Barbell Shrugged - ​​[ENERGY] Why You Do Not Have It and How to Get Tons of It w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Travis Mash and Dan Garner Barbell Shrugged #664

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

In today’s episode of Barbell Shrugged you will learn: Why stimulants and coffee will not solve your energy problems Pros and Cons of “smart” drugs How small efforts of exercise can significantly improve your energy Why exercise is important for energy as you age How morning walks can optimize circadian rhythm and improve energy Melatonin's role in clearing cellular debris and repairing mitochondria Understanding energy systems and how to train them How micronutrient deficiencies effect energy levels   To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com Connect with our guests: Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram Dan Garner on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we're talking about energy, why you don't have it, and how you can get tons of it. We're going to dig into stimulants, coffee, even for you people that love your nootropics, the smart drugs, and digging into how exercise can significantly improve energy, especially as you age. Morning walks, your circadian rhythm, its role in energy as well as melatonin and its role in clearing cellular debris as well as repairing mitochondria. We also want to get into understanding energy systems and how you train them as well as, of course, the nutrition side of this thing and understanding how micronutrient deficiencies affect your energy. Before we get into the show, make sure you head over to rapidealthreport.com. We're going to be talking a lot about energy.

Basically, this entire show is about energy. And if you ever wanted to know what bad energy looks like on your labs from cortisol, melatonin profiles, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com right now. And what's cool is that I, when I went through all of Dan's labs, had terrible energy. I was drinking 60 ounces of coffee a day just to survive. That means you're getting out of bed feeling like absolute crap. You got brain fog. You're just trying to survive.

And you can see what that looks like in your labs. It's really crazy to see what melatonin curve looks like, what stress curves look like, the cortisol side of things, and just how Dan puts these things together so that you can alleviate that. And for me, that was getting off of 40 ounces of coffee a day. So now I only have 20 ounces of coffee. And that's a reduction in stimulants by two-thirds, which is insane to think about that we can go and fix all this stuff. So if you wake up with brain fog, if you wake up just feeling like things aren't right, if it takes you until like noon to start feeling good, or you just know that you're living on stimulants and

that's not good, I've been there. I totally get it. And if you head over to rapidhealthreport.com, we can show you what that looks like in your labs and really start to understand how we put plans together to help people because this energy thing is something that we are working with almost all of our clients. It's a high-performing human being struggle with energy because we always want more of it. And the things that we are doing add stress to our lives. We combat that stress with stimulants and you don't have to. There's a way out of this where you do not have to live on the stimulants or with the brain fog. It's not an either or.

So head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where you're going to find my labs getting read, rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Andrew Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dan Garner. Today on Barbell Shrug, we're talking about energy. This is hands down the number one thing that people coming into the program, I don't know if it's necessarily

to complain about, but bring up as their biggest issue. We spent a little time last week talking about testosterone, how that affects energy. But today we're going to dig into a bunch of pieces. The first thing that always comes up is how people mask their lack of energy and getting into stimulants. And most notably, myself included, caffeine, coffee. If there's like a laundry list of things that come up when people are complaining about a lack of energy in their life. Coffee seems to be like the number one over-the-counter resource for trying to hijack that system so they don't have to face the fact that they haven't been sleeping well or whatever deficiencies are going on. I'd love to dig into just what does stimulants do? Why is it not the really like the best way for

people to get energy or improve their energy? And some of the downrange effects that they probably don't understand that are happening if they're just addicted to coffee like I was. Sure. Yeah. So caffeine is a big one. And it's funny because caffeine, I mean, it is a drug, right? Like a drug will alter your current state and then people be like my coffee's not a drug that dude sounds ridiculous until you say okay no coffee this week and then they're like what the fuck man what i need my coffee what are you talking like all of this anxiety cascade this deprivation this you can't take that from me how about even like the level of drug like i know the difference

between if someone hands me like a starbucks cup of coffee you're like whoa this is like pure cocaine how did they get away with this we're just drinking decaf where there's they still get the act of making it and the act of sipping on it and having the warm like you know liquid going down their throat they get the experience of drinking it but there's no caffeine in it and still and i understand this because i don't want to drink decaf coffee in the morning but yeah it's you want caffeinated coffee in the morning like decaf coffee just feels like a lie you're like i'm not doing that no way an alcoholic beer it's like what are we doing yeah what are we doing here yeah you could even

uh if you remember my labs i'd love to hear kind of like um why why does coffee over time um if you're drinking it so much like i was i even got to a level where i was justifying it and my brain was like it's just a bean and water so i'm kind of hydrating myself helps me go to the bathroom in the morning what damage could it really be doing to me cocaine is just a plant you know right going in the jungles of Colombia like yeah exactly right so yeah so next question we're good we're good no no no no let's let's talk about caffeine this is important so caffeine a lot of people it's quite misunderstood so caffeine um first of all the research is fantastic beyond like with caffeine in terms of improving athletic performance improving reaction time improving

wakefulness improving uh memory recall uh reducing perceived fatigue during exercise. And you also just feel a boost like there's mood enhancement on top of all this, like caffeine's research to accomplishing all of those things is excellent until it's not. So there is a huge component of tolerance and sensitivity when it comes to stimulants. And the way in which caffeine works is misunderstood by a lot of people. Caffeine acts upon something known as adenosine. So your brain is constantly working to balance two things, excitatory stuff and inhibitory stuff.

Excitatory things are what stimulants provide you, the increases of hormones and neurotransmitters that keep you alert, awake, and dialed in. Whereas the inhibitory stuff, that's calm, anti-anxiety, positive, relaxing, getting ready for sleep kind of stuff. The things you would more associate with a very calm and or fatigued state. Your body, no matter what organ, no matter what system, no matter what you look at, is always trying to find balance. It doesn't like too much of anything, no matter where you look. So your brain's constantly

balancing this excitatory and inhibitory state. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter that's inhibitory. So it actually will progressively increase as the day goes on to inhibit excitatory stuff so that you do get more fatigued, you do calm down and you do get a better sleep. Caffeine blunts adenosine receptors. So that's exactly how caffeine works. Your cat, your caffeine, its primary mechanism of action is to take away the receptors that the brain has for adenosine. So adenosine cannot bind to receptors in the brain and therefore no fatigue is going to set in and more wakefulness will currently set in. However, the brain is always doing this balancing act that I'm talking about between excitatory and inhibitory. So your brain actually compensates.

It'll say, OK, Anders is actually taking in a ton of coffee every single day. So I'm going to do two things right now. I'm going to increase total adenosine secretion, and I'm going to increase adenosine receptors in the brain so that he cannot offset this inhibitory stuff that I'm trying to create balance with. So then with more adenosine in the brain and more adenosine receptors creating fatigue, what's the average person going to do to offset that? More and more stimulants. You're just going to take, you go, and that's what everybody does.

100 milligrams of caffeine feels pretty good until you try that 150 hit. And then that feels pretty good until you try that 200 hit. And then all of a sudden, Anders has given us an example of Starbucks being like a drug at the beginning of the podcast. People have that drug five times a day and be just fine because they've got so much adenosine and so many adenosine receptors that their brain is in this total complete offset zone where they keep needing stimulants. Like coffee feels good, but at a certain point you need it just to feel normal. And that's when you know that you're kind of moving from stimulant use to stimulant abuse. Because what happens in this situation is now you've got this inhibitory chemistry in the brain. So when you consume caffeine,

your baseline energy is actually lower than it previously was. You started at a normal baseline and a healthy brain chemistry between excitatory and inhibitory, but then due to overuse of stimulants, you've now got way too much inhibitory adenosine and adenosine receptors over time. So now you take caffeine just to get back to what your previous baseline was, and you're not getting the actual performance benefits anymore. What you see in the literature, if you are caffeine sensitive, you will get all the athletic performance power output things that I talked about. But when you are caffeine intolerant, you don't have a sensitivity to it anymore. All you're using it for is to get back to baseline. so caffeine has this weird thing where you have energy from it

but ultimately it's kind of insidious through the back door because you then become dependent on it because now your new baseline energy is shit due to adenosine activity wow so like i mean but when you say that all stimulants kind of like go that route because i mean at least in my experience or let's say friends i've had who do stimulants you know c4 at 8 a.m right like they just whether it's whether it's um you know ephedrine caffeine vmaa whatever it is it's the same thing like eventually when you first take it you're like oh man this is heaven and then then you just need it to be normal so are they all similar in that area they're very similar in your adaptation to them but similar i mean not similar in their mechanism

of action so like modafinil is something that's very popular and common. But it increases dopamine and norepinephrine. So basically increasing a neurotransmitter form of adrenaline hormone, as well as dopamine, which is responsible for motivation, drive, attention span, all those things. But then it also inhibits the enzymes that break those down. So you get increases of chemicals plus an inhibition of the enzyme associated with those chemicals. But then just like caffeine, it's very common for people to titrate up modafinil use over time when you're after that total stimulant effect.

Or if they don't titrate up modafinil, lots of times if you run into these people who will then put modafinil with caffeine and then they'll also do modafinil caffeine and then alpha gpc and then they'll do modafinil caffeine after gpc and something else so it kind of just continues to build if it's not within the one lane and um ultimately like the best thing that people could do is really just to take a break yeah i mean i feel like that works the best for me is just to like pick a time where i don't have i always make excuse if i'm working you know if i have things due i'll be like i gotta do i gotta get this done but like you need to take a break from everything go somewhere where you don't have that pressure

that's the best time in my opinion to to come off caffeine or or any or i've tried modafinil too. I love that one. But yeah, as well. There's no way we're not going to, we're going to subtly beat around the bush of what our favorite stimulants are here. I'm definitely not going to tell that on there. Is there a difference between like the smart drugs? Like every, every college kid on campus right now is just like free basic adderall just to be able to stay on up all night to learn an entire semester and one night to pass the test like

is there a difference between that and caffeine is there a better slash worse you guys make me talk about drugs on this podcast a lot we're very interested yeah that's all i can say about it i don't know scientifically but i know there's a difference yeah there's definitely a difference in caffeine why why how come when i take adderall in vegas i get to see the people vacuum the floors at 5 a.m versus caffeine i can still go to sleep sure well because Adderall is in the methamphetamine category. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's literally in the methamphetamine family.

Anders just got the wide eyes. He went, what? Don't tell my wife that. I found the answer. His wife's listening like, hang on. I wanted to increase my energy energy so i listened to this podcast but you were awake at 5 a.m in vegas on mecca seeing them vacuum the floors knows that empty feeling where you go

oh how did i get here i shouldn't be here with the vacuum people at all they don't want you seeing this you're supposed to be asleep i've made a terrible mistake yeah yeah yeah yes yeah so add adderall comparing like adderall and modafinil um adderall is in the methamphetamine family so you would actually it's much more common to report um euphoria feelings of it and that's why a lot of people do use it for party drugs. But that's not I don't advise that at all, because it also has some addictive qualities to it. Whereas modafinil, you really you don't get a state of euphoria, all you feel is dialed in, you're just focused, ready to rock. modafinil's half life is also 15 hours, you take it upon waking, you are dialed, focused and ready to rock all day um its safety profile is is quite

excellent and uh it has very low addictive properties as well so like between the two just because people are really into smart drugs and stuff um i would go modafinil both for use and safety what about much more over the counter level, like things like alpha brain, uh, is, does that actually have the kick to it? Can you, can you create like a, a, a natural stack of sorts? I know that the alpha brain comes in like, it's like 15 pills when you open that bottle up. Um, we don't really do over the counter on this show. Shark family. I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com,

you will see an area for you to opt in in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be

guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process

by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and just my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com and let's get back to the show.

Is there like a natural way where you're not having to go get a doctor's prescription? And, and obviously those, do they actually work? Yeah, 100%, man, they do. Yeah, like combining L-theanine with caffeine is excellent to enhance its neurotransmitter effects, as well as reduce jitteriness and erraticness. L-theanine basically allows you to get the benefits from caffeine without a lot of the side effects that people don't like, like the jitters or anything like that. So caffeine's great paired with caffeine, basically at a two to one ratio. So if you have 100 milligrams of caffeine, 200 milligrams of theanine would be the way to go. 200 milligrams of caffeine, 400 milligrams of theanine, keep rocking and rolling up like that. But theanine is very,

very well paired with caffeine for nootropic effects. You can also take theanine just in the evening because it's a precursor for GABA. And GABA is very good for anti-anxiety and improving sleep. Lots of times if somebody's lab, which we see a bunch, has like way too much melatonin in it because of whatever reason of a bad supplement. I like putting people just on theanine and lots of times theanine actually works better than melatonin and some of these other things for the purpose of calming down before bed. So theanine is a good option. Caffeine is a good option. I just think that you should use it when you need it rather than use it every single day

and keep titrating up the dose because you're just not doing yourself any favors in that respect. Alpha GPC is the thing with alpha GPC, it's a neural stimulant, so you will get a nootropic effects from it. Alpha GPC at 900 milligrams has also been demonstrated to increase natural growth hormone secretion. So there is something to be said about that as well, that growth hormone from baseline increases exponentially when you have it on an empty stomach with alpha GPC. The study was using 900 milligrams. So for growth hormone and nootropic effects, alpha GPC is very good. And honestly, you can kind of stay in that lane, like really alpha GPC, theanine, and caffeine with proper use and protocol administration i really don't think you need to go into a bunch of other stuff but other stuff does exist but i just i really just don't

use it too much right so i'd love to yeah go ahead how does it compare like you know like i just was looking i see the the alpha brain you guys keep referring to but like how would stuff like that like the cne and the alpha gpc and coffee compared to like you know on one side on the other side you have your modafinil like you know would it line up the same not as good like it's like just being real it's like trying to compare creatine to testosterone got it which one's going to be better for muscle growth yeah they're both excellent they both got a lot of good research behind them but one's a drug for a reason yeah it's extremely effective got it yeah i've tried modafinil and

like i liked it because it didn't do anything other than like you said dialed me in you know if anyone's ever tried like a like um like brindling or what's the other adderall like yeah modafinil is like totally different it's just like you're just dialed in you don't feel high you know what i mean yeah and a ton of research has been done by the u.s air force on it as well it's like it's a u.s air force their literature basically tell you everything you need to know about modafinil. Yeah. Do they need any like volunteers for those? We can just run our own study here. Yeah. Yeah. They're the overall recommend the overall recommendation for modafinil is basically 100 milligrams for every two hours of sleep missed. So if you're used to sleep in eight and then you only slept six,

100 milligrams of modafinil will be advisable. If you're used to sleep in, you know, say eight and you only got four, then 200 milligrams of modafinil will be advisable. Basically increases wakefulness. It's prescribed legally for sleep apnea as well as narcolepsy. So that's used in those situations quite frequently. But for people who use it for nootropic benefits, still offsetting sleep can be a good idea, because you're not going to get a lot done if you're really fatigued.

But if you did have a good night's sleep, and you still want to try modafinil, then just 100 milligrams as a base dosage, really early is a good idea and i say really early because it's half-life is 15 hours yeah so do not take it later in the day you will not go to sleep that's why it's used in the air force so you can be in a plane for 24 to 48 hours and not crash well is modafinil in the same schedule of drugs as like ritalin in i don't think it is i don't think it's like that you know because like ritalin this is those are serious you know they're like methamphetamine but i don't think modafinil is quite as illegal as scheduled if that makes i don't know what the legal term is but no you are

right but i also don't know the legal term there's something to where the chemical properties of it being within the methamphetamine family that makes Adderall more illegal than using modafinil. It's more of a scheduled controlled drug. I don't know what a lawyer would have to talk about that, but I do know that that exists. What about when it comes to energy? What about just like the, I know this, the more, you know, this is going to kill my reputation reputation but the more cardio i do the more energy i have it's like i finally found like if i get tired in the midday if i go for a quick mile or two mile walk i'm back to normal and like i don't need a stimulant or anything but like what are your thoughts on improving like energy from just exercise yeah exercise is huge so like exercise the the like there's kind

of two big three branches i guess we'll say when it comes to energy branch one would be lifestyle branch two would be cellular energy and branch three is stimulants and drugs those are where most of the conversations are going to go. And lifestyle being your current habits, your sleep, your stress, your environment, the people around you, the fulfillment you get in life, these things all impact energy. As far as cellular energy, the mitochondria comes into play here in a big way. And it's actually been demonstrated in the research that 70 year olds compared to 20 year olds have 75% less mitochondrial capacity than than the 20 year olds. So and when you go and this is the average population, so these are average health, right? Right. But this this is going from 20 years old to 70 years old,

and having a 75% reduction in mitochondrial capacity. It's incredible how much of an adaptation takes place. For people who aren't familiar with the mitochondria, they are the producers of ATP, which is adenosine triphosphate, which is the energy currency of the body, which is what gives us energy no matter what we're talking about. Mitochondria is where that's all produced. But a really cool thing is that elderly people can have similar mitochondrial capacity if they continue exercising. That's the key, huh? Yes.

That's the key. So this is actually mitochondria. They are enormously susceptible to something known as hormesis, whereas you apply a stressor to the body that the body can adapt and recover from. So something that would otherwise perhaps be unhealthy, such as training a muscle to complete fatigue, actually ends up creating a beneficial effect through adaptations of the body becoming a stronger version of itself. So as you get older, there is an absolute truth, mitochondria speaking, about if you don't use it, you lose it.

The body is always the ultimate efficiency machine. Why is it going to create an enormous amount of mitochondrial capacity, undergo a very expensive process known as mitochondrial biogenesis. If you're on the couch or at your desk or watching TV, it's the supply and demand. It doesn't make any sense in that regard. So when you're going out for, say, a mile walk in the middle of the day, I'm sure just moving, getting blood flow, getting oxygenated, getting some sunlight on you. These things will all help wake you up and get the body moving rather than just being in one spot all

the time. The fresh air will help. I think there's also a lot about nature, fresh air, being near water, being near forests that we don't totally understand yet that have a huge amount of benefits for us. But I just think progressive exercise as you continue to get older is so important for energy. I mean, energy is kind of like we didn't mention this at the beginning of the podcast, but energy is like the life force of life. Like if you want to be a better student, if you want to be a better parent, if you want to get better results in the gym, if you want to have more patients, if you want to have a larger sex drive, if you want to be able to read more books, if you want to be able to tackle more things on your bucket list, dude, energy is required for all of these. It's the heart and soul of everything. Fatigue holds everything back. So anytime we can kind of look at these mitochondria and optimize them, they go in two branches, the two roles. We knew about cellular energy for a long time, but it's only in the past about 20 years or so, we've really identified mitochondria to be also a major network for cellular defense systems as well, so protecting the cells but um if you negatively impact the mitochondria's health

its ability to produce energy as well as its ability to protect you from reactive oxygen species becomes dramatically decreased if you guys want to get into any of that mitochondria stuff but let me ask you because i mean i know that you know right now our show is mostly like uh targeted to people our age trying to stay healthy and you know be go-getters but like for for an athlete you know even for an you know we're still athletic so like let's say that i want to power up again which there's rumors you are there's rumors of that so like oh you know can i still can i do like can i still do cardio like i mean let's say cardio can i still like you I still go for walks and not affect my training that much?

If you take meth before walking up to the bar, you're going to be strong no matter what. Right. No, the walks won't affect the training at all. Honestly, all jokes aside, I'm a fan of incorporating walks, even when people are trying to bulk up and get bigger. So capillarization density. So you do improve blood flow with improved aerobic ability. With improved aerobic ability, you increase your maximum recoverable volume, which will allow you to perform more volume and effectively recover from to therefore create a greater stimulus.

And a greater stimulus will demand a greater adaptation, you're going to get stronger in the direction you want to get stronger in. Aerobic work actually is also very good at stimulating appetite. So even though it sounds counterintuitive, why would I go on a walk if I'm gonna if I want to gain weight? Well, that 20 it can be it's short, staying efforting does 10 minute walks, right? Like it does not have to be a long time. 10 to 30 minutes will dramatically increase your appetite. So you'll be able to get more food, more protein in, I find it really helps my digestion as well. So if I'm trying to get big and strong, especially if I'm bulking, like if I'm trying to get big and strong, I'm eating big meals. If I eat a big meal and sit down, my digestion is way worse than if I eat a big meal and walk around. Totally. And my sleep is better too. If I eat,

do a short walk, and then I start my process to go into bed, sleep is always much better. Last question on the athletes. Like if you were coaching high-end athletes, well, you do. Never mind. So like, but let's say you're coaching high-end power athletes, you know, weightlifters. How often would you have them do something that's maybe cardiovascular in nature or aerobic? Like it doesn't take much, man. Like 30 minutes a week. And I mean, low intensity.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't take much, man, like 30 minutes a week. And I mean, low intensity. Yeah, I know. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't take one people. When I say like, add in some aerobic work, even during a bulking phase, the people don't kind of consider context. It does not require much to get capillary density to improve work capacity to increase

maximum recoverable volume, improve digestion, improve your appetite. These things are all very, very, I mean, even your recovery in between sets, because if you're improving your aerobic base, then your ability to recover in between sets is enhanced. So two minutes can, you can either still be sucking wind at the end of two minutes, or you can be recovered, ready to rock and stronger at the end of two minutes. I can be recovered ready to rock and stronger at the end of two minutes i want to ask you because i definitely want to implement that with my athletes and like i haven't like made it a thing you know maybe say hey you guys should go for a while but i've never like put it in their program but now i'm going to because like you know ryan is at the

point of it's hard recovery is the hard thing so like um i feel i feel like that would be a good way to courage quicker mash when you were deep into powerlifting and setting world records and like really in indeed um what was your was there any like mixed modal conditioning pieces that you did because you actually stayed significantly leaner i think than many people were you competing against sure yeah i was like always ripped you know like uh i think most of 220 pounders like ed cohen me like chuck vogelpool we were all super lean so but i did a lot of the work capacity like you know sled drags prowlers like you know i was probably excessive but i needed it to get so i could rest because I would just grind my teeth at night by saying, they can't beat me. You know, I'd be losing my mind.

So they're like, but doing the work helps me. You know, if I felt myself super high anxiety, I would go do sled pulls and it would help me rest. But it definitely, I was in much better shape than most powerlifters because come deadlift, I was completely fine. I feel like a lot of powerlifters are beat. Come deadlift, they have no energy left because they're just lazy, fat people. So, like, yeah, so it was my advantage. Yeah, for sure. And I think, too, that, like, those walks we're talking about to improve all of these things that we're talking about, i think i think it's best placed if possible uh it right in the morning yeah the the the whole kind of concept

and topic of this episode is energy you're going to be hard pressed to find anything more important for energy than optimizing your circadian rhythms what time your circadian rhythm is basically not going to be optimized without direct action. Like all the artificial light we have, us being on our phones, us, you know, all of this stuff, you got to actually take action on your circadian rhythm to get any benefits. And waking up and having a 20 to 30 minute walk upon waking, you get moving to start the day, you get light exposure to start the day. These things set up your hormones and neurotransmitters in a great way that is not just going to minute walk upon waking. You get moving to start the day. You get light exposure to start the day.

These things set up your hormones and neurotransmitters in a great way that is not just going to set you up for the day, but it's one of the best things that you can do to set you up for a good sleep. What time? When is the best time exactly to walk in the morning? What would be optimal? Sunrise. Sunrise. To be walking as it's coming up exactly yeah you gotta have another kid that wakes up super early in the morning mash what would you say you gotta you gotta have another kid that's gonna wake up super early in the morning damn bad idea that's a terrible idea i've got enough bro you need more no way i did it this morning that's the only thing of it i watched sunrise this morning it's fantastic gonna we think of it. I watched Sunrise this morning. It's fantastic. Going to go to sleep perfectly. I'll just get my ass up and go do it. I'm not

going to be a baby. There's one more thing I want to touch on before leaving that walk conversation because it's really important. We're setting that circadian rhythm function up for the whole day. So we're going to get benefits from the hormones, neurotransmitters and light exposure upon waking. But since that's setting us up for a better sleep, a lot of people don't know this. Melatonin is the number one antioxidant for mitochondrial repair. So if you have a very low melatonin secretion at nighttime, you will undergo undergo more mitochondrial damage than necessary. And mitochondrial damage. So it's actually even say it in the research, they call it exhaust. Your mitochondria produce a lot of exhaust, a lot of inflammation,

a lot of reactive oxygen species, they produce a lot of stuff when you're producing energy out of there and forcing it to work. It's just like a factory, a factory producing energy. But factories have smoke barreling out of the pipes and there's a dump in the back. There's all kinds of stuff. Mitochondria is just like that. And two big things. Number one, melatonin is actually what goes in there, cleans all that up.

So it creates it cleans up the cellular debris and repairs mitochondria. But the number two important thing with that is mitochondria will actually reduce ATP production in the presence of inflammation. So it's a it's a protective mechanism of the body because your mitochondria produce inflammation to produce energy. So if you're going into it inflamed, your body looks at the budget and says, I'm going to make this amount of ATP because we already have this much inflammation currently in the system. So that morning walk, we get all of those things that we talked about that benefit strength athletes, plus the neurotransmitters and hormones set up for the day and light exposure,

and then the better sleep with the better melatonin, which through the back door improves energy through repairing and cleaning up the mitochondria. It's a huge benefit. Let me ask you a question about the melatonin because it was either you or Andy posted the research that was conclusively stating that melatonin use will not affect your body's own production of said melatonin. will not affect your body's own production of said that's me yeah and so like i was so thankful i was like yes so why wouldn't anybody not take melatonin night because they don't always need it if they got like excess is that what you're saying yeah so like if

you're already producing enough melatonin then you have no reason to take it. Just like I'm in the argument of if you already have normal to slash good testosterone levels, why would you hop on TRD? You should. Yeah, bad idea. Exactly. So I'm the same mindset of melatonin. I never think that I'm smarter than the body. So if the body's already doing something at a good level, I think that I'm probably just going to go in there, screw up some feedback loop and thought I was doing something smart. And then I ended up, I wasn't doing something smart.

So I like, I typically reserve a melatonin use. Um, uh, if somebody has low melatonin for a certain other issue, so we can definitely use it in that scenario. But, uh, like in a healthy, we'll say in the healthy context i typically only ever use it for jet lag and shift work okay all right yeah but like let's say that somebody was using it like what would be the negative to it just wouldn't do anything would it like if you know it yeah so a couple of things so it's sure it is non-toxic and it isn't antioxidant it actually has a lot

of gut health benefits that a lot of people don't know about melatonin is fascinating. Yeah. So there's a lot of research on it. So I'm not anti melatonin at all. I am anti prescribing something without a good reason to do so. Okay, so you know, if somebody was already sleeping, well, I'm not going to add it for no reason. But something negative that can happen, and you will actually see this a lot in the literature, is increased jazziness. And the reason is that melatonin also has half-lives. So if your body was producing enough melatonin, and then you're also taking melatonin, or you've got an excess, which means there's that many more half-lives your melatonin has to go through, which usually actually just leaks into the next day. So then you're kind of sedated that

next day. And what do you do when you're sedated? You drink more coffee. What happens when you drink more coffee? You fuck your sleep up again. What happens when you fuck your sleep up again? You want to take more melatonin again. So in that cycle that just kind of never stops. So due to half-lives and primarily due to, I actually, this is another study I posted where they were testing label claims of melatonin products. And even the same lot number of the same company, there was a 465% variation of how much melatonin was in there. Yeah, I saw you post that too.

So you could be taking three milligrams and thinking you're taking three, but actually taking 12. That's way different. Yeah. So it's, and a lot of people also don't know too, like if there's actually a decent amount of melatonin in pistachios.

So melatonin is an antioxidant. Right. And plants actually produce melatonin to protect themselves from the oxidative damage of the sun so and you actually see this in plants like uh like blueberries um like uh any kind of berry with really thin skin it has to create a lot of antioxidants because it has such a thin skin to protect itself from sun damage. So something thick skin, it's not going to have like that orangey purple look, because it's very protected from the sun, like a banana, banana being yellow, very, very thick skin. But then you look at like,

like purple grapes, or blueberries, or raisins, or whatever, hyper, hyper thin skin. So they need to produce a lot of antioxidants in order to protect from sun damage. And lots of times that actually is what gives them their purple color. But pistachios actually have quite a bit of melatonin in them. They're the highest concentration melatonin food out there. And olive oil also has melatonin in it. So those are kind of two little options a lot of people don't really know about that they can incorporate into their evening routine. Melatonin is also in red wine. And that's because of the grape thing at the thin skin, sun, all that. So red wine puts a lot of

people to sleep. That's probably one of the reasons that it can do that. That's why I love red wine because it puts me to sleep. Oh, that's why. Right. Yeah. So nothing really bad can happen with melatonin. And that's why it's over the counter. And that's why you can buy a lot of it. And really, drowsiness is going to be the only thing that comes of that. But if somebody needs melatonin to sleep, I think there's a deeper issue that needs to be addressed that you're currently just masking with melatonin. Totally. Which, you know, a lot of athletes, it's mainly this high anxiety.

They're not monitoring their fatigue really well. You know, you're laying in bed thinking about what you're trying to do. So what about, all right, back to the regular human. Energy is like, I love this topic, especially energy systems. How important is it to spend time, you know, improving all the different, you know, systems, you know, there's mainly the phosphocreatine, then there's glycolysis, and then there's aerobic.

You know, of course, there's a carbohydrate and fat, aerobic metabolism. But like, how important is it for the common person to spend quality time in all of those energy systems? I think it's very important for health, but can be possibly detrimental for sports performance. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So like the way you phrased that question was awesome because you said for the average person, I think the average person could really benefit because each of those systems, whether it's your alactic, your lactic or your aerobic, those all create different adaptations that all have different states of hormesis that all have positive adaptations. So I think they, a combination, and this is a very health-based combination,

do some strength training, do some high intensity cardio and do some low intensity cardio. Right. Exactly. Knock out all three and get the benefits of all three and that's what's going to be best in the long run for longevity but when it comes to sports as you know a specificity matter i know i know yeah i know that's why i was clear to say i'm really talking about for me as a old man but like what about can you clarify like uh and he's done a good job when it comes to like lactate lactic acid, what it really is.

But he would state that lactate is a beautiful thing. And the more I read, I have to agree with him. Can you explain that a little bit more? Yeah. I mean, he would definitely do a better job of explaining than me. Lactate, the couple of things that I've come across in the literature is lactate is actually not a causer of fatigue, like a lot of people point out. That is a myth. There are other things that are much more connected, such as hydrogen ions, inorganic phosphates, these other basically exhaust coming from the mitochondria that ends up in fatigue accumulation.

Exactly. Metabolic waste. But lactate not being one of them it's it's uh guilty by association rather than actually being guilty because it's also present um lactate can be uh redistributed back to the liver and converted into glucose so your body can actually use lactate as glucose or your heart can use lactate as lactate. Lactate is one of the preferred fuel sources of the heart. And the heart is a muscle that does get during exercise. What I found fascinating was how it affects the brain,

that lactate can cross the blood brain barrier. And that there's a good chance that your brain uses lactate more efficiently than just, you know, glycogen alone is what I'm saying. It's like because, you know, it's like one less to break it down and to use it. There's like one less, you know, chemical process that has to take place. So Andy was talking about that. Maybe, you know, that's one of the reasons why exercise seems to be associated with higher learning levels and especially in the hippocampus um where learning takes place but um he ever since he told me that like it's blown me away people still talk you know about lactic acid but is there what is lactic is that a thing really is that just some bullshit people talk about you know like, it is a thing, but it's also bullshit that people talk about.

I think it makes sense that this stuff is produced in a state of fatigue because like it's, you just kind of think about it. Sometimes I like to zoom out and it's like, okay, what is high intensity exercise associated with from a DNA level, like extreme stress, right? We needed to expend this for some reason. Okay. So to offset fatigue, I want as minimal metabolic steps as possible to feed my brain and heart.

So let me produce this lactate thing that can feed the two most important organs that are going to get me through this stressor. And if we need more of it, we can convert this stuff into glucose and get it back to the muscle anyways. Right. Anyway. Yeah, so lightening needs more respect is my bottom line. It sounds like it's a very good field, but yeah.

Yeah. Where does deficiencies in micronutrients come into this? For the purpose of overall energy. Overall energy, yeah. In an enormous way when you look at the metabolic pathways of say um glucose uh just being converted into pyruvate that's going to give us two atp but it also costed us some magnesium and now that it's pyruvate um or in a hypoxic environment that'll actually make it lactate right but. But pyruvate in an oxygen

rich environment, then we can utilize B1, B2, B3, B5, and lipoate in order for it to enter the Krebs cycle. Once it's in the Krebs cycle, there's a host of things that we need. We need glutathione, we need iron, we need copper. And then once we get out of the Krebs cycle, we need magnesium several more times and several more B vitamins through the Krebs cycle as well as I'm kind of seeing it out in my wild brain. And then once you get out of the Krebs cycle, it enters the electron transport chain where we need CoQ10 and selenium and glutathione again.

So this whole process, you're going to make ATP in the Krebs cycle. You're going to make ATP just conversion into pyruvate. And then you're going to make the majority of your ATP in the electron transport chain. Right. That entire pathway requires micronutrients. So that's why I always say like calories regulate your body weight. Macronutrients regulate what you look like at that weight. But micronutrients determine how you feel at that weight.

And that feeling comes from energy because it's a life source of freaking anything that we want to accomplish and whether you want to turn protein carbs or fats into energy they have very very complicated metabolic pathways to eventually become atp that are completely dependent upon vitamins and minerals. Yeah. One of these that comes up, and I know, I mean, even working with providers, though, all those people have to, or all those guys have to go and train to be like second shift workers. How does like, if you're, say, a night nurse, night doctor, how are you supposed to overcome that just ridiculous deficit and being completely out of the

circadian rhythm to actually feel like you're alive? I mean, that has got to be like the absolute worst thing that you can do for your body on a long term health level. Yeah, I mean, if you're on night shift, man, I'm such a big believer in the moment you change your perception is the moment you change your physiology. I think we can actually think ourselves tired. I do. I'm on night shift, so I'm tired. I'm on days, so I'm not tired. Hold on.

When we had our second baby, we had a new nurse that was in the room and I asked her about the night shift and she was just like, so miserable. It's so awful. Like I'm never going to be able to do this. It's like, I just can't get through this process. Like I'm dying. And then a nurse came in the room that had been doing it for like 20 years. She was like, this is so much better. Like I have my whole day that I can just get up and go do things. I get my sleep in as soon as I get home. I've got the whole system. And you're like, there's a mindset thing going on here too. Like this one girl hates her life. This lady loves her life. And there's an energy level going on that is completely different between the two of them. Yeah. You can really, perception is reality.

And I believe that to such a strong extent, like because I see how strong placebo is in the literature. Placebo does unbelievably insane things. It's crazy what your perception can do to your entire chemistry. So when someone's told they should be tired, and when people around them are asking like, how is that? How's the night shift? Like you just, it's you're beaten down over times. Like, man, maybe I should feel like shit. Well, I think about baseball players too. Like they're, they're just,

they're baseball players, 162 games. And almost all of them are played at seven o'clock at night. So I mean, and now baseball gets like five hours long so they get done at midnight something like that they get home at two after doing whatever they do after the game and it's like throw one or two drinks in after the game and all of a sudden it's like that is the cocktail for just absolute misery you're never sleeping well and you're you're up all night they're the least healthy athlete anyway like baseball players just look at them they do not look awesome you know like they could play 20 years fat you know you can hit dingers i mean yeah if i can blast the home run do what i want i guess

yeah so with that with that um with the shift work there's like there's things that you can do to kind of get your chemistry regulated to that. But I think the conversation about perception is the first big thing. And I would even send them literature. Like there's literature in evolutionary biology that humans were actually nocturnal. So we were intelligent enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were intelligent enough to realize that we were defenseless against real threats. So we did our shit at night, as opposed to during the day. And I was like, wait, that makes sense.

I've got to ask you a question. Like last night, my wife, we were at that world team camp, and her and the kids came up on the weekend and I drove back with them. And so we left last night because at nighttime I'm wide awake. Never. You do all of your writing and stuff at night. If I, if I get up early, like I'm miserable, I can't drive. I'm falling asleep at the wheel, but I'll drive all night long and I won't get tired

until the sun peeps up and when that sun peeps up i'm straight dracula like why is that like it's like it's an obvious thing i'm way more awake at night time is that that an evolutionary thing you think or well i think that could be because back in the day neanderthals were strong as fuck and you're a Neanderthal that's not internal. I mean... Your DNA is back there. We shouldn't be front squatting 500

right now. That's what Charles Paul again, he said I was one generation from walking on my knuckles. There you go. Yeah. Carl's still winning. You're the last Neanderthal left dude congratulations I just love night time I hate early morning

it's like hell the stuff I gotta do is completely illegal for me to be awake early in the morning it's like I shouldn't be dying yeah it's whatever get more creative at that time is that why you're like you're laying in bed with your head just be I support that behavior. Yeah. So it's whatever.

I love this show. You get more creative at that time. Is that why? Yes. You're like, you're laying in bed with your head just be spinning of all the things. Oh, yeah. Yeah. At nighttime, it's like my brain lights up. It's like a fun park.

It just blows up. And just colors and thoughts and ideas. But in the morning time, that shit shut down. My brain is black. Like, flatline. ideas. In the morning time, that shit shut down. My brain is black, like flatline. That's funny. All I want to do is put my head and not talk. Oh, yeah. We have a rule in my house.

I told my wife no questions after 9 p.m. You're not going to get a good answer. No, and I don't want any. Any follow-up questions are going to be met with a bad attitude. Yeah. I don't want to talk serious is there any research on that on like uh we'll call them for the uh for ease uh like early birds and night owls like is that like a real is there a real um differentiating chemical piece between people that tend to float in either direction in the literature it's a phenomenal question i've not

seen it um i just haven't seen it so i wouldn't be able to properly answer that i want to look that up because i'm curious like my wife was baffled too like last night driving home i'm like i got home i'm just like shaking i'm so pumped up it was such a good drive if i'd done it in the morning i would wreck for sure so i'm gonna for sure so it's a great question if that's a chemistry thing like because it is it perception or is it chemistry like people can absolutely be one like i'm i'm the opposite i'm the morning even this podcast we're recording this podcast later today i was like fuck i'm gonna be trashed for this podcast like compared to when we normally record it early that's when i feel like i'm i'm really dialed in yeah i can go i can go early and it helps when you have a cup of coffee just right off the bat in the morning you just get to work that's the

sweet spot for me i think i could talk like in morning time i'm i like talking business serious questions but i'm definitely like at nine o', I don't want to be talking to my wife about budget. How's the business? I want to be more creative and let my brain free. I definitely don't want to be restricted to some business meeting. But I like creativity at night, for sure. Dan Garner, where can the people find you? People can find me at DanGarnerNutrition on Instagram.

You can find my courses at CoachGarner.com. And you can get your blood work at InsideTracker.com slash Garner. There it is. Travis Mash. Mashlee.com. We have a new program out. You can go check that out. Yeah, tell us about it.

I want to hear about it. It's the Grim Reaper. Who named that one? It's after – Ryan's about to be – basically my marketing now, but it's just the new program we've been using with them. So there's everything in it. You've got flywheel training, but there's also like if you don't have a flywheel, I tell you what to do instead.

So it's got velocity, flywheel, all the things that we do and what you should do if you don't have a flywheel i tell you what to do instead so it's got velocity fly with all the things that we do and what you should do if you don't have it so it's it's good and throughout it's like a course it really is like a course because i'll have like um real uh articles and or videos talking about snatch bar path you know about energy systems as it pertains to way living so it's good it'll It'll be a good check it out. One more week, we'll have the launch pricing, and then, you know, it goes up forever. There it is. Doug Larson. On Instagram, Douglas C. Larson.

There you go. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Get over to RapidHealthReport.com. Talking about energy today, Dan Garner somehow reduced my coffee intake by two-thirds, and you can see the path that he laid out for me in my lab report over at rapidhealthreport.com.

Get in there, schedule a call with me, watch the video, see how we can optimize your health. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.