221-Ruck Pacing, Zone 2 Running, Green Beret Traits, Training on Vacation + More

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Hello, I am Kevin Smith, and you have found the Terminator Training Show, your one-stop shop for no BS training, nutrition, and health information. For more, please go to Terminatortraining.com. Thank you for tuning in and enjoy the show. What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Terminator Training Show. I am Kevin Smith. Today is going to be a QA from this week's Instagram Ask Me Anything. If you want your question answered on a future show or maybe answered if it's a good one, go ahead and follow me on Instagram Terminator underscore training and look out for my weekly Ask Me Anything. I answer some of the questions on Instagram and then I answer some more in-depth here on the show. And that's what we're going to do today. But before we hop in, big announcement I'm super pumped and proud of. The standalone personal development guide, which is going to be called Be the Exception TTM's Personal Development Handbook, is officially out and ready. And as always, when we launch new products, we put it on sale. There's no code necessary. It's going to be automatically discounted for the first week. And to be honest, this has been a long time in the making. I appreciate everyone's patience. If you've been waiting this for this for a while, I know I said it was going to be done sooner. We've got a lot going on, and the following is just going to be a bunch of excuses. But we've had some really sick dogs, both of them decided to get sick the last two weeks. My male dog most recently, my female dog the week before that, like very sick, like lots of vet visits and lots of excretion coming out of both ends. I won't get into any more detail than that. But not a lot of sleep, and also my wife is due in like three days. And so we've been doing a lot behind the scenes, and my wife is really the one that's in charge of making it look pretty. Like my work on writing it is done. And it's a whole lot of work. If you guys have seen any of our products, you have known, you probably know that we put a lot of effort into making them extremely, extremely top-tier and very presentable. And my wife is fully in charge of the aesthetics. I just do the content, but it's a team effort. And yeah, she's literally 72 hours from giving birth. So lots going on. But anyway, it's done and ready for purchase. And if you want to get your hands on that, now's the time to do it at a discounted rate. It is honestly the single project that I've ever done, the single product that we've ever released that I am by far the most proud of. And I'm pretty damn proud of all of our products, especially the more recent programs. And you guys have been a massive support and giving me feedback on these programs, getting great results on them, telling your friends about them. So I really appreciate that. But if you want to just take your life to the next level as far as personal development is concerned, there's also nutrition, stress management, sleep information in that, a little bit less in-depth than the soft prep recovery guide and nutrition guide, but still very, very much in-depth. And honestly, this is for like everyone, not just soft prep. It is anyone who wants to be exceptional in any walk of life. Whether you're a business owner, a future business owner, a soft guy, a future soft guy, an entrepreneur, or you just want to be a very, very standout human being across the board, physically, psychologically, socially, just be extremely confident in yourself and be the person that you say you are. This is everything you need to know and more. And I poured a lot into this thing, and I'm super pumped to release it. So, anyway, you can see the description, and down in the description, you can see more info on how to find it. And yeah, hopefully you guys enjoy it. I'm looking forward to hearing some feedback on that. So let's hop into today's questions. There will probably be some personal development questions today, but also some fitness questions, nutrition questions, golf questions, of course, and we'll go from there. So, first question personal development question. Perfect. How to improve your reaction to frustration and stress when already mentally fatigued. So, just like anything that you can potentially do well or do poorly, this is just a skill. And the more often you do it, the better you're gonna get at it. So intentionally putting your well, of course, sometimes life is gonna put you in these situations, and you've probably noticed, which is really good on you by the way, that you're aware enough, you're self-aware and situationally aware enough to be able to know that you get frustrated and stressed out, and it affects maybe the way others perceive you or the way your thought process goes in these situations. Most people do not have the awareness at all for this. So good on you, you're on the right track. However, it's really just exposing yourself to these situations more often and getting better at it. Just like anything that you suck at right now, the more often you do it, the better you're gonna get. Of course, you want to be deliberate about it, and you can put yourself in situations where, like, maybe it's the end of the day, you don't feel like doing anything, and you give yourself some sort of challenge. Like, decide that you're gonna go do something that you're not very good at after a full day of work and training and whatever, maybe you want to just chill out, relax, go give yourself some kind of challenge. Anything you really want. And you're gonna be frustrated, you're gonna not want to do it, you're probably gonna be looking for outs and maybe looking for ways around it, but you just do it anyway. And the more often that you just put yourself in situations where you're fatigued and you have to make these decisions and you have to control your frustration and be present in the moment. Like typically when people get frustrated in these situations, it's oftentimes about something either A, they don't have control over, and therefore, what's the point of stressing it? I know it's easier said than done. But if you can get into the habit of stressing about things that you can't control, you can also get into the habit of not stressing things that you can't control by being present, reminding yourself, I can't control this. So what is the next best step? Probably something that you can control. Or if it is something you can control, you're getting frustrated at maybe like you are not good enough at something and it's frustrating you. This is kind of a vague question, so this is more of a vague answer, but it still applies. Maybe something that you're supposed to be good at, you're just not good at enough. Well, you can control that by getting better at it. And it may still frustrate you if you're challenging yourself with things in life. Typically, you're gonna find frustration. I mean, that's just like part of the growth process. If you're always just comfortable and doing things you're really good at and doing things that aren't challenging you, you're not really gonna go anywhere. But you're gonna get a little better at it, and the more often you expose yourself to it, the better you're gonna be at responding to it and reacting to it and being present. Hey, I can control this. So next time when this situation comes up, I'm gonna be a little bit more aware as to how I'm gonna handle it, as well as if it's something that I'm either good at or not good at, or something that I can do that is frustrating me, I'm gonna get better at that thing. I'm gonna put the work in next time so that I show up and I perform better and it doesn't frustrate me as much. Or maybe it's something that is totally outside your control. Maybe someone else is frustrating you. Maybe someone else's performance is frustrating you, maybe someone else's rules or their instructions or their criticism is frustrating you. You can't control that. So, what is the next best step? Remind yourself, sit with it for a second. Okay, this is when I usually lose my mind or get super frustrated or lash out or whatever your means of showing your frustration may be. This is when I usually do that. I am aware of it right now. I'm not gonna do it this time. What is the next action step I can take that I can control? And exposure over time, the more often you do that. And again, I would actually go out of your way and fatigue yourself. Don't do crazy stuff like put yourself through a six-hour ridiculous workout and then like do a bunch of things that are gonna frustrate you or try to piss people off that you know are gonna frustrate you. Again, I don't know exactly like a specific example of what you're referring to, but give yourself challenges that might frustrate you and practice doing it over and over and over again, and you're gonna get better at it over time. And that really goes for anything that you find is like a character weakness. I would say this is like a character flaw type thing, and it's a very common one. And again, it's not very easily identifiable. A lot of people have it, but they have no idea, so good on you for having it. But like anything, it can be worked on if you give yourself doses of it over time and you're more present with it and you respond to it the way that you basically the way that I just went over, whether you can control it or not, and over time it's just going to be less and less of an issue for you. So that is what I would do. Next question in Jackazell 3.0, Bulgarian split squats make a surprise appearance in phase three. Just curious as to why they pop up, because different phases of programming oftentimes call for different exercises. And Bulgarian split squats are a fantastic leg exercise to make your legs stronger. And they're also a great way to unilaterally train your legs. They're probably the best if done properly, where you go hard. Most people don't do split squats properly. They think they go hard on their first leg, but then they go straight in their second leg, which is a perfect indication that you did not go hard on your first leg. You should need rest in between legs, not just sets, but legs. But they're just a great lower body exercise. They're a great single leg squat. So when you make a program, typically for the masses, and you have phase by phase, you change exercises a little bit. You're usually gonna have, or at least if it's a good program, a sound program, which I pride myself in making good programs, you're gonna have typically a different unilateral leg exercise in each phase. And I don't have the program in front of me, so I can't remember exactly what I have in other phases, but I probably have a reverse lunge, maybe a deficit reverse lunge, and I may have another other single leg lift in another phase. That being said, in a hybrid program, you have to trim the fat. So not every phase of every single program needs to have a unilateral leg exercise. But generally speaking, if you're also running and you're also rocking and you're doing squats and you want some sort of squat accessory, some sort of single leg exercise is a good idea. But there's no like magic to adding it into phase three, other than the fact that it is a great lift for the legs. So a lot of people don't really know a whole lot about programming, and you know, if you're not an expert on it, then why should you? And it's good on you for outsourcing it to an expert, but certain things just go in programs in certain spots, and there's no like deep down hidden reason for it, or like I'm not trying to surprise you, I'm just adding a leg exercise that works really well. Next question: What does a typical driving range session look like for you? So these days, what I usually do is I actually just got a what did I get? A launch monitor. It's one of the more hasty ones, it's not like a super advanced track man like $2,000 launch monitor, but it's actually a pretty nice one. And so now I have some data on my shots, but anyway, I typically go and hit a bunch of partial wedges. One of the things that I used to suck at was anything inside 100 when I had a non-full swing wedge. So I usually do 5 to 10, 50% wedges, five to ten, seventy-five percent wedges, five to ten, ninety percent wedges. Sometimes I choke down on it a little bit for those shots, usually any under anything under a hundred, anything under a full swing wedge, I choke down on the 58 degree wedge. And then I'll hit a couple of full wedges, and then I usually go to either a pitching wedge or a nine iron, and I'll hit five to ten shots, maybe 15 if I'm you know working on more short iron stuff. Usually my short irons and wedges are my best clubs, so typically I'll hit maybe a total of 40 to 50 balls with my wedges through eight or nine iron, and then I will go and hit usually five or six iron for quite a while. The longer irons are just harder to hit, so I'll probably hit 15 to 20 balls. I'll work on draws, I'll work on fades, I'll flight them down, I'll hit high balls, and I'll once in a while I'll hit some like weird shots like stingers or just like low fades, like if I'm trying to get out of trees or whatever. Like, of course, making believe. And also my range is pretty sick. Well, I mean, this is not even intentional on their part, but oftentimes the T boxes in the range have some rough, like longer grass, and they also have some fairway grass, so sometimes I'll hit it out of the rough. And then I'll usually choose either I just got a seven wood. I've been talking about getting a seven wood for a while, so I hit the seven wood a lot recently, but I'll usually either hit a bunch of three woods off the deck or seven woods off the deck. Once in a while, I'll hit hybrids if I feel like I want to, but I just replaced my three wood, my three hybrid with my seven wood, and I like it a lot better. I hit it higher and honestly just a little bit farther, and it's more accurate too. It just has a bigger sweet spot, it's more forgiving. But I'll either hit three wood or seven wood for a bit, and then I go to driver, and then probably the last depending on the day, 15 to 20 balls, I'll choose a course that I'm very familiar with and pretend I'm playing the first few holes. So, like there's a course down my street that I play all the time, Highland, and the first two holes are just regular par fours, usually a driver and a wedge, and then the third hole is a par three, so I'll hit seven or eight iron usually on that hole, so I'll hit that on the range. Basically, just getting used to not hitting the same club over and over and over again. And that I think is a has helped me quite a bit. A lot of people will just hit the same club over and over again, which is totally fine to do in general. But if you never go like, okay, I just hit driver off the T like I would in a round of golf, now I'm gonna hit, I've got a hundred yards in, I'm gonna hit a wedge shot, and I just kind of make up numbers and I make up certain outcomes. Like if I hit a bad drive, for example, and I know like normally I have a wedge, if I hit a good drive on this hole, but I hit it short or whatever, then I'll hit a nine iron or an eight iron or whatever. And I kind of go from there. So, and then I go over and do a bunch of different short game stuff. So usually start with like 10 to 15 bunker shots. Then I'll do some easy chips, like lower chips, and I'll do some mid-range chips, I'll do some really high shots. Anything in everything in between like the chipping area and my driving range is pretty sweet. You can go back to like 40-50 yards, which is dope. And then usually, if I have enough time, this what I just went over probably takes about 90 minutes or so, so I don't always have enough time. But if I do, I'll go over to a golf course across the street, I'll throw a colored shirt on as if I'm about to play. But I I've played the course all the time, but I'm not playing this day. I put a colored shirt on and I go to the putting green and I do putting there. And so, yeah, that's like a two-hour range session. Sometimes it's very abbreviated. Sometimes I'll do half of that and do like 45 minutes to an hour. Maybe I'll just hit some balls and then do some chipping and no putting. This year I haven't been doing as much putting as I did last year. I did a ton of putting last year, but I've been putting really well on the course. That doesn't mean I shouldn't practice more, but still, it's just not as fun to practice putting. But anyway, that's kind of what I do. Uh, it's a little bit different every time, but I don't do anything super crazy. I'm not a big drill guy. I don't watch any YouTube and find all these drills. I've done this in the past and it just screws me up and gives me way too much to think about. So I just practice what I've already got, and the more reps I can possibly get, I make small changes just based on feel. I'm not a math guy or like an angles guy. I just do everything based on feel. That's just my preference. But yeah, it's a really good time. I do that a few days a week and it pays off big time. Next question What are some of the most common characteristics of the best Green Berets you've ever worked with? Ooh, yeah. If you go to my Instagram, I'll talk about it here in a second, but if you go to my Instagram and it's one of the tag, I think it's one of the pinned posts. I think it's like eight traits of the best GBs I've worked with. So you can check that out too. And these may or may not overlap, but just off the top of my head, agency is massive. I talked about this in my at the very end for anyone who stuck around of my last episode about nutrition. Having agency, just realizing that you are the person that makes things happen. Life doesn't happen to you, you make things happen. You are not a victim to life, you're not a passenger in the vehicle of life. You're the driver. You get to choose your outcomes. That is a huge one. It is literally non-negotiable. For anyone who wants to be a soft guy in general, but to be a really good one, you gotta have very, very high agency. And honestly, to be anything worth a damn in life, you have to have high agency. You can't just like wait around for things to happen. You can't just blame everything else or everyone else for things that happened to you in your life. It's just not gonna get you anywhere. And by the way, no one gives a fuck. So that's a huge one. Confidence and not just confidence in themselves, like self-confident, like going out and being really comfortable in their own skin, although that is a huge one, and you have to develop that by basically holding yourself accountable to things. When you make commitments, you stick to those commitments and you follow through and you do it. If you don't do that, then you're just not going to be confident. There's it's almost impossible to flake on yourself anytime you commit to something and then that time shows up and you don't feel like doing that thing, and you decide not to do it because you don't feel like it, and then go out into the world and be confident. You can't even trust yourself to follow through with these little menial things like waking up on time, pressing snooze. I talk about this all the time. I talk about this quite a bit in my new development guide coming out because it's the first part of your day. It is the initial beginning of your day where you can either lie to yourself. I told myself I was gonna wake up at this time, and oh, by the way, by pressing snooze, I'm not. So I'm starting my day with a lie. Press snooze five times, that's five lies. Do that five days a week. That's 25 lies per week. You're literally starting your day with. I don't know how you'd be confident by doing that. So self-confidence is massive, but also confidence in your actual abilities, your ability to shoot, move, communicate. And how do you get confident in that? Competence. And how do you get competent? Putting the reps in. If you suck at something, getting better at it. If you show up to your team and you're not a good shot, getting with the best shot on your team and annoying the hell out of him until he makes you a really good shot. Of course, you got to put the work in, but basically picking his brain and ensuring that he's giving you good instruction and then applying that. Other things, very, very charismatic individuals. So people who are able to make others feel good. A lot of people think charisma means that you're like really, really compelling and you're really witty and you're a really good storyteller and you're really articulate. And yes, that is definitely a form of charisma, but a lot of charisma is just making the person that you're interacting with feel comfortable and feel good and feel seen. That is how you get people to like you. Honestly, the most charismatic people don't really talk all that much. They ask other people very pertinent questions about what they're telling them. And they remember people's names, they look people in the eye. They're really good at body language, and I have a very, very in-depth breakdown of this in the guide, by the way. So, and a lot of people think charisma is just this thing that you either have or you don't. No, it is not. Agency, remember? You can build any of these skills. I used to be a very non-charismatic individual, and I decided to take it upon myself to change that. And I've read a lot, a lot, a lot of books on it, and I've done a lot of practical exercises going out into the world, talking to strangers, trying to work on it. And I'm not the most charismatic charismatic individual of all time, but I've definitely come a long way. And when you're charismatic as a Green Beret, you just get what you want more. And getting what you want more, it sounds like it's a selfish thing, but your whole mission set is to get other entities, whether it's a partner force, a guerrilla unit, some sort of resistance force, whatever have you, the underground doing your unconventional warfare, it's to get people to support you and get people to improve your potential outcomes at whatever your mission set may be. So even though getting your way sounds selfish, literally it's your mission. And when you do your mission properly, national security, it's literally has national implications. You are literally protecting your nation by doing your job properly. So it's not selfish at all. It's literally your job. So being charismatic is a huge one. Strong leadership skills, and just like any other skill, they can be developed, and there's a bunch of different ways to lead. You don't have to be like super vocal. You also don't have to just lead by example. You may be like really clever and you might be really cerebral and you think outside the box and you get things done that way. Maybe you are vocal. Maybe you are just a complete stud and you do everything really well and you hold yourself accountable, you lead yourself, which going back to the confidence thing, like you hold your you make commitments to yourself and you follow through with those commitments. Leaders also do, they're willing to do everything they asked, ask or tell their men to do. That's another massive leadership skill. All these can be built, all these can be learned about. John Wooden on leadership is probably the best leadership book of all time, but Jocko's got some great leadership books. There's a ton of leadership books out there. Off the top of my head, I'm not gonna like list a bunch, but those are huge ones. And then let's see. Physical fitness is of course one. I'm not sure if he characteristics. Characteristics. So yeah, physical fitness, I would say that's like the top one. Uh let's go with one more. One more, one more. What else are Green Berets freaking badasses at? Let's see. Being extremely adaptable. So there's a lot of situations where you might not have the enough resources to get the job that you're being expected to do. Oh, by the way, at a very high level done. Or there may be a bunch of times where your schedule changes, the training calendar changes. You were gonna go do this, but now all of a sudden you're doing this. Or you were coming home from a deployment, you were gonna go on leave, but oh by the way, there's this school that you have to go to, or this training mission you have to go to. Or you get some sort of mission that your team just like doesn't really have the capabilities or the manpower or the skill sets to do, but oh, by the way, you're the only ones who can do them. So you got to figure it the fuck out. Fitfo, the FitFo attitude. No matter what, you figure stuff out. Whether you figure it out yourself, or you go ask a support personnel to help you out, or you go ask another person on another ODA, you ask your senior, you ask a non different MOS, you know, figuring it out in any way possible. This goes back to agency too, but it's kind of a little different. You're just able to adapt. You're almost like a chameleon. No matter what, nothing's gonna like phase you too much. If you have these expectations built up where like everything's gonna be perfectly planned out and you're just gonna like go execute, that's just not how life is as a Green Beret. So being super adaptable is really important as well. I would say those are pretty solid ones. There's a bunch more that I'm not thinking of, but it's hard to think of these things off the top of my head, off the cuff. But I think those are really, really solid ones to get you started. Guys, a little break in the action to tell you about Pride Foods, Rice and Grimes, and Stacks. If you have been listening to the show for a while, you guys know my stance on carbs and the fact that most people with extreme performance goals or body composition goals eat nowhere near the amount of carbs they should be eating. And one of the easiest, most simple, most delicious ways I have found to get more carbs in is rice and grinds, as well as Stax, which are the two main products that Pride Foods creates. Rice and grinds is a fantastic oatmeal alternative. It's a cream of rice, but it tastes exponentially better and digests way easier than the cream of rice you're gonna see at any grocery store. The Stax pancakes are fantastic as well. They are yam-based, and the only macro in these products is carbohydrates. So I eat these things for breakfast. I eat them around training. Oftentimes in the evening after dinner, when I've already had all of my other macros, and all I have left is carbs. I can't have any more protein or fat. I'll throw a bowl of rice and grinds on top of some frozen berries, mix it up, it thaws out the berries, and the berries cool it off so you can eat it instantly, and it is fantastic. So if you need to up your carb game, check out the link in the description. You can get 10% off. Try any flavor you like. My top flavors are chocolate brownie and brown sugar cinnamon, but all the flavors are honestly pretty damn delicious. Or you can go to pridefoods.org and type in the code TTM for 10% off. Alright, guys, back to the show. Next question: how do you approach working out and dieting on vacation? So I personally find that when I train, I just feel better and I have a better day. Like if I were to break down my perfect day from start to finish, somewhere in that day would involve a workout. So when I'm on vacation, I want to have good days. And because my good days, my perfect days involve workouts, not every single day, but in for the most part, I'm gonna work out. Like it may not be the exact thing that I would do if I was home. Obviously, it's gonna be at a different location. I may not have the same equipment access, but I'm gonna do it. And honestly, like before I go, I'm gonna research places to train. And I'm a nerd and I love going and exploring new gyms and facilities and different equipment. So I will literally find the top like bodybuilding, slash, powerlifting, strength, like real gyms, not like F-45, CrossFit, bullshit, but like actual real gyms in the location that I'm going to, whether it's a work trip or vacation. And I will either call ahead, get like a week pass, or I'll just get a day pass or a couple day passes when I'm there, or I'll get a week pass when I get there and I go train. Or if I'm there for if I'm in a place that has multiple gyms, I'll go check out multiple gyms because I just like doing that. And I enjoy it and I'm more pleasant to be around when I get my training in. And again, I don't like hold myself perfectly accountable. Like usually right now, I train it, I lift every other day. I do some conditioning on my non-lifting days. If I miss, let's say I train, I get there on a Monday, or yeah, let's say I get there on a Monday, and on a Tuesday, I get my training in. If I don't get to train Thursday, even though I normally would at home, it's not a huge deal. I don't like lose my mind about it, but I'll probably train Friday. Or maybe if I know I won't train Thursday, I'll just train Tuesday and Wednesday. So that's how I handle training. Do I think everyone should do that or needs to do that? No. If you're training for something really important, like selection or something like that, yeah, you better, you damn better plan ahead and ensure that you're able to get your training in at least a good portion of it in. But nutrition-wise, I honestly like I'm I've been so aware of my nutrition for so long, and I know exactly like how different foods affect me. And I if I'm on a diet, like if I'm on a fat loss diet for whatever reason and I'm going on vacation, then I'll just ensure I eat in a mild calorie deficit for the most part. And I can just do that by like eyeballing foods, maybe taking a little bit longer in between meals, eating a little bit less. Typically, when I go places, I don't really go feast on the breakfast just because breakfast is the same in most different places, whereas like usually dinner is more exciting, so I'll go and splurge a little bit on dinner and find eat more elaborate foods and have a little bit better experience at dinner. But it's just being a little bit mindful of it. Typically, I'm not cutting when I go on vacation, so I just go and eat kind of normally. If I want to like be on my game, so if I'm going on a work trip or something and I want to be like mentally focused and feel really good and also perform really well, and so on and so forth, then I'll either order some meal prep ahead of time and have it delivered at like whatever hotel that I'm staying at. Normally I get Airbnbs, unless I'm staying for like a day or two, then I'll get a hotel. But if it's longer than that, I just get an Airbnb and I'll have meal prep delivered. MegaFit, by the way, is what I go with. And if you want, or we'll bring some occasionally if we're driving, we'll just bring some in a cooler. And if you want 10% off MegaFit, it's the best meal prep in the game. I would check out the link in the description. It'll take you there, or you can go to megafit.com, megafitmeals.com, and type in TTM at checkout, you get 10% off, and it's awesome. But I'll do that, and also just like gyms, if it's a well-established area, I'll just research beforehand what places might be open or what places that have solid food that aren't just going to ruin my day if I just eat it a bunch of crap and feel terrible after. Because again, like I do like to enjoy and experience like tasty food that's not the healthiest food. But typically I wouldn't do that at like 11 a.m. Because I'll just feel terrible after, and that'll make my day worse. Even though that experience is nice during it, I'll still feel terrible for the rest of the day. So if I'm gonna like have some ice cream or have a burger and a bunch of fries or some other meal that I don't eat or food that I don't eat all the time, I'll do that for dinner when the day's over, and I'm basically just done for the day. I'm gonna go to bed not long after. I'll take a walk and kind of help with digestion. I might pay for it a little the next day because I normally eat really healthy, but it's a really minor thing. So that's the way I do it, which is the question what the question asked. Do you have to do it that way? No, not necessarily, but it kind of just depends on your goals and what you prefer. I would just go and enjoy yourself. If you're going on vacation once in a while and you splurge a little bit and you don't eat perfectly and you don't train, it's not a big deal. If you're doing it all the time and you have fitness goals, then you probably are not really lining your actions up with what you say you want. But vacations are meant to be enjoyed. So whatever makes you enjoy it more, that's what I would do. Just keeping in mind what your ultimate long-term goals are, and of course the frequency with which you go on vacation. If it's an all-of-the-time thing and you're all the time just going off the rails, that may be a problem. Next question: Can you do a 230, 12 mile ruck by just walking? Can I? No. I have not rucked in a long time, so I wouldn't be able to do that. In my heyday, absolutely, for sure. That would be a what 1230 pace, I believe. 1230 mile pace. Yeah, I could ru I could walk 12, 12, 30 miles for 12 miles in a row. That being said, do you have to be able to do that? No, not necessarily. Are there a lot of people that can do that? No. I have had some clients that can do that, for sure. And most of those clients could not do that when we first started working together. But just going back to the practice and reps thing, a lot of people think that like reaching these really fast, what most would would consider really fast walking paces, is like impossible. But it may be impossible in your world because you just don't do it enough. But once you do something enough and you progress it properly, and you train like your entire training is sound and progressive, and you give yourself enough time, a long enough time horizon, you do the right things outside the gym. You very importantly remove the self-limiting belief that you can't walk X pace. A lot of people think like you it's impossible to walk 13-minute miles under a ruck. It is not impossible. I've actually had a five foot seven client do a 10-mile ruck. I don't remember the overall time, but I know his pace was like 1247 miles, and he walked the whole thing. And he was 5'7. So a lot of guys are short kings and they think that like it's only possible for fast for tall guys to walk fast. And no, that's not the case. You just gotta practice. You just have to have higher cadence than fast guys because you have shorter legs, you're gonna have shorter strides, but it can be done. But then again, you don't really need there's no world in which you need to necessarily walk a two and a half hour 12-mile rug. Like, unless you're doing some sort sort of weird challenge, then cool. But if you're doing a ruck time trial and you've trained up to it, of course, then you're probably gonna want to do some running if you want to be a top dog. And honestly, if you're competitive like I am, or like a lot of people are, why wouldn't you want to be a top dog? So may as well do it as fast as you possibly can, even if that does involve running. If you've been listening for a while, you know my stance on ruck running versus ruck walking. Unless you're getting tested on a ruck or you're training for a selection that's gonna test you on a ruck, or maybe you're training for a test, like a one-time test, and you want to do really well on it, you should ruck walk. If you are about to ruck run in one of those things, yes, you want to ruck run in training, so you're prepared for it, you've adapted to it. But for the most part, if those things are not on your horizon, walking is the way to go. It's gonna keep you available. And if you get really fast to where you can walk 13, 13, 30s, even 14, a lot of people think that's unrealistic. It is not, but if you can walk 13, 30 miles or 14 minute miles for two hours straight, three hours straight, once you start doing more ruck running, you're gonna make so much faster progress and you're already gonna be super fast. If you think about it, a lot of people can't even do a two and a half hour 12-mile ruck doing all the running they want. Let's say you can do a two-hour 45-minute 12-mile ruck just walking. Think about how fast, like, even if you didn't do any ruck running training, but that day you decided a ruck run and you're capable of doing a 245 walking, you'd still be at least 15 minutes faster, probably 20, 25 minutes faster. So if you get your ruck walking pace down and you stay available because you're walking when you're supposed to walk, and you're only running when you need to, when you're training for something that involves running, then you're just gonna make much faster progress, you're gonna be less banged up all the time, and you're already starting from a much higher starting point. So you're gonna get a lot faster potentially when you do start ruck running. So could I do it? No. Can it be done? Yes. Can most people do it? No. But I don't know why you would want to do it unless you're doing some weird challenge. Next question how to improve trap bar deadlift? My barbell deadlift is 60 to 90 pounds stronger. I barbell deadlift 405 needs a trap bar for the AFT. So you're close. You probably need what, like 20 more pounds on your trap bar deadlift. I think it's 340. You can deadlift 405 and you're you're you're very close. You're basically there on a good day. But anyway, how to get better at it? I mean, I hate to make this episode all about practice and getting reps and training properly, but honestly, to get better at a specific exercise, exercises are all skills, and my guess is you've probably done a lot more barbell deadlifting in your life than trap bar deadlifting. It's pretty com pretty uncommon to be better at a barbell deadlift than a trap bar deadlift. That being said, if most of your deadlift training is with a barbell and very little of it is with a trap bar, then you absolutely could be. There have definitely been times in my life where I probably am right now, I am stronger with a barbell than with a trap bar, but it's not quite as common. Either way, to get better at it, you just gotta train it more. So whatever you're doing for barbell deadlifts right now, switch that as you get closer to an AFT. I'm not a believer in actually training specifically for an AFT, as in following an AFT specific program. But making a small tweak like this, because you want to max it, which I love the mentality, is totally fine. So whatever you're doing for barbell deadlifting right now, just switch that to trap bar for a while. And you're gonna develop more skill, you're gonna get more comfortable with it. You're already strong enough, you probably just aren't comfortable enough with the lift. Your body is just not used to the lift enough. It hasn't developed that neurological adapt. It hasn't developed the neurological adaptations that are required to get you to lift a certain amount of weight, the weight that you want to lift for 40 for three. So it's just gonna come down to practicing and getting stronger in general. And also, I mean, building some muscle might be a good idea. I don't know how big you are. You might benefit from going into a calorie surplus and trying to get more muscular. That way you have higher strength potential. Being more jacked doesn't necessarily mean you're always gonna be stronger. There are big, massive bodybuilders that are weaker than power lifters that are half their size because there's a massive skill in neurological component, but when you have bigger muscles, it gives you a basically a higher ceiling. You have more potential to gain strength. So maybe getting into a calorie surplus, a mild one, getting a little bit more muscle mass on you might help. Doing some accessories, strengthening your squat would be a good idea. And you don't have to do barbell squat, it could be any squat you want. The trap bar deadlift is a little bit more of a squatty hinge than a hingey hinge, unlike the barbell deadlift, is like a pure hinge. So that leg, I mean you do have some leg drive with the barbell deadlift, but it's a little bit more with the trap bar. So doing some squatting, doing some leg curls, doing some single leg deadlifts, some stiff legged deadlifts, you can still keep the barbell deadlift in. Maybe you do that once a week, you do the trap bar deadlift another time per week, but I would argue that as you come up to an AFT that you want to max, doing trap bar deadlifts twice a week might be a good idea. Maybe one day you do lower reps, a little heavier, one day you do higher reps, a little lighter. Maybe you do some with high handles, maybe you do some with low handles, maybe you do some trap bar RDLs, fantastic lift, and so on and so forth. It really just comes down to training it, just like you would want to get better at any other lift. You want to get better at push-ups, do more push-ups in a proper progression, you're gonna get better at push-ups, and same goes with trap bar deadlift. Next question What is your advice on running intensity when the slowest pace I can run is well above zone two? Heart rate 160 BPM. Yeah, so if your ultimate goal is to get better at running, you're gonna have to do some running. I used to have the stance that no matter what, you gotta stay in zone two if you want to properly develop your base, and eventually you're gonna be able to run and so on and so forth. Nothing wrong with periodically walking to stay in zone two or to stay at a certain time. I'll get into zones versus what I recommend here in a second. But sometimes, like if you're going uphill and it's later in a run and you're not really super well developed yet, which is fine, you gotta start somewhere. Walking a little bit is fine. But if you're trying to walk stay in zone two the whole time and like 90% of your run is walking, you're just not gonna get that running adaptation, the running skill. So what I would do is stop paying attention to your heart rate. Almost nobody who is properly, well, nobody who's properly building base. Some people who are improperly building base are running way too much, but if you're properly building a base, you're very unlikely to be running enough mileage to where it matters that much if you go into at as your heart rate would tell you, zone three. Generally, if you just go by feel like RPE, this is about a five out of ten effort, a five RPE. One RPE would be like walking to your fridge to get a snack. 10 RPE would be picture running a one mile time trial, the last 400 meters of a one mile time trial. That'd be a 10 RPE, right in the middle there. If you run most of your easy runs at that intensity, even if your heart rate's a little higher, you're probably gonna be okay. If you do this for a little while and you find you're not recovering well, or if you find you're getting banged up a little bit, maybe shin splints, whatever, then maybe dial it back down a little bit. Your RPE scale may be off. And this can be a thing. Like some type A individuals, five RPE for them puts them in zone four. They say, Oh yeah, that was like a five out of ten. You look at your heart rate data afterwards, and you were at 195 heart rate. Of course, you can lie to yourself. However, lying to yourself, really that the only person that's doing harm to is yourself. You're not like getting anything out of it other than like limiting your fitness progress and potentially hurting yourself. So being very realistic and being very mindful, getting in tune with your body. Another major benefit to not paying so much attention to your watch is as you get started in running, it's really important to just like be mindful of how your body feels at certain efforts and not be so reliant on your watch making every single decision for you. A lot of people look at their watch every five seconds on a run, like literally. You do that for five every five seconds, let's say every 10 seconds for one minute. That's six times per minute. Let's say you're doing a 60-minute run. Six times 60, I don't know what that is. 360 times. You're looking at your watch 360 times on a run. That is 360 decisions that you didn't make, but your watch made for you. Oh, my heart rate's too high, I'm gonna slow down a little bit. Oh, my pace is a little bit faster than it's supposed to be, or slower than it's supposed to be, I'm gonna speed up a little bit. Oh, my heart rate's not high enough, I'm gonna it's all your watch making decisions. Whereas if you're just running at like a five RPE, maybe a six, maybe a four, you're actually just in tune with your body and you're making your decisions. You're like in the driver's seat. So I would recommend for honestly for most beginner runners to do an RPE thing. You can also do the talk test where you can say like 12-ish words without having to pause for a breath, or without having to gasp per air for air, like barely getting the sentence out and then gasping for air at the end. As long as you can like have a decent conversation, say 12-ish words at a time without pausing, you're probably in the right zone. Are you perfectly in zone two? Who knows? But are you probably the right intensity, I should say, the right effort to get the aerobic adaptations that you need, as well as because you're running, you're actually getting used to running. And I would also consider doing some strides, either after your runs or on non-long run days or easy run days, just to get used to running fast a little bit. So a stride, you start at a nice little jog for 20 to 30 seconds, you speed up to just a general endurance fast pace. It's not a sprint, but it's like an endurance fast pace, maybe a mile-ish time trial pace. Then you slowly slow back down, take a little rest in between. This should not be like a hard workout. You shouldn't be winded the whole time. It should be actually very, very easy overall because you're not going long enough to really get super smoked or fatigued or like neurologically spent. And you're also resting plenty, and you're also not going crazy, crazy hard. You're not doing sprints. So strides are great. Short hill sprints, I would consider doing those too. Really steep hill, long rest periods. This is not a cardio session, it's more of a power session. Just go as hard as you can up the hill, five, six, seven reps for like eight to ten seconds, two, three minutes in between. Yes, two to three minutes. You should be completely fresh to start each one. And that's going to help you develop some fast twitch muscle fibers as well as some power. The PC energy system, super important. And if you do that, you're probably gonna be totally fine. And you listen to your body, of course, dial things back if you need to. Maybe take a cross training week if you're feeling a little banged up. Up, but I wouldn't worry too much about just trying to walk the whole time just to stay in this perfect zone. Other people are gonna tell you different things, but I have just had enough experience at this point and I've recruited the advice and the information, and I've seeked and found the information of enough highly trustworthy running experts to know that like it's probably not really all that big of a deal if you're going into zone three once in a while. It's definitely not that big of a deal. I don't have any of my guys that are brand new to running really try and like look at their watch all the time. They honestly they don't really pay attention to it. So that's what I got for you. Next question is a funny one. Are uncrustables still part of your diet post-GI issues? So, for those not aware, I would eat a lot of uncrustables when I was doing my ultra prep like a year and a half ago. They were like one of my go-to, just like calorie foods. And no, they are not back in my diet. I had some gut issues that I well, I've had gut issues for a while before last summer, but they got really, really bad last summer, and I had to like really intervene and hire a coach and do a bunch of interventions. And now that I have gone through that and I have been eating really, really gut-friendly foods since then, for the most part, like 95% of the time, I can handle some not ideal gut health foods. I mean, certain foods, no matter what, even if you have great gut health, they're just gonna like tear you up anyway. But there are certain foods that like I'll go off plan and I'll be fine. They won't blow me up like they used to before I got my issues solved. Uncrustables, however, have not made it back in. Typically these days, I just I feel so much better when I eat almost purely clean foods that if I'm gonna eat something off plan that's not quite as clean, it's gonna be something really good, like a delicious dessert, or maybe a pizza from my favorite pizza place, or something that's incredibly worth potentially not feeling terrible afterwards. Would I feel awful if I ate an uncrustable or two? Probably not, but I wouldn't feel great, and I would much rather save that for something that's better than an uncrustable, honestly. Not that I don't think uncrustables are pretty good, but they're just not that great. And to be fair, like I was eating uncrustables mainly to just keep my calories high enough because I was had I had a crazy high running mileage, and also I have just a really, really high metabolic rate, so I need a lot of food anyway, even when I'm not doing a lot of running. But for the most part, uncrustables are not the best performance food. They're really high carb, but also they have a ton of fat in them, so they don't digest quickly. If you're gonna eat uncrustibles, I would eat them away from training. If anything after, but not ideal after either, I would eat them like well away from training. But yeah, they just haven't made it back in. I appreciate you asking. I might have an uncrustable again here soon, or maybe someday, but who knows? Next question any good stories about arriving to your first team? So initially, when I answered this on Instagram, I said no, but then I told like kind of a good story. So I'll tell it here on the show with a little bit more detail. So I showed up to 10th Special Forces Group in it was around Christmas time of what 2014. And when I showed up, I was one of four guys to show up to my company. I was the only one who was single. So the other three guys had wives and families that were there with them. I was single, living in the barracks, just a lowly 18 Delta brand new guy, and our entire company was deployed in Africa doing a JSAT. And so it was just the rear D. Basically, the B team was there, and just a few like stragglers that weren't deployed. So we showed up, we went and saw the B team, and it was probably like early December. So holiday blockly was coming up, and I was the only single one. So apparently, of course, in the army, if you're single, you just don't care at all about family, you don't care about holidays, you don't care about anything other than whatever the hell they think you care about. So, what did they do? They gave me CQ on Christmas Day. So about two weeks after I got to 10th group, I or to my company, I had CQ on Christmas Day. So I think I started at like 9 a.m. Christmas Day and had CQ till the next morning at 9 a.m. Anyway, it was in my barracks building, so it wasn't terrible. Like I had a helper, so I went upstairs and like slept in my room for a little bit and whatnot, but still. Basically, they gave me holiday block leave a little bit early, but I had to come back for Christmas so I could do CQ. And also to add to it, I was told I was deploying to replace a medic on the mountain team that was coming back. They only had one medic. Basically, every team in my company only had one medic, but he was coming back for mountain warfare school. So they needed a medic to replace him in Niger, Africa, for like the last three and a half months of their deployment. So what did they do? They gave me New Year's Day was my flight. I was flying out commercial, New Year's Day, and then I would get I got on like when I got to Niami, which is the capital of Niger, I got on like a connector, like really, really sketchy ass plane that flew me out to Arlet, which is where we were stationed. But not only did they fly me out on New Year's, but they gave me I don't even know how much money, but this massive briefcase of op fund. They also gave me because I'm a medic, you have to bring your own narcotics for like trauma for your guys. So I had a briefcase of narcotics, which you have to keep on you at all times. You can't put it in check baggage because it's fucking narcotics, you have to have like eyes on it the whole time. And then my other hand, I had a another briefcase with a ridiculous amount of money of op fund. Op fund is pretty much the money they give you to go do your operations, and for whatever reason they didn't have enough over there. I don't know what the I had no idea. They like none of this was really even explained to me. I kind of pieced it together afterwards and like talking to my team, but had a bunch of op fun, and then they gave me another box. They allowed me. I don't know, this is probably not a good thing, but I couldn't really I had no other option because I had only a certain amount of carry-ons. They allowed me to check this thing. It was a piece of like I don't even know what kind of Echo 18 Echo equipment, communication equipment. It wasn't like TS or anything like that. Like it wasn't a super sensitive item, but it was this weird-looking thing that like is gonna draw attention in foreign countries, let's just put it that way. So I was flying with those things, and of course I had to bring my stuff, so I was basically just I had an insane amount of stuff, excess baggage fees and whatnot. The army pays for that stuff, but either way, I was traveling by myself to Africa with a bunch of connecting flights with one briefcase of a bunch of op fund, one briefcase full of 18 Delta narcotics, and needless to say, going through security in pretty much every including the United States, everywhere I went through was a whole fiasco. And I was like just so sick of it at the end. They in a couple places in Africa, they actually, when I was connecting, they actually brought me into like these side rooms where like they questioned people because I had narcotics. I had some paperwork that said, like, it's okay, I have these narcotics, and I had some paperwork that said, I'm in the government, I work for the government, I have this money, it's not my money, I'm not doing anything crazy. But some TSA person in I don't even remember what country it was that I initially connected in Africa before going to Niger that barely speaks English. Like, I'm not gonna be able to explain that. So basically they put me into the side room, the questioning room, and I had to talk my way out of it. Then I got to Niami, the actual capital on my last plane, basically the AOB, so all of the other B team, the sergeant major, everyone was in the capital there. And my buddy, thank God, a friend that I had from the Q course, was picking me up. And when I got there, I got brought into another questioning room, and this room, like they were not gonna let me leave. And finally, my buddy came in to the airport and found me in that room, and we sorted it out somehow. I think he called Sergeant Major, and Sergeant Major like called someone else, and it was a whole rigmarole. But anyway, that was my first experience deploying by myself as a Lowly E6, E5, I was actually an E5 at the time with a bunch of stuff that is not really all that normal to take through TSA. And anyway, I got there and the team was great, the trip was great. Going back, we just flew uh chartered military air, so it was nowhere near as much of a shit show, and I did not have the op fund anymore because I handed it off. But yeah, anyway, that's probably the most interesting thing that happened to me showing up. So glad you asked. Pretty fun to think back on it. Next question running SFAS 2.0, love it. Awesome. When should I do hypertrophy style pull-ups versus PFT style pull-ups? Great question, great, great question. So this shows that you have been paying attention to my content and my podcast probably, but I have not talked about PT testing style pull-ups versus hypertrophy style pull-ups in a long time. So there's a difference. Even though most people don't think there's a difference, mainly because most people are obsessed with how many reps they can do, even in training, they just do as many reps as possible and they do their pull-ups in a way that allows them to get as many reps as possible, including weighted pull-ups. So PT testing style pull-ups or just testing style pull-ups. Basically, it's less fatiguing when you get to the top and you just allow gravity to take you back down to the dead hang rather than controlling it. So normally the eccentric or negative portion of an exercise, you control a little bit. Well, not everyone does, but you should. It's safer that way. It also is more growth promoting to control it a little bit and also not use momentum at the bottom, like the dead hang position, like kind of using a little momentum from that drop back to the top. When you're doing PT style pull-ups, that's that's what you want to do because you don't want to create that fatigue. You're gonna be able to do more reps by not going fast on the way down. However, that is a lot rougher on the shoulders as well as the elbows, and it's less effective for growth. So you want to save those generally for when you have a test coming up. And I would say for you, because you have you're doing the SFAS 2.0, you probably are going to SFAS soon. So I would do at least your body weight pull-ups, most of them, testing style, at least for the last couple of phases. At first, if you have shaky shoulders or elbows in any way, then maybe, or I would definitely recommend doing some slower eccentrics even on bodyweight pull-ups throughout the program early on, as you get closer to being able to test or needing to test, doing some faster ones. But for weighted pull-ups or any sort of pull-up variation, chin-ups, rack chin-ups, I don't have the program open, but I'm pretty sure I have some pull-up variations in that program. Then I would do some controlled eccentrics for basically the entire time. Or if you are not going to SAS, this goes for anyone who's not following this program and is just training for general pull-ups and you don't have a test, like a rep test coming up. Guess what? No one really cares about your max pull-ups for like no reason. You're just doing it just for the hell of it. What I would much prefer is to have shoulder health and elbow health that's like much longer lasting, and also get more muscle growth out of my pull-ups. So, typically, for the most part, you want to control your eccentrics. Go not crazy slow, two, three, probably about three seconds, give or take, on the negative or eccentric would be a pretty good duration. Especially, especially do these if A, you're doing them weighted, anyone weighted, even if you have great shoulder and elbow health, there's no point. You're doing it, you're doing weighted pull-ups, most likely, to get stronger and or grow. So, why would you take the portion that is most responsible for growth and strength, or especially growth, out of it by just letting gravity go down? That doesn't make any sense. But also, it is way more stressful on the shoulders. It's stressful to do it with body weight on the shoulders, especially if you don't have great overhead mobility or you don't have great form on pull-ups, which most people don't. But even so, even if you do have great form, it's still stressful on the shoulders. So going nice and slow in that eccentric when you're doing any sort of weighted pull-ups is a really good idea. And if you are, even if you're doing body weight pull-ups, but you don't have a test coming up, I would do mostly, if not all, for most people, especially if you have banged up shoulders, especially if you have banged up shoulders, doing nice and slow, controlled eccentrics, and slow, again, not crazy slow. There's benefits to going slower, but for the most part, about three seconds, maybe four seconds, maybe two seconds sometimes, is a really good idea. And this took me way, way, way too long to kind of detach myself from how many reps I was doing in training. Like it doesn't really matter whether you do 10 reps or 12 reps or nine reps or 13 reps in training. What matters most is that you're getting close enough to failure to create the adaptation you want. Of course, if you want to get tested and do well on a test, you want to do as many reps as you can. So you're not really concerned about like getting jacked lats and arms and upper back from your pull-ups when you're training for a test or you're testing. But for the most part, most people do pull-ups because they want to grow their back, their lats, their arms, whatever have you. So might as well make it more growth promoting and also healthier on your shoulders by going nice and slow most of the time, again, unless you have a test coming up. Next question. We're gonna make this the last one, guys. What mentality do you use as an athlete or trainee out of sport due to injury? So, what is your mindset and or actions once you get injured and you can't do what you want to do? Yeah, it's super tough. However, if you feel really, really bad for yourself, like most people do, they just feel bad for themselves and they pout and they whine and they bitch and they moan, and they probably add insult to injury by doing a bunch of things that they wouldn't normally do, but now like they can't do what they want, so may as well ask screw it. We're just gonna like start all these bad habits. We're just gonna scroll all day, we're gonna drink, we're gonna eat crappy food, we're gonna stay sedentary, whatever have you. That may make you feel very, very temporarily better in the moment, but guess what? A, no one cares, no one's gonna like come save you, like, oh, it's okay, we'll we'll just give you an out because you're injured. Uh, you can just do whatever you want. Like, life will still just work out for you if you just sulk and do nothing about it. That just doesn't happen. Two, it also just doesn't solve any problems. Like, sulking and complaining has never solved a problem for anyone in any situation ever. What does solve problems? Action. Doing things to make your situation better. Even though you're injured and you can't play the sport you want to play, which is the case for this question, but this just goes for any injury. Maybe you can't train the way you want to train, because you're injured. There's a very good chance you can do some form of training. And a lot of people will think, like, oh, I'm injured, I just can't train at all. I've heard people say, like, I broke my hand, I can't train. Or I have Achilles tendinitis, I can't train. Or I have AC joint issues in my shoulder, I just can't train it. Guess what? There's a lot of things you can do for training when you're injured. If you have a spinal injury or something crazy, maybe you got a really bad TBI, or your doctor says do not move or don't load bare or anything like that. That's one thing. But for the most part, you can still train something. If you get an upper body injury, you can train your lower body. You can use machines. I mean, if you can't like back squat because you have a shoulder issue or an elbow issue or an upper back issue, whatever have you, you can hop on a belt squat, or you can hop on a leg extension, or you can hop on a leg curl, whatever have you. Train your lower body. If you have a lower body injury, opposite, train your upper body. If you have an injury that makes it so that you can't do a specific type of cardio, like usually this is gonna be running or rucking, then you should cross-train. You should do something that doesn't bother it. So biking or swimming or rowing or whatever have you, or a combination of all those things. Continue to maintain and or improve your aerobic capacity, your anaerobic capacity, etc., even if you can't actually practice the skill of running. When you get back to running, you'll just have to regain the skill. You won't have to also regain your aerobic and anaerobic ability, etc. You might even have better aerobic capacity, and therefore, once you get the skill back, you might even make more run gains type thing. So that's like the fitness aspect. Nutrition. One massive mistake a lot of people make is when they get injured, they don't want to get fat. So they well, some people, when they get injured, like I said earlier, they just throw in the towel and they go off the rails and they get super fat. That is not a good idea either because you're just getting super inflamed. And when you're eating crappy food, you're just not going to feel good. You're also just not promoting the type of injury recovery that you want. You're not getting the right micronutrients that you need, and it's not a good idea at all. However, the opposite, sometimes people do as well, especially type A individuals that like really, really are attached to their physique or attached to like their certain body weight or whatever have you, they'll try and go into a cut when they're injured and they'll eat in a calorie deficit. Like, may as well just get super shredded right now while I'm injured. And maybe they are doing the training that I was talking about. They're training other parts of their body, so like they think they're doing the right thing because they're getting leaner and they're still training. But when you're injured, you need your body needs more resources than just it normally does in order to function. It also needs to recover and heal and rejuvenate. And when you're not feeding in enough calories as well as micronutrients, so you're not eating the right proper food choices, you're just gonna be injured longer. You're gonna stay injured longer. So that is not a good idea either. When you get injured, do not go into a deficit. What I would do is eat generally at maintenance, even in a mild surplus, might be a solid idea. You'd be better off eating in a mild surplus. Again, with healthy, quality, whole foods, pick it, kill it, grow it foods, which I talked about in my last episode. Additionally, sport and training is not the only thing that matters in life to almost anybody, even if you are a professional athlete. There's still probably other things in life that you care about. And chances are some of those things involve skill, they involve competence, they involve knowledge, they involve getting more comfortable with doing them, whatever that thing may be for you. So you can, even though you can't train the way you want to because you're injured, you can go build another skill set, or you can go improve a current skill set, or you can fill a knowledge gap, or you can go put yourself in situations that you're not comfortable with, and expose yourself to these things and get more comfortable with them. Public speaking, talking to strangers. Maybe you are thinking about building a business. Now you have this extra time on your hands because you can't train as much. You start learning about being an entrepreneur, you take a college course, you just go self-teach yourself something about some sort of subject that might help you in life, or maybe just a subject that you're interested in. Maybe you're not gonna use this for some sort of money-making endeavor or something like that. Maybe it's just something you're interested in, you just haven't had a lot of time to dive into it, and now you do, boom, go do that. In your free time, because you still want to do free time, you're not just gonna spend all of your time developing yourself, getting fitter, nailing your nutrition and personal development stuff in your free time. This is really important. You want to keep yourself mentally healthy. So instead of just sitting and scrolling or just binge watching YouTube or Netflix or whatever have you, partying, you want to do stuff like read, maybe go for walks if you don't have an injury that restricts you from walking, maybe do some sort of hobby that doesn't that you can do when you're injured. For example, last year, I'll give you a personal example and then we'll wrap this up. Last year, when I was going through my gut health issues, I was every time I went to the gym, I was weaker than the last time because I just could not eat enough food to or I could I couldn't eat or assimilate enough food. My gut health was really bad. I couldn't consume enough to actually fuel my training and make it so that I was in at least a calorie maintenance. And I went through this like massive, I'll spare the details, gut health protocol. That took a while, and I literally it was super demoralizing to go to the gym every time. I was still going consistently, but every time I was weaker, and that sucked. And don't get me wrong, I was definitely not super happy about it. This was a tough time for me mentally, but I learned that you can get better at golf when you're going through something like that. And I got right back into golf. It helped that I was no longer the only person working on my business. My wife came on right around that same time. So she handled a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that I used to handle, so I had more time to go play golf. But anyway, one of the things that kept one of the things that kept me sane and actually gave me fulfillment and made me excited, like in general. Honestly, I wasn't really that excited about a lot of things. I had really, really bad mental health at the time because I couldn't do most of the things I loved and it was hard for me to focus, and so on and so forth. But I could go play golf and I could get better at golf, and that was motivating, and it helped me get through that time. And there have been other times where I've been minorly injured in my life too, where I just focus on some other things that I can do while I'm still injured. And there's always something that you can focus on, no matter what injury you have. It could be a really, really severe one, and you can probably find something you can do. So that is all a better option than just sitting and sulking and feeling bad for yourself. And of course, along during this time, you probably want to do some sort of rehab. I don't know what your injury is, but maybe you go see a PT or maybe you do some rehab yourself. What I wouldn't do is try and invent a bunch of random stuff like stretches and other mobility stuff. You don't know what you're doing. I've had some clients in the past, despite me telling them not to, that have like minor injuries and they decide to like invent all these stretches and they make it worse. Typically, when you hurt yourself, stretching it is probably going to inflame it further. You're already inflamed something and putting more stress on that area, even though that's what most people do, it's usually not a good idea unless someone who's a professional tells you that you should do it. So that is my best advice at getting over or getting through dealing with the mental difficulty, as well as probably the physical difficulty. You know, if you have a legit injury and it's painful, that sucks too. But for most people, especially type A individuals, it's not the physical pain that messes them up. It is the mental pain of not doing what they love doing and what they normally do. And potentially maybe it's something that's gonna impede their process or impede their progress at reaching whatever goal they may have. So your best bet is to just be positive about it and find something you can do and work towards that. And then once you're back, then you get back into it and you go crush your goals. So that is it for today, guys. Thank you very much for tuning in. I'll be back soon with another episode. Don't forget to check out that guide if you're interested. If you liked some of the personal development stuff I talked about, just the tip of the iceberg in this episode, then you're gonna really love the guide. It is way, way, way, way, way more in depth. And I am also a better writer than I am speaker. So there's that. Anyway, have an awesome week. Chat soon, Terminator Out. Thank you for listening. If you like this show and want to start crushing your goals, please subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And for more fitness content, follow me on Instagram at Terminator underscore training, or check out my website, Terminator Training.com. All right, guys, Terminator Out.