I connect with Australian endurance and life coach Andre Obradovic for his fourth appearance on the show. 

We discuss some important strategies to pursue your fitness goals in a healthy manner – even extreme endurance goals which can often compromise health. We talk about the recent contention by some about whether cardio is even necessary, as it is known that one can obtain an excellent cardiovascular training effect through intense strength training and sprinting. Of course, if you have specific endurance goals, you will need to simulate the experience in training. Beyond that, it seems everyone can benefit from integrating truly explosive movement into their training regimen. 

We also ask the listeners the important question: Are you addicted to exercise? I recount 11 questions you can ask yourself to identify addiction, as covered in my show with food addiction expert Dr. Joan Ifland. We talk about how mainstream fitness programming is by and large too stressful for the average participant, and this extends from endurance coaching and group training to HIIT sessions in the gym to home-based workouts. Andre harps repeatedly on the dangers of chronic overproduction of cortisol from ill-advised workouts and stressful lifestyle circumstances, and explains how this will inhibit fat burning and actually promote fat storage. 

We check back in on the breakthrough concept of nasal diaphragmatic breathing, which we covered extensively in the last show with Andre. I’m amazed to report that my continued devotion to the concept, despite frustrating lack of progress, is finally paying off! My BOLT score is now routinely at :40 (excellent), having progressed from a routinely :20 score (barely passing grade). It’s definitely paying off during my sprint workouts, as I’m not gasping for air after 200 meter sprints as I was doing previously. 

If you have questions for a future show, especially about endurance training, send them to podcast@bradventures.com and we’ll get Andre back on in the future!

TIMESTAMPS:

Obradovic talks about his gentle coaching approach as well as asking the question: Are you addicted to exercise? [01:20]

The country of Australia has been in total lockdown for two years. [05:56]
The whole rationale for performing sustained steady state cardiovascular exercise is being second guessed. [08:47]

Rather than thinking and saying, “I have to exercise,” think, “How am I going to move today?” [12:19]

The more narrow your fitness goals, the more of a sacrifice you make for your health. [14:25]

Are you addicted? Exercise?  Food?  Social media?  [21:53]

Brad lists 11 questions as a test of addiction. Take the quiz. [23:37]

The more exercise you do, the more money the fitness industry makes. [30:19]

The Ironman began with a group of drunk Navy guys in Hawaii. We’ve all bought into it. [32:01]

Any muscular activity, even for a brief time, still gets an A+ in cardio. [35:29]

The chronic overproduction of cortisol is a red flag. [38:20]

The default human metabolic state is to be a fat burner. [42:10]

Breathe through your nose while doing a variety of different drills. [45:40]

The bottom line is to breathe through your nose only as minimally as possible at all times. [56:21]

People can get very confused about the conflicting information that is available whether it be someone who is preparing for a competition or someone just wanting to be fit. Where do you start? [58:19]

Don’t get ahead of yourself. Rest is important. Are you getting the right advice from the right expert? [01:05:48]

LINKS:

• Andre Obradovic’s website
• Dr. Joan Ifland: Food Addiction 
• Dr. Doug McGuff: Cardio Doesn’t Exist
• Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want by Dr. John Jaquish
• How to find your BOLT score

LISTEN: 

Powered by RedCircle

Download the episode audio by clicking the arrow in the bottom right corner of the player above.

Check out each of these companies because they are absolutely awesome or they wouldn’t occupy this revered space. Seriously, Brad won’t sell out to anyone if he doesn’t love the product. Ask anyone.

• Brad’s Macadamia Masterpiece: Mind-blowing, life-changing nut butter blend
• Male Optimization Formula with Organs (MOFO): Optimize testosterone naturally with 100% grassfed animal organ supplement
• Chili Sleep Systems: Temperature controlled mattress systems for optimizing evening sleep
• NuOptimal: 3 nootropic supplements designed to improve your focus, memory, and drive
• Inside Tracker: Ultra-personalized blood, genetic, and fitness data all-in-one online portal
• Dry Farm Wines: Clean, keto-friendly, chemical free wines like no other
• Primal Blueprint 21-Day Primal Reset: Online multimedia Mastery Course to get healthy and drop fat the right way

Donations!

This free podcast offering is a team effort from Brad, Daniel, Siena, Gail, TJ, Vuk, RedCircle, our awesome guests, and our incredibly cool advertising partners. We are now poised and proud to double dip by both soliciting a donation and having you listen to ads! If you wanna cough up a few bucks to salute the show, we really appreciate it and will use the funds wisely for continued excellence. Go big (whatever that means to you…) and we’ll send you a free jar of Brad’s Macadamia Masterpiece as a thank you! Email to alert us! Choose to donate now, later, or never. Either way, we thank you for choosing from the first two options…

B.Rad Podcast

Brad (00:01:20):
Hi listeners, I welcome you to another enlightening conversation with Australian endurance and life coach Andre. Obradovic.. This is his fourth appearance on the show. And again, we get into some important topics, especially relating to the overarching thing of how to pursue your fitness goals in a healthy manner, even extreme endurance goals, which can often compromise your health. Uh, I wanted his opinion on this emerging concept about whether cardio is even a necessary component of a well-rounded exercise program, or if you can even segment the concept of cardio independent from, uh, all other types of workouts. In other words, you get a cardiovascular training effect when you’re lifting weights, sprinting. And so do you need to get on that StairMaster and go steady state at comfortable heart rate to put the pieces together for your fitness program? And he’s a hardcore endurance guy.

Brad (00:02:18):
Uh, he thinks if you do it the right way, uh, it can be a very valuable skill. It can help with your fat burning at rest and in life. So I love that take on, uh, the idea of where cardio could fit in a well-rounded endurance training program. Also, we get into some, uh, other interesting topics. One of them is asking the important question of whether you’re addicted to exercise and I offer up or relate again, the 11 questions that my food addiction guest, Dr. Joan Ifland offered up to me during that show. Go listen to that one. It’s very good about food addiction. So now we’re going to overlay that into exercise addiction and how we can maybe, um, adopt the healthiest, most balanced mindset, especially when we’re driven, competitive, wanting to accomplish a lot when we’re out there on the roads or in the gym.

Brad (00:03:11):
Um, we talk about how mainstream fitness programming is generally by and large, too stressful for the average participant and why we see so much attrition in the ranks of the group training or the average gym goer, who is well-meaning, goes in there, wants to get in shape. Uh, but the programming itself, uh, is featuring workouts that are, uh, slightly too long, slightly too difficult, done slightly too frequently with not enough rest in between. You’re going to hear the word cortisol from Andre several times, where he’s talking about the challenges of balancing an exercise program with hectic high stress modern life, which it also lends itself toward the chronic overproduction of cortisol and all the adverse health consequences that ensue, especially the way that it inhibits fat burning and actually promotes fat storage. We get into, again, the topic of nasal diaphragmatic breathing that we covered at length in our previous show.

Brad (00:04:12):
And I check in with the good news that my BOLT score, my ability to tolerate carbon dioxide in the bloodstream has improved quite a bit, uh, over the months. And it’s been a very slow, steady patient progress, uh, started out as pretty darn frustrating. And now I can get my BOLT score into that excellent category of 40 seconds or beyond starting out with 20 seconds, which is like a barely passing grade. And I encourage all of you to listen to my highlight show when I talked about, uh, the work of Patrick McKeown and James Nester and their best-selling books that are out right now, The Oxygen Advantage and Breathe and how I’ve really adopted this into my daily life, as well as my workouts. So nasal diaphragmatic breathing, getting popular, lots of science and research behind it. And Andre is a huge fan of that.

Brad (00:05:02):
And it fits nicely in with his, a kinder, gentler approach to endurance training. I hope you enjoy the show. Look forward to hearing your feedback, email podcast@bradventures.com as always. And here we go. Andre Obradovic, all the way from Australia, a repeat guest, very popular guest on the show. I love the emails that I get from listeners, uh, kind of, uh, following up on some of the topics that we’ve hit. And in fact, we gathered some questions. And so part of this show, we’ll be addressing some Q and A from real life people out there. Uh, but we always have fun things to talk about. And one of the things I want to do is check back on some of the topics of discussion we had last time. And in general, say, hi, how’s everything going down under and how’s your summer going? Oh yeah. middle of December here in middle of November.

Andre (00:05:56):
Well, some is good Actually. Um, sun’s out, it’s getting warm. It’s nice. I’m in shorts today. You look like you’re quite cold. Um, we have had a lot of rain recently. Um, but yeah, summer is looking good and looking forward to getting out in the sun to get some more vitamin D actually it’s, uh, and you know, we’re opened up now. So we’re allowed to actually do things after two years of horrible COVID restrictions. You know, the city I live in has been, uh, has won the world record. It’s actually run by communist dictators. It’s since won the world record for the number of days we’ve been locked down. And when I say locked down, I mean, not even being able to go five kilometers away from our homes. So people in America would have wouldn’t understand some of that. I don’t think maybe how ridiculous it’s been, but we’ve won the world record.

Andre (00:06:47):
So that’s something to be proud of, but we’re allowed to actually go and do. Now we’re actually even allowed to get on a plane and fly to another part of Australia, not all of Australia, because some parts didn’t spend money on their hospitals. And the premiers there are using that as a, they’re not using that as an excuse, but they know if COVID gets into their state, there’ll be decimated at the next election because lots of people die. So that, you know, Western Australia, as an example, has been locked up for nearly two years. You can’t go there except football teams can, and celebrities can cause I bring money in, but normal people can’t go there. People they’re like, well, we haven’t had people dying, so why should we get the vaccine? Whereas every other state is like 90% vaccinated where I am, so we can actually leave Melbourne and fly to London, but we’re not allowed to go to Perth, which is in our own country for another two months. It’s all political. They’re just trying to do what? Save people from dying, even though most people that die generally are, you know, sick. Um, so anyway, yeah, it’s interesting. Let’s try and help some sick people today.

Brad (00:07:57):
Hey, that’s the, um, I think the, the longest discussion we’ve had on this podcast about COVID since I made the resolve to stay away from politics, global pandemics, things that I wasn’t an expert about, and I appreciate your comments because you didn’t, uh, throw down with, um, a crazy personal opinion. Uh, you not being an expert either. And, um, I feel refreshed that, um, you know, there’s, there’s ways to, to back off from the craziness and just observe what’s going on. Everyone’s battling with it and must be great to, uh, to be free and get out there and hit the road, do some traveling. So thank you for the update from down under. Yes, we can appreciate our whatever level of freedom we have. We can take a positive spin on that, especially with that story.

Andre (00:08:47):
Absolutely. I don’t even watch the news anymore. So, uh, you know, I’m so glad I deleted Facebook last year cause I, what that would be full of at the moment. So, uh, so anyway, yeah, so we’ve got some questions from different people today, haven’t we?

Brad (00:09:03):
For sure. Uh, one of them is I think, uh, just picking up our conversation from offline and knowing that your, your business, your coaching is, uh, quite integrated. You’re helping people with all aspects of life, but you do have that specialty in, uh, the endurance sports and particularly doing the endurance sports in a healthy way, honoring the aerobic training philosophy that has been promoted by Primal Endurance, by Maffetone, uh, and, and your own, uh, contribution and, and the great, uh, talks and, uh, publications you’ve put out. Uh, and now there’s an interesting message coming out, uh, from different folks that the, the whole, um, rationale for performing sustained steady state cardiovascular exercise is being second guessed. Um, John Jacquish wrote a book called Weight Training as a Waste of Time and so is Cardio and goes into great detail with a lot of scientific research, supporting his contention, that, um, you get a cardiovascular training effect, even when you’re doing strength training, even when you’re doing high intensity training.

Brad (00:10:12):
And it’s such a profound stimulus that it arguably, um, it’s more of a, uh, cardiovascular stimulation than the steady state stuff at a comfortable pace. Um, Doug McGuff says the same thing in different ways in his book, Body by Science. But what I’m getting at here is that, um, there’s so many wonderful, enjoyable aspects of endurance training and going out there and enjoying nature and taking a trail run and, uh, surpassing your previous best. We’ve talked plenty about, uh, the dangers of overdoing it with, with too much endurance training or too much of any kind of training can get you into big trouble. Uh, but you know, I wonder what your take is on this idea that, um, the, the intended benefits of cardiovascular exercise might be, we might broaden our perspective a bit to think that, you know, going into the gym and Stan standing on the stair machine for 45 minutes while you’re watching TV, um, you might, uh, achieve those objectives and more from doing something different.

Andre (00:11:14):
Yeah, I think, um, I think that people um the risk with, um, doing excessive, uh, cardiovascular, you know, cardio exercise for people that are the A type personalities. You know, we’ve certain lots of incidents where perfectly so called fit people, but not healthy people have died. Um, so I think people that are, uh, devoted, as you say, devoted, enthusiastic, probably go too far. And as we’ve talked many times, you know, they want to run, they want to ride, uh, they want to push themselves on the treadmill day in, day out, and they don’t incorporate other lifestyle practices, um, or other routines that can benefit their health. And I think that’s where the biggest risk is that people that, you know, people that were not made to do the same thing every day. So people that don’t get into the gym and do strength, appropriate strength training can be at a disadvantage.

Andre (00:12:19):
Um, I think the social aspects of getting out with people and doing different types of activities is very important. Like you say, getting out in nature and just being able to be a bit more flexible with what we’re doing for our exercise, or as I say movement. So even changing our language away from saying, ah, I have to do my exercise today. I like to use the word movement. How are we going to move today? Cause moving could be shifting, you know, like as an example of just cut down four trees on our property. And over five days, I, I hardly did any running or swimming. I did gym, but I spent those four days shifting about three ton of wood, splitting it and shifting it in a wheelbarrow. So lifting, working. So my cardiovascular system wasn’t being used much, but, you know, lifting and pushing.

Andre (00:13:17):
Um, so I do think you’re right. We do need to really think about people’s mindset about what is it about pushing themselves cardiovascular wise in exercise? Is it this belief that the more calories I expend helped me lose more weight? Or is it the more cardio? The more I think I’m going to improve my, the harder I make my heart work, the easier it’s going to be. Well, that’s flawed in my opinion, you know, you and I both know, and many of your listeners know that that’s totally wrong. We should be working at a more comfortable place. So, um, I think looking at each individual and looking at their health, and then those people being able to determine what is healthy exercise, what is healthy movement patterns is something that’s important to think about. But, um, I think there’s a balance between movement cardiovascular specific exercise, high intensity work, gym work, and other things out in nature that we can do that we need to consider.

Brad (00:14:25):
Right. And I think, like you say, if you, if you train to an extreme, we all know that you’re going to be facing health problems, uh, potentially serious ones, as we’ve seen with the, the big shots that have gone down with, uh, serious heart problems and other misfortunes. Uh, but even if your goals are of the extreme nature, I feel like you are, um, almost by definition, compromising your pursuit of all around fitness and your pursuit of healthy living and longevity because you have, uh, decided to, uh, contest five different, uh, long distance triathlons and a couple ultra marathons, uh, in the same year, year after year after year. And, you know, we have the desire to be competitive to, to beat our past results. And the more narrow your fitness goals, the more of the sacrifice you make to the extent that, um, we see a lot of people walking around with tremendous fitness capabilities in a very narrow area, uh, but kind of, uh, low scores across the board in other areas of, uh, fitness, health and longevity. Um, I’m including myself because when I was racing, uh, I was, you know, going really fast at Olympic distance, swim, bike, and run. Um, but I couldn’t lift a sandbag to, uh, to, you know, save the driveway from the rainstorm without waking up the next day and being stiff and sore. And so my, you know, everything was devoted to a very narrow cause, and that was, um, a tough way to, to go through life if I’m, you know, broadening my goals to something besides the, uh, the clock and the finishing time.

Andre (00:16:06):
Yeah, I agree. I mean, that’s, that’s one reason why this week, I thought I’m going to cut back on some of that exercise and shift all that wood. Cause it’s actually labor. It’s always people, one of my clients call it the hard work, you know, work outside in the sun, uh, listening to some of your podcasts, of course, while I was doing that, but just getting outside and working and you know, one of the other things, that’s a little bit of a tangent having other interests apart from just endurance sports. So if you bear with me, I used to love photography. I’ve got six cameras. In fact, uh, he’s one of them, he it’s called NIkon S5, it’s the last professional film camera that Nikon ever made and it uses film and it’s a manual. I use it in a manual way with film. So I haven’t used this beautiful camera for probably 10 years and I pulled it out after I was doing all this yard work because I was observing plants, observing flowers, observing nature. And I bought a roll of film and I shot a roll of film for the week to get back in balance instead of just focusing on this running, swimming, riding, gyming. And it was, I think that gave me some energy back and some calmness back as well. So balancing some of those things we like to do and being a bit more spread across other things instead of this narrow focus, not just a triathlon and endurance, but life in general.

Brad (00:17:41):
Yeah. Good point. I think, um, the great athletes embody this. Mark Allen used to take off in the middle of summer when everyone was dipping into that, over-training because the season had been going on for a few months and then it was time to build up for, uh, the, the Ironman and escalate the training volume. And he would go camping with the Huichol Indians and spend seven days in a tent out in nature when everyone else was starting to obsess about the championship race is coming up and he was famous for coming back to town, whether it was Boulder, wherever he was mixing with the other athletes. And he was refreshed after seven days off, um, it didn’t seem to catch on like it should have. Uh, but there’s a lot of examples about that. I love the documentary and written material about Usain Bolt, where he was widely, uh, self admitted, as well as, as coaches and other athletes who talk about how you sane was kind of lazy and training you saying like to party and go to the discos at night.

Brad (00:18:39):
Uh, you had to drag his butt over to the track to get the work done. And, um, if you think about, this is one of the greatest athletes in the history of, uh, of humanity, maybe the greatest, because his competitive event is the most accessible sport on the planet. Uh, even more so than kicking a soccer ball around, which is pretty accessible, but anyone can run a hundred meters and probably every human who’s ever been born as at one point contested a foot race and we’ve identified some fast people and they go, uh, escalating all the way up to Olympic level, no matter what country they’re from. And here’s this guy who dominated to the extent that no one ever has. Uh, so if he was lazy and haphazard with his training and would take the winters to, to spend more time in the disco and he’s breaking world records, maybe he’s setting the example that a lot of, uh, tightly wound people can take a look at and maybe bust out their ten-year-old cameras in the name of, you know, overall peak performance, happiness, long-term enjoyment, uh, and you know, kind of sustainability.

Andre (00:19:44):
Yeah. Cause we, we can get in a rut and just to retrain of training and training and training and just not actually reflecting and doing something different. So maybe all those disco moves he was doing might have helped with his glutes activation maybe.

Brad (00:20:01):
Yeah, I think also, um, there’s a, you know, there’s a, um, a, trade-off where we get this instant gratification and the satisfaction of the ego demands by writing another entry into our training journal. And we get, uh, in many cases, a burst of, uh, feel good hormones into the bloodstream after yet another medium to difficult, uh, caliber workout. And so, uh, we exist in a world now where we have a lot of, uh, dopamine triggers and a lot of, uh, addictions across society addictions to social media, to, um, text messaging, to the stimulation of the mobile device, to this streaming of, uh, entertainment content, anytime we want. And we can, we can sit there and watch five shows in a row if we want to. Unlike, you know, 20, 30 years ago when we had to sit around Thursday nights at 9:00 PM, if we wanted to watch our favorite show and that was it for the week.

Brad (00:21:02):
And so we’re, we’re surrounded by, um, potential for, uh, consumption, consumerism, uh, you know, instant gratification from, uh, delicious treats in the dietary realm. Um, we can go into video games, pornography, get all our needs and whims and satisfying met at any time. And it’s easy to lump our exercise habits into that, uh, very distressing pile because we can do the same thing where, where we become addicts by and large, healthier than addicted to, uh, harmful substances. But there’s still that addictive element that a lot of people might want to reflect on and think, gee, you know, should I pick up my camera this afternoon, rather than head back to the gym with sore muscles and a scratchy throat?

Andre (00:21:53):
Yeah. I’d encourage your listeners that thinks they might be addicted. So, you know, once again another tangent, but I haven’t had caffeine for two years because one day I had to have a hormone test and you can’t have caffeine. And at the end of the day I was shaking and then my wife is like, you, I can’t. And ah, she goes, what are you done? I said, well, I haven’t done, I haven’t had tea. And she goes, how many cups do you know that? I said, I, and she goes, well, that’s why you’re shaking. So I gave up tea. But in terms of exercise, I would say anyone that thinks that they can’t go for a day without exercise and they start to get anxious, try and go awake and just do other things. So still move, do yard work, do yoga, but, and then see what happens.

Andre (00:22:44):
And then maybe you could reflect on. I’m really like, like I don’t drink alcohol. Really. Maybe I’ve had three BS in eight years. Right. But it’s, I’m not addicted to alcohol, but I was addicted to exercise. So it’s something people can think about is what else can I do to use some of this time? Like, because that gives us a coping message mechanisms. So if we get injured, like I’m going to have a knee meniscus operation on Tuesday next week, I won’t be able to run for about six weeks. Probably won’t be able to ride for four weeks. Okay. So I’ll do other things. You know, so maybe what’s a coping mechanism. If you get injured and you can’t try it, if you go crazy, just moderate, moderate. I don’t say everything in moderation cause that’s bullshit, but you know, moderate some of the exercise for a bit, maybe over Christmas, chill out a bit and do other things.

Brad (00:23:37):
I had a guest on my show, uh, Dr. Joan Ifland. She’s an expert in food addiction and she gave me, uh, these 11 questions. You can ask yourself to determine if you might be addicted and listen to a lay them out that are really quick and we can all reflect on them. Uh, one of them is unintended use. I don’t know how exactly that fits with exercise, but maybe, um, you, you had a 30 minute break in your day and you just were compelled to go out there and hit the road. Uh, number two is to have difficulty cutting back when you should, number three is more time spent than you. Uh, originally planned. Number four is, uh, there’s cravings that are occurring, uh, you know, that, that wanting to get out there. And that frustration of not being able to. Number five is, uh, compromising, uh, the fulfillment of other roles and responsibilities in life.

Brad (00:24:29):
Number six, is it compromises your relationships? We know that to be a widespread in the endurance sports because of the time required to train and how that fits into the other life responsibilities. Unlike someone who, um, might be addicted to, uh, high jumping, at least my practice is over in 30 minutes. I can’t be out there any longer than that. But, um, relationship problems. Number seven is, uh, losing out on, uh, potentially other fulfilling activities. You talked about your photography habit. Uh, number eight is the use becomes hazardous and I’m going to put training in there. Again, these are, uh, directly, uh, questioning for food addiction, but we can apply those over to exercise. Um, number nine is in spite of knowing better, you still go out there and, oh my gosh, people, um, raise your hand if you’ve ever had a stress fracture. Uh, I had mine in, in college and I remember the ridiculousness and how pathetic it was to end up, uh, on the table getting a bone scan and getting confirmed that indeed I had a stress fracture because there was so many warning signs over and over and over.

Brad (00:25:33):
My shin was throbbing after workouts. And I remember my very last workout with the track team at UC Santa Barbara. I lived a quarter mile away from the track in the dorms and I, uh, you know, just pop over there and meet the team and do our warm ups and start practice. And on that day, my leg hurt so much that I had to walk and basically limp a quarter mile over to the track to report for practice. And I told the coach that my shin was burning and he said, okay, well, uh, just do some strides barefoot on the grass and pop in and out to the activities that we’re doing. Uh, that was his answer rather than how incredibly f….cked up is this, that a kid is limping over to the running track to participate in, you know, high level division, one collegiate sport where everything’s so serious and competitive, and I can shake my head now, but at the time, you know, that that was a tough one and training in spite of knowing better. I think that that is what a stress fracture represents. Um, then finally, just to finish this off really quick, uh, number 10 is doing more and more, uh, than you did previously to kind of get the same, uh, the same satisfaction. And then number 11 is doing it for reasons other than, uh, it’s written here, hunger, but other than let’s say fitness goals, you’re doing it as sort of that, um, that outlet for, uh, uh, distress tendencies,

Andre (00:26:58):
Right. Or stress. It’s the only way yourBrad lists 11 questions relationships stress.

Brad (00:27:03):
Okay.

Andre (00:27:04):
I like five and six are really relevant. I reckon very, very, very relevant.

Brad (00:27:09):
Oh. And she also said, you reminded me. She goes, okay, here’s my list of 11 things. Um, if you have more than six, uh, you’re qualified as an addict. And she goes, guess what? Everyone has three or four. Uh, she was talking about, um, eating, uh, but you know, we all, anyone who’s interested in fitness three or four, I’m just going to fall in there without you can’t help it. And I’m not going to say it’s terrible, but, um, you’re very close to addiction. Uh, just getting out of the gate and saying that you have some race numbers on your wall.

Andre (00:27:40):
Yeah. It was a really, uh, I remember that, um, interview. It was really interesting. It was, uh, it was good. I found it. Uh, I actually didn’t think about how it related to exercise, but yeah, now that you’ve gone through it, I think a lot of those. So you could actually incorporate that into your Primal Endurance, personal fitness training course, if you haven’t finished it already that, you know, a section on one of the warning signals that you’re addicted or your clients who are addicted to exercise, you could come up with your own list.

Brad (00:28:14):
Yeah. And it is nice to reflect that it’s certainly a heck of a lot better than, you know, the, the truly destructive addictions that we have. And when I mentioned some of those other ones, uh, referencing the great book by Dr. Robert Lustig, The Hacking of the American Mind, he claims that these, you know, very powerful corporate profit seeking interests are learning us into addiction in all these different forms, especially the, uh, the processed foods that are so that are literally addictive to the, uh, the appetite receptors and the dopamine pleasure centers in the brain. And then all the other stuff that they throw at us, particularly social media, uh, internet use, you know, the platforms that are designed to be addictive because that’s how Facebook, Instagram, uh, and the rest of them make their money. And so we just, um, we can kind of get negative and doomsday about all this stuff, or we can realize that we have to use tremendous discipline to, you know, navigate that path to where we have a devotion and satisfaction from doing, you know, great challenges and being super interested in things, but stop short of the, you know, the negative aspects of, uh, being addicted.

Andre (00:29:27):
Ah, well, you know, someone should write a book on how the fitness industry has addicted us to becoming sick. Like seriously, you know, like nearly every guy. In fact, I started working with the client this week, 40 year old guy, he sent me a text saying I’m in the gym, personal trainers killing me. I couldn’t do the session I had to throw up. And then, you know, we start next week. But I said to him, once we start, you’re going to cut that back. And you’re just going to go for walks. Cause he’s like 30 kilos overweight. Yeah. He, like many people, and not probably not many of your listeners, because they’re, they’ve reincarnated in understanding what health and fitness is about is that most people still are baffled and, uh, convinced and addicted by the fitness industry because it makes sense, you know, your exercise.

Andre (00:30:19):
So the more exercise we do, the more money the fitness industry makes, the more clothes we wear, the more shoes we wear out, the more gym memberships, we have more protein shakes. We have the more subscriptions we have to staff. It’s, it’s almost a sign. The food industry, we got, we got, um, convinced and lied to by the food industry. We got addicted to food, which made us sick. And I believe the fitness injury industry is exactly the same calories in calories out, workout more, get healthier, but we know it doesn’t work. So that’s an interesting thing to talk about,

Brad (00:30:55):
Oh my gosh, that’s a great point. And it is right there in the same, uh, the same lineup as the peddling of disgusting, toxic junk food. And it really bugs me because there’s so many, well-meaning people that have a desire to balance their life and be more active and be more fit. But the majority of the mainstream fitness programming is too stressful for the average user. And same with the, uh, the, the business of, uh, the racists and the glorification of the Ironman distance as the ultimate accomplishment in triathlon. Hope I’m not hurting your feelings, man, but I know you’re a 70.3 specialist. And I’m going to say that if the iron man were 70.3, instead of 140.6, if Ironman represented those amazingly long and challenging and grueling distances of the half Ironman, we would all be better off. And it’s an extraordinary athletic accomplishment to go hard for four or five hours, which is an extreme endurance contest.

Brad (00:32:01):
Forget about the 12 and the 13 and the 14, because for the most part, most of the participants in Ironman are just trying to survive. And you can go out on the marathon course and walk briskly and talk to your favorite athlete for a half a mile because that’s the speed that they’re going at. So it may not even be as athletic of an event as a 70.3 or an Olympic distance where you’re actually racing and you’re huffing and puffing. And you’re trying to pass the athlete in front of you to, to gain one spot in the rankings. Uh, but for some reason, uh, you know, the marketing forces, uh, have, you know, glorified this ridiculous event that started with a bunch of drunk Navy guys in Hawaii, sitting around and bragging and boasting and seeing, you know, who could be the toughest athlete in Hawaii.

Brad (00:32:45):
So they paired the three, uh, main, uh, signature events in each sport that already existed on the Hawaiian islands. And that was the birth of the Ironman, same with the marathon, 26.2 miles, the distance from Marathon to Athens Greece. And for what reason is this the, the template event across the world for aspiring long distance runners, when, you know, going for 13 miles for the average, uh, busy soccer mom or a, you know, a hardworking, corporate person, uh, that represents an amazing accomplishment. And we should, we should stop there unless we’re, you know, at the Olympic level and able to train all day and do these amazing things. But for some reason, we’ve all bought into it. Uh, you go to the, you know, neighborhood health club and they have hour long classes, boot camp, stepping, throwing the bar around is it’s peddling the bicycle. And if you walked in there and took the heart rates of all the participants, they’d be well over aerobic limit. And you’d be, you know, seeing people with muscle breakdown and inflammation, markers, and all these things going on, where if they cut everything in half, we’d all be better off in many ways.

Andre (00:34:00):
Oh, absolutely. Like when I used to work in gyms, people would think I was an absolute clown because I would say, you know, I’d run my cycle classes and I’d say, we’re just going to do a comfortable session today. And, you know,

Brad (00:34:15):
$9 for this class. What do you mean comfortable session? I can do that myself.

Andre (00:34:19):
I know. And so I’d be saying you got to breathe through it. And I wouldn’t even do the class. Like, I’d say, I’m not, I don’t need to do this class to get fit. Unlike some of the other people that came and taught, they were overweight and they’re doing it for them. They’re overweight because they’re doing six classes a day and the cortisol. And so they’re following the same approaches most of the people coming to the class I saw, I don’t even actually know why someone would go to a fitness class to work with a trainer who was overweight. Like, I don’t understand what that’s about. So first thing is I wouldn’t actually get on the bike. Most days I’d be walking around, checking their technique, asking them to breathe through their nose. And that would be the next thing. What do you mean breath through the nose? We’re supposed to be puffing and painting. So you’d be on this whole education process. And some people would just walk away, but then other people would come cause they, after a while that say, oh, actually I feel better. I don’t feel so exhausted. I feel better during the day. So that 80% of people would think you’re an absolute clown, a freak, because you’re not killing them in the class. It’s all, all that, um, addiction, slant, indoctrination of the sickness industry

Brad (00:35:29):
Hoof, right. Then we’re just a piggyback over to there where all the people who get injured and broken down can go, uh, take part in that, uh, flawed, flawed pattern to, uh, I guess we should, uh, loop up and close some loose ends here and then, and get to the questions. But, uh, that starting point that I, uh, put some conjecture out there where, um, you can go and do, uh, a series of X-bar deadlifts and box jumps and rope climbs and get a profound cardiovascular training stimulus because the cardiovascular system responds to all muscular activity. Um, could that be an alternate path where the person climbing the stairs and watching TV might want to consider a more varied approach to fitness and still get an A plus in cardio?

Andre (00:36:19):
Oh, I think so. Um, because it will stimulate different parts of the body. It will help our bones, our muscles get different effects, effectual running, different load patterns are probably better for bone density. If we’re working on heavier weights, probably less chance of injury in some aspects, less cortisol, rushing through the body, more dexterity with our hands and our limbs doing different coordinated movements, I think. But I think people often get scared at the gym. You know, one of the questions I got from someone was they like, you know, that they’d like to work out in the gym, but they get scared of all the muscle heads, all the guys pushing the big weights especially females. So having a approach to use the gym and different parts of the gym based on your experience and your, um, experience with lifting weights and using a gym, uh, can be important to think about. But yeah, I think a variation is very important for multiple aspects.

Brad (00:37:22):
Yeah. And I suppose unless, we’re talking about the pursuit of elite level success in, in the various sports. I suppose if you had a starting point of broad-based fitness competency through a variety of workouts, and then you said, Hey, I’m going to go try for this one time 70.3 triathlon event. Then you can overlay a long distance swim here and there and get out on your bike for several hours here and there. But that person pedaling the bike, who has a baseline foundation of doing a nice sets of hex bar deadlifts and other things such as a core exercises and things that are going to come into play when you’re riding your bike for five hours, uh, arguably they could excel to a level, uh, as good or better than someone who’s, you know, pure, uh, pure on the mileage and, and going out there and having a very narrow approach to endurance training.

Andre (00:38:20):
Yeah, I think so. And incorporating yoga as well, so that when you’re on a bike, you’re more in a more aerodynamic, better position. Like you, you have a very aerodynamic position on the bike. I don’t, um, because I need to do more yoga. Um, you know, and those other modalities can help, uh, reduce injuries of course, and, and make our body more effective and efficient and reduce the cortisol. So, you know, if we’re constantly working out of MAF or pushing ourselves too hard, we’ll get all this extra cortisol coming into our body, which will reduce our fat burning. And one of the ultimate goals as talked about by Mark Allen and many others is fat burning endurance. So it’s like this double-sided sword, you know, you could do too much cardio stop, you getting ultimate body composition, uh, more insulin coming in stress in the body, detracts from your performance, whereas doing some other gym workouts could make that more effective,

Brad (00:39:23):
Uh, listeners. That’s a great point. I, I imagine most of us are aware of that concept, but just to quickly, break it down a little when you’re talking about that excess or that overproduction of cortisol, actually the chronic overproduction of cortisol is the red flag that we have cortisol is the preeminent, uh, fight or flight hormone. So when you engage in any form of activity, whether it’s an endurance workout, strength, training session, whatever, um, you’re gonna, uh, desirably, uh, promote the, the fight or flight response. You’re going to elevate heart rate respiration, um, everything, all facets of bodily functioning to be elevated, to perform physically. And then what you want to do is wrap things up and get back into a rested state as quickly as possible, rather than, uh, live this, go, go, go hectic high stress lifestyle, where cortisol is being dripped into the bloodstream for hours on end, because you’re so busy at work, or you’re doing this extreme endurance training. And when you chronically overproduce cortisol, tell us what happens to your fat burning capabilities there.

Andre (00:40:33):
Well, it switches off doesn’t it because our body doesn’t, you know, innately our body wants to burn fat and when we’re running or exercising and we’re breathing through our mouth, coming back to one of our favorite topics, the body doesn’t understand that the saber tooth tiger is not chasing it. So it automatically goes into this, uh, sympathetic nervous state where we’re stressed and our body thinks we’re in danger. So it wants to get, it wants to get the optimal fast machine going, which the body thinks needs glucose, you know, so it starts to shut down those fat burning processes. It starts to go into gluconeogenesis. If we haven’t gotten enough sugar or glucose available, it converted out of our liver, gets into our muscles ready to work, and that’s just more stress on the body. Even though we’re not actually in danger, we’re just doing a ride like we need it, but our body, our body hasn’t evolved enough to understand that just like when we’re breathing through our mouth, running our body doesn’t understand that there’s not a saber tooth tiger. We’re just going out for a run. So we don’t need to be stressed, but our body can’t understand. Or our reptilian brain doesn’t understand that the amygdala. gets alerted to this. And it sends signals around our body, throughout the pitutary gland and all our adrenal glands and everything it’s we’re in danger. So this is what the body does automatically, but we don’t understand that.

Brad (00:42:10):
So our default human metabolic state is to be fat burner. That’s how we survive for two and a half million years, by the way, it wasn’t from having three regular meals, uh, with a breakfast, a breakfast bar and a shake for lunch and a sensible dinner. It was through being able to first of all, store and then burn energy. And so that’s our default state, uh, at rest and at low-level activity. And then we interfere, uh, when fight or flight mechanisms come in and we switch over to burning preferentially glucose because it burns more easily and more quickly. Um, so just, just helping the listener out, if this is new information to you, that’s a big concept to take away that if you overexercise or live in a hectic high stress lifestyle pattern, you’re going to shut off those, those fat burning mechanisms in favor of, uh, living off of sugar.

Brad (00:43:08):
And that means that you’re going to be craving sugar in the diet, but as we can all relate at times when we’ve had a personal crisis lasting for a week or nine weeks, you know, uh, going back and forth to the hospital because there’s a vigil and a loved one is suffering, or you’re going through an incredible time of personal turmoil. You’re not even hungry. You wake up in the morning alert full of energy. Your fingers are shaking a little bit and you rush off into your busy day and that’s that gluconeogenesis occurring. That’s the body making its own, uh, sugar from, uh, lean muscle tissue. And so you can actually go through the entire day or week wired, uh, feeling energized because of this fight or flight mechanism kicking in, in a prolonged manner. And then guess what happens when you abuse that, which is so common today from over-training patterns, from working too hard in the corporate setting, all that stuff turns into big trouble because you become exhausted, burnt out and everything falls apart somewhere down the line.

Brad (00:44:10):
So we have to kind of get back to this default, uh, human metabolic state of fat burning. And I think we should transition. We did a lot of talk on breathing in the last show, but you’ve brought it up a couple of times. So I want to, I want to check in on that, but when you, uh, discipline yourself to take, uh, breaths that are, uh, through the nose only activating the diaphragm and getting a full exchange of oxygen, the most efficient breathing, you actually do change your metabolic state in favor of fat-burning and in favor of parasympathetic, that’s the rest and digest rather than the sympathetic, which you mentioned that term to in passing, uh, that’s, that’s associated with fight or flight function. So controlling your breathing as a way to control our physiology and our metabolism.

Andre (00:44:57):
Absolutely. Yep. So, and you explained that really well, but, um, how, how that all works and comes together and, and people just need to take that on board that, you know, excessive endurance activity at a high heart rate, isn’t going to help us. And that’s why the MAF method, um, and nasal breathing. When you combine those two with low carbohydrate or keto eating is just probably the number, the number one group of three things in the world that can change your life if you’re an endurance athlete, but it takes patience and it takes time and it takes trust, but go and listen to

Brad (00:45:33):
I’m sorry. No, not interested patience, time, and trust. Forget that. Come on, man. What else? What else you got for me?

Andre (00:45:40):
Well, I know listen to Brad. Look at Mark Sisson talk. Listen to, you know, I, I reckon there’s four or five pros now in the world. They’re all doing this, but they don’t tell people. Cause you know, they obviously don’t want like Pete Jacobs. This is how Pete Jacobs in Australia and who won Hawaii Ironman trains and fuels. He’s a coach as well. He follows a MAF method and low carb. Uh, you know, you just gotta people sometimes don’t want to take the medicine,

Brad (00:46:10):
Right. We want the quick fix, just open the damn mouth and start, start sucking air. Uh, so I’ve been devoted to this practice since I was exposed to the wonderful books that have both hit bestseller status recently, uh, James Nestor’s book Breathe, and, um, Patrick McKeown’s book The Oxygen Advantage. Uh, but I want to ask you, uh, cause I did have a, uh, an interesting exchange with, uh, my main man Dave Kobrine, who’s a longtime listener and was a guest on the podcast and he says, you know, he wants to go out there and enjoy his morning, jog down the beach and to be bothered with the objective, to shut your mouth and breathe through the nose and deal with perhaps the spray and the annoyance of, um, you know, recalibrating. Um, it’s, it’s a little bit of a hassle and I would totally agree with that where I’m, I’m out of the track trying to execute with my drills and do a good workout.

Brad (00:47:05):
And now I also have to think about shutting my damn mouth the whole time and at times straining to breathe. And I believe in the, in the science and the wonderful argument presented in the books about the Bohr effect, B O H R and the actual, you know, biochemistry, that’s a play here. Uh, but I haven’t really noticed this amazing performance breakthrough that now I can run circles around the track and not breathe as hard. So I’m wondering, uh, from your perspective and with your clients, um, how do we stay the course? Like what sort of positive reinforcement can we expect or, or try to pursue, uh, to know that this is the way to go? Hmm.

Andre (00:47:44):
Yeah. Good question. So first thing would be, uh, all of my clients do a MAF test once a month. So I’m now starting to ask them to integrate, uh, doing the, um, Bolt score test on a regular basis. And then we track that on a Google sheet. So they see the progress. That’s one thing. Doing the exhale test as well. So those two tests become part of their regular MAF testing. And then also asking them to think about the full gear process that you spoke about with, uh, McKinsey and McKinsey and McKinsey, Brian MacKenzie, the four, yeah, the four, four gears you use. So asking them to not just go out and run and not breathe through their mouth, but think about the warmup being, you know, Q1, activations, et cetera. What, what, you know, just, not just blindly running by breathing through the nose, but actually saying to themselves, well, I’m going to do my 10 minute warmup as I’m running on the beach before I do my intervals. Breathing through my nose and the rest of the run, I’ll do it as I wish.

Andre (00:48:54):
So sort of taking a progressive approach. So it’s not just do your whole run, breathing through your mouth, but doing parts of it. So for me, I try and do my drills and strides are holding my breath. But that, and then at the end I try at the end of it, I take one big breath and then I hold my breath, so I integrate different capabilities or different techniques. So that’s what I try and talk to my clients about is don’t do the same thing all the time. You know, maybe one, one run a week is a breath hold run, or breath hold or nasal breathing run. Another run might only be in the warmup and the cool down another on night beat just during the drills and variant and shake it up a bit.

Brad (00:49:40):
And do you believe that you are getting some performance advantages, performance benefits from your adherence to the practical?

Andre (00:49:50):
Yeah, absolutely. Like I even do it in the gym. So when I do my sets of pushups, I do, um, chin ups and then pushups, like squats. I do hex bar dead lifts and then chin ups. That’s sort of like the set. And then I do pushups and squats. I did my pushups holding my breath, so I’ll breathe out and I find I can get more pushups without breathing. It’s really weird.

Brad (00:50:17):
Yeah. I’m Scott Carney detailed this in his book titled What Doesn’t Kill Us. And he was talking about a lot about Wim Hof and the protocols that, that Wim Hof recommends where you do some, uh, they, they call it controlled hyperventilation. And then, uh, he was complete novice and a professional skeptic. That’s his area of expertise with his writing is, uh, exposing, uh, gurus and charlatans. And he, you know, he’s an investigative journalist. And so he went in there with a completely skeptical attitude and describes how and his first session, he doubled his pushup personal best with his breath held. And, um, biochemically, what was going on is he was sending more oxygen to his muscles. I think his baseline starting point of regular, you know, I did 20 pushups to failure and that’s pretty good. Uh, and then he did 40 with his breath being held.

Brad (00:51:12):
And this is only, you know, what, seven or 10 minutes later from, uh, going into breathing protocols. So, um, boy, it’s, it’s heartening to see that there’s, there’s real examples of performance breakthroughs, and I’ll share with you Andre. Cause when we did our, I don’t know if we did that, uh, on camera, we, we were, we were zooming each other and doing the Bolt score and you just totally knocked it out of the park. People, this guy is sitting here with his exhaled breath, just holding, sitting there. Like it’s nothing for over 40 seconds and I’m like struggling to get to 20 and maybe 25 if I have a good day. But I will say that over time with sort of a, a casual, not a, not an overly devoted approach where I was doing it too much, but just once in a while I would go in and do another Bolt test and another Bolt test, which is a great way of training for it.

Brad (00:52:05):
And now I’m up to 40 routinely and I can’t even believe it’s happened because I was so frustrated at first and it seemed like I would never get, never get anywhere cause there’s nothing like wanting to breathe and not being able to. Uh, and it just, you know, it happens, it happens. Uh, but I have progressed, uh, very, uh, inching forward over time. And I do feel like it’s, uh, revealed in some of my sprint workouts where, when it is time to go hard and go all out for 200 meters, um, I finish and I’m not breathing as hard as I usually am. So I’m better able to process oxygen, I would argue, because of the, uh, devotion to nasal breathing. And not that I’m doing it for the entire 200 meters, but like you say, with all my drills, I’m either holding my breath or breathing through my nose. Now when I finish a 20 second difficult drill, like the, the B skips or the hamstring kick outs, I have to take one, two or three breaths wide open sucking air through my mouth. But then I make the effort to close my mouth and pull large air through my nose and then slowly, slowly recalibrate back. Uh, and I think that’s what you’re talking about with the gears, you know, where they’re, they’re just asking you to downshift downshift and do it in a comfortable way. Yeah, absolutely. When I come to Lake Tahoe, see, you

Andre (00:53:25):
We’ll do some of those workouts together and we should do some videos, but that’s exactly the approach I take. And, you know, listeners should, apart from buying Brad’s books, you should drive that book by Scott Carney. I’ve got it and read it. The Oxygen Advantage. Cause it explains all of that. Um, do you, do you, when you say breath hold and do the pushups, was he talking about exhale and then working right. Not holding breath.

Brad (00:53:51):
Yeah. He’s holding his exhale just as you do with the Bolt test. Uh, but in the, in the story described by Carney and by many others, uh, for this push-up test, it’s after a deliberate sequence of a controlled hyperventilation. So I don’t think you can just exhale air, hold it and then go do a bunch of push-ups. You have to really prepare for this, uh, with the protocol described. And so it’s kind of, kind of a different story. It’s a, it’s a little, uh, it’s, it’s kind of a parlor trick, you know, to, to build up that, um, that high level of, uh, hypoxia. And then we used to do it as kids for fun.

Andre (00:54:30):
To say who wouldn’t like, how long you could do it before you’d faint or something is to do it as a kid, not in the water. Cause that’s how you die. Cause your mouth pulls up. Yeah. But I actually exhale when I do my pushups. I exhale. In fact, two of my good buddies, Andy and Matt are coming over when we do a workout in my gym, I exhale. And then I did my 20 pushups.

Brad (00:54:53):
Yeah. Incredible. Um, and it’s, uh, it’s kind of weird and I kind of sat on the sidelines for a long time thinking, look, you know, I, I have enough air, it’s not impeding my performance, whether it’s a a hundred meter sprint or whether it’s a 5k. And so I don’t see what all this fuss is about. Uh, but then when you educate yourself, get into the books or listen to my summary show, if, if nothing else, um, boy, it’s a real eye-opener. And then if you think it’s some, uh, crazy, uh, fitness guru promoting something new, um, you can go look up, uh, the Bohr effect and learn about biochemistry where the, the greater, uh, buildup of carbon dioxide, uh, the more oxygen is dumped from the red blood cell, the hemoglobin into the working muscles and tissues. So it’s nothing that’s in dispute. It’s, it’s part of science. And now we have a chance to really leverage it in the athletic, in the fitness realm.

Andre (00:55:48):
And, and, you know, I was thinking, I wonder why, I wonder why it does that. Maybe that’s a fight or flight automated response in the body. Like, but you just made me think, why would that happen? Cause our body is so smart. We’re just stupid. Right. We’re dumb, but our body is smart. So maybe the body’s saying, um, there’s no oxygen, there’s danger. I need to fix this problem. Maybe that’s, that’s why I wonder if anyone’s done any research as to why that happens.

Brad (00:56:21):
Yeah. Good point. Probably, probably someone, uh, offer up an expert expert explanation there, but, um, in the meanwhile we can the, the takeaway message. Well, I think we, we talked about the, the takeaway message of being more carbon dioxide tolerant, improving your Bolt score. But I also liked the really simple one, uh, that Patrick McKeown, uh, threw us out there in The Oxygen Advantage where he said, look here, here’s the here’s the, um, the bottom line is to breathe through your nose only as minimally as possible at all times for the rest of your life. And that is the most efficient way to breathe as a human for all manner of health benefits. The nose is especially important for filtering air warming air, taking the impurities out of air. Um, and boy, that was a really nice takeaway to think. Um, this, this thing that we’ve been told about taking a deep breath to relax. When you take a deep breath, when you breathe in more oxygen, it is actually a way to activate fight or flight and stress you out. And so when someone’s stressed and needs to relax, we want them to breathe less rather than breathe more. So that’s kind of a recalibration right there too.

Andre (00:57:33):
Yeah. And the other hint of help suggest to people is if they want to see how this works is get a whiteboard or a notebook and write down what you’re doing. Today gym work out or work out in my office, 10 pushups and maximum was, was couldn’t do anymore next day 15, how breath could do 12, you know, like document what you do. So I do that with my chin ups and pushups. If I miss awaken the gym, I go backwards. I lose the benefit. But what I’m doing, you know, I just see that if I do two sessions a week and I’m doing 10, 10, 10, or 20, 20, 20, I’m holding my breath or exhaling and then working, I can then increase. So just documenting what you’re doing. So you can see the progress that can help as well.

Brad (00:58:19):
Uh, a bunch of people threw questions out there. I don’t know if we’ll have time to, um, to get to them today, but maybe we should dabble with, uh, this first one. And, um, this is a really, um, common refrain from a lot of people where they’re enthusiastic. They’re starting to listen to podcasts, read books, talk to experts, watch stuff on YouTube. And there’s a ton of conflicting information out there. Um, whether it’s in the endurance training realm of how to prepare properly for a race. And there’s so much, uh, commentary about the, uh, building the aerobic base and emphasizing, uh, aerobic heart rates while you’re training. And then there’s other messaging that if you, you know, go for quality over volume and, you know, push yourself and work your anaerobic threshold, um, that could be a quicker and more efficient way to excel in less time.

Brad (00:59:20):
Um, then we have things like the, um, integration of strength training and a broader application of, uh, workouts. Even if you have strictly endurance goals. And the person says, I don’t know where to start. I’ve heard about periodization as well. So that’s where we kind of have a different look with our workout makeup over different times of the year. Uh, and a lot of people ask me this too, because they’re going, Hey, the Primal Blueprint says, you should sprint a little, you should lift weights and you should move around a lot. But then in Primal Endurance, you’re talking about a base building period and then a high intensity period, and then a rest period. Um, so you know, where do I start? Um, what do you think we should follow? Uh, is the, is the question in from real life, a frustrated person there?

Andre (01:00:06):
Yeah. Well, why don’t we do this one? And then we can hit the other ones another day. Cause this one can be a long conversation, just so just stop me or interrupt me if I’m going too long. So my thoughts on this are everything revolves around the person’s background and their athletic experience, their injuries, their body composition, and that determines what approach do we take? Are they a professional? Are they an amateur? If they’re amateur a weekend warrior, I’d be saying we always want to work on our aerobic base all through the year. And I think the periodization thing often comes up because of Northern American winters. It’s a, you know, like they only race in some areas of America and Europe. They only race at certain times of the year. So therefore, why not use the winter as a time to do something different? Whereas in Australia we can basically train all through the year.

Andre (01:00:56):
It doesn’t get that bad with weather. I agree with the advent of indoor training systems, obviously people are probably training more through winter, but, um, you know, it can be very complex. I, I like to work with people on a approach that we look at a year’s cycle of when their races are, and we make sure that they are constantly working on their base. We intersperse some higher intensity work. At specific times, we focus on race specific skills as a, as a phase, as we’re getting close to races. And we do have periods where we taper a little bit, but I bring that into a four week process. So instead of looking at all these miso cycles and macro cycles and this whole religious dogma, that’s put out by USA triathlon and Australia, triathlon Australia, because I don’t think that works because generally that’s built up on a three week build one week rest cycle.

Andre (01:01:58):
So what invariably happens is athletes are pushing themselves every week, three weeks, week after week for three weeks, this is the typical approach. I don’t use this approach, the typical approach, and then they get to work for, and they’re so exhausted from trying to meet all the numbers and the, and the sessions and getting up at5:30 that they can’t actually hit the goals. The training stress scores specified in week three because they done two weeks of building and then they get to wake forward to the rest week. And they’re either totally exhausted or they want to train more because they think if they have a rest week, they’re not going to be good. So I look at it a weekly cycle and I often say, well, let’s do three big days a week if it fits with the client’s time.

Andre (01:02:47):
And I take that into my training. So Tuesday and Thursday and Sunday are my three days where I do quite focused sessions. So it’s time specific specificity and focus. So I know, and this is what I do with my athletes is that Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, or whatever the three days are for them or what we call focus or key sessions that could be a skill-based session. It could be an aerobics, uh, nasal breathwork specific session, or it could be a high intensity specific session, but the other days are supporting those. So for working hard on Tuesday, and we’ve worked hard on Sunday, Monday should be an easy, comfortable swim, and maybe a gym specific workout. Tuesdays, or maybe a solid brick session, but it’s a focus day. It doesn’t mean that’s a hard, when I say hard, what I meant was it’s a longer or more important session.

Andre (01:03:41):
So I change it from periodization that the typical approach is to more building it into a week. So there’s risks in the week. So you don’t lose a week every month. So, you know, choose there might be a focused, bigger day. Thursday might be, but Monday, Wednesday, Friday might be easier days. And God forbid, you know, Saturday might be a whole day where you rest to do yard work, but you don’t lose one week, every four weeks by doing that approach. And yes, including higher intensity work at any stage where it’s appropriate. But if someone hasn’t got a good MAF baseline, they need to do eight, probably eight weeks to 10 weeks of just MAF training with your math test every month. And then reassess what’s happened with the results. How’s the person feeling? Do we inject some intensity? And if we do, maybe that’s 10 minutes or five minutes of intensity in an hour workout as little as that, you know, you’ve talked about that a lot, yourself,

Brad (01:04:45):
A little goes a long way, especially if you can handle it and stay within your capabilities. And I think, uh, that that might be a good place to, um, to close the conversation here whatever’s going on and whatever guidance you have or don’t have it’s, it’s nice to work directly with someone like you who can, uh, give that constant feedback, but for the people out there who are just going at it, uh, on their own, you can get a lot of good feedback from yourself and your attitude, your willingness train, desire to train as an actual, uh, ranked, uh, variable Dr. Kelly Starrett sites research that this, uh, continues to come out as number one on the list of, uh, uh, track trackers to determine the athlete’s readiness to train. Better than put pricking the finger for the blood lactate machine at the U S Olympic training center, and better than all the high tech stuff is just the, you know, the, the pure desire to train and whether you still have that enthusiasm and energy.

Brad (01:05:48):
And, um, that’s the thing that I like about what you just described is that, you know, there’s no, you’re never getting ahead of yourself and then hoping and praying you can hang on until your precious rest week. Because a lot of times the body will indeed, uh, collapse in a heap having cultivated that fighter, that prolonged fight or flight simulation to get through some predetermined workout regimen, training protocol, and then you’re, you’ve gone past your edge. And then not only do you spend that week recovering, um, you’re probably going into a de-training phase because you feel tired and broken down rather than constantly working within your capabilities and dabbling in some high stress workouts here and there, and then bringing it back to the place where you can absorb and benefit from those workouts.

Andre (01:06:36):
Exactly. So people are going to listen to themselves and just give themselves a bit of a break once in a while. You know, and if they, if their coaches run them sessions, that they’re killing themselves every time, and they’re not asking them to go to the gym and work on their muscles, they’re not asking them to do yoga. They’re not asking them about their sleep. They’re not asking them about their, uh, resting heart rate and they’re overweight and they’re not suggesting they reduce their carbohydrate consumption, then they’ve really got to think about, are they getting the right advice from the right expert? They could buy all the primal endurance books, follow all of your stuff. Look at MAF, Phil Maffetone his book, and really learn a lot. I can see you’ve got the big book of endurance training right there, the yellow one up on your shelf. I’ve got exactly the same book. Do your own research, listen to luminaries like Brad, listen to Phil Maffetone and, and change what you’re doing.

Brad (01:07:33):
Dr. Dre, hitting it out of the park again, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, how can we connect with you? What’s the best place to, to plug in?

Andre (01:07:43):
The best way is just, uh, Andre obrovac.com my website. Uh, if you want to go on my mailing list, there’s a subscription thing. There you can download my health and wellness app. It’s a hundred percent free. Um, and on Instagram I get on that maybe once or twice a week, and I don’t have Facebook or Waysbook. Sorry. I deleted that, which is fantastic.

Brad (01:08:04):
Thank you, Andre. Thank you, listeners. Another great show.

Andre (01:08:11):
Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support please. Email podcast@bradventures.com with feedback, suggestions, and questions for the Q and A shows, subscribe to our email list to Brad kearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bi-monthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with apple podcasts or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super, incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called overcast allows you to actually record a soundbite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.rad.

SaveSave