Episode 187: Q&A - Grip Endurance, Drinking Culture in SOF, Pogues in SF/SMUs?, My Current Fitness Goal, Running For SFAS Prep, Red Meat Myths, Belt Squats, Carb Refeeds & More!

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What's going on guys? Welcome to another episode. I am Kevin Smith. Today we are going to do a q and a from this week's Instagram questions. Appreciate anyone who left a question and participated, and I've got a bunch to get to. I'll try and get to as many as I possibly can, but still provide enough context for each one and not just kind of rapid fire and not really provide any details as usual. And if you want your question answered in the future, that's the best way to do it. Give me a follow on Instagram terminator training [00:00:30] and check out my stories. Usually once a week, sometimes it's every other week, I will do an ask me anything or recently I've done a couple of overrated underrated episodes that were a good time, so hopefully you guys enjoy these and the overrated, underrated, and periodically I'll also do a single topic deep dive on various different topics.

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And by the way, if you are, whether you're watching or listening, if you're interested me doing a deep dive on any [00:01:00] single topic, either something that I answer a question on in an episode or something I don't discuss or maybe I haven't discussed in a long time, let me know, throw it in the comments, and I absolutely take feedback and we'll consider it if it's something that I feel like a lot of people can benefit from. If it's just a really, really personal thing, I get your struggles. But probably if I don't think it applies to a bunch of people, then I might not make a whole episode about it. And sometimes people will put single topic episode [00:01:30] requests that I can answer in 30 seconds or a minute. So of course I won't make full episodes about those things, but you guys kind of get the picture, so always open for suggestions.

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But yeah, not really a lot to update you guys on other than today is a continuation of a couple of high carb days in a row. So basically my coach told me over the next 24 hours, eat 900 grams of carbs and he told me that yesterday afternoon. [00:02:00] So I had like 300 last night for dinner and after dinner and then today is going to be a 600 carb day, so not quite as high as my last couple single days, but it'll still be about 900 over a 24 hour period. Pretty much last night's dinner, two tonight's dinner. The main reason we're doing that in multiple different days is because yesterday I played golf in the morning and I also had a leg day and I also had 22,000 steps. So I texted him in the afternoon. I'm like, what [00:02:30] are your thoughts on starting this high day that I was supposed to do tomorrow or today now, but tomorrow?

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Yesterday? What are your thoughts on starting it today and getting at least some of it knocked out? And then the rest tomorrow, because tomorrow, which is now today, sorry, I'm using today and tomorrow a lot, but today, which was tomorrow. Yesterday, I have another training session and I'm also going to be quite active throughout the day. So we're getting all those carbs in and this time I'm eating a little little bit more protein as well [00:03:00] as a little bit more fat, probably getting about 40 grams of fat, whereas usually I get like 25 and I am shooting for about 180 to 190 grams of protein. So it'll be a little bit higher on the overall macros and the calories than usual. But so far I've done two high days. One was 700 carbs, one was seven, were supposed to be seven 50. I ate like seven 90 and the first day I woke up 0.4 lighter than the day prior pounds.

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And the second time I did, it was last weekend, I woke up the [00:03:30] exact same weight and just looked leaner and more full because obviously your muscles are going to soak up those carbs when you're in a deficit. I've been in a deficit for a while eating, not low carb, but low carb for me for reference. Usually I eat four 50 to 500 grams of carbs on most days and I've been eating 300 and also low fat, low calories. I'm probably in a 500 calorie deficit or so. So these refeed days are much needed and much appreciated. I still keep it clean. They're not [00:04:00] cheat days. I don't eat a bunch of crap just because I would feel terrible and it's really hard to find cheat foods that don't also have lots of fat in them. Cheat foods that I actually enjoy, like of course I could go just eat bags of candy, but that would be not, I wouldn't really like that that much.

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Not that I don't like candy, but I just don't like eating tons and tons and tons of it. I'm more of a savory guy. I like doing things like pizza and burgers and things like that. Not that I don't eat burgers, I eat tons of burgers, but they're all homemade, so they're super [00:04:30] lean and high quality and on sourdough, homemade sourdough bread, they're not like burgers from fast food joints. So because of that and because I don't want to feel terrible the next day digestion wise mainly, but also inflammation and whatnot, I will keep the foods clean. I just eat lots and lots of carbs. So rice and grinds, huge pride foods. Also just came out with a sweet potato based pancake mix that you can make your own pancakes with. They're like pure carbs. They're [00:05:00] made out of sweet potatoes. My wife made some last week, the pumpkin spice ones and they're delicious.

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I'll probably make some of those today. I've also got the regular buttermilk once too, so I haven't tried those yet, but I'm looking forward to it. And then tons of white rice, tons of sourdough. My wife makes a sourdough loaf probably every three days now when we go through it right now we are working on a pumpkin spice sourdough loaf, which is actually really good. She made that yesterday and it's probably about 90% gone and [00:05:30] it will be a hundred percent gone probably within 30 minutes of me finishing this episode. I'm going to go eat after that. So anyway, yeah, I said no updates, but that was kind of an update. But anyway, we'll hop into the first question. And by the way, most of these questions I did not get to some of 'em, I did, you'll hear the first few that are repeats from Instagram, but most of my didn't get to on Instagram and also haven't seen them.

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So this will be my first time seeing them. I will try and pick out more relevant ones and not stupid questions, questions, but yeah, we'll go from there. Alright, let's [00:06:00] hop in. Will you have negative feedback from a team if you show up and don't like to drink? Really good question. And I would say probably five plus years ago, your chances of getting negative feedback are getting shit on or getting made fun of for not drinking or much higher when you show up to SF for some teams. Not every team. The thing about SF in general is it's a very pro drinking community. A lot of people like to work hard and they like to play hard, very, very type A [00:06:30] individuals and type A individuals are really high strung, really high stress, go, go, go. And sometimes I've been there myself up until three years ago when I stopped drinking.

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But when you're going all the time, you're working super hard, you're super focused, you're super dialed in, you're super high energy and you want to crush. Sometimes it can be hard to naturally without booze, settle down and relax and guys just like to have fun. They like to go and let loose a little bit, which I totally get. I was one of them for a long time. [00:07:00] So some teams are like that. A lot of guys on the team will be like that. Other teams, not so much. Other teams kind of 50 50 split in the middle, and if you go to a team that's really really into partying, you might get a little bit of shit for not drinking and not partaking, but it's probably not going to be legit actual stuff to take personally. It's probably just going to be like, oh, you're too good for that.

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You're too healthy, you're too into your health. I would much rather [00:07:30] get made fun of for being into my health and fitness and wellbeing and performance and all those things than drink because someone tells me that I am a loser for being into those things, if that makes sense. So generally what I recommend is if you're not into drinking and somebody asks you why don't you drink? Or what are your thoughts on maybe potentially me quitting drinking or how'd you do it, something like that, absolutely share your story, share what your thoughts are, but also if [00:08:00] no one asks your best bet, especially as a new guy, is to just stick to your guns and not try to push your narrative on other people because that's when things get annoying and that's when people start getting upset. Oftentimes it's because they feel bad about the fact that they still drink and they don't have the discipline to potentially stop drinking if they're interested in that.

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But a lot of people will say they're not interested in stopping drinking, but deep down they know that they'd be way better off if they did. I was like that for a really, really long time. I'm only saying that because of its personal experience until [00:08:30] I finally stopped and realized like, wow, it's actually way better not to drink and I should have done this a long time ago. But anyway, wouldn't worry too much about it. Just be confident. Don't try and be like, don't go in and feel almost have this presence or this attitude towards it that it's a bad thing that you don't drink and you kind of feel almost guilty about telling people that you don't drink. Just be like, no, I don't drink. Thanks, appreciate it. And go from there. And as a new guy, I would say even if you do really [00:09:00] value your sleep and your wellbeing and your consistency with that stuff when you're on trips, deployments, training, whatever it is, and guys are going out and having fun offering to be the dd, I'm not saying you have to do this, but offering to go and be the adult and be the DD could be a good look as a new guy even if you don't like staying up super late and you don't like herding cats, which is what you're going to pretty much have to do.

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But A, you're kind of looking out for the guys, and B, you're also not only showing up and saying, I don't drink, but you're [00:09:30] also showing up and saying, I don't even want to hang out with you guys or go out with you guys or have fun at all. And of course, would that be more optimal as far as physical performance and health and wellbeing? Yeah, probably. But relationships, especially with the guys that you're going to be working with and community and bonding with them, especially as a new guy is probably more important, more beneficial than the potential health that you're missing out on by doing that occasionally. So that's my recommendation [00:10:00] and if someone really, really gives you shit, what I usually like to do is give them, hit them with the, I personally would rather not willingly ingest a toxic substance that disrupts my sleep, makes me a worst decision maker, interferes with my recovery and my performance from fitness interferes with my performance actually on the job shooting, moving, communicating, medicating, messes.

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My mental health up is a bunch of empty calories, makes [00:10:30] me feel terrible the next day and is going to ultimately shorten my potential lifespan. I would just prefer not to do that. So you are welcome to do that if you want, but I am not going to do that and usually, although that might ruffle some feathers and piss someone off and I would not recommend going straight to that if it comes to that, usually it'd be like, oh, okay, yeah, he's kind of got a point there because you can't argue any of those things. Those are all facts, they're [00:11:00] not even opinions, they're facts, scientifically proven facts. And if anyone's drank and experienced it, you probably can understand why those are all facts. It's not like you drink and you feel amazing forever and you just feel like you're super healthy and you're making all these good decisions, just not the case.

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So anyway, that's my take on this situation and as someone who used to drink a lot and then stopped, there were a few guys who came to our team that really didn't like drinking at all and that was fine, not a big deal. They didn't push their narrative on anyone. They offered to help out, they offered [00:11:30] to drive and not every single time when I stopped drinking, I wasn't staying out. I was kind of a senior guy on the team, so I wasn't, no way, I was staying out until 2:00 AM and just staying awake, sober and messing up my next day even though I wouldn't be hungover still for me, I tried to go to bed and wake up at the same time whenever possible, and staying up till two was just out of the equation. But when you're a new guy, maybe a sacrifice that's willing, that's worth making, so best of luck and stick to your guns.

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Next [00:12:00] question. It feels like my grip strength is my limiting factor when it comes to RAR or RPE. Any tips? So RAR reps and reserve, RPE rated, perceived exertion. Basically how close to failure are going, and I'm assuming he is referring to lifts that involve the posterior chain like hinges and maybe rows pull downs, maybe split squats where you have to hold dumbbells. You're not necessarily trying to train your grip, you're trying to train other parts of your body and because [00:12:30] you are unable to hold on to the weight for long enough, you feel like your grip, your lack of grip strength is selling those muscles short. Your feeling is actually real in this situation because it absolutely is. Ironically, if you remove grip as a limiting factor, which I'll get into a very simple way to do that here in a second, then you will be able to really maximize the development and the strength and the musculature of your posterior chain, your legs, whatever you're using.

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Things that involve gripping weights for [00:13:00] and the best way to do that is to use grips or straps. They make these adjuncts that you can put around your wrists. They're two different types of grips and straps. Basically straps are more for I would say deadlifts and things like that. You actually wrap them around the bar and therefore you barely have to use your grip as long as your fingers are on the strap. It's kind of the friction that keeps the strap on it. They do make more strongman specific straps that go around your wrist [00:13:30] and go around the bar and they're like, you're locked into the bar. I don't recommend using those. For most people, if you're really advanced, no big deal. But those can be a little bit dangerous because you are just less likely to be able to just drop the bar if you feel like you have to if you're hitting failure or something like that.

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But the wrap, the straps that wrap around the bar, great or grips versa. Grips, I use Versa grips. I always have and love them. I've used straps before, but recently the last five, six years, I've used grips for pretty much everything and I [00:14:00] love grips. They also make COBRA grips. The only difference I've had both, the only difference I've noticed is the COBRA grips. Velcros don't last as long, so they're a little bit cheaper, but versa, grips last in my experience like three times as long the Velcros do. So even though they're 15, 20, 30 bucks more, it's still worth it in my opinion. But those will remove grip as a limiting factor and they will allow you to really push the sets on the non-G grip specific training that you're [00:14:30] doing that involves grip. By making those things not involve grip, then you can really target those muscles and take them close enough to failure to hit your goals.

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Whereas if you are failing those lifts a few reps or more before your actual target musculature fails, then you're just selling those muscles short because your grip is not strong enough. And a lot of people will say, I don't need grips because I have a super strong grip and grip is never my limiting factor. [00:15:00] If that is the case, that's not actually the case. Your grip is not your limiting factor because you have a weak posterior chain. Your muscles that you are training for those lifts are not as strong as they should be. The fact that your grip muscles are stronger than your upper back, your lats, your erectors, your glutes, your hamstrings, et cetera is not a good sign. So even though guys will flex, they'll try to flex and say, yeah, my grip's super strong, don't need that shit. What they're really saying [00:15:30] is my posterior chain is weak and therefore grip is not my limiting factor on my posterior chain lifts.

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And ironically, if you remove grip as a limiting factor by wearing grips or straps, then your posterior chain would get stronger. So that is my recommendation and also if you feel like your grip is lacking in general, guess what? You can train your grip on the side. Just like when you are training your grip, you're not also trying to build sick glutes and hamstrings and back muscles [00:16:00] when you're training your glutes, hamstrings back muscles. You should also not be trying to focus on your grip too. So hopefully that adds up. Next question, how many days a week do you recommend training grip endurance and selection prep? There's a lot of different ways to skin it, but I would say three is probably a pretty solid day per week count. That's what I have all my clients do and I've never had a client come back from selection and say that my grip was my big limiter or that my grip was weaker than other guys on the team or really that most guys [00:16:30] say my grip was rock solid.

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That doesn't mean they're always solid in everything. It doesn't mean all my clients make it or get selected. So my clients don't even make it to team week for various different reasons, non-physical reasons, but it shows that what we're doing three days a week works. However, that being said, you could train grip three days a week and overdo it. You could train grip three days a week and underdo it. You could train grip six days a week and overdo it. You could train grip six days a week and underdo it. That would be a little bit tough. You definitely have to do some serious management [00:17:00] of your intensity, but it could be done. So the number of days per week that you do anything really is just one little tiny factor, one little piece of the puzzle. Your sets, your reps, your rest intervals, your loads, your overall volume per week, your progression, your recovery, all those things are factors in not just grip but also just training progress in general.

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So the number of days, just a little thing, but if you're doing something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, alternating back and forth between suitcase carries [00:17:30] and farmer's carries, I would say a little bit more so towards suitcase carries because that's just more specific for selection, then you're going to be good. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Be sure to aim for specificity over as much load as you possibly can. You are training grip strength, endurance, like the question said, not just brute grip strength. I would much rather you be able to carry 50, 60 pounds for a really long time going into selection than to be able to carry 120 pounds for a hundred meters or something like that or 50 meters [00:18:00] whatever, because it's just a more fatiguing to go heavier with caries it. B, it's also less specific, so if you're adding fatigue to your training for selection at the cost of it being less specific, that's not a very good idea.

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That's definitely not a win. Keep things in the 45 to 60 pound range for the most part. Occasionally use some fat grips for the wider diameter stuff that you're going to have to carry it selection and go from there. Just monitor your overall recovery [00:18:30] grip, especially if you're also doing a bunch of other training. Going back to the last question, not using straps. So you're using your gripping pretty much every lift you do throughout the week plus you're doing your extra grip training. It can be overdone, it's not easy to overdo, but it can be especially because guys really, really, really over index grip, not over index it, but they've heard it's so important. It is really important, but as such they will just go ham on it and not allow enough [00:19:00] recovery time, which is when your grip actually strengthens when you're recovering, you give it the stimulus to strengthen while training, but then you have to let it recover.

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So if you're training like six days a week and three of those days you're doing heavy carry work or other grip work and the other three you're doing a bunch of pulling and hinging and you're not using straps, your grips basically never getting a break. So just consider that as you go through your grip training. Next question for pendulum squats, should I focus on max weight or reps with them? [00:19:30] So it depends on what your goals are, but generally for a pendulum squat, it's going to be more of a squat accessory than a main squat movement, although it can be your main squat movement, just usually people who are trying to gain strength, in which case you're targeting higher intensity or higher loads in relation to your one rep max and lower volume, lower reps per set, 2, 3, 4 reps per set, five reps per set.

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Usually you're not going to do that with a machine squat of course if you are trying to get [00:20:00] strong, if your main goal is to get strong but you don't like barbell squatting, there's nothing wrong with doing machine squats. In this case a pendulum squat for three reps, four reps, five reps. However for the most part I really like for pendulum squats as well as leg presses, hack squats, even belt squats, although belt squats are more similar to a back squat where you can push those for a little lower reps, but in general I really like the five to eight rep range for the most part going much higher than eight absolutely can work, but if [00:20:30] you're also doing conditioning, like if you care about hybrid training or building your conditioning at the same time, you want to really monitor your lower body lifting volume and more specifically or just as specifically your lower body lifting reps per set.

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If you're pushing really high rep sets, it's just going to be more fatiguing and therefore more of a recovery burden, potentially more interfering with your conditioning training and it's more mentally fatiguing. Getting ready for a set of 15 pendulum squats close to failure, [00:21:00] close enough to failure to make it a working set is very daunting and if it's not daunting for you, then you're not actually going that close to failure. It just has to be daunting because it's really brutal. It's tough to push any sort of squat, but especially machine squats where your legs are just no matter what can be your point of failure. Whereas with a barbell it could be your core, it could be your lower back and so on and so forth. And usually you don't push those quite as close to failure because they're not as safe because it's a free weight and there's a lot more that can go wrong, whereas a [00:21:30] pendulum squat, usually you can just rack it if you can't quite lock it out or maybe you have a spotter that helps you with the last rep, but also I wouldn't push those fully to failure.

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But anyway, doing those five to eight rep sets are still very effective for kind of a crossover between strength and hypertrophy and also they're not going to smoke the shit out of you. And also even if you're going one rep in the tank, maybe even potentially zero reps in the tank, which is a little different from failure, zero reps is like you're pretty sure you can't do another rep failures like you [00:22:00] legit fail on a rep. It's less daunting because it's only six reps you can hang on for those six reps as opposed to doing two and a half times that. So that is generally how I'd approach pendulum squats and machine squats in general with a little bit of nuance with belt squats and other non barbell squats that are still similar to a barbell squat, but it does depend on your goal. There's nothing wrong again with doing sets of three to five if you're mainly interested in strength, but those five [00:22:30] to eight, you can't really go wrong with a five to eight rep range on almost any lift.

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Some lifts like isolation movements maybe a little bit higher, but five to eight rep range is usually a pretty solid spot and you can do five to eight reps of isolation lifts if you want. What I generally do is just slow the tempo down, so instead of doing a set of 15 bicep curls, maybe I'll do a set of six. If I were to do a set of six with normal tempo, I would have to use quite a bit of weight and it would be potentially a little bit dangerous or rough on the joints, [00:23:00] but I could use less weight than I would otherwise use if I was going normal tempo and just slow the tempo down a little bit, especially the lowering portion, the negative, the eccentric and that still allows you to approach failure, but your reps are lower and it's going to be less fatiguing and also less potential to hurt you or injure your joints or something like that.

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So that's my suggestion on that. Next question, what vitamin slash supplement companies do you use? I use a mix of a bunch of different ones. So I use Spoken for a bunch of my stuff spoken, I actually have a discount code [00:23:30] Terminator underscore training. I will link that. It's always linked in the description. They've got great protein, they've got great magnesium, they have a great sleep blend, they have great fish oil, D three blend, creatine, greens and some other things too. I will use Pure Encapsulations for a lot of things. I'll use Thorn for a few things. I will use, let's see, occasionally I will go with, I believe it's now supplements, nutri cost. Those are other decent ones. [00:24:00] Generally you want to just make sure that your supplements are from a reputable third party tested and not just third party, but like N-S-F-N-S-F is one, and I think there's another one that is a third party that comes in and tests and makes sure that the supplements A have what they say they have in them and B don't have any trace amounts of banned substances and see are the actual proper doses, efficacious doses that are listed on the [00:24:30] actual supplement facts.

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So they're a non-biased third party that comes in and makes sure those are good and some of the more reputable, all of the more reputable supplement companies have that NSF certification or the other one, I can't remember B something, I don't know what it is, but you can chat GPT or something like that, but those are what I go with and there's a ton of other options out there, but it's really, you definitely can get supplements from a kind of trash company that you're just not going to get much out of it [00:25:00] or they could be a little bit deleterious to your health. They could have trace amounts of heavy metals in them. A lot of protein powders have this, so you really want to make sure that you're checking these things, but besides that, you don't need some sort of crazy magic supplement company.

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There's a lot of decent options, some of the ones I just went over. Next question, how do I incorporate belt squats into my workouts? What are your thoughts on the Pitch Shark? To answer the second part, the Pitch Shark is one of the OG belt squats and it's my favorite one. I have a pitch shark at my main gym that I go to [00:25:30] and also had pitch sharks at. Basically my first experience with belt squatting was at 10th group in the group compound in the group gym fitness center. They had a couple of pitch sharks and the pitch shark is great. The resistance profile on it is really good and the setup is really nice. It's super smooth. I really just like the pitch shark compared to other belt squats quite a bit and you can kind of mess with the chain length to make it more appropriate for, I'll use Pitch Shark [00:26:00] for squats, but I'll also use it for R dls.

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I'll attach just a push down like a straight bar, push down handle to the chain and I'll use it for rdl slash stiff legged deadlifts. You can even use it for single leg deadlifts. You can attach one handle from if you're doing a chest fly, a cable chest fly, one of those handles you use, you can attach that to the chin or to the chain and you can do single leg, almost like a landmine. You're facing sideways, you're doing a landmine RDL, single leg RDL. I haven't done those in a while, but [00:26:30] I really like those. You kind of have to use a little bit of a elevation. So what I do is grab a 45 pound bumper plate and put it down, otherwise it bottoms out, but those are great. And then also I have been doing quite often on the pitch shark, donkey calf raises, so I put the belt around my hips, I bend over, I put the handles a little bit lower, I bend over, so I am at a bent over angle, 90 degree angle, feet in upper body in a donkey leaned over calf raise position and I love that as well because [00:27:00] it allows you to do straight-legged calf raises, which are a little bit more effective as far as growth and I need all the help I can get with my calves, but B, it doesn't require you to put weight on your spine, so nothing wrong with doing calf raises on a Smith machine with the weight on your back or a calf raise machine where it goes over your shoulders.

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I have one of those at my gym and I sometimes use that, but if you have an opportunity sometimes to take load off your spine for calf raises, you're not really benefiting from extra load axial load on calf raises, then you can do that. So that's [00:27:30] why I like the pitch shark the most. You can do that with other belt squat machines, but I don't think most of them are quite as versatile and the pitch shark also has a huge range of motion. It allows you to go as to grasp, whereas not every machine, especially without doing any sort of modifications to it, allows you to do that. So pitch Shark good how to incorporate it, you can incorporate it just like any other squat like I was saying in the last question, you could go lower reps if you're really working on more strength, three to five rep range, two to four rep range, even one rep generally not really [00:28:00] that beneficial to do a ton of singles on the belt squat, but then again, it's not always out of the question, so it really just depends on your goal.

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You can do higher reps, you can use it as an accessory. Maybe you're also doing backloaded squats or front loaded squats, free weight squats and you want another day or another part of that training session to be more leg volume but also not in a way that loads your spine. That's another great option too. I will say with belt squats, especially [00:28:30] the pit shark, but honestly belt squats in general, some people are kind of missing the big picture as far as loading and execution of them. I would say about 98% of people that I've seen do belt squats at my gym as well as in the past at group and things like that. Usually it's just a really, really, really hip dominant squat and usually it's nowhere near proper depth and oftentimes there's just so much load on it that [00:29:00] you're kind of just doing a little bit of a half range of motion or partial range of motion like sumo squat, which is not always useless, but I would much rather put a few plates, four plates, five plates on it and do actual squats where my knees drive out over my toes, my hamstrings touch my calves on every single rep and I really get a ton of stimulus even though I'm using less weight.

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You just get so much more stimulus and so much more benefit out of that than doubling up how many plates [00:29:30] you have and just doing that little partial range of motion squat I actually posted the other day or not posted, but I filmed something to post that I will post soon the way most people do belt squats versus how I would recommend doing belt squats. So stay tuned for that. That's probably going to be a Instagram post at some point in the future. But yeah, lots of different ways to incorporate it just kind of depends on what your goals are and what your other training looks like. Next question, going through a breakup, sorry man, hang in there. There are other fish in the sea. [00:30:00] Next question generally in all caps, how many runs per week suffice to crush Running in selection, again, this is like the number of days per week thing.

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That is one little tiny factor. You could run five days a week and it'd be way too much. You could run five days a week, it'd be perfect. You could run five days a week and because you're not running properly, you're not doing intentional running, you're just kind of aimlessly doing it, it's not enough for insufficient. You could run six days a week, four days a week, three days a week, whatever. It's so keep that in mind. Your sets, reps, rest [00:30:30] intervals, mileage intensity, all the different variables that are involved in general programming, those all matter more than number of days per week, so keep that in mind. However, I would say probably a good ballpark would be three plus or minus three. If you're a really strong runner and you're weaker at other things, maybe you could get away with two runs a week if they're very intentional.

(00:30:50):

My SVS program only has two mainly because I usually recommend building most of your running ability before you get into the last couple months before [00:31:00] selection because you're going to have to be more well-rounded in those last few months before you're prepping for selection running's just one little factor and then really just being intentional but lower volume with the running leading in, but higher volume with rucking and other things that you have to be good at for selection, but that's not enough for some people. My ruck run lift program has more runs per week going into selection, more run volume in general, more overall on foot volume in general, so you can consider that if you think you need more volume, but three [00:31:30] days a week is pretty solid. You could definitely get away with four usually if you're getting into five and you're not a very, very seasoned runner slash very accustomed to on foot movement, you might be taking away from some potential ruck training and rucking is way, way, way more important than running at selection.

(00:31:48):

Although a lot of people think running super important, you only run three times and if you are able to meet the standards on those runs and you perform well otherwise, then [00:32:00] it's fine. You don't have to be like a top dog. Of course I would recommend shooting to be a top dog in as many things as you possibly can. Yes, but you don't have to be like if you're middle of the pack and running but you're really good at rucking and you're really good at land nav and you're really good at team week, you will absolutely make it. Whereas if you are really, really good at running, but maybe because you ran so much and focused so much on your running and prep, you let other things slide. Maybe you're not as good at rucking, maybe you are just not as strong. Maybe you are terrible at land [00:32:30] now because you never really practiced it, you just hope for the best then it doesn't really matter.

(00:32:34):

Even if you win all the runs still doesn't matter, you're not going to make it. So just consider that. But three days a week give or take is probably a good spot. If you need a program SVS or ruck run lift going in would be a good option. Next question for carb tracking, should I track net carbs or total carbs? I would just track total carbs and go from there. Honestly, most things with net carbs in them are just kind of like processed foods anyway and [00:33:00] generally the difference between net carbs and total carbs is the fiber, the fiber content and the food kind of quote unquote makes 'em not actually count as carbs because fiber is more insoluble or it's you're less likely to actually store it as glycogen and so on and so forth. It's kind of complex, but because it's complex and also it's very much splitting hairs, I would probably just focus on total carbs, but whatever you do, if you do decide to do net carbs, make sure you just always do net carbs, [00:33:30] not sometimes net carbs, sometimes total carbs and vice versa.

(00:33:33):

Always track total carbs, always track net carbs, one or the other I would recommend total and you're going to be good to go because otherwise you're thrown in discrepancies. And the thing about tracking too, as long as you are precise with it and consistent with it, even if you're not perfectly accurate, that's still okay. A lot of people think that they need to hit this exact amount of calories and this exact number [00:34:00] of protein fat carbs every single day and it has to actually reflect that number. Even if you're hitting 190 grams of, for example, 190 grams of protein per day, when in reality you're hitting 2 0 5, but you always track it the same way. You're always getting one 90, it's always enough to support muscle growth and you're always staying in a consistent precise calorie range even if those calories are off by a hundred or 200 and you're actually tracking things [00:34:30] like your weight based on your goals, your performance and things like that.

(00:34:33):

Even if you're not eating the exact number of calories you think you're eating, but you're doing things consistently and you're making adjustments according to what your goals are along the way according to the other things besides your calorie tracking that are kind of factors, then you're fine. It's all right if you think you're eating 2,500 calories but you're really eating 2300 calories, but you're just doing that consistently. Hopefully that makes sense. It's kind of a little bit hard to explain, but precision [00:35:00] is accuracy of course is important to an extent, but being precise and making adjustments based on your outcomes is probably more important than being perfectly accurate. Next question, what is your best mile time? I can't remember. I want to say it was like 4 51 back in late high school maybe right after I graduated high school. It was before I joined the army.

(00:35:23):

I was very, very solid at running back then and my best two mile time I know for a fact is a 10 12, and that was right before I [00:35:30] joined the army too. I was kind of just testing it myself, so I did not quite take them one mile quite as seriously so I could be off on those. But I know it was under five and I know it was under 4 55. I want to say it was 4 51 or 4 52, so right now I definitely couldn't run that, but that was back in the day when I was big into running and not that that's a great mile time or anything like that, that's literally a minute plus slower than the world record, but it's pretty solid mile time for someone who's not a gungho runner or [00:36:00] also values other things like rocking strength, et cetera.

(00:36:03):

So yeah, good times. Next question, do you have to be infantry to be special operations? No, absolutely not. Does it help? Probably you're just going to be more equipped going to selection and going through subsequent training like the Q course and things like that if you have infantry experience, but I was an X-ray, I was not even in the military before I went special operations and there are lots of other people like that too. So I would say more guys [00:36:30] coming from the big army are infantry or something similar going to special operations, but it's absolutely not a requirement even for the top tier highest level guys. Cag, you don't have to be an infantryman, you don't have to be soft. Of course it helps. Most guys in the unit are either former rangers or SF or at minimum infantry, which is still a minority, but there are onesies and twosies here and there that aren't and they go do it and they go crush it and it's doable.

(00:36:59):

It's just [00:37:00] lower chances of it being successful. Next question. Are you still trying to get stronger slash faster or just trying to maintain? Really good question and I would say none of those three things right now currently. So right now I'm kind of more in a health kick slash getting lean so then I can rebuild some muscle that I've lost over the summer recently and it's kind of just been a long time coming, it's just been brewing [00:37:30] for a long time, but throughout this summer it kind of just hit me. I have been burning the candle at both ends. I think I've talked about this recently, so forgive me if this is a repeat, but I've been burning the candle at both ends for the last 15 years of my life. Basically since I joined the army till early this summer when I was forced to stop having to being able to burn the candle at both ends, I was in the military, I started my business, I would work every single day on my business.

(00:37:58):

I would also go to my job, I would work every [00:38:00] single weekend day, all freaking day long on TTM before I got out and then I got out and that was my only source of income or potential income. I was making no money other than a periodic program sale off of TTM when I got out. So I really had to dial things in and starting your own business, especially when you're a solopreneur and you don't really have any help. I have help now for my wife, but I didn't really back then other than occasional little things you feel like if you take any time off, then all's going to go to shit. This is totally irrational [00:38:30] and it is just the way that you perceive it or at least the way I perceived it. So I literally, other than Christmas of 2023 or no, 2024, Christmas of 2024 and my birthday 2024, I didn't take a single day off and even those days I didn't take the day fully off.

(00:38:50):

I just didn't work like I usually do. And additionally, throughout my time in the military, I went to a lot of different places, ate lots of different foods, was exposed [00:39:00] to a lot of different stuff. So over time it takes a toll on mainly for me it was my gut health, but also just heavy metals and mold and other things that are just not good for you, that don't necessarily make you feel good, they don't enhance your life and if left unattended for too long, especially when you're super high stress and you're just working and grinding all the time, doing probably more training than is necessary, not recovering sufficiently, not eating great, so [00:39:30] on and so forth over caffeinating. That was a big thing over ting as well. Eventually you are likely to run into kind of a brick wall and that's kind of what happened to me.

(00:39:40):

Thankfully this was really well timed unintentionally. It was right when my wife came onto the team full time, so she picked up a lot of slack. I was very low work output throughout the entire summer. I didn't really train all that much. I couldn't really eat all that much. My appetite was like nothing. I was nauseous [00:40:00] all the time and I was just not digesting food. Anytime I would eat, I would want to take a nap after I or just feel nauseous for a while or I would just feel super bloated even when I would eat somewhat healthy foods. But also I wasn't eating all that healthy. I was still lean, fit, generally healthy, looked healthy, but didn't feel healthy and my lab started to show that I wasn't as healthy as I'd like to be as well. So kind of just went full revamp, took a lot of time [00:40:30] this summer to reassess everything, my habits, my approach to work, my approach to training, my approach to fitness, my approach to health, and came to a determination that right now my main goal is to get my gut health back in check.

(00:40:45):

Gut health is super duper underrated, especially in the fitness performance community. It's definitely a common thing to talk about gut health and can be honestly kind of annoying in the wellness community, but in the fitness community, everyone thinks [00:41:00] eat to perform no matter what, but guess what, if you eat to perform and you're not digesting and assimilating the nutrients, you're consuming the way you could be. Or if you're very much suppressed or your digestive system your GI is not even close to at its full function, then you are not eating to perform the way you could be. You're still leaving performance on the table. So getting your gut health in check and generally speaking, anyone who spends a significant amount [00:41:30] of time in the military in general, but I would say even more so in soft because you just go to weigh more desolate places that don't have the best sanitation, they don't have the best food options, you're exposed to a lot of environmental toxins as well, burn pits and a ton of lead and shoot houses and all that kind of stuff.

(00:41:47):

It adds up and generally speaking, you're going to have some issues afterwards and I tried to pretend I didn't have any of these issues and just fight through it because that's just my mentality, which is not a good mentality, [00:42:00] but it is my mentality and came to a point where it wasn't working anymore. So instead of trying to do it on my own, which I know I can do this stuff on my own, I know I can program nutrition for myself, I know I can program lifting and training for myself. I know I can program supplementation, yada yada. I determined that that hadn't been working recently because I'm biased and sometimes when I do things myself, I do things that I want to do even if they don't coincide with things that I should be doing. [00:42:30] So all that to say, I finally hired a coach and have been working with him for the last month, maybe a little over a month.

(00:42:38):

Jay Faria, he's a absolute legend in the fitness community and he's had also some gut health issues and so he kind of went through it himself and he just is helping me through it now and also my nervous system. So my parasympathetic versus sympathetic nervous system is kind of all out of whack. My thyroid is not running the way it's supposed to because turns out [00:43:00] also doing a bunch of fasting and not eating for certain periods of time, which I have been into in the past, and also stimulating yourself with caffeine and nicotine while you're fasting, just kind of exacerbates that your cortisol gets all out of whack. Your sleep is not going to be great. You're going to be stressed out throughout the day, you're going to have brain fog, you're just not going to feel good. And so we're kind of getting those things in order.

(00:43:23):

So right now main goal is gut health as well as getting lean. Turns out when you eat a calorie deficit and you're eating very [00:43:30] clean foods, you are going to get lean and your gut health is going to improve. So that's what I'm doing now. And then not exactly sure how long I will stay in this deficit. I'd like to get to where I'm leaner than I've ever been and I'm very close right now. I'm probably about 8% body fat, maybe seven and a half right now, and I'd like to get down to five or six for a very short period of time, just not necessarily for anything other than it looking cool. And for those who have been lean before you kind of understand what I'm talking about [00:44:00] it just to know that you have 5%, 6% body fat even if it's not healthy and it's definitely not healthy to sustain that for a long period of time, but it's okay to do it for short periods of time and it's beneficial in my opinion, to manipulate your nutrition such that you get so lean.

(00:44:15):

It's a very good learning experience, but it's just cool. You look at yourself in the mirror, you see all these veins in places that almost nobody in the world has veins showing. It's just a cool feeling and I'm already kind of there, but we're going to get even leaner [00:44:30] and then after that I'm going to slowly reintroduce more calories and try to build muscle because I lost quite a bit of muscle and strength over the summer. I have ironically, since getting onto this really clean food, even though I'm eating less, I'm eating a calorie deficit for sure. I've actually put numbers on almost all of my lifts because I'm training with lower volume. It's not programmed by me, it's programmed by my coach of course. So I'm not doing things that I'm biased towards. I do some things that I would program for myself, but I do other things that I wouldn't [00:45:00] program for myself but that are really beneficial for me to do.

(00:45:03):

But because someone else is doing them unbiased, I'm actually doing them and I'm sticking to it because he's holding me accountable. And as such, I've been able to, even though I'm not doing a ton of volume and even though I'm not eating a lot, I've been able to put numbers on and gain strength. Maybe not muscle, but I've gained strength on certain gym numbers other than pushing especially dumbbell presses for whatever reason. Whenever I'm going to cut, and this is common for a lot of people, my push exercises [00:45:30] kind of struggle, but my hinging, my pulling, my squatting all are going up, which is cool and they're going to go up significantly more once I start eating more calories. So that is kind of my main focus right now. I'm not running at all. I haven't ran, I've probably ran twice in the last month, but for the most part, all of my cardio is 40 minutes, no higher than one 30 beats per minute heart rate just to keep stress low because stress and your nervous system are all, it's very, very complex.

(00:45:56):

I'm going over wave tops right now. I know this seems like a lot of things, but it's [00:46:00] just scratching the surface. But you want to keep your stress generally low and doing really long cardio and or higher intensity cardio, especially in combination with a deficit is just not all that beneficial. So I'm doing basically lifting every other day and doing 40 minutes of cardio zone two every other day. Sometimes I go up to 50 minutes, some days I don't do anything. I will just not do cardio that day. If I'm playing 18 holes of golf and I'm walking or something like that, I won't do cardio that day just because it's a little bit too much given my [00:46:30] calorie intake. But that's the goal right now. Hopefully once I get this all sorted out and I get my gut health back and I'm able to assimilate nutrients and feel good after I eat, so on and so forth, I will be able to pursue more performance goals afterwards.

(00:46:48):

But right now it's kind of not the priority. So glad you asked that question. I am not necessarily trying to get faster and stronger forever. I just don't think that's really that fruitful for me. As [00:47:00] a 36-year-old, what am I 36? I'm either 36 or 37, I can't remember, but I would still like to maintain my fitness, be significantly above average as far as fitness is concerned. Just well-roundedness and I'd like to stay lean. I don't ever really plan on getting higher than 12% body fat. I just don't think it's all that necessary. And I don't think once you've gotten down to, and of course this is different for everyone, some people genetically, they don't feel great when they're lower than 20 12%, which is unfortunate, [00:47:30] but it is the case for some people. There's a genetic involvement with pretty much everything including this. But I find maintaining, give or take 10% body fat, give or take one or two or 3% is not difficult at all.

(00:47:44):

Once you have the skills, once you've got the principles down, and once you've also been to where you can go way lower than that, when you hang out at 6%, 7% body fat for a while, hanging out at 10 or 11% is not difficult. It's honestly [00:48:00] kind of a vacation almost. So that is the update of the situation and I hopefully won't repeat that too many times in the future, but for those who are paying close attention, you may have noticed lower output. You may notice that I look skinnier. You may notice that I never run anymore, so that's kind of why. Next question. This is from nuance, bro. I usually don't say who asked them, but I like the nuance bro handle. If I run a 41 minute five mile and am three months out from SFAS, [00:48:30] am I cooked? I ruck one hour, 12 minute, six mile, 40 pounds dry.

(00:48:35):

No, you're not cooked. Honestly. I have had, and this is from a running specific program, my two and five mile, but I've had one guy hit me up recently who went from a 55 0 and change five mile to a 39 15 or 39 16 5 mile throughout the two and five mile program, which is coincidentally a little more than three months. It's like 13, 14 weeks. But it can be done if you have good programming in your case. I would [00:49:00] strongly recommend hopping on R Run Lift. You could wait about a week, black Friday, just a little spoiler alert, black Friday sales coming up and all my programs are going to be super cheap, but if you are really three months out or so and you're going to be less than that, by the time you listen to this, then hopping on that program ASAP would probably be your very, very best bet.

(00:49:22):

That way, if you had longer, I would recommend two and five mile because make more specific run gains. But because you also have to be good at other things, [00:49:30] you have to probably get that R time a little fast. Not necessarily, I mean one hour, 12 minute, six mile with only 40 pounds, you're going to have 20 more pounds on your back and you're going to have to ruck longer than that. If you can ruck way longer than that at selection with another 20 pounds at around the same pace, maybe a little slower, then you're going to be good. But you probably have some ruck work to do as well. And doing it yourself is possible. And it's not out of the question for everyone, but you are going to be so much better off following a program [00:50:00] and my program's not the only option, but I can confidently say it's probably the best option out there right now.

(00:50:08):

And I'm not trying to be cocky or toot my own horn, but just given the feedback that I get from these things and the success stories and the people who reach out and say, your programs have absolutely made a massive difference in my life and fitness or your programs helped me get selected, it's just kind of a bunch of [00:50:30] evidence that makes me confident in saying that. So that would be my strong recommendation. You could go through and listen to a bunch of my podcast episodes. You could go through a bunch of my posts, you could read all my articles. I've got articles on my website, a couple of them, I think a three part article series, how to run a sub 30 minute five mile, or it might be a sub 32 minute five mile, how to run a fast five mile. Basically you can read those and try to implement based on those.

(00:50:57):

I try to give as much away as I possibly can for free, but [00:51:00] also I'm running a business so I sell stuff too. Shocker, some people do like to get upset when I recommend programs that I'm selling to them as if, how am I supposed to run a business when I don't tell people about my stuff and I don't recommend people buy my stuff? That just does not add up. I know not everyone understands business and not everyone's a business owner, but a great way to run a business that fails very quickly is to never let anyone know about your stuff or don't sell anything. Just [00:51:30] give everything away for free. And believe me, I would love to give way more away for free and I feel like I do give away quite a bit for free and I'm kind of going on a rant here, but it's just like a recent theme lately that I've noticed.

(00:51:43):

So I would definitely hop on a program and you will be way, way better off and you absolutely can knock several minutes off your five mile time if you're doing the right things and you can get faster at rucking, you can improve your calisthenics, you can improve your strength, so on and so forth. And you'll be way, way better [00:52:00] prepared and more confident. You'll have more peace of mind going into selection. Next question, 25 quality miles per week in parentheses all fast versus 50 miles, 80 20 rule, which is better for improving the 1.5 mile. So running 25 miles a week all hard is never a good idea. It's do not do that. Please don't do that. Nobody does that. Even high level runners don't usually, maybe they might push close to 25 miles hard on really, really high peak weeks, but even then [00:52:30] probably not quite.

(00:52:32):

And they're also running a hundred other miles per week that gives them the actual foundation to run 25 hard miles. But again, it's probably not 25. So if you're not doing any other running, you don't have any foundation building a k, a zone, two easy stuff and you're just running hard 25 miles for a 1.5 mile too, that's massively overkill. That would not be quality. None of it would, well, most of it wouldn't be quality because you'd just be smoked and undercovered [00:53:00] the whole time and you wouldn't be able to hit your faster basically to get better at a one and a half mile or anything, two mile or less. Your goal should be quality in terms of running at your goal paces or near your goal paces, not necessarily quality in terms of tons and tons of quality miles, half marathon, marathon, different. Yeah, you're going to have to run slower relative paces, but also more mileage because your race is [00:53:30] longer even though, but it's going to be at a slower, less lower overall pace, so you're not going to be running the same pace for a one and a half mile as you do for a half marathon or something like that.

(00:53:40):

So definitely don't do that. But if you go back to the last overrated, underrated episode 180 6, I talk about why 80 20 is overrated for most people including people in your situation. So definitely listen to that, but also that kind of implies that 80 20 is not necessarily the exact thing to shoot for [00:54:00] in your situation, but doing some easy running, probably a little bit more easy running and a little bit less hard running, but still plenty in high quality, really specific to that one and a half mile would be your best bet. Is it going to be 80 20? No. Do you need 50 miles a week to get a better one and a half mile time? No. Can you run 50 miles a week and get a better one and a half mile time? Yes. Honestly, a lot of people kind of have this misconception that people who run really long distances like marathons, ultra [00:54:30] marathons need way, way, way more mileage to maximize their performance on those races than someone who say runs a three mile or a two mile is really looking to get really good at that.

(00:54:41):

You don't need as much mileage to get really good at a two mile as you do to be able to withstand a 50 mile run or a hundred mile run or something like that. But there are many, many high level runners that run really short distance, like 1,503 K, 5K that run almost as many miles a week, if not some of them [00:55:00] more miles a week than some ultra runners. So that just goes to show that there's lots of different mileages that work and there's also a lot of different variables beyond mileage that will determine how you progress at certain run distances. So in your case, I would opt for closer to the ladder, but don't feel like you need to run 50 miles a week, but also don't feel like it has to be perfectly 80 20. And again, easy way to do this would be to hop on the two and five mile.

(00:55:28):

Yes, it's one and a half miles, it's not [00:55:30] two and five, but I've talked to a ton of guys Marines, I actually just signed on a client who's in the Navy and he said he followed the two and five mile even though his runs were one and a half in four miles, the ones he was kind of shooting for a little bit different, but it's still all the same concepts and you can apply it pretty easily to whatever distances, assuming they're not like half marathon or a 10 miler, that program would not be specific to those. It doesn't have enough volume, but that would be my recommendation. [00:56:00] Don't do 25 miles a week all hard. That would be just not fun. Next question, tips for improving dorsiflexion currently at around 10 degrees post-injury. Great question. I have always until about a few years ago, I've always had terrible dorsiflexion.

(00:56:15):

Dorsiflexion for those who are not aware is essentially bringing your toes up to your shins so you're flexing the front of your leg or your tibias and you're bringing your toe as close as you possibly can to your shins or pointing your feet in the air. Think of the bottom of a calf raise, which [00:56:30] is coincidentally what I'm going to talk about here in a second. Your heel is below your toes and your feet are kind of closer to your shin. So the reason you want really good dorsiflexion, there's lots of different reasons. A, it will help with running durability. You're less likely to hurt yourself, you're less likely to develop overuse issues in your tibialis chin splints, things like that. But also it allows you to go deeper on squats. It improves your squat mobility. A lot of people who can't get to their desired depth on squats, whether it's parallel or [00:57:00] below parallel hamstrings to calves, whatever, one of the main factors is their lack of dorsiflexion.

(00:57:06):

So improving that, working on that is a really beneficial thing for a multitude of reasons. It's going to allow you to grow more muscle when you squat. It's going to allow you to get deeper when you squat and therefore improve other parts of your body's mobility and it's also going to enhance your running. So there are tons of different ankle mobility drills that you can do and some of 'em work really well. There's some called the combat stretch that works really well. You can just [00:57:30] sit in the bottom of a squat, maybe grab a dumbbell or a kettlebell and kind of put it out on your knee and drive. Almost use that extra load to drive your knees out over your toes while you dorsal flex, while you flex your tibials and try to bring your toes up. But my favorite way to do this is to do calf raises and I made a post about this the other day, the proper way to do calf raises in a way that will a, enhance the effectiveness as far as growing your calves and strengthening your calves.

(00:57:58):

B, make you less injury [00:58:00] prone from calf raises. Believe it or not, when people do bouncy calf raises like super high refs, it just places a ton of stress on the not good stress on the achilles tendon and people will sometimes develop Achilles tendonitis, not usually just from that. Oftentimes it's because of that plus running, plus rucking, whatever it is, but and C most relevantly to this question, it will enhance your ankle mobility more specifically dorsiflexion. So basically what you do is sit or stand on a calf raise machine. You [00:58:30] can do seated or standing in this situation, I like seated a little bit more because your knees are bent and you're more closer to being in a squat position, so you're almost able to drive your knees over your toes, not quite, of course they're going to be stationary with a pad across your quads, but it's just more similar to a squat and you go down as far as you can while you're at the bottom.

(00:58:51):

I would start not loading these crazy heavy, but you absolutely should can and should progressively overload them over time. But start, if you've never done calf raises like this, definitely start lighter, [00:59:00] go down to the bottom, really slow lowering three to four second negative, and then when you're at the bottom, hold for another three in your case for a mobility goal, more so than anything else, I would hold for at least five seconds every single rep. Now you might be thinking, wow, so one rep takes 10 seconds probably if you include the up portion, which by the way when you go up, don't pause at the top. Don't really even pay a lot of attention to the top position. It's like the least important part of the lift. In fact, even if you don't do the top [00:59:30] position, if you just do length and partials, I'm not recommending this, but if you do, you're still going to get more benefit out of pausing at the bottom, but pausing at the top so that top position's just not that important so you can kind of speed through that, but each rep's going to take you eight to 10 seconds.

(00:59:43):

So a set of eight reps is going to take you probably over a minute and a lot of people don't like that, but it's either that or you just don't get the same benefits out of it. And also because you're going slow and you're spending a lot of time under load, you don't have to do a ton of reps. So I usually recommend [01:00:00] for seated five to seven reps standing seven to eight, nine maybe up to 10 reps for standing, and that's really all you need. And as far as frequency and volume, I would do this for you probably almost every time you go to the gym, assuming you don't go to the gym every single day. If you go to the gym three or four days a week, you could do this prior to your workout as part of your warmup or you could do your warmup and then go off to the side.

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You don't necessarily have to make them working sets every single time, but you're spending all that time loaded [01:00:30] dorsiflexion actually actively bringing when you're at the bottom too, I don't think I mentioned this, but when you're at the bottom, you're driving your toes up. So you're trying to even further lengthen your calves and further flex your tibialis. A k, a dorsa flex really hard under load and you're kind of killing two birds of one stone because you are making your calves stronger or bigger. Eventually they do grow. If you do this properly and you do it the right way, you do it consistently enough and you progressively overload it, so on and so forth. But also you're increasing your dorsiflexion by [01:01:00] a pretty large margin and then kind of maintaining it is pretty easy. You can definitely continue doing calf raises like that. I would recommend doing calf raises like that forever, but you don't have to do it quite as often and you can start going more for growth than mobility, but there's a kind of crossover between both of them.

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But also you can just throughout the day a few times, drop into a squat and maybe drive one knee at a time out over your toes, hold it for a little bit, do some dorsal flexing, do the other knee, so on and so forth. There's no perfect way to execute this. You can [01:01:30] choose your own adventure, but over time you're going to develop much better dorsiflexion and you are going to experience the multiple different benefits I went over at the beginning of better dorsiflexion. So that is my strong recommendation. Next question, can the recovery conditioning be zone two runs in the original jaelle? I would not recommend it because zone two running is not necessarily recovery promoting. Generally, if you're going anything above zone one and or if you're doing running and you're not a very, very, very skilled [01:02:00] runner, it's not going to promote recovery.

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It's going to require more recovery. Usually training is not going to help you recover more from more training, very low, really, really low intensity, low impact, super chill, super leisurely sitting on a bike or sitting on a rower or going for a walk or a hike or a nice light incline walk or something like that in zone one. Probably not going to promote recovery necessarily, but I just kind of call [01:02:30] it a recovery session just because people relate to that a little bit more because it's a common thing, but it's also not going to interfere. It's not going to require a significant degree more recovery. But if you offer a zone two run, yeah, you're getting zone two run adaptation benefits, and it's not necessarily always wrong for you to do this. If you can handle more run volume and you potentially need more run volume and you're making progress, you're feeling good and you're hitting your other goals as well and you're maintaining a decent consistency and you're not just destroying [01:03:00] yourself and running just to run, then it's not necessarily always wrong, but looking at it as a way to promote recovery or improve your recovery, that is what's wrong.

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So I personally wouldn't recommend doing this unless of course you are very used to having really, really high run volume and you can handle it or you just know you're recovering super well and that adding this in as a zone two run session won't interfere with anything more. Or maybe you try it and it doesn't, or you try it and it does and you stop, that's fine. But I personally [01:03:30] would just try and stick to the program and you're going to be way better off that way. Next question, is there something I can replace or improvise for backwards? Sled drags with the two and five mile program. Yeah, dead mill walks. You go to a treadmill, you don't turn the treadmill on, you face backwards. You can either grab your hands and put them around the handles or you can push your lower back butt up against the actual forward monitor that you'd normally be facing if you were going forward and you just walk.

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It's not scalable. You can't mess with [01:04:00] the resistance necessarily. But in that program in particular, the sled drags are not necessarily a training thing. They're more of a warmup thing just to get a quad pump and some blood flow to your legs, in which case dead mill walks are totally fine. Next question, what are your thoughts on the eating too much red meat is bad for your heart narrative? Great question. I haven't talked about this for quite a while, but if you follow me, you probably notice that I eat red meat a lot of it every single day. And the main issue I have with it is most [01:04:30] people lump every single type of red meat into the same category as if a sausage is going to be the same as a piece of top round super lean steak or as if a hot dog, a beef hot dog is going to be the same as far as health benefits or deleterious on your health as a pound of 96 4 ground beef, which is nowhere near the case.

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So [01:05:00] if you are considering every single thing red meat in existence and you're not making those distinctions, then yes, red meat would be bad for your health. However, if you have a little bit of critical thinking, common sense, or you just educate yourself for this is a 32nd piece of education, I'm going to probably spend longer talking about it here, but it's not that hard to differentiate the insanely beneficial nutrients that you'll get from certain red meat versus the [01:05:30] insanely deleterious nutrients slash lack of nutrients that you'll get from low quality, bad red meat. So if you're eating things like lean beef, lean bison, lean elk, lean steaks, venison, you're going to be totally fine. Honestly, it's highly beneficial, and I would recommend most people eat more red meat than they already do for the most part. A lot of people have this narrative in the back of their mind like, Ooh, I can have some red meat, but not too much because heart disease and [01:06:00] they say it causes colitis and other digestive issues, colon cancer, and yeah, it can if you're eating a bunch of sausages and pepperonis and other processed crap, but if you're eating the right stuff, it's not only not going to cause all that, but it's also going to help you in multiple different ways.

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Red meat is the most nutrient dense common food that you could possibly eat. You could literally, and people do this, you could literally live off only red meat. I'm not saying that you should, [01:06:30] but you could. There are no other foods in existence that are like that. You could not do that with any vegetable. You could not do that with any fruit. You could not do that with honestly any other meat other than maybe organ meats, but you'd probably still be low on protein. And coincidentally, organ meats are the most nutrient dense as far as nutrients per pound or nutrients per whatever ounce of anything. But I wouldn't consider organ meats like common food, liver, heart, things like that. Most people don't eat that on a [01:07:00] regular basis super commonly. That's why I say common foods. Red meat is the most nutrient dense. So if you are intentionally not eating red meat and you are also not making that distinction between the good type of red meat that's going to promote health versus the bad type that's going to be deleterious for your health, then you're missing out, honestly.

(01:07:19):

Or if you're eating just the shitty red meat and you just don't really care, of course it's going to negatively affect your health. But I strongly suggest [01:07:30] not really listening to people who just generalize and say, red meat is going to cause heart disease. Educating yourself a little bit. Again, I talk about it once in a while. I don't talk about it quite enough, but I have eaten red meat. I just talked about all the healthy things that I've been doing. Coincidentally too, red meat is one of the most easy digesting and lowest chances of intolerance foods in existence. So almost everyone can digest it well, almost everyone is tolerant [01:08:00] to it, whereas other foods like eggs, dairy, even vegetables, even certain fruits are not like that. Yes, of course they're healthy if you can tolerate them for sure, but some people can't and more people can't than red meat.

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But I would strongly recommend consuming it on a regular basis. I have been doing it every single day, at least half a pound. Usually I have over a pound of red meat per day. And again, it's the healthy lean stuff. And I am 7% body fat. My [01:08:30] blood pressure's perfect. I got labs last week and my labs look amazing. All my nutrients are kind of topped off and I feel really good and I feel like I look pretty good. So of course that's just the end of one a case study, but all my clients eat a ton of red meat too. All my nutrition clients at least. And hopefully if you've been listening to me talk about red meat for a long time, you do too. And you've experienced the benefits because it is definitely as close to being a superfood as there is. I hate when people use the word superfood, things like acai berries.

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[01:09:00] Yeah, okay, let me know after a week how you're feeling on solely acai berries. You're not going to be doing very well, but if you eat just red meat for a week, again, not recommending it, but you're going to be feeling totally fine, you're going to be in perfect health. And you could also do that for two weeks or three weeks or four weeks, whereas you can't do that with certain super foods like acai berries or fricking spinach or whatever other, most people who tout foods as superfoods are vegans or plant-based or whatever. Kind of a [01:09:30] generalization, but I don't think it's wrong. But yeah, there's no such thing as a real superfood. But if you're going to get as close to one as possible besides organ meats, it would be lean red meat. So send it. Don't worry about it as long as you're eating the right stuff.

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Next question. Alright, we'll do two more. How to increase intensity in lifts without sacrificing form? Great question. So a lot of people who are not quite as into [01:10:00] technique and form and execution, which is I would say most people, you will see them as they approach failure on most lifts, their form starts to break down. And in my opinion, in the way I coach, the way I go about things, when your form breaks down on a rep, that's failure. You have reached failure because now you're recruiting different muscles, you're recruiting momentum, enhancing your body or moving your body in ways to improve your leverage. So yeah, you're going to be able to do another couple [01:10:30] reps, but it's not benefiting you and in fact, it's probably just putting more stress in your joints and it's definitely making the set more overall fatiguing and you're not getting really any benefit out of it.

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If anything, you're just getting worse long-term from it. So that is what I'd recommend focusing on for a while. As soon as if you are doing sets to failure or close to failure, you definitely don't and should not do every single set of every lift to failure. Certain things lend themselves better than others, but I would really focus on [01:11:00] getting to your last rep that you can perform with really good form, and then stopping the set instead of trying to grind through it because you're just giving yourself these bad habits, you're instilling these bad habits, bad mechanics, and therefore you're always going to struggle approaching failure and keeping your form locked in. But really it just comes down to practice and really taking your craft seriously. It just makes me so upset when I see fitness professionals that show these studies. They're like eight week studies, 10 week [01:11:30] studies, 12 week studies that show that your form doesn't really matter that much and you're not really that much more likely to get injured if you don't train with good mechanics and you're still getting the same or very similar stimulus doesn't make a huge difference.

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And even if that were the case, a, most people are going to be training for longer than eight to 12 to 16 weeks. So even if these things, these issues don't come up during the study, that doesn't mean they're not going to come up a year from now, three years from now, seven years from now, and so [01:12:00] on and so forth. So that's one thing that's pretty obvious, but people just kind of like to overlook that mostly because when you say things that are more against the grain or that are more contrary to what most people think, most people are aware that using good form is probably a good thing. But if you say things like, oh, it's not that important, and people are like, oh, wow, this guy really must know a lot or sweet, now I have an excuse to just go and be sloppy and I can't stand it.

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But B, if you take things seriously, if you're interested [01:12:30] in doing something well or doing something for a long period of time or doing something in a way that's going to benefit you the most, why would you not take the execution of every rep you do? Seriously? Why would you not actually take your craft seriously and try to master your craft? That one kind of blows my mind too, even if it was exactly the same, which it's not as far as injury risk and long-term results and so on and so forth, I still think that you should go and try and make your reps look as perfect as [01:13:00] possible. They're not always going to be perfect, especially if you're newer to lifting or if you are learning new lifts or something like that. But that still should be the goal. And when you actually have that as the goal, every rep is going to look better, every rep's going to feel better, and over time, you're going to be able to practice still keeping that form locked in, even as you build fatigue and the reps slow down.

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Additionally, another thing I recommend doing is filming yourself. A lot of people are so apprehensive to film themselves in the gym, and I get it, fitness [01:13:30] influencers have not really given this a very good name or a very good image. People are like, oh, people just like to take pictures of themselves in the mirror and film themselves doing dumb shit. Or females who like to just put a camera right behind their butt for dealt exercises. Yeah, I get it. Definitely not what I'm talking about. But if you can get over that and get over yourself and be like, Hey, do I want to really master this? Or do I want to not really master this? Because that's kind of the main difference. If you don't have a coach in person [01:14:00] actually giving you corrections, the only way to improve, you got to know what you look like when you're doing things.

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So film yourself and watch. You don't necessarily have to watch the set right away. You can. I like doing that, especially when you first start out, when you're resting, instead of going on social media and scrolling or Snapchatting or talking with someone for nine minutes and doing your nine minute rest period or just going straight to your next set. Most people are either resting way too long because they're [01:14:30] distracted or resting nowhere near long enough because they don't train hard enough, and B, they think that resting short periods of time is more beneficial or whatever. It's going to give 'em more of a cardio stimulus, which yeah, it's going to, but it's also going to make the strength stimulus and the muscle stimulus less. But anyway, I digress. Take that time. Watch your set. Be like, oh, okay, I could probably clean this up a little bit.

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I could probably tuck that right elbow a little bit. I could probably flare this elbow a little bit less. I could probably keep my elbow and my wrist stacked a little bit better at the [01:15:00] bottom. I could probably get a little deeper on my squat. I could probably bounce out of the hole a little bit less and really keep my quads engaged, so on and so forth. All those things are great ways to just give yourself feedback and then fix yourself on the next set. And the more you practice it and the more you dial things in and fine and tune things, and the more you go after mastering your fucking craft, the better you're going to be at it and the more you're going to be able to hold your form. As intensity increases as you get closer to failure and those reps closer to failure, you're going to be able to do more of them because [01:15:30] you are hitting failure way later than you would if you stopped after your form breaks down, which you should, but your form's going to stay solid for those last reps, even under fatigue.

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But B, you are just practicing grinding through that last little bit. Those are the most effective reps of the set, the most important reps of the set, especially when you do them right and you're just going to get better and better. You're going to get more skilled and you're going to become more advanced at lifting over time. And therefore long-term, you're just going to get more out of every [01:16:00] set, out of every rep. You're not going to have to do as many sets. You're not going to have to do as many reps. You're not going to have to train quite as often you can. A lot of people think the more advanced you are, the more sets you have to do, the more sets you have to do. That is not at all the case. In fact, I would recommend as people get advanced, especially if they're older and more banged up and more weathered to focus on training harder and locking in their form so that they can train very close, if not to failure on some things, but doing fewer sets, you're just going to get so much [01:16:30] more out of every single rep and every single set when you're a stronger and B, more skilled at the lift and it's going to be therefore more effective, you're going to get more bang for your buck out of every set.

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Therefore, you don't have to do as many sets. So again, a lot of people who don't really think about all these little variables, I'm not saying I'm some magic thinker or anything like that, but I do think about all these little things that most people don't think about. And if you don't think about that stuff, oh, it's just I'm more advanced, so I just need more sets I'm going [01:17:00] to do, otherwise I'll just hit this plateau. Or why not think, Hey, I can just get more out of every set if I am more skilled and I can execute the movement more properly and I can go closer to failure without breaking down. Makes sense to me. And that's usually what I'd recommend for most people shooting for. So glad you asked that question. Love it. And I love nerding out about this stuff, and I cannot stand when people say, form's not important, or You're not going to get injured if you have some sloppy reps, which you won't always.

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And [01:17:30] there's a time and a place to add some momentum and there's a time and a place to maybe mess with your form a little bit to get more reps. If you're getting tested on a one set max of pull-ups, for example, and you hit your last perfect rep, but you know, could do more reps, which is the case for most people, you can do several more reps and they'll get a little sloppier rep by rep, but they still might count. Then of course, yeah, do it or pushups, whatever. But if you're in training, not worth it that you stop once you start breaking down [01:18:00] and over time with practice, you start to break down a little later and also be able to train with much better form as fatigue sets in and as failure approaches. So send it. Alright, next question. We'll do a quick one because that took a lot out of me.

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The last couple have taken a lot out of me and I'm starting to lose my ability to talk. But thoughts on cereal for a pre-workout breakfast? Totally fine. I would recommend something. So it's fast digesting like Rice Krispies or Rice ch, or even better, at least in my opinion, rice and [01:18:30] Grinds. Yeah, it's not as convenient. You have to actually warm it up. But rice and grinds by pry foods are amazing. You have to get them online. I don't think I've ever seen them in stores. I could be wrong, but I buy my online and I was talking earlier in the episode about the fact that they're now making sweet potato based pancakes, which I think I'm about to go eat right now. But yeah, any sort of rice cereal, totally fine, pre-workout, fast digesting, and as long as you're not also adding a bunch of fat to it, if you're adding a bunch of whole milk or if you are having peanut [01:19:00] butter on the side or something like that, or if you're putting a bunch of fibrous fruit in it and you're really close to your workout, that could be a little bit rough.

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It could slow digestion down a little bit and not be ideal, but for the most part, a bowl of rice Krispies with skim milk, or even if you add some protein, some whey protein to it. Absolutely. Great option. And yeah, like I said, that's it guys. Thank you very much for tuning in. I'll be back soon with another episode. Appreciate all your support, appreciate your contribution to these q and as. [01:19:30] Like I said, stay tuned if you're still around for the Black Friday deal coming right up and it's going to be a pretty sick deal. Definitely the cheapest my programs have ever been, most likely ever, but at least in the last couple of years. So stay tuned. Alright guys, chat soon. Terminator out.