Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Can You Be a Hybrid Athlete Without Losing Muscle? (Kris Gethin) | Ep 385

Transcript

Can You Be a Hybrid Athlete Without Losing Muscle? (Kris Gethin) | Ep 385 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: You've been told that adding cardio will kill your gains.
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: Today's episode is about to prove otherwise.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: The conventional wisdom says you can't build muscle and train for endurance at the same time.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: The fitness industry has convinced millions of lifters that cardio is the enemy of muscle.
• 0:16
  Philip Pape: But what if the research and real-world evidence shows that that's completely wrong?
• 0:21
  Philip Pape: My guest today performed one of the most compelling experiments in fitness history, transforming from competitive bodybuilder to Iron Man finisher in just six months while maintaining his physique.
• 0:33
  Philip Pape: You'll discover why you can hold on to and build muscle as a hybrid athlete and learn the exact framework for building strength and endurance simultaneously.
• 0:43
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering, and efficiency.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're going to answer the question: can you build and preserve muscle while training for endurance?
• 1:02
  Philip Pape: My guest today is Chris Gethin, a drug-free pro bodybuilder who has also competed as an Ironman triathlete, ultra-marathon runner, Spartan competitor.
• 1:12
  Philip Pape: At 50 years old, he's publicly documented his physique through multiple transformations between competitive bodybuilding and extreme endurance events.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: As the former editor-in-chief of bodybuilding.com and co-founder of Unmatched Chris Getham Gyms and Chris Gethan Coaching, plus his huge online following, he's impacted millions.
• 1:30
  Philip Pape: And the reason I invited him on Wits and Weights is because of his evidence-informed approach to hybrid training and his willingness to test and experiment with his own body.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: Today you're going to learn why cardio doesn't kill your gains, how to structure training when you want both muscle and endurance adaptations, and strategies that allow lifters of any age to build resilience without losing their physique.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: Chris, thanks so much for coming on.
• 1:54
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights.
• 1:56
  Kris Gethin: Thank you very much for having me on.
• 1:57
  Kris Gethin: Really appreciate it, Philip.
• 1:59
  Philip Pape: So let's get right into the heart of the topic here, right?
• 2:01
  Philip Pape: Most people think you have to pick a lane, strength and muscle or endurance type sports, cardio.
• 2:08
  Philip Pape: And a lot of the lifters I hear from, the older guys, they're often worried about doing too much cardio, especially in terms of their recovery, their adaptation.
• 2:16
  Philip Pape: So what's the reality when it comes to how our body can handle these different types of uh modalities and even doing them at the same time?
• 2:24
  Kris Gethin: Yeah, so uh good question.
• 2:26
  Kris Gethin: I've always like I've come from like more of a sporting background, as a lot of people that got into bodybuilding have.
• 2:33
  Kris Gethin: You know, I was into uh a lot of extreme sports, motocross, downhill mountain biking, and uh, you know, I had to do a lot of cardio for that.
• 2:41
  Kris Gethin: And I I was one of these people that at the time when I was doing the cardio, I didn't really enjoy it so much because I was dealing with chronic asthma.
• 2:50
  Kris Gethin: I had croup as a child almost died, and uh asthma was just something that I just couldn't get on top of.
• 2:57
  Kris Gethin: And it wasn't until I was in my mid-20s and I've just started bodybuilding at this time that I was able to eliminate myself of uh asthma, you know, and I was on serotide, becatide, and you know, ventlin, or all these different drugs to try to stay on top of um their asthma.
• 3:15
  Kris Gethin: And uh, you know, I removed a lot of like gluten from my diet, uh, the traditional dairy, you know, I obviously had an allergen and inflammatory response to these things.
• 3:28
  Kris Gethin: And uh I think because now I was actually transitioning into bodybuilding, I'm starting to study nutrition.
• 3:34
  Kris Gethin: I went to college to study international health and sports therapy, that I'm actually looking at what I'm putting into my body.
• 3:40
  Kris Gethin: So when I was actually able to get rid of the asthma, the cardia that I was doing, I'm actually starting to enjoy now, you know, where it was such a task before, it was a challenge and now it was kind of a blessing.
• 3:52
  Kris Gethin: I really, really enjoyed it because now I can actually see the improvements and I can feel more comfortable out there as opposed to struggle and hating it, not because of the cardio of itself, but because of the asthma.
• 4:04
  Kris Gethin: So then when I actually started doing a little bit more cardio with the weight training, I found my ability to recover was much faster.
• 4:12
  Kris Gethin: Now I'm not, I wasn't doing extensive amount of cardio, I wasn't going on eight mile runs or anything like that.
• 4:17
  Kris Gethin: But that cardia was definitely carrying oxygen and nutrient rich blood to the localized areas where I of what I was training.
• 4:26
  Kris Gethin: So, for instance, if I trained back, I trained legs, chest, whatever it may be, now the blood flow is taking those nutrients that I'm consuming to those localized areas.
• 4:35
  Kris Gethin: So I found I was able to hit those muscle groups with more frequency, uh, more ferocity, and my ability to recover.
• 4:42
  Kris Gethin: And I always say your recovery kind of dictates your performance.
• 4:44
  Kris Gethin: My performance was improving in doing so.
• 4:47
  Kris Gethin: So it's always kind of been a part of my bodybuilding heritage.
• 4:51
  Kris Gethin: And then I think it was in 2016, you know, I was really tie in with the idea because I'd retired from natural bodybuilding in 2009.
• 5:02
  Kris Gethin: I was doing these kind of various video trainers that was, you know, I was publishing on bodybuilding.com, so they were daily video trainers.
• 5:09
  Kris Gethin: People would follow me getting ripped or follow me putting on size, and I thought, well, what else could I do?
• 5:16
  Kris Gethin: I thought, well, I love cardio, maybe I'll do a performance-based one, maybe I'll do a marathon or something like that.
• 5:22
  Kris Gethin: But then I liked cycling.
• 5:24
  Kris Gethin: I do a lot of mountain biking.
• 5:26
  Kris Gethin: Uh, I liked running, perfect.
• 5:28
  Kris Gethin: I suck at swimming, but I knew that that would be something that wouldn't have a compound effect on my joints.
• 5:35
  Kris Gethin: It would actually alleviate my joints and allow my cardiovascular engine to still transition into my run and into my cycle.
• 5:45
  Kris Gethin: So I thought, well, maybe we should give uh triathlon a go, and maybe that could be the next video trainers.
• 5:51
  Kris Gethin: And, you know, when I started talking to people about that, people said, Oh, you're gonna suck at that.
• 5:56
  Kris Gethin: And I had that mentality, well, if I'm gonna suck at it, sign me up.
• 5:59
  Kris Gethin: Let's see what can be done and if it can be achieved.
• 6:02
  Kris Gethin: Then you know what it's like when somebody, you know, first does, you know, what is it, like the, you know, they'll break a record in something, whether it be a deadlift, whether it be a marathon time, whatever, then all of a sudden, other people start breaking that record.
• 6:17
  Kris Gethin: It's like you've blown off the impossibility or that lower ceiling that people live under, and then all of a sudden other people to are able to achieve it.
• 6:25
  Kris Gethin: So that's what I was kind of hoping that would be done if I was able to achieve this goal of doing an Iron Man in a space of six months, a full Iron Man, then other people would follow, and that's exactly what happened.
• 6:37
  Kris Gethin: So then that's where I started kind of teaching other people who are bigger, because I was I'm about 214 pounds now, I was about 220 pounds doing the Iron Man's and the other endurance sports, just to show people, like you've so rightly said, you don't have to give one up for the other.
• 6:55
  Kris Gethin: Because a lot of people got into bodybuilding from a cardiovascular sport, maybe triathlon or maybe running or whatever it is, but they gave it up knowing that they were stepping into the bodybuilding world.
• 7:08
  Kris Gethin: But now they had the opportunity to do both.
• 7:11
  Kris Gethin: And since then, you know, a lot of people have come up to me at expos with their medals, whether it be for a you know, a half marathon or uh an Iron Man, and said, I was able to achieve this now because I didn't believe that I could before.
• 7:23
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, what I'd set out to do, I definitely accomplished in that world.
• 7:29
  Kris Gethin: But, you know, and we can talk about this in the show, you know, it comes with several caveats, you know, when you're trying to maintain and build muscle, being a bigger person, you know, that you have to think about in regards to your training recovery and frequency of the training.
• 7:45
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I definitely want to get into that in a second.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: But a lot of what you said, I personally can relate to, and I know folks listening have gone through that journey of, you know, either they were in sport at one point or cardiovascular activity.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: Like for me, it was CrossFit for like eight years, and then got into lifting.
• 8:01
  Philip Pape: And I thought, okay, this is completely different.
• 8:03
  Philip Pape: So of course, you know, one doesn't follow from the other or blend with the other.
• 8:07
  Philip Pape: But then I started doing obstacle course races.
• 8:09
  Philip Pape: I'm like, man, this strength is really helping, but so is the conditioning.
• 8:12
  Philip Pape: And I, you know, I could see the beauty of putting them together from a fitness perspective, which is, I think, a really good word here.
• 8:18
  Philip Pape: Sometimes that word's overused, but in this case it makes a lot of sense.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: And you also talked about the benefits we can gain from cardio for things like blood flow.
• 8:27
  Philip Pape: Even just you walking on your treadmill right now, right, has a big positive impact on health.
• 8:32
  Philip Pape: And people who sit all day for desk jobs, who's a lot of my clients right there, you know, busy people just getting up occasionally, even uh has a big impact.
• 8:40
  Philip Pape: So, you know, you said you hated swimming and then took the challenge.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: I love that attitude because that's where I think uh a lot of people can lean into the thing they don't really like, is the thing they need to improve and can see a big step change, right?
• 8:54
  Philip Pape: So, all right.
• 8:56
  Philip Pape: So when we look at then the misinformation about concurrent training or about this interference effect, where did that come from?
• 9:04
  Philip Pape: Because I've only been in the industry like five years and it was starting to turn around then, but at one point it was a big deal to say, like, okay, cardio is gonna kill your gains.
• 9:13
  Philip Pape: Let's understand where that comes from, and then it the rest will make sense.
• 9:16
  Kris Gethin: Yeah, so I think it just came from the old age, you know, you know you'd see bodybuilders basically eating and sleeping.
• 9:23
  Kris Gethin: You know, you think of a baby, a baby's always sleeping, and they're growing because now they're you know basically hibernating and allowing the nutrients that they're consuming to grow, you know, grow the muscle.
• 9:35
  Kris Gethin: And the more that they move, the more that they're going to expend.
• 9:38
  Kris Gethin: And you reserve that time and energy and a calorific surplus for your workouts, and that is, that is it.
• 9:45
  Kris Gethin: But I think we've transitioned more now into a health-oriented society where, okay, maybe that did feed the bodybuilder, but now we want to feed our health span.
• 9:56
  Kris Gethin: And you see it in supermarkets, like you know, when we were younger, there was no Whole Foods, there was uh no co-ops, and now you see in your general supermarket store more protein-fortified foods, some of them maybe not so good, but we're going in that direction.
• 10:12
  Kris Gethin: And I think that's where it's come from.
• 10:13
  Kris Gethin: And obviously, CrossFit was a big uh proponent of this, because you'd see a lot of those pro-athletes looking like bodybuilders, built jet, but they can swim, they can walk on their hands, they can do clean and jerks, they can run, you know, they can they can do all sorts.
• 10:29
  Kris Gethin: And I think a lot of it came from that as well, that hybrid athleticism.
• 10:33
  Kris Gethin: And what I feel, and this is what I've tried to, you know, tell people, is that it shouldn't be a static ornament.
• 10:41
  Kris Gethin: You know, I have a desk job, but I'm always moving.
• 10:44
  Kris Gethin: But if not everybody is gonna have a treadmill desk, I get that.
• 10:48
  Kris Gethin: But I'll ask people, you know, every 30 minutes, maybe do some squats on your chair.
• 10:52
  Kris Gethin: And maybe if you're embarrassed because you're in front of other coworkers, do some toilet squats, just some sort of movement every 30 minutes or so.
• 11:00
  Kris Gethin: I'll always do that when I'm on a plane.
• 11:01
  Kris Gethin: I I travel a lot.
• 11:02
  Kris Gethin: I'm not gonna be there on a 16-hour flight the entire time and just staying still.
• 11:07
  Kris Gethin: No, I'm gonna move, you know, and I think it's very important that we focus on the most important muscle that there is, and it's not the pecs, it's the delts, it's the heart.
• 11:17
  Kris Gethin: That is what is gonna carry us into our adventurous years past retirement.
• 11:23
  Kris Gethin: And then, of course, the brain, the organ that requires blood flow.
• 11:28
  Kris Gethin: And you know what it's like when you move in the morning, all of a sudden you can think clearer, you have more cognitive function if you're eating well.
• 11:35
  Kris Gethin: So the importance of cardio in both of those realms, I think, have come to a little bit more of a forefront, especially with the inclusion of biohacking now.
• 11:44
  Kris Gethin: Since over the past, say 15 years, people are understanding, okay, we do need squat strength, we do need grip strength, we need that bone density and muscle density to be more metabolically active, have stable blood sugar levels, but we also need to have good VO2 max.
• 12:02
  Kris Gethin: We've got to have that cardiovascular function.
• 12:05
  Kris Gethin: It's not just one thing.
• 12:06
  Kris Gethin: We know that the blue zones where people live to a disproportionate age, you know, centenarians around the world, yes, they have connection with family.
• 12:15
  Kris Gethin: They don't really train in CrossFit boxes or the gyms, but it's not just this one thing.
• 12:20
  Kris Gethin: It's the movement, it's the feeling of belonging, it's purpose, it's all of these things combined.
• 12:26
  Kris Gethin: But we know the heart and the brain is a big proportion of that, and bone density and balance.
• 12:32
  Kris Gethin: Because if they look at the bone density of people, for instance, in Sardinia, where they have a big proportion of people that are living to centenarians, they have perfect bone density.
• 12:42
  Kris Gethin: Same if you go to Okinawa.
• 12:44
  Kris Gethin: Now, those people in Okinawa may not be squatting in a gym, but you see these people over 100 years old standing and sitting from the floor about 40 times a day.
• 12:54
  Kris Gethin: That's their resistance training, and they've got great balance.
• 12:58
  Kris Gethin: And of course, you know, they may be eating a little bit different to what we do in a westernized world.
• 13:02
  Kris Gethin: So I think we're learning a lot of these things and we're including them into that lifestyle, whether we're an endurance athlete, bodybuilder, crossfitter, whatever it is, it's just having that subconscious voice that's telling us, okay, we got to do something a little bit different further than what you know I was taught when I was a kid looking up to Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatever.
• 13:25
  Philip Pape: Yeah, for sure.
• 13:25
  Philip Pape: So we're originally I was gonna, the hook of this episode was hybrid athleticism, but really I think we're talking about that being uh the desire of anybody who wants to be healthier, live a long time, have cognitive health.
• 13:38
  Philip Pape: Everything you just said, I think there's confusion as to like what is the purpose of cardio, and even the word cardio has become kind of a bad word for some people.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: And really what you're talking about is using your body in for your everyday movement patterns and what it was designed for, right?
• 13:53
  Philip Pape: Whether you're doing it to a more intense, ferocious level, like you mentioned with slinging around iron, or it's just a natural part of your lifestyle, which in the Western world, for many of us, if you're not lifting weights, you're practically not doing anything probably beyond that.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: So why don't we create a spectrum here and start with, okay, people are listening here, they know the value of lifting weights.
• 14:12
  Philip Pape: Now they want to become more active and move toward that hybrid approach.
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: And then after that, we can say, okay, what about more extreme?
• 14:19
  Philip Pape: Like if you want to do endurance events or competition.
• 14:22
  Philip Pape: So maybe let's start with the general what's next for somebody who's lifting weights and maybe walking, but not much else.
• 14:28
  Kris Gethin: Sure.
• 14:29
  Kris Gethin: Now I'd always look at the lifestyle first.
• 14:33
  Kris Gethin: If I've got a client come to me and they want to participate in endurance events, but they want to work out or whatever, you know, but yeah, hybrid athletes, I'll look at their lifestyle.
• 14:41
  Kris Gethin: What is their ability to recover?
• 14:43
  Kris Gethin: Are they looking at have they got four kids and they're taking some different sporting events?
• 14:48
  Kris Gethin: They got a very stressful but sedentary job, uh, they're not able to sleep much.
• 14:52
  Kris Gethin: Well, that tells me that they're probably gonna be in a more sympathetic, dominant state.
• 14:57
  Kris Gethin: Their ability to recover is gonna be lessened.
• 15:00
  Kris Gethin: So I'm gonna give them probably less to do because if they're not recovering, they're not gonna perform.
• 15:06
  Kris Gethin: And, you know, we could possibly see a decline in their testosterone, their heart rate variability, and it's not gonna be good for them.
• 15:12
  Kris Gethin: So always look at those things first, their ability to recover, and that will dictate a lot of things from there.
• 15:17
  Kris Gethin: And then we have that transition in.
• 15:20
  Kris Gethin: So let's say, you know, we were talking about swimming, you know, being that weakness, focus on that challenge.
• 15:25
  Kris Gethin: So I'll always say, let's focus on turning your weaknesses into your weapons.
• 15:30
  Kris Gethin: You know, what why can't you swim?
• 15:31
  Kris Gethin: Because if anybody comes to me and says, hey, I want to do a triathlon, nine times out of ten, they'll always say, but I suck at swimming.
• 15:38
  Kris Gethin: I can't swim.
• 15:39
  Kris Gethin: You know, it it's everybody, it's the majority of people.
• 15:43
  Kris Gethin: So that's what we're gonna focus the majority of our time doing.
• 15:47
  Kris Gethin: The frequency is gonna be there.
• 15:49
  Kris Gethin: Now, it isn't so much difficult, it's not difficult on the joints.
• 15:53
  Kris Gethin: You know, if anybody's listening here, you'll know it all comes down not so much even to fitness, it just comes down to technique.
• 16:00
  Kris Gethin: So once you've actually got that technique down, okay, then we can work on speed.
• 16:06
  Kris Gethin: And I like to do that with everything.
• 16:08
  Kris Gethin: If we're talking about running, which a majority of people are, the majority of injuries from, you know, if you have a comparison model of people that work out with weights, strength-trained athletes, and then endurance athletes, there are much more injuries that are prevalent with endurance athletes specifically running because of that constant repetitive nature.
• 16:30
  Kris Gethin: And it's not something that kind of pulls and snaps straight away.
• 16:34
  Kris Gethin: It's over time, and we ignore it, we're in denial of it until it's too late.
• 16:39
  Kris Gethin: So we'll always focus on that technique specific to that person, making sure that they've got the right footwear.
• 16:45
  Kris Gethin: You know, I love hokers like the Cliftons or the Bondy's in Hokers are perfect for me, my structure and my size.
• 16:51
  Kris Gethin: I got very skinny ankles, my feet avert a little bit, so they're perfect for my gait and my run.
• 16:57
  Kris Gethin: You know, that technique could be making sure that your eyes are as smooth as possible on the eye line.
• 17:04
  Kris Gethin: They're not jumping up too much.
• 17:06
  Kris Gethin: So we're trying to use our posterior chain, our glutes and our hamstrings.
• 17:10
  Kris Gethin: If that person has access to like a woodway or like a you know a curved treadmill where you see a lot of the crossfitters use, they're going to work their posterior chain much more.
• 17:20
  Kris Gethin: Activate your glutes, activate your hamstrings, perfect.
• 17:23
  Kris Gethin: Okay, now we've got that technique down.
• 17:25
  Kris Gethin: Now we start working on building up the time, the speed, the frequency, and alternating that with the workouts.
• 17:34
  Kris Gethin: So to begin with, the workouts are generally the weight training workouts, are generally on a non-cardio day to begin with.
• 17:42
  Kris Gethin: Okay, so we alternate between the two.
• 17:45
  Kris Gethin: As we get a little bit better, and I can see that person's HRV is good, their ability to recover is good.
• 17:51
  Kris Gethin: Now we start combining them both on the same days.
• 17:55
  Kris Gethin: Because what I like to do, and not everybody would agree with this, I like to pre-fatigue.
• 18:01
  Kris Gethin: So let's say I go into the gym and I train legs.
• 18:04
  Kris Gethin: As soon as I finish my leg workout, now I'm going for my run.
• 18:08
  Kris Gethin: Because I want to get used to getting my technique down and allow myself to be prepared or to run on tired legs.
• 18:17
  Kris Gethin: Because if I can run on tired legs and have my technique perfect, then when I go on fresh legs, perfection is going to be there even at the end of the run, where that's where the injuries usually happen.
• 18:28
  Kris Gethin: As you fatigue, your posture goes, you start to slouch, you don't use your posterior chain.
• 18:33
  Kris Gethin: Now it's more of a compounding exercise that you know leads to injury over time.
• 18:38
  Kris Gethin: So that's kind of how I transition it over time.
• 18:41
  Kris Gethin: It's kind of separated, technique, we focus on and then we pull it over together.
• 18:45
  Kris Gethin: And it's the same with the with the weights workouts.
• 18:48
  Kris Gethin: You know, we're just focusing mostly compound movements and uh the auxiliaries are there, just you know, like on your arms, your shoulders, not so much because you're going to get it on the compound, such as your bench press or like your uh bent over row or whatever it is.
• 19:03
  Kris Gethin: And then we start increasing and including like the arms, the shoulders, the auxiliaries as we get a little bit better with our recovery.
• 19:11
  Kris Gethin: Because a lot of people fall short on a recovery as we've got into this entrepreneurship space and you know we're more dopamine dominant, we don't release as much oxytocin and serotonin because we just don't sit down and be and relax.
• 19:25
  Kris Gethin: I like to focus on that first, the HRV.
• 19:29
  Kris Gethin: And once we're able to get out of that, you know, uh sympathetic dominant state and that dopamine dominant dominant state, then we start increasing the frequency from there.
• 19:38
  Kris Gethin: Because most people just don't sleep enough.
• 19:40
  Kris Gethin: They really don't.
• 19:42
  Kris Gethin: Because in as I that's what I was getting to, in this entrepreneurship space, we're like, okay, we don't have any time left.
• 19:49
  Kris Gethin: What can we tap into?
• 19:50
  Kris Gethin: It's usually sleep.
• 19:52
  Kris Gethin: And um, you know, the one thing that I have found has been the best biohack for most people out of all the technology, then thousands of dollars that you could spend out there on stem cells and stuff is sleep.
• 20:03
  Philip Pape: 100%.
• 20:04
  Philip Pape: I I thought you were gonna say thousands of dollars you could spend on things to improve your sleep, because you could do that too.
• 20:10
  Kris Gethin: Yeah.
• 20:10
  Philip Pape: No, that's but you're right, sleep is free.
• 20:12
  Philip Pape: So, okay, what I was thinking of when as you pulled that whole story together was the idea of specificity as a hybrid athlete.
• 20:20
  Philip Pape: In other words, we think we always try to separate these things into okay, specificity to strength, specificity to endurance.
• 20:27
  Philip Pape: And what you're saying is you're building them both together based on those metrics, including recovery being the big one.
• 20:32
  Philip Pape: And when you start, just like any newbie, you know, there's newbie gains to be had, but at the same time, you can't, you know, overshoot, or it sounds like you're going to hit that fatigue wall or that over-training wall and maybe backslide or get injured.
• 20:44
  Philip Pape: So that's one thing that came to mind.
• 20:46
  Philip Pape: When we talk about recovery, you said that's the first step is to assess their ability to recover.
• 20:51
  Philip Pape: We're in a very high-wired world, sympathetic, dopamine, I mean dominant is what you said.
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: You say we want to get their HRV to a better place.
• 20:58
  Philip Pape: What's kind of a progression that occurs to do that early on?
• 21:02
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, it's some of this sounds a little bit woo-woo and hippie, but a lot of the time I'm asking that person, what are you doing your cardio?
• 21:10
  Kris Gethin: Okay, it's indoors.
• 21:11
  Kris Gethin: Let's get outside a little bit, make sure that we're including our hormones into this equation.
• 21:16
  Kris Gethin: So, vitamin D, as we know, is basically a hormone, it's like a precursor to testosterone.
• 21:22
  Kris Gethin: So, get out in the nature, get out in the sun.
• 21:25
  Kris Gethin: Again, we're releasing too much dopamine, so don't take your headphones out.
• 21:29
  Kris Gethin: You know, we're gonna just listen to the sound of our footsteps, maybe the wind or whatever it is, but you get in that sunlight as well at the same time.
• 21:37
  Kris Gethin: I will go as far as sometimes having that client, dependent on their gate, actually wear grinding shoes or grinding trainers.
• 21:45
  Kris Gethin: So there's a company, I'm not I'm not sponsored by this company by any means.
• 21:49
  Kris Gethin: They're called Bahi.
• 21:50
  Kris Gethin: They're out of the UK and they have grinding trainers, and some of them uh are very, very comfortable.
• 21:56
  Kris Gethin: Like if I'm traveling and I want to travel lights, I'm wearing those trainers because I don't want to take a load with me, and uh they're great to run in because we know if we're absorbing the negative eons from the earth that's gonna be anti-inflammatory as well, could possibly help with our ability to recover and HRV, etc.
• 22:15
  Kris Gethin: You know, if I and some people are electrosensitive, if I hold a phone here and I've got my EMF reader here, then that number goes all the way up.
• 22:25
  Kris Gethin: You know, everybody at home can try this if they've got an EMF reader.
• 22:28
  Kris Gethin: But now, if I take my shoes and socks off and stand out on the grass, that number goes down because that EMF is penetrating through me and not into me and kind of stabilizing itself there and causing inflammation.
• 22:41
  Kris Gethin: So there's the technology mixed with the ancestral wisdom side of things, there's that aspect first, and then I look at their ability to absorb the foods that they're consuming.
• 22:53
  Kris Gethin: So when they're eating food, because this is our fuel, this is gonna give us our fuel to perform and our ability to recover, you know, this is everything.
• 23:00
  Kris Gethin: But is the concentration of that food, number one, perfect?
• 23:05
  Kris Gethin: And are we absorbing that food?
• 23:07
  Kris Gethin: A lot of people will consume their meals while they're distracted.
• 23:11
  Kris Gethin: They could be driving, they could be scrolling, they could be in the middle of a meeting.
• 23:16
  Kris Gethin: So they're not allowing their body to understand and be cognizant of the fact that they're eating food and now they're full.
• 23:26
  Kris Gethin: Okay, it's much like you training in the gym and having a full-on conversation or a meeting with someone while you're doing bicep curls.
• 23:34
  Kris Gethin: You're not gonna have that neuropathway connection to adequately contract that muscle.
• 23:39
  Kris Gethin: It's the same when you're consuming food.
• 23:41
  Kris Gethin: You cannot be distracted and expect to absorb all the food.
• 23:44
  Kris Gethin: And this isn't just me talking, this is science.
• 23:47
  Kris Gethin: You can look at the scientific literature out there.
• 23:49
  Kris Gethin: There's a great book out there called The Slow Down Diet that people can read on this subject as well.
• 23:55
  Kris Gethin: So it's very important that you are cognizant, you haven't got distraction, you're putting your fork down between bites.
• 24:01
  Kris Gethin: Maybe you're thinking of your senses, your smell, your taste, the you know, the look of the food, the texture, etc.
• 24:10
  Kris Gethin: So now once you consume it, you're actually absorbing it.
• 24:13
  Kris Gethin: Because a lot of people, you know, um miss that passive digestion.
• 24:17
  Kris Gethin: So there's that aspect of things as well.
• 24:20
  Kris Gethin: And then, you know, hydration is a big proportion of it, dependent on the climate that they're living in and how much that person sweats.
• 24:27
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, you can't just consume water and then dilute yourself of all the essential minerals and and uh you know electrolytes that the body is needed and the heart is needing just to relax and contract so you can adequately recover while you're actually moving as well.
• 24:45
  Kris Gethin: And then dependent on that size of that person.
• 24:48
  Kris Gethin: Again, if they want to be a hybrid athlete, the person that they're training with, who is an endurance athlete and that is it, you can't expect to consume the same amount of food or supplements as that person.
• 25:00
  Kris Gethin: You're gonna require a lot, lot more.
• 25:02
  Kris Gethin: It's basically like a rolling buffet when you're out there cycling.
• 25:06
  Kris Gethin: You're gonna have to have a backpack.
• 25:08
  Kris Gethin: You cannot go out there with a couple of gel packs and a couple of bars and expect to reach the end of that ride.
• 25:14
  Kris Gethin: That muscle that you have is requires so many more calories just to maintain itself, let alone continue to repair itself to build.
• 25:24
  Philip Pape: Yeah, we was just talking to somebody earlier today about hunger during a bulking phase, because it's one thing that surprises a lot of guys, right, when they start bulking for the first time.
• 25:33
  Philip Pape: And it's just so resource intensive when you layer the cardio on top of that.
• 25:38
  Philip Pape: Um, I know what you mean, right?
• 25:39
  Philip Pape: Because I've spoken to guys and they're like, yeah, 4,000 is the bare minimum calories on like a slow day, a non-training day, and then it goes up from there.
• 25:46
  Philip Pape: So these are really good tips because I think a lot of folks jump right into the I'll call it the well-known fundamentals of okay, train, eat, sleep, this and that.
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: And what you're you're saying is there's this other aspect of slowing down of mindfulness, of physically interacting with what we're meant to, which is I'm looking at a warm sunny day here in Connecticut.
• 26:08
  Philip Pape: I feel like going out in my bare feet right now after talking to you, just going in the grass.
• 26:12
  Philip Pape: And I'm gonna look up those grounding trainers too.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: That's interesting.
• 26:15
  Philip Pape: And then just hydration and food and how all of that impacts your ability to be successful here and become more parasympathetic dominant.
• 26:23
  Philip Pape: I guess it'd be the opposite, right?
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: Of sympathetic dominant.
• 26:26
  Philip Pape: Okay, so those are great tips.
• 26:27
  Philip Pape: And then you mentioned technique, um, and you alluded to a few things like, and I know running is a big deal.
• 26:34
  Philip Pape: We had Brad Kearns on the show, you know, co-author of Born to Walk, and he loves talking about how most people don't know how to run properly and they get injured and footwear, have big cushion footwear and all that.
• 26:45
  Philip Pape: Thinking about all the people you work with who are trying to improve their cardiovascular fitness and their hybrid athleticism, what would you say are like the big two or three technique, like low-hanging fruit for most people listening to the show?
• 26:58
  Kris Gethin: Yeah, good question.
• 26:59
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, knowing that this could potentially be a big part of your life and you don't want to wear down your cartilage, you know, in your knees anytime soon, because now you're running, you're also squatting, you're leg pressing, your leg extending, that's a lot of wear in tear.
• 27:15
  Kris Gethin: And there's thankfully today, there's peptides that can actually help regrow cartilage, but we don't want to rely upon it, obviously.
• 27:23
  Kris Gethin: We want to just kind of prevent that need.
• 27:25
  Kris Gethin: So I always suggest if you have the ability that you run off-road whenever possible.
• 27:32
  Kris Gethin: You know, if you're doing an ultra marathon, which is why I chose uh ultra marathon over conventional marathons, a lot of them are off-road.
• 27:39
  Kris Gethin: You know, they can be unforgiving because of the inclines and the declines, but at least you're not dealing with that hard surface uh, you know, the whole time that you're doing a lot of running.
• 27:49
  Kris Gethin: So I always suggest people to do off-road as much as possible because you are actually going to strengthen the stabilizing muscles around your ankles, around your knees, around your hips, and of course your torso at the same time if you're on an uneven surface.
• 28:04
  Kris Gethin: And it's going to be more forgiving on your knees.
• 28:07
  Kris Gethin: So that's that's the one.
• 28:08
  Kris Gethin: And again, if you don't have access to that, try to find a facility that has something that is a self-propelled treadmill, like a like a curve, like a woodway curve or a rogue, where you're actually pulling it yourself and you're not using the momentum of the treadmill, because that will really help take a lot of the strain from your knees and put it onto that posterior chain.
• 28:29
  Kris Gethin: So you're going to be able to get so many more miles out of your knees and more reps out of your knees if you do so.
• 28:36
  Kris Gethin: Okay, so that's one big aspect.
• 28:39
  Kris Gethin: The other thing when it comes to uh technique is let's talk about cycling for instance.
• 28:47
  Kris Gethin: Again, a lot of us not using a posterior chain, we're usually quad dominant, but there's a lot that you can do with the propel of that bike when you're using a posterior chain.
• 28:56
  Kris Gethin: But not only that, if you're a bigger person, you're probably not very well hydrodynamic.
• 29:02
  Kris Gethin: So you want to do whatever you can to tuck it, get used to tucking yourself into a smaller position.
• 29:09
  Kris Gethin: Now, most people that are on a on a larger side, they're not flexible.
• 29:13
  Kris Gethin: So you have to really work on your flexibility and your mobility to be able to tuck yourself.
• 29:18
  Kris Gethin: Because, like, if you're on aerobars, like I had to have aerobars made for me to begin with, because I just couldn't bring my elbows in, you know, from just from being too big.
• 29:28
  Kris Gethin: So I got used to just really closing that distance and using a lot of mobility techniques and doing yoga in order to do so.
• 29:35
  Kris Gethin: Because if you're out there doing like a 115-mile bike ride, over time that adds up, especially when you've got the wind coming towards you.
• 29:44
  Kris Gethin: You know, it really increases your calorie expenditure.
• 29:47
  Kris Gethin: So there's a ride that I used to do here in Boise that is just over 100 miles.
• 29:54
  Kris Gethin: Uh, and there's another one that I'd do that's 88 miles, but I'd measure the calories that I'm burning.
• 29:59
  Kris Gethin: During that time, so I could kind of estimate how much food that is needed.
• 30:03
  Kris Gethin: If the wind is against me, as opposed to just no wind or behind me, the difference in calories is huge, absolutely massive.
• 30:12
  Kris Gethin: So if you're really focusing on being an aerodynamic, you're not gonna have to have as many calories, or you could just be hitting a wall and not have enough calories with you.
• 30:22
  Kris Gethin: And the same with hydration, of course, you know, you're gonna go through a lot more hydration water and uh volume of fluid if you've got weather patterns that you're not kind of used to.
• 30:33
  Kris Gethin: So that's why it's very, very important.
• 30:35
  Kris Gethin: And then a big mistake that I notice when it comes to swimming, if you're even thinking of doing like a triathlon, is a lot of people will just get used to swimming in the pool, uh following that black line and not getting used to sighting, even if they are swimming in the pool.
• 30:52
  Kris Gethin: So I always tell people you need a sight like maybe every four to six strokes, because you'd be surprised if you do not have a black line to follow and you're used to following it, you'll be all over the place, you know, and you can lose so much time just going off track a little bit and get used to sighting directly in the sun, because the chances are you will be, you know, facing face those challenges when you're out in the open waters, whether that's when you're breathing to one side, you're gonna be facing the sun, or you're gonna be facing the sun in front of you, because a lot of the time it's a circle.
• 31:28
  Kris Gethin: So at some point, and it's you know, the triathlons are usually in the morning at sunrise, you're gonna be facing the sun.
• 31:34
  Kris Gethin: So you've got to get used to all these kinds of dynamics that you wouldn't necessarily prepare yourself for.
• 31:41
  Kris Gethin: So you have to think of the unexpected.
• 31:43
  Kris Gethin: When I start the swim with another thousand people, what are the chances of my goggles getting kicked off?
• 31:48
  Kris Gethin: You know, I've got to be prepared for these scenarios.
• 31:50
  Philip Pape: Interesting.
• 31:51
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 31:52
  Philip Pape: Things many of us don't think about.
• 31:53
  Philip Pape: Not to mention the current, I suspect, right?
• 31:56
  Philip Pape: Which can point I grew up in Florida and uh some pretty strong currents there in the ocean.
• 32:00
  Philip Pape: Before you know it, you're, you know, wondering where your family is.
• 32:04
  Philip Pape: But uh, no, that's great.
• 32:05
  Philip Pape: So you gave us a technique for each of the three sports, and that raised the question to me, what where does sprinting come into this?
• 32:11
  Philip Pape: Because I know sprinting can be an important part of training when it comes to running, and they're not the same thing by any chance.
• 32:17
  Philip Pape: There, there's there's a lot of differences.
• 32:18
  Philip Pape: Just in general, what are your thoughts on sprinting for training itself and as a specific, I guess, sport that you have to train for?
• 32:26
  Kris Gethin: Yeah, so that's a very good question.
• 32:28
  Kris Gethin: So the bigger that person is, the more muscle that they're holding, the more they should actually focus on more sprint work.
• 32:36
  Kris Gethin: And there's several reasons why I say this.
• 32:39
  Kris Gethin: So when I first started getting into hybrid athleticism, anybody that's followed me knows that I'm a big volume trainer.
• 32:45
  Kris Gethin: I like to train with like 30, 40, 50 reps.
• 32:48
  Kris Gethin: You know, I like the challenge, I like the pain associated with it because I feel that I've got more of a reward after dealing with that sacrifice.
• 32:56
  Kris Gethin: I've got more success over here.
• 32:58
  Kris Gethin: And I figured, okay, with all this repetition that I've done, especially on my legs and on my back, I'd be better prepared for like the cycle, the swim, the run.
• 33:08
  Kris Gethin: And it worked the opposite because I found that I overtrained so easy, hitting all the volume in the gym and then hidden all the volume outside of the gym.
• 33:18
  Kris Gethin: So what I figured out over time by the mistakes is that I needed to bring down the volume.
• 33:25
  Kris Gethin: So my repetitions went from very high to very, very low.
• 33:28
  Kris Gethin: And I'm talking about like eight to ten repetitions.
• 33:31
  Kris Gethin: And then the frequency of my workouts went from like five to six times a week, the weight training workouts, down to like four days a week.
• 33:40
  Kris Gethin: Evidently the same with the endurance aspect.
• 33:42
  Kris Gethin: I'm thinking, okay, I've got to run for eight miles, I've got to do this hundred-mile bike ride or whatever it is.
• 33:48
  Kris Gethin: During the week, I'm gonna focus on just long, long, long, long, and that's it, because that's what I've got to do when I compete in the Iron Man.
• 33:55
  Kris Gethin: But again, my ability to recover was so bad that my performance in the gym was now useless.
• 34:01
  Kris Gethin: There was too much of a crossover.
• 34:03
  Kris Gethin: So then I started bringing down the volume and the duration and the miles of that endurance down into more VO2 max and sprints.
• 34:12
  Kris Gethin: So those sprints would be in the water.
• 34:14
  Kris Gethin: Let's say if I'm swimming usually for 45 minutes on a Thursday, now I'm bringing it down to 25 minutes, but with a lot more sprints in there.
• 34:24
  Kris Gethin: There's the warm-up.
• 34:25
  Kris Gethin: I'm using more paddles, so I'm using more resistance and using sprints as my purpose to improve my endurance.
• 34:32
  Kris Gethin: And then the same with the runs, I'm finding like on the on the treadmill, I'm hitting more sprints, or I'm finding hills and I'm doing repeat sprints just to help propel my cardiovascular fitness without over-training my physical aspect or causing central nervous system fatigue.
• 34:50
  Kris Gethin: Same with the cycle as well.
• 34:52
  Kris Gethin: I'm putting it up the gears as opposed to just keeping it in a low gear and spinning high.
• 34:57
  Kris Gethin: And I'm standing, I'm finding a hill.
• 34:58
  Kris Gethin: There's, you know, where I live actually is the hill that I used to train on.
• 35:02
  Kris Gethin: I've just moved to this house, but right behind me is a hill that I used to do a lot of training on.
• 35:06
  Kris Gethin: I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be standing for a lot of this training session, really working on those sprints as well.
• 35:13
  Kris Gethin: And what I found again over time, my HRV improved, my testosterone markers improved because I found just with all this endurance and all this overtraining, my testosterone was coming down.
• 35:24
  Kris Gethin: I just wasn't feeling good, I wasn't feeling vibrant, I wasn't, I didn't have the strength, I felt fatigued.
• 35:31
  Kris Gethin: But athletes and entrepreneurs have this very strong mental strength and we'll just pursue and go, it's okay, I'm living in denial, I'll be fine, I've got this.
• 35:44
  Kris Gethin: When we're actually doing a lot more harm and our ability to uh recover has obviously just gone through the hole.
• 35:51
  Kris Gethin: We don't acknowledge that, and then we get injured, testosterone keeps coming down, and we're just digging self into a hole.
• 35:57
  Kris Gethin: And a lot of endurance athletes that have signed up with me, you know, we'll always do the blood work first.
• 36:03
  Kris Gethin: Usually their testosterone is in the tank because a lot of athletes just want more, more, more, and they don't understand the ability to recover because they think more is better, you know.
• 36:14
  Kris Gethin: So a lot of the time, if we've got beginners, we need to do more.
• 36:18
  Kris Gethin: A lot of the time, if we've got athletes, we have to do less.
• 36:22
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
• 36:23
  Philip Pape: I'm a huge fan of spermining it, which is why I ask, because when I finally got into it, it reminded me of back in my CrossFit days, how you know you had the metabolic conditioning.
• 36:31
  Philip Pape: Effectively, we were we were sprinting a lot, right, with your wads.
• 36:34
  Philip Pape: And I realized how that carried over very well into some of the endurance, you know, just weekend stuff that I would do occasionally where I had to run five miles and I hadn't run five miles in, you know, years, but I was capable of doing it where I feel like it wouldn't have been possible without that, all that um conditioning.
• 36:50
  Philip Pape: So there, like you said, there's a crossover and there's also a fatigue to work ratio that we have to be careful of.
• 36:57
  Philip Pape: I've spoken to guys on the show that, you know, used to put in a lot of miles, they get get injured, and then now that they're older, they do just what you're saying.
• 37:05
  Philip Pape: They actually have very few long runs during the week, you know, maybe not even any for weeks at a time, and they're actually focused much more on this kind of very efficient mode of improving your fitness.
• 37:16
  Philip Pape: So let me ask you this.
• 37:17
  Philip Pape: Let's say someone doesn't care about competing in an event or triathlon or anything like that, and they just want peak cardiovascular fitness for its own sake, could sprinting be the dominant form of cardiovascular conditioning?
• 37:28
  Kris Gethin: If that person wants to be in hybrid athlete and hold a decent amount of muscle and continue to build muscle or maintain it, for sure.
• 37:35
  Kris Gethin: For sure.
• 37:35
  Kris Gethin: If they're focused on just endurance, endurance only, then it needs to be a part of it, doesn't, but it doesn't have to be a bigger ratio of that proportion.
• 37:44
  Kris Gethin: So my five days a week or four to five days a week would be that.
• 37:49
  Kris Gethin: And then my one day a week would be the long and slow.
• 37:53
  Kris Gethin: So that is okay, now I'm going out for my hundred-mile bike ride because I've got to get used to time in a saddle, or now I'm gonna go for that uh, you know, 12-mile run because I just got to get used to being out there and fueling and understanding where my fuel and hydration uh you know measurements are.
• 38:11
  Kris Gethin: So you understand that.
• 38:12
  Kris Gethin: So I would always do that like on a weekends, and then during a week, knowing I'm gonna be busier anyway, I'll just keep it short and sweet to those sprints.
• 38:20
  Tony: My name is Tony.
• 38:21
  Tony: I'm a strength lifter in my 40s.
• 38:23
  Tony: Thank you to Phil and his wits and weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training.
• 38:31
  Tony: Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros and chemical compounds and hormones and all that.
• 38:38
  Tony: And he's continuously learning.
• 38:39
  Tony: That's what I like about Phil.
• 38:40
  Tony: He's got a great sense of humor, he's very relaxed, very easy to talk to.
• 38:44
  Tony: One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view, is that he practices what he preaches.
• 38:48
  Tony: He also works out with our bells.
• 38:50
  Tony: He trains heavy, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy.
• 38:53
  Tony: So if you talk with him about getting a better shape, eating better, he's probably gonna give you some good advice.
• 38:58
  Tony: And I would strongly recommend you talk with him and it'll help you out.
• 39:03
  Philip Pape: Yeah, that's great.
• 39:04
  Philip Pape: And then I presume as you if you are going to compete in an event, even if it's not a big event, but something, you're gonna have to change the ratio of your conditioning more toward the specific maybe distance as you get closer to the event, right?
• 39:18
  Philip Pape: Just for the conditioning aspect, I suppose.
• 39:20
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 39:20
  Philip Pape: And then the nutrition has to change.
• 39:22
  Philip Pape: Do you do you know carbloading or you know, do you start switching up the ratios of macros as you get closer to that event?
• 39:28
  Kris Gethin: Yeah, so that this is what I would, this is, and I did this for my second uh iron man, actually.
• 39:33
  Kris Gethin: I uh really tried to challenge myself to see how far I could go fasting before I actually got, you know, and then when I knew where that number where that level was roughly, that's when I would consume my calories because I'd always try to find a way to make my training a lot harder than what I actually would on training on actually the event day, for instance.
• 39:55
  Kris Gethin: So as I mentioned before, I'd go and like train legs and then go for my run.
• 40:00
  Kris Gethin: I'd train back and then go for my swim.
• 40:02
  Kris Gethin: So I'd make it harder.
• 40:03
  Kris Gethin: And the same thing from the nutrition, not from the hydration, but I would fast.
• 40:08
  Kris Gethin: So I'd go, you know, I'd train in the morning, uh, fasted, but I would take supplements.
• 40:13
  Kris Gethin: I'd take essential amino acids to prevent that catabolism.
• 40:17
  Kris Gethin: I'd have glutamin as well to prevent a lot of that catabolism.
• 40:21
  Kris Gethin: Uh, but that was something that I kind of experimented with just to see if it would actually help on the day.
• 40:26
  Kris Gethin: And I found like a balance between both.
• 40:29
  Kris Gethin: It wasn't necessarily just amino acids and it wasn't necessarily a huge load.
• 40:34
  Kris Gethin: It was a proportion between where I just found like having some carb powder and protein powder would suffice.
• 40:41
  Kris Gethin: You know, so a lot of the a lot of my nutrition, I guess, came from supplementation during these times.
• 40:49
  Kris Gethin: And it's not because I owned a own a supplement company, it's just I found it so much easier to consume, especially for the endurance aspect, without it just taking a lot of blood into my stomach to digest it where I feel nauseous, or I feel fatigued.
• 41:04
  Kris Gethin: If I've got that blood in the muscles and in my brain as opposed to in my stomach trying to digest, I just felt so much better for it.
• 41:10
  Kris Gethin: So I did rely on supplements a lot more and I was able to condense a lot of calories into fluid.
• 41:17
  Kris Gethin: And my my uh wife would make like these protein balls as well that I'd have in my bag on the on the front of the bike, and I'd just be consuming them as I'm going along as well.
• 41:29
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it's it's it's amazing how impactful digestion and gut content is and like the timing of food, right?
• 41:36
  Philip Pape: We talk about it even just in the lifting context with pre and post-workouts, and everyone's a little bit different, right?
• 41:40
  Philip Pape: Their response.
• 41:41
  Philip Pape: Like you said, you had to find where that limit was.
• 41:43
  Philip Pape: Some people really thrive on, say, fasted strength training, and some people don't, or they just need something, like you said, uh calorie dense but not voluminous, right?
• 41:52
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 41:52
  Philip Pape: So what was I gonna?
• 41:54
  Philip Pape: Oh, you so you mentioned this is good.
• 41:56
  Philip Pape: You've mentioned some of the things you've tracked as well along the way as you're training.
• 42:00
  Philip Pape: You mentioned blood work for testosterone, I'm sure other markers as well.
• 42:04
  Philip Pape: You mentioned HRV.
• 42:05
  Philip Pape: Sometimes we get into the weeds with this stuff and people shouldn't even care until they get to a certain point.
• 42:10
  Philip Pape: But what are the big things that are important for just about anybody to track in this space?
• 42:14
  Kris Gethin: Yeah, well, number one, just how you feel, because a lot of people, especially insurance, kind of look at quantification too much.
• 42:21
  Kris Gethin: And you know, they focus on on that, that, their, their wattage and their heart rate, and and they become consumed by it.
• 42:28
  Kris Gethin: Even if they feel okay, now all of a sudden they see their readings not looking okay, you know, that now they've convinced themselves they're not.
• 42:36
  Kris Gethin: It's much like if I have clients measuring their sleep.
• 42:39
  Kris Gethin: If they measure their sleep and they look and they they wake up in the morning, they feel strong.
• 42:44
  Kris Gethin: I'm gonna hit my personal best today, and then they look at their numbers and go, oh my God, I didn't get that much sleep.
• 42:50
  Kris Gethin: Now all of a sudden they're not even considering that.
• 42:52
  Kris Gethin: I think you have to take it with a grain of salt and just go by your instincts to a certain degree.
• 42:58
  Kris Gethin: But the quantification that I really do like is what I meant, what I said before, is heart rate variability along with sleep, uh, just to ensure that you are getting good quality uh sleep there because a lot of people are using devices before bed or they're watching TV, and now that artificial blue light is penetrating their retina, so they're not able to release the melatonin to keep them calm and allow them to sleep.
• 43:24
  Kris Gethin: And you know, again, it's coming down to adrenaline and dopamine, uh, which can raise cortisol if that person's not sleeping.
• 43:31
  Kris Gethin: And cortisol is going to be catabolic.
• 43:34
  Kris Gethin: So always kind of measuring these things.
• 43:37
  Kris Gethin: The other thing that I always like to measure, as I mentioned, is you know, like the heart rate, making sure that we are pushing ourselves, but not to the limit where we feel that we just cannot recover.
• 43:49
  Kris Gethin: What is that heart rate after you've finished your workout session?
• 43:53
  Kris Gethin: How long is it taking to come back to baseline?
• 43:57
  Kris Gethin: So I kind of like to look at look at those numbers as well.
• 43:59
  Kris Gethin: And the other thing, intermittently, is always the blood work.
• 44:03
  Kris Gethin: Just see where the hormonal response is amongst all of this.
• 44:06
  Kris Gethin: You know, how is their body ability to recover?
• 44:09
  Kris Gethin: Are they depleted in any vitamins?
• 44:12
  Kris Gethin: A lot of people, they will take us, let's say they take a certain supplement.
• 44:15
  Kris Gethin: So let's take, you know, we're talking now in the world of peptides in endurance aspect.
• 44:21
  Kris Gethin: People are taking something called sloop, S-L-U-P 3-3-2.
• 44:25
  Kris Gethin: I don't know if you or your listeners have heard of it, but a lot of people will take that and it depletes them of their vitamin B levels.
• 44:32
  Kris Gethin: And they're wondering, why am I feeling so fatigued?
• 44:34
  Kris Gethin: Well, number one, it's an exercise mnemic.
• 44:36
  Kris Gethin: So you're actually utilizing more calories at rest.
• 44:39
  Kris Gethin: And number two, you're depleting yourself of B vitamins.
• 44:42
  Kris Gethin: So now you're wondering, oh, maybe I'm just over-trained.
• 44:45
  Kris Gethin: No, you're depleted.
• 44:46
  Kris Gethin: So I think it's very important that you have your blood work done as well, just to see if there are any depletions.
• 44:52
  Kris Gethin: And we kind of use that as our gamifications to improve.
• 44:55
  Kris Gethin: Now, there's a lot of other things that we can quantify out there as well.
• 44:58
  Kris Gethin: VO2 Max, I like to do that.
• 45:00
  Kris Gethin: But I don't like to go that too far into the weeds because I think people can take technology a little bit too far and rely on it a little bit too much.
• 45:10
  Kris Gethin: And if we look at some of the amazing triathletes from years ago, and I'm talking about like the 80s when they had no quantification, a lot of those still hold records today.
• 45:20
  Kris Gethin: So it goes for sure that if we were able to do it on the trainers that they were wearing, on the heavier bikes that they were riding, and still hold records, then you know, maybe the quantification can be taken a little too far.
• 45:32
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I totally agree because we could confound the number with the results sometimes, even just in the physique world where you're like, well, my numbers suggest I didn't put on much lean mask, but you know what?
• 45:42
  Philip Pape: I'm happy with what I see in the mirror.
• 45:43
  Philip Pape: It's like, okay, which do you want to care more about right now?
• 45:46
  Philip Pape: I love data as well, but I also know the world of biohacking is so big now in the podcasting space, and and it can go overboard where like that's all you're caring about.
• 45:56
  Philip Pape: Something like VO2 Max, you know, I've had it tested once or twice, which that's a torturous test I don't like to do, but you know, even that number is highly dependent on your condition that day, but also your weight and same things like that that are happening, that we have to not read too much into it.
• 46:11
  Philip Pape: And then as far as blood work, I'm I'm really getting into that now, Chris.
• 46:14
  Philip Pape: Actually, I'm kind of a late comer probably, but uh, and understanding that there are so many system level effects, right?
• 46:21
  Philip Pape: Where there, you know, if you look at vitamin B, like you mentioned, there could be 12 blood markers or mechanisms that are tied to vitamin B in some other way, and and it's all kind of linked together.
• 46:31
  Philip Pape: So you gotta be careful, right, to not overread that.
• 46:34
  Philip Pape: Um, you mentioned training a little bit.
• 46:37
  Philip Pape: You mentioned the pre-fatigue and kind of mixing the modalities to make it harder on yourself so it's easier when you compete.
• 46:44
  Philip Pape: Where do uh squats and lower body training come in?
• 46:48
  Philip Pape: Uh, because you know, I've I've met a lot of runners who never lifted before and then they're shocked at how much better their running becomes, you know, when their legs get a little stronger.
• 46:56
  Philip Pape: So just kind of dig into that topic a little bit: leg strength, squatting, recovery, all that.
• 47:02
  Kris Gethin: Yeah.
• 47:02
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, what I used to do a lot of was like a lot of the isolation movements, you know, your leg extensions, your hamstring kills, because I came from, you know, a bodybuilding background where you have to look at not only the function of the physique, but the the aesthetics of the physique, the sculpting of the physique and certain muscles.
• 47:21
  Kris Gethin: So they would come from a lot of these isolation movements.
• 47:24
  Kris Gethin: But then as I started going down the rabbit hole of actually trying and testing, I found that the compounds is where it really helped, as opposed to just that.
• 47:33
  Kris Gethin: Because he was able to, you know, you think about it, the cycling is like a leg extension and hamstring curl.
• 47:39
  Kris Gethin: So I found that I was able to continue to have the shape of the legs and the size of the legs just by that alone.
• 47:46
  Kris Gethin: So I think the compounds make a good cause for you to continue.
• 47:50
  Kris Gethin: Now that could be in the form of a squat, it could be in the form of a leg press.
• 47:54
  Kris Gethin: Whatever your physique or your structure allows is what you're gonna do.
• 47:59
  Kris Gethin: So some people with very, very narrow hips and very tight Achilles tendons don't do well on squat.
• 48:06
  Kris Gethin: They start to bend forward because they're attendons, they feel pain and tightness in their flexes because they're narrow, narrow hips.
• 48:14
  Kris Gethin: So maybe a squat isn't for them.
• 48:15
  Kris Gethin: It's gonna be more of a leg press.
• 48:17
  Kris Gethin: That's gonna be the movement.
• 48:18
  Kris Gethin: But you know, you kind of have to try before you bite.
• 48:21
  Kris Gethin: What I actually did myself based on my structure, and I've torn attendons in my ankles like seven times, so I've got very, very skinny ankles on a larger upper body and larger legs.
• 48:34
  Kris Gethin: So I would do my squats a lot of the time on a bosom ball, as weird as that sounds, because I could really help strengthen the stability muscles around my tendons, around the ankles, being on a boso ball.
• 48:46
  Kris Gethin: Now that may be a forward lunge squat onto the bosob ball, or a squat in a conventional way itself, with a bar on my back.
• 48:56
  Kris Gethin: I'm not saying everybody should do this, especially not unsupervised, but it worked for me because touch wood, after doing that, and of course I do the rotations on my ankle in the morning, like 30 to the left, 30 to the right, and then plant a flexion, 30 of them.
• 49:09
  Kris Gethin: And touch wood, I've never had any problems with my ankle since then.
• 49:14
  Kris Gethin: But that's how it kind of helped me for my runs because the last time I tore the tendons in my ankle was during a run, you know, because my feet would advert.
• 49:24
  Kris Gethin: So that's kind of what helped me in that regard.
• 49:27
  Kris Gethin: Now, of course, if you are activating muscles by doing a squat, you've got now these new neuropathways that are reaching your legs.
• 49:36
  Kris Gethin: You're gonna use those same neuropathways now when you're running.
• 49:40
  Kris Gethin: Because a lot of us run unconsciously, much like Brad said, you know, a lot of people don't do don't know how to run correctly, and they don't because we're unconscious when you're doing it.
• 49:50
  Kris Gethin: But when you're squatting, you're more conscious of your balance if you're pushing more through your left or your right, and you'll transition that into your run now.
• 49:58
  Kris Gethin: You'll be more conscious of that run as long as you're not distracted.
• 50:02
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, don't be on your phone.
• 50:04
  Kris Gethin: Maybe don't take the music out there, just focus on your ability to activate each fiber and each muscle group accordingly.
• 50:12
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and so you brought it back to that mindfulness you mentioned earlier, which I know I always tell people when I when I lift, every time I do a rep, I don't listen to anything like, oh, you don't listen to rock music, get yourself pumped up.
• 50:23
  Philip Pape: I'm like, no, I want to focus on my form because I know something's going on.
• 50:26
  Philip Pape: And I want to hear my knees cracking too, you know?
• 50:29
  Philip Pape: So pay attention to that as we get older.
• 50:32
  Philip Pape: Exactly.
• 50:33
  Philip Pape: You know, you can find the problem spots that way.
• 50:35
  Philip Pape: But uh, yeah, so mindfulness is the name of the game, and it and definitely I like that proprioception or whatever you want to call it.
• 50:41
  Philip Pape: We we like to throw away and throw out nerdy words, but you know, mind muscle connection, being in tune with your body, with your form, with those movement patterns as a human.
• 50:49
  Philip Pape: Some people are definitely more clumsy, right?
• 50:50
  Philip Pape: And they kind of have to train more for that, and others are just naturally athletic.
• 50:54
  Philip Pape: I guess as we wrap up here, there's probably a lot more we could have covered, but when you think of hybrid athleticism for the general population who wants to get into it, is there anything we didn't cover that we definitely should hit on?
• 51:04
  Kris Gethin: Oh, good.
• 51:05
  Kris Gethin: Uh let me think now.
• 51:06
  Kris Gethin: Um, I'd say more so than anything, that, you know, again, it all comes down on that person.
• 51:14
  Kris Gethin: But nutrition and hydration is everything, absolutely everything, and your ability to recover, obviously, you know, sleep is going to be huge.
• 51:22
  Kris Gethin: But a lot of the time I find, especially with European athletes or or clients, is that they think having a cup of tea or a coffee is hydrating when it actually has a diuretic effect.
• 51:33
  Kris Gethin: And if I look at people's performance and it's down on a certain day or a certain week, it's usually coming down to their hydration.
• 51:41
  Kris Gethin: So knowing that your body is made up of around 70% fluid, just make sure that you get used to hydrating constantly because when you're out there actually running or cycling, you're gonna have to hydrate yourself a lot more.
• 51:55
  Kris Gethin: And if you're not hydrated, then your tendons, your ligaments, your muscles obviously become more brittle.
• 52:01
  Kris Gethin: You don't have the ability to promote synovial fluid to your joints.
• 52:06
  Kris Gethin: So everything is gonna wear down a lot quicker.
• 52:09
  Kris Gethin: Not just your ability to perform, but your ability to have longevity in this game.
• 52:14
  Kris Gethin: So, you know, I'd say focus on that.
• 52:17
  Philip Pape: No, it's a good one.
• 52:17
  Philip Pape: Yeah, connective tissue.
• 52:18
  Philip Pape: Again, especially as we get older, we seem to be more sensitive to that.
• 52:21
  Philip Pape: And especially if you got into this later, you know, I know from personal experience, uh hydration is massive.
• 52:27
  Philip Pape: All right, man.
• 52:27
  Philip Pape: This has been awesome.
• 52:28
  Philip Pape: I think we covered some really good things, a lot of practical tips from a guy who obviously has a ton of experience.
• 52:33
  Philip Pape: So, where do you want people to find you, Chris?
• 52:36
  Philip Pape: And we'll throw those in the show notes so people can reach out.
• 52:39
  Kris Gethin: Sure.
• 52:39
  Kris Gethin: You know, if anybody has any questions whatsoever, they can reach out to me on Instagram.
• 52:43
  Kris Gethin: That's usually the best place to find me, and I respond to my DMs there as well.
• 52:48
  Kris Gethin: So it's Chris K-R-I-S, Gethin, G-E-T-H-I-N.
• 52:53
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 52:54
  Philip Pape: I G at Chris Gethin.
• 52:55
  Philip Pape: I'll throw that in there.
• 52:56
  Philip Pape: We'll connect everyone to you.
• 52:57
  Philip Pape: Also, check out Chris's podcast.
• 52:59
  Philip Pape: A couple episodes ago, he talked about building muscle, losing fat, and mentioned some of the things he was discussing here with preserving muscle.
• 53:05
  Philip Pape: So check out the show, check out his IG.
• 53:07
  Philip Pape: Chris, it's been a blast.
• 53:08
  Philip Pape: Thank you so much for coming on on your treadmill.
• 53:11
  Philip Pape: Uh it's inspired me to get out as soon as we're done and move around and get after it.
• 53:16
  Kris Gethin: All right, so I appreciate it, Philip.
• 53:17
  Kris Gethin: Thank you guys.
• 53:18
  Kris Gethin: Appreciate it.