Podcast #92 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2010/04/episode-

92-the-things-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-

sunscreen-but-were-afraid-to-ask/

Introduction: In this podcast episode: sunscreen, vegan diets, foam rollers

versus muscle sticks, training with CrossFit, carb cravings,

personal training certifications, gut problems during exercise

and joint pain.

Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield coming at you

with podcast number 92. Now if you haven’t done so yet, I

would highly recommend that you text the word Fitness to

411247 so that you can get into the text club, the VIP text

club from Ben Greenfield Fitness. It is completely free to do

and all you got to do is text the word “Fitness” to 411247. So

check that out, we obviously have a lot of cool stuff going on

in today’s episode and I happened to get a gentleman on for

an interview who has a ton of background in research and

development of sunscreens and a multitude of products, but

what we primarily focus on today are some of the issues with

common sunscreens. Some of the things that need to be

considered when you get a sunscreen and then all those

stupid questions that you always wish you could ask

someone about sunscreen that I went ahead and asked for

you. So we will have a great Q and A leading up to that. So be

sure to listen in. And one other thing, if you’re a triathlete

and you’re down at the Wildflower Triathlon Festival this

weekend, look me up. You’ll want to keep your eyes peeled

for the Pacific Fit Elite Fitness banner. I’ll be there with a lot

of other Pacific Elite Fitness athletes and we’ll be having a

good time racing and hanging out down at the Wildflower

Triathlon Festival.

Ben: So the first question today comes from listener Sarah.

Sarah asks: I’d like to know your opinion on foam rollers versus the

muscle track device that is on your Web site. I’d like to invest

in something to use post-exercise for massage and to aid

recovery and I’d like to know what might be the better

purchase.

Ben answers: Well, the muscle track device that you refer to is basically

something that you hold in either hand and you rub it up and

down in the area where you’re experiencing a knot, maybe a

location of muscle tightness, an adhesion – specifically the

calf, the hamstring, quads, IT band – places like that. And

the muscle track has little rollers in it that kind of dig into

the muscle and help get rid of that tightness. Now, I like the

muscle track because it’s portable. You can take it anywhere.

Occasionally I’ve had security at airports kind of raise an

eyebrow at it just because I guess it could be used as a

weapon but you can obviously check it through with your

bags. You can put it in your car. You can take it just about

anywhere including races, training sessions, the track –

places like that. So it’s nice for the portability aspect and it’s

nice to be able to really target small and specific muscle areas.

You take the foam roller on the other hand and the foam

roller can generally give you a little bit more of a shotgun

approach to an entire muscle area. You can get a lot more

done in a shorter period of time with a foam roller, you can’t

get quite as much specificity with it but the other advantage

is it can get places that you can’t reach with the stick like

your low back or your shoulders. And while the foam roller

may not be quite as portable, you can get very small foam

rollers. For example, I have one from Trigger Point Therapy.

It’s a really small orange roller, about three feet long and I’ve

actually taken it in my backpack places. I just got back from

California and I had it in my backpack, took it on the plane

and it worked just fine. I did a couple of foam rolling sessions

in my hotel room. So, best case scenario would be if you want

a budget, get the muscle track and then just get one of the

less expensive shorter foam rollers. Now, I actually just

received for evaluation purposes a new foam roller in the

mail. It’s called the Rumble Roller and it looks just like a

foam roller except it actually is full of textured ridges,

basically sticking out of it everywhere. And I did a foam

rolling session on it and it was really interesting. I’m actually

going to shoot a video for www.bengreenfieldfitness.com to

show you how to use it and what exactly it does. But

ultimately if I had to choose between the foam roller and the

stick, I’d probably choose the foam roller just because I can

get some of those spots I can’t quite get to with the stick and

I can do that full body approach pretty quickly, within five to

10 minutes of foam rolling. The stick’s not expensive though.

I think it’s only like 40 bucks. You combine that with a three

foot foam roller and you’re probably looking at maybe 60, 65

bucks, somewhere along those lines for a pretty good 1-2

recovery combo. So great question.

Our next question comes from listener Kel and Kel has a very

long question, but she basically asked in relation to the calf

question that I answered in podcast number 91 where I told

the person who’s having lots of calf pain, who had very big

calves and was slightly overweight to actually avoid some of

the impact based movements or e-centric landing types of

motions that involve the calf muscles. Well, Kel wrote in and

asked about exercises that could actually condition the legs

because she is getting pain in her knees, ankles, calves and

heels of the feet when doing impact-based exercises, and also

asks in the meantime are there any sort of gel pads I could

slip into shoes when playing basketball to try and absorb a

bit of the impact so I don’t get as much pain?

Well, the whole problem with trying to just change up the

shoes, maybe add a gel pad is that you’re putting a band-aid

over a deeper issue and you’re essentially doing kind of the

same things you do when you take a pharmaceutical to mask

a symptom without training the underlying symptom. If

you’re getting that much pain in your joints, you either have

some type of inflammation going on – an osteoarthritic

condition or a rheumatoid arthritis – something of that

nature, or, and this is more likely the case in most people,

you simply don’t have the type of absorptive strength

capacity that you need to handle the load that you’re placing

on those joints during your impact-based exercise. If you’re

not actually doing some type of load based weightlifting,

specifically an axial load that goes down your spine, through

your legs, through your arms, then you’re really not putting

your muscles in a place where they’re going to be able to

support you during impact-based exercise. So for example, I

would be incorporating squats, lunges and overhead

shoulder press, some type of chest press or push press type

of movement, a pull-up, a pull-down and basically

incorporate that type of lifting. If you’re already past that

point and I’m being super elementary and basic for you, then

you need to focus on some elements that I find a lot of people

neglect. Specifically, the rotator cuff, the gluteus medius or

the external butt muscles down in your hips, your core and

specifically your transversus abdominis – the lower part of

your core that gets triggered when you do plank type of

exercises, and then your vastus medialis which is the muscle

that goes along the inside of your leg and that’s something

that you could strengthen with cable kicks, leg extensions,

things of that nature. So ultimately what it comes down to is

yeah, a gel pad could help you. Different shoes could help

you. But ultimately, core conditioning and a muscular

conditioning program is going to give you the most bang for

your buck. Then as far as joint pain and supplementation,

probably the top supplement that I would recommend would

be something like the flax or the fish oil that I’ve talked about

before on this show. Go and get the flax oil, the EnerEFA

from IMPaX, or go get the fish oil from Bioletics. Either one

would definitely help you out. And then the phenocane that

we talked about with Dr. Roby Mitchell in terms of being an

anti-inflammatory, an alternative to ibuprofen, to Advil, to

aspirin –phenocane would be something else to give a try

and you can check that out at www.pacificfit.net. So the next

question is from listener Josh.

Josh asks: Can you recommend a personal training certification course

possibly that I could attend during the summer when I’m not

teaching?

Ben answers: Now, Josh goes on to talk about how he is always put into a

position where he needs to dole out training advice to people

and really wants to be able to get a certification so that he

can actually be qualified and know what he needs to know to

answer these questions. Well, there’s a lot of different

personal training certifications out there. I’m always

surprised at the number of people who don’t actually ask

their personal trainer about what certification their trainer

has, and this is something that a lot of you are going to be

shocked to believe, but you can actually get your personal

training certification with a weekend course that you get in

the mail, open book test that you send back in. You pay a

sum of money, they send you back a personal training

certificate and voila, you are a personal trainer.

Congratulations. Of course, there are some very big problems

with that scenario and those certifications are typically not

nationally accredited certifications but technically your

trainer would not be lying to you if they told you they were

certified even if they did have one of those types of

certifications. So be very careful, I would recommend that

you ask your trainer where they were certified. For example,

I’m certified through the NSCA, or the National Strength and

Conditioning Association. It’s really only the internationally

accredited certifying body for personal trainers and it’s kind

of considered the gold standard for personal training because

you actually have to have a bachelor’s degree in a sports

science or exercise science related field to even get that

certification. Now there are other certifications out there in

addition to the NSCA. You can get something called the

ACSM, which is the American College of Sports Medicine

certification. That’s considered a better certification if you

want to help people out in a clinical or hospital environment

like cardiac rehab. The NASM stands for National Academy

of Sports Medicine. That’s a good personal training

certification. It’s one of the more difficult ones to get which

generally means it’s a better certification and that one is

respected by industry professionals. So you have the NSCA,

the NASM, the ACSM and then you also get the ACE

certification. Now I used to teach the ACE certification

course down at the University of Idaho, and I’ve been

through all their materials pretty extensively. It’s a decent

certification. It is not one of those overnight, open book type

of certifications, and even though it doesn’t get quite as

scientific as the NSCA, the ACSM and the NASM, it does

have a good level of knowledge and you don’t have to have

your college degree to actually get it, which makes it of

course a viable option if you haven’t studied sports science or

exercise science at the university level. It is most popular for

group fitness instructors as a great group fitness instructor

program. It would be probably something right down your

alley based on the experience it looks like you have. Now

finally, if you want to take it up a notch, say, you’re already a

personal trainer, the CSCS is also an NSCA certification. It’s

called a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach

certification. That’s another certification that I have and it is

what most college strength and conditioning professionals

have or strength and conditioning coaches have. It’s pretty

much one of the most difficult certifications to get in the

fitness industry. Pretty low pass rate. But if you’re really

wanting to enhance your knowledge of fitness that would be

a good one to get. And then I do get this question from

people. They ask me how I am the national personal trainer

– and that was actually through the NSCA – that I was voted

as their National Personal Trainer of the year. I did not just

randomly pull that out of somewhere. That was actually back

in 2008, so a couple of years ago now. And then the final

resource I would point you out to and I know that I haven’t

talked about this on the www.bengreenfieldfitness.com

podcast much but I actually published a book last year. It

was published by a company called Coach’s Choice, and it’s

actually a manual for personal trainers – a business and

training manual for personal trainers. It’s called Train for

Top Dollar and you can find that over at

www.trainfortopdollar.com. So you can check that out and

just email me if you have any more questions about personal

training certifications, Josh. And the reason I answered his

question on this show is because I do know that there are a

lot of personal trainers that listen in to this show. So

hopefully, that helps you out.

Brian asks: I can control sugar and carb cravings all day, but in the

evening the cravings seem to be much stronger. Is this low

blood sugar and do you have any recommendations?

Ben answers: We’ve addressed sugar and carb cravings quite a bit on this

show, Brian, but kind of a rehash is that most of the time

when you’re craving carbs at night it’s because you did not

adequately replenish carbs at some point earlier in the day.

And the issue is that when you replace them at night right

before you’re about to be engaged in about seven to eight

hours of complete inactivity, those sugars can tend to be

converted into fat pretty easily by your liver. Now the answer

to this dilemma is to A, eat more of your carbohydrates

earlier in the day. So stack carbohydrates with breakfast by

having oatmeal, some type of whole grain, some type of

pseudo grain like a quinoa or an amaranth or a millet. Have

carbohydrates in the mid-mornings such as in the form of a

fresh piece of raw fruit. Have a little bit of carbohydrates like

a brown rice or a wild rice with lunch and then really taper

down your carbohydrates during the rest of the day. The

other issue is that a lot of times people who get carb cravings

don’t adequately replenish carbohydrate stores right after

their workout in terms of post-workout carbohydrate

replenishment. So make sure that after a workout, you

actually replace carbohydrates in the range of about 0.5

grams per pound of your target body weight. So let’s say that

to put this in perspective, you weigh 200 pounds. You want

to get down to 180 pounds. You finish a workout. You take

that 180 pounds that you want to get into and you multiply it

by 0.5. Now what you get for a result is 90. And 90 is the

number of grams of carbohydrate that you’d want to take in

within 20 minutes after your workout. 90 grams of

carbohydrate is 360 calories of carbohydrate. This would be

for approximately a one hour workout. For endurance

athletes, you can go so far as to do 0.5 grams of carbohydrate

per pound of body weight for every hour that you work out.

So if you go ride your bike for two hours, you would be – if

your target body weight is 180 – consuming close to 800

calories of carbohydrate after that ride in order to adequately

replenish carbohydrate stores and not experience those

sugar cravings late at night. Now finally if you’ve just

switched your diet to a healthy diet and you’re used to having

constantly high circulating levels of blood sugar and now you

don’t, it can be very difficult to have those sugar and

carbohydrate cravings and it tends to even be a problem

when you’ve adequately replenished your carbohydrate

stores earlier in the day because your brain is used to that

dopamine response of sugar and carb cravings if say you’re

used to eating dessert every night and now you don’t do it. So

the answer to that would be to utilize something like

chromium, something like vanadium. Those are two

elements of one of the supplements I recommend to people

called Thermo Factor and in Thermo Factor you get those

two elements, you take them about 30 to 60 minutes prior to

your evening meal and they really help with post-meal

carbohydrate cravings later on in the evening. Finally, next

week I do have an article on food cravings coming out and

not just carbohydrate cravings, but food cravings in general.

So that will be released at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com and

that’s another article that you’ll want to read.

Josh asks: How would you construct an exercise program that

incorporates CrossFit and cardio strength training?

Ben answers: For those of you who aren’t familiar with CrossFit, CrossFit

is almost like a gymnast style of strength training where

you’re doing lots of heavy lifts like deadlifts and bench press

and squat but you’re also doing rope climbs, pull-ups,

different types of jumps and hops and plyometric type of

activities. And the issue is that with CrossFit, it can be hard

to combine it with cardio training without overtraining

yourself. Now, I’ve actually done this before. I actually used

CrossFit a little bit in the winter when I’m not doing my

triathlon training, and what I do with CrossFit is I’ll take

CrossFit workouts and I’ll do CrossFit workouts about five

days out of the week. And on two days out of the week, I’ll do

just kind of a slower recovery type of endurance workout.

And then on a couple of days that I do CrossFit, I actually

throw in some interval cardio training. For example, two

minutes on, one minute off or 20 to 30 minutes or a series of

hill sprints, flat sprints, things of that nature. Now it would

be really tough for me to elucidate this in the podcast

without boring everyone to death just running through a

whole week of training. But I have recorded an entire week of

how I incorporate CrossFit training with endurance style

triathlon training and I put that up on my Web site. I actually

have a personal – not a personal Web site, but basically a

Web site that chronicles my triathlon adventures – and that’s

at www.bengreenfieldtri.blogspot.com and right after the

answer to Josh’s question in this podcast episode, episode

number 92, I will put a link to that to help you out. So check

that out. www.bengreenfieldtri.blogspot.com. Or just go to

the Shownotes to see that link.

Catherine asks: I’m writing specifically regarding your book

recommendations and that you’re in the middle of reading a

book called Thrive. After completing it about five weeks ago,

I switched to a vegan diet and for the most part absolutely

love your results. My question is what are your thoughts of

the vegan diet for an athlete? I’m competitive, primarily in

Olympic distance and half Ironman triathlon.

Ben answers: Yeah, the issue with the vegan diet – and I’ve done it before,

Catherine – is that you need to be very careful to get some of

the things that you’re not going to get from your typical

vegan based foods because you’re essentially eating just tons

of vegetables and fruits and to a limited extent some of the

whole grains, the seeds and the nuts. Vitamin B12 would be

something super important for you to supplement with and

make sure that you’re getting enough of. Vitamin D would be

another one that you should really focus on including in your

diet. If you don’t have those two, then you could suffer some

deleterious effects. The other thing that I would really focus

on is getting some sort of amino acid supplement. For

example, I take two big scoops of the Amino Acid Powder

from Bioletics every day. You could use for example a hemp

or a pea protein powder. That Living Protein that you see

over at www.pacificfit.net, I interviewed their owner KC

Craishy and that’s all just vegan based nutrition. It’s like a

meal replacement powder. That would be really good stuff as

well, but basically your vitamin B12, your vitamin D and your

amino acids are three things that you really have to pay

attention to if you’re an athlete on a vegan diet.

And then you also ask about the 80-10-10 diet. For those of

you who aren’t familiar with the 80-10-10 diet, that’s

basically 80% carbohydrates, 10% protein and 10% fat. And

the majority of the carbohydrates are from fruits. So the

primary concern with this of course is that you are getting a

ton of fructose based sugars in your diet when you’re eating

80% carbohydrates. My bigger issue with that is that it really

claims to increase life and longevity when there really

haven’t been any studies that have looked at a fat intake as

low as 10% and found that to be true. Now I don’t really have

a problem with eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. I do

know that there is kind of a synergistic effect of fruit or when

you eat the whole food fruit-based compound, there can be a

little bit different effect than if you just have like a high

fructose corn syrup. And that’s just because of the fiber and

some of the other nutrients that you’re getting with fruit. But

you still want to be slightly careful. There actually has been

one study that showed fruit consumption to actually be

correlated with increased risk for diabetes, but that was with

a high fruit consumption. Now, you should also consider, if

you’re doing this diet and this is something I’d recommend,

up your fat intake to closer to 15%. That’s kind of about the

lowest that’s really been found to have benefit. Ideally your

fats should be 15 to 25%, but if you upped fat a little bit, I

wouldn’t have a huge problem with this diet but make it

closer to 75% of the carbohydrate, 15% of the fat, 10% of the

protein and then on the days where you’re doing hard

workouts try and up that protein even higher. Supplement

with B12, with D, with amino acids and the 80-10-10 diet

could work for you. I’m not one of those guys who says

there’s one single diet that’s totally perfect and I do know

people who have tried the 80-10-10 diet and felt really good

on it. You just need to make sure that you count your calories

because you’ll find that you actually need to eat like six or

seven salads a day and 10 pieces of fruit and I’m literally –

I’m not joking here – upwards of 30 to 40 bananas in a

single day to actually correlate to triathlon style or

endurance training and recover and replenish your body

properly. Socially, that can also be kind of difficult to do. So

bear that in mind as you go through an 80-10-10 diet.

Listener Jerry writes in with a homemade energy gel recipe.

He asked me what his opinion is of this homemade energy

gel, and essentially it’s brown rice syrup, it’s barley malt,

unrefined coconut oil, organic peanut butter, sea salt and hot

water. And you use a boiler and a glass jar and a sauce pan

and you mix this stuff and you heat it up and you cool it and

you fill your jars with your new gel. The nutrition on it, I will

put on the Shownotes to this episode – the nutrition

breakdown of this gel – exactly what’s in it. The actual syrup

– the main sweetener – is 46% carbohydrates, long chain

carbohydrate and then 29% disaccharide which is a little bit

shorter chain carbohydrate and 25% glucose and that mix of

carbohydrates can definitely help. Mixing a simple

carbohydrate with a little bit more complex, longer chain

carbohydrate can increase the gut absorption to an extent.

And most of the other ingredients are pretty good in this. My

main concern would be actually preparing this at home if

you’re real busy, doing it all the time could be kind of a chore.

So I would say if you’re going to use this gel recipe and I will

reproduce it in its entirety, and thank you for providing it

Jerry, you would probably want to batch this and make a lot

of it. Like make several jars of it so you’re not always having

to make a little batch of gel every time you go on a bike ride. I

would imagine that could get pretty old. However, for giving

this great recipe Jerry, I’m actually going to award your

question as the top question of this week’s podcast, and I’m

going to give you a free membership to my Body

Transformation Club. So, you will have full access to the

Body Transformation Club’s secret video page, to the mailing

that I’ll send you each week with nutrition and fitness tips

and a bunch of other stuff. So all you got to do is email me

Jerry and I’ll hook you up. Send me an email to

ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com and I will get you your free

month of the Body Transformation Club.

Patrick asks: I’m having GI issues on my brick workouts. (And for those of

you who don’t know what a brick workout is, that’s a bike

followed by a run.) I always have to take a relatively large

bowel movement when I run after a long bike ride with lots

of fueling. I started noticing it last year when I was eating

lots of cheap pizza, pasta and rice. So I figured it was due to

poor nutrition. My diet is still not bulletproof but I feel like

I’ve made a lot of progress in that area. My last ride was a 90

minute ride and a 20 minute run. I thought I had fueled

fairly minimally at about 250 calories per hour but I still had

issues about 10 minutes into the run. Do you have any

thoughts? I primarily use Infinity for fueling on the bike and

supplement with a Snickers Marathon bar and a regular pack

of Almond Joy, taking a mouthful every 45 to 60 minutes. I

drank plain water with Noon tabs. My fueling prior to that

was oatmeal in the morning and the day before, I had

banana and almond butter toast for breakfast. A veggie sub

for lunch and healthy snacks, and then fried chicken with

store bought mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner

the night before. Can I really point the finger at one meal?

Ben answers: Patrick, you know it’s all over the place, your nutrition is – so

no, you can’t point the finger at one meal. But if I were you,

this is exactly what I would do. A, I would eliminate the solid

foods, the almond bars, the chocolate bars, the Snickers that

you’re taking in on the bike and replace that with a liquid

based fuel like a gel or for example a sports drink such as the

Hammer Gel Heed or the GU Electrolyte Brew. Okay, so

you’re eliminating a lot of those solid food issues and also

eliminating a lot of the ingredients that you’re going to get in

the Snickers bar or the Almond Joy. Now, you’re drinking

the Noon tablets, those are sweetened with sucralose which

can upset some people’s stomachs. You could switch to U-

Hydration made by the same company. That’s sweetened

with stevia. Most people’s stomachs don’t have quite as big

an issue with stevia. Or you could just use plain salt tabs

such as there’s some called Athlytes made by Millennium

Sports. Those would be fine. Stay away from anything fried

the night before. That’s definitely going to sit like a brick in

your stomach and if you really want to get a little bit more in-

depth, you could also try to eliminate some of the sugars that

tend to be aggravating to people when they are exercising.

For some people, that’s fructose. You an experiment with

eliminating any type of fructose containing energy

compound, and you can also try to limit your gluten intake

such as from the toast that you had for breakfast or the sub

that you had for lunch, that can really help fuel to burn a

little bit more quickly. And then finally, make sure that

you’re actually not eating too much for breakfast prior to

your ride. So you want to make sure that you allow about two

hours for gastric emptying. Don’t eat a lot more than about

500 calories and that will allow you to actually be able to

exercise without getting a lot of that still digesting as you’re

out there working out. So there’s quite a few little things

going on. This is what I do in my job as a sports nutrition

consultant, is I kind of have to help people dig through the

mess and a lot of times people will come to me and we’ll go

through a full month of phone calls just going back and forth

trying to hash out some of this stuff and doing some

detective work. So, ultimately there’s a few things that you

could do Patrick. Try out some of my recommendations and

hopefully you start feeling a little bit better after those rides.

So if you have a question remember you can email

ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. You can call toll free to

8772099439. Or you can Skype to Pacific Fit. And now we’re

going to go ahead and move on to all the questions you

always wanted to ask about sunscreen but were afraid to ask.

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and you know

as the weather has started to heat up and people have been

spending more and more time out in the sun, I’ve been

starting to get lots of questions from listeners about

sunscreen, whether it’s healthy or not, about skin care, about

skin cancer, about some of the things that you got to bear in

mind when you’re out there in the sun exercising. So what I

decided to do was actually get an expert on for an interview

about the things that you’ve maybe always wanted to know

about sunscreen but you were afraid to ask. So Dr. Nic

Martens is a PhD, and he’s held key positions in research and

science with companies like Johnson and Johnson,

Neutrogena and has developed some really cool products for

these companies – what I guess would be considered market

disrupting products. For example, some different types of

sun protection technology, some various new ways to protect

yourself against the UVA rays which we’ll talk about in this

interview. He’s got a PhD from the University of Cambridge

as well as a degree from the University of Munich in

Germany, and today we’re going to be talking all about ways

that you can protect yourself from the sun and things that

you need to know about that maybe you haven’t thought

about before. So, Dr. Martens, thank you for coming on the

call today.

Dr. Nic Martens: It’s a pleasure.

Ben: So, I guess the best place to start would – we kind of assume

that everybody knows that if they spend too much time in the

sun that it’s probably a bad thing. But for people who maybe

need to understand what’s happening at the cellular level or

to the skin, what exactly is going on in the skin of people and

especially people like Ironman athletes or people who are out

exercising a lot of time in the sun – what’s actually

happening to their skin?

Dr. Nic Martens: Okay, well maybe I’ll start off when you said “It’s probably a

bad idea to spend a lot of time in the sun unprotected,” let

me just make one comment on that. 1.3 million people get

skin cancer every year and 90% of those cancers are caused

by sun exposure. So it’s not that it’s probably a bad idea to

spend a lot of time in the sun without protection, it’s an

absolute health risk to spend a lot of time in the sun without

protection. So, we look at sun protection at (Outside) labs as

really a healthcare product and a safety product for athletes

because it does prevent cancer. It’s as simple as that.

Ben: Now, if I could interrupt you for just a second, which lab are

you with right now?

Dr. Nic Martens: I’m with a company called Outside Labs, which I founded

about four years ago after I left the corporate world, and the

mission of Outside Labs is to develop superior skin

protection for athletes because we realized there’s always a

great mass market product out there and you can buy them

at the mass market outlets. But these products are developed

for the mass market and they don’t work for athletes.

Ben: Okay, so you were talking about the skin of athletes.

Dr. Nic Martens: That’s why I think the product the athlete needs – the skin

care product the athlete needs is different than the mass

market similar to… I always use a comparison of shoes. If

you run a marathon, you would not use your sneakers. You

would buy a running shoe. That doesn’t make the sneaker a

bad shoe, it’s just the wrong shoe for that application. And

we look at skin protection the same way. If you just hang out

at the beach, using a Coppertone product or a Neutrogena is

great. If you run an Ironman, it’s the worst product you can

use. I’ll go into the details of why I believe that in a moment

but coming back to your question about what happens when

the sun hits the surface of the skin, there’s really two things

which are happening. The first thing is you get an immediate

reaction of the skin and it’s mainly inflammation and it

causes redness. That’s what people typically refer to as a

sunburn. That reaction is mainly caused by UVA rays – sorry

the UVBA rays, excuse me. UVBA rays are the part of the

sun’s spectrum which have very high energy rays, they hit the

surface of the skin and causing immediate skin reaction

which is that sunburn. Another part of the spectrum is called

UVA rays, and those rays are (unintelligible) deeper into the

skin and the deep layers of the skin. This is called the

epidermis. This is the living part of the skin and they interact

at a cellular level with the reproduction cycle of that cell and

disrupt that and cause long term skin damage and ultimately

skin cancer. And so there are really two things which are

happening when skin is exposed to the sun. One is you get

sunburn from those UVBA rays, and secondly, you’re getting

long term skin damage from those UVA rays.

Ben: Interesting. So it’s both ideally that you’d like to block with a

sunscreen.

Dr. Nic Martens: That’s correct.

Ben: Okay, interesting. Now do you think that – or do you know if

the type of environment that someone is actually exercising

in like, say, if someone is on black pavement or somebody is

in the lava fields or if somebody is in sand, somebody is in

snow – do those types of conditions actually make a

difference in what happens to your skin when you’re

exercising?

Dr. Nic Martens: Oh yeah, absolutely. The big difference is that if you’re in the

snow, as an example, you get a lot more sun exposure just by

reflection of the snow. If you’re swimming in the water,

you’re getting significantly more exposure because you get

reflection of the water. It also affects the athlete’s skin in the

sense that people typically forget to apply sunscreen on

certain parts of their body because they’re normally not

exposed. So, under your chin, you normally don’t get that

much sun. But if you’re in the snow, you actually get all this

reflection and people get sunburns on places where they

normally don’t get sunburn. So it’s important to cover your

whole body because of that reflection piece. The other thing

is if you go into high altitudes, you increase your exposure

just because you get a higher exposure because there’s less

absorption through the atmosphere.

Ben: Interesting. So, how about when people are actually out there

in the sun exercising. We all know that exercising produces

free radicals. That’s something that most people are familiar

with, but when you combine that with sun exposure, does

your risk for skin cancer actually go up? Is that something

that you should be worrying about more than let’s say I’m

lying in my backyard reading a book in the sun, is it going to

be more damaging for me to be out running in the sun

unprotected?

Dr. Nic Martens: Actually, obviously free radicals play a role in skin aging and

the health of your skin, and sun exposure does also create

free radicals. So there is a correlation, but there’s something

else happening which is far more important for athletes and

that is if you exercise you naturally sweat and in some of the

sports you actually expose yourself to water because you

swim. And so the most important piece of the sunscreen for

athletes is that it’s water proof and sweat proof enough. And

most of the products are not, and so…

Ben: What about the products that say “waterproof” on them

already? Are those – because a lot of products, I have noticed,

they do say “waterproof.”

Dr. Nic Martens: You’re absolutely correct. Almost every product on the

market will say it’s waterproof. That’s because they passed

the FDA test which the FDA is a government body that

regulates sun care in the US which is an over the counter

drug, or it’s believed to be an over the counter drug in the US

and that test regulated by the FDA involves 20 people sitting

in a pool for 80 minutes. Now that’s great if you hang out at

the pool or if you hang out at the beach or if you walk the

streets or go riding in your car. But if you do a triathlon or if

you do a marathon or if you do a 10k or if you just casually

exercise and sweat, that test is completely irrelevant. And so

what we’ve found is that using these products, you start off

with an SPF 50 which gives you relatively good protection.

But if you start swimming and start sweating, 20 minutes

later you only have an SPF 30 and another 20 minutes later

you only have an SPF 10. I have personally seen athletes

who’ve used sun protection in Ironman races who have 3rd

degree burns after they finish the race in Kona.

Ben: Wow.

Dr. Nic Martens: One of them is Miranda Carfrae who actually came in second

last year, and I talked to her after the race and she was fried.

She said I put on sunscreen, but it came off. So the bottom

line and that goes back to my comment before, the comment

about the sneaker not being the right show for a marathon

runner. In the same way, we believe the mass market

products are obviously great. They have their spot and they

have their place in the market, but they’re not the right

product for athletes.

Ben: Interesting. I’m getting the feeling that when I go into a town

for a triathlon, I might be making a mistake by just going to

Walgreens and just grabbing whatever happens to be on sale

off the shelf. I do have a question for you that I’ve always

wanted to ask because I’m not quite sure of the answer and it

sounds like a stupid question, but how does sunscreen

actually work?

Dr. Nic Martens: Okay, there’s really two ways sunscreens work and it has

everything to do with the ingredients used. The first

technology, if I want to use that word, is based on physical

blockers and those are mainly titanium dioxide and zinc

oxide. Those are the two ingredients which are allowed in the

US, which are called physical blockers. What that essentially

is, is it’s minerals that you put on your skin and they create a

physical layer between the sun and your skin. Think of it as

almost putting paint on your skin. So that’s one way. The

second way is by using organic chemicals which can absorb

the sunlight and therefore prevent it from reaching your skin.

There are pros and cons for both of those, but essentially

they’re the two ways of how sunscreens work. Physical

blockers and chemical absorption.

Ben: Interesting. So when you say putting paint on your skin, I’m

sure that a few listeners might cringe because obviously you

think if you put paint on your skin that it must be a bunch of

chemicals. So I know that some people would be concerned

about those types of chemicals. Are there certain things that

people should look for, or certain things that people should

avoid when they’re inspecting their sunscreen for both

effectiveness as well as for safety of their skin?

Dr. Nic Martens: There’s obviously been a lot of press about the safety of

sunscreens, and their potential harm. Let me start off with

that the benefits you’re getting from using sunscreen far

outweighs any potential risk or negative effect on your health

by using that product. I frankly believe that those folks who

talk about “Don’t use sunscreen because there’s chemicals in

there which are dangerous for you” are actually doing a

disservice to society because as I mentioned when I started,

1.3 million people get skin cancer and there’s no doubt with

any dermatologist that by using sun protection you can

actually reduce that risk of skin cancer. Having said that,

there’s obviously differences between the quality of different

products. So my first comment would be aerosol sprays have

become extremely popular with people. You know what I’m

talking about when I mention aerosol sprays. They’re these

continuous sprays, which are normally in an aluminum can

and are based on alcohol as the key ingredient in the

formulation. The reason why I don’t like them personally is

because alcohol on the skin isn’t the greatest ingredient to

start with. It’s drying the skin out, but it also acts as a

penetration enhancer. And with any of the skin care products

you use, they’re intended to stay on the surface of the skin.

They’re not supposed to penetrate through your skin. And,

alcohol enhances that process. So I would shy away from

sunscreens which contain alcohol as an ingredient. There are

people out there – coming back to these two technologies –

there are people who prefer zinc oxide and titanium dioxide

because they consider them to be natural ingredients. It’s

essentially ground up minerals. They have the big

disadvantage that they leave a whitening effect on your skin

and they’re also relatively easily blocking your skin. That’s

why I don’t like them especially when you get to high SPF

levels and high UVA protection levels, you would have to use

so much of those ingredients that you’re actually in danger of

blocking your skin which I think you had a question about

“how does sunscreen affect the core body temperature in an

athlete,” and that negatively affects that. That’s one of those

effects where I wouldn’t want to use that.

Ben: So which one did you say was the titanium dioxide which

could cause something like that?

Dr. Nic Martens: It’s not necessarily the titanium dioxide itself, but it’s the

formulation which you have to use in combination with

titanium dioxide to make it stick to your skin so you achieve

some waterproofing and sweatproofing. If you use those

formulations, you typically get a fairly pasty, heavy

formulation which can clog your buttons potentially and

cause disruption of your sweating and the cooling

mechanism of the skin.

Ben: Interesting. I know that listeners who have been a fan for at

least more than a year may have seen the video I put up last

year where I tried to make sunscreen in my kitchen and that

was the result – was I got a sunscreen. It was made with

titanium – actually I don’t remember if I used titanium or

zinc, but it turned out to be a very, very pasty solution. I

didn’t end up using it in a lot of races but that was what I

wanted to ask you. How do athletes actually use a sunscreen

formulation that doesn’t feel like it’s blocking their cooling

mechanisms?

Dr. Nic Martens: Yeah, so one of the things when I started Outside Labs and

we started developing sun protection products was there

were really two missions I had. One is I wanted to develop a

product which you would put on before you race and it really

doesn’t matter whether it’s your casual 5k run or a recovery

run or whether it’s your Ironman A race. But you put on this

product and you can forget about sunscreen for the rest of

the day. The second – and obviously that has a lot to do with

how waterproof and sweat proof the product is. The second

piece was I wanted to develop a product which doesn’t

interfere with your performance as an athlete. And we’ve

worked with a lot of triathletes, especially athletes like Craig

Alexander who were absolutely concerned about the product

interfering with their skin mechanism of them being able to

cool down in conditions like you have when you run the lava

fields in Kona. And so, the combination of using the right

technology and the right base – you actually get to a product

that performs on both of those levels, you know, staying on

for the whole day without interfering with the functionality

of your skin such that your skin can breathe and sweat and

control your core body temperature. I absolutely believe that

there are products out there that not only give you the

sensation that you heat up, but actually it leads to clogging

your pores, less sweating and therefore you’re not increasing

core body temperature.

Ben: Now is there a name or certain ingredient or some type of

description for the type of technology or the type of

ingredient that would allow your skin to breathe naturally so

the body’s core temperature doesn’t rise?

Dr. Nic Martens: Yes. At SCAPE, we’re using what we call (expounding)

technology, which is the polymer matrix which bonds to your

skin, holds the sunscreen on the surface of your skin, but

doesn’t run into your pores or leaves the pores open. I often

refer to it as an ultra thin Gore-Tex layer which you put on

your skin which holds the sunscreen on the surface of your

skin but doesn’t interfere with the functionality of your pores.

Ben: Interesting. So I’ve had a question a couple of times from

athletes who I coach and people who I work with about

vitamin D and sunscreen. Because obviously there’s a lot of

buzz right now about vitamin D and its health effects and

people are getting more and more concerned about their

levels of vitamin D. By putting sunscreen on, does it actually

interfere with your ability to make vitamin D from sun?

Dr. Nic Martens: Yeah. Well theoretically it does because it is true that the

body needs sunlight to produce vitamin D. But it needs very

little. So for a normal healthy person, 10 minutes in the sun

or 20 to produce enough vitamin D. There’s also, I think, a

consensus in the scientific community that using

supplements to – if you feel like you’re living in an area

where you don’t get enough sun – to get the levels of vitamin

D you need is the right way to go. I think telling people to not

use sunscreen because you don’t get enough vitamin D is

both scientifically incorrect as well as has a negative effect on

their health because of the damaging effects of the sun right

on your skin.

Ben: Interesting. So another question that I have, again just kind

of a random question about sunscreen, but I’ve found this to

be a problem when I’m exercising and I’ve talked to other

people who do as well, but the problem with the sunscreen

actually stinging your eyes when it runs down when the

sweat comes down off your face – that sunscreen off your

forehead tends to kind of sting in the eyes. Is there

something that can be done about that in sunscreen?

Dr. Nic Martens: Yeah, it could. We haven’t done it. So there’s essentially

topical analgesics which you could use to reduce the stinging

effect of the sunscreen in your eyes. And by the way, I’ve

tested personally a lot of sunscreens and they all sting when

they get in your eyes. That’s something you could do, but I

think that’s the wrong approach because from my

perspective if you put a sunscreen on your forehead and

anywhere else for that matter, it shouldn’t be running off in

the first place. And if it doesn’t run off, it doesn’t sting your

eyes because it doesn’t get in your eyes. And so to really solve

the issue, you want to create a sunscreen and use a sunscreen

which you can rely on not running off and therefore not

running into your eyes. Rather than trying to prevent the

stinging when it runs into your eyes.

Ben: I see, that makes sense. So you actually make sure that the

sunscreen is staying adhesed to the skin. Is that that polymer

matrix that you were talking about or that Gore-Tex type of

matrix?

Dr. Nic Martens: That is exactly correct, and by the way, when I go to triathlon

races or marathon races and I talk to athletes about this

problem of running into your eyes, which is prevalent – if

you talk to 100 athletes and ask them, has the product ever

run into their eyes, 99% of them say “Yes, absolutely. I hate

it.” And then they have all these concoctions which they use

to prevent that from happening. If you use a helmet on a bike,

you probably don’t put it on your forehead. If you use a visor,

you probably don’t use it on your forehead. But the point is if

it runs off your forehead, it runs off everywhere else. And

then you’re unprotected on your shoulders, on your legs, on

your arms. And so this notion of running into your eyes is

only one example of the product running off and leaving you

unprotected and you just happen to notice it very quickly

because it stings like crazy in your eyes.

Ben: So there’s a couple other things I wanted to ask you and the

first is about tanning beds. I just couldn’t get you on this

interview without finding out the opinion of a person who

knows quite about the skin on tanning beds. What is your

consensus on tanning beds?

Dr. Nic Martens: Bad idea. I would not recommend anybody to use tanning

beds because basically the rays you’re getting exposed to in a

tanning bed are very similar to the rays which are causing a

negative effect on your skin. And it’s not a good idea to use

tanning beds.

Ben: Okay, so just basically a blanket statement that you shouldn’t

do it.

Dr. Nic Martens: No, I would not recommend to do it.

Ben: Okay, gotcha. And then another question. You talked about…

a couple of times you mentioned your Outside Laboratories,

but then you use the term SCAPE to describe sunscreen.

What is SCAPE?

Dr. Nic Martens: Okay, so Outside Labs is a company which is focused on

developing skin protection from athletes. We are in the

process of launching a brand called SCAPE. SCAPE stands

actually fro Skin Cancer Awareness Protection and

Education. We partnered with Craig Alexander who is the

current Ironman World Champion. He defended his title last

year in Kona, to develop a line of sun care products which is

launched under SCAPE. And the manufacturer is Outside

Labs so the company behind it is called Outside labs.

Ben: Okay and that’s basically just a sunscreen?

Dr. Nic Martens: Yeah, at this point we’re launching a line of skin care

products. It’s a lotion, a facial product which is a little stick

which is very easy to apply during races. A lip balm product.

We will be launching a line of muscle care products in the fall

which are all to do with delivering muscle nutrition and

recovery through the skin, in addition to what you do

through nutrition. Then in 2011, we will be expanding this

line into wound care products, bandage type products.

Ben: So Craig Alexander, the Ironman World Champion – I

understand that he actually had an issue with melanoma. I’m

assuming that was before he used your product?

Dr. Nic Martens: Yeah that was – I met Craig about a year and a half ago at a

race actually, and I talked to him about what I do and he said,

“Well I’m very interested because I actually had a melanoma

removed from my back” and he showed me the scar of it.

Obviously he trained a lot in the sun and races a lot in the

sun and he’s used the product ever since and I saw him

personally after the race in Kona in October and he didn’t

have a tan line on his back.

Ben: Wow, that’s amazing. Well if he’s using it, I’m definitely

interested. What I’ll do is I’ll put a link in the Shownotes for

those of you listening to give you a little bit more information

about this SCAPE sunscreen. It sounds to me like – for me

especially, the two things that leapt out are A, I can keep it

on all day during an Ironman and not have to worry about

re-applying over and over again, and then B, the issue about

it actually staying on my skin without it feeling like it’s

making me warm but also without running into my eyes. I

think both those things sound pretty cool. It sounds like you

guys have really kind of taken into account some of the

practical issues that us endurance athletes run into. So, well

thank you for your time Dr. Martens. And I’ll make sure and

put that information on the Shownotes to this podcast for the

listeners.

Dr. Nic Martens: Alright, it was a pleasure talking to you.

Ben: Alright folks, that is going to wrap it up for podcast number

92 from www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. Remember to text

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Let’s get this thing to number one in the health and fitness

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comments and be sure to check out the Web site, there are

always new posts going up. The last one was on fitness and

nutrition applications for your cell phone. So check that out.

And until next time, this is Ben Greenfield signing out from

www.bengreenfieldfitness.com.

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