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Training for David Goggins - 4x4x48 Challenge | Lex Fridman


Chapters

0:0 Overview
1:5 Why I'm doing the challenge
2:11 Running and Bodyweight Exercises
5:20 Diet and Nutrition
6:25 Join in on the challenge

Transcript

I just finished a six mile run in good old below freezing Boston weather. A bit too dark, a bit too icy, but probably good for the mind and soul. So I thought it'd be a good time to make this video and say that for the second year now, Mr.

David Goggins is doing the four by four by 48 challenge at 8 p.m. Pacific on Friday, March 5th. That's running 48 miles in 48 hours by doing four miles every four hours. But this time, friends, him and I are doing it together in person. Just him and I, probably in the middle of a desert somewhere.

Probably we're just one of us returning home alive. And I think you know which one it is. We'll do a podcast before and after. Also, he'll go live on Instagram at the beginning of every four hour leg. I have not been training much at all, to be honest. And this video is a quick explanation of how I'm training for this challenge.

Starting today in a way that gives me a reasonable fitness base while still letting me be productive in all the different things I have going on. I took on this challenge with David on a bit of a leap of faith and a bit of madness in order to test myself mentally and physically.

But also because I often take this kind of leap into things that seemed very stupid at the time. But when all is said and done, I almost always become a better person because of it. So if you're out there a little bit out of shape like me, I'm hoping you join me in getting back to exercising this month and perhaps taking on the challenge along with me, along with David, along with us.

If you're not a runner, you can just do some sort of exercise for 40 to 60 minutes every four hours instead. If you want to get involved, check links in the description for more information, I think. But mostly just tag me and David if you're stepping your fitness up in any kind of way this month as you train and if you're participating in the challenge.

I know it'll be inspiring to me to see anybody who's just getting out there, since to be honest, this would be a ridiculously big challenge for me with everything I have going on. So I can probably use all the inspiration you got. OK, so training wise, check out the Google sheet of my training in the description.

But it's pretty basic. The focus, as usual, is to establish a ritual, a habit of daily exercise and then increasing duration a little bit every week. So maybe let me first speak to the principle of that. I know that for muscle building and for increasing race performance, it's good to mix up workouts from long to short sprints, that kind of thing with rest days and just mixing it up throughout the week.

But I don't know about anyone else. But for me, that has only really worked when I'm already in really good shape. What for me has been more beneficial, more effective is to focus on building up the habit of exercise every day, the same thing. The habit and ritual of it lessens the need and the reliance on motivation and day to day motivation.

So for me, the training is easily integrated into the day. It has two parts. One is cardio. One is bodyweight exercises. And the schedule is pretty basic. I run a medium distance every day, Monday through Friday, and a long distance run on Saturday and then rest on Sunday. So specifically for me, that means week one, what I'm doing now, six miles each day, then week two is seven miles.

Week three is eight miles. Week four is nine miles. So we're about four and a half weeks off from the challenge. I think two or three days before the challenge, I'll take complete rest days. So my recommendation to you for what it's worth is to pick a cardio exercise that you can stick to on a daily basis.

So running, cycling, swimming, even walking, and just build the habit and do an intensity and duration that doesn't break your body down, but it's still challenging. Just keeps challenging you, but not too much. Not causing injury, not causing over exertion, over exhaustion. On the bodyweight exercise side, for me, that's six days of exercise that includes pushups, pull ups, bodyweight squats and these ab roller things for the abs, for the core.

I do it in rounds of 20 pushups, 10 pull ups, 10 ab rollers and 10 squats. My recommendation, again, take it with a grain of salt, is if you do bodyweight exercises, pick numbers within the round that allows you to do timed rounds without much rest in between. Maybe no more than one minute's rest and do essentially a full body workout, but not to exhaustion.

And I know a lot of people are going to say, you know, rest days are really essential. You want to alternate upper body, lower body, push, pull, all those kinds of things. All of that is true when you're trying to achieve maximum performance. What I find for me in a busy life when I have a million things going on, building the habit, building the ritual of exercise and not pushing myself to exhaustion is the most effective way to stay healthy and just to feel good and make sure the exercise stays part of my life.

You probably didn't ask me, but that's my recommendation if you're starting from being kind of out of shape to building up shape for doing something like that 48 mile challenge. But you should also definitely read a lot of different advice that's out there and integrate it in a way that works for your own schedule, for your own body, all that kind of stuff.

On the diet side, I'm eating clean as usual, just meat and veggies. The veggies are mostly cauliflower and green beans, my two favorites. And on the meat side is ground beef actually from Belcampo Farms. They sent me a ton of meat and it's delicious. On the supplement side, I'm doing the usual athletic greens every morning, plus fish oil and electrolytes before and after the run.

You should definitely check out Athletic Greens and Belcampo Farms. They are both somehow amazingly now sponsors of the podcast that I host. After I posted about how much I love their stuff. And also check out cauliflower, especially in rice form. It's a game changer. So at least my training regimen is pretty simple.

Run basically every day, body weight exercises every day. Don't overexert and gradually increase the duration of the exercise. And the rest is just in the mind. And I'm hoping I am mentally tough enough to not die with David Calkins. I thought to post this video, you know, hopefully to inspire others to step up their exercise game this month, to run, to cycle, all that kind of stuff, and maybe even join in on this crazy challenge.

I think it's a really perfect balance of testing the body and mind. Just being able to persevere through this 48 hour period. It's just long enough to where it's not this kind of shorter marathon run of suffering. You kind of have to suffer just a little bit every four hours.

It's honestly just a huge honor to be able to do this kind of thing with David Goggins. We were just supposed to do the podcast. But of course, as he does with everybody he meets, he pulls you in and challenges you to push yourself to your own limits to discover yourself.

And I think that's kind of what this whole life is about, is to do difficult things and in the process be able to discover something about yourself that you wouldn't be able to discover in any kind of way. There's some kind of magic in the challenge that allows you to put a mirror to yourself, to meet your demons, to overcome them.

And then the rest of life becomes easy or at least easier. The training in Boston is definitely a bit rough right now. It's been below freezing for many days in a row. So it's starting to feel a lot like Rocky IV, except in this version, the Russian is the out of shape underdog training in the snow.

And it's the American who says, if he dies, he dies. So we'll see what happens. I love you all. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.