Podcast #93 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2010/05/episode-

93-swimmer-dara-torres-secret-fitness-weapon/

Introduction: In this podcast episode: resistance stretching, the best

temperature for ice baths, skipping meals, exercise

headaches, runner’s knee, slow metabolisms, hay fever and

exercise, more on carbo loading, sodium phosphate

supplements, V8 juice, the health effects of alcohol, altitude

training and trouble sleeping.

Ben: Hey podcast listeners, it’s Ben Greenfield and I don’t know

what it is, maybe it’s the nice weather, people getting out and

about more, people thinking about their health more, but I

have gotten a lot of questions this week. So I’m not going to

waste too much time, jumping right into the content. We also

have an interview with one of the trainers who travels with

Olympic swimmer Dara Torres and Dara Torres has

something that she calls one of her secret weapons for fitness

and I was able to track down an interview with the person

who actually invented the program that Dara uses. So you do

not want to miss that interview. It’s pretty cool, and it’s

actually something that I’ve started to implement in my

program. So we’re going to start off with a few special

announcements, move on to this week’s huge Listener Q and

A, have that featured topic and of course keep you

entertained along the way.

If you have a question, then all you need to do is email

ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. As I mentioned earlier, just

leave a comment or you can call and leave your audio

question toll free to 8772099439. And the first question this

week comes from listener Tina.

Tina asks: Hey Ben, in training for my Ironman I finally decided to try

the dreaded ice baths. And I was amazed at how well I felt

the next day. I’ve tried it by running down to the lake which

is close to my home and standing in up to my hips for 10

minutes. I’ve also sat in lukewarm water in my tub and

slowly added cold water up to the big dump of the ice tray

from my freezer. So my question is, is there a certain

temperature that ice baths work better in? If I’m still sore the

second day after a hard workout, would another ice bath be

beneficial?

Ben: Well, that’s actually a great question. With ice baths which

are perfect for recovery and effectively eliminating a lot of

that tiny microscopic damage that occurs to your muscles

during exercise, more is not necessarily better. Most of the

research points to about 54 to 60 degrees as the ideal ice

bath temperature range. 54 to 60 degrees is definitely

uncomfortable but it’s not so cold that it’s teeth-grittingly

numb to even be for 15 or 20 seconds. It should be cold to

the point where it is slightly uncomfortable but it doesn’t feel

like it’s actually doing damage to your limbs. Believe it or not

you can do damage by sitting in too cold of water for too long

and you can also cause things like spontaneous fainting

which can occur when you’re exposed to cold for long periods

of time, almost the same as if you were becoming

hypothermic. So, don’t worry about getting any colder than

54 degrees and you can just use any type of thermometer

that you’d use in a pool to measure the actual temperature of

your ice bath, if you’d like to go to that range. Typically, what

I’ll do is just take one freezer tray full of ice, dump that in a

bathtub full of cold water and that generally gets it pretty

cold. I’ll also do a cold shower or as you do go down to a lake

or river and just stand waist deep after a tough run. It really

is one of nature’s best anti-inflammatories and very, very

expensive when it comes to a recovery method. So great

question.

Fitz asks: Ben, how do you feel about paleo primal diet proponents

who advise skipping meals, avoiding carbs or even skipping

breakfast? It seems like there’s a lot of science behind it.

Ben answers: Skipping meals or skipping breakfast is not necessarily going

to do something magical to your metabolism. Contrary to

popular belief it’s not necessarily going to shut down or slow

your metabolism, but there’s also really nothing special that

happens physiological aside from the ability to enhance

caloric restriction and also the ability to burn a little bit of

extra fat as you’re moving around because it’s likely that your

carbohydrate stores are depleted. Now the problem that I

find with my clients is that if I have them skip meals too

often or if I do not stay on top of them in terms of making

sure that they prioritize getting a nutrient-dense breakfast

into their bodies, they end up getting hungrier later on in the

day. Their exercise sessions – especially in the mid-morning

or mid-afternoon tend to suffer because they aren’t able to

bring themselves up to the intensity that they’d be able to do

if they had ample carbohydrate on board. And they usually

have less resistance to some damaging snacks later on in the

day. A Snickers bar at 11am looks a lot more appealing when

you haven’t had a bowl of quinoa with blueberries and a little

bit of almond butter at 8am in the morning when you get up.

Now the times that I do encourage people to skip meals

would be if they’re going to incorporate, for example, a mini

fast protocol. And this is something that I’ll do to lean up

prior to for example a triathlon. I’ll eat dinner at 8 pm and

then go to bed at 10 pm, get up at 6am. By then it’s been 10

hours since I’ve last eaten. I’ll exercise for about 45 to 60

minutes with some light aerobic cardio and then I’ll go eat.

And doing that light aerobic cardio in the morning after the

overnight fast really helps you burn through some fat stores

and fires up those fat burning enzymes in the liver. So, that’s

where I’d recommend skipping meals. For the most part,

people tend to adhere to their diets a little bit more when

they’re eating frequently and not engaging in irregular eating

patterns.

I’m going to move on to a question from listener David.

David is a personal trainer.

David asks: One of my clients complains of headaches halfway through

the workout. I train him pretty hard. Usually circuits with

minimum breaks in between sets. He doesn’t drink coffee or

tea and keeps caffeine intake to a minimum. He’s 30 years

old, in good shape, and of average weight with no special

conditions. No diabetes, no high blood pressure, no high

lipids. I’m looking to build his upper body strength and

improve his core. I think the headaches could have

something to do with his breathing technique. I do watch

him and it appears he’s exhaling on concentrics and inhaling

on eccentrics. (That just means he’s doing as he’s supposed

to. He’s exhaling during the difficult phase and inhaling

during the relaxation phase. David goes on.) So maybe he’s

not breathing correctly or deep enough. What other

possibilities do you think could be causing his headaches?

Ben answers: Could be low carbs or lack thereof. Usually glycogen

depletion isn’t going to be a big issue with headaches. If it

were going to be depletion of any type of nutrient per se, it

would be water and dehydration and that would be just kind

of… the big red flag would be – and I’m going to kind of

assume you already looked at this. Make sure that he’s

drinking enough water. Specifically his body weight divided

by half is how many ounces of water he should be drinking at

a minimum per day. That being said, I don’t know how his

eyesight is, but people who have sensitivity to bright light or

difficulty focusing can get headaches no matter where they

are including exercise. Sensitivity to noise can cause

headaches. It’s possible that if he has very good hearing or if

he’s especially sensitive to weights dropping or loud music in

the weight room, that can cause a headache. Other certain

anxiety disorders – if he’s very tense in social situations, that

can contribute to headaches. As can muscular tension in the

traps and shoulders, which could be eliminated with foam

rolling or massage or even just a little bit of trigger point

work which you can do as a personal trainer. You can put

your hands on your client’s traps and basically massage the

traps. You don’t have to be a licensed massage therapist to do

something like that. And then finally I’d look into

magnesium as well. Magnesium deficiency can cause quite a

bit of symptoms including headaches. I’ll put a link to topical

magnesium that he can rub into his shoulders or his neck. I’ll

put a link to that in the Shownotes. The other thing I’m going

to put a link to is a breathing article that I wrote that focuses

on breathing drills that can really help outside of exercise.

Ways that you can breathe to assist with potential problems

with too shallow a breathing or not having the right habits

when it comes to getting deep breaths in when you’re

exercising. So I’m going to put a link to that article David and

you can click on that in the Shownotes to this episode,

episode number 93. I’d consider some of those things. The

eyesight, the hearing sensitivity, the magnesium, the

breathing and the hydration. Those are some of the things

that come to mind right away when you describe what’s

going on.

Mike asks: Question one, I was hoping you could point me in the right

direction on your recommended brands for vitamin D,

magnesium, Omega 3s and greens.

Ben answers: I don’t want to be a supplement whore. I don’t want to

necessarily tell you that there’s one single supplement that’s

best. All I’m going to do Mike is tell you what I take in terms

of those supplements. For vitamin D, I take the Bioletics

stuff that I spray under my tongue. For magnesium, I take

Ancient Minerals – that one that I just put a link to for David.

For Omega 3s, I take the flax seed oil from IMPaX called

EnerEFA, and I also take the fish oil from Bioletics. And then

for greens I use EnerPrime as a greens powder and I use

something else called Living Fuels Super Greens for a meal

replacement powder that has greens in it. So, there you go.

Now question two.

Mike asks: Do you have any treatment or supplement recommendations

for jumper’s knee? I developed a severe case playing

volleyball a couple of years ago and still struggle with it.

Ben answers: Number one thing I’m going to recommend to you Mike that

has helped me tremendously, I used to play competitive

volleyball. Played for a couple of years at the University of

Idaho, discovered this and I’ve used it for both IT band and

for jumper’s knee and that’s something called a Patt Strap.

It’s a little strap, you put it over the front of your patellar

tendon during activity and it eliminates a lot of the friction

and the rubbing that can lead to the inflammation and the

pain. For the IT band you can actually put that about two

inches above the knee. I’ve even worn two before, one for the

IT band and one for the knee. But that would be my top

recommendation for something you could use for runner’s

knee or jumper’s knee and I found that works really well.

Lance asks: Are there any other sunscreens worth considering other than

the SCAPE product from podcast number 92.

Ben answers: You know Lance, the only real sunscreens that I’ve

experimented with too much with are that SCAPE product

which I actually wore in a triathlon last week and was really

very impressed with it. I had interviewed Dr. Martins about

it on the podcast, and tried it out during the Wildflower

Triathlon. I was very happy with it not stinging my eyes,

helping to cool more core temp, or helping me not to feel like

my temperature cooling capabilities were being inhibited

and then also zero sunburn lines or tan lines from my

triathlon jersey. So, in addition to that one, the only other

thing I’ve done is gotten coconut oils, jojoba oils and zinc

and basically made sunscreen in my kitchen and that’s

something else you can do. As a matter of fact, if you went to

YouTube and did a search for my name plus “sunscreen”

you’d find that video where I’m making it in my kitchen. But

that’s something else you could do and other than that, in the

past – I’ve been the guy that wanders into Walgreens and

buys whatever’s on sale. So I’m kind of sold now on this

SCAPE stuff after interviewing the guy about it, finding out it

was really designed for people doing what I do, exercising

hard in hot weather. So, that’s what I’d do. I’m probably not

going to end up making any more in my kitchen just because

of the opportunity and time cost versus just getting some

from SCAPE. So there you go.

Lance asks: In podcast 92 I was puzzled by your fat recommendations.

The research I have looked at indicates we need single digit

percentages of daily calories from Omega 3 and 6s. Why do

you recommend 15 to 25%?

Ben answers: The short answer is I don’t. I recommended 15 to 25% for

total fat intake. Which means that if you take the fat that

you’re getting from fish oils, flax seed oils, Omega 3 sources,

Omega 6 sources – you take the fat that you’re getting from

coconut oils, you take the fat that you’re getting from

monounsaturated sources like olives, olive oil, avocado,

seeds, nuts – you put all that together plus whatever fat you

might be getting from dairy and meat and that should come

out to the 15 to 25% mark. So I wasn’t saying that just for the

Omega 3s and 6s. That’s total fat I recommend at 15 to 25%.

Josh asks: It’s been a mantra in my family that slow metabolism is a

curse. Is it true that some people struggle with a slower

metabolism, or do those people like me just eat a little bit or

a lot more and slowly add to their body fat?

Ben answers: Before I progress to the second part of your question, Josh, it

is true that some people do struggle with a slower

metabolism. You can get your metabolism tested via

something called “indirect calorimetry.” It’s done in a resting

metabolic test where you sit down or you lie down after

you’ve been fasting so there’s no thermic effect of food that’s

skewing the results, and you simply sit there and breathe for

anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes and you find out how many

calories your body is burning at rest. It spans the gamut, I’ve

had some lean people come to me with slow metabolisms

and I’ve had some very overweight people come to me with

fast metabolisms. And so that’s actually how you can get it

measured versus using something like an equation online. So

your local university might be able to hook you up with that.

You could also do a search on Google for “metabolic testing”

wherever you happen to live. Now you move on and you

say…

Josh asks: No diet or meal plan seems to be able to really help me drop

my body fat. My physician says my blood tests don’t indicate

a slow metabolism but even his dietary advice doesn’t work.

Can you help?

Ben answers: Your physician should not be giving you a blood test for a

slow metabolism. Your physician can give you a blood test

for thyroid or for anemia or something that’s going to

indirectly affect your metabolism, or directly affect your

metabolism but those don’t measure metabolic rate. Those

are just measuring parameters that influence your

metabolism. The only way your doc can directly test your

metabolism is via the measurement that I just described. So

I’m not sure why they’re telling you that other than maybe

they’re just trying to tell you in some other way that your

thyroid is normal. Let’s say that your thyroid is normal and

you’re still having trouble dropping body fat. I can tell you

right now that when my clients come to me and they

complain about this or when potential clients come to me

and they complain about this, usually I’m suggesting a range

of tests from food allergy tests to yeast tests, fungus tests. I’m

looking at their full nutrient profile. A lot of times looking at

not just the nutrient intake but also the supplement intake,

the hydration status, the actual exercise program that they’re

utilizing as well as their lifestyle, their stress levels, their

sleep levels. There are so many things at play here that you

just having a slow metabolism could pretty easily be

overcome if that’s all it is. But when you say no diet or meal

plan seems to really be able to help, it doesn’t tell me much.

Other than that, we would need to dig a little further to see

what’s going on and those are some of the ways that we

would do it. Now your second question is how far in advance

do you plan your workouts? How do you anticipate muscles

that you’re overtraining when you’re planning ahead? I plan

out my cycling, running and swimming workouts in a macro

perspective for the entire year. Meaning that I sit down, I

look at the triathlons I want to do. I look at the shape I want

to be in. I look at possibly maybe being a little bit heavier

over the holidays, a little bit more body fat in the winter, a

little bit less in the summer. And I plan out the big picture

based on that. Knowing the time of year that I’m going to be

focusing more on strength, knowing the time of year I’m

going to be focusing more on cardiovascular endurance or fat

loss and knowing the time of year I’m going to be focusing

more on explosive racing type of fitness because I do

triathlons. Now from there, if I know the macro perspective,

what I do is at the beginning of every week and this is the

same thing I do with my clients, I sit down and plan that

week’s workouts based off of where I need to be from a

macro perspective for that week. So if it’s a race week, then

I’m planning lots of short, very intense sessions without

much volume. If it’s a fat loss week, it’s a lot of early morning

workout sessions on an empty stomach that are slightly

lower intensity usually followed by some type of resistance

training session or cross training session in the afternoon. If

it’s strength building week, usually it’s a lot more time in the

weight room with lower reps and higher weights. So as long

as you know the general direction you want to go – for me,

it’s usually on a week by week basis. Because what I find is if

I plan out my entire month specifically or if I plan out one of

my client’s entire month specifically, we end up running into

stuff two weeks in. I’m having to go back and re-invent the

entire program because they remember they had a family

reunion or their foot starts to hurt or we have to do any

number of things to modify the program based off of the

dynamic things that are happening in their lives. So I

wouldn’t plan too far ahead in terms of the workout details,

but I always have a big picture. In terms of anticipating

muscles that you’re overtraining and avoiding overtraining?

Generally, you want to give a muscle enough rest to where

it’s not sore the next time you work it. And that’s just a

matter of knowing your body. For most people, it’s 48 to 72

hours. So if I’m, say, working my chest muscles with bench

pressing or pushups, then the way that I’m planning out my

week, I’m not going to be bench pressing on Monday,

Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m going to be doing it on, for

example, Monday and Thursday. So there’s a lot of different

ways you can split up body parts. One would be pushing

exercises on Monday, pulling exercises on Tuesday, cardio

on Wednesday, back to pushing on Thursday, pulling on

Friday and then core on the weekends along with cardio.

That’s just one example. Another example would be three full

body workouts during the week with two cardio sessions. So

as long as you plan it out so you’re not doing the same thing

every day and allowing 48 to 72 hours between muscle

groups, then it tends to be pretty effective. So good questions.

John asks: What’s your opinion on V8 juice? The 5.5 ounce cans are

really convenient for eating on the go. Should I be concerned

with BPA like most other canned tomato products?

Ben answers: Well John, I couldn’t necessarily find any studies for you that

would indicate that you do need to be concerned about BPA.

However, there’s really nothing that could truly replace the

type of fresh juice that you’d get from making your own juice

at home and then carrying that in whether it be travel coffee

mugs or water bottles or whatever is convenient. Because V8

is made from processed vegetable juice concentrate. So it’s

heated. A lot of times it’s reconstituted and they’ve added a

bunch of salt to it as well as natural flavoring which in many

cases can basically just be re-packaged MSG. So, if you look

at the ingredient label of V8 juice you’re getting water,

tomato paste, reconstituted vegetable juice blend – which is

carrot, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, water crest and spinach

– lemon juice, salt, vitamin C and citric acid. You can easily

make something like this at home and also save yourself the

salt because you’re getting almost 500 milligrams of salt in a

V8 which is not doing your blood pressure or health many

favors. You’re almost getting your daily recommended dose

of sodium from just a couple of V8s. So in terms of making

your own at home, there are recipes out there. One of the

things you could do is get a VitaMix or even a Magic Bullet or

a blender like food processor, and you can get a bunch of

vegetables that you turn around and see on the can of the V8.

So you’re looking at getting some tomatoes, celery, onion.

You can do some garlic like the whole garlic cloves and any

other number of vegetables that you care to add and just boil

them. Put them over heat for about 20 minutes and then

once they’re boiled, throw them into your food processor or

your blender and blend them. And then the things you could

add to make it taste more like V8 would be the same types of

things you’d add to a Bloody Mary. You can add a little bit of

sugar or brown rice syrup or molasses or whatever sweetener

you would prefer to use. You can use salt and generally not

more than about a tablespoonful for anywhere from three to

four servings. You can add some pepper, you can add a little

bit of horseradish. You can put some lemon juice in there.

Worcestershire sauce. But basically, you mix all this together

and you can batch produce a big batch of fresh juice, throw it

in the refrigerator and just hit on that during the week from

your water bottle. And it’d be a good way to go if you kind of

like that flavor of V8, without actually getting the

reconstituted vegetable juice and salt that you’re getting

from the canned product. That’s what I would do if you’re

going to be relying on vegetable juice as one of your primary

snacks through the day.

Casey asks: I have to work and go to school full time right now, and I

often lose sleep and can’t wind down until very late because

of it. Not to mention the mass consumption of alcohol which

has become my main goal to eliminate. Do you have any

suggestions that do not include quitting my work or school? I

know that stress is slowly killing my body. I suffer from heart

burn, fatigue, anxiety, high stress, etc. and I am only 21. I

would just like a real world solution to what I’m sure is a

pretty common issue.

Ben answers: Casey, you’ve kind of answered your own question. That you

are working, going to school full-time, which in and of itself

is doable. But mass consumption of alcohol combined with

that scenario is probably holding you back just a little bit,

especially when you have some of the symptoms that you’re

describing. Now, alcohol in terms of a glass of red wine a few

times a week has cardiovascular protective effects and de-

stressing effects. On the flip side, mass consumption of

alcohol in the way that you described is not all that great for

you. Of course weight gain from the empty calories is going

to be an issue but hypertension or high blood pressure is an

issue. You can get dry skin because of the dehydrating effects

of alcohol. You increase your risk for cancer and psoriasis of

the liver. You affect your kidneys, not just the high blood

pressure but also metabolizing all the other things that

you’re getting in when you’re drinking alcohol and mixed

drinks including the toxic byproducts of metabolism of high

amounts of alcohol. Alcohol can interfere with your body’s

ability to absorb calcium, so you’re going to affect your bones

and your bone density. As far as your mental health, alcohol

consumption is directly correlated with depression, anxiety,

personality disorders, schizophrenia, disrupted sleep

patterns. Essentially that would be the number one

modification that you could make to your life right now to

help you out. When I got serious back in college, I was

drinking quite a bit. I was probably a three or four night a

week party-er. So, not that much different than most of my

friends in school, hitting a few frat parties during the week

and hosting a party or two on the weekend, and usually each

of those, you would average anywhere from five to 10 drinks.

Once I decided to get a little bit more serious about my

education and my life, that was one of the first things that I

quit doing. After that point, I was working full-time and

averaging 24 credit hours per semester and I really didn’t

change that much in my life other than quitting my partying

and late night drinking. My social life was still great. My

health was still great because I was working out, but that was

one of the biggest things I did to affect not only my stress

levels but also my ability to be able to concentrate and focus

and excel at my studies. So, I would recommend that you

kind of tone the alcohol a little bit and if that means you got

to start drinking sparkling water and maybe even switch to

some of the things I’ve talked about in the show before like

the flavored Noon or U-Hydration effervescent tablets that

you can add to beverages that you still feel like you’re

drinking something flavored, that can help out quite a bit. So,

ultimately though, you kind of answered your own question

during your question.

Jeff asks: What are the benefits of sodium phosphate? I’m thinking of

trying a product called Race Boost from Hammer. Any

thoughts?

Ben answers: Yeah, sodium phosphate is one of those classic supplements,

been used for a long time. It’s a buffer. It’s highly alkalinic

which means that it can help your body deal with all the

acidity from the hydrogen ions that get kicked off from lactic

acid when you are exercising. There have been multiple

studies that have shown sodium phosphate to be effective in

lowering the rating of perceived exertion or increasing the

time to fatigue. The only problem is that most of that was

done with short term activities like 800 meter sprints, and

there was not quite enough time for the GI distress to set in,

that’s going to set in when you’re taking that stuff long term

during endurance exercise. And that’s the issue – is that in

most cases, the gastrointestinal distress that occurs with the

level of sodium phosphate consumption necessary for an

ergogenic effect is typically not worth taking the sodium

phosphate. You’d be much better off focusing on improving

your ability to tolerate large levels of lactic acid and saving

the sodium phosphate supplementation for a Master’s track

and field meet where you got to run a very short distance for

a very short period of time and you aren’t having to dump

that stuff down the hatch. Even for a sprint triathlon, that’s a

long time to be taking sodium phosphate. So understand that

in a lot of supplements, the dosage that they’re going to

recommend might not give you GI distress, but that means

that it’s probably not a high enough dose to actually help you

out when it comes to buffering acidity. Of course, ultimately

you are your own case study, so you can try it out and see

how you feel but most research points to the necessity to take

quite a bit of that stuff to really see a good result.

Rich asks: Just a quick question, I’ve had a good diet helped by your

tips and advice which focuses on the anti-inflammatory

foods and wondered if you had any further tips on reducing

my hay fever symptoms. I can deal with the extra mucus and

itchy eyes using topical homeopathic remedies, but it is the

systemic effect that really kills my performance. I noticed a

dramatic change in form throughout May, June and July in

my running, cycling and rowing times and recover more

slowly after a tough session.

Ben answers: That’s something that’s pretty tricky. My wife actually deals

with hay fever a little bit as well, and the idea behind hay

fever is that it’s basically your immune system overreacting

to what would normally be harmless airborne particles. But

you’ve got enough allergens running through your

bloodstream and enough sensitivity to them that it causes

the runny nose, the sneezing, the watery eyes, the coughing,

all those things that you might be able to tolerate when

you’re sitting at your office, but once you’re on a bicycle it

becomes a whole different issue. You mentioned some of the

homeopathics and there’s definitely some out there that can

help out a little bit. Specifically things like the Butter Burr,

that’s one that’s typically used as a natural allergy treatment

and that’s something you can get as a homeopathic remedy

at your local health food store. Quercetin, which is

interestingly an ingredient in the FRS energy drink that

Lance Armstrong uses – that’s actually an anti-histamine but

there haven’t really been many studies done on it in terms of

its direct influence on hay fevers. It would be between about

200 and 400 milligrams of that three times a day, though, in

terms of the anti-histamine like effect. I’m not a doctor. I’m

not prescribing this as medical advice. I’m just saying the

amount that’s been found actually show an effect on the

histamine production. So caratenoids, that’s basically a

family of plant pigments and you’re going to get that from a

lot of the darker vegetables and also things like apricots,

carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash and then of course all

the darker ones I mentioned like the collared greens, the bok

choy, the kale, the spinach. Taking in caratenoids or

caratenoid rich foods can be a good idea as well because

those can actually promote the opening of the airways and

eliminate a little bit of the inflammation there. Identifying

any food sensitivities outside of the hay fever that you might

have an issue with, specifically all the things that you’ve

probably heard me talk about before that people tend to be

allergic to – peanuts, soy, wheat, dairy, gluten, even

tomatoes in some cases, eggs in some cases – those are some

things that I would get looked at. You can do a skin prick test

for food allergies, a stool test for food allergies. There’s a

company out here that I work with called Unikey Health

Systems. They have you send them a stool sample and that’s

fun to think about, and then they analyze it and send you

back your results. You could call Unikey and tell them as well.

I think they do give a 5% discount if you mention my name,

which I guess probably saves you on your poop shipping.

Moving on, Omega 3 fatty acids – those are something that…

they’re usually for a variety of health conditions, but

basically what they do is they can reduce the production of

inflammatory chemicals in your body specifically something

called prostaglandin and cytokines. And taking in Omega 3

fatty acids supplements is something that I would highly

recommend, either a fish oil or a flax seed oil or do what I do

and do both. So, I would recommend that. And then finally,

acupuncture believe it or not is something that’s used for

quite a few allergic type of reactions and it’d be worth giving

a try. You could go ahead and Google your local

acupuncturist. I believe that the new program similar to

Craigslist, called Angieslist actually has reviews of local

healthcare practitioners. I tend to like to review and research

practitioners before I go visit them, because some of them

can be really kooky and some of them can actually be good

people who are well-educated and have done quite a bit of

what they practice. So I would research that before you see

an acupuncturist, but that’s something that would be

important to consider as well.

Chuck asks: I was wondering for what distance should one do a carb load?

Obviously for a full or half Ironman, but should I implement

for an Olympic distance triathlon or is there a certain point

where it’s just not necessary to do at all?

Ben answers: Well Chuck, basically you can look as a guy at storing

anywhere from about 1900 to 2500 calories of carbohydrate

on your body. And so, if you know that going really, really

hard – exercising really hard – most guys are going to burn

around 1000 calories an hour. You know you’ve got enough

to last about two hours in terms of carbohydrate stores on

board. So, no need to carbo load for anything under two

hours. Once you get up to that point though, you can

definitely start to carbo load and see the benefits of that up

to 60% additional glycogen that you can store in your body

from a carb-loading protocol. Now carb loading is a little bit

logistically intensive, trying to figure out your percentages

and gradually increase your carbs throughout the week and

also do your carbohydrate depleting session a week before

the exercise. Listen to podcast number 92 if you want to hear

more about what we talked about with the carbohydrate

loading. But for a shorter race, I really only focus on eating a

high carb diet for two days leading up to that race. It’s the

only carbo loading that I do. And then making sure that I of

course get a high carb diet for breakfast the morning of a

race. So really, there’s not necessarily a tried and true rule

that I follow for carb loading for a shorter distance event like

a sprint or an Olympic distance triathlon. It’s just basically

upping carbohydrate intake for those last two days, and

typically the carbohydrate intake is replacing proteins or

fibers in my diet. So for example, instead of having a salad

I’ll have a couple of sweet potatoes or instead of having, for

example, a protein smoothie, I’ll have a fruit smoothie. And

so I just throw things in here and there to replace some of

the foods that I would normally be eating. So, that’s about as

scientific as I get when it comes to carb loading for a shorter

distance event, just because it’s not super important. But a

lot of people don’t do Olympic distance triathlons in under

two hours, so obviously you can get some benefit from carb

loading a little bit for that distance.

Chris asks: I just got my butt royally kicked this past weekend at the

Devil’s Punch Bowl bike race. I believe that the altitude

which was 3800 feet at the start had a lot to do with that, as I

live and train at sea level. My heart rate was skyrocketing the

entire race, much higher than it ever had in the past. Do you

have any practical advice on how to prepare for three days of

hard racing at a similar elevation in mid-June?

Ben answers: You’ve got a couple of choices when it comes to that, Chris.

First off, if you get to your place of competition just like a day

prior to the event rather than two or three days prior to the

event, your body doesn’t really have a chance to react to the

altitude and you really don’t struggle with it quite as much.

So one strategy is to get there as late as possible. The other

strategy is to get there two to three weeks prior and

acclimatize to the altitude which is logistically a lot more

difficult to do for most people. Now, for altitude training,

living low – meaning living at your normal altitude and

training high, meaning training at the higher altitudes is a

very good way to do things, because you get the physiological

benefits of training at altitude but your body is given a

chance to recover when you drop back down out of altitude,

and that’s kind of the gold standard for altitude training. The

problem is that means you have to live near a mountain.

Then you can drive to the top of the mountain to train and

then go back home down to sea level when you’re done. And

so again, that’s logistically difficult to do. You can get full-on

altitude training systems where you have like a tent that you

train in and some people use those tents for sleeping, not

training and I actually frown on that. I don’t encourage the

sleeping in the hypoxic tents just because it can inhibit

recovery, but I do recommend training in them. And that

would be an investment but that’s something else you could

do. There’s not much that you can do to really get your body

ready for the type of things that occur at altitude other than

training at altitude. But I would make sure that you have

adequate iron and ferritin in your diet. Ferritin is a storage

protein for iron and iron is of course essential to your red

blood cells’ ability to carry and deliver oxygen to your muscle

tissue. So I would make sure that you’re eating a diet that’s

high in iron. You don’t necessarily have to supplement with

iron. It can be actually toxic and it’s pretty easy to overdo the

iron. Basically you’re looking at things like sesame seeds and

dark leafy greens, and eating some of the more hemic

containing meats like the red meats, the dark red salmon, the

steaks, things of that nature. Making sure that you take in

those types of foods and then focus on your breathing. Look

at that deep breathing article that I recommended to David

earlier in this podcast that I linked to from the Shownotes.

Read that too, so that you make sure you’re getting as much

oxygen in as possible when you are at altitude because there

are fewer molecules of oxygen per breath of air and so you’ve

got to breathe more to get more oxygen. Even though if

you’re a physiologist listening in, I know that you’re jumping

up and down right now, waving your hands in the air, talking

about the partial pressure affecting the actual absorption of

the oxygen at the alveola level, but again there’s not a lot that

you can do about that other than training at altitude. So I’d

focus on the breathing component if you’re not able to train

at the altitude.

Ken asks: I am having problems staying asleep. I’m going to bed

around 10 or 10:30, I’m waking up to go to the bathroom and

I am not able to fall back asleep. I’m very wide awake after

four to five hours. Also I’m drenched in sweat when I wake

up. I do not work out before bed. Most of my stuff is done

morning or early evening. Is this normal and what can I do

about it?

Ben answers: This to me – again, not a medical doctor – but this sounds

very much like an overactive thyroid. Hyperthyroidism is

another way that you can describe it. Your thyroid is a little

gland right underneath our Adam’s apple and it influences a

ton of your body functions including metabolism and body

temperature, and if it is overactive, then there are a variety of

metabolism and body temperature symptoms that can occur.

And this would include the type of things that you’re

complaining about. Being really jittery, having lots of energy

but it not being a good type of energy like more like a

nervous twitching kind of energy, laying awake at night,

trouble sleeping, cold or clammy skin, sweaty skin. All these

types of things can occur with hyperthyroidism. Now, if you

were to go see an allopathic medical doc, they’d tell you that

what you could do if you do have that is take an anti-thyroid

drug that will prevent the thyroid from producing its thyroid

hormones. You could get a radioactive iodine treatment

which basically means that the thyroid cells that absorb that

radioactive iodine get damaged, basically get killed. Or you

could surgically remove the thyroid gland or the thyroid

nodule. Now, those of you listening to this podcast know that

I’m not a huge fan of those options unless we’re talking about

a very serious case of Gray’s disease or hyperthyroidism that

simply cannot be managed. What I would instead

recommend is you look into homeopathic treatments –

herbal or homeopathic treatments – there are a few out there.

Lemon balm is one, bugle weed is another one. Motherwort

is another and I know all of you are snickering because it

sounds like I’m talking about Harry Potter herbs. But bugle

weed, lemon balm and motherwort are actual names of herbs.

I would look into acupuncture, once again using some of the

recommendations that you heard about earlier in the show. I

would look into massage therapy as well, and I would have a

very serious visit with a naturopathic physician and once

again, you’ll want to research a naturopathic physician that is

good and you can again use something like Angieslist for that.

But everything that you’re describing to me sounds more like

hyperthyroidism or overactive thyroid type of issue. So I

would definitely go speak with a medical professional about

that.

Now I know that you’re all waiting with bated breath at the

edge of your seat to see who won the free membership to my

Body Transformation Club based on the question that they

asked. And that’s actually going to go to listener Josh with

the question about the slow metabolism. So Josh, if you

email me, I’m going to give you a special code that lets you

into my Body Transformation Club for free. Just email

ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. Now we’re going to go ahead

and move on to this week’s featured topic after a brief special

announcement.

Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and on the other

line I have somebody from a company called Innovative

Body Solutions. And if you watched the last summer

Olympics, you may have seen Olympic phenom swimmer

Dara Torres – the woman who wore several golds, five time

Olympic swimmer, gold medalist, 28 time All American,

American record holder, one of the best swimmers we’ve

ever produced – if you saw her warming up before her swims

or maybe you watched the video that was out there on TV of

all the different protocols that she uses to keep her body

tuned, you may have seen her being stretched and worked on

by a couple of individuals. One of those people was Anne

Tierney, who I have on the other line. Not only was Anne

over there at the Olympics with Dara. She was also with the

Olympic Gold medalist gymnast Nastia Liuken and has

worked with a huge number of collegiate athletes,

recreational athletes, professional athletes incorporating

something called resistance stretching which we’re going to

talk about today. So, Anne. Thanks for coming on.

Anne Tierney: Hi Ben, thank you.

Ben: Well I guess the best place to start for people is to ask you a

little bit about what resistance stretching is and how you got

into this.

Anne Tierney: So, what we call it is basically Ki-Hara resistance stretching.

What it is, is it’s all based on eccentric training. So typically

when people stretch a muscle, they just lengthen a muscle.

That’s what you think of as stretching. You lay back, you pull

your leg up. What we consider as stretching is that as you

lengthen the muscle you contract it. This helps – actually it

works in the (staging) mechanism. If you can’t contract the

muscle as your lengthening it, then that means that there

could be substitution or a weakness there. So it’s a staging

mechanism that doesn’t allow you to overstretch the muscle.

So it actually keeps muscles longer and stronger.

Ben: Okay and for the people listening in, can you go back and

explain real quick – what do you mean when you say to

lengthen a muscle or to stretch a muscle, how do the muscles

actually work in that sense when they’re being stretched or

lengthened or contracted?

Anne Tierney: Okay, well most people like when you go to a gym and you

lift a weight, what you’re lifting or strength training is a

concentric movement. So you’re going to do a bicep curl, you

lengthen your arm where the muscle’s long. The bicep will be

long. You put 15 pounds, 20 pounds whatever have you

weight in your hand and you curl it up and that will be

strength training or concentric movement. So we actually

think that the stretch is when you lower that weight. The e-

centric movement. So it’s actually lengthening the muscle

while maintaining contraction. And most philosophies of

stretching simply just go for lengthening the muscle, just

trying to get it as long as possible and we want to make sure

that as you’re trying to get it as long as possible it can still

maintain a contraction.

Ben: Okay. So basically the concept behind resistance stretching is

that you’re actually contracting that muscle as you lengthen

it?

Anne Tierney: Exactly. It’s kind of very – actually very counter-intuitive. It’s

not what most people think. Most people think you relax as

you stretch or you relax the muscle. But that can lead to

injury and overstretched muscles. Whereas if you contract it

while you stretch it then it keeps it in a safe range and you

won’t overstretch the muscle.

Ben: Okay, is there anywhere that somebody could go to actually

see something like this in action? For the visual learners out

there.

Anne Tierney: To see something like this in action… we’re actually working

on our Web site to develop some… there’s video, etc., but if

they want to see a diagram of the muscle lengthening, etc.

we’re working on some animation for that, that will be up on

the Web site eventually in the future. Right now there’s

obviously videos. The hard part is when people see it… like

our video that we have with Dara Torres, it looks like the

person isn’t doing much work. Just like during the Olympics

or any TV show, etc. that we’ve been on – it looks like they’re

just lengthening their muscle when actually there’s a

contraction going on. It’s a lot more work than what it looks

like.

Ben: So let’s say that you were going to stretch my hamstring

using resistance stretching, how would that work?

Anne Tierney: Yeah. Well you know, say we’re going to do a hamstring

stretch, you’d lie on your back. You’d bend your right knee

into your chest if we’re going to do a hamstring. I would first

lengthen your leg up to a long position to see what kind of

range you have, at the point where it starts to shake or you

start to feel a tug, that’s kind of our (inaudible) point. We’d

have you kick down. So we’d have you strength train the

muscle first to help warm the muscle up, to teach the muscle

the movement and then what we’d have you do is keep

kicking down so you would keep kicking your heels to your

butt and as you kept kicking down, creating that contraction

– if I was stretching you, I would then meet the force of you

kicking down to lengthen your leg only as far as I could feel

you resist. The key with that – because people hear the word

“resistance”, they think I should kick down as hard as I can.

But really, you just need to kick down at a five or a six out of

10, and you just keep a steady contraction and it’s almost like

a magnet – a magnet between your heel and your butt. They

want to stay together but I’m the force in between them

lengthening your heel away. And that’s kind of how that

works.

Ben: If I didn’t have you there to produce the force, could I

actually do resistance stretching on myself?

Anne Tierney: Yes, of course. There are phenomenal self stretches. What

you do is instead of me producing the force, it would be your

own hand. So your own hand would be on your heel. Your

heel would be kicking in to your butt and your hands would

be meeting the force of your leg. So in this situation,

obviously your leg is stronger than your arm, you’d have to

regulate it and not resist too hard. But because your arms are

working to stretch your legs to get the contraction, your arms

are actually going to get stronger. Because you’re working

your upper and lower body at the same time, the core is

engaged the whole time for stability. So it ends up being a

really intense full body workout.

Ben: Gotcha. So when you’re doing resistance stretching, you

describe it as a workout. How long would a typical resistance

training or resistance stretching session actually take you? Is

it like yoga where you can just choose a few moves and do a

few moves or do you have an entire program that you go

through?

Anne Tierney: Yeah, the great thing about it is you know, it’s portable

obviously. All you need is yourself. Or if you’re with a trainer,

it depends. Most of our trainers end up doing an hour and a

half session because we try to get the upper and lower body

as well a technique of massage we call mashing in as well.

But sometimes with professional athletes, we’ll work as long

as two hours and sometimes we can get a solid workout in

with somebody in 30 minutes as well. Or if you’re going to do

it on your own, you can pick and choose. I’m going to go

boxing today so I’m going to do my chest and my back. I’m

going to do some lats, I’m going to do quads. Pick and choose.

Or like on our DVD, there are 16 self stretches that can be

done, five to seven reps, both strength and search in under

20 minutes. So it’s pretty easy to get… you can make it as

long and as hard as you want or you can kind of make it as

short and quick as you want.

Ben: And the DVD just walks people through a resistance

stretching workout?

Anne Tierney: Exactly. It’s a two DVD set and so on the first one, it’s like

you learn the concepts of resistance and e-centric and why

this works and balancing muscle groups and some problem

solving. Then it goes through in great detail – probably

excruciating detail – each stretch. And then on the second

disc, it’s just Dara Torres leading you through all 20

stretches in a row basically. Sorry, it’s 16 stretches, 8 legs and

then followed by 8 arms.

Ben: Okay, gotcha. I’ll make sure that I put a link to that in the

Shownotes to this podcast. Now I know some people are

worried about flexibility and the potential for an athlete

becoming too flexible and not being able to produce as great

a force as they should be able to. Is that an issue with

resistance stretching? Getting too flexible?

Anne Tierney: No. That’s actually the benefit of this, is that you can’t

overstretch the muscle as long as while you’re lengthening

the muscle, you have a contraction, you can’t overstretch it.

So, that’s the magical thing – is often times people end up

overstretching their muscles and then that leads to pulls or

injuries. This is its own spacing mechanism. If you can’t keep

a contraction and you try to keep going, you’re going too far

and that’s as far as you go. The other thing is it leads to more

explosive muscles, and because of e-centric, it basically

creates more tears in the muscle than typical weigh training

does – so it can actually build stronger muscles as well. And

so, it’s those longer and stronger muscles which lead to more

explosiveness. It’s been really great for the athletes. We have

a lot of triathletes that we work with. They’ve found it to be

very beneficial. Not only keeping them not injured but also

keeping them improving in their time even as they get older.

Ben: Gotcha. Okay. So could you actually substitute resistance

training for a workout? Because the way you described it, it

sounds like it’s actually kind of tough on the body if you’re

actually giving yourself the resistance and resisting your

limbs as you move through space. Do you actually get a

workout when you’re doing resistance stretching?

Anne Tierney: You definitely get a workout. I think something that we hear

the most is “I can’t believe I’m sweating. Aren’t I supposed to

be stretching right now?” So it’s definitely a workout. But you

know, our philosophy is we think it’s a great complement to

anything you do. So if you like to do yoga, great. Do this with

yoga. It will probably get you into some positions that you

couldn’t get into before. You like to weight train? Perfect.

This helps take that tension out that you just put in your

body weight training. You like to run? Good. You’re going to

get to run longer, etc. So, could you do this on its own as a

workout? Yes. We have people who do that separately, and

have I done that for periods of times as experimentation? For

sure. But is it the be all, end all? No. I don’t believe that at all.

I think that it’s great to have diversity in your workout to

strength training, to do other forms of – other modalities of

functional training. But it can be a workout, so yeah

definitely. You’ll get a burn.

Ben: Gotcha. Now would you want to do this if you were going to

do it before a workout or as a supplement to a workout – say

a swim session – is it something you’d want to do right

before a swim session, earlier in the day, immediately after?

When is the best time to do resistance stretching?

Anne Tierney: We have all sorts of different… we kind of base that on

people themselves, on individuals and what they like. For me

personally, I like to do it before I go work out because then I

feel so much better when I’m working out, so I feel like it’s

such a better workout. I don’t feel stiff and I don’t feel tight.

I’m not thinking “Oh, I’m cramping here.” Other people like

to go get their workout in – like Dara for instance, she likes

to do all of the other stuff that she’s going to do – swim for

two hours, do her functional training, do her dry land, etc.

She likes the last thing she does to be getting resistance

stretched and mashed because she feels like it takes all the

tension out of her body. So the next day she can start

refreshed again. Whereas other people, you know, like to do

it as soon as they wake up so they’re just fresh for the day or

right before they go to bed. So it kind of depends on how you

feel. So we like our athletes or anybody we work with to

experiment with it. What do they like? And we can adapt it to

that. That’s a great thing about it. You can do it before or

after or both. And it’s quick and you can do it that way.

Ben: So if somebody isn’t an athlete and they just – let’s say they

have whatever – low back pain, they’ve been told they need

to improve flexibility – is this something that somebody like

that would be able to handle or is this just limited to athletes?

Anne Tierney: No. I would say it’s actually probably 50 or 60% are people

who come to us are just regular Joes. They stand a lot. They

sit a lot at their jobs or whatever it may be or they have

injuries. Tons of back injuries, knee injuries, whatever it may

be. This is actually great for it because it’s a way to do it

without – it’s a way to kind of get stronger without weight

bearing. So we do have an older crowd. We have some clients

in their 80s, 90s, etc. because they can do this. They can

strengthen their bodies without load bearing. But the great

thing about it is there’s a problem solving formula. So a lot of

people think that their hamstrings are really tight. They can’t

touch their toes, whatever it may be. So what that is is it

might not be their hamstrings at all. It could be the balancing

or agonist/antagonist muscle groups – their quads, the front

of their legs, the hip flexors that are actually in the way. So

the reason why this has worked so well is it kind of gives

people an answer or a way to problem solve and fix it instead

of “Oh your hamstrings are tight? Well just keep holding that

position for another 20 minutes and maybe you’ll move a

centimeter.” We have an actual formula that says, hey if this

muscle doesn’t feel like a good stretch, let’s go try this muscle

group, and then when you come back I bet it’ll feel better.

And almost 90% of the time, you can get a pretty dramatic

change in range of motion by just doing a couple of the other

exercises based on how it’s laid out. So that’s a major thing,

and the back problems come a lot from hamstrings and hip

flexors of course. So, we’ve had a lot of success with the

injury angle of it because it’s not weight bearing and it is

your own body and you can control it.

Ben: Gotcha. Now I want to ask you one more question and this is

kind of the personal trainer in me and this is for the trainers

or the instructors who are out there listening. How would

something like this be different than like PNF which for

those of you listening is propeoceptive neuromuscular

facilitation, where you contract and relax a muscle as you’re

stretching someone.

Anne Tierney: So with PNF, it’s usually at the very end range. They take you

to an end range and they have you contract and then relax

and then move you farther. With resistance stretching, you’re

actually contracting throughout the entire range of motion.

So it’s not just at the end range, it’s through the entire range

of motion. The other thing is the problem solving formula

that I described, which is something that’s intrinsic in our

system as well as we like to stretch in rotational movements

as well. So a lot of the stretching is done in linear patterns.

And we like to add rotational movements because every

muscle has three functions, right? It either flexes of extends,

it abducts or it adducts, or it externally or internally rotates.

So, to truly stretch a muscle, rehearsing all three of those is

crucial. So that’s what we really get into as well – working on

rotations – and we kind of think of that as if you have a towel

that’s wet, and you squeeze it, you get some water out. But if

you squeeze and twist it, you get a lot more water out

because you’re grabbing more muscle fibers. So the

rotational components of the stretching is huge for us,

grabbing more muscle fibers that way.

Ben: Okay, so cool. Alright, so those of you listening in, if you

want to hear more, what I’ll do is I’ll put a link to this DVD

that Anne talked about on the Shownotes to this podcast and

I’ll also put a link to their Body Solutions Web site where you

can find out more about what they’re doing and some of the

really cool concepts they’ve got in terms of making the body

more flexible, more athletic, etc. So, Anne thanks for coming

on the call today and explaining this resistance stretching to

people.

Anne Tierney: Thank you Ben. I appreciate it.

Ben: Alright, have a great day.

Anne Tierney: Thank you, you too.

For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s

from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at

http://www.pacificfit.net