January 20, 2018
Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode.
Brad Kearns, at 52 years old, has doubled his testosterone levels in the past year.
He has abandoned life as a pro triathlete and instead conquered the world of speed golf and high jumping.
He has successfully trained his body to become a potent fat burning machine and has transitioned completely out of carbohydrate dependence.
He's a successful author, a noted speaker, and has been a coach in the health and fitness world for three decades. As the President of Primal Blueprint Publishing, Brad works with Mark Sisson to promote all aspects of primal living. He helped develop the Primal Health Coach certification program, has delivered dozens of Primal Transformation Seminars across the USA, and organized and presented at nine PrimalCon health and fitness retreats around the world from 2010-2014.
He and Mark authored the 2015 release, Primal Endurance, a comprehensive guidebook on how to escape the carbohydrate-dependent, overly stressful conventional approach to endurance training in favor of a healthier, stress-balanced, fat-adapted primal approach. He and Mark authored the 2017 release, The Keto Reset Diet, the definitive guide to the wildly popular ketogenic eating strategy.
Kearns is the host of comprehensive online multimedia educational courses that bring books like Primal Endurance, The Keto Reset Diet, and the 21-Day Total Body Transformation to life with a series of instructional videos and expert interviews that provide an immersive educational experience. During his nine-year career as a triathlete, Kearns was one of the world’s top-ranked professionals, amassing 30 wins worldwide on the pro circuit. Career highlights include a remarkable streak of seven victories in a row ('91-'92), a world duathlon series championship, two national triathlon championships, and a #3 world ranking in 1991. Kearns is the last American professional male to place in the top-5 in the ITU World Championships (1992) and still holds the Hawaii Ironman 24 & under age division American record at 8:57 (1989).
Other books by Brad include Breakthrough Triathlon Training (2006), detailing a healthy, balanced approach to triathlon peak performance. His How Lance Does It (2007) and How Tiger Does It (2008) books detail the champion attitude and behavior qualities of the Tour de France legend and golfing great, helping you apply their methods in pursuit of your own peak performance goals. Brad’s current athletic passion is the offbeat sport of Speedgolf, where competitors play as fast as possible and total strokes and minutes to obtain a Speedgolf score. Brad is 3-time top-20 finisher in the world professional championships. He placed third in the 2017 California Professional Speedgolf Championships, shooting 78 on a championship course in 47 minutes for a Speedgolf score of 125. In 2016 at the age of 51, Brad cleared 5'5″ (1.65m) at a high jump practice session. This exceeds the All-American standard for 50-54 age group and matches a top-10 national rank performance. At 50, he ran a 400-meter effort in 59.8. – running in the 50s, in his 50s!
During our discussion, you'll discover:
-How speed golf works, and how Brad gets his heart rate down quickly after sprinting…[9:40]
-How a typical training session works to train the body to get the heart rate down quickly after hard efforts…[14:05]
-How Brad trained his slow-twitch muscles from triathlon to go to fast-twitch muscles for high jumping…[23:30]
-How Brad uses the concept of slow down to go faster for a sport like that, and how it differs from how he would normally have trained as a pro triathlete… [30:45]
-The best way to perform a Maximum Aerobic Function test, which Brad describes as “the #1 most important fitness marker of them all”…[34:00]
-The strategies Brad used to more than double his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate…[43:45]
-The goal and intent of The Primal Endurance Mastery Course…[64:55]
-And much more!
Resource from this episode:
–The Primal Endurance Mastery Course – Use Code “BEN” for an extra 10% off!
–My podcast with Mike Salemi, kettlebell clean and jerk champion
–My podcast on the Keto Reset Diet with Mark Sisson
–DNAFit test for determining your slow and fast twitch muscle fiber capacity
-Brad's article on testosterone optimization
Show Sponsors:
-Kion Lean – Go to GetKion.com and use promo code BEN10 to save 10% ionyour purchase of the best supplement for longevity and fat loss, or any other Kion products!
-HealthGains – Text the word “GAIN” to 313131 to receive a $150 voucher toward your HealthGAINS treatment.
-Human Charger – Go to HumanCharger.com/ben and use the code BEN20 for 20% off.
-Daily Harvest – Go to Daily-Harvest.com and use promo code BEN to get three items for free when you purchase your first box!
Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Brad or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!
Great interview. This kind of emphasizes more of that” Lows aren’t low enough, and Highs aren’t High enough, and maybe too frequent” type of reasoning for training. Especially when he mentioned that it was just lowering his tempo that raised his Testosterone.
The last few years i’ve been torn on what entails conditioning. On one hand we’re bombarded with ” Interval, Interval, Interval. But on the other hand i’ve looked at old time boxers who had larger work capacity through long distance hiking plus running, manual labor, and calisthenics and their fight training. Farmers and lumberjacks and the volume of exertion they go through, or did through non mechanized days.
Also another person i’ve been listening too lately is Nate Morrison. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him? But he was a former Air Force and Army Special operator, and trainer. He was one of the first group with Pavel that got into Kettlebells and then went to Russia for more Kettlebell training. But since his focus is on training and getting people ready for Special Forces and Teams, what’s interesting is, his trainees kill it in their physical tests, and trials to get into the various teams, but they spend more of their time Hiking, or Rucking, with a small amount of anaerobic and a small amount of Alactic training. More about building a large work capacity. All very interesting.
Brad,
So you are saying that at 72 I should keep my heart rate at 108 for 5 if my six days of workouts and on day 6 crack it to 155 or 162? I have been at 157 bpm 4 days a week.
In March I start climbing mountains on Sunday so that will replace one of those. It is usually a mix.
When in my 40s I ran Marathons.
Thanks for any feed back.
Bill