Latest / Veteran Wellness Podcast / Special Forces, TBI & the Damage You Don’t Feel Until Later | Mike Green

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Special Forces, TBI & the Damage You Don’t Feel Until Later | Mike Green · Veteran Wellness Podcast

• Michael Green: and there was 20 students. So every Thursday, I got in 60 car accidents, you know? And then so the medic, you know, came up and signed, you know, had us he signed a memo for us basically stating how many accidents we got into per week, And I didn't think anything of it, but every now and then you'd be like, what's that? But it's it I mean if you ram But it's that student that steps on the brake. And so you hit and then you go forward. those ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: are the ones where you have the problems. So out of, you know, 240 RAMs per month, 2880 per year for three years, one or two of those probably, you know, shook something the wrong way, ERIK LAWRENCE: Mike Green, how the hell are you? Michael Green: Outstanding, Eric. How have you been? ERIK LAWRENCE: Well, in the last what, thirty five years? I don't know. I I have to catch up a little bit with you. is is Michael Green: It's been a while. ERIK LAWRENCE: back when we were probably PFCs in Morse Code School in nineteen eighty nine, Michael Green: Yeah. Yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: we we were spry back then. Michael Green: Yes we were. ERIK LAWRENCE: That that was a fun course. I remember freezing my ass off in Dugway. You remember that? Michael Green: yeah, yeah. Playing in op four for the Rangers. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, I I've never been so cold in my life. I'm like, Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: it's a desert. It shouldn't be cold. I'm like, Fucking hill, Billy, you know. But so what the hell have you been doing in thirty five years? Michael Green: Well, yeah. So you know, shortly after that I went to you know, went to selection. past that went to the when the eighteen echo course had that AMIC and then even though I ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: had Morris code training, I failed AMIC. So ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. What? Michael Green: yeah, yeah. When they ever whenever they put ERIK LAWRENCE: Get out. Michael Green: a a five character group with a H, an S or an I in there, I would get an autozug. every single side I have a perfect paper and then an autozug. And H S and I they're all ditz, you know, and to me it just kinda ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: ran together. and so I I I went through and they thought I was failing on purpose 'cause they're like, how can you have a perfect paper and then you you fail this one ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: just one 'cause you get three characters in a row, then then you're you're done, right? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: That that's the whole thing. and then so they recycle me and it's the same exact thing. I got faster. I was able to, you know, copy code. But every time H S and I came in there I was like so I almost got kicked out of the course for failing on purpose is what they were saying. And and of course I I wanted ERIK LAWRENCE: my gosh. Michael Green: I wanted to be a combo guy, you know what I mean? I just and I got lucky, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: you know, they recycled me and put me into the Charlie course. So I ended up being a an engineer. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Well, I didn't know that, Mikey. I'd had no idea. Michael Green: Yeah, I know it crushed me, man, 'cause I even practiced code. for years after trying to figure out a way to go back, you know, and just never did. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: But yeah. So I was a Charlie for a long time. you know, I started off, went right on active duty, much much like you. I wish I'd have talked to you before I did that, but I ended up going to third group and then from third group, because I didn't go to language school after the Q course, I was ab ERIK LAWRENCE: Me neither, yeah. Michael Green: able to finagle a a D L I trip. So I went to D L I for Spanish And then they told me I was gonna go to third group, back to third group, and I walked right over to seventh group, talked to the you know, the group's arm major and you know, gave my orders to say, Hey, I'm I'm your I'm a new eighteen Charlie for seventh group. And he goes, No, no. He goes, You have you've got third group on your orders. And I just started speaking Spanish as fast as I could to him, you know. I said, I just got a DLI and he's like, Okay, all right, you're coming to seventh group. So back yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: That's funny. That's how you do it, buddy. You gotta be bold. Michael Green: Yeah, and it I can't believe it worked, you know. but it did and then I spent my my time in in seventh group and then I did a a switch tour. I worked over at the anti terrorism detachment teaching in tech. That was that was ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep, in tack. Michael Green: a gentleman's course. Yeah, it's phenomenal. got to go to driving schools, shooting schools, teaching force protection level two courses, all kinds of great stuff. And then after that I went to went back to Seventh Coup. I went to Charlie 37. So I I did my time in Charlie 37 back when they first moved to Puerto Rico and then we moved the unit back to Fort Bragg. and then I ended up getting out early because some guys that I was used to be SF guys were working for some other organizations and convinced me that I should get out and work with them. And so I did ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: that for a couple of years. you know, jumped around. I spent about seven years contracting. different places, counter ID pro projects for a year. I did a State Department project, you know, all besides other government stuff. And then eventually I got a job with the the government again at but this time as a as a government employee and lived up in the DC area for a long time. Went out to Texas and then, you know, got stationed overseas. and just had a a variety of different things that I've been doing. But you know, it was a it was a good journey for me. I started somewhere like shortly after I got out, I started Green Ops Inc. for for the contract ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: stuff that I was doing and then Eventually that led into instructing. And so I've got Green Ops training right now in Virginia and North Carolina. And then we've got remnants in Texas. So we offer you know open enrollment ERIK LAWRENCE: No, nice. Michael Green: training, firearms stuff, and some sometimes some we were doing some medical stuff too for a little while. But it's it's mainly geared and catered towards open enrollment. We have had a few government, military, and law enforcement contracts on the side here. Green Ops is what it is today, not necessarily because of me, but mainly because of the the cadre that we have. Just phenomenal instructors. and they do an excellent, excellent job. I mean, they they they'll run circles around me. They're just awesome folks, man. ERIK LAWRENCE: Wow. Michael Green: but yeah. so that's that's pretty much my background, I guess. nothing really too special. If, you know, if you hang out in our world, we see, you know, stuff like that all the time. but I'm you know I I think here and there I I've managed to be fortunate enough to have some hard times and some good times, and meet some really great people along the way. And I've always always appreciated that, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, well we we are fortunate in that, you know. And you and I've kind of done the same thing, you know, most of our lives actually. But going through Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: AMIC twice, that's that's torture, dude. I'm sorry for that. That's like, Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: I couldn't do it. I'd be like, I'm done, I'm good. Make me be a Bravo, I'm outta here. but man, you didn't get stuck carrying all that radio and shit for years. So I I feel a little Michael Green: Loved it, man. ERIK LAWRENCE: slighted there. Yeah. criminal. I see you once a while on Instagram and stuff, so I'm like, my I get I'll get a hold of Mike and see what the hell he's doing. You know, we just always miss where we're at. You know, if we're both in DC, probably working in the same hallways. Didn't know. You know you how Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: everything's compartmentalized, you just don't run into guys, even though you're doing the same stuff. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: but we both survived this long, which I didn't think was truly possible. just amazing. And Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: with this, you know, with this podcast like we spoke about earlier, it's, you know, it's kind of like how you survive it, but it's also what do you do afterwards. A Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: lot of guys struggle with that. Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. Seeing a lot of that, you know, i it it's like every time I go to social media, you know, all my friends groups are posting stuff about, you know, guys that I used to work with or we used to work with who are you know, seemed fine one day and now they're they're you know, they're they're ending their own lives, you know. and then you you got another bunch of folks who are just getting sick and killing over, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I think it's com combination of things, but it it's cra it's terrible. It i it it's terrible. I think we were we were talking earlier about folks that you know, we'll run into and you know, that we'll think that we're all the same age and come to find out they're way younger than us, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and they they think we're their age, you know. but I I I don't don't know what what makes people, you know, st well I mean I kinda understand, you know, I mean I think I think we've all been there, right? You know, we've all had our our low points, you know. I know for me, you know, when I first got out and started going overseas as a contractor, you know, I saw a lot a lot of stuff. I mean, in the early days in the early two thousands, it was a wild, wild west, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: you know, just constantly getting shot at, blown up and guys around you getting smoked. and you don't think it of it as too much of a of an impact at the time, and then you go home and you self medicate, you know. You're just constantly drinking and then till the next deployment, you know. and you see a rowdy group of people like that. And it's an easy transition, I think, from you know, going from a uniform to a contract like that where you're around guys that are basically like you. They're former soft guys themselves, you know. those contracts. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and it's it's almost like you didn't get out of the military. You're still around like a brotherhood. they want to work out every day, you know, they push themselves, but it says trips back home where I was going through this process of destroying my body. You know, I wasn't working ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: out, you know, I wasn't eating right. I was doing everything that was bad for me. And you know, and it was in in an an environment where you weren't getting shot at. And so, I think i you know, I never really I never really sobered up but I did come to that point of going, you know what I I need is a schedule. And so I took the the the the team schedule that we had when I was in the military and I just took out the team part and put me part, you know. Okay, I'm gonna get up at this time, I'm gonna go to the range at this time, I'm gonna work out this time, you know, I'm gonna go do some coordinations, networking at this time, and just started creating a a schedule for myself, you know. and that that helped out immensely, but I still continued to you know, in in the States to continue down that path of just destroying my body or not necessarily my body but my mind, you know, by by just drinking so much. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and then when you you know when you s when you're home and you you start to get out of shape, it's easy to stay out of shape 'cause if you miss a deployment for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe contract falls through or something like that. So there w there was one I was supposed to go overseas And they lost the contract for that site. And then so is what I ended up doing was staying back in the States and running some of the training and the vetting processes, you know. and when I did, you know, I'm on the road again and I'm I'm living in hotels, you know, not working out in those ERIK LAWRENCE: Hm, yeah. Michael Green: gyms. I'm staying active, I'm on the range, but you know, we're stopping at Burger King on the way back. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and then we're we're going to the bar, we're pounding it, you know, and it just it's that cycle. You start going down that road and it's real easy to stay on that road. And and the other thing is those injuries, you know, like when I was in the military You know, as an 18 Charlie, you know, we did a lot of a lot of explosive stuff that that I just did not think anything of. And you ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: know, I remember on one of our trips we had to we, you know, we had all this demo we had to get rid of. And a team sergeant goes, Hey, Mike, you and you and your junior go out and get rid of this stuff. And I remember we put two claymores on the other side of a tree and we hugged each other and blew those claymores. And man, we laughed so hard. But I mean you felt it through your entire body, you know? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: It was just like cause that shockwave just came around that tree. I mean ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Michael Green: the tree was I mean the tree was huge, you know, enough for two of us to easily hide behind. but we're hugging hugging each other. We hit that claymore and but I mean we laughed so hard, but you felt the air, you know, just come out of your your your your body and your whole body just shook, you know, and you you didn't think anything of it, you know. And then and then we ran a We ran some training to MTI stuff. so for like s almost a year, nine months to a year, we were training CQB and they made me the master breacher. And I remember when I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: when I went through Sephardic, you know, they used to say a shield is another way of saying I'm scared, you know. So I was like, All ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Yep. Michael Green: right. And so when I taught, you know, I was teaching the same concept. And then we'd have students up on the door and they would ex you know, they put the explosive well, I'm watching, I'm overwatching. And then when they come back, I'm making sure the charge is still up and I'm standing as close as they are to the charge, you know? And that over pressure, you know, would just come out. And we we ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: had a blast wall, and that blast wall would would prevent the blast from going out, but then it would come back and hit you. And then you'd hit your head. I remember one time I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: hit my head and I literally well like blacked out for a second. And then the guy behind me, one of the other students, pushed me and woke me up, you know, and I was like, shit. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: Now I'm in the middle of the stack watching the students come in the room, you know, like holy cow. but you you just kept doing that. And you know, eventually I ERIK LAWRENCE: We didn't know any better. Michael Green: yeah, exactly, exactly. and then you know, I did did my SWIC tour. And then when I was there, you know, I I started having like memory issues. and then I went to I went to work with an SMU for a little while. And it j it affected my overall performance. I couldn't remember anything. I was constantly having short term memory loss. And I I didn't know what was wrong with me. I I just I had no idea, no idea whatsoever. I thought it was aluminum from drinking out of cans, because I'd read something about that. And you know, that was the only thing so I stopped drinking aluminum ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: or drinking out of cans, you know, and I would pour everything ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: into a glass. Did didn't help, but I thought it did. But just over time it just eventually got better, you know. because ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm. Michael Green: when I when I did my switch tour, you know, you're not you're not exposed to the the demo anymore. You're not exposed to that. And so for the longest time I was good. And then when I went to the SIF, the Charlie 37, you know, they had the charges and on the charges they had MSD and I'm like, what's MSD? And they're like, I thought you were a master breacher. And I'm like, Yeah, like six ERIK LAWRENCE: Gosh. Michael Green: years ago. And they're like, Yeah, MSD, minimum safe distance. And I'm like, What ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: is that? And they weren't afraid to back off, you know. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. my gosh. Michael Green: and it never it never and it's still there, you know, it never dawned on me. It never dawned on me until I got out of the military that I probably was suffering from TBI. but the good ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: thing is that I feel like I feel like that I'm I'm recovered, but then I find myself in l ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm. Michael Green: in memory lapse here and there. but I never had a baseline. So when I did a deployment for the mill or for the US government here, they did a baseline for me and then when I came back they said it was the same, you know, so there was no TBI there was no indicators of TBI, but they couldn't tell before that, you know. I think now they can. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, before. Yeah. Michael Green: but but yeah it was i it it was it was pretty silly some of the stuff we did. I mean, you know the deal. We we would do crazy stuff because we didn't have the repercussions. we didn't have the the knowledge, and we didn't have the experience. And you know, today, you know, these these these folks are smarter than we are, I think. you know, they have greater access to knowledge and information. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: it's really awesome seeing the stuff that they're doing today. But you know, that that that that those little little bits of like what I would say is fragmentation of of of TBI, I think I had. you would come back here and there. And then, you know, depression, ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: you know, just poor decision making, you know. just stuff that you're like, why did ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I do that? You know, I I know I shouldn't have done that. but the the the other thing was when I was an instructor at InTAC, as what we would do is every Thursday we would do we'd go the driving track. All right. And I would teach the ramming portion. And so I'd get in a car with the students ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Michael Green: and they would do we'd have them ram three different cars separately. All right. They'd ram one car on the left side, then they ram one car on the right side, and then we put two cars together and they would ram right through. And I would be in the car with them, and there was 20 students. So every Thursday, I got in 60 car accidents, you know? ERIK LAWRENCE: Like Michael Green: yeah. And then so the medic, you know, came up and signed, you know, had us he signed a memo for us basically stating how many a accidents we got into per week, you know. And I didn't think anything of it, but every now and then you'd be like, what's that? But it's it I mean if you ram if you ram properly, ERIK LAWRENCE: my gosh. Michael Green: if if you hit the car properly, you have very minimal issues or problems because ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: you're going straight through. But it's that student that steps on the brake. And so you hit and then you go forward. That those those ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: are the ones where you have the problems. So out of, you know, 240 RAMs per month, 2880 per year for three years, one or two of those probably, you know, shook something the wrong way, you know? Yeah, ERIK LAWRENCE: You think? You think? Michael Green: yeah, yeah. but and then I had a had a L3, L4 compression fracture, and then the right hand, I had that, I had surgery on that. both sides. don't have full use of that. but still able to stay in the military, luckily. and then of course, you know, those the static line jumps, they didn't help, you know. I think ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I got over a hundred static line jumps, most of them, of course, with combat equipment. And, you know, when you get out, you don't you don't feel any issues or problems, you know. I mean, even with my hand being messed up, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: it just it unless I do something that torques it, you know, It really doesn't, you know, I don't think about it. But if I'm holding a rifle all day, if I'm teaching a class or back in the back in the days when I was teaching, if I'm holding the rifle and every time I do a mag change, at the end of the day I'm wondering, like, why is my hand hurt? And it's just it hurts from holding that rifle up. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and the the the crazy thing is that when I went to the VA and you know, they they evaluated me, you know, they came out with some, I don't know, maybe ten percent. And I was like, okay. And then the I think the VF I went through the VFW and they're like, you've got too many things in your records to only get, you know, ten percent. Let's let's do a let's do a reevaluation. And so they they sent me to some doctor and the doctor looked at my stuff and he did head to toe like MRIs and everything else on me. And then he comes back and he goes, Well, he goes, man, you're really messed up. And I'm like doctors aren't supposed to talk that way, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Thanks. Yeah. Michael Green: And he I'm like, what do you what are you talking about? I go, I I feel fine, you know? And he goes, you want me to start at the top or the bottom? And I'm like, let's go to the bottom. And he goes, okay. He goes, do you do you not notice that your feet that they're in pain? And I'm like, well, how'd you know that? I go, but they're not now. And he goes, well, when are the when do they hurt? And I go, well, they they hurt in the morning till about noon-ish. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: then he and then it stops. And he goes, no, son. He goes, it doesn't stop. You just become numb to the pain. He goes, ERIK LAWRENCE: You're numb. Yeah. Michael Green: You have plantar fasciitis in both feet and bone spurs. I'm like, I don't even know what that is, you know. and I was like, My feet don't hurt any more now that I'm out of the military than they did when I was in the military. And he goes, ERIK LAWRENCE: Ha ha ha. Michael Green: That's that's the problem, you know. he goes, though that's not normal. He goes, civilians don't have that kind of pain. And he just started going up the list, you know, shoulders, back, you know, all these different things. And I'm like, Doc, I feel fine. Like how I mean I know my back was injured. I go, but I mean I feel fine. And he's like, yeah. He goes, well the reason why your rating was so low, mainly for your back, is he said, You can like go touch your toes. And I touch my toes and he goes, Okay, you can touch your toes and that's that that shows range of motion. He goes, But let me ask you, when does the pain start? And I go, as soon as I start moving forward. And he goes, That's where most people stop. They stop when they feel pain, you know? And it's it's it's not it's not just me. There's nothing special about me, but anyone that's been ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: in the military has been trained to touch their toes, you know, to do push ups and all the other stuff. And so you just eventually I think you just I think you just get so used to it that you don't think about those things. and then as as I got older, it's it's interesting because as I got older, you know, and try to do different things. 'Cause 'cause I mean in my in my mind, You and I are still nineteen year old kids, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: But when we start to do something really quick and you're like, that hurts, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: so it appears different than than what's going on, you know, in the rest of the body. And you know, that that that's been some times where, you know, that's kind of caught up. And you know, it's it just it there's other things that we do, you know, that That just made it worse, you know. I mean, even after I had that compression fracture, I remember going through Sephardic and we were doing this drill r right towards the end where we were practicing roping in to windows, you know? And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I was like, this is so cool. This is like something out of a movie, man. And I roped in and I I got carried away and I went in through that window as fast as I could and then I didn't break in time and my butt went flat on the ground and then from the From the tailbone up to my neck, it just was in constant pain. And I'm like, I'm not I'm not gonna make it through Sephardic, dude. I'm on I'm on the final exercise, you know, like what what's gonna happen? And went to Doc and he just gave me a bunch of Motrin, you know, and made it through, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: you know. But you know, y you just y at the time, it's it's interesting because at the time when all that's happening, at that age, we we just don't feel it. And I remember I was in El Salvador and I broke my pinky toe and the toe right next to it. And I went to the medic and he's like, Yep, you you you broug you broke those toes, man. I go, Well what can we do? Because the next day we had a twelve mile road march and he goes, Well, I can give you motion and tape together. I'm like, tape together, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: what's that doing? He goes, Well, it keeps together. And so, you know, I I think I was in my late twenties, early thirties, you know, and I did a twelve ERIK LAWRENCE: Ha ha ha. Michael Green: mile road march, you know, with two broken toes. And you think, Well, okay. that that's great. But now if I stub a toe, I think I'm down for a month, you know? The ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: the th the the body's ability to to to react or ch I mean as we grow older, you know, our reactions, you know, and how our body shuts down and stuff like that. It's just it's crazy that at that age you think you're invincible because you can, you know, break your hand, not have full use of it, and they they say, well that's a That's an injury you'll never recover from. We're gonna kick you out of the military. And then next thing you know, you're still in the military for another ten years. And, you know, it's like it's it's crazy that how much more things hurt now than they did when we were younger, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: the I think the the biggest I think my biggest regret about not taking care of my body when I was younger was my diet. You know, because as ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: I get older w it was just it becomes more and more difficult to lose visceral fat, you know. but you know, I I I cr I think I I pretty much, you know, after I got out of the military contractor for about seven years, six of those years were just an utteral spiral, you know, just just going down and down and down. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: at ups and downs the whole time mostly down. you know, self-medicated drinking all the time. you know, relationship issues, you know, destroyed a family life, got divorced. and then next thing you know, after about six years, still contracting and then you know, got married again and then, you know, started changing a little bit at a time, trying to get a little bit better. getting back into shape, started doing the whole CrossFit thing, you know, getting all the different certifications, and just working out all the time. And then just went to the opposite, you know, I think in twenty ten, I think I was in better shape in twenty ten than I was when I was in the military, you know. was work working out two to three times a day. but it just it wasn't sustainable, you know. at least ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, of course. Michael Green: at least you know, you know, starting a a new family and everything. and then of course family life, you know, gets bigger and and next thing you know, you start dropping off again. You know, you s sitting behind a desk doing some some paperwork forever. It seemed like you know, you just get those those those positions where it's like, I'm a paper pusher for the next year or so, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and then it was you know, after kids, then it's all of a sudden, you know I think it's it's a big change. for it was a big change for me because, you know, just trying to get down on the ground with kids and get back up started becoming, you know, those those especially my back and knees, 'cause I had I've had two knee surgeries, you know, one when I was in the military and one right when I got out. And it just it just started hurting all the time. And I noticed there was a there was a there was consistency or a correlation that I noticed. I was in pain, but my mobility was worse when I didn't work out. So yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: yes. Mobility's huge. Yeah. Michael Green: And and the other thing is that we get this, you know, like like, hey, I've seen dudes that are like a hundred percent disabled and nerve PT and working their butt off and people are like, Hey, how that guy, you know, claiming disability like and then I'm seeing myself in you know, like with a certain amount of disability and I'm out there and I'm working really hard. And it's like, but it still hurts. You know what I mean? Like it's still Yeah, it's still painful, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. And you're still doing it. Yeah. Michael Green: you know. And so when I see those guys that are a hundred percent but they're still working out and they're in great shape, it's because if they're not working out, they're gonna still be in pain, but they're gonna be less mobile, you know? And so, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yep, immobile. Michael Green: I I I I think the other thing is the the more you work out, the more your body adjusts to it, you know. I mean it's still s there's still pain involved with working out, but I've definitely noticed that my back, especially my back, is if I'm not working out, like I I gained I gained like forty or fifty pounds. I wasn't doing anything. I was doing everything you should to rest and recover, you know. and my back hurt the worst. The ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: worst. And then when I started running and working out again, I was like, Okay, th it still hurts. It hurts when I work out. But as far as my mobility and ability to do stuff and and my and I had less pain of sitting around, you know, getting up and down. And so it just it just started I started realizing that I need to stay mobile. And then, you know, hanging out with the kids, playing ball with you know, doing jujitsu with kids. it's like, yeah, if I was if I was still the same weight I was in the same kind of pain I was, there's no way I'd be able to do that with my kids. And so that's ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: that's I think the biggest saving grace for me. because I was I was spiral spiraling down just like everybody else that we know, you know. And I I could be I could be just like one of those other guys that I know that's, you know, my age but looks like he's eighty and not able to get up and get down. and then like I said, you know, every you know, we've been taking the kids to Thailand pretty much once a year, you know, for the last couple of years to Muay Thai camp, you know. and it's great. You know, I can I can tell, you know, my my resting heart rate gets lower. my the activity that I'm doing, I have my heart rate is not spiking as high as it was as when I first started, you know. and so I I can see that. I mean I still feel the same. I feel like I'm, you know, still fat and out of shape, but when I when I see, you know, these other guys that are taking breaks, not working out twice a day, they're just, you know, at these camps. Well, what's wrong with these guys? They're paying to be here and they're not working out twice a day. Like, why not? And you talk to them and they're they're much younger and they're like, Well, you know, I'm hurting and I'm sore and this and that. I'm like, ERIK LAWRENCE: Ha ha ha. Michael Green: dude, I'm paying. I'm paying out of pocket for this stuff. So I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure that my kids are here every day and they're working out twice a day, you know. and I wish my parents did that with me when I was their age, because you know, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yes, sir. Michael Green: it and and my kids or like the first year they weren't too they were they weren't so excited about going, but the second year they couldn't wait to go, you know? And it's really cool seeing that, you know. they really enjoy it. But but the the the the other thing that's just really I I think the Achilles heel for most of us is alcohol, man. When I I'll go through these phases ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: where I I didn't I think I think the whole time I was in Texas and in when I was in Texas I don't think I I really I could probably count on one h one hand like how many times I drank. because in Texas you can carry a gun everywhere, you know? And and so I'm like, Well, I'm I'm just not gonna risk it. And I noticed that my overall feeling about everything, every part of my body was so much better. And then you know, you spend a weekend and you start drinking and next thing you know, you're just like, Wow, where did you know, like I used to be able to drink all the time and hang out and now it takes me like a whole weekend to recover. and and it's and I've figured it out. It's drinking's like working out. You work out one time and you haven't worked out in years, you're gonna be sore, right? So you drink one time and you haven't ERIK LAWRENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha. Michael Green: drank in years, you're gonna be hung over for a long time. and I just I don't have the ability to drink every day to get used to it, so that that's not gonna ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: happen anymore. So I I definitely try to try to abstain from alcohol, but I would say completely eliminating it is not out of the realm of possibilities. but you know we'll see. But the the other thing I think that helped out a lot was you know I had one of those health monitors whoop strap so I had a whoopstrap for a long time and that monitors you know your your your resting heart rate Max heart rate, your sleep, everything. and I s I got that idea from talking to some of the cadre from the AFSOC community that teach that pre-selection. And they talked ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: about the different monitors that they had on all these all the candidates when they came through and they could tell, you know, what worked and what didn't work, and better yet, the students could too. And they said that ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Michael Green: that the the goal was like they wouldn't have to tell them not to drink. And and a lot of their candidates are underage, you know, they're they're under twenty one. And they know, you know, they don't they don't have to tell They know they shouldn't be drinking. But some of will go home or or that night or whatever and they'll drink a beer with dinner or something like that. But they see the data the next day on their performance. And he the the the the cadre he was this this guy was telling me he's like so without us telling them or saying anything to them, they see that data point and then they stop drinking because they realize ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, self correcting. Michael Green: Yeah. And they said that's the the best thing they could ever do for these folks because when they get to be our age, you know, they're not gonna have to pee sitting down first thing in the morning because their back hurts, you know. because they're already learning proper diet, nutrition and physical, you know, exercises and then the the recovery phases. Which that was the other thing about the the whoop strap was it was telling me when I was working too hard, which you never think about because if you work too hard, you ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Michael Green: gotta recover more, you know. mean I wouldn't say working too hard, it just the recovery was not equal to the amount of of stress that I was ERIK LAWRENCE: Too too close together. Michael Green: putting on my body. Yeah. And then I got rid of the whoop strap just after I don't know, I had it for a long time, but then I eventually got a it's called an Amaz fit or heliostrap. and I've been using that for the last six months or so I just started that and it's again it's helped me out with especially my recovery. You know, that's that's really the biggest thing is is recovery 'cause you know, I get up and I work out in the morning with my son and then we'll go in the afternoons we'll go to the gym and what I was seeing was, you know, I'm tired at work. And then when I started wearing that the helio strap, I started realizing, well the reason I'm tired at work is 'cause I'm not sleeping enough, you know. you think you are, but you you you see the data it's able to show you, you woke up four times in the evening and you know, you were awake for approximately twenty minutes total. It's like, I did not know that, you know. and so it's helped me work on on getting better rest, not eating before going to bed, because that was another thing I could tell. If I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: eat before going to bed, my sleep, my recovery is terrible. And it's if if I wasn't measuring it, I would I would never know, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: You wouldn't know. Yeah, you can't fix what you don't measure. Mikey, that I Michael Green: And so ERIK LAWRENCE: I've mirrored everything you've done, pretty much. And I'm like, Michael Green: wow. Wow. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: damn it, that means this is programmatic across our our class, you know. And and I used to laugh. I don't know if you remember back in the day they they invoked a two beer limit per day in group. And I'm like, Yeah, first one and last one, you know? And I was like, Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: What a moron, you know. I mean we Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: we didn't understand nutrition. The alcohol was so normal. You you wouldn't leave the team room without having a couple, you know. And Michael Green: yeah. yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: you're the most physically fit alcoholics in the army. And y Yeah. And Michael Green: Alcoholics. Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: one thing you brought up that we never knew anything about was survivor guilt. Michael Green: Mm, yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: I mean that was never mentioned, never brought up, never no idea until years later when it hits ya, you're like, what the fuck is going on here? And you got the anniversaries, you got seeing guys, you know, and and and it's like, fuck me, you you had no idea that would be an issue later on. And if the guys are so hard now, they're like, it doesn't matter. No, it will matter. All this stuff Michael Green: You. ERIK LAWRENCE: will matter. It will culminate into an issue. Michael Green: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. No doubt. I think that's important, you know, just like just like the you know, when we first got out, you know, the VA and getting disability was not a not a priority. It's like, no, I I don't need I'm good, I'm good. But one doctor explained ERIK LAWRENCE: No. Michael Green: it to me just like you said. He said it doesn't matter now to you, but it will. He goes ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: i i it at a minimum is what you want is you want that shoulder injury that you got hurt while you were on active duty. It's they're showing right now that it's not service related. And I go, Yeah, it is, you know, I got injured on a jump ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and, you know doc fixed it in the team room it's not my records and he goes yeah that's exactly right he goes but guess what that's ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Yeah. Michael Green: gonna get worse I'm like no it's fine man it's fine and then I remember in Iraq this guy comes out with a revolver and pushes it to another guy's head and goes click click click and I went to draw my pistol and the pain with the body armor pushing down caused me to go to my knees and so I'm standing on my I'm kneeling pushing my gun up but luckily it it did at that point because th the gun was it was empty, right? It was a revolver, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and he was playing a j it was two Iraqis playing a joke on each other, you know. And it's just like, dude, I almost killed you, you know. If I if I didn't have that shoulder ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: injury I probably would have, you know, but but it it just ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, you would have. Michael Green: i it it was that point where it never ever bothered me and then I came back and I was like, Doc, okay, let's let's look at that shoulder, you know. because eventually it does catch up, you know. Just like my back, you know. I always thought my back was never they said, your back's gonna hurt. I would run, I would do all this crazy stuff. And then one day I was shooting around a barricade and I I leaned around the barricade and I shot and I couldn't move back. So I I had to holster and then walk to my car and drive home like this, you know? 'Cause I was stuck like that, you know. It's like what the hell? but yeah, it it's gonna matter. just like you said, you know, for the longest time, you know, coming back from Iraq after, you know, a couple incidents and you you think it doesn't bother you, but when you start self medicating and just pounding the alcohol, it's like, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: man, what you know, what's what am I doing to myself? You know, and all you're doing is thinking about your buddy and you're like calling calling dead friends and leaving them voicemails, you know, it's like how creepy is that? You know, the guy's dead, you know? It's like ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Well do do you delete him out of your contact list? that's my problem. I'm like I'm like Yeah, I'm not gonna delete him, but I don't think I'm calling him anytime soon, you know? so that's that's psychologically Michael Green: Yeah, yeah ERIK LAWRENCE: taxing, but but also Mikey the TBIs, the TBIs Michael Green: Good question, man. ERIK LAWRENCE: buddy, is what pisses me off because we ate so many charges. I'm here to tell ya most of my issues. I have no doubt came from the T VIs. The bad decisions, the slurred speech, the anger issues. and then I finally went to a neurodoctor years ago and he's like, dude, I don't even know how you fucking function. You know, you should be fucking retarded. And it took us a long time to work through to where you could touch and, you know, be balanced again. And our heavy metal exposure was huge. That was a big deal. So I harp harp on detoxing constantly now. You know, saunas, plunges, sweating, you know, doing colonics, enemas, whatever. Because we're we're a big filter, you know, and if you don't clean that filter, how is it gonna function? You know, you're gonna you're gonna have a hard time losing weight. You're gonna have a hard time thinking Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: if things are just full. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: And So I I harp on that maybe too much, but I I think it works, you know. It's it's why we still Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: look nineteen, you know, to some. but lifestyle, you know, how you you Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: like you said, you created a schedule. We work off schedules. That's that's Michael Green: Mm-hmm. ERIK LAWRENCE: where we have a mental comfort. And when we do that and you create your detoxing within that, along with recovery, because we never recover long enough. That's a good idea. Michael Green: Mm-hmm. ERIK LAWRENCE: I need to do the tracking myself, 'cause I kinda blow that off. But at our Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: age now you you really have to recover much more than you think. Michael Green: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, no the I've never done any type of detoxing. I you know I've I've do saunas and stuff like that. but the one thing that I would 'cause I was looking at a detox probably almost seven years ago I was looking at it at doing detox. And then I had this I I was looking at these different things to do. There was a what is that a water not a w what is it sh juice fast or something like that juice detox thing ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Michael Green: and I was like, man that's expensive. Am I cheap ass making, you know, more than enough money, you know? I'm like, that's it ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, come on, Red. Michael Green: I'm like, that's expensive. I'm like, I wouldn't why would I pay that much money for this juice, you know, the detox. And then while I was Googling that, Waterfast came out. And I was ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: like, ooh. Tell me about this water fast. Ooh, how much is this? You know? Yeah. S ERIK LAWRENCE: It's free. Yeah, it's free. Michael Green: So I was looking at doing this water fast thing and then a buddy of mine, he lived in Mississippi and he calls me up. He goes, Hey man, he's like, I'm I'm getting ready to do chemo. Will you do will you do a fast with me? I'm like, bro I I just s I was just looking online about a water fast. He goes, man, he goes, Will you do this with me? And we'll text each other every day. He goes, the doctor told me if I do chemo or if I do this before my chemo, I'll recover faster. And I'm ERIK LAWRENCE: Yes. Yes, sir. Michael Green: like Bro, I I'll do it. And so I would do it and I we would text each other every day. He's Did you eat anything? no, dude, all I had was water. I put salt in it though, you know, we we'd share these tips ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Yeah. Michael Green: and stuff like that. And it was weird because I think it was like day three or four, all of a sudden Everything was like the matrix, like I was Neo. I could see everything. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: And then my skin. My skin I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: had like ashy stuff just peeling off of my coming out of my skin. And I was like, what is this? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I had to look it up and it was basically saying that's all the impurities coming out of your body. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: And I was like, holy cow, 'cause my diet was terrible, terrible, when I started that fast. And then he did his chemo and I went to see him after, a couple months after. Dude looked amazing, man. he was crushing ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: it in the gym and he was complaining because he wasn't where he was. And I'm like, bro, and he's ten he's ten years older than me, you know? but Yeah, just just phenomenal shape and he attributed it to you know, a big part of that he said his for his recovery was that fast. And so I think about once a year I do a fast. Yeah. Okay. Right on. ERIK LAWRENCE: I I a hundred percent. Yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah. No, I've I've done two weekers, I've done three weekers. dude, your brain gets so hyperactive. You can write like ten books in a week. You can you don't sleep, you're hyper, Michael Green: You're ERIK LAWRENCE: you're you're PT, you're walking, the whole house is clean, and you feel phenomenal after day three because you're not hungry. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. It's all here. ERIK LAWRENCE: Up up until and you're killing you're killing all them parasites in ya. Them parasites Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: are pissed off, going, Motherfucker, feed me some sugar and carbs And then once you don't, you know, and that's but Mikey when you fast you have to do colonics, man. Because the shit you kill off in you is so vile and toxic. I have seen people do a twenty-one day fast and they're like, nothing'll come out You're like He goes, Buddy, what came out was alien shit. He goes, it was the most vile, toxic things that's ever left his body. Because you're killing everything and eliminating it. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: So you gotta constantly flush. And that'll Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: that'll double your fast if you do that effective wise. Michael Green: Well, you know, now that you say it, the the very first time that I ever ever did the fast, the first year I ever did it, you know, the only thing I missed was coffee, you know. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: I like, you know, like like a bold, dark coffee with thick, heavy cream, you know. And so I put that thick, heavy cream and some coffee, and that's all I wanted to do is drink it. And that's the only thing that I did. And it was on a I think it was on a Friday or a Saturday and I drank that. I spent the whole weekend on the toilet, man. And I started Googling ERIK LAWRENCE: Yes, sir. Michael Green: like how to break a fast. And everything was like, do not, do not ERIK LAWRENCE: Huh. Michael Green: break it fast with a coffee. And just like you said, dude, there ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Or milk. Michael Green: was yeah, yeah, exact. And so there was like it I don't know how, but like after seven days, it Looked like like seaweed and some weird, like just alien shit. And I was like, What where did it come from? You know, and why can't I stop? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. There's parasites, Mikey. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah, but it to yeah, but it's weird because I haven't really had that same experience, you know, since then. Okay. ERIK LAWRENCE: No, you won't. No, you've they're gone. Yeah, yeah. No, and that's the thing, it's like when you do a liver cleanse, what you see changes as it gets healthier. It'll start out really dark, then it'll kind of go a brown, then it'll go a green, and then it'll be like pea green, and that's like clean liver stones that haven't been in your body for a decade or two. And once that liver's functioning, things process, dude. So I mean you kinda wanna do before your water fast, do a liver fast, which takes a couple days. Then you do a juice fast, and then do your water fast. Pff. Dude, your whole body's rebuilt. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's in the Michael Green: I'm gonna have to check that out. yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: book, buddy. I mean, I've I've researched his shit. I've I've gone through every modality known to man as a guinea pig. Whether it's all the psychedelics or it's all the fasting, all the whatever's And and I had to, Mikey, you know, 'cause when you spiral, man, you you get desperate. And but Michael Green: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: also, you know, don't discount like your buddy saying, Hey, do this fast with me. You know, there's gotta be fire support amongst elements. You know, and if you see Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: somebody spiral and pull them aside and go, hey motherfucker, let's talk about this shit. You know, how do we triage this? My big thing is on triaging the guy. And go, what do we have to do today to get you through to tomorrow? And then what do we have to do Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: for a week? What do we have to do for a month? And we can do we can self-correct that with guys, you know, but we have to go stop. What are you doing? I've stopped guys on the street, Mikey. I said, dude, what is going on? And they Michael Green: Mm-hmm. ERIK LAWRENCE: went to treatment, they're doing better, and they're out fixing other people. Michael Green: Yeah. No, that's it, man. I think you know we were talking earlier about, you know, you you see it now, there's a ton and ton of programs out there, you know, for for young folks to get ready to go to selection and to go to, you know, MarSock or Ranger Battalion or you know, pre rip or or rasp, whatever they're calling it these days, or pre buds. And you know, I I think is is what would really, really, you know, be great is is is the programs like we were talking about is hey how how about programs for you know old broken guys to get back into shape, you know? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I think you know I I just I did not know that you that you wrote that book until I think it was earlier this week, you know. so ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I I I was like wow I did not know that. Now it makes sense, you know. but you know I I think that would be really great because the other thing that's missing like with us is yeah, you can read a book is there there needs to be some kind of like community, you know, for that. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: you know, the guys I worked with overseas, they're they're still a lot of are still doing that, the contracting thing, you know. If If if I hadn't you know, if I if I was still contracting, I that's that's probably where I would be, would be, you know, still doing the overseas deployments, working out, you know, once or twice a day overseas, eating better, and then you know, coming back is obviously the the biggest problem and issue is readjusting to being back in the States. But if I were able to maintain that like a lot of these guys are today, I think that's that's really important. but they they have that. that network when they get back overseas, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: but when they stop they stop going overseas, they don't have that network anymore, you know, they they they may stay in touch with a few guys. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. You're on your own. Yeah. Michael Green: But I think a community would probably some kind of a group thing you know might help. maybe ERIK LAWRENCE: Well, there's a couple of places like Randy's foundation is also tied in with it's called MVP, merging veterans and players. So it's like a collaboration of former military and former athletes and they get together like once a month at certain gyms around the country and they'll do a talk and then they'll do a workout. It's quite successful, but it's still small and fledgling. But it's kinda like that concept, but it's not all the time. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: and also years ago, I had a program that sent me to Exos. which is like a professional rehab center. I did that for six Michael Green: yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: weeks, me and one other is jar head I was with. And we were going Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: through brain treatments, but we were doing that also. And they they did nutrition. I mean you had trainers, you had I mean it was like what you're talking about. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: It's quite doable. And I don't think it was that expensive, truthfully. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: but it's exactly what you're talking about. Because it got us back on to the modern training program of Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: recovery and nutrition and proper lift and proper ergonomics and mobility. They really were big into mobility. so Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: something like that, we could put something like that together, but you know, it falls down to a guy has to do it too, you know. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. No, I remember that Exos. I remember it started out in in Arizona. It was I think it was called ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: Athletes Performance initially. and I had heard about it when I was in the military. Some of the guys over at the unit there would tell me about ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: it. And so I looked it up and then you know, when I got out of the military, you know, I started looking more into it and then it changed to Exos, you know. And then I had that one my one buddy, that was telling you about that had chemo, he actually went there. and he raved about it too, man. And I ran ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: into some other folks that ri that went. And I I think that's a great idea. I looked at going 'cause I guess they have the one in Florida now. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Yep. Michael Green: I was like, man, I'm gonna do that and then I just never got around to it, you know. But it may be something on the in the future, but as far as like like you were saying, your diet, nutrition and your fitness, all it's a holistic adventure I think and You know, I think that's good. I mean I I I'm kinda I do that to myself when I go on these two week summer camps to Thailand. I'm making sure ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: I'm eating right, you know, I have I'm making sure I have I'm I'm I'm not really good at staying up on my supplements, but when I go there I'm ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: every day, you know, I'm taking ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: you know, I'm making sure I'm hydrating, you know, and getting my electrolytes. ERIK LAWRENCE: you have to there, yeah. Michael Green: Yeah. but You know, I'm I'm pretty much you know, today, you know, when I get up in the morning I take a multivitamin, fish oil and vitamin D. I think vitamin I think you got me hooked on vitamin D. I remember years ago you gave me you gave me some ERIK LAWRENCE: D is important. Michael Green: s you gave me some supplements. You said, I got a buddy who runs a supplement company or and you gave me a box of supplements. I don't ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: but I there was I don't remember which one of the the the one of I still take to this day. It's not from I don't order it from there, but I I get the 'cause I'm a cheap bastard. But ERIK LAWRENCE: Ha ha ha. Michael Green: I think it was vitamin D and and I had yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, people don't get enough D they don't get enough sun and it's hard to supplement with and you have to take zinc with it too, 'cause zinc Michael Green: Yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: lets your body kind of absorb it. But that that keeps your bone strong too. And people don't understand that, you know, these older people, they fell and broke their hip. No, they broke their hip and then they fell because they have no bone density, 'cause they don't do any contraction of the bone piezoelectric to make it stronger. Lifting, jumping, running, walking keeps the bone strong, you know, you gotta have that compression. And just Michael Green: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: you see people, I mean, I I I don't know, I've been to a a couple I had to take a bunch one of my Sante guys to a one of their reunions and dude they're twenty years older than us. And my God, it's like, Michael Green: Yeah, at least. ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah, but twenty years isn't that long. I'm like, I'm not gonna be that in twenty years. I mean we're pushing them around in wheelchairs and shit, you know. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: I'm like, damn, but they were worse than us on the drinking, the the PT and the eating shit, the you know, it's just it's it's a lifestyle. We we've gotta transform a l a healthy lifestyle and make it normal. You know, y Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: imagine what your kids are getting when you take to these trips in Thailand and see focused training Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: twenty four hours a day. You know, that's gonna help them way down the line. Michael Green: Yeah, no doubt, man. I ERIK LAWRENCE: We didn't have that. Michael Green: yeah. I I took my son to a judo class and there was this instructor ERIK LAWRENCE: I love judo. Michael Green: and I mean he's he's obviously older, you know, and he let this little girl throw him, you know. and he rolled over her. And like like a ninja dude, like a cat, he jumped right back ERIK LAWRENCE: Jump right back up. Michael Green: up. I was like, wow And then so ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: later that evening I was talking to him and he told me he was seventy seven years old. And I was like, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: Wow and he goes, Well he goes, I I'll I'll be seventy eight in a couple months, you know? And I was like, my gosh. And I you know, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Michael Green: I s I slapped his back and or then I touched him on the back, like, that's it's really good. ERIK LAWRENCE: Like a rock. Michael Green: Yeah, exactly. And I was like, my gosh, you're heart and he goes like this, you know, and let me you know, squeezed his bicep. I was like, bro, you're you're in better shape than me. And he goes, No, no, no, no, no, no. You know, but ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: amazing, amazing. Like somebody that I'm like my you know, I will look up to and my son will look up to this guy, you know, forever. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: but, you know, a and definitely ERIK LAWRENCE: But that's his lifestyle. Michael Green: Yeah, yeah, you know. I mean he's he he does it like once or twice a week, but he's I was talking to him, you know, and he's like working out on the weekdays when he's not doing judo and stuff like that ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and just just constantly, you know, walking and doing things and it's just like, wow, like like and and he's been doing judo for all these years and they say, Well, you know, judo, you should never do judo when you get older 'cause you're gonna get hurt, you know? I'm like ERIK LAWRENCE: shit. Michael Green: Dude, this guy, yeah. I'm like, wow. and so I started doing judo. Of course I got hurt like the first couple of months, but I got smarter now, you know. Yeah, yeah. but ERIK LAWRENCE: But you were doing it. You'll heal up, yeah. Yeah, I remember my sensei in Okinawa. This dude was like, I guarantee you 75 all day. He was in charge of karate in Okinawa. So he was like the man. And he would just tap you and you'd feel like you're gonna snap. You know. Everything on that man was like solid bone. And he would do them flips and rolls and he's doing five classes in a day. And we're doing two and we're like dead. And I'm like, Jesus Chr Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: we're like, I don't know, twenty five, twenty six, you know. Just brutal. We'd go down to PT the next day and we couldn't walk and we're black and blue Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: and I'm like, we gotta quit one of these one of these armies. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: I don't know which. Yeah. But damn Michael Green: It's it's it's it's amazing seeing that. I think it's it's truly an indicator, you know, when we see folks like that because, you know, I don't you know, I've seen and heard of what do they call blue ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, blue zones. Michael Green: Blue zones, yes. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and and you know what? I mean, dealing with Japanese and Okinawans, you know, it's pretty obvious that that there's a reason why they live to be so long, you know, they're constantly ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: staying at you know, staying at it, doing different things, being part of the community and stuff like that. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Michael Green: that was that was definitely one of the reasons why I started, you know, getting more fit. just I remember squatting, going I can't squat, you know. And you know, and now man, I'm I'm doing the Kemchi squat all day long, you know. I s I need yeah, yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. I do it routinely. If you don't have something to do, take a squat. Michael Green: Yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: And that helps because my the compression injuries are are if you don't work the back, Michael Green: Mm, yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: you don't stretch the back, it you can't get out of bed. You can't get in and Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: out of a car. I've been there when when you gain the weight, the back just goes to horrible. But if you maintain it, it's you know minimal. Michael Green: Yep. Yeah. No, that's the first thing I do in the morning, dude, is I get up and I'll just go to a full squat, sit on my you know, my my butt on my heels and just it's amazing 'cause I couldn't do that when I first started doing that, you know? And as ERIK LAWRENCE: Course. Michael Green: far as my mobil overall mobility, I think that's been probably one of the most effective things that I've done. you know, now I can get down and up with the kids, no problem, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: but that it's silly that it would it would take having kids again to to ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: r to, you know, kind of realize what, you know, you have to do. And I think that's that's the other difference is, you know, most folks our age don't have young kids, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: No. Michael Green: so they don't have to and they may have grandkids, you know. but I s I just wanted to be able to get down and up with my kids, you know. kid my my my you know I got one one's a teenager, you know. He's almost as big as me and so I definitely gotta stay in shape for him, you know. he likes to ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Yeah, you c you tune him up. Michael Green: he likes a rough house around so he's and he's getting stout man. So ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: that definitely keeps me on my toes. but it's it's I don't I mean I don't know what it's gonna take for most people. I think you know everyone's got a different situation and you know different circumstances everyone has their own demons, you know. and ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I think the the thing that's really helped me is, you know, starting a new family, rec I guess recreating myself. and it's weird because It's it's like I went back in time with, you know, a schedule, you know, and to this day ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I try to put everything down on a schedule, you know. My wife's like, This schedule thing is crazy, you know, like I have to have it, you know. It's just we don't it I mean we're gonna deviate from it, you know, but it doesn't it doesn't ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: mean that we have to do this exactly if something comes up, but in general, this organization especially kids, kids need they need that structure. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Consistency. Michael Green: Yep. Yeah. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Consistency Michael Green: Mm-hmm. ERIK LAWRENCE: equals accuracy. Michael Green: Yeah. and I'm I'm you know, the the the 'cause kids are really good at saying, I can do it. I did it. Yeah, but can you consistently do it, you know? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah. Michael Green: and that that changes, you know. but I definitely think that, you know, today with everything that's out there, if we really wanna do it, all we gotta do is look it up. You know, it's there. You know. Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: it's more available now than ever. I mean the programs, the trackers, the apps, I I Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: mean YouTube. Jesus God, you can learn anything you want on YouTube, you know? And you can vet everything. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: And back in the day we were like, he's he's in shape, I'm gonna do what he does. Yeah, well he drinks twelve beers a night, you know, I'm like Michael Green: Yeah, ERIK LAWRENCE: It's not gonna work, you know, long term, you know? And Michael Green: yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: w we just didn't know any better, Mikey. And and no and we and the guys kinda did. We kind of made fun of them, you know. I remember one of Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: my guys was reading that sealed nutrition handbook. I'm like, that's gay. Come on, man. Michael Green: yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: What do they know? Well, they knew nutrition better than us back then. Michael Green: Yeah. Yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: And you know, we we harassed him, you know, and he was a stud. He's a fucking great guy. But you know, we harass anybody for anything, you know, any chink in the armor, so it doesn't matter. Yeah, no slack. Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. No slack. Yeah yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, but that that's where I was talking to one of my teammates and he's like, We might have to guilt these people into this. Because as he says, no one's gonna wipe my ass when I'm old. It's not their responsibility, it's mine. I don't wanna be selfish and go, it's your turn to take care of me. So you gotta have a moral obligation to do the best you can with what you got. You know. And you're you're a great Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: example for the kid, you know. you know, you're getting that as a second chance. That's a hu huge thing. That's gonna help him throughout his whole life. You know, and Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: you know, we don't get some of that back. You know, but if we can Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: teach somebody else and I don't know, when you're young you don't listen to anything. But I really don't remember anybody telling us this kind of stuff. I really don't. Not at all. Michael Green: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. No one no one did. You know. I I mean, we've all we've all strayed, done crazy things. you know, when I when I talked to those guys over at AFSOC, I talked to the the the the NCOIC over there and he dude, I mean, he was huge. Dude was like probably two fifty, almost three hundred pounds. Looked more like a WWE wrestler than a PJ, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Really? Michael Green: And yeah. And he's like, Yeah, I've been in this, I've been in charge of this program since the inception. And he goes, when they first started it, I was a hundred percent against it. He was like, just put some boots on put a ruck on and go. And I was like, Yeah, we we can do it all ourselves. We don't need contractors, we don't need outside help. And he goes, and we failed miserably. We failed miserably, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: over and over again. the goal was to have more people pass selection and and if anything, we've had less ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: people pass. he goes, We sent all our cadre, you know. To strength and conditioning schools, fitness, CrossFit, you name it. And we just failed miserably. And he goes, because they had other jobs, they're in the military, you know. And he goes, ERIK LAWRENCE: Hmm. yeah. Michael Green: and so until we contracted this out, he goes, we just looked at what the SEALs were doing and we said, What contract do you have? And then we said, Okay, we're gonna pay for that same contract. And he said, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah. Michael Green: It's been fantastic. You know, he said that they've got so many people passing their selection that they now want to make Selection harder. He's wait a minute, you you created this program, so we ERIK LAWRENCE: Huh? No no no no. Michael Green: and he's like, that's not what you know. and it's it's weird because you know, you know, back in our day, you know, when we went to selection, there was that that that it was more of a different attitude. If you don't have the self-discipline to get ready for selection, then it's on you. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: But this ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Michael Green: guy put it in perspective. He goes, think about it this way. He goes, today's youth, he goes, We have kids that joined the Air Force and they've never played a sport. They've never gone outside after school. They come home, they ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: get on their Game Boys, whatever, Nintendo, and they are just playing. And he goes, and then they come through basic training. He goes, now, granted, he goes, you know, it's just Air Force basic training. He goes, but you know, we found out why we were having kids come through a selection and they were failing is because they had already had bone fractures. And so is what they did was ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: they studied these kids coming in through basic training, and when they came to Avsox pre-selection, they already had stress fractures. And he ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: goes, what are we doing? And so they added an additional week to their program for recovery. So that first week turned ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah, let heal. Michael Green: into an admin week, you know. And they don't tell they're healing. They just tell them, we're gonna do all this admin stuff. We're gonna get you, you know, your physical, your, you know, your bed sheets, and you know, they just do everything administrative that they can in the very beginning, just to give them the opportunity to recover. and then the other ERIK LAWRENCE: Nice. Michael Green: thing is, you know, they're working out like three times a day, but one of those workouts may be a recovery workout where there's just foam rolling, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Michael Green: he said they're they and because they're being tracked on everything, is what they're doing is they're seeing when like like my goal of going over there was to say, Okay, how can I how can I take your fitness program and and have that for, you know, military and civilians that work together to have a a a joint, you know wellness program. And he goes, it doesn't work that way. I go, what do you mean? He goes, I can't give you a schedule because our schedule changes based on the feedback that we monitor the students. Our feedback, their feedback determines their next workout. ERIK LAWRENCE: Wow. Michael Green: Yeah. And ERIK LAWRENCE: Wow. Michael Green: and I'll tell you what, the the what they're building when I saw them putting them like the fitness stuff they were doing, it's like they're machines, man. They're not they're I saw a class that was towards the end of their prep time. And and what they're doing is they're they're they're they're almost not human. The the stuff they're doing is like at at such a high level that they they they're not burned out, they're not tired, they're not th they're they're not winded. And these these kids were doing sprints and carrying and all this other stuff. And I thought, that that's that's really awesome, you know. And I didn't I didn't think anything of it. And then we were utilizing one of the ranges on an Air Force base and they had a PJ class that was coming out to the they were so they'd already gone through selection. They'd been in the the pipeline for a while now. and they were doing their range stuff, you know, and they're they're shooting and I know, the the guy on the tower calls roster 42, start pushing, right? And so this kid starts, you know, at the beginning of the of the of the the PT test for the push ups, you did as many as you could as fast as you can, you know, but it only lasts about 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds if you're really good, you know. This guy must ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Maxed out. Michael Green: have must have done that same speed for five minutes straight. Like he didn't stop. He just can he just ERIK LAWRENCE: What? Michael Green: push, push, push, push. Yeah. And and then the the tower guy goes, okay, forty-two recover, you know, and he gets back on the line. And then all of them go to lunch or all the cadre, they all go to lunch except for two of them. And they stay and they take these these young kids and they start doing gorilla drills in the grass, you know, carrying each other, sprinting, this and that. And there ERIK LAWRENCE: No. Michael Green: was a there there was a female in the class and you would not tell like watching her performance from behind, you wouldn't be able to tell she was a female until you got closer and you saw my gosh. She was carrying those dudes just as as much as as as the rest of them. And they're going back and forth ERIK LAWRENCE: Incredible. Michael Green: doing this stuff. And and when they got done doing their sprints, instead of going and like like ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: the they were just turning around ready to go, like not even breathing hard. And I was like, this ERIK LAWRENCE: What? Michael Green: is insane. and I s and until I saw that right then and there, I realized that this isn't just something they do in their pre assessment. It it just continues on. And You y you see these guys today. I mean, you see a couple of I've been fortunate enough to run into some of these ki you know, kids. I don't want to even call them their kids. They're they're they're grown men, you know. But I mean, they're just in phenomenal shape, you know. I I did an exercise. ERIK LAWRENCE: Jealous. Michael Green: I did an exercise, I don't remember, it was probably about s t seven years ago. And they had some active duty S F guys, you know, come in and do this exercise with us. And so we're out We're we're running around town, we're doing different things, and then we're we're having this team meeting afterwards, you know. And the guys are like, the the SF guys, you know, they're like, Hey, well, we can't make that time. Like, what do you mean? Like you're on our time. Like, yeah, but we we all have to go to the gym. And I'm like, you guys are gonna go to the gym, you're T D Y, you know? And ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and the whole the there was like four or five of them. They w it wasn't they were part of a team, but not the whole team, you know. And Man, they went e they were like a religion. They went every day, you know. And I was like, Wow, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: man, like back in my day we you know, w if shit, if we were T D Y and we got done working, we'd go to the bar, you know? And they're like ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, straight to drinking. Yeah. Wow, it's they're gonna do better later. They're gonna be much healthier. Less injuries. Michael Green: But they were adamant. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. every every one of Yeah. Every one of you know. and they were talking about the I don't should I don't remember the the what's that the the program they have now. I can't remember the yeah, yeah. They were talking about the Thor program. Like I'm ERIK LAWRENCE: Thor? Yeah. amazing. Michael Green: like, Are you are you pulling my leg? Yeah and they're like, ERIK LAWRENCE: Nope. Michael Green: No, we we have this Thor program, you know. And they were like, We have we have ERIK LAWRENCE: Mikey Michael Green: fitness programs. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. I visited first groups, I sat down and cried. I I I've never s it beats Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: NFL gyms. I mean they have strength coaches, speed coaches, physical therapist, twenty fucking bench press, twenty squat racks, just you know, and I'm like, we had a universal weight set and a set of dumbbells for a battalion. I'm like, You're kidding me, man. And Michael Green: Great. ERIK LAWRENCE: I was just like, this is a whole different army, man. Yeah. Michael Green: It is, it is. I'd say, you know, there there's a couple of dudes I've ran into that are, you know, they're out of the game, they're not working with the military, but they see this stuff online and you know, they're all these kids aren't hard like we were. I'm like, No, you're right. They're smarter than we were, you know. And and they're fitter than we were, you know. but no, I I think it was yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm. Smarter than we are, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, knowledge goes a long way. We we would have done it if somebody would have taught us. But it just wasn't a culture. Yeah. Michael Green: yeah, yeah. No. Yeah. No, they're they're they're doing great. I'll tell you the other thing is that it I mean it gives you faith in humanity when you see these kids. the kids, I keep saying that. They're they're I mean they're they're they're warriors, you know. and they they get after it, man. They get after it. I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: see it I see it all the time. you know, despite what the the internet tells us about the youth. These folks are out there and they're getting after it. And there's like I said, they're smarter than us, man. They you know, back in the day, it's like, hey, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael Green: you have the objective, you know, get to it. Like, I'm gonna go through the wall. And they're like walking around, opening the door and going, here you go. We're going in this way. It's like, Yeah. No, it's ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah, we were hard but we were knuckleheads. Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: it's awesome. It's awesome. And and and that's that's the thing is that like that old that old NCOIC told me, you know, he was like The goal is for these folks to have lifestyle changes now so that when they're our age, you know, they don't have these problems, you know. and ERIK LAWRENCE: Brilliant. Michael Green: I I I think it's working. I th you know, we'll see only time will tell. but the folks that are our age, I think the the the the thing that we have to do is, like you said, police up after them if we can. Let know, hey man, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: you know. and and I've seen that. I've seen guys, you know, at the gym will come up and they'll see me with my son and like, that's great, you know. Or someone sees me going into the gym and then afterwards like, hey, did you were you at the gym with your son? Like, yeah, you know. and they're like, How do you how do you do it? You know, how come you're not in pain? I'm like, yeah, that's what Motron is for, you know? Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, we we are. Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: but the other thing that really I I just I'm I'm a huge, huge advocate of is I don't like being in pain. I I hate the the recovery phase of, you know, just getting back after it. because you're there's always gonna be some kind of T D Y or some kind of something that's gonna, you know, push you off your your workout schedule. And then when you do start up, you you're gonna be sore, you know. And I think the one thing that I'm just a huge advocate of is supplements, you know. I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yes, sir. Smart. Michael Green: I I cannot I cannot express how much of a difference taken protein and creatine, vitamin D and a multivitamin you know, is just change yeah. Yeah. And and and like you s ERIK LAWRENCE: Well the fish oils, you know. Yeah. Yeah, we gotta lubricate. Michael Green: yeah. And like you said, you know, like zinc. I take zinc. There and so like during the day in the morning, you know, multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, those are the primary things. I know I I've been looking at maybe starting some BCAs in there, but definitely those things after I work out, protein. My son knows when we get back He's like s he brings the shakers out and he starts bringing the protein down right away. I don't even say anything. He just knows. but the other thing is at night when I go to bed, I take zinc, creatin, and magnesium. And I I think that that has been ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Magnesium, yeah. Michael Green: huge. And then when I'm in Thailand or, you know, doing some kind of crazy fitness thing, if I'm working out all the time, I'll take one of those like EAS packets, the meal replacement ones, you know. Cause it's got ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah. Michael Green: all those vitamins and protein and I I try to stay away from carbs, you know. I think I'm not I'm not ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: a fanatic about it, but I'm trying to do less and less carbs. So when I do my electrolytes, I'll take the sugar free, carb free electrolytes, you know. but ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Yeah, all that little stuff matters after a while. And you gotta do a lot Michael Green: yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: of it off your blood work. You gotta look at the blood work and go, What am I needing? And what time Michael Green: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: of day? And do I need food or not food with it? And there's and now you can AI all that crap. You can type take Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: pictures of everything you take, go, what's the best time and way to take this? And it'll go, take that in the morning, take that at night, take this with food, take this with you know, and we have no excuses anymore, Mikey. I mean when Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: in doubt you You you got a million ways to find out the data. And the creatin, Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: now they're saying take twenty versus five. And and it's helping the brain, you know, and we've Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. Yep. ERIK LAWRENCE: got to feed that brain. You know, the the brain eats cholesterol, the brain eats animal fat. You know, that's that's what keeps that functioning. And I think a lot of these folks, dementia and Alzheimer's and this and that is They they had shitty advice years ago. Eggs are bad for you. Bullshit. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Get outta here. You know, I mean, d eating a fat off a steak's bad for you. Shut up. No, it's not. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: How do you think we got here, moron? You know? It's like stop it. You know, you didn't just think of this shit. You know, eggs Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: just started being bad, seeing it's like the base element of any meal for the last couple of million years. Yeah, no, it's like stop it, man. You're killing me. Somebody's lying to me. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hundred per hundred hundred hundred ERIK LAWRENCE: But you know, if we can Michael Green: percent, man. ERIK LAWRENCE: we didn't have a baseline. If we'd had a baseline, Mikey, we could really be a guinea pig. You know, Natick would love that shit. But Michael Green: Yeah. yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: we don't have to have a baseline to go, too many TBIs, too many, you know, incidences which were never analyzed, you know, when you get back from your trip. Too much alcohol. Nutrition, my god, horrible. Just figuring out fasting. I want guys to do fasting every time they breach, you know what I mean? Because Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: if if the body can eat up unused proteins, well scarring of the brain is unused also. So we can somehow eat up the parts that are damaged. That's what fasting does with autophagy. So I I have no scientific way to figure it out. But you know, if you're actively breaching, you should be fasted three or four days a month. Because Michael Green: Wow. ERIK LAWRENCE: think about that, you wouldn't have buildup. Plaque build Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: up or injury build up and it just I I think later on you would just not have that problem. And that's detox. You know, we Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: gotta detox all the time. Michael Green: Yeah, no I I think the ERIK LAWRENCE: I'm glad you figured that out on your own by accident, you know what I mean? Water fasting Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: and your buddy with chemo. I mean it it shouldn't have to be haphazard. That's why I put Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: this four hundred freaking page book together, you know. So you can kinda go, well, I I like these things. I don't like these things. I'll do the ones I like in this order. 'Cause, you know, not everybody has time to read eighty books, you know. I do, but Michael Green: Yeah. Well, I I think you know the the one of the most important things that I learned is something you just pointed out was blood work. So I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I was taking vitamin D and you know five thousand units I use and ERIK LAWRENCE: it's nothing. Yeah, I use. Michael Green: I'm I'm like I'm good. And then I had a blood test and they're like, You're low on vitamin D. And I go, I take ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: five thousand and the guy goes, Well, he goes two things. He goes, You're probably not taking enough. And like you said, you're probably not taking it with fatty foods to help absorb it into your body. I'm like, what I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Absorb it, yeah. Michael Green: I take it on an empty stomach, you know? And he's like, There you go. And so I did I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, no. Michael Green: increase to ten thousand and I eat it with fatty foods, usually like meats or something like that and cheese. and now my my vitamin D is good. But there's all kinds of crazy stuff that you learn ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: about blood work. Like I was doing like a a high protein style, like Animal, you know, just eating meat, you know, like a carnivore diet. And so ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: I I did a blood work test and man, my cholesterol was through the roof, you know? And they tried to put me on statins, right? And so, yeah, ERIK LAWRENCE: God no. Yeah. Michael Green: and so I'm like, so I got the prescription and I looked it up and I saw all these side effects. And they made an ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: appointment with like the premier a heart doctor in in San Antonio. And I was like, my gosh. And so it I couldn't get it right away. So I had to wait, you know. And I'm waiting. I'm thinking, man, this statin stuff, my wife's worried. Like, what this is a serious thing, you know, they're telling you that basically you have plaque buildup in your heart and you're gonna die. And I'm like, my gosh. And so I go to see this ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Michael Green: doc and he's like I taught I gave him the statins, showed him and everything. And he goes, Well, did you take it? And I go, No. And he goes, Good, that stuff will kill ya. And this is the premier heart doc doctor, you know? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: And he's like, Man, you're in great shape. There's nothing wrong with you. And I go, What? He goes, Well well, he goes, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Michael Green: I he goes, I'm I'm he goes, Who he go, but my my doctor said and he goes, Look Your doctor's a general s you know, he's a family p he's a family doctor, you know? Like he doesn't ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: he goes, Who's who's the the the heart expert here? Who's the the specialist? I go, I guess you are. He goes, Yeah, exactly. Because I'll tell you what, I'm gonna clarify this. I'm gonna bring in another specialist. Okay, we're gonna make another appointment for you and we're gonna do like an ultrasound. it might have been an ultrasound. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep, to check the calcium levels. Yeah. Michael Green: Yep. And so we did. we went and I had to come back another week, you know. And he goes, he goes, there it is, it's proof. He goes, Your heart, you could run a marathon right now. He goes, You don't have to, ERIK LAWRENCE: Ha ha ha. Michael Green: but he goes, Your heart is good enough. I go, what about all this plaque and everything else? And he goes, Well what are you what are you doing, you know? And I I told him, you know, hey, you know, I work out and I'm I'm eating all this protein. He goes, He goes, I see it all the time. He goes, I see these guys doing this carnivore diets and stuff like that. The doctor tells them they're about to die. They come in. He goes, The plaque can be on the inside, it can be on the outside. And he goes, and I'm telling you, your heart is good. And I was like, man, I can't believe this. He goes, he goes, you you the other thing I can do is I I can give you a stress test and you know, put you on a incline and run and ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I go, I do that at the gym. What's you know? And he goes, see? He goes, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: You're you're good, man. And I ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I I went and had a one of those full body workouts. It took an physicals and it took almost ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: all day. They did everything, man. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yep. Michael Green: And they came back and you know, I was worried because I wasn't working out as as consistent as I should and everything like that. And I was worried and they were they said the same thing. They're like, You're you know, you have very high cholesterol worried about you, you know. But they you know, they did like an MRI and all ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, no. Michael Green: this other stuff, and they're like, But your heart, everything else, you're in excellent shape with the exception of your cholesterol. And I was like, Wow, you know. but you know, we've always been told, you know, cholesterol high, and and you know, of course we ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, it's bullshit. Michael Green: just recently find and now there's good cholesterol, bad cholesterol and they're saying, Well, you're ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, exactly. Michael Green: you're you're high on your good cholesterol like what what does that mean? You know, like i i ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: is it good or bad, you know? but I mean I I f Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: It lubricates, it heals, it it's fuel for the brain. I mean yeah, the number they wanna they want you on statins, dude. They wanna push drugs. The guy who invented statins, I spoke to him years ago and he's like, dude, don't ever take those. He goes, I'm sorry. W you know, time told the truth. And he's like, Yeah, they'll Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: they'll don't ever. If you got a buddy on get off of That's a dude who invented man. Yeah. Michael Green: Wow. I was I was scared, dude. When they gave me that stuff, I was worried. I I was I was gonna take it and then I started researching it. but yeah, it scared the crap out of me, man. You know, my wife was worried, I was worried. We're like, what the heck? but Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, but you always get second opinions and you always research the problem. You know? You y yeah, they would have had you doing all kinds of shit. Michael Green: Yeah. And then, you know, that would've been a cycle itself, you know, because once you start that, ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, appear. Michael Green: then there's something else coming up. You gotta take well you gotta to counter that statin, you gotta take this, you know, and you gotta take that. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and I see it, I see other people that are doing the same thing, you know, like they're taking like five or six pills, medication pills, you know. I mean, it's it's like you know, and they're expensive, you know. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: more than that, I mean, you see what the VA does, they'll give you a shoebox full and guys Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: are numbed out, you know, they don't have an idea that they're not treating anything, they're just masking everything. My my daughter Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: was born with an eye cancer fifteen years ago. I knew nothing about cancer at the time. And it wasn't her lifestyle 'cause she was one years old, you know what I mean. So Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: it was a very r very rare one. But I did a big cancer study after that. And you look at the countries with the least amount of cancer, it's good air, good water, good food, exercise, outside purpose. It's it's just what we talk about is like what the lifestyle's gotta be. 'Cause it it just Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: keeps the body harmoni harmonized. And you know, I've had a lot of buddies, you know, we they get the a lot of guys I think out at McCall, I think there's some kind of chemical exposure out there where guys are getting, you know, buck cancer. And I think they're covering that Michael Green: And and and and Mot Lake. ERIK LAWRENCE: up. Yeah, yeah, I think that's an issue, but that's where, you know, if you detox all the time and you do colonics and you do, you know, charcoal kind of detoxes, i it has to help. You know, it may not eliminate Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: it, but I've just seen too many examples of guys doing nothing and falling apart. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. you know, it's there's you know, been you know, been there, you know, over over two hundred ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and fifty pounds at one point and falling apart, everything hurt, you know, and it's like this has gotta change, I gotta do something, you know. And hit the gym and you know, that hurts even worse it seems like, but ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: It's in the long run, the mobility and everything else has made it so much easier to squat down and pick ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: my kids up, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, I hope guys will believe us when we say that, you know, because it Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: it there's no easy way to start. No workout's easy. If it's an easy workout, Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: it's not a workout. You know, you you Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: you're jerking yourself off. but recovery and like you're tracking, I I need to start doing that. I need to get the data from you on on how to do that properly because I'm kinda guessing a little bit. There's no point to that. I know better. Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. No, I I had the I had the whoop strap and the and so the guys it's interesting 'cause the the N C I C he introduced me to the to the the folks who had the contract for them that gave them all of the different monitoring devices they had. They had like five different devices ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: on like one on each wrist, something they wore on the ring, something they w another chest strap and then when they slept they had something on their foreheads. So it's five different things. And I'm like, ERIK LAWRENCE: Wow. Michael Green: what what's what's up with that? And they're like, well, like look at it like like a GPS, right? If you've got a a a GPS you want five satellites or one satellite? ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, how many satellites? Yeah. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: And so I I you know I talked to them and I said, Hey, you know, we'd I'd like to get something like this for our our organization, you know, the 'cause I work with military and civilians, but w what what do you recommend? And they're like, Nothing that we're using. And I'm like, Well, wait a minute, what you guys are using the best. And they're like, Yeah, but like each device kind of specializes and you don't want to wear five devices. And so they gave me a recommendation of three things, but two of they said I think they don't even use. It was the Phoenix Garmin. ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm. Michael Green: the other was a whoop strap and the other was like an aura ring. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and but they said the main one they recommended was the whoop strap because the Garmin requires too much too much calculations on your part. You know, you've got to do ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm. Michael Green: this and this this was years ago, so it may have changed. But they said that's probably the most accurate one, but you have to crunch all the data yourself to get what you're looking for. Whereas the whoop strap ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Yeah, guys won't do that. Michael Green: it did Yeah, and the the whoop strap was more convenient because it did all that for you. and then the ring, of course, you're you it's hard to work out if you're doing weights and stuff like that. So but ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. I can't do that, yeah. Michael Green: the yeah. And so I had the whoop strap for years. I really liked it. but it's a cer like it's a it's you don't just buy it, you you have a s you have a ERIK LAWRENCE: Subscription. Yeah. Th that's how they all make their money, yeah. Michael Green: Yeah, you have a subscription and then yeah. and then I got this this this Helios he Heliostrap from Amazon and it's it's pretty good. It's very similar to the whoop strap, but in in my opinion it's it's not quite there yet, you know. but it's but you pay for it, it's done, you know. it's not a it's not a service. You have all the data I just I just see it seems like you just have to constantly tweak it or or find the data. It's not telling you exactly what to do, whereas I felt like the the whoop strap was giving better feedback, you know. but for the price, man, I I think it's one of the best ones out there. Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Well I was gonna say, you're paying for that. Yeah, you're it's it's half a dozen one and you're a cheap bastard, so you know, we we you're you're gonna have like a parachute core tight around ya. When it's tight you're fat, when it's loose you're not. Yeah. Yeah, we know. It's it's southern man stuff, you know. Michael Green: Exactly, exactly. You know Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. Well, I mean that's that's the other thing, you know, is like most guys our age are are retired, you know. And you know, me I started a second career, and I'm not retired. So it's even harder, you know, for me, since I I'm not retired. To to get into the swing of things. But you know, I work around service members, so that makes me feel like I have to, you know, be little bit more fit. And but if I was retired, I look at all the other things I would do. Like I would definitely go to Exos or one of those places for ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: a couple of weeks. I would spend a lot longer than two weeks in Thailand. I'd spend like a month or two there. yeah, if I was retired, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Yeah. Michael Green: but it's just you know, what what are what's where are we investing our time? I think that's that's something that that people need to to to figure out. What are their priorities in life, you know? they change, you know, but I I'm telling you, you know, anyone that goes to to Thailand like I've seen it, I've seen dudes in Thailand, they go there, said they were only be there for two weeks and they're retired, nothing else going on, and six months later they're still there, you know. a solid ERIK LAWRENCE: in incredible shape, probably. Michael Green: yeah, dude. There was this guy from Spain, man, and he was big. He was big. And he's like, I love food, man, you know? And he would do a couple punches and kicks and he was bending over like I saw him, he you know, I saw him he was there for like a year. just a completely ERIK LAWRENCE: Damn. Michael Green: different person, you know. and it was like he's like, Yeah. like I still love food but you know I I I prioritize things now and boy man that guy looked great, you know. Lost a lot of weight. He's sitting there able to hang with the class now, you know, kicking butt. ERIK LAWRENCE: yeah. Michael Green: I I think it's it's it it it's just yeah, it's a lifestyle man. And and then the other thing is like how bad do you want it, you know? we go, we're working out a minimum of twice a day, but there's a lot of folks who go and you know they'll be there in the morning and then in the afternoon they're gone 'cause they're heading to club or whatever and then you don't see in the morning. Like w where were you? Wow, you know, it's tied what on, you know, and it was a little hungover and like, dude, you're paying to be here, you know? ERIK LAWRENCE: No. Yeah. Michael Green: but I mean the I I remember it and I I was in I was in Iraq and we had guys who were, you know, trying to stay out of the country, you know, the three thirty rule and is ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm, three thirty, yeah. Michael Green: what they would do is they would take their leave and instead of coming to going back to the States, they'd go to Thailand for a month and they'd come back and same thing, they were in great shape after a month, and they lost a ton of weight. They were built a ton of muscle and it was like wow. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I remember, you know, my one buddy went and he was like, Yeah, because I went there and, you know, we're working out twice a day and we're drinking all night and then we're getting up and we're doing it all over again and next thing you know, he's like guys that I was drinking with aren't in class. It's like I figured well ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: if I don't stop drinking, I'm gonna be like them. And so he just spent his time in Thailand for that whole month and just quit drinking for that trip because he saw the guys that were drinking not showing up to ERIK LAWRENCE: Mm-hmm. Michael Green: class. And he's like, I wanted this really bad and that guy came back in phenomenal, phenomenal shape, you know, just ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: lightning fast kicks and you know, powerful punches. I was like, wow, bro, like that really paid off for him, you know. and to this day that guy's incredibly fit. Yeah, yeah. yeah, he's around our age too. ERIK LAWRENCE: Well he wanted it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and and I we can't translate that, but you know, with the with the books and pointing to different programs and going, Hey, use this tracking app you know, they gotta take it on board, man. You know, it's it's just the way it Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: is, you know, and and I I had to walk away from guys that wouldn't do it. You know, you're like, Fuck you're killing me, dude. You know, Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: I I can't watch you just spiral into a hole. You know, you gotta you gotta pull out. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: So well I think we've harped on a lot of that, but I would like to do this whoop is it W O O P or is it just as it sounds? Michael Green: Yep. W H W H O O O P. ERIK LAWRENCE: Okay, whoop. Yeah, I'll I'll check that out. I think that's I've been a little lazy on that myself. But you got anything else put out, Mikey? I I love the content. I mean it's it's what we need to hear, but I'm hearing it all the time, but it's good to have good examples, you know? I mean, I wanna be a good looking corpse. Michael Green: No, I I I think that's about it. Yeah, yeah, no, I I think that's that's about it, you know. I mean, really I mean everybody that that does it kinda does it for different reasons. I think the my ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: kids were the biggest reason, you know. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: wasn't for that, you know, I might I might not, you know, figure it out, but you know, and it's not perfect, you know. I I think the the biggest the biggest issue to this day I think I have is that that tire that around my gut, you know. I can I can ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: do just about anything. It'll go away for a little bit and then if I start fall off the wagon just a little bit, it comes back. so I wish when ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: I was younger I took better care of of my of my nutrition, you know, 'cause it's caught up. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. Michael Green: and I have to I literally have to constantly watch what I eat. And it's just like this is a this un and it and and it's crazy ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. That's in no way around that. Yeah. Michael Green: because there's some folks out there that don't, you know? and they they they're yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah. not at all. Zero. Fucking pound it back, man. But they're miserable, bud. There's no way around it. And they're gonna kit every Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: disease, every little covid bullshit, every little flu. I was like, dude, I can't feel Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: bad. I'm sorry. It's self induced. Yeah. Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. But no, I I I think I think if if more people were fit, and they they you know had a better maybe a better community, and stayed away from people who are toxic, I think I think everyone would be yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, I like your ideas there. That's yeah. Yeah, and that's we can we can kinda self police that too, but we're all so dispersed. I mean, we're all over the freaking world. So it's kinda Michael Green: Yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: you know, it's kinda hard. But now, I mean we can you're you're overseas, I'm here. I mean, we can still jawjack and and go, Man, you you look like shit, you know. Wha what's going on? You know. We're all losing our hair. I'm like, Jesus. and yeah, I know. Yeah, or five heads are way back there. But Yeah. But I I still can't believe it nineteen eighty nine, buddy. I can r still remember a lot of that. I mean I can see it in my head. And we had a ball. yeah, we had a ball. It was great weather, Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah we did. Yeah, that was awesome. That was yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: good guys, small class. I Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: had no idea you had a did issue. that that's Michael Green: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: that's hard, buddy, 'cause those are quick, you know, so yeah, Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: if you can't differentiate those pretty pretty screwed. Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: But hell they don't do that anymore, man. I mean, come on. Yeah, code. It's like whatever. I probably couldn't copy five right now. So Yeah. Michael Green: I th I think I'm about to get back into it. Just so I can teach my kid. ERIK LAWRENCE: Well, i i I would think somewhere it will be handy one day. But and it's another language, man. If you can do that, imagine what your brain's doing. You know, you gotta keep the brain active. So yeah, I'm not gonna dissuade you from that. 'cause the more we've Michael Green: Yeah. Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: learned, the better that brain wor brain's a muscle in my world too. You know, so Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: constantly you know, we have to people have to constantly educate themselves too. That's part of the fitness plan. And Michael Green: Yeah. Definitely. ERIK LAWRENCE: think guys get real lazy on that shit watching these stupid T V shows and shit like that. But Michael Green: Yeah. ERIK LAWRENCE: well, let me get you to get to bed 'cause I know you're a little seepy. it's it's late over there. Yeah. And the kids already in bed, so I appreciate the Michael Green: It's it is. You know it. ERIK LAWRENCE: time and dude, we wanna do it again, we'll do it again. You know what I mean? Michael Green: Yeah, d yeah, definitely, man. We'll have to we just have to have a regular call one of these days too. ERIK LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. But l let's turn this one off and then we'll we'll jawjack a little bit about about real stuff. So Michael Green: Alright brother. ERIK LAWRENCE: thanks for your time. Michael Green: Thank you.