Ep 211 - O/U: 18X Mileage, 30/60s, Deadlifts for SFAS, Intermittent Fasting, 30/60s + More

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What's going on guys? Welcome to another episode of the Terminator Training Show. I'm Kevin Smith. Today is going to be a fun one. It is an overrated, underrated from this week's Instagram. Normally I do ask me anything and I answer questions. This week is going to be a little different, but kind of similar, just helps me think outside the box a little bit more and gives me some cool topics to talk about that I don't talk about all the time. And so we're going to do overrated, underrated. You give me a topic, I let you know whether [00:00:30] I think it's overrated, underrated, a little bit as to why. And some topics are partially overrated, partially underrated or overrated for certain contexts, underrated for others and vice versa, and it's a really good time. So this is probably going to be part one of the overrated underrated series I guess we'll call it, because it's only been about six hours since I put the overrated underrated sticker in my story, so I'll probably get quite a few more and [00:01:00] some of 'em will probably be good ones, so I'll most likely make a part two, but I've been doing this probably every 15 to 20 episodes or so, and I have a great time doing it.

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Let me know in the comments if you guys like this style of episodes, I can do them a little bit more often. Or if you guys aren't fans, then I'll do 'em less often, but yeah, should be a good time. There's some topics in here that are fitness related, nutrition related, as well as things that have nothing to do with fitness, so I'm looking forward to it. Hope [00:01:30] you guys enjoy the show. Let's hop into number one, overrated, underrated. Using candy as a carb source for the most part, for most people that is going to be overrated. Generally, you're better off getting your carbs from other sources such as white rice, sourdough bread, yams, potatoes, fruit, fruit juice. Even if you're struggling to get your carbs in and you're using candy because it's not filling and it tastes good, I'd much rather someone drink orange juice or [00:02:00] some other type of juice, at least you're getting some micronutrients in, and that's a great way to kind of bridge the gap.

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If you need a ton of carbs every day, you have a really high activity level, fast metabolism, et cetera, and you're struggling to hit your carb numbers. That's kind of what I'm guessing is the case for this person. If it's not, then you're way better off just eating your carbs. If you're not struggling to get your carbs in, just eat them and not in candy form. Ideally something that's a little bit more, a little less of a pure [00:02:30] sugar, very, very highly processed style of carbohydrates, you're just going to feel better. You're going to have better more, even energy levels and some carbs have some micronutrients in them. Candy, you're not going to really get any micronutrients, but if you're using candy around training as a sub for gels and GOs and other supplements, that can be definitely pretty expensive, especially compared to gas station candy.

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That's one thing. Is it the most optimal carb source around training? No, but [00:03:00] it is far better than just rod dogging your long endurance training. To be clear, you don't necessarily need carbs for every single training session you do. I'm a big fan of intra-workout fueling for most people in most sessions because it has a stress mitigation effect, even if you don't quite need it because you're not burning through crazy amounts of glycogen for an easier session or a shorter session, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't benefit from carbs recovery wise and just kind of mitigating your stress [00:03:30] wise, mitigating the stress of that session wise. But candy can be an option, as can gels, goos, as can things like the cargo or cluster dextrin, cyclic dextrin, you're going to get a little bit in the margins. Better results from an actual training supplement, training carbohydrate source, just the type of carbohydrate, the type of sugar in those is different than what you'll see in candy, but not buy a whole lot and not buy so much that it's make or break.

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So [00:04:00] if you're using candy for that, it's a fine option, especially if you're lean, you're insulin sensitive and otherwise healthy and you're not just doing it. It's an excuse to eat candy, but you're actually doing it for fuel, totally acceptable. But for most people in most situations, candy as a carb source in general is going to be highly overrated. You're better off choosing any number of different types of carbs that I've talked about quite often on the show. Next, overrated, [00:04:30] underrated, 16 hour fasting while training the two and five mile program. For most people it's going to be overrated mainly because fasting, a K, A, not eating for part of the day and performance, optimal performance and recovery just don't quite line up. And furthermore, even if you are eating the same amount of calories as you would if eating at regular intervals, but you're only eating 'em in this case, an eight hour interval, which is eight hour window, which is probably one of the most common ways to intermittent fast the 16 [00:05:00] eight, essentially what you do is there could be, depends on the time you prefer, but let's say you eat calories from noon to eight each day and you fast the other parts overnight and into the morning.

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You don't eat anything till noon the following day, 16, eight very common. But when you fast, especially when you do it every day, you might find that you feel really good and focused and clear and kind of amped up during that fasting window, [00:05:30] especially if you're also consuming caffeine during it. And that does feel good. I totally get it. And doing it once in a while, not a big deal, but if you're doing it on a regular basis, you are most likely, especially if you're a type A individual and you kind of run on adrenaline and you run on go go like you're all about being amped up and focused and just crushing things. Yes, that's a good feeling. Yes, that's a good personality trait to have overall, but [00:06:00] fasting can almost exacerbate the potential negative health consequences long-term of just your basic state of being high stress.

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Because fasting increases your cortisol, you're going to have more adrenaline throughout the day or epinephrine, and you are kind of just going to be in an overs sympathetic state compared to if you eat at regular intervals, you're going to have a better balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic. You're not going to have as high cortisol in the morning, believe [00:06:30] me, you do want high cortisol in the morning. That is part of a normal human cycle is to have high cortisol in the morning, but when you fast the entirety of it, it can raise it even higher and it can kind of delay how long it takes to start actually coming back down. A healthy cortisol cycle is high in the morning, kind of peaks mid-morning, and then it slowly goes down throughout the day to where it's lowest in the evening and it allows your body to release melatonin.

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You get into a nice deep [00:07:00] sleep, oftentimes people who feel really, really physically tired, but their mind is racing. Another word for it is tired but wired. A lot of people say tired but wired. It's because oftentimes their cortisol is higher in the evening than it should be. And when your cortisol is high, it's very, very difficult to calm down and rest and chill. And when you are chasing performance goals, you want to, other than when you're training and or when something very stressful, acutely stressful is happening, [00:07:30] you want to be in more of a rest and digest, parasympathetic, chill, zen state, especially if your personality is the opposite of that in general, which I totally can relate. So as much as I'd love to say 16 eight fasting is a great idea for a lot of people because I enjoy it and I once in a while will do it if I'm not training that day or if I'm doing a really light session maybe later in the day and I'm going to make sure I'm eating a little bit before I do that training session, maybe more [00:08:00] of my calories after and or if I have a lot of cognitive work that I need to do and I'm not really worried about maximum training, performance and recovery, I like to do a periodic fast, then great.

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But if you're doing it on a regular basis, you may in the future have some thyroid issues, some nervous system issues, and it can be just for certain people, it can be not ideal even if you feel really, really good on it. So it's kind of like an insidious thing. It sneaks up on you and you might not notice it, [00:08:30] but if you do this for too long and never take any breaks from it, or if you just do it every single day, then it can be a little rough overall. Next one, overrated, underrated deadlifts. Four rasp slash selection prep. Deadlifts themselves, if we're talking about, there's so many different types of deadlifts, but if we're talking about conventional deadlifts off the floor, I'm going to say overrated for the vast majority, but that doesn't mean you can't do them. If you have a great deadlift form and you're built well for them and they [00:09:00] don't bang your back up, then they can be a fantastic option.

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Deadlifts are very, very fatiguing and they are a high skill lift and most people don't treat them that way. They just go for max weight. They don't go for, let me build the skill and then go up in weight, and in that case, they're usually going to be more fatiguing than stimulative. They're probably going to bang you up more than another deadlift variation would, and they're definitely not [00:09:30] required. A deadlift, conventional deadlift from the floor is in no way required for any of these things. The only people who have to deadlift from the floor are power lifters and maybe strongmen competitors because they do it in certain strongman events. Other than that, you don't have to do it with a barbell. Now, deadlifts themselves or even breaking it down further, a hinge, a heavy weighted hinge, bilateral hinge, so that could be anything from a deadlift off the floor [00:10:00] with a barbell, it could be a deadlift off a couple inches blocks if you have shorter arms and you're more bent over at the beginning of a deadlift and it bothers your lower back, that can be a great option to still deadlift, but you're giving yourself a little bit of an advantage.

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Or if you're doing hex bar deadlifts, high handles hex bar deadlifts are a little bit more of a hinge. Low handles are a little more squatty, but still kind of a squat hinge combo. Romanian deadlifts stiff like a deadlifts and good mornings are another great hinge and you can do, by the way, [00:10:30] Romania deadlifts or stiff legged deadlifts with a bunch of different equipment. You could do barbell, you could do dumbbell, you could do hex bar, you could do it on a belt squat. Lots of different ways to skin it, and you absolutely positively should be doing loaded hinges in a progressive manner, but it does not have to be deadlift off the floor. It can be, like I said, some people are built well for it, they get a lot of great results from it. It doesn't bang them up, they don't lift with their ego making all the decisions.

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They actually listen to their [00:11:00] body and don't push things too hard and they treat it as a skill. That's probably the number one most important thing, not just for deadlift, but every lift is treating it as a skill. That doesn't mean you can't treat it as a skill and try and get better at it while you also progress it, but it does mean if you're progressing faster than you're building skill and it just gets sloppier and sloppier and sloppier as you add weight to the bar, then you're probably doing yourself a disservice. So [00:11:30] overrated the deadlift itself, but if you break it down into a deadlift in general with something a little bit more personalized and or thinking a little bit through your exercise selection, your exact exercise selection, deadlift variations, then I would say it's properly rated, maybe even a little bit underrated. Next one, overrated.

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Underrated energy drinks. I'm going to say as much as I love energy drinks, I'm going to say overrated, mainly because they're just loaded with a [00:12:00] bunch of crap that is totally unnecessary for you to consume and feel good and benefit from. Generally. Energy drinks are very, so let's pretend. Let's just assume that you're not doing full sugar energy drinks then Very, very, very overrated. Slamming 70 grams of sugar in a 16 ounce is just a terrible idea in general. There could be certain use cases for it. Going back to the sugar thing, if you're using [00:12:30] it as a pre-workout or an intra-workout or something like that, there could be use cases for, it would not be my preferred technique, but not always off the table, but just sitting around drinking full sugar, energy drinks, not a good idea. The sugar-free ones are not the end of the world, and the good thing about them is that the caffeine is in most of them, not all of them, but the higher reputable brands, the quality brands, quality brands, the caffeine's always going to be the same.

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They actually [00:13:00] measure them and make sure that they're putting the same amount of caffeine in each one. I know that's the case for Red Bull and I'm pretty sure it's probably the case for most energy drinks because they're scrutinized. Third parties will come in and test and make sure that their formulations are what they say they are as far as caffeine is concerned. The other stuff in them, the B12, the toine, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it can be a little bit of an enhancer, but typically that stuff is just pixie dusted in there, so it's not in the energy drink [00:13:30] in efficacious doses. So even though it's there, it's not there in enough quantity to actually move the needle or make a difference in your overall wellbeing, energy, et cetera. And also there's a bunch of additional ingredients that are highly processed that I wouldn't really recommend putting in my body on a regular basis.

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A lot of people who have major energy drink addictions or they just have habits where they drink several per day struggle with [00:14:00] kidney issues, liver issues. And I'm not saying that this is everyone. Some people can drink energy, drinks a lot of 'em and be fine, but still you're typically loading yourself with stimulants and a lot of people drink energy drinks throughout the day in the afternoon. They wonder why they can't sleep, and then, oh, by the way, they don't sleep well. They need energy drinks the next day to get through the day, and it's a kind of a vicious cycle. So of course having an energy drink once in a while, not the end of the world at all, [00:14:30] but as a former daily energy drink drinker, I feel a whole lot better physically and psychologically and my labs look better, believe it or not, it's not the only change I've made, but my labs look better now that I don't drink probably two energy drinks a day towards the end of my career.

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That's what I was doing because it was just so convenient. They're at all the shop ads on base and the job is sometimes a little bit strenuous and sometimes a nice energy drink at 2:00 PM to get through the rest of the day is [00:15:00] exactly what hits the spot, but I'm not saying that's the best idea. I'd rather someone have something like black coffee that they make themselves. So generally how much caffeine's in it. And coffee also has a lot of health properties, whether it's decaf or caffeinated coffee or you could do something like the ideal scenario would be a caffeine pill because you know exactly how much caffeine you're getting, the exact onset, the exact brand, and it's a lot more reliable and I guess [00:15:30] less ambiguous and potential to cause issues. So again, once in a while, fine, but I wouldn't go too crazy with the energy drinks.

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I would say overall they're going to be overrated just because they're not really serving people other than giving them a quick dose of fake energy. Next one, overrated, underrated red light sauna for recovery. So I'm going to say overrated, the red light aspect of it, but sauna in general [00:16:00] and not necessarily for recovery, but sauna for health and longevity or if you are trying to improve your heat tolerance would be underrated. Sauna has amazing effects on long-term cardiovascular health as well as mental health, and it also is a great way to improve your heat tolerance if you have to perform in the heat at any point and you don't really have access to hot weather or if you don't want to do all of your training in the heat, which is usually a good idea, doing some of your easier training in [00:16:30] the heat to get your heat exposure actively and then supplementing the rest with passive, which would be something like Asana would be a great option, but for recovery, it's not really going to move the needle.

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A lot of people think it is the heat shock protein thing. Yeah, you can talk about that, but that's just one mechanistic thing that occurs when you're in the sauna. Is it actually going to reliably improve your recovery? I personally am not convinced that it's going to, and also a lot of people overdo the sauna, especially a lot of people listening [00:17:00] to this that like to overdo things in general. I like to overdo it. In fact, I overdid the sauna yesterday. I went and did a rower session in my driveway in the heat and then I was like, I'm going to enhance my heat tolerance a little bit more and go in my sauna and I did, and today, especially this morning, I feel better now, but I've had way more water electrolytes throughout the day than I normally do, but I have felt a little bit sluggish and tired.

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My leg workout [00:17:30] didn't go as well as normal and likely because I overstressed myself, I overdid the sauna. And a lot of people tend to do that, and if you're overdoing the sauna, you're staying in too long or you're going too often or you're not hydrating well, rehydrating well afterwards or you're doing it after a really, really high stress session, then it's just going to enhance the stress of that session or it's just going to further dehydrate you and you're not going to feel great. It can even have effects on glycogen [00:18:00] if done excessively and for that reason I would say the sauna in general for recovery is overrated. However, if you use the sauna in moderation, you don't go in until you're on death's door. You can go in until you're mildly uncomfortable, that's fine, but going in too long can definitely not only not help recovery but throw a wrench in recovery a little bit and hurt your recovery.

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It's just more of a stressor. And so you'll want to be definitely a little bit measured with your sauna use and not just go in ad [00:18:30] lido and not just go in because you think it's this magic recovery thing and you just forget about all the other mechanisms by which recovery occurs. For example, sleep and nutrition and hydration and managing your stress and managing your workload. Honestly, I don't know many people who don't recover well enough or recover as well as they could because they're not using the sauna enough. I know a lot of people who are not recovering as well [00:19:00] as they could because they're not sleeping enough or because they're not eating enough or because they're not eating the right macros, they're not eating enough carbohydrates, they're dehydrated half the time that they're awake. They are just stressed out of their minds and they don't do anything to manage it because they scoff at things like journaling and meditation and breath work or they're just doing way too much in general and they'd recover a whole lot better if they did less and they'd make better gains as well.

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So [00:19:30] for that reason, overrated for recovery but properly to maybe underrated for health, longevity, wellbeing, and he definitely underrated, super underrated for heat tolerance. Next one, overrated, underrated, lean bulking. Lean bulking is going to be underrated. It is, in my opinion, the only good way to bulk if you're going on dreamer bulks where you just eat whatever you want, get as fat as you possibly can, [00:20:00] you don't really care. Yeah, you're going to get stronger that way. You're going to build muscle that way, but you're going to be super inflamed, you're going to feel terrible, you're not going to have a lot of energy. Your health markers are going to go to shit and on the back end when you want to lose all that fat, it's either going to take you a very, very long time to lose it. If you do it right and you're in a moderate deficit, which generally people who go extreme with their bulks also go extreme with their cuts.

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But if you're a rare breed that goes extreme with your bulks and [00:20:30] reasonable with your cut, it's still going to take forever. Or if you're the other breed, the more normal breed where you go extreme both ways, you're most likely going to lose most of the muscle that you've just gained and that's no bueno. So if you're going to bulk, being in a minor calorie surplus is the way to go. Now, for some people, they might need to be in a bigger surplus than others. For example, if you're a skinnier individual and when you go in bulks, you [00:21:00] struggle to make consistent gains and you kind of plateau a lot or maybe you don't even gain anything, even though you think you're in a surplus, what's usually happening is you're adding calories. Say you add 500 calories above what you think is your maintenance. Oftentimes, especially if you're a really active individual, just generally you move around a lot.

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I am this way, you subconsciously start to move more throughout the day. So your body uses this extra energy that you're giving it and [00:21:30] because of that, it's way more active and you probably don't even notice it. You just move around in your chair more. You might be more inclined to go get up and do things and move around and be active. Maybe you're walking a lot or something like that, and what you think is a surplus ends up just being maintenance because your body's just subconsciously making up for it. The same can happen with a calorie deficit. Usually it doesn't happen right away, usually happens later in a calorie deficit and with a bulk it can happen a little bit sooner. But that [00:22:00] is one thing to keep in mind. So what you think might be a 500 calorie deficit is really maintenance. So if that rings a bell for you, if you feel like you're maybe that person, you might need a 600, 700, 800 calorie surplus, which will even out to be more of like a two or 300 calorie surplus because of the increased non-exercise activity thermogenesis, AKA neat AKA moving around throughout the day.

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So that is one thing to consider, but for most people, 200, 300, maybe 400 above [00:22:30] maintenance is totally fine or what you think is maintenance because if you go 400 over maintenance, it may only end up being about 200. If you go too low over maintenance, unless you're extremely, extremely dialed in, say you go like 50 to a hundred calories over maintenance, yes, you will still improve muscle, you'll gain muscle and you'll stay relatively lean, very lean, but it's just such a small window and such little room for error. You may not actually [00:23:00] be in enough of a surplus long-term to make appreciable and consistent gains and a little bit of a bump, a little higher bump, 1 50, 200, 300 calories above maintenance might be a better option for you, but in every sense, staying relatively lean when you bulk gaining some fat is going to happen.

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I mean, if you're in a real calorie surplus, no matter what, you're going to gain a little bit of fat and that's fine. Honestly, it's probably a good thing, especially if you're coming off a more [00:23:30] extreme cut where you're very, very lean putting on a little body fat, it's just going to be healthy for you, it's going to be good for your hormones, you're going to feel better, you're going to move better. Your estrogen, testosterone, all those things are going to be in better places than they would be if you tried to just stay super duper lean for a really long period of time. But lean bulking is by far, in my opinion, the way to go, and that's what I have all my clients do, and it works out really, really well. And you can even recomp as well. Comping [00:24:00] takes a long time.

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You got to be very, very dialed in and your training has to be really, really meticulous and so does your eating, but that can happen as well. I would just say if you know you need to gain muscle and or strength, then doing it in a lean bulking manner would be my preferred technique. Next one, overrated. Underrated. 18 xs needing to be running and rucking 35 plus miles per week prior to shipping out. That would be overrated only because [00:24:30] it's highly, highly individual. Some people might need to be running 35 plus miles before they ship out in order to on the backend, after they get out of oit, be able to kind of keep up and not get injured and perform well enough on the runs and rucks, if you are already a pretty stellar runner in Rucker, most likely you're just naturally doing this anyway, but you may not need to quite do it, especially if you are lacking in the strength department.

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[00:25:00] If you're super weak and skinny and you run in rock aton, you'd be better off sacrificing some running performance. Like say you're running a 10 32 mile and a 28 35 mile, those may or may not be perfectly added up, maybe a 28 minute five mile. If you got 30 seconds slower on your two mile and a minute, slower on your five mile, you'd still be incredibly fast, probably one of the faster guys in your class. [00:25:30] But if you did that at the sacrifice of getting stronger and more muscular, then that would be a worthwhile trade off. So this is why this exact volume recommendation is I can't stand, I'm not upset at the person who gave me this topic. I think it's a really important topic, but when I see things like, you got to be doing this much, you got to be doing that much.

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You got to be lifting this much, you got to be running that much for everyone. It just kind of irritates the hell out of me. [00:26:00] So could this be necessary for some people? Yeah. Can some people get away with more than that or should some people do more than that? Yeah, maybe, but it's not a universal across the board recommendation for every single person before they ship out. Honestly, as long as you are close to the standards, 40 minute, five mile, 13 45, 14 minute two mile, you're going to have plenty of time. You're not going to get faster at basic, most likely, very, very unlikely. You're probably going to get [00:26:30] slower basic, but you're going to have plenty of time on the backend to get fast enough to go and cross selection. And guys need to remember that. It's not like you're going straight from OIT right to sosi, right to selection.

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You're going to have anywhere from a couple months to several months in between. I've got a couple clients that just restarted working with me after OSI, and they don't have selection until late August or late September, and it is currently mid May, [00:27:00] so they don't do summer classes of selection. The last one is the May class, and then it doesn't pick up until late August, basically September class, I think it starts like August 29th or something like that. So they have a ton of time to get faster, and if they weren't running exactly 35 miles per week before they went, they'd still have plenty of time to get faster and build that mileage back up. So that's my overview on that one. Next one, overrated underrated outsourcing as a means to close knowledge gaps. This is highly, [00:27:30] highly underrated if you are looking in the right place.

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So outsourcing in this case, I would consider it like hiring coaches or paying for courses or paying for certifications or joining masterminds. This can be a fantastic way to learn a bunch of things that you'll probably eventually learn over time, but you can just learn it right now and you can start implementing it right now. Whether you're doing this for fitness or whether you're doing it for business or just personal development, general personal development, [00:28:00] building, any sort of skill, it is a massively underrated thing because a lot of people just look at it as a cost rather than an investment. Yes, for the good people that you're going to want to learn from, there's a reason they're good. And also with that, they probably charge more than other people for their services, whether you're buying a webinar from them, a course, an ebook or one-on-one coaching or mentorship, you're probably going to have to pay more than what a lot of the other alternatives [00:28:30] would be.

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However, you're getting that so much time back, you're getting so much peace of mind back. You're being told how to do things properly and you can start implementing things properly instead of trying all these different things on your own or getting information from a bunch of different sources and trying to sort it out. And this is something that it took me a long time to learn why this investment is so valuable, but it absolutely is, and not just with knowledge gaps, either skill gaps or outsourcing [00:29:00] your food. If you don't want to prepare your own food at meal prep because you want to save that bandwidth and that time, then outsourcing, that can be a great idea. If you're interested, I have a code for Mega FITT meals. There's a link down in the bio if you want to check those out. I do this because I do make some of my meals and I am totally fine with that, but there are times where I don't really have, I may have the time to cook, but I don't have the bandwidth for it.

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Maybe I just had a long workday and I don't [00:29:30] feel like going and putting together a massive meal. So I just literally grab a couple mega fitts out of my fridge, put 'em in a pan, add some bone broth, simmer them for five minutes, and they're delicious. Absolutely fantastic by far the best meal prep I've ever had. So that is another example of outsourcing your stuff, and it's a great way to just get time back and energy back and bandwidth back, and it's also a great way, in this case, knowledge [00:30:00] gaps or skill gaps. It's a great way to gain that knowledge and or gain that skill in a much more expedited manner. So I think this is highly underrated and it took me a long, long time to come to terms with that, and it's probably going to take a lot of people listening to this a lot of time to come to terms with that.

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But if you are the type of person that just looks for free stuff and cheap stuff, you're probably going to get free stuff and cheap stuff results or you're probably going to get results [00:30:30] a lot slower than you otherwise could have, and outsourcing all of that would be a great option. Hiring help, buying courses, whatever have you, is just a great way to streamline that whole process. Next one, overrated, underrated cardio right into lifting for endurance and fatigue resistance overrated, because yes, you are going to be more resistant to fatigue, but it's going to negatively affect your training performance as well as the safety [00:31:00] of that session. If you're doing a cardio session, especially higher intensity, if you're doing something low intensity for a relatively short duration, 20, 30 minutes, not a big deal, but if you're doing something like a longer run or a threshold session or a speed work session or hills or something and then you're going into a lift, that lift is going to be less safe because you are going to be physically and mentally fatigued from it.

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You're going to be glycogen depleted, you're going to be a little bit dehydrated, maybe even a lot dehydrated, and [00:31:30] I don't like going into lifts when I'm dehydrated and glycogen depleted and mentally fatigued and physically fatigued. My joints, if you're doing something like running, your joints are going to be a little bit inflamed, and that's just not a great condition to go into a lifting session with. Now, that does not mean that this is always off the table. Once in a while doing something like this, especially if you're training for something like CrossFit or something that involves cardio followed by lifting or strength work, then that's one thing, but in general, [00:32:00] you're way better off simulating fatigue the opposite way. So doing a lift followed by run or doing a lift and then later in the day doing that run or doing a lift the day before to kind of pre fatigue before you go in, because my guess is you're trying to be more fatigue resistant for an endurance event of some kind.

(32:22):

So doing your endurance event fresh and then your lift second to somehow finagle your way into being more fatigue resistant [00:32:30] for your endurance event that you, oh, by the way, did fresh and then you lifted and didn't get anywhere near as much of a stimulus from because you were smoke going to the lift. It's just kind of backwards. So I would say this is overall overrated. There's a time and place for it, but for the most part, you're going to want to either separate the two or if you're training for both conditioning as well as lifting, I like doing a lift first. When you're fresh, you're fully able to focus, you're joints aren't banged up, you're not dehydrated, you're not glycogen [00:33:00] depleted, that lift's going to go a lot better. And when you do lifting followed by cardio, it does not have the same negative effect on that cardio session as cardio followed by a lift has on the lifting session.

(33:12):

So that's my take on that one. Next one, overrated, underrated, laying up on par fives, I'm going to say this is overrated. Always go for par fives and two. Now, I mean in some cases, of course, it just depends on, mainly it depends on your drive. If you had a good [00:33:30] drive, then going forward in two is a good idea. If you have a lead, if you're in some sort of competition, say you have a one stroke or two stroke lead, then may want to lay up, especially if there's hazards around the green water and whatnot. But overall, I think laying up is overrated. I'm always, if I possibly can go for the green and two, I'm going to, if it's a really stupid decision than I won't, but I would rather hit maybe a little bit offline shot and be left or right of the green or short of the green, long [00:34:00] of the green, but pretty close, and I have a chip and putt hopefully for birdie than have to rely on a 58 degree wedge or a sand wedge or a gap wedge or a pitching wedge to get within birdie putt distance on my third shot.

(34:17):

So that is my take. I'm always going for it if I possibly can. Next one, athletic greens. Highly overrated. Athletic greens are, I mean, yeah, there's beneficial qualities [00:34:30] to the athletic greens, however, the price of them is absolutely asinine, and you could just take a multivitamin for a fraction of the price and get most of the way there and then eat some fruit and vegetables to dot your T's, dot your i's cross your T's, and I would much rather do that. If you really enjoy athletic greens and you feel good on them, go for it. But greens in general, unless certain [00:35:00] obscure situations, like if you're deployed and you have no access to fruits and vegetables or something like that, you don't necessarily need athletic greens per se. You could get a cheaper greens formula, but aside from that, you're way better off with a multivitamin and some fruit and vegetables and keeping that money in your bank account, in your wallet and going from there.

(35:21):

Next one, overrated, underrated, stretching. Every day this is going to be overrated because most people just give stretching way, way, [00:35:30] way more credit than it deserves. Stretching makes you more flexible. Being more flexible can be beneficial. If you're very, very tight, you're very inflexible. Doing some stretching is a good idea. It also can help you calm down if you do it a certain way. Nice calming stretches. Not super intense stretches where you can't breathe through, but a lot of people think it's like this game changer for recovery. Being more flexible really has nothing to do with recovery. I would much rather someone do some mobility drills, which [00:36:00] is different than stretching. Mobility is active range of motion. Stretching is passive, so bending over and touching your toes would be flexibility because you're using gravity to get down there, laying down on your back, bringing your legs straight up as far as you can.

(36:15):

That is mobility, you're actually controlling that. And things like hanging from a pull-up bar would be passive. You're just hanging gravity is kind of doing all the work. Reaching yourself overhead, maybe holding some load overhead and or doing actual pull-ups would be more [00:36:30] mobility. Of course, that strength training, but strength training coincidentally is the best way to improve your mobility, but I'm not a huge fan of telling everyone they need to stretch every day just because it's really not necessary for most people. If you lift with a full range of motion and whatever that doesn't cover that you need more mobility for, do targeted mobility. Active mobility exercises, not stretches. You're going to cover most of your bases [00:37:00] right there, doing some stretching, not a big deal, but it's not something you feel like you have to feel like you have to do every day and it's not going to enhance your recovery.

(37:08):

A lot of people will either get injured or tweak something and they'll stretch it, which is not helping you at all. In almost every case, if you have an inflamed tissue in your body stretching it is just going to further inflame it. Or they think that stretching is going to be this magic recovery thing where, oh, my quads and my hamstrings [00:37:30] are sore from lifting, I better just stretch them and I'm going to recover faster while I just continue to just ignore sleep habits and proper nutrition and stress management, things like that. You're way better off putting much more focus into those things and way less focus into stretching. You're going to recover way, way better. You're going to feel better. And again, stretching injured areas unless a doctor or PT instructs you to is usually not the best [00:38:00] practice, even though that's what most people do.

(38:04):

That's the natural thing for most people to do, but that still does not make it right. Next one, calling out officers respectfully. As a lower enlisted. Underrated officers oftentimes think that they have, and this is not every officer, but there's a tendency for officers to think that it's their way or the highway and no one can compete with them and no one can question them or criticize them [00:38:30] other than other officers or people who are higher up than them. And sometimes they let that get a little too far, they let it get to their head, and it is not great for the men below them as well as just the organization as a whole. So if an officer's fucked up on something or if you disagree with an officer on something, then absolutely calling him on it respectfully, like you said, is only going to help the situation even if it's awkward, even if it's a tough conversation.

(39:00):

[00:39:00] Oftentimes tough conversations are way, way, way more anxiety producing and they bother you a lot more before you have them. But afterwards, even though maybe the direct aftermath is a little awkwardness or you feel really uncomfortable, if you're doing it for a good cause, it's always going to be something that you look back on and you're like, wow, I'm glad I had that conversation. I'm glad I brought that up. And that's not just with officers versus enlisted. It's not just in the military. It's [00:39:30] really any hard conversation. Typically, the longer you let the time between when you decide you need to have a hard conversation, and when you have that conversation, the longer that time is, the worse it's going to be, the worse you're going to feel and the longer it'll take to actually solve the problem at hand. So having that conversation, even if it's someone who outranks you, even if it's someone who is difficult to get along with and or doesn't like to be criticized, [00:40:00] I still think it's highly worth it and for that reason, this is a majorly overrated one or underrated one.

(40:07):

And just make sure that you are maintaining your military bearings and not being a dickhead and actually calling out things that need to be called out. Next one, waking up at 5:00 AM if not necessary, good for discipline or overrated. I think waking up early is highly underrated, but not really for discipline. I think it's underrated because [00:40:30] it keeps people from doing dumb stuff or really useful, useless time wasting stuff at nighttime because typically people aren't going to get up super early and binge watch Netflix or binge eat or binge drink or binge scroll. Typically, they're going to get up and start moving the needle, and everyone I know who wakes up super early is more successful, more fulfilled and gets more done than most people I know who sleep [00:41:00] in and of course that's like N of one, but at the same time, if there's something to stay up late for that you wouldn't get up early for then I would not stay up late for it.

(41:11):

Put differently. Don't stay up late for something you wouldn't get up early for. If you can live by that mantra, then you're going to be in a great place. Now I like to get up early, mainly because it feels really good for me to move the needle a bunch in the morning, get a bunch of important things [00:41:30] done, get a bunch of things done that require a lot of willpower and attention. Those things diminish throughout the day, naturally in anyone, and it's a great time to not be distracted. You're not getting calls, you're not getting texts, you're not getting interrupted by anyone, you don't have fomo. If it's like a beautiful day out, you don't feel like going outside. It's fricking dark. The sun hasn't come up yet. So really there's not a lot of options other than to work or train or read or do something to, [00:42:00] I mean, I guess you could get up and binge watch YouTube or binge scroll or watch the news, read the news, but most people I know who get up early aren't doing that.

(42:08):

They're getting up and getting after it. So for discipline, I mean, I don't think it's a major discipline thing unless it's kind of on the back end of you not doing dumb stuff at nighttime, not doing a bunch of bad habit stuff at nighttime. So if you do get up early, however, you also need to go to bed early. If you're getting [00:42:30] up early and not changing your bedtime, typically, let's say you sleep in on a regular basis and you go to bed late and you still go to bed late, and then you get up early, that is stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. You also need to push your bedtime to the left, which is one main benefit that I was talking about earlier of getting up early. It makes it so you go to bed at nighttime, you don't do the non needle moving habits that you normally do at nighttime.

(42:54):

So that being said, I mean everyone's chronotype is a little different. Some people prefer [00:43:00] early mornings. I certainly do. I am way, way, way more effective in their early morning than I am in the evening, but I also go to bed early. Some people are way more effective in the evening than they are in the morning. However, a lot of people will say they're night owls, so they stay up super late, but they stay up super late doing all those things. I was just talking about binge watching things, binge drinking, binge eating, just wasting a bunch of time, and then they wake up the next day already behind the power curve. They do it again, rinse and repeat. If you are someone who gets their really, [00:43:30] really big time needle moving things done in the evening because you just feel more switched on during that time and you stay up late to do that and then you sleep in the next day, that is one thing.

(43:40):

But if you're calling yourself a night owl and you're not doing that, you're not an actual night owl, you're using that nighttime to basically fuck off. So this one's kind of tough. If you're able to go to bed early and wake up early, I would say it's definitely worth trying at least for a little while, and seeing [00:44:00] if you do feel better, if you get more done, if you feel more productive, if you feel like getting a bunch of hard tasks done in the morning kind of frees you up for the rest of the day, which is exactly how I feel, then it can be great. But just doing it for the hell of it just to be more disciplined would be overrated. Next one, cottage cheese. I think cottage cheese is highly underrated. I was actually just thinking about this. I was making my cottage cheese and eggs this morning.

(44:28):

I have every single day. [00:44:30] My protein source for breakfast is eggs and cottage cheese, two eggs, three quarters of a cup of egg whites and 150 to 175 grams of cottage cheese. And I was flashing back to when I was at Camp McCall, I would in the DAC mix eggs with cottage cheese and everyone was like, what the hell are you doing? Nobody else did it. I'm not saying I'm the first person to ever mix cottage cheese with eggs, but I started doing it way back then and I still do it to this day. I think it's amazing. It's a great way to add more protein [00:45:00] and it's a relatively healthy, if you handle dairy well, way to increase your protein, and I think it tastes great. A lot of people will mix eggs with cheese, mixing eggs with cheese. Cottage cheese is a type of cheese.

(45:12):

It tastes a little different, but I absolutely love it. I personally, you could mix the two in at the same time, and I'm getting off on a tangent here, but if you like cottage cheese with eggs, you could mix the two in with the same time or you could do what I do and I keep the cottage cheese [00:45:30] cold and I put the eggs next to it, and then I eat bites with a little bit of cottage cheese, a little bit of eggs. It's a nice little temperature switch where some of it's cold, some of it's hot. I just prefer that. But I would say cottage cheese overall is underrated, but if you don't like it, it's not like you're missing out on a lot and you're completely screwed if you don't eat cottage cheese. But overall, I think it's a great way to add protein.

(45:54):

Super convenient, relatively cheap. Cottage cheese, by the way, is not all created equal. Good [00:46:00] culture is by far the best brand of cottage cheese. It's a little more expensive than the other stuff, but I find it to be extremely worth the extra dollar, a dollar 50 that you pay for it. And it's not even close. The other stuff's not even close to good culture. So if you have access to good culture or if you haven't tried good culture, I would strongly recommend trying it, you probably will never go back to anything else. Next one, active recovery. Active recovery is going to be overrated the way most people use it, [00:46:30] where they actually have planned active recovery sessions. Mainly because I, again, going back to, what was I talking about earlier, sauna, I've never met anyone, I don't think that isn't recovering well enough because they're not doing enough active recovery workouts.

(46:47):

So zone one, zone two, sitting on a bike or swimming or something similar, some people will do a bunch of calisthenics or other body weight exercises. Even though those are low intensity, they're still going to be [00:47:00] a little bit of a physical stressor as well as an even more relevantly, a mental stressor, having a rest day versus having a day where you're still going and obligated to do a training session, even if it's really light one, there's a difference between the two in mental recovery. When you still know that you have to go and do a session, you're not really getting that mental relief of, okay, I have no workout obligations [00:47:30] today. I'm going to reset and I'm going to go back into training tomorrow or the next day or however long you're taking rest days for. Whereas if you're going there and training, you're still almost feeling obligated to go train and long-term that can add up.

(47:46):

But even if that wasn't the case, most people I know, especially people listening to this type A individuals have a very difficult time keeping their low intensity recovery workouts, actually low intensity [00:48:00] enough to promote recovery. If you're going into zone two, you're going to have to recover from that. If you're doing a 60, 90 minute, even if it's high zone one, low zone two, you're still going to have to recover from that if you have to recover from your active recovery session. It's not a recovery session, it's a session, it's a training session, you're getting training stimulus from it, and if you need recovery because you're not recovering very well, then that's going to further require you to need more recovery. So for that reason, I'm not a huge [00:48:30] fan. On the flip side, if you're going out and just enjoying some walks in nature, that would be what I would consider active recovery.

(48:38):

But it's not like this planned thing that you have to stick to perfectly. You're just going out, taking your mind off training, maybe bring in your dogs and or your spouse and or meeting up with a friend, getting some sunlight or going by yourself, that's totally fine too. Getting some sunlight, spending time in nature and just light movement, then that can be a really good thing. Not necessarily because it's going to [00:49:00] have all these blood flow enhancing effects, although it does lymphatic drainage, things that people talk about all the time, but just the fact that you're de-stressing a little bit and you're chill and you're calm and you don't feel like you have to go train, you don't feel obligated to go do this thing, you're just kind of enjoying yourself relaxing. Then active recovery in that sense can be fantastic. It's honestly something that more people should emphasize.

(49:24):

But if you're doing actual recovery workouts, in most cases it's going to be highly overrated. [00:49:30] Alright, let's do a couple more. Overrated, underrated, 30, 60 and 61 20. So for those who are not aware, these are a way to do speed work where you run hard for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, or maybe walk for 30 seconds. Or the other one would be you run hard for 60 seconds, you walk or recover for 120 seconds, a K, a two minutes. And the way that the army typically does them, they're very, very common and popular in the [00:50:00] army. I think the army may have even invented them or the military in general. I am not sure on that. But the first place I heard about them was in the military. And the way that most people run them is highly overrated because they just go as hard as they can for 30 seconds and they rest and they go as hard as they can for 30 seconds.

(50:16):

Every time they go, they're a little bit slower because they're going as hard as they can. It's not enough recovery time or 61 twenties. They're going balls to the wall for a minute, resting for two minutes, rinse and repeat. And when [00:50:30] they're not structured like that and not well paced like that, then they're just going to be very, very fatiguing and not very stimulative and not very specific. Typically, you're doing these to get better at a two mile or a five mile or maybe a mix of both. If you're doing that, then you want to pace them as such. You want to pace them around your goal two mile pace or maybe your goal five mile pace. If you're pacing them around your goal five mile pace, then the rest periods are a little bit too long [00:51:00] to potentially a lot too long. But that's just the general gist of them.

(51:05):

I program these all the time for my clients as well as I'll throw them in T eight 50 sometimes during some blocks. And the main difference between the way I do it and the way that most people do it is the pacing is very specific. And I also manipulate the second number, the rest period each week, or maybe not each week, but on a regular basis. So for example, maybe one week is 1561 [00:51:30] twenties at goal two mile pace. That would be a very early on training session because that would be a relatively easy training session. Maybe the following week it's 15, 60 nineties, you only rest 90 seconds. Maybe the following week it's 17, 1690s, maybe the following week it's 17, 60, 70 fives and then 60 sixties. And then you can either add more duration or more volume or reduce the rest periods, or you can manipulate pacing a little bit.

(52:00):

[00:52:00] So they can be very, very effective. And I would say underrated for a lot of people, but only with those caveats. Make sure that you're not just doing them aimlessly, going as hard as you possibly can. Actually think about what the goal of the session is, and the goal of the session should not just to be get as fatigued and tired and sore as possible. It should be to improve some aspect of your running fitness. And when you kind of think of it like that, it can help guide your [00:52:30] decisions on how to pace it, how to manipulate the rest periods, how many to do. You could probably do 45 sixties, you could do 45, 40 fives. There's nothing magic about 60 seconds versus 30 seconds versus 90 seconds. I mean, there's so many different ways to skin it, but some thought has to go into it, not just balls to the wall.

(52:50):

Next one standing up when shaking someone's hand. I would consider that underrated because in today's day and age where everyone's just connected via the internet and [00:53:00] no one really takes in-person connection very seriously, having general basic social skills and the ability to show someone respect and be charismatic and be personable and make them feel important is becoming kind of a lost art. So basic things like standing up when shaking someone's hand, if it's your buddy or whatever, and you're sitting and eating, maybe not, but usually you're probably just going to do that anyway. You're going to get up and give the person a hug, [00:53:30] whatever it is. But if it's a brand new person you've never met, and it's your first interaction with them, first impressions are extremely, extremely important. I think there was a study that showed I could be butchering the numbers, but your first impression is 75% of that person's perspective or their view on you.

(53:50):

So it doesn't matter what you do your second time, third time, fourth time, they're still going to have that first impression in their mind, and that's going to make up 75% of the [00:54:00] way that they perceive you. So it's really frigging important. This is why I think it's important to take your appearance seriously to leave the house. When you're not looking like a complete eight up bag of dicks, you actually take your dress seriously. You take your hygiene seriously. You are not sloppy and falling apart, and you don't have a chin that's combined with your neck or your gut doesn't hang down over your belt. These are all first impression things that are way more important than [00:54:30] a lot of people think they are. So I think along with standing up to shake someone's hand, I think it's also important to have a strong firm handshake.

(54:40):

Not overbearingly strong like you're trying to make up for something that you lack or trying to be extra alpha and definitely not a wet noodle where you shake the person's hand and you're not even sure if they've ever done anything manly or if they have any testosterone in their body, but something in between there, looking 'em in the eyes, [00:55:00] asking how they're doing, repeating their name. If it's your first time meeting someone they tell their name, repeating it so that you A can show them respect as well as B, you have a much better chance of actually remembering it when you repeat their name. Remembering people's names is something I used to really, really, really, really struggle with and a lot of people still do, and a lot of people will say, oh, I'm just not good at remembering people's names. Well, guess what? If you actually try and hold yourself accountable to [00:55:30] try and remember people's names, you get better at it.

(55:32):

It's a skill. It's like anything. If you just don't take it seriously and you give yourself that cop out every time, I'm just not good at it, then you're always going to suck at remember people's names and it's not the end of the world, but it's nice to know people's names, especially if you haven't seen someone in a while and maybe you've met them one time. If you actually remember their name, they feel so much better and so much more appreciated and so much more important. And one super huge thing about [00:56:00] charisma and just relationships in general is making the other person feel important and standing up to shake their hand. That's one of them, but it's one of many things. So I think this particular thing is pretty underrated and I think you should do it for the most part in most situations. But also just being generally personable and being really good at first time interactions with someone is also highly underrated and it is not something that you're just [00:56:30] born with.

(56:31):

If you're not good at introducing yourself, if you're not personable, if you're not charismatic, you don't have to stay that way. You can actually go out and learn and practice these skills because they are skills, and over time you're going to just be more personable. More people are going to like you, you're going to have better relationships. You are going to get what you want more often. You're going to be more convincing, you're going to be better at explaining things. You are probably going to open business opportunities or just life success opportunities, and [00:57:00] I think it's very underrated in general to work at these things and assess yourself and ask other people around you. Maybe you ask your wife, how did I do in this situation? What did you think? What can I improve on? Or what is the person I'm talking to do well that I want to implement?

(57:15):

Or what do they do poorly that I never want to do? Regardless, any interaction you have with anyone, you can learn something from it, even if it's what not to do. In a lot of cases these days, at least in my experience, it's what not to do. But sometimes [00:57:30] you might come across someone or it may be someone you already know, and they're just a really likable individual and they are successful and they have great relationships and they're very fulfilled. You can learn from them by watching them. What does he do when he's talking to a stranger? What does he do when he is talking to me, his friend? What does he do when he is talking to his wife, his family, other people around? These are all things you can pick up on and implement into your own life and get better at it over time, but you just [00:58:00] have to take it seriously and you have to be intentional about it, and you have to rate yourself and you got to be honest with yourself and always be looking to improve little things.

(58:09):

And I would say that's important for a lot of different areas of life, but it's very, very important for interacting with people, especially if you want to go and be a soft guy or if you want to be just successful in any sort of business that involves communication, which honestly is most businesses. Highly, highly underrated meta skill that I would strongly [00:58:30] recommend taking seriously. So I think that one's a really good one to end up. So I'm going to come back for a part two for sure. I didn't even get to all the ones I had today, and like I said, I'll be getting more in my stories over the next day or so, and I am a huge fan of these episodes. So thanks guys for tuning in. I'll be back soon with another episode. Till then, Terminator out.