Barbell Shrugged - 126- Supplements, Unconventional Training Tools, and Spirituality w/ CEO of Onnit Aubrey Marcus

Episode Date: June 30, 2014

Aubrey Marcus might have the most interesting title of any Barbell Shrugged guest to date. You can call him a spiritual experimentalist, human optimizer, unconventional fitness junkie, and warrior poet. He’s also CEO of Onnit, a unique human performance company which sells performance and health supplements, as well as some novel training tools. They also make some pretty righteous YouTube videos, including this jewel with Joe Rogan. Watch that video right now if you’re in need of a motivational kick in the ass! Aubrey’s interest in human optimization began during his basketball career. With the help of his step-mother, a naturopathic doctor, he was able to experiment with all manner of supplements and develop a regimen to aide his performance on the court. That’s really a huge advantage, especially when you consider that most young athletes are 100% uninformed on the topic. They are completely subject to marketing spin and are left to experiment on themselves, which is obviously less than ideal. First things first, before you invest and consume any supplements, make sure you do your research. Read all you can on the topic. Visit websites such as examine.com, which can help you quickly sort through the available scientific evidence (Do that!). And sure, if you happen to have a qualified Naturopath in the family, please ask them what’s what before you go snorting bee pollen or powdered deer antler during your next heavy deadlift session. As you understand more and more, please do experiment with supplements and pay close attention to how they affect your performance. Read the available research. Add them in one at a time. Take careful notes. Track your training numbers. Hey, you might be surprised. The addition of nootropics or some cordyceps sinensis mushroom’smight make a real difference. There’s only one way to find out. All of these unique supplements are really interesting and potentially beneficial, but the coolest thing Aubrey has to share is the importance of unconventional fitness tools. You probably know all about barbells, dumbbells, and even kettlebells, but I would bet that you’re much more unfamiliar with things like steel clubs, maces, and maybe even battle ropes. It would be easy to label this stuff as little more than functional training gimmicks, but before you make any conclusions consider the history. Tools like heavy clubs have been around for the better part of a millennia, making people strong, and preparing them for the dangers and rigors of war. That’s really the foundation of human performance training. It’s not sport, really. We began training to become bigger, stronger, faster, and more mobile or stable in key joints because we wanted to decrease our odds of getting chopped up into ground beef on the battlefield. Imagine, how much harder would you train if that was your reality? If that was the training goal? We don’t face much in the way of real danger outside of the gym today, but it’s fair to say that almost none of us train as hard as we could, or should. That’s the first consideration, before programming, before supplements, before judging your tools. What is it that you are training for, and be honest, how hard are you prepared to work? If you want to see just what unconventional fitness looks like, pop over to the 19:00 minute mark in the episode and see Aubrey rough up the entire Barbell Shrugged crew in the Onnit gym. Laugh all you want, but those clubs and maces are no joke! For more human optimization info make sure to check out the Onnit podcast, especially Aubrey’s chat with Chris and Mike on episode #28. You’re sure to enjoy it. Also, if you want to learn more about those unconventional fitness moves, go visit the Onnit Academy on YouTube. Just be careful with those clubs, they are much harder to handle then you think. Cheers,Chris Moore

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview CEO of Onnit.com, spiritual experimentalist, human optimizer, and unconventional fitness junkie, Aubrey Marcus. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bletzer here with Doug Larson. And we're in Austin, Texas for Paleo FX. And we have on the podcast with us today, Connor Moore. He's filling in for Chris Moore, so he's going to say he's in charge of dick jokes.

And then we have Aubrey Marcus from Onnit, CEO of Onnit.com. You guys sell supplements and equipment. And you guys are kind of, from what I understand, kind of focused on MMA and stuff like that to a degree. We're definitely strongly affiliated. I don't know if we're focused on it, but it's a deep tie. Yeah, you guys have like a lifestyle brand that's really powerful. It's very impressive to me. Thank you. Appreciate that. You know, you guys put out a lot

of really cool designs and graphics and things that catch my eye. You have a podcast where you talk about things that really interest me and so like I just find it really fascinating. I think you got a really cool company going on and we got to go train. We got to train with you at Onnit today.

We loosely. Awesome. You ducked out of some of the work. You were there doing your own, but I got to torture the rest of the guys. Any more than five reps for me on anything is cardio. No way. I'm out. How did you get into Onn uh, into the on it? I mean, how did that begin? You know, it begun from early on in my life. I got used to the paradigm of

doing things that would affect my performance. So my stepmother was a naturopathic doctor. And so during the game day, I was a basketball player Game day, I'd have a stack of supplements and a certain meal that I would have to eat. And that would affect my performance. And I got to see what different things did. Oh, maybe bee pollen this time or whatever it was. I got used to that paradigm. And then on test day for cognitive enhancement, I'd have another stack of supplements. And I got to see how that helped me perform. So that kind of idea. You're like a biohacker. Exactly. I was like the experiment. This is really perform. So that kind of biohacker. I was like the experiment is really what it was. Sometimes it went terribly bad. I was like, what the fuck

did you give me? That was awful. I was in the bathroom. It was terrible. Oh yeah. I was just trying something out. We'll go back to the old stuff. You're like fearless with that shit. Yeah. Wasn't that really that, that stressed about it? But cause most of the time it worked is just a few occasional brilliant failures and what was going on. That's pretty lucky. Most kids don't have access to a naturopath, or at least didn't when I was growing up. I feel like that's maybe not a more recent development,

but I feel like it's more mainstream in the last five or ten years. Yeah, she was one of the pioneers of that kind of field and worked with a lot of Pat Riley's teams. So Lakers in the 80s, Knicks in the nineties heat, you know, up to currently. And so she was used to dealing with athletes and pretty cutting edge with that. So yeah, certainly an advantage. So I always had that in my head. I went off on this path to form a marketing company and then really wanted to get back to my passion, which was improving human performance and doing that through nutrition, supplementation, and, you know, fitness regimes.

How did the ape or the gorilla become Yelts mascot? Oh yeah. I want to hear the story. I got to give a little credit to my partner, Joe Rogan for that one, because he's really into embracing, you know, the monkey side of who we are and you know, that's part of what we are. We're a primate at the very body core. You know, there's a consciousness, there's other things that are involved, a mind, an ego, whatever you want to call it. But our animal self is a monkey. And I think embracing that and doing movements and treating the monkey like a monkey likes to be treated is an important part of our philosophy. And of course, like the paleo guys here at this conference we're at. I always heard Joe talking about the human chimp. Yeah, that's it. We're just chimps. We pretend we're so much

different, but really we're pretty much the same. You guys have some equipment that's novel to CrossFitters. I think this is something that CrossFitters could start using in their training to change things up. Things like maces, clubs, battle ropes.

Yeah, these things all developed. They're ancient techniques. They actually developedaces, clubs, battle ropes. Yeah. These all, these things all developed there, you know, they're ancient techniques. They actually developed in 12th century Persia when the warriors and the wrestling elite realized that, all right, I'm going to be swinging this weapon in battle. And this weapon weighs three to five pounds. How do I get stronger at doing that? Well, maybe let's make the weapon look like it's, um, 20, 25 pounds, you know, and then you're over training for those movements so that you're stronger when you grab something lighter, you're able to use it. And they pioneered some of the core movements and strength training for warriors. Exactly. And it's super functional for that kind of for combat and just for everyday life, helping

get the body ready to daily, you know, for daily battle, I guess you could say. Just like a baseball player would swing an extra heavy bat right before it gets up to bat. And then the regular bat feels super light. They would do that back in the day, a thousand years ago before battle. Doing that. And then it's also a conditioning. Your baseball, that's more of like a timing and getting the muscles loose.

You can use the maces and the clubs for that, but it's also if you stick with it long enough, you know, and use the right techniques. It's a really strong conditioning yeah uh kind of implement so a mace if no one's seen it before it's kind of like a kettlebell on the end of a big stick yeah which is what my wife calls it she his wife got in last night was following us on instagram she was like what's up with a kettlebell stick and i was like i'm like what are we talking about what's the kettle talking about? Doug put it together really quick. I was amazed. Surprisingly, for

everyone that doesn't know what it is, it's probably like, I can see that now it's a big long metal pole with a kettlebell at the end of it. It's a big heavy ball. You're using it kind of like a sledgehammer or a big shovel or any other random implement. Man work.

Or woman work. Whatever. Marcy went to work with it today. Lots of different really functional movements that'll, you know, when you get locked into certain, especially linear movements, you can get really strong. And I think that's one thing that CrossFit's really good at, really strong, really conditioned. But, you know, working these other odd movements and shapes, you know, without swinging something around your head, you're not going to get the full shoulder girdle, all those muscles under the armpits. Even when you're doing pull-ups and things like that, you're really taxing your lats, you're taxing your rhomboids, biceps, you're hitting the big groups, all those little tiny muscles that have to adjust when this

weight is swinging around. Strengthening those is going to help with injury prevention and help with, you know, overall strength. Yeah. Even though I train every day, I feel like even after like the short session that you put me and Connor and a few other people through, like, especially in my torso, especially like my sides and like in rotation, I'm going to be feeling that tomorrow. Like I'm going to be more sore than I am normally. Cause normally I don't do a lot of rotation or anti-rotation work unless I specifically program it. But doing the stuff we were doing this morning with the, with the Macy's and the clubs, it's, it's hard not to have all these muscles firing, especially on the sides sides yeah you're gonna be so ripped tomorrow when you wake up my f me lines right here are gonna look extra good oh you're so lucky marcy technical name for

that me lines yeah that's what they are that's what the girls call i had no idea that was what they were they were calling then uh look at marcy she's like yep that's what they're called and then she's blushing over there i like that's why i never get late you don't have it oh man i'm missing out you're too fat now you know the secret that's just you just need a low ride in the front you know if people try to do that in the back they got it all wrong i know you gotta sag in the front keep it high in the back it's summertime now so it's uh i'll get those loose board shorts yeah you gotta get the loose board shorts is where it's at for sure. You got the long torso.

I feel like your shirt will ride extra high and the girls can really see that. Yeah, that happens. Or just cut off, like, you know, make a cut off shirt. It's awesome. We don't have to wear shirts or anything right now. Could you do a fishnet when it starts getting colder? You know, you got to wear something. That's not awesome.

That's San Francisco. We just went to the Castro District. All right, so you got Macy's, you got to wear something. That's not awesome. That's San Francisco. We just went to the Castro District. All right, so you got maces, you got clubs. What's the difference between those two? Well, a mace is a much longer pole, and it's used in some slightly different movements. Some of the things that you can mimic are like the sledgehammer movement, like a shoveling dirt movement, and some other. The farther you get away from that weight at the end, the harder it's going to be. So you can really kind of maneuver it that way.

The clubs are great for, you know, similar movements in some, in some aspects, but a lot of pullover movements, especially the heavy clubs. And then if you go to the lighter clubs, a lot of really good joint mobility movements. Oh yeah, you were testing our coordination yesterday. Yeah, like working different, you know, different patterns and different figure eights and things with the clubs. And then with the heavy ones, a lot of heavier pullover kind of working the shoulder girdle and things like that. There's so much stuff. I mean, I took you guys through 20 different rounds of the Mason Club. You know, we could have gone on and done something different for the next, you know, two hours.

Yeah, I wanted to just really versatile once you get into it. So the clubs kind of look like big heavy bowling pins almost. And the ones we were using between 25 and 35 pounds, something like that. You got a 45. You're enormous, so it's okay. I saw that beast walking through the door and I knew I had to give him a 45.

I'm going to make another one that's even heavier. We were looking at Connor swinging the mace and we were like, man, you like... We were saying if you were in a video game character or something like that, that would be like the weapon of choice for your body type. I think we're referencing Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones.

If I was in that world, whatever world that is. Dothraki, for sure. That would be great. Khaleesi, though. She's got it going on. She's banging. She has dragons. That's a plus. Yes, always. I heard that movie, that show is like Titties and Dragons.

And I just haven't watched it. I just haven't watched it. What else is there? I can't seem to find time to put Titties and Dragons into my schedule. I'm going to get you to watch a show. If somebody says Titties and Dragons, I'm like, okay, where? What do I got to do? Okay, cancel my work?

All right, we're off to there. I was going to watch it, and then there was some type of barrier that popped up, and I forget what happened. I'm easily distracted, even from titties and dragons. I know. Don't ever ask me for a film recommendation. I got nothing for you.

I might have gotten distracted by real titties or something. That might have been what happened in life. Life titties? Life titties. You're married, my friend. Well, that's what might have distracted me. Nobody gets distracted by their wife's titties anymore. I mean, I'm sure your wife is beautiful.

Everybody else would probably be distracted by their wife's titties. All right, so like if we, back to the subject at hand here. All right, so when I look at these maces and clubs and stuff like that, it's, you know, I could probably think of like three exercises to do. But you put together some DVDs. Yeah. But if you buy these things from like from your company, you're not going to just be like, all right, I'm just going to. Yeah. What do I do? Yeah. Hit myself in the head with them. The DVD, I'll throw out the gauntlet. That DVD is hard. If you do that front to back, that is serious work, especially if you go up in the weights at least 15. But if you're working with a 20 or 25, it's serious work. So you're not just teaching movements on the DVDs. There's like a workout plan that you follow. You follow along.

So it's like six workout vignettes, like each one kind of focusing on a different theme. One is like working on the arms called arm yourself and then there's bad to the core and different different kind of little workouts that i named that are really going to specialize on that but through the whole spectrum of all six you're going to get a full kind of total body conditioning workout next time we name some of our stuff and give you a call we got way more names than we have you said you were you had a marketing company at one point.

You know how to name shit. That's one thing you get out of a marketing company. It's like, how do I name this? You also have the battle ropes, and that's something I don't see in CrossFit gyms very often. But Chris Moore has some in his garage. I know when we go train over at his house, we love using those. Yeah, that's an implement that's incredibly valuable.

I mean, and again, you said, you know, our affiliation with MMA, you know, we're partners with Joe Rogan, who's a commentator and friends with all the guys. And so naturally, it really took off in the MMA world because they're extremely focused on what's going to be absolutely functional in combat. You know, and in combat, it's an ever changing, uneven world. You never know what angle you're going to be at, where someone's going to come from. Very rarely are you in a kind of linear position to apply force directly. So they're always working different aspects. So they've really taken to all the methodologies. And the rope is one of those that if you're, let's say you've been running 10 miles and getting your cardio up that way,

how are you going to blast your upper body conditioning, you know, effectively without using your legs? You know, it's sometimes challenging. You can do a bunch of push-ups, but that doesn't really get it. But, you know, adding those Tabata protocol, like 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, 30 seconds on, 20 seconds off, whatever you want to do, adding those in really mimics that kind of flurry that they would see in the cage and gets that peak heart rate up.

And a way to do that without taxing the legs further if those need to get a rest so yeah especially you guys have to throw a lot of punches really fast and then might like might try to put on a choke and squeeze really hard get really fat get really fatigued excuse me and have to stand back up and throw punches really fast again like being able to just sit there and like like totally wear out your arms full speed with something that's super super to do, easy to learn, and is very safe. I think this is something that any MMA gym or any MMA fighter that doesn't have any fitness

or strength and conditioning background can pick up in seconds. No doubt. And that's another great thing about the ropes is ropes are almost extremely difficult to injure yourself while doing the ropes. It's such a fluid movement. I think I can figure out how to do that.

Is that a challenge? It's a challenge. i can do it i've gotten hurt just doing anything it's like i sprained my ankle doing battle ropes how what did you do i stepped on the rope oh okay i just stand on an endo board and battle rope at the same time have you done that oh fuck yeah i've done that there's these boards called Cyboards. I didn't even break them out. There's boards called Cyboards, which is like instead of the endo board, which is a roller, and it just rolls one direction, this is a ball inside a rail system. So it's full 360 degrees, and you're just balancing on the point of the ball.

All right. That's gangster. Super hard. I've discovered that because I was going over to Johnny Hendricks' gym, who's now the 170-pound champ. Yeah. And I went over to Dallas I was going over to Johnny Hendricks gym, who's now the 170 pound champ. Yeah. And I went over to Dallas and he goes to meet me and he's on this fucking board with a dip can in his hand. He's like, Hey, I'll bring it in.

Good to meet you. Spitting into this. I'm like, what the hell are you doing, Johnny? He's like, Oh, a sideboard. You should try it. And I get on. I was like, what the fuck? He has a dip can.

I'm just all cocky. He's just being all casual. So after that, I was like, all right, I got to master this and learn it. So we've had it around the office, but it's, it's fairly deadly after that I was like alright I gotta master this and learn it so we've had it around the office but it's it's fairly deadly but I can do

I can now hop on there and do some battle ropes on there working on doing some of the mace stuff on there but that's

pretty tricky oh yeah man that's a that's sounds crazy yeah I wanna try it now

so what else did we use today we used the steel bells those are kinda cool those are cool we use this for a lot of slams slam yeah that full slam circuit that I put you guys through. So it's basically just kind of like maybe a neoprene material that's kind of flat like a disc and has a bunch of steel balls in it, steel shot in it,

and you can just pick it up and slam it as hard as you can, kind of like you would a med ball. It doesn't bounce at all. It doesn't bounce at all. It dies on impact. And it works, you know, really helps to work your grip. You know, a lot, again, going back to that kind of combat athlete, when you're working with kind of gi training as well, like jiu-jitsu gi training, a lot of that kind of grip strength or rock climbers,

the grip strength in your fingers and your hands and everything like that, it's going to really help work that as well as, you know, a natural shift in the weight that you don't really see in the med balls. And you can jack the weights up, too. I mean, the weights go up to like 100 pounds on that. So really working those slams with that is a pretty cool implement as well. Yes, we're kind of talking about all the stuff that's unique to you guys that we wouldn't find in a bunch of CrossFit gyms, which most of our listeners are CrossFit competitors

or people that train in CrossFit. So you guys have all the regular stuff, too. You've got kettlebells. Do you guys sell barbells? No barbells. We haven't gotten into that yet. It's the logistics of moving those really long fucking things is, and you know, we don't really have a necessarily a competitive edge on anything. I mean, Rogue's doing a great job selling that in, you know, they got these huge warehouses moving that. Why would they, I mean, we, we'd consider it cause we certainly use it in the gym. I mean mean you saw our gym yeah but there's no real reason for us to be entering that space yeah you're just selling the things that are

effective but that there are hard to find otherwise yeah exactly actually speaking of unique stuff you guys kettlebells are pretty fucking cool yeah like you guys have like the the gorilla face kettlebell which is probably my favorite and then you have what you have like a demon orangutan orangutan zombie i want those on my mantle at my house yeah there's there's people buying them who've and then you have demons. Orangutan. Orangutan. You got a zombie. And then you got zombies. I want those on my mantel at my house. Yeah, there's people buying them. We would never use them and lift them at all for sure. Yeah, I would rather beat up another one,

but that would be for show for sure. So the monkey on the kettlebell, or the primate on the kettlebell, is based on the size of the primate, right? Right, right, right. So they're smaller. And the gorilla is obviously like a howler monkey that's 18 pounds, and then a chimp that's 36, and then the orangutan, 54, and the gorilla, right. So they're smaller, and the gorilla's obviously... Yeah, we got like a howler monkey that's 18 pounds, and then a chimp that's 36,

and then the orangutan, 54, and the gorilla, 72. Right on. Genius. And then we're coming out with a Bigfoot that's going to be 90 pounds. Sasquatch! You get a big one that's got Joe Rogan's face on it.

Well, we were going to do a Joey Diaz 100-pounder. We put it out for April Fool's. We were like, coming next, the Joey Diaz hundo. That put it out we put it out for April Fool's we're like coming next the Joey Diaz hundo that's right cocksuckers and ever since then

we get hit up all the time like when's the hundo coming out and then I got a call from Joey's like man people keep hitting me up

about the hundo we gotta do this motherfucker we gotta do this and I was like okay that's just like Joey Diaz

if you don't know who Joey Diaz is go on YouTube and just search the church of what's happening now and I was like, okay. That's just like Joey Diaz. If you don't know who Joey Diaz is, go on YouTube and just search the church of what's happening now and watch that guy go. Yeah, he goes off. That guy is insane. He's hilarious.

Tons of YouTube of him just doing rants and stuff. He's one of the funniest humans on the planet. Yeah. All right, so Chris Moore and I got to go on one of your podcasts. So you have a couple podcasts. Two, uh, one of them is on its podcast and that's what we got to go on yesterday. Uh, that was a lot of fun. Yep. And, uh, what, what episode is that? If people want to look it up, do you know? The latest one. That's what that

was. It's the latest one. Yeah, I don't know. You'll be able to find it fairly easy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Y'all names are in the title. Yeah, yeah. So, to be honest, I don't think you've listened to any of our podcasts. I don't think we've listened to a lot of your podcasts. What is it you're most passionate about that you like to talk about on your podcast?

Well, you know, there's kind of a slight dividing line between Onnit and, know, the warrior poet project, which is my personal podcast on the audit. I'm really talking about human performance, putting, pushing through your limits, any kind of fitness, nutrition, or just people's life story, how they've able, been able to achieve what they've been able to achieve. And then on the warrior poet podcast, we really go deeper into the philosophical and spiritual aspects of things. Um, what makes people who they are how to live you know the best most efficient and happiest life you can so we kind of divide that and because generally on the warrior poet project we'll get into things like ayahuasca and the different psychedelic tools and medicines that i've used personally to help me in my life and And we kind of keep that separate from

the, from the on it protocol is not to, not to scare the people who are a little sheltered. Yeah. I can see that being the case. Yeah. So what are you, what is it that you're most passionate about? Like, like, like what drives you to with on it and then what drives you to, to let people know about what's happening with like was the warrior poet you know i think one of the main life purposes that that i have and what really fulfills me the most is you know we have an amazing opportunity on a brilliant beautiful fucking planet you know we got a great machine that we're driving around in our body we have a great opportunities to explore

this world and have incredible interactions. And so often that's, you know, undervalued and squandered and people don't really get to maximize this, you know, brief chance we have this blooming of the flower of life that we get to experience. And so really what I try to do is, you know, help people with the tools and the information to empower themselves to, you know, get better and live better, live happier and find peace, find happiness, find joy, find love, whatever they whatever they can do to make this experience better. And on it does that on the physical and mental performance side. And then on my other side, it's more about cultivating the spiritual side, because I think getting all of that in tune, you know, and even when I say spiritual side, it even just, you know, that really just boils down to finding the stillness, you know, how you can find the stillness where everything else drops away and you can, you know, kind of lock into that universal force that surrounds us. And and so combining all that, I think, you know, can really assist people in, you know, living a life that's, that's worth living. Yeah. So you, uh, so Ani has some, uh, you know, you talked about mental and spiritual, and I want to get to the spiritual stuff definitely, but first I want to talk about,

you do have some, uh, supplements, uh, for the mental side of things, things like new mood and, uh, alpha brain. Can you tell us a little bit about those? Yeah, sure. I mean, they're different. I mean, they have different ingredients to what you find in other companies. So a lot of people, when they work on, you know, things like the brain, they start, you know, generally right off the bat, they're putting caffeine in there, you know, which is kind of a trick that makes you think that you're more alert. I mean, what it's really doing is it's, you know, causing your adrenal glands to release some, um, you know, some extra hormones, giving you a little bit of energy, but that's going to end up falling off and it's going to

end up being kind of one of those things that over time is going to wear out, wear out your body. If you continue to do it. And then I like caffeine, I drink coffee and stuff like that too. I'm not, but really the most efficient way to do that is to directly affect the neurotransmitters themselves. And that's kind of what the fuel is for the brain directly. So we have one product, AlphaBrain, that's really focused on one of the neurotransmitters, acetylcholine. And that's what's responsible for mental speed, focus, sharpness, mental acuity. And, you know, we put in some natural ingredients, some herbs, huperzia serrata, which is an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor, something that prevents the breakdown of acetylcholine. And then the raw precursors of acetylcholine, which is GPC choline. And we put those in, and then it just kind of gives your brain that fuel that it needs.

And then we round out the formula, putting in some other nutrients that affect some of the other neurotransmitters like the GABA system and the dopamine system. And also some neuro-specific antioxidants and vasodilators. So more blood to your brain, fewer, you know, lower antioxidant burden and the direct fuel itself in the acetylcholine. And put that all together and it's been a really effective formula. You know, we just got some clinical trial results back and it showed statistically significant improvement in double-blind placebo-controlled study in executive cognitive function, verbal memory, a few key areas. We got a much bigger study coming out. So that product is kind of our flagship. And then on the other side of that, we have another product called New Mood that's designed to help facilitate restfulness and the serotonin system. And serotonin is what's responsible for mood, happiness, that feeling of kind of contentment. And we add that with a bunch of, you know, anxiolytic relaxing herbs like valerian, chamomile, ziziphus, and a few different

other things. So you have that kind of when you want to be switched on formula with the alpha brain. And then when you're ready to kind of chill out, formula in the new mood and boost your serotonin. I took AlphaBrain for the first time, man, I think it was last summer. And I noticed that I could change gears faster. So normally I'm slow. And, you know, if I get distracted from a project, it takes me, you know, a good 10 minutes to get back on a project. When I was taking that stuff, I noticed that I could change gears a lot faster.

I might get distracted, but then when I refocus, it came back a lot faster. Sure. So I'd be interested to see what comes back on the studies you guys are doing. Yeah, yeah. We got one good study in the books, and hopefully the bigger one will just confirm what we've seen. They call that, one of the names for that is synaptic plasticity. It's your ability for your synapses to, you know, kind of connect and literally kind of mesh together so that the connection is even stronger.

And, you know, a lot of the compounds in there can help enhance that. And so that's, you know, the ability to shift, you know, back and forth, recall things. You know, your brain is an energy system of neurons that are, you know, putting, transmitting information back and forth. And the better those connections are, you know, it's like using, you know your brain is an energy system of neurons that are you know putting transmitting information back and forth and the better those connections are you know it's like using you know platinum wire versus some you know other crappy

conductor you know I mean it's just gonna be a lot clearer a lot crisper when you're getting that that signal cool given that acetylcholine is also one of the number one neurotransmitters that influences muscular contractions have you guys looked into any performance effects of AlphaBrain? Well, we haven't looked into clinical trial format for any of that. But, you know, we're working with so many professional athletes now, from fighters to football players to hockey players. And all of them say the same thing, that their reaction time, even some sprinters.

We actually had a sprint coach who started using it on sprinters. And it's very difficult to improve reaction time off the line. It's like one of those things in sprinting. They're like, well, you can't coach reaction time. Well, you might be able to supplement for it. And so we're looking to kind of do that. We're just trying to find the right people to study that. But certainly anecdotally, the effect is there. You know, something strong, the ability to recognize a situation and move again, you know, if the conductor is moving quicker and easier through your brain, that signal is going to transfer all the way to your muscles even faster. So, so if it's helping a sprinter get all the blocks faster, they, they hear the sound of the gun and then they think,

fuck, I need to go. And then they actually go. If it's making that process happen faster, then you could potentially say like maybe, uh, maybe like sees a punch coming and then is he able to react to that a little bit quicker and get out of the way just because not because he actually is moving faster. He just recognizes it sooner and so he can start sooner to get out of the way. Exactly. Yeah, we actually one of the one of our fighters, Tim Kennedy, who has a fight up. He's fighting Michael Bisping in a couple of days on Wednesday, I think. I don't know when this is going to come out, so it might already happen. If that already happened, don't tell me what happened. I'm looking forward to it, everybody. But anyways, yeah, so he was in,

before his last fight, he was taking Alpha Brand and he had a big fight for the troops and he credits taking that and for hearing his corner when his corner called out a certain combination, hearing his corner say something and him reacting and knocking the guy out. So, you know, he was like, look, you know, I really, you know, maybe I would have been able to do this on my own. But I really think that Alpha Brain, you know, helped that process because he just heard that come. And then he just reacted and got a huge knockout and jumped up on the cage and did the thing that the fighters do. But my experience with that, with Alpha Brain specifically, it's the first thing I took from on it, and that's been three months ago, but training CrossFit at high volume,

it gets so monotonous and almost like doing 2,500 meter rows in a day, right? But I noticed I was able to... Yeah, that sounds hellish. That is what it is. It's part of being a 230-pound CrossFitter. Yeah. Welcome to my life. But

being able to stay aware of what, where I'm at and it was something like that, the so monotonous and then going, being able to go transition into weightlifting, transitioning to swinging kettlebells, transitioning to gymnastics. And now even to the next level where we're training for regionals as a team, being able to kind of coordinate the team together, I've noticed just a huge increase in my ability to stay aware of my body and aware of where I'm at and how I'm my output as an athlete in the CrossFit field. I think I'm the only one. Am I the only one that trains CrossFit full time?

Full time. Yeah. I'm not a full time athlete. Oh, yeah. Doesn't do anything else. Yeah. Besides weightlifting and CrossFit. Yeah.

In this circle. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. But it was a really unique experience. And it was honest. I didn't even notice it for two weeks. I'm like, man, I'm crushing training.

What have I changed? and I'll really only change one thing at a time yeah I was like holy shit man I was taking alpha brain that's the only thing that really nice you thought I was gonna help you read better and stuff and how you're training better and I learned how to read in that two weeks as well he became literate and he can train harder it was great it's been a really cool experience especially on the barbell stuff has really been, I noticed, because there's minute changes, right, when you're looking at hitting max lifts and doing a lot of that with the combine

coming up. It's been super beneficial in just making small changes and noticing small changes that make a huge difference when it comes to 100%. More awareness. Oh, yeah. It's been great. Let's take a break real quick. When we get back, I'd like to maybe touch on some of that spiritual stuff you were talking about.

Let's do it. Yeah. This is Andrea Ager, and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. And we're back. And we just discovered we have five minutes left to do the show.

So can you wrap up your ideology on spirituality in three minutes and then I'll at, you know, the mind and the mind is generally something that can either be, it's great at solving puzzles and it loves solving puzzles and it's really good at that, but it's very difficult to shut that off. And oftentimes we identify with only the mind. We think that's all that we are. But to me, you know, in all the work I've done, I've really felt that there's a third part and that's your kind of higher consciousness. What happens when the thinking process falls away? And that is really what spirituality is to me is finding the stillness, however you want to do that through meditation, through float tanks, through psychedelics, so that the mind can fall away, the body becomes inconsequential, and you can really tap into whatever that animating force of life is that makes us go, you know, whatever it is when, when our body drops and falls, whatever that is, that thing is that remains. And, um, you know, to me, I I've been on a path of, you know, using some of the traditional medicines, um, that these indigenous cultures have used for

thousands of years. And that's really helped me show, helped show me what I'm trying to attain in some of the other practices, which I do more regularly, like meditating and floating. And I actually think that's one thing that ties in very well, even here at the Paleo Conference, but nobody really wants to talk about it. You know, there's evidence of psilocybin use, you know, mushroom use, going back 40,000, 50,000 years to the cave paintings. Terence McKenna, of course, has the stoned ape theory thinking, you know, taking magic

mushrooms, psilocybin mushrooms has actually improved and increased the speed of evolution of man from monkey to human. And I think there's, you know, there's some credible evidence to that that's even coming out now. I mean, studies showing neurogenesis from some of these psychedelics and there's a lot there to be explored. And I think it's an intrinsic part of our past and our history and what makes us human. Unfortunately, it's been demonized and villainized. And only recently with the allowance of scientific studies, like the study in Johns Hopkins, where they gave people a psilocybin experience and unequivocally, like over 80%

said it was one of the top five best experiences of their life, you know, from palliative care at the end of life, these physicians giving people at the end of life a dose of psilocybin and some of the top care physicians saying they accomplished more in three hours than they have in three years. That's like accepting that they're going to die. And it's just accepting that all of this isn't the only thing that's there. That just really kind of identifying that third force, that animating force, that will persist.

And I think there's been a lot of reasons that have swayed people away from that. And I think you have to look at some governmental controls and some religious ideas. Um, but it, but it is a part of who we are. And I think for me, the spirituality is just recognizing that and, uh, and allowing that to flourish and being conscious of that. And once that's conscious, everything else can kind of, kind of line up, but you got

to go do it for yourself. You can't listen to anybody else. Talk to you about the questions I get a lot of times is, uh, you know, Hey, I want to get started meditating. What's a good resource for me to you about? One of the questions I get a lot of times is, you know, hey, I want to get started meditating. What's a good resource for me to tap into? And I think, you know, a lot of times there are instructors in certain cities that are really good.

But most people don't have access to someone directly. Is there any resources that you recommend? Yeah, you know, I would really try and find a float tank because one of the things that I like about that is it's going to show you what you're going for. You know,

otherwise when you're meditating, you're just kind of doing it like, oh, is this right? Am I doing it right? I don't know. I don't know what the fuck. Whatever.

Float tank almost forces you. Yeah. Two second explanation. What is a float tank for everyone that doesn't know? So a float tank is a sensory deprivation tank where you're lying

in 900 pounds of salt water. So you float completely and the water is the same temperature as your skin. It has no smell. It has no vision. It's completely dark and no sound as well. So your brain is constantly tuned to the different signals that's going on. Oh, that's a bird flying. Oh, I see the flags flapping. There's wind that's touching my face and I can feel my feet planted into the earth. We've been standing for 40 minutes. So I'm starting to feel the muscles adapt to that. All of this signal is going on constantly. And the idea of the float tank

is just to let that all fall away completely. And your body is just like, oh shit, I don't have anything to compute now. And your mind's like, yeah, I'm done too. So the only thing that's left is that other thing, that consciousness that's allowed to come through. So I think doing something like that, there's other ways to do it. There's something called holotropic breathing or shamanic breathing, where you actually take in a bunch of oxygen and that allows you to, you know,

in that process, find a, you know, find a certain stillness. It also makes your hands go like that. It's really kind of, and then of course there's the medicines and unfortunately they're illegal here, but you know, you can go down to Peru or you go down to some of these places and work with the people who have been working with the medicines for thousands of years. I will say as a caveat, though, you know, not all those people are good. And it's, you know, you got to make sure you do the research and talk to people who have been and make sure you're going to see a real medicine carrier, not just someone trying to take advantage of, you know, psychedelic tourism, because that's certainly a risk. But the easiest thing to do is start here and go to a tank, do some breathing, or just kind of learn about the meditation practice itself. Once you know what you're going for, then there's all kinds of ways to get there. You can focus on the breath coming in through your nostrils. You can focus on the images that are coming through your head.

You can start a chant like transcendental meditation. You can do a chant or you can just sit and find the stillness. So lots of different ways to do that. Cool. Thanks for that. It's a great explanation. A good, a good starting point. You can just probably Google float tank in your town and hopefully, I mean, if you live in a, live in a big city, you'll find something, but you know, it might be worth, you know, driving big city, you'll find something, but, you know, it might be worth, you know, driving a few hours to go find something like that. I've floated a couple times, and it's been fantastic.

One of the best experiences I've ever had. Good for the body, too. Yeah, oh, yeah, very relaxing. Anything you want to promote right before we get off? No, if you want to keep up with me, I'm at WarriorPoetUS on Twitter and on Facebook, Warrior Facebook warrior poet us. Got a really active page there.

My own podcast warrior poet project. And then, uh, yeah. Anything on the nutrition and fitness side, go to on it.com. Oh, and,

and it.com. We're episode 28, by the way. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And check out that podcast. That was a lot of fun.

Episode 28 with Chris Warren. Yeah. On it. Podcast. Very cool. All right. Thank you. My friends.

Appreciate it. Later on brother. All right. Later.