Episode 182 - Q&A: SFAS Non-Select Tips, Land Nav/Rucking & Delta Selection, SFAS Prep Timeline, Rope Climb Tips, Mimicking SFAS in Training, Determining Calorie/Carb Intake (cutting) & more!

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What's going on guys? Welcome to another episode of the Terminator Training Show. I'm Kevin Smith. We are back with a q and a style episode today. If you want your question answered in the future, give me a follow on Instagram terminator underscore training and look out for my usually biweekly Q and as where I go in and answer certain questions on Instagram and then I answer certain questions here on the show. What I've been doing lately is because I get a high volume question count, I will do a part one and a part two. I don't really call it part one and part two, but I'll answer [00:00:30] a bunch of questions from this week's q and a on this one and then I'll kind of save that q and a for the next one so that I get more people's questions answered. I was kind of feeling bad for a little while.

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I noticed that I would get a repeat question that was a good question from the same person that really wanted an answer, and just through the luck of it and the situation, the way I go through the questions, I just wouldn't get to certain ones, so I figured I would do this double up where I double up the questions. That way I get to some [00:01:00] more of 'em and hopefully help more people out because that's the goal. Let's hop into the first question of today, which is not really a question, but it kind of is. I'll sort of circle it back and make it a question, but it's a really important topic and that is training under SFAS testing conditions. In parentheses, no intra-workout fueling versus training with intra-workout, and this is in the context of prepping for selection. What should you do? Should you use intra-workout carbohydrates [00:01:30] even though you're not going to have them at selection or should you just raw dog It of course hydrate.

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I would strongly recommend hydrating with water and electrolytes but not actually use intra-workout fuel. Here's the deal. The nature of selection is testing. It's testing you on how well prepared you are physically. We're just going to talk physically here. Of course, you got to be prepared for land nav. You got to be prepared for team events and things like that, but we'll talk physical here because this is more of a physical question, so [00:02:00] you want to show up to the test that tests your physical ability as physically robust and physically capable in the specific things you're going to be tested on, rocking, running, et cetera as possible, and if you intentionally decide not to fuel certain workouts properly or optimally, I would say, and by not doing intra-workout fueling on a long ruck or long run, you're doing just that no matter who you are, then you are leaving small amounts of [00:02:30] gains per session on the table because carbs will help you perform better in that training session as well as help you recover better and start your recovery process faster.

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Start refilling your glycogen stores faster, but even though it's just a little bit per workout, if you're doing this on a regular basis, if you extend out that one workout where you're not recovering as well, you're not performing as well as you otherwise could, if you just decided to use intra-workout fuel, extend that out for 12 weeks and say you're doing that once a week, that's 12 training sessions you'll [00:03:00] never get back that you intentionally showed up to and executed a little bit less prepared than you otherwise could be. If you do that twice a week, that's 24 sessions. If you do that three times a week, that's 36 sessions and so on and so forth. So although doing this maybe once or twice just to see how it feels could be a decent idea. I personally don't think it's necessary, nor do I think it's the best option because if you are showing up to each and every workout during your selection prep [00:03:30] as prepared as possible, which includes being properly fueled for it and properly fueled throughout it, then you are just going to get better results and the end result at the end when you finish your selection prep and go to selection is those workouts that could have been a little bit subpar because you decided not to fuel them.

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Instead they were part, they were basically solid workouts. Of course, even if you do fuel well, some workouts aren't going to be great, but it won't be because of that reason. Then you're going to have covered more of your bases and you're going to show up more prepared than those [00:04:00] who decided to mimic selection. Exactly. It is not that difficult to be used to fueling yourself and then one day you just have to not fuel during a training session especially because that's selection most likely you're going to be eating very close to, which is not really that good of a thing. Eating an MRE right before you go out for your runs and rux, but most likely you're going to be eating relatively close to when you go out. I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's the case, but I remember getting up super early during selection and eating an MRE at least before the rux.

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[00:04:30] I don't remember before the runs if we had Emory's before or after, but either way you're just going to not be in the best conditions anyway, so really that just comes down to mental fortitude getting through it. Again, you can practice it once or twice just to see how it feels, but even that I don't think is all that necessary. You just show up. You may not be as prime to perform. You won't be as prime to perform after the first day of selection, but even the first day because you're just going to be fatigued, you're not going to be sleeping much, you're not going to be well fed enough, and of [00:05:00] course you're not going to have interwork workout carbohydrates or fuel, but you can still put up a solid effort and it's really not going to be that huge of a deal. This is just one of those classic cross that bridge when you get their things along with sleep deprivation and being super stressed out and food deprivation and things like that.

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So that is my strong recommendation and I am a little bit over seeing people say that you need to mimic it and practice it and do the exact same thing as you are at selection. There is a difference [00:05:30] between testing and training. Next question is the single rucking day during the two and five mile program enough to keep ruck numbers from ruck run lift six months from SAS, so it's not quite enough to keep the same robust ruck numbers as ruck run lift. You're going from basically a program that is geared towards getting really, really, really good at rucking depending on which version you follow, but even any of the versions minus the run version, which I'm assuming you didn't follow or you're not following because Ruck run [00:06:00] Lift hasn't been out long enough for you to be done with it, but either way because you're rucking two to three, sometimes three times per week towards the end of that program and then you're going to go to one and that one ruck is relatively short, relatively low intensity, and that is much more run bias program, of course you're going to drop off a little bit.

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You wouldn't be able to put the same 12 mile time up at the end of the two and five mile as you would at ruck run lift and you'd be a little bit more beat up from it because you're just not doing it as much. However, it is definitely enough to maintain most of it [00:06:30] and I would also question if you're six months out right now from selection following ruck run lift right now, probably not the most optimal order to go in. I would probably follow something like one of the Jack Elles or hop on T eight 50 or hop on the two and five mile and then get into Ruck run lift. That would be my recommendation. I'm guessing you're probably doing ruck run lift, then you're going to hop on the two and five mile and then hop back on Ruck run Lift, which is not the end of the world, but it's not how I would do it, but those are some things to consider.

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You're not going to be exactly the same rucking [00:07:00] performance that's just physically impossible, but you should maintain it pretty damn well and it should come back and then some, you'll make more run ruck progress once you finish that two and five mile and increase that rucking frequency. With the Ruck run lift program, again, you're going to start making progress again and it's probably going to be more significant than it was prior. You're going to get, I should say, it's not going to be as significant because you are less fit for rucking the first time you follow the program. Typically for conditioning, especially the second time you go through a program, the [00:07:30] Deltas the improvement. Deltas are going to be smaller, just that's how physiology works, but you'll still be able to get past where you were last time you finished the Ruck run lift program because you're going to be a lot more well prepared and a lot more fit coming off the two and five mile.

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So that's my recommendation. Next question is 16 weeks enough to really prep someone that's not already in solid shape for selection? Looking at others, it would take me at least eight months. I don't know what you mean by looking at others, but if you're not in solid shape, then no four months is not going to get you selection [00:08:00] ready unless you are a complete genetic anomaly that just has a bunch of untapped potential you've never discovered before and you're super athletic, especially prone to endurance than maybe four months from the couch to selection soup to nuts. But everyone else, pretty much everyone who's watching this or listening to this, you're going to need more than four months from going from not in good shape to being selection ready. Some people, if you're kind of a genetic anomaly or if you have, like I said, a bunch of untapped potential, [00:08:30] you're not elite, but you're up there, you just haven't really discovered your fitness potential yet.

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You could probably get ready for selection in six months. Other people, it's going to be eight other people, it's going to be longer than eight. It really just depends on lots and lots and lots of different factors. Everyone progresses at a very different rate. I have certain clients that make incredibly rapid progress. I have other clients that make slower and more gradual progress, and it's not like the guys who are making slower and more gradual progress are doing anything wrong [00:09:00] necessarily. They just don't have the same capacity to make progress and make gains as other people. Most of that is genetics. There are other factors too. Of course, your adherence to the program, your ability to execute movements properly, your ability to manage intensity and then of course what you do outside the gym that's going to make a massive difference, your recovery habits. So that's kind of the nuance to it, but if you just go from like I'm super out of shape right now, I'm going to follow ruck run lift.

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Even [00:09:30] if you do the base phase for a month, maybe two months or so, that's still probably not going to get you all the way to being selection ready again unless you're a genetic anomaly. So what I would consider if you have a while, which I'm hoping you do, is to start with a program like two and five mile. That way you build a base and you kind work on running. You get a little bit of a taste of rucking, but it's mostly running and lifting, and then after that you can kind of, depending on your timeline, you can maybe get into ruck run lift if you are going to selection in four or five months, [00:10:00] or you could consider something like Jack Zel, Jack Zel 2.0. You could hop on the T eight 50 plan and follow that up until you're about four months out from selection and then switch to Reccon lift or three months out and switch to SFAS, assuming you're going to SFAS and not another soft selection.

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But yeah, four months not quite enough for most people, but also not super far off for, I would say the vast majority of people could probably get ready in eight-ish, maybe 10 months from soup to nuts. Next question, how can I prevent tendonitis [00:10:30] after doing a lot of rope climbs? So rope climbing, although a lot of people think that it involves a ton of strength, especially upper body pulling strength because that's kind of your connection to the rope your arms when you do it with proper technique, it doesn't, doesn't involve much strength at all and you should be able to just do it over and over and over and over again. Again, that's with good technique and it shouldn't be much of a stress. You should not get any semblance of elbow tendonitis. I'm [00:11:00] guessing you're talking about elbow tendonitis or wrist issues, hand issues, maybe shoulder issues, but it shouldn't really cause any of that if you're doing it right.

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So my recommendation in this case to prevent it because that's what the question asked is to give it in the butt now and start practicing your technique. You can use one of two different rowing or rope climbing techniques. The J hook is pretty simple. It doesn't involve an extra wrap. That's the one I always preferred, but sometimes people struggle with that one and they like the [00:11:30] one that goes around the back of their heel, which is fine. Just choose one or experiment with both of 'em, choose one, stick to it and then just practice it and then practice it more and then practice it more using really good technique, not doing legless rope climbs. You can do that sometimes for upper body conditioning, whatever, but really practicing the technique is where you're going to make your money. So the best way to do it just to keep things more safe is to do two to three bites where you're making [00:12:00] a bite and you're pulling yourself up, not necessarily going all the way to the top of the rope unless your rope is shorter.

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If it's like an indoor rope or something like that, then it probably is two to three bites to get to the top, but you don't have to find this 30 to 50 foot rope and just go all the way to the top every time You can do that if you're really, really confident with your ability. But first starting out, I would just do two to three and then slow and control, lower yourself back down, lowering yourself on the rope. It should be a little bit more upper body strength requiring than going up, believe it or not, [00:12:30] because you're actually using your arms to slow your roll a little bit. You definitely should use your legs and your bite. Basically undo the bite a little bit with your feet to allow gravity to start pulling you down, but I would say it's a little more fatiguing to go down than it is to go up ropes, but still it should not be causing any sort of tendonitis unless of course you're doing them all day and you're just doing it with terrible form and just muscling your way up.

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So that's my recommendation on preventing tendonitis from row climbs. [00:13:00] Next question, how would you structure the time between a year return to SVS planning to ruck again five months out? So you could follow a bunch of different of my programs in different orders? You could follow two and five mile then Jack Elle, then ruck run Lyft or SVS. You could follow Jack Elle. Then two and five mile, then ruck run Lyft or SVS really any number of things. You could hop on T eight 50 until you're about five months out or four months out and then hop on ruck, run lift or three months out and hop on SFS. It [00:13:30] really just depends on what you're going for, but if you don't want to hop on a program, you just want a general way to think about and view and set up your next year or so before you get into your selection prep.

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I would focus mostly on general fitness with a little bit of flavor towards running and rucking mostly running at this point probably for the next three, four months. Then get probably a little bit more into rucking. Maybe add another ruck to what [00:14:00] you were doing before. Say maybe right now you're rucking once a month, maybe twice a month. I wouldn't wait five months, five full months to do any rucking. I would start doing maybe two Rucks a month. You can go and watch or listen to episode. I think it's like 1 67 or 1 68 on how I would put together a ruck plan over the next year if I was a year out from selection. So you can definitely check that out to get a really good idea of how I would go about this year prep for selection, but really [00:14:30] nothing crazy. You just want to keep maintain, do your best to maintain your fitness that you had at selection, but also you don't have to be selection ready that whole time and you don't have to rock quite as often.

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You really want to maintain that running ability. You really want to maintain or gain some strength depending on what you were weak at last time and definitely work most on what they told you to work most on. Of course, work on the things you're weaker at, but it doesn't have to be all that complicated. Any of those programs can help or you can listen to that episode and kind of put together your own plan. I will say that [00:15:00] following programs would be a better option, but it can be done without that. Next question, is it okay to run and ruck while in a calorie deficit or should I wait until I hit my goal body weight, then eat up maintenance, then start running and rucking? I would strongly suggest if you want to improve your running and rucking by a certain time, the sooner you start doing your ruck and running training, even if you are in a calorie deficit, the better.

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So although I have said a lot in the past, a recovery calorie deficit is a recovery deficit. That doesn't mean you're just not going to recover from [00:15:30] anything. That doesn't mean you shouldn't train. You absolutely can still train and you should train. It will make the whole process easier and also you will make even bigger gains on especially running maybe not quite as much on rucking just depending on where you're at and how much you're doing, but definitely on running, if you continue to run during your cut, you're going to of course improve your natural running ability, your natural running fitness, but you're also going to be smaller and of course hopefully if you're doing it right and you're losing mostly [00:16:00] fat and you're not in some crazy calorie deficit and you're also lifting weights on the side, so you maintain muscle, but you're going to get smaller and therefore more efficient at running, not just because you're getting better at it, but also because you are smaller in stature.

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So that's kind of like a double win. So I would strongly recommend doing that. Just note that you're not going to be optimally able to recover as you would if you were at maintenance or in a slight surplus, but that doesn't mean it's just not going to happen at all. So I would strongly suggest [00:16:30] sticking to it and then maybe once you get to your goal body weight, your goal body composition, that's when you can consider maybe increasing the intensity a little bit, maybe increasing the volume a little bit, maybe adding some other training in because you're going to be, you're just going to have more capacity to recover or you could potentially keep things the same and just make better games doing the same thing, making maybe small progressive overload adjustments over time. So that's what I recommend. Next question, do calories start counting?

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Once I wake up till bed, I work night shifts. So what [00:17:00] I think he's asking is if he's not awake during the day, most people are, when should I start counting my daily calorie intake? And here's the thing, your body's not on this 24 hour clock that reset your body's metabolism is not on this 24 hour clock that resets. So instead, I usually like to look at calorie intake on more of a macro basis, not a macronutrient basis, but instead of a daily basis. Look at it as a weekly basis. So as long as [00:17:30] you're in a net. So if you're trying to lose weight, as long as you're in net deficit throughout the week total, you'll lose weight. If you're net at maintenance throughout the week, you'll stay about the same. If your net in a surplus, you will gain weight. It's not this thing if you eat 4,000 calories one day, your next day you just start again and those calories yesterday didn't matter and you get a fresh start.

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You could theoretically, if you say your maintenance is 3000 calories per day and [00:18:00] you're trying to maintain, so that would be 21,000 calories per week. You could literally, if you wanted to, this would be very impractical and not recommended, but if you wanted to, you could eat 7,000 calories for three days out the week and then not eat on the other days and you'd still be at maintenance. Yes, again, wouldn't recommend doing that, but that's kind of like my example, my analogy to explain how calories don't really count necessarily on day-to-day basis. So every calorie you eat counts, [00:18:30] but it's not like you get a fresh start every single day or it's not like if you didn't eat enough yesterday, you're screwed. That day is in the past and you can't do anything about it. You just eat a little bit more the following day or vice versa.

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If you eat a ton the day prior, eat a little bit less today and it kind of evens it out. So that is my recommended approach. Hopefully that answers your question. I think that's kind of what it was getting at. Next question, I have a sore hamstring at week five of the two and five mile program. Should I push through or hold here till I recover? [00:19:00] I would definitely not push through necessarily, and I'm assuming by sore hamstring you mean it's maybe not sore, but nagging issue. It's not like muscle soreness. It's more so like the other hamstring doesn't feel like that and this hamstring is a little bit inflamed or upset in some sense. So in that case, because the running that you were doing probably is a big factor in why it's sore or potentially hurting, then I would definitely not continue doing what [00:19:30] hurt it, and that goes for pretty much anything.

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Now that doesn't mean you have to stop running necessarily. It really depends on how it's feeling, but I would certainly not go into the next week with a bum hamstring and launch right into speed work the first day of the week because usually in that program, the first day of the week is speed work, so that wouldn't be super smart, but you could either consider taking a few days off completely and maybe just allowing that inflammation to go down and then getting back into training just as you were. You could also consider doing [00:20:00] the deload week a little bit early. You could also do non-impact stuff instead of your run training throughout the week. You could take the same time domains and distances, although you may be able to add a little bit more, especially on the long stuff and do it on a bike or do it on a rower instead of 400 meter repeats.

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For example, you could do 500 meter row repeats with about the same intensity, the same rest intervals. Of course, you probably don't know your baseline rower times, which is fine. You could just go RPE like eight to nine on each rep [00:20:30] and rest the same amount of time and try and match your output at least close to match your output each time. Think of it like running, if you're running four hundreds and one of 'em, so a 1 55 and the other one's a one 30 and the other one's a 1 22, you're not really matching. So try and do the same thing with a rower or a bike or an air bike, really whatever, and you could do that for a week, maybe two weeks. You can absolutely test the waters with running most likely if easy running and slow running doesn't bother you that much, you could just do a speeded work week where you [00:21:00] just do easy running any number of different things.

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If it prolongs or if it continues bothering you for I would say another 10 days, two weeks, three weeks despite doing one of the things or multiple of the things I just mentioned, then I would probably go see a physical therapist or a doc just to get another set of eyes on there and be able to assess you in person. There's only so much that I can imply and predict based on what you're going through, but that is the way I would approach it. Again, you don't have to stop and wait for recovery to happen. That's [00:21:30] probably not a good idea at all. You want to continue at least putting it through low pain ranges of motion, but also you probably shouldn't do the exact thing that potentially hurt it, which is probably following the program. So that's my recommendation on the best approach. Next question is MyFitnessPal for calorie tracking a good idea and what should ideal carbs per body weight be for a calorie deficit?

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Alright, so to answer the first part, yes, MyFitnessPal is one of the OG calorie tracking macro tracking [00:22:00] softwares. So yeah, it works great, but any number of different things work, Mike's macros, macro factor carbon, those are all solid options. It really just depends on what your preference is. If you're used to MyFitnessPal, just keep using it, no big deal. As for how many grams of carbs should you eat in a deficit, it's going to really be individual, but I will show you, I'll kind of talk through a very rudimentary way to determine your carbon intake here on the show. It's going to be very, very baseline for more information on this to get it really personalized, [00:22:30] check out my recovery guide. My soft prep recovery guide goes over this in extreme detail and allows you to personalize it. I'm going to be using hypothetical examples.

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So in order to determine your carbon intake, step one is to determine how many grams of protein and fat that you need because those are both as central macronutrients, meaning if you don't eat enough protein or fat, you will fail to thrive. Eventually you could die, which is unrealistic unless you're in a survival [00:23:00] situation, but they're essential macros, so it's ideal to calculate how many of those you need first before getting into carbs. So what I usually do is one gram per pound of body weight of protein. For most people, that's going to be a solid amount. There are definitely nuances. Some people probably would benefit from eating less. Like if you're in an extreme bulk and too much protein makes you too full and you can't eat enough calories, that's one thing. Or if you're in an extreme deficit and you're super hungry and you want to be more satiated, upping the protein would probably be [00:23:30] a good idea because protein's the most satiating macronutrient.

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But we'll just say for this example, one gram per pound. Typically for fat, I like to do 0.3 to 0.4 grams per pound for men, maybe a little probably 0.4 to 0.5 for women for a starting point. So you absolutely can eat less fat than that for sure, but I wouldn't eat less than like 0.3 grams per pound for a prolonged period of time, and we're assuming that this person is around 20% body fat or leaner, a little bit different if you have a [00:24:00] lot of body fat because obviously your weight is going to be a little bit off for these equations, and these are not perfect equations, they're rudimentary. I just want to reiterate that. So say you weigh 200 pounds and I put you on a 200 grams of protein and 80.4 200 times 0.4 is 80 80 grams of fat. From there, we have your fat in your protein, so we need to figure out the carbs to figure out the carbs.

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We need to figure out how many calories you need overall because each of these [00:24:30] macros is going to then translate into a certain amount of calories that's going to build your entire day of eating. So say for example, your maintenance is 3000 calories and you want to go into a 300 calorie deficit, so you're eating about 2,700 calories from there, you're going to take your fat grams and multiply them by nine and take your protein grams and multiply them by four. There are four calories in a gram of protein. There are nine calories in a gram of fat. [00:25:00] I don't have the ability to do this math without a calculator because I'm not great at math, but basically you multiply 200 by four, which is easy, that's 800, and then you multiply 80 by nine, which is I believe 720. I guess I can do that math.

(25:17):

I think that's right. Then you take those two numbers and add them together because those are two out of the three macros. That's how many calories you're going to be getting from fat and protein. Then you take 2,700, the [00:25:30] amount of calories that you're going to be eating on an average day to being your 300 calorie deficit, subtract your 800 plus seven 20, which is going to be like 15, 20 and whatever number you get there, divide that by four because there's four grams of, or there's four calories in a gram of carbs. That's going to be how many carbs you eat. So let's see if I can do this without making a fool out of myself. 200 grams of protein times four [00:26:00] is 800, 800 calories from protein, 80 grams of fat is 728 times 9, 720 calories from fat. 720 plus 800 is 15 20, 2700 minus 1520 equals 1,180 I believe, and then you would take that number, that's how many calories from carbohydrates you're going to be eating, and you would divide that by four, which I will pull out a calculator real quick [00:26:30] and do that just so I don't leave you with everything but the actual question that you answered, let's do it real quick.

(26:38):

Alright, 1180 divided by four equals 2 95. So 295 grams of carbs, give or take is what you're going to be going for each day. Then from there, usually I like to do a range for protein, anywhere between 180 to 220 grams of protein for fat, anywhere between 70 to 90 grams of fat. You want a smaller window for fat just because fat's [00:27:00] got more calories in it and you'll have to manipulate other macros more significantly if you go way crazy high on fat, but a 15 to 20 gram window is pretty solid, and then for carbohydrates, something like 2 75 to 3 25 or something like that, that will put you in a net overall deficit. It's not perfect every single day and it shouldn't be perfect every single day. If one day you eat 2,750 calories, not a big deal. If one day you eat 2,580 calories, not a big deal.

(27:29):

If one day you eat [00:27:30] 3000 calories, not a huge deal because most likely you're going to eat 24 or 2300 calories on another day. That's kind of like calorie cycling and what I was talking about earlier with putting it on more of a macro scale, a weekly scale rather than a daily scale. But if you're averaging that 2,700 good to go. So that's how I would calculate not just the calories, but also the carbs, the fats, the proteins, again, because fat and protein are essential and because it's pretty easy to put an equation together for them, [00:28:00] that's usually how I figure it out first and then we add carbohydrates to the rest of it, and of course that is just an example. 3000 calories being in a 300 calorie deficit at 2,700, apply that to whatever your situation is. Next question, which of your programs is most suitable for cutting body fat?

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Any of my programs that you follow in a deficit will result in the loss of body fat. Even if you don't train at all, but you're in a calorie deficit, you'll lose body fat. So in most cases, it's [00:28:30] better to think of the training as almost a completely separate entity from your actual weight loss journey. That being said, you definitely want to make sure if you want to lose mostly fat, not muscle, you want to make sure that you are lifting weights at least a couple days a week. You want to make sure you're not doing too much cardio. You want to make sure your calorie deficit is not crazy, crazy drastic, 800, a thousand, 1200 calorie deficits. They can work for a short period of time for certain people in certain situations, but generally [00:29:00] not the best idea for sustainability, especially if you're also trying to perform well in training and then you want to make sure you're eating enough protein.

(29:08):

Those things right there will result in mostly fat loss, not a lot of muscle loss, and you should feel relatively decent throughout the entire cut. So what I would recommend is one of my programs that has a good amount of lifting in it, and depending on what your main goal is, if your main goal is perform and your secondary goal is to lose fat, then you could follow something like T eight 50 or Jack Zel [00:29:30] or Jack Zel 2.0 or 2.5 mile. If your main goal is just to maintain muscle but lose fat and you don't really care about conditioning or anything like that, you could really follow any of my programs, but 19 week hypertrophy or kickstart would probably be the two best options and then just having a step count goal, or you could do some cardio if you're doing the 19 week hypertrophy and you also want to maintain your cardiovascular health, you don't want to do tons and tons of cardio contrary to what a lot of people think, unless you're cutting for a photo shoot or a bodybuilding show, that's [00:30:00] one thing to temporarily get crazy, crazy lean.

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But if you're doing cardio super early on in a cut, your body's kind of going to adapt to it over time. You're going to have to do more and more and more of it. It's going to be more and more and more of a stressor or you're going to have to eat less and less or a combination of those and it's usually not the best approach. So going back to what I was saying earlier, just a little bit of cardio, you could do something like high intensity interval session on one of the lifting days and then on a weekend day you could do a long incline walk or bike [00:30:30] or StairMaster session or run if you like, running for zone two. So you're getting a couple sessions in one low intensity, one higher intensity, and you're focused mostly on lifting and gaining and maintaining muscle while eating the deficit and you're going to be golden.

(30:44):

So that is the way I would go about it. Alright, we will speed it up a little bit and answer several more questions. So tips for non-sex returning to selection. What I would strongly recommend is to identify the things that the cadre told you to work on, the [00:31:00] reasons that you didn't get selected and work on them really, really hard. That way you go back and that's no longer a weakness, it's a strength for you. Now of course, you don't want to ignore all the stuff that you did well this time because you still have to do that again the next time. Next time you have to do everything you did this time but better and then probably something else better as well. So they want to see you improving. So for example, if you get an unselect and it's because maybe your rock times weren't [00:31:30] good enough and your running was fine, your calisthenics was fine, you were good during team week, you found most of your land N points enough of your land N points to make it.

(31:40):

Then you go back and focus just on rucking and you kind of throw everything else by the wayside, then you're going to be really good at rucking next time, but you're going to be worse at the other things and they're not going to like seeing that. So maintain the things you're good at, work on the things you're bad at, whatever they told you to work on and go back and show them that you do belong. Plenty of great Green [00:32:00] Berets have gone to selection more than one time and your best bet is to fix yourself whatever was broken or whatever was not sufficient or whatever displayed to the cadre that you were not ready and you go back and you display that you are ready and you're going to be good to go. So best of luck. Next question, will it be complex to ruck and try to do land navigation at the same time at CG selection complex?

(32:23):

Not necessarily, but having a ruck on your back definitely makes it harder and it makes it suck more and it makes it [00:32:30] so that less people pass and it's an extra stressor that has a significant effect. Does it make it more complex though? No land nav is land nav whether you have a rock on or not. So the best way to approach it, there was another question on how should I prep for Land Nav for SMU selection. The best way to do that is to practice land nav. Wherever you're at, you either join an orienteering club, maybe you go out and do it on your own. If you're already in soft and you already have a warm and fuzzy on how to do it, then go out on your [00:33:00] own and do land app. Of course, give someone a good got one and let them know where you're going when you're coming back just so you don't get lost.

(33:05):

But practicing it and getting reps is by far the best way to do it. You could also consider attending TF Voodoos Land App Muster, although I don't think that's super applicable to SMU selection for obvious reasons. It's a completely different type of terrain in a completely different location, but if you're unfamiliar with Land Nav or if you've never really gotten reps or if you're coming from the regular army and you want to kind of get some good instruction, then go into [00:33:30] that would be a solid option for SF guys. I don't think it's all that necessary. So that's how I'd prepare for Land Nav and then obviously you have to prepare for being able to carry a ruck every single day, day after day after day, hour after hour after hour. And although you're not going crazy, crazy fast and hard, the cumulative effect of doing it day after day is going to really require a lot of endurance, rucking specific endurance ability to walk long periods of time on your feet with weight on and [00:34:00] do it such that it does not completely take over your mental capacity and make you unable to plot your points, find your points, think clearly, make decisions, and all the other things you'll have to do out on the land nav course.

(34:14):

So again, not super complex, but it definitely adds another factor. It makes it more difficult for sure, and it's definitely not easy. So if you're going to that selection, get really good at Rucking, get really good at Land Nav and also put out while you're there because plenty [00:34:30] of guys go to that selection that are already good at Rucking, already good at Land Nav and they still don't make it because either they have a bad day or they're just not good enough to meet the standards they're looking for, which no one really knows what the standards they're looking for are. So hopefully that helps. Next question, what is your daily carb intake recommendation? I could not find it in podcast episodes. That's because everyone has a very, very different need for carbohydrates. So if we're assuming that you are not following any sort of fad diet like keto or low carb or [00:35:00] anything like that and you're just eating balanced and you want to perform well, basically you want to eat as many carbs as you possibly can that still allow you to get enough fat and enough protein and hit your calorie goals.

(35:11):

So if you go back a few questions ago when I did that entire equation, basically do that exact same thing based on your size and your ability and your goals, and then you can fit as many carbs as you possibly can in. You could even, instead of doing 0.4 for fat, you could even go down to 0.3 if you want to get more carbs in, especially for short periods of [00:35:30] time. I don't know if 0.3 grams per pound of body weight for most males is good to eat forever, but it's totally fine to eat for stints of time a couple months at a time. It's totally fine to cycle from 0.3 to 0.4, 0.25 even to 0.4, 0.3 to 0.5, and so on and so forth. So that's the way I would do it. There's no perfect answer for everyone. Some people can honestly eat 700, 800 grams of carbs a day and benefit from it.

(35:57):

Some people probably need to keep their carbs at 200 or [00:36:00] two 50. It really just depends on the goal and the person and how many overall calories, protein, fat, et cetera that you're taking in. So again, if you want to make that a lot easier instead of just listening to me explain it, you should check out the soft prep recovery guide. Next question, can one follow your Ruck run lift program with a gym that's lacking sandbags? Thanks. Yes, absolutely. There's one day in phase two and three. I think it's the strong mandate. Maybe it's in phase one. I'm not looking at the program, but [00:36:30] basically there's one strong mandate day that involves a sandbag so you could follow the entirety of the program minus that sandbag carry. That's part of one workout and be totally fine. Now, if you are prepping for a selection that is going to involve sandbags and you're going to have to carry them, then I would highly recommend purchasing one.

(36:51):

You can get one from Rep Fitness. You can get multiple different ones from Rep Fitness, but you can get the one that goes, I think it goes from like 80 to 150 or a hundred to 150, something like that. [00:37:00] Just go on Rep Fitness's website. And they're not that expensive and they're super versatile because they're super easy to make lighter, make heavier, make moderate, and they have the handles and they're really high quality sandbags. So that would be probably the most practical option. You could make your own sandbag out of a duffle bag or whatever, put a bunch of soft weight in a duffle bag and carry that, but honestly, sandbag won't set you back. It's definitely less than a hundred bucks and it's a pretty versatile piece of [00:37:30] equipment, and if you are training for a sandbag specific selection or a selection that involves sandbag carries and you're at all worried or concerned about it, then I would strongly suggest considering purchasing one or move into a gym that has sandbags.

(37:44):

Next question. All right, we'll do four more questions. First one, is fasting good for performance? In the vast majority of cases it is not. I could probably think of certain contexts in which fasting might help performance, [00:38:00] but one of the key factors in maximizing performance is being well fueled. So fasting is pretty much the opposite of being well fueled. You're not eating. That doesn't mean you can't perform while you're fasting or that doesn't mean you can't adapt your body and get it used to performing while you're fasted. And also some people just kind of prefer to train fasted. Usually though those people don't have extreme performance goals, and if they did, they'd have better results if they fueled their training a little bit more. So the potential [00:38:30] indirect benefits of fasting on performance, one, it can help with your digestion. So if your digestion or your gut health is not great and you do some fasting to kind of resolve that and alleviate the issues you're having, then you're going to be able to absorb more nutrients and therefore the food you eat is going to be more effective at helping you perform.

(38:50):

If you are doing something that is relying on your cognitive performance, then certain people perform better cognitively and think more clearly and speak more clearly [00:39:00] when they're fasting, and that's not always the best thing, especially if you're doing this on a regular basis because typically the reason you feel good while you're fasting is because your cortisol levels are high, because fasting is a stressor. So if you're overdoing it or if you're already a stressed out person and you throw fasting onto it, it's not going to help you necessarily. You might feel good but it's not doing what you think it's doing, you're probably just making your health worse because your cortisol is just elevated all the time. So that's usually why people feel so good cognitively [00:39:30] when they're fasting, and also it's totally fine to do something like that once in a while. For example, I'm fasted right now for this podcast because it helps me think and speak more clearly.

(39:39):

I just feel more wired, more focused. I feel less sluggish. But if I was about to go for an hour run or a two hour run, or if I was about to go lift and I wanted to perform and recover as well as I could from that training session, I wouldn't do it fasted. So pros and cons to it. Fasting, I would not consider it much of a performance enhancer. I would consider it more of [00:40:00] a health and wellbeing enhancer if used properly and if used by the right people and not abused or used by someone who has a past eating disorder or somebody who physiologically won't do well with fasting. Some people just need to eat more food more frequently, and that's just the way, but you can give it a try, see how it works for you. It's not magic like a lot of people tout it to be, but I would strongly suggest if you are doing it around important training sessions [00:40:30] for you really want to perform well in them then to fuel well for those sessions and not fast, maybe fast on days that you're not doing hard training.

(40:38):

Next question, how often should you increase weekly mileage? It depends on a lot of things. Obviously you're not going to indefinitely increase weekly mileage. There's going to be a limit somewhere. It depends on what you're training for. It depends on your fitness, it depends on lots of different factors, but that's one thing to consider. Another thing to consider is where you're at. So if you're at a very low volume, it can be beneficial to increase [00:41:00] your volume once every week. So say maybe last week you ran 10 miles, maybe this week you run 12, and then the following week you run 14, and then the next week maybe you run 15, maybe a smaller increase, and then maybe you go up to 17, so on and so forth. You can add larger amounts than that, but that's just one example. But if you are, say maybe you just worked your way up to 45 miles a week, you're prepping for say a half marathon or a 10 K, and maybe you started your prep at 20 miles a week and gradually you increase that [00:41:30] mileage, now you're at 45.

(41:31):

Even if you increase your mileage each week to get from 20 to 45, and these are again just hypothetical numbers, but you get to that 45, there's nothing wrong with doing a repeat week at 45. There's even nothing wrong with doing a couple of repeat weeks at 45 and then dialing back, doing a little dial back week or a deload week, whatever you want to call it, and then going back to 45 and then going back higher than 45 after your deload because you're a little less stressed, you're a little less banged up, and you're kind of primed [00:42:00] to perform even if you increase that volume a little bit. So there's no perfect set way to increase volume exactly by a certain amount every single week or every other week or every three weeks or three weeks on one week where you dial back. There's tons and tons of different ways to do it, but what I would do is really listen to your body and really be good at collecting data and seeing if you're actually progressing.

(42:24):

If you're progressing and you're feeling good, you're recovering well and you're not just a mess and [00:42:30] it's like a complete chore to get your training sessions in and your other training is going well, then there's nothing wrong with you adding volume the following week. If you just did a week and you are completely smoked and you are just not recovering well, you're not feeling good, you're not feeling motivated when you usually are motivated, maybe you're a little bit banged up, then adding mileage that week, even if it would make sense on paper, doesn't make sense in practice. So it really comes down to listen to your body. Honestly, it [00:43:00] should come down to just having a coach. If you have a coach, they're going to hopefully, if they're a good coach, be able to identify when you maybe need to dial things back or reduce your volume.

(43:08):

They're going to be really good at giving you steady and reasonable volume increases at the right times. Certain programs can do that as well, but it really comes down to in lieu of a coach or in lieu of a really good program that does it for you, it really comes down to listening to your body and actually listening to it being objective, not subjective, not being emotional about how your body feels [00:43:30] just, Hey, I feel like this. This is the right decision. I'm going to do it even if it's not what I want to do. And that kind of goes for all things fitness as well as all things just life that move the needle forward. Sometimes you don't want to do 'em, but if they're objectively the right thing to do, they need to be done, then that's what you do, whether that's doing something or not doing something that you normally would do or that you want to do.

(43:52):

So that's my advice on that one. And the final question today is supplements you recommend based on your personal experience. [00:44:00] So I don't necessarily recommend supplements based on anecdote. I usually recommend supplements based on what the data says. I think supplements are one of few areas in I guess fitness and health in which going by the data is usually a better idea than going by personal experience, anecdotes, case studies, and just spending a long time around the fitness realm, which is honestly how I give most of [00:44:30] my, if you haven't noticed, I don't really recommend data shows this studies show this according to this study. I don't say that very often. Usually I go off personal experience, anecdote, case studies, things that work for a lot of people, whether a study proves it or not. Typically also things that work really well you do for a while, whether there's a study on it or not.

(44:49):

Usually there's no study, but later on a study will come out to prove that what you've been doing all along that worked also worked. And it's like, I don't need to see the study for that. I know it worked in person, so I'm going to do it. However, [00:45:00] supplements are a little bit different because certain supplements are complete BS and certain supplements put a BS amount of certain compounds in their supplements to say that that compound's in there, but it's not even in an efficacious dose, so it's not really going to do anything. But they sell more because they have that compound in there. For example, everyone should be familiar with bangs, the energy drink. It says they have super creatine in there, which there's no such thing as super creatine, [00:45:30] but they put that on there and they actually ran tests on the bang energy drinks, and I think there was no creatine.

(45:36):

There might've been a little tiny pixie dust amount of creatine in there, but not enough to actually do anything. But because it said creatine and super creatine in big letters, people probably thought, I'm sure I can almost guarantee that led to more sales because people thought they were getting some creatine may as well. So that's just one example. But because supplements are more objective than subjective, [00:46:00] although everyone's going to have slightly different experiences with different supplements, that's the main reason I go by the data. Not personal experience, but most of the supplements I'm about to name I use anyway or have used in the past. So creatine, pretty much anyone should use creatine if you have fitness goals, if you have longevity goals, health goals, five to 10 grams a day, probably good. They are recent studies coming out about upping the dose, 10 grams, 15 grams, 20 grams potentially for either short periods of time or for certain people to really help with [00:46:30] cognition.

(46:31):

And especially if you've had past brain trauma or TBI, anything like that, upping your creatine dose can help quite significantly. So super simple. Creatine, some sort of omega generally. I like a fish oil. I use fish oil from spoken, which I have a discount code too in the description if you guys want to check that out. Vitamin D for most people, most people are insufficient or deficient in vitamin D, and that is not a good thing to be deficient in. So [00:47:00] either go outside in the sun more or if that's not an option for you, taking vitamin D would probably be a good idea. Different dose for everyone. So I'm not going to get into doses here necessarily other than creatine because that's kind of universal magnesium. A lot of people, especially if you train hard and you sweat a lot and you're maybe a higher stress person, you're probably magnesium deficient.

(47:19):

Not definitely, but most likely. So taking a magnesium glycinate in the evening can be a really good idea for getting that magnesium level up, and it can help with relaxation and [00:47:30] sleep. A multivitamin wouldn't hurt taking a daily multivitamin. There's no magic brand or magic type, but a lot of people could benefit from just getting all their bases covered. Even if you eat, say a food that already has a bunch of vitamins that match up with a multivitamins you're taking, you just pee 'em out. Most of the vitamins, if not all in most multivitamins are water soluble, so you just pee 'em out if you take extra ones. Some have vitamin D three, so just take a look out and make sure that either you're [00:48:00] accounting for the fact yours has D three, how much it has, so you're not taking extra D three and potentially getting too high, which is really, really hard to do, but it's possible or not because if you don't and you go a little too high on a certain nutrient, a certain vitamin, like B12 for example, you take your multivitamin and you get B12 from it, and then you have a massive steak that night.

(48:20):

Not a big deal, you just pee it out. So multivitamin can't hurt, and those are the mainstays the main things that I recommend overall for most people. [00:48:30] Beyond that, I would recommend getting labs done and seeing what you're deficient in. I would honestly, if you've been listening for a while, I recommend getting labs done all the time, more often than most people get labs done. But I would definitely, if you're going to go beyond what I just mentioned for supplements, there might be some that I'm kind of missing that are just slipping my mind. But pretty much beyond that, supplementing based on what you're deficient in is probably a good thing. And you learn that by getting comprehensive blood work done and also getting it interpreted by a [00:49:00] qualified person to give a comprehensive interpretation of it, rather than just a random GP that is going to say, oh, you're totally fine.

(49:09):

You're in normal range. Don't worry about anything. There's normal ranges and then there's optimal ranges, and there's a massive gap between normal ranges of certain blood markers and biomarkers and optimal ranges. If you're listening to this, you probably want to be closer to those optimal ranges. No one's ever going to be perfectly optimal, most likely, but you can get closer and certain supplements [00:49:30] can help with that, but you won't know that unless you know what your deficiencies are, which you'll get from labs. So that's what I would strongly recommend and kind of going from there. But those are my kind of staple supplements that I recommend to most people. And again, maybe missed something. But if you have a supplement question or a supplement you take, or a supplement you think I might missed, you can drop in the comments and we'll discuss it. So yeah, guys, that's it. Thank you very much for tuning in. I'll be back soon with another fresh episode [00:50:00] with more questions. But until then, hope everyone has an awesome weekend and terminate her out.