Dr. Andy Galpin: Maximize Recovery to Achieve Fitness & Performance Goals

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Guest Series,

00:00:02.440 | where I and an expert guest discuss science

00:00:05.120 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:07.320 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:09.600 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:12.360 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:13.800 | Today's episode is the fifth in a six-episode series

00:00:16.420 | on fitness, exercise, and performance.

00:00:19.160 | And today's episode is all about recovery.

00:00:21.600 | That is, how to maximize your recovery

00:00:23.480 | to achieve your fitness and exercise and performance goals,

00:00:26.220 | and how to avoid overtraining.

00:00:28.400 | Dr. Andy Galpin, great to be back.

00:00:31.140 | Today we're discussing recovery,

00:00:34.600 | and I'm very excited to have this discussion

00:00:36.840 | because as we know,

00:00:39.040 | despite the fact that different types of exercise

00:00:41.700 | can be used to trigger different types of adaptation,

00:00:45.720 | such as increased long distance, endurance,

00:00:50.140 | anaerobic capacity, strength, hypertrophy, et cetera,

00:00:53.720 | the workouts themselves are not actually

00:00:56.500 | when the progress occurs,

00:00:58.220 | when the adaptation occurs.

00:01:00.660 | And this to me is extremely interesting

00:01:02.920 | because it parallels what we see

00:01:04.280 | with so-called neuroplasticity,

00:01:06.040 | which is the nervous system's ability to change

00:01:08.500 | in response to experience.

00:01:09.440 | We sit down to learn something,

00:01:11.000 | we experience something,

00:01:14.000 | and that is the trigger for rewiring of the nervous system,

00:01:18.080 | but the actual rewiring occurs away from the experience

00:01:22.320 | or the learning.

00:01:23.760 | So too, in fitness and in exercise,

00:01:28.100 | recovery is where the real results actually emerge,

00:01:32.440 | where we get better.

00:01:34.280 | So I'd love for you to explain what recovery really is

00:01:38.240 | and the different types of recovery,

00:01:40.960 | certainly different ways to enhance recovery.

00:01:43.320 | And I'd also love for you to explain

00:01:44.840 | whether or not there are ways

00:01:46.280 | that people can become better at recovering,

00:01:48.440 | because if indeed recovery is when progress emerges,

00:01:51.800 | when we get better,

00:01:52.860 | well then anything that supports our recovery

00:01:54.760 | and gets us better at recovering

00:01:57.280 | ought to increase our rate and our degree of progress.

00:02:00.320 | - Absolutely, you nailed it in the description.

00:02:03.120 | What people really want is some sort of change,

00:02:06.440 | whether we're talking athletes or general population,

00:02:08.920 | this change is some sort of improvement in muscle function,

00:02:12.640 | reduction in body fat, higher functioning metabolism,

00:02:17.600 | whatever the case is.

00:02:18.640 | And the only way that happens is,

00:02:21.320 | we talk about the equation of stress causes adaptation,

00:02:24.480 | but as you alluded to,

00:02:25.660 | the piece in the middle is only if you can recover from it.

00:02:28.520 | And so the game we're playing here is,

00:02:29.820 | we all agree we want more adaptation.

00:02:31.620 | That means we need to bring more stress into the system,

00:02:33.740 | but we then have to ensure

00:02:35.820 | that our recovery outpaces the stress input

00:02:39.520 | or else no adaptation will occur.

00:02:40.980 | In fact, what happens is you will actually be

00:02:43.040 | in a negative spot and start going backwards.

00:02:45.660 | And so what I would love to do is talk about

00:02:48.280 | how we've handled this.

00:02:49.740 | And I've had a decent amount of experience here.

00:02:52.560 | I was fortunate enough to do my master's degree

00:02:55.420 | in the laboratory of a gentleman named Andy Fry,

00:02:58.260 | who's an NSCA Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

00:03:01.320 | And he studied in large part recovery, overtraining,

00:03:04.940 | overuse, overload in a lot of areas.

00:03:07.960 | In addition, I've been fortunate enough to work

00:03:10.700 | with individuals from high functioning CEOs and executives

00:03:15.340 | who have little time for recovery, high job stress,

00:03:18.560 | to athletes.

00:03:20.520 | Think of the example of pitchers in Major League Baseball

00:03:23.360 | who have to recover in a matter of four days

00:03:25.420 | so that they can pitch again at maximum velocity.

00:03:28.140 | So I would love to outline some of the tools and tactics,

00:03:31.580 | strategies that we use for all these individuals,

00:03:34.660 | give you some foundational stuff.

00:03:35.940 | And I would love to maybe actually cover some things

00:03:39.200 | that most people have never heard of,

00:03:41.080 | some stuff you may not have access to,

00:03:43.220 | some technologies that we use, some biomarkers,

00:03:47.080 | and then even a whole bunch of things

00:03:48.680 | that are keeping with the theme of your show here,

00:03:51.340 | cost-free or extremely low cost.

00:03:53.700 | So all of those strategies.

00:03:55.880 | What I would also like to do is cover nutrition,

00:03:59.140 | supplementation, and fueling and hydration and things,

00:04:02.140 | but that's probably going to have to be saved

00:04:03.780 | for an additional conversation

00:04:05.500 | that we'll do in the next episode.

00:04:07.580 | - Yeah, so we will absolutely hold a conversation

00:04:09.540 | about nutrition and supplementation,

00:04:11.140 | where you can educate us about all the top contour stuff,

00:04:13.940 | all the way down to the fine details.

00:04:16.400 | I do have a question about recovery,

00:04:19.680 | and it's one that I think most people are familiar

00:04:21.580 | with themselves, which is soreness.

00:04:25.700 | We think of it as a muscle soreness,

00:04:28.100 | but I was trained early on in my scientific career

00:04:31.260 | to always question the seemingly obvious.

00:04:35.060 | So a couple of questions about soreness.

00:04:37.340 | First of all, what does soreness really reflect?

00:04:40.660 | Is it really muscle soreness?

00:04:43.680 | It feels like it's in the muscles,

00:04:46.100 | but what other organ systems and tissues and cell types

00:04:49.380 | does it involve?

00:04:50.740 | And then I'm particularly interested in this UNCEP,

00:04:54.240 | or this experience that many of us, including myself, had,

00:04:58.740 | which is delayed onset muscle soreness.

00:05:01.520 | Why would it be that when we are less in shape,

00:05:04.440 | or when we perform a movement

00:05:05.880 | that is extremely novel to us,

00:05:07.740 | the soreness seems to arrive after a reasonable delay

00:05:12.900 | of maybe even a day, we're fine the next day,

00:05:14.980 | but then 48 hours later, we are exceedingly sore.

00:05:18.080 | And as we get more fit or more familiar with the movement,

00:05:21.180 | the soreness seems to arrive earlier.

00:05:23.020 | So I realize I just asked you about three questions or more.

00:05:26.160 | First of all, what is muscle soreness at a cellular level?

00:05:29.960 | Which cells, which organ systems and so forth?

00:05:32.560 | What does it mean if we are sore?

00:05:35.280 | Is something I know we'll get into a little bit later.

00:05:36.740 | And then why the delayed onset muscle soreness?

00:05:39.260 | - It's actually one question.

00:05:40.860 | So it's totally fine you asked all three,

00:05:43.920 | because I'm going to actually answer number three,

00:05:46.000 | which will answer number two,

00:05:46.920 | which will actually answer number one.

00:05:49.460 | - I'd love to tell you

00:05:50.300 | that I set it up that way intentionally,

00:05:52.240 | but I'm just happy to hear

00:05:53.700 | that where I was unable to be concise,

00:05:55.580 | you are able to be concise.

00:05:56.980 | Thank you. - Yeah.

00:05:58.420 | We are still learning a lot about this area.

00:06:00.740 | It's actually really difficult to perform these studies.

00:06:03.640 | Anytime you ask a question about something like pain

00:06:08.000 | or soreness, you're immediately talking about perception.

00:06:11.820 | And there is obviously a physical component to that,

00:06:14.780 | and there's also perception.

00:06:16.280 | And so teasing those things out

00:06:17.720 | is extraordinarily challenging.

00:06:19.140 | That said, there has been a lot of work in this area.

00:06:21.420 | In fact, probably you may have a show already out on pain,

00:06:25.000 | or maybe one's coming down the road.

00:06:26.780 | - We did an episode on pain a while ago,

00:06:30.240 | but it's definitely time to revisit that literature.

00:06:33.220 | I also have some amazing colleagues at Stanford

00:06:35.440 | who work on pain, both from the cellular and molecular side,

00:06:39.600 | but also from the psychological side

00:06:41.780 | about how our understanding of pain

00:06:44.740 | and what we believe about pain shapes the experience

00:06:47.140 | of pain and pain relief.

00:06:48.240 | - Amazing.

00:06:49.080 | That stuff is incredibly important,

00:06:50.860 | and I'm glad we flagged that,

00:06:52.140 | and maybe we'll just call that good for now.

00:06:54.020 | They could come back later for another one of your shows.

00:06:56.520 | So that being said, why does it happen

00:06:59.260 | 28 to 48 hours after you exercise?

00:07:03.420 | Well, that actually should give you some clues

00:07:05.260 | into what's happening.

00:07:06.700 | So the traditional dogma of delayed onset muscle soreness

00:07:10.420 | is what this is called, is that it is a result

00:07:12.380 | of quote unquote micro tears.

00:07:14.460 | And the muscle.

00:07:15.300 | And so you can sort of think, I challenged the muscle,

00:07:17.940 | there were some small tears in there,

00:07:19.360 | and I'm feeling the results of that.

00:07:21.220 | Well, in fact, that certainly does happen,

00:07:25.320 | and it can happen.

00:07:26.800 | That is not what's explaining your muscle soreness.

00:07:28.980 | And in fact, you can be quite sore from exercise

00:07:33.940 | and have no measurable amount of muscle damage.

00:07:37.140 | And so much like anything else,

00:07:38.660 | when we're in this idea of pain,

00:07:40.780 | it's not a one-to-one explanation.

00:07:44.160 | There are multiple factors that are probably causing

00:07:46.500 | your perception of pain.

00:07:47.880 | Muscle damage can be one of them.

00:07:50.980 | It is not the only one, and it is probably, in my opinion,

00:07:54.220 | though this is yet to be shown definitively,

00:07:57.220 | probably not even the leading cause of it.

00:07:59.820 | And so what's actually happening?

00:08:00.880 | Well, the reason it's taking you 24 to 48 hours

00:08:03.540 | is you can actually find various papers, literature reviews,

00:08:07.120 | dating back a number of years now, over a decade,

00:08:10.240 | that show these wonderful curves of an inflammatory

00:08:14.180 | and immune response.

00:08:15.260 | And we don't need to necessarily go through

00:08:16.660 | the entire physiology right now,

00:08:17.980 | but effectively what's happening is those things

00:08:20.480 | have a little bit of a time delay.

00:08:22.300 | And so some of those steps happen immediately,

00:08:24.940 | like right when the exercise is there,

00:08:26.320 | and then some of them are delayed six to 24 to 48 hours.

00:08:30.020 | If you know a little bit about this physiology,

00:08:33.060 | you have a combination of neutrophils and macrophages

00:08:35.780 | and a bunch of things happening,

00:08:36.880 | and this has a time sequence.

00:08:38.060 | So what happens is by the time we get to this 28 to 48 hour

00:08:41.240 | window, now the muscle soreness kicks in.

00:08:44.400 | Which, wait a minute, if this was a result

00:08:47.640 | of my muscles being torn, and that happened immediately,

00:08:51.360 | wouldn't that pain start immediately?

00:08:54.120 | Well, the answer is it would.

00:08:55.680 | And so that is your first clue

00:08:57.440 | that that's not responsible for it.

00:08:59.300 | When we look at that immune response and we see

00:09:01.120 | that that has actually peaked 24 to 48 hours later,

00:09:04.440 | and then that's the same time the pain kicked in,

00:09:07.080 | that's cooling you in with the problem.

00:09:08.220 | So we have this immune response happening and inflammation,

00:09:10.720 | then all of a sudden we start getting fluid accumulation.

00:09:13.840 | And now there are what are called nociceptors,

00:09:16.160 | and you're probably very, obviously you're very familiar

00:09:18.040 | with these, and these are your pain receptors.

00:09:19.760 | What's actually interesting is we don't necessarily know

00:09:22.740 | a lot of information about how many pain receptors

00:09:25.120 | are in muscle.

00:09:26.060 | They're not really in the belly.

00:09:28.000 | In fact, this is why I can perform my muscle biopsies

00:09:30.200 | and they don't really hurt.

00:09:31.240 | - You mean in the belly of the muscle?

00:09:32.540 | - Correct. - Yeah.

00:09:33.840 | - We do have pressure sensors though.

00:09:35.800 | And so if you change the volume of the tissue,

00:09:37.840 | you will respond to that very, very quickly.

00:09:39.480 | So by enhancing swelling in the actual muscle,

00:09:42.680 | that is immediately putting pressure

00:09:45.280 | on those pressure receptors, if you will.

00:09:48.240 | That's the signal.

00:09:49.080 | So what's probably happening here,

00:09:51.000 | and I just hate to give you another bone,

00:09:53.920 | but a lot of delayed on some muscle soreness

00:09:55.800 | is probably just a neural feedback loop

00:09:58.340 | rather than it is actual muscle damage.

00:10:00.480 | - Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

00:10:01.420 | There's a lot of interactions between the types of neurons

00:10:05.760 | that control touch sensation

00:10:08.840 | and pain sensation and itch sensation.

00:10:11.060 | In fact, a lot of people kind of collapse

00:10:13.680 | itch and pain together.

00:10:15.280 | - Bingo, yeah.

00:10:16.120 | - You know, that's something it's painful

00:10:17.280 | and it itches is a familiar thing for people,

00:10:19.800 | mosquito bites and such.

00:10:21.240 | And then of course there's the classic gate theory of pain,

00:10:26.960 | which people will be familiar with

00:10:29.080 | and then I'll explain why I'm explaining this,

00:10:32.160 | which is if something hurts,

00:10:34.520 | you know, you bonk your knee or you stub your toe,

00:10:36.960 | we tend to grab that body part and try and rub it.

00:10:40.240 | - Totally.

00:10:41.080 | - And that rubbing is not a coincidental thing.

00:10:43.420 | It activates a set of touch sensors

00:10:47.200 | that respond to kind of broad, dull touch.

00:10:49.940 | And that actively inhibits

00:10:55.260 | through the release of an inhibitory neurotransmitter,

00:10:57.680 | the fibers that control the pain signal.

00:10:59.720 | So anytime we rub like a charley horse, our leg,

00:11:02.800 | or we stub our toe and we wince and then we grab the toe

00:11:06.360 | and we kind of like squeezing it a little bit,

00:11:07.840 | that's actually deactivating

00:11:10.520 | or partially inactivating the pain mechanism.

00:11:14.160 | So the idea that a swelling response

00:11:18.480 | would then trigger a neural response

00:11:20.560 | that then would recruit the pain receptor response.

00:11:25.360 | Here I'm using broad brush strokes here to explain this.

00:11:29.140 | Makes very good sense to me.

00:11:31.360 | Now and only now that you've explained

00:11:33.020 | how this process works.

00:11:34.140 | - I can actually even add more to that.

00:11:35.360 | So if you remember how muscles work,

00:11:39.220 | so we have to have some sort of signal

00:11:40.880 | from the nervous system that has to actually go in

00:11:44.160 | and tell the muscle to contract.

00:11:46.200 | Well, remember there a few episodes ago,

00:11:48.080 | we covered the physiology here

00:11:50.240 | of what's called a motor unit.

00:11:52.200 | Okay, well, what I didn't explain to you

00:11:53.680 | are called muscle spindles.

00:11:56.040 | And we have talked about proprioception

00:11:58.000 | in an episode of before as well,

00:12:00.280 | but we never tied this picture together.

00:12:01.500 | So let me walk you through that really quickly

00:12:03.320 | and it's gonna tie this loop into a nice bow.

00:12:05.920 | So what happens is this motor unit is coming in

00:12:10.560 | from what's called an alpha motor unit.

00:12:13.560 | And that's gonna be innervating your muscle fibers.

00:12:15.400 | And that's gonna tell the muscle fibers to contract.

00:12:17.640 | Those are typically spread out

00:12:19.200 | throughout all sides of the muscle,

00:12:22.320 | in interior, exterior, all over.

00:12:24.740 | On the outside though, there is another type of muscle

00:12:27.040 | called a muscle spindle.

00:12:28.460 | Now these are non-contractile,

00:12:29.840 | so they don't have that actin and myosin

00:12:31.480 | and they don't produce force.

00:12:33.240 | They are responsive, they're proprioceptive.

00:12:36.080 | So what that means is they sense stretch.

00:12:38.800 | And this is why, for example,

00:12:40.160 | if you were to stretch a hamstring,

00:12:42.800 | and stretch any muscle group,

00:12:43.640 | it doesn't really matter, or muscle,

00:12:45.720 | its innate response is to fire back to close that distance.

00:12:49.280 | And this is what keeps you from, say,

00:12:50.560 | if you're leaning to the right.

00:12:52.880 | You can imagine that the example we give is

00:12:54.520 | if you're standing on one foot

00:12:56.560 | and you start swaying to the right, all right?

00:12:59.400 | Let's say you're standing on your right foot,

00:13:00.880 | and this makes this easier for folks.

00:13:02.600 | And you start swaying to the right,

00:13:04.620 | like you're gonna fall on your right ear,

00:13:06.160 | will hit the ground.

00:13:07.500 | The inside of your right calf muscle

00:13:09.900 | will start being stretched.

00:13:11.500 | The outside will start being compressed, right?

00:13:14.180 | So the stretch on the inside of the right calf muscle

00:13:16.920 | will sense that stretch and it will respond by contracting.

00:13:20.100 | That pulls you back to the middle

00:13:22.160 | and stops you from falling.

00:13:23.600 | That's proprioception.

00:13:24.800 | And muscle spindles sense stretch and tell you to contract.

00:13:28.240 | The way that they work is through gamma motor neurons.

00:13:31.000 | And so these are sensory things.

00:13:32.240 | So what's happening is unlike when you tell your muscle

00:13:34.360 | to contract, it goes alpha to the muscle contract.

00:13:38.400 | These muscle spindles work such that it is,

00:13:40.520 | oh, I've been stretched, send signal back

00:13:44.100 | to some central point, typically in the spinal cord,

00:13:46.840 | and we don't actually wanna go all the way up to the brain.

00:13:48.720 | We've got a time delay.

00:13:50.240 | This is why these are subconscious, autonomic, right?

00:13:53.160 | Versus somatic.

00:13:54.600 | So the gamma is gonna go back to the central location

00:13:57.440 | and then come back through the alpha motor neurons

00:13:59.520 | and tell it to contract.

00:14:00.960 | So you have those wonderful mechanism

00:14:02.520 | of sensing stretch going back.

00:14:03.880 | Well, one theory that's been put forward

00:14:07.840 | regarding muscle damage is that the pressure

00:14:11.580 | is actually being applied to those nerve endings

00:14:15.180 | of the muscle spindles.

00:14:16.940 | And that's actually responsible for the pain signal

00:14:19.400 | that's going back and coming up to your brain.

00:14:22.000 | You're registering that as pain rather than it is actually

00:14:24.180 | in the contractile units, so the muscle fibers.

00:14:26.980 | - That's a very intriguing idea

00:14:30.120 | because it would suggest that stretching muscles

00:14:35.020 | in order to alleviate soreness

00:14:37.140 | might be the exact incorrect thing to do.

00:14:41.040 | Now, I'm not saying that for certain.

00:14:42.980 | I'm just building off the mechanistic logic

00:14:45.200 | that we've laid out here, really, that you've laid out here.

00:14:49.280 | - There is the more effective principle

00:14:51.560 | based on exactly that, which is,

00:14:52.960 | this is generally why low-level movement

00:14:56.340 | is effective at reducing acute soreness.

00:14:58.360 | - Because that's low-level contraction of the muscles,

00:15:00.520 | anti-stretch. - And you're going to contract

00:15:01.600 | and get tissue out, and you're going to get fluid out.

00:15:04.200 | - Wow.

00:15:06.000 | - You're literally pumping it out of the cell.

00:15:08.360 | - Yes, and in our previous episode

00:15:09.960 | where we were talking about programming,

00:15:11.600 | we're using the we, but let's be fair here,

00:15:14.040 | where you were educating us, including me,

00:15:17.680 | in the audience about different structures for programming,

00:15:20.880 | exercise for specific adaptations, et cetera,

00:15:23.960 | the month, week, year, scales, et cetera,

00:15:28.260 | we had a brief discussion about the fact

00:15:31.140 | that if one trains legs very hard with resistance training,

00:15:35.940 | you know, some heavy squatting or deadlifting it,

00:15:38.800 | and there's some soreness

00:15:39.980 | that oftentimes doing some, quote, unquote, lighter cardio,

00:15:43.860 | or some low-impact work the next day,

00:15:47.900 | or any number of different things

00:15:49.660 | that involve not high-intensity contractions of the muscles,

00:15:54.460 | but that do require contractions of the muscles,

00:15:57.220 | that it can alleviate soreness more quickly

00:15:59.800 | than if one were to simply lie around

00:16:01.500 | and, you know, watch a Netflix or something.

00:16:03.180 | - Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:16:04.620 | To go back just a little bit as well,

00:16:08.400 | if that's really the case, the question is, like,

00:16:10.820 | where is this inflammatory signal coming from?

00:16:14.140 | And while there's much to be learned there,

00:16:16.760 | there is a little bit of information right now

00:16:20.800 | that suggests it's potentially coming from free radicals

00:16:23.680 | released from the mitochondria.

00:16:25.340 | Again, that may or may not hold up as more research comes,

00:16:28.080 | I'm not sure, but if you remember back

00:16:29.920 | to our conversation on endurance,

00:16:32.040 | so we talked about the electron transport chain

00:16:34.280 | and aerobic metabolism, and regardless of whether or not

00:16:37.000 | you're getting energy from glycolysis or carbohydrates,

00:16:40.360 | remember, they have to be finished

00:16:42.960 | through aerobic metabolism.

00:16:44.240 | So even if you're lifting weights

00:16:46.760 | and you're using carbs for your fuel,

00:16:49.180 | you have got to finish that metabolism

00:16:51.120 | by running it into the mitochondria

00:16:52.640 | and performing oxidative metabolism.

00:16:54.200 | As a result of that, that electron transport chain runs.

00:16:57.380 | So theoretically, if free radicals,

00:16:59.320 | which are hyper-reactive oxygen species,

00:17:02.440 | basically they're oxygen molecules

00:17:04.420 | that are missing an electron

00:17:05.400 | so that they react to a lot of things,

00:17:07.560 | they're the opposite of antioxidants, by the way,

00:17:09.520 | this is the oxygen molecules with extra protons

00:17:12.920 | so they can balance the charge.

00:17:14.640 | If those leak out, that in and of itself

00:17:16.880 | is going to be a massive inflammatory signal,

00:17:19.040 | and that's probably what signals the cause

00:17:20.780 | of these neutrophils and macrophages

00:17:22.560 | and kicks off this entire cascade.

00:17:24.600 | Again, I believe we need more research there,

00:17:26.900 | I need to look into it,

00:17:27.760 | maybe it's more definitive than I know,

00:17:30.220 | but that's probably what's happening,

00:17:32.840 | potentially what's happening, rather,

00:17:35.080 | that causes that cascade in signal.

00:17:37.400 | Also, what you have is this combination of,

00:17:41.520 | well, if that's the case,

00:17:42.920 | why am I not getting tremendous amount of muscle damage

00:17:45.440 | when I do more aerobic-based exercise?

00:17:49.080 | Well, because you don't have the mechanical tension

00:17:51.320 | pulling on the fibers

00:17:52.520 | that's actually causing damage to the cell wall

00:17:55.040 | that allows these free radicals

00:17:56.640 | to escape the mitochondria and the cell wall.

00:17:59.140 | So that's the best we can postulate at this moment

00:18:01.760 | as to why those things are happening,

00:18:03.680 | and then why, again, low-level exercise

00:18:06.720 | tends to enhance even things like percussion.

00:18:10.360 | So using either instruments

00:18:11.760 | that put a low level of vibration into your leg

00:18:14.280 | or like pneumatic boots, so you can massage,

00:18:17.320 | all these things are generally probably helping

00:18:20.240 | because they're moving that stuff out,

00:18:22.360 | edema most specifically,

00:18:24.820 | so pressure comes off of those nerve endings

00:18:27.520 | in the muscle spindles

00:18:29.400 | and allows you to stop receiving that signal of pain

00:18:32.080 | despite the fact

00:18:32.920 | that you didn't actually regenerate tissue at all yet.

00:18:35.860 | - Fascinating, and I think that beautifully frames

00:18:40.080 | where we're headed next,

00:18:40.960 | which is to talk about all the different modes of recovery

00:18:44.320 | and how to accelerate them,

00:18:46.240 | and perhaps even how to combine different forms of recovery

00:18:50.840 | in order to become better at recovering

00:18:53.080 | and in doing so, make faster progress with fitness.

00:18:56.360 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:18:59.060 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:19:01.680 | It is also separate from Dr. Andy Galpin's

00:19:04.020 | teaching and research roles at Cal State Fullerton.

00:19:06.360 | It is, however, part of our desire and effort

00:19:08.720 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:19:11.260 | and science-related tools to the general public.

00:19:13.880 | In keeping with that theme,

00:19:15.040 | we'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:19:17.680 | Our first sponsor is Momentus.

00:19:19.680 | Momentus makes supplements of the absolute highest quality.

00:19:23.000 | The Huberman Lab Podcast is proud to be partnering

00:19:25.280 | with Momentus for several important reasons.

00:19:27.600 | First of all, as I mentioned,

00:19:28.720 | their supplements are of extremely high quality.

00:19:30.680 | Second of all, their supplements are generally

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00:19:35.460 | If you're going to develop a supplementation protocol,

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00:19:41.440 | With single ingredient formulations,

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00:19:49.000 | In addition, Momentus supplements ship internationally.

00:19:51.320 | And this is, of course, important because we realized

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00:19:57.280 | If you'd like to try the various supplements mentioned

00:19:59.200 | on the Huberman Lab Podcast, in particular supplements

00:20:02.000 | for hormone health, for sleep optimization, for focus,

00:20:05.180 | as well as a number of other things,

00:20:06.360 | including exercise recovery,

00:20:08.000 | you can go to Live Momentus, spelled O-U-S,

00:20:10.120 | so that's livemomentus.com/huberman.

00:20:12.840 | Today's episode is also brought to us by Element.

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00:20:26.080 | We need to ingest enough fluids in order to feel our best

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00:21:50.900 | The underlying mechanism for all that

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00:22:45.280 | So to kick off this discussion about recovery,

00:22:48.180 | and with the understanding that recovery

00:22:50.220 | is when the specific adaptations to exercise actually occur,

00:22:54.700 | I'd love for you to share with us

00:22:56.540 | what happens or needs to happen during recovery

00:23:00.060 | in order for us to get better at anything,

00:23:02.820 | endurance, strength, et cetera,

00:23:04.460 | but also how specific types of exercise stimuli

00:23:09.500 | and specific types of adaptations that we trigger,

00:23:12.420 | so running a bit further, lifting a bit more weight,

00:23:15.900 | slowing the cadence of a given movement, et cetera,

00:23:19.260 | how those specific types of triggers for adaptation

00:23:22.380 | relate to the specific or maybe similar types of recovery

00:23:26.380 | that are required for us to make progress.

00:23:29.020 | In one of our previous episodes,

00:23:30.280 | we were talking about how the Harvard Fatigue Lab

00:23:32.480 | really identified this idea of homeostasis,

00:23:35.480 | or at least sort of championed it for it.

00:23:37.660 | And that's important because in all levels,

00:23:40.780 | physiology wants to return to homeostasis.

00:23:43.900 | So what happens in terms of adaptation

00:23:46.660 | is you challenge it to a level that it realizes

00:23:49.580 | if it does not make a change,

00:23:51.380 | it will not be able to get back

00:23:52.940 | to the same level of homeostasis.

00:23:55.260 | That's fundamentally what's happening.

00:23:57.100 | That is recovery.

00:23:58.880 | That process of taking an insult,

00:24:01.640 | being temporarily reduced in functionality,

00:24:04.500 | causing a change so that now we come back

00:24:07.700 | and get what we often call in sport performance,

00:24:09.880 | super compensation.

00:24:11.860 | All that really is doing though

00:24:13.040 | is bringing you to a new level of homeostasis.

00:24:16.200 | Effectively, it is understanding

00:24:19.040 | if that same insult comes again,

00:24:21.640 | I need to be able to make sure

00:24:22.840 | that that doesn't cause the same level of disruption.

00:24:25.720 | And so we raise the bar,

00:24:27.660 | whether this is enhancing our ability

00:24:30.100 | to take the same level of mechanical tension on the muscle

00:24:33.760 | and not result in micro damage,

00:24:35.820 | whether this is being able

00:24:37.160 | to take the same reduction in energy

00:24:39.360 | and not have that compromise of sleep or anything.

00:24:43.820 | It's really fundamentally changing

00:24:45.860 | so that we can have a new level of homeostasis

00:24:47.920 | because it's presuming,

00:24:49.480 | it's predicting that that same insult

00:24:51.420 | is going to come again down the road.

00:24:53.320 | - I wanted to clarify for people

00:24:55.920 | that when Dr. Galvin says insult,

00:24:59.140 | while he may actually insult me,

00:25:02.800 | insult is the nerd speak terminology

00:25:05.440 | for some sort of damage inflicted to a tissue or system.

00:25:08.960 | So he's speaking about the insult to the muscle

00:25:13.240 | or insult to the neuromuscular connection

00:25:15.440 | created by adding more weight to the bar,

00:25:18.560 | running a further distance,

00:25:20.120 | running a bit faster or pedaling faster.

00:25:24.680 | That creates a micro insult or an insult.

00:25:27.780 | And now, because everyone is familiar

00:25:29.400 | with psychological and verbal insults,

00:25:32.400 | you'll never forget that biological concept.

00:25:34.500 | - It's important we tag another thing here,

00:25:36.740 | which is called hormesis.

00:25:38.060 | It's one of my favorite phenomenon.

00:25:39.520 | And it effectively means this,

00:25:40.800 | that there is a dosage or toxicity response

00:25:44.720 | to almost everything.

00:25:45.640 | And if you think about this in the context of say drugs,

00:25:48.180 | what this means is if I gave you 10 milligrams of something

00:25:52.660 | that it would be okay.

00:25:53.560 | But if I gave you 20, it'd be a problem.

00:25:55.480 | And eventually if I go up and give you enough,

00:25:57.040 | this thing turns toxic.

00:25:58.360 | This is a case of everything from cyanide,

00:26:01.960 | where it can actually be in small dosages in nature.

00:26:04.760 | In fact, it's in many of the fruits that you eat,

00:26:07.080 | but it's at a dosage that it doesn't matter.

00:26:08.920 | If that dosage gets higher though,

00:26:10.300 | that actually can cause problems.

00:26:11.720 | And if it is high enough,

00:26:13.080 | it can actually kill you instantaneously.

00:26:15.420 | The back end of that though,

00:26:16.680 | is because you introduced this micro insult,

00:26:20.280 | as you framed it for me perfectly,

00:26:22.880 | your body will then adapt to it.

00:26:24.120 | And that's really what's happening

00:26:25.400 | with exercise adaptation is it is a hormetic stressor.

00:26:28.960 | And why that's important is,

00:26:31.120 | if you look at the immediate responses to exercise,

00:26:34.080 | you see an extremely large increase in inflammation.

00:26:37.520 | You see oxidative stress.

00:26:39.180 | You see a whole cascade of autophagy,

00:26:41.200 | like all these problems, quote unquote, happen.

00:26:43.920 | And what's actually quite funny here is,

00:26:46.380 | as a part of my PhD, the academic portion,

00:26:49.340 | I had to go through the medical side of the school.

00:26:52.160 | And so I was, my physiology class was in med school.

00:26:55.040 | So I'm the only non-medical doctor in that class.

00:26:57.680 | I'm a PhD, so I leave my lab, I walk across campus,

00:27:00.420 | and I take physiology class with these folks.

00:27:02.500 | And I died the whole time internally,

00:27:05.400 | because every time we would cover a new area,

00:27:08.600 | it was basically the exact same value or number.

00:27:13.240 | In a medical setting is like,

00:27:14.480 | oh my gosh, they're going to die.

00:27:16.680 | And in a performance setting is like,

00:27:18.200 | this person's in fantastic shape.

00:27:20.360 | It's like, I never, it still amuses me to this day,

00:27:23.920 | obviously, because it's just simple things

00:27:25.360 | like total blood volume, right?

00:27:26.520 | And you cover like, okay, if you have a patient come in,

00:27:28.880 | their blood volume is six liters.

00:27:30.860 | You know, I can immediately get them

00:27:31.700 | on a diuretic of some sort,

00:27:33.600 | because they're going to have a heart attack

00:27:34.480 | as blood pressure gets up, right?

00:27:35.400 | And I'm immediately thinking, damn, six liters,

00:27:37.200 | that person is super fit.

00:27:38.980 | Because that is actually a positive adaptation to training.

00:27:41.380 | It's one of the most important,

00:27:42.460 | if not the most important, adaptation to endurance training

00:27:44.820 | is enhanced total blood volume.

00:27:46.240 | So you'll store more blood in your body

00:27:48.140 | when you're more fit than you are less fit.

00:27:49.600 | So I'm going to go on.

00:27:50.960 | All these things, sodium concentrations,

00:27:52.700 | potassium concentrations are like,

00:27:55.200 | you look at these things on paper

00:27:56.680 | and you don't know if that person's about to die,

00:27:58.520 | 'cause they're 65 years old and out of shape,

00:28:00.720 | or if that person's going to break a world record

00:28:02.240 | in the marathon.

00:28:03.080 | - This brings up a very important tangent,

00:28:04.760 | which is, for instance, if you go and take a blood test

00:28:08.040 | and you are somebody who exercises very intensely

00:28:11.640 | with resistance training,

00:28:13.160 | your blood creatinine levels can be way out of range.

00:28:17.400 | And if your physician doesn't know

00:28:18.920 | that you're doing certain forms of exercise might say,

00:28:21.060 | wow, there's a lot of muscle tissue damage

00:28:22.880 | occurring in your body.

00:28:24.640 | As you mentioned before,

00:28:25.480 | your total blood volume is dangerously high

00:28:28.440 | when in fact you are far healthier and indeed much fitter

00:28:32.140 | than the person who has numbers would be in range.

00:28:34.720 | That said, obviously there are limits to these statements

00:28:39.720 | whereby you would want to be cautious

00:28:42.280 | and take action to ameliorate a very elevated

00:28:45.400 | blood creatinine level or something of that sort.

00:28:47.640 | But the point you're bringing up is also one

00:28:51.080 | about the field of medicine,

00:28:52.200 | which is that many, not all, but many physicians

00:28:56.220 | don't take into consideration the outside activities

00:28:59.980 | that people are doing.

00:29:00.820 | And so it becomes a kind of a plug and play type way

00:29:04.720 | of looking at blood charts.

00:29:06.600 | - We've done many thousand athletes blood chemistry

00:29:10.600 | and we don't use, first of all,

00:29:13.840 | we never look at disease stuff.

00:29:15.440 | That's not what we do.

00:29:16.280 | We take people that are healthy

00:29:17.100 | and try to optimize performance.

00:29:18.180 | And blood chemistry is one of the best tools.

00:29:21.120 | If you really understand what you're doing there,

00:29:24.220 | you can get some incredibly powerful information

00:29:27.360 | out of blood chemistry.

00:29:28.200 | But that actually relates to what we're gonna talk to today

00:29:30.880 | in terms of measuring everything from acute

00:29:34.200 | to chronic dehydration, to sleep deprivation

00:29:36.560 | can be identified in blood chemistry,

00:29:39.120 | to optimization improvements in nutrition supplementation.

00:29:42.460 | There's just a lot you can get there.

00:29:43.800 | I mean, if people are interested in that field,

00:29:44.860 | I would point them to a gentleman named Dan Garner,

00:29:47.860 | who was just an absolute juggernaut wizard

00:29:50.120 | in blood chemistry for high performance.

00:29:52.160 | But you can get a ton of information from that.

00:29:54.640 | If you understand the difference between exactly

00:29:56.760 | what you talked about, looking for signals of increased risk

00:30:00.580 | of cardiovascular events 25 years down the road

00:30:02.920 | versus is this the optimal value for high performance

00:30:05.960 | in an athlete, which is what our database

00:30:08.440 | and all of our software and stuff does

00:30:09.760 | is only looking for those things.

00:30:11.400 | So I'm gonna talk about some of the biomarkers

00:30:13.800 | to look for a little bit later.

00:30:15.840 | Salivary stuff, some blood stuff,

00:30:18.160 | but we'll maybe save that part of the conversation

00:30:20.020 | for down the road.

00:30:21.040 | - Tell me about different timescales of recovery.

00:30:23.900 | - Sure, this is actually where I was trying

00:30:26.120 | to answer your question for,

00:30:27.000 | and then I got myself way off track.

00:30:28.320 | But the reason I brought up the hormetic thing

00:30:30.080 | is if you understand that some things in the acute,

00:30:34.480 | say 24 to 48 hour period, look terrible,

00:30:39.480 | it's actually fine, right?

00:30:41.520 | So this is the stimuli that's causing adaptation.

00:30:44.040 | So the reason I brought up the medical exchange there

00:30:47.920 | is because if you looked at inflammatory markers,

00:30:50.840 | and then you mentioned some of them,

00:30:53.100 | you would see that they are highest acute

00:30:54.920 | within seconds to minutes to hours after exercise.

00:30:58.320 | However, that's exactly the stimuli needed

00:31:01.560 | to bring them down chronically.

00:31:03.600 | Okay, and so chronically meaning maybe

00:31:06.920 | in that moment they are elevated,

00:31:08.280 | and then maybe they're coming down 24 hours later

00:31:10.160 | or 48 hours, however, if you were to compare

00:31:12.560 | your resting level, say that Monday before you worked out,

00:31:15.960 | to your resting level that Monday, the week following,

00:31:19.360 | the week following that, what you would probably see

00:31:21.200 | is your baseline inflammation goes down.

00:31:24.100 | And so we gotta be really careful.

00:31:25.400 | Are we talking immediately post exercise?

00:31:27.520 | Man, these markers look terrible.

00:31:29.640 | Maybe my recovery score is awful.

00:31:32.120 | So that's not necessarily a bad thing

00:31:33.800 | because what we're looking to do is to not only change

00:31:37.280 | what's happening today, but we're trying

00:31:39.180 | to cause adaptation that may take us weeks

00:31:42.760 | or months to actually access.

00:31:46.380 | - I love that you're highlighting this principle

00:31:48.020 | because one of the more obvious ones to me now

00:31:51.080 | that you've said this is heart rate.

00:31:53.600 | - Absolutely.

00:31:54.440 | - If my heart rate goes very, very high during exercise,

00:31:56.800 | and I do that fairly consistently or even semi-consistently,

00:32:00.840 | my resting heart rate will actually be quite a bit lower.

00:32:04.600 | - That's a fantastic example.

00:32:05.920 | Really what you're getting at here is this concept

00:32:08.720 | where I think it's important to differentiate

00:32:10.360 | between adaptation and optimization.

00:32:12.860 | Now we hear that word, and I use it,

00:32:14.500 | and most scientists hate it,

00:32:15.620 | but it's a good communication tool, optimization.

00:32:18.180 | If you're optimizing for the current moment,

00:32:22.340 | you're almost surely compromising delayed adaptation.

00:32:26.580 | If I were to say do the thing right now

00:32:30.080 | that makes you feel the absolute best in the world,

00:32:32.220 | and you're like great, you took a nap and you ate a donut,

00:32:34.860 | like awesome, you feel amazing.

00:32:37.200 | But you know it's causing long-term issues.

00:32:40.520 | The same can be said in the backend.

00:32:42.140 | If you're never choosing things

00:32:43.500 | that make you better right now,

00:32:45.740 | you're never actually going to see any adaptation.

00:32:47.640 | So what we're really doing with this recovery conversation

00:32:50.360 | is playing this game of balancing immediate gratification

00:32:54.360 | with delayed gratification.

00:32:56.000 | And how do we identify how much to do now versus not?

00:32:59.240 | How do I use a value or a marker,

00:33:01.440 | whether this is how tired I feel today,

00:33:03.760 | how sore I am today, versus a score on an app

00:33:07.040 | or a tracking metric, whether this is a blood marker,

00:33:10.600 | anything, and understand if that's what I need

00:33:14.020 | to cause the adaptation I want a week, a month,

00:33:17.140 | three months from now.

00:33:17.980 | In the case of some of our other athletes,

00:33:20.280 | it's even up to four years, right?

00:33:21.480 | We're trying to cause adaptations that will get us

00:33:23.640 | where we want to get in the Olympics or World Championships

00:33:25.920 | or World Cup or wherever we're going to be.

00:33:27.880 | So that's the framework we have to think about recovery.

00:33:30.800 | We maybe falsely think about it as

00:33:33.480 | I need to maximize my recovery today.

00:33:36.240 | And you could do something like take an anti-inflammatory,

00:33:40.700 | whether this is a supplementation or a drug,

00:33:42.680 | or maybe this is ice.

00:33:44.220 | Oh, cool, that's great.

00:33:46.720 | That will enhance your recovery in this moment.

00:33:49.040 | That'll make you feel better today, probably tomorrow.

00:33:51.320 | But what we know is that blocks the signal for adaptation.

00:33:54.160 | So you're not going to get the same results

00:33:56.080 | four, six, eight weeks from now.

00:33:57.860 | So when we talk about recovery,

00:33:59.480 | we have to understand what tool am I using and why.

00:34:02.440 | And in order to do that, we have to understand

00:34:04.320 | what am I training for and what am I trying to maximize?

00:34:08.520 | If I am in the middle of a season with an athlete

00:34:11.520 | and we are competing tomorrow,

00:34:13.200 | I am going to hedge towards acute recovery, right?

00:34:16.760 | 'Cause I have to actuate that performance right now.

00:34:19.700 | If I am starting the off season,

00:34:21.960 | I'm not hedging towards recovery.

00:34:23.520 | I'm actually hedging towards adaptation.

00:34:25.460 | So we're not going to deploy any of these,

00:34:28.280 | especially things like there's evidence that a combination

00:34:31.680 | of vitamin C and vitamin E will blunt

00:34:35.080 | hypertrophic adaptations,

00:34:36.640 | because they're anti-inflammatory, they're antioxidants.

00:34:39.600 | Other studies have shown maybe they don't have

00:34:42.200 | an inhibitory effect, they may or may not.

00:34:46.480 | Point is conceptually, you want to be careful

00:34:49.580 | of what you're trying to optimize for.

00:34:51.660 | And you have to have that forethought

00:34:53.280 | and that alone is going to dictate your decision-making

00:34:56.560 | with whether or not again, you get in the eyes,

00:34:59.480 | you do that.

00:35:00.320 | We will cover some tools like massage

00:35:04.160 | that are pretty fine to use.

00:35:05.640 | You don't have to worry about those

00:35:06.800 | blocking long-term adaptation,

00:35:08.440 | but others you're going to want to be very careful about.

00:35:10.800 | - So this principle that you've laid out for us,

00:35:13.320 | which is that there's a set of events

00:35:17.040 | that occur during exercise that trigger the adaptation.

00:35:20.440 | And that sets in motion a number of adaptations

00:35:23.920 | that occur during recovery

00:35:26.320 | that then give us the exact opposite response

00:35:29.400 | to what the trigger was.

00:35:30.880 | So I'll go back to the heart rate example.

00:35:33.640 | Heart rate is close to maximal or maximal.

00:35:36.400 | You do that enough times within a week or so or two weeks

00:35:39.980 | and your resting heart rate goes down.

00:35:42.540 | As I recall, a few episodes ago,

00:35:45.040 | you said that your maximum heart rate

00:35:46.820 | doesn't really change that much.

00:35:48.760 | Is that correct?

00:35:49.600 | - Yes. - Okay.

00:35:50.420 | But your resting heart rate can go down quite a bit.

00:35:53.780 | - Yep.

00:35:54.620 | - Is that a general theme?

00:35:57.460 | Meaning, do we have a more or less set upper limit

00:36:02.340 | or ceiling for things like inflammatory markers

00:36:05.460 | for heart rate, maybe even things like stress?

00:36:09.900 | And what we do when we deliberately trigger stress

00:36:12.840 | or a dramatic increase in heart rate

00:36:16.060 | or dramatic increase in inflammatory markers

00:36:18.180 | is that we are lowering the floor,

00:36:20.140 | but that the ceiling remains the same.

00:36:22.100 | - It's very dependent upon the marker.

00:36:25.420 | So in the case of maximum heart rate,

00:36:27.140 | it will not change with the exception of one thing,

00:36:31.040 | which is age.

00:36:32.580 | Age brings it down.

00:36:34.000 | Training will not change it up in most circumstances.

00:36:37.300 | If you look at something like an inflammatory response,

00:36:40.160 | I suppose theoretically there is a ceiling,

00:36:42.420 | though I'm not aware of it.

00:36:44.100 | I can tell you right now looking at blood markers

00:36:46.020 | of things like creatine kinase.

00:36:47.400 | So remember the conversation about metabolism

00:36:50.660 | and that we use the phosphocreatine

00:36:52.740 | as one of our primary fuel sources for explosive exercise.

00:36:55.860 | Well, if we're using phosphocreatine,

00:36:57.720 | this creatine kinase, remember kinase are enzymes

00:37:01.140 | that function to break things down for the most part.

00:37:03.820 | So creatine kinase is the enzyme

00:37:05.380 | you use to break down creatine.

00:37:07.180 | When you do that a lot, then that creatine kinase

00:37:09.480 | gets out of muscle and seeps into the blood.

00:37:12.940 | Myoglobin is actually another fantastic marker by the way.

00:37:15.820 | Myoglobin is, if you think about hemoglobin being in blood

00:37:19.420 | is the molecule that carries oxygen around.

00:37:22.420 | When it's in the muscle tissue, then it's myoglobin.

00:37:24.500 | Myo meaning muscle and it's the same globulin thing.

00:37:27.300 | So there's a bunch of markers

00:37:28.300 | you can look at muscle breakdown.

00:37:30.220 | And one of the things that you can see

00:37:31.860 | is a creatine kinase level that's elevated

00:37:34.500 | after say one bout of exercise

00:37:37.740 | and it might be up five or six fold.

00:37:41.940 | I've actually seen this number in offensive linemen

00:37:44.740 | in the NFL be something like 500 plus fold.

00:37:48.280 | So even within just one category to the next,

00:37:50.940 | that number can get extraordinarily high.

00:37:53.220 | And if you know, this is actually one important point here.

00:37:57.320 | If you're paying attention to any mechanistic research

00:38:00.400 | or you're using that to inform your decision making,

00:38:02.820 | you have to be extraordinarily careful of magnitude.

00:38:06.100 | And what I mean by that is,

00:38:08.220 | if I were to be running a Western blot

00:38:10.940 | looking at a signaling protein in a muscle,

00:38:14.260 | did this activation of this protein

00:38:16.740 | turn on mitochondrial biogenesis?

00:38:18.420 | And I saw that whatever intervention we gave it,

00:38:20.980 | whether it was a nutrition thing or a drug

00:38:23.060 | or an exercise.

00:38:24.180 | And I saw that that signaling protein increased by 20%.

00:38:28.140 | I would basically assume that

00:38:29.260 | to be totally physiologically irrelevant.

00:38:31.920 | Because in order for that to be important,

00:38:33.300 | it totally depends on the marker you're looking at.

00:38:34.940 | But some markers I might need to see

00:38:37.780 | four or five, six hundred fold increase

00:38:39.220 | before I know that that will actually be enough

00:38:41.540 | to be what we call physiologically relevant.

00:38:43.540 | Others, if they're up one or two percent, that is relevant.

00:38:47.740 | And so you really wanna be careful

00:38:49.540 | when you're either reading papers

00:38:51.380 | or looking at social media stuff.

00:38:53.780 | If people are just talking about

00:38:54.920 | this marker increased this much, it may not matter.

00:38:57.540 | It may be totally irrelevant physiologically.

00:39:00.140 | And so you have to, that does also,

00:39:02.020 | if you're wondering how the hell are all these people,

00:39:04.140 | well, that's how they can trick you a little bit.

00:39:07.440 | Intentionally or not.

00:39:08.280 | It could be just they're trying their best,

00:39:09.680 | but they don't really understand that area enough.

00:39:11.620 | And so that's an important point to pay attention to.

00:39:14.480 | So to answer your question again fully,

00:39:16.380 | it would be hard to determine

00:39:18.780 | if there is truly a maximum level.

00:39:21.500 | Some things don't wanna move, like blood pH.

00:39:26.200 | It doesn't really wanna move.

00:39:27.220 | The range that you're gonna move from

00:39:28.540 | is like 6.8 to 7.4.

00:39:31.260 | And if you get up to like 7.9,

00:39:33.220 | you're probably in big, big, big trouble.

00:39:36.460 | Other things, again, can go up 500, 5,000 fold.

00:39:39.920 | And so the markers will really determine that answer.

00:39:42.820 | - Well, at some point in the future,

00:39:45.540 | I'd love to continue this discussion

00:39:46.940 | around the topic of stress specifically.

00:39:49.460 | And maybe we will get into that a little bit later today

00:39:52.060 | when we get into the use of deliberate cold exposure,

00:39:56.260 | because that certainly has effects

00:39:59.100 | related directly to temperature on tissue,

00:40:01.260 | but it certainly has mental effects

00:40:03.060 | in terms of raising one's level of perceived pain.

00:40:07.400 | - It's fun.

00:40:08.240 | - Some people love it,

00:40:10.460 | and some people love it for the feeling they get during it.

00:40:13.420 | Deliberate cold exposure,

00:40:14.340 | some people only like it for the feeling they get after it.

00:40:17.620 | Not unlike exercise.

00:40:19.420 | I love to train, I love exercise,

00:40:21.500 | but I know many people who, they loathe exercise,

00:40:24.840 | but they love the feeling afterward.

00:40:26.860 | So this will be a theme that we will come back to.

00:40:29.440 | Thank you for indulging my interest in that semi-tangent.

00:40:33.940 | I think it's a relevant tangent if there is such a thing.

00:40:37.060 | If you can now return us to the different time scales

00:40:39.940 | and modes of recovery,

00:40:41.700 | 'cause I think where we are headed is

00:40:44.300 | how to get better at recovering.

00:40:46.440 | - Yep, let's talk about the tools,

00:40:48.100 | let's talk about what to measure and identify

00:40:50.360 | for all four of these distinct levels.

00:40:53.020 | So level one is what we call overload.

00:40:56.060 | And just very quickly, what that means is

00:40:57.900 | I did a workout today.

00:40:59.540 | The sign and symptom of overload is you're fatigued,

00:41:03.860 | acute performance is down.

00:41:05.760 | So I worked out hard right now.

00:41:08.280 | If I were to go try to do a maximum effort,

00:41:10.420 | I would be reduced in my ability.

00:41:12.540 | The recovery period for acute overload is minutes to days.

00:41:17.340 | Right, that's generally what we call acute overload.

00:41:19.060 | And that's what we're looking for, right?

00:41:20.340 | So we, systems should theoretically

00:41:22.420 | see that hormetic stressor, come back in response,

00:41:25.100 | come back bigger, better, more efficient, et cetera.

00:41:28.940 | If you were to continue training in that state,

00:41:30.980 | like most of us do, and say I did a workout today,

00:41:33.420 | I had a little bit of acute overload.

00:41:35.240 | Gonna work out again tomorrow,

00:41:36.620 | a little more acute overload.

00:41:37.780 | Gonna work out the next day, a little more acute overload.

00:41:39.780 | Even if you took a day in between, it's,

00:41:41.780 | that doesn't matter, right?

00:41:42.620 | You just continue these acute bouts of insult.

00:41:45.580 | Then you're gonna be pushing into

00:41:47.140 | the absolute golden target,

00:41:49.880 | which is what we call functional overreaching.

00:41:53.140 | So you have overreached what you can currently do,

00:41:57.200 | and it results in a functional outcome.

00:41:59.460 | And what we mean functionally here

00:42:00.900 | is performance is enhanced.

00:42:03.020 | And again, performance being whatever you deem it to be.

00:42:04.920 | You're stronger, you've enhanced muscle size,

00:42:08.540 | your mitochondria has improved, whatever the thing is.

00:42:11.600 | It's not just a physical performance thing, right?

00:42:14.440 | Amazing.

00:42:15.760 | Recovery time for functional overreaching

00:42:19.000 | is typically a few days to maybe even a week or so.

00:42:22.940 | And so typically what we see happen

00:42:24.860 | is prior to a competition,

00:42:26.300 | individuals will do what we call a taper,

00:42:28.180 | which is a reduced training volume

00:42:30.220 | for some short period of time.

00:42:31.300 | And the reason they do that is to, again,

00:42:34.780 | actualize is the phrase we use here,

00:42:37.860 | the adaptations.

00:42:38.860 | And so you worked hard for six weeks,

00:42:40.800 | and theoretically the workouts you did

00:42:44.420 | three, four, five, six weeks ago,

00:42:46.480 | once you allow the system to recover,

00:42:48.980 | will be actualized,

00:42:50.100 | which means your performance will be enhanced here.

00:42:52.220 | So functional overreaching is the golden target.

00:42:56.380 | If you were to be at the point of functional overreaching

00:42:59.220 | and you continue to train,

00:43:00.980 | so it intensified,

00:43:02.100 | whether this is through intensity, this is through volume,

00:43:04.740 | or really, as you said earlier,

00:43:06.580 | you had something holding back your recovery.

00:43:08.540 | It doesn't really matter, right?

00:43:10.100 | It's sort of two sides of the same coin.

00:43:12.700 | Then you would move into what we call

00:43:14.860 | non-functional overreaching.

00:43:17.780 | So you've overreached again,

00:43:19.700 | but now it is non-functional,

00:43:21.220 | as in you did not see a positive benefit

00:43:23.460 | once recovery allowed.

00:43:25.820 | This typically means you have weeks,

00:43:28.380 | it takes weeks to come back from,

00:43:29.980 | and you basically just get back to baseline.

00:43:32.420 | And this is where a lot of folks are

00:43:34.140 | who end up in this vicious cycle.

00:43:36.340 | And so you're like, man,

00:43:37.540 | I'm not getting the results I want,

00:43:39.420 | I'm going to train harder.

00:43:41.220 | I'm not getting results I want,

00:43:42.380 | I'm gonna train harder and harder.

00:43:43.620 | But because recovery isn't improved,

00:43:46.820 | you just end up in the same spot,

00:43:48.340 | so then you train more,

00:43:49.180 | and you end up in the same spot,

00:43:50.020 | and you end up then just either blowing up or quitting,

00:43:52.260 | and you're not getting where you want.

00:43:54.100 | If you were to continue past that point,

00:43:56.620 | you may actually be in what we actually call overtraining.

00:44:00.340 | And that typically is considered to be overtrained

00:44:03.900 | if it takes months to recover from.

00:44:06.380 | So most people think they're overtrained,

00:44:08.660 | are really not,

00:44:10.060 | you're just probably non-functionally overreached.

00:44:14.220 | And again, the classic distinction is

00:44:15.700 | if you took three or four days off and you felt better,

00:44:18.220 | you weren't probably quote unquote overtrained.

00:44:20.740 | You were probably just in this area

00:44:22.300 | of non-functional overreaching,

00:44:23.460 | you need a little bit of a back off.

00:44:24.620 | If you, and this has been the case,

00:44:26.420 | I've had this happen with gymnasts and a cheerleader

00:44:29.580 | and some other things where they take a month off

00:44:32.980 | and we're barely seeing them start to come back

00:44:35.620 | to their baseline numbers in any number of areas,

00:44:38.900 | mood, desire to train, testosterone, cortisol ratios,

00:44:43.740 | bowel markers in a number of areas, physical performance,

00:44:46.380 | vertical jump height, like all these things,

00:44:47.860 | they just start to get back to baseline.

00:44:49.500 | So true overtraining is actually quite rare.

00:44:52.420 | Non-functional overreaching is much more common,

00:44:55.900 | and it is a shorter timeframe scale.

00:44:58.100 | So when we talk about recovery,

00:45:00.460 | those are the four pieces that we're really thinking about.

00:45:03.780 | So if you are concerned about, oh, I'm super sore,

00:45:06.780 | how do I get less sore?

00:45:08.140 | How do I either not be a sore,

00:45:11.060 | next time I do that same workout,

00:45:12.460 | or I'm super sore and now how do I recover?

00:45:14.620 | Those are playing in that first category of overload.

00:45:18.660 | And we can certainly talk about how to figure that out,

00:45:20.900 | but the quick answer is,

00:45:22.540 | you gotta go back to our previous episodes

00:45:24.900 | and just pay attention

00:45:25.740 | to the volume intensity recommendations.

00:45:28.260 | If you're getting significantly more damage

00:45:32.580 | or fatigue in a workout,

00:45:34.500 | you probably have increased your volume too quickly,

00:45:37.980 | or something else is dragging your stress bucket down.

00:45:40.880 | But generally, this is a problem of training.

00:45:43.820 | You either didn't warm up sufficiently,

00:45:46.060 | your fueling strategy is off,

00:45:47.900 | which we'll talk about in the next episode,

00:45:50.180 | or you've violated one of our principles

00:45:51.940 | of increasing intensity and volume sort of too quickly.

00:45:55.980 | If it's past that and you're getting to a stage

00:45:58.780 | where you're just like, I'm feeling beat up all the time,

00:46:02.080 | my energy is going down,

00:46:03.300 | I'm just not feeling like I'm recovered,

00:46:05.180 | now we're in this overreaching stage.

00:46:07.840 | So the story I kind of tell here always

00:46:11.420 | is a few years ago I was working

00:46:13.420 | and my wife Natasha was in the garage training

00:46:17.780 | and I'm doing something and she comes stumbling

00:46:20.700 | and she has this look on her eyes

00:46:22.240 | and her eyeballs are giant, she's just like wobbling.

00:46:25.220 | She's like, "I effed up."

00:46:27.660 | I was like, "What do you mean you effed up?"

00:46:29.100 | And she's just like, "I read the program wrong."

00:46:31.980 | And she's like, "What'd you do?"

00:46:33.580 | She was supposed to be doing 10 sets of three

00:46:36.760 | every minute on the minute,

00:46:38.260 | and she did three sets of 10 every minute on the minute.

00:46:41.180 | And she was absolutely wrecked.

00:46:44.220 | She couldn't move for a few hours afterwards,

00:46:46.840 | and then for days she's just like,

00:46:48.020 | "You have to handle the kids, I can't get out of bed,

00:46:49.900 | "I can't move."

00:46:50.940 | So that was a classic example of,

00:46:53.160 | all right, we don't need to fix recovery here,

00:46:55.080 | you're just a dummy and you did the training

00:46:57.340 | way too hard, too long, this is not,

00:46:59.800 | we don't have a problem here.

00:47:00.700 | So if it's a situation like that,

00:47:02.880 | it's generally you just, the program was way off.

00:47:05.900 | If it's constantly happening,

00:47:07.920 | where you're just like, man, for whatever reason,

00:47:09.880 | every once in a while I'm getting really sore

00:47:12.480 | or having a really bad performance in these workouts,

00:47:15.660 | then we need to go to our other stress bucket,

00:47:18.000 | take a look at our allostatic load or allostasis

00:47:20.540 | and get figured out what's happening there.

00:47:23.000 | So those are the easy ways to flag acute overload problems.

00:47:27.620 | - I'd like to take a brief break

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00:48:19.960 | I'm happy that you pointed out the distinction

00:48:22.240 | between functional overreaching,

00:48:24.480 | over-training, and being over-trained.

00:48:27.120 | I think one common mistake that people make

00:48:29.520 | in thinking about biology generally

00:48:31.840 | is that they think in terms of nouns and adjectives

00:48:34.680 | and not verbs.

00:48:35.580 | - Amazing, I love that so much.

00:48:37.660 | - Biology is a collection of processes or processes,

00:48:42.580 | depending on who you are and where you live

00:48:44.280 | and who you trained with.

00:48:47.300 | Being over-trained is a state that in many ways

00:48:52.300 | is an adjective.

00:48:53.540 | You're over-trained, I'm over-trained.

00:48:56.460 | It's like saying, you know, I'm an American,

00:48:58.940 | I'm a Czechoslovakian, whatever it happens to be, right?

00:49:02.540 | And in many ways, people do start to associate

00:49:04.220 | with an identity, at least a transient identity,

00:49:07.700 | and they start making all sorts of decisions,

00:49:09.380 | it sounds like, about what sorts of verbs

00:49:11.540 | they will and will not engage in.

00:49:13.400 | Whereas I think if we look at things as processes

00:49:16.700 | and we assign verbs to them, then we can say,

00:49:21.300 | okay, I'm functionally overreaching,

00:49:24.820 | or I'm truly over-training,

00:49:27.380 | which is just a matter of degrees, right?

00:49:29.500 | Or under-training, for that matter.

00:49:31.400 | I'm not, I'm reaching, but I'm not functionally reaching.

00:49:35.500 | It's just performance, and you know,

00:49:37.420 | just as with the nervous system won't change

00:49:39.780 | unless you give it a reason to,

00:49:40.740 | this is the reason why if you can perform something

00:49:42.220 | perfectly or speak a language perfectly,

00:49:43.820 | there's no rewiring of the nervous system.

00:49:46.540 | This myth that we've all been told

00:49:47.900 | that every experience rewires your nervous system,

00:49:49.980 | it's different now than it was two seconds ago,

00:49:51.880 | that's a ridiculous illogical statement.

00:49:54.580 | We know that's not true.

00:49:55.860 | If your nervous system can perform something,

00:49:57.580 | it has no reason to change and it won't.

00:49:59.660 | - Muscle's the same way.

00:50:00.760 | This is why you have to progressively overload.

00:50:02.820 | You have to learn something new

00:50:03.980 | or challenge your muscle to do something new.

00:50:05.820 | It's same thing.

00:50:07.100 | - So in the example that you gave

00:50:08.980 | with your wife doing this workout

00:50:10.440 | that turned out to be far more strenuous,

00:50:12.460 | she had functionally overreach.

00:50:14.420 | In some sense, she might've been over-training

00:50:17.100 | or heading in the direction of over-training,

00:50:19.460 | but the mistake would be to assume

00:50:20.860 | that she was over-trained, right?

00:50:23.980 | It almost becomes a bit of a state

00:50:25.700 | or a character assignment as opposed to a verb.

00:50:29.760 | And in any case, there's no perfect way to describe this.

00:50:31.660 | We're talking about nouns and adjectives

00:50:33.140 | and we're also talking about verbs,

00:50:35.980 | but I think the verbs are really anchored down

00:50:37.820 | in processes and things that we do,

00:50:40.500 | actions that we can take.

00:50:42.140 | And so if I may, I'd like to just highlight this idea

00:50:46.140 | of shifting one's thinking towards verb actions

00:50:51.140 | rather than labels on the state that we happen to be in

00:50:55.180 | or the person that we happen to be, right?

00:50:57.280 | Sometimes it even does become kind of characterological

00:50:59.940 | in the way that people describe it.

00:51:01.800 | And so I have to believe

00:51:04.100 | that there is something called over-training,

00:51:07.020 | that over-training is real in other words,

00:51:09.320 | but that we don't ever really know if we're over-trained.

00:51:12.880 | - You nailed it.

00:51:15.160 | - There's no, you know, it's not like a red flag,

00:51:17.800 | you know, shoots up out of your shoulder

00:51:19.140 | and it's like, I'm over-trained, you know?

00:51:21.120 | So in doing so, I hope that we can start thinking

00:51:24.380 | about some of the verbs, the actions that we can all take

00:51:27.420 | in order to ensure that we stimulate progressive overload

00:51:31.340 | one way or another.

00:51:32.720 | And at the same time that we don't fall into these bins

00:51:35.420 | of character assignment where suddenly we decide

00:51:38.000 | that we need to do X, like take a month off

00:51:40.260 | or something like that.

00:51:41.100 | Because I'm beginning to realize from our discussion

00:51:44.740 | that that's exactly the wrong way to go.

00:51:47.240 | - Those are fantastic points.

00:51:49.340 | I wanna make sure it is clear

00:51:51.660 | that there is no clinical diagnoses for over-training.

00:51:54.580 | There are no standards, there's no test

00:51:56.380 | or a blood panel you can pull

00:51:58.580 | that would actually identify you in that state.

00:52:00.500 | So your distinction here, Andrew,

00:52:02.620 | of these are verbs rather than nouns is so wonderful

00:52:05.580 | 'cause that is exactly the case.

00:52:07.340 | The only way we could really come retroactively diagnose

00:52:10.860 | one with over-training is if, again,

00:52:12.960 | we had you did weeks of recovery

00:52:16.580 | and you only got back to baseline.

00:52:18.860 | So we can't do it in the moment.

00:52:20.380 | I can't take a single test.

00:52:22.980 | There's no subjective marker or anything

00:52:24.340 | that says you are over-trained.

00:52:26.260 | It is simply, you are probably over-training

00:52:29.620 | and we need to reverse that quickly.

00:52:31.340 | Or in the case of the step before,

00:52:33.580 | you are probably non-functionally overreaching.

00:52:36.600 | And if you continue to do this,

00:52:38.100 | you will probably enter into a stage

00:52:40.540 | where this is your over-training and we need to come back.

00:52:43.900 | So that's an important thing to let people know

00:52:46.340 | is there's no one thing we can actually point to

00:52:48.800 | that says you are here, you are not a noun, this is a verb.

00:52:52.600 | - So what are some tools that we can use

00:52:54.100 | to enhance our recovery?

00:52:55.580 | - Yeah, let's start off with that acute overload phase.

00:52:58.100 | So in other words, I just did a workout

00:53:00.260 | and I'm feeling awful, or I just did one,

00:53:03.140 | two days ago and I'm super sore.

00:53:04.260 | How do I get rid of that right now?

00:53:06.100 | Well, there's a couple of things you can do immediately

00:53:07.940 | after your workout.

00:53:09.400 | And then others that are maybe more actionable

00:53:11.840 | a day later or two days later.

00:53:13.240 | And we'll just cover a handful of them.

00:53:15.100 | We'll do some nutrition and hydration and supplementation

00:53:18.540 | in the next episode.

00:53:20.060 | I'm gonna cover everything else

00:53:20.920 | not in that category right now.

00:53:23.140 | So a couple of things.

00:53:24.020 | Number one, you can actually start, kickstart

00:53:28.160 | that recovery process at the end

00:53:30.940 | of your current training session.

00:53:32.300 | And I guess I should say it this way.

00:53:34.800 | I strongly suggest you start this recovery process

00:53:38.460 | immediately after the workout.

00:53:40.300 | You mentioned earlier about this idea of

00:53:43.560 | you gotta get a really high peak of stress

00:53:46.200 | to cause adaptation.

00:53:47.820 | But I actually didn't explain that correctly

00:53:49.480 | 'cause what has to happen is you need

00:53:50.880 | that extremely high peak, but then you have to be met

00:53:54.220 | with an extremely sharp recovery back down.

00:53:57.600 | And so, you've talked about this before

00:53:59.780 | in some of your neuroplasticity stuff

00:54:02.660 | and in terms of what has to happen

00:54:04.700 | that caused the insult.

00:54:05.800 | And then you immediately need to be able to recover

00:54:08.140 | to make sure that that causes changes in the brain.

00:54:10.460 | Same thing happens here.

00:54:11.500 | So we need a really sharp and high inflammatory response.

00:54:15.540 | And then if you do not meet it

00:54:16.980 | with an immediate recovery period,

00:54:19.840 | the signal won't be there to maximize your results.

00:54:22.380 | So what's that mean?

00:54:23.240 | You can actually do a couple of things.

00:54:24.940 | Number one is actually listening to slow paced music.

00:54:28.620 | There's evidence to suggest fast paced music

00:54:30.980 | may slow down your recovery

00:54:33.660 | and slow pace would actually enhance it.

00:54:35.500 | So if you just change from your maximum,

00:54:39.260 | get you up and get going, music during the workout

00:54:41.660 | to a slower, lower cadence,

00:54:43.780 | that will help you kickstart the idea.

00:54:46.340 | Of a similar note,

00:54:47.420 | you can also use what we call down regulation breathing.

00:54:50.060 | You could do them in conjunction or one or the other,

00:54:52.620 | whichever is up to you.

00:54:53.700 | So my personal favorite method here

00:54:56.220 | is somewhere between three to 10 minutes

00:54:59.220 | of finishing your training session,

00:55:01.580 | laying down, I'd like to be in that position.

00:55:04.140 | You could certainly do it in the Lotus position,

00:55:05.740 | but I think laying on your back

00:55:06.660 | is generally more effective.

00:55:08.280 | Personal preference there, no science.

00:55:10.300 | I like the eyes being covered,

00:55:11.900 | getting into this dark, quiet sort of area.

00:55:14.600 | And then just breathing through your nose

00:55:17.620 | in a structured cadence.

00:55:18.700 | There's a lot of different things you can try.

00:55:20.380 | An easy example is just box breathing.

00:55:22.340 | So you can imagine box having four squares.

00:55:25.540 | So what you're going to do is inhale

00:55:27.340 | for somewhere between like three to eight seconds.

00:55:30.540 | And then whatever number you choose,

00:55:32.240 | you keep that same tempo.

00:55:34.180 | And so let's say you chose to do a five second inhale.

00:55:36.940 | That's going to take you up vertically.

00:55:39.260 | And then horizontally for your box is a five second hold.

00:55:42.620 | And then a five second exhale, and then a five second hold.

00:55:46.380 | And you just need to repeat that for the time domain.

00:55:48.340 | I typically honestly don't use a timer.

00:55:50.640 | You'll actually notice a lot of people will like fall asleep

00:55:53.580 | or get really close to falling asleep in this period.

00:55:56.660 | You could do a triangle version of that

00:55:58.580 | where you do an inhale, hold, exhale,

00:56:02.040 | and then go right back into your inhale.

00:56:03.460 | Or there's a bunch of different tricks you can try here.

00:56:05.620 | You need to play around

00:56:06.460 | and see what actually works best for you.

00:56:09.300 | 10 minutes is probably better,

00:56:10.820 | but if you can just at least give me three, that'll work.

00:56:14.480 | If you're really, really resistant,

00:56:16.380 | you can actually do that just in the shower.

00:56:19.020 | And so if you're going to finish your workout,

00:56:20.620 | get in the shower.

00:56:21.440 | Again, just close your eyes in the shower,

00:56:22.700 | give me three minutes of focused relaxation breathing,

00:56:25.940 | and that will accelerate the recovery process.

00:56:28.120 | I love it, and I particularly love it

00:56:29.680 | because my laboratory works on stress and respiration,

00:56:32.840 | okay, breathing, and the interactions between the two.

00:56:36.040 | And I'll just mention a result

00:56:37.860 | that was just accepted for publication,

00:56:40.960 | so it should be out by time this episode airs.

00:56:43.620 | Thank you.

00:56:44.560 | This is the beautiful work of Not Me Directly,

00:56:47.620 | although it took place in my lab,

00:56:48.640 | but as we know, it's the students at post-docs

00:56:50.220 | who really do the heavy lifting

00:56:51.700 | of Dr. Malise Balbon in my lab.

00:56:55.440 | He's a phenomenal researcher that showed

00:56:58.700 | that a short period of five minutes of box breathing,

00:57:02.480 | of exactly the type that you described,

00:57:04.820 | or a cyclic sighing,

00:57:06.620 | so two inhales followed by an extended exhale

00:57:09.020 | to lungs empty.

00:57:09.860 | Ideally, the inhales are done through the nose,

00:57:11.540 | the exhales are done through the mouth,

00:57:13.900 | although it could all be done through the nose,

00:57:16.660 | or the mouth for that matter,

00:57:17.900 | but probably nose, nose for inhale,

00:57:20.420 | inhale, mouth for exhale,

00:57:21.960 | or inhales through the nose,

00:57:26.260 | and exhale through the nose.

00:57:27.780 | Cyclic sighing, as we refer to it, done for five minutes.

00:57:30.300 | Both of those produce very significant decreases

00:57:34.020 | in resting heart rate.

00:57:35.180 | The overtime will increase things like heart rate variability

00:57:39.020 | and so on and so forth.

00:57:40.740 | So provided that there are extended exhales,

00:57:44.620 | it seems like the calming response

00:57:47.180 | and the reduction in overall stress occurs.

00:57:50.600 | The only thing that really sends things

00:57:51.920 | in the other direction would be something

00:57:53.120 | like cyclic hyperventilation.

00:57:54.540 | I'm sure you've observed that.

00:57:56.180 | And interestingly,

00:57:57.680 | when we had people just do five minutes of meditation,

00:58:02.780 | during which of course they are breathing,

00:58:05.260 | but they're just allowing their breathing to progress,

00:58:07.520 | however it happens to be in that moment,

00:58:09.580 | or moments across the five minutes,

00:58:13.500 | there were reductions in the same sorts of markers of stress

00:58:17.040 | that I described, but not as significant as breathing.

00:58:19.420 | So I love the box breathing tool post-workout,

00:58:23.100 | and there's some other alternatives there too

00:58:24.940 | that I just mentioned.

00:58:25.820 | But I think people greatly underestimate

00:58:29.280 | the potency of breathing

00:58:30.660 | for shifting one's nervous system function away from stress,

00:58:34.500 | or if one wants, toward more alertness and stress.

00:58:37.400 | - I actually have a couple of questions for you on that.

00:58:39.540 | - Sure.

00:58:40.380 | - I think the audience would appreciate this.

00:58:42.080 | How long were those boxes?

00:58:43.980 | Was it just user selected?

00:58:45.780 | - Great question.

00:58:46.620 | So we used the carbon dioxide tolerance test.

00:58:49.240 | - Amazing.

00:58:50.080 | - In order for people to determine

00:58:51.580 | how long the different sides of the box should be.

00:58:54.180 | And you covered carbon dioxide tolerance test

00:58:55.920 | in a previous episode.

00:58:57.280 | And we can provide a link to that clip

00:58:59.460 | in the show note captions.

00:59:00.420 | But as you point out,

00:59:01.260 | it involves a long extended exhale to lungs empty.

00:59:05.120 | And of course people could sit with lungs empty,

00:59:07.980 | but they have to accurately, faithfully, as we say,

00:59:11.600 | report how long it took them to empty their lungs.

00:59:14.480 | We use that as a gauge.

00:59:16.380 | Typically, if it takes, if people go to lungs empty

00:59:19.520 | in 20 seconds or less,

00:59:21.320 | I believe I have to go back to the paper and look,

00:59:23.260 | but I believe that the duration

00:59:25.020 | for each of the sides of the boxes, as it were,

00:59:27.220 | was somewhere between two and three seconds.

00:59:30.800 | If they had a CO2 discard time of anywhere from 20 seconds

00:59:35.800 | up to about 40, 45 seconds,

00:59:38.240 | we use the sides of the box where I believe

00:59:41.440 | between four and six seconds.

00:59:42.640 | And then for people longer than who could discard their air

00:59:45.620 | over a period of a minute or more,

00:59:48.900 | we used a box duration that is inhale hold,

00:59:52.740 | exhale hold duration of somewhere between,

00:59:55.800 | I believe it was seven or maybe it was eight

00:59:59.680 | and as long as 11 or 12 seconds.

01:00:02.320 | 'Cause you get your kind of free diver types

01:00:04.120 | who can really do this,

01:00:05.520 | who are really well-trained for this sort of thing.

01:00:08.120 | Don't quote me exactly on those numbers,

01:00:11.040 | but that was approximate.

01:00:12.640 | - Those line up exactly with what we've done.

01:00:15.040 | So I believe it's going to be close

01:00:16.600 | within seconds of non-important distinction.

01:00:19.280 | It's going to be close enough.

01:00:20.360 | So that's great.

01:00:21.480 | And that was, it took them what, six weeks?

01:00:24.840 | - So this study was done over the period of a month

01:00:27.240 | and then when they were swapped into a new pattern

01:00:29.840 | of breathing condition or meditation condition.

01:00:33.800 | And this was all done in the natural world, as we say.

01:00:37.400 | They were wearing Woot bands,

01:00:38.660 | they were getting heart rate, heart rate variability,

01:00:40.480 | sleep data, subjective data about mood, et cetera.

01:00:43.080 | So there were a lot of measures,

01:00:44.500 | but this was more than a hundred subjects

01:00:47.040 | out in the wild of life.

01:00:48.640 | And we tried as best we could to track life stress events

01:00:52.800 | and exercise and things like that.

01:00:54.460 | That was harder to control outside the laboratory.

01:00:56.800 | Really all those results speak to exactly

01:00:58.440 | what you're describing here,

01:00:59.620 | which is that deliberate respiration

01:01:02.520 | that involves controlled holds and exhales

01:01:05.260 | really has a dramatic and very immediate impact

01:01:09.760 | on reducing our levels of stress.

01:01:12.400 | - That's wonderful.

01:01:13.240 | I'm not surprised at all with your findings.

01:01:15.780 | And what's really interesting about that is,

01:01:18.420 | you mentioned how the exhalation portion

01:01:21.400 | is primarily responsible for the down regulation.

01:01:24.160 | And that's actually goes back

01:01:25.620 | to our previous endurance conversation,

01:01:28.320 | which is that in general at rest at non altitude,

01:01:32.000 | increases in CO2 are the primary driver for ventilation.

01:01:35.540 | And so what that generally means is inhales are associated

01:01:38.480 | with an uptick and sympathetic state

01:01:41.220 | and exhales are associated with a uptick

01:01:43.600 | of parasympathetic state.

01:01:45.400 | This is generally why folks will do things like exhale

01:01:49.760 | and finish that exhale right before they perform

01:01:53.560 | a very high precision neurological task.

01:01:57.680 | So if you're going to say, aim at a target and shoot,

01:02:00.660 | you're going to exhale fully

01:02:01.800 | and then almost always execute that movement

01:02:04.920 | at the end of the exhale,

01:02:06.060 | because that's when you're in your highest

01:02:07.600 | parasympathetic state and lowest drive for ventilation.

01:02:10.560 | I have to say, I'm not surprised at all

01:02:12.000 | that you guys found that.

01:02:12.840 | There's actually other data that point to individuals,

01:02:17.000 | particularly after endurance training,

01:02:18.800 | that can get back down to baseline heart rate

01:02:22.160 | is going to be correlated with who gets

01:02:24.040 | the most actual result of their training.

01:02:26.880 | So that if you take a bunch of individuals

01:02:29.640 | and put them through an endurance training program,

01:02:32.480 | and if you measure how quickly they can get back down

01:02:34.880 | to baseline after each workout,

01:02:37.380 | in general, those folks that are better at that

01:02:40.080 | are going to see greater improvements in performance

01:02:42.640 | at the end of your, say, four or six

01:02:44.720 | or eight week training block.

01:02:46.360 | And so there's a little bit of causation

01:02:48.600 | and correlation there that we have to untie,

01:02:51.120 | but I think it's enough to say,

01:02:52.800 | hey, if you invest these three,

01:02:55.440 | and in your case, your study was five minutes,

01:02:59.580 | it's only going to enhance recovery.

01:03:01.540 | You have a likelihood of increasing

01:03:05.280 | your results from your training.

01:03:07.020 | And now we also have additional benefits

01:03:09.980 | like being able to transition more appropriately

01:03:11.960 | into our next task, going to work,

01:03:14.640 | going to see family, whatever the thing is.

01:03:17.180 | And it's a nice close to,

01:03:20.060 | I asked you to be in a high sympathetic state body,

01:03:22.420 | and I asked you to perform and to be under stress,

01:03:25.020 | I gave you recovery,

01:03:26.540 | and now we're ready to transition in our next thing

01:03:28.320 | so that we don't take that exercise energy, if you will,

01:03:32.180 | into our next task,

01:03:34.820 | which may or may not want me in a sympathetic drive state.

01:03:38.460 | - So if somebody is sore following a workout,

01:03:41.020 | either locally sore in a muscle group or group of muscles,

01:03:44.660 | maybe in their legs or chest or torso,

01:03:47.700 | or maybe their whole body is sore,

01:03:50.480 | as it sometimes is the case,

01:03:52.120 | what are some tools that they can implement

01:03:55.080 | in order to accelerate the,

01:03:57.460 | I want to call it moving out of that soreness,

01:03:59.360 | but it's really, as we know,

01:04:01.300 | the alleviation of the soreness

01:04:03.440 | through a bunch of different processes.

01:04:05.080 | What are the most effective tools

01:04:06.560 | to push back on that soreness and dissipate it?

01:04:09.880 | - Yeah, absolutely.

01:04:11.500 | First of all, it's not lactate.

01:04:13.400 | That's just a really important thing

01:04:14.500 | that we still hear people talk about is,

01:04:17.060 | you're sore 24 hours later,

01:04:18.300 | you got to do this thing to get the lactate out of there.

01:04:20.980 | As we talked about in the metabolism conversation

01:04:24.420 | in an episode, that is not the cause of fatigue,

01:04:27.620 | and it's certainly not the cause of soreness.

01:04:29.580 | So not an actionable tip there,

01:04:31.820 | but just a pet peeve of mine when I hear people say that,

01:04:34.740 | that I get irritated, so we can maybe end that conversation.

01:04:38.280 | Strategies, tools.

01:04:40.040 | Here's what you can do.

01:04:41.460 | You can actually wear compression gear.

01:04:43.320 | That will help a little bit.

01:04:44.260 | There's a decent amount of evidence

01:04:46.300 | suggesting if you just were to put

01:04:48.280 | some tighter fitting clothes on,

01:04:49.760 | leisure wear or compression gear if you have it,

01:04:52.040 | that that can actually prevent

01:04:54.440 | a little bit of soreness from occurring.

01:04:55.820 | So if you're in the case of poor Natasha

01:04:57.480 | and you realize you've just done way, way, way too much,

01:05:00.100 | or you went and hung out with your bow hunting friend

01:05:02.540 | and you trained way too hard and you realize,

01:05:04.400 | oh my goodness, I'm going to be very sore here,

01:05:07.060 | you can immediately put on compression gear

01:05:08.960 | and weigh that really for as long as possible.

01:05:11.760 | - What are some examples of compression gear?

01:05:13.420 | I've seen people on the plane with those high socks.

01:05:16.820 | - Yeah, I mean, anything that you wear compression gear

01:05:19.340 | for what you do for exercise.

01:05:21.300 | So whether these are just compression pants and leggings,

01:05:24.580 | the tight fitting leggings,

01:05:26.460 | whether this is a long sleeve shirt,

01:05:28.180 | that's like a rash guard you would wear in jiu-jitsu

01:05:31.180 | or surfing or something like that.

01:05:33.300 | As long as it's tight fitting,

01:05:34.540 | it doesn't have to be much more than that.

01:05:36.480 | You can wear, I suppose you could get the socks,

01:05:39.260 | would be great, but we generally just tell our athletes

01:05:41.860 | they would put on a long sleeve compression shirts

01:05:44.700 | that they would wear for their training

01:05:45.940 | and then long compression leggings and that'd be fine.

01:05:49.380 | - Can people apply these compression garb after training

01:05:54.380 | and still get some of the positive effects?

01:05:56.660 | - Yeah, I have not seen any evidence to suggest

01:05:59.300 | that that would block adaptation.

01:06:00.780 | That may be the case.

01:06:01.940 | I am not aware of those studies if that happens,

01:06:04.020 | but I certainly know that the information suggests

01:06:06.780 | it can enhance a little bit of muscle recovery.

01:06:09.340 | - But ideally one knows if they are about to do a workout

01:06:12.280 | that could trigger a lot of soreness

01:06:14.620 | and then wears compression gear of some sort to offset that.

01:06:19.280 | And if so, does it have to be local to the muscle groups

01:06:23.880 | that you're working on?

01:06:24.720 | The reason I asked about the socks is my understanding

01:06:26.420 | that the compression socks people wear on the plane

01:06:29.260 | is that it's going to shift the patterns of blood flow,

01:06:31.460 | not just in the lower legs, but all over the body.

01:06:33.540 | - Yeah, you're probably gonna wanna focus it

01:06:35.180 | on the actual exercising tissue,

01:06:36.900 | though actually that's a really good question.

01:06:38.100 | I don't know the answer of whether or not

01:06:40.020 | you did an upper body workout,

01:06:41.280 | only wore lower body compression gear

01:06:43.180 | if that would actually help.

01:06:44.060 | That's a great question.

01:06:44.900 | It may have been done, I don't know,

01:06:46.740 | but I don't know the answer to that.

01:06:47.940 | In general, we just tell people we're the whole thing

01:06:51.380 | as much as you can.

01:06:53.160 | I actually am not concerned that you're wearing it

01:06:54.660 | during your workout.

01:06:56.380 | It is something you could put on afterwards

01:06:58.180 | or even wear just a little bit of compression the other day.

01:07:01.500 | We've actually did a really fun study.

01:07:03.940 | I collaborated with Bill Kramer,

01:07:06.860 | whose Sports Scientist of the Year Award

01:07:10.420 | is the Bill Kramer Award,

01:07:12.140 | if that gives you an indication out of

01:07:14.380 | University of Connecticut, as well as with Lee Brown,

01:07:16.380 | so two lifetime achievement award winners.

01:07:18.460 | And we put people on a plane in Storrs, Connecticut,

01:07:23.300 | and flew them to Cal State Fullerton,

01:07:24.820 | so a cross-country flight.

01:07:26.660 | And some of them got to wear compression gear

01:07:28.300 | during the flight and others did not.

01:07:30.060 | And then they landed in California,

01:07:32.140 | did a training bout, put them back on the plane,

01:07:34.280 | went back to Storrs, and I think they did

01:07:35.780 | another training bout when they got back there.

01:07:38.100 | There was a lot of data that came out of that paper,

01:07:39.900 | but one of the things that was clear

01:07:41.580 | is the compression group was effective

01:07:43.700 | at handling some of the blood-related coagulation

01:07:47.600 | and other issues associated with long flights,

01:07:52.180 | and particularly athletic performance.

01:07:53.460 | So that's actually a sneaky little insider trick

01:07:55.860 | that I'll use a lot with people,

01:07:57.420 | particularly with athletes that are traveling,

01:07:58.980 | is just wear that compression gear on the plane.

01:08:01.000 | So you talked about that and that sort of

01:08:03.140 | brung that study to mind as another effective strategy.

01:08:06.240 | So compression gear in general,

01:08:07.900 | as well as particularly on a plane,

01:08:10.460 | basically the tighter you can get it, the better,

01:08:12.380 | without obviously making your hands purple

01:08:14.760 | and being uncomfortable and things like that.

01:08:16.300 | So it doesn't have to be overly tight.

01:08:18.780 | Anything will work and probably help.

01:08:20.180 | So I'm also doing that personally

01:08:22.300 | anytime I'm taking a flight like that, as much as I can,

01:08:25.260 | just to feel a little better when I get there.

01:08:27.500 | - So what are some other methods that we can use

01:08:29.580 | to alleviate acute soreness?

01:08:31.740 | - Well, if we continue down this same theme,

01:08:33.900 | which is saying, okay,

01:08:35.140 | we use some sort of pressure manipulation

01:08:38.460 | to enhance recovery.

01:08:40.380 | If compression is one strategy,

01:08:42.520 | you can also use things like compression boots or garments,

01:08:47.100 | and these are nomadic devices that will pump air outside you

01:08:52.180 | and compress back and forth.

01:08:53.420 | There's any number of devices that will do this.

01:08:55.980 | You can also use the physical hand.

01:08:57.300 | So this would be massage and body work.

01:08:59.820 | They're all really working as best we can tell

01:09:01.820 | on the same mechanisms,

01:09:04.220 | which are effectively moving fluid in and out of the tissue,

01:09:08.200 | as well as potentially enhancing blood flow,

01:09:11.380 | increasing capitalization,

01:09:12.900 | and which is going to only get nutrients in

01:09:14.940 | and waste products out.

01:09:16.300 | So you can kind of pick and choose

01:09:18.100 | based upon your budget, preferences, availability, timing,

01:09:22.420 | things like that.

01:09:23.260 | So those are all effective strategies.

01:09:26.220 | Outside of that really is the next largest category,

01:09:29.860 | which is now thermal.

01:09:30.860 | And so far in this discussion,

01:09:33.260 | we've mentioned cold water immersion.

01:09:35.180 | And I talked about in the hypertrophy section,

01:09:37.820 | how you would not want to do that immediately post exercise,

01:09:41.100 | which would be getting into cold water or an ice bath,

01:09:44.220 | if you're trying to grow muscle mass.

01:09:46.140 | Having said that there is good evidence

01:09:49.100 | showing that cold water immersion specifically

01:09:52.580 | is effective at reducing muscle soreness.

01:09:55.260 | So it is a fair consideration.

01:09:57.400 | And it's a classic example of how

01:10:00.300 | there are no free passes in physiology.

01:10:02.460 | Nothing is always good or always bad.

01:10:04.420 | It's always about what are you willing to give up

01:10:06.180 | and versus what you're willing to do get.

01:10:08.820 | And the case of like cold water immersion,

01:10:11.540 | you may be thinking, yeah,

01:10:12.460 | I might want some of the hypertrophic adaptations.

01:10:14.900 | But if you're in that phase of training

01:10:16.580 | where you're actually trying to push more

01:10:18.020 | towards optimization in that moment,

01:10:20.660 | rather than long-term adaptation,

01:10:22.620 | then an ice bath might be a great choice.

01:10:25.360 | In addition, if you fall into a scenario like Natasha did,

01:10:28.660 | and you realize like, I'm just so unbelievably sore,

01:10:31.100 | this might cost me three or four or five

01:10:33.420 | or six days of training.

01:10:35.300 | It might be worth it for you to accelerate

01:10:37.020 | that recovery process by a couple of days

01:10:38.780 | so that you don't miss so much training.

01:10:41.220 | So it's an algorithm, it's an equation.

01:10:43.660 | What am I looking for?

01:10:44.980 | Again, if I'm in season or trying to compete,

01:10:47.340 | or if I have just done way, way, way too much exercise,

01:10:50.440 | and I'm really in significant pain,

01:10:52.740 | you would probably be willing to give up

01:10:54.220 | some small percentage of eventual muscle growth

01:10:56.540 | after a single session to get out of pain.

01:10:58.780 | So of the cold strategies,

01:11:01.140 | cold water immersion is clearly the best approach

01:11:04.060 | rather than cold air or some other tactics.

01:11:06.600 | So a cold shower is probably not enough here.

01:11:08.980 | You really do want to be either in moderately cold,

01:11:12.320 | this is maybe 40 to 50 degree water

01:11:15.120 | for probably north of 15 minutes,

01:11:17.020 | or you can be in sub 40 for as little as maybe five minutes

01:11:20.720 | to get some of the effect.

01:11:21.560 | And there's been a number of studies,

01:11:23.560 | some sort of summarizing a bunch of that kind of into one

01:11:25.740 | rather than going through them point by point.

01:11:28.360 | - The numbers you just threw out,

01:11:30.900 | which I'm assuming are Fahrenheit,

01:11:34.620 | seem really cold to me, uncomfortably cold.

01:11:38.580 | - Absolutely.

01:11:39.540 | Though I always recommend that people ease into it

01:11:43.280 | as a protocol overall,

01:11:44.700 | that they not immediately go to 35 degree cold water

01:11:48.020 | if they've never done it before.

01:11:50.100 | That said, once people are comfortable being uncomfortable,

01:11:54.620 | because I always answer the question,

01:11:56.820 | how cold should it be exactly?

01:11:59.200 | Would you agree that it should be very, very cold,

01:12:01.600 | so much so that you really, really want to get out,

01:12:04.020 | but that you're able to stay in safely,

01:12:06.120 | whatever that value happens to be.

01:12:07.520 | - You absolutely need to be safe.

01:12:09.100 | Having said that, we have actually in our XPT retreats

01:12:12.500 | put dozens, if not hundreds of people at this point,

01:12:16.160 | immediately into the sub 35 degree water,

01:12:18.300 | their first time ever and done three minutes,

01:12:21.580 | multiple rounds in a session so they can handle it.

01:12:24.660 | But you don't need to go that crazy if you don't want.

01:12:26.880 | You kind of have to play a game, right?

01:12:28.020 | Do you want to be really, really cold

01:12:30.260 | for a short amount of time?

01:12:31.300 | Or do you want to be like kind of cold

01:12:32.500 | for a longer amount of time?

01:12:34.940 | Really the only mistake you can make

01:12:36.200 | is doing something like 65 degree water,

01:12:40.000 | which for the most people is not very comfortable,

01:12:42.560 | and doing five or 10 minutes.

01:12:44.960 | - It's just not going to be effective.

01:12:45.960 | - It's probably not going to be effective.

01:12:47.120 | So if you're like, man, 35 is absolutely crazy,

01:12:50.440 | and you want to do 55 degree water,

01:12:52.060 | and there's literature in that area,

01:12:53.960 | but it's going to say you need to probably be there

01:12:56.260 | somewhere almost surely north of 10 minutes.

01:12:59.220 | And some of it will actually show you need to be in there

01:13:01.000 | like well north of 20 to 30 minutes.

01:13:02.940 | So for my money, I would rather go really, really cold

01:13:05.840 | and get it done in five minutes,

01:13:06.780 | but personal preference on this one.

01:13:09.040 | You can also make it a little bit easier on yourself.

01:13:12.220 | There is not nearly as much evidence,

01:13:13.960 | but there is some on contrast stuff.

01:13:17.320 | So this is when you go cold, hot, sort of back and forth.

01:13:21.380 | There are no really good rules

01:13:24.120 | in terms of how much should you go,

01:13:25.640 | how many rounds, how long and cold, how long and hot.

01:13:28.840 | Again, there have been a couple of studies,

01:13:30.280 | but obviously those studies use numbers,

01:13:33.480 | but that doesn't mean those have been tested

01:13:34.980 | to see what are optimal, which is a very big difference.

01:13:38.160 | So you can really just kind of play that by feel.

01:13:41.180 | Hot is good for recovery.

01:13:44.440 | You just have to be careful

01:13:45.500 | because you are going to put more blood flow in the area.

01:13:47.620 | And so you may walk out of there

01:13:49.600 | with some additional acute swelling,

01:13:51.160 | which is then going to put greater pressure on there.

01:13:52.900 | So you have to kind of play with that.

01:13:54.840 | I personally really like hot for recovery.

01:13:59.180 | I will feel maybe not great in that moment,

01:14:01.280 | but the next day I tend to feel really, really good.

01:14:03.920 | In addition, if I wake up the next morning

01:14:05.760 | and I'm really, really hurting and I'm super stiff,

01:14:09.480 | a hot bath will help that quite a bit.

01:14:12.680 | So you can play with some of those protocols.

01:14:15.480 | I can, you don't have to do ice.

01:14:17.520 | There's absolutely no requirement to do so.

01:14:19.040 | It is just an option if you're interested.

01:14:22.000 | - The studies of Dr. Susanna Soberg.

01:14:24.960 | - Sure, yeah.

01:14:26.040 | - Are not directly aimed at alleviating soreness or recovery.

01:14:29.980 | They're more about increasing thermal capacity

01:14:33.080 | by a storage of brown adipose tissue,

01:14:36.200 | not the blubbery fat,

01:14:37.160 | but the stuff around the clavicles and around the heart

01:14:40.120 | that help you generate body heat at rest

01:14:42.600 | and metabolism and so on.

01:14:43.880 | And the numbers there that she's come up with,

01:14:47.080 | again, have not been tested

01:14:48.480 | against all the possible derivations.

01:14:51.340 | Just like with breathing, we did five minute sessions,

01:14:53.600 | but who knows, maybe a minute

01:14:54.760 | would have been equally effective.

01:14:56.160 | We just, there are constraints on these sorts of studies.

01:14:58.840 | But the values that she's come up with,

01:15:00.380 | which seem to be good thresholds for making sure

01:15:02.420 | that an adaptation response is triggered by heat and cold,

01:15:05.840 | is it ends up being 57 minutes per week total

01:15:09.660 | of uncomfortable but safe heat, in that case sauna.

01:15:13.040 | And that can be all in one session

01:15:14.700 | or breaking it up into a couple of sessions

01:15:16.760 | on the same day or different days.

01:15:18.780 | And then 11 minutes per week of cold,

01:15:21.400 | either in one single session or multiple sessions.

01:15:23.500 | Again, one could do more.

01:15:25.100 | One could break that up over multiple days

01:15:28.800 | or do it all in one day or do it all in one,

01:15:31.480 | an hour in the sauna and then 11 minutes

01:15:33.100 | in the cold or vice versa,

01:15:34.080 | although that seems a little bit extreme,

01:15:35.560 | especially for the uninitiated.

01:15:37.200 | But those are the numbers that have been studied.

01:15:38.720 | But as you point out,

01:15:39.840 | there are not a lot of really thorough studies

01:15:42.440 | examining different cold protocols

01:15:44.800 | according to temperature by time requirements.

01:15:46.760 | So there is a bit of subjective feel

01:15:48.780 | required to establish a routine.

01:15:51.020 | - And I would actually say this is another time

01:15:52.500 | to reemphasize something we talked about

01:15:54.100 | at the beginning of our conversation,

01:15:55.400 | which is that pain itself is not a defined outcome.

01:15:59.780 | It's heavily influenced by your perception.

01:16:02.940 | And so if you don't feel like they work for you,

01:16:05.100 | they won't work.

01:16:05.940 | If you feel like they work fantastic, they do.

01:16:08.200 | So it's a challenging field to get really objective data on.

01:16:12.360 | So there's always going to be a little bit

01:16:14.060 | of subjective nature to some of these things.

01:16:18.360 | I can tell you anecdotally,

01:16:19.420 | we've used hot and cold contrasts

01:16:21.400 | for a long time with athletes.

01:16:23.540 | Some love it, some don't care for it

01:16:25.700 | and everything in between.

01:16:26.720 | So it's one of those things where I never mandated.

01:16:31.720 | Of course, I can't mandate anything for anyone I work with,

01:16:34.460 | but I'm never like, hey, are you interested?

01:16:36.520 | Great, you're struggling in this area.

01:16:38.000 | Do you want to try this?

01:16:39.000 | You did and you liked it, great.

01:16:40.360 | You're struggling in this area and you tried it,

01:16:42.080 | you didn't love it.

01:16:42.920 | Okay, fine, I'm not.

01:16:44.560 | We'll find other routes as we will get into.

01:16:47.600 | There's a lot of ways to enhance recovery.

01:16:51.000 | This is only one and it hasn't even really come down

01:16:53.880 | to stopping the problem in the first place.

01:16:56.440 | We're just treating symptoms,

01:16:58.400 | which is first line of defense,

01:17:00.000 | but you really need to go back and figure out

01:17:01.360 | why it's happening to begin with as a solution.

01:17:04.280 | These are just different acute symptom management tactics.

01:17:08.640 | - One final point about deliberate cold exposure

01:17:12.400 | I think worth mentioning is one of the reasons

01:17:14.820 | the shower is effective, but not nearly as effective

01:17:18.440 | as cold water immersion or immersion in ice up to the neck

01:17:21.660 | is simply because of the reason you stated before,

01:17:24.200 | which is that most showers are not going to get that cold.

01:17:27.240 | You're not going to get down into the sub forties.

01:17:30.680 | Also, cold showers haven't really been studied that much.

01:17:34.460 | They have, but not nearly as much as immersion

01:17:37.440 | and people always ask why.

01:17:39.020 | I just think about the challenges of studying

01:17:40.920 | cold water exposure in the shower

01:17:43.380 | where you can't really control

01:17:44.600 | for how much of the body is covered,

01:17:46.620 | whether or not the head stays under different sized bodies,

01:17:49.160 | et cetera, whereas when people come into a laboratory,

01:17:52.200 | they can get into a cold water.

01:17:53.320 | We know where the neck is, we know where the chin is

01:17:56.000 | and we can make sure that people's arms

01:17:57.360 | and legs are underneath, but with cold shower,

01:18:00.520 | sure, you can make everyone face away or toward the shower,

01:18:03.060 | but it's really tricky.

01:18:04.100 | And for all the variations that were described.

01:18:07.420 | That said, would you agree that

01:18:09.680 | if one wants to use deliberate cold exposure,

01:18:11.640 | that cold shower is better than nothing

01:18:14.660 | and cold immersion in circulating cold water

01:18:17.400 | or ice bath is better than cold shower?

01:18:21.000 | - Yeah, what I would actually say,

01:18:22.160 | if you're looking for recovery from muscle soreness,

01:18:25.120 | I would say cold shower is probably doing very little

01:18:28.800 | because you're not going to be able to get enough cold water

01:18:30.840 | onto any muscle besides basically your head.

01:18:34.360 | So maybe you could try a cold bath

01:18:36.600 | and so you at least get some surface area coverage.

01:18:40.780 | But yeah, if you want to use cold shower

01:18:42.280 | for all the other awesome reasons to cold shower,

01:18:44.800 | that's totally great, but if you're trying to use that

01:18:47.440 | to recover your low back and glutes

01:18:49.640 | from being sore from training in a good way,

01:18:51.680 | it's probably not going to do much.

01:18:53.080 | The immersion would be there.

01:18:53.960 | You actually also hit a sneaky other point,

01:18:55.600 | which is if you can't get your water super cold,

01:18:58.240 | just make the water move.

01:18:59.800 | So if you have jets and stuff, you can turn on.

01:19:01.320 | And anyone who's tried this and you're like,

01:19:03.040 | okay, I can do a 40 degree bath, awesome.

01:19:06.820 | Try 60 when the water's moving.

01:19:08.700 | - Right, because you break up the thermal layer.

01:19:10.220 | Normally you have a little thin layer of water

01:19:12.160 | that you're heating up.

01:19:13.000 | You break that up.

01:19:13.840 | - It's a whole new world.

01:19:14.660 | - Yeah, absolutely.

01:19:15.500 | So being very still in the cold water

01:19:17.120 | is actually the weaker way to go.

01:19:18.600 | - Correct.

01:19:19.440 | - That you can make your face stoic,

01:19:20.740 | but make your body circulate some water around you.

01:19:23.940 | As long as we're on this,

01:19:25.160 | maybe just one more point about heat.

01:19:26.960 | I've certainly used sauna, wet sauna, dry sauna,

01:19:30.640 | steamed sauna, excuse me.

01:19:32.800 | Jacuzzis can work pretty well.

01:19:35.400 | Males, if you are looking to conceive in the 60 days

01:19:40.160 | following sauna or hot tub,

01:19:45.160 | do realize that both those approaches

01:19:48.380 | do severely limit the number of motile sperm substantially.

01:19:52.320 | So for people that are not trying to conceive,

01:19:54.920 | don't think that this works reliably enough

01:19:57.440 | that you could use it as a form of contraception,

01:19:59.640 | but for people that are trying to conceive,

01:20:02.080 | it really is detrimental to sperm health, right?

01:20:04.480 | And so for that reason, some people will bring an ice pack

01:20:06.680 | and put it on the groin or near the groin when they go in,

01:20:10.380 | which is harder to do in a hot tub than a sauna.

01:20:13.760 | So here we're getting into the fine points

01:20:16.240 | or crude points, if you will, pun intended.

01:20:19.260 | But the idea is that we wouldn't want anyone

01:20:21.860 | to approach these techniques

01:20:23.220 | and compromise their other life goals inadvertently.

01:20:25.180 | - I was not allowed anywhere near these things

01:20:28.020 | when we were at that stage of life.

01:20:30.260 | I'll just say that Natasha put an X nay on me

01:20:32.900 | hanging out with Laird, so.

01:20:34.820 | - Going in the sauna?

01:20:36.180 | - For those reasons, she's like,

01:20:37.020 | "You're not going in, you're not going, none of the stuff."

01:20:38.560 | And I just had to wait.

01:20:39.400 | - Right, heat and sperm have a relationship,

01:20:42.540 | but it's not one that's positive for the sperm.

01:20:44.680 | I'd like to take a brief break

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01:21:47.260 | Are there ways to combine the various types of stimuli

01:21:52.000 | that you described for inducing recovery?

01:21:54.300 | You talked about breathing-based tools,

01:21:56.940 | which while they could adjust and indeed do adjust oxygen

01:22:01.420 | and carbon dioxide ratios and et cetera,

01:22:04.420 | I'm guessing the major effect of those on recovery

01:22:06.780 | is going to be neural.

01:22:07.680 | It's going to be deliberate calming of the nervous system,

01:22:10.420 | more sympathetic-based, as you mentioned.

01:22:13.660 | - Yeah, most definitely.

01:22:14.580 | - And then you talked about some movement-based

01:22:16.900 | and touch-based approaches,

01:22:18.940 | which will, movement certainly will circulate blood,

01:22:22.580 | but also will generate contractions of the muscles,

01:22:25.740 | which may be if indeed, again, it's still speculation,

01:22:28.340 | if indeed some of the soreness is due to excessive stretch

01:22:31.340 | or swelling at the stretch ends of the muscles,

01:22:34.580 | that would make sense.

01:22:35.600 | So movement and touch, and then thermal.

01:22:37.460 | Are there ways to combine these that are more effective

01:22:42.020 | or maybe even synergistic?

01:22:43.480 | - Yeah, I suppose you could throw on

01:22:45.280 | some compression garment,

01:22:47.820 | put on a pneumatic compression device and sit in the sauna

01:22:51.040 | while you down-regulate your breath.

01:22:52.960 | Like that would be fine.

01:22:54.260 | Quite honestly though, you probably don't need

01:22:57.700 | to maximize all of them.

01:22:59.120 | We were joking, you could probably go for a light swim

01:23:03.360 | while regulating your breathing in cold water.

01:23:06.200 | You'd get the compression from the cold water

01:23:07.860 | and you'd be in a good spot.

01:23:09.260 | So you can certainly do that.

01:23:10.740 | The reality of it is,

01:23:11.580 | I generally look for some physical approach

01:23:15.060 | and then some holistic approach

01:23:17.820 | of the breath work, basically.

01:23:19.380 | So I want breath and then something else.

01:23:20.820 | If you knock those two things out, you're in a good spot.

01:23:23.200 | So that could be breath while you're in thermal stress.

01:23:27.160 | So just controlling and doing the on-regulation stuff.

01:23:29.620 | You have to also remember ice is a stressor.

01:23:33.620 | And I'll actually show you some data here in a second

01:23:36.680 | about how that actually can enhance systemic recovery.

01:23:41.680 | Although it won't happen in the acute minutes.

01:23:44.580 | In fact, it's gonna take at least 30 to 60 minutes

01:23:46.880 | and then you'll eventually see a rebound effect.

01:23:49.200 | But acutely, it's going to make you actually

01:23:50.920 | more sympathetic, which is going the other direction.

01:23:53.640 | Heat can do the opposite or it can actually drive you up.

01:23:56.240 | So it's a little bit dependent upon how you respond,

01:23:58.500 | what time of day and how you're using.

01:24:00.900 | So in general, I guess combining them is,

01:24:03.780 | if you need it, depending on what you have,

01:24:09.040 | what's available, so perhaps you don't have a sauna,

01:24:11.080 | but you can take a hot bath, great.

01:24:13.600 | Maybe you have some percussion device, some tool,

01:24:17.360 | and you can use that, but you don't have a sauna, amazing.

01:24:21.120 | Don't have ice bath, these things.

01:24:22.280 | So I think rather than thinking

01:24:23.680 | about an optimal combination of them,

01:24:25.360 | I would say just use a couple of the tactics

01:24:27.440 | based on what you have and what is easily available

01:24:32.440 | in your situation.

01:24:34.460 | - I'd love for you to teach us about some of the methods

01:24:36.260 | for longer form recovery as it relates

01:24:39.240 | to overreaching and overtraining.

01:24:41.560 | - Sure, you wanna think about this in a couple of phases.

01:24:43.500 | Phase one is to try to prevent it

01:24:45.340 | from happening in the first place.

01:24:47.620 | In terms of training load, you're gonna just go back

01:24:50.000 | to our previous episodes where we talk,

01:24:51.940 | give you specific instructions for how much

01:24:53.900 | to increase your volume and intensity per week, et cetera.

01:24:56.940 | The other thing you can do then is do some monitoring,

01:24:59.300 | and I'll go over some different tools, some cost-free ones,

01:25:02.560 | as well as some higher technologically demanding ones

01:25:06.260 | to monitor to see if it's actually happening.

01:25:07.820 | And then the third approach here is,

01:25:09.540 | what if this has already occurred?

01:25:11.260 | I figured out, how do I get back out of that hole?

01:25:14.620 | So I would like to just sort of tackle these one by one

01:25:16.520 | in order and talk about what's happening,

01:25:19.520 | what tools you can use, and why they're going to work.

01:25:22.600 | All right, so anytime we're talking

01:25:23.980 | about fatigue management here, most people are aware

01:25:28.780 | of these terms, because if you have any sort of technology,

01:25:31.700 | you're probably getting some sort of readiness score,

01:25:34.220 | or recovery score, or strain, depending on which app,

01:25:38.220 | or watch, or tech you have,

01:25:40.620 | you have a little bit of vernacular change.

01:25:42.160 | If you're in the sport performance world,

01:25:44.220 | you might be looking at things, again, like load,

01:25:46.780 | or a GPS tracking and monitoring,

01:25:48.700 | and really all of it is doing the same thing.

01:25:52.040 | It's trying to either, one, predict a problem

01:25:57.040 | is going to happen in the future,

01:25:58.620 | and then placing restrictions upon you

01:26:00.820 | so that you don't run into that situation.

01:26:03.200 | The other thing it's possibly doing

01:26:04.680 | is identifying a drop in physiology or performance,

01:26:09.680 | and then saying, we need to get you out of this hole.

01:26:11.920 | That's really what's happening.

01:26:13.340 | And so when we think of the first one,

01:26:15.100 | just imagine a scenario like a mileage limitation,

01:26:20.020 | pitch count in baseball, and what has happened there

01:26:23.500 | is individuals in those fields have looked and said,

01:26:26.340 | hey, what we notice is people who throw, say,

01:26:28.600 | more than 100 pitches in a game

01:26:31.020 | tend to start losing effectiveness and increase injury rate.

01:26:34.040 | Therefore, we're predicting the next time you go to play,

01:26:37.400 | if you cross that threshold,

01:26:39.060 | we start having an increased risk of negative consequences.

01:26:42.600 | So therefore, we're going to cap your, in this case,

01:26:45.520 | pitching volume at that 100 pitches per game,

01:26:48.120 | or whatever the case.

01:26:48.960 | Same thing with running, et cetera, et cetera.

01:26:51.020 | So you could just simply do that.

01:26:52.120 | And there's actually really cool data coming out now

01:26:54.640 | on sport performance stuff,

01:26:55.680 | looking at things like IMUs and GPS trackers,

01:26:58.720 | and trying to identify even position

01:27:00.880 | by position specific recommendations

01:27:03.760 | for how much distance you should cover in a practice,

01:27:06.780 | in a training session, so that you can say,

01:27:09.520 | hey, these positions don't cross this threshold,

01:27:12.200 | these positions don't cross this threshold,

01:27:14.400 | in basketball, in tennis, and all kinds of things like that.

01:27:17.600 | That's not probably extremely applicable

01:27:19.480 | to many of the listeners right now,

01:27:22.080 | but it is still conveying the idea that

01:27:24.760 | if we understand where we break,

01:27:27.240 | then we can stop ourselves

01:27:28.800 | from getting there in the first place.

01:27:30.900 | The functional example here is just thinking

01:27:34.040 | about basic things like where do I start my training program,

01:27:37.440 | and then how do I progress it.

01:27:39.000 | And we've already covered those numbers.

01:27:41.280 | In either case, though, you want to have three markers

01:27:44.840 | that you're paying attention to.

01:27:45.820 | If you're concerned you're getting into an overreaching phase

01:27:48.320 | or potentially going to lead to overtraining,

01:27:50.300 | or you want to get out, it's three unique things.

01:27:52.360 | Number one, we're going to look

01:27:54.460 | for some sort of performance metric, right?

01:27:57.140 | So this could be your times are going down,

01:28:00.720 | your squat numbers, your power is going down,

01:28:03.840 | any of these things.

01:28:04.680 | So it's got to be an actual performance.

01:28:06.800 | Number two, some sort of physiology.

01:28:10.000 | And so I want to see something happening

01:28:11.560 | with resting heart rate, some biomarker is moving,

01:28:14.560 | heart rate variability, some other measure

01:28:17.560 | that is not influenced by you.

01:28:22.000 | And the beauty of using biological markers are,

01:28:25.520 | if we contrast that to like performance,

01:28:27.980 | and I said, okay, here's our performance test.

01:28:29.800 | Every day you come in, you're going to do a vertical jump.

01:28:32.440 | And if one day you come in,

01:28:34.380 | all of a sudden your vertical jump is super low,

01:28:36.680 | I might think, oh man, maybe we're starting to overreach.

01:28:39.940 | You also could be feeling lazy that day

01:28:42.000 | and just not have jumped very high on purpose

01:28:43.580 | because you didn't want to work out.

01:28:45.240 | The beauty of biomarkers are,

01:28:47.240 | you don't get to manipulate them like that.

01:28:48.980 | They don't care.

01:28:50.200 | There's a downside to it,

01:28:51.460 | which is maybe they're just indirect markers, right?

01:28:54.320 | And so I'm not telling you biological markers

01:28:57.320 | are better than performance markers.

01:28:58.420 | What I'm saying is you want to look at both, all right?

01:29:01.440 | In fact, you want to look at our third category as well,

01:29:04.860 | which is some sort of symptomology.

01:29:07.200 | And so am I having a symptom of overreaching?

01:29:11.340 | Am I seeing a performance decrement?

01:29:13.020 | And then am I seeing a biological marker as well?

01:29:15.360 | If you see all three of these popping up,

01:29:18.280 | you have reason to believe

01:29:19.960 | you've reached some overreaching.

01:29:22.800 | Now, what you have not identified yet

01:29:24.640 | is if that is functional overreaching,

01:29:26.500 | non-functional overreaching, or true overtraining.

01:29:29.360 | And remember, you shouldn't be feeling great

01:29:32.700 | after every training session.

01:29:33.920 | You're trying to cause adaptation.

01:29:36.000 | And until you back off, maybe even weeks or months later,

01:29:39.340 | to actualize the adaptation

01:29:41.360 | and get that super compensation and performance increase,

01:29:45.040 | you're going to have to invest a little bit.

01:29:46.580 | So you're going to go in the hole.

01:29:48.200 | Any sport performance coach

01:29:49.980 | is going to look at numbers throughout the year and say,

01:29:51.700 | "Yeah, yeah, when we first start training

01:29:53.260 | "in preparation for the season,

01:29:54.860 | "we are going to see a drop in performance

01:29:57.200 | "that day, that week."

01:29:58.400 | That's part of the plan though, right?

01:29:59.880 | That's the stress you're trying to accumulate.

01:30:01.840 | So you want to see all three of those markers.

01:30:04.360 | You just want to pay attention to a couple of things.

01:30:06.240 | How long are they down for?

01:30:08.440 | A day, three days, seven days, 15 days, et cetera.

01:30:13.000 | If you're seeing a performance drop in a day,

01:30:16.820 | and I am far away from performance,

01:30:20.360 | so the day that I want to peak for,

01:30:23.200 | I'm not going to do anything different.

01:30:25.040 | If I see two days in a row, drop performance.

01:30:28.400 | I'm not worried.

01:30:29.320 | If I see more than probably, in my opinion,

01:30:31.520 | five days in a row of decrement,

01:30:33.840 | then I might start paying attention.

01:30:37.080 | If you're in season though, or close to competition,

01:30:39.520 | or whatever that thing means to you,

01:30:41.800 | and you see more than a couple of days in a row of dropping,

01:30:44.240 | then you might actually want to take some steps

01:30:47.500 | to mitigate that.

01:30:48.340 | So it really is important you understand,

01:30:50.800 | again, what are we trying to do?

01:30:52.200 | Are we trying to cause adaptation,

01:30:53.680 | or are we trying to cause adaptation?

01:30:55.900 | And I have a very specific example of all this

01:30:58.540 | we can run through here in a second.

01:31:00.560 | And then, of course, a bunch of tools

01:31:02.120 | to pull you out of those phases.

01:31:04.560 | But that's fundamentally what we're trying to do here.

01:31:07.200 | I would encourage you, again,

01:31:09.660 | don't be too reactive and responsive to any one measure.

01:31:14.160 | I'm going to cover a whole bunch of them in a second.

01:31:16.720 | But you can get lost in different things

01:31:19.060 | because they all have pros and cons.

01:31:20.740 | And so I know it's simple to just look at one score

01:31:24.280 | on your watch and make your decisions because of that,

01:31:26.640 | or check your app.

01:31:27.580 | But you really want to be careful of doing that.

01:31:29.760 | You're going to probably lead yourself

01:31:31.580 | in the wrong direction more often

01:31:32.780 | than you're going to help yourself.

01:31:34.160 | I'm curious as to why when we overreach too much,

01:31:37.500 | or too often, or we are overtraining,

01:31:41.320 | that performance is diminished.

01:31:43.880 | Because on the face of it, it's kind of obvious.

01:31:45.840 | You're overreaching, you're overtraining,

01:31:47.720 | so performance is diminished.

01:31:49.340 | But that's completely circular.

01:31:51.120 | You hear about things like adrenal fatigue

01:31:54.320 | and adrenal burnout.

01:31:55.640 | Well, it turns out adrenal burnout

01:31:57.000 | doesn't even really exist.

01:31:57.980 | - Absolutely not.

01:31:58.820 | - I mean, there is such a thing

01:32:00.080 | as adrenal insufficiency syndrome.

01:32:01.620 | - Of course.

01:32:02.460 | - Phrases like burnout, adrenal burnout, overtraining,

01:32:06.260 | they're thrown around as much as words like gaslighting

01:32:11.160 | and obsessive compulsive are

01:32:12.820 | without any real clinical definition,

01:32:15.440 | or there are clinical definitions,

01:32:16.740 | but people aren't obeying them when they use the language.

01:32:19.660 | I do want to acknowledge, however,

01:32:21.580 | what is absolutely true,

01:32:22.980 | which is that overreaching too much, too often,

01:32:26.100 | overtraining, these can degrade performance.

01:32:30.700 | But mechanistically speaking, what's going on?

01:32:33.640 | Because I think once we understand

01:32:35.240 | what's going on mechanistically,

01:32:36.840 | then I think we can all look at tools,

01:32:39.800 | whether or not it's breathing, movement, compression,

01:32:42.460 | thermal, psychological, motivational, et cetera,

01:32:46.720 | and have a much clearer sense

01:32:48.080 | as to what's going to work best

01:32:49.720 | and what likely won't work.

01:32:51.800 | - I love this question so much

01:32:53.220 | because, as I mentioned at the beginning,

01:32:55.240 | I was fortunate to spend some of my graduate work

01:32:59.180 | in Andy Fry's lab at the University of Memphis,

01:33:02.340 | and we did a lot in this area.

01:33:04.260 | In fact, this is how I learned how to do assays

01:33:09.180 | and run Western blots and measure signaling proteins

01:33:12.180 | and things like this,

01:33:13.180 | so this stuff is near and dear to my heart.

01:33:15.660 | We also did a bunch of really wild studies,

01:33:19.340 | and he had done some before I got there,

01:33:21.060 | so I'm going to combine Andy Fry's entire career

01:33:25.580 | and just highlight some of the big pictures

01:33:28.520 | of what he found there.

01:33:29.660 | He was very interested in exercise,

01:33:32.240 | particularly strength training,

01:33:33.080 | and trying to figure out this entire question,

01:33:35.620 | which is why is this actually happening

01:33:37.380 | when I work out too much, when I lift too much,

01:33:40.140 | that all of a sudden I can't sleep?

01:33:42.460 | What's happening?

01:33:43.300 | Why is my energy down?

01:33:44.300 | Why is my mood, my motivation reduced if I squat too much?

01:33:49.200 | So we did a whole series of studies across his career,

01:33:51.420 | and again, I'll just highlight some of the themes

01:33:55.260 | that ran through them.

01:33:56.820 | So the first one that jumps out to mind

01:33:57.980 | that's early in his career,

01:33:59.060 | he did this really awesome protocol

01:34:01.120 | where he had people squat 100% of their back squat max

01:34:04.280 | every day for two weeks.

01:34:06.240 | So you come into the gym,

01:34:07.600 | and I think this first one was on a machine,

01:34:09.880 | and you did a one-rep max,

01:34:11.520 | and then you came back in every single day for two weeks.

01:34:13.700 | So these are what we would generally call

01:34:15.640 | kind of like that short to moderate range overreaching,

01:34:19.640 | and by definition, some of them end up

01:34:21.520 | actually being true over training

01:34:23.040 | because it would take the individuals

01:34:26.020 | sometimes two to up to eight weeks

01:34:28.380 | to return back to their one-rep max

01:34:30.020 | at the end of these protocols.

01:34:31.860 | So some of them were non-functional overreaching

01:34:34.120 | or some combination of that.

01:34:36.120 | Well, along with that, he took a lot of blood samples

01:34:39.460 | as well as muscle biopsies

01:34:40.880 | to try to look at what's happening endocrinologically,

01:34:44.420 | neurologically, muscle physiology-wise

01:34:48.120 | to pay attention to what's happened.

01:34:48.980 | So a couple of things that jump out there.

01:34:50.780 | One of his initial studies actually,

01:34:52.660 | I think the very first one he did

01:34:54.400 | when they ran that first squat every day protocol,

01:34:58.620 | what they found is catecholamine levels

01:35:01.220 | changed quite significantly.

01:35:02.840 | And depending on kind of what you wanted

01:35:04.600 | to pay attention to there,

01:35:05.440 | whether it was epinephrine or norepinephrine

01:35:07.600 | or even some other markers,

01:35:11.160 | they basically increased by somewhere

01:35:14.000 | between two to three fold.

01:35:15.680 | And so a little bit of understanding of sleep physiology,

01:35:18.720 | if adrenaline is extremely high epinephrine,

01:35:21.280 | you're gonna have a hard time sleeping.

01:35:22.640 | So that alone was first indication.

01:35:24.780 | This is like, wait a minute,

01:35:26.080 | something's actually happening here

01:35:27.400 | that's just beyond muscle soreness.

01:35:29.140 | There's some sort of systemic fatigue happening.

01:35:32.000 | And as you rightfully pointed out,

01:35:33.840 | is not the adrenal glands becoming fatigued.

01:35:36.520 | That's sort of a bit of tongue and cheek pedantics.

01:35:38.640 | It is cortisol dysregulation and general stress syndrome,

01:35:42.680 | but it's really can be noted in blood

01:35:46.820 | in terms of epinephrine and norepinephrine.

01:35:50.080 | Another study he had done of a similar realm

01:35:52.960 | was over the course of seven and a half days,

01:35:54.800 | people came in and did 15 training sessions.

01:35:57.360 | So it was really cool.

01:35:58.200 | These are these really short bouts

01:35:59.240 | of just ridiculous training.

01:36:00.840 | And they said, okay, like something's happening

01:36:03.200 | with epinephrine and norepinephrine.

01:36:06.080 | Something's happening with testosterone.

01:36:09.120 | What's it look like inside the cell?

01:36:10.800 | So now muscle biopsies came on board.

01:36:13.460 | And they started looking at things like MAP kinases,

01:36:16.000 | which are these signaling proteins

01:36:17.240 | that tend to be associated with an anabolic response.

01:36:19.780 | They upregulate muscle protein synthesis

01:36:22.440 | and they do many other things,

01:36:23.920 | but that's like a big factor of them.

01:36:26.880 | They looked at various androgens

01:36:28.040 | and glucocorticoid receptors,

01:36:29.360 | and they wanted to see like, well, maybe receptor density

01:36:32.520 | or and/or sensitivity is changing.

01:36:34.840 | And in fact, surprise, surprise,

01:36:36.800 | that's exactly what they found.

01:36:37.960 | So they found both androgen

01:36:39.120 | and glucocorticoid receptor concentrations were reduced.

01:36:42.440 | And so you can start to see a picture forming,

01:36:45.320 | which is like, hmm, very similar

01:36:47.800 | to the insulin type two diabetes story,

01:36:51.040 | where you've really put yourself

01:36:53.060 | in a very high stress situation.

01:36:55.180 | So presumably epinephrine, et cetera,

01:36:58.400 | testosterone releases are extremely high.

01:37:00.260 | In response to that,

01:37:01.340 | to try to reach back to some level of homeostasis,

01:37:03.840 | you start downregulating the receptors for them.

01:37:07.980 | And so it's like the signal can only get so high.

01:37:10.020 | If you're gonna keep that gas on,

01:37:11.820 | we're gonna pull back the throttle and the receptors

01:37:14.260 | so that the total signal stays the same,

01:37:16.220 | if that makes a little bit of sense.

01:37:18.200 | Well, that becomes obviously problematic.

01:37:20.240 | So then like a final follow-up study here

01:37:23.140 | that is important to note is they did another protocol,

01:37:25.980 | which was really, really cool,

01:37:27.060 | and they said the first ones weren't enough.

01:37:28.700 | So how about this?

01:37:29.620 | We're gonna come in every day for two weeks,

01:37:31.860 | and we're going to do 10 sets of a one rep max every day.

01:37:36.860 | So they were coming in,

01:37:37.760 | and they would do 10 one rep maxes every day for two weeks.

01:37:42.480 | And what's really cool about that study,

01:37:44.800 | if they didn't complete any of the repetitions,

01:37:48.260 | they had to repeat it until they had 10 successful

01:37:51.380 | one rep maxes on that given day.

01:37:53.320 | Absolutely brutal, brutal protocol.

01:37:56.380 | I wasn't there at the time.

01:37:58.400 | They had finished that right before I got on campus,

01:38:00.220 | but I was actually able to be around

01:38:01.440 | when they were doing some of the final analysis

01:38:02.920 | there of the tissue.

01:38:04.500 | What they wanna look at in this particular study

01:38:06.340 | was beta adrenergic receptors,

01:38:07.860 | which are those receptors that are gonna be,

01:38:10.320 | epinephrine and such are gonna be binding for.

01:38:11.900 | So again, similar story here.

01:38:14.440 | Perhaps are we losing overall sensitivity

01:38:16.940 | because of this extreme sympathetic stimulation?

01:38:20.180 | Now actually thinking back,

01:38:21.320 | what would have been pretty cool

01:38:22.160 | is if they had another group that did it,

01:38:23.740 | and did some down regulation breathing post

01:38:25.900 | to see if that can ameliorate some of the problems.

01:38:27.700 | But of course this was 20 plus years ago

01:38:30.980 | or something like that.

01:38:31.840 | So a couple of things that happened is the one rep maxes

01:38:36.840 | dropped by I think around like eight kilos

01:38:40.240 | by the end of the two weeks.

01:38:41.820 | If I remember right, like the group average

01:38:43.220 | was something in the neighborhood of 151 kilos.

01:38:45.560 | So these were pretty well-trained individuals.

01:38:47.720 | And it went from, rather I think actually

01:38:50.360 | it was about 160 kilos and they dropped to like 152 kilos.

01:38:54.600 | Something close to that.

01:38:56.720 | What was more significant though

01:38:59.140 | was their power dropped by 35%,

01:39:02.500 | which is really, really interesting

01:39:03.780 | because if you pay attention to

01:39:06.020 | declines in physical performance over time,

01:39:09.960 | and I mean that like through aging,

01:39:12.000 | what you'll see is people can hold on

01:39:13.420 | to muscle mass pretty well.

01:39:15.040 | It will go down by about 1% or so after the age of 40.

01:39:20.720 | However, strength will go down at like two to 4%

01:39:23.920 | and then power by eight to 10%.

01:39:25.700 | And if you look at actually world records

01:39:27.320 | across strength sports by age,

01:39:29.460 | you'll see that they will decline by age, but not that much.

01:39:34.080 | However, if you look at speed sports by age,

01:39:38.340 | they fall off the planet.

01:39:40.480 | So it's very challenging to preserve fast through time,

01:39:45.160 | whether this is fatigue or because of age.

01:39:49.880 | That's really important because that'll then tell you,

01:39:52.640 | hey, a little bit of a canary in the coal mine

01:39:54.600 | is not necessarily your strength, but your speed.

01:39:57.920 | And so a lot of different techniques that we use

01:40:01.300 | to measure performance, remember that's our triad, right?

01:40:04.320 | Symptomology, physiology, and performance.

01:40:07.400 | You're generally better looking

01:40:08.760 | at speed-based performance tests

01:40:11.160 | rather than strength-based performance tests

01:40:13.400 | to get an earlier indication of potential

01:40:16.000 | overreaching or overtraining.

01:40:18.120 | So anyways, back to the individual study there.

01:40:21.260 | In that same group, again, we have the same problem

01:40:24.040 | where it took some of them two to eight weeks to come back.

01:40:26.800 | So what they had to do is,

01:40:27.880 | I can't remember the exact timeframe.

01:40:29.060 | I probably should have thought through this,

01:40:31.340 | but they had to come back something like every week

01:40:33.800 | or every couple of days, even after the study finished,

01:40:36.080 | until they got back to their baseline one rep max.

01:40:38.960 | And some of them, it took them up to eight weeks

01:40:41.500 | before they finally got back.

01:40:42.580 | So they probably were in a classic overtraining state

01:40:46.060 | at that point, which was done in as little as two weeks.

01:40:49.160 | And this is also another point that people always ask,

01:40:53.000 | like how long does it take?

01:40:55.820 | Is this something that has to happen

01:40:57.100 | over the course of months?

01:40:58.200 | Or like if I were to go do two days

01:40:59.880 | or this intense training camp for two or three weeks,

01:41:02.040 | could I actually cause overtraining?

01:41:04.100 | And the answer is if it is actually truly enough volume

01:41:07.720 | and enough intensity,

01:41:08.560 | you probably can do some significant damage

01:41:10.920 | in as little as two weeks.

01:41:12.800 | Probably doesn't happen that often.

01:41:14.100 | Most likely you're probably going to be reaching a state

01:41:16.840 | of non-functional overreaching,

01:41:19.580 | but you may actually be able to put yourself in a position

01:41:22.100 | where it might take three or four weeks or more

01:41:24.480 | to get back to baseline after a truly intense.

01:41:26.920 | And again, think about this protocol.

01:41:28.280 | It's like totally unrealistic for the most part.

01:41:31.340 | 10 sets of one of a one rep max squat

01:41:35.540 | every day for two straight weeks.

01:41:37.400 | Some folks, if you're extremely highly trained weightlifter,

01:41:40.840 | you might do something like that

01:41:42.420 | when you're very close to say world championships.

01:41:44.440 | But outside of that really specific scenario,

01:41:47.160 | it's a totally absurd training protocol.

01:41:49.520 | But that was the point, right?

01:41:50.600 | We were trying to ensure that overtraining was met or close.

01:41:55.600 | It's similar to when we've done,

01:41:58.920 | we've actually done I think three studies

01:42:01.240 | in the center for support performance

01:42:02.880 | on Dom's muscle soreness.

01:42:05.700 | And in all those cases,

01:42:06.680 | you do just like ridiculous leg extension protocols

01:42:09.100 | 'cause you're just trying to ensure you cause suprasornis.

01:42:12.260 | If you don't, then you have nothing to study.

01:42:13.700 | So absurd training protocols, but that's the point.

01:42:17.460 | So nonetheless, as a result, sure enough,

01:42:20.880 | the beta adrenergic receptors were down-regulated

01:42:23.920 | by something like 37%.

01:42:27.000 | What's probably even more significant though

01:42:28.860 | was the sensitivity in those receptors was reduced

01:42:31.600 | by like two and a half fold.

01:42:33.320 | And so it's like, okay, wait a minute.

01:42:34.800 | We're becoming desensitized to this stimuli

01:42:36.880 | and we're also actually now starting

01:42:38.220 | to reduce our total concentration.

01:42:40.140 | Similar, which is actually an interesting,

01:42:42.960 | it was a very sneaky smart thing to do

01:42:44.760 | is they looked at nocturnal urinary epinephrine

01:42:47.560 | and guess what?

01:42:48.400 | That was also up by like 50%.

01:42:50.840 | - 15, one, five?

01:42:52.120 | - Five, zero.

01:42:52.960 | - Five, zero.

01:42:53.880 | - Yeah.

01:42:54.720 | And so now you're seeing this tie-in where it's like,

01:42:57.480 | hmm, I'm seeing a response at the tissue level.

01:43:01.880 | I'm seeing a response probably,

01:43:03.680 | although they didn't actually look at a pituitary

01:43:06.220 | or anything like that.

01:43:07.060 | I'm seeing adrenal and other endocrinological problems.

01:43:10.740 | And then I'm also seeing this increase in concentration

01:43:13.400 | of epinephrine when I'm supposed to be sleeping

01:43:15.800 | and surprise, surprise, I'm having a hard time sleeping.

01:43:20.060 | Symptomology.

01:43:20.900 | - But that's a very interesting finding

01:43:23.220 | about nocturnal epinephrine.

01:43:25.280 | Epinephrine of course is adrenaline, it's released

01:43:28.120 | from the adrenals, no surprise there,

01:43:29.520 | but also from this brain area called locus coeruleus

01:43:32.160 | in the brain.

01:43:33.000 | And the brain tends to be called epinephrine in the body,

01:43:34.500 | adrenaline, just to complicate everyone's understanding.

01:43:38.100 | But that nomenclature did not come from us,

01:43:40.240 | so don't blame us.

01:43:41.860 | The point is that rapid eye movement sleep,

01:43:46.160 | so-called REM sleep is more abundant

01:43:49.640 | in the second half of the night.

01:43:51.060 | We know that the dreams associated

01:43:52.920 | with rapid eye movement sleep are more emotionally laden

01:43:57.240 | and that those dreams and those emotional states

01:44:01.060 | are actually important for discarding the emotional load

01:44:04.960 | of previous day's experiences.

01:44:07.040 | It acts as sort of a natural trauma therapy, if you will,

01:44:11.000 | because in the normal healthy state,

01:44:15.280 | those dreams are associated with an inability

01:44:18.460 | to release epinephrine at night.

01:44:20.800 | So for me, what you just described,

01:44:22.440 | first of all, it's the first time I've ever heard of it,

01:44:25.160 | but it ties together something really quite clear

01:44:29.280 | from the sleep neuroscience literature,

01:44:31.200 | which is that when people are stressed,

01:44:33.880 | they tend to get less rapid eye movement sleep.

01:44:36.240 | That rapid eye movement sleep normally is associated

01:44:40.680 | with low levels of epinephrine,

01:44:41.960 | so whether or not it's causal or not isn't clear,

01:44:44.700 | but sort of doesn't matter for sake of this discussion.

01:44:47.000 | But what I'm wondering, and I suppose one could test for

01:44:51.360 | but may be observed, is whether or not people

01:44:53.000 | who are overtraining too much, overreaching too much,

01:44:56.400 | because of this elevated nocturnal epinephrine

01:44:59.560 | diminished REM sleep, whether or not their emotional state

01:45:02.120 | is also disrupted, because one thing we know for sure

01:45:06.260 | is if you want to disrupt somebody's emotional state,

01:45:08.640 | you deprive them of sleep

01:45:10.120 | and rapid eye movement sleep in particular.

01:45:11.960 | The one caveat to that is, for those of you out there

01:45:15.400 | that have heard that rapid eye movement sleep deprivation,

01:45:17.960 | deliberate rapid eye movement sleep deprivation

01:45:21.600 | is a treatment for depression, that is true,

01:45:24.920 | but it's coupled with a next night

01:45:27.480 | enhanced rapid eye movement sleep.

01:45:29.300 | So one of the major takeaways from all of this

01:45:32.280 | that I'm realizing is that, no surprise,

01:45:35.000 | daytime activities impact nighttime endocrine function,

01:45:37.720 | impact quality of sleep, impact daytime activities.

01:45:41.660 | - Yeah, actually, there's so many fun things

01:45:43.760 | I want to do here now.

01:45:45.360 | This is actually why measuring eye movement

01:45:48.800 | is a very fantastic tool for understanding total stress load

01:45:52.960 | and you can actually differentiate

01:45:54.200 | different types of stress, so caffeine use

01:45:56.360 | versus alcohol use versus sleep deprivation,

01:45:59.220 | by actually measuring eye movements.

01:46:01.320 | That's actually what we do

01:46:02.140 | in our absolute rest sleep company,

01:46:03.840 | is in addition to getting a full PSD sleep study done

01:46:07.960 | in your bedroom, you're going to get

01:46:09.120 | an eye tracking assessment,

01:46:10.440 | which we're going to be able to figure out

01:46:11.480 | why you're getting there.

01:46:12.520 | So nonetheless, yeah, if you actually look

01:46:15.960 | at the classic signs and symptoms of overtraining

01:46:20.120 | or overtraining syndrome, it's going to be everything

01:46:23.000 | from performance decrements, like we talked about,

01:46:26.240 | resting heart rate is going to increase,

01:46:28.800 | you're going to see things like HRV drop

01:46:30.800 | by generally 20 or so percent,

01:46:33.380 | that would be a very large disruption in HRV,

01:46:36.480 | decreased body weight, and then all the stuff

01:46:39.520 | Andrew Yu just talked about.

01:46:40.760 | So motivation, adherence, appetite, mood,

01:46:44.400 | all of this stuff are classically known associations

01:46:48.400 | with overtraining and that's for the exact reasons

01:46:50.360 | you're talking about, sleep disturbances and disruptions,

01:46:53.720 | wanting to train, motivation, all of this stuff

01:46:57.220 | goes part and parcel with non-functional overreaching

01:46:59.900 | and/or overtraining.

01:47:01.560 | You can actually tie this back in a little bit more

01:47:03.360 | to some other biomarkers and this is great

01:47:05.520 | because this is the stuff we look for,

01:47:07.320 | this is the physiology stuff we look for.

01:47:10.680 | You've probably talked about SHBG before,

01:47:13.400 | which is a sex hormone binding globulin,

01:47:16.080 | so it's this protein that'll float in your body

01:47:19.040 | that's going to bind up sex hormones,

01:47:21.760 | in particular testosterone.

01:47:22.800 | So what happens with overtraining is you can actually

01:47:25.900 | take this serially, like week by week,

01:47:28.160 | and you can actually see this number rise.

01:47:30.680 | And so if you see this, like say you're using

01:47:33.080 | a service like InsideTracker and you're getting

01:47:36.080 | your blood measured every so often and you see this number

01:47:39.200 | start ticking up, this is actually associated with that

01:47:42.440 | because what's actually happening is it's binding up

01:47:44.000 | all your free testosterone, and that's just leading back

01:47:46.600 | to the circle we're talking about.

01:47:47.800 | And you can actually see the same thing happen

01:47:49.100 | with calorie restriction, just not enough calories.

01:47:52.120 | But in this particular case, because it actually happens

01:47:54.760 | in both scenarios, you know it's not an issue

01:47:56.880 | simply of being under-calorie'd, it's clearly an issue

01:48:00.600 | of the training load being too high.

01:48:02.600 | So just to give you another little tool,

01:48:04.960 | I can get the link for it, but there's a website

01:48:08.040 | that was created by, I forget which journal I'm slipping,

01:48:12.480 | but I'll get it to you, you can link it up,

01:48:14.320 | where you can actually go in and plug in a number of values

01:48:18.520 | from blood chemistry, so if you got your blood work done,

01:48:21.240 | and you can plug in your pre-number and your post-number.

01:48:24.520 | So say you got it done, and then maybe 10 weeks later,

01:48:27.320 | you got it done again, and you're wondering,

01:48:28.880 | and you notice, hey, my free testosterone's down,

01:48:31.480 | or my SHBG is up, is it actually a meaningful number?

01:48:35.540 | And it will actually tell you whether or not the change,

01:48:38.420 | pre to post, is physiologically meaningful or not,

01:48:41.580 | or just within the error margin of the measure.

01:48:44.640 | And you can actually change, like right there on the website

01:48:46.900 | you can change your confidence interval.

01:48:48.100 | So it's really, really cool if you just have your own blood

01:48:51.180 | and you wanna know like, hey, I had any level this year,

01:48:54.300 | and now it's here over there, it's just a totally free

01:48:56.880 | resource created, gone through peer review, all that stuff,

01:49:00.300 | and I'll give you the link to that.

01:49:01.240 | So that's a pretty cool measure.

01:49:04.100 | In addition to that, like probably one of the more powerful

01:49:06.580 | and easy metrics, biologically,

01:49:09.460 | is to take your cortisol and DHEA ratio.

01:49:11.960 | So this is known to be associated with a lot of things.

01:49:14.660 | You wanna be really careful.

01:49:15.680 | You don't want this number to be too high or too low.

01:49:18.080 | Something like 0.09 is about the right--

01:49:22.620 | - And it's cortisol to DHEA.

01:49:24.800 | - DHEA to cortisol ratio, yeah.

01:49:26.140 | - DHEA to cortisol.

01:49:27.660 | I'd love to tell you I said it backwards on purpose

01:49:29.660 | just to make sure everyone understood,

01:49:31.000 | but I got it backwards.

01:49:33.360 | - Yeah, I mean, this ratio has been associated

01:49:36.000 | with so many things.

01:49:37.220 | You do have to be careful with association,

01:49:40.560 | not being causation, but everything from risk of infections,

01:49:43.520 | to metabolic health, and like other disease states,

01:49:46.320 | as well as more of what we're talking about,

01:49:48.800 | which is, hey, am I getting sort of cortisol dysregulation,

01:49:52.600 | which is what a lot of folks would call,

01:49:54.920 | you know, again, adrenal fatigue.

01:49:56.120 | I know that's not really what's happening,

01:49:57.380 | but if adrenaline and epinephrine are off and testosterone,

01:50:02.560 | cortisol is gonna be along the right.

01:50:04.520 | And so you can also look at things

01:50:05.840 | like testosterone to cortisol ratios.

01:50:08.240 | So there's a lot of things you can glean here

01:50:10.560 | to give you some insights into where you're going.

01:50:12.820 | If that ratio is too high,

01:50:15.560 | that's gonna be associated with metabolic syndrome

01:50:18.980 | and a bunch of other stuff.

01:50:19.820 | If it's too low, that's gonna be associated

01:50:22.240 | with a lot of cognitive problems like aggression and mood

01:50:26.260 | and a bunch of things like that.

01:50:27.540 | So again, you wanna keep it right around that 0.09 ratio.

01:50:31.640 | And most of the time, actually,

01:50:32.880 | in some blood chemistry stuff,

01:50:33.820 | you'll get a report of that,

01:50:35.540 | or you can calculate it pretty quickly.

01:50:37.480 | - I'm sure we'll get into this in the episode

01:50:40.520 | that comes next on nutrition and supplementation.

01:50:43.740 | - Totally.

01:50:44.580 | - What about compounds that lower cortisol,

01:50:48.680 | such as ashwagandha?

01:50:50.040 | I can see now, based on the logic you're spelling out,

01:50:53.760 | that during phases of a lot of intense overreaching

01:50:58.220 | or frequent overreaching,

01:51:01.180 | given that those compounds can indeed lower cortisol,

01:51:05.580 | rhodolia, rosacea?

01:51:08.080 | - Rhodiola.

01:51:08.920 | - Rhodiola, rosacea. - Rosacea.

01:51:11.060 | - Fun word to say.

01:51:12.540 | Two words, but the first one more fun to say.

01:51:14.540 | Rhodiola, rodacea.

01:51:15.760 | - Rhodiola, rosacea.

01:51:16.940 | - Rhodiola, rosacea, folks.

01:51:19.100 | And ashwagandha, I've been trying rhodiola recently,

01:51:28.320 | and mainly as a buffer to output,

01:51:32.960 | it does seem to have some good data attached to it

01:51:37.640 | related to lowering one's perceived threshold

01:51:40.720 | of how hard they're working.

01:51:41.980 | So in other words, you can work harder

01:51:43.600 | and not feel as if you're working really hard,

01:51:45.440 | which allows you to do more work.

01:51:47.200 | That's sort of the subjective description of how it works,

01:51:49.280 | but you told me that it can blunt cortisol,

01:51:52.440 | and ashwagandha, we know blunts cortisol.

01:51:54.840 | Both of these things, of course, can do other things,

01:51:56.760 | but are these compounds that you sometimes will incorporate

01:52:00.120 | into a training regimen?

01:52:02.320 | - I've been using rhodiola for probably six or more years,

01:52:06.080 | like pretty consistently, not personally,

01:52:07.600 | but using it with the individual you work with.

01:52:09.920 | You do need to be a little bit careful.

01:52:11.840 | I wouldn't say that it blunts cortisol.

01:52:13.760 | It is probably more appropriately described

01:52:15.600 | as a cortisol modulator,

01:52:17.840 | which means sort of if it gets too high or too low,

01:52:20.120 | it'll help kind of keep it within normative range.

01:52:23.500 | There's also, it is important to note,

01:52:26.500 | there have been a handful of studies,

01:52:28.140 | two of, I know specifically,

01:52:31.280 | showed that rhodiola use can enhance strength gains.

01:52:35.280 | However, it may reduce muscular endurance.

01:52:38.560 | So we need more human data on this stuff,

01:52:41.880 | and it may turn out that's not a concern.

01:52:44.260 | It may also turn out to be a concern.

01:52:46.120 | So nothing is perfect and free.

01:52:49.460 | There's no supplement that is a panacea.

01:52:51.660 | And I have used, again, rhodiola in a lot of situations,

01:52:56.660 | because the other thing you kind of have to pay attention

01:52:58.320 | to with the cortisol is it's supposed to be modulated

01:53:02.560 | throughout the day.

01:53:03.400 | It's not supposed to be at this normal value.

01:53:04.680 | In fact, if you look at normative values,

01:53:06.780 | it's typically described in micrograms per deciliter.

01:53:11.480 | And depending on literally what company

01:53:13.840 | you use to draw your blood,

01:53:14.860 | if you're getting it through the blood,

01:53:16.600 | depending on which method they use to analyze it,

01:53:19.660 | the normative values are frankly embarrassingly

01:53:22.560 | all over the place.

01:53:23.960 | They're mostly gonna be like five to 25

01:53:27.060 | as a "normative value."

01:53:29.400 | But that's outrageous.

01:53:30.240 | We also know those numbers vary massively by age,

01:53:35.200 | by sex, and throughout the day.

01:53:37.900 | And so if you only are taking a single point,

01:53:40.720 | let's assume you're doing a fasted blood draw,

01:53:43.120 | which is what most folks do,

01:53:44.520 | it's really only gonna tell you a lot

01:53:46.280 | about what's happening in that moment.

01:53:48.040 | We need to know, well, maybe let's say my cortisol was,

01:53:52.220 | if I'm a, say, 38-year-old woman,

01:53:55.120 | and my 7 a.m. cortisol was 15 milligrams per deciliter,

01:54:00.120 | that's pretty good.

01:54:02.260 | But if it's 15 milligrams per deciliter at 3 p.m.,

01:54:05.180 | ooh, boy, I'm probably having some issues, right?

01:54:08.440 | So there's a change throughout the day,

01:54:10.460 | and you need to be able to plot that curve.

01:54:11.820 | So you can actually, well, pretty standard practice

01:54:14.140 | that we do is we look at cortisol throughout the day.

01:54:16.180 | We're gonna take multiple markers,

01:54:17.320 | 'cause I don't wanna just see your baseline cortisol.

01:54:19.640 | I wanna see this curve throughout the day.

01:54:21.220 | That's gonna tell me a ton about, again,

01:54:24.300 | is your sleep being caused by this regulation?

01:54:27.420 | Is it your training, is it something else?

01:54:28.900 | So I would take a single baseline blood marker of cortisol

01:54:33.900 | with a lot of grain of salt.

01:54:36.620 | We would typically measure it at least three times

01:54:39.340 | throughout the day, so something like 6 to 9 a.m.,

01:54:42.260 | 12 to 3, and then something closer to the evening.

01:54:45.620 | Oftentimes, we do much more.

01:54:47.380 | We'll do like seven points or something like that

01:54:49.320 | throughout the day, depending on the situation.

01:54:51.220 | So you wanna be careful of that.

01:54:53.200 | Just since we're here,

01:54:54.300 | you can also get cortisol through saliva.

01:54:57.760 | And now there's sort of pros and cons to that,

01:54:59.700 | because the pro of doing it in your blood

01:55:02.140 | is it's much more stable.

01:55:05.500 | Saliva is extremely responsive to whatever happened

01:55:09.740 | these seconds before you took that test.

01:55:12.140 | The upside of it, though,

01:55:13.680 | is you can do a bunch of real-world life experiments.

01:55:16.660 | So, for example, we will do this sometimes

01:55:19.040 | if we wanna see how an individual is responding

01:55:21.460 | to a given stressor.

01:55:22.980 | Let's take it, right?

01:55:23.820 | Let's take it, spin it into a tube, we're gonna take it,

01:55:26.860 | and then we're gonna go do this workout

01:55:28.260 | or this cold exposure, whatever we're gonna do,

01:55:29.960 | take it at the end.

01:55:31.080 | We know that it's responsive to what just happened,

01:55:33.500 | but that's the point.

01:55:35.020 | So you can actually, there's sort of pros and cons,

01:55:36.700 | so you'll use the appropriate measure

01:55:38.100 | for the appropriate question you're trying to answer.

01:55:41.200 | - Yeah, a couple of points and reflections

01:55:42.900 | about cortisol.

01:55:43.740 | My first laboratory duty as an undergraduate

01:55:46.980 | was actually in a biopsychology lab.

01:55:50.140 | At the time, they didn't have the field of neuroscience,

01:55:52.780 | as it's now called.

01:55:53.620 | It was called biopsychology or psychobiology.

01:55:55.980 | - I didn't know that.

01:55:56.820 | - No, there used to be neurochemistry, neurobiology.

01:55:58.740 | They had all collapsed into what we now call neuroscience,

01:56:01.740 | which was only some years ago.

01:56:03.680 | But my job was to collect cortisol samples,

01:56:05.700 | which means I was collecting spit,

01:56:07.820 | which means I was collecting saliva.

01:56:09.460 | And an advantage of saliva-based cortisol,

01:56:11.620 | it's free cortisol, it's the active form.

01:56:13.700 | As you mentioned, it's reflective of what happened

01:56:15.240 | in the seconds or minutes just prior.

01:56:18.220 | A couple of things about the regular cortisol pattern

01:56:20.520 | across the day, because I realized that

01:56:21.900 | while it would be wonderful for everybody

01:56:23.420 | to get their cortisol measured in detail multiple times

01:56:26.120 | and blood and saliva and so on,

01:56:28.860 | some people just won't do that for whatever reason

01:56:31.660 | or can't do that.

01:56:33.180 | The basic contour of a healthy pattern

01:56:35.340 | of cortisol secretion is to have highest levels of cortisol

01:56:39.340 | in the morning is actually part of the mechanism

01:56:42.060 | that's associated with waking you up.

01:56:43.700 | Viewing bright light, ideally from sunlight,

01:56:45.620 | but other forms of bright light early in the day

01:56:47.720 | actually can lead to a 50%, 5-0% increase

01:56:51.780 | in that cortisol spike, which is a good thing.

01:56:53.520 | People hear elevated cortisol, oh no.

01:56:55.580 | But this sets in motion a cascade of things

01:56:57.740 | related to enhanced mood and alertness,

01:56:59.220 | immune system function, et cetera.

01:57:01.020 | What I think it can be useful for people to understand

01:57:03.020 | is that many things will spike cortisol throughout the day,

01:57:06.200 | stress, cold water, exercise.

01:57:08.620 | But the idea is that it comes down to baseline

01:57:10.420 | or near baseline rather quickly.

01:57:13.680 | One of the worst situations, as you pointed out,

01:57:15.980 | is when the highest level of cortisol

01:57:19.180 | is consistently shifted to the afternoon period.

01:57:21.700 | In fact, that's a pretty reliable signature

01:57:25.060 | of certain forms of depression.

01:57:26.800 | This is work by my colleague David Spiegel

01:57:29.260 | at Stanford Psychiatry and the great Bob Sapolsky,

01:57:32.740 | Robert Sapolsky, of "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers,"

01:57:36.780 | and "Behave," et cetera, and "Fame,"

01:57:38.620 | lots of popular books there.

01:57:40.020 | I think that if people are trying to regulate their cortisol

01:57:44.400 | and they just understand that basic contour,

01:57:47.220 | that the baseline should be rise pretty quickly

01:57:50.860 | after one rises in the morning.

01:57:53.180 | So it's easy to remember, rise, rise.

01:57:55.020 | Rise out of bed and rise cortisol with light,

01:57:58.140 | bright light, with exercise, with caffeine.

01:58:01.300 | These things will all increase cortisol.

01:58:02.720 | And then across the day, it's normal for cortisol to spike,

01:58:05.340 | but then to use some of the downregulation methods

01:58:07.300 | that you described, in particular the breathing methods,

01:58:10.020 | and exercise itself, as the case may be.

01:58:12.560 | But then to really pay attention

01:58:14.460 | to how much psychological and physical stress

01:58:17.060 | is occurring in the six hours or so,

01:58:18.780 | or eight hours prior to sleep,

01:58:20.620 | does that seem like a good sort of broad contour

01:58:23.020 | of how to have a healthy pattern of cortisol release?

01:58:25.660 | Because you actually want the cortisol

01:58:27.140 | to reduce inflammation and initiate

01:58:29.260 | or participate in the recovery process.

01:58:30.860 | - You will not see any progress from exercise training

01:58:34.780 | without a large spike in cortisol.

01:58:37.780 | It is critically important when we think of phrases

01:58:40.300 | like cortisol, inflammation, stress, this is not bad.

01:58:45.300 | Physiology is not personified, right?

01:58:48.620 | Things don't like hate you in the body, right?

01:58:50.560 | It is not good and bad, they just are.

01:58:53.520 | The more you try to suppress cortisol,

01:58:55.600 | the more you suppress adaptation.

01:58:58.180 | What you want is exactly what you mentioned,

01:59:00.140 | large spikes met with large, quick recovery.

01:59:04.420 | And you want to do that throughout the day

01:59:05.620 | and get that hormetic stressor.

01:59:07.380 | So going back to your ashwagandha and rhodiola issue,

01:59:10.620 | I think it would be very short-sighted

01:59:12.680 | for people to do that as this is a prophylactic.

01:59:15.540 | 'Cause if you blunt cortisol,

01:59:17.900 | you're going to cause immunosuppressant.

01:59:19.660 | - Especially early in the day.

01:59:21.140 | - Totally.

01:59:21.980 | - Taking ashwagandha before going to train

01:59:23.500 | is counterproductive.

01:59:25.660 | - Yeah, this is not a baseline part

01:59:28.220 | of our foundational package, right?

01:59:29.500 | If you go look at the athlete foundations

01:59:32.560 | or the athlete resilience protocols

01:59:34.180 | that are put together,

01:59:35.060 | you're not going to see these things in there

01:59:36.480 | for that specific reason.

01:59:38.380 | Any form of cortisol regulation

01:59:40.680 | needs to be done strategically.

01:59:42.460 | If you are excessively high

01:59:43.860 | and we're bringing you back down to normative values

01:59:45.500 | at the right time, then great.

01:59:46.660 | If you're normal though,

01:59:47.860 | then taking you down lower than that is actually problematic.

01:59:51.980 | The same thing is actually true since we're here

01:59:54.500 | for oxidative stress, foreign information, antioxidant use.

01:59:59.420 | We mentioned, I think earlier about taking vitamin C

02:00:01.700 | and vitamin E post-exercise with actually blunt adaptations

02:00:04.820 | or at least it has the potential to do so.

02:00:07.060 | Same thing, right?

02:00:07.960 | If you're modulating this response just because,

02:00:11.600 | and you have not done so

02:00:13.300 | because of actually biological testing

02:00:16.760 | that indicated you needed to do such,

02:00:18.700 | then you actually may be making things worse.

02:00:20.420 | And so we see this constantly with people

02:00:23.020 | who take a number of supplements and substances for sleep

02:00:28.020 | and then they wake up the next morning groggy

02:00:30.940 | and your cortisol is suppressed.

02:00:33.100 | Okay, great.

02:00:33.940 | So then they take something for stimulation

02:00:35.980 | and then the rest of the day they're trying to reduce

02:00:37.460 | and then they're in this nasty cycle

02:00:39.260 | instead of just getting out of the way

02:00:41.300 | and letting cortisol do what it's supposed to do

02:00:44.060 | and then making sure again, you're teaching it.

02:00:46.120 | So this is actually a coachable response.

02:00:47.840 | You can coach your own body to go down

02:00:50.860 | in the later part of the day

02:00:52.240 | and go up in the earlier part of the day.

02:00:55.540 | I mean, you wanna make sure

02:00:56.380 | that you are driving that train with intent.

02:00:58.780 | And so again, to reiterate,

02:01:01.200 | if you don't need that, you shouldn't do it, right?

02:01:04.660 | If you don't need to lower cortisol,

02:01:06.340 | you shouldn't walk around doing it.

02:01:08.180 | You're just going to suppress the state even far.

02:01:10.620 | And this is needed for anabolic response.

02:01:13.500 | So you're not going to grow muscle

02:01:14.740 | if cortisol is not spiked.

02:01:16.180 | It's going to compromise it rather.

02:01:17.900 | So you wanna be intentional with these practices,

02:01:22.100 | especially in the form of supplementation.

02:01:24.380 | Be very, very intentional.

02:01:26.700 | - I've heard it said that carbohydrates,

02:01:30.140 | in particular starchy carbohydrates can inhibit cortisol.

02:01:34.340 | - Definitely.

02:01:35.180 | - And this could be through the tryptophan,

02:01:39.620 | amino acid related pathway

02:01:41.820 | that ratchets up to serotonin release,

02:01:45.380 | probably some other things too.

02:01:46.860 | I mean, the idea that carbohydrates just stimulate serotonin

02:01:50.320 | is a little bit overly simplistic.

02:01:51.820 | - No, there's cellular mechanisms.

02:01:53.020 | AMPK going up and immediately turning it on there, yeah.

02:01:55.500 | - Right, so I think we've all experienced this.

02:01:59.980 | We're stressed, we're stressed.

02:02:01.940 | It doesn't necessarily even have to be highly processed,

02:02:04.940 | fat associated, fatty carbohydrates,

02:02:08.220 | like potato chips and potato chips and dip

02:02:11.100 | or these kinds of things.

02:02:12.080 | It can also be a bowl of rice, a bowl of oatmeal,

02:02:14.700 | a bowl of pasta,

02:02:16.380 | which here I'm not trying to demonize carbohydrates.

02:02:18.980 | I do ingest carbohydrates minimally

02:02:22.380 | or non-processed carbohydrates most of the time,

02:02:24.900 | but not all the time.

02:02:26.300 | And they have a fairly potent effect on lowering stress

02:02:31.300 | and perceived stress and even quality of sleep,

02:02:34.620 | which is not to say that somebody has to load up on them

02:02:36.600 | like crazy unless their glycogen is really depleted.

02:02:39.780 | We talked a lot about this in the endurance episode.

02:02:41.560 | I know we'll touch on it more

02:02:42.780 | in the nutrition and supplementation episode.

02:02:45.220 | But in thinking about the relationship

02:02:48.260 | between carbohydrates and cortisol

02:02:50.120 | and what we've just been talking about

02:02:51.780 | in terms of cortisol as being vitally important

02:02:54.220 | for the adaptation trigger or triggering adaptation,

02:02:58.540 | it's probably a better way to put it,

02:03:00.460 | but that it can blunt cortisol,

02:03:03.340 | take in post-training or maybe in the evening before sleep.

02:03:07.660 | What are some of the basic ways that one can think about

02:03:10.400 | and maybe use carbohydrates in specific ways

02:03:13.760 | in order to, let's say, control cortisol

02:03:17.360 | rather than quash cortisol?

02:03:19.820 | - You actually have alluded to it

02:03:21.820 | a number of times already.

02:03:22.740 | So we oftentimes will give people

02:03:26.460 | a lot of carbohydrates at night for some of these reasons.

02:03:31.220 | You're going to feel fantastic.

02:03:32.980 | A lot of people that helps you sleep

02:03:35.620 | both get to sleep and stay asleep, sleep quality.

02:03:37.940 | You talked about specifically,

02:03:39.180 | remember, think about it this way.

02:03:40.380 | Cortisol at its core is an energy signaling molecule.

02:03:45.140 | It says we are in the need for energy.

02:03:48.000 | Great, epinephrine's the same way.

02:03:51.980 | You'll start seeing, for example,

02:03:53.580 | cortisol will liberate free fatty acids,

02:03:56.400 | put them in the bloodstream,

02:03:57.240 | get you prepared to do something.

02:03:59.100 | The problem is if it's continually elevated

02:04:01.500 | throughout the day with no down regulation,

02:04:03.140 | we start running into issues, right?

02:04:04.580 | So again, this is the differentiation

02:04:06.420 | between oh, my cortisol is slightly elevated all day

02:04:09.420 | versus I had a really big spike after training.

02:04:12.920 | I had a really big spike after a breath protocol, et cetera,

02:04:15.380 | and then it went back down.

02:04:17.160 | So that being said, if you then ingest carbohydrates,

02:04:20.740 | it is quick to see the signal, we have nutrients,

02:04:23.660 | we have energy, again, specifically carbohydrates,

02:04:26.040 | therefore cortisol can sort of go back down.

02:04:28.040 | We don't need to be liberating free fatty acids

02:04:29.780 | and preparing the need for fuel.

02:04:31.700 | So you can help yourself go to sleep for many,

02:04:34.180 | as you pointed out, many mechanisms, actually,

02:04:36.040 | of why carbohydrates will help you sleep at night.

02:04:38.540 | For some, not all people, but some.

02:04:40.920 | That would be one of the relationships

02:04:42.980 | it has with cortisol.

02:04:44.500 | - Great, I look forward to hearing more

02:04:45.820 | about how the various macronutrients and micronutrients

02:04:49.500 | and so-called adaptogens,

02:04:51.340 | this very mysterious group of compounds.

02:04:54.620 | You know, the word adaptogen gets thrown around

02:04:56.340 | so much nowadays.

02:04:57.880 | But as long as we're talking about adaptation,

02:04:59.500 | I think that'll be fair play for the discussion

02:05:03.140 | in the next episode about nutrition and supplementation.

02:05:05.760 | In my laboratory, when we study stress,

02:05:07.740 | we use a number of different markers,

02:05:09.460 | subjective reports of how stressed people feel,

02:05:12.360 | heart rate, morning heart rate, heart rate variability,

02:05:18.660 | cortisol, free cortisol, and on and on.

02:05:20.760 | What are some of the other markers of stress

02:05:24.780 | as it relates to exercise adaptations and recovery?

02:05:27.900 | Because once again, I think we're seeing a lot of parallels

02:05:31.140 | between the study of psychological stress

02:05:33.500 | and the study of physical stress

02:05:35.740 | as it relates to exercise adaptation.

02:05:37.900 | - Remember, in terms of physiology, stress is stress.

02:05:41.780 | This is why we have this cool term of allostatic load

02:05:44.140 | or allostasis, such that it really doesn't matter

02:05:47.060 | which system you test for, it will reflect overall stress.

02:05:51.900 | You mentioned several of them.

02:05:53.980 | We've got done talking about some biomarkers.

02:05:57.300 | HRV and heart rate are another great example

02:05:59.740 | because what you're trying to do is this.

02:06:01.420 | When we were talking about the muscle soreness thing,

02:06:04.180 | what we were really getting at was a marker

02:06:07.060 | of how do I fix the overuse in that particular muscle?

02:06:11.380 | Now we've really transitioned into global markers

02:06:14.220 | of overuse and why these are problematic

02:06:17.060 | or important to pay attention to rather is,

02:06:19.940 | again, these are the indicators

02:06:21.140 | that you didn't just work a muscle out too hard,

02:06:23.300 | but you have actually done something

02:06:24.420 | where you've compromised all of your physiology

02:06:26.900 | to a level where you've influenced

02:06:28.820 | a circulating catecholamine

02:06:30.980 | or something that's going to influence multiple markers

02:06:33.540 | now like your sleep and your mood and your behavior.

02:06:36.060 | So that's why these things are problematic.

02:06:38.060 | That said, you could look at resting heart rate,

02:06:41.020 | not a bad thing to do.

02:06:42.380 | However, that does have multiple downsides.

02:06:45.180 | One thing we do know is your resting heart rate

02:06:47.740 | will elevate with excessive stress load.

02:06:50.900 | This actually doesn't matter if it is physical stress

02:06:53.140 | or psychological stress or a combination.

02:06:54.900 | So you will see that number drift up over time.

02:06:57.500 | Here's the downside though.

02:06:58.860 | It's not tremendously sensitive to smaller stressors.

02:07:03.180 | In other words, if you were to do something

02:07:04.780 | like alcohol is a very good example,

02:07:06.360 | you will see your resting heart rate elevate

02:07:08.720 | with alcohol use, excessive tobacco use

02:07:11.460 | and psychological stress.

02:07:13.220 | However, if you do something smaller

02:07:15.340 | like a hard training sessions,

02:07:17.540 | resting heart rate is not sensitive enough to pick that up.

02:07:20.280 | It will actually probably stay the same.

02:07:21.700 | So for those reasons,

02:07:23.020 | we don't actually use resting heart rate that much.

02:07:25.420 | We will take it, but it's not our primary indicator.

02:07:27.920 | That being said, HRV is a better use.

02:07:30.340 | So just really quickly for those that are not familiar,

02:07:33.040 | your heart rate, let's say for example,

02:07:36.340 | your resting heart rate is 60 beats per minute.

02:07:38.620 | That means every second it's beating.

02:07:40.340 | It doesn't actually happen on a consistent rhythm

02:07:42.420 | such that it would beat on second one,

02:07:43.980 | beat on second two, beat on second three, et cetera.

02:07:46.680 | The rate is more variable.

02:07:48.340 | So it might go beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.

02:07:53.340 | There's a variation in the heart rate.

02:07:56.540 | And at the end of that 60 seconds, in this example,

02:07:59.060 | you would have still completed 60 beats.

02:08:01.060 | They just aren't on the exact same pattern.

02:08:03.220 | Well, one thing that's actually quite interesting

02:08:04.700 | is the amount of variation in your heart rate

02:08:08.100 | is actually associated with your overall sympathetic

02:08:11.100 | or parasympathetic state such that a large variation,

02:08:14.840 | so an arrhythmic pattern is generally more representative

02:08:18.620 | of being more rested and recovered

02:08:20.220 | and being more parasympathetic.

02:08:21.780 | And you'll notice during times of extremely high stress,

02:08:24.760 | you will be very rhythmic, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.

02:08:29.300 | And so this is a little bit of a confusing idea,

02:08:32.440 | but a high HRV is there indicated of a lot of variation

02:08:37.960 | meaning you're pretty recovered.

02:08:39.880 | A low HRV, meaning there's not a lot of variation,

02:08:43.340 | it means you're probably pretty stressed in the wire.

02:08:46.000 | So it's related to heart rate, but in my opinion,

02:08:50.160 | it is a significantly better marker of that.

02:08:53.680 | Now, one thing you want to pay attention to

02:08:55.840 | if you do this, a couple of things.

02:08:57.560 | There are some accuracy issues with many of the devices.

02:09:01.280 | Basically everybody at this point probably

02:09:02.960 | has some device that's telling them they're HRV.

02:09:06.300 | What you do not want to do is simply compare your number

02:09:09.440 | to somebody else for a lot of reasons.

02:09:12.500 | Not all of these technologies

02:09:14.300 | are actually even measuring the same thing.

02:09:16.580 | Again, some of them are actually combining

02:09:18.660 | with other metrics and calling it your overall readiness

02:09:21.280 | or your recovery.

02:09:22.520 | And so now what we've actually done

02:09:23.900 | is made a couple of assumptions

02:09:25.300 | and then stacked them on a whole host of other assumptions

02:09:28.260 | and then giving you a number.

02:09:29.680 | And you don't know what that sort of black box score

02:09:32.220 | actually even represents.

02:09:33.180 | So I would caution one against taking too much information

02:09:36.600 | from that.

02:09:37.400 | If you are actually measuring HRV, even within that,

02:09:39.800 | there's lots of ways to calculate it

02:09:41.360 | that are not important here.

02:09:42.560 | So don't necessarily worry about the score.

02:09:47.320 | Compare it to yourself, but not to others.

02:09:49.680 | What you will see is if you use similar devices and techniques,

02:09:53.920 | it's hard to find data here.

02:09:55.080 | But in general, people that are overweight

02:09:58.960 | might have a little bit of a lower score,

02:10:02.280 | as in a worse score.

02:10:04.540 | We need more information on that to be clear.

02:10:06.340 | So in large part, the best way to use something like HRV

02:10:09.880 | is to measure it under the exact same circumstances every day.

02:10:14.060 | So whether you're going to use a device on your watch

02:10:18.460 | or your phone or your bed or anything else,

02:10:20.400 | or you're going to buy a special HRV on it, it's fine.

02:10:23.080 | Just take that measure at the same time.

02:10:25.900 | Mostly this means first thing in the morning.

02:10:28.320 | So you wake up, you go to the bathroom,

02:10:30.020 | you come back down, take your measure or something like that.

02:10:31.980 | You don't wait-- sometimes you took it before food,

02:10:34.800 | then after your-- look at your phone,

02:10:37.780 | like all these other things that can influence stress.

02:10:39.980 | So it usually takes somewhere between seconds to minutes

02:10:42.580 | to record.

02:10:43.080 | So you want to pay attention to that.

02:10:44.340 | Now, one of the things you'll notice

02:10:45.800 | is there is a natural change in your HRV that just happens.

02:10:48.560 | And so what you really want to pay attention to

02:10:50.680 | is, I guess, answering the question of, well,

02:10:52.860 | how much of a change in HRV has to happen before I should care?

02:10:57.100 | And it's hard to answer.

02:10:58.520 | So let's just say your HRV was 100.

02:11:01.100 | I just made that number up.

02:11:02.980 | Well, if you wake up tomorrow, it's 99.

02:11:05.540 | What's that mean?

02:11:06.940 | Well, I don't know.

02:11:08.120 | If you wake up tomorrow and it's 20,

02:11:10.400 | that's probably a bad thing.

02:11:11.940 | Well, where's that line?

02:11:13.300 | It's hard.

02:11:13.940 | One thing I would recommend doing

02:11:15.340 | is taking your HRV for at least a month

02:11:18.180 | before you start using that value to make any changes.

02:11:20.700 | And you recommend taking it first thing in the morning?

02:11:22.800 | Yep.

02:11:23.300 | Always roughly the same time?

02:11:24.780 | Basically, under the same circumstances.

02:11:26.420 | It doesn't have to be technically in the morning,

02:11:28.420 | because your day will change on most days when you get into.

02:11:33.340 | That's the most stable thing in your life.

02:11:35.500 | So I would take it then, and I would collect it

02:11:37.340 | for at least a month, maybe even six weeks.

02:11:41.180 | And then give yourself basically a running average.

02:11:43.420 | So what we quite honestly do is we will actually

02:11:47.300 | track it for forever.

02:11:49.340 | And then what we always look at is,

02:11:51.740 | what does it look like today relative to the last week

02:11:54.020 | on average?

02:11:54.620 | And then what does that look like to our historical average?

02:11:58.140 | And we always compare those things.

02:12:00.180 | And you also want to make sure you compare like to like.

02:12:03.140 | So in other words, I generally will not

02:12:05.820 | going to worry about today's HRV score relative to tomorrow's.

02:12:09.660 | What I want to look at is today's

02:12:11.220 | relative to this exact same day last week.

02:12:14.260 | Not for athletes, but for non-athletes.

02:12:15.920 | This is very important.

02:12:16.700 | So imagine, don't worry about the difference between HRV score

02:12:19.300 | and Monday compared to Tuesday.

02:12:21.900 | Pay attention to Monday compared to last Monday and the Monday

02:12:24.660 | before that.

02:12:26.060 | That's because you typically have the same sort

02:12:28.960 | of weekly schedule.

02:12:30.760 | And what you don't want to do is say,

02:12:32.580 | look at Monday's HRV score, which

02:12:34.480 | is a reflection of what happened Sunday,

02:12:37.060 | and compare that to Tuesday's, which is actually a reflection

02:12:39.380 | of what happened Monday.

02:12:41.420 | You probably didn't do the same stressors on Sunday as Monday,

02:12:44.700 | so you're not actually comparing the same thing.

02:12:46.820 | But if you have a general weekly schedule,

02:12:48.780 | you're likely to compare this Monday's relative to last

02:12:51.660 | Monday's, because they're both comparing what happened

02:12:53.740 | on the previous days.

02:12:54.900 | Did that sort of distinction make sense?

02:12:56.540 | Absolutely.

02:12:57.040 | I do the same thing with body weight, by the way,

02:12:59.040 | if you're trying to track body mass gain or fat loss

02:13:01.660 | or something.

02:13:02.460 | Compare like to like.

02:13:03.560 | You can look at the daily changes,

02:13:04.980 | but you need to pay attention to what

02:13:06.520 | that normal distribution is.

02:13:07.980 | So if you kind of do that Monday to Monday thing,

02:13:11.500 | that'll give you a rough area of saying,

02:13:13.380 | OK, my normal weekly variation is, say, five.

02:13:16.460 | So my average is 100, but I will fluctuate between 95 to 105.

02:13:20.300 | That's my standard deviation, as science dorks would call that.

02:13:24.700 | If you start changing more than 5% outside

02:13:29.340 | of your normal standard deviation,

02:13:30.780 | then I'm going to start paying attention a little bit.

02:13:33.380 | And I'm going to actually run a little bit

02:13:35.140 | of an algorithm on this one.

02:13:37.420 | And so here is my thinking process when I get HRV--

02:13:41.460 | really anti-metric, but HRV is the example we're using.

02:13:44.260 | First step, did I collect good data?

02:13:47.340 | And by that I mean, again, did I measure it

02:13:49.140 | the same way I measured every single day,

02:13:50.660 | or did I get up and look at my phone first and I realized,

02:13:52.780 | oh, crap, I forgot to take my HRV.

02:13:55.020 | And then I went back and got there.

02:13:56.460 | So say I had a 15% derivation from my normal number,

02:13:59.180 | and then I realized, oh, yeah, that's right.

02:14:00.980 | I was up super late last night doing whatever.

02:14:04.480 | OK, great.

02:14:05.220 | I'm going to consider that bad data.

02:14:07.260 | You didn't get it.

02:14:08.820 | If it's bad data, then I'm not doing anything.

02:14:11.400 | Ignore.

02:14:11.980 | It's bad data.

02:14:12.700 | You throw it out.

02:14:13.460 | You don't use it.

02:14:14.600 | If you decide, for the most part,

02:14:15.980 | let's assume it was good data.

02:14:17.180 | OK, great.

02:14:17.860 | Then I'm going on to my next question, which is, is it acute?

02:14:21.740 | In other words, is it just today?

02:14:24.740 | Or is it chronic?

02:14:26.080 | Is this pattern been happening for more than five days,

02:14:29.220 | or at least three out of the last four,

02:14:31.180 | or something like that?

02:14:32.140 | Three minimum is what I like.

02:14:33.540 | Honestly, I generally look at five or more days.

02:14:36.740 | That's a very big distinction.

02:14:37.980 | If it is something that just happened today,

02:14:40.180 | then the next question I'm going to ask myself is,

02:14:43.260 | am I in that adaptation phase?

02:14:45.140 | Am I trying to be in a phase where

02:14:46.640 | I'm trying to cause an insult to the body

02:14:49.020 | that it needs to respond with?

02:14:50.300 | If that is the case, I'm just going to ignore it.

02:14:53.460 | In fact, it's almost sometimes a good sign.

02:14:56.180 | Hey, we are stressing the body, and it is stressed.

02:14:58.960 | What we're doing is working.

02:15:00.620 | Amazing.

02:15:01.140 | In fact, if you don't see that, it's sort of like, hmm,

02:15:03.380 | maybe we're not doing enough to push the phase.

02:15:05.520 | So we're great.

02:15:06.940 | If the answer is no, we're in a peaking phase,

02:15:10.500 | then we're actually going to use what I call acute state

02:15:13.660 | shifters.

02:15:14.900 | So this is a whole host of little tricks

02:15:16.700 | that I have that can change HRV or any recovery metric

02:15:20.660 | within seconds.

02:15:22.780 | Again, these are not chronic fixes.

02:15:25.580 | This is just, I'm having a bad day today.

02:15:27.900 | I feel like crap.

02:15:29.660 | Can I make myself feel better right now?

02:15:31.380 | And so I kind of call these parlor tricks

02:15:33.860 | a lot of the times.

02:15:35.020 | And there's 1,000 of them.

02:15:37.140 | We are certainly not going to go over them.

02:15:38.940 | But I'll give you some examples.

02:15:40.580 | You can pull out-- first of all, physical movement will do it.

02:15:43.820 | You'd be stunned.

02:15:45.240 | I was just doing some yoga, moving around,

02:15:48.060 | doing some jumping jacks, starting your workout.

02:15:50.460 | I mean, you've probably experienced this.

02:15:52.200 | It's sort of cliche in our world at this point.

02:15:54.240 | But if you ever do any serious lifting

02:15:57.260 | over a serious amount of time, there

02:15:58.680 | will be days in which you walk in the gym and you feel awful.

02:16:02.020 | And somehow that day, you set a lifetime PR.

02:16:04.500 | Yeah, that's a strange, strange phenomenon.

02:16:10.460 | I've experienced that more than a few times.

02:16:14.700 | It's rare.

02:16:15.800 | The inverse is rare, however.

02:16:17.440 | You feel great.

02:16:18.720 | You have a horrible workout.

02:16:19.880 | It happens.

02:16:21.300 | And it can happen for any number of different reasons.

02:16:23.600 | But yeah, I think the former, when

02:16:27.380 | isn't feeling very good and then somehow is a terrific workout,

02:16:30.980 | does set a kind of a seed of doubt

02:16:33.380 | as to how good our subjective assessments really

02:16:36.160 | are, which I guess is why we're talking

02:16:38.160 | about objective assessments like HRV.

02:16:42.000 | And remember, if it's a single day here,

02:16:44.900 | you can even do hard training.

02:16:46.440 | People sort of have this idea like, well,

02:16:48.140 | if you get up and your recovery score is down,

02:16:50.220 | do a lighter day.

02:16:52.220 | That's probably-- I'm probably never making that choice,

02:16:54.420 | to be honest, not in this situation.

02:16:56.140 | Remember, this is one bad day.

02:16:59.000 | And we are in a phase of even trying to improve performance

02:17:02.720 | right now.

02:17:03.460 | We're probably still training hard.

02:17:04.920 | You will, again, often see, I felt terrible

02:17:07.260 | when I trained super hard and it totally changed my day around.

02:17:10.580 | This all can happen.

02:17:12.380 | So exercise is my first love here.

02:17:14.820 | Absolutely breathing, any sort of upregulation breathing.

02:17:17.940 | So we talked a lot about downregulation breathing.

02:17:21.340 | Just do the opposite.

02:17:22.620 | And so this is when hyperventilation strategies

02:17:24.900 | can work.

02:17:26.120 | Instead of accentuating the exhale,

02:17:28.440 | you accentuate the inhale, or you restrict the exhales.

02:17:31.060 | This is working in the exact opposite situation.

02:17:33.260 | You can also play little-- this is where things like music,

02:17:36.740 | motivational quotes, if you're the type that

02:17:39.260 | follows people on Instagram that motivates you,

02:17:41.540 | or can work with these things.

02:17:44.100 | Coaching tactics, these can be things

02:17:46.220 | like finding out or talking about that person's why.

02:17:52.540 | You sort of shared something, a mantra

02:17:54.660 | you use when you're training hard to keep you go better.

02:17:57.420 | I'm not going to ask you to share that now.

02:17:59.260 | But some people have this sometimes.

02:18:01.300 | Or you may have this conversation

02:18:02.780 | with your athlete.

02:18:03.500 | We call this finding out your why.

02:18:05.320 | So finding out why are you really here,

02:18:07.220 | what are we doing here.

02:18:08.220 | And a lot of times you'll hear things like,

02:18:10.780 | it's because I grew up poor, and I don't ever want to be poor.

02:18:13.620 | OK, great.

02:18:14.500 | This is for my children.

02:18:15.900 | Or any number of things.

02:18:17.580 | And you can pull that out on these days.

02:18:20.400 | You need to be really careful.

02:18:21.660 | This is why I call these parlor tricks.

02:18:23.700 | Because when you play that card too often,

02:18:26.300 | it starts to lose effect.

02:18:27.820 | And you can only dig to a hole so often before it's--

02:18:32.380 | the same thing as with music.

02:18:33.940 | Every time you go to the weight room,

02:18:35.420 | it's blasting death metal at level 10.

02:18:37.700 | Well, eventually it's no longer motivating.

02:18:39.980 | It's no longer helpful.

02:18:41.020 | So you want to deploy these things strategically.

02:18:44.740 | Yeah, the phrase that comes to mind is signal to noise.

02:18:47.860 | The nervous system, especially the dopamine system

02:18:50.100 | and the adrenaline system, which are

02:18:51.220 | a part of this larger system called the catecholamine

02:18:53.300 | system, so that's dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine.

02:18:55.600 | The get up and go, focus on external goals,

02:18:58.780 | movement associated, and on and on.

02:19:01.260 | That system responds best to high signal relative to noise.

02:19:07.140 | So if you're, as you pointed out,

02:19:09.660 | listening to music every time, drinking a ton of caffeine,

02:19:12.080 | energy drinks, pre-workout, nootropics,

02:19:15.060 | and then stacking all those things--

02:19:18.340 | sometimes refer to this as dopamine stacking,

02:19:20.700 | informally referred to as dopamine stacking.

02:19:22.740 | You're doing all those things.

02:19:23.940 | And then first of all, then you're

02:19:24.820 | wondering why later that afternoon or the next day,

02:19:27.100 | you're feeling like you're under a cloud.

02:19:28.980 | Well, it's obvious your catecholamine system crashed.

02:19:32.220 | But it's also that you don't necessarily

02:19:35.460 | become dependent on it.

02:19:36.980 | It's just that you start to wonder whether or not

02:19:39.260 | you have the internal mechanisms and motivation

02:19:41.580 | to train without those things.

02:19:42.980 | And so one tends to use them more and more,

02:19:44.300 | and then they have a diminishing effect over time.

02:19:46.980 | The rule that I've been sort of applying

02:19:49.900 | has been I never do two workouts in a row

02:19:52.980 | where I'm stacking in stimulants, loud music,

02:19:56.620 | and any kind of sort of high potency inspiration.

02:20:00.540 | However, every set in the gym or when I run,

02:20:03.360 | I really try and be diligent about form and attention

02:20:05.740 | to what I'm doing.

02:20:06.740 | The one exception would be the long duration endurance work.

02:20:11.260 | Part of the reason I do that work

02:20:12.780 | is to let my mind go into states of drifting.

02:20:16.220 | I'm not trying to think in complete sentences

02:20:18.340 | or even close to it.

02:20:19.660 | Just let my brain kind of idle at a low hum.

02:20:23.300 | And for that reason, generally listen to something

02:20:27.060 | that's more of a story or don't listen to anything at all

02:20:29.860 | and just let my thoughts kind of spool through.

02:20:31.460 | Anyway, I don't want to take us too far off track,

02:20:33.400 | but I think this idea of signal to noise

02:20:35.740 | will resonate with the engineers out there.

02:20:37.680 | But since most people are likely not engineers,

02:20:40.780 | it is the way that the nervous system works,

02:20:43.340 | evidenced by the fact that whatever area of your body

02:20:45.780 | right now is in contact with a chair or any other surface

02:20:49.460 | that it's been in contact with for more than a few seconds,

02:20:51.420 | you forget that it's in contact with it

02:20:53.100 | because there's low signal to noise at that point.

02:20:56.180 | - A similar note,

02:20:57.020 | you actually mentioned stimulants basically there,

02:20:58.820 | whether you're talking caffeine or any other stimulant,

02:21:02.100 | any other cortisol modulators or adaptogens,

02:21:04.980 | any of these things fall in the category.

02:21:06.540 | If you're not using them consistently

02:21:08.540 | and you're having a rough day

02:21:09.500 | and all of a sudden you throw down

02:21:10.700 | 200 milligrams of caffeine,

02:21:12.580 | it's going to change real fast.

02:21:14.580 | - That's a strong performance enhancing effect.

02:21:16.600 | - Yeah, absolutely.

02:21:17.440 | And for these reasons, right?

02:21:19.020 | So we mentioned a couple of them, breath work, food,

02:21:23.560 | more calories, just eating some food.

02:21:25.740 | Sometimes we'll give people what we call comfort foods.

02:21:29.120 | So this is just like, hey, you're from Georgia

02:21:32.340 | and we know you love grits.

02:21:33.980 | So we're having grits for breakfast.

02:21:35.500 | Oh my great, like just something to change your mood,

02:21:38.260 | acute state shifters to alter it.

02:21:41.160 | The other couple of tricks here are light.

02:21:44.540 | So if we know that maybe say multiple people

02:21:46.460 | are struggling that day,

02:21:47.300 | maybe we'll put on the lights extra bright.

02:21:49.100 | We'll bring in some extra things

02:21:50.100 | and just get it more light in there.

02:21:51.620 | And that doesn't even count actually going outside

02:21:54.220 | and seeing the sun, but perhaps we'll do that.

02:21:56.460 | And then other little tricks

02:21:58.540 | that I've learned over the years

02:21:59.460 | is one particular thing I love

02:22:01.400 | is literally drawing a line, a physical line in the ground.

02:22:05.380 | And you look at that line and you say like,

02:22:08.100 | I'm going to train today

02:22:09.580 | and I'm going to accomplish this effort.

02:22:13.720 | I'm not going to walk past this line

02:22:16.380 | and into that training space

02:22:18.240 | until I'm ready to give that effort.

02:22:20.420 | And that may take a minute or 10 or whatever,

02:22:23.120 | but the physical barrier is very important to saying like,

02:22:26.940 | I'm not just gonna get through it.

02:22:28.320 | I'm going to actually perform the way I wanna perform

02:22:31.560 | or I'm not gonna do it

02:22:32.900 | and I'm not gonna cross this line

02:22:34.620 | until I'm ready to make that happen.

02:22:36.340 | - All right, I really liked that tool.

02:22:37.720 | It also brings to mind the importance

02:22:40.180 | of at least thinking about how your relationship

02:22:42.860 | with your phone during training can perhaps help,

02:22:47.740 | but also impede workout motivation and performance.

02:22:50.880 | In an earlier episode, you mentioned that if people

02:22:52.580 | are using their phone to play music during their workout,

02:22:56.100 | that they establish the complete playlist

02:22:58.900 | prior to initiating the workout

02:23:01.240 | and then not deviate from that playlist

02:23:03.080 | as opposed to changing it in the middle

02:23:04.780 | because there's just too much of an impulse

02:23:07.880 | to also check social media, check email,

02:23:10.980 | check text messages.

02:23:12.480 | I mean, the way I think about the phone actually

02:23:14.700 | is it's a bunch of little brain areas.

02:23:17.760 | It's got a memory system for you.

02:23:19.580 | It's got lookup tables for lookup tables.

02:23:22.000 | It's got websites to look things up on the internet.

02:23:24.420 | It's got photos.

02:23:25.380 | I mean, it is so rich with sensory data

02:23:27.500 | and it's so closely linked to our own brain architecture.

02:23:31.240 | The algorithms are designed for those to be that way

02:23:34.580 | that I always think about it

02:23:35.700 | as bringing in a second person with me,

02:23:38.240 | but that person is my twin that has severe attention issues.

02:23:43.240 | And for those that already have attention issues,

02:23:46.260 | just think about this as a twin that would then compound you

02:23:48.920 | by tapping on your shoulder, talking to you all the time,

02:23:51.700 | interrupting you, somebody that you like a lot,

02:23:54.900 | but that frankly is a little bit irritating

02:23:57.880 | in that they're interrupting your ability to really show up

02:24:00.460 | and also your ability to show up for them.

02:24:02.220 | So I started to think about the phone as an entire individual

02:24:06.980 | and that it represents me

02:24:08.520 | and certainly not the better version of me.

02:24:11.780 | - Exactly.

02:24:12.620 | You actually mentioned something else

02:24:14.040 | that we'll use occasionally

02:24:15.500 | which will be called brain games or puzzles,

02:24:18.660 | whether this is a crossword puzzle

02:24:20.180 | or something where you actually lose

02:24:23.320 | your thought of self for a second

02:24:25.140 | and your brain gets engaged in a task

02:24:26.880 | that you weren't regretting or even thinking about.

02:24:29.060 | These can be stupid little games.

02:24:31.500 | It could be little challenges,

02:24:32.940 | especially if you're in a group or a team setting.

02:24:35.420 | We're going to play one round of dodge ball

02:24:37.940 | or we're going to play one round of thumb wars.

02:24:40.060 | - So you do encourage this?

02:24:41.540 | - Yeah. - I see.

02:24:42.500 | - So you would play a thing instead of warming up,

02:24:44.300 | it's like, "All right, get in and everyone get going."

02:24:45.740 | We're going to get your foam roller or your diamond

02:24:47.620 | or whatever thing.

02:24:48.460 | It's just like, "All right, everyone line up

02:24:49.460 | and we're going to play thumb wars to see who wins."

02:24:52.100 | Just like whatever.

02:24:53.020 | And all of a sudden you've snapped into a new mental shift

02:24:56.340 | or literally playing brain games,

02:24:58.720 | playing Tetris on your phone,

02:25:00.140 | like any of these things can work in this acute setting.

02:25:04.620 | - Can I ask you a question?

02:25:05.460 | It's not directly related to recovery per se,

02:25:09.340 | but I think it's worth mentioning or asking about rather,

02:25:12.760 | which is the use of mirrors or no mirrors while training.

02:25:16.740 | You know, the experience of seeing oneself

02:25:19.100 | and observing one's form in the mirror,

02:25:20.700 | I suppose, has some utility.

02:25:22.200 | You can get some sense of progress that you might trigger.

02:25:26.020 | You're almost specifically referring to resistance training.

02:25:30.900 | I suppose it could be cardio if you're running

02:25:32.260 | on a treadmill or pushing a sled or something,

02:25:34.280 | but you can see form.

02:25:37.180 | You can get a sense of what your face looks like

02:25:40.080 | when you grimace.

02:25:41.260 | But in all seriousness, you are, without question,

02:25:46.260 | a person, not you, Andy,

02:25:47.920 | but one is in a less interoceptive mode

02:25:52.920 | when looking at themselves in the mirror.

02:25:54.860 | So the exteroception, perception of things

02:25:57.020 | beyond the confines of our skin,

02:25:58.280 | even if it's a picture of us.

02:25:59.740 | Interoception, perception of everything

02:26:02.380 | from the skin inward.

02:26:04.160 | And so if we're looking at ourselves,

02:26:05.940 | we're diverting some allocation of our attention.

02:26:09.240 | Let's say there's a hundred, these are arbitrary units,

02:26:12.180 | and you can put 50% of your attention

02:26:15.020 | on the feeling in your body or the muscles you're training

02:26:17.780 | and 50% on how it appears in the mirror.

02:26:20.560 | Or it could be a hundred percent on the mirror

02:26:22.360 | or a hundred percent internally,

02:26:23.380 | which you best accomplish probably by closing your eyes.

02:26:26.120 | So obviously there are constraints here, certain movements.

02:26:28.340 | You wouldn't want to close your eyes, et cetera.

02:26:30.380 | In general, what are your thoughts on mirrors

02:26:33.460 | or no mirrors for resistance training specifically?

02:26:36.640 | - It depends on the metric that you find most important.

02:26:39.220 | And what I mean by this is if you're training

02:26:40.700 | for say muscle hypertrophy,

02:26:41.880 | there's emerging evidence that suggests

02:26:45.420 | actually looking at yourself in the mirror

02:26:46.940 | and even flexing in between sets

02:26:49.920 | can actually be advantageous or can augment muscle gains.

02:26:53.520 | - Oh my, there's support for all the mirror flexors.

02:26:58.520 | - Absolutely.

02:26:59.720 | - Not making fun of you.

02:27:01.040 | I just, it is sort of interesting

02:27:03.240 | to be on the observing side of that.

02:27:05.580 | But hey, listen, results are what people are after.

02:27:07.920 | - Yeah, having said that,

02:27:09.080 | if you're trying to enhance movement learning,

02:27:13.080 | then it may be detrimental.

02:27:14.760 | So if you're doing an exercise that is explosive and fast,

02:27:17.540 | it's probably not the best thing to be looking into a mirror.

02:27:20.360 | If you were to walk into any Olympic weightlifting arena

02:27:23.580 | and you had any thoughts of using a mirror,

02:27:26.300 | you would probably run out of the gym very, very quickly.

02:27:29.300 | You can't see yourself in time to make an adjustment

02:27:32.540 | with a movement that's happening that fast.

02:27:34.100 | And also we'll do exactly what you mentioned,

02:27:36.060 | which is it will remove your ability to understand

02:27:40.740 | and feel the movement.

02:27:41.980 | And so this is a big component to using technology

02:27:45.060 | for exercise at all,

02:27:47.360 | is you have to make sure that the end point

02:27:50.420 | is you understanding you and your physiology more,

02:27:53.580 | not less.

02:27:55.420 | When you outsource learning to technology, in this case,

02:27:58.460 | even if the technology is the mirror,

02:28:00.500 | you remove your ability to gain and truly understand

02:28:05.780 | that learning process.

02:28:07.480 | So you need to be very, very careful

02:28:09.340 | whether you're using a mirror

02:28:10.700 | or whether you're using any number of apps

02:28:12.580 | where you can record, say, a movement

02:28:14.960 | and then watch it afterwards,

02:28:16.300 | and it will give you a breakdown

02:28:17.320 | if your hand was in the right spot

02:28:19.420 | or foot was in the right spot.

02:28:20.340 | These are all great.

02:28:21.980 | But you need to then take the next step,

02:28:23.500 | which is to say, I need to be able to feel that position.

02:28:27.660 | All right, so in the case of performance,

02:28:29.540 | if you can imagine trying to learn a new technique,

02:28:31.740 | say running technique,

02:28:32.920 | and you have to be able to watch yourself in the mirror

02:28:34.900 | to understand your stride in the right position,

02:28:37.780 | if you don't take the next step of saying,

02:28:39.460 | okay, now I don't have to look in the mirror

02:28:41.240 | and I can feel when I'm getting out of rhythm

02:28:43.680 | or whatever the case is,

02:28:44.860 | then you'll never be able to actually then use that

02:28:46.820 | in your race.

02:28:48.020 | And so it's very, very important that people, again,

02:28:49.680 | pay attention to what is the dependent variable

02:28:51.620 | that you're actually interested in doing.

02:28:53.420 | If you're trying to get better at something,

02:28:55.220 | the tech is okay as a starting place.

02:28:57.260 | It just cannot be the finishing place.

02:28:59.660 | - Thank you for those reflections.

02:29:01.220 | I'm curious as to what happens or what one should do

02:29:04.220 | if their HRV is reduced for maybe three or four

02:29:08.260 | or more days in a row.

02:29:09.780 | - Absolutely.

02:29:10.680 | The next question that I'm gonna ask is,

02:29:13.380 | and am I in that adaptation phase?

02:29:15.240 | If so, I'm gonna still ignore it just like I did

02:29:18.420 | if it was a single bad day,

02:29:20.220 | but I'm gonna start watching it very carefully.

02:29:22.820 | I may actually now introduce some other tests.

02:29:26.340 | So I may use a performance test.

02:29:28.900 | We may look at something else, maybe ask questions,

02:29:31.740 | maybe have some communication either with myself

02:29:34.080 | or somebody else.

02:29:34.920 | So I'm gonna start paying more attention,

02:29:36.340 | but I'm still really not gonna take much action

02:29:38.920 | until that crosses more than seven days

02:29:42.000 | of consistent problems.

02:29:44.100 | If it does do that or we're in a peaking phase,

02:29:47.980 | then I'm gonna go to another set of solutions

02:29:50.040 | that are truly going to pull me out of the hole

02:29:52.400 | rather than just be those acute state shifters.

02:29:55.740 | These are more what I call chronic state shifters.

02:29:58.120 | Now, some of these are actually very similar

02:30:00.060 | to the ones we've used before.

02:30:02.060 | For example, thermal stress.

02:30:05.820 | So I can promise you if your recovery score is in the tanks

02:30:10.820 | and you walk outside and you jump in your 35 degree water

02:30:15.360 | and you get back out,

02:30:16.200 | what's going to happen is your HRV score

02:30:18.040 | immediately afterwards, I'm talking within seconds,

02:30:20.900 | is going to be significantly compromised.

02:30:23.160 | In other words, think about that.

02:30:24.900 | Remember a low HRV means a high sympathetic.

02:30:27.280 | I promise you cold water will put you

02:30:30.000 | in a high sympathetic drive.

02:30:30.960 | However, and we've tested this pretty extensively

02:30:34.060 | looking at HRV zero, 15, 30, 60, 90,

02:30:39.960 | all the way up to 180 minutes post.

02:30:43.040 | And on average, you will see your HRV score

02:30:45.920 | continue to rise after that.

02:30:48.720 | And so while you have this immediate sympathetic response,

02:30:52.900 | you will immediately then respond about 30 minutes

02:30:56.100 | on most people, depends on the person though.

02:30:58.720 | And that score will be improved for several hours afterwards.

02:31:02.520 | So heat can kind of have a similar effect.

02:31:06.600 | That actually, again, is sort of an acute fix,

02:31:10.600 | but over time, as we've described earlier,

02:31:13.240 | that can also have a little bit of a chronic effect.

02:31:16.300 | We can also then get into areas like sleep.

02:31:18.760 | And so now we're going to start playing and exploring

02:31:21.000 | why are you sleeping poor as well,

02:31:23.960 | or was your sleep score fine, but your HRV was low.

02:31:27.720 | That's a little bit of a different answer.

02:31:29.040 | If your sleep is getting compromised,

02:31:30.640 | then we're going to start going into and making sure

02:31:32.860 | we're improving our sleep.

02:31:34.280 | In terms of like brain stuff,

02:31:37.440 | instead of maybe playing a game or having music

02:31:41.160 | or some of those other tricks,

02:31:42.120 | those aren't going to really have a chronic effect,

02:31:44.080 | but you can do things like work on social connection.

02:31:47.720 | That's actually been shown to improve recovery over time.

02:31:51.460 | You can do things like journaling or meditation,

02:31:54.260 | and those have an acute effect as well as a chronic effect.

02:31:58.300 | So again, if you go journal right now,

02:32:00.080 | you probably feel better,

02:32:01.580 | but also we know that over time

02:32:03.140 | that will gradually improve things.

02:32:05.200 | So adaptogens and things like that

02:32:08.460 | also can have a chronic effect.

02:32:10.460 | So can things like electrolytes or food or hydration

02:32:13.420 | if those things were off.

02:32:14.880 | So we're going to go to a whole number of areas,

02:32:18.620 | but those are the primary ones.

02:32:20.180 | Outstanding of all that, of course,

02:32:22.480 | it may be simply a time to go back

02:32:24.140 | and reassess our training program.

02:32:26.480 | That's truly the case.

02:32:27.440 | So that's where we're at.

02:32:29.040 | If so, we're probably going to

02:32:30.620 | either completely remove training

02:32:32.640 | or drop it to like 50% or so

02:32:37.360 | until we start rebounding back to baseline.

02:32:40.560 | And that's generally the numbers we use.

02:32:42.980 | - For many people who are not training

02:32:46.020 | for a competitive sport

02:32:48.960 | and maybe aren't pushing themselves really hard,

02:32:51.740 | maybe they consider themselves somebody who exercises

02:32:56.740 | in order to maintain health and aesthetics

02:32:59.380 | and longevity, et cetera.

02:33:01.440 | And they never really finish any workout

02:33:06.420 | completely exhausted.

02:33:07.660 | They're sleeping okay.

02:33:10.420 | Their appetite's okay.

02:33:12.380 | Can we assume that they are recovering well

02:33:15.180 | or maybe they're not creating enough

02:33:19.100 | of a adaptation response?

02:33:21.660 | Like there's no progressive overreaching.

02:33:23.720 | And so there's really no stimulus for recovery.

02:33:26.820 | What I'm saying here is on the face of it,

02:33:30.180 | I think is obvious, right?

02:33:31.280 | If you don't train hard, there's nothing to recover from.

02:33:34.100 | What I'm really saying is,

02:33:36.100 | is the ability to recover itself

02:33:38.620 | something that we need to train?

02:33:40.340 | In other words, can we get better at recovering?

02:33:43.060 | And the analogy here would be something like focus

02:33:47.040 | in order to perform work of any kind,

02:33:50.620 | but certainly mental work and physical work,

02:33:53.620 | we need to be able to focus.

02:33:55.720 | The ability to focus is the reflection

02:33:58.020 | of a bunch of neural circuits

02:33:59.180 | and chemicals and hormones, et cetera.

02:34:01.020 | But we know roughly what those are.

02:34:03.940 | And we know that if you are poor at focusing

02:34:07.260 | for every small bit of time

02:34:08.860 | that you can focus a little bit longer,

02:34:10.380 | even if it's a matter of seconds,

02:34:12.040 | those circuits themselves get better at focusing

02:34:15.260 | and so on and so forth.

02:34:16.640 | So in other words, is the recovery system,

02:34:18.880 | however broad, neurotransmitter, hormones,

02:34:20.980 | neural, muscular, immune-based, et cetera,

02:34:23.900 | can that system or set of systems become better?

02:34:27.740 | Can we get better at recovering?

02:34:29.820 | Meaning can it become faster and more effective?

02:34:34.340 | Can we think of the recovery system

02:34:36.200 | as kind of a blade that gets sharper by engaging recovery?

02:34:39.220 | Because if so, then there's strong reason for people

02:34:43.000 | who are not pushing really hard

02:34:45.420 | to push at least a little bit harder

02:34:47.120 | than is comfortable for them every once in a while

02:34:49.220 | to make sure that that system doesn't start to slide back.

02:34:52.380 | - Remember physiology is listening to everything you do

02:34:55.680 | and it is always responding.

02:34:58.140 | So the analogy that I will meet your analogy with

02:35:02.060 | that I use here is the bowling alley.

02:35:03.860 | So you've probably been bowling before

02:35:05.660 | and you've used the bumper lanes, right?

02:35:08.140 | - The bumper lanes, I've gone bowling before

02:35:10.420 | and I've spent time in the gutter

02:35:12.180 | and I've spent time on the pins.

02:35:13.780 | - Okay.

02:35:14.660 | - So it's been a while.

02:35:15.540 | We used to have a bowling alley in the town

02:35:16.960 | where I went to and it was fun.

02:35:18.580 | We used to slide around on those shoes

02:35:20.020 | and like all the kids would hang out there

02:35:21.740 | and I feel like, do they still have bowling alleys?

02:35:24.040 | - I don't even know.

02:35:25.100 | - It feels like something that may have gone

02:35:26.700 | the way of the mid 2000s.

02:35:29.380 | - I don't care if no one bills anymore.

02:35:31.180 | You're not going to ruin my good analogy.

02:35:32.580 | - Okay, well my intent wasn't to ruin your analogy.

02:35:35.720 | Okay, tell us about bowling.

02:35:37.220 | All the bowlers are going to come after me

02:35:38.740 | with bowling balls or something.

02:35:40.460 | - Right, you're going to get blasted

02:35:41.600 | with all the stats and elevations.

02:35:43.780 | - Don't hurt me, sorry though.

02:35:45.300 | - Cool, so if one were to go bowling

02:35:47.760 | and they didn't want to put their ball in the gutter,

02:35:50.120 | you could put these little bumpers in those lanes

02:35:52.500 | and these little foam pads that go in the gutter

02:35:54.500 | that if your ball is going towards the gutter,

02:35:56.000 | it hits those and bounces off and goes back in the lane.

02:35:58.860 | Okay, so in this entire conversation,

02:36:01.180 | this is actually true of a lot of the way people

02:36:04.040 | approach their fitness and health.

02:36:06.480 | People are very concerned oftentimes with optimizing,

02:36:11.480 | meaning I want to make sure I don't go in the gutter.

02:36:14.120 | I don't want to hit the walls.

02:36:15.380 | So therefore I'm going to try to improve the accuracy

02:36:19.620 | in which I throw the ball.

02:36:20.720 | So I want to make sure that I'm throwing it

02:36:22.020 | down the center of the lane more often.

02:36:24.140 | And I want to get my standard deviation tighter and tighter

02:36:28.880 | so that I don't get anywhere close to hitting the wall.

02:36:31.580 | However, what they're not realizing is if you do that,

02:36:36.420 | the body will start shrinking the size of the lane.

02:36:39.860 | 'Cause what it basically says is huh,

02:36:41.640 | we haven't had a ball touch us in years.

02:36:43.960 | We don't need to be this wide.

02:36:45.780 | Let's get smaller and smaller and smaller.

02:36:48.500 | So it's not that you actually are having

02:36:52.260 | a reduced ability to recover,

02:36:55.020 | but you start becoming incredibly sensitive to that.

02:36:58.120 | So your two strategies for enhancing recovery

02:37:02.260 | are to practice getting closer,

02:37:04.540 | throwing that ball down the middle of the lane,

02:37:05.900 | or to widen, to widen the alley.

02:37:10.320 | And that's exactly what you're referring to.

02:37:11.900 | And you absolutely should do that.

02:37:14.100 | And so what happens is you don't have to be so precise

02:37:16.500 | with what you're doing,

02:37:17.760 | because your ability to handle so many things is widened.

02:37:20.460 | So if you're off now by four or five inches to the right,

02:37:23.960 | no problem, because you've just tripled

02:37:25.540 | the size of your alley.

02:37:27.140 | That's exactly what you want to do.

02:37:28.920 | So paying attention to two things.

02:37:30.820 | Number one is getting better at accuracy,

02:37:34.180 | maybe staying really tight with your progressions,

02:37:37.560 | using nutrition and sleep to optimize your recovery.

02:37:40.620 | And push your resilience is what we call this.

02:37:44.140 | In fact, there's actually a biological way

02:37:45.480 | to measure resilience.

02:37:46.380 | We do that in all of our folks.

02:37:48.600 | This is scientifically validated stuff.

02:37:51.040 | I didn't just make it up.

02:37:51.880 | You can actually measure resilience.

02:37:52.780 | And there's more and more coming out on this,

02:37:54.280 | but that's exactly what that term means.

02:37:56.060 | So how well can you handle and bang things

02:37:58.060 | off the threshold?

02:37:58.900 | So when you see a reduction in, say, 10% of your HRV today,

02:38:03.900 | for you, that might make you feel terrible.

02:38:07.900 | For me, I might not feel anything because I'm well adapted

02:38:12.060 | to large fluctuations, and therefore I'm okay.

02:38:14.780 | The less and less you do that,

02:38:16.720 | the more and more responsive you will be

02:38:19.300 | to those slight deviations.

02:38:21.020 | So that is exactly the target.

02:38:22.540 | And that's kind of what I allude to when I say,

02:38:23.980 | "You've got to understand what are we optimizing for?"

02:38:26.820 | Are we optimizing for making sure

02:38:28.620 | I don't feel any different today?

02:38:30.180 | Are we optimizing to make sure when I do feel different,

02:38:32.460 | I still am able to perform?

02:38:34.800 | So this is why you want to do things

02:38:36.260 | like maybe use some caffeine today and feel great.

02:38:40.920 | But if I have to use it every day,

02:38:42.100 | all I'm doing is shrinking my sensitivity there.

02:38:44.420 | So now if I have to go a day without it,

02:38:47.060 | I can't train at all.

02:38:49.660 | Caffeine is the easy example

02:38:50.860 | 'cause people understand how that whole system works.

02:38:53.060 | But this is really true of everything else.

02:38:54.740 | So yeah, you need to practice this.

02:38:57.460 | And the way to do that is to give yourself more stress,

02:39:00.420 | to continue to bring in the stress from nutrition,

02:39:04.060 | from training, from breath work.

02:39:06.820 | You mentioned earlier about focus.

02:39:09.540 | The exact same thing, right?

02:39:10.560 | It's not just about getting better right now.

02:39:12.340 | It's about training a system.

02:39:14.380 | And you can clearly train that, right?

02:39:16.440 | We will often say breath work is a practice.

02:39:20.460 | That's exactly what we're talking about, right?

02:39:22.080 | So you're practicing getting better at these things.

02:39:24.460 | You're practicing returning your focus.

02:39:26.980 | You're practicing recovering.

02:39:29.300 | And quite literally, physiologically,

02:39:30.820 | you can up-regulate, whether we're talking enzymes,

02:39:34.140 | whether we're talking about regulators,

02:39:35.620 | these will be up-regulated.

02:39:36.880 | So then the next time that insult comes in,

02:39:39.500 | it's not as big as, it's not as damaging.

02:39:41.340 | So yeah, absolutely you can and you should strive for that.

02:39:45.180 | - Throughout all the episodes

02:39:46.180 | where we've been talking about exercise,

02:39:48.760 | at the core of that is this word adaptations.

02:39:52.100 | And I love that you mentioned

02:39:53.980 | that breath work can also create adaptations.

02:39:58.700 | The way I'm visualizing all of this now

02:40:01.640 | is that resistance training with weights, machines,

02:40:06.640 | body weight, otherwise, cardiovascular training,

02:40:11.640 | running, jogging, sprinting, jumping, and so on,

02:40:14.700 | thermal training, exposure to heat,

02:40:16.340 | exposure to cold in a dedicated way,

02:40:19.040 | and deliberate respiration,

02:40:22.000 | AKA breathing or breath work as a practice.

02:40:25.340 | All of those can be viewed as ways to trigger adaptations.

02:40:30.340 | And in the context of recovery,

02:40:32.060 | the specific adaptations you're trying to engage

02:40:35.100 | are opposite to stress.

02:40:37.140 | In fact, with the exception

02:40:38.200 | of perhaps deliberate cold exposure,

02:40:43.160 | maybe deliberate heat exposure,

02:40:44.380 | 'cause if the sauna is really hot,

02:40:45.800 | you can get the dynorphin release,

02:40:47.180 | which is kind of uncomfortable.

02:40:49.100 | But still in both those cases, the rebound from that,

02:40:52.780 | in other words, when you get out, you shower,

02:40:54.300 | you go to bed, the next morning,

02:40:55.480 | you do have this kind of blissed out feeling.

02:40:57.740 | We know why that is.

02:40:59.200 | That is the rebound to that uncomfortable situation.

02:41:03.820 | So it seems it doesn't really matter

02:41:05.200 | whether or not you're using resistance,

02:41:07.240 | you're doing cardiovascular training,

02:41:08.740 | you're using thermal approaches,

02:41:11.140 | or you're using respiration-based approaches.

02:41:14.320 | All of these are really ways of both triggering adaptations

02:41:17.580 | and if applied properly to actually help you recover

02:41:22.420 | from the stress and create the literal result

02:41:27.420 | that you're trying to achieve.

02:41:29.900 | For some people that might've been obvious,

02:41:31.400 | but I think for many people, including myself,

02:41:33.940 | this set of conversations that we've been having

02:41:36.140 | over the series, these episodes,

02:41:38.760 | it's really the first time

02:41:39.600 | that I've ever thought about exercise in these ways.

02:41:43.300 | In any event, it's just a reflection,

02:41:44.620 | but it's one that at least for me is tremendously useful

02:41:47.680 | because it has a lot of organizational logic to it,

02:41:50.960 | which at least appeals to my brain

02:41:53.240 | because the more that things have a logic,

02:41:54.620 | the more for me that they become simplified

02:41:56.240 | and the more that the vast array of tools

02:41:59.500 | becomes visible to me.

02:42:02.660 | As you said earlier, what is it?

02:42:04.260 | Let me make sure I get this right.

02:42:05.560 | It's concepts are few, methods are many.

02:42:08.180 | - Pretty close.

02:42:09.020 | - Okay, how would you put behind this, how you state it?

02:42:11.480 | - Methods are many, concepts are few.

02:42:13.060 | - Ah, okay. - Either way.

02:42:14.260 | - The directionality probably matters.

02:42:15.860 | - It doesn't matter. - No, let's keep it right.

02:42:17.320 | The methods are many, concepts are few.

02:42:20.900 | - Galpin's Law, in science you're not allowed

02:42:23.940 | to name things after yourself,

02:42:26.020 | but you can name things after other people.

02:42:28.680 | So it's Galpin's Law.

02:42:30.500 | - Because I'm definitely the one who created that idea.

02:42:32.580 | So absolutely, that was extreme and tremendous sarcasm

02:42:36.580 | just so we're ultra clear.

02:42:37.700 | - Regardless, here we go, Galpin's Law.

02:42:40.040 | - There you go.

02:42:41.140 | One thing that's in my head right now is

02:42:44.020 | we've thrown out a lot of options for folks

02:42:47.360 | and maybe what we can do is try to simplify a little bit.

02:42:50.780 | So what I can kind of walk you through

02:42:52.340 | is how we measure recovery, if you will,

02:42:56.380 | and how often and some tools.

02:42:58.260 | And what I would recommend people do

02:43:00.220 | is not use everything I said.

02:43:03.620 | You wanna pick one or two things per category

02:43:06.400 | that are most important to you,

02:43:08.500 | that are at your cost, that are at your availability,

02:43:11.460 | that are interesting and important, relevant to you,

02:43:15.300 | and do that.

02:43:16.420 | The reason I kind of wanted to cover a large number

02:43:18.780 | of things was to give folks options.

02:43:20.340 | But again, I wanna emphasize,

02:43:22.940 | the point is to not measure all of them.

02:43:24.620 | In fact, you don't need to.

02:43:26.500 | I've ran this before with professional athletes

02:43:29.220 | where we've taken blood, urine, every single day.

02:43:32.900 | We've done performance measures,

02:43:34.840 | vertical jumps on a force plate,

02:43:36.960 | a whole bunch of things every day for years on end.

02:43:39.580 | And what I can tell you is

02:43:41.260 | there is tremendous redundancy in physiology.

02:43:44.100 | Everything is everything.

02:43:45.100 | So you don't need to do them

02:43:46.440 | and don't feel like you're missing out

02:43:47.780 | if you aren't doing them.

02:43:49.380 | One or two metrics is probably fine.

02:43:51.340 | I generally recommend one subjective measure.

02:43:55.120 | This could be as simple as what's your mood?

02:43:58.020 | How do you feel today?

02:43:59.700 | Great.

02:44:00.700 | And one objective measure, HRV,

02:44:04.740 | a resting heart rate, anything else, right?

02:44:07.380 | So if you even literally just did that,

02:44:09.860 | you'd probably have pretty good insight

02:44:12.740 | as to what you're doing.

02:44:13.580 | So maybe in fact, I'll go more detail here.

02:44:17.260 | Maybe I'll give you a couple of examples

02:44:18.660 | of things to measure every day.

02:44:21.180 | Some things that you should measure maybe quarterly,

02:44:24.140 | monthly, and then maybe even some annually.

02:44:26.220 | And then you can maybe just pick a couple

02:44:28.020 | from each of these categories

02:44:28.900 | and have yourself a pretty good monitoring system

02:44:31.840 | for what to do.

02:44:32.680 | And I'll include some that are a little bit

02:44:35.020 | of technology-based and then others

02:44:36.240 | that are totally cost-free and require nothing.

02:44:39.060 | Okay, to start off,

02:44:39.900 | I would recommend taking something like HRV every day

02:44:43.500 | or most days.

02:44:45.580 | If you don't have a device like that,

02:44:47.300 | you could also use, honestly, the CO2 tolerance test.

02:44:50.620 | And we've talked about that a number of times

02:44:52.540 | and we probably have plenty of resources to go find that.

02:44:55.100 | But that doesn't require anything.

02:44:56.360 | It typically takes about a minute or so.

02:44:58.460 | And you can do that under the same circumstances

02:45:00.580 | in which HRV, in other words,

02:45:02.300 | do it at the same time every day,

02:45:03.920 | have the same standardization stuff.

02:45:05.340 | And that is actually been in our coaching experience.

02:45:08.900 | While admittedly there's no peer-reviewed research

02:45:12.200 | on this yet, just in our experience,

02:45:14.420 | this tends to track extremely closely with HRV

02:45:17.620 | and other metrics of recovery.

02:45:19.940 | In fact, we actually did do a pilot trial in my lab

02:45:23.660 | and it tracked decently well

02:45:25.220 | with both state and trait anxiety.

02:45:27.900 | So it's a nice metric.

02:45:29.940 | Not perfect, but you could take that.

02:45:31.880 | So if you wanted, you could do both.

02:45:34.020 | But again, remember, you're trying to capture

02:45:36.780 | systemic stress and so you're really just showing,

02:45:39.820 | you're measuring one thing two ways.

02:45:42.300 | So you don't necessarily have to have them both.

02:45:44.620 | I will do both just because I'm super interested

02:45:47.600 | in small differences, but globally,

02:45:49.900 | they're going to tell you basically the same thing.

02:45:52.360 | So those are two things where we use, again,

02:45:54.220 | basically daily, year round, or close to it.

02:45:57.900 | If you want to go past that a little bit,

02:46:00.740 | you can use an actual, a pretty old,

02:46:04.540 | commonly used survey called a DALDA, D-A-L-D-A.

02:46:09.500 | I forget the exact acronym,

02:46:11.020 | but it is a fairly lengthy questionnaire

02:46:13.620 | and it accounts for things like how do you feel today,

02:46:16.260 | how did you sleep, any stressors going on in your life,

02:46:19.860 | how you've been eating.

02:46:21.060 | And this is like fairly comprehensive,

02:46:23.220 | lengthy survey that came out.

02:46:26.060 | I mean, geez, it's probably been around for 30 years

02:46:27.880 | or something.

02:46:28.720 | It's nothing new and been used extensively.

02:46:31.340 | You would not want to do that every day.

02:46:33.360 | If you wanted to take some subjective measures every day,

02:46:36.300 | we typically stick with, like I said, mood, motivation,

02:46:40.840 | something like that.

02:46:42.300 | You could perform this DALDA test,

02:46:43.880 | so something more like monthly

02:46:45.460 | or at the end of each training phase,

02:46:47.500 | you know, every couple of months,

02:46:48.820 | and probably worth looking at.

02:46:50.460 | It's not going to tell you

02:46:52.020 | if you're in a bad spot today or tomorrow,

02:46:53.840 | but you would pick that up with the HRV

02:46:55.260 | or suit of tolerance test.

02:46:56.540 | It would, though, tell you information,

02:46:58.580 | especially if you're working with another individual,

02:47:01.000 | about major life changes.

02:47:02.680 | And if anything, it just facilitates that conversation,

02:47:05.540 | right?

02:47:06.380 | I noticed you reported X happening.

02:47:09.600 | Let's talk about that and can I help, et cetera.

02:47:12.940 | So another kind of sneaky, helpful one

02:47:15.420 | is to simply body fat.

02:47:16.700 | Like I said, non-functional overreaching and overtraining

02:47:20.120 | are associated with a number of things

02:47:22.100 | like energy, appetite suppression,

02:47:25.220 | changes in body weight or body composition.

02:47:28.700 | So you can measure that monthly or even really quarterly,

02:47:32.860 | depending on what kind of athlete

02:47:34.200 | or individual you're working at,

02:47:35.340 | or if you're trying to,

02:47:36.300 | especially if you're not trying to lose weight

02:47:37.560 | or if you're trying to be at maintenance,

02:47:38.860 | and that'll give you some insights as well.

02:47:40.640 | So moving past that, now actually we're gonna move

02:47:42.740 | into the realm of things that we call hidden stressors.

02:47:45.600 | So those are all visible stressors.

02:47:47.800 | So hidden stressors, the most common ones

02:47:50.120 | we've sort of mentioned, and I would probably do this,

02:47:53.580 | well, you're gonna have to do these ones through serum,

02:47:55.440 | so this is blood work.

02:47:57.300 | Cortisol, like we talked about, and testosterone,

02:48:00.180 | then of course, testosterone to cortisol ratio,

02:48:02.540 | and then the other ones I mentioned.

02:48:04.280 | You can do those quarterly, it's not bad.

02:48:07.140 | There are some blood markers that there's really no sense

02:48:09.860 | to do them that soon, and there are other markers.

02:48:12.700 | I mean, in our system, our individuals are getting

02:48:15.260 | pretty extensive blood work, saliva work, urine, and stool,

02:48:18.900 | and so there's plenty of those things

02:48:20.180 | you just do not need to measure every 10 weeks or so.

02:48:24.580 | In this case, cortisol, as you know, sort of changes rapidly.

02:48:29.580 | Testosterone can change pretty quickly,

02:48:33.580 | but if you're really trying to notice a large trend,

02:48:36.640 | certainly quarterly or so is an appropriate timeframe.

02:48:40.540 | Doing it every four or five weeks is probably unnecessary,

02:48:42.760 | so you can save yourself some money and do that.

02:48:45.580 | Other stuff you can look at, actually,

02:48:46.960 | more like semi-annually in plasma,

02:48:49.540 | like glutamine and glutamine-to-glutamate ratio,

02:48:52.020 | and you can maybe say why you wanna look at those

02:48:55.040 | for another conversation, but those are important.

02:48:57.800 | We always look at something

02:48:58.820 | from the oxidative stress thing,

02:49:01.120 | so this could be something like TNF-alpha

02:49:02.780 | or interleukin-6, something like that.

02:49:05.020 | Again, we're looking at that in serum,

02:49:06.560 | and we're looking at that semi-annually.

02:49:08.880 | And then another sneaky, actually, one

02:49:10.840 | that I love to look at is the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio,

02:49:15.400 | which will give you some pretty good insight.

02:49:16.560 | And again, you could look at that fairly quarterly.

02:49:18.600 | If that number starts to get really high,

02:49:21.300 | certainly more than nine-to-one,

02:49:22.920 | you got a pretty good insight

02:49:24.480 | that something gnarly is going on with your immune system.

02:49:26.640 | So we will actually take action much lower than that number,

02:49:29.980 | but that's a nice cutoff you'll see.

02:49:32.360 | That's a very, very high number.

02:49:33.580 | So those are some things you can use.

02:49:36.400 | Most folks have the ability, hopefully,

02:49:38.300 | to get some basic blood work done,

02:49:39.800 | get a basic what's called a CBC and CMP.

02:49:42.160 | If you have a great physician

02:49:44.340 | and you can get insurance to cover that,

02:49:45.560 | and you just go on and ask for a CBC and CMP,

02:49:48.440 | they'll know what that means.

02:49:49.520 | You can Google that, and they'll order it,

02:49:51.000 | and you'll get all the information,

02:49:52.400 | typically, that I just described or close enough,

02:49:55.060 | and you'll get some insights.

02:49:56.160 | And then again, you can just use that free service

02:49:58.640 | I mentioned earlier to check to see whether or not

02:50:00.260 | the changes are just a matter of testing quality

02:50:04.580 | or actually physiologically relevant.

02:50:06.600 | - What you just described

02:50:07.880 | is an amazingly powerful array of tools.

02:50:11.160 | I'm hoping that you can also mention a few tools

02:50:13.340 | that are either lower cost, truly low cost, or zero cost,

02:50:18.340 | that while they may not have the accuracy

02:50:23.220 | or give the complete picture that some of the biomarkers

02:50:27.160 | and other tools that you've mentioned do,

02:50:29.340 | that they can still provide reasonably reliable metrics

02:50:33.400 | that people can use

02:50:34.700 | in order to assess their level of recovery.

02:50:36.780 | - Absolutely.

02:50:37.620 | The CO2 tolerance test would be the first one,

02:50:40.580 | and you can just take that metric anytime you'd like.

02:50:44.300 | The other ones we've talked about so far

02:50:46.200 | are things like your mood.

02:50:48.160 | We haven't mentioned libido,

02:50:49.720 | but that's another assessment

02:50:51.500 | that people also tend to have a pretty good grip on,

02:50:53.800 | and they know what feels normal.

02:50:55.620 | So when things go out of whack,

02:50:56.920 | it tends to be a pretty good signal

02:50:58.320 | that people will recognize.

02:50:59.940 | - Yeah, and one note about that,

02:51:02.160 | something that came up in an episode on hormones,

02:51:05.980 | both for male and female health,

02:51:07.740 | that at some point it will air,

02:51:11.080 | which is that there's no objective measure

02:51:15.480 | for people in terms of libido across the board,

02:51:18.040 | meaning people vary tremendously,

02:51:20.720 | age, life circumstances, and on and on.

02:51:25.960 | And so this is one of those subjective measures

02:51:28.800 | that I think people need to have some sense

02:51:32.440 | of what their quote-unquote baseline really is.

02:51:35.500 | And I'm guessing that the time to assess that

02:51:38.340 | might best be when initiating or midway

02:51:42.600 | through a relatively low-intensity training phase,

02:51:46.660 | maybe during the time of year

02:51:49.160 | in which all the other factors that can influence libido

02:51:53.400 | are not at their maximum.

02:51:55.660 | So if you think about light and dopamine

02:51:58.060 | and the relationship between those

02:51:59.340 | and the testosterone and estrogen systems,

02:52:01.180 | we know that libido, testosterone, estrogen in men and women

02:52:05.500 | tends to peak in the summer months.

02:52:07.220 | So if that's your baseline that you're comparing to,

02:52:09.900 | I don't know that that's as reliable

02:52:11.620 | as being something like the fall or the spring.

02:52:15.300 | And so anyway, this again is very subjective,

02:52:18.060 | but we just encourage people to recognize

02:52:20.600 | that there's no standard numbers for this, no lookup table,

02:52:24.300 | and there's no equivalent of the libido BMI, the LMI,

02:52:27.780 | no disrespect to the acronym that probably is LMI.

02:52:30.520 | So I think that it's just something to keep in mind

02:52:35.220 | as people do comparisons or subjective comparisons

02:52:39.620 | is don't pick a comparison to an extreme.

02:52:43.180 | Try and pick a comparison to an average as you know it to be.

02:52:47.780 | - That actually is sort of reminding me.

02:52:48.940 | One issue that we have seen a lot lately is people,

02:52:52.820 | if they're having libido issues

02:52:54.340 | or just even slightly noticing a drop,

02:52:57.300 | they just assume that then therefore means

02:52:59.160 | their testosterone is crashing.

02:53:01.160 | And those things are certainly connected,

02:53:03.400 | but that is not necessarily the case.

02:53:04.780 | And where that becomes a problem is then people then go

02:53:07.460 | on things like TRT, et cetera, with no true oversight

02:53:12.460 | and then all kinds of other problems.

02:53:13.820 | So make sure that if you're gonna take that step

02:53:16.100 | that you actually get testosterone measured

02:53:17.680 | and you're working with a qualified person

02:53:19.280 | to guide you through that process.

02:53:20.500 | Don't just assume because you're having low energy

02:53:23.480 | or your libido is a little bit down.

02:53:24.940 | It could be simply training related.

02:53:26.820 | It could be sleep related.

02:53:27.900 | It could be any number of things.

02:53:29.900 | So that's like a little bit of a word of caution there.

02:53:32.380 | - Two quick points along the lines of what you just said.

02:53:34.860 | One interesting thing that I learned

02:53:36.940 | when researching our episode

02:53:38.300 | on testosterone and estrogen optimization,

02:53:41.100 | this was an episode that we'd done some time ago,

02:53:42.960 | but is still available on our kubermanlab.com,

02:53:45.320 | all formats, et cetera,

02:53:46.980 | is that many people actually increase their libido

02:53:50.980 | and even their levels of testosterone and estrogen

02:53:54.260 | as they progress from their 20s into their 40s

02:53:56.380 | if they take excellent care of themselves,

02:53:59.900 | including the correct exercise adaptations,

02:54:02.260 | correct body fat to lean muscle ratios.

02:54:07.260 | But of course it can go the other way too.

02:54:08.980 | A lot of people can be training

02:54:11.020 | to achieve such low body fat stores that libido can suffer.

02:54:13.640 | So the age-related declines in libido

02:54:18.640 | are not necessarily written into the script of life.

02:54:21.720 | In fact, there are some data points

02:54:22.880 | from a really interesting paper

02:54:24.320 | I talk about in that episode of individuals.

02:54:27.760 | This was a study focused on males in their 80s and 90s

02:54:30.800 | who maintained total and free testosterone

02:54:33.180 | as high as individuals in their 20s.

02:54:37.160 | But then when you look at the lifestyle factors

02:54:39.120 | of those people in their 80s and 90s,

02:54:40.660 | they were doing a lot to create that scenario.

02:54:43.540 | The second point is one related to what you just said,

02:54:47.000 | which is very true,

02:54:47.840 | which is people generally tend to assume

02:54:49.980 | that a drop in libido is related to a drop in testosterone

02:54:53.680 | and then assume that they need

02:54:56.140 | to increase their testosterone.

02:54:57.780 | And in some cases that is true.

02:54:59.220 | - Absolutely.

02:55:00.060 | - But it's also often the case

02:55:01.820 | that people who take estrogen or aromatase blockers,

02:55:06.060 | that is enzyme inhibitors that prevent the conversion

02:55:09.700 | of testosterone to estrogen,

02:55:11.160 | experience severe deficits in libido

02:55:13.120 | because of estrogen being too low.

02:55:15.480 | So estrogen blockers are as much an issue here

02:55:17.640 | as low testosterone.

02:55:19.360 | Then the final point is also one that many people now,

02:55:22.480 | men and women, I think need to be aware of,

02:55:25.960 | which is that dihydrotestosterone, DHT,

02:55:28.980 | is among the more powerful androgens for power output,

02:55:33.980 | physical power output, but also for libido.

02:55:36.560 | And DHT is strongly inhibited

02:55:39.300 | by certain things like turmeric.

02:55:41.600 | So a lot of people who are taking a high doses of turmeric

02:55:45.120 | can experience drops in libido.

02:55:47.460 | So there, and who are taking various compounds

02:55:52.080 | to prevent hair loss, things like finasteride.

02:55:55.160 | So there's a whole catalog of things that can reduce libido

02:55:59.320 | that are not directly in the testosterone pathway

02:56:02.260 | that can be DHT-related or estrogen-related.

02:56:04.260 | And this, I think, points to the importance of,

02:56:06.220 | yes, take a subjective measure of your libido.

02:56:09.380 | Pay attention, essentially be aware.

02:56:11.040 | Don't obsess, but be aware and try and figure out

02:56:13.760 | what factors are involved for you.

02:56:17.220 | But don't immediately assume that what's needed

02:56:20.600 | is more testosterone.

02:56:21.720 | And oftentimes the opposite is the case.

02:56:23.840 | - Yeah, try to put on a lot of muscle with no estrogen.

02:56:27.940 | Good luck.

02:56:28.780 | - Right, and indeed a lot of athletes in particular,

02:56:32.280 | competitive bodybuilders that have

02:56:33.480 | that saran wrap thin skin.

02:56:35.560 | If you get to know some of those people

02:56:37.280 | and you talk to them, they can look like

02:56:40.440 | the sort of comic book archetype

02:56:41.920 | of what someone might want to be.

02:56:45.520 | I mean, that's not what this discussion

02:56:46.880 | or these episodes have been about,

02:56:48.540 | but oftentimes they can have serious libido issues.

02:56:51.440 | - I mentioned earlier, and I will emphasize it once more,

02:56:54.600 | you need to be very cautious when you're taking antioxidants,

02:56:59.600 | anti-inflammatories, cortisol reducers,

02:57:03.200 | for all those reasons, right?

02:57:04.840 | I didn't really sort of get an examples,

02:57:06.420 | but you just nailed another fantastic reason of it.

02:57:09.320 | We do not give those things prophylactically.

02:57:12.320 | I strongly discourage people from just walking around

02:57:16.320 | taking supplementation of antioxidants,

02:57:19.400 | especially powerful ones, for no reason.

02:57:21.820 | If you have done some testing

02:57:24.160 | and you have a good reason to do so, I'm fine.

02:57:26.240 | Or if you're in a very specific,

02:57:27.440 | say training phase or something like that, cool.

02:57:30.760 | But if you're just walking around doing that,

02:57:32.560 | you are oftentimes, not always,

02:57:34.660 | but you're oftentimes causing problems

02:57:36.840 | that then you then try to solve by

02:57:39.560 | taking more of those anti-inflammatories.

02:57:42.620 | I feel terrible, low energy,

02:57:44.480 | low libido, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

02:57:46.280 | I'm too inflamed, et cetera.

02:57:48.760 | So yeah, antioxidants in the form of food are fantastic.

02:57:53.760 | Almost no issue.

02:57:55.000 | There is good evidence actually there.

02:57:57.840 | So don't worry about, man,

02:57:58.840 | I shouldn't eat high antioxidant-rich foods.

02:58:02.120 | You're gonna be fine.

02:58:03.060 | What we're talking about here is pharmaceuticals

02:58:05.680 | and supplementation where you can take

02:58:07.560 | orders of magnitude higher dosages very quickly

02:58:10.200 | than you could in the presence of food.

02:58:12.280 | So that distinction is also very important.

02:58:14.760 | Antioxidant-rich foods are generally fine

02:58:17.680 | and that's consumed in totally absurd concentrations.

02:58:21.160 | Supplementations, powders, creams, drugs, et cetera,

02:58:23.840 | is where you can get into problems.

02:58:24.960 | So yeah, you wanna be very careful of doing that

02:58:26.640 | unless you have a reason.

02:58:27.460 | We don't do that unless we see a reason

02:58:30.180 | to do so in someone's markers.

02:58:31.980 | - Yeah, and herbal compounds,

02:58:33.840 | despite the fact that they're herbal, can be quite potent,

02:58:35.980 | modulators of hormones.

02:58:38.240 | Ashwagandha being an example.

02:58:41.120 | Two herbal compounds that we've talked a lot about

02:58:43.440 | on our podcast before and repeatedly,

02:58:46.720 | including in that testosterone and optimization episode,

02:58:51.720 | Tonga Ali and Fidogia Grestis.

02:58:55.360 | Tonga Ali is now taken by a large number of men and women.

02:58:59.580 | Tonga Ali and Fidogia are typically men.

02:59:03.560 | I'm not sure that there are any good studies

02:59:04.940 | about the effects of Fidogia in women.

02:59:07.840 | Those are herbal compounds that can have potent effects

02:59:10.560 | in increasing testosterone and luteinizing hormone.

02:59:14.200 | Do they work?

02:59:15.040 | Yeah, they work to varying degrees in most everybody,

02:59:18.340 | certainly not in everybody, but they do work,

02:59:21.280 | but they work because they're potent.

02:59:23.600 | They have effects.

02:59:24.440 | So the idea that herbal compounds are not powerful is wrong.

02:59:29.440 | And it's important to remember that that can cut both ways.

02:59:32.720 | Hence my mention of this observation related to turmeric,

02:59:36.800 | which is not to say that some people can't take turmeric

02:59:39.360 | and feel perfectly fine, maintain,

02:59:41.080 | or even increase their libido.

02:59:42.680 | Sure, that can happen.

02:59:43.520 | It's just that for people that are very DHT sensitive,

02:59:46.720 | this tends to be an issue.

02:59:47.840 | So unfortunately, for many of these compounds,

02:59:51.040 | the only way to find out is really to try them

02:59:54.420 | or to just completely avoid them and decide

02:59:56.440 | you don't want to try them is fine too,

02:59:58.000 | but there really aren't ways to predict who will respond,

03:00:01.480 | who won't, and who will be hyper responders.

03:00:03.880 | And in that case, it's a little bit of a wild west.

03:00:08.680 | - I'm also sort of remembering what the point

03:00:12.200 | of this conversation was supposed to be,

03:00:13.840 | and maybe I'll return back to that,

03:00:15.880 | which were some cost free or low cost metrics.

03:00:20.120 | That was a very fun tangent.

03:00:21.800 | But nonetheless, another couple of ones you can do

03:00:24.960 | are grip strength testing.

03:00:27.760 | So if you buy a fairly cheap hand grip dynamometer

03:00:32.760 | on any number of places, these are typically

03:00:36.840 | able to be purchased for 20 to $40

03:00:39.200 | or something like that, right?

03:00:40.880 | You can actually just test that every day.

03:00:42.660 | I've done that in a number of athletes

03:00:44.960 | for a decent amount of time.

03:00:46.720 | Admittedly, I don't do it anymore.

03:00:48.880 | And that's not because I disagree with it,

03:00:50.340 | but because we just were getting the information already

03:00:53.520 | and it was just too redundant.

03:00:54.520 | But if that's the only option, it is a great one to do.

03:00:57.680 | I mentioned also earlier how I actually like speed tests,

03:01:02.360 | over-strength tests, as an earlier indication

03:01:04.820 | of overreaching.

03:01:06.520 | And so because of that, I like a vertical jump test.

03:01:09.240 | If you have access to a force plate, that's great.

03:01:11.600 | And then you can get more in-depth characteristics

03:01:14.480 | of the force velocity curve and acceleration

03:01:16.760 | and things like that.

03:01:18.120 | Used a lot in high performance situations.

03:01:20.460 | If not, simply looking at your performance.

03:01:23.560 | And so you can kind of go back to one of our earlier

03:01:25.880 | episodes when I described coloring my fingertips

03:01:28.240 | with highlighters earlier in my life.

03:01:30.420 | You could do the same thing and go out in your garage

03:01:32.380 | and every day jump up and touch that marker

03:01:35.060 | and see where you're at.

03:01:36.760 | So a system like that could be done.

03:01:39.100 | You can also use tools like force transducer

03:01:43.280 | and do a standard movement.

03:01:45.120 | I can say a vertical jump or a high pole

03:01:48.120 | or something like that and measure the velocity

03:01:50.100 | and just compare that day to day of a standard load, right?

03:01:52.720 | So you do it every single time with the same load.

03:01:55.740 | Similar thing could be done with like a medicine ball throw.

03:01:59.420 | So you have the same ball, you throw the same thing

03:02:01.440 | and just sort of where you're at today.

03:02:02.960 | You want to do a little bit of warmup

03:02:04.400 | but not excessive here.

03:02:05.400 | You want to kind of get an idea of where your baseline is

03:02:08.280 | and you don't want to influence it by the veracity

03:02:11.340 | of the warmup every single day

03:02:12.940 | 'cause that alone can change it.

03:02:14.400 | Same thing with stretching.

03:02:15.800 | Acute static stretching directly influences power production.

03:02:20.360 | So you don't want to go out there and one day

03:02:21.920 | do a 20 minute stretch before and then the other day

03:02:24.600 | you didn't stretch at all 'cause that alone

03:02:26.200 | will cause deviations in your performance.

03:02:29.000 | So try to keep everything you can think of standardized

03:02:32.900 | and that'll give you a little bit better data.

03:02:34.520 | Remembering all of these values, the biomarkers,

03:02:39.020 | the performance stuff, they have normal variations.

03:02:42.160 | You just want to figure out first and foremost

03:02:44.120 | what those normal variations are for you.

03:02:46.420 | So you have your normal number,

03:02:48.480 | you have your standard deviation.

03:02:50.680 | When you start getting outside of that standard deviation

03:02:52.800 | you start paying attention.

03:02:53.920 | And so that's kind of like

03:02:54.760 | what we typically call that the gray zone.

03:02:57.340 | And so if it's in the gray zone, we're fine,

03:02:59.020 | we're not adjusting.

03:02:59.860 | But if it's outside of that, whatever that is for you,

03:03:02.080 | recognizing that the gray zone is smaller for some folks

03:03:06.080 | and larger for others,

03:03:07.240 | but what is normal for you and your situation.

03:03:09.760 | And then you can make your decisions outside of that

03:03:12.680 | when you see numbers that are consistently

03:03:15.100 | or more than three to five days in a row or close.

03:03:18.880 | Four of the last five days, four of the last six,

03:03:21.240 | something like that.

03:03:22.760 | And then you maybe have some cause for action.

03:03:26.240 | - Well, that was an incredible description

03:03:27.860 | of the various tools and modes for recovery.

03:03:31.420 | And I realized I jumped the gun a bit

03:03:33.520 | during our discussion about food and supplements,

03:03:37.240 | but I like to think that it serves as a nice precursor

03:03:41.400 | to the next episode,

03:03:42.560 | which is going to be all about nutrition and supplementation.

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03:04:51.880 | Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion

03:04:54.120 | about fitness, exercise, and performance

03:04:56.080 | with Dr. Andy Galpin.

03:04:57.600 | And as always, thank you for your interest in science.

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Dr. Andy Galpin: Maximize Recovery to Achieve Fitness & Performance Goals | Huberman Lab

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