Ben Greenfield Podcast 101
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Transcript of Ben Greenfield Podcast 101
Podcast #101 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2010/06/episode-
101-can-you-mix-powerlifting-and-endurance-
sports/
Introduction: In this podcast episode: do endurance exercises and power
lifting mix? What caloric deficit is actually healthy? Static
contraction exercise, what are super foods, bonking while
cycling, alternatives to heart burn medications, relaxing
before a triathlon, how to use hamstrings more when you run,
exercising on a raw diet, exercising in the heat, is guacamole
healthy, accuracy of body fat measurement devices, treating
torn muscles, can women train like men, eating healthy
when your family doesn’t, natural eczema treatments, how to
breathe while swimming, multi-vitamin absorption, is
cooking with aluminum dangerous, does beta-alanine work
and what is H20 Overdrive?
Ben: Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast, coming off
of episode 100 and moving on to the next 100 episodes with
episode 101 where we’ll be answering tons of questions from
listeners and also conducting an interview with a guy named
Dr. Jerry Moylan who has a host of both endurance and
weightlifting titles and awards to his name, and he’s going to
tell us how to combine training for endurance and doing
things like running and bicycling and still do heavy
weightlifting, power lifting, explosive sports, thing’s of that
nature. He and I are both going to talk about how to actually
mix those two elements. We will have some special
announcements today. We’ll move on to that Q and A and
then we’ll finish up with that interview with Dr. Jerry. So,
let’s go ahead and jump right in to episode 101 from
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com.
First of all, a huge thanks to those of you who donated to the
podcast to help keep this thing rolling along. I’m sending
everybody who donated this week a free
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com T-shirt along with a few other
goodies thrown in, and if you want to donate to the show,
just go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com, scroll down and
there’s a little button there where you can donate and you
can also now conveniently donate with your phone. I’ll put a
link on there which will allow you to donate with your phone
as well, but it’s super easy. It helps support – even a dollar of
$5 always helps keeps this show rolling along. Now, other
special topics. I wanted to talk a little bit about the Body
Transformation Club because somebody asked me what they
would actually learn about as a member, and I just want to
give you an example of the things that we went over in June
inside the Body Transformation Club via both the postcards
that I send out to all the members as well as the videos right
there on a secret, protected section of
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. So, we covered how to make
your own hummus and that was a video. Another video was a
variation of an abdominal exercise. Two must-have spices
that you need to have in your kitchen, a technique to
significantly increase the force you can produce during
exercise, how to make a natural energy drink, what to do
when you don’t have access to a pull up bar or a pull down
machine and how to eat healthy for cheap. And all of that
stuff is via both video and text, via postcards that I send to
people and access to a secret page that they have. So that’s
what the Body Transformation Club is all about, just to give
you a sample of what we went over in June. And if you want
to be a part of the Body Transformation Club, it costs seven
bucks. I know that from firsthand experience there are
people charging close to $100 to something very similar on a
monthly basis. And the Body Transformation Club is seven
bucks a month to do. So just a simple fun way to stay
accountable, stay fit, and stay healthy. So check it out, I’ll put
a link in the Shownotes of podcast 101. If you’re listening to
this podcast on the day it’s released then tonight is Chef
Todd’s free video Webcast. So if you signed up for that video
Webcast on how to use fresh ingredients to create fast meals
in five simple steps, then make sure that you attend. You’ll
also have access to a post Webcast recording to listen to as
well, but he’s going to have a few things there live that you’re
probably going to want to take advantage of. Speaking of live,
I mentioned in the past couple podcasts that the Marathon
Dominator is live and I have a free 30 minutes – actually it’s
almost a 40 minute video – on training techniques for
marathon and how to actually put together a four day a week
marathon training routine. You can find the information on
that at www.marathondominator.com. The topic for this
week over at my other podcast, the Get Fit Guy’s Quick and
Dirty Tips was how to make a home gym. So if you want to
learn how to make a home gym, go listen to the Get Fit Guy
and I’ll put a link to that in the Shownotes as well. Then
finally, there is about another week here where if you write
me at [email protected], I can still squeeze you
in to the trip to Thailand that I’m organizing for any
triathletes who want to travel to Thailand with me and do a
couple of triathlons there in beautiful Phuket, Thailand.
Beautiful, tourist-friendly Phuket, Thailand. So we have a ton
of questions to go over today. You can access any of the links
from the special announcements in the Shownotes to episode
101 and we’re going to have a brief message and then move
on to the Listener Q and A.
If you have a question for the podcast, just email
[email protected], call 8772099439 or if you’re
international you can Skype me for free and my Skype user
name is Pacific Fit. We also had a couple of questions come
in via Twitter this week and I’ll be sending a T-shirt to the
best question that came through via Twitter. An easy way to
ask me a question via Twitter is just to follow me on Twitter
and then send a message. The best way to send a message is
actually just write your question and then at the beginning
and end of your question, just write @bengreenfield. Use the
little “@” sign, @bengrenfield and I will get it. To send me a
direct message on Twitter, I need to be following you.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to go follow everybody who’s
following me and so if you really want to get a hold of me,
use that @bengreenfield sign. But we definitely had a Twitter
question win a free T-shirt this week and I’m going to extend
that for this next week. The best question that comes in via
Twitter, will get one of those free T-shirts.
So the first question this week comes from listener Dave.
Dave asks: I am 50 years old, trying to lose 2 pounds per week and train
for a bicycling century ride this September. I keep a food and
activity log and I am eating a caloric deficit of 1000 calories a
day. So for example if I burn 1000 calories with my activities,
I eat 2000 calories. Since I’ve gone to under 1000 calories I
have lost between 1.8 and 2.3 pounds each week for four
weeks and I felt fine. Do you see any problems with this?
Ben answers: Well the idea is that if you get into a caloric deficit that is too
great, you can begin feeling very fatigued, very tired, unable
to actually achieve a high enough intensity in your workouts
to become fit and do a little bit of damage to your body
because it’s hard for your body to constantly having to tap
into not only fat but also lean muscle tissue and organs for
energy. That’s why you need to be careful with a caloric
deficit. Now I’ve done a lot of resting at metabolic rate
testing on people and what that is, is a machine that you
would get hooked up to that figures out how many calories
your body is burning through the day. My recommendations
based on that test is that females not under fuel by more
than 500 calories and males not under fuel by more than
1000 calories. Now in your case Dave, you say that you’re
eating 2000 calories if you burn 1000 calories with your
activities. But the only thing that’s not taken into account is
the fact that you typically will burn several hundred calories
per day. I’m sorry, several thousand calories per day just
living, just walking around in your activities of daily living.
So, if you’re burning 1000 calories a day with exercise and
then you’re probably burning at least another 2000 with
your resting metabolic rate and then you’re eating 2000
calories, then it means you’re burning 3000, eating 2000 –
1000 calorie deficit, again not too bad. So, what I would say
is I wouldn’t go any longer than what you’re currently at. If
you’re a female listening into this, don’t try to under fuel by
1000 calories. Go closer to 500, and the reason for that is
because females tend to have lower metabolic rates because
they’re typically smaller individuals, under fueling by 1000
calories leaves them with very few calories coming in. We
talk about some females eating 500 to 800 calories a day
which is just too low and can send your body into a state of
what’s called ketosis which essentially means that you’re
forming potentially toxic ketone bodies from all of the
protein and the fat that you’re burning through and that can
eventually do some damage to your organs. So just be careful
Dave, I wouldn’t go a lot lower than 1000 but especially if
you feel great, if you have good energy, then that’s fine. I
know some guys with high metabolisms who would just
waste away if they were under fueling by 1000 calories per
day. But again, your body is a lot of times a very trustworthy
measurement and reliable tool for you to listen to. And then
a follow up part to your question.
Dave asks: I’m lifting weights and using Pete Cisco’s static contraction
method. I was wondering what you thought.
Ben answers: For those of you who wanted to know what the static
contraction method is, basically it’s a form of weightlifting
where you hold typically a heavier weight than you would
normally work with in a fixed position with your muscles
fully contracted for an extended period of time. So usually
you’re only doing one or two reps and you’re holding the
weight for about 15 to 25 seconds. The idea with static
stretching Dave is it does train your central nervous system
to be able to generate a greater amount of force and it can
allow you to lift heavier weights and be stronger. On the flip
side, because you’re not moving a muscle through a range of
motion, you’re not tearing as many muscle fibers as you
would normally and so you’re not going to build muscle quite
as easily. You also aren’t going to work a full range of muscle
fibers which can actually harm you from an athletic
standpoint, and then you’ll also burn fewer calories because
there’s less of a cardiovascular stimulus when you’re doing
that style of weightlifting. So if your goal is to get strong,
static contraction training like taking a bunch of weight,
putting it on a bench press bar and just holding that bench
press bar with your arms slightly bent for 20 seconds is going
to help you out quite a bit, but you could get better results
with doing a form of weightlifting in which you’re actually
moving your muscles through a full range of motion. So, I
would say that the static contraction method would be
something you could supplement a weightlifting program in,
but it shouldn’t be the only type of lifting that you do. I have
used that before, for example to increase the bench press
back when I was weightlifting. I used a static contraction set
after I’d finished all my bench pressing sets to make myself a
stronger bench presser, but again that wasn’t the only style
of training I was using.
Miguel asks: Here in Portugal, the super foods market is growing quickly.
I would like to know what your opinion is about super foods
like spirulina, maca, goji berries, cocoa. The marketers are
always trying to say that it is good for your stomach and for
your brain. If you agree with these foods, how can I
introduce them into my diet?
Ben answers: Well, super foods are kind of a catch all term now Miguel.
Blueberries used to be considered a super food and
interestingly, they’re a very affordable and readily accessible
super food that contain tons of the types of compounds that
a lot of other less easy to find super foods contain. But the
idea is that a super food typically contains a very, very dense
amount of nutrients for as many calories are actually in it.
Usually, it contains a very high amount of antioxidants as
well. Now I consume super foods on a daily basis. They’re in
a few of the supplements that I take. For example, I take the
EnerPrime supplement which has super foods like spirulina
in it. I take the Solar Synergy supplement which has the goji
berry and some of the high antioxidant fruit blends in it. But
I also make sure that I eat a balanced diet of fruit and
vegetables and I don’t live on the super foods or rely on those
for the sole means of my nutrition and mineral and vitamin
intake. Now I can tell you from personal experience that I
feel great when I am consuming super foods and I get sick
more quickly when I’m not consuming them. The issue – and
we’ll get into this a little bit later in the podcast is making
sure that you’re not overpaying for super foods that might be
of sub-par quality and also that you’re not using the high
antioxidant containing super foods all the time because while
antioxidants are good for you and can help to combat a lot of
the free radical damage that occurs in your body from
exercise and pollution and just the activities of daily living –
taking in too many antioxidants actually has this diminishing
return where your body almost is too protected and it’s
similar to what would happen if you put a baby in a bubble
and protected them from every single immune system
stimulant that could ever come their way. They’d have very
weak immune systems. Well, in the same way if you’re
always combating free radicals with high amounts of daily
antioxidant intake, taking tons of super foods everyday –
research has shown that you can actually fight against the
anti-aging effect that super foods are supposed to have
because your body is never getting exposed or never getting
allowed to fight off some of the stresses of free radicals
because all the super foods are doing it for you. And so that
can tend to come back and bite you. So using the super foods
are definitely something I’d recommend just from personal
experience. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence out there on
them decreasing the net acidity in your body, increasing of
course the antioxidant activity, helping out the immune
system a little bit. But I would definitely go after real foods
like blueberry and spinach and things you can get your hands
on easily. Then if you have some money left over, go after
your super foods. Like I said, the two that I take are Solar
Synergy and EnerPrime. Solar Synergy is made by Mt. Capra.
EnerPrime is made by IMPaX.
So the next question is from listener Bob.
Bob asks: Why do I bonk after only two hours of riding my bike? I ride
at a reasonable pace, only 17 to 20 miles per hour. Not a
crazy high heart rate, maybe 130 and I’m not really winded. I
consume two bottles of fuel. After two hours I’m really slow
and entirely unable to use my big chain ring.
Ben answers: So it looks like Bob is consuming fuel during his ride and it
looks like he’s doing two bottles of Hammer HEED and two
scoops each so it comes out to about 200 calories an hour.
Well for a two hour ride, most people can get on 200 calories
an hour assuming that the carbohydrate stores are accurate
and the body’s storage carbohydrate is full going into the ride.
So if you’re consuming those Bob, and you’re still bonking or
hitting a wall then it might be that your carbohydrate intake
or your calorie intake is too low in your nutrition plan. You’d
want to actually increase that a little bit to make sure that
you’re not going into a ride starved. The other issue is if
you’re starting your ride in the morning, having not eaten
anything. It can also be a little bit carbohydrate depleting
while you’re asleep and you can go into your ride with fewer
carbohydrates on board than if you had done your ride in the
afternoon after you’d had breakfast and lunch. Then the
other issue is maybe you’re not bonking. Maybe you’re
dehydrated. You haven’t consumed enough water. Maybe
there are some other medical issues going on, such as an
inability to adequately deliver oxygen to your tissues. So
there can be some other issues going on that I’d think about
but make sure that you’re actually fueling yourself well on
your daily nutrition intake and continue to eat while you’re
on the bike. Then what I would do is if you’re really wanting
to make sure that you cover your bases, then go get a
physical and do some blood screens. You could also look at
some of your oxygen carrying parameters. You could look at
some of your internal performance factors. Bioletics, Dr.
Richard Cohen over at Bioletics is a great guy to hook up
with to get some things tested like your ferritin levels, iron
levels, testosterone, cortisol, some of the things that go
beyond carbohydrate levels. So good question.
Sean asks: I have a quick question from your E-Help handbook. On
page 94, you mentioned medicines that cause weight gain
and refer to Nexium. I’ve been a long time Nexium and
Prilosec user for gastro-esophageal reflux disorder. Do you
have any more reference on the effect of Nexium and weight
gain or potentially better alternatives?
Ben answers: Well, the issue with something like a drug like Nexium is that
the way that that works is by blocking or inhibiting the
proton pumps in your stomach so you’re not able to produce
as much stomach acids. Well the issue with that is if you
significantly reduce the amount of acid in your stomach,
then it inhibits your ability to properly digest food. So then
your food isn’t getting broken down properly, vitamin and
mineral absorption is diminished, the metabolism can be
affected and essentially when you reduce the acid in your
stomach, you’re eliminating one of your primary defense
mechanisms for food-borne infections and so you increase
your risk of food poisoning as well. The big issue with
Nexium and Prilosec is they’re basically band-aids. They’re
not considering what’s actually going on that can cause the
gastro-esophageal problems. So for example, if you have a
deficiency in digestive enzymes, that can be an issue. If you
have H-pylori or some type of fungal or bacterial growth in
your gastro-intestinal tract, that can also affect your
digestion. If the foods that you are eating are the type that
can cause heartburn or you’re not drinking enough water
with your food, that can also cause some issues. So what are
the things that you can do or some of the things that you can
do? The first would be make sure that you drink a lot of
water with your food. Just good, clean, pure water. So I’m
not talking about Pepsi, or Coke or tea. Just water. So, if you
take in about two liters or so of pure water per day, that can
help out quite a bit. The next thing is to build up the levels of
the good bacteria in your stomach. I would recommend that
you be taking a probiotic. I don’t want you to consider this
medical advice, I’m not treating your condition. I’m just
giving you advice on some of the things I would do if I had
the gastro-esophageal issues and I have had digestive issues
before and I have completely controlled them through some
of the methods that I’m sharing and about to share with you.
So probiotics can help tremendously. The next thing that can
help out quite a bit are digestive enzymes. Four of the most
popular ones would be trypsin, chimotripsin, papain and
bromelain. One of the supplements that I take on a daily
basis is called Recoveries. Not only because it helps fight
against muscle inflammation and helps me to recover after
my workouts but also because it has digestive enzymes in it
which helps me to break down the things that I’m eating. The
next thing I would consider is a way to control any type of
fungus or pylori that might be present in your digestive tract.
Garlic is a great way to do that. For example, you could take
a garlic clove, you can douse it in olive oil after you’ve
chopped just a little bit of the top off, throw it in the oven for
about 20 to 30 minutes wrapped in that aluminum foil, make
sure you drench it in olive oil first and then take it out, salt it
and eat it. That’s a great way to help with gut issues in terms
of fungus and bacteria. You can do that on a daily basis.
Make sure you have a really good brand of mint gum around
or some strong Altoids if you have a loved one, even though
the garlic will be coming out your pores anyway so it could be
a moot point. Oil of oregano is also really effective. You could
take a concentrated oil of oregano and put a few drops of that
in a glass of water and drink that down, you could also take a
diluted oil of oregano and put it directly underneath your
tongue and take it that way. For more information on
oregano, go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com and do a
search for “oregano” or just go to
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/oregano. So those are some
of the things I would definitely be doing from the probiotics
to the digestive enzymes to the garlic and the oregano. And
that will help you out quite a bit in addition to making sure
that of course you’re avoiding things like hot foods, peppers,
any of the foods that traditionally seem to trigger that for you.
And interestingly, some of the foods that traditionally cause
food allergies can also be an issue. So if you find that you’re
getting this after you take in wheat or diary or soy or eggs,
those are some of the common things you may want to
eliminate from your diet and see if that helps you out with
your gastro-intestinal issues.
So, we’re going to move on to a Twitter question from Kim
Landrum on Twitter.
Kim asks: When the training is done and it’s time to put up or shut up,
how do you prep the day before a big race? I can’t calm down
and sleep.
Ben answers: Well Kim, I’ve talked on the show before about the
importance of visualization. Now one of the CDs that I use to
achieve a deep state of relaxation is called the “I am” lecture
series. It’s the same one that the Navy Seals use. You can
Google that and do a search for it, but that helps out quite a
bit in terms of training your body to get into a deep state of
relaxation. Some of the things that I’ll also do are
entertainment-based, I’ll go to a movie theater or get a video.
I’ll do some social networking on Facebook, talk with friends,
but basically doing things that take your mind off the race.
Stay away from the Race expo. Stay away from the race
course. Stay away from the things that are going to keep your
mind worrying about the race and focus on the things that
either put you in a deep state of relaxation or entertain you.
So I could tell you, the day before a triathlon, I wake up, get
my training out of the way and the rest of the day I’m reading
magazines, watching TV, maybe going to an air-conditioned
movie and just not thinking at all about the race. That helps
out quite a bit. I would definitely be working some
visualization and relaxation into your routine as well.
Another good source on mental tactics would be an article
that I have coming out in Triathlete magazine here in a few
weeks. Check the August issue of Triathlete magazine and
that will give you some information more on mental tactics
for getting ready for a big race.
Now another Twitter question from user “wanttorunagain”.
Wanttorunagain asks: After 25 years of doing the marathon shuffle, how do I
change my running gait to use my hammies and my glutes
more?
Ben answers: Well, it’s a great question. It’s very insightful because when
you use your hammies and your glutes, you tend to be able to
produce a little more force, pop off the ground a little bit
more easily and you tend to have a greater distance traveled
per stride while you’re running. The issue is getting those
things to fire versus just using your hip flexors and quads
which a lot of runners do. Of course the number one
principle is that if they’re there, you’ll use them. So all
runners should be doing either a resistance training program
that involves kickouts and sidekicks, squats, lunges, leg
presses, exercises that utilize those portions of the body or
they should be utilizing steep hills in their program. Steep
hill sprints and steep hill climbs as well as stairs can help
tremendously with building those muscles. So either doing
the resistance training or the hill training or preferably doing
both can help out quite a bit. Some of my favorite exercises
for working the hammies and the glutes are kickouts, fire
hydrants, reverse lunges, deep squats can help out quite a bit
and we’ll actually talk a lot about exercises too with Dr. Jerry
Moylan during today’s interview. But using or working those
muscles and then running with those muscles during the
same periods of times in your training program that you’re
working those muscles can help out quite a bit, because you
kind of get that mind muscle connection. As a matter of fact,
running – when those muscles are just a little bit sore from a
workout – believe it or not, can make you think about them
more and target them a little bit more. The other technique
that I’ve used to actually work on my running form is I’ll go
on a run but about every 10 minutes or so, I’ll stop and drop
down into a crawl position and do some fire hydrants to get
my glute medius firing and working and then get up and
keep running. I used that based on a recommendation from
another coach that I was talking with and it actually really
makes you think about using your butt more while you’re
running. It’s an interesting technique that might get you
some funny looks when you’re in a crawl position by the side
of the road. But if you wait for a time during your run when
you’re going through a park or you’re doing loops and
running by your garage, it can definitely be something that
you can work into your program.
So user wanttorunagain for asking the best question via
Twitter this week, I’m going to send you a free
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com T-shirt. You just need to use
Twitter or use email to send me your mailing address and I’ll
get that in the mail to you. So, listener Jesse has the next
question.
Jesse asks: I’ve been vegan for the past 15 years but I am interested in
transitioning into a raw vegan diet and I’m unsure if this will
be wise with my activity level. I work out five to six days a
week and I’ve increased my running mileage to about 35
miles per week. I saw that you have a new diet plan on your
Web sites specifically for vegans, but before I purchase it, I
wanted to see if it has a lot of raw components in it or it can
be easily modified to incorporate more.
Ben answers: Well, first of all, as far as transitioning into a raw vegan diet
from a vegan diet, there’s not going to be a lot of differences
in terms of the way that you’re going to feel. The raw vegan
diet, some of the foods that you consume will have more of
the attack digestive enzymes. Some of the foods you’ll find
will be tougher to digest because they may not be quite as
cooked as when you were doing your vegan diet and so you
may want to consider for example, taking some of the
digestive enzymes that I just got done talking about in my
response to that other question. Taking some of the
Recoveries, that can help you out quite a bit. The nice part
about that particular supplement is it also has branch chain
amino acids in it. If you combine that with some whole
amino acids – for example Bioletics makes some whole
amino acids, then you can make sure that you’re getting
some of the amino acids and the proteins that are a bit easier
to neglect when you’re on a raw vegan diet. Now the vegan
diet that’s on my Web site over at www.pacificfit.net, if you
click on training plans – you’ll end up on a page that shows
all the different plans that I write that are there to get and
download to your computer – that particular plan is a vegan
plan. It’s also a completely raw vegan plan. So there’s no
actual cooking that’s involved with it. So, to answer your
question, yes that is raw. So there’s not a lot of changes that
would need to be made. Someone of your activity level can
definitely do a raw diet but I would make sure that you
include proteins and actually as a part of that program, I
make a recommendation that people get their hands on some
Recoveries and some branch chain amino acids and some
whole amino acids to supplement that raw vegan diet.
So the next question is from listener Chuck.
Chuck asks: This weekend I did a 66 mile ride followed by a 10 mile run
in the blazing heat. The run was miserable. My usual pace is
7 minute miles, but this one ended up being an 8 minute
mile pace. I didn’t have any water or gels on the run. The
whole time, all I could think about was having something to
drink. I stopped about three times during the run and had to
wait a couple of minutes before starting again. Can I blame
this all on the heat and dehydration or could there be more
at play?
Ben answers: This is a pretty easy question to answer. If you ran a 10 mile
run in the blazing heat… without a doubt, not only were you
getting carbohydrate depleted and low blood sugar because
you had nothing out there but you also were definitely
dehydrating your body. And the carryover effect from that
will definitely go into the workout the next day and mess
with your body for the next couple of days if you get severely
dehydrated. So you can do quite a bit of damage to your body.
That’s why if I do a run after I go on a bike ride if I’m
training for a triathlon, then what I do is the run – I run as
loops around my house so I can run into my kitchen or run
into my garage and grab some water or a gel every two to
three miles to keep me going. Because otherwise it just turns
into a junk training session. So definitely enable yourself to
have water and fuel out there and available because the
effects of dehydration can not only just hit you the rest of
that day but it can go on and mess up a lot of the rest of your
training week.
The next question is from listener Laird.
Laird asks: I’ve been addicted to this new lunch lately. Pre-cooked
chicken strips thawed, quinoa, guacamole, salsa, a bit of
ranch dressing. I heat up the chicken, add all the ingredients,
reheat a little bit more. All this done in the microwave and
I’m done. It’s fast and easy. I’m addicted to the flavor but
wondered what your thoughts were on the overall nutrition?
Ben answers: Well there’s definitely evidence out there that you might not
be doing yourself a favor by radiating your food in the
microwave. Laird, I would definitely consider if you have
access to an oven where you can bake or broil that food and
those pre-cooked chicken strips, that’d be a little bit better
for you than dehydrating them and radiating them with
microwave rays. So I do have a microwave, I’ll use it
occasionally to heat up a cup of coffee or some water. But I
would not recommend that you use your microwave on a
regular basis. I use mine once about every 24 to 48 hours.
Now, the guacamole and salsa that you talked about – if it’s
homemade, that’s one issue. If it’s store bought guacamole,
you got to be cautious. Even a company like Kraft, their
guacamole doesn’t have avocadoes in it. They make this fake
guacamole and use all hydrogenated oils to simulate
guacamole. Then they just add a bunch of synthetic
chemicals and colorings to finish up the experience and
you’re convinced that you’re eating guacamole. I guarantee if
you tried some of it and weren’t being told that it was being
called guacamole, you’d probably think that it tasted like
green chemicals. So you need to be really careful with
guacamole. And if you look at say a guacamole that actually
does have avocadoes in it, the ingredient list starts off with
skimmed milk, and this would be for example – here’s a
store bought version – Dean’s Guacamole Dip. I printed off
the label here and I have it. Skimmed milk, soy bean oil,
tomatoes, water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, eggs, avocado
pulp as the seventh ingredient. Avocado should be the first
ingredient in guacamole folks. If it’s not, then something’s
going wrong. Move through a bunch of gum and corn starch
and then down to the bottom of the list where we have
calcium chloride, citric acid, dextrose and artificial color –
namely FDNC blue number 1, FDNC red number 40, FDNC
yellow number 5 and FDNC yellow number 6. Now I’m not
sure why guacamole needs oil added because avocadoes
already have all their own fat and oil. I’m not sure why milk
would be the first ingredient in guacamole. I’m really not
sure why they need all that hydrogenated vegetable oil. It’s
probably because avocado appears – it’s actually not seventh
place, it’s eighth place. Avocado appears eighth on that
ingredient list. Then they add a bunch of preservatives,
colors, chemicals. You really need to be careful. Take some
guacamole, dice up some tomatoes, some cilantro, a little bit
of lime juice, some peppers, mash all that together, put a
little salt and pepper in and you’ve got guacamole in your
kitchen. It’s super easy to make guacamole. No excuse for
not making that yourself. So, definitely be careful when
you’re using these store-bought ingredients. If I were to
modify this list that you gave me – the quinoa is pretty good.
I’d use some fresh avocadoes or some homemade guacamole.
If the salsa is real and doesn’t have a bunch of added corn
syrup and a bunch of added preservatives then that’s fine.
Otherwise just grab a fresh tomato and dice that up. Add a
little paprika and chili powder if you want. Then the little bit
of ranch dressing that you’re using, probably not a big deal.
There are some things that make ranch not the best choice
especially when you’re consuming it in high amounts,
drowning a salad in it. But a little bit here and there isn’t a
big deal. So ultimately, make a few modifications. Try not to
cook in the microwave. Try to use fresher ingredients and
you’re on the right track. So the nice part about that recipe is
it’s very low on the glycemic index. So you’re not getting a lot
of blood sugar play with that meal.
So the next question is from listener Ryan.
Ryan asks: I’ve had my body fat measured via the impedance method
standing on a scale at the gym. I’ve also done a handheld
device at home and I’ve used tape measurements and
calculators on the Internet. Needless to say, I get wide
variations on body fat percentage. Are one of these methods
more accurate than the other?
Ben answers: Well, there’s a whole bunch of different ways to measure
body fat. You can do the skin pinching method, you can do
body circumference, you can get dunked in a tank. You can
do the electrical impedance which you did. You can do one
called the Dexa which is the same way that you take bone
density. It’s a dual x-ray absorptiometry scan. A whole bunch
of different ways. The Dexa test is definitely one of the more
accurate ways to test. Of course the flip side to that is you
expose your body to radiation every time you do it. So it’s
definitely not something you want to do on a regular basis. I
personally with all my clients use either circumference
methods for my clients who are around the world, who need
to measure themselves. I’ll use skin fold methods with some
of the clients I work with locally, using skin fold calipers,
which can actually be really accurate. The issue with the bio-
electrical impedance scales that you stand on or the
handheld devices is that for those measurements to be
accurate, you need to be in an optimal state of hydration
meaning you’re not dehydrated and you need to do it in the
same state of hydration every time that you do that test. So
you’d want to do it for example in the morning 7 a.m. after
you’ve had a glass of water and never do it any time other
than that. The measurements will be somewhat accurate but
the bigger you are, the less accurate those can be. So just be
real, real careful with those. I would – if I were measuring
my body fat all the time, I would be using a three pinch skin
fold method where you use some calipers, you pinch the
skins in a few different sites. You feed that into an equation
and you get a pretty accurate body fat number. Especially
once you’ve done it quite a few times and you get used to the
type of measurement that’s involved, you get very good at it
and that can be very accurate and you can get skin fold
calipers for a very good deal for example on Amazon.com.
Steve asks: You were mentioned by a friend as a possible help for a
lingering problem I have with a torn rectus femoris. I would
appreciate any thoughts or info on possible recovery steps. I
tore it five years ago and cannot get it to heal.
Ben answers: Well Steve, I’m not a doctor or sports medicine physician. If I
were in your shoes, I would be addressing the fact that there
could be some hypoxic scar tissue there. Some immobile scar
tissue meaning that there’s a low amount of blood vessels
feeding that area that’s torn. Because scar tissue has formed
over that area, it’s a little less mobile than it should be. So the
way that you can get that done is you can do some soft tissue
work on a regular basis, either yourself or done by a medical
massage therapist to try and break up some of that scar
tissue and increase mobilization and range of motion in the
torn area. The other thing that you can do is you can increase
capillarization to the area. You can use a topical magnesium
supplement that you put across that to actually get warmed
up and displace some of the calcium that can tend to adhere
in a torn muscle area. So I’ll be doing that along with the
medical massage. Warming up well before you do any type of
activities. Then a few other things that can work quite well
are ART or active release therapy. I would look for an ART
practitioner in your area. I would also look at primal reflex
release technique. You can do a search for primal reflex
release technique at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. I
interviewed a practitioner. I’ve had it done before and it can
work in some cases with painful or immobile muscles that
are that way because of an injury. It basically is based on the
concept that you tend to be in this constant state of spasm
and you have to let your mind actually let go and relax that
muscle area and then it begins to increase its range of motion
because you’re not cramping or spasm-ing in the area
anymore. So I’d look into all those methods. I’m not saying
one single method is going to work. But if you try some of
those things I just mentioned, you should be able to see some
success and some progress.
Juan asks: I’ve been somewhat fit and gone to the gym for years now.
My wife asked me to help her shed off some unwanted
pounds. I’m not sure if she can train like a man does, or can
she?
Ben answers: Women can train like men. It’s a little bit of a foggy area,
what’s man style training? What’s woman style training? But
the basic idea is that a woman has to have a lot of
testosterone on board or be adding hormones to her body
artificially in order to actually start to get a body like a man.
A woman can pretty much lift almost exactly like a man in
terms of weight training or cardiovascular training,
experience all the same type of beneficial lean muscle and
toning effects and not have to risk bulking up. There’s very
few women who I know who lift heavy and bulk up.
Occasionally I’ll come across someone who isn’t taking extra
hormones, isn’t taking testosterone and still appears to be a
little bit bulky from the weightlifting and typically that’s
fixed with a slight adjustment of the program to increase
reps, decrease weight and they do just fine. So ultimately
let’s say you were going through a program like my Shape21
program. I wrote that program for males or females. Both
can do the same version of the program. Both would see
similar amounts of success in terms of fat loss, attainment of
a lean body. That type of thing. So your wife can definitely
train in the same way that you do.
David asks: I want to include as much as your holistic fueling and eating
plan as I can. However I live with my wife and two teenage
daughters and I need to figure out how to incorporate your
plan into a more family centered meal plan.
Ben answers: Well it can be tough when your spouse or your family is not
wanting to eat healthy in the same way that you do. So some
of the things that you can do is first of all, no matter whether
or not there’s a salad present at the meal, you need to make
sure that you have a salad. Lots of greens. Follow the salad
recipes that are there in the holistic fueling meal plan and no
matter what they cook, have a salad around so if you want to
grab a little bit of what they have, you can actually include
greens with that, top it off – top off the greens with the
casserole or whatever it is they’re eating, and you can
actually get a little bit of a taste, feel like you’re participating
in their meal. But not get a lot of the deleterious effects.
When hamburgers are served, you would want to modify the
hamburger preparation by using kale or spinach and lettuce
and wrapping your hamburger in greens rather than using a
bun because part of that holistic fueling meal plan is there’s
really very, very small amounts of gluten that are involved.
Same goes with corn. If you didn’t want to use a lot of butter,
you can sprinkle just a little bit of cheese on there. Lemon
pepper is also a really good way to go along with a bit of olive
oil. For pizza, if your family likes to have pizza – there’s not a
ton of pizza in the holistic fueling meal plan so one of the
things you can do is grab one slice of pizza and just cover
that with a salad, with a bunch of mixed greens and then eat
the salad or eat the pizza through the salad. That helps out
quite a bit. If you want to cook any of the stir-fry type of
recipes in that holistic meal plan, then you can get your
family whole wheat wraps, some extra teriyaki sauce, some
extra white rice or yaki soba noodles and they can get all the
carbs and the sauces and everything like that and you can
still eat healthy by just having the meat and vegetable
portion of that stir fry. You can do a Mexican night, like a
taco and burrito night. And everybody else can have their
tacos wrapped up in whole wheat or flour tortillas or crunchy
tortillas and you can eat a taco salad instead on a bed of
lettuce or a bed of spinach. Seasoned chicken breast, that’s
another great recipe. You can cook chicken breast, you can
cook them in the same way that they’re included in the
holistic meal plan but get a couple cans of cream of
mushroom soup and that makes it nice and rich and tasty for
your family if they don’t want to eat the healthy version.
Same thing with spaghetti and tomato sauce. You can do
more of a little bit of spaghetti served on top of a salad and
your spouse or your family can do a lot more than noodles
and the sauce. Black bean pita sandwiches are actually a
really good thing to do. Basically you can stir together
yoghurt and black beans, some Mexican flavorings like onion
and cilantro and garlic, lime juice, cumin, a little bit of salt
and you can mash that all together, serve it with some pitas
and with your spouse or your family they can actually eat
those wrapped up in the whole wheat wraps and they
actually taste pretty good. They almost taste like junk food
but they’re not. So tons of little twists that you could make on
the recipes to make it easier for your family, but ultimately
what it comes down to is it’s my opinion that your family
should be eating healthy too. And so, if you educate them
and teach them about all of the benefits that they’re going to
get in terms of their strength, their performance, their
energy, their fat loss, the way they look, the way they feel, if
they incorporate all the elements of that holistic fueling meal
plan then getting them on board by educating them and
empowering them with knowledge is going to be a lot better
way to go. Then you follow that question up.
David asks: By the way, you have a meal plan available for purchase on
www.trainingpeaks.com. How well does that line up with
your holistic fueling plan?
Ben answers: The answer is that I have two plans available over at
www.trainingpeaks.com. And those are accessible through
my Web site, through my training Web site at
www.pacificfit.com. Or you can just email me and I’ll point
you in the right direction. But one of those plans lines up
almost identically with the holistic fueling meal plan straight
from my book. The other one is a lot more vegan, kind of raw
vegan based that I talked about a little bit earlier. Then I
guess you have a third part of your question.
David asks: What is the best combination of supplements to take
regularly that will still be affordable?
Ben answers: Well, I understand that supplements can be expensive and
taking a lot of them can be expensive, but there are a few
supplements that I think everybody should be taking no
matter what. One of those would be Omega 3 fatty acids,
whether via fish oil or flax oil form. There are a few different
options available, but I would definitely be taking some type
of Omega 3 fatty acid. I would definitely be taking Vitamin D
and taking a lot of it. I would definitely be including a
multivitamin/green type of blend. That would be crucial.
And then if you get the vitamin D, the multivitamin with the
green supplement, a little bit of Omega 3 fatty acid, the only
other thing that I would really consider taking would be
magnesium. Again, relatively inexpensive, easy choice to
make, easy to use. A lot of people tend to be deficient in it. So
I would include that as well as an electrolyte source and that
would be kind of a foundational plan for you – would be the
vitamin D, the magnesium, a green/multivitamin
supplement and some fish oil. Or flax seed oil, or some type
of Omega 3 supplement. You can get more information on
supplements over at that website at www.pacificfit.net.
Pete asks: I have a question regarding nutrition and weight gain. I’m
currently recovering from hypothyroidism and
hypogonadism. My hormonal levels are where they should be
but my weight is considerably lower. I’m still struggling to
put on weight. I know the bottom line is that calories in must
be greater than calories out but what ratio of carbs, fat and
protein should I be looking for if I want to increase weight
with as much muscle and as many strength gains as possible?
I’m a distance runner so most of my workouts are based on
my runs or crosstraining that amounts to about 60 minutes
of aerobic exercise per day.
Ben answers: First of all, I would recommend that of course you eat a lot of
food. Typically for people to put on weight and put on muscle,
they got to eat and live in the weight room. That’s really the
best way to put on a ton of muscle. Most of the guys I’m
training right now for lean muscle are consuming in the
range of 4000 to 6000 calories per day. Usually working out
for an hour and a half to two hours per day and a lot of that is
resistance training based. Now, if you’re training to be a
distance runner, then you would probably be on a slightly
higher carbohydrate intake than what I have them on. But
generally in the range of about 50 to 60% carbohydrate, 20
to 25% fat, 20 to 25% protein would be the actual ratios that
you’d be looking for. So about a 2:1:1 carbohydrate to fat to
protein ratio. The trick though for you is going to be to eat a
lot and what you may need to do is periodize your program
so that during the days in which you are doing longer runs,
more exercise, you’re really shoving down a lot of food and
you also have certain periods during the year when your
goals are weight gain where you even reduce your physical
activity just a little bit and increase the amount of calories
that you take in. But that carb-fat-protein ratio of 2:1:1 works
pretty well. There’s a lot of little things that you can include
in your diet too to help you put on weight. Creatine helps out
quite a bit, whole amino acids sources will help out quite a
bit and meal replacement powders or meal replacement
drinks like the Living Fuels Super Greens is one example of
basically a quick and easy way to get in tons of calories. But
ultimately you need to be eating a lot in about that 2:1:1 carb
to fat to protein ratio.
Harold asks: Do you have any information on overcoming eczema?
Ben answers: Both my children have eczema and my wife gets eczema as
well. There are a few things that can help it out quite a bit
because we’ve had to deal with it. A lot of times eczema can
be related to an allergic reaction or a low amount of good
bacteria in the stomach so taking a probiotic can help out
quite a bit, getting some good bacteria in your gut via Kiefer,
via yoghurt and via probiotic capsules can help out quite a
bit. There are some herbal extracts out there like topical
herbal creams and gels. Some of the ingredients – two of the
most popular ingredients are chamomile and licorice. Those
can help out quite a bit when applied topically to an eczema,
as can that diluted form of oil of oregano that I mentioned
earlier. The other thing that I would look into is an oil like an
evening primrose oil, a borage oil, both of those contain
gamma-linolenic acid which can help out quite a bit with
eczema as well. Then I would also look at the foods that
you’re taking in and consider cleaning up the gluten, the
dairy, the soy, the eggs – some of the potential allergy
triggers that you could be getting. But usually more of a
multi-pronged approach to the eczema can help out quite a
bit, and those are some of the things – some of the things I
just mentioned are some of the things that we’ve done in my
household to help out with that and it’s been pretty
successful.
Patrick asks: I just did an LT test for the bike and got an odd result. (For
those of you who don’t know what an LT test is, it’s a test to
measure the amount of lactate that you produce and you do
that by going out and exercising at your maximum
sustainable pace and then tracking your heart rate as you go).
On the same course I had the same speed but my LT heart
rate is down 9 beats. Is it all just now clicking for me or do
you think it might be my new watch?
Ben answers: Well, here’s the deal Patrick, your LT heart rate should go up.
What I mean by that is your lactate threshold heart rate – let
me rephrase that. Your lactate threshold heart rate as a
percentage of your max heart rate should go up. So if your
maximum sustainable pace that you can hold occurs at a
heart rate of 150 and your maximum heart rate when you do
that test is 190 and then you test later on, ultimately with a
maximum heart rate again of 190, you’d want your LT to be
155 or 160 or some heart rate that’s a higher percentage of
your maximum heart rate. Now in your case, your LT heart
rate went down and unless your maximum heart rate also
went down, that’s technically not a good thing that your
lactate threshold heart rate went down because it means that
your body is unable to tolerate large amounts of lactic acid at
the same intensity. Now a lot of times that can be because
you are carbohydrate depleted, it can be because you are over
trained. It can be due to heat, dehydration. There’s lots of
things that can play with that LT heart rate. But one of the
things you may want to look into is if your maximum heart
rate has changed at all. So if your maximum heart rate has
come down significantly, then you’re just fine. The other
issue is that I have had some issues before with those
garment heart rate monitors, and not getting good heart rate
results from them. You can get a heart rate monitor
conducting gel that you can put between the strap on that
heart rate monitor and your chest and you can get far more
accurate results from that versus just wetting the electrodes
on that heart rate monitor with water or saliva. So ultimately,
what should be happening to your heart rate is it should be
getting higher as a percentage of your max heart rate. Your
lactic threshold heart rate should be getting higher as a
percentage of your max heart rate.
Mark asks: My job has me travel quite a bit. Since I travel a lot,
sometimes I find myself taking Five Hour energy drinks.
Since they’re only a few ounces and don’t seem to have too
many bad things in them, would you see them as harmful as
some of the others such as Red Bull?
Ben answers: Short answer is no. They’re not as harmful as Red Bull
because they don’t contain a lot of the acids that the sodas
contain. They don’t contain a lot of the sugar that the regular
Red Bull contains. My only issue with the Five Hour energy
drinks is that they still do contain quite a bit of caffeine. A lot
of what you get out of those is a mega dose of B12, but they
also have sucralose in them which I’m not a huge fan of
because it can destroy the good bacteria in your gut.
Ultimately if you had to choose between a Five Hour energy
drink and a Red Bull, take the Five Hour energy drink. I’ve
said this before on the show, the energy supplement that I
use is called Delta-E. It’s a little pink packet, you empty it
into a glass of water or under your tongue. It’s powder so
there doesn’t really have to be anything in terms of artificial
sweeteners in it and that works really well. I kind of get the
same feeling from that as I do from Five Hour Energy which
I’ve also taken, but the Delta-E is a little bit more healthy.
Mark asks: Also, when in the car what suggestions do you have to
maintain my metabolism short of stopping every few hours
to do jumping jacks?
Ben answers: It is true that whenever I’m traveling in a car, for every hour
that I drive I try to do 100 jumping jacks to keep my body
from getting stale, keep my metabolism up. But if you’re
unable to get out of your car, there’s not a lot that you can do.
You can do shoulder shrugs, but squeezes, stomach squeezes
and tummy tucks and toe raises, some head circles but most
of the things are kind of the same type of easy gentle
stretches and movements that you’d do say if you were stuck
in the window aisle on an airplane. In the window seat of an
airplane. So ultimately, you do have to stop your car, get out
of your car, do pushups, squats, jumping jacks, those types of
things if you really want the full benefit. Unless you have a
pretty huge car that you’re able to move around in, then you
would need somebody else at the wheel anyways. So either
way you’re probably going to have to stop at some point,
Mark, and just move around outside your car and make that
sacrifice and just do it, even if it’s just pulling over at the side
of the highway.
Shane asks: I have a question for you. I’m in my third year competing as
a triathlete. I end up getting gut pain that happens about 1.5
hours into a race and lasts through the end. I’ve tried many
different fueling options to cure this but nothing seems to
work. I think I’ve narrowed it down to excessive gas build up.
I noticed it only appears after swimming and the suggested
source has to do with incorrect breathing in the water. I
consider myself a strong breather and breathe on both sides.
Any insight as to what I might be doing wrong?
Ben answers: Well the correct form of breathing, rather than
hyperventilating by blowing out all the air from your lungs as
soon as your face goes into the water is to instead while
you’re swimming let out all the air right before you come up
for a breath. A lot of times that results in a lot less
hyperventilation and a little less air intake that occurs, a little
less burping gas problems. So I used to breathe by breathing
out the whole time underneath the water and I used to have
the burpees after I finished swimming. I switched up the
style of breathing that I do to let out all the air right before I
come up for a breath and that helps out quite a bit. The other
thing you can do and this was a trick that a coach gave me
once, was to drink carbonated water or sparkling water
before the swim portion of the race. That’s supposed to help
out quite a bit with the burping and the gassy feeling during
the race as well. So I would try the sparkling water, club soda,
carbonated water type of approach as well as adjusting your
breathing pattern a little bit and that should help out. I’m
going to assume that you’re finishing your pre-race meal at
least two hours before that swim starts. So you don’t have a
lot of food in your stomach upsetting your GI tract as well.
Emily asks: You recently had a podcast with Shownotes listing the
interaction between several vitamins and minerals. I take a
women’s multivitamin every morning which is labeled with
iron and calcium formulated for easy absorption. I don’t
know if the easy absorption refers to its vitamins in general
or the calcium and iron but I doubt the company has found a
way to circumvent the normal absorption of calcium and iron.
I know calcium inhibits the absorption of iron so am I even
getting any benefit out of taking this multivitamin? If so,
what nutrients am I actually absorbing? Also, the vitamin
contained vitamin C. Since vitamin C promotes iron
absorption, does this counteract the effect that calcium has
on the iron and allow for more iron absorption?
Ben answers: Well, the way they’re probably increasing the absorption is
via kelation. Kelation means that you basically kelate or tie
the calcium or the iron to for example an amino acid or some
type of other organic compound and actually increase its
absorption by doing that. So it’s definitely something that
you can do in a multivitamin. Best case scenario if you were
taking a calcium supplement, you would want to take it at a
different time as your iron supplement. That’s why
multivitamins which have that shotgun approach can be a
little bit tricky. Ultimately you’re doing yourself more favors
by taking it than you are doing harm to your body but yeah
you might be missing out on a little bit of the calcium and the
iron absorption. The fact that it only contains 250 milligrams
of calcium anyways means that that’s not going to be your
primary calcium intake during the day and lean dairy sources,
dark leafy greens, nuts and things of that nature should be
your primary calcium source the rest of the day anyways. So
the fact that it’s not your primary calcium source makes that
not that big of a deal that you’re consuming that particular
multivitamin. If you want a better multivitamin, there are a
few out there. There’s a company called Millennium Sports
that puts out one called MVP 365. That’s a really good multi.
I’ve used it before, really like it. Another one is Hammer
Nutrition. They put out one called Insurance. I’m blanking
on the term but it includes the term insurance. Hammer
Nutrition Body Insurance. I know writers are going to write
in and remind me what the name of that particular
multivitamin from Hammer Nutrition is, but that’s pretty
good as well. The Nature’s Made is not the best multivitamin
you can get but the way they formulate that for easy
absorption is likely through kelation. The process called
kelation. So they can increase the absorption of that.
Josh asks: I take a complete amino acid supplement and I’m trying out
beta-alanine to see if it can potentially aid me in cycling
effects. I’ve been mixing these in coffee or tea as I’ve heard
that caffeine helps amino acids to work more effectively and
at a faster rate when combined. Is this true? Or am I doing
this completely wrong? And when is the best time to take this
amino acid supplement to help my body recover?
Ben answers: Easy answer to that second question. Get that amino acid
supplement in after your workout as quickly as possible.
Within 20 minutes if you can. So that your body is primed to
actually quickly uptake those amino acids and if you can
combine them with carbohydrates, because while
carbohydrates will increase the amino acids absorption,
there is absolutely no evidence that I’ve seen that suggests
that caffeine will assist with amino acid absorption. Now that
being said, there is evidence to show that caffeine can
increase carbohydrate absorption and since carbohydrate
absorption increases amino acid and protein absorption, it
could be that when you take your amino acid source with
carbohydrate and with caffeine, you might get a little bit of
added absorption because that carbohydrate is getting its
uptake a little bit more quickly. So ultimately, take it right
after your workout. If you’re taking the amino acids with just
caffeine, not really going to see any increase in absorption,
but if you add carbohydrate in there as well, that’s where
you’re going to help yourself out quite a bit.
Kara asks: I read about the dangers of using aluminum pots and pans to
cook with. I’ve been roasting all my vegetables using
Reynolds non-stick aluminum foil for over a year now. Is
that harmful for me? I really like the ease of the foil since it
makes for a faster cleanup but I don’t want to be killing
myself while I’m ingesting tons of veggies.
Ben answers: Well, it’s a great question. The issue that I have with this is
that you find aluminum everywhere. It’s all over in dirt, and
plants and waters and food. It’s in our drinking water, in our
drinking systems and the suggestion is that if you get
aluminum into your system you can get an earlier onset of
some neural type of issues like Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s,
Parkinson’s disease and the aluminum leakage into your
food from cookware is one of the ways to actually increase
the amount of aluminum that you’re intaking. However, that
amount that would come from cookware is a pretty small
fraction of what you’d actually get from your normal eating
and drinking and breathing of all the metals that are kind of
naturally in our planet anyways. So, a lot of the cookware in
the market today is made from aluminum but the idea is that
if you aren’t cooking in your aluminum cookware with really
highly acidic or very salty foods, you’re probably just fine. I
also wouldn’t leave tomato sauce or citric foods in contact
with that cookware for a long period of time because then
you’re going to be looking at getting a lot more aluminum in
it. Now, as far as the aluminum foil is concerned, the
chemical reaction is pretty much identical from aluminum
foil to aluminum cookware. So either way you look at it, you
want to be careful with some of the salty, acidic, citrus foods
but I wouldn’t worry about it too much for your basic
cooking methods. That being said, grab a couple of stainless
steel pieces of cookware and have those around to use and
then as far as roasting your vegetables go, you can try other
methods of vegetable cooking. You can do some sautéing,
some boiling, baking. There’s lots of different ways to cook
vegetables in addition to roasting in aluminum foil. But as
long as they’re not super acidic, salty, citrusy types of
vegetables I wouldn’t get too concerned about it. And one of
the things you may want to do is ask Chef Todd. I’ve got a
link to Chef Todd in the Shownotes if you go to
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com and do a search for Chef
Todd you can find a pretty easy way to get a hold of him. He
would be a guy that I’d definitely ask as well.
Heela asks: I’ve been riding lately with pretty strong guys. I know they’re
faster than me on the ride (and she’s referring to bicycling)
but I wonder if you have any tips or tricks how I can keep up
with them. I’m usually fine at first but I get tired at some
points and can’t hold their pace because my legs are burning.
If they open up even the slightest gap, I lose them.
Ben answers: One of the things that you can do is make sure that you really
have a high cadence. The higher your cadence, the more
you’re going to be able to adapt to the changes in pace and
changes in speed that are going to occur when you’re riding
in a group. If you’re mashing the gears, you’ll be a lot less
responsive to be able to make sure that a gap doesn’t open up
between you and the other people that you’re riding with. So
maintain as high a cadence as possible. Preferably 90 or
higher, closer to 100 is even better for group riding. Then
also, pay very, very close attention. Riding with a group is a
little bit stressful because you do have to make sure that
you’re staying really close to the wheel of the rider in front of
you or even opening up or closing a gap by overlapping your
wheel with their wheel. When you combine that with a high
cadence and a high focus on making sure that you’re staying
well within range of the riders that are in front of you, that
can help out a lot. Also make sure that you talk to those
riders before you take off and let them know, “Hey listen if
you hear me shouting and see me drop off the back, can you
guys just slightly slow down or have one person drop off the
back and help bring me back up to the lead group.” Most of
the time people will be pretty reasonable with helping you
out quite a bit.
Heela asks: I was wondering what you thought about the product
Amazing Grass Super Food. I think they’re the most popular
greens supplement out there.
Ben answers: Well interestingly, the same person who asked the question
about aluminum foil asked me about another greens product
called Lifetime Life’s Basic Greens Protein. Folks, greens
supplements are all over out there. I get a question almost
every week about green supplement and my answer is always
the same. You have to make sure that they’re using quality
ingredients. I’ve taken many different types of green
supplements. The only type of green supplement that I’ve
ever taken and not gotten sick when I’ve taken – meaning
that I’ve gone for two years before on one form of green
supplement and never gotten sick, whereas none of the
others have done this for me – the one form that I take is
EnerPrime. Like I mentioned last week, had a big issue last
week when essentially the company that produces
EnerPrime ran out of spirulina, couldn’t get the high quality
spirulina in that they were using, refused to use any other
form of spirulina and so there were back orders for about a
month and a lot of people who ordered EnerPrime were
saying they’re tapping their fingers waiting for it. I was
among them. And yeah, it can be a little bit of an issue when
you’re working with a company that uses high quality
ingredients and refuses to back down off of using anything
other than a high quality ingredient. But ultimately, it ends
up being worth it to stick with a company like that. So all of
these greens supplements are going to have the same
ingredients. They have spirulina, barley juice, wheat grass,
chorela, alfalfa, beet root, broccoli extract. It’s just a
question of the quality of the ingredients that they’re getting
and if it’s dirt cheap, marked down, wholesale – I’m not
saying that that’s an instant sign that it’s a low quality
ingredient, but that can definitely be a suggestion that they
might be skimping on their ingredients. So ultimately
because there are so many different types of greens
supplements out there and they all have similar ingredients,
the question I have for you is what is the source of their
ingredients? There’s really two companies that I know of that
I’ve talked with both the owners and I know that they’re good,
ethical people who don’t skip on ingredients and once is that
IMPaX EnerPrime that I talked about. The other is the
Living Fuel supplements, and you can check both those out
over at www.pacificfit.net. Get links to interviews I’ve done
with the owners and I do a lot of research on supplements
before I actually make them available or recommend them to
the athletes that I coach or the people who write in and ask
questions and www.pacificfit.net is the place where you can
find all those.
David asks: I listen to the Endurance Planet podcast and there is a
frequent product plug for a sports drink called H20
Overdrive, which claims intercellular hydration and has a lot
of ingredients that span the entire length of the bottom. I’m
curious on your opinion on the claims being made by this
product as well as the benefits or negatives of the ingredients
within.
Ben answers: So I went and looked at this H20 Overdrive and the
ingredients that are in it and first of all, it starts off with of
course sugar being one of the ingredients. But it’s not much
sugar. It’s only 3 grams and it looks like it’s from
maltodextrin. So even though sugar is the first ingredient on
the label, that’s not a ton of sugar – 3 grams of sugar. Now
moving on, it has a vitamin profile so they’ve added things
like vitamin B complex, vitamin D –16 international units of
vitamin D, considering that I take on a daily basis 6000
international units, it’s not much vitamin D. they have some
electrolytes in there. Some amino acids in there. They don’t
really list how many of them so it’s tough for me to make a
judgment on that. 100 milligrams of caffeine. So basically
you’re getting the equivalent of a cup of coffee and
sometimes a little bit more than that in one serving of that. It
looks like they have some vitamins in there – vitamin A,
vitamin E, minerals and electrolytes. So they probably added
some magnesium, calcium, potassium and thing like that in
there. And then going on down the list sucralose, artificial
sweetener, sodium chloride, rice alagodextrin and FDNC
yellow number 5. So basically, this is like an energy drink,
like a diet energy drink that they’ve added some electrolytes
and minerals and vitamins to. Will it hydrate you better than
regular water? Because it has electrolytes in it, it probably
will. Does it do some magic intercellular hydration? No. No
differently than if you took water and a salt pill. As far as
some of the vitamins, I have seen much better vitamin
profiles in this in a common multivitamin. So you’d be better
off in my opinion taking water, taking some electrolytes and
amino acids and consuming a multivitamin rather than
dumping sucralose and artificial chemicals, colors and
sweeteners down your throat with this H20 Overdrive
supplement. That’s my opinion on it. I’m just telling you
exactly what I think. I would never touch it if it was my body,
but that’s just me.
So I believe that answers all the questions this week. There
was actually somebody as I was reading through the
questions… somebody asked a question about beta-alanine.
It was Josh. Josh mentioned the beta-alanine that he was
taking and I get a lot of questions from people about beta-
alanine. All beta-alanine is, is it’s something that increases
the amount of a chemical called carnacine in your body. And
carnacide buffers acid. So when lactic acid builds up as
you’re exercising, it can buffer it and help you to work at
higher levels of exertion without forming quite as much acid
or being able to buffer that acid more quickly. There’s been
lots of studies done on beta-alanine and even though the jury
is still kind of out in terms of there being conclusive studies
on it, it’s a pretty promising compound because it’s done very
well in several trials. The problem is that most of the positive
trials were funded by the beta-alanine industry or by
supplement companies who make beta-alanine and so until
there’s a lot of good research that comes out that’s neutral
research, I’m completely convinced that the beta-alanine is
something that would be the best thing to spend your money
on. Now if you have some money to burn and you want to try
it out, experiment with it in a workout, maybe get a bottle of
it, you could try the beta-alanine but ultimately it’s
questionable whether or not it actually works in terms of the
research steps that’s behind it. However, considering that it’s
fairly affordable – it’s not super expensive, it could be
something that might work for you. I’d just use caution
because all of the research that’s positive for beta-alanine
was funded by companies who make beta-alanine. So that
being said, we’re going to move on to the Listener – not the
Listener Q and A. I’m getting loopy from answering all your
questions. The featured topic with Dr. Jerry Moylan. Listen
in or because this is an epically long podcast, take a break
and listen in later.
Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and I have Dr.
Jerry Moylan on the other line and Dr. Jerry lives in
California now. He’s a chiropractic physician down there –
more than chiropractic, which city are you in, Dr. Jerry?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: San Diego, California. San Diego.
Ben: In San Diego, California. Kind of a triathlon Mecca down
there too. And he’s actually himself a three time Ironman
finisher and that is not where his list of athletic accolades
stop. Because he is a record holder in power lifting with
personal best 700 pound squat, 400 pound bench press and
630 pound dead lift. He was the 2005 San Diego Senior
Games male athlete of the year. He’s a decathlete. He has
done a bunch of kettle bell competitions too. 2007 Masters
Kettle Bell World Champion. His list of accomplishments in
powerlifting, kettlebelling and endurance sports and in
cycling as well as track cycling goes on and on. He’s a fourth
place finisher at the California Track Bike Championships
500 meter race. So huge combination of powerlifting and
endurance sports which we’re going to talk about today. But
thank you for coming on the interview, Dr. Jerry.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Oh you’re welcome Ben. This is very exciting.
Ben: Well I know a lot of people who are listening to the call
probably know what Ironman triathlon is, that 2.4 mile swim,
112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run – but for those people who don’t
really know what powerlifting is – can you explain what
really goes into being a powerlifter and competing as a
powerlifter?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Powerlifting is a strength movement. Movements are
basically the squat, the bench and the dead lift. You could get
three lifts of each one and your highest lift for that day
counts towards your total. So you could say you squat 500,
you bench 200 and you dead lift 500, you get a 1200 pound
total. But they’re pretty much strength moves. And strength
is the basis for power explosive moves which is the basis for
injury prevention in any athletic endeavor. So like I said,
squats – there’s technique involved in all this, which makes it
a lot easier and more efficient. Again, the strength portion of
it which most athletes can use whether you want to compete
maybe another story, but if you want to use the strength
moves themselves – the squats, bench and the dead lift –
they’re very advantageous to use in any kind of sport,
endurance sport or athletic sport or a decathlete or a track
guy or whatever. They’re very beneficial. You just have to
change the routine that you would do. The reps scheme and
the sets scheme and how often you would use them.
Ben: Most people who compete in endurance sports kind of have
the feeling that lifting weights that heavy or at that level –
powerlifting, heavy weightlifting – would perhaps be
detrimental to their endurance training or to their cycling or
to their marathoning. Now, for you how do you jive
something like powerbelling – we’ll talk about kettlebells
later on but powerlifting, kettlebelling – any of those type of
things, how do you actually work those into an endurance
sports program? Or do you just do them completely
separately?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: I do them all the time all year round, but as you mentioned,
there’s a certain percentage or certain times of the year
where I would be more focused on one sport more than the
other. See, I also compete in CrossFit and CrossFit is a
combination. I’ve done the regional and sectional CrossFit
competitions this year. Those are (unintelligible) with
endurance sports. But they’re simultaneously working both
systems. So, what I’ll do is last year I competed in six
different sports all last year and the world championships, I
went to three different world championships in four days. So
you can do them. I did the pentathlon, Olympic weightlifting
and bodybuilding all in four days. So you can combine them
but it’s really more of a – I’ll use the word scientific, not
scientific – but real precise in your training. Because as we
know, you’re using different energy systems. With the
Ironman triathlons, you’re using mostly oxygen based
systems whereas in powerlifting, you’re using a PC system.
So you can combine those but as you train more for one, you
are switching your cell type to more endurance for the
triathlons and you’re training your cell type to be more
developed for more fast-twitch with the powerlifting and the
Olympic lifting.
Ben: Gotcha. So, if we were to get down and dirty here and go into
what your training – whether you want to lay it out as your
training year or your periods of different training as you go
through a year to be able to accomplish explosive sports
along with endurance sports, what does a typical training
year look like for you?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Okay. What I would do, and also one thing we always talk
about is we do compete and train a lot. It’s the rest. I will go
into that first because people think we have to train every
day all day long to accomplish this and you really don’t. The
rest periods are real crucial so you get a proper amount of
rest, so you can train hard. But the key is the ability to handle
load. In anything we do, we want to have the ability to handle
load. The more load you can handle, the faster and stronger
and nimbler we can be. So to be able to handle load, we have
to be of course injury free and also get our rest days so our
bodies can adapt to the stress imposed upon the system. So
my training regime, I’m a four day a week guy and I have my
off day – Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturday, Sundays – and lots
of times I’ll do two to three workouts a day. So I’m working
different systems. Sometimes, it’ll be a five minute workout
or we’ll say the VO2 system – let me know if I’m getting too
specific but the VO2 system is generally a 10 to 15 minute
routine working your cardiovascular system at VO2 max.
You are going to do one or two of those a week. That’s the
key of knowing how much of a different system you can use
and then you also don’t have train it any more.
Ben: So, with VO2 you’re talking about 10 to 15 minute long, very
intense workouts to hit your maximum oxygen uptake or
your VO2.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Exactly. So once you work that system, you don’t have to
work that system anymore. Maybe once a week, maybe twice
a week you can squeeze it in. But the system is gone, the
stress. Then it takes time to recover. Whilst recovering, then
you can do the other workouts. So that’s the key. With that, I
can throw a lactate threshold workout in, maybe three or
four days later. I can definitely have my powerlifting and
Olympic lifting in the evening. I’ll do my VO2 lactate
threshold morning to morning and my weightlifting
explosive stuff in the evening. So that way, while one system
is resting, my cardiovascular – I can work the explosive
system in the evening. That’s also based on sets and reps and
how much – and what type of the year so right now I did
finish two Cross Fit competitions and a bodybuilding. Now I
have a track and a decathlon next week. So I’ve been training
for that. So I backed off the CrossFit and certain exercises in
that area, kept the VO2 workout that I got from CrossFit and
got more specific with my javelin, disc, pole vaulting types of
technical things. Because my conditioning for decathlon
would be good.
Ben: You blanked out for a second, are you still there? I’m sure
that we’ll get him back on.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Am I lost here?
Ben: There you go, you’re back on.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Okay. So I was saying you can do this for triathlons too,
because even with triathletes or running endurance sports,
you only have one to two major peaking times a year. Period.
You cannot maintain a high peak all year round. It’s
physiological impossible. So that’s where you have to pick
your major races throughout the year. As mine, I got the
Cross Fit earlier in the year and then I’ll have some track and
field coming up and then later on the year the World
Championships mostly in the weightlifting area later in the
year.
Ben: I think this is really good information for people who feel like
they have to commit to one sport year round. Like if they
sign up for an Ironman Triathlon or they want to do
marathoning, that’s all they can focus on. But what you’ve
found is that by combining different workouts into different
times of the day and different times of the year, you can
accomplish these multiple training goals throughout the year?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yes, exactly. Because you look at what most endurance
athletes do, they are doing more weight training do and your
weight training athletes are doing more aerobic work to
increase their ability to handle more load and be less injured.
So what I just take it to is a little higher level. They’re going
to get the most out of themselves in a triathlon, so you don’t
have to think that you’re going to keep getting better every
week, every month throughout the year. Your body can only
handle so much. It will only grow so much at a time. So in
the meantime you can be doing lots of other things with your
body, creating a constant stimulus for growth in all areas and
becoming a more complex person.
Ben: Interesting. Now, I’m sure that we’re going to get some
people who complain that they’ve seen research that if you
do weightlifting and endurance training simultaneously that
you might in effect reduce the results that you can get from
endurance training. Now what would you say to that
argument?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Well that’s true, I’d say. But if I were to be a true marathoner,
again as I said a true marathoner – he’s got say 12 months.
He’s only going to be able to peak his max capabilities once
or twice a year to reach his peak for a competition. The body
will not keep getting better and better every week and week.
So, knowing that I can only peak once or twice a year, then a
marathon runner in a year. So he can the power to get his
strength up, get his flexibility and stability and all these other
factors also. But the research will show that you’re right
because what happens if you do try to do heavy powerlifting
with your max endurance you will get suboptimal effects in
both. So in a CrossFit, I cannot expect to be totally as strong
as possible at my top endurance because you’re creating
different cell types and the correct assumption… when you’re
getting closer to your top marathons, your easier marathons,
you back off on the powerlifting. All you do is keep a base
strength going into it.
Ben: How far before a triathlon should people start to back off
weightlifting or powerlifting?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Well if you’re really going to do heavy powerlifting, it’s
probably going to be probably three months or so maybe, but
you can still powerlift, but you’d increase the reps and sets
scheme. Now true tapering, like if you have a major
marathon, you’d back off maybe only two weeks before your
weight lifting. Because the idea is to keep a good load until
the end, so then you drop the big load and your body has all
the time and energy to taper and peak for a contest.
Ben: Interesting.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: So you can keep your weightlifting most of the year long
except for the final week or so. But the major heavier singles
and negatives overloads, you probably want to decrease
probably a couple of months earlier because that’s too much
of a stress on the system.
Ben: Yeah, from a weightlifting, powerlifting, explosive sports
standpoint typically what I’ll do is a lot more weightlifting
and basketball type of training in the winter. And then as I
get into early spring because I’m training for a triathlon, I’ll
usually decrease the weights that I’m lifting, lift them a little
bit more explosively and try and reduce my propensity to put
on muscle with kind of the medium weight medium rep 10 to
12 rep scenario and then I’ll hold that into the summer and
then typically about halfway through the summer I will start
doing a little bit more weightlifting kind of in the middle. I
kind of peak for a triathlon earlier in the year and then later
in the year, so I put on a little bit more muscle in the summer
and then strip that again in the late summer and move on to
more of the triathlon competition again. So for people
listening in, it really is true that you can do weightlifting, you
can do powerlifting, you can do explosive sports, you can do
endurance sports at the same time. You just have to know
what you’re doing. Right, Dr. Jerry?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Exactly right. Because there are many complex systems and
the cardiovascular system and the different ranges of motion,
the different body parts and upper body, lower body – how
much you’re using those. If you want to lift heavy one day,
can you expect to have a good bicycling day the next day?
Probably not. So you have to know what system you are
using, muscular wise, mechanical wise, physiological wise.
Because otherwise you will not get good success at all. It’s
very difficult.
Ben: Right, exactly. And that’s another thing that you can do. That
brings up a good point. If you had to lift weights and you
really wanted to do something like powerlifting, you could do
your bench pressing and overhead pressing one day and still
have the oomph that you needed to go on a bike ride the next
day. That would be another strategy.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Exactly. That’s exactly right. And that’s why we want to have
the top strength and while you’re able to have explosive
power and endurance to perform better at your sport.
Ben: A lot of cycling teams are using powerlifting now as a way to
enhance their cycling. Do you feel there’s a good crossover
there between things like dead lifts of explosive lifts and
cycling in particular?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Actually I’ll go back to pretty much any sport because it gets
strength as a base for explosiveness – is it going to allow you
to move faster which is going to be good for any sport. I just
wanted to put it in there. But for cycling it would definitely
be very advantageous because there are more high power
outputs that you can garner from the strength. Like Olympic
lifting and powerlifting.
Ben: The interesting thing is if you watch the Olympics,
powerlifters are often slight people. They’re not the same as
bodybuilders. I know a lot of people have that picture of the
huge puffy, bodybuilder look and you would think that would
hold back a cyclist or a triathlete but in effect, powerlifters
have a very high power to weight ratio. They’re often slight
people who can lift huge amounts of weight.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yes, because the top athletes tend to be more athletic. In
most sports, top athletes tend to be more athletic. So they
can be very flexible and be strong at the same time. You see
the top NFL players, sometimes they can be very big people
but they can dunk basketballs, they can do back flips. If you
look at your MMA fighters, the Ultimate Fighting people,
they’re very athletic and they look lean and strong and
athletic and strong at the same time and they have great
cardiovascular conditioning.
Ben: Yeah, his name escapes me but a recent ultra-marathoner
trained essentially with Cross Fit all week long. He threw in
one long run at the end of the week and threw down I think it
was a 50k or a 100k ultra and did just fine.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Exactly. Because what happens, when you do one sport all
you – you could spend hours and hours if you only do one
sport. Most of the time if you only do one sport, it’s
unnecessary activity by running all those miles and miles
and miles. All you’re doing is breaking down the body. Like I
said earlier if you want the ability for the body to handle load,
you make it strong with cross strengthening and stability,
flexibility so your body can handle the load and on your sport
days, you want to be setting personal records. The key is to
be getting better and faster all the time, not just doing your
sport. So when you have your major workout days, whether
it be running – you want to have goals on that day to get
better. That’s why you want to be coming fresh and the
ability to handle that load for that day so you can get better.
Like your friend did the Cross Fit and then did his running,
so his running was probably going to be very good because
he’s going to be more fresh so he can have quality runs and
make personal records. Cross training makes his body ready
to handle that running load on his one or two days. That
would be a key to look for when you’re cross training.
Ben: Yeah, I love that idea because goal-oriented training
meaning you’re going after certain lift percentage of your
1RM or you’re going after a certain speed for your 500 meter
row or track workout, that’s always more intrinsically
motivated than just exercising to look good. Studies have
found that it always gets you into the gym or onto the track
better if you’re focusing on performance-oriented goals than
aesthetic-oriented goals.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yeah, that’s a great point. Yes.
Ben: So talk to me a little bit about kettlebelling. For those people
who aren’t really familiar with kettebells, what’s the idea
behind those and how can they be used in a training program
like the one we’ve discussed?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Kettlebells are a great sport because they have the ability to
handle a weight – there are various sizes and weights – for
multiple reps with what’s called a smoothness. A smooth
technique. Almost like an Olympic lifting technique. It’s an
athletic event that you can do for five or ten minutes. It really
works your cardiovascular system. So it’s all technique. A
lot of these things unfortunately do require technical ability
to do them efficiently so that’s why there are people like you
out there Ben, to help these people get their technique down.
Ben: What about using a dumbbell instead of a kettlebell? What’s
the difference?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Well the dumbbell – you can’t be fluid. It doesn’t have the –
it’s bulkier. It can’t move around. The kettlebell can move
around in a circular motion. It has more fluidity in its motion
so you can do repetitive actions on it with less problems.
With a dumbbell, it’s more on unstable. You can’t do the
repetition on a repetitive basis as fluid and with less stability.
Ben: Gotcha. So as far as kettlebell training goes, what would a
typical kettlebell workout look like in terms of actual
exercises somebody would do?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Okay that all depends on what we’re trying to achieve. The
sport of kettlebell, it’s pretty much two 10 minute repeats. So
it’s pretty much a VO2 lactate threshold workout so you can
do either ten minute repeats or you can break them into
three 3 minute repeats, four by 3 minute repeats, two 7
minute repeats or you can do a longer set of 20 minutes
straight. So it depends what you’re looking for. CrossFit
tends to use them in shorter more explosive minute or two
minute repeats. So it depends what system you’re trying to
achieve, what you’re trying to work for.
Ben: And what would be exercises that you’d do?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: I tend to stay with more the competitive motions. In all
sports – since I like to compete, that’s my thing. I look for
the competition requirements. They require a snatch and
jerking motions. So snatch would be from the floor in one
movement, one arm, one movement to over your head. It
would be similar to a snatch in an Olympic lifting motion but
with one arm. Now in Cross Fit, they use a two handed
technique for the most part with the kettlebells and it’s a two
arm motion from the ground to over your head. Now the
other one in the kettlebell competitions is the jerk. You take
the two kettlebells with two arms, hoist two kettlebells to
your waist and from your waist, you jerk them over your
head repeatedly for how many reps can you jerk at ten
minutes. And also the kettlebell itself, there are probably 50
exercises you could do. You could make up exercises. You
could do squats, you could do lunges. You can do bench
presses. You could do all exercises with the kettlebells for the
most part.
Ben: Okay, gotcha. Well, what I’ll do for people is I’ll put a link to
more kettlebell resources in the Shownotes to this podcast so
you can see what a kettlebell looks like and where you can
find a kettlebell. Now as far as taking a little bit of a180 here,
Dr. Jerry, and talking a bit about the other component of
fitness which is nutrition – from a nutrition standpoint, what
does your diet look like? Do you change it throughout the
training year in terms of skewing it toward more example
higher protein when you’re doing more of the explosive stuff
or what exactly do you do?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Again this is a very complex field. I’ve been doing nutrition
for over 35 years. I was a vegetarian back when I was 20
years old. I’ve been to macrobiotic camps. So I have been
through it all throughout the years. Now I’m into the blood
hormone and testing functional medicine which is
phenomenal.
Ben: Yeah, I’ve got a lot of my athletes doing that now as well.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yeah, isn’t it great to get the blood test? You can test your
hormones. You can see where you’re deficient. Making your
body – again back to my basic premise – for ability to handle
load, if my body is nutritionally sound chemically and
hormonally sound, I can handle more load and I can play
more. I can compete better. The other premise is if we want
to be healthy. The healthier we are, the better we’re going to
play our sports or be active. So nutrition wise, I do tend to
stay with an anti-inflammatory catabolic nutrition which is
basically a vegetable based program. I do fish once in a while
and I haven’t had meat in over 35 years. I’m not into dairy.
People have their opinions and models, but this is my model.
And this is all science-based stuff and it helped me at my age
do what I have to do.
Ben: I want to get into the nitty gritty of that a little bit. You just
said catabolic diet. Now, catabolic technically is referring to
breakdown of the body. Although you’ve found value in a
catabolic diet, how?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Oh no, an ant-catabolic diet.
Ben: Oh, anti-catabolic. Okay. Gotcha.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: We look for an anti-inflammatory, alkaline, anabolic
nutrition is what we’re talking about.
Ben: Okay, gotcha.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yes and that would be more of a vegetable based, nuts, seeds,
legume based nutrition. But I also use a lot of supplements
because what happens under the load – the key is you don’t
want to overload the GI tract with so much food. So you want
to get so many antioxidants and so many vitamins and
minerals. They tell you eat this, and you can get two grams of
C and 25,000 grams IU of A. To eat all that food, you’d
overload your digestive system. So, again which causes a
problem because all this time you eat food, you cause a free
radical effect. And also it’s just too hard on your body to eat
all the food. That’s where high dense, nutrient value medical
foods come into play and vitamins because they can support
you nutritionally while you don’t have to eat as much food.
So it’s just high and efficient nutrition.
Ben: What type of testing do you do when you look at someone’s
nutritional profile?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: We do. We have a basic panel. What we start with is about a
75 marker panel. I have a bunch of them sitting here. It’ll
give you your basic cholesterol profile. You get your thyroid.
You get all your electrolytes, your white blood cells, your iron,
your red blood cells, your hemoglobin A1C, you get a
urinalysis, liver enzymes and that’s about 75 markers on that
baby. It’s a good base to see what’s happening and again, it
also depends what people are trying to achieve. And we also
do hormone testing or adrenal profile and for certain people
we do testosterone and estrogen because male have male
andropause and women have the menopause or even the
female cycling hormones are real critical for them to be
stabilized. Especially when they’re going for major races, we
want everything to be at top level. At a lot of times, we’ll get
their adrenals tested and blood tested and see where they’re
at before we work on those and make sure they stay there
and we’ll go back in before they compete in a major season,
make sure they’re at those levels or high levels so they go into
the competition, season or meet with strong blood levels,
strong hormone levels.
Ben: Gotcha. And do change things up throughout the training
year for yourself in terms of your nutrition intake.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yes, again I tend to strive to work and lower my body – I stay
lower. I tend to stay lower on the carbohydrate side because I
tend to be myself carbohydrate intolerant. I’ll gain weight
easily I have too many carbs, which is a common problem
with a lot of people who are trying to keep their weight down
for these sports. Carbohydrates are an easy way to get stored
as fats in a carbohydrate intolerant person. Especially for the
women, they tend to have more trouble with that and more
hormonal imbalances. So I tend to watch my carbs more. I’ll
stay with the protein supplements and whey proteins are a
good source for me. I use Metagenics products on that and
Apex Nutrition and that’s real common of course. Natural
Vitality has some great products for magnesium and their
Natural Vitality vitamins, they are supported because
magnesium, calcium and potassium create electrolytes. I also
tend to be a heavy sweater so I’m always more cautious
about my electrolyte intake. But as far as gaining weight and
losing weight, I tend to stay around 150 pounds. My weight
class is at 140. Again, so a year and a half ago I competed at
143 because I had to get in the weight class. So the weight
class I had to attain – a certain weight class I have to go
down more in weight so I have to really dump my carbs and
increase my protein and go eating every hour, hour and a
half just to not upset my adrenals too much. Because if you
go without food, you’re going to cause metabolic interference
and more adrenal bodies and slow your metabolism down.
So I don’t vary my nutrition as much. It’s tweaked a little bit
here and there but I do try and stay pretty tied to a vegetable
based nutrition with supplementation and I’ll alter it with a
little more protein during the heavier weight training season
but since I’m heavy training all the time, even endurance
training is heavy breakdown so you do need a lot of protein
even during your endurance sports.
Ben: Interesting. Well I think the takeaway message for people
here is that not only can you achieve success by not training
the same way day in and day out, month in and month out
throughout the entire year. But you can also achieve success
by really staying on top of your nutrition profile knowing not
only where your hormones are and what your mineral levels
are but also changing up your nutrition based on the type of
training that you’re doing. So I think it’s really cool, what
you’re doing, Dr. Jerry in terms of kind of living the sports
life to the fullest and in doing all these different events. I
think that a lot of people may not understand or may have
been led to believe that you’re either an endurance athlete or
you’re a power explosive athlete, but you’ve been able to find
success in both, which I think is going to inspire a lot of
people. So anything else? Any other resources that you would
like to give the audience?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: As far as where to look for information?
Ben: Anything else – do you have Web sites that you go to, books
that you read? Anything else that you would recommend
people use?
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yeah, there’s so much available out there nowadays. It’s
amazing. Let’s see. IKFF. Kettlebell IKFF with Steve Cotter.
Valery Fedorenko’s Kettlebell Association is very good.
There’s numerous powerlifting sites out there which are good.
Non-specific triathlon stuff is out there and endurance sports,
but read more… understand your physiology for yourself. So
the heart rate monitor is crucial to not overtrain and also
training harder on your hard days and taking it easy on your
easy days. I’ll make one quickie thought here. People who
train all the time, they’re under training all the time because
they can’t reach their VO2 lactate threshold because they’re
also tired. Yet they’re overtraining because they’re training
all the time. So they’re not getting the best benefits neurally
as they should because they’re always training to one system
all the time. But anything about lactate threshold training
and understanding physiology and biochemistry – that’s the
best that I can tell you. I don’t have – because there’s so
much out there.
Ben: Yeah, I would say if people are listening in and they’re really
wanting to learn more about that, I think one of the best
publishers in the US at least that I found is Human Kinetics
in terms of a lot of their stuff that they put out as far as
physiological training of athletes, tracking of biochemical
markers in both people who want to get healthy as well as
athletes, they’ve got some good stuff.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Yeah, that’s a good suggestion. That’s very good.
Ben: Cool. Alright, well thank you for coming on the call, Dr. Jerry.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Thank you, this has been great. You’re wonderful Ben.
Ben: We’ll put a link to Dr. Jerry’s Web site over at www.doctor-
jerry.com in the Shownotes so you can read more about him,
especially if you live in the San Diego area. He’d probably be
a great guy for you to hook up with. So until next time, this is
Ben Greenfield and Dr. Jerry signing out from
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com.
Dr. Jerry Moylan: Thank you very much.
Ben: Well folks, an hour and 45 minutes later we’re going to wrap
up this podcast. If you heard anything that you were
interested in from Jerry’s Web site to any of the things we
talked about in the Listener Q and A to any of the special
announcements to the trip in Thailand to the Body
Transformation Club, then go to the Shownotes for episode
101. And you do that by going to
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com and clicking on episode 101.
If you’re not part of the VIP text club on your cell phone yet,
get into that and also make sure that you leave the podcast a
ranking in iTunes and subscribe to the free
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com newsletter over at
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. So, until next time this is
Ben Greenfield signing out. Have a healthy week and I’ll
catch up with you next week.
For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s
from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at
http://www.pacificfit.net