Welcome back!
In this week's episode, Scott and I talk about getting injured during training. What should you do in the short, medium, and long term to get back and be better than ever! Hint: Injuries are a blessing in diguise!
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See you next time!
If you are serious about optimizing your health and longevity, hydration should be toward the top of your list of priorities. However, it’s not well known about what “hydrated” really is or how to achieve it. Dr. Andy Galpin, (Professor at CSU Fullerton, PhD Human Bioenergetics, Muscle Physiology) has a wealth of knowledge on hydration with professional and recreational athletes and shared it in a recent lecture he released on Youtube. This two hour lecture covers everything you would ever want to know about hydration, and here are my three takeaways from the lecture for the ageless athlete:
Consume 1/2 your bodyweight in fluid per day-How much water should you be drinking each day (outside of training)? Take your bodyweight in pounds and divide it by two and consume that much in ounces (eg. 180lbs/2=90 ounces fluid). Fluid should be mostly water.
During exercise, drink 4-6 ounces of fluid every 15 minutes-Andy suggests that we should replenish fluids as we exercise, as dehydration creates suboptimal performance. Sweat is a not just water, as we sweat out electrolytes as well as water. These electrolytes are composed of sodium, chloride, potassium, and magnesium (in addition to glucose). The amount of electrolytes should be customized per individual and can be measured using a number of at home tests.
Weigh yourself before and after your workouts to optimize hydration-Strip down and weigh yourself. Then workout, strip down again and weigh yourself (after toweling off). This is how much fluid you have sweated out during training (subtract any fluid that you consumed during training). You should then drink enough fluid (sweat), to get you back to 125% of the fluid loss (eg.180lbs. before and 178lbs. after is 2lbs. fluid loss or 32 ounces. 125% of 32 ounces is 40 ounces).
I tracked my own fluid loss in a 40 minute workout the other day (10 minute warm-up, 20 minutes of intervals, and 10 minute cooldown). I lost 2.2 lbs. of fluid during the workout! Had I not known this, I would have only had my roughly 16 ounce shake after the workout, falling behind on my hydration for the rest of the day.
Hydration is a LOW HANGING fruit, the return on investment is huge relative to the cost to the individual. Let’s get your hydration in check today! Click the link below to get started today!
Protect your head and face in style!
I am always testing out new products and offering my honest opinion so YOU can benefit. In this product review, I give the Aquaprep Santa Anna Hydro a try! Aquaprep is a similar hat to Melin, but at 2/3 the price! This hat floats, it’s UPF 50, water repellent, and comes in 6 different styles. Watch the full review here:
This week's special guest is a breath work expert, Wim Hof Instructor, Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt, and US Marine Veteran Joey Hauss. Joey and I talk about the benefits of Wim Hof breathing, ice baths, the benefits of breath work and meditation, how to get started with jiu jitsu, and a little about Joey's journey to being a personal development coach.
You can learn more about Joey at his website www.joeyhauss.com
Have you ever wondered how or why your muscles grow when you strength train? My mind was blown when I learned that it has been only about 50 years since science has figured out the mechanisms of how muscles work, and we are only scratching the surface of how and why they grow during strength training. Science is now using advanced mathematical techniques to uncover how we can optimize exercises for muscle growth.
In a recent article published by Cambridge University researchers have developed a mathematical model that can predict the optimum exercise regime for building muscle.
Researcher Dr. Ibata said, "I was excited to gain a better understanding of both the why and how of muscle growth," he said. "So much time and resources could be saved in avoiding low-productivity exercise regimes, and maximizing athletes' potential with regular higher value sessions, given a specific volume that the athlete is capable of achieving.”
Terentjev and Ibata set out to construct a mathematical model that could give quantitative predictions on muscle growth. They started with a simple model that kept track of titin molecules (protein that signals growth) opening under force and starting the signaling cascade. They used microscopy data to determine the force-dependent probability that a titin kinase unit would open or close under force and activate a signaling molecule.
Researchers determined that 70% of maximum load was the best amount to create the signal for growth without putting extra stress on the cell.
In addition to muscle growth, the model the researchers constructed can also give us insight into muscle atrophy (when the muscle deteriorates over time) and how much load and frequency is needed to mitigate this physiological response.
MY TAKE: This mathematical model echoes what strength and conditioning coaches have been saying for decades now: Most of your strength training should be done at loads of 70% of your maximums for best muscle growth. However, this does fly in the face of high rep workouts that are done with lighter loads to create growth. With my clients that are looking to gain lean body mass, we try to keep loads in the 70% range and hit sets of 8-12 shying away from working until failure (more on this in a later post).
If you are looking to gain some lean body mass, I’m here to help! Click the link below to start some intelligent, science based strength training today!
Welcome back!
In this week’s episode, Scott and I dive into home training programs. How do you choose the right program and how do you maximize the benefits of the program you choose?
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See you next time.
A common question I get about nutrition is, “Will carbs before bed make me fat?”
As always, it highly depends on the individual, but I will give you some guidance into making the best decision for you. First, we have to know a little about the energy releasing hormone cortisol. Yes, I meant that: Energy releasing. When you think of cortisol, you think of “stress hormone.” But really what cortisol is doing is mobilizing fuel for energy. In the case of cortisol, a “healthy” person should have higher levels of cortisol when they are waking, and they should continue to drop throughout the day until they are low in the evening.
This should be the case if you need to mobilize energy in day hours and need less energy in the evening, and need to be able to rest and digest (unless you are a shift worker and this might be different).
We can signal the release of cortisol with food (or lack of food. This is actually how you feel the affects of fasting). In the morning, we will get a spike in cortisol which will get us up and moving. As we get food into our body, the cortisol will start to drop progressively throughout the day. The macronutrient that has the most affect on the release of cortisol is carbohydrates. Knowing this, we can utilize carbohydrates in the evening lower cortisol levels so we can get better sleep. But not all carbohydrates are created equal. A starch rich sweet potato is going to have a very different digestion time and affect on blood sugar than a donut. The sweet potatoes complex structure of carbs will take a while to break down and slowly release into your blood as you sleep. The donut on the other hand, is made up of more simple sugars that enter the blood stream much more quickly and are absorbed much more quickly.
If you lay of carbs completely before bed, your cortisol will start to rise during sleep and you will be left staring at the ceiling because your energy mobilizing hormone just kicked on in the middle of the night.
My take? If you want to keep cortisol levels under control as you sleep, eat 1-2 cups of starchy carbohydrates (rice, potato, yams, yucca, quinoa) 2-3 hours before bed.
Remember, this is a complex issue, and their are many factors that can contribute to weight gain and sleeplessness. However, I would give it a try for a few weeks and see if adding some starchy carbs to dinner improves your sleep. What do you have to lose other than those dark circles below your eyes?
Looking to navigate the complex world of nutrition and stress? I’m here to help! Click the link below to get started today!
Are you lying there at 3am wondering why you feel like a furnace? As you sleep your temperature needs to be regulated in order to get deep restful sleep. If the temperature of your room and more specifically your mattress is too high (or too cold) you will not get the restorative benefits of sleep. That's where the Chilisleep Ooler Sleep System comes in. With the hydroponic pad underneath your body, it soaks up your body heat so you maintain that "just jumped into bed" cool sensation on your mattress.
Give the Ooler Sleep System a try with the Chilisleep 30 Day Free Trial: (this is an affiliate link. At no extra charge to you, a small percentage of your sale goes toward supporting the channel):