June 17, 2015
Podcast #320 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/06/320-how-to-do-your-workouts-using-biofeedback-hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-how-you-burn-ketones/
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Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness show: How To Do Your Workouts Using Biofeedback, Natural Remedies For Stomach Ulcers, How To Burn Ketones, Supplementing With Inositol, How To Know If You’re Getting Enough Micronutrients and much more!
Welcome to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain, and hormone optimization. So whether you’re an Ironman tri-athlete, or you’re just wanna shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill, cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.
Brock: Well, good day to you, sir!
Ben: And good day to you, co-sir.
Brock: Thank you. Thank you.
Ben: Hey, I’m having an interesting morning.
Brock: What you do?
Ben: I – well I am tapering now. I have a big Train to Hunt competition this weekend where…
Brock: Oh yeah.
Ben: I’m headed over to Kellogg, Idaho to participate in 3D competition shooting, meat packing which is basically getting a hundred pounds of sand bag from point A to point B in your pack and then an obstacle course combined with bow shooting. And so…
Brock: That sounds really cool.
Ben: Oh it’s coming…
Brock: I had no idea they had all that stuff in there. I thought you were just going up like hunting for time or something like that.
Ben: No.
Brock: Oh, that’s cool.
Ben: Go to traintohunt.com and check out the videos there. I’ve had the guy who runs the whole competition on the show before.
Brock: Yeah, yeah. I remember when he was on, yeah.
Ben: We talked for like an hour about it. Anyways though, as so I’m tapering…
Brock: I apparently wasn’t paying attention. (chuckles)
Ben: And this morning just as kinda like an easier workout I was doing like hypoxic sets, right? Like breath-restricted sets in the little – I have this little 19-foot pool in my backyard, so I keep it at like 55 to 60 degrees so it’s nice and cool – it’s called then an Aqua Fitness pool and it’s one of these endless pools that generates a current that you can swim against as well.
Brock: Okay, I was wondering how it was 19-feet and you can still swim in it and not just sort of bob around, splashing yourself.
Ben: Well, anybody who spent much time in cold water knows that eventually your coordination begins to decrease. You know, you spent 15-20 minutes, you get the kinda like shivering status and coordination goes to pot. And so, I got out of the pool which is built above ground in this beautiful, beautiful structure that we have that’s uses like a recycled snow fencing, and it’s really cool like, gray-ish brown wooden floor. It’s actually pretty cool like little pool house. We wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing and not just like a pool slapped in the backyard.
Brock: You don’t want to get one of those hill billy above-ground pools?
Ben: Right, exactly. And so anyways, I got out and I noticed that I had about five minutes to spare before I needed to get in and eat breakfast and get down for the show. So I was doing some kettlebell swings and I was doing kettlebell-suspended swings where you swing and then you switch hands and then you swing and you switch hands.
Brock: Oh yeah. So do it kettlebells or suspends in midair and you switch hands and grab it again.
Ben: As I’m called and I dropped the kettlebell…
Brock: No.
Ben: And it literally just opened up like this giant gaping hole in the floor of the pool house. So I’m seeing dollar. I’m seeing dollar signs and I actually had to crawl down there into the like ho – like this little man who I created and fetch my kettlebell and there’s like broken wood splinters down there. So I’m still – this literally happened like you know, 10 minutes ago so I’m still kinda…
Brock: Bummer.
Ben: …trying to decide whether or not I’m gonna go out there with the hammer and nail and super glue or else get a carpenter to help me out. But either way, I managed to destroy a pool house this morning.
Brock: That’s more than I have accomplished.
News Flashes:
Brock: In between going on rampages of destruction, Ben is often tweeting things out on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield and we’re gonna go through some of those tweets right now.
Ben: Mmm. Are we ever?
Brock: Are we ever.
Ben: That’s right. So you know, I do spend a lot of time immersed in research. I used to do it while sitting on a toilet. I’ve realized, in the past couple of years that it’s actually not bio-mechanically advantageous to do research while sitting on a toilet. It’s not good for your things like your sacroiliac joint or low back or…
Brock: Also the information just goes in one end and out the other.
Ben: Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Plus it’s smelly. So now I do most of my research in the hammock, in the backyard or out on the back porch or while walking on my little indoor treadmill. But essentially I try and tweet out the most interesting things that I come across each week on twitter.com/bengreenfield is one of the places that I do that. And I noticed a few interesting things this week. For example, in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, I thought this was an interesting one ‘cause they don’t post a lot like biohacky type of stuff.
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What they did was they look into like a standard bicycling warm-up prior to a high intensity interval workout on a bicycle. And they compared that standard warm-up where you just do like you know, a few repeats getting your body nice and warm, and throwing in a few like 30 second hard repeats. And that type of things you’d normally do while preparing you know, for doing like about then minutes or so of a cycling warm-up. They compared this with alternative methods of warming up. In this specific case, they used either a whole body vibration, right? Like this vibration platforms.
Brock: Mmm.
Ben: And then in the same study the also used a light emitting diodes or LED radiation which is very similar – it would be similar like infrared like using infrared wraps, infrared mats, infrared sauna. It would be very similar using like these hand-held LED infrared wands you can get off of like Amazon. But what they did was they compared a whole body vibration plus like this LED treatment with the standard warm-up and of course, a control group. And they found of course that both the standard warm-up and the LED plus the whole body vibration beat out the control group but it turns out that the LED plus whole body vibration was able to warm-up the cyclist just as well as a standard warm-up in terms of like decreasing blood lactate and ammonia levels during the sub-sequent workout; in terms of an increasing skin temperature; in terms of maintaining the same amount of wattage output. So the takeaway message here I think is two-fold. First of all, it is okay sometimes to think outside the box and use this little biohacks if you need to, to achieve you know, decent levels of physical performance.
Brock: Okay.
Ben: The other thing is that you know – let’s say that you are driving to a race, right? Like in the morning or you know, and you’re on your way there sitting on your car and you wanna – yeah, you could use things like infrared wraps, light emitting diodes, electro-stimulation. You probably not gonna have the vibration platform in your vehicle…
Brock: (chuckles) Not if you take some back roads, some grava roads, your whole car would be a vibrating platform.
Ben: Yeah! This is true. So I thought it was interesting and I actually do have like this you know, you go to any of these mall outlets where they’ve got like the vibration sticks like the little massage sticks that vibrate. You’ve seen these, right?
Brock: Mmm-hmm.
Ben: You can use these vibrate your back or your thighs, your quads. Theoretically, you can also use something like that to warm-up your body parts to workout. If you’re driving to your workout, you may even just for standard gym workout right? Like driving from work to the gym you can use while body vibration or light emitting diodes to walk in their – ready to rock the house. So…
Brock: Interesting. The thing that pops into my mind is sure it gets you ready physically for the – for whatever you’re about to do but it doesn’t do anything for you mentally and I find like warm-up in general is just – a lot of it is mental like just sort of getting your brain into whatever you’re about to do.
Ben: Yeah. Neuromuscular coordination of the same muscles you’ll be using during the actual event.
Brock: Well that and even just plain motivation like…
Ben: Yes.
Brock: sort of getting your brain out of whatever you’re doing and into exercise or pedaling or lifting or whatever it is.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point.
Brock: But it is cool. That’s not at all what I expected when you started talking about this, I thought it was going to be maybe ‘alright’ like maybe 50% of a normal warm-up.
Ben: Yeah! Yeah!
Brock: Cool!
Ben: It’s cool stuff! So speaking of weird little biohacks I figured I just stay right on that bandwagon and go into another article that was in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. And this looked at the effects of hyperbaric oxygen which were these chambers that you can lie in…
Brock: Wait. Did you say hyperbaric or hypobaric?
Ben: Hy… hyperbaric so not hypoxia.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: You know about restriction but instead 100% oxygen that’s typically in a hyperbaric chamber under greater amount of pressure than you would experience in a normally pressurized room. And it – well these have certainly been proven in many, many situations help out with things like wound-healing for example, right? Like a lot of medical clinics would use this for something like that. Not a whole lot of studies have been done of hyperbaric oxygen and force production or subsequent physical performance. And what they did was they had a twenty subjects due hyperbaric oxygen therapy and then they had them do some workouts primarily consisting of leg workouts. And what they found was that there was a longer time for that muscle to fatigue after these folks had spent time in the hyperbaric chamber, and there was a sustained force production so it somehow was suppressing muscular fatigue probably through hyperoxia, right? Like enhanced oxygen delivery to that particular area of tissue that was being worked, but I think it’s interesting.
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I actually just – you probably honestly won’t come out for another three weeks or so, but I just recorded a podcast on a guy about like health scams and which of these like spendy home fitness gear things like hyperbaric and cryotherapy and you know, infrared. You know what works, what doesn’t, what you need to look for and we did talked a little bit about hyperbaric oxygen and even talked about how you can kind of like build your own cheap-o-hyperbaric oxygen chambers in your own home. And it turns out that you know, using something like this prior to exercise may actually help with performance. There’s some other evidence that shows that these hyperbaric oxygen chambers may help with recovery post-exercise – they definitely help with the wound healing if you happen to… I don’t know, burn your leg off or something. But ultimately, hyperbaric oxygen – there’s something to it.
Brock: Crazy. I always thought that yourselves can only carry so much oxygen so over saturating yourself wouldn’t really get above a hundred percent say.
Ben: Unless you are in a situation where you’ve increased the actual pressure of atmospheric air.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: You know I’m saying? So you’re driving more pressure into the tissue which is what you would. That’s the difference between hyperbaric oxygen chambers and something like breathing pure oxygen at normal pressure.
Brock: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So just having like those oxygen bars that you go to in L.A. where they put the little things in your nose that just gets you up to a certain level of oxygenation but if this is actually less squeezing you with oxygen.
Ben: Yeah. And those make you look like the old person who is rehabbing from eighteen years of cigarette smoking.
Brock: (laughs) That’s true. Poor people have to pull little oxygen tank behind them.
Ben: And I’m segway genius today because actually the next thing I wanna talk about was old people and this…
Brock: You’re the king of transition.
Ben: The king of transitions. The article that appeared on our friend Mark Sisson’s “Mark’s Daily Apple” website about “7 Old Wives’ Tales That Aren’t Utter Nonsense”.
Brock: Did you just call Mark ‘old’?
Ben: 7 Old Wives’ Tales. Well, Mark is old. Isn’t he? I don’t – he’s older than me.
Brock: That’s true.
Ben: It makes him old. So 7 Old Wives Tales That Aren’t Utter Nonsense: one is – and we’ll link to the full article on the show notes – but there’s some interesting things in here. Like smiling makes you feel better or “Smile. You’ll feel better.” and it is true, they found that for example in one study research which gave pencils to people watching cartoons and told some of the people hold the pencils between their teeth which force them to kinda sort of smile. And then they made the other group frown and the group that held the pencils between their teeth rated the cartoons as funnier that the group that frowned. And they did another study where they used chopsticks to force smiles instead of pencils and found that that reduce the stress response.
Brock: So it’s really just holding something in your mouth that makes you feel…
Ben: Possibly.
Brock: feel better?
Ben: Possibly. They may do remove that very well and just figure out how to make people smile. “Honey cures the cough.” turns out that buckwheat honey compared to standard over-the-counter cough drops actually beats out that cough drops and helps with coughing. So it also beats out diphenhydramine, another popular anti-cough drug, so. “Chicken soup to cure a cold?” definitely. It’s been shown to inhibit neutrophil migration that can trigger that onset of cold symptoms. Glycine, that you find in like chicken soup can help with deep restorative sleep, and then a lot of the things that you find in chicken soup like garlic for example or onions can improve your recovery and the strength of your immune system.
Brock: So we’re not talking about Liptons?
Ben: We are…
Brock: Cup-a-soup?
Ben: We’re not talking about Lipton’s Cup-A-Soup. No. Preferably like a homemade bone broth.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Which can bring you back from the dead as the old saying goes.
Brock: I’ve seen it. With my own two eyes.
Ben: “Apple a day, keeps the doctor away”. That one has been shown to be true and efficacious. Here’s an interesting one: “When trying to place a bun in your old lady’s oven, avoid hot baths”. Well, turns out there is something to that hot baths, hot tubs, etc. actually acutely inhibits sperm productions, sperm motility and sperm utility. So you could technically take a really hot bath and save a lot of money on condoms.
Brock: Uhhh-mmm. Don’t try that at home, kids.
Ben: Da-da-dunsh. Yeah. “Don’t go outside without a coat. You’ll catch a cold.” I actually always thought that this was a myth and that unless you were already sick, that going out on a cold would be just fine. But they do show for example that when hibernating…
[0:15:02.9]
bears have a low body temperature and subsequently lower levels of circulating immune cells. And another couple of things that was cited in this section was that exercising in cold weather in one study we shown to impair your immune system. But exercising in general impairs your immune system. I think a lot of people don’t realize that and so it’s a question of how much immune system impairment actually occurs and whether that’s significant enough to actually cause a cold, so.
Brock: I have – I take exception with this one only on a semantic level, and that you still had to be exposed to some sort of a rhinovirus in order to get sick. Like you’re not actually young to get sick from being cold or exercising in the cold you could still… you still have to be exposed to something.
Ben: Yeah, I agree. I’m kinda on the fence about that one, as well.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: And then “I can feel bad weather in my bones”. A human joint actually contains sensory nerves called baro-receptors which are highly attuned to fluctuations in atmospheric pressure and so you actually could feel the weather in your bones.
Brock: I have a weather, do you?
Ben: So there you go. That’s right.
Brock: I can tell the weather with my left big toe ‘cause I have a bunch of stress fractures in it back in the old days.
Ben: Hmmm. Yeah.
Brock: Yes, it’s awesome. It’s really quite painful when the weather’s changing, I hate it.
Ben: Yes, you’re like a mutant. That is your skill.
Brock: That’s my X-Men power. Where’s X-Men ever?
Special Announcements:
Ben: Brock, do you feel like getting your alpha on?
Brock: Always.
Ben: You know what? Actually because of our sponsor for this week’s podcast, we should probably just start talking like bros, like meathead bros in the gym because this podcast is brought to you by Sheer Strength.
Brock: Dude!
Ben: Sheer Strength Labs.
Brock: Boom!
Ben: sheerstrengthlabs.com or if you want to get an automatic discount, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com and the show notes for this episode are at bengreenfieldfitness.com/320.
Brock: For sure.
Ben: Am I doing well so far?
Brock: I don’t know. I don’t think either of us are pulling this off really well.
Ben: I’m gonna keep going. So what you gonna get from Sheer Strength Labs? They’ve got nitric oxide, they got creatine, they got testosterone boosters.
Brock: Damn!
Ben: This is me back to being serious now I actually did take their testosterone booster.
Brock: Oh yeah?
Ben: I don’t know if it boosted my testosterone but it was like their drive one, they’ve got one that’s like supposed to be good for drive, and it did make me swoll down there, if you know what I mean.
Brock: Uhmm, bonner tail…
Ben: They even have a podcast on the website. Anyways though, they actually – it’s an interesting stuff.
Brock: Welcome to Ben’s bone yard.
Ben: It’s obviously, totally for just like dudes who wanna be alpha but it’s a – yeah, like testosterone, nitric oxide, drive enhancers, thermogenic aids, but you know, obviously as with anything we can talk about on the show, I don’t just want to support folks who are getting crappy ingredients source out of China, so their products are manufactured in U.S.A. They’re usually good quality ingredients, they got 100% money back guarantee so you could go to sheerstrengthlabs.com or if you actually wanted discount on a stuff, they’ve got some pretty fat discounts hooked up if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/320 and you use the link there. You can enhance performance in both the bedroom and the gym! Uhhh!
Brock: 320, dude! (chuckles) Oh, that’s 420, I got excited.
Ben: I – they don’t sell marijuana, so.
Brock: Damn. But you do.
Ben: Wrong. No, I don’t. (chuckles)
Brock: Oh, don’t you, no?
Ben: I do have a cannabidiol product.
Brock: That’s all meths.
Ben: That is – yeah, it different.
Brock: Quite different.
Ben: Quite different. Quite…
Brock: Dude!
Ben: Quite more therapeutic. Okay so, also, few other interesting things I wanted to mention. My friend Tim Ferriss has actually paired up with another couple of friends of mine Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett. And Kelly and Juliet are the brains behind this new StandUpKids movement and the goal is to get a ton of schools in the U.S. equipped with standing desks, and what we’re trying to do is get as much word out as possible because what we’re trying to do is actually create this model school in California where the entire classroom is comprised of standing desks. And Tim Ferriss specifically has partnered with Donors Choose to allow you to go make a donation, right? Like 20 bucks, 30 bucks, an entire standing desk like one of these alpha better desks which is incidentally the same desk that I bought for my children’s classroom where they go to school. It’s about 240ish dollars. So that’s about how much it cost to get one desk. I believe they’re targeting, raising a total of a hundred thousand dollars to be able to equip the entire school, but this is something that I personally donated towards. I, well I just be totally straightforward, I donated 500 dollars to the project myself and I would encourage our listeners you know, whether it’s – you know, 10 bucks, 500 bucks or 1,000 bucks whatever, consider making a donation so the URL that I’ll give to you, I’ll just take you straight to the donation page.
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And again, I don’t profit from this at all, I just think that it’s ultimately – I think it’s really good if kids can grow up with the concept that you don’t need to sit to get *curse word* done. Go ahead go tell your kids that. Kids, you don’t need to sit to get *curse word* done. So anyways, you can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/standupkids. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/standupkids, that will redirect you over to the Donors Choose page for that particular project. So, it’s cool stuff.
Ben: Cool. I’m actually – I’m interested in getting something like that started in Canada like not that we shouldn’t support – all you Canadian folks out there, like me. We can support this California movement ‘cause as we know anything that happens in the United States of America tends to trickle to the other countries but I’d like to start something here in Canada like that.
Ben: Yeah, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m getting old but I’m more and more interested these days in making positive differences in my community, in my city, in my state and you know, the nation as a whole. So it’s like we’re sponsoring a couple of kids now over in Africa through World Vision you know, in an area that’s really in my – you know there’s a lot of like Ethiopia, Cairo, Egypt and Libya is going through a lot of turmoil right now, so we’re sponsoring a kid over there. I’m currently really interested in helping in my church here in Spokane introduced something like The Daniel Plan which was this big plan put on by like Dr. Hyman and Dr. Oz done at the Saddleback church in California that literally reversed obesity in their 3,000 members in that church and now they have like curriculum that you can implement in your own community. So that’s the other thing I’m kinda looking into. And then the last thing and this is brand new, I just found out about this but apparently, you know Dan Buettner’s book “Blue Zones”?
Brock: Mmm-hmm! Yeah.
Ben: So, apparently he has – he’s partnering with some communities and cities in the U.S. to implement a lot of the research that he found in Blue Zones – these areas of relatively high amounts of centenarians and you know dense, dense portions of people who are living a long time with high quality of life. He’s partnering…
Brock: Without hospitalization and tons of ______ [0:22:27.2]
Ben: Yeah. And, allowing people to basically implement these same strategies in their own community, to have a community officially identified as a Blue Zone. Like I think it would be really cool if like twenty years from now Spokane, Washington were a Blue Zone. So, all sorts of cool things that are going through my head these days when it comes to making the world a better place – again probably ‘cause I’m just getting closer to dying. So, it’s my midlife crisis.
Brock: At the rightful age of thirty… three? Is that true?
Ben: Almost. Almost thirty three. And then finally, just a quick mention for those of you who listen to into our heart rate variability podcast episode last week, towards the end of that, Dr. Heathers and I were talking about using exercise as a form of moving meditation by engaging in this metabolic breathing protocol. In which you do slow, controlled, deep nasal breathing during everything from a run to a weight-training session to identify how that affects the nervous system and then get into a state of deep relaxation and lower cortisol release.
Brock: What do you call it? The ‘breath ladder’?
Ben: Ah, it’s called the ‘breath ladder’, yeah. And HRR not HRV, but HRR – heart rate recovery as what we were talking about during that episode and Dr. Heathers said “Well, I wish there was an app that did that.”, and my response to him was…
Brock: Well… there is!
Ben: My response to him was, “Well I keep my eyes open for something like that.” And then I realize after we finished the call, the Greenfield Fitness Systems Nature Beat app that I used every morning to test my heart rate variability, it has a heart rate recovery setting on it.
Brock: Mmm-hmm.
Ben: Or you could put on the Bluetooth enabled heart rate monitor strap and you could open up the phone, and you could do a set you know, whatever – burpees, bench press, squats – you name it. And you could look at heart rate recovery and play around with that while using a breath ladder. So it turns out folks, there is an app for that.
Brock: I was actually shoving at you through the air when you – like when I was editing the podcast – like they does it!
Ben: Yeah. Well the problem is up to this point I haven’t been using that feature in my own app, I’m mostly just been using the HRV for stress feature but…
Brock: Yeah. I used it like twice when I first got it just ‘cause I was like “Oh! This is cool!” but then I haven’t use it since.
Ben: Yeah, so greenfieldfitnesssystems.com/naturebeat, we’re working on Android but there’s definitely an iPhone available. So, there you have it!
Listener Q & A:
Natcha: Hi Ben! It’s Natcha from Toronto. So recently, I came across what is called the Autoregulatory Training or like biofeedback training when I can test the state of my nervous system if it’s ready to train using are – what is called range of motion test.
[0:25:14.1]
So basically, if I do a test and I do a movement and if their range of motion increases that means my nervous system likes that particular exercise, and then they recommend that I go ahead and test there. They implements and tests the weights and the reps for the day and that I continue doing the exercise until it becomes more difficult or when it no longer tests well. So I’m just wondering what do you think about the mechanisms and where do you recommend this for your students? So, thank you so much Ben for all you do. And I look forward to hear you answer this question. Bye.
Brock: So this is interesting. I’ve never actually heard about actual Autoregulatory Training be at something that you test your range of motion – that’s interesting.
Ben: Yep. Put on your propeller act ‘cause this is actually – it’s kinda cool and you may have used Autoregulation or biofeedback in your training without actually knowing it. But I’ll give you kind of like the basics of what Autoregulated Training is and then we can jump into how it would be used with something specifically like bio feedback.
Brock: Alright.
Ben: So, Autoregulation all that means is that during a workout, you’re making decisions about your training during your workout, and letting how you feel during your workout dictate your intensity, the number of sets that you do, the number of reps that you do, the amount of weight that you use, etc. instead of having every detail planned beforehand and then pushing through that workout. The sets, the reps, the weights, the intervals, the timelines, the intensities, etc. that are recommended no matter how you feel, okay? So when you use Autoregulation before – it may have been if you’d like rested longer than what you workout had prescribes that you’re able to push through another set, or maybe you added 10lbs instead of 5lbs because you felt really good. Or you just dropped the weight and quit the set when your form started to suffer, right? Like all of that is their simple examples of autoregulation, right? Like that is not rocket science, just about everybody…
Brock: Just doing intuitive training.
Ben: Yeah, it’s just intuitive training but technically, that is autoregulation. Well, interestingly, they’ve done some studies on what happens when you basically start to do things like sets and reps and plan your next set and rep and the weight that you will use doing the workout based on what’s happening to your body after the previous set that you’ve done. So for example, they found that Autoregulated rest periods in many cases out-performed the structured rest periods for both strength and muscle gain in one study. Meaning that by rather than say like, doing the set of squats and following the recommendations on whatever workout program that you’re following to rest for 90 seconds, you instead rest for as long as you feel you’re supposed to rest until you’re able to crank out another set with good form at the intensity that you’re planning on working out at. Okay? So that’s better than just following like the structured rep… or the structured rest range.
Brock: And that was for muscle gain?
Ben: Those for strength and muscle gain. They did a study in football players, they found that their bench strength and their squat strength – this is in division one college football players was significantly enhanced when they used this autoregulated form of strength training rather than just what would be called an example of programs strength training that you follow to the tee instead of autoregulated strength training is called linear periodization. And so they didn’t used the standard linear periodization model instead they kinda like tweak their workouts in the middle of their workout set as they did them. They’ve also done study done in studies on injured athletes; they’ve done studies on injured elderly exercisers and found that autoregulatory strength training can help when you’re recovering from an injury as well. So an example of this – so for example, one of the studies that they did was on helping athletes recover from knee injuries, and so what they did with this study on autoregulation was that they decided that if the athletes decided how much weight to add in each workout that they wouldn’t progress too fast, they wouldn’t re-injure themselves. And they are relying upon the body’s own natural you know; you use the word intuition, Brock, right? Like intuitive training. So in that study they used four sets. So what it looked like, was set one: the athletes would use 50% of their one RM weight or like the heaviest weight that they’ve used in their last workout and they do that for 10 reps.
[0:30:08.7]
And then for set number two: they would do 75% of their one RM for 6 reps and then set three: they would do 100% and go as hard as they could for as many reps as possible. Now, after that third set, they would adjust the weight based on how many reps they were able to perform. So if they performed fewer than 5 to 6 reps, they’d lower the weight, if they perform more than that they’d raise the weight and so finally, set number four they just did as many reps as possible with that new weight. And in most studies that have used autoregulatory training, it’s not completely up in the air. It says, “Okay, if you can on that third set, do X number repetitions here is how much weight you should add or how much weight you should remove for that final set.” So there are many other examples of autoregulatory training that have been used for everything: from body-building to strength training. So for example, others want system called the reactive training system, a reactive training system and you react to the training that you’re doing as you’re doing it. So in that case, there’s like a complex chart that shows you for example, if you are doing 12 reps, you use 62%; if you’re doing 10 reps, you use 66%; if you’re doing 8 reps, you use 71% and if you’re doing 7 reps, you use 74% – and so it’s like this charts that show you about where you should be at in terms of percentage. So they are the basics of basic autoregulation training is you decide on how many reps that you’re going to do, so let’s say you’re trying to get stronger or you’re gonna do like 1-5 reps, you’re trying to gain muscle you’re gonna do more of like a hypertrophic range like 6-12 reps. And then, once you’ve chosen a number of reps that you wanna do, you create what are called ‘fatigue stops’. So you decide how you’re gonna manage fatigue like if you’re gonna say, “Okay, I’m not gonna work any harder than 8 on a scale of 1-10”, or “I’m not gonna spend any more than – whatever , 60 seconds time under tension for the muscle”, or “I’m not gonna spend any longer than 20minutes you know, doing a squat workout and you use the time and the RPA limits to manage your fatigue. And then from there, you simply adjust doing the workout, there are literally entire programs devoted to autoregulatory training. Now, when we get into bio feedback all of a sudden we get to being able to instead of saying, “Okay, that sets of squats felt really hard.” right? Just felt really hard so, “I’m going to strip off some weight or go easier for my next set of squats.” Instead, when you use bio feedback, you use more objective measurement of whether or not that set really beat you up. Whether or not you really need to say for example, decrease the weight. So when Natcha was referring to range of motion training, that certainly one of the methods that is used during autoregulatory training and typically, it’s a toe touch. So what you would do for example, is you would do a test of the range of motion of your hamstrings by doing a toe touch and seeing how far you were able to get down to the ground. And then you would do a set of dead lifts: let’s say, 8 reps of dead lifts at let’s us use a nice round number – ah, 200lbs….
Brock: Okay.
Ben: and then you would repeat that range of motion test and ideally you would be at a slightly greater range of motion after that 200lbs. dead lift and so then you would increase weight. And you would do test of range of motion again, you’d increase weight again, your test range of motion again; and when you get to the point where your range of motion decreases, that’s it! You’re done with your dead lifts for that day. So that’s an example of range of motion testing. There are other bio feedback protocols that you can use the one addition the range of motion testing. For example, CNS tap test is another one – there’s a natural tap test app that you can download to your phone that measures how quickly you were able to tap the screen within a span of 10 seconds or 20 seconds. And so, once your central nervous system begins to slow down, that would indicate that you have reached your maximum weight and your maximum intensity for that particular workout.
Brock: Cool.
Ben: And so, and at that point you would rather decrease weight or you’d move on to the next exercise or the next part of the workout. Another common thing that you’ll measure that and this one’s a little bit more of a performance measure broad jump, right? So you’ll do a set of squats and then you’ll do one single broad jump. And if your broad jump increases, then you would increase the intensity of the squats and or increase the weight or the number of repetitions and then you keep testing the broad jumps and when the broad jumps against to decrease in distance, that’s when you would squat less.
[0:35:15.3]
And then finally, there is of course heart rate variability. You can just use a heart rate variability app and once your heart rate variability begins to drop to the point that showing excessive stress, right, like you know, for example, the greenfieldfitnesssystems nature beat – one that I talked about, that will monitor both your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system and it’ll start the flash of warning sign to you on the screen and a breath pacer if you’ve becoming excessively stressed, and that would be a sign that you would want to back off and either lower the weight, lower the intensity, lower the speed, etc. So, that’s what autoregulatory training is, and – here’s the deal, here’s my thoughts on it. It seems – I’m a big fun of listening to your body, and not necessarily blindly pushing through a workout to finish the workout no matter what even if you’re form is suffering and you’re feeling crappy. I have yet to get to the point where I’m doing things like range of motion testing nor like taking an app right there with me during the workout and doing a tap test or something like that. However, there are a good handful of studies that show some efficacy and actually quantifying. So rather than just kind of like feeling whether or not you’re suffering or your form is suffering, actually quantifying how beat up your nervous system is by using something like a range of motion test or a tap test or something like that. So there’s something to it even though I personally find it annoying, right, like it rather just listen to my body. There is something to this on a regulatory training, it’s not complete ball and actually it’s influenced a little bit, and this is a little bit more complex but it’s influenced a little bit by this whole like Z Health things, so if you wanna know what Z Health is, it’s a form of rehabilitation that actually relies through a certain extent upon on a regulatory training and biofeedback and if you want to know more about Z Health, listen to the interview that I did with Eric Cobb. We’ll try and link to that in the show notes over at bengrenfieldfitness.com/320. But he’s a brilliant physical therapist who uses autoregulatory and biofeedback training in many cases for like rehab, injuries, stuff like that. So, I just think you have to walk a fine line between not during your workout ‘cause you’re just quantifying everything during the whole workout and also listening to your body and making smart decisions that cause you to maybe change your workout midstream rather than pushing through and having a crappy workout.
Tummy: Hey Ben, what can I do to treat stomach ulcers? Thanks!
Brock: Thank goodness, no. I don’t, never have it.
Ben: Yeah. You know, I had a – I’ve done gut test and I’ve had H-pylori before. It’s H-pylori. Great name for a…
Brock: That doesn’t sound pleasant.
Ben: …dog or band, by the way. Pylori! H-pylori – Helicobacter Pylori Bacterium. That’s actually…
Brock: Oh! Helicobacter, that’s a good name for a band.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. It’s considered to be the primary cause of stomach ulcers. And so, total elimination, getting rid of H-pylori completely from the body and from the gut through the use of antibiotics is kinda like the conventional medical treatment of choice for ulcers. And the fact is that when you eliminate H-pylori, that often does let ulcers heal but the problem is that if you completely kill off H-pylori colonies using the type of antibiotics that are used in conventional medicine to do so, you get a development of gas resoflogy reflux and so you can get rid of the ulcer but then develop chronic heartburn when you do so.
Brock: Was that ‘cause you’ve gotten rid of all the acid in your gut?
Ben: Oh, H-pylori in the digestive tract actually in small amounts (in controlled amounts) helps protect against the acid erosion of your esophagus and your small intestine. So, you wanna hang on to some H-pylori. Selectively wiping out the entire H-pylori strain of bacteria with antibiotics can really disrupt the balance of gut flora in your digestive track. And so, if you have ulcers, and even if you have an overgrowth of H-pylori, you don’t necessarily wanna get an antibiotic regimen for those reasons because you’re gonna just, you know, get rid of one problem and create another. Now, there are natural treatments that you can use for ulcers but before I give you this, I should highly emphasize that a lot of times, ulcers are due to like pent up stress and anxiety, and in many cases you’ll see folks who have no digestive issues or very few digestive issues whatsoever, right, like glucose-intolerance, lactose-intolerance, low production of digestive enzymes, so like undigestive protein passing through the gut wall, you know, all these issues, they don’t have any of them but then they go through a period of intense stress and that can cause low digestion, low stomach acid, overgrowth of H-pylori, all these issues, and you’ll develop ulcer.
[0:40:25.6]
And then once you’ve develop the ulcer, what happens is you get gut inflammation and this vicious cycle where you can become more intolerant to gluten and more sensitive. And all of a sudden you’re on some special auto-immune diet, or some fancy elimination diet and it all stems from stress. So, that’s one thing that’s really important if you have ulcers is don’t just start doing things that I talked about like taking a bunch of licorice extract or something, but pay attention to the underlying cause in the first place, and you know, look into whether or not people in your life are annoying the hell out of you, or your job is crappy, or whatever.
Brock: A friend of mine got an ulcer when he was in medical school and lo and behold, as soon as he graduated and finished being a resident, it went away.
Ben: Yeah. There you go.
Brock: It was obviously stress.
Ben: Okay. So, what can you do? There was one study that they did on Key of Medical Institute that found that using vitamin E would be effective against peptic ulcers. And the cool thing is that patients who took vitamin E in this study also had increased protein repair in their intestinal lining. So that actually heal their gut more quickly. Vitamin E – it’s a fat-soluble vitamin that technically if you’re getting enough like butter, and wild-caught fish, and grass-fed beef, and these type of things, probably are getting decent amounts of vitamin E in your diet, but in this particular study, they use 300 mg vitamin E per day, so…
Brock: It that a lot? That seems like a lot.
Ben: It’s just a pretty decent amount, that’s a little more than what you get honestly from most of these fat-soluble sources. So, vitamin E is one. Another one is the dried unripe bananas. We’ve talked about this when it comes to resistant starch before as far as like something you can consume to feed the good bacteria in your digestive tract without a significant spike in blood sugar but it turns out that what are called the sitoindosides in dried/unripe bananas – that can actually, I’m assuming that’s a form of a glycoside or polysaccharide that could actually promote cell growth in the intestinal tract and help heal the intestinal tract and also provide this strong protective coating that can help to prevent and heal ulcers. So, bananas the polysaccharide that you find in them, they’re some of the same compounds that you find in the anti-ulcer prescription drug called Carafate. So, the trick is that you want unripe bananas more even like one of these unripe banana powders, right, like one of these resistant starch powders work pretty one also probably even easier for you to digest and then chewing to the whole banana. But that’s – that’s another one. Unripe bananas. So…
Brock: Cool!
Ben: Honey! There’s an enzyme in honey called glucose oxidase and that actually produces hydrogen peroxide and that can kill some of the bacteria that contributes to the overgrowth of H-pylori. And honey also has some other cool antibacterial substances in it. It comes from the flowers, when bees collect pollen and so – I’m a big fan of honey actually it’s a topical antibacterial for things like cuts and wounds, and scrape, and stuff like that. It turns out that adding a little bit of honey, and in most studies you’re getting – it seemingly equivalent about 2 tablespoons a day. Use like a good, local, raw, organic honey but it has some good curative powers for your gut. So, honey is another one. These are all things you could easily work into your day. Garlic, so garlic can keep levels of H-pylori bacterium in check without completely eliminating the H-pylori. Again, you don’t want to entirely eliminate the strain because that can cause the gas risoflogy reflex. So, garlic – there’s one form of garlic that doesn’t causes many issues with odor, that’s called Allimax. It’s really cool form of garlic. You should be able to find it on Amazon, it’s called Allimax – a-l-l-i-m-a-x. Really good. It’s also really good for small intestine bacterial overgrowth, garlic is. But obviously there’s this stinky factor, so. This Allimax capsule, yeah, I don’t mind it so much. People just think I’m Italian. Okay, and then there’s cabbage. Cabbage is actually another way to keep some of the bacteria that can lead to ulcers in check, and it works a little bit similarly to those dried bananas but the other thing that you’ve got with cabbage is – it helps to produce lactic acid especially if it is lactic acid fermented cabbage. So, one example of that would be like a good home made sauerkraut or a kimchi or a pickled cabbage like anytime cabbage has been fermented using lacto-fermentation, it actually can really help out with the help of the digestive tract particularly the type of bacteria that can lead to ulcers.
[0:45:15.1]
So I think everyone should eat like some kind of a fermented vegetable source anyways as a daily part of their dietary regimen unless you’ve got a – there’s a few cases where excess in taking fermented foods can cause a lot of production of histamines. So, like if you’re prone to migraines, that’s where you gotta be careful with stuff like this but ultimately even just like a raw cabbage juice, even if it’s not fermented cabbage source, can have a little bit of an effect but I would encourage you to go after like a good – not like something you buy at the grocery store, not like a heat pasteurized sauerkraut or kimchi but something that you get at a you know, whole paycheck or nuggets or sprouts or one of these fancy grocery stores or something that you make yourself.
Brock: Or my Bubbas basement…
Ben: My Bubbas basement, that’s right. I’ve got two more that I’d recommend. One is – was called DGL Licorice. It’s deglycyrrhizinated licorice. It’s very tough one to pronounce, but basically licorice is very good for variety of different stomach conditions including ulcers. You need to be careful with licorice if you have high blood pressure as it can elevate blood pressure a little bit. But basically DGL, this form of licorice helps your stomach and your intestines to produce more mucus. So…
Brock: And that’s found in like Twizzlers and stuff, right?
Ben: Just go to town on Twizzlers. Go see a movie and just eat a lot of licorice. That’s right the bigger, long ones. And then, Capsaicin. Contrary to what you’d think, eating hot chili peppers doesn’t actually cause ulcers and it can prevent ulcer development because what the peppers do – it’s kinda like hormesis, right, like mild amounts of things that you would think would be harmful, can actually trigger protection and healing. And in this case, Capsaicin can trigger some of the mechanisms that protect the lining of the stomach, and decrease the acid output of the stomach. So, capsaicin incidentally, you know, just like a little bit of a hot pepper capsaicin extract can help out with ulcers as well. I would be remiss not to mention the fact that I know that I mentioned that we’ve got like a phone app for HRV and will turn the whole podcast into a giant commercial, but we actually do. Now do we have an app for that. We have a supplement for that. There’s one called NatureCleanse that you can find at greenfieldfitnesssystems and that actually is a cleansing compound that is designed to not be like a high fiber type of compound that irritates the digestive lining of your gut, but … or the gut lining of your digestive system, but basically it’s like a gentle cleanse. It’s got some activated fibers in it like apple fiber, and rice bran but in very small amounts and some of the more active components that are very soothing to the stomach include things like slippery elm bark, marsmallow root, fennel seed, fenugreek, turkey rhubarb root, there’s hyssop in there, ginger, yucca, rosemary, turmeric. It’s really good botanical blend specifically for helping out with gut issues or being like a gentle digestive cleanse. So that’s one called Nature Cleanse. Nature – ‘cause it’s from nature.
Brock: Hmm, nature.
Ben: Have you seen those YouTube videos? The Nature? Oh you gotta – it’s a nature… blanking on the guy’s name but anyways, he’s like a – he’s uhmm, he goes out in nature ‘cause nature is really neat and he wears like this short khaki shorts and like this overdone hat, and he carries this little rifle and he’s got like a camera man. I remember the name of it but if you just search – I think it’s Nature Guy. Search for Nature Guy in YouTube. If you’re listening in and when you get back from listening to this podcast, search for Nature Guy on YouTube, it’s actually pretty funny – it’s neature. So, and you’ll get nature cleanse.
Chris: Hi Ben, my name is Chris. I was just listening to episode 318 of your podcast, and in it you talked about ketone metabolism and how ketones can be used for energy, and you mentioned something which I thought was very curious, and I realized that my understanding was not be complete. I must be missing something because you said that ketones can bypass the kreb cycle. And my understanding was that ketones, the breakdown of metabolism of ketones leads to the production of 2 Acetyl CoA molecules which go into the kreb cycle and get oxidized like any other Acetyl CoA molecules. The ketones were unique in that respect but it sounds like you’re saying that they skip the kreb cycle and can be used for energy directly, so I would love to know more about that. Please if you have time and if you share that, it would be fantastic and thanks for all you do.
Brock: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
[0:50:01.3]
Is Chris trying to say that we got something wrong on this show?
Ben: No, no. This confuses a lot of people because I was right but Chris is also right, and ketones go both ways. Ketones swing both ways, that’s right.
Brock: Wow! I didn’t see that.
Ben: Yeah. So okay, I’ll give you the overview and honestly you could probably learn way more by just going to the Wikipedia page for ketone bodies or the Wikipedia page for ketogenesis but I’ll lay this out for you and it’ll be pretty to understand the way that I describe this. So…
Brock: Okay, thirty seconds.
Ben: Ahh, I may need 60. So…
Brock: Sixty seconds, go.
Ben: So, when you burn fatty acids, okay, when you burn fats and turn them into energy, that’s called beta oxidation. It occurs near mitochondria and one of the things that’s produced during beta oxidation of fatty acids is this molecule called acetyl CoA, and that enters what is called your kreb cycle to produce energy. But that is not the only thing that happens to acetyl CoA, okay, some of it goes to the kreb cycle to produce energy but for example in the mitochondria in your liver, some acetyl CoA rather than entering the kreb cycle to produce energy instead gets converted into any of three different ketone bodies. One called acetoacetate, one called betahydroxy butyrate, and one called acetone. You’ve got 3 types of ketone bodies in your body, and acetyl CoA can become any of those. Now, once the liver has converted some of that acetyl CoA, that doesn’t enter through the kreb cycle into ketones instead. Those ketone bodies get transported to other tissues that can use ketones very effectively for fuel. Things like your brain, your heart, your diaphragm, your muscle, and when those ketone bodies arrive at those new tissues, the ketone bodies get converted back into acetyl CoA, and that acetyl CoA – and then enter the kreb cycle to produce energy. So, you basically can get – uhm, you can get ketone going into acetyl CoA production, you can get acetyl CoA going into ketone production and it goes both ways. If you’ve ever been to Chem 101, you’re familiar with the arrows that goes both ways, and the chemical reaction, this is that. So, that’s basically how it works and so, you know, if you are in a state of low glucose, or low energy availability, or even a state of high fatty acid utilization, or you’re exercising fasted, or any of these states, you’re going to increase the production of that acetyl CoA in the ketone liver where those ketone bodies can then be shuttled to the brain, the muscle, the heart, the diaphragm, to then be reconverted back into acetyl CoA, fed into the kreb cycle to produce ATP. So that’s kinda how it works. Uhmm, does that make sense? Is that…
Brock: Yeah, it does! So it doesn’t actually bypass the kreb cycle, it might just postpone the kreb cycle.
Ben: Uhm, yes. So, ketones don’t specifically bypass the kreb cycle. They’re not what actually enters into the kreb cycle but ketones lead to the production of acetyl CoA like Chris says, but acetyl CoA also leads to the production of ketones. So, it goes both ways basically. So, I mean, we’ve honestly like if you’re just like scratching your head and even the word ketosis, we’ve did some really comprehensive podcast on ketosis on the show before. Like listen to the one on keto clarity, the Jimmy Moore for example, or go read the book Keto Clarity. It’s a really good book, but ultimately that’s kinda what’s going out with the ketone bodies.
Holly: Hi guys, Holly from Australia here again. I just wanted to get your opinion on Inositol. My naturopath has put me on it for long term management of polycystic ovarian syndrome. She told me it helps with the metabolic side of things and which shortening my menstrual cycle. And the research I’ve done on it, I can’t find many or any negative side effects of taking it long term but I just wanted to know if you had an opinion on it. Thanks!
Brock: I’ve never heard of Inositol before until today.
Ben: Oh Inositol, you’ve been living under a rock?
Brock: That’s right.
Ben: Now, that’s what you’ve been doin’.
Brock: Perhaps and in terms of polycystic ovarian syndrome, I’m not very knowledgeable.
Ben: Yeah. Well, polycystic ovarian syndrome, you know, kinda like ketosis, that’s something we’ve talked about pretty extensively on the podcast but you get a high amount of insulin resistance, and you get a high amount of infertility and it’s abbreviated PCOS and there’s some pretty serious issues that go along with it. But we’re not gonna get into PCOS today because we’ve discussed that in detail on previous podcast, but instead this inositol. And so, inositol is actually – it’s a bunch of different molecules. It’s nine different – what are called stereo isomers or versions of this molecule but in the term or when used to describe dietary supplements, it usually refers to inositol called mayo inositol. So, mayo inositol, you’ll find a lot of times in things like whole grains and citrus fruits, but you can also take it in supplement format and the things that is actually shown the most promise for as far as clinical research proving its efficacy, one would be as a dietary supplement for promoting female fertility, one would be for restoring insulin sensitivity specifically in cases of type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovarian syndrome. And also, it has good research behind it for reducing anxiety, and so it’s got some promises a little bit of like a mild anti anxiolytic or as anti depressant or an anti-panic type of supplement. As far as its benefits to fertility, and PCOS, it’s a lot of times and also probably because it’s got a little bit of anti anxiolytic effect, you’ll find it a lot of times in like female multivitamins like for women specific multivitamins. And so, it does have some efficacy and for women especially. Inositol seems to be something that they respond quite well too. Now, in the studies that have used inositol for the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome, the actual amounts taken was a pretty big range but about 200 to 4000 mg of inositol and that’s taken daily before breakfast. In most of the studies getting closer to the 4000 mg range is what was shown to be more effective specifically for PCOS, so. And actually of all the things that inositol has been studied for, PCOS has been the thing that’s really notably been shown to be very, very effective for, and it can also in women increase testosterone levels, so along with increasing insulin sensitivity, and decreasing anxiety also get an effect on testosterone. As far as toxicity, safety and toxicity of something like inositol, it’s been shown to be tolerated up to doses of as high as 12000 mg before any type of gastrointestinal effects set in, and there’s been no other studies that have been shown any adverse effects and they’ve even used in human studies from pregnancy, all the way to conception to delivery, in as doses as high as 4000 mg per day and found no issues whatsoever. So, relatively safe and just to give you an idea what I’m throwing around dosages like 4000 mg of inositol. If you look at some of the richer sources of inositol, for example like wheat – stoned ground wheat and again, you may have some of the gluten issues with wheat, but about 11.5 mg of inositol are found in 1 gram of wheat. So in a standard you’re taking in a 100 grams worth well, you’d be getting about – I guess we’ve come out to close to 11000 mg in a 100 grams of wheat, and wheat are one of the more dense sources. So if you get it theoretically do this through diet, but wheat is pretty high up there as far as the source. If you’re paleo or if you’re trying to avoid wheat and especially if you have polycystic ovarian syndrome, it’s probably like one step forward and two steps back to be getting your inositol through wheat. But citrus fruits have about a quarter to half as much as inositol as wheat. Again for people with PCOS, that’s a significant source of sugar, so when we jump down to the vegetables or seeing levels of inositol to where you would need to be taking a lot of vegetables. You’d have to be in a pretty significant portion of vegetables to get close to it. Thousand milligrams of inositol when more research have shown us 4000 mg is pretty efficacious dose. So ultimately, this is one of those things that’s hard to get in therapeutical amounts through real food sources.
Josh: Hi Ben, Josh Brown here from Oregon. Just have a quick question about micronutrient intake and micronutrient targets. I currently eat a mostly ketogenic diet and I track everything though a chronometer which has built in recommended daily values from micronutrients. But I’ve heard that those RDA values can be low sometimes and I’m looking for the optimal micronutrient values. Do you have any input or resources on optimal micronutrient targets? Thanks Ben!
[1:00:03.4]
Ben: Chronometer… Do you use a chronometer?
Brock: I have to look up chronometer, dude. See how to spell it in the show notes.
Ben: Cronometer. It’s an app! There’s an app for that.
Brock: Of course there is!
Ben: We’ll link to this app in the show notes. It’s interesting, it’s not a groundbreaking, it’s like – it’s basically an app that allows you to as many apps to track your meals and input your food, and does have a pretty decent printout when it comes to potential micronutrient deficiencies specifically. So, it’s really not bad, you know, a lot of these apps will just show micronutrients, right like you carb, your fat, your protein ratio, but this one will show micronutrients. Well, what are micronutrients? There – it’s kinda catch all phrase honestly. It’s everything from like your vitamin A, your vitamin E, your beta carotene, your co-enzyme Q10, all of your B1, your B2, your B3, B6, B12, folic acid, your amino acids, your fatty acids, like there are a lot of things like your minerals for example. So, you know, it’s kind of a catch all term from this whole micronutrients thing but yeah, chronometer will certainly allow you to track it but as far as already A values and what would be considered optimal in terms of recommendation from micronutrient values, it’s all over the map. That’s why I think that it’s cool. We live in an era where you can actually test to see if whatever diet you’re eating, is satisfying your specific micronutrient levels. So, a basic example of a test like that would be one that I’ve talked about before in the podcast, right, like Wellness FX, for example, their performance panel will give you a lot of your fat-soluble vitamins, your red blood cell magnesium, electrolytes like chloride and sodium, along with the standards like thyroid, and red blood cells and white blood cells, and stuff like that. If you wanna just look specifically at micronutrients in great detail, there’s a really, really good panel that you can get through Direct Labs. It’s made by Metametrics and it’s called an Ion Profile and the Ion Profile test homocystine, lipid peroxide, organic acids, fatty acids, amino acids, fat-soluble vitamins. It’s pretty much all your micronutrients and that one is both blood and urine. And so what happens – it’s a pretty comprehensive test. The blood test is done in a lab near your house, right so you’ll get the requisition form, you print the doc, you’ll bring it to the lab, they’ll take your blood, and then the urine test is something that you do over the course of 24 hours yourself, and then you ship all these off, so I mean, it’s kind of a pretty involve test, right, it’s not as convenient as like a salivary test or something like that. But ultimately it gives you a lot of information when it comes to micronutrients. Is it true that the general population needs higher amounts than you find in the RDA values? Yes. Vitamin D is a perfect example of that, right? The amount of vitamin D currently recommended is the amount of vitamin D that shown to prevent rickets in children, right. It’s not the amount of vitamin D that’s been shown to actually enhance your hormonal status or assist with physical performance or anything in that nature. It’s more like how much of this do you actually need to, say prevent disease.
Brock: Not be sick.
Ben: Yeah, yup, exactly. So ultimately, as far as a good place to go find RDA values that are more optimal for like a good healthy person, I’m not aware of one place where that stuff lies. I’m aware of pretty good resource. Uhm, even though it’s not out yet but Mira and Jason Calton, they recently wrote a book called the Micronutrient Miracle.
Brock: They’re the ones who wrote the Rich Food, Poor Food.
Ben: Yeah, they wrote Rich Food, Poor Food which is another really good book too. But this micronutrient miracle book like I know Jason does a ton of research in micronutrients. It’s probably gonna be pretty good. I know you can get it right now on Amazon, you can like pre-order it on Amazon. I’m planning on reading it. Actually Mira sent me an electronic copy to review. I just haven’t dove in yet but you can go check it out on Amazon. I think it’s gonna be – it’s kinda like this resource that provides us with what really need from micronutrients and some really good sources of them when to my knowledge there is not a resource that exist that shows micronutrient values that would allow you to enhance your performance or enhance your longevity vs. just avoid disease. If there is a website or a chart somewhere that does exist, you as a listener are aware of, please let us know. Leave in the comment section but I’m not aware of anything. Now, what I do personally is I just cover my bases.
[1:05:00.5]
So, I’ve talked about before in the show, but I do take a multivitamin just to shock in a bunch of these stuff in that I would have normally take, and the particular multivitamin that I take has like hundreds and in many cases thousands of percentages over and above what the RDA is, simply because it was designed for hard-charging, stressed-out people and athletes. And so, it is a multivitamin that’s a combination of both vitamins and minerals that has way more stuff in it, right. It’s got vitamin K2, it’s got way better jobbling forms of vitamin B12, it’s got chelated minerals in it, and the minerals are chelated because that allows you to actually absorb them. It’s got higher amounts of magnesium, higher amounts of calcium, it’s got a bunch of like curcumin in it, green tea phytosome, a bunch of plant extracts. It’s all NSF certified for sports so you can’t get up for doping, or any issues like that. It’s one of those ones where when you look at the label, it’s kinda got like the holy cow factor, and that’s the one that I use, I mean, I have toured their factory, I’ve seen like the equipment that they use literally. I’ve done interviews with these folks at Thorne like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of laboratory, analyzing equipment, and spectrometers to ensure the stuff is like micro dose of the exact amount that supposed to have in it. So I’m – like when I open up my fridge and I see these stuff, it’s like I think it’s cool that I’ve seen exactly where it’s made and I’ll vouched for it. So, that one is called the – it’s called the Multivitamin Elite. It’s produced by Thorne Research but it has a – it’s called Thorne multivitamin.
Brock: So you’re not taking the AM/PM anymore?
Ben: That – It is the AM/PM. That’s what that is. You take 3 in the morning, 3 in the evening. The evening has like sleep stuff in it, the morning one has everything you need for the morning in it. That works well, so it seems like we’ve talked about supplements a lot in the show and I totally don’t want to, you know, our listeners to get the impression that this things just like all about pill popping, right. “It’s specific strokes, for specific folks” I made that up. I think I just bastardized whatever they got… but basically, you know, like whatever deglycyrrhizinated licorice, and Nature Cleanse, right? Yeah, those are supplements but it didn’t say – everybody go out and buy those and start taking them. So if you have ulcers, right, like you may need to go through some kind of protocol with that stuff or if you look at something like PCOS, yeah, maybe you don’t take a standard PCOS medication and you use something like Inositol instead, but I’m not saying that every female has to rush out and use inositol. I mean, usually in most cases, I recommend folks take a multivitamin and they take a fish oil. And pretty much everything else totally depends on your situation, right? So you’re not eating a lot of fermented foods, maybe you take a probiotic or if you have issues digesting food, maybe you use a digestive enzyme or if you want like whatever increase drive or like what we talked about like the Sure Strength stuff, like maybe you take some of that on the days that you plan on having sex. So, you know, it’s one of those deals where it’s not blindly grabbing ‘cause I know people will take like 20 different supplements, ends like – no, you don’t take all that stuff everyday. It’s just like plants and foods, and I talked in last week’s podcast about how I use this new app called Flower Checker and I go out on my land, and I find at least one new plant today and study their medicinal properties of that plant, and so, yeah, if I find, you know, one reason was Yeiro, right, which is really good for nose bleeds and I actually got a nose bleed the other day, and I run out there and I got some Yeiro and I crush fell up and I stuff it on my nose, and stop the nose bleed but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna walk around every single day with 2 nostrils full of Yeiro, right? So it’s like, all of these stuff, you use it in specific situations. So anyways, I just have a…
Brock: And honestly folks, when I go through all the questions for the show, I take like 20 to 1. It skewed to asking Ben he’s opinion of some supplement or another.
Ben: Yeah!
Brock: There’s very few questions about like training, which is something that we’d loved to talk about. So, if anybody has a training questions, please load them in! Like we’re getting tired answering all these.
Ben: And speaking of training, if you’re not yet following the Facebook – bengreenfieldfitness page facebook.com/BGfitness, for the Instagram page, I’ve got tons of training stuff on there and I also post my own workouts every single day to the Inner Circle everyday if you just need further for your workouts and yeah, I’m a strength and conditioning coach, I’m a personal trainer, yes! I’m a sport nutritionist but I would say a good 80% of my expertise lies in the training principles, not in the nutrition despite with this podcast, you might have to believe ‘cause there’s all these questions about supplements.
[1:10:01.7]
Ultimately like my area of expertise lies in getting swoll, so…
Brock: So holy.
Ben: So that being said, you know, we are – we are not going to read a review on the show.
Brock: What?
Ben: I didn’t tell you this, Brock, didn’t I? Or even give away a product in exchange for a review although we will post a really nice review that someone left. If you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/320, you can read that review but this week, instead of going and focusing on iTunes review, which you can do, we always appreciate the iTunes review, and frankly, it helps a lot of people find out about the podcast, and we’ve been one of the top podcast in health and fitness, at least here in the US the past few weeks, but instead this week, if you have read my book, which is a 450 page manual on everything you need for performance, digestion, recovery, fat loss, brain, sleep, hormone optimization, you name it. And you haven’t yet left a review for it, then please by all means, go in and leave a review. You can find it on Amazon, it’s called Beyond Training or you can go to beyondtrainingbook.com, but book review is something that I’m going to highly encourage you and the reason is – I was just told by people that – by people –
Brock: By people.
Ben: Okay, I heard on the podcast that Amazon relies heavily upon reviews. So like make books, look good in rankings and stuff like that. So, it turns out that if you leave a review and you certainly help to spread the word quite a bit so anyways, leave a review for Beyond Training book over on Amazon, and if you go to the show notes again at bengreenfieldfitness.com/320, hope it links to everything we’ve talked about like the micronutrient miracle book, and that multivitamin I discussed, we’ll get the nature cleanse link in there, some of the studies we’d talked about, the page we can go make a donation to convert the entire classroom of the school in California into a standing desk classroom, the sure strength lab stuff, everything else, and then…
Brock: Sure Strength…
Ben: This weekend, stay tune on Super Stout. Last week we talked about natural born heroes as one of the top books that I’ve read in 2015. Stay tune because this weekend I’m really saying an interview with author Chris McDougall. The book – it will be good! Stay tuned.
Visit bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition, and performance advice.
[1:13:15.5] END
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June 17, 2015 Podcast: How To Do Your Workouts Using Biofeedback, Natural Remedies For Stomach Ulcers, How You Burn Ketones, Supplementing With Inositol, and How To Know If You’re Getting Enough Micronutrients.
Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page.
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News Flashes:
You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.
- Kinda interesting that things like light diodes, infrared, vibration, etc. can warm you up pre exercise/pre race.
- Hyperbaric oxygen may not be a “cure all”, but a few different studies have shown it’s use for muscle fatigue/recovery.
- 7 old wives’ tales that *aren’t* utter nonsense.
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Special Announcements:
This episode is brought to you by Sheer Strength Labs, where you can get everything you need to enhance performance in both the bedroom and the gym – from nitric oxide, to creatine, to testosterone booster. Click here and get an automatic discount.
Click here to make a donation to convert an entire classroom in California into a standing desk classroom! This is the pilot experiment that could change how schools worldwide are designed. Tim Ferriss, me and many others are joining forces with Kelly and Juliet Starrett, the brains behind this project and founders of StandUpKids. The goal is to get every public school student in the US at a standing desk within 10 years. This massive goal is achievable if the right snowballs are put in motion now, and this proof-of-concept school is the most important. Media coverage, national attention, political pressure/alliances, etc. can all stem from this. It’s super high leverage.
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Listener Q&A:
As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.
How To Do Your Workouts Using Biofeedback
Natcha says: She has been using an Autoregulatory Training approach (with bio feedback) in her strength training where she measures her body and nervous system response to a workout by going through a range of motion test. If she does the test, and the range of motion increases, then that indicates that her nervous system likes that particular exercise and they recommend that she continue doing the exercise until it becomes more difficult or until it no longer tests well. Is this a good way to increase strength and performance? What do you think of this approach?
Natural Remedies For Stomach Ulcers
Anonymous Tummy says: He is looking for ways to treat his stomach ulcers.
In my response, I recommend:
–NatureCleanse
–Allimax garlic
–DGL Licorice
How You Burn Ketones
Chris says: A few episodes (Episode 318) ago you mentioned how Ketones can be used for energy but are unique because they bypass the Krebs Cycle. His limited understanding is that the breakdown of Ketones leads to the production of 2 acetyl-CoA molecules that then go into the Krebs Cycle and get oxidized like any other molecules. He would love to know more about how this works.
Supplementing With Inositol
Holly says: She wanted to get your opinion of Inositol. Her naturopath has put her on it for long term management of polycystic ovarian syndrome. He naturopath said that it helps with the metabolic side of things and with shortening the menstrual cycle. She hasn’t been able to find any information on long term side effects. Do you have any concerns with it?
In my response, I recommend:
–Inositol
How To Know If You’re Getting Enough Micronutrients
Josh says: He currently eats mostly ketogenic and tracks everything he eats with a cronometer which has built in recommended values for micronutrients. He has heard that those RDA values are not necessarily “optimal” so he is wondering if you have any recommendations for micronutrient values.
In my response, I recommend:
–Cronometer app
–The ION Profile w/40 Amino Acids-METAMETRIX KIT at DirectLabs
–The Thorne multivitamin
–The Micronutrient Miracle book
Hello there, just reporting two instances of the same transcription error:
“it usually refers to inositol called mayo inositol. So, mayo inositol,”
-That would be myo-inositol, obviously.
Best regards,
István
thanks!