, the greatest protection from EMF is emersed in a body of water. So you got that going for you. Right. But I also liked to do my cold exposure and Lake Tahoe or in the season, which is, you know, we're recording this in November. So for the next six months, the Lake will count as cold therapy and the summer it's not cold enough for me to count it. So I make it a swim. And by the time I'm swimming for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, I'm getting a little chilly and the water in the mid sixties. But when you can get that, you know, brief emersion and cold conducts it, it dissipates a body heat 25 times faster than air.
2 (21m 45s):
So that's why the cryotherapy chamber is it has to be like minus 200 and something degrees, but the way the water is a much more efficient for something like this cold exposure. And again, you're not trying to put yourself into a discomfort or into distress. You're just getting a therapeutic exposure to cold and your body responds with this tremendous hormonal. It's a called a hormetic stressor in this kind of a thing that we're missing out on these days in modern life, because we're, everything is so comfortable and convenient. And, you know, fasting is a, is another hormetic stressor where you're putting your body under the stress of starving your cells of energy, forcing them to, you know, manufacture or a gain energy internally through burning body fat or making ketones a high intensity workout is also another form of stress that gives a positive net benefit.
2 (22m 40s):
And so that's what the, the cold exposure category qualifies as well, same with Sana and the benefits of doing a hot therapy and cold therapy are quite similar. You might have heard of these heat shock proteins. They talk about when you get in the sauna and it has all these immune boosting, cognitive boosting fat burning benefits. And the same thing happens when you're exposing to cold. I actually have the chest freezer and I have a portable sauna in my yard, so I can do both. And for some reason, people that come over, they want to do the sauna more so than jumping in a cold tub. I don't know why, cause they're both really health, health boosting, but it's also kind of fun to do back and forth contrast therapy, they call it.
2 (23m 20s):
And just what you're doing is putting your body under, you know, a mild and short duration form of stress. And that's where you get the positive health benefits. So if I were to try to sit in the cold tub for an hour, they would probably have to pull me out and take me to the emergency room. Right? So it's stupid to, to do things that are extreme and too stressful, same as sitting in the sauna for too long. But you're kind of finding that sweet spot where your putting the body under bit of stress and the body responds just like lifting a weight or sprinting or anything else.
0 (23m 51s):
Yeah. And you know, all the things that we're talking about are like, they're pretty simple to do and a sense, right? These are just easy things that we talk. Well, we talk about sleep. I mean, obviously some people do struggle with sleep and there's obviously ways to go about helping get better sleep. And one of them is perhaps like turning off devices and in meditation and reading and things like that. But you know, we're talking about sleep cold therapy. You know, these are things, obviously not, everyone's going to have a sauna in their house, but the cold therapy is one there's really no excuse. I mean, it's not hard to make the shower cold. And then even just moving like a car, getting up and going for a walk.
0 (24m 35s):
And I know you just did a podcast regarding CGMs, which is actually interesting because I got that one. Yeah. I got it from that from neutral sense of the CGM. I just started yesterday. So it just getting acclimated to it's, it's, it's getting acclimated to me and I'm getting acclimated into it, how to use it. But it's a cool device with, with feedback that you would get to know that you wouldn't get for many things, just if people don't know what the CGM is, a continuous glucose monitor and, you know, Brad, you just interviewed, what was her name is Kara.
2 (25m 12s):
Yeah. Cara Collyer. And I also interviewed a doctor. Casey means they work for two different companies that are promoting the similar technology and apps that allow you to track your glucose in real-time. It's a fantastic invention. I think one of the great, you know, biofeedback tools you can access these days, especially to promote behavior modification, to see the impact of getting off your butt after dinner and walking around the block and noticing your glucose drop. It's pretty cool.
0 (25m 41s):
Yeah. No, I'm, I'm noticing that. I got it just to try for two weeks. I mean, I'm a pretty healthy eater and faster and do a lot of good things, but, you know, I figured it never hurts to get feedback, see how different foods impact me, because I can sort of feel it sometimes I'll have something and then, you know, you can just feel like, well, like their, their wet my energy, but, but now you can see it with you, you know, with the data that that's giving you feedback right away.
2 (26m 8s):
Yeah. And I hesitate to get too deep into this, a World of biofeedback and biohacking cause I'm an old school guy. Right? My, my training and my, my time in the triathlon world was before all of this technology of wattage metres and all of this kind of, you know, pricking your finger and looking at your ketones and these things are strange. And in modern to me, I was going back to, you know, training by how you feel I'm using your intuitive, a decision-making skills. Ah, you know, when the technology is available, I think it's good to use that going hand in hand with your intuition and your life experience and making sensible decisions.
2 (26m 51s):
So I think there's a place for technology, but we definitely don't want to go overboard. And I think a lot of people become a obsessed or a overly reliant upon devices and things like that. The GPS tracking how many miles they've ran rather than doing things where, you know, he might be able to adjust your workouts depending on the whims of your mood and your energy level on a certain day, rather than kind of being the slave to technology because everything's being measured and judge that way.
0 (27m 24s):
Yeah, no, I agree that it is about the, it is about balance and, and you gotta go with your intuition. Umm, you know, another thing that I'm big into is also fitness. And I will say I just turned 40 this past year and you know, I've been lifting for like 20 years in having issues now with my upper body and my elbow. And I went with w with the whole quarantine or, you know, since I was working out at home a lot, I got, I got into bands, resistance training bands, and I know you've interviewed, you know, a Dr. John with and yeah, I've been been using that and, and I'm not saying you necessarily have to use his system, but I, I will say I'm, I'm able now to do things with resistance bands, just because of the fact that my joints aren't under so much strain and I know that you interviewed him, what was the biggest takeaway you got from that?
2 (28m 23s):
Yeah, that's an interesting concept because I'm trying hard to do my strength training of Simon's and put my body under a resistance load regularly. Right. Especially to preserve that bone density and that muscle power as we age. And also because I have goals then the explosive sports of sprinting and high jumping, but what I've found over the years is when I go and do my deadlifts or whatever, I'm trying to do a maybe I'm not super consistent and then I'll be sore for two or three days after the session. And so frustrating because that interferes with my primary goal, which is to go do the actual workouts in the sports where I have the main goals.
2 (29m 5s):
And so it's like, I know I have to stay strong, but I hate getting sore and beat up from the heavy weights. And so when you do the resistance bands, you are able to alleviate those East centric, contractions that are the cause of muscle soreness, right? It's lowering the weight down to the ground is what causes the muscle soreness, just like running downhill and having that impact of your, your, your leg muscle contracting. Essentially that means kind of like hitting the ground of absorbing the impact and contracting at the same time. And so when you're using a band, you're stretching the band and that's resistance, that's the power. And then when you release the band, you don't have that same propensity to damage the muscle.
2 (29m 49s):
And, Oh my gosh, I'm sure you can line up fitness guests and talk for the next three years about the different philosophies and the strategies and the opinions. And everybody's a everyone's wrong except me. And this is the only way to go. And I'm I'm of the belief that like, if you can go in to the gym or your home trim and get some work done, you get a thumbs up in a five star or in your journal. And I don't care what modality you use as long as you enjoy it and its safe and all that. So safety is a big one to me. And that's where the using a band is clearly more safe than having a heavy, heavy bar that you might misuse or, or, you know, put a certain joint under load because you didn't have perfect technique or you fatigued or whatever.
2 (30m 31s):
And so, yeah, I think it's great to open up the game of resistance training to more people than a, the big shots and the gym. And I was still, man, I walk in to the gym and I see the big guys throwing around the weight since like I have a fair amount of competency. I can go over there and do it. But its sort of this intimidating thing where, you know, giant muscles are walking around. I can't imagine like a, a, a female who's a novice and the strength training scene or you know, some young kid who wants to get bigger for high school sports mixing in with the big shots. But if you go and get yourself a, you mentioned the X three bar, or you can get these inexpensive items like the, I used stretch cords that, or just a hanging set of a surgical tubing, stretchy tubing with handles on the end, you can work your body fantastically super safe.
2 (31m 21s):
It's adaptable to any fitness level because you're pulling your own resistance in your stretching, a a, a, a band and boy, there is no, there's no more barrier of entry because you don't think your you're knowledgeable enough or skilled enough to go mix it up with the, with the big shots at the gym.
0 (31m 40s):
Yeah. And I think like I've noticed with myself as, as I've gotten older, like it, yeah. You want to maintain that fitness level and stay strong and build muscle, but you also don't want to get hurt and be out for a few days. You know, I used to have some hip issues and yeah, no, I mean doing the deadlifts with the band's even in the chest press and actually not, and hitting it really hard and I've put on muscle and I'm not sore. Like I'm not, I always thought you needed to be like sore for like days. And then it's like one of these old school myths that you need to be sore for days to build muscle.
2 (32m 16s):
Yeah. I mean, it's not, old-school, it's a new school also and we still believe this and its so erroneous and finally the message is really getting out. I think we're witnessing a transformation in the fitness industry away from this, a flawed, no pain, no gain mentality that we've always subscribed to. And now the great experts Dr. Craig marker. One of the guys I really follow and respect. Ah, you can see his articles@breakingmuscle.com a he, he has this, this transformative article that's called hit versus hurt. And talking about the, the, the common, a strategy of high intensity interval training, H I I T and his take on that is called hurt, high intensity repeat training.
2 (33m 2s):
And so instead of an interval workout, which by definition is exhausting and draining and fatiguing because you're trying to hit the same performance over and over with the rest interval. That's not quite enough to get you fully recovered. And so if you're going into your spin class in there, you're asked to do six times, three minutes of fast pedaling with a 32nd recovery, or, you know, sprinting for 30 seconds on 30 seconds off for 10 minutes. By the time you get to the seventh or eighth of the ninth minute you're body is under duress. You're fatiguing yourself. You're breaking down the cellular components to fuel this fire, to continue to output again and again with insufficient rest.
2 (33m 45s):
And so if you kind of transition that to a high intensity repeat training, article a workout, what you're going to do is you're going to perform and explosive effort and then rests for a long enough period of time to where the next one and the next one. And the next one is of consistent quality to the first one. So it's not any more difficult. You don't have to dig deeper till your puking on the side of the running track or leaning over your handlebars, exhausted and dripping with sweat. What you're doing is you're teaching your body to perform explosive efforts, but with less stress and break down and recovery time necessary from the typical workout that we're used to, where we're pushing and pushing and trying to make these difficult intervals.
2 (34m 32s):
And it's been a great a revelation to me because I'm working on sprinting. I want to be competent. I don't want to be walking around sore and stiff for four days after. So if I take longer rest periods between my sprints and I sprint for a little bit shorter duration to the point where I'm not really feeling that strain and that muscle tension, if I were to extend beyond, let's say a 10 to 20 seconds is what Dr. Marka calls the sweet spot. But if you want to go sprint for 30 or 40 seconds or a minute and a half, like we're accustomed to doing with rowing or, or, or, or, or bicycling or people out there doing intervals with the running club, that's when you engage in that cellular breakdown and that extreme fatigue that causes a lot of rebuilding time.
2 (35m 17s):
And if you're constantly in rebuilding mode, like you described with muscle soreness, studies are now validating that the protein synthesis that occurs after a workout, if your muscles are sore, that protein synthesis is going to repair the muscle tissue, not to build it or not to make it stronger, but to repair the damage first a priority, obviously before you can start to work on fitness and, you know, improving your fitness first, you got to repair the damage. So when you become sore after a workout, that's actually a sign that you screwed up in some way, shape or form. And you want to go back and figure out a better strategy so that you're not sore.
2 (35m 57s):
Yeah, you can be tired or your muscles can feel not as strong the next day because you really pushed it. But soreness is a sign of damage. And I've been dealing, fighting this my whole life and being one way or another, saw it after this or that workout. And I think now the elite athletes are finally discovering that this is not how it has to be, that you can perform well within yourself at almost every single workout that you do. And that way you're allowed to build and build and build your fitness without the interruption that comes from breakdown. And of course, leading to burnout, illness and injury, eventually that so many fitness enthusiasts can relate to at all levels, not just the elite people that are pushing it really hard, like I described, but people that go into the gym, you know, from being in the training seat and these poor people that are well-intentioned, they go in there on January 1st, they buy their 12 pack of workouts with the trainer.
2 (36m 50s):
And then by April fool's day, they'd given up because it's too difficult.
0 (36m 54s):
Right. Yeah. And then it just scares people. Right. It scares people away. And yeah, I mean, for the longest time, I mean, a lot of people, including myself, thought that all you have to be sore, break the muscle down. And it's like, you know, then I started getting into like the X three and resistance training through bands and I'm like, wow, I'm putting on muscle and I'm hitting it hard. Like I know he says one set. I, I do a few more. I dunno. I just, maybe it's my old school thing is like, I don't want to say I need more in 10 minutes. Right? Like, so I'm there, I'm usually, it usually takes me 40 minutes to get through, but I warm up, you know, this is with a warm up and stuff cause I enjoy it.
0 (37m 34s):
And I'd rather be in there more than 10 minutes, I guess if I'm in a hurry. Yes. But either way, I'm hitting it hard for a few sets. Like till I can't even, you know, the fatigue is beyond me and I'm fine. The next day I'm actually working out every day. I, I, you know, I do take that maybe one day off, but I'm just sort of in my, doing my own routine in a sense of doing lower body one day upper body the next day, and I'm just keep rotating back and forth. And anyways, it's been did for me, you know, like a revelation as far as building muscle and just like being able to do it and not be sore.
2 (38m 12s):
Right. And same with all the endurance sports that the cardio sports, we talked so much about the maximum aerobic heart rate when it comes to training for a 10 K half marathon and ultra a triathlon. And this cutoff point where if you exceed this maximum aerobic heart rate, you are making workout. That's more stressful, more emphasizing glucose rather than fat-burning and kind of defeating the purpose. If your goal was to build endurance. And we see so many people out there training devotedly for the Chicago marathon, I'm going to do it with my buddy. We're working hard, we're working, we're increasing our mileage from a 10 mile or to a 14 miler.
2 (38m 52s):
But when the pace is slightly too difficult, again, it's not torturous where you can't breathe and what not, but most people are exercising beyond this defined maximum aerobic heart rate. So the point where they're no longer optimizing their fat burning capabilities, which is the essence of endurance, and instead, they're just getting, they're getting competent at a mediocre performance where they can hold a slightly strenuous pace, but they're not building their robot capacity over time. And so the secret is, and this is right on the cover of Marxists. And in my book called Primal endurance, it says slow down to race faster. And it's a literal truth that if you slow down and allow your body to increase its fat burning capabilities with slow pace workouts that are emphasizing fat-burning and minimizing glucose burning, you will get stronger and stronger and stronger such that the same pace per mile.
2 (39m 48s):
If we're talking about improving over time, you go out there and run nine minute miles. Pretty soon you can run faster at the same heart rate. And so you become more efficient aerobically. And this is how all of the elite athletes and all of the major endurance sports have trained for the past 60 years, but it's been totally ignored by the recreational enthusiasts because they want to feel like they're getting a workout and feel that sense of exertion by escalating their pace up to where it's slightly difficult, rather than steady and under control and comfortable. So if you look at a tour de France cyclists or an Olympic marathon runner, most of their workouts are extremely comfortable and they're well within themselves.
2 (40m 30s):
They can talk to their friend next to them. They can come home and a rake the leaves and make a meal. They're not collapsed out on the couch. That's a complete myth that this training has to be so tortures and grueling. Ah, you know, and even in the, in the high intensity sports too, like a, a, a competing power lifter or explosive a performer or in whatever sport, you know, they're doing their workouts. They're well within themselves, they're already at a high fitness level, of course, but they come home and they feel fine and they feel comfortable and energetic. And it's not just this, this torture and suffer fast that we've been socialized to think is the way to train.
0 (41m 10s):
Yeah, I completely agree. And I'm, I'm on board with that. So, I mean, let's talk about a couple of things, optimizing testosterone. I know that you partnered with Ancestral Supplement, which I actually started taking some of their form of relations. And then now I am taking Mofo, which I have right here. There we are.
2 (41m 36s):
All right. You gotta call it. Yeah.
0 (41m 40s):
So I've gotten, I will say this I've gone from I pescatarian. And then when the quarantine hit, I just felt like, you know, I started listening to it a little bit more about, you know, some, a little bit more regarding like carnivore and, you know, I'm a big animal lover, but when I realized that there's ways to consume animals that has done in a responsible way in places that treat their animals humanely and all, you know, with regenerative farming and which is, you know, a good for the environment. So it made me realize that, you know what, I can do this in a responsible way.
0 (42m 23s):
And Bennett fit a lot of people, including myself, who I felt like I was not getting adequate protein and the more I research and read and listen, ah, how important that is, especially for how active I am. It's been a game changer. And like people, I would post videos over quarantine and they're like, God, you look like you've gotten bigger. And I was like, I really haven't changed that much. I mean, yes. Now I've gotten more to the resistance training I have put on muscle, I've gotten thicker, but I really have to say it's a lot of it's truly because I've gotten into more of an animal based approach, but done a responsibly. So anyways, nose to tail is, is a good way is, is, you know, a great way to go.
0 (43m 8s):
I think, and if you, if you don't want to have liver and heart and kidney eat that or grill that, or however you want to prepare that there's a lot of blends out there. And now to which I do buy some, some from different places where you can get a blended, you can go, you know, something like this route, which is, I know Brad partner with ancestral and came out with this MOFO optimization formula.
2 (43m 34s):
Yeah. That I think that's really nice topic to discuss diet is so controversial now. And there's, you know, camps that believe this in another camp that believes something entirely different and they both have science to support it. But we do have to recognize that the, the evolutionary model, right, the, the, the scientific study of to, and a half a million years of what humans evolved on a lens, a lot of support to the idea that we should be consuming the most nutrient dense foods on earth, which happened to be the animal foods. And more specifically, the animal Oregon's have the highest scores, liver foods like oily, cold water, fish, and oysters, and a wild caught salmon and sardines and grass fed steak, a meet on the bone cuts on the bone that have the, the, the special agents.
2 (44m 23s):
And so it kind of puts eating an, a, a new light, you know, pastured, eggs, all of these things. We have a carnival, a ranking chart that we're coming with. We're going to publish where people can see these tears have the most nutritious foods and try to emphasize those in the diet. But essentially, you know, we got to go for a maximum nutrition when we're choosing our meals, and that will make us feel satisfied. So he won't eat in excess of the junk, the nutrient deficient foods, like the, the bottle of Pringles where you can't eat just one, because there's no nutritional value. And so your body continues. You're brain tells you to, Eat more and more to get something of substance out of there. And there's nothing same with all the junk food and the getting hooked on a sweetened beverages.
2 (45m 6s):
So, yeah, I'm big on this, a nose to tail carnivore a movement. It really makes a lot of sense. A lot of people are finding amazing healing stories when they restrict these plant toxins. That's not, I'm not one of those people, so I have no problem eating salads, my whole life and all that kind of thing. But I have transitioned over to emphasizing the most nutrient dense foods like the nose to tail and the organ meats and engaging in more fasting and periods of time where it can get good at burning body fat and making my own antioxidants internally, rather than worrying about going to the juice bar and pumping down a bunch of sugar in the name of getting antioxidants. A bit that point you make about the suggestion to Eat a lot of liver, heart, kidney, and all of these great things.
2 (45m 53s):
It's pretty tough to execute and to find natural sources of these items, because you know, something like liver oftentimes called the most nutrient dense food available on the planet. If you have a, you know, a conventional source where the animal was raised with hormones, pesticides, antibiotics, have a lot of those toxins are going to concentrate in the liver tissue, just like the nutrients do. So you got to find that grassfed naturally raised animal. And if you're not really pleasant with those tastes, you're not apt to grill heart over on the weekend when your buddies come over. Yeah. The supplements are a great category to consider.
2 (46m 33s):
And I think it's really helpful for a lot of people to kind of shore up deficiencies in that super food consumption. So we came out with this product mail optimization formula with Oregon's called MOFO and specifically designed to help naturally boost internal testosterone production. So we have two kind of parameters here, and people have heard about the anti-aging therapies, where you're taking something from outside the body exogenous testosterone, right? And once you go down that slippery slope into anti-aging medicine, your body kind of shuts down on its own natural production, and it will become reliant on a drug regimen. And so I would look at that as the last resort, after I've exhausted all manner of lifestyle possibilities to boost testosterone naturally.
2 (47m 20s):
And one of those and may be one of the best ones is to get these, these animal organ meats, especially the formulation that we made, which has the specific proteins peptides, enzymes co-factors and molecular bio directors that trigger internal testosterone production. This is the concept of like supports, like because in the formula is freeze dried, bovine, testicle, and prostate, and parts of the, a male reproductive system. And so it is sending these chemical triggers to help you make more testosterone. So that's kind of the product pitch. I'm really excited about it, but we also realize that coming out with this product, you can't just take a, some pills, even if they are potent and powerful and expect to have results.
2 (48m 3s):
So I created this Mofo Mission, which is doing all the lifestyle factors that will help you naturally boost testosterone so that when you take this Supplement, you can really experience the benefits because you are sleeping really well. You've cut the junk food out of your diet, your doing the proper amount of explosive high intensity exercise. You are not ignoring it, but nor are you overdoing it either. So you're finding the sweet spot with fitness, with daily movement, getting up and moving around a lot, not just doing an awesome workout and then having 23 hours a day where you're mostly sitting around. So it's kind of fun to promote this Mofo Mission and actually listeners can go get a free ebook that has tremendous detail on how to master these 10 assignments that we call them of the Mofo Mission it's called becoming a modern day Mofo.
2 (48m 53s):
If you go to Brad Kearns dot com, you can click on this link that says Mofo and you are often running a, doing everything you need to do to optimize your own, you know, natural hormonal profile. And of course, you know, what did you just turn 40 man. That's when the big, the big numbers start hitting up. And that's when you start having to further examine your decisions where you can get away with a lot of stuff prior to 40, once we get past 40, Oh my gosh, the research has pretty scary that the, the average male testosterone level is declining at a rate of around 1% a year, dating back to the 1980s. So our fathers and our grandfather's of, of past Times had much more testosterone than we do, mainly because we're getting slammed these days with all of these modern triggers, such as electromagnetic fields, the constant hyper-connectivity, that's reducing our potential for rest and recovery and downtime, not just sleeping at night, but just having downtime to, to relax the body and the brain and regenerate naturally, and optimize our hormonal pathways and profiles that are just basically getting trashed by too much stress these days.
0 (50m 7s):
Yeah. You hit a lot there. And I think that,
2 (50m 10s):
That's what I do, man. I go on a rant. The timer is clicking. You're feeling your brain with the information and then back to Brian in the studio.
0 (50m 19s):
Yeah, no, I mean, we've had a lot of a lot and you, you have an answer to the question where people can find U which is Brad Kearns dot com that Mofo Mission is really cool. I've read through that. I mean, just following something like that can just give you a guideline on an S on, you know, on a daily basis. We, we won't get on the golf. I could talk for golf or, you know, you probably have another hour conversation on golf, but I wanted to ask you just to sort of sum it up since we, you know, we're talking about middle-age and I know as you, you know, and we all know his, you get older, you got, you know, when you gotta sort of step it up even more, and we've talked a lot of ways to do that through sleep through cold therapy, hot heat therapy, through a good morning routine, even with the CGM to monitor your, your glucose throughout the day micro workouts.
0 (51m 9s):
But what would you say? I know this is a tough one and you might've already, probably already said, but what what's one tip. You'd give someone, you know, if they're not to say that they just turned 40 and they wanted to sort of Get get their body back in their minds back to what it once was, what, what would you tell them?
2 (51m 25s):
Oh, that's a nice question. And one thing I'm noticing today with this incredible access to information is we can fill our brains with so much a suggestion and knowledge and inspiration. When you get the excited podcast, guests telling you how great it is to jump on the chest freezer. But then I feel like personally, since I live in breathe this stuff, especially, it's very, very easy to get overwhelmed. And even to the point of feeling discouraged, because you're not quite as bad ass as the person you just listen to on the podcast or the guy on the cover of the book, telling you his 17 tips to making a million zillion dollars and having a six pack and living the dream on the private jet.
2 (52m 13s):
And so I think it's really, really important to filter out all this, all this content and, you know, become resilient against any of the negativity or overwhelm that it causes. I mean, social media and the studies are showing that it causes this disease state called FOMO, a, a good friend of mine and podcast guests, Dr. Ron seen ha he takes care of the affluent population in California, Silicon Valley. Those are the most wealthiest worker's on the planet, arguably with their average incomes out of the roof. And, you know, a very high cost of living too. But these people suffer from an epidemic of FOMO because there's so much wealth around them that even making a healthy six figure income is not enough compared to the neighbor that just cashed in millions of dollars of stock options and is coming home with new cars and a bigger house and all of this stuff.
2 (53m 5s):
So we're in this world where we're, we're constantly vulnerable to feeling like crap and feeling like we're not enough and giving up and getting discouraged. So to finally answer your question, I think it's all about these little baby steps where you can have little wins and little successes. And if you're watching on video, Brian's nodding his head because I know being in the training scene and working with clients, you have to get those people feeling successful and feeling like they're under control, and they can do it rather than stretching their limit all the time and right at the risk of giving up and falling apart. So when I mentioned that morning routine and I made this resolve back in early 2017 to spend five minutes before I got out of bed, I actually did.
2 (53m 52s):
The exercise is in bed before I realized that like anything you're doing for your core, if you're on a mattress as twice as easy as it is on the ground. So now I jump out and head outside, I get cold exposure and I'm on the ground doing my, my mat work. But if it's really short and you can nod your head and say, Oh, of course I can do five minutes. That's when we're looking at a really good predictability of success and sustainability, rather than saying, Hey, just go in and a jump on the chest freezer for six minutes every day, and then do an hour of stretching after and you'll feel great. All right. Thanks a lot. If you too, because I got to little kids screaming, I got to catch the train at a certain time, and I got to be on my butt in the chair for hours and hours after that.
2 (54m 34s):
So if we can just tip toe in that direction and feel like we're under control, that's when you can make big changes, because guess what happens when you have a little bit of success tip toeing in that direction, it starts to build, it starts to become habit and you start to escalate your commitment and your enjoyment and appreciation of going to sleep on time, being healthy, eating the right foods, all that stuff.
0 (54m 58s):
Yeah, no, that was great. And I, I agree. I and, and, you know, as far as fasting is a concern, that's the same thing. You know, you could look at a lot of things like cold exposure, just a little bit at a time, started a low, you know, with fasting may be push back breakfast an hour or half an hour. And then once you do that for a few days, I'm like, Oh, this is not a big deal. You know, that's how I got into it. Or that I just slowly push back and get ahead the little wins, little wins, and then realize, Oh, it's noon. Wow. It's not that big of a deal. I just, you know, I'm so used to eating breakfast, but now I don't even think about it. But again, like you said, it takes time, you know, it's not about, you know, I think people get burned out. They try to do everything all at once and quickly, and then, then it ends up backfiring.
0 (55m 43s):
So yeah, this was, yeah, go ahead.
2 (55m 45s):
Well said, I like that a good example of fasting and, you know, guess what it's okay to be a little bit uncomfortable once in a while. So if you're a little hungry at 10 15, you can probably make it till 11:00 AM not to suffer and torture yourself every day. But we got a test ourselves and challenge ourselves, and that's what the turning the handle too cold water for the last minute is all about is like, give yourself a little bit of healthy, positive stressor, and you become a stronger, more resilient, more focused, more disciplined person overall.
0 (56m 17s):
I completely agree. And Brad, I wanted to just thank you for coming on and my first official interview and you were a great lots of great tips on this first one.
2 (56m 29s):
Eat Clean Get Lean people. Thank you so much. Brian good luck with your show. 'em I'm so glad your you launch this thing and I think you're going to help a lot of people
0 (56m 40s):
Thanks so much. And yeah, I will talk to you down the line. Thanks for listening to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcasts. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there, and you've chosen to listen to mine. And I appreciate that. Check out the show notes at Brian Gryn dot com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it wants was thanks again, and have a great day.
