Some great comments come in from email and YouTube videos for this Q&A show!

We’ll discuss John Gray’s famous essential male and female relationship assignments, what supplements Brad is taking (and not taking) these days, how protein intake warnings have been refuted (10 eggs a day is okay!) and is the minimalist shoe fad dead—or is barefoot the way to go?

You will learn how elevated, cushioned shoes enable poor form and are the driving cause of injuries and finally, what the optimal duration for high impact and for low impact sprinting is.

TIMESTAMPS:

The first question Brad is answering is from Lily who comments on the podcast with John Gray regarding respecting the biological and hormonal underpinnings in a relationship. [01:42]

This question asks about which organ supplementation should be avoided.  [04:06]

Sugar is not your enemy. Processed foods are. We want a nutrient-dense diet. [06:00]

In the podcast with Jay Feldman, it is mentioned that Andrew is consuming 100 eggs every day. The reader is questioning that. [12:46]

The next writer is challenging the five-toed shoe benefits. You have to transition carefully.  Running shoes are not as safe as we have been told. [25:25]

Novice joggers have the inclination to heel strike and overstride for an assortment of reasons beyond wearing a cushion shoe. [35:04]

In referring to Brad’s ideal of 20 second maximum when sprinting, the questioner asks, “should I sprint for longer if I have excess body fat and need to burn more calories?” And the answer is absolutely not. [41:55]

Patricia is asking about the amount of time one should use HIIT. [48:25]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• B.rad Whey Protein Isolate Superfuel – The Best Protein on The Planet! Available in Two Delicious Flavors: Vanilla Bean and Cocoa Bean
• NEW: B.rad Superfruits – Organic Freeze-Dried Exotic Fruit Powder! Natural Electrolyte Hydration & Energy Powder
• Podcast with John Gray
• Wild Health
• Carnivore Score Food Ranking Chart
• Ted Naiman Podcast
• Keto Reset Diet
• Two Meals a Day
• Peluva.com
• Born to Walk
• The Definitive Guide to a Barefoot and Minimalist Shoe Lifestyle
• Primal Fitness Coach Expert Certification Overview, Part 1
• Primal Fitness Coach Expert Certification Overview, Part 2
• Primal Fitness Coach Expert Certification Overview, Part 3

LISTEN:

We appreciate all feedback, and questions for Q&A shows, emailed to podcast@bradventures.com. If you have a moment, please share an episode you like with a quick text message, or leave a review on your podcast app. Thank you!

Check out each of these companies because they are absolutely awesome or they wouldn’t occupy this revered space. Seriously, I won’t promote anything that I don’t absolutely love and use in daily life:

• Peluva: Comfortable, functional, stylish five-toe minimalist shoe to reawaken optimal foot function. Use code BRADPODCAST for 15% off!
• Mito Red Light: Photobiomodulation light panels to enhance cellular energy production, improve recovery, and optimize circadian rhythm. Use code BRAD for 5% discount!
• GAINSWave: Enhance sexual function with high frequency shockwave therapy. Buy 6 and get one treatment free with code: BRAD
• Wild Health: Comprehensive online health consultation with blood and DNA testing, personal coaching and precision medicine. Get things dialed in! Use discount code BRAD20 for 20% off!
• Take The (Cold) Plunge online course!
• B.rad Whey + Creatine Superfuel: Premium quality, all-natural supplement for peak performance, recovery, and longevity. New Cocoa Bean flavor!
• Online educational courses: Numerous great offerings for an immersive home-study educational experience
• NEW: B.rad Superfruits: Organic Freeze-Dried Exotic Fruit Powder! Natural Electrolyte Hydration & Energy Powder
• Primal Fitness Expert Certification: The most comprehensive online course on all aspects of traditional fitness programming and a total immersion fitness lifestyle. Save 25% on tuition with code BRAD!
• Male Optimization Formula with Organs (MOFO): Optimize testosterone naturally with 100% grassfed animal organ supplement

Brad’s Favorites on Amazon

I have a newly organized shopping experience at BradKearns.com/Shop. Visit here and you can navigate to my B.rad Nutrition products (for direct order or Amazon order), my library of online multimedia educational courses, great discounts from my affiliate favorites, and my recommended health&fitness products on Amazon.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brad (00:00):
Welcome to the B.rad podcast, where we explore ways to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life without taking ourselves too seriously. I’m Brad Kearns, New York Times bestselling author, former number three world-ranked professional triathlete and Guinness World Record Masters athlete. I connect with experts in diet, fitness, and personal growth, and deliver short breather shows where you get simple, actionable tips to improve your life right away. Let’s explore beyond the hype, hacks, shortcuts, and sciencey talk to laugh, have fun and appreciate the journey. It’s time to B.rad.

Brad (00:38):
Think the question might be leading to, should I sprint for longer if I have excess body fat and need to burn more calories, whatever, whatever. And the answer is

Brad (00:47):
Welcome. Listeners, this is time for another Q and A show. We have some spicy ones this time. I love it, man. Bring the heat, please email podcast@bradventures.com to be part of the conversation. Love to hear your feedback, questions, comments. And we’re also getting some great comments on our fast growing YouTube channel. Thanks for the whole team getting that great content up there where we have video versions of most all of the podcasts, as well as an assortment of other videos, including shorts that you can also see on Instagram reels. So we’re trying to crank out the content. Really appreciate your support and of course, feedback as well. podcast@bradventures.com. We answer and read and review and consider everything you have to say. So I really appreciate you being part of the community here, and we’re gonna get right into, um, some of the fun stuff. Uh,

Brad (01:42):
This is Lily writing a comment on YouTube about the Breather Show, uh, titled Relationship Tips, the Real Issue Behind Dirty Dishes Driving Divorce. You like that alliteration? I’m trying. Okay. And Lily says, Brad, I really enjoy the shows with John Gray, where he highlights our different biological drives, male and female, and the struggle that happens when, A, we want the male to be more sensitive and communicative, and B we want the female to go kick butt in a competitive workplace and overall life. Your final sentences there are really powerful and important for every partnership to reflect on. And I think, um, what we’re talking about there is to respect and appreciate the, uh, biological and the hormonal underpinnings of the male and female archetypes, and how there is a big challenge today, even with the advancement of culture, which by and large are good things to have people grow and evolve from those traditional more narrow roles that we’re familiar with in past generations. But they come with their own set of challenges, and we have to respect those as we’re trying to be the best that we can be.

Brad (02:57):
And especially not looking to the relationship to be all things. And, rather going out into the community or going off by yourself to do testosterone boosting activities rather than engaging in prolonged and protected arguments that will kill your testosterone. That was John Gray’s initial insight about the man going into the cave and then the essential assignments for males and females to be the best they can be in the relationship. I love that advice. Think about it every single day. You’ve heard, uh, plenty of recaps and also direct commentary from John Gray on the show to try to keep that front and center in your, uh, awareness at all times. Okay. Um, and so go back and listen to, uh, the essential male and female relationship assignments. I believe that’s the title of the show where I very specifically recapped, uh, the importance of the male remaining calm, cool, and collected at all times, and the female to express everything as a preference instead of nitpicking. Those are the basic starting ones and way more details there. But if you can remember just the, just the essentials, you’ll do a great job in pursuing relationship harmony rather than dysfunction.

Brad (04:06):
Here’s another comment on YouTube. This was regarding organ supplementation since these products like are most likely abundant with natural vitamins and minerals, can you tell us which vitamins or supplements to avoid if we take organ supplements so that we don’t overload or overdose in certain vitamins and our minerals? That’s a good question. So, the organ supplements, I’m kind of putting in a different category than a traditional vitamin supplement that’s, uh, extracted in a laboratory setting and, um, whatever agents are coming artificial or naturally derived, whereby if you’re taking desiccated animal organs it’s essentially a food supplement because it’s real food, uh, produced into a capsule form.

Brad (04:59):
So, for example, um, I don’t mind taking organ supplements on an empty stomach because it’s not gonna disturb me with some, uh, high level of some agent that is difficult to absorb and assimilate by itself in the stomach. And I’m very sensitive to that. And I’m actually going to use part of this answer to convey the my recent kick of pairing down the amount of supplements that I’m taking. I’ve always been taking this and that and experimenting with different things, and, uh, listening to different experts or getting direct consultations from the great folks at Wild Health, as I talked about most recently, where they recommended a few targeted supplements from my unique blood work parameters. So I think that’s a great idea to get the support you need and take what you really need, rather than a shotgun approach where you’re heading to the store and listening to the clerk at the cast register or listening to another podcast and then going out and buying the three things that were mentioned on that podcast.

Brad (06:00):
So, a targeted approach is important, but I’m also feeling like as I optimize my diet and strive for the most nutrient-dense diet possible, of course, honoring my own chart, the carnivores scores food rankings chart that you can download@bradkearns.com for free. Print it out, put it on your refrigerator. And that is a wonderful guide to prioritize the most nutrient dense, easy to digest foods on earth. There’s a tiered presentation ranking system where we have the true super foods of the planet like oysters and liver and fresh fruit and salmon eggs, and then the grass-fed red meat, and then the oily cold water fish, the pasture-raised eggs. And so you see all the stuff that represent the greatest sources of nutrition for the human, and that’ll help you navigate to good choices. But, uh, even without the charts pretty simple, uh, when you emphasize wholesome natural nutritious foods and stay away from the processed foods.

Brad (06:57):
So we could do a whole nother chart saying, just clean up your act and get rid of processed foods. Be careful reading labels ’cause a lot of things are presented as healthy, nutritious, or keto approved, or whatever’s on the label. And then you look at the chemicals, preservatives, and other ingredients. And these are the things that are really causing trouble with our digestion, metabolic function, ability to burn body fat. Jay Feldman had some great commentary on several of our shows about that topic of how consuming nutrient deficient processed foods prompts the release of lipopolysaccharide from the digestive tract. That’s called an endotoxin, an internally manufactured toxin. Our bodies react poorly to process foods a lot of times. We recently have heard, uh, sugar being demonized. Sugar is toxic. Sugar is the devil sugar’s gonna kill you. And what the real most clear message should be is that the process forms of sugar that are often joined with an assortment of chemicals, preservatives, and other processed agents like the refined industrial seed oils, those are the things that are really causing the most problem.

Brad (08:13):
Also consuming carbohydrates in excess where you disturb homeostasis and prompt excessive chronically excessive insulin production. That pretty much caps the number one public health problem in the world today, hyperinsulinemia, chronically excessive insulin production and the accordant metabolic syndrome symptoms that are leading to, uh, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, uh, and so that is chronic overconsumption of carbohydrates without burning enough energy. But sugar itself is a form of fuel, uh, that the muscles burn for energy when they’re exercising, and that the brain burns all the time. So all forms of carbohydrate that you ingest are converted into glucose in the body and then used for a fuel source by the brain and or the muscles. So it’s not inherently toxic to consume let’s say 12 grams of sugar, whether that’s from two sips of root beer or from two spoonfuls of brown rice.

Brad (09:14):
We just have to look at the bigger picture of where we want to have a nutrient dense diet and minimize the disturbing effects of processed sugar, such as the root beer, such as the bag of Skittles. And such as the grain based diet where you’re consuming a huge percentage of your calories from things like bread, pasta, rice, cereal, things that have very little nutrition, and when consumed in excess, can be highly problematic to your metabolic function and your insulin balance. So that’s the, that’s the big picture there. And then back to finishing the answer about what vitamins or supplements to avoid if we take organ supplements. Um, I’m not gonna make a direct, uh, list of things that you don’t need anymore. But I would say that getting desiccated animal organs is a great source of the overall nutrition that is often missing from the modern diet where we don’t consume organ meats anymore.

Brad (10:18):
And these are, uh, without dispute the most nutrient dense foods on earth. You might not like the taste of liver, or you might be in the vegan vegetarian mode where you don’t believe in consuming animal products. But when you put, uh, <laugh> the, the food under a microscope and evaluate the micronutrient profile, you’re gonna see, and you can google fun stuff like kale versus liver and see a relative comparison, uh, between the plant superfood that’s highly touted with kale and then a slice of liver and see the dramatic difference in nutritional density. So, a great source of extra overall nutrition for the diet. And as I’m talking about paring down my, in my, my daily inhalation of a bunch of capsules, I’m just kind of doing that as a, um, a philosophical and of course nutritional experiment to get most of my nutrition from diet.

Brad (11:15):
And, this is maybe prompted by a few recent occasions, in recent years of taking my 23 capsules and then feeling nauseous for a few hours after because I didn’t consume enough food. I might have had a smoothie and then swallowed a bunch of supplements that I’ve been testing, experimenting with whatever, and then not felt good after and thinking, what the heck am I doing here? So I’m trying to pare down and get most of my nutrition from diet. That said, I would love for you to get a personal consultation. Go to wild health.com, you can use the code Brad and get $150 discount, and get someone to really go, go through comprehensive testing. This is genetics as well as blood, and then sit down for a proper consultation to see what you might be deficient in, because things can really turn around if you’re, if you have some shortcomings that you’re dealing with every day and is causing you more stress, slower recovery and just insufficient function with the brain or the body.

Brad (12:11):
So getting that dialed in with the proper supplements and of course, sourcing the highest quality supplements. So, you know, looking into the manufacturers and, uh, seeing who has a great commitment to quality the product that I promote is, of course, you know, a hundred percent grass-fed cattle from New Zealand and Australia. So, uh, directly sourced with no impurities. And so that’s a, a source of comfort, uh, when you’re, uh, navigating, uh, what kind of stuff to buy. But yeah, the answer is Brad’s trying to pare down a little bit and, um, go, uh, priority is the diet.

Brad (12:46):
Here comes a YouTube comment about Jay Feldman content. And, it says, for 30 years, my goal has been to support the body doing what it’s supposed to do not forcing it to do something with a pill or a potion or working out to excess. However, you mentioned that anecdote about Andrew over at Power Project Podcast consuming, 10 eggs every day. That was part of my show with Jay Feldman. ’cause Andrew was recording for us right there in the wonderful studios. And Andrew said, yeah, before he leaves the home for his busy day, he has 10 eggs. And we were celebrating that insight as like, wow, well, that’s a lot of nutrition, and that’s pretty fantastic. A long time ago we could have, uh, harshly criticized that as someone who’s gonna clog up their arteries and, uh, drop dead on the sidewalk, now we know better with the egg being, again, one of the fundamental most nutrient dense foods on earth, and of course, the essential life force of the planet because we came from an egg too, right? So there’s everything you need in that egg to thrive.

Brad (13:58):
But this person is, uh, second guessing that, and, uh, saying that, look, you should never have more than 30 grams of protein at a sitting. It’s too hard on the kidneys with all that ammonia that’s created. Now I’m gonna answer, uh, that comment because we have, uh, a lot of support, especially in recent years conveying that, uh, consuming large amounts of protein is in fact not as concerning or risky to the kidneys or the liver as we’ve heard in years past especially something like 30 grams of protein that might be a recommended maximum, uh, for sitting down at one meal. But the body is pretty good at processing even larger qualities of protein at one sitting and, uh, dealing with them over ensuing hours. And, we certainly want to err on the side of getting an excellent protein intake on average every single day.

Brad (14:54):
Many of the experts, uh, that I appreciate are now recommending consuming up to one gram of protein per pound every day as your, uh, as your go-to, uh, goal. Not that I am or measuring protein, and most people aren’t either. But it’s just that general notion that if you can prioritize protein in the diet, after all, it is the number one dietary priority for humans. Um, that’s gonna be, uh, a big win to help you maintain lean muscle mass, help regulate appetite, uh, optimize fat burning, and get out of that trap of over-consuming the indulgent foods, such as fats and carbohydrates paired together, which is pretty much every treat that you can think of like a, a cheesecake or ice cream or the processed and packaged treats. Uh, usually, uh, combine fats and carbs. And, um, that’s where we get into, uh, overeating appetite dysregulation.

Brad (15:52):
And as my former podcast guest, Dr. Ted Naiman explains beautifully with his, uh, protein to energy ratio concept, um, there’s a lot of support, this protein leverage theory whereby experts contend with research backing that we are driven to overconsume the processed foods of the day, uh, with a, uh, driven by a deep biological drive to get adequate protein. So when you consider, like ice cream or potato chips are only 6% protein, that’s why we’re gonna finish the whole bag of chips or finish the whole pint of ice cream in a desperate subconscious drive to get our protein needs met. So if you can instead start your day, for example, like Andrew Zaragosa consuming 10 eggs, you’re gonna be highly satiated for a long time. Your muscles are gonna get what they need to be in anabolic or a, a baseline state, rather than catabolic when you’re fooling around with excessive fasting and working out hard as well.

Brad (16:56):
So, the reader saying that you’re gonna mess up your kidneys if you eat more than 30 grams of protein at a sitting has been strongly refuted by many experts. Now, do you need to eat, uh, 60 grams at one sitting? Um, that might be going to a point of excess whereby your appetite center is telling you, Hey, that’s enough. And in fact, um, the egg only has six grams of protein. So Andrew, eating 10 eggs times six is 60 grams of protein at one sitting. That’s only 240 calories from the protein. Um, there’s more calories than that, of course, from the, the fat in the yolk, but that’s not a huge ridiculous meal when you talk about just eating 10 eggs straight outta the pan. And that’s not a ridiculous amount of protein either it’s a sufficient or a robust amount of protein.

Brad (17:49):
Similarly, a half a pound of steak, so that’s a big eight ounce steak is 62 grams. And we can definitely polish off a entire steak at dinner. So, um, let’s kind of recalibrate and appreciate the, uh, the desperate need to consume sufficient protein throughout the day, how that might factor into our fasting and our time restricted eating patterns, right? Because if you weigh 165 pounds like me, and you have, have the desire to consume one gram per pound of protein per day, and you’re also fasting until 12 noon, or you’re eating in a 16, eight pattern, and you don’t want to eat more than 40 or 50 or 60 grams of protein per meal, you’re gonna have a really, uh, high likelihood of falling behind due to the infrequency of your consumption. That’s why I’m really happy to see the great results and the great popularity of the BRAD, uh, whey protein Super fuel product.

Brad (18:46):
We’re really happy with all the customers giving us great feedback about the taste and about the easy mixing and the digestibility. And it’s also a great way to bump up your daily protein intake when you might not have time to sit down and consume 10 eggs every morning like our man, Andrew. So, if you take one scoop of, uh, whey protein’s got 17, 18 grams of protein, a few grams of creatine in there which helps in so many other ways as the number one most popular performance supplement. And I’m finding that in my personal life, just getting a scoop into a glass of water in the morning when I’m too busy to make a full meal, or maybe I’m before or after exercise and, uh, not quite ready to sit down to my masterpiece, it really helps ensure that my protein needs are optimized every single day so that I can be active, energetic, performing and recovering.

Brad (19:41):
You’ve probably heard me say, that’s my new mantra. Now, perform, recover, perform, recover, and that is the number one way to access longevity and health span potential. And indeed, I talked about trying to get enough protein in throughout the day, uh, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who promotes this concept of muscle centric medicine, building and preserving lean muscle mass as your number one goal to age gracefully and avoid disease. And of course, that comes hand in hand with getting adequate protein intake. She talks about dosing throughout the day as the best way to, uh, remain in that, uh, healthy, uh, metabolic or even anabolic state. Also, Dr. Don Lehman, one of the world’s protein experts, uh, he says the same, that, uh, it’s a great idea to get first thing in the morning, a nice dose of protein, so that you will switch from a catabolic state, which is what you awaken in typically because of that overnight fasting period where you’ve burned through whatever calories.

Brad (20:42):
And now in the absence of food, and you’re asking your body to get up and be energetic, you can easily shift over into a catabolic state. Jay Feldman talks about this too, where if you’re fasting in the morning and demanding a lot from your brain and body, you’re gonna spike stress hormones. A little bit of, uh, dispute about this from the other side, including my great show with my main man, Mark Sisson, where he talks about developing that metabolic flexibility so that it’s really not much trouble at all to fast until noon, because you’ve built the machinery, the metabolic machinery to not require calories, uh, throughout the day. So now we have like two kind of warring perspectives here. The benefits of fasting and metabolic efficiency and metabolic flexibility where you can easily kick over into burning fat. Maybe you wake up, you have a cup of coffee, and you’re good to go until 1:00 PM even if you work out, as Mark does devotedly.

Brad (21:36):
Uh, and then the other side saying, look, you wanna dose your protein throughout the day, Dr. Layman says, get that protein first thing in the morning. Get that one gram per pound every day. That’s gonna be difficult to do if you’re only eating in a tight window. So what do we do here? And I really think it depends on some individual factors, the main one being your present state of metabolic health. So, when speaking to the vast majority of modern citizens, most people are carrying around some excess body fat, especially the health destructive, visceral fat, that’s the fat that collects around the abdomen. So the beer belly look, this is both applicable to males and females. Um, that firmness in the abdomen coming from visceral fat, that’s the thing that you really wanna work hard to stave off because it messes up your hormones and accelerates aging.

Brad (22:25):
So if you have some metabolic issues right now, minor or major you will stand to benefit tremendously from doing things like a ketogenic diet period. As we describe in detail in the Keto Reset Diet, in the two meals a day book, we talk about shifting your pattern so that you might be eating in a time window between 12 noon and 8:00 PM That’s enough time for two wonderful meals. And maybe backing off from snacking and grazing and overall consuming too much food with insufficient activity. So by any means necessary, you want to get rid of that visceral fat first and foremost, and perhaps excess body fat if that happens to be a goal that you wanna change your physique. Now, if you’re an active, energetic person and you’re challenging your body with a lot of high intensity exercise, and you’re putting in a lot of hours of general movement and low level cardio in the primal, approach where we’re blending low level cardio with high intensity exercise, uh, strength training, resistance training, sprinting, that’s where I’m gonna go trend into the recommendation to perform and recover.

Brad (23:38):
And, and don’t even fool around with a stacking of stress factors such as fasting and performing intense exercise, because I think you can easily tip the balance into where you go into emergency survival mode, you do spike those stress hormones because you’ve asked so much of your body, including the workout and including not eating. So that is the fork in the road people. And I really, I’ve talked a lot about my recalibrations and reflections along these lines, realizing that as a master’s competitor in the older age groups, my main focus is to, uh, complete my workouts and build my fitness and improve my competitive, results and recover from this hard stuff, even at the advanced age here pushing 60 and kicking into that new age group category. So I can’t wait for my birthday. Some people get sad about adding another year, especially when it’s a big one, like a decade.

Brad (24:40):
But boy, I am just licking my chops and realizing that a whole new world is, is open where the, um, the standards are lower because of aging, but I’m ready to bust in there. So that’s kind of fun. That’s one of the great things about being a competitor in masters or in any age group, uh, category, whatever sport you’re doing is that you relish the chance to bump up into a quote unquote easier age group. So, uh, active, energetic folks, make sure you get your protein be careful messing around with any form of quote, restrictive, end quote type of diet. So that would be restricting calories, restricting time window for eating, uh, when you’re trying to perform and recover, especially in the older age groups.

Brad (25:25):
Okay, here’s a spicy comment. I told you there was some spice coming. This is from, uh, Mia on YouTube. Here we go. Quote, minimal shoes are dead by now. I think there’s thousands of us who have tried the whole minimal shoe fad and started strong and end up injured and unmotivated. I spent a year regressing, getting slower and slower, one injury after another, and then trying to build up slowly thing. And I finally just gave up. I put back on my ultras and went from a mile here and there to doing my 30 miles a week in no time. And I’ve never, uh, had that extreme heel striking. So I’m, I’m doing fine in my Ultras, and I also appreciate your videos, by the way, Brad. So, as you know, I’m promoting the heck out of our new venture of pva five toe minimalist shoes and the wonderful benefits of becoming barefoot adapted in life and getting away from the destruction of musculoskeletal health, and especially foot health caused by a lifetime wearing elevated cushioned shoes.

Brad (26:28):
However, Mia makes some really important points, and it is true that many people got excited about the minimalist shoe fad, and went from a lifetime of wearing these protective shoes to slipping on the Vibrams with the five toes, and then taking off down the street and running their five mile run and getting injured, unmotivated, regressing, slower and slower as Mia reports. So, I’m sorry that you had that, uh, misfortune in your past, and I’m glad that things are working well for you and that you’re running your weekly mileage in a protective, relatively comfortable and more protective shoe. So let’s acknowledge that if you’re striving to do modern extreme athletic challenges as I am when I’m trying to do my track workouts and my sprinting and my high jumping, I need protective footwear. And so in my workouts, you will find me kicking my five toe shoes off and putting on elevated cushioned shoes to do my training.

Brad (27:32):
Or in the case of high jump, the special rigid plated high jump shoes with spikes on the heel. If I tried to do those in minimalist shoes, I would get hurt because I’m traumatizing my joints and tendons and muscles by trying to jump over a bar that’s not a truly ancestral style human behavior. However, outside of my workouts, I am very strongly committed to a barefoot inspired lifestyle because I want my feet to be as strong and resilient and functional as possible when I am training in my chosen shoe. Obviously, this example applies to going out and playing pickup basketball. You’re not gonna wear barefoot shoes for that nor many other athletic challenges that you might not be well adapted to in a shoe with less protection. So the goal here and the driving goal of Peluva is we want to get you walking around in Peluva shoes, the five toe shoes, the minimalist shoe, the zero drop without any elevated heel to bring your feet back into the game and get them more functional and going through their entire range of motion with every stride that you take in a safe, comfortable manner, where you progress slowly from your reliance and your encasement in these protective shoes.

Brad (28:56):
So it starts with, for example, uh, going around barefoot in the house as much as possible, and then using a minimalist shoe for very safe, comfortable activity like walking or perhaps going to the gym and doing a strength training circuit where you’re benefiting from that great balance on the ground. You’re getting on the ground, you’re getting a barefoot like effect, but you’re not doing side to side lunges that you’re not prepared for. And so that’s the whole deal here, is to transition carefully and not make those mistakes, and have those setbacks that come when you get on the frenzy bandwagon and start running in a very minimal shoot. We should also, uh, so that that’s the acknowledgement there making abrupt transition, bad idea, possibly never, uh, necessary to try and use a minimalist shoe for specialized sporting activities such as high jumping.

Brad (29:47):
However, when we talk about the running scene in general and the fascination with the cushion shoes, and now the super cushioned shoes, which are extremely popular, we have to acknowledge that there’s a 50% annual injury rate among regular runners. And there’s all kinds of research that we cited in writing The Born To Walk book. 50% is from Yale University. There’s research from Wake Forest saying that 79% of regular runners get an overuse injury every year. The lowest figure that we saw was 37% of regular runners getting injured. So anywhere from 37 to 79, and we’re picking 50 to reference over and over half of all runners are injured every single year. That is a worse statistic than the NFL where they have a 31% annual injury rate. Of course, those are different injuries, but still it’s an embarrassment, and it’s ridiculous to think that people are heading off jogging in a straight line, no one’s tackling them, and half of them are getting injured over and over and over.

Brad (30:53):
25% of regular runners are injured at any given time. Crazy. So we’re going to have to cast intense and savage blame on the running shoes for creating dysfunction and also enabling poor technique because when you put on that cushioned shoe, you can then run with the very common heel striking, overriding, jarring, breaking stride pattern, which is only enabled by wearing an elevated cushioned shoe. In other words, if you tried an breaking jarring heel, striking over striking pattern, over striking pattern in bare feet, it would be immediately painful after six strides, and you would immediately correct to a proper midfoot landing over a balance center of gravity and running beautifully light on your feet, like a graceful deer running down the street, a running down the trail. So the problem with running shoes is that they enable poor form and are the driving cause of running overuse injury.

Brad (31:59):
This is not just Brad’s opinion or Brad and Mark sounding off on the book. This is from extensive research from around the world that over and over again, and there was a quote in a British publication saying that, uh, the running shoe companies are engaging in deceptive advertising that is leading to a public health problem by telling you that these motion control shoes will help you avoid injury. And it’s absolutely not true. And there’s never been one shred of scientific evidence showing that running shoes prevent injury, nor that running shoes can control pronation. So when you buy a motion control shoe and pay more money for that than a regular old less expensive shoe with less, uh, buildup and plastic contraptions and rigid arch construction to help you control pronation, they do not work. And this is from no less a resource than Steve Magnus who has, uh, a great blog called Science of Running.

Brad (33:03):
He’s the author of Science of Running, oh, his blog’s called something Else, sorry. But you can look up Steve Magnus and see the highly scientifically validated articles that he writes about how, uh, running shoes that do not prevent injury and in fact are the driving cause of injury. And, that means almost everything that we see in the marketing realm, is a complete fabrication and, and an absolute ruse. And the great research from Dr. Daniel Lieberman’s, lab at Harvard, uh, reveals that, uh, running shoes generate seven times more impact trauma than running in bare feet. So that is your path to injury, almost certainly by throwing on those shoes and putting in your 30 miles a week. So whatever, whatever you wanna do with your, your running endeavors and your training decisions, uh, let’s make sure that, uh, things are effective and you’re not getting chronic overuse injuries or fatigue or exhaustion.

Brad (34:05):
And that’s kinda the essence of our book Born to Walk that a lot of people deserve and will greatly benefit from slowing down to a walking pace and doing more of their cardio at a walking pace, rather than adhering to the cultural dogma and the programming and the peer pressure to run at a slightly too significantly too stressful pace that causes repeated breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury. And here’s some little, um commentary to describe further, uh, that’s pasted from, uh, the book I believe, or perhaps the PDF that you can get for free@bradkearns.com, called The Definitive Guide to a Barefoot and Minimalist Shoe Lifestyle that we put out from Peluva. It’s a great research. I highly encourage you to download that. And if you want to go try out these shoes I’ve been talking about, go to peluva.com, P-E-L-U-V-A, and the code Brad podcast will give you 15% discount, and you can get the free download there too.

Brad (35:04):
So here, I wanna say a little more here. Novice joggers have the inclination to heel strike and overstride for an assortment of reasons beyond wearing a cushion shoe. So, remember I said that the elevated cushion shoe enables poor form, so it enables you to shuffle along with the heel strike breaking overriding pattern. But why do we do this? It’s because we’re not basically athletic athletically conditioned sufficiently to take off and run down the street with proper form, because running is an extremely difficult activity to sustain endurance running that’s longer than a mile or two, requires a lot of physical fitness capability and musculoskeletal resiliency. Most of us sit around too much. So we have, you know, tight hamstrings, tight hip flexors, weak glutes, and all these things that prevent us from exhibiting that beautiful heel strike landing over a balanced center of gravity, this, which is the way that humans should run.

Brad (36:05):
But when we put on these elevated cushion shoes, now we are able to shuffle along. And the signs of this are the reasons for this hour, an inefficiently slow cadence, an insufficient forward lean of the trunk, because experts want you to have a slight hinge forward of around eight to 10 degrees, your’re bending from the hip. And so your torso, your trunk, is leaning a little bit forward. If you watch the Olympics, uh, virtually all the runners had this, uh, slight forward lean of the trunk, um, especially prominent. You can look up a video of Jakob Ingebrigsten, and he’s got a really beautiful and sustained forward lean of his entire body, uh, to help him, uh, break records at the middle distance events and win gold medals. So the recommendation is to have this slight forward hinging from the hip, uh, for your trunk to enable you to gracefully land over a balanced center of gravity on every stride.

Brad (37:06):
Uh, but if you can’t do that due to, for example, uh, weak abdominals, uh, weak, lower back, whatever things that’s, uh, causing you discomfort to have that have and preserve that forward lean, uh, that’s gonna be a problem. It’s also, uh, observed in recreational runners with bad form that they have an insufficient forward lean of the ankles that’s due to poor ankle flexibility. So you want to have that dorsiflexion of the foot, um, throughout the stride pattern and especially upon landing. But if your ankles are stiff and immobile, that’s not gonna happen either. We also see poor glute activation that’s from, uh, just weakened gluteals driven by a lot of sitting, and also from that lack of forward lean that we talked about. We also see poor hip extension on the takeoff phase, or the push-off phase of the stride, and that’s due to weak and or tight hip flexors.

Brad (38:01):
So you have two things, tight hip flexors or weak hip flexors. Two different things. I have all these demos on the, Primal Fitness Expert certification course that we do on video to show different tests where you can drop your, you can lay on an elevated surface like lay on a picnic table, and then drop your leg down to the side and see if you can comfortably hold the position as a test for tight hip flexors. You can also test your ankle mobility by putting your foot a few inches from a wall and then leaning down, lunging down onto that leg, and seeing if your knees can go forward of the ankle and touch the wall. So, I really would love you to check out and enroll in that course if you’re a fitness professional or want to get a high level of fitness education for your own edification.

Brad (38:57):
So that’s the poor hip extension is another reason weak hip flexors and a tendency for what’s called contralateral pelvic drop. This is a driving cause and a driving indication that you’re about to get a running overuse injury. A 2018 study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine revealed that each degree of hip drop increased injury risk by 80%. So contralateral pelvic drop, AKA hip drop is when the airborne hips, airborne hip drops below the hip, contacting the ground during the running stride. So it’s sort of like instability in the hips where you’re doing sort of a wobbly, swivel hip kind of stride, rather than crisply landing and absorbing that impact gracefully with your pelvis remaining stable. And again, if you watch the pack in the Olympics in the marathon, or running around the track, everybody has incredible stability as well as the power powerful takeoff and all the attributes that you see.

Brad (40:07):
And then you compare contrast to someone shuffling along at a slow pace and kind of see that wobbly, uh, dropping pelvis on every stride. There you go. There’s the difference. So that’s a long discussion from the initial spicy comment by Mia that it’s a bad idea to switch over to minimalist shoes, and that the, uh, <laugh> the fad is dead by now. So, Peluva would disagree. We’re bringing it back, and I think it really is time to respect and appreciate the importance of a barefoot inspired lifestyle. And that’s all we’re trying to do is make the single most comfortable, most stylish and most functional barefoot shoe ever made. So, take a break. Go over and look@pelvua.com. I think you’re gonna be, uh, inspired and would love for you to try a pair. And of course, we have a guarantee. So, give it a good try.

Brad (40:57):
We’re sure you’ll be happy with it, but no risk if you, if it’s not your thing. Yeah, it, human feet are not my thing. I’m a I’m a shoe guy. Come on. Now it’s time to get back to basics. And there’s a huge dysfunction from human health is to put those feet into shoes. And we’ve been doing it for 600 years since the medieval times when the aristocrats, would make different shoes with the pointy toe, uh, to distinguish from the, uh, the, uh, the, the, the footwear that was put onto the peasants, uh, where they actually had room for the foot because they were performing manual labor. And that’s how shoe fashion got started to the great detriment of humanity for hundreds of years. So it’s time to turn the corner and get our feet back into the game and, uh, be identified by your unique and creative five toe shoe as a trend setter and a fashion forward person. How about that, <laugh>? Okay.

Brad (41:55):
Another YouTube comment from Miss Kai Tkk one. Brad, I’m asking you about the 20 second maximum limit when you talk about sprinting. So remember, I’ve done a lot of content saying that a ideal template sprint workout for most people would be to conduct four to eight sprints lasting between 10 and 20 seconds, no longer than 20 seconds, with extensive rest period honoring at least a six to one ratio of recovery to work. So if you’re sprinting for 10 seconds down the athletic field, you’re gonna rest for at least a minute. If you’re sprinting for 20 seconds, the longer version being appropriate for things like a stationary bike or no, or low impact sprinting, such as running up the staircase at the stadium or in the office building or running up a steep hill, you can go for longer.

Brad (42:50):
Now does that apply to people who havebexcess body fat, not an Olympian like you, Brad <laugh>? Oh, not like you yet. Yeah. ’cause I’ve announced my goal of competing in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, back to my hometown triumphant return, the oldest high jumper of all time. I just need to find a country that’ll take me, and I’ll do it, man. I’ll join your team, but I got distracted there with my Olympic dream. Does this apply even to people who aren’t Olympians and might carry excess body fat? I think the question might be leading to, should I sprint for longer if I have excess body fat and need to burn more calories, whatever, whatever. And the answer is, uh, absolutely not. The limit of sprinting is especially relevant and appropriate for people that are in the novice category, because you do not want to push yourself too hard and get the depletion and exhaustion feeling after doing a sprint workout.

Brad (43:50):
And we’ve been so conditioned to do the high intensity interval training protocols, HIIT they call it, or HIIT workouts, where the, oftentimes a group class or a coach workout is being asked to push themselves to, uh, quote unquote sprint, uh, effort over and over again. Oftentimes for longer than 30 seconds, you’ll go to like an indoor stationary biking class, and they’ll say, okay, you’re gonna finish, with 10 sprints of 30 seconds each, uh, with a 32nd rest. And what happens is, if you try to go at maximum or near maximum intensity for longer than 20 seconds, it’s no longer a true sprint, and it becomes a glycolytic effort. That’s the term for a high glucose burning effort. That’s not a true sprint, but more of a HIIT effort, a high intensity interval training effort. Now, of course, those have, uh, great fitness adaptations, but I just contend that they’re performed to excess a lot in traditional fitness programming.

Brad (44:51):
And many of us will be better served doing true sprints, where you’re delivering a true explosive effort that cannot last for longer than 20 seconds, and then cut it off, rest a long time, come back and do another, come back and do another four to eight total represents a fantastic workout. But again, these are really, uh, truly challenging efforts that are going to prompt a depletion of glycogen in the muscle where you’re gonna get the great metabolic and hormonal benefits of a really brief, high intensity explosive effort, followed by extensive recovery time. So the quality of each effort is consistent. In other words, you have enough rest to come back and sprint again up the stairs for 20 seconds, keeping the quality similar on the second one, the third one, the fifth one, the sixth one. And then at some point you’ll sense fatigue, or maybe something will tighten up, and that’ll be your sign to curtail the workout rather than suffer through three or four or five more in the name of completing a brutal killer HIIT session and burning a bunch of calories.

Brad (45:58):
So we need to work that top end, that explosive end that delivers the best genetic signaling for fat reduction of any workout. So if you want a quick shortcut or a hot tip to quickly drop excess body fat, you need to shock your body into elevated fat burning and burning off that excess body fat. The best way to do it is a short duration sprint workout. It doesn’t have to be a 30 minute or 60 minute torture session, because what happens when you push too hard or try to sprint too frequently with insufficient rest between the sprints is your performance degrades the metabolic cost skyrockets. It’s called dissembling and deamination of the cellular proteins in order to try and fuel a near maximum effort for longer than 20 seconds. That’s when you get extended recovery time. And the hormonal and metabolic effects are felt for 24 48 to 72 hours afterward.

Brad (47:03):
For example, feeling kind of exhausted the evening after you did a very intense HIIT training session or the next morning, or feeling tight recurring tightness. Stiffness, overeating is another reaction to a workout that’s, uh, too stressful, exhausting, and depleting. So we wanna keep these things crisp, truly explosive and not exhausting. It’s just about sending the genetic signals for fitness improvement, muscle growth, and burning excess body fat. That’s what sprinting’s all about. That’s why it’s the best workout return on investment of any workout, but you have to do it right, otherwise you’ll get tired and it won’t be a true sprint workout. So I want you to really reflect on that and realize how different that is from the, uh, commonly favored torture session where they have you doing this effort or that effort lasting for up to an hour of exhaustive exercise.

Brad (48:01):
Again, it does stimulate fitness adaptations. It’s not a worthless, but it has a high risk of adverse consequences afterward, such as compensatory mechanisms where your body is, uh, lazier more fatigued, moves slower throughout the day, and you overeat, in attempt to recover from such a torturous workout.

Brad (48:25):
Okay, um, I’m gonna cover this one more because it’s talking about HIIT and I think that’s a nice gathering of information and topics to reflect on for this show. Looking forward to more questions coming in. This is from Patricia. I guess I’ve been doing a form of HIIT. It involves running as fast as I possibly can on a rebounder for up to 30 seconds, and then resting for two minutes. And I do six of these. I just started listening to your podcast and heard, you say that you should never sprint more than 20 seconds, but wouldn’t performing on this rebounder be considered low impact and therefore making it okay to go for 30 seconds or more.

Brad (49:07):
So again, just to follow up from the first question. A workout where you’re doing six efforts of 30 seconds and resting for two minutes in between them, uh, that’s pretty darn good. That’s pretty smart. I don’t think it’s gonna be terribly exhausting. Obviously you’re gonna warm up and cool down in between those, but I would indeed recommend taking it down to 20 seconds. Yep. You can keep the rest there at two minutes, and, uh, you can do six as you’ve been doing, but just taking that 10 seconds off will allow you to be a little more powerful and explosive for the duration of the hard effort. Again, we’re trying to teach the body to fire those fast twitch muscle fibers, be truly explosive and stimulate a wonderful fitness adaptation from working that top end. So a slight tweak there would be great, but what you’re doing is, is really good.

Brad (49:59):
And on some of these equipment like a bicycle or a rebounder, I’m sorry, I don’t even know what that is, is a little trampoline or something. Sometimes it takes a while to rev up. So when you’re doing a bicycle sprint, perhaps the first three or four seconds are cranking up the pedaling, cranking up the gears so that you can achieve that maximum wattage output on the bike. But it’s not as immediate as taking off running down the, uh, the athletic field or the track. And it does take a few seconds to accelerate up to maximum speed running, but you also have that high impact factor where I’m recommending keeping it down around 10 seconds for a true running sprint workout, but okay to take it up to 20 on other equipment, including the rebounder.

Brad (50:50):
All right. How’s that? Thanks a lot. Those were fun and exciting, especially the comment about minimalist shoes being dead and my chance to, uh, reacquaint you with the proper way to transition to barefoot inspired lifestyle while protecting, uh, the importance of doing the, the workouts and the specialized sport activities that you need. Thanks for listening, watching.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Thank you so much for listening to the B.rad Podcast. We appreciate all feedback and suggestions. Email podcast@bradventures.com and visit brad kearns.com to download five free eBooks and learn some great long cuts to a longer life. How to optimize testosterone naturally, become a dark chocolate connoisseur and transition to a barefoot and minimalist shoe lifestyle.