Barbell Shrugged - 82- What All CrossFitters Should Know About Running w/ CrossFit Endurance Coach Brian Mackenzie

Episode Date: September 25, 2013

Filmed in front of a live audience, the Barbell Shrugged crew is joined by CrossFit Endurance coach Brian Mackenzie.

Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Here we go. Three, two, one. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bletzer here with Doug Larson and Chris Moore. We have our guest Brian McKenzie from CrossFit Endurance and Athlete Cell. Before we get to Brian, I want to bring Robbie Froman up here real quick. Come on, Robbie. Quit playing around on the iPad. We're doing this podcast with a live audience for the first time.

As you can see, these are real people. We have real people sitting around. Woo! We were doing this to try and raise some money for CrossFit for Hope, and Robbie's going to give us a little. It was Robbie Froman's idea, so I'm going to let him give you a quick rundown. He's trying to put his credit card information to be the first donator. You want me to read that off for you?

Yeah, get on a microphone. Yeah, let's read off that credit card. It's an American Express. Yeah, it's fine. Real quick, if you go to CrossFit for Hope, I think it's CrossFitforHope.com. If you just Google that, you'll find it. And then you can search for the Barbell Shrug profile and you can donate there. You can donate on your own.

You can set up your own profile and try to get people to donate money under your name or whatever. It doesn't matter. Just get some money going that way. The money is for cancer research for kids at St. Jude Children's Hospital here in Memphis, Tennessee. So it's real close to home for us, but I really appreciate that CrossFit really made it their goal to raise money specifically for this one piece of research. Tremendous cause.

Robbie, I left you with nothing to say. You're just standing there. I'm just filling up. All right. What can I add to that? I don't know. What can you add to that? Were you even listening?

I was listening to everything. I hinge on your every word. Talking to the microphone. Talking to the microphone. You need to put some shoes on and get some chairs for these people. Standing up could be detrimental to your health. Standing up could be detrimental to your health. Standing up could be detrimental to your health. You're not recording this, are you?

That is not what we went over today. We are recording this. No, we didn't talk about it. Don't you know shit about endurance running, Robbie? I know a ton. Enough that I shouldn't even go tomorrow. I have to catch up on everything I didn't know today. This is a great cause.

It's obviously close to us in Memphis. I think Mike mentioned that. But if you're listening to this podcast, if you can make a donation, even if it's just a small amount, this is a fantastic thing to get behind and we would really appreciate your support. And I really appreciate the willingness of Brian to come out

and do this after a long day of teaching a bunch of people how to run better and also the Barbell Shrug guys who it's pretty nice having in Memphis. But to take the time to do this and mention this on their podcast. I i also had a very long day i drank like four beers before you got here that uh so i don't even know i don't even know where to go with that so thank you very much thanks robby robby from hey robby all right uh let's get to it so we got brian mckenzie here how long um so you've been an

endurance athlete for a long time, an endurance coach. I say a long time. We hear you like to run. But I actually don't like running. I want to hear your history a little bit. Now we got a lot in common, Brian. Yeah, see? I knew how to sweet talk you. That's right. My pants are halfway off already. I just got enamored

with the fact that I sucked at something. You know, I told the story today where I was kind of roped into doing a triathlon, a sprint distance triathlon in like 2001, 2002.

And I successfully over-trained for a sprint distance triathlon, which is a like 800 meter swim, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 5. Um, I was running like in excess of like 50 miles a week, riding my bike like 60 plus miles a week. And like I swam twice during the week and maybe 2000 yards at a time. Did you get that workout off a website somewhere? No, actually no, no, no, no. This was like just following my buddies and doing my buddies did and the guys who kind of grandfathered me in and fathered me into the endurance thing and i uh i came out of the water like with the 10th fastest time i successfully lost about 50 places

on the bike at which point on the run i was passed by several overweight people who encouraged me to keep going and that in itself i was like and you know and and as an athlete and somebody who who was pretty successful as a swimmer i was like i was just humiliated and i was like this fucking sucks yeah i will not be beaten by fat dudes i'm either going to i'm either gonna have to stop this or i'm gonna have to do something about it and that's kind of where it all. So you had a swimming background. Yeah, I had a swimming background. I was a short course swimmer.

I literally would not go over 100 meters or 100 yards because I was younger. But the coach could not get me to go over 100 yards because I'd blow up after 50. I could probably hold my breath for about 50 yards going balls out. And then right after that, it's just everything tanked. And I could hold on long enough just to still finish in first place. But that would deteriorate very quickly as they were closing in. Isn't volume kind of the name of the game in a lot of endurance swimming communities too? A lot of swimming programs.

Even for short course? Yes. Yeah, yeah. A lot of swimming programs. Even for short course? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of programs. I had, and it wasn't that I wasn't doing low volume, but I definitely was not doing the amount of training required by the coaching staff, nor were most of my teammates, where we would just skip laps, skip things that we didn't want to do. A bunch of quitters. When you've got, literally, when you've literally 30, 40 kids in a pool swimming laps,

the coach has no idea what's going on. And everybody's been there. Whoever was a swimmer, it's the same thing. Dude, it works the same when you're a fat kid doing peewee football. The coach is screaming at you, 10 more! A 45-year-old guy with a whistle screaming at 13-year-old boys. You just kind of hang back

behind the fat guy playing defensive line to hide yourself from his vision. You just kind of sneak the sprints in towards the end of practice the same thing it's the exact same thing yeah yeah so were you always resistant to that amount of volume just because you were tired and young and didn't want to do it or you thought it was a bad idea no i just hated it because i got exhausted and i just wasn't built for doing long distance but um i i mean when i when i went into triathlon i obviously i i had the great idea like every other endurance athlete that i know that you do a short course event and then the next thing you know you're like fuck i'm signing up for an ironman

i went from doing something that literally took me like an hour and like 10-15 minutes to i want to go and do the 10 hour 11 hour hour range. So you signed up for an Ironman after the sprint try. I literally signed, I went down and watched my buddy finish the Oceanside half Ironman. And I was like, I am signing up for this one next year. And I had a buddy sign me up a month later at Ironman Canada, because he had to have somebody sign you up in line up there. And so I went and the following year and inevitably did um iron man canada and then after iron man canada i read the stories on these guys doing 100 mile 50 mile runs to the middle of

the mountains yeah and instead of doing iron man again i was like that's bullshit nobody's running 50 100 miles through the mountains in a race those indians in Mexico, dude, bro. I read Born to Run. Born to Run wasn't even around at this point. Okay. The community of ultra runners was still like around the 10,000 mark. A little bit of a hipster thing to say. Yeah. Well, I knew about the Native Americans or the running in Mexico before that guy wrote

that book, bro. You knew about the Spartans, bro. I do, bro. You knew about all that. I know. I know. We all did. Fuck yeah.

I mean, dude, went to bed grade school reading those stories yeah who didn't yeah but that was you know and I I did long slow I mean I trained traditional model I did all of that stuff but I just found I was just tore up you know and I finally was just like hey what am I doing and why can't I squat anymore why does 75 pounds squatting in a smith machine wreck me why am I doing? And why can't I squat anymore? Why does 75 pounds squatting in a Smith machine wreck me? Why am I, what the, and this is, you know, I had done some powerlifting when I was younger with my old man. And, I mean, he had an old school power, we had a powerlifting gym. Oh, sweet. We'd go down to Metrix down in Newport Beach where, you know, Connelly started the Metrix gym.

And, you know, working out with all the bodybuilders. And, I mean, I had like, you know, 350, 360 squat when squat when i was about 18 19 years old which wasn't bad for a swimmer kid so you didn't go into endurance sports week like 108 pound kid how big were you at that time about 170 175 that's fantastic yeah yeah and then i got at your worst what were you squatting when you like literally i put i put in after the iron man i, I put 25s on each side. Holy shit, that's not even a joke. No, and it's not even 75 pounds because it's a Smith machine, so it's counterweighted, right? So you

unwrap the thing and I get there and you can't even squat right and I get down about half. Where's my son at? I'm pretty sure I get him to do that shit. I know, I know. He's two years old. I know, I know. And so I just was wrecked and a buddy of mine was just laughing at me he goes dude take these take these aminos you know so you can recover quicker in your body you know and i'm like all

right yeah and i'm i'm just so embarrassed about the whole thing and i'm like i gotta do something about this so that's when we really was like why why how did i lose all of what i thought you know what i thought strong was was not strong so did you start coaching? At what point did you start coaching? Did you start doing strength training and combining that with some endurance stuff, and then you started coaching? Yeah. How did that all come about? I got into the personal training gig about 2000, 2001.

I started getting paid to do it. I had buddies in my dad's garage gym that I'd train, and we'd do the crazy supersets and all that stuff. But it got serious. Was it a Zik guy? No, no. Was there a picture of you on the Harley-Davidson? Was it shredded abs, all oiled up?

You could look like me. Yeah, no. Sign up for my personal training consultation practice. We were more kind of like you're thinking, but we just didn't. I mean, dude, I've got the Louis Simmons VHS tapes of the bench. I do, too. Dude. I'm not shitting you.

I've got them. And Dave Tate's old box set. Dude, I've got all that stuff. Just meatheads rambling about silly shit for 18 hours. Totally. And we do those 20 rep squat sets with your 10 rep mag blackout and all that. You know, it was just whatever. That's what I grew up on right there.

See? Absolutely. Dude, I've been there. And all of it was gone. I lost it should i why should i do 20 rep squats and the coach goes shut up that's why you want to be a winner or do you want to be like you are right now because i said so because i said so yeah that's right for all the people that don't really know like the old way of endurance and you don't really understand the new crossfit endurance model and how they differ can you just like give a brief review of each one

traditional traditional endurance training is is built off of volume so you would just you know you're going to go out you're either going to ride your bike you're going to lace up your shoes and you're going to go out and you're going to run or ride or swim for an extended period of time then you're going to go on a traditional linear progression. The next week, I'm going to up it just a little bit, and I'm going to continue in this fashion until I've reached set mileage for whatever event I'm going to do. Let's say you're doing a marathon. Well, most people in the marathon world will set their sights on doing a 20-mile run prior to doing a marathon. It's an understandable thing. I get why everybody wants to do it.

I've done it. Whatever. It's intuitive understandable thing. I get why everybody wants to do it. I've done it. I you know, whatever Yeah, and then you go and you start playing around with things for a few years and you start toying You know, I I was introduced to Romanov who created pose method running and he he's Russian. So yeah, he is Russian You don't hear a man talk with that accent like, this guy's full of shit. It's very hard to understand, but... Russian guys sound like they know their science, and British guys sound smart as shit. Americans just sound like whatever.

A guy saying with a British accent can be saying whatever the fuck. It doesn't even matter. I've got to develop my British accent further. That's going to be my key to everything. Just go spend a couple weeks over there. Let's go. It only takes me a weekend, and I fucking speaking English, proper, Queen's English.

Let's go do that, dude. We'll drink. We'll go find a pub, get fucked up. Can you bring Kelly along? Maybe. We'll get supple. We'll get supple in Britain. I like it. So how'd you run across Romanoff? How'd you meet that guy?

That triathlon, I had developed IT band syndrome, had a little plantar fasciitis going on, you know, and I was just a mess. And a buddy of mine had gone to a clinic of his and he had flown back and this guy's bloated. He's like, Hey, I'm flying this fucking Russian guy out. We're going, he's, you're doing the seminar. I'm paying for it. You're going to freak out.

It's amazing. This is unreal. And he came up. This is pre CrossFit. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is like 2001, 2002. seminar I'm paying for it you're gonna freak out it's amazing this is unreal and he came this is pre-CrossFit yeah oh yeah yeah this is like 2001 2002 and um so this all happened in a very short period of time did the Sprint try did Iron Man well I did I did the Sprint try and and within two and a half years I'd done the full Iron Man two years into the full Iron Man and then I had met Romanov right after that sprint, that sprint.

And so Kip came home and he gets out and he shows me this running mouth thing. He looks like a little bunny rabbit, just like running down the street. And I'm like, what happened to you? And he's like, no, no, no, you got to try it. It's much more efficient. And so I started playing with it. We didn't really figure it out. And then Romanoff showed up. I did one weekend with him and I was just blown away. Like what, how do I I not how am I not in pain right now like I've been in pain since this triathlon ended in one weekend I'm not in pain and so that just spun my head and you know I was going to school and learning what I was learning and you know a lot of it made sense and a lot of it didn't make sense tell me about it man fuck right these schools and uh so your your formal strength and conditioning education did you get like a do the whole traditional thing like nope no traditional

thing no i was on the nine-year plan that literally you know just pop went pop fizzle and i said fuck this i'm your major in philosophy i tried what was your major no i didn't major i dropped out he's a fuck this shit. You went punk rock, man. That's what it is, bro. That's what it is. You were unscared to say, fuck this. That's right. Exactly. Can I ask you? Because I'm the best

at derailing this shit, so why not do it right now? What are you unscared of? I want to know. Because it's not just running. Running's not scary. It's got to be a metaphor for other deeper shit. Actually, it is scary. All running is is your fear of falling. Fuck yeah.

That's all it is, bro. I'm scared of falling, man. Yeah. We all are. That's because I'm very heavy and gravity rides my ass really hard. Gravity works on you a little bit more than it does me. I fall harder than you. You can.

I'm more unscared-er than you. Yeah, yeah.. You can. I'm more unscared-er than you. Yeah, yeah. I need to work on being more unscared-er than you. What am I not unscared of is pretty much, I mean, everything, we deal with fear on a daily basis. And it was actually a word that Starrett came up with. Oh. Starrett came up with. Dave Castro had mentioned something about cyclists wearing arm warmers and cyclists being gay for wearing arm warmers. And Kelly kind of perked up as we were at this dinner.

And he looked at Dave and he said, well, Dave, I live in San Francisco and my gym's outside. And during the winter, I wear arm warmers because I like to coach all day. And I pull them off and he goes, I'm not gay. So fuck you. Man, wear whatever you want. So he said, Dave Castro, I'm unscared of you. And I'm going to get some pink arm warmers and put the words unscared of Dave Castro on them. So I, being at the table and having a few connections in the apparel industry went and had some pink arm warmers made

and sent them to kelly that's gangster man it was gangster it was gangster i love that shit yeah so you're talking about falling yeah being unscared of falling are you referring to the pose and and uh the feeling of falling when you when you basically uh start doing pose yeah i mean it's it's running is what it is it's it's just running and it's the ability to let yourself fall and be able to land in a good position, in that position of high stability. The unfortunate part is that most of us don't and we land well in front of that, which means we have to get back to that original position to where we can fall from. And any deviation of that, it's like a wheel, right? A wheel ain't't gonna work real well if there's something out in front of it right the

the more flat that wheel is the more friction it creates so if you essentially are landing out in front of yourself and or getting out in front of yourself you're creating more friction on the ground therefore you can't you're going to have to generate more energy more muscle contraction in order to move forward which is in essence why most people hate running so you're getting a breaking force and then that's one of the one of the main things that contributes to a lot of people's injuries and joint pain and whatnot bam yeah is it also why people tend to translate up and down a lot more with regular style running than, than pose running? Yeah. Uh, yes. That kind of travel. Yes. Yeah. Because it's an abrupt, and if you watch it on video in slow motion, you'll see it. You'll see that abrupt stop, but that bouncing becomes when people start trying to push off, starting to

generate vertical force versus transmitting into horizontal. so we kind of just jumped into that topic can you kind of explain from the beginning that whole the whole concept of not not kind of going up and down with your center mass while you're running so you're taking let's just say you're alternating feet jumping rope right which is an easy concept for everybody to do or just jump and rope you're taking that energy invert versus going back up you're just pulling so you're taking that energy invert versus going back up you're just pulling so you're redirecting that energy with the hamstring or pulling your foot up underneath you which allows you to efficiently start to move but like keep your body in motion

now getting that on a tilt putting that on a lean or falling then being able to be in that high stability position and redirect that allows you to run essentially more efficiently. So you're spending less energy per step and you're kind of just gliding smooth as opposed to going up and down, just like taking smaller jumps, if you will. Take Kenyan runners who have about four centimeters of vertical oscillation versus American runners that have about four inches of vertical travel. I knew there was something about those guys.

To preface that, you're talking over long distances. Say they do run a marathon, and they run fastest shit for two hours, and their head only moves that far up and down for two hours straight, as opposed to this far, like a lot of American or non-pose runners run. That'll accumulate, that's for sure. That's a lot of up and down for two hours straight as opposed to this far like a lot of American or non-pose runners run. That'll accumulate, that's for sure. That's a lot of up and down.

In fact, it's like going up and over the Empire State Building like three times in a marathon. Dude, that sounds hard. Fuck. There's nothing. I won't do that. There's actually, and to your point, there's actually physiologically nothing really healthy other than on the mental side of clearing your head with doing something in the 26.2 mile range.

What do you mean? Specify real quick. Physiologically, you're just tearing yourself apart, breaking yourself down in such a way. You're not adding to your fitness, you mean? Yeah. Really? I mean, it's just making things pretty tough. The ability to recover from that is going to take something like 30 days on a total level. Sure.

There's not a whole lot of... This is coming from somebody who's run 100 miles. I get it, but I also understand that I like suffering. There's a huge cost to this. There's a major cost to it. When you do that, you can't, you do a 100 mile race, when's the next time you can do that without,

like how long does it take you to recover from that shit? That's a long time, but I mean, there are people who are literally running 100 milers every month, which is,

Dean Karnazes is gone, who's a good friend, goes and he'll do Western States, which is one weekend, and within two weeks he's doing Badwater, which is, you know. in within two weeks, he's doing bad water, which is,

you know, what do you think of these dudes? Like, like Eddie is, or the comedian is the best example. I know the guy's got a lot of money. He's told all the jokes. He's going to have a right.

He, he dressed up like a girl and got on stage and made people laugh. What do you do from there? He decides like two years ago, he ran like 50 marathons in 50 days. How do people do that shit? I'm confused. Is this,

is this like this, uh, is this fake? You get up every day and you run a marathon. How do you do that?? I'm confused. Is this fake? You get up every day and you run a marathon? How do you do that? You build yourself to do it and you just keep going. You're one motivated human being. My humble primate

mind that has run maybe 10 miles total in my life doesn't understand what's going on with this shit. That's the thing. I don't understand. It's possible. I understand. What do you squat? My best all time?

Give it to me, baby. Come on. Come on. Best all time. Weighing a very sexy 370 pounds, I squat at like 980. 980? Yeah. I don't comprehend 980.

Nobody in this room who probably has never squat over 500 pounds does not know what it's like to have 980 pounds even put on their back. There are funner things to do. Yeah. I can say I never shit myself. No, but Dean will tell you straight up. I mean, I've taken him through Badwater, and he will literally tell you. I mean, he looked at me three quarters away through this thing he's like what what are you still

doing here dude why are you here I'll show up to you when he's racist I'll say you know what the key to this shit is first I wear minimal shoes right and I

strap my I do my mobility first I say I just got to visualize this shit I'll visualize them one by one for a 99 miles that's the easy part.

That's what I think. You agree with me, Mike? I didn't get right on point. I asked Mike that question. Mike's the fucking guy. Mike's the guy who says, oh, I saw you wrote a book, Chris. I'm like, yeah, right on. I wrote a book.

Yeah, you're right, Mike. He goes, I wrote a book, too. Well, let me clarify. I got the outline done. That's the hardest part. I was like, yeah, that's the hard part part but it's also kind of hard to put it down and write it so bringing that back around it's like so the traditional model is hey more more more more more and where where we come back where i fell in was like okay so i was all banged

up uh things weren't working out i go and I learned to run more efficiently and effectively there's never ever been anybody who's ever had a standard in running except for what Romanoff's presented and and this was years ago and so here we now have a model for a standard much like a squat or a deadlift which okay some minor things might change for each individual based on lever lengths things like that but the fundamental thing is is that we all run the same way it's just like a deadlift or a back squat there's a beginning there's an end um he he had opened my eyes to many things and the fact that i had gotten as weak as i had gotten and i didn't like that i i was not okay with that. No, it wasn't

cool at all. And, you know, if we were friends you'd probably smack me, you know, and be like, dude, what'd you do? We were friends, dude. Back then, I'm talking about back then. Were you resistant to that? Were you like, a new way of running? What do you mean? Is that possible? I mean, there's gotta be one way to do it. No, because I was not a runner. I was a swimmer,

remember? And I was somebody, I'd get roped into doing endurance events and just doing what everybody else was doing, which is primarily what everybody does. All the cool kids in high school are talking into, Hey, man, why don't you come over here and win a marathon with us? Oh, man, I've got to get home, man. My mom's expecting me. It's more like, you've got to do an Ironman.

I'm like, are you out of your mind? I'm just doing a spinning class right now, dude. I ain't got nothing. I'm a grown-ass man. I ain like, are you out of your mind? Do I got to do, you know, just doing a spinning class right now, dude. I ain't got nothing. I'm a grown ass man. I ain't doing nothing. So in your book, you very clearly lay out that kind of the old way of doing things is volume first and then speed training and then drill skills and technique is third by far and kind of the new way it ever exists. Sure. And you've kind of flipped it on its head basically. And yes, drill skills and technique is first interval training and speed training is number two. And volume comes after you've handled those two things once you have good technique and you can run fast then you add fitness to that to that good technique and that

speed you pretty much nailed it it's like hey good job doug the essential thing the thing here is it's like look if you can run well if you can show that you can run well and you can't you're not getting injured and you're not banging things up and you can go out and handle hey 10 kilometers of running or five kilometers of running great let's let's go there let's start this but if you turn into a train wreck just to get through that 10 kilometers you have no business doing that 10 kilometers it's not it's like I'm not going to start a West side barbell, you know, fall, fall. What Chris here is doing. If I've never really lifted weights, except that's what the endurance community literally will go do is try and emulate what it is. A lot of these

elite level runners and endurance athletes do. Yeah. The long, slow distance method, the old way where if you, if you take it and you're not talking about running, you talk about something like an air squat and you add lots of air squats first and then you do them really fast and then you learn how to do them correctly last that sounds ridiculous right but with running it just seems to make sense you're not a hard sell you're not a hard sell you actually you actually see that in crossfit a lot people in training in general it's like they want people just want to go oh what's rich fronting Yeah. I'll just do that program. Because two weeks later, they can't get out of bed. Because look at that dude's abs. People make the same mistake.

It's not just endurance sports. It's like sports overall. They just want to find out what that guy does that's the best, and then I'll just do that. That makes the most sense. I mean, that's what I used to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman. No, no, we've all been there. We've all been there.

We've all done it. But you're right. I mean. No, no. We've all been there. We've all been there. We've all done it. It's not, you know, but you're right. I mean, I was at, you know, it's funny. I met Rich was in town a little while ago and we got out from lunch in Southern, you know, in a random place in Costa Mesa. And some kid comes out and goes, Hey, you're that guy who won that thing. And he goes, Hey, Rich Froning. Nice to meet you.

And the guy's like, whatever his name was. He goes, dude, you made me want to do CrossFit. I want to go win the CrossFit Games. And he goes, yeah, you should do that. Like, people really don't, like, they're sketchy. He didn't feel threatened by it? Like, oh, you want to take my crown? He's a little shit.

He's a little kid. He's threatening me and my livelihood? And he threw his shirt off and it was off. He's like, it's on, man. Yeah. Hey, by the way, I want credit for taking my shirt off next to the sexiest guy in the world because I'm not the sexiest guy in the world or the fittest guy in the world. I took my shirt off next to that guy, dude.

There you go. With caramel donuts in hands. Real thoughts about Rich just came out. Caramel donuts. The ridges in his abs have ridges. Yeah, I know. He's a handsome guy. So the CrossFit endurance model, the one that I just laid out, was that more, was that Romanoff's thinking?

You kind of tweaked it? Or did you come up with that yourself? Or is that a combination of ideas you got from other people and you're kind of just known for? That is a culmination of things I've learned from Romanoff, things I've done with Kelly, things I've done with, I went to a Mike Mahler seminar. Everything I've done, things I've learned from what I've read out of Westside Bellarbell. And that's another thing is that where we see a lot of deficiencies, even within the endurance realm, is where that lack of strength is. And where we've seen a lot more success with things of using more of like a Westside concept for strength training because there's such a lack of strength within the endurance community and implementing things like that.

So I've learned from a ton of people and it's a constant evolving thing, but it's also enough of where I had, I was willing to challenge ideas and, or even things that I didn't quite understand and then put them to a test and see how it worked. And if it didn't work, we got rid of it. And if it did work, we kept it. And I mean, dude, we were just doing squats and deadlifts and trying to run long. And that one didn't work out so well. We were doing the only thing you can do, man.

You got a picture. There's a pool in your mind. Picture a pool, right? You got me. I got the pool. Cool pool. Saltwater pool. Southern California.

Margaritas in hand. Got it. Got it. Got one. At some point, you're like well fuck i'm there i'm there right now all right you jump in the pool right or wrong you get a starting point you don't fucking waste time being consumed with am i doing the perfect thing i could be doing at some point you just act and once you're in the thing you try this method you try running in a separate way once you once you're in the thing and you experience it, then the tinkering process takes over. Absolutely.

People put too much emphasis on the starting point. Just start. Yeah. Be humble and start somewhere safe. Yeah. And then just tinker until you find what works for you. Yeah, or even go out and break yourself and then find out the way I found out.

If you break yourself, it doesn't happen. That's much more common. Much more common is, I mean, that's how I do it. I break myself. Yeah. And then I have to baby it for a while. That's how you're young. That's much more common. Much more common is, I mean, that's how I do it. I break myself, and then I have to baby it for a while. That's how you do it. That's the motivation you need. You've got to break yourself first. You've got to do it.

I mean, all his injury is is just you breaking the rules of Mother Nature. That's all it is. You just saying, you know what? I just stepped outside of what it is I should have been doing. Dude, sometimes you get bummed where you're like, man, if I could hear myself say this when I was 21, fuck, I wouldn't be broken. I could be awesome.

Dude, I was explaining that today. I'm like, at 39, things are much different from when they were 25, trust me. I was invincible at that point. You see my elbow that won't bend or flex? Won't extend all the way, won't flex away? let me help you not do this yeah exactly I've been here it didn't fucking work out so yeah let's take a break real quick when we come back we'll get them work we're gonna let some people in the crowd ask

some questions cool hey guys welcome to the break Mike Bledsoe here just reminder to go over to barbellshrug.com. There's a video version of this podcast, which you probably picked up on, and you can go and view that. And a lot of times we make references or we're showing a movement or something like that. And if you're watching the video, you can see what's going on there. What was the other thing, CTP?

What am I going to tell those folks? Technique WOD. Oh, yeah. If you're watching the video version, those folks? Technique WOD. Oh yeah. If you're watching video version, there's a Technique WOD. You'll learn something new about how to do a snatch or a clean and jerk or a muscle up or something like that. We'll usually put that in the middle of the show

so make sure to check that out. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the rest of the show. Alright, welcome back to Barbell Shrugged. Still here with Brian McKenzie, CrossFit Endurance and Athlete Cell Coach. We're going to get into some questions, and I wanted to get a question in right on the front end. Let's do this.

It's nothing crazy. I do have two questions. Where did CrossFit actually come in? So you did a sprint try. You had a background in powerlifting. Yep. You discovered Romanoff uh you started doing uh you know working on pose technique which actually kind of applies to every movement there ever is right yeah everything's the same

basically yeah and then uh so at what point like in that progression we introduced the crossfit and how did that play a role in your training and we were talking about tweaking before the break like how did you start i got it like i was doing the squats and deadlift thing and benching. Just doing traditional strength and conditioning and trying to do endurance. That didn't work out. Then we started playing around with other things. All of a sudden, I found the kettlebell movement in 2005. I got freaky into the kettlebell thing.

I was bringing kettlebells. Is that from Mahler? I ended up going to a Mahler seminar, but I was following all the likes of Diesel Crew and Jason C. Brown and all that stuff. I got into it pretty good for what I was doing. We played with that and then through that kettlebell movement and being on the internet,

you see CrossFit.com and I'm like, what the fuck is this? Did you already know Kelly and those guys at this point? No. No, no, no. I met Kelly in 2007. In 2005 was when I first saw CrossFit. Went one foot in. Might have rhabdoed myself.

2007? No, 2005. Dude, I totally rhabdoed myself. Was 2005. dude i totally rhabdo'd myself was it a ghd setup no dude it was it was it was uh like an angie something like it was like which one's angie which one's that uh the hundreds yeah 100 pull-ups the one that crushed me was a 100 wall balls uh yeah 150 yeah yeah with my magic and so yeah i i did the workout and i couldn't move for like a week and you know it was pretty bad. And so I didn't do it again for a little bit and then went back to it and then went back

and then back. And then, you know, we inevitably ended up going all in once we were conditioned enough. We'd had the athletes conditioned enough. The training had more or less evolved in my gym. I started my own gym in 2005, which was genetic potential. And then we. Oh, I see yeah that's the current name of your podcast right no no that's TV show but yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever the fuck it is man you know it uh so that was

essentially how I got into the CrossFit thing. And then in 2006, we went all in and we just decided to start CrossFitting everybody and use that model and see how well it worked. And that was all I did with my training leading into my second 100 miler. Did you just do.com or did you change it to meet your needs? No, we changed it to meet our needs. I'd followed.com for probably three to six months and then went in and changed our needs because based on what we were doing, we wanted to be able to get the sport-specific work in and have it matter. Who is we at this point? Everybody at my gym.

All the trainers, the coaches. The royal we, Doug. Yeah. The royal we. That's your answer. trainers the coaches the royal we doug yeah that's right so it doing what we did we had better results with the crossfit than we had with anything else that we had done and that's where that model what do you attribute that to um i i think it's the all-around general strength and conditioning of the gpp of crossfit and the intensity of it versus being and going

out and doing a lot of the endurance work. You know, contrary to what most people think, doing 400s, 800s, things like that, that's a lot of aerobic work still. You know, and so, and then going out and being able to do tempo or time trial runs, things like that is still highly aerobic stuff. And I think that was the perfect match. to do tempo or time trial runs, things like that, is still highly aerobic stuff. And I think that was the perfect match. But it was the ability to pay attention to the athlete's performance and knowing when to back off, when not to, when to train, all of that.

Right. So is the claim of CrossFit Endurance, maybe not necessarily by you, but just by people that follow your philosophy, is the claim that you can do this new model and still have the capacity that these other guys who just do super high volume have? Or is the claim that you can also be pretty good at endurance, but you'll probably have fewer injuries and you'll probably be better at all these other skills and other sports and you have other aspects of athleticism and not just be an endurance athlete? You're not going to follow CrossFitEndurance.com and go be a two-hour marathoner.

I'm not going to put that on a website. Okay. That's not going to happen. Why is that? Because the general public has no business going out and running 20 miles. Okay. Takes a lot of general public. Well, no.

It's just the fact that that has been my experience with the amount of athletes I've trained and seen. 99% of them that aren't Rich Froning have no business doing the volume that Rich Froning's doing. Because they're not in the position that Rich Froning's in at the end of the weekend. They're not in the position. It's really odd how so many people are so eager to jump into it. You know the guy the whole event is named after? Like the run to marathon, the old Greek story? That guy fucking died.

He died. Why are you so eager just to casually do this? You're not going to prepare for this? The other shocking thing about this whole thing is that in the 80s, the average marathon time was 3.30. It's over 4.30 now. People are doing just enough to survive. They're just surviving this thing where it's like you're no longer really running at this point.

You're now. There's a sticker on your car. Yeah. Or they're taking it easy. 26.2 or. Or they're all taking it easy because like, fuck, we can't beat these Kenyans. What's the point? But I'm not here to be the dream crusher either.

But, you know, I'm putting out a program that, hey, you know what? We've got people who follow CrossFitEndurance.com and done a sub-three-hour marathon. But if you're going to get somebody who – there's a big difference between somebody who's following a website and who wants to go win a gold medal or get paid for a living to be an athlete. Those people are typically hiring coaches and working with a lot of higher level professional people in order to get to their goals. I feel like when I hear people who don't really know the model that well or don't really know you personally, haven't

even been to the CERT, but they kind of hear about CrossFit endurance on the periphery, they think you never, ever, ever have to run long ever and you can. You can, you can be an ultra endurance competitor and be good. Yes. But that's not true. You get, you have to, at some point go run some distance. You're, you're, you're absolutely correct, but I'm very careful with my words and what it is I put out because I don't want people. And, and I mean, you understand. So we're having this conversation. Sure. Most people I can't have this conversation with because they're just not willing to waver from their from their ideals and understand what reality is.

And that that's been, you know, I've found coaching isn't necessarily my ability to understand your physiology because that's actually the fucking easy part. It's the ability to deal with you as a human being and your neurosis and that's not funny that's on this phone because we've got chris we've got we've got mike and how do i deal like it's all different and it's like i'm pretty fucking neurotic i know what that what does that mean coaching advice is situation specific and people don't always accept their situation no you're right you're absolutely right i mean i've you know if i'm co i'm coaching three or four different CrossFit Games athletes this next year, it's like, how do I deal with Michelle Kinney, who I'm not working with,

but I'm just because she's sitting right in front of me. He's not worried about you. Or I'm dealing with Brian Diaz or Jeremy Kinnick or whoever else I'm coaching, and I'm like, hey, these are all different people and all can handle different things, but all are dealing with different issues. And what are those issues? And what are your ideals, by the way? Well, obviously, they all want to win the games.

But realistically, are they all willing to understand what the reality is? Are we looking at the top three? Are we looking at the top 10? Are we looking at the top 15 or maybe even the top 20? Let's be realistic about it. And the realism of CrossFit endurance calm is the fact that we can get people to events and who feel ten times better

than they've ever felt doing these events and not thrashing themselves in the in the process of doing it and they still have lives and they're still happy and they're healthy and that's what we've seen and so that's what we put out yeah the volumes not too high. You're not going to get completely trashed from the training. And you're going to be able to live a normal life. You got it. Did that answer your question?

All right, guys. Let's try and get some questions in here. Anyone have a question? Yeah, that was a long answer. Question from the crowd. Lee, talking to Mike. Oh, come up. Come up, please.

Yeah, give it. Put your nose against the pop filter. Get close. Okay. I came to CrossFit having done lots of marathons and half Ironmans. And once I've started doing CrossFit, I don't have that desire anymore. Like, I love CrossFit in and of itself. Imagine that.

So, my question to you is, is that enough? Or do you have something that you're training for? Like, most endurance people usually say my next thing is what's yours what's my next thing yeah uh to live a very happy and healthy life like i i love to surf i love to still run but i you know i i i don't necessarily hate running i like trail running i like going out and running trail and i like going out and riding my mountain bike i like going out and surfing but i have a have a life and I'm on the road a lot now. So the priorities at some point have to change for people.

At least that's what I've seen. My priorities had to change in order for me to either, A, be successful with business and what it was that I believed in and what it was I wanted to do, or C, I was going to become the ultimate age grouper. You know, and I didn't want to be an ultimate age grouper, you know, and, um, I didn't want to be an ultimate age grouper and I may go back to doing some ultra running. Um, I not putting the stamp on it.

That's just an open-ended thing. And you know, it may or may not happen, but the fact, you know, like Aaron went out today and, you know, ran 10 miles and just destroyed it. And she's never, she hadn't run 10 miles in over a year. And I'm like, fuck, she's going to probably go run an ultra marathon and kick the crap out every one of my times and i'm gonna your time and i'm gonna be like damn it that's not a good coach though when people exceed what you could ever do yourself yeah oh yeah no absolutely absolutely i'm never gonna catch her anyway i mean she got two gold medals and that's just it is what it is dude i'm never

gonna have two that's a good that's a good point because people will see a runner or a high level crossfitter like when i was power i think i would see like oh look at fucking ed cohen deadlift 950 pounds weighing 200 pounds like wow i suck so much like i'd compare myself to that guy and if i'm a crossfitter who's young i compare myself to rich froning dude the rule number one be kind to yourself first. Give yourself a fucking break for once. That's not a fair expectation. Come on, man. Loosen up.

Yeah, all right. All right, I'll take it. While we're waiting for our next question. That was figured, like not you, the audience. What are some

of the biggest myths or misunderstandings about CrossFit endurance that we haven't covered so far? What kind of questions did you get that are just way off base? I think the biggest one

is exactly what you addressed. Yeah. You know, I'm glad about the volume you're never gonna run long you know the fact is is there's this thing called racing and like if you are actually signed up for a marathon it would probably behoove you to show up to a couple of races that are actually shorter than that to figure your shit out like like hey you might want to run a 5k or 10k in a race setting and even a half marathon that'd probably be ak or 10k in a race setting and even a half marathon that'd probably be a good deal like get in that race mode and understand what it's like to race you know the ultra marathon crowd never does anything under 50k and you know i i've sent a kid for the last year who you know wanted to do a hundred miler hey he was doing 5ks 10ks 20ks 50ks you know back and forth and 20ks yeah but i mean

he went out and the kid won a 10k trail run and this is something he never thought he'd ever do like how do you go and do that and he's like that's it's the awesome part about what i do and people just go way beyond what it was they thought they could do and and that's i never saw that with what we were doing with traditional stuff. I just never saw it. Very cool. Matt, you got a question? Yeah, Brian. What in the CrossFit realm of basic lifts

or Olympic lifts would have you seen to be the single best to increase or to prevent injury of a runner and increase mobility, say in hips or IT band? Squat. Squat. Just back squat. Nah or it band squat squat just back squat now squat back squat front squat yeah box squat all of it you know uh box squat is probably one of my favorite things to do just because it teaches you how to squat correctly um and that's

a that's a fundamental tool we have to use with endurance athletes because most most endurance athletes are not using their hips correctly. Because of exactly what we talked about today, they're just working in a shortened range of motion for long periods of time. Their hips are shutting down. Then they go sit down and they don't have their hamstrings or their ass on. You know, feet are collapsed, flat feet. Their hips just don't work. They don't understand how to stabilize.

Squat can literally fix all of that. And it doesn't beat you up very hard either. What's that? How much? Is once a week enough? That's such an individualized thing. How much do you squat a week? Two to three times.

Two to three times. So max every time Two to three times. Two to three times. So max every time. There you go. Yeah. Two to three times, max every time for a power lifter. I'd say a couple times a week, maybe. Go two times a week for now, at least. Thanks, Coach.

Yeah. I would emphasize that. If you're a runner who's in sort of season, you're running a lot, the box squat's perfect because it doesn't beat you up much, man. That's the point. Yeah. You can sit down, stand up. It doesn't make you too sore.

It doesn't take away much. Brian, what's your mental state when you wad, when you sprint, or when you do an ultra? And describe to me what's running through your mind. I'm typically, I'm looking for my breaking point. Like what negative stuff I've got going on and how I counterbalance that negative.

The ability to see how I'm getting negative about something, whether it be short and really hard or long and really slower, a lot slower, where I mentally start

to lose it and understanding my biggest thing is how I can flip that, how I can turn that negative into the positive. That's my biggest goal is how I can flip that, how I can turn that negative into the positive. That's my biggest goal with everything I do. How do you occupy your mind while you're running?

I mean, you're running 100 miles. 100 miles, anything that was literally over 50. I liked 50 and beyond, and I liked to do a lot of solo stuff that wasn't even race settings. I think it's the ability to just say, you know, I'm here to suffer my brains out and find out exactly who I am and what I have today. And that was something that I literally got religious about. It was just trying to understand me on a better level. Thanks. Yeah. So how have your views on fueling changed since you started the whole CrossFit endurance method? Were you always

kind of a, if we go back to like the traditional model versus the current model, how has that evolved over time? Maybe you could explain what the old model and the newer models are. I was a high carb guy, um, high carb diet. And, uh, I was probably sitting around 10% body fat at about one 75, one 80 and, um, fell into the CrossFit realm, started CrossFitting, uh, and decided to go paleo and zone prescription and did the whole nine yards, weighed everything, played with everything. Where I dropped down to about 5% body fat, went up to about 185, 190. And performance went through the roof. I then discovered what inflammation was at that point.

And then crushed a pizza about three months into the thing and almost blew myself up like a nuclear bomb head headache head got bigger got it almost blew out and uh it was just like well what the fuck have i been doing for so long now i don't you know i i subscribe to a lot of this but i'm i'm as, but I'm crushing donuts probably. Why'd you point at me, man? I'm the second in the room, point at me. By the way, I crush donuts. I point at you because you said you were crushing caramel donuts with Rich Froning.

Rich Froning and I were crushing Sidecar Donuts, which is a gourmet donut place in Orange County, together. Can I go there with you? If you come to Southern California, we are going to Sidecar Donuts. Fuck, dude. I gotta change my shorts. I will say this. That guy ate donuts with me. That guy being rich.

A week before he went out to defend his title to try to win fucking 300K. That's a hell of an athlete, man. Rich never eats paleo, though. Just so you're not standing here forever, go ahead and ask your question. We can come back to this later on. I was just curious, as far as, like, most of us do

CrossFit at least once a day. How do you fit in the CrossFit endurance into that, say, just when you do Olympic distance triathlon or just 10k's or half marathons or something like that? How do you fit that into your regular one- day or a wadding? So the honest answer is you figure out a time to put it in and you do that and you learn

whether you can recover or not. The other side of that is if you can't fit two workouts in a day, that you may want to set your priorities a little differently. Because the fact is, is if you're going to be cross-fitting and you want to do an endurance event, you're going to, you'll need to do some of it, you know, and there's plenty of people in here who've done really low mileage. I mean, Adam sitting over here did about 10 miles a week of running it leading into a 100 miler. I'm not saying that's optimal. But is it required to do two a days, or can you do like every other day?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not at all, not at all. There's probably a few days a week you need to do a couple, two a days. And I'd say the weekends for some of the longer effort stuff you would want to do with your endurance training, preferably the running and the riding,

if you're a triathlete. Thank you. You're welcome. Fantastic. We all got questions? Donuts. Donuts. Caramel donuts.

And little chocolate donuts. What do you got, David? I've got a question. David's still learning how to talk in the microphone. Come on already. Hey, Brian. How are you? How you doing, David?

Hey, do you remember that time you did that endurance course? It was great. Okay, so I was thinking about when you ran long distances and you couldn't squat at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had a barbell, what was it, 95 pounds, 75 pounds? 75. 75. I'm just call it 75. So when you're looking at, say, one of your athletes that are training for a marathon,

how do you parallel their strength programming with their long distance? What can they squat? And let's start from there. Okay. It's that simple. It's like, what are you capable of doing? What are you capable of doing endurance squat? It's that simple. It's like, what are you capable of doing? What are you capable of doing endurance? It's all the same thing.

It's like, look, I'm, you're not going to be doing a high volume squatting two, three days a week for max working up to a max rep three days a week. That's just not going to happen. But you know, we're going to do some of the lower volume, maybe higher intensity stuff with the squatting of maybe a couple of days a week. Um, we're gonna, we, what I've found is that doing two to three days a week of strength training in conjunction with short, intense Metcons that that's usually most effective for three days a week. And then maybe tossing a wad in once or twice a week after that. Um, and then your sports specific work in there as well.

So short, intense Metcons. You also said something about aerobic training. You look at energy systems when you program? Yes. You do? You take that into consideration? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

All right. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. That answers your question. Yeah, that's it. That's it. So it's titillating ask him

what do you mean by what's your definition of a short Metcon something under 10 minutes preferably that's really you know it's going to require

some monostructural movement but probably a heavy lift that's been that's working with what you just lifted strength wise

and I say that because if you look at CrossFit.com back in 2007 versus CrossFit.com 2013, the volume's a little bit different. Lier. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of people that want to be games athletes now. And I don't think the game that that dot com is necessarily saying hey you've just got to follow dot com to get to the

games but i think they're answering the whole hey there's people doing a lot more following other things so let's let's toss some more heroes at them they're probably yeah looking at that what do people want give them what they want but for so you kind of tweaked and found how CrossFit works for endurance athletes. Um, on your website, CrossFit Endurance, um, I know at one time, cause I used to actually, I was way into like programming CrossFit Endurance stuff. I, I, uh, went and got, did the, uh, certification, the endurance cert and all that stuff. And I had a really good time with it. And for about a year I was like way into like programming for marathoners and stuff like that. Uh, but, and I followed the endurance cert and all that stuff. And I had a really good time with it. And for about a year I was like way into like programming for marathoners and

stuff like that. But, and I followed the endurance side. Are you still programming the strength training or the CrossFit stuff? And then, Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that David might've been trying to ask is like when you're preparing an athlete, yeah, Dave, he's so bad at asking questions. I'm going to get on his case. He's one of our coaches. preparing an athlete. Yeah, Dave. He's so bad at asking questions. I'm going to get on his case. He's one of our coaches.

No. No. But when someone's preparing for a race and they're, say, squatting, I know when I went to the seminar for Cross Endurance, I think the prescription for the taper was like 5x5. As an example, I know it's not the same thing for everybody. It's not cookie cutter. No. But it was like 5x5 on Monday if you, I know it's not a same thing for everybody. It's not cookie cutter. No.

But it was like 5x5 on Monday if you're racing on Saturday. It's not cookie cutter. Yeah. So has that changed at all? That really hasn't changed. Because I created the whole thing, but even though we've got a lot of coaches that are involved at this point, I like doing a heavy lift on yeah man on a monday prior to a saturday race because i like getting a big big hormonal response by race day yeah um and and that essentially is gonna be

something that's gonna hit about that time you know um that doesn't mean that's bible that's not what everybody should be doing. No, that's not a law. If somebody's accustomed to high volume squatting, five by five, not too bad. But if you got somebody who may not be so accustomed, five by five might wreck them for that Saturday race. Maybe five by three.

Yeah. So there's certainly a point of, there's a requisite amount of strength that you need to be at your best. But there's also a point of diminishing returns where if you squat 0.5 body weight, you're just simply not strong enough, but maybe at one and a half or two or two and a half times body weight, now you're strong enough and squatting three times body weight or more isn't going to help you. What do you think kind of the ideal per times body weight squat is?

Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah, you're asking where that diminishing return is going to be. Yeah, at what point is strong enough? Two times body weight? I couldn't really answer. It might be around two times body weight, but the fact is that may be wrong. And there may be guys who are still getting returns who are lifting more,

who are squatting more than two times body weight. What range are you looking for, for the most part? I'm looking for what is as heavy as they can get. For the most part, what we see, especially with a lot of the women that I've coached, is that there's just such

a lack in strength that that has to become a primary focus. And then, even with a lot of the guys, it takes years to develop this stuff, but it also takes years to develop real endurance, you know? And so these are things that as long as you're continuing to progress and work at the sky's the limit, you know, and where your potential is and sure that, you know, if you've got a 400 pound back squat and you're a 180 pound marathoner who's maybe running three hours or just under three hours it might that that might at that point you might want to start lowering that and thinking about that in different terms like different weight percentages and moving that a little faster versus just trying to get that

heavier and heavier lift right yeah let's kind of just think think of at what point you just put back squat on maintenance mode and you don't need to worry too much about getting that specifically stronger and then you can just ramp up your volume. I think the point is, and this is what I really, you know, everybody wants that like special like number or like what's going to happen. And it's like, dude, it's so individualized.

And the fact is, it's your ability to pay attention to your performance. And when that performance starts to deteriorate be able to answer why what's going on with me is it because i screwed i'm screwing around my nutrition right now yeah or is it because i'm squatting heavy because i just buried myself in squats yesterday and now i can't move or is it you know so that's kind of a test retest and then make your best educated guess about what you need to change. Two to three week process, essentially. OK, so we started to go into nutrition just a little bit.

And then I was I didn't want that woman to have to stand up here forever before she could ask her question. But let's go down that track a little bit. I know you have a you have some supplementation company that you work with or actually don't't even know the full story. So you own it and that's called what again? Three fuel, three fuel. And is that, is that entire company or is that just one specific product line? One specific product. Okay. So what is in that and what, who's it for? It's a, uh, it's for anybody doing, it's for anybody really training. Okay. Um, primarily we wanted to find a fuel source that worked, that we weren't just shoving a bunch of crap into ourselves. Yeah.

Because we weren't eating a lot of crap. Therefore, we didn't want to just shove crap into ourselves. We were getting tired of everything that was out there. In essence, we're helping develop an endurance line with somebody else and felt that that endurance line did not meet up to the standard. We were starting to bonk at about the two-hour mark. They wanted to go to market with it, so we decided to separate ways. And at that point, we started toying with different things. And that's where we found the Hydrosolid grass-fed protein that we have.

Absorbed quicker. We got a medium chain fat out of coconut milk. And then we found a carb. It's a HDP waxy maize. So it acts like a starch. Fancy carbs. It's very fancy carbs. Mercedes Benz carbs.

You know what it was. I know. Yeah, you do. I knew you knew. So the carb actually, it gets less of an insulin response than the whey will. And it takes about two hours for that carb to actually start dumping glucose in the system. And literally it picks up where that medium chain fat and the protein are kind of leaving off. Right.

And so it allows you to just constantly be feeling now if you're pegged for eight hours in an Ironman you're you might need to add some higher you know some some faster burning carbohydrates yeah for 90% of us in an Ironman that ain't gonna be this kid the case and anything beyond two hours you're just not gonna need anything but that so it literally and it's something you would take prior to training because it absorbs so quickly and empties out of the gut. So we would take it before and we found that not only with the studies, but even with ourselves, that the recoverability of taking something prior to working out gave us the same benefits as taking it post because most people are taking something post workout and they're in a fasted state

already. So it was just kind of a no-brainer, and we were tired of taking stuff, and we decided to take some of the money we were making and invest it in something that we gave a shit about. Okay, so you said, for the most part, you want to take that pre-workout, but for something like a 100-mile race where you're running

16 hours, how long does that take? Me, I actually took about 26 and 27 hours. I was totally guessing. Do you mean to call our guests an asshole, Doug? There are guys who can do that. For a race like that, you've got to eat something or you're not going to perform very well.

That is literally what you could take the entire race. In fact, there's a guy who just finished 100 miles. I put it out on Twitter. I retweeted it from Dr. Tim Noakes. The guy just finished 100 miles or he just changed his diet up. I'm pretty sure he went paleo, but he definitely removed grain. He literally only took 1,500 calories in 100 miles. He built his system up, his fueling system so well that he was able.

And I mean, for 100 miles, you're're not going it's not like you're squatting you're just purely aerobic dude and it's the ability to sustain and metabolize that fat I know the feeling what flavors does this come in? it's pretty much a vanilla coconut

you got a mango you got a coffee buzz I will send you some I'll go out and run I will send you some. Fuck yeah. I'll go out and run or I'll just look wait. That's all he was looking for. I'll send you, I'll send all three of you guys some. Four, four.

Chris is like, what about me? I'll get my official endorsement. I'll say, if I was going to run a race, I would totally take this shit. There you go. There you go. Are you going to teach? I think we need to have like a session maybe after this where you teach Chris how to run. I'm not, no, no, no.

Yeah, I think this would be great. You could be the demo person in the technique squad. How about Chris just shows up tomorrow? We can get that on film. I'll bring my Lululemon yoga shorts. All right, guys. We've got five pairs, it's about time to wrap it up. We had a

great time. I think we could probably podcast for like another three hours. We could do this all night. Yeah, so which means we'll just have to have another one. There you go. Maybe we'll come out to California. I got plenty of room for you guys at the house. Excellent. And we got the donut shop down the street.

We'll get Chris On three fuel and donuts And he'll run an ultra marathon Sounds like a plan We will take him trail running What happened to Chris? We lost him on the trails The cougars got him

Lots of cougars in California There are cougars in Orange County You mean like hot chick cougars Okay of Cougars In California There are Cougars In Orange County You mean like Hot shit Cougars Okay I got you bro I got you bro O'Brien

Is there Anything you want to promote Before we head out Nah Not promotion But Thank you guys For having me here

I appreciate it You guys You guys are doing A hell of a job I've listened to this Quite a few times now You know Even before you guys

Approached me And doing this whole thing for CrossFit for Hope, I'm totally for, so make your fucking donations. That's right. Take that. All right, guys. Help some people out. Thanks for coming out, guys. Nice to meet you.

Thanks for having me, guys. See you next week. Yeah. Thanks, Jack.