Ben Greenfield Podcast 225
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Transcript of Ben Greenfield Podcast 225
Podcast # 225 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/01/225/ [0:00:00.0]
Introduction: In this podcast episode: How to test your antioxidant levels,
should you mix sports drinks with energy gels, how to have one
recovery day a month, Ucan Superstarch vs. Vitargo for fueling,
why your legs aren’t toned, how the Squatty Potty works, and
Tough Mudder vs. Spartan Death Race.
Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide
you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and
wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So
whether you’re an Ironman triathlete or you’re just trying to shed
a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge
content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.
Ben: Hi everybody! If things are a little bit different than usual, that’s
because it’s just me, Ben Greenfield and I’m traveling right now.
I’m in Vancouver, Canada. I’m in my room, in this tiny little
bedroom breakfast and you’d actually laugh if you saw me right
now. First of all, I’m attending a conference up here so it is 6:00
in the morning. I’m still in bed. The computer is here, the
microphone is propped up against a book on the bed ‘cause my
room is so tiny, there’s no actual desk in it. I’m staying in a
bedroom breakfast which means I’m in a spare bedroom of
somebody’s house and breakfast is a loaf of bread and a block of
cheese. A little mini fridge is tucked in the corner of the room.
I’m podcasting to you from basically like a Russian prison in
Canada. Anyways though, I wanted to get a podcast out to you so
we have a bunch of questions that I received via writing. Usually,
we play people’s questions that they call in on this podcast. I’ve
got some really good questions. People have written them and I
want to get to them and the reason I’m podcasting so early is
because I gotta be at this conference in about an hour or so. So
I’m just gonna answer all you guys’ awesome questions and if
youheard the answer, we’ve got some good ones. And then I’m
going to take my ice cold thermo shower. So my pants are and
my shirt too, surprisingly, and head to the conference. Listen to
just a few announcements and we’ll jump right in.
Special Announcements:
Ben: If you have not been to the website lately, there are a ton of special
announcements. There’s so many of them that I’m not gonna read
them all to you. I just wanna start with a few quick things and
some new stuff. First of all, February 23rd, I’m going down to LA.
There is an event in there called Endurance Live and a website
that I run and many of you listen to the podcast over there called
enduranceplanet.com. We’ve got a table over at Endurance Live
and this is a huge party. It’s kinda like the big gathering of
triathletes and marathoners – all these people in the endurance
world and we eat and yes, we drink and dance and hang out and
party and have a good time. Anyways, I’ve got a table down there
for 10 people and right now, we’ve got 8 people at the table
including Tawnee Prazak, the host of Endurance Planet, and
Lucio, the host of our Ask the Ultra Runner segment, myself and a
few other folks and we still got 2 seats left. So I thought I’d give
you a shout out. Just e-mail me [email protected].
It’s not cheap. Tickets to it are $250 to get into the table and that’s
not like making us a profit or anything, it’s just covering the cost
of getting that table. Anyways, if you wanna go, just fire me an e-
mail: [email protected]. First come, first served. Next
thing is that, as we may know, my upcoming live event which is
gonna absolutely rock is on March 8th and 9th and you can get
CEUs now if you’re going. I just heard form Ace Fitness and we’re
working on the National Academy of Sports Medicine as well and
they’re giving CEUs to personal trainors and fitness coaches who
wanna get some continuing education units for attending that
conference so that’s gonna be great and the speakers and the
content (and we keep adding to that) is just blowing up. So if you
plan on going, you need to register because I have to figure out
catering. We’re doing a bunch of organic local food. I gotta make
sure that we fill up the hotel room blocks that we got discounted
and ready and waiting for you. I gotta plan the after party.
There’s still a few tickets left to the VIP after-party that we’re
having during that session and it’s just gonna be fantastic.
[0:05:06.3]
I actually wrote a big article and answered all the FAQs on my
upcoming live event. You can check that out at
bengreenfieldfitness.com. I’m almost done before I shut up. Just
a couple other quick things: First of all, January 31st, I’ll be in
Jimmy Moore’s as low carb experts and in the show notes for this
episode and this episode is Episode #225. I will link to Jimmy’s
shows where you can look into the call-in numbers, any access
numbers. That’s a live show. You can call and then ask questions
to me about Low Carb Fueling for Performance. Then finally,
camps and events galore. I’m gonna put a link to all the camps in
the show notes that I’m gonna be at but the main 2 that I wanna
mention to you are April 5th through 7th for anybody doing the
Wildflower Triathlon Bike Camp schedule. You can register as of
this morning, actually, so check that out. It’s the Wildflower
Triathlon Camp. It’s for anybody doing the Olympic distance or
long distance triathlon down at Wildflower in California which is
one of the most fantastic races on the face of the planet. By the
way, if I fumble or mumble or stutter during this podcast, I’m not
going back and editing because like I mentioned, I only have an
hour to podcast today. And then the last thing that I wanted
mention is I am going to Vietnam to race in the Laguna Lang
Vietnam Triathlon over there. This race is the sister race of the
race that I regularly do every year in Phuket Thailand and it rocks.
This organization that puts on these races, they take care of you
like you’ve never experienced before in terms of food, your race
experience, the pre-race dinners, the post-race parties. It’s gonna
be a blast and I’m planning on probably be getting a villa down
there. If anybody who is a podcast listener and triathlete has
basically a spare time in April. It’s gonna be April 10th-through the
16th. Shoot me an e-mail because I can get us discounted rates on
entry fee for the race, on all the party tickets, on the villa. I don’t
think I can get you discount on the plane tickets. That’s about all
you’d be needing to go find yourself but I’ll hook you up with
everything. I’m willing to take up to 6 people on this trip. So you
gotta fire me an e-mail if you want and you got some spare time
April 10th through 16th to go and Vietnam should be really cool.
All right, let’s jump in to this week’s Q and A.
Listener Q and A:
Ben: All right. I noticed the microphone was kinda making some
bouncy ran noises so I’ll try and limit that as much as possible but
I can’t guarantee perfect audio in today’s podcast obviously
because I’m podcasting on a freaking bed. What’s that with
Chuck’s question and Chuck says: “You mentioned having your
antioxidant profile tested. I actually just had that done and I’ve
had very good results. My dietitian mentioned that there was a
significant genetic factor in that as well. How much of a role does
that play? Also, my cobalamin (which is vitamin B12) and my
pantothenate were low. What dietary changes can I make to
increase this?
Well, first of all, just to answer Chuck’s questions straight up, yes.
Everybody has certain levels of antioxidants in their body that
allow them to be able to fight free radicals a little bit better or a
little bit less better. And that’s an example of something that I’m
not gonna edit out, by the way. Anyways though, these genes are
responsible for pulling triggers that allow your body to produce
more or less antioxidants and people with modified forms of the
genes that are responsible for producing antioxidants specifically
modified forms of those genes that limit your ability to express
antioxidants, what happens is you here increase risk of developing
heart disease or increase risk of developing some kinds of cancers,
specifically, breast cancer and colon cancer. First of all, there are
tests that you can do to look at genetic markers. These specific
genetic markers, if you really wanna geek out and go look at them,
one is called SOD 2 and another is called PUN 1. You get these
really weird names. They sound like space ship names. Bunch of
different genes that are responsible for producing antioxidants
and you can test those. There are companies that will do genetic
testing for you. 23andMe is an example of the company that will
do genetic testing and you can look at any number of biomarkers.
The other thing that you can do, and this is the test that Chuck
actually did, not to test the genetic potential to produce more or
less antioxidants but to just test how many antioxidants you have
which I think is a more useful test.
[0:10:10.4]
One example would be what’s called Ion Profile. And for those of
you who listened to the interview that I did with Dr. David Getoff,
he talked about the Ion Profile as a good way to see how well
equipped your body was to mitigate the effects of swimming in
chlorinated water because if you have low antioxidant levels,
chlorine can do a little bit more damage to your body. But what
this Ion Profile test is, is it looks at not just your antioxidant levels
but also things like your amino acids, your fatty acids, your
vitamins, your minerals. It’s a really good snapshot how well
equipped your body is to fight against the free radicals that are
generated by things like pollution and toxins in cleaning
chemicals, and even to a certain extent, exercise. The things that a
test like this (and I’ll link to it in the show notes if you wanna
check it out, it’s called the Metametrix Ion Panel) looks at some of
your main antioxidant vitamins specifically vitamin A, vitamin C
and vitamin E. It looks at beta carotene and co-enzyme Q10 which
are also involved in antioxidant protection and it looks at a couple
of other things. One called lipid peroxide and one called 8
hydroxy 2 deoxyguanosine (I know that is a mouthful, I hope you
memorize it, there’ll be a quiz at the end of this podcast).
Basically, each of these antioxidants is responsible for different
types of activities within the body. For example, vitamin A is a
really important antioxidant for your eyes and if you have poor
antioxidant levels of vitamin A, you could have poor vision later
on in life needing glasses or contacts. There are other things that
vitamin A is used for. Whereas if you look at for example, vitamin
C, that’s something that’s used more often in connective tissue
and collagen and even to combat levels of heavy metals in the
blood. Each of these different antioxidants, there’s a bunch of
them, I’m not gonna go through them all but they have these
different roles so getting a test that looks at all the different
antioxidants and allows you to identify which that you may be low
in can be really useful especially if you wanna take some
nutritional measures to adjust that as Chuck is asking about.
Because the B vitamins that Chuck asked about, the pantothenic
and the B12, those also have antioxidants activity. For example,
vitamin B12 along with folic acid is the most common dietary
deficiency that can lead to what’s called homocysteine elevation
and that’s a really big risk factor for heart disease as well as
having the ability to affect your risk for cancer. The other one that
he asked about the pantothenate, I believe is the other one,
pantothenic acid as it’s also known, that’s vitamin B5. And you
have to have vitamin B5 in order to synthesize what’s called co-
enzyme A which also helps you quite a bit in terms of your
antioxidant activity. Now, in Chuck’s case, you can find
pantothenic acid or pantothenate primarily in meat. We’re gonna
find a ton of it literally in animal muscle. Another couple of things
that have really, really high levels of B12 are avocados and
broccoli. And then if you really wanted to go all out and hunt
down some fringe sources of vitamin B5 that are also really, really
high on vitamin B5 or pantothenate is ovaries specifically cold
water fish ovaries, yum. Just had a sandwich covered in fish
ovaries yesterday, and royal jelly which is actually sold for a lot of
these websites or healthy companies or whatever that say like bee
pollen and propolis and another one is royal jelly. So B5, that’s
where you can find a lot of that stuff and most people get enough
from meat. Now B12, you can find that all over the place and a lot
of people they’ll change one thing in their life so start to get foods
that have high levels of B12 and all of sudden, they’ll feel like
million bucks. B12 deficiencies are really common especially in
people who don’t eat enough meat. You’re gonna shoot me but
liver is packed with vitamin B12 that’s why I have a serving of liver
at least once a week whether it’s lamb or beef or turkey or duck or
goose, whatever. Nice clean animal, clean liver, very good for
your dead source of a ton of different fat soluble vitamins and also
vitamin B12. Clams, oysters and mussels are good, caviar which I
already mentioned, kinda of when I mentioned fish ovaries, caviar
or fish eggs, very, very high source of vitamin B12. Fish, just about
any fish has good sources of vitamin B12 as do shellfish like crab
and lobster.
[0:15:01.7]
Similar to pantothenate are vitamin B5, beef, lamb, muttons, stuff
like that, high in vitamin B complex. And then eggs and cheese, if
you can handle those as well, that’s another place that you can get
those. Now, one thing that I always get asked when I’m talking
about antioxidants, is this machine and you see it in a lot of gyms
and a lot of health expose, it’s called the biophotonic scanner and
you put your finger or the back of your hand against this thing and
it measures your antioxidant levels. Well. I’ve got 2 thoughts
about that. First of all, it only measures what’s called your
carotenoid levels in your skin. Carotenoids are the antioxidants
you’re gonna find in a lot of fruits and vegetables like
pomegranates, kale and stuff like that and our carotenoids are
used for betacarotene. Other carotenoids are lutein and licopine
and carotenoids do have some really good antioxidant activity.
However, the scanner says that it can give an accurate and reliable
biomarker of overall antioxidant health status. The fact is you’ve
got a lot of antioxidants that are necessary. They go above and
beyond just your carotenoid levels especially above and beyond
just the carotenoid levels in your skin. So I thinf that a
measurement of a low skin carotenoid score could tell you a little
bit especially about your riskfor being able to mitigate the effects
of long term sun exposure and stuff like that. It’s not gonna give
you as good a snapshot as actually getting your blood tested and
doing something like an Ion Panel, for example of this company
called Metametrix. Great question, Chuck! I hope that helps you.
I’ll link to this Ion Profile in the show notes. Also, by the way you
guys, everything that I talk about today, I will also link to in the
MyList for this episode over at facebook.com/bgfitness. We create
MyList for every episode. MyLists are freaking awesome. They’re
like Pinterest for Facebook. So check that out. It’s over at
facebook.com/bgfitness where you can find a lot of other cool
stuff that you can’t find on the blog.
Edwin: Ben, my question is regarding the use of energy gels in
combination with other liquid nutrition. Energy gels by
themselves are extremely hypertonic and thereby it is important
to consume adequate amounts of water. The gel company that I
use states that drinking sports drinks with your gel will not
properly dilute the gel and thus slow the absorption rate. This can
also lead to stomach irritation and a dehydrating effect as your
cellular fluids are drawn upon to dilute the gel. What are your
thoughts on this? I heard you said that you use a gel every 20
minutes during a race. Do you only drink water?
Ben: Well, first of all, let’s start here. You’re right, Edwin. Gels are
designed to basically have a certain level of what’s called
osmolality. What this means is that the effectiveness of sports
drink or gel or any other kind of engineered fuel that you’re
drinking or that you’re eating during an event or during a training
session, the absorption of that will depends on the osmolality of it.
And if you have an imbalance in the osmolality of a substance in
your stomach is going to inhibit gastric emptying. It’s going to
inhibit your intestinal fluid absorption. It’s gonna inhibit your
blood flow. It’s gonna draw blood away from muscles and it can
cause cramping and high body temperature. Many of us
remember high school science where we learned about osmosis
which is basically the movement of water or some other kind of
solvent through a membrane, what’s called the semi permeable
membrane and your gut law and also your blood vessel laws are
semi permeable membranes. So the water tends to move through
a semi permeable membrane from a less concentrated solution to
a more concentrated solution. And if the osmolality is the same
on both sides of the membrane, then the water is just not gonna
need to flow anywhere and when that’s the case, the 2 solutions
are called isotonic. Now, you can also have solutions that are not
isotonic. One example of that would be hypotonic solution where
you’ve got your gastric fluids in your stomach. And gastric fluids
are what’s called the really, really low osmolality meaning they’re
less concentrated than the blood. So what’s going to happen is
water will flow from the stomach into the blood in that case. On
the other hand, if the gastric fluids were more concentrated then,
that would mean there’s more particles and high osmolality in the
gastric fluid from something that you ate, for example. And then,
there would be net flow of water from the blood to the gut and
that would be known as a hypotonic solution and that’s what
Edwin is talking about when he’s talking about hypertonic gel.
That means that when you eat that gel, it makes the osmolality in
your gut to be hypertonic and it will cause water to flow from your
blood to your gut unless you drink something along with that gel
to make the solution isotonic.
[0:20:24.6]
Now, here is the thing: Different sports drinks and different gels
are mixed at different levels of osmolality and you’ll see most
nutritionists recommend 6 to 8% carbohydrate solutions and
that’ll be in Gatorade or Powerade or anything like that and all
that means is you generally are getting extra amount of grams per
amount of liquid that you’re drinking. And there are some drinks
out there that go higher than that - that are like 10 to 12%
carbohydrate, for example. And in many cases, the percentage of
carbohydrate used in the solution depends often on the type of
sugar used in that carbohydrate-containing beverage or
carbohydrate-containing gel. For example, some have just glucose
in a lot of those grocery store sports drinks that you see like
Gatorade or Powerade or whatever. Those are primarily glucose
and some sucrose and those can deliver fewer grams of
carbohydrate than a big, big sugar like malted extract. And that’s
why those are mixed in a lower concentration so those simple
sugar sports drinks have to be mixed in a lower concentration in
order to maintain the osmolality of your stomach whereas the
fancy or sports drinks that have malted extract and more complex
carbohydrates, those can give you more energy without upsetting
your stomach’s osmolality. So, take away lesson number one here
is that I personally think if you’re gonna use a liquid beverage
using the longest chain starch that you can use mixed properly,
meaning mixed in the exact ratio that the manufacturer has
recommended is a very good way to go if you’re gonna use sports
drinks. Two examples of a longer molecular weight sports drink
that allows you to drink more calories during an event without
affecting the osmolality of your stomach: One example would be a
Carbo Pro. Another example would be what I use now which is
Ucan Superstarch which is a very, very long molecular weight
starch. You still need to mix it exactly as they recommend. I
think it’s something like one serving per 16-20 ounces of water. I
should know ‘cause I use it during races but anyways, that would
be an example of like a longer chain carbohydrate mix. Now, as
far as gels go, bunch of different gels is a bunch of different mixes
of sugars so it’s hard to say how many ounces of water you’re
supposed to drink with any given gel. I mean, you’ve got hammer
gels, and clipshots and power bars, and excel gels and honey
stingers and all these different gels out there and you need a
certain amount of water that you need to drink with that gel in
order for that gel to be isotonic. What that means is that you
shouldn’t drink sports drinks with the gels because that is going to
affect their ability to be absorbed properly and I’ve never really
ran into a scenario where an athlete does a really good job it feels
great the whole race mixing gels with sports drinks. That’s a no-
no. Gels full of water. So here is the thing and I’m gonna link to
this in the show notes. There is a table on Wikipedia that shows
you the exact amount of water that you have to drink with each gel
in order for that gel to be isotonic – super helpful chart. You just
go find the gel that you use, like let’s say you use Clipshot. For
every gel of Clisphot that you eat, you’re supposed to drink 300 ml
of water and for example, for every hammer gel that you eat, you
only need to take in 100 ml of water for that one to be isotonic. So
really cool chart. The other cool thing about the chart is it shows
you all the different gels that are recommended for sensitive
stomachs vs. people with fructose malabsorption vs. people who
want to go longer distances vs. people who want extra electrolytes.
I’ll link to it in the show notes, hook you up and you can check
that out. It’s a chart on the ingredients on the popular sports gels.
That’s the long answer. Short answer is if you’re using gels, don’t
use sports drinks too. I do not recommend it. All right.
Hollie: I am an absolute beginner as far as fitness and exercise. I started
a boot camp in June and was actually liking it quite a bit and
seeing results. And then I got tendonitis in my shoulders, my
right elbow and my right wrist. I work as a housekeeper so I’m not
able to rest that arm at all. I ice it after work, I take ibuprofen
when I remember (not daily). And my arms hurt so much they
wake me up at night. Is there a way to “power rest” my arms? I
got one day off a month and my daily life is kicking my butt. I
can’t even pour a cup of coffee some days. Can you suggest
anything?
[0:25:22.3]
Ben: Wow! You’re in a tough situation Hollie, because in a situation
like this, ideally, you get a chance to get a couple of weeks off and
allow that tendonitis to completely heal because if you keep
working through it, it’s gonna form scar tissue, it’s going to
continue to have limited mobility and it can eventually turn into
chronic pain. You have heard of fibromyalgia, or complex pain
syndrome or some of these issues that really frustrate people and
people struggle with a lot of times. Some of those situations can be
created by simply pushing through injuries. So ideally, you can
get a couple of weeks off. If you can make a change in your life to
allow that to happen, it’d be awesome. But let’s say that you’re
somebody like Hollie who is experiencing something like this with
the body, just can’t get a break whether due to lifestyle or whether
due to your exercise scenario or what or maybe you just wanna try
and squeeze as much out of your body as possible and you’ve got
either way, one day a month to recover and to get as much
recovery, squeeze that out of your body as possible, what would
you do? I’ll tell you what I would do. First of all: anti
inflammatory diet. Preferably, you’re eating an anti inflammatory
diet all the time but you’d definitely on this day of the week, you’d
have no sugars, you would have no wheat, no grains, you’d have
no soy, you’d have no omega 6 fatty acids from crackers and
baked foods and nuts (there are roasted, especially nut butter stuff
like that) you just go on super super low inflammation. If you
wanna see how to do that, go to my Superhuman Food Pyramid
and eat the foods that are only the Eat Foods of the Superhuman
Food Pyramid. By the way, Monica Reinagel (maybe, you know
her as the nutrition diva on iTunes), she’s coming out to my live
conference in March to talk about inflammation and specifically
The Inflammation Factor. That’s another reason to come to the
conference. So anti inflammatory diet, hopefully you’re reading it
all the time. You really wanna eat it on the day of the month or
day of the week that is your recovery day. A lot of people like
myself for example, will almost go into a little bit of some
semblance of a fast on a recovery day. We’re just doing like
greens, a lot of amino acids. You’re really limiting food intake just
doing some healthy fats like maybe you so like the bowl of proof
coffee or something like that with some butter and some coconut
oil stirred into your coffee and you just don’t eat much at all
because there is some evidence that just the pure active fasting
can have some really cool anti inflammatory and recovery effects.
So you start off with that. The next thing I would do on that same
day would be Chinese adaptogenic herbs. I know that sounds
really geeky but on my days when I ‘m trying to get my body to
bounce back as quickly as possible, I double how much Tianchi I
take and Tianchi is the adaptogenic herb I use to control my
cortisol levels. I’ll link to all these stuff in the show notes for you.
Next thing you’d wanna use from a supplement standpoint would
be something like proteolytic enzymes. There’s a bunch of amount
there like wobenzymes. Recoverease is another one and you take
these on an empty stomach so that they shut down inflammation
and specifically, formation of something like that can really cause
some pain and inflammation called fibrinogen. These are great
for people who are bouncing back from surgery, for people who
are bouncing back from injury. You can take them everyday if you
wanted to during the month especially on your recovery day,
you’d prioritize getting those into your body. You wanna balance
your ph so definitely, greens supplements as well as I already
mentioned. Finally, if you tend to have low iron, low iron levels
can really limit your ability to bounce back effectively from a
workout. And if you test your iron as low (and you wanna test
first ‘cause you don’t wanna take iron if your iron is high
considering the iron toxicity), I really like the supplement
Floradix for people with anemic like people who have iron issues.
So Floradix is another one that you’d look into. Okay, so basically,
you’re not eating much, you’re eating anti inflammatory foods,
you’re taking some proteolytic enzymes, some adaptogenic herbs,
working some greens in there to balance your ph and keep your
body alkalinic and then including iron if your iron is low. And
then some other things that you can do to improve mobility: I
really like muscle sticks or a foam roller and using those on your
recovery day to help you bounce back as quickly as possible. I use
one called the Rumble Roller. I like one to two times during that
day at 15-20 minutes soak in magnesium salts and you can also
use Epsom salts. Magnesium salts are a little bit better but they’re
more expensive. Epsom salts will work too. I use magnesium
flakes. I’ll link to magnesium flakes that I use in the show notes.
[0:30:07.4]
You would want to wear compression and preferably combine
compression with ice. So for example, I have these compression
tights that you can literally put ice sleeves into that compress your
body and allow metabolic waste to be removed from muscle while
at the same time applying therapeutic ice to reduce inflammation
and to make sure that as you’re removing metabolic waste from
muscle, you’re not getting backflow into the lymphatic fluid.
That’s another thing is combining compression with ice and I use
basically a full length compression tight that I could put ice packs
into for that. And then as far as some things that you can have
around the house, if you really wanna geek out on this, you could
use magnets. Some people aren’t fan of magnets. I found it helped
me when I’ve got little nagging aches and pains that I wanna get
rid of like these magnetic wraps that you can wrap around the
joint. Nikken is one company. There are really popular multilevel
marketing company but they make really cool magnets like on the
bottom of band aid that you can just stick to a specific joint or
specific area and I found that sleeping with magnets on an injured
joint can really, really help you feel better the next day. So check
those out. You can also get Home Handheld Cold Low Level Laser
units. Lasers are very cool. But these are basically handheld units
that you can hold where you can move in a circular pattern slowly
over an injured area. I have one that’s an infrared device,
basically, it’s what it is. Now physical therapists clinics and
alternative medical clinics, they have really, really antic versions,
really, really nice cold low level laser units. The low level laser in
terms of improving temperature area, improving blood filtering
area, can really help with stuff like tendonitis and muscle injuries.
And then the other thing you may wanna look into is again,
something you can use at your home, (I don’t know what your
expandable income is like but) you can for anywhere from $100-
1000 get Home electrostimulation unit which actually sends little
tiny electrical impulses into your muscles causes them to fire,
improves blood flow and can enhance recovery when you’re
bouncing back from an injury and I have one called Compex
works really well. So check that one out. I know that was a ton of
stuff but I’m just saying like if you wanted to totally win on that
recovery day and do everything that you could, those are the
things that I would do. And then, don’t use ibuprofen, please.
Use Phenocane. Phenocane is the all natural alternative to
ibuprofen. It’s basically a high dose curcumin extract just like
turmeric of a really, really high dose like 500 mg and then it’s
mixed with the nato kinase. And what this does is it achieves the
same Cox 2 inhibition of ibuprofen without inhibiting Cox 1 which
is what protects your gut. You don’t get like gut bleeding and
damage to your gut lining when you’re trying to shut down the
inflammation. Phenocane is the name of that you’d wanna use
typically4-12 of those on the day that you’re injured. Hopefully
that helps you out and best of luck, Hollie. I really recommend
that you try and get a little bit of time off if you can so that you can
attend to your body, attend to that arms so it doesn’t turn into a
chronic long-term issue. All right, let’s move on to Bill’s question.
Bill: What do you recommend for a 2-hour mountain biker cross
country race? UCAN Superstarch or Vitargo S2?
Ben: This is a great question because a lot of people mix up UCAN
Superstarch and Vitargo S2. And for those of you who think I’m
talking about aliens, I’m not. I’m talking about 2 different types of
carbohydrate-based fuel. The reason that they get mixed up (and
these are just like powders that you mix with water) is that they’re
both high molecular weight carbohydrates. They both exit the
stomach quickly and because they’re such high or long chain
molecular carbohydrates, a lot of people think that they’re the
same thing but they’re not. Vitargo S2 is this patented type of
carbohydrate that’s high molecular weight long chain
carbohydrate that’s been what’s called fractionated. And the
process of fractionation makes a carbohydrate extremely
digestible, meaning that it gets absorbed super quickly and
Vitargo is derived from what’s called amylopectin which is a
barley starch (for those of you who care). But Vitargo S2 is rapidly
absorbed in digestion in the intestines and it gives this big spike in
blood sugar, this big spike in insulin and if you’ve just finished the
workout, that is a great scenario. Rapid glycogen replenishment
and if you can get your hands at anything else right after workout
and you’ve got another workout coming up soon for which you
need to restore your carbohydrate levels as quickly as possible,
Vitargo would be something to go for vs. UCAN which is slowly
and much much slowly absorbed in the intestines causes the slow
release carbohydrate, allows for much more stable blood sugar
levels and lower insulin response, no spike in blood sugar.
[0:35:17.0]
And the whole idea between the UCAN Superstarch is that it
supports your body’s own use of fat as a fuel by not spiking your
blood sugar and by allowing you to actually consume fewer
carbohydrates during your exercise session or your race. You’re
looking at a more steadily released glucose profile and a better
ability to tap into your body’s storage fat when using UCAN
Superstarch whereas when you’re using Vitargo, you’re looking at
a fast acting carbohydrate that could allow for really, really quick
replenishment right after workout preferably. The question here
during a 2-hour mountain bike race is how much do you need to
spare your body’s carbohydrate levels, how much do you wanna
stay in your fat-burning zone, and how keyed in are you on being
a fat-adapted athlete, meaning, are you one using that low carb,
use your body’s own fats that turn yourself into a fat-burning
machine type of approach or are you okay with just using like fast-
acting carb sources. Ultimately, until you completely exhaust your
body’s storage carbohydrate, it doesn’t matter that much. Like for
sprint distance triathlon or Olympic distance triathlon, really
anything, up to right around 2 hours doesn’t matter that much
whether you use a long chain carbohydrate or a short chain
carbohydrate or fast-acting vs. a slow-acting, they’re all gonna
give you pretty decent bang for your body especially if you’re
going in which your body’s glycogen levels or your storage
carbohydrate levels or you topped off, meaning you’ve already had
breakfast and you’re fueled up going in the race, you’ve been
starving yourself for a week. But once you get into that 2+ hour
event length, that’s where I think that you should have more of a
focus on using fuels that do not cause rapid fluctuations in blood
sugar. Yeah, I know you’re more insulin sensitive in everything
when you’re exercising and a rapidly digestible starch like Vitargo
would be less prone to cause blood sugar fluctuations than if you
are to eat a bunch of Vitargo while you’re sitting on the couch. But
regardless, I am a fan of using something like UCAN Superstarch
for the reason that I’m a fan of the high-fat-low-carb-turn-your-
body-into-a-fat-burning-machine type of approach. For your
distance though of 2 hours or for anything up to 2 hours, I mean
gels, sports drink, Vitargo, UCAN really, it doesn’t matter until
you’re getting up into that high long term endurance range like
half Ironman, marathon Ironman, stuff like that where then it
comes down to what you wanna achieve. Are you okay with just
eating carbs? If so, Vitargo is gonna work fine. Practice in your
training first and use that as I mentioned earlier exactly according
to manufacturer instructions so you’re mixing the proper
concentration. Are you more concerned about your blood sugar
levels? Are you wanting to lose weight or tap into your body’s own
storage fat or stay ketogenic or something like that, then use a
long molecular weight carbohydrate like UCAN Superstarch for
slower absorption. Hopefully that helps you out, Bill and yeah it’s
a deal with UCAN vs. Vitargo. Just a few more questions here.
Angela: I’m having a hard time with the Squatty Potty and why it is a
benefit. I actually get what the Squatty Potty website is saying
about the anorectal angle and why using the Squatty Potty to
change it makes it easier to go to the bathroom, but I don’t see
why you can’t just bend over. In comparing images between
someone on a Squatty Potty and someone doing a seated row,
both show that their knees are just inches from their chest. Do you
believe someone can get the same benefits as the Squatty Potty by
simply bending over the toilet?
Ben: For those of you who are laughing at me using the word Squatty
Potty and don’t know what the Squatty Potty is, basically, it is this
device and I’ve got one in every single bathroom in my house that
adjust the anorectal angle that Angela references to the point
where it’s not kinked because it tends to get kinked when you’re in
a seated position and there are some serious health implications
in gut and bowel movement implications that can happen from
using the traditional western approach of sitting on the toilet vs.
squatting which is what many cultures do and which is what
human beings have done for thousands of years because squatting
lengthens out the anorectal angle and push you in a position
where poop comes out easier. You don’t have to strain and stuff
like that. Can you achieve that type of position without a special
stool called the Squatty Potty. Well, yes you can but the problem is
the toilets are not low enough.
[0:40:08.4]
Unless you got like a whole dug on the floor of your bathroom that
you can literally squat down and crouch over and poo into. Have
you ever tried to do that over a toilet? Your butt hits the front of
the toilet that you can’t get low enough unless you’re 7 feet tall,
Angela. I don’t know. Maybe you’re a professional basketball
player and you have the ability to squat down and crouch over
your toilet and do your thing in there without your bottom and
your hips actually getting blocked from squatting by the actual
toilet itself. That’s the issue is toilets are too high for you to
properly squat and get into that position that straightens out your
anorectal angle. Now in a pinch you could something like your
kids’ stool (when I say stool, I mean stool that they stand on) that
you could stand on and use that to stand above your toilet and get
into a squatting position. You could use any type of bench or
something like that or chair that you have in the bathroom to get
you into the squatting position. There’s a chair that’s too high,
you’re gonna have to really good aim by the way. But that’s why I
like the Squatty Potty, is because it kinda bypasses all these issues
with trying to have something together yourself in the bathroom
and it’s just this really nice looking little wooden thing that slides
in through toilet and it’s very non-invasive and you just basically
pull it out when you’re ready to use it and you squat and do your
thing in and out of the bathroom real quickly without straining
and I like it. I enjoyed my pooping quite a bit more than without
the use of the Squatty Potty. So there you go. I hope that’s helpful
and that’s why you should use something like that instead of just
trying to bend over while you’re on the toilet which I don’t really
understand how you could possibly do, again, unless you’re really
tall. Let’s move on to Synthia’s question after that.
Synthia: For the last 3 months, I’ve been doing the insanity DVDs
everyday. Before that, I was running everyday so all in all, I’m in
good shape but I feel that with this rigorous exercise, my legs
should be more toned. However, it still feels that I can’t them to
be stronger or more toned. How can I achieve this?
Ben: Well, this is something that a lot of women run into and
something that I talked about quite a bit in my book, Get Fit Guys’
Guide to Achieving Your Ideal Body which you can get now at
GetFitGuy.com. Basically, descriptions of your body shape and the
specific workout that is unique to your body type are in that book
and one of the things I talked about are all the different kinds of
female body shapes that there are. So you’ve got your female
ectomorph and these are skinny girls who are kinda waif-like –
pretty slim, thin neck, thin shoulders hips, wrists, calves, ankles,
all of it is kinda ruler-shaped or stick-shaped. So think of like
Gwyneth Paltrow or like Kylie Minogue for example, the petite
skinny females. And then you get the mesomorphs and these are
the more athletic females. Think of like your soccer players,
celebrities like Jessica Simpson has kind of a mesomorph body
shape. Beyonce does too. Scarlet Johansson and people like that,
they tend to have a little more of an hourglass shape of wide
shoulders and hips and more narrow waist. And then you’ve got
meso endomorphs. They were the basically classic pear-shaped -
small upper body, bigger lower body. That would be somebody
like J Lo for example is a meso endomorph. I mean, you’ve got
endomorphs – people who tend to have more apple shape.
They’re bigger on the top half of their bodies than on the bottom
and have kinda more of that round apple shape, like Queen Latiffa
or Oprah Winfrey or somebody like that. Ultimately, each of these
different shapes is gonna need a different type of program for any
type of body re-invention or body transformation including how
to tone the legs. So if you look at, for example, like an ectomorph.
An ectomorph is gonna get toned legs not from doing running, not
from doing cycling which is gonna give them really skinny legs,
make their butt disappear. Ectomorphs need to be doing basically
heavier sets in the weight room – barbell squats, dumbbell squats,
heavy walking lunges or reverse lunges ‘cause it’s hard to use or
having a flake when you’re doing a front lunge. That can be tough
on your knees. Deadlifts, anything like that whether you’re using
a heavy weight anywhere from 6-10 reps, that’s gonna help an
ectomorph get really nice toned legs, give you some curves, give
you a butt, hips and that type of thing. But you should stay away
from lots of running and cycling if having those toned legs are
important to you.
[0:45:02.6]
When you look at a mesomorph, a mesomorph which is that more
of athletic shape, they can actually get away with a combination of
running, cycling and then moderate weights in the weight room
‘cause if a mesomorph goes heavy weights, they can tend to bulk
up in the lower body and get a real hefty bedunk pedunk and you
wanna be careful with that. Running and biking for mesomorph is
okay and they can get toned legs from doing that but then they’d
wanna use moderate weight 10-12 reps and all of the similar
exercises as an ectomorph will wanna use like barbell squats,
heavy walking lunges or reverse lunges, deadlifts, stuff like that.
Meso endomorphs – that’s the pear shape. Pear shapes don’t do
well with weight lifting for the lower body to tone the legs because
they bulk up really, really easily in the lower body. I find that the
pear shaped, the meso endomorph shaped, they tend to get the
best legs when they’re doing running, bicycling, elliptical,
basically cardio for the legs, weights for the upper body for that
type of body shape, works a lot better when it comes to just toning
the legs and almost like reducing some of the curves that tend to
almost bother a lot of pear shapes - bottom hips that are too big in
proportion to the shoulders or the waist. Finally, we have the
endomorphs and endomorphs again, they’re the apple shape and
what I find tends to work best with that body type is a
combination of body weight or low weight type of exercises like
front lunge, side to side lunge, reverse lunge, step back lunge and
then light dumbbells as well can be used during something like
that but just light work. So we’re talking in the range of 12-20 reps
for the apple shape for getting toned legs. And then they also can
get away with some running and some cycling. Really, the only
body type that tends to lose tone from running and cycling is the
ectomorph just because they can get so catabolic. Their
metabolism is already so high. They’re already so skinny.
Running and cycling doesn’t work so well for that body shape for
getting toned legs. But yeah, so basically, ectomorphs: heavy
weight lifting for skinny chicks for the legs. Mesomorphs or more
athletic looking females: combination of running and biking and
then moderate weight with 10-12 reps in the weight room. Meso
endomorphs or pear shaped: just do more cardio really and not a
lot of weights for the legs and then endomorphs: light body weight
or light dumbbells for the lower body toning exercises and then
just cardio like running or cycling or elliptical. And I laid this out
way more comprehensively in my book. So I would recommend
you grab my Body Typing Book if this kind of stuff intrigues you.
That’s over at GetFitGuy.com. Check it out. Okay. We’ve got
another question here from Angela.
Angela: I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about obstacle races. Have
you ever considered qualifying for and of course, competing in the
World’s Toughest Mudder or the Spartan Death Race? If not,
why?
Ben: First of all, the World’s Toughest Mudder: you all may have heard
of these toughest mudder competitions where you’ve got this
course that’s like barb wire and you run through the fire and
there’s even like these electrical fences that shock you that you
climb under and you’re just like going through that mud pits and
obstacle courses and climbing and crawling and falling and they’re
relatively short though. It’ll take you like an hour ish to do it at
tough mudder event. But if you look at the World’s Toughest
Mudder, what you are doing is you have 24 hours to do as many
laps of the tough mudder course as you can. So this event is a big
competition. You actually get some pretty good money. You get
15000 bucks for the male and female individual winners and
$20000 for the team winners and they’re supposed to be pretty
tough and doing it for 24 hours in a row I think would be a
challenge. I don’t have the risk of dying ‘cause you’re just going at
your own pace going through all the obstacles there. But that’s
what the tough mudder is vs. the Spartan Death Race. By the way,
over at EndurancePlanet.com, we’ve interviewed the guy who is
the mastermind behind the Spartan Death Race and in my
opinion, this is way tougher than the World’s Toughest Mudder
because during the Spartan Death Race, on average only 15% of
the competitors actually even finish the event. But it is a 40-mile
course that runs through the backwoods of Vermont and during
the death race, you might be doing things like chopping wood for
2 hours in row, carrying a 2o pounds tree stump around for hours,
lifting 30 pound rocks for up to 5 hours, building a fire, cutting a
bushel of onions crawling through mud under barb wire (sounds a
little bit similar to the tough mudder) and it generally takes about
20 hours of racing and you also have to do things like memorize
the names of the first 10 US presidents or like memorize a Bible
verse, hike to the top of the mountain and then recite them back
in order and just do weird stuff like that.
[0:50:23.2]
So to me, the Spartan Death Race is way over and above the
Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder is just like go go go do as many
races as you can. Spartan death Race is like kinda pay attention
or you’re pretty much done and out. Why don’t I do either of
these? I’ve just got too many other things going on. I’m doing
triathlon, I homeschool my kids, I play guitar, I cook, I podcast.
Frankly, and now I’m gonna pour my heart out to my podcast
listeners. 2013 is my year when I’m gonna taper stuff back. I’m
gonna be changing my coaching scenario to give more time to the
clients that I work with and actually coach fewer clients. I’m
gonna be tapering back some of the companies that I run and kind
of not running them. I’m just basically focusing more on my
winners and I’m focusing more on creating as much value as
possible because my goal is to change over a million lives in terms
of teaching people how to get the most of their bodies and their
minds and how to defy the status quo that we all settle for when it
comes to what our bodies are truly capable of. And I can’t do that
when I’m traipsing around the Vermont backwoods in the Spartan
Death Race. Seriously though, I would love to do one of these
someday. It’s on the bucket list. I just haven’t done it yet, Angela.
Although my wife and I this year are planning on doing a 7-day
adventure race to cross North Idaho if we can find a babysitter.
I’ll put links to the World’s Toughest Mudder and the Spartan
Death Race in the show notes but (and I’m not done yet) there is a
really cool training program out there called Race Day
Domination that gets you ready for these events, not just the
Death Race or the World’s Toughest Mudder but even something
the Tough Mudder or the Spartan Race. It’s called Race Day
Domination. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes but it’s literally
an obstacle race training program. I recently came across it. It
looks super cool. It’s what I’m gonna use when I start training for
these events. That’s called Race Day Domination. So check that
out. I’ll link to it in the show notes. And we made it through all
the questions. I still have time to shower and get dressed and
everything. So this is Episode #225. All right. So everything I
talked about, I’ll link to over there and then you can check out the
MyList for this episode over at facebook.com/bgfitness and scroll
through the special announcements – tons of stuff. E-mail me if
you want in on that party table at Endurance Live. Check out the
Become Superhuman Live event. Get it on that. Register so I
know you’re coming. Get your hotel room. And then also check
out the stuff like the Wildflower Triathlon Training Camp. All the
other training camps I’m doing are listed in the show notes.
Remember the Vietnam Triathlon trip. If you want in on that, e-
mail me [email protected] and finally, leave the
podcast a ranking in iTunes or even leave a donation when you’re
over at bengreenfieldfitness.com so that you can support me
sitting here in my underwear, my bed and my tiny little bedroom
breakfast with my refrigerator with my loaf of bread and my block
of cheese, podcasting. So there you go. I skipped my morning
workout for this one. So thanks for listening in and have a great
week. I’ll be back with Brock in a more professional podcasting
format next week.
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