Barbell Shrugged - Clockwork Cognition: Engineering the 24-Hour Human for Peak Performance in the Digital-AI Era w/ Dr. Chis Perry, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #806

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Dr. Christopher A. Perry, a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo, began his fitness journey at Penn State University, where he developed a robust background in Strength & Conditioning leading to 17 years in the industry to date. His academic path, leading through a PhD at Arizona State University, deepened his expertise in Exercise Science & Sports, Sleep & Circadian Rhythms, and Nutrition. Chris's current research focuses on sleep, movement analysis, and CO2 tolerance, particularly in tactical populations and collegiate athletes. His work aims to enhance performance, wellness, and longevity health outcomes, demonstrating his commitment to advancing the field of exercise and sports science. Beyond his academic pursuits, Chris is an executive performance coach, weight loss consultant, fitness entrepreneurship mentor, podcast host, and enjoys engaging in coffee culture and movie discussions. Enjoy. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Dr. Chris Perry on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug Family this week on Barbell Shrug, Dr. Christopher Perry is back in the house. We're talking about sleep and the digital era. Yes, we're gonna be talking about some wearables that you can have, but also how all this relates to the AI movement. And honestly, I don't know that much about it. That's why we brought him on,

because he's smart and he knows everything about sleep. And maybe there's like a robot coming. And in that robot, you never, you could just work. 24 straight hours, you train 24 straight hours and it does all the recovery for you and then injects you with everything good that would happen over like an eight to nine hour perfect sleep. That's my goal.

I don't know if that's possible, but Dr. Perry is here to let us know. As always friends, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis and you can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. And you can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com.

Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged, I'm Andy Garner. Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mast, Dr. Christopher Perry. Today, we're gonna be talking about clockwork cognition. There should be like a little TM over that for you. Never heard that before, and we're going to be digging into it. Before we do that though, that it out. I don't know who you're showing off for in your house, but your wife loves you already. You're trying to get a little extra love already. And you were in there just earning it, just earning it.

Oh dude, trying to get extra love, you know, like you can't just ask for things. You got to earn things. I'm not even texting them about those apps, man. I'm waiting till barbell shrug comes around. Does that dude is doing male modeling stuff in there. It feels good to be safe. Margaret, it looks as lean as you do. There's only one of those in the whole world. I see that's the difference.

I'm trying to be a fat power. I never was once. I'm not trying to be now. I'm going to be jacked. You got any more room to grow there? You trying to get leaner or are you kind of at the bottom of your of your weight here? I'm probably there and just trying to like, you know, just perfect. Because like I'm already where I want to be one.

I'm not doing 220 energy like one ninety eight. So I'm already there. So no, just try to, you know, keep getting leaner at this weight. So go up a little down a little little up, a little down a little. Yeah. That's enough about you. Dr. Perry's here. You've already got your three minutes. Bro. It's him. I'd use a lot of the stuff I've learned from him. Like now it's no joke either.

My sleep is by far the best it's ever been. Thanks, Sam. You're welcome, Travis. I wanna know how you got your kids to master the overhead squat at such a young age. That was something I was like, so on Instagram the other day after the apps show, of course, you had two of your boys, I think one was your son,

the other one was one of his buddies just crushing overhead squats. When they do it well, you feed them, and when they don't, you shame them. Exactly, and you chain them, chain them outside, you know. There you go. You've lost your last name until tomorrow, until you do it better. And then it will be a match. They learn how to over-scribe. Even my daughter can do over-the-squats.

Dr. Perry, my six-year-old is just like, but they grew up around it. You know, that's the benefit. You see it all the time, I guess it's just what we do. You know what I mean? Right. I need that mobility. My son. Tell us what clockwork cognition

at the highest level is. Since I'm- Tell me so I can get more jacked. In the US trademark office right now, hooking you up. Tell me what I'm writing here. So clockwork cognition, you know, the more and more I learn about sleep You cannot ignore your circadian rhythms when it comes to everything performance, whether it's athletic whether you're trying to perform better in the classroom as a student or if you're an executive who just needs to think more clearly when

You're putting together your products or your programming, so just getting ready for meetings, you really have to pay attention to what time of day it is and what your chronotype is, because every single process in the human body happens optimally at a certain time. And if you're not proactive in thinking what might be best as far as what action to take at what certain time of the day could be best for that,

you're missing out on gains. And it doesn't matter if it's fitness gains, you're trying to lose weight, you're trying to build muscle, or you're trying to just perform at an event or perform for a big talk on stage in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Galpin. You got to know when to be able to actually time these things appropriately. And so just to kind of give you a little bit of a statement here, we are learning more and more that the best fitness program falls flat if the clock you're running on it and the screen you stare at

and the apps that you're outsourced, you're thinking to are all fighting your biology. So why not align everything and get it ready to rock and roll? So it's one big fighting efficient machine. Yeah, well, the thing, this is hysterical because I asked my kids the other week what they thought I did for work and their answer was

you yell at your computer and I went dang, professionally learning what a three-year-old or a four-year-old now thinks about what I do for work, maybe they're right, maybe I'm just yelling at this computer all the time. How am I supposed to overcome the fact that I am in front of a screen all day long? and I'm even in the garage. I get pretty pretty good natural light in here, but You know It's still not perfect I assume I'm not supposed to only have my vision be the three feet in front of me with artificial light and then attempt to go

to sleep right away when I get home after the stress of work, the computer, the screen, the knot looking into the horizon, then my phone, then the TV, and then lights out and it's supposed to happen immediately, right? Right. So that's, we're going to get there. So you're way ahead of me. So you're, you're at the tool, the toolkit part, when we're going to talk about what can we do to optimize those things, you have to understand your circadian rhythms first before we get there.

And so the first thing, the overarching tree that you have to look at is what is your chronotype? You're one of three. You are either a very, very morning person, all right? You're, you're a morning lark, they call it, or you're in the middle, which most people in the United States tend to be, which is a normal morning eveningness.

That means you kind of drift to the morning, but you can adapt and drift to the evening as well. Or you're just a straight night owl. You know, you're someone who is, does not get up past, you know, nine a.m., 10 a.m. every morning. You feel terrible if you wake up early, and you're staying up till 11, sometimes midnight,

and you feel great about it. That is the definition night owl. Not as many people fit that chronotype, but they are out there for sure. The reason why that's important to identify is because that means that your body's processes are all operating on that specific clock. So if I was gonna give you advice

as far as when you should get light exposure, but I'm talking to someone who might be actually a different chronotype from what is seen in just the general information that's out there on something like social media, I might be actually doing you more disservice and more harm than good when it comes to your performance. This is the biggest example I can give you right now

is actually a study that just came out in Nature that talks about the fitness strength training program that was given to certain individuals who were trying to figure out how can I best lose weight. So this was a 12-week trial. I've got my notes here for you. And they compared and contrast individuals who worked out in the morning versus those who worked out in the evening. And the chronotype is very, very important because when you look at something called

process C and process S, process C in English is basically, you of it as that trichocadian rhythm, right? That is everything that governs when core body temperature changes over time, that changes your ultradian rhythms, it operates your peripheral clocks, everything. Whereas the other thing, process S, just kind of think of that as your sleep process. That's how we've gone, or how adenosine rises up throughout the day, reaches its peak, and then that gives us the signal that we need for then adenosine to be dissipated and core body temperature to go down so we can fall asleep. So with that being said, there is an opportune time every day for you to be physically active. Why? Because when your core body temperature is at its highest, this is why most athletic events should happen in the later afternoon evening, you got two cool things that happen. A, you're riding the wave

at which cortisol came up and then started to come down really fast. So energetically, you're at your best. All right. You're flying on all cylinders. Your autonomic nervous system is primed up and ready to go. And your core body temperature is at its highest peak before it hits late afternoon and it starts to go down again. When core body temperature is its highest, that's when your body's enzymatic reactions are more efficient, so your body's utilizing and breaking down energy more efficiently. When you're more warmed up, as it were, you get better muscle contractions, better contractility, better central nervous system activation. So if I'm Travis Mash and I'm trying to get an even better PR because I'm going for more

than just abs now than doing my workouts in the late afternoons might actually be the most beneficial, especially if my goal is to be able to lift heavier weights. Same thing goes when you've got someone doing a VO2 max test. For half of our clients who do their VO2 max testing during the decode or post-delivery process, I actually always recommend that they do it in the afternoon because you're going to see sometimes a three to five point difference oftentimes if you're not careful based off of they're not where they should be in the morning, but then they're nice and warmed up, ready to go, better fed later on in the afternoon.

Just happened with this here. So really something interesting to look at when it comes to athletic performance. Let's bring it back to this study that was done comparing the exercises in the morning versus the evening. Now I have my own critiques of this study and I'm prepared to share it, but it's super, super cool. After 12 weeks, the individuals who exercise in the morning lost more body fat and more triglycerides much faster than the individuals did in the evening. Why is that? And so, but then again, you look at the lifters in the evening,

they might not have had as much body fat loss, but they had better cardiovascular health outcomes. What happened here? Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the Arte program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a combination of everything Dan Garner and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives, and frankly, anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best.

Arate is not a normal coaching program. It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre and post pictures. Arate is something completely different. Arate is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchors, and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchors and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person, but rather a full team of elite professionals,

each with their own special expertise to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan. Arte isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best physically and mentally when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit aratelab.com. That's a-r-e-t-e lab.com. Now, back to the show. Look at the lifters in the evening, they might not have had as much body fat loss, but they had better cardiovascular health outcomes. What happened here?

And so what we see with this is more than likely, it's not that the morning was better in any way, it's that because of the timing of the clocks, they just move different needles, depending on what time of day you're training. And so when it comes to what we need to consider, all right, what is our goal? If it's weight loss, maybe we need to consider, okay, why would someone lose more weight if they exercised in the morning? And if I were to just propose that question to you guys really quick, if we have our clients who came to you and said, hey, I saw this study, why does your program recommend to our rapid clients that we need to work out in the morning because that potentially loses more weight. How would you explain that?

So what would just, what would be the first thing that would come to your mind, Travis? I mean, I guess at that point you're taking advantage of like cortisol levels, you know, in the morning. Like, I mean, some people are going to say the fasted cardio might be better, but like, you know, I've never really thought, you know, which is better, it's just whatever is the most convenient. Is that a coaching perspective? What?

Why would doing something first thing in the morning like that be beneficial? How would that result in your day being better versus someone who didn't exercise in the morning? General blood flow, I think is a massive piece of this. And I would imagine there's some sort of hormonal response to just creating early morning stress that even if it's not stress in the way that people normally think about stress, that was like some burden to you,

but turning on your nervous system so that you are prepared for whatever, maybe not fight, but like awareness or focus is needed. And there's probably like a spike and then kind of if you were to look at it almost like an energy system where there's like a big spike if you sprint, get into like a VO2 max zone where there's a big spike in whatever hormonal cortisol side of it. And then a slow depletion of that throughout the day versus just going into your day with zero movement,

zero walking, zero attention to your, to revving your body up to prepare for whatever's coming. One, so physiologically speaking, 100%. A math, no degree in exercise science. Good for you. Just barbell shrugged. And you can read that on almost any article on why lifters heard you should do your cardio after your weights, because it creates this physiologically milieu, as it were, as far

as where the hormones are at that time to potentially benefit you to then being able to utilize more fat after you train. Because you're also being more active at a point in time where the intensity is low enough and you're primed to be able to utilizing fat for fuel because of the changes that it makes to your respiratory exchange rate at that point. Taking a step further, and this was also kind of my critique

of that on what else could have been attributed to, just psychologically speaking, thinking about it, when you exercise first thing in the morning, what does this do for you mentally? And so this actually, at least in my own experience in working with clients, knowing myself and knowing how they work, that when they work out first thing in the morning, you are more likely to make better choices throughout the day cognitively. Oh, sure.

All right? You are more likely to be active simply from the standpoint that I got my hard crap done first thing. I feel better about myself now, I'm going to make better choices. And when you actually see the positive impact that exercising has on just simple executive function and your ability to make those better choices, that all aligns perfectly with you being able to potentially engage in movement that keeps you more active, keeps you moving

and potentially resulting in more caloric expenditure that resulted in the deficit that helps you lose that weight over 12 weeks. That makes the most sense of all of anyone I've ever heard explain it is like the increases in like BDNF, you know, the hippocampus lighting up like, and like, so you're going to burn overall more because like it's waking the brain up and like you're going to make better decisions and like that makes the most sense of any that I've ever heard. You know, otherwise I've always said, I hate doing anything in the morning, but that makes good sense.

Yeah. Is there any research? Uh, cause I would say this year is the first year I've ever consistently worked out in the morning. Um, is there any research on how long it takes to change your body clock from like a normal person, whatever like the center of the bell curve is to now you're an early morning or a late night person based on, you know, maybe you got a job or you just have to focus late at night. Is there any studies on how long that takes to normalize? It's also just understanding biology.

So genetically speaking, if you are an early morning person or genetically speaking, you are a night owl, it's gonna be hard as hell to be able to break from that. That does not mean you can't change and adapt yourself to being able to be functional at a different time. Because my first knee-jerk reaction to what you just asked would be, sure, yes, you can move your body clock.

This is exactly what we do for athletes or for executives who are traveling overseas, and we need to do time-shifting protocols. You can shift your clock by anywhere from a half an hour to 45 minutes to an hour, by one day if you do it consistently over time. For example, just did this for a client, where they were going to, where are they going today? They're going to Spain today. We started, they're on the East Coast time.

So we started them last week. You always want to start early as possible. Let's say their natural time to wake up was, let's say 7 a.m. and we need to get them as early as possible. So by the time they get to Spain, when they arrive that morning, their internal clocks morning is at the same time as when they land in Spain. That way there's no jet lag, there's no issues. And so what I would normally do is like, okay, cool, we need to back up your wake time by approximately a half an hour each day leading up to that day to do so.

So if you ask the question, how long does it take for my body to shift? It matters on the degree of hours that you shifted yourself out, pushed yourself out of alignment. So if you slept in or if you woke up earlier. And so you could also ask the question, well, how long have you been in that routine? Because then it could potentially take longer. So the roundabout way of saying if, let's say Anders woke up every day at 7 a.m And you wanted to get yourself used to waking up at 5 a.m

Then it would approximately take anywhere from one to two weeks of you Utilizing a shifting protocol like that for yourself before it would feel natural because yeah You could gun it from 0 to 100 in three seconds and say alright. I'm gonna just wake up earlier tomorrow That's gonna suck. All right, you're not gonna feel good. All right It took me like two months before my HRV came back up to normal numbers. And that was going from probably like a seven, maybe seven 30 wake up. Um, more like seven to like five 45 and going straight to the gym after that. Um, it was long.

It was much longer than I thought it was going to be. after that. Yeah, it was long. It was much longer than I thought it was going to be. Circadian misalignment has what I found to be the most potent impact on your heart rate variability and your autonomic nervous system compared to anything else. Yes, sleep deprivation does it too. Nowhere near as much circadian misalignment. This is why I'm so gung ho on people waking up at the same time and going to bed at the same time as often as

possible. And you'll hear Galpin has talked about this too. He agrees. So if you just have one one night out, you stay up at 2 a.m. then for the next couple of days, your HRV will be off and then eventually it will get back on track after a few days or how long does that take? I just had my anniversary on Sunday. I'm still feeling the effects today.

It's, what's today? It's a Tuesday, it's Tuesday. Yeah, so when you push yourself out of alignment that much, it can have a detrimental impact. It's going to take time for you to recover because it throws off the entire system as far as, all right, how many hours ahead did you push yourself or how much did you sleep in? How late did you stay up? And then also what habits were you doing? Were you drinking alcohol? Were you doing all these other things that could have potentially even caused more stress onto the system in numerous ways.

And so yes, one thousand percent. It only takes one day or two in order to throw you off. So that's why they'll say, because people ask me all the time, well, I sleep in by an hour or two on the weekends and it doesn't tend to negatively influence me in that way. As long as you are doing it no more than one to two days on the weekends and it's no more than a half an hour to an hour Tends to be okay. But if you are staying up late, you know ridiculously the night before and then really sleeping in by a few hours Then yeah, you're gonna mess it up hardcore for sure

Yeah, I say like a common thing for me would be you know, every couple of weeks I go watch the UFC I normally go to bed like 1030 would be like my my average for any any normal night will say and then I go off You see it doesn't end until midnight. Maybe 1230 by time I actually get home and like fall asleep It's gonna be 132 o'clock in the morning in some cases depending on how late I stay after the show gets over and I just You know, I'm saying goodbye to friends and whatever it is. So For things like that that are gonna be a recurring part of my life, to what degree is that actually a problem or is it just a part of life and it's no big deal?

And so you can look at this from a number of ways, because if I were to be a strict physiologist who didn't care about exercise right now, I would say, yeah, you're continuously doing damage to yourself, but at that same time, you could also come back and say, but are you doing other habits that are potentially increasing your resilience towards the negative health effects

of the actions that you're taking? If you're exercising and you're eating really, really, really well, you're giving yourself some sort of guardrail, as it were, to at least make you less susceptible to the negative metabolic or cardiovascular health risks that come from doing that. Because yeah, no matter what, if you push your body clock out of alignment, you're going to see stress placed on the autonomic nervous system. That's putting stress in the cardiovascular system. That's messing with your metabolic health too. You cannot escape that.

But if you exercise or you are consistent with that and you're eating well and you're not eating terribly, regardless of you doing that, you're making yourself more resilient to those negative effects. Because you can see just one night is all that it requires of you to stay up late or misalign your clock and get social jet lag for you to completely screw with your glycemic variability and glucose regulation. It only takes one night for that. Same thing when it comes to your cardiovascular health and your cardiovascular health metrics. Look how easy it is to see changes in heart rate variability or your resting heart rate for that matter,

just from one night of sleep deprivation. It's almost instant. But if you're exercising, especially first thing in the morning, so here, full time, Anders, when it comes to what you can utilize to feel more active on the day that you get really, really poor sleep like that,

or you push your circadian clock, exercise first thing in the morning. Because exercise is that one thing that especially done in the morning advances your clock. So if you know that, hey, it's UFC season, we're gonna be watching this all the time, so we just had this with basketball, right? We've got a number of Canadian clients of ours

who love NBA basketball, all right? If you know who I'm talking about, you know who I'm talking about. And he would stay up constantly because of this, over and over and over again, knowing he's going to be tired the next day when he gets into the OR performing surgeries. And I thought, I'm like, look, dude, you got to make sure that if you're going to do that, that's cool. But you got to do the tools necessary that next morning to making sure that you are proactive, awake, and cognizant when performing those surgeries. So you don't run into a lawsuit because you had just that 10% decrement to your cognition at that time that screwed with

your reaction time that can result in something bad happening. So exercise is the first thing you can do first thing in the morning that not only helps you just kind of wake up a little bit and become more aware and help reduce the negative influence that misaligned in your clock has, it also advances your clock so it makes it easier for you to then fall asleep earlier that subsequent evening so you can get a good night's rest going forward. So when you say exercise, are you talking about like aerobic, anaerobic, weight training? I see benefits from anything, but HIIT seems to be the most potent because it's such high

intensity. Right, so as far as damage control, so back to the UFC example, if I stay up till 2.30 in the morning and I normally wake up at 6.30 in the morning, if I slept for four hours, is it better to sleep for four hours and get up at my normal time at 6.30, wake up and train,

and then just get right back on track with my normal bedtime routine, et cetera, after that? So this is the crazy debate that I've had with my PhD mentor back and forth, because he is a big, big believer. Him and I are pretty aligned now and feeling the same about this. And we've talked to other physicians about it too.

Exercise first thing seems to be king to help you with this, meaning all that to say, wake up at the same time. Because if you can do your absolute best to at least keep your circadian rhythm aligned, you have a better shot at building up that amount of sleep pressure that next evening or the evening to come so that you can fall asleep at the right time when there's no UFC that next night. That way you can then get as much restitution, have a better chance of eliminating some of

that sleep debt that you just created. That way your next day has a better chance at being okay. The problem is, is you just need to be sure that you stay awake the entire day. Now, luckily, you have other cool things that we can utilize to help mitigate the potential issues, right? You've got yoga nidra, you've got NSDR practices. We know how beneficial those can be when it comes to A, helping you restore just a little bit baseline dopamine, because we know that when you A, push your clock out of alignment or you get sleep deprived and this is actually good for just being focusing during the day as well. If you're having a hard time being able to stick to your

work or focus because you didn't get any sleep last night, do some yoga nidra NSDR because you get the same benefits as you would from a nap without reducing your sleep pressure so you can still get to bed that following night. And all you need is 10 to 15 minutes of a simple NSDR, yoga, nature practice. Just don't fall asleep. But also, try not to drink too much caffeine either because that's the mistake that people will make too is they'll be like, oh, I'm sleep deprived. What's the first thing I'm going to go for?

I'm going to go for 24 ounces of a venti cold brew or an iced Americano. All right. You might actually overstress the system even more. That's not going to help you. All right. So keep caffeine at an all time low during those particular circumstances. Yeah. I know this is a very personal person, but do you have a rough amount of caffeine? That's kind of the optimum amount without overdoing it.

It depends on your body size. Right. And so I always forget the exact milligram per kilogram, but I am in the camp that for most people should never go above 300 milligrams per day before 11 a.m. And so because I've talked to some really cool physicians in the field who specialize in working with individuals with insomnia, and they've taken a better approach that I think a lot of people will enjoy hearing. If you have problems sleeping or just problems in general

with circadian rhythm related disorders or anything like that, don't eliminate caffeine because who's gonna wanna take away the one thing that gives them social joy in the first thing in the morning, is their cup of coffee. Instead, just reduce the overall amount that you're having. And so, because that's the problem that most people have, right?

They have these vices that they need to feel like they can be productive, which kind of goes in with the clockwork cognition theme for today and learning how to be proactive and being able to think clearly. They need that vice. They need that to be able to limit their stress so that they can feel that they can be productive and perform well. And so if you can at least get it to the point to where coffee is before that time of 11 a.m. to noon for most people, and you have below the crazy amount that people are used to having. And so I've seen people have close to 600 milligrams before.

That's the same equivalent as four to six cups of coffee and a 300-milligram pre-workout. So that's a lot of frigging caffeine. So you need to make sure that you are reducing that as much as possible because it's a stimulant. So just like you, think about every time you're stimulating your autonomic nervous system, you stimulate it once when you sleep deprived yourself.

You sleep, you did it again twice when you misaligned your sleep. You did it again when you piled a ton of drinkable gasoline into your cup and drinking incessant amount and put even more stress onto the system. And I say gasoline because it's a fire. So, but keep it below 300 milligrams per as much as possible which is I say the lights of fire. So, but, keep it below 300mg as much as possible, which is, I say the equivalent of, depending on where you like to get your coffee, one and a half to three cups of coffee.

Yeah, it's not a lot. ALICE. Everybody just cringed, everybody was like, oh, god. JUSTIN. When you say the cups, it really depends upon the size of the cup. I don't actually like a standardized cup. Like that's not how I do. No one wants that.

I like a 20 ounce cup and then we can we can we can say that's a good idea. Three of those performance performance levels. Performance levels, sure. So what about strength training though? Is there a time that's more optimal? Would you say, I mean, I definitely have read studies of the morning not being the most optimal for strength. It's not. And you can do it for sure. Like, because what is the most important thing? You can do anything. If you're now, luckily, resistance training, when you look at the energy system requirements, you don't need to be able to go for long periods of time. You don't need to rely

on carbohydrates all the time, but you know that it does help you when you are fed. Like, think of any time that you PR or have the best workout you ever had in the gym. More than likely, you were fed, had adequate carbohydrate proteins, and had been awake for at least five to eight hours that day. Why? Because body temperature is higher. If body temperature is higher, you're more than likely going to perform better, especially if you're riding the process C wave. And so when you look at how cortisol raises throughout the day, this is why we take morning cortisol at rapid when we do our blood work and saliva. So we can see the trend of cortisol throughout the day. And we see that the awakening response is abnormal, then that usually indicates to us

that someone is chronically stressed and they're getting tired during the day because their cortisol is shifted and it rises and falls at different times than what it should. And so if you're not, if you really want to take advantage of the natural wave, then you take advantage of it how it happens in the afternoon and it starts to come down, that mid afternoon, late afternoon workout is going to be the best physiologically speaking for you to be able to perform at your PR. But this doesn't mean that you can't have a great workout in the morning. You just need to take the steps towards having do so.

So pull the Dan Garner. Dan works out every morning at 3.30 the friggin morning. I guarantee you what's allowing him to be able to still be able to train well is some sort of caffeine, his bitargo in a glass, because he's getting that fast digesting carbohydrates and he's warming up really, really well. You need to make sure that you're warming up well aerobically anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes, just to get that body temperature up so that you can actually have a good productive workout. When does he sleep? How is he getting eight hours?

He sleeps at like seven, doesn't he? Goes to bed pretty early. Right. How is the family? I don't understand. That's amazing. Yep. So, but I hope I got it right as far as.

Yo, tell us your routine these days, Chris. Like when, when do you train? What's, what's your chronotype? How have you made adjustments over the years knowing what you know? I'm a major morning person. I love waking up at four 35 o'clock in the morning. It just happens like clockwork now. And that is the best time for me to train.

I wish. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep. 435. I wish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. in this really weird phase right now where I'm not exactly able to keep the schedule that I want, but in a perfect world. And I actually just signed up for a high rock. So I'm just starting to get into that training now as far as getting it up. I'm, I'm entering that phase of my life where I'm starting to get away from bro splits and getting into what actually means to be an athlete and trying to expand my training and functional training, you know, maybe even get into some Nassimimo rope flow that I saw on Mark's podcast. Really, really cool. We'll talk about that later. But what has worked for me is definitely the circadian alignment, going to bed at the same time, waking up the same time is paramount for me. It makes it feel really, really good. And then not utilizing an alarm, allowing myself that as soon as I wake up, I just roll my ass out of bed.

Because I know that if I try to get to that point where my alarm is, that's actually gonna negatively influence the stage of sleep. I'm gonna feel groggy, that's not gonna work. And so I actually love if I have the time, especially as I'm trying to get into some form of two a day fashion with training, I'm gonna try and do my cardiovascular training

first thing in the morning. Because for me, that does qualify and helps you advance your circadian clock while also reaping the cognitive benefits of that and also getting your body temperature up so that I am able to feel more productive when I get to that standpoint. And so we'll talk about all trading rhythms if we have time. I know Doug asked me about that before, so I was primed for that today and ready to go. If you really want to take advantage of that, get your body temperature up first thing in

the morning, that'll actually accelerate the rate at which your temperature everywhere else speeds up as well, and so do cognitive-related actions. And so you are more ready to handle that first block of time where you are best able to handle hard things, which is first thing in the morning for most people, about after two or three hours after you wake up. That's where you should do the majority of your deep work that requires a lot of analysis, a lot of thinking, and a lot of brain power for most people. And so one of the things that I've started to do as well is push meetings from the morning to the afternoons. And this is something that I've been teaching my clients as well. Because if you're finding that you are stressed because

you're not getting things done, or at least the things that are big ticket items that require a lot of thinking and time and peace from outside distractions, you need to really free up that time first thing in the morning. Because if you are a morning person or evening and morning, this evening in person, that opportune time real estate for your brain is those first six hours after you wake up, as far as being able to be productive. If you're filling up that time with meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting and wondering why you can't focus

worth hell in the afternoon, because you did not set your day up responsibly for your specific circadian rhythm to do so. Whereas you'll find... Yep, go ahead, Travis. I just want to clarify. So you wake up at 5am and then you do your cardio first thing. I mean, that's the first thing you do. You don't... So for me, wake up, sometimes a little bit of breath work, Bible study, then aerobic activity. Because I like to do the mindset work before I get after it. So I get it done. I like to utilize James Clear's habit stacking to make sure I do those things. And then just a little bit of cardio or movement.

If I know I'm pressed for time, then it'll just be a quick walk around the neighborhood just to get that, you know, that morning ambulation and then off to get things done. And then I'll do my lift later on in the day that I've worked out in between my schedule, either between classes or between rapid clients. When you have your first meal, coffee, like. So I like to now that I'm kind of getting into wanting to improve my body composition a little bit from just having, you know, kind of crazy season,

I'm actually following a time restricted pattern right now, which is something that I'm also, you know, wanting to talk about today when it comes to circadian performance because your body thrives off of consistency, not just with exercise, not just with the activities that you do cognitively, but nutrition as well.

And so, in most people who are morning this evening in chronotypes, your optimal time for nutrient assimilation is about two to three hours after you wake, and it ends at about three hours before you go to bed for most people. That's usually, that coincides with when body temperature starts to go down after it reaches its peak, that's when melatonin goes up, to start initiate the processes of sleep. At the same time, that's when insulin goes down. So when insulin goes down, your body is then less sensitive

to when glucose or anything else is coming in, which means you are no longer as insulin sensitive as you were earlier in the day to be able to absorb nutrients. And so we actually, we talked about this a lot with Corona Nutrition. If your body is used to eating the same types of meals and generally the same sizes every three and a half hours and you are on point with that schedule each and every day, your

body is going to thrive. All right. Because your body is now primed to being able to expect when those types of nutrients come in and at what orders. But if you look at some of our clients' profiles and why it is that they struggle with feeling tired and lethargic all the time, take a look at when they're eating and how much. Because I can guarantee you that if they're feeling like that, more than likely they're

having one meal that's super large at one time, going six hours without eating and then doing it again. Having these really, really large boluses of glucose that's jacking the blood sugar up, it's crashing down, then they go for hours without eating anything because they're busy, they've got 18 meetings that they've got to get to, and then wondering why they're not able to function appropriately. And then it's probably something different the next day and something different the next. And so one of the first things that we can do, if you have someone that comes to you

and says, hey, I'm not feeling great, I'm not performing well, I feel terrible, I'm having trouble with my bowel movements. I can't focus. Take a look at just when they're doing things. When do they exercise? When do they sleep? When do they eat? If you can correct those three things and get them on a schedule to where they can be

consistent with it as best as possible, many of the symptoms start to alleviate themselves because your body, once again, likes to work in a consistent schedule, consistent fashion. This is how you take advantage of circadian performance stacking. Yeah. You just mentioned going for a quick walk in the morning and you mentioned raising your body temperature in the morning. I'd imagine those things are tied together here for people that don't want to work out

in the morning or don't feel like they're a morning person. If they do work out in the morning, it's just not that great of a workout in comparison to early afternoon or whenever it is. Just going for like a quick, as you said, like a quick walk or a one mile jog. It takes you like 10 minutes as a light jog. And then like you head upstairs, take a shower, go eat your breakfast and you're on with your day,

whatever it is. Like what are the benefits of just doing like some light activity, as you mentioned in the mornings? Yes. So everything that I just said, as far as just being able to kickstart your day, let's look at this from physiological perspective. And then let's just look at it from the baseline mindset perspective. Physiologically, yes, you're raising your core body temperature,

you're accelerating the rate at which core cognitive processes are accelerating as well. So you're accelerating the rate at which you're getting into that I feel awake moment. It also helps you accelerate getting rid of sleep inertia. So if you did not get the best sleep at night and you're feeling Gralgate first thing in the morning Go move because getting your heart rate up and accelerating your blood flow is the best thing you can do to help fight that off And get a little bit of that inflammatory response to go away and then you'll feel ten times better as then being able to feel like you're awake and ready to go that's Physiologically speaking. And it also kind of helps quell the cortisol rise as well because cortisol rises first

thing in the morning. Have you ever noticed how you might be a little bit more irritable in the morning sometimes? Some people experience this because cortisol is high. Your stress hormone is really, really high. So sometimes that's another good thing to do. Why exercise really, really helps with that? Because it helps you be a little bit more resilient towards that early morning cortisol jump.

And then just from a mindset perspective, psychologically, you just feel good because you accomplished something. First thing in the morning, that was something that you checked off that list. And so this goes back to, I forget his name. He's a famous general. He wrote that tiny little book

on why you make your bed first thing in the morning. If you guys know what I'm talking about. I forget his name, but I can see Andrews knows who I'm talking about. Is that right? Something like that. But he talks about why you make your bed first thing in the morning, because it's that first win that starts the catalyst for then getting more wins throughout the day. And then all of a sudden you've got these dopamine hits that required actual effort to where you'll actually

get the longer release of dopamine more effectively rather than just getting, this is why you don't start your day on the phone. Because if you start your day on the phone like this, which is something I was going to discuss, you're actually setting yourself up to be more ADHD like because you're getting these large surges of dopamine without having to work for it. Whereas if you went for the walk, you did the workout, you actually did the hard work that was required to get the dopamine response. That's actually a much more beneficial way to get your dopamine fixed. That's less, I should say, significant to where it's become, it doesn't all of a sudden come down below baseline and you're able to keep that

motivation going throughout the day. So that's a way that you marry the psychological with the physiological and why doing exercise first thing in the morning can be beneficial from that cognitive perspective. Is there a way or like a hierarchy because you hear like exercise first thing and then sunshine first thing and then if you're in SoCal grounding first thing like make sure you get your bare feet in the grass like is there a hierarchy like exercise really the first one like make sure you get your bare feet in the grass. Like, is there a hierarchy? Is like exercise really the first one? Like make sure you get your heart pumping or should I be

staring at the sun and doing some sun gazing? Like, um, we can't do every thing that we, uh, that we hear all, uh, everyone say. So like, what, what is like the hierarchy of this? So the biggest thing that I run into with exactly what you just said is not everyone can see the sun first thing in the morning, nor can we see it year round. And so for me, exercise is that first thing. It's like what is that first thing?

Now you live in Buffalo, that happened. Uh, yeah. So. You'll never see it again. I'll never see it again. And when I lived in Arizona, I saw the sun at 4 a.m. You'll never see it again. I'll never see it again. And when I lived in Arizona, I saw the sun at 4 a.m. if I wanted to being out there. And so with that being said, you know, do the things that you can do, you know, you

got to pull the lowest lever that you can be able to grab, right? And so from that standpoint, exercise is the one thing that everyone can pull. All right, everyone can pull that lever. All right, you can get a little bit of walking in, even if you look like Ralphie from the Christmas story and you have to bundle up because it's crazy as cold outside, which I will be going to class in the winter time.

Then when it comes to light, yes, of course, the sun is great. Getting sunlight through the clouds, cool, that works too. But as long as you're exercising and you've got some form of artificial light on, that mimics the similar effects as well, as far as you're exercising and you got some form of artificial light on, that kind of mimics the similar effects as well as far as what light would do. So that's why I say if this was given a hierarchy, if you have the power to do everything, to get outside and bare feet and get

in the grass and get some sunlight and do a little bit of a workout, cool. That's awesome. But if you can't do that, then hey, get some movement in and turn on the lights in your house. All right. And then, then get your day started. If you can do it like that, then that would be the absolute best thing you can do rather than first thing, checking your phone, rolling out of bed, not moving, then downing your coffee and then wondering why you were super stressed out that day. No doubt.

This is great. Yes. Um, on the bedtime side of things, things, how far out should people start thinking about and planning for falling asleep within 10 minutes of their head hitting the pillow? I would say you should have a plan at least three hours prior to going to bed. And I think this is some of the biggest issues we run into with our rapid clients is why they feel like their sleep latency sucks, why they're not getting quality of sleep. It's because the most of the majority of them are not thinking about the evening.

They're just going into it. I think the biggest problem that not only our clients have, but everybody has, is they go into the day without any intention. If you go into the day with actually thinking about your time, and I'm not saying being completely neurotic about your schedule, but actually having an idea of what your routines are and when they start, I think that's step one. And actually having something that reminds you, oh crap, yeah, it's 6 p.m. I should probably put work away, start down regulating, spend time with my wife and kids, and do the things

I need to do to relax. Or else you're just going to get taken away by the day, and usually that's when we end up watching TV for hours on end or rolling into bed and looking at our phone and actually doing the habits that serve us. So from my perspective, when working with clients, getting them to have an alarm, just like you have in a morning alarm, have an evening alarm that is set at least an hour before going to bed. I like to push it to two or three just so that they're aware, oh, I need to start some sort of routine or just easing into my evening.

So that way I actually have that reminder to do so. Because for most people, they forget about it and they end up getting on computers and doing work and then they expect to be able to fall asleep right after that. You can't run into bed and fall asleep. You got to ease in to that process. You got to let darkness do its thing. Because if once again, if you're morning this evening in person, and like I just said with those hormones, core body temperature reaches its highest peak in late afternoon, That's when melatonin is supposed to go up. That's when insulin is supposed to go down. This is all predicated on you doing the things that allow you to do so. Getting in darkness, not doing things that

raise your core body temperature. So this means not eating late or eating anything heavy late, not drinking alcohol late, not exercising too intensely late, all those things go against those normal patterns. So you need that time, I say three hours. If you can take three hours, at least give yourself an Apple watch reminder or something that says, yo, it's time to start thinking about our evening time and start switching from active time to chill time. Let's start spending time with family.

Let's start dinner. Let's start focusing on the things that help me relax That's not good for you. I'll let them know to see how that goes. You'll get that one in a few years, Mr. Perry. Yeah, I can't wait. Yo, what are these scenarios in which you should break some of those rules? Like, when is training at 8 p.m. okay in your mind? Ever? Never.

So, based off this study, it was actually able to show that if you did a little bit When when is training at 8 p.m. Okay in your mind ever ever so Based off this study It was actually able to show that if you did a little bit of weightlifting and you were actually a late-night Chronotype it actually served you alright and so if you're a late-night chronotype individual and That's the time for you to get your workout in or let's take it a step further If you're a night shift person if you're someone that works third shift And that is the only time you have to be able to do something like that,

or you're a med school student who just has really, really long days and your only time to get it in is at nighttime, that's when I'd say, you know, then do that. Because exercise is once again, always going to be one of the number one tools to help you become more resilient towards the effects of chronic disease, whether it's metabolic health related, whether it's cardiovascular health related, you name it, you just can't replace exercise as being one of the most potent swords to just helping you be more resilient to negative health risks. So those would be the certain circumstances I would say when you have kids for sure.

If the only time you have is to get in a quick half an hour after they go down and Let's say because at least I know my best friends kids they go down at 7. I'm like, that's amazing The fact that they do that. All right Yes, usually when they down regular that's usually when you know, he just chilled with his wife But if that's the only time you have to get in a quick half an hour of something that's better than nothing That might be a good time then to potentially consider that as a time for you to do so. So look at your circumstances. It's never going to be perfect. Do your absolute best to do what is conducive for your current schedule and season of life. And in my biased opinion, to exercise, everything in the life should

have exercise in it somewhere. You just got to figure out where to put it, no matter what your life circumstances are. What about once you're in bed? I like to read, obviously. I know you're trying to, you know, no screens or whatever, but a lot of times, a lot of my books are on Kindles, but I put it on the dark mode. But should I just eliminate that and go to a... I feel like that's less light than a lamp.

I've had this conversation a lot. And so are normal books better? Yes, of course. And so, but at the end of the day, you know, I've had the same conversation about watching TV. If it's something where it's not blaring in your face, and you are literally up close to the television set, or you've got the Kindle, it's at maximal brightness up right in front of your eyes.

As long as you're not doing that. And for you specifically, Travis, it soothes you and helps you relax. And you have the greatest night's sleep possible. I'm not going to take that away from you. All right. That's going to be something that could potentially be conducive to helping you get a good night's rest. Same thing with TV. If for you, going and resting at night with your wife is watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy or something that is just great for you guys to connect and relax and you've got the brightness down just a little bit and the TV is like 10-15 feet away and you have the best night's rest, do it. Great. That's awesome. All right. You need to be able to, once again, this is the one of the biggest

principles of coaching, what works for you. And so, because for most people, what is that to help them relax? For most people, it is being able to watch a show. And so, because for most people, what is that to help them relax? For most people, it is being able to watch a show. And so, is the light something we need to take into consideration? Of course, but we actually see if it's far away and it's not, you know, brightly, crazy bright, it's not a big deal. Watching a show is completely okay.

If you were to program out kind of like, for executives like a down regulation, kind of like for executives, like a down regulation, kind of like breath work, just something that kind of gets them into like, I always I feel like the the transition from like, hanging out and doing the TV thing to getting into bed and then there's always like the we got to go to bed the conversation has to stop between wife and I and right now kind of like there's too much structure too much control yeah it's like how can I like have that transition and then

for me that's the only time where I think I really own that five minutes of a breathwork piece to really calm down. Is that a time where they could do some sort of yoga nidra or something along those lines to actually- Yes. And honestly, I would have that be the the kickoff to your evening routine because that in my eyes is the one thing where, okay, I don't want to have a time limit on connecting with my husband or wife before I go to bed. That's not something that's going to be conducive to good

health. Or I don't want to just all of a sudden stop something that's really, really engaging or something that is really, really relaxing that I'm listening to. But if I can start my evening routine around 6.37 after dinner, and it's a five to 10 minute breath work practice or yoga nidra, and that for me, helps me truly down regulate, feel at ease, feel relaxed, that's going to just then be able to allow me to ease further into the routine naturally. All right. Without having, have ideas of what I should be doing, but not be so damn regimented then that it's causing me more stress because I've got all these crazy, you know, time, oh got to do my my most capuro stretches and then 835 I got

to make sure I do my yoga nidra and then I got to do this stretch for coach Chris and then all of a sudden you're stressing out too much going just trying to get your ass to bed and I run into that with rapid clients it's a little insane so I think exactly like you said kick starting it with one fundamental habit, like a yoga nidra or breath work that we know physiologically will calm you down, and then just ease into the evening from there with one or two activities that are down regulatory for you, and just let the night take you where they have, and just have a soft time that you want to be in bed by at least 9.30, 10, or whatever that time might look like for you.

And so it takes, you know, what we got to do for physiology and remembering that we're all just human beings at the end of the day. And you got to make sure that we are always playing to the human side of the equation. You're the man. Where can people find you? You can find me at Dr. C. Perry's, yours or one on Instagram. I'm the rapid professor. You can find me at the RTA Performance Lab as well. Don't forget, holler at me at University at Buffalo at my new stomping grounds where I'll be doing really, really cool research. Yeah, if you had like a guess of what the first project

you're gonna be working on at Buffalo, what are you digging into? Sleep and military. So they do a lot of work with thermoregulation in the military and sleep deprivation significantly reduces your ability to regulate your core body temperature. This is important for athletes and it's important for the military. That'll be the first thing. Super important for the military. Yeah. Dude, I'm going to connect you with our Air Force person. I'd love that. We're kicking off with

here in like three months. It's gonna be awesome. Sweet. Can't wait. Yeah. Travis Mash. Where can people look at your ads? Mashalee.com. You go to my Instagram at coach Travis Mash. You want to see the the eight pack. Any OnlyFans coming up? Anything? No. It's not a fake name if I were to do that. It's better a fake name if I were to do that. I'm not going to do that. My church was disarming, so I'd like to. I'm Larson. Yeah, just wear a mask. Nobody will know.

Oh, yeah, that's it. I'm on Instagram, Douglas C. Larson, Mr. Chris Perry. I don't know how many times I've been on the show now, like six times. You're over there setting records. I always appreciate you being here, man. It's always fun. Love being on the team, man. Big six times. You're over there setting records. Always appreciate you being here, man. It's always fun. Love being on the team, man. Big fan time.

You bet. I'm Andrew from Arner at Andrews-Arner and we are barbell shrug to barbell underscore shrug to make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis and you can access that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.