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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 science talk to laugh, have fun and appreciate the journey. It’s time to B.rad.

Brad (00:07):
You will have A better return on investment and a better boost in health disease prevention and longevity than adhering to a devoted fitness regimen. Did you hear that right? Yes, that’s right. There’s a scientific term called the active.

Brad (00:53):
Hey, I wanna do a quick show to cover the amazingly comprehensive, interesting and valuable Primal Fitness Expert Certification course. If you are thinking about a career in fitness or helping others or just wanna broaden your own personal education, this is such a fun and valuable course, and there’s simply nothing like it anywhere as far as the diverse subjects and topics that we cover and provide instruction on. So what you do is you, uh, register for the program and you log into a learning center where there is an extensive amount of text, as well as complimentary videos to allow you to go through this course step by step with 16 different modules.

Brad (01:42):
And after each module, you take an exam to show your competency, and if you, uh, don’t get an appropriate score, you can go back and study some more. We also have one-on-one support from experts. We wanna make sure that you own this material and really understand it and have a wonderful, broad-based philosophical education, as well as a lot of practical tips and information about all aspects of fitness. You know, about the regimented, narrowly focused courses where you become a spin, certified spinning instructor or CrossFit instructor. This covers everything. It’s a how to live a healthy, happy, fit, active lifestyle. So I wanted to take you through the content that we cover in the course. I would love for you to enroll, but even if you just listen to the topics that I’m gonna cover and a little bit of color commentary for each one, you’ll get a nice overview, takeaway of some important things about fitness and I think you’re gonna enjoy it and get super excited about learning more about the course at primalhealthcoach.com slash brad.

Brad (02:44):
That’s where you can take advantage of this awesome 25% discount on the tuition. The course is not cheap because you’re getting a very comprehensive educational experience at the level of one or two or three college courses on fitness, athletic training, exercise physiology, all in one learning center that you have lifetime access to. But I think you will certainly appreciate the tremendous value and the awakening that you get as you proceed through the 16 modules. So I’m gonna go over them and just give you some, some background on what you’re, what you’re gonna learn. And we start out by learning the very important critical distinction between health and fitness. Yes, they are not synonymous, and in many cases, and in many ways, you’re devoted pursuit of daunting fitness goals can compromise your general overall health and longevity. I talk frequently about how my nine years racing around the world on the professional triathlon circuit.

Brad (03:49):
I contend aged my body probably to the extent of 15 to 20 years of true biological aging because I push my body so hard day after day with so many hours of arduous training, far beyond the health benefits that one would get if they’re out there exercising devotedly for five or seven or eight or 10 hours a week, when you start to get up to 17 or 23 or 27 hours a week of, uh, you know, a mix of, uh, a lot of, uh, high volume aerobic exercise and high intensity intervals and athletic competition. And, uh, stack on top of that, all the, uh, many miles of jet travel and time zones and jet lag that I endured going all over the globe following the circuit. Boy, it was tough and it was exhausting. And by the time I was 30 years old, I literally felt like I was 80 in many different ways, especially my gait pattern at rest.

Brad (04:45):
So when I got out of bed every morning, of course I would shuffle and my left foot would drag sideways because of my severe plantar fascitis that I needed to hop or limp over to the jacuzzi and put my foot in for five minutes and do foot mobility exercises just so I could put weight on it. And then of course, strap up into an elevated cushioned shoe and go out there and put in my four mile or six mile or 12 mile morning run. And then I would inhale a whole bunch of food. A lot of it would be relatively nutrient deficient, grain-based, high calorie meals so I could fuel the long miles on the bike that would ensue. And the swimming back and forth laps in the swimming pool and all that stuff put together in aggregate made me tired and age me at an accelerated place.

Brad (05:29):
And of course, what have I been doing for the last three decades is trying to unwind and recover and nurture longevity and actually pursue fitness goals that are in support of broad-based functional fitness, health, daily energy levels and longevity. So I’ve talked a lot about my transition from an extreme endurance athlete, coming at the expense of my health, to today, focusing on high intensity sprinting and high jumping, because I believe honing those skills and training appropriately for them actually promotes longevity and makes me strong and healthy and explosive and powerful even as I get into the older age groups. So, getting away from this extreme endurance exercise pattern and the exhausting depleting nature of a lot of high intensity interval training, workouts and fitness modalities. So I’m not just talking about the extreme triathletes out there who know what they’re doing, but the general enthusiastic gym goer that’s doing step class on Monday and spin class on Wednesday and maybe going to CrossFit and doing two or three or four workouts a week that can also put you into this chronic pattern where you compromise many aspects of general health and end up, you know, exhausted, depleted, burnt out and injured. So we’re talking about that distinction and how to approach your fitness goals in a big picture the right way.

Brad (06:53):
So that transitions into the next module, which is the benefits of increasing all forms of general everyday movement, especially walking. You know, that our 2025 book launch, the book title, Born to Walk, written with Mark Sisson. We’re so excited about that because we’re going to, uh, set some things straight in the endurance community where this fixation on the struggle and suffer approach has been a disastrous failure for decades. And now we’re gonna talk about how to do it the right way. And it starts with leading a generally active lifestyle in every way possible. So that means short walks, that means long walks, that means hustling up staircases instead of taking the elevator every time and just sprinkling in opportunities for activity, whether brief or medium or long duration.

Brad (07:43):
It’s great to go out for a two-hour hike every weekend, but during the day, get up from your desk and move around for a couple minutes. And in the aggregate, if you can just increase all forms of everyday activity, you will have a better return on investment and a better boost in health disease prevention and longevity than adhering to a devoted fitness regimen. Did you hear that right? Yes, that’s right. There’s a scientific term called the active Couch Potato Syndrome, whereby people who are devoted to a pretty serious fitness protocol of running 30 miles a week or hitting the gym three mornings a week, and going to the Tuesday night track workout with their running crew. They’re doing these, uh, difficult workouts and, uh, fitness protocols, but they generally lead otherwise sedentary lifestyle, are not immune from the diseases of sedentary living.

Brad (08:36):
That’s called the Active Couch Potato Syndrome. So the many experts are now contending that if you just get up and move more, you will boost your health in a tremendous way that we really haven’t fully respected or appreciated when we’ve been shoved down our throats that we need to get 10,000 steps a day, which might be too much for a lot of people to shoot for, and thereby a discouraging recommendation rather than empowering, and that we need to exhaust ourselves in the gym in order to be fit, rather than seeing the tremendous benefit of just putting in more time on your feet or doing traditional movement protocols like yoga or Pilates, things that don’t necessarily have to exhaust you and cause you to sweat, but just keep you moving and active. This is the homo sapiens genetic expectation for health. Our species is designed to be in near constant movement throughout the day in order to work optimally.

Brad (09:34):
And in the book Born to Walk, we paint this interesting contrast to, for example, the African lion. That species is called the Panera Leo, and the genetics of the lion dictate that the animal will sleep for typically around 20 hours every day, and then launch brief all out savage attacks to get their prey. The attack lasts no longer than 30 seconds because of the explosiveness and the anaerobic nature of the lion species. And when they do succeed in getting some, uh, delicious meal, they have been known to sleep for up to 24 hours after their feast. So that is the lion living his or her best life, whereby the human in contrast where different species, we have different requirements, different genetics, we need to be up and around and moving and doing whatever we can to avoid prolonged periods of stillness, such as sitting in front of a screen or sitting in transportation for hours and hours or sitting on the couch enjoying our leisure time. So it’s a simple little tweak. And the second chapter really impresses the importance of increasing all forms of general everyday movement. And then when it’s time to move, we might as well learn how to do it correctly.

Brad (10:53):
So the next module is about human posture and movement fundamentals. There is the a biomechanically correct way to stand and to walk and to run, and also to sit and bend and extend and move your body in a manner that will preserve it will be safe and it’ll preserve spinal integrity and it’ll avoid some of these overuse and repetitive trauma injuries that we sustain when we don’t know how to lift up a box correctly or sit in a chair in the most ergonomically ideal position. So you’re gonna learn how to make like a greyhound whenever you have to reach and extend.

Brad (11:34):
You have to suck your stomach in, tighten the abdominals, and that’s how you reach safely. And even with standing, I got a lot of benefit from doing this research and learning these topics. Uh, actually starting many years ago with Esther Gokhale’s wonderful book, Eight Steps to a Pain-Free Back where the human body is designed to load body weight over the heels. So in order to stand with correct posture, you want to anchor your body weight onto your heels. That means that your shoulders and your head must be in alignment with your spine in order for the skeleton to load properly. And of course, we want to preserve this straight and elongated spine through all manner of everyday movement and complex athletic activity. So if you envision looking at different athletes in action like the NFL lineman down in the three point stance, or the basketball player in his defensive position with his or her knees bent or surfing a wave or swinging a golf club, the common attribute is this straight and elongated and stable spine such that you can generate power, for example, for doing a side to side activity or whip like a kinetic chain, like throwing a football or swinging a golf club.

Brad (12:53):
So we spend a lot of time emphasizing the importance of preserving a straightening elongated spine rather than that common position that we see these days where someone is slouched and their shoulders are hunched over because they spend so much time driving and holding a steering wheel. And if you’re watching on video, I’m hunching my shoulders like, I’m like, I’m steering a steering wheel or grabbing a phone and sending text messages. And there’s a lot of things that put us out of ideal posture. So that’s a great chapter to learn that basics.

Brad (13:20):
Then we go into a whole chapter on breathing and especially how to implement the stress reducing performance boosting strategy of minimized nasal diaphragmatic breathing. The wonderful bestselling book, The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown. There’s another great book called Breath by James Nestor. They were both on the bestseller list at the same time.

Brad (13:44):
Interestingly, a few years ago make an excellent case for learning how to breathe minimally in order to stimulate parasympathetic function as often as possible or at all times. And whenever, whenever, whenever you can, you know, to minimize that chronic overproduction and overstimulation of the stress response that we do in hectic daily life. And breathing is a huge part of managing that autonomic nervous system functioned. So when you can, when you can learn to breathe through your nose only at all times as minimally as possible at all times for the rest of your life, you are going to be a more chill person and you’re going to have better oxygen delivery to your working muscles and tissues because of your minimized breathing rather than the typical penchant, especially in fitness and athletic activity of habitual over-breathing, where we’re sucking air through our big wide open mouth to the extent of more than we need.

Brad (14:45):
And we actually do this during everyday life too, especially when we get stressed. So this common pattern that is aligned or that stimulates sympathetic nervous system activity, fight or flight is shallow panting, excessive breathing through the mouth. We know from science, there’s great scientific rationale in both of those books. Something called the Bohr effect of chemistry, where if you minimize breathing and improve your general carbon dioxide tolerance in the bloodstream, you actually deliver more oxygen to working muscles rather than this habitual over-breathing pattern where we actually become, it actually becomes more difficult to fuel the muscles with the necessary oxygen they need when you’re doing something that is high intensity and calls for it. So the quick takeaway, I have a whole show on this and I don’t want to get too far down here, that’s just what the chapter’s all about.

Brad (15:39):
But if you can strive to breathe as minimally as possible through your nose only at all times for the rest of your life, especially during overnight sleep, that is a winning ticket, you’re gonna learn all about it in this chapter. Each of these chapters are so valuable and rich that I think it’s, it’s like worth the price of admission. The the breathing information has changed my life and I think about it every single day. Same with the posture stuff. I’ve thought about it every single day since 2010 when I first attended Esther Gokhale’s seminar and learned that I was standing with that nasty slouched posture that is so common.

Brad (16:13):
Okay, so then we go into a chapter on stretching. We do clear up some of the confusion and controversy on this topic of whether you should do static stretching or whether it’s bad for you should is dynamic better than static.

Brad (16:25):
The do’s and don’ts we have like assessments thrown in there again with things on video so you can learn them and help guide others if you’re in that guidance role as a fitness professional. So you have a hip flexor assessment protocol, fun stuff like that, but also learning some great ideas for dynamic stretching before workouts, after workouts. And then when is the appropriate time for static stretching, especially if you’re trying for injury prevention and to speed recovery.

Brad (16:54):
Then we go into the mobility flexibility, balance and injury prevention section. And we dispensed some really amazing cutting edge techniques that I’ve learned and obtained from the world’s leaders in these categories. Guys like Tim de Francesco, who’s the former strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. He showed me his top secret draft assessment protocol that he would take prospects through so that the Lakers could decide whether or not to spend $50 million on a draft pick.

Brad (17:30):
He would assess whether they were at a high risk of things like knee injuries or any type of overuse injury or traumatic injury because they were had poor overall functionality. It’s fascinating. It’s all on video and you can do the assessment yourself and determine whether your glutes are non-functional or weak or your hip flexors are either tight or and or weak. All that fun stuff. And then of course drills and techniques to implement into your daily routine to improve your overall balance, flexibility, mobility.

Brad (18:02):
Okay, then we go into the big fat section about cardiovascular fitness and endurance training. So we talk about this really important recently popular protocol of fat max training. How you determine that and how you distinguish between an appropriate intensity for a steady state cardiovascular aerobic conditioning versus the common penchant of going slightly too significantly too hard and thereby stimulating what we would affectionately call a sugar burning workout rather than a fat burning workout.

Brad (18:38):
And the problem there is that you can easily trend in the direction of breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury because the workouts are slightly too significantly too stressful. So it’s super important to monitor heart rate every time you’re doing a cardiovascular session, helping to, uh, avoid those chronic patterns which are so common. And also, in general, rethinking this obsession over steady state cardio and how important it is to have in your overall fitness protocol. Hint sneak preview, it’s not, and the only real justification to indulge in steady state cardiovascular exercise at medium to difficult intensities is to prepare for these daunting and perhaps inherently unhealthy races that have become popular due to marketing hype and decades of cultural programming. This is also the centerpiece, uh, topics that are featured in our book, Born to Walk, where why are you interested in and now training for a marathon or even a half marathon?

Brad (19:43):
And it’s an extremely long way to run. Humans are definitely not adapted for such endeavors, especially when you talk about the training protocol of heading out there day after day and putting in this many miles or that many miles in the name of trying to get healthy and fit. So there’s a extreme overemphasis in these days in fitness on steady state cardiovascular exercise. I walk into a gym, what do I see? Lines and banks and banks of the, uh, the treadmills and the stair machines and the stationary bikes and usually filled with a good crowd of people. And then you go over and look into the free weights and the machine section, and it’s usually just the gym bros walking around with their headphones on playing with their, uh, their scrolling social media in between their sets. And it seems like it should be a flip flop for most people would use a gym to do regular strength training sessions that support broad-based functional fitness and building and maintaining muscle mass and muscle strength throughout life where the cardio can easily be had with a variety of activity.

Brad (20:51):
Remembering that any type of fitness stimulation delivers a cardiovascular training effect. Even the bros who are sending text messages and scrolling through social media and dating apps in between their sets, they are still elevating their heart rate above the resting rate for the entire hour or hour and a half or however long they’re spending in the gym. So there’s no, there’s no magical justification to engage in steady state cardio. And you can look at a bigger picture and perhaps pursue some more appropriate and interesting and diverse goals that are more aligned with overall health, health span and longevity than our current fixation on grueling steady state cardiovascular events like long distance running, triathlon and other things of that nature. So that’s my little quip for chapter seven, but you are gonna get a big picture education, then we go into high intensity.

Brad (21:50):
So, the next chapter is the benefits, the proper implementation of high intensity exercise in a variety of different modalities. So we can talk about things like the group exercise classes, individual sport training. We also have, uh, a lot of dedication and attention in this chapter to rest and recovery. Because when you are starting to dabble in high intensity exercise, yes, indeed you get tremendous fitness benefits, but it also has much more importance on resting, recovering, and being prepared to push your body hard rather than dragging your body through workouts when maybe you’re not feeling that great. And, we commonly see that in the fitness scene with a variety of, you know, I guess you would call it cultural moors and traditions where the endurance athlete is, you know, overly fixated on what their weekly volume is.

Brad (22:52):
And they CrossFit, member is fixated on how many times they can attend the gym so they can have a social, uh, experience and get the gold sticker for doing the most workouts in a month or whatever. So the balance of stress and rest is especially critical when it comes to high intensity exercise, doing it right and benefiting from it.

Brad (23:13):
Then we go into a chapter dedicated solely to the, the marquee exercises of deadlifting and squatting. So you’re gonna learn correct technique, you’re gonna watch a lot of videos and learn tons of variations on both of those things that anyone can do safely. And we start out right at that novice level of learning how to lift a PVC pipe that weighs, what, three pounds or something, when you’re, you know, simulating a deadlift exercise. So we don’t want people to go and start loading up heavy weight and getting injured.

Brad (23:47):
We want you to progress steadily, but we do want you to focus on that aspect of fitness, which is widely overlooked in many cases when people are fixated on steady state cardio. Tons of payoff there. And, you know, tremendous importance when it comes to goals like longevity. So that’s the chapter on deadlift and squat, and then more, more content on strength training in the next chapter where we talk about using free weights, doing body weight exercises, uh, going through the typical machines that you find at a gym, even kettlebell exercises. So there’s a ton of variety. So you can have an exposure and some experience with a variety. Pick which one you like the best <laugh> experts agree, what is the best exercise? What’s the best strength training exercise for you to do? It’s the one that you actually enjoy and will stick to. And don’t let nobody tell you different than that.

Brad (24:41):
Then we are now on the 11th section and it’s about sprinting and jumping. And I must say this is the single most comprehensive presentation I’ve ever seen about the physiological benefits of sprinting, the step-by-step guidelines for how to conduct a sprint workout properly. And additionally detailed instruction for proper technique, especially when it comes to running. We talk a little bit about cycling too, but you’re gonna learn the drills and the skills and the checkpoints and the tips for how to exhibit excellent sprinting technique. We’re gonna teach you how to get started and gracefully transition to a more and more involved and challenging program. So for most people, taking off and running sprints on flat ground is going to be problematic without that long time conditioning. So we’ll get you started with low or no impact, sprinting options such as sprinting on a stationary bike or sprinting in the swimming pool, sprinting on the rowing machine.

Brad (25:41):
And then you can progress steadily and carefully with our guidance in the course, to, for example, sprinting up the stadium stairs or up a steep hill, things that are low impact and very low injury risk. But we do want you to envision progressing gradually and sensibly to running sprints on flat ground because running sprints on flat ground give you the best payoff for bone density as well as fat reduction, which are two very prominent goals, especially, uh, trying to age gracefully pursue that, uh, that, that highly regarded health span as well as, uh, shed that excess body fat as quickly and easily as possible. And no, no workout even comes close to sprinting in terms of return on investment specifically for fat reduction when you are doing load bearing high impact sprints on flat ground. Now, are you gonna go out there and get injured?

Brad (26:35):
’cause you run 20 sprints and you’re not ready for it? The thing with sprinting is a little, goes a very long way, and I’ve talked about this on the show and, and spouted this template many times. So one more time to close the discussion on that chapter. The recommended protocol to get involved in sprinting is simply a template of conducting four to eight sprints lasting 10 to 20 seconds duration with a six to one, at least a six to one recovery to work ratio. So if you’re doing a ten second sprint, let’s say on flat ground or at the stadium stairs, you rest for a minute. If you’re sprinting 20 seconds, which is more appropriate for low impact, like doing bicycle sprints, you sprint 20 seconds, you rest for two minutes, it seems like an extremely long rest period. But what we’re going for here is not that interval training effect where you’re suffering and your tongue’s hanging out and you’re trying to condition yourself to race pace for an endurance event, but more of the explosive power output with precise technique that will deliver those awesome anti-aging and broad-based fitness benefits.

Brad (27:39):
When you become competent at sprinting, you perform better at all lower levels of exercise intensity. And yes, that includes shuffling along for a 10K or a half marathon or even a marathon. ’cause now you’re gonna have strong, explosive, powerful hip flexors from these very short duration sprint workouts. And those will be called into action when your hip flexors typically blow out at mile 20 of the marathon. Oh, and I said sprinting and jumping my other favorite subject because name the other quintessential fitness and human movement that has the best signaling for fat reduction. That’s right. It’s jumping your body weight off of the earth and into the air, and the signaling, the switches that you flip in your metabolism and your genetic pathways for fat reduction are profound when it comes to high impact sprinting. And even simple jumping exercises like if you’re not well adapted, you’re a novice fitness enthusiast, you can get on a mini trampoline or just jump up and down off the ground 10 times, see how that feels, maybe use guide and support.

Brad (28:47):
But the act of jumping has a tremendous potential for fat reduction. And, uh, this is through the principle among others of excess post exercise oxygen consumption, EPOC. So when you challenge your muscles to do something powerful and explosive and take them to that near all out effort, near maximum effort near exhaustion, that’s when this EPOC kicks in and you burn excess body fat off at an accelerated rate, and you have the hormonal signaling for many, many hours after the workout. That’s how you become a lean machine. It’s not from starving yourself, uh, with fewer calories than are optimal, nor from grinding out massive amounts of hours and miles and volume with steady state cardiovascular exercise. And in fact, the science is very clear that the hours and hours that you train do not directly support fat reduction, unlike what your watch says and what the online calculator says.

Brad (29:47):
We have a memorable anecdote from when I worked for the, the spinning program, the indoor cycling program, and we commissioned research to determine how many calories a spin class burns. And a nice vigorous 45 minute class will burn 650 calories for most people, give or take right now, if you head to Jamba Juice after the class and get a medium smoothie and a breakfast scone, that’s like 675 calories or something. So it’s a wash when it comes to that pretty grueling and challenging session that you did. And then go having an innocent smoothie and a scone on your way to your busy day. So it’s not the calories burned and it’s not the calories saved from, you know, limiting your portion size from a four egg omelet to a three egg omelet. It’s the hormonal signaling that occurs when you eat healthy, nutritious food emphasizing protein, and you challenge that body to perform at near maximum effort on occasion, not frequently.

Brad (30:48):
The anaerobic system, the explosive muscle fibers respond to low intensity. I mean, high intensity, low volume, and also, uh, lower frequency. Certainly you have to do a sprint workout, like I discussed once a week is plenty. The resistance training, of course, you can do that more frequently. So the traditional Primal Blueprint Fitness template that we’ve talked about for so long would be a couple good strength training sessions per week lasting 10 to 30 minutes, one sprint workout a week, maybe every seven to 10 days if you’re just getting into it. And the hard work only lasts for a couple minutes. Aggregate. And then as much general everyday movement as you can compile within your lifestyle parameters. So that includes walking and general movement, as well as correctly paced aerobic exercise in the fat burning zones of zone one and zone two. Okay, that’s sprinting and jumping.

Brad (31:39):
Then we get into a chapter on mindset and peak performance. This is number 12 out of 16. This includes how to get out of your own way and carefully and expertly manage your competitive intensity, which at times can be unregulated in that traditional fitness avatar of a highly motivated, goal oriented, driven, focused type A type of personality. Uh, a lot of times you can become your own worst enemy when you are willing to push your body hard and wake up at 5:00 AM before a hard day’s work to get that workout in. You’ll do whatever it takes to get fit and be competitive. And sometimes when you disperse that competitive intensity without sufficient <laugh>, um, without sufficient reasoning and, and guidance and reflectiveness, you can head into those chronic patterns that will actually make you slower, weaker, and accelerate the aging process rather than delay it.

Brad (32:41):
And that was essentially my story when I was a professional triathlete for that decade of my life. From ages 20 to 30, I sped up the aging process probably 10 to 15 years when you can actually calculate it now with those biological aging scores. And I shortened my telomeres during that time of traveling around the globe and slamming my body that hard, and now I’m trying to make up for it and increase my, improve my score on any such a biological aging parameter. So we have to be careful and we have to cultivate that eal evolved beautiful mindset. And you get, uh, wonderful insights from great athletes like Usain Bolt, marathon legend Eluid Kipchoge. And that’s interesting that I picked those two guys. ’cause, Bolt is the greatest sprinter of all time. Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner, and they both have these wonderful competitive attributes and the discipline to be able to, for example, peak at the right times over and over and over like Bolt winning, uh, gold medals in the 102 hundred in three successive Olympics will never ever happen again on this planet.

Brad (33:48):
I guarantee you that. Nor will we ever see a blowout victory like Bolt achieved in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in the a hundred meters. If you haven’t seen it, please search YouTube right now where he’s pounding his chest and celebrating 10, 15 meters short of the line. I think because of all the sophisticated training and the many great athletes around the world, what we’re gonna see in future Olympics for the rest of our lives in the hundred meters are photo finishes because the athletes are so closely matched and they’re pushing the very edge of human competitive potential. So we’re gonna learn from the best on that chapter and then go into number 13.

Brad (34:23):
And this is dum dah dah dah. The over training chapter, and I will, I cannot use enough superlatives to tell you just how insightful and comprehensive and detailed this presentation is of the many symptoms of both overreaching and over training. Those are two different things with a critical distinction. I have never seen anything like it. Thank you very much. I’ll pat myself on the back. But look, I’ve been studying this stuff for now over 30 years, 35 years since I first became overtrained and couldn’t figure out why. One week I’m slamming these amazing workouts and feeling great, and the next week I don’t feel like getting outta bed. So I had to go to the library. Yep, I’m dating myself when I say that. And check out a bunch of books and learn about how the hormonal systems of the body work, especially the adrenaline cortisol response to stress whereby we can put ourselves into this state called overreaching and actually feel fantastic full of energy, alertness, wired, motivated, and able to adapt beautifully to a string of super challenging workouts without experiencing fatigue and breakdown.

Brad (35:37):
So overreaching is when the body is responding to what’s perceived to be a life or death threat. That’s what hard workouts are to the body. That’s why we, we release endorphins when we’re finished, and that’s why we pump out stress hormones as soon as the music starts and we start pedaling the bike slowly, and we’re in that challenging spin class that everybody talks about, have you taken Gary’s class yet? It’s brutal, man. He turns the lights off. You’re, you’re, you’re in a puddle of sweat. Bring an extra towel. It’s awesome. So you get all geeked up in your brain and you’re ready for action. And the stress hormones are pumping through your body as if, remember the body perceives the stimulus, but the stress response is identical no matter what the stress is. So it could be a positive stressor, you’re looking forward to the class.

Brad (36:23):
It could be a negative stressor like you’re encountering a wild animal in primal times, and you have to run for your life. The stress response in the body is all the same. So with overreaching, you are in a state, a temporary, heightened state of functionality due to chronic overproduction of stress hormones. And the next step, if you don’t dramatically correct course quickly is over training. And over training is when you’re bombed out, you feel like crap. You perform worse than usual, as opposed to overreaching. Where I’m gonna contend that every single world record in every sport, in every endurance sport, I should clarify, has been broken by an athlete in this heightened state of overreaching from a tremendous training block leading into the race, and then requiring if they’re smart, uh, time off and down periods after, for example, peaking for the Olympics. So Gabby Thomas, check her out on social media.

Brad (37:18):
She’s everywhere. She’s smooshing with celebrities now. She won the 200 meter gold in Paris, a beautiful, uh, victory for USA and uh, then she hit like the fashion circuit and the celebrity circuit. And now, uh, when you look at her Instagram, instead of like, uh, visions from, uh, the oval and the latest workout, or the latest track meet, now she’s like doing these gala events, uh, schmoozing with celebrities. So she’s taken that time since the parents’ Olympics to come down, take some time off and get back into training in a sensible manner. And that’s something that we all should reflect upon, especially when we’re immersed into heavily stressful, uh, periods of life that might not be, uh, well, uh, coordinated with heavy training cycles, right? My entire career as a pro triathlete traveling and, and racing and, and doing all that crazy stuff was before I had kids.

Brad (38:09):
And I couldn’t imagine doing it as a young father because I want to be devoted and enjoy all those special moments with the kids and not disperse all my energy out into an 84 mile bike ride, so that I was in a state where I could care less about pushing my kid on the swing, and they had to keep begging me to push more because I was too tired and wanted to sit down. That was not my vision of, you know, the appropriate, uh, journey into parenthood. So luckily I got all that stuff outta my system and could devote maximum possible energy to the things of greatest importance of my life at that time. But sometimes when we try to stack too much and we try to have healthy, competitive outlets to the mundane aspects of daily life and the workplace, that’s when we can get into these overreaching and over training patterns.

Brad (38:55):
So boy, and this is what, what you’re gonna see in this chapter are extensive lists of symptoms in different categories. So we have, like musculoskeletal, when you wake up with a burning hot sensation in your foot, like plantar fascitis, and it takes a while to go away, that might be, you know, stage two out of stage four or five. And the worst stage is when, uh, it hurts like heck to run every single step. That’s when you’re in big trouble with an injury. But we also have that for your hormonal systems, your mood, um, your appetite, your body temperature, weird things that happen with your sleeping patterns. Things like grinding your teeth are a symptom of an overactive sympathetic nervous system. Out of balance with the parasympathetic, because you’re grinding your teeth is kind of a sign that you’re, you’re lit up and hyped up.

Brad (39:46):
And if you’re doing that at rest or at night, those are symptoms. And so you look through these symptoms and, and sort of learn them and, and assess them carefully, and it’ll help keep you honest with the amount of stress that you pile on in your life. Not just training, but overall. So the over training chapter, beautiful presentation worth the price of admission right there.

Brad (40:07):
Then of course, after you learn how about how dangerous overtraining is and overreaching, we have a chapter on rest, recovery, downtime, and sleep. And now, whenever I talk about sleep, I always use that this longer phrase because everyone knows about the importance of sleep and a good night’s sleep and we gotta get to bed on time, we gotta put the phones away. But today, because of the, influx of hyperconnectivity and nonstop access to stimulation, entertainment, mobile technology, we also have to hit these objectives of sufficient rest, recovery and downtime during the day.

Brad (40:41):
And by downtime, I mean getting up from your desk walking out to the courtyard at your office or in your backyard and sitting and looking at the birds or just enjoying free time without an agenda or without stimulation. So in many ways turning on Netflix after a hard, uh, busy day as a way to entertain yourself and enjoy life, but it’s not downtime in the same way that might be, uh, walking around your neighborhood or taking a stroll around the park. So rest, recovery, downtime, and sleep. Complete chapter about that. You’re gonna learn about optimizing your sleep habits and an environment. Those two things are the big picture, uh, most important items. So right, you want to have a nice, uh, beautiful, uh, sleep environment, a spartan bedroom with not a lot of clutter or distraction or stimulation, of course, no screens or anything like that.

Brad (41:35):
You want to be able to make it completely dark. You want to have a nice, cool temperature. You wanna have appropriate bedding material. You’re spending a third of your life there. And then of course, in the evening time, in the wind down before bed, you want to minimize your exposure to artificial light and digital stimulation as the hours go on and you get closer to bedtime. Many different ways to do that. Devoting the last hour for a true wind down ritual where you leash up the dog, you walk around the block, a great idea, even if it’s cold weather, to get a little chilly and then come back into the house. Arianna Huffington wants you to take a bath and light the candles and set a mood for yourself to program your brain to realize that it’s time to wind down and then get into bed and put your pajamas on and read. That’s all great examples from her book, the Sleep Revolution. So that’s the core sleep stuff. And then there’s a lot of commentary about balancing your exposure to mobile device hyperconnectivity in this same category.

Brad (42:34):
And then we get to the final chapter. We talk about, oh, excuse me, that was the, that was the final chapter. I might’ve not adhered directly to the 16 modules, ’cause I only see 14 that I’ve talked about. So there was probably some splits there. But guess what, when you enroll in the course, it’ll all be there, ready for you to jump in and indulge and educate yourself. I can’t recommend this course highly enough. We poured our heart and soul into it for so long in the R and D and the development of the course and filming the videos, you’re gonna see top quality production all the way across the board. So please check out Primal Health Coach.com/Brad and don’t forget to, take advantage of that 25% discount on course enrollment, limited time. Thank you so much for listening. And like I promised, even if you’re not gonna take the course, you learned a lot just covering the, the overview of the material. So, let me know what you think. Send a email to podcast@bradventures.com. And that’s a wrap. Now go sign up for the course.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
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.