The questions keep coming and they are diverse and interesting! Be part of the fun by emailing podcast@bradventures.com with your comments and questions on all matters of healthy living. 

This show covers a variety of topics, starting with the specifics of an effective sprint workout (reps, duration, recovery intervals, and progressing carefully from no-impact to high impact running) and continuing into a conversation about reconciling the constrained model of energy expenditure with the idea that sprinting promotes fat reduction (hint: it’s still mostly about diet and eliminating processed foods). I talk about the tradeoff between the nutritional integrity of raw food versus cooking food to make digestion easier, how to get started with chest freezer cold water therapy, and lifestyle changes that will reduce chronic stress and improve male hormone status. I also discuss the benefits of nasal diaphragmatic breathing and explain the correct kind of stretching to cure plantar fasciitis, before wrapping up with the interesting dilemma of how to perform high intensity workouts to muscle failure to prompt strength increases, while also honoring the edict to try and avoid post-exercise muscle soreness and prolonged recovery. 

Thanks for listening and please email any and all questions here!

TIMESTAMPS:

Paul asks about sprint workouts. What is the best amount of time between each interval?  [01:42]

Michael is asking about the theory of energy expenditure which is that we burn the same number of calories whether we are exercising or not. [08:11]

It is virtually impossible to get fat when you eat natural, nutritious, wholesome foods.  [11:22]

Michael is wondering about the freeze-drying process diminishing the nutrient quality. [16:19]

Dave wants to know how to keep the water in the chest freezer clean. [18:16]

Chronic stress diminishes testosterone. What can you do about it?  [20:15]

Steve talks about the benefits of nose breathing as well as improvements in his balance he has made. [27:58]

Ellen describes how Brad’s video on stretching to cure plantar fasciitis helped her. [30:04]

Sheldon wants to know about the workouts where you push muscles to absolute failure vs. leaving a little in the tank. [32:58]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Carol Bike
• Podcast with Dr. Herman Pontzer no. 1
• Podcast with Dr. Herman Pontzer no 2
• The Primal Blueprint
• Brad’s chest freezer
• Breath
• Tight Hip, Twisted Core   
• Plantar Fasciitis video
• Vidya Method
• Body by Science

QUOTES:

• “The true war is against processed food.”

LISTEN:

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (01:42):
Hi listeners. The questions keep coming.Thank you so much for writing in with very thoughtful questions for a wonderful fast moving Q and a show let’s get going. And the first one comes from Paul and it’s about sprinting. One of my favorite subjects. Thanks for writing in Paul. Yes, it was a while ago. Maybe you forgot, you submitted the question. Maybe you figured out the answer already, but we’re just trying to get through the queue. Okay. People, Brad, can you be more specific on your sprint workout? You mentioned that you do four times, 200 meters and eight times 70 meters. Is it one or the other? Can you touch on the amount of time that you rest between each interval visual sprint? So, uh, when we talk about running sprints, which I believe is a centerpiece of one’s fitness experience, anti-aging strategy and core human competency, I think we should all strive to get to that point where we’re capable of running sprints on flat ground.

Brad (02:46):
Now, many people have injury concerns, fitness concerns. You can’t just bust out of the gate. If you haven’t done this since middle school, or what have you. I heard there was no more PE in high school, in the state of California. Have you heard that? That’s pretty crazy. You don’t have to take any PE, so let’s say it’s middle-school and you haven’t sprinted in awhile. You can progressively improve your competency by doing low or no impact sprints. So start sprinting on the bicycle. I have this wonderful Carol bike and the eight minute workout that will help you return your competency. And then, uh, eventually progress toward, let’s say, running sprints up the stadium stairs or running up a steep hill. So you minimize that impact trauma, but you want to work toward the ability to run sprints on flat ground that has the best hormonal genetic signaling benefits for fat loss also for bone density and all those great things.

Brad (03:41):
Uh, of course you have to do this carefully and progressively. Um, your first workout would be for several workouts, might be wind sprints, which are brief accelerations that bring you up to high speed, and then you immediately decelerate. So it just kind of like revving the engine a little bit before you try to hold form and complete a sprint of a certain duration. Uh, the sweet spot being between 10 and 20 seconds as I’ve discussed on many shows. So we can work up to that goal eventually. But I think a great baseline sprint workout for most everyone, unless you have specific goals relating to track and field sprinting, uh, like I do. That’s why I’m doing things like two hundreds or four hundreds. Uh, but if you can go about 70 or 80 meters for most people, that effort is going to land in the sweet spot of between 10 and 20 seconds.

Brad (04:31):
And the number of reps would probably range somewhere between four and 10 based on your fitness level. So doing four sprints of 80 meters, I think that’s within reason of most every fitness enthusiast or at least progressing to that point where you can start out dabble in four. And if you can do 10 really competently and you think, gee, I think I can continue going. I can do 11, 12 or 13. Guess what I want you to focus on going faster during the sprints that you perform, rather than thinking that more is better. So four and 10 is going to be the repetitions and the duration is going to be 10 to 20 seconds. And then the excellent question from Paul, uh, what kind of a rest break? What is the specifics of how long you rest between each effort and what you want to do is take what Dr.

Brad (05:22):
Craig Marker calls luxurious rest intervals. So we’re not trying to make a certain time like athletes are familiar with in the swimming pool when you’re leaving on the 110 or leaving on the 130 or any such thing where you’re struggling to return to the starting line, feeling sharp, energized, motivated, and ready to deliver a effort of consistent quality to the previous one. So what that means practically is your rest periods going to be somewhere around six to one to the work interval. So if you’re sprinting for 10 seconds, you’re going to rest for at least a minute. If you’re sprinting for 20 seconds, you can go ahead and take a two minute rest period. And after a while, you’re going to feel really refreshed, feeling like you’re ready to go, uh, continue to rest a little bit more and just shake things out and get refocused in the central nervous system, as well as the muscles to go perform an additional explosive effort with impeccable form and feeling strong and energized throughout.

Brad (06:21):
So that’s how you know, you’ve rested enough is that you’ve just delivered a, another successful and high quality effort. And somewhere along the line between that, uh, range of 4 and 10. Maybe it’s your eighth one, maybe it’s your seventh one. You’re going to feel possibly a slight decline in power output or a slight imperfection in your technique. And these are signs that your body is fatiguing and you do not want to sprint in a fatigue state. So you end the workout as soon as you experience any decline in performance. Uh, so that’s the very, very simple foundation of doing 4 to 10 times 80 meters or whatever takes you 10 to 20 seconds. And that’s all you ever need to do to live a long, healthy, happy life. If you have goals in track and field, then you’re going to approximate the challenge of what you’re facing in competition by doing intervals and efforts that are of appropriate distance and duration.

Brad (07:19):
And so that’s when you get into the more glycolytic that means high glucose burning efforts. When you’re doing a 200, when you’re doing a 400 and you’re extending your, uh, your effort out beyond that 10 to 20 second sweet spot, it’s no longer a pure sprint. Uh, it’s an anaerobic conditioning session. These do have fitness benefits, but they probably don’t need to be done unless you have these specific goals, because there is a elevated risk factor of fatigue, muscle soreness, injury burnout from doing sprints that last longer than, uh, the magic, uh, range of 10 to 20 seconds. So I hope that we can get the takeaway for everybody is to go for around 80 meters, 4 to 10 reps, six to one rest interval, and you are in the sprinting business. Wonderful.

Brad (08:11):
Next question. Is this from Michael, maybe from Michael, or it might be continuing from Paul, uh, Dr. Pontzer’s constrained theory of energy expenditure and go back and listen to my two shows with Dr. Herman Pontzer fascinating and compelling insights where he argues that we burn around the same number of calories every day, whether we exercise or not. WHEW!!!. Okay. Blowing the lid off the fitness industry and the diet weight loss industry. So if Pontzer’s constrained theory says that sprinting would not even lead to any weight loss. However, The Primal Blueprint says that sprinting is a good way to get lean. Actually, Mark Sisson’s direct quote is nothing cuts you up like sprinting. So how to reconcile this? Yeah. Good question. I think about this often. I’m not exactly sure how to reconcile it. I think that the constraint model of energy expenditure is definitely scientifically valid, but I believe there’s an extra portal or actually you would probably define it as a fractal going to go look that up, make sure I’m using it correctly.

Brad (09:22):
I’m talking about a partly random or chaotic phenomena. So there is some, uh, wiggle room here. I believe where if you get competent in sprinting, you will have some genetic signaling to shed excess body fat because the penalty for carrying extra body fat while running at full speed or delivering maximum explosive output under the impact load of gravity, uh, does cause you to drop excess body fat as one of the adaptive processes. So I don’t think it’s an open and shut case, uh, but if you’re still in that dated mindset that, uh, you go to the gym and your, the machine you’re on says you burned 640 calories, and then you go back to your online calculator and think if you do that every day, you’re going to lose two pounds of body fat in a month. That’s been strongly refuted, uh, by the emerging science of the constraint model of energy expenditure.

Brad (10:21):
Uh, also known as the compensation theory, which contends that if you do a lot of physical exercise calorie burning, your body finds a sorted ways to compensate, uh, burning fewer calories at rest or feeling lazier or eating more food. Uh, my, um, plug for sprinting, uh, also includes the idea that I believe it sort of adults the appetite because you elevate your body temperature and you’re in a, uh, sort of a fatigue state in the hours after the workout where you’re not ravenous. Your digestive system is not ready to indulge in, uh, a bunch of, uh, large meals. And so when you remain active, when you work that top end, um, you have all these, uh, this cascade of repair processes that happen in the ensuing 72 hours. People call it, uh, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. That means increased calorie burning as a consequence of doing these hard workouts.

Brad (11:22):
And I think we just have to, uh, adopt a reasonable approach here where it’s not an open and shut case where burning more calories causes you to lose excess body fat, nor is it this complete constraint where no matter what you do, no matter what exercise you do, um, it doesn’t have any effect on your calorie burning. It’s somewhere in the middle. Um, but definitely is heavily, heavily, heavily weighted on your appetite and your eating habits. And I really appreciated the insight from Dr. Robert Lustig, where he said, Hey, look, you paleo primal people and you vegans and vegetarians, you guys are fighting a false battle. The true war is against processed food. And if you can eliminate processed food, all manner of distinct and niche dietary strategies can help you reach your goal can help you drop excess body fat. Uh, there was another contention.

Brad (12:17):
It was from, uh, someone else. I can’t remember who said it, but it’s virtually impossible to get fat when you’re eating natural, nutritious, wholesome foods. And when you have processed foods in your diet, it’s very difficult to maintain healthy body composition throughout your lifetime, because you are dysregulating your appetite and satiety hormones every single day by throwing these toxic foods into your body that caused excess insulin production, downregulate leptin signaling. Leptin signaling, which is your prominent satiety and fat storage hormone. It tells your body what to do with the calories that you eat. So this, in practical terms, you can probably imagine this to be true. Uh, if you ask yourself, gee, have you ever overstuffed your face, uh, eating too many omelets or eating too many steaks for dinner as opposed to, oh, gee, I feel terrible because I ate the entire pint of ice cream.

Brad (13:14):
I couldn’t stop myself. I had a second slice of cheesecake, even though I didn’t need it. That happens all the time because, uh, how, how these processed foods flood the dopamine receptors in our brains and compel us to eat more and more and do it as a daily lifestyle habit. If we have a high amount of these foods in the diet, as opposed to the wholesome foods where you feel a natural, wonderful sense of satiety, uh, just from eating, uh, sensible portions. Here’s some more thoughts on the matter that I actually took notes on, uh, listen to my second show with Dr. Pontzer, which mainly involves me coming up with some challenge questions to this constraint theory. Examples where the type model, uh, might not fit perfectly. For example, the Tour de France cyclists. Are you telling me that their energy burning is constrained?

Brad (14:03):
No, we know we put measurements on them and they burn 6,000 calories a day. So Pontzer acknowledged that if you increase your training and you get leaner, this could be in part due to a temporary adjustment caused by the harder training. So you shed body fat at first, but over time you get used to the, uh, different dietary pattern, different exercise pattern, and kind of regulate again. And this is a really interesting insight because as you get fitter and fitter and fitter, guess what a 10 mile run, ain’t no big deal anymore. And you don’t burn that many calories as let’s say, a novice going out there and struggling to get through 10 mile run. And it’s an extreme energy expenditure ordeal. But the world’s lead athletes and the training levels they put in the Tour de France cyclists on a routine day when they’re riding their bicycle for four or five hours, they’re not burning a ton of calories.

Brad (14:57):
And then please don’t forget, uh, the wonderful insight shared by Chris Kelly. Uh, I think honoring Dr. Pontzer’s work, where he said, uh, locomotion, repair, reproduction, and growth are a zero sum game borrow from one, and you take away from the others. So locomotion being, exercise, training, fitness, all that stuff. If you’re overly locomoting, you’re going to turn the dial down on growth repair and reproductive fitness, the most prominent and obvious example of this are the elite female endurance athletes who commonly experience amenorrhea, the loss of their menstrual period due to the extreme, uh, training volume that they’re putting in and the low body fat that they reach, uh, from their, uh, their high performing training schedule. So we do not want to borrow too much from those critical metabolic and health processes by overexercising. So the body has a sorted ways of adjusting if you overdo it, that’s why we want to go point the, uh, the, the weapon in the direction of dietary changes, partic- ularly eliminating all manner of processed foods and enjoying and becoming highly satiated on these nutrient dense, wonderful ancestral foods.

Brad (16:19):
Michael is wondering about the freeze drying process, diminishing the nutrient quality of the MOFO product and the other, uh, bottled organ meats. So, uh, when we freeze dry, that means that they’re uncooked and preserved to maximum nutrient value. When you cook food, guess what? It destroys some enzymes and nutrients, but it makes the food easier to digest. This includes neutralizing the natural plant toxins, that carnivores advocate, Dr. Paul Saladino talks about so much. When you eat foods in their raw form, especially, uh, in the category of seeds and stems, these have the highest levels of natural plant toxins. So when you have that raw kale salad, or you go all the way to the macrobiotic vegan dietary movement, where they’re eating everything in raw form and not cooking anything, yes, they are getting, uh, completely preserved, uh, enzymes and nutrients to maximum value of whatever that plant contains, but they are also eating things that are very, very difficult to digest and contain a lot of poisons.

Brad (17:29):
That’s why we have to soak sprouts, ferment and cook many foods to render them edible rather than poisonous going all the way down to the cashew nuts or the things that, uh, the olives have to be treated with the jug vats of lye, the poison to, um, to render them edible. So what we have here is a balance and the human has evolved to the top of the food chain, uh, because we became competent at cooking food, thereby gaining more access to nutrient dense foods, because we were able to digest them in their cooked form. So freeze drying has given you a really potent form of the animal organ meats, and then you can go cook yourself a steak for dinner and congratulate yourself for being healthy in as many ways as possible.

Brad (18:16):
So, uh, Hey Brad, uh, before I jump into my chest freezer, cold water therapy, I’d like to know how do you keep the water in your chest freezer clean? Do you change the water after a certain number of uses? Thanks says Dave, Yes, the trials and tribulations of being an extreme cold exposure enthusiast. So unless you live in a climate where you have access to cold water for many months of the year, uh, there are some great ways to become a participant, uh, using the first, the cold showers. And then as you enjoy the many hormonal and cognitive and focusing and resiliency benefits from daily exposure to cold, you decide to escalate your commitment and go get one of those top opening chest freezers, where they store meat and so forth. Uh, I have a 15 cubic foot chest freezer delivered to your door for free by Home Depot.com. So yeah, you can go grab one of these freezers for several hundred dollars and then plug it in, fill it with water and then run it on a timer so that you can keep the water at the desired temperature.

Brad (19:22):
And I keep mine just above freezing. So I have to watch it cause sometimes it’ll start to get solid at the bottom, it’ll freeze over, but I want that water as cold as possible to get this maximum hormetic stressor shock value. When I get in there, that means I don’t have to spend as much time in there because it’s so cold and you get this wonderful benefit for anti-inflammatory hormonal mood-elevating and a great morning, wake up call. And so this ready-made a bio-hack or temperature therapy has become incredibly popular. And you’ll see a lot of YouTube videos. You can go check mine out. It’s Brad Kearns, chest freezer, cold therapy. And I describe, uh, how to get going on the process. Um, but I have a little aquarium pump in there to filter out some of the, uh, impurities, uh, get the body clean before stepping in as big rule for myself and any visitors.

Brad (20:15):
I get more visitors to the sauna rather than my cold plunge. Can you believe that? Can you imagine that? Anyway, after a while the water will start to get a little cloudy and it’s time to change it. So it’s a little bit of a hassle, but you drain the tub and then refill it with fresh water. And you’re good to go. So watch the video. Write back if you have any further questions,. People, I’m working on a complete online course and ebook about the wonderful world of temperature therapy and how to get started. So more info to come on that topic here comes David. He says, Hey, Brad, I just started taking. MOFO. I haven’t noticed any significant benefits yet, but I’ve been reading through your website and listening to podcasts with great interest. Uh, I probably, um, I’m blaming my low testosterone on chronic stress over the past 15 years. Now I’m 42.

Brad (21:04):
All right, man, 27 to 42, those are chronically stressful years, I guess. And now you can look to new horizons to kind of lower that stress level shore up your nutritional deficiencies and best of luck to you, but he says, yeah, it was probably the chronic stress due to a demanding job with lots of overtime exercising incorrectly. He admits to over-training and I’m noting from your blog, Brad, that excessive cortisol that fight or flight prominent fight or flight hormone was an issue for you. And I’d be grateful for your advice on how you rectified this. Please. Did you take any additional supplements or anything else, any changes to your exercise routine? And, oh my gosh, for sure. When I was competing as a professional triathlete for that nine year period of my life, uh, I was in chronic over production of stress hormones due to the extremely arduous training regimen that we followed with hours and hours of training every day.

Brad (21:57):
Even if a lot of it was at a comfortable pace when you’re working the body that hard, uh, the locomotion is at a high level. So you’re borrowing from, uh, growth repair, reproductive fitness, and it’s known that cortisol and testosterone are direct antagonists, uh, same with cortisol and libido. And so if you’re are a high stress, you are going to tone down all that, uh, male vitality and virility that you desire to live a rich and meaningful and high energy life. And so the first thing to do is we got to look at these stress factors and get them under control. That’s far more effective than any secret, a supplement or regimen. There’s so much talk about, uh, testosterone replacement therapy, hormone therapy, and the more I research about it and I’m researching for a book project. So I’m getting deep into the weeds here.

Brad (22:49):
It’s a very interesting takeaway insight that this hormone replacement therapy in a male, if you are unfit and unhealthy and have that spare tire, that visceral fat, that indicates an inflammatory state in the body. If you inject yourself with outside hormones, that’s called exogenous testosterone, guess what’s going to happen. Your body is going to undergo this process called aromatase ization and convert that testosterone into estrogen. A muy muy mal noticias. And so not only is it not going to work, it’s going to be a bad deal, and it’s going to give you more estrogen. Now, uh, that means that those who are interested in improving their testosterone status through injection, through anti-aging regimens, which are so popular, first, want to get their butts in shape and get super healthy and moderate their stress levels so that they can possibly benefit from testosterone therapy. Now, if you go in there as a candidate, uh, no more spare tire, you’re feeling good.

Brad (23:49):
Your body composition is, uh, optimal or very good. You’re exercising while you’re sleeping while you’re eating. Well, guess what? You’re probably not going to need it. And so the whole thing appears to me from a distance to be a bit of a, a hype or a shortcut, uh, as opposed to something that, uh, millions of men should consider when they reach a certain age. Now, if you kind of go to the extreme where we have, uh, the elite athletes who are abusing and taking, uh, far more exogenous hormones than would be a part of a protocol for anti-aging under the care of a physician, of course, they’re going to get those important, incremental benefits that make all the difference. And that’s why you see probably most, if not all the NFL, uh, are taking some sort of hormones. Maybe I shouldn’t say most, if not all, but what if 70% of them were taking hormones and the other 30% were the genetic freaks that we see on the field that are totally natural, probably don’t have to work out with weight much.

Brad (24:49):
And they’re just super explosive and strong and amazing humans. So, uh, the hormone replacement, the anabolic steroid use is what’s allowing a genetically moderate person to rise up to the elite level of performance. So yeah, this stuff absolutely definitely works. And that’s why world records are set and professional athletes are getting big contracts and they sports that entail power and explosiveness. But for most of us, it’s probably, um, a non-deal, it’s not something to even think about. If you have a little bit of belly fat, you’d rather get that off your body by modifying your diet, modifying your stress levels. So David asks, what did you do? And I’m going to reference two distinct periods of my life, where I was, uh, in that high cortisol, unhealthy state. One was as an athlete training so much, and also traveling on the airplane so much also leads to chronic overproduction of stress hormones.

Brad (25:43):
And the second one was, uh, a parent of young children, not sleeping optimally, a long commute to my job, working like a real person, rather than being an athlete who gets to, uh, optimize every little bit of life, including sleeping way more than, um, than the average person does. And I, I sorta got into that same state of burnout that I did as an athlete years after my career was over. And so the there’s no, um, there’s no secret here, but if you can learn to sleep and rest and recover and rejuvenate more, I think that’s going to be the first and foremost gateway to reclaiming your health. Yes, there are some important nutritional aspects here, and that would start with removing processed foods. Uh, I’m very happy with the MOFO supplement and all the great results people are getting and sharing on the Amazon reviews because that can help replenish depleted cells and give you that little boost that you need to go out there and add here to a desired fitness program or whatever else that you’re doing, that you don’t feel that you should do that you don’t feel like because you’re too tired.

Brad (26:50):
So any boosts that we can get to get back on track, uh, is a wonderful option to consider, and that includes supplements. But first you have to learn to, uh, take some downtime in daily life. That’s the forgotten aspect of, uh, the mobile devices and the hyper-connectivity that we face today, um, that didn’t exist until recent times. Our, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, everybody had a lot of downtime, even if they had a hard life in the factory. And you can look on the, the living room wall, the family photos, and, uh, grandpa Jed was pictured in overalls with a grimy face and boy, what a rough life, but they had more downtime than we do today. So our brains are constantly stimulated and we’re constantly provoking, uh, the dopamine response, the fight or flight response. So we just got to chill out, uh, take, take a breather in life and especially don’t complicate matters by over-training and overexercising when you already have a difficult life. As David describes with his demanding job, lots of overtime, and over-training, uh, is a really, really bad deal.

Brad (27:58):
Okay. Um, here comes a lovely long letter about breathing from Steve 58 years, young Keto, Primal, strong and free. Uh, I thank you for the recent segment on breathing. The breather show, the breather show on breathing, and literally, uh, I found it to be positive reinforcement. I’d love to recommend James Nester’s book Breath. Fantastic book. I’ve listened to that. Also it was utterly transformative for Steve and he says, I’ve always been a nosebleed. They’re mostly, but the book has allowed me to take it to the next level. I use the mouth tape every night. I can relate major benefits in my sleep and my, uh, score has improved with HR-V. Um, it relates to so many areas of life, such as anxiety levels, cardiovascular health, and dental health.

Brad (28:47):
I recently went to the dentist and she remarked how beautiful my teeth were. She always says this. Wow. All right, Steve. Uh, and this time she noted that my gums also look great. We got into a discussion about mouth taping, uh, for those of you unfamiliar with that term, that’s the practice of actually gently taping your mouth closed at night to ensure that you breathe through your nose for the duration of the evening, even if you kind of turn over or have a tendency to snore, uh, and the nose gets plugged up and you go right over to mouth breathing without knowing it. And so breathing through your nose, uh, throughout the evening, many people report wonderful benefits, especially if they possibly, uh, were falling into that trap of unwitting mouth breathing during the night. Uh, Steve goes on to recommend another book. Christine costs, Tight Hip ,Twisted Core, another transformative book that helped me understand, uh, my body symmetry problems, many years of poor athletic practices, orthopedic sloppiness, guess what?

Brad (29:45):
My body became a lopsided jalopy. I was a functional cripple. And after a year or two of steadfast orthopedic remodeling, uh, as directed by the book, Tight Hip ,Twisted Core, I can say my gait is, uh, greatly improved and my balance. So there’s a couple of good recommendations, happy listener, good job, Steve, keep it up.

Brad (30:04):
And on, we go to Ellen,. I found your article and video about stretching to cure plantar fasciitis. Uh, so if you can go to YouTube people, there’s a video, Brad Kearns, uh, two stretches to heal plantar fasciitis. It’s done gone viral cause it works. It’s very effective. I love getting messages back from people that do the devoted stretching, holding the stretches for long durations and lengthen those important calf muscles, the gastroc and soleus, thereby taking the, the strain and the, uh, the, the impact trauma away from the inflamed arch.

Brad (30:42):
Uh, but again, uh, that’s not everything. And I really appreciate the message from my friend Bryson Newell about the importance of fascial conditioning. So we have to be stretched out. We can’t be tight, but we also have to make sure that our fascial system is strong and resilient and active is good, good communication with the central nervous system. And so I’m doing these fascial exercises. You can learn more at Bryson’s website, Vidya Method, V I D Y A . So we’re talking about getting strong, engaged arches that help you, uh, walk with good functionality. That means spending a lot of time barefoot or in minimalist shoes, instead of walking around with elevated heels your whole life and disengaging the important fascial network that ends at the, um, the terminates in the feet. And so it’s really, really important to have good fascial conditioning in your feet.

Brad (31:37):
It has ripple effects throughout the body. So, uh, back to Ellen’s question, uh, I wanted to ask, did this help with the, uh, the painful area directly under the heel? This is what hurts when I walk on the bottom of my heel. Yeah. Plantar fasciitis, boy, the symptoms can be numerous. You can have a burning on the outside of your heel, around the outside edges of the heel or right underneath. So at the front bottom of the heel, uh, I even developed bone spurs when mine got really bad. So yeah, we’re talking about a big mess and caused by, uh, over-exercising, doing more than you’re prepared for, uh, an acute injury or, um, a lot of, uh, lifetime wearing cushioned shoes and basically putting your feet in casts so that they become weak and, uh, poor, functional, uh, poor kinesthetic awareness to the extent that you’re walking around with very delicate feet with minimal resilience and poor functionality, to the extent that you’re vulnerable to all kinds of injuries, not just in the arch where, um, where, uh, foot meets the, the, the surface, but, uh, can be a contributing factor to injuries throughout the lower extremities, especially for runners, uh, engaged in an overly stressful exercise program.

Brad (32:58):
Next I’m doing pretty well working through these questions, aren’t I? Faster than normal. Okay. Sheldon from Canada, masters athlete specialty was 800 meters. Uh, one of the most wonderful and exciting events in track and field. I was Canadian champion multiple times, but the training and the racing was brutal. Tell me about it, man. It’s maybe the toughest track event. I think many track aficionados would agree the eight there’s nothing like the 800 meters for pure torture. I’ve switched over to sprinting and the 45 to 49 division. And I love doing the power stuff. Um, I’ve been doing things for anti-aging like cold exposure fasting, sprints, dynamic stretching. I’ve been doing it for a long time before it was popular. I’m a big fan of Arthur Jones. That’s the original, uh, inventor of the Nautilus workout system. And so interesting. I’m going to put a little aside here as I just wrapped up a interview with.

Brad (33:50):
Dr. Doug, McGuff a fantastic show. You’re going to learn more about his book, Body by Science, where he contends that Arthur Jones, original Nautilus training system, you know, the first exercise machines ever, they emerged in the late seventies, early eighties, uh, where the very best because he had this, uh, cam the, the, the pulley system that the, uh, that the machine worked on, uh, provided for variable resistance that was in alignment with the force production, uh, in your body throughout the range of motion. So just like Dr. John Jaquish talks about with the X three bar and working with resistance tubing, uh, you get an appropriate amount of resistance, uh, aligned with how much force you can produce, uh, when the joints and the muscles are in a certain position. So quick example, if you’re lost, don’t know what I’m talking about. Uh, when you’re doing a bench press with a barbell, the most difficult part of the move is lifting the bar off your chest, the first three inches of the move, right?

Brad (34:49):
That’s when you’re weakest because your muscles are pinched at that 90 degree, and you get stronger and stronger as you lift the weight further and further from your chest. Unfortunately, you’re constrained by how much weight you can lift off your chest because you can’t lift it off your chest to go and do reps in the high force production area where your arms are nearly straight that’s when you’re at your strongest, right? But if you’re working with the resistance band, uh, the resistance get harder, harder, and harder as you get further and further away from your chest. So it’s an appropriate variable resistance exercise. And that’s what Arthur Jones knew a long time ago. And so when you go and work with the original machines are the ones that honor basically his patents. So there’s not too many machines that have this down, uh, but some of the modern machines are very effective for this.

Brad (35:39):
You’ll notice that, uh, for example, doing the bicep curl, uh, the resistance, even if you choose the same number 20 on the plates or number 40, um, it’s easier when you start out, it’s the toughest in the middle when you have the most power, and then it eases up a little bit at the end when your fist gets close to your shoulder, because you have less power there than you do in the middle of the bicep curl. Uh, unlike having a dumbbell at your side and, and performing curls. Again, you’re limited by the area where you have the least force production anyway, back to Sheldon’s message. Big fan of Arthur Jones. One of them being trained the muscle to absolute failure. I just listened to your testosterone shows Brad part one and two. You mentioned a few different types of workouts, one being, pushing the muscle to the limit for mitochondrial development, anti-aging benefits, and then the other one doing workouts where you don’t get sore.

Brad (36:33):
Uh, always trying to leave a little bit of the tank and that helps you with recovery. So my question is, in your opinion, should I continue to do both types of workouts, one workout, where I pushed my muscles to absolute failure with a one or two sets, and then, um, do the other workouts where, uh, you’re not, uh, risking muscle soreness. You’re leaving a little bit in the tank. So people there, you have it from Sheldon extremely insightful and challenging question. And this is kind of a sneak preview of my podcast with Dr. McGuff because in Body, by Science, he’s arguing that you make this clear and critical distinction between training to get stronger muscles and training for skill development in your chosen endeavor. And you don’t want to cross those. You don’t want to be trying to get stronger muscles, uh, by performing your chosen endeavor over and over to the extreme that you get, tired, fatigued, and sore.

Brad (37:31):
And so, uh, Dr. McGuff made the important point that if your training in your chosen endeavor and, uh, fatigue comes into the picture, you are screwing up your central nervous system and teaching your body to perform with inefficient, uh, insufficient technique. So we don’t want to train the golf swing when our muscles are tired. We don’t want to do sprints when our form is compromised due to fatigue. We want to always feel great when we’re doing skill development, such as shooting three pointers and having a rebounder, uh, feed the ball back to you. And you’re going to get a good 200 shots up, and then you’re going to start getting tired, unfocused, and the workout where no longer be productive. So with skill development, we want to feel fresh explosive focused and have a great, great session that does not make us tired.

Brad (38:24):
That does not make us sore. Then on the flip side or in tandem, because you’re going to have plenty of opportunity to put both of these modalities into your overall training picture. We want to go into the gym. Dr. McGuff argues that once a week is plenty to do. He calls them the big five it’s five major full body compound movements. Um, the pulldown, the overhead press, the chest press, uh, the leg press and one other one. But anyway, you get the picture that you’re doing these compound movements to total muscular failure once a week. And that is your strength development. You need not, uh, push your bodies to complete muscular failure, more so, more frequently than that. And if you do that, you’ll probably have a counterproductive. You’ll probably not get as strong as you could by resting and recovering more.

Brad (39:17):
So, boy, this really, um, clarifies one’s approach to fitness, regardless of your goal, you’re going to be working on skill development on one track, and then you’re going to be going for pure strength on the other track, which of course will help you with your skill development. Look at the PGA tour golfers, uh, since the age of Tiger Woods. All these guys are now in the gym working on getting stronger, so that then when they go do hit balls on the range, they can last longer and maintain good swing mechanics, uh, and not fatigue as quickly as if they might’ve been in the old days where golfers just played golf and basketball shooters went to the gym and shot baskets, and then went home. And boy we’ve ushered in a new era of training, but again, a lot of athletes are screwing this up by doing workouts that are too fatiguing, uh, inducing muscle soreness, uh, compromising their form and technique, creating, leading to injuries.

Brad (40:11):
I’m raising my hand as one of them because I high jumped too frequently, uh, over the summer months where I was trying to perfect my technique and going out there again and again, to the extent that I injured my muscles. So I can’t jump for a sustained period of time. That was not a big help, right? I’m missing all these workouts because I pushed myself too hard on a few of them. Now, if I had devoted more effort to, uh, gaining pure strength, arguably I would have been more resilient for the times that I was jumping frequently. And then if I had jumped less frequently, everything would come together beautifully where I’d be a strong athlete and have these wonderful, focused, explosive, productive workouts that didn’t generate fatigue or muscle soreness. Yeah, how’s that sound people? Pretty much have a solution to a lot of the frustration out there relating to over-training a breakdown and a stagnation of fitness and competitive progress.

Brad (41:06):
So just put it all together, uh, focus on getting stronger, doing the workouts appropriately, and then skill development. When you feel sharp and energized and focus. And then when that focus wanes or your technique wanes, you end the workout and go home. And that sounds like a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much for listening. If you can take the time to leave a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, that would be a big help. Support our sponsors go to Brad kearns.com. Check out our new website. It’s super cool. It has an index of every show ever published, and you can search really quickly on a single page and find anything from the archives. We have so many great old shows. I hope you take a look at that and write in if you feel like it. We’d love to hear from you. We answer everything. We look at everything and always try to make the show better, and that would be podcast@bradventures.com. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
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