Barbell Shrugged - Heart Attack Awareness for Fit People w/ Joel Jamieson, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #792

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Joel Jamieson is widely considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on strength and conditioning for combat sports, having trained many of the sports best athletes since 2004. He is the author of the bestselling book Ultimate MMA Conditioning and is a contributing writer to several top magazines and a frequent guest speaker at conferences and seminars all over the world. Joel has worked with and consulted extensively for teams and organizations ranging from Navy SEALS to Life Time Fitness and his BioForce HRV system is used by teams in the NFL, NBA, MLS, NCAA, and more. He is best known for an individualized approach that is both based on solid science and yet practical to apply. Joel created 8WeeksOut in 2009 to help clear up the misinformation and confusion surrounding energy systems. Since then, the site has become one of the authorities on strength, conditioning, and performance. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Joel Jamieson - 8weeksout.com Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug Family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Joel Jamieson is coming into the podcast. Some of you may have known Joel from his website, Eight Weeks Out, or HRV, or Morpheus, or just being super famous and in this industry for an enormously long time doing super high quality work. And today, a very important message on all things heart attacks and cardiovascular

health for fit people. Joel has been in this industry and doing all of the right things and eating all of his vegetables and proteins and thinking about his health and then went in to go get a checkup on his heart to find out that he was in bad shape and at very high risk, like 50% blockage, very high risk for having a heart attack, which as a fitness professional,

somebody that's been doing this almost 30 years and almost never taken any longer than like a week vacation is absolutely terrifying because I feel like my whole world would shatter if somebody told me that I was unhealthy. Like it would just destroy me. And that came through in this podcast with him that it very much caught him by surprise. And now he's like on a mission to go get everybody checked.

So go get your calcium scores, go take a deep dive into heart health, check in with your doctor. Um, I know that this show made me very much rethink all of those things that I thought I was above because of the decisions I make on a daily basis, but I highly recommend it and hopefully the show guides you to go take those steps and as always friends Once you've gotten that done and you would like to go optimize your health and performance head over to rapid health report comm That is where dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance Analysis and you can access that over at rapidhealthreport.com.

Friends, let's get into the show. We're gonna talk about Doug Anderson, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mass, Joel Jamison. I feel like I've wanted to have you on this podcast for a very long time, by the way. I can't believe eight years later, something like that, this is the first time I've talked to you. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. I feel like I've been on this podcast and yet, I haven't been eight years later, something like that. This is the first time I've talked to you. I'm yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. I feel like I've been on this podcast and yet I haven't been on the podcast yet.

So I'm happy to be on the first time. Not even in like year. I don't think so. Oh, no, you actually were. We had we had to pay at paleo effects like 10 years ago. You came out on the balcony. I do. I do remember that. That was a long time ago.

But yeah, the balcony. I do remember that. That was a long time ago, but yeah. Well, give me back. The first time I used to in the middle, when I owned my gyms, I used to tell everybody that their goal in life was to be 12 weeks out from being able to perform at their best. And then I found out you had the website eight weeks out.

And I went, what in the world am I gonna do with my career now? You gotta go seven weeks out. You gotta go seven weeks out. Four weeks. You gotta go seven weeks out. That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Five minutes. Make eight weeks seem like that's garbage. Eight weeks? 12 weeks, you should be able to lose all the weight. You should be able to get fast, get your head right, eat, sleep, really focused. And everybody can go 12 weeks really hard. And then you came and ruined my whole career. I just made it a little faster.

Just a little faster. Wow, I reference it all the time. Here we go. Here's one of his books. Can y'all see? Oh yeah. There you go. Oh there you go. Right next to the menstrual cycle.

Perfect. Yeah, exactly. It is right next to the menstrual cycle. So they're both important, man. Don't make fun of menstrual cycles. For all you ladies, I would never do that. For everybody listening, Travis was showing the MMA conditioning book. I don't know if that's the exact title, but you're like one of the OGs in

that space. Ultimate MMA conditioning. Yes. I was started back in 2003 or 2004 before you even knew what MMA really was. So I guess I am kind of the old OG, which just makes me old. But yeah, it was fun to be a part of the rise of the sport and kind of see what it became and train those guys and travel the world with them and do all that kind of stuff. So it was it was awesome to be part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. You had a recent scare here.

Yeah, I don't know if scares are right word, but I think part attack. Yeah. So you just scared me. So yeah, good. Good. That's good. I think we should be scared scared me so yeah good that's good I think we should be scared so I'll kind of give you a quick background in this so yeah first of all my dad had a heart attack in his mid-50s triple bypass late 50s and died like 61 grandpas on both sides same thing heart attacks died early 60s my brother at 46 which is just a year older me needed three stents put in so I've been aware that I have this shit in the genetics from you know long 60s. My brother at 46, which is just a year older than me, needed three stents put in.

So I've been aware that I have this shit in the genetics from a long time. And my mom had a stroke, cardiovascular disease, stents put in her 60s. So I've been very, very acutely aware of all of this for a long time. And I've tried to live a lifestyle that was as preventative as possible. And I started talking to my mom's cardiologist when she was getting stents put in. This is like my mid-30s, like 10 plus years ago or so. And he's like, well, come back and see me. He looked at my blood lipids. I've been tracking lipids. Here's an important thing to consider too.

I've been tracking my blood markers for about 10, 12 years, every six months or so. I look at cholesterol numbers. I look at triglycerides. I look at blood pressure all the time. Heart rate variability, all these things. So I've been tracking this stuff and none of my normal, stuff and none of my numbers were egregiously outside normal range.

They were all pretty normal. My LDL was right around 100, HDL was in the 40s, which is a little bit low. But long story short, nothing I was doing looked like I was on the same course. And when I talked to the cardiologist, he looked at my numbers, she's like, these are great, come back and see me when you're 40.

We can talk about next steps. So unfortunately when I was 40, it was when COVID hit. So there was no way I was getting into preventative care at that point and my mom got sicker and sicker. So long story short, I didn't get back until this last summer and again, part of that was because I'm like, oh, I'm doing all the right things, right? I work out all the time, I've trained my whole life.

I don't drink, I don't smoke, I sleep, all these things. Like I'm fine, you know, like my family must have just had shitty lifestyles and I'm able to overcome that. Well, so I go get the CT angiogram and sure enough, I've got major blockages. I got 50% in the Widowmaker, which is really bad, obviously, and some lesser blockages in the other ones. And so obviously I'm like, holy shit, like how is this possible?

And I've spent the last six months trying to understand how it's possible and what to do about it. And the more I've talked to, I mean at this point I've talked to the radiologist, she does 10 to 20 CT angiograms a day and has done that for 20 years. I've talked to vascular surgeons, I've talked to multiple cardiologists, I've talked to lipidologists, like I've literally talked to everybody and surgeons, I've talked to multiple cardiologists, I've talked to lipidologists, like I've literally talked to everybody and I think what it comes down to is genetics play

a huge role, a bigger role than I think we in the fitness community think about and then it gets accelerated or decelerated based on your lifestyle. So my brother needed stents at 46, I don't need stents and I think I've caught it at least early to reduce my risk quite a bit. But since that point, I've started sending everybody

I know, it's mostly people in the fitness industry, to the same cardiologist or the same radiologist to get the CT angiograms and she's finding this widespread in the fitness community, the people I'm sending her. I haven't sent her anyone yet that hasn't had blockages, which is kind of sad. And so it's an important message.

I think that we have this idea like, oh, I'm lifting weights, I'm doing cardio, I'm eating right, I'm healthy, or the average person, which we are, and I think that plays a big role in why, you know, overall, people do have fewer heart attacks. But it still happens to me all the time. I mean, shit, I was at Mel Stiff's house a couple weeks before he died of a heart attack. There's Molochwin died of heart issues. Steve Cotter, the kettlebell guy died,

what, a few weeks ago, was one of men's health top most fit people and had a heart attack in his 50s. So I think this happens. I think a lot of people have plaques and a lot of people have blockages they're just very unaware of. And then some people end up having heart attacks

or strokes, the results of them. I mean a lot, but you know, some don't. Somehow Louis Simmons made it to like 75. Yes. I know it just took several races all life, like I know. Yeah, well, sir, I mean, so my grandma smoked until, my grandma smoked 70 years, like two packs a day, drank like a fish, never worked that day of life, and made it to 86. So like that's, again, that's just the example of genetics. We see these people, we're like, oh, they lived a long, healthy life, they did all this shit wrong.

Well, great, if you have their genetics, you can do the same thing, but if you have the other end of the spectrum, it's the opposite. You can do everything right, and you can still end up with these blockages. So the good thing is, we can find these now. Like it's way easier to find these than it used to be

because CT angiograms are much more prevalent and available. Calcium scoring is kind of lower level of that. You can go walk in and get that done for 200 bucks. Like screw the cholesterol test. I'm not saying you should test for cholesterol, but even in my case, my numbers were normal and I still had them, basically because I have some genes

that cause my arterial walls to suck up a lot more of the cholesterol than it should and that becomes pro-inflammatory and it just starts this cascade. So you can't just go to your doctor, I think if you have the genetics that I do, or maybe you have not that bad, but you have family members that have had a heart attack or strokes and they're 50 or 60s, you know, you, you should really get checked out.

I don't care how much you can Benzer squad or deadlift or what your, your two max is like you get checked out. Do you think it's cause we that we are lifestyles, you know, we do live seemingly like, you know, higher pace, you know, more stress in like, I think last two weeks. Yeah, you know, I've been up, I've, my sleep has been interrupted just because I've been working on a super important project and we're all so passionate about what we do. I wonder if that's a big part of it. So a couple things, I think number one, that obviously contributes, I think more stress is generally worse, we know that.

But I think, not to be super controversial here, but I think a shit ton of lifting weights from everything I've seen, if you are prone to cardiovascular disease, a lot of high blood pressure, spikes, a lot of inflammation from chronic lifting and training over training probably doesn't help either. I think it probably has beneficial effects in some way, obviously, for what we all know,

but I think it can also have potential detrimental effects. There's some research out there showing that, that people that are lifelong high intensity type athletes tend to actually have more plaque than the average person. Now, their cardiovascular disease is still low. The disease actually shows up higher, but their life is still extended a bit because I think they have other mitigating factors that probably reduce the risk at the same time.

So I think it's two statements can be true. Lifting weights can be really good for you, but it can also cause damage at the same time. Yeah, I mean. The net might be positive, but there's still some negative things that occur there that if you have the genetics, you probably end up on the wrong end of it

Yeah, I mean there's pros and cons to anything in life at some level of just about trade-offs You'll given that you've already been doing you know quote-unquote things right for so long What actual changes have you have you implemented over the last six months since learning this? Yeah, well unfortunately, I mean like said if my lifestyle was shit the first place should be to clean it up, but it's not. So you're kind of, so when you're at the level I'm at where I've got, you know, pretty significant blockages at age 45, really every lipidologist I've talked to is like, you need to get LDL and the APOB,

which is just another marker of the cholesterol side of things as low as possible down to about 40, which is pretty much not possible to do without drugs. So I'm on statins and PCSK9 inhibitors. And then like I said, I've had a diet about as clean as I can get it. The lowest I've ever seen my LDL before that was 90. Now I'm down at 40.

And it's super fascinating thing, which I mean, like there's a lot of, what's the word, negative associations with statins, which I understand. I get a little bit of myalgia from them too. And I would definitely not be taking it if I had a choice, but I'd rather have a little muscle pain here and there than a heart attack. But what's super fascinating is my heart rate variability, which I don't know how much you guys have talked about on the show, but I've been using it for 20 plus years.

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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 arrieteelab.com. That's a-r-e-t-e lab.com. Now, back to the show. But what's super fascinating is my heart rate variability, which it increased by about 12 points. It's the most potent HRV increase

I've ever seen in myself at least, it's any one, but I've never seen any drug supplement lifestyle change or cover I've never seen anything raise my hrv by 10 plus points on my own system Morpheus so that number varies but on different systems but I've never seen anything have such a dramatic impact and I just to like just to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing I stopped and I'm taking a pretty low dose I'm taking 10 milligrams of resumers statin which Crestor, it's a strong statin, but 10 milligrams is a pretty moderate dose. And you have to like double the dose of statins

to even have incremental effects. Around 10 milligrams seems to be a really good amount for me and I think probably for most people. At 10 milligrams, it keeps my HRV up. And I just wanted to check this because it seems so crazy to me. I came off the statin for a couple of weeks. I literally watched my HRV decrease by the day.

I went back on it and then went right back up. It was the most directly correlate, direct thing I've ever seen to move HRV in a significant amount. So for me at least, you know, just seeing that go up and seeing my APOB and my LDL come down to 40 was highly reassuring that this is a real thing.

Do you know what the like mechanics of that are like? Yeah, my guess is it's anti-inflammatory which they have said that. Like there's people who believe that the cholesterol load effects are not the big thing. That's actually an anti-inflammatory and maybe just reducing the cholesterol burden on the arteries makes the arterial walls less inflammatory and that lowers overall inflammation. I mean, that's kind of my guess. I think that we don't know the answer for that,

to that for sure. But I've never seen anything move the needle that much. And usually when you move the needle that much, it's inflammation dropping pretty significantly. That's crazy. And something that's, so what's something that's fascinating too is like I said, I've tested blood markers for years. I've tested high-sensitivity CRP, right?

So just a general mark of information. And I've done it multiple times. I've done it like the day after a heavy workout. I've done it after three days of rest. I've done it kind of in between just to see what that marker would show. After a really high-intensity session, my CRP has been like five, which is very high. And then I'd rest two or three days and it would drop down like 0.4.

So at least in me, and again, I've done this with a bunch of people, a heavy workout can spike my CRP for a day or 24, 48 hours, which is quite a bit. If you think about doing that over and over again all week long, inflammation might end up being higher than you think it would be. And again, it could be a net positive in the long run, but it also could be a net negative

depending on how things go. So I think that somehow the statins are just anti-inflammatory. That's the only thing I can think of that caused that much of an increase. Obviously, it did increase my aerobic fitness, that's for damn sure. It's not doing that. So inflammation really is the other big lever that it's gotta be pulling. When you found this out,

I can only imagine what that would do to me. Like, when I get like sick, maybe there's like at some weird level, like I'm terrified of what bad could happen or that my entire framework of what I believe in is like completely wrong. And one day I'm going to walk in and they go like cancer. You go, that's not possible. I'm the grass. I'm the grass fed human. Like I only eat, I do all this stuff and they go, nature got you though, bud. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was shocking. Yeah. How did I would love to know, like, what happens when you walk out of the doctor's office that day? Maybe this isn't just like the what you can do question, but like it is middling. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it's funny because stuff and then they go, yeah, sorry. Just like just like the unhealthy people. You got it. Yeah. I mean, I almost went there just to reassure myself that I was right. So I went, so the funny thing is I went back to the cardiologist last summer first and he ran another blood test.

He's like, oh, all your numbers look good. He did an EKG. He's like, your heart looks great. It looks like you're in great shape. Just keep doing what you're doing. And I was like, well, what about a CT angiogram? He's like, hey, that would be a good idea. He's like, but I had to ask for that.

And he's like, well, you have to pay out of. He's like, but I had to ask for that. And he's like, well, you have to pay out of pockets, 1500 bucks, you know, and there's a place here you can go get it. It's up to you if you want to go do it. But it wasn't even like he said, like, oh, we're really worried about you. Like you have a bunch of risk factors to go get this done.

He was like, yeah, that's a good idea. And it was, again, I had to bring it up. And so the fact that like he wasn't concerned about it, he's a cardiologist, and he didn't say like, oh, you really should go get this done. He was like, yeah, you're doing great, look fit. Like numbers are good, keep going. So when I went into the CTA place to get the CT angiogram,

I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna go just confirm that I'm doing everything right. And I've been able to overcome this genetic problem and I'd be fine. And it was funny because my good friend from high school, his wife out of thin air, his wife, rather blue, his wife was the tech. And I hadn't talked to her in many years,

like hadn't talked to him for a number of years. Anyway, she just, she randomly turned out to be the tech doing the CT angiogram. And so, you know, she does the scan and I'm like, oh, I look great, right? And she's like, the doctor will be in a few minutes to talk to you. Yeah. She's just doing, I'm like, Never a good look great. Right. And she's like, the doctor will be in a few minutes talk to you. Yeah, just doing. I'm like, never a good sign. No, never a good sign. So

instantly, I'm like thinking like, oh, like this shoot, you know, maybe I'm not quite as good as I thought, but I'm still I'm still fine. Right. And then, you know, the radiologist comes in and she's like, this is very concerning. You know, you've got some significant plaque here. And I'm just like, what you're like, a little bit of just like disbelief. Like how, how is this possible? It literally is. I'm literally, yeah, so anyway, you know, she absolutely freaked

out. Yeah, you should. I'm good. It's genetics. I mean, every so again, I've been sending her people since this happened. And everyone's had blockages. And I literally have a really good friend who's been in the gym with me for 15 years. I sent him, he had really bad, even worse than me. His dad died, I think 40, and his brother died in his 30s of heart attacks. So that's really bad.

And so he's about my age. And he literally just got the results yesterday. He's got a 70 to 80% blockage in one part, a 50% blockage in another part, and about 30% blockage in other parts. But same thing, lifelong fitness guy, he's a mixed martial artist, he's an instructor at the gym next to me

for a number of years. Great guy, lifestyle's not quite as style as mine, but definitely not enough to expect those sort of numbers in his 40s. But again, it's family. I mean, if you have a family history, you should definitely get checked. And if you don't, you can get away with a lot more.

But there's just no guarantees, I guess I would say. And that was how I learned the hard way. So what I started doing is just calling everybody I possibly could think of, what the fuck do I do about this? How am I going to get around this or work on this? What do I need to do? And that's just why I started calling everybody and calling every resource in favor

I could think of to talk to experts and get their opinions. Well, what's the point of me doing cardio now? I know. Well, I mean, so the good thing is I went to get the stress. I woke up this morning, four minute interval, a minute rest, going about 85%, good blood flow, felt good, starting to warm up out here, little bit of a sweat, wasted my time. Yeah, well, so here's the thing,

I went to the, after I went back to cardiologists, I did a stress echo, and they basically had me do a treadmill test for the Bruce test where you like run an incline to different speeds. Like I was able to max that thing out, and the cardiologist like, we almost never see anyone other than marathon runners

max this out. Blood flow to your heart is amazing because you do have better vascularization than anyone else is gonna have that doesn't train. Like there's no ischemia even though there's blockages there. So I mean, I think again, I think everything I've done is probably, I don't need stents. Like I don't, I don't have to do the thing that my brother had to do. Like I'm still here. So I think that the things I have done from a training lifestyle standpoint are a big reason why it's not way worse. But I think the moral of the story is even, you know,

doing all the right things can't fully prevent it. And that's what the cardiologists, radiologists, everyone basically says, cause they see this on a daily basis. You know, she was like two days ago, we had some come in, they ran a marathon the day before, they were 38 years old, and I had to send them to get three stents put in because it's blockages.

So it's eye-opening, you know, you just kind of have this idea that like, oh, I'm fit, I'm not overweight, I'm not doing all these things. I'm not, you know, you just kind of have this idea that like, oh, I'm I'm fit. I'm not overweight. I'm not doing all these things. I'm not, you know, smoking and drinking. I'm not doing all these things which traditionally think of I don't diabetes. And you can see it's done of the medical community to not like pay for this. Like, why is it? I mean, I'm definitely going to pay out of pocket.

Fine. But like it shouldn't be like it would save a lot of money down the line. Yeah, insurance, insurance, insurance. So you can get what's called a calcium test. A calcium test is a couple hundred bucks. Insurance might cover that. That basically tells you just if you have calcified plaque, which is the further down the road state of plaque. So when plaque first formed, it's soft plaque.

Over time, it gets calcified, becomes hard plaque, calcified plaque. And so the calcium score will just kind of tell you how much of that you have. And if you have a lot of that, that's obviously the worst case. But you can also have a lot of soft black that doesn't get picked up in those scans. And over time that soft black will become calcified black and that soft black itself can rupture and can become a more straight heart attack. Yeah, I agree. So the CT angiograms vary depending on where you're at. I've seen them as low

as $1,200 bucks in some cities, $1,800 bucks in other cities, minus $1,500 bucks. But I've been talking to the radiologist that did mine, she's awesome. She's been doing this, like I said, for 20 years. And at some point, we're going to do a little kind of, I don't know, cohort group and have people come out to where I'm at and do as many of these we can and look at lifestyles, look at training histories, look at genetics and follow up over 10, 15 years and see what we can find. Because she's, I've said, she's like,

I'm really concerned now because all the fitness people you're sending me have blockages. I'm like, yeah, it is concerning. We are too. Yeah, yeah. Especially when you go and put like performance testing to it, you put lab blood work to it, trending data to it. Everything's good.

The only thing I would say that I noticed is my HRV has always been lower than it should have been given just my fitness level. And I just kind of rolled it off to like, I know that genetically, you know, genetics is a big part of HRV. So I just kind of said, well, it's not as important because I'm doing anything else right.

But the fact that my HRV went up as soon as I started getting the statins means that probably if you have really low HRV, there's something there. It's at least worth exploring because That was the one thing that like marker that me had always kind of stood out and I've been studying it forever So I knew it wasn't the best but I kind of figured well, I'm doing everything else, right? I just have low HRV and you know, I'll just keep doing everything right and that turned out to probably be a warning sign that I Could have been more aware of a proactive. What do you use to monitor your HRV?

So I have my own system called Morpheus. I developed really one of the first ones called BioForce HRV back in 2011. That turned into Morpheus and it looks at HRV and sleep and a bunch of other stuff. But I've just, no matter what I tested on, it's always been the lower end given where my fitness is. Because my resting heart rate right now is like 48 to 51, which is like, you know, pretty fit resting heart rate,

I've always been in the low 50s. But then my HRV would be kind of your average person who was a much lower fitness level relative to what it should have been. So Morpheus would be like mid 60s, upper 60s. Most people with resting heart rates in the 50s are gonna be more like upper 70s to mid 80s even. So I was statistically, you know,

kind of anomaly where my resting heart rates, I know this person's really fit, but my HRV didn't align with that. It was disconnected a bit. But then now that I'm on the statin, my HRV is in like the upper 70s, low 80s, which is kind of aligned with what it should have been the whole time given the rest and heart rate.

So super fascinating to see that and I wouldn't have expected it, but I've looked at enough data now and I've gone off, come back on and seen the very clear relationship. It's hard to deny it. You were actually one of the first people I ever heard talk about HRV,

maybe even potentially the first. You were early to the game there compared to- 2001 or 2002 is when I first started getting into it So yeah, yeah, how'd you get into that years ago? Yeah, dang. Yeah, how'd you get into that? So early like it didn't really get popular until Ten years ago. Yeah, there was a guy named Randy Huntington I don't know most people quite don't know who he is But he was the head sprint has sprint and jumps for USA Track and Field, coach Mike Powell to World Record.

He was from my area and I knew him pretty early on and just kind of asked him for ideas, tips, strategies, just kind of like, hey, you've been doing this a long time. Is there any advice or whatever? He said, you should check out this thing called the OmegaWave. Well, it turned out OmegaWave was really the first commercial HRV system out there. I met this Russian guy at the airport in a trench coat, he walked me through the whole thing and kind of told me this crazy ass story

that basically the Russians had developed HIV to measure the effects of stress, or effects of space on their first cosmonauts because they realized they could send this heart rate signal down to Earth and they could learn more about how the astronauts were doing than just their heart rate. And they used it for a number of years for that.

And in the 1980s, they decided to turn it into something more for the sport performance world. And they collected data from thousands of Olympic and national level athletes across Russia. And they built this huge database. And they started developing the software for it. And they were almost finished with it. And then the Soviet wall, the whole Soviet block crumbled,

basically, and fell apart. And so this project was lost for like 10 years. And then eventually somehow two or three of the original scientists in the project ended up at a track meet in Eugene, Oregon of all places and started just kind of saying, hey, we should finish this project that we never got to finish in Russia.

And they got together and they created this company. They created the first system that was used, first HIV system that wasn't just like medical research or that kind of stuff. And I got to try it out and convinced them to let me make payments on it, because it was super expensive at the time. Just started playing around with it super early on.

So it was just, it was so fascinating to me that you could measure something externally and it would tell you something about the person internally and what they had done from a workout standpoint and all these different metrics and stuff. I'd never even conceived it before. So yeah, it was early because it was just so fascinating to me.

And then I would mention that 20 years ago and people are like, what are you talking about? And then now it's on your Apple Watch. So it was quite the thing to watch. Yeah. Dude, the beginning of that story sounds like the beginning of an Indiana Jones movie. Yeah, it literally was. It meets with the Russians and then the Berlin Wall falls.

It gets hidden for 10 years and it's rediscovered. Yeah, seriously. Yeah, I mean, when Randy told me that he didn't even tell me what to do, he just had called this Russian guy Val. And so I called this Russian guy Val and he meets me at the airport and it was yeah yeah I mean so I hear so I can I mean I doesn't matter see us now Val literally wasn't a KGB so there literally was it literally was yes gangsters gangsters have been chasing HRV for a long time they have so I mean they're let's say one thing about the Russians they're very

inventive when it comes to this kind of stuff. And I think they had, I don't want to endorse communism by any stretch, but because they were communists, like they did whatever they wanted to do and they were very well organized and structured. And they were able to just, you know, there was no bureaucracy.

They just, oh, let's test 10,000 athletes and keep track of it. And then that's what they did, right? Like there was no red tape to jump through. It was just like, no, this is what we're going to do. Oh yeah, man. Eastern Blythe Germany, like that's when all the research was done. Yeah.

In both countries. Yeah, they could do whatever they wanted. On whoever they wanted to. I mean, that was telling me back in the 1980s when he, so he was also a track coach, a decathlete himself and a track coach. Back then, they were doing blood tests on a weekly basis and they were prescribing supplementation and obviously pharmaceuticals based on blood results of each individual person that was in the Olympic program.

So I'm thinking about that. In the 1980s they were getting personalized prescription drugs and nutrition. Everything else was built around that. And you're talking- That's where rapid was born boys. Yeah. Back then. 40 years ago they were doing it so. Totally and whipping our butts. Yeah there's a reason for that. Oh yeah. I mean

everyone wants to write it off to drugs but don't get me wrong they played a role but everyone's using drugs back then it wasn't like it was just the Russians. Oh yeah. It was better at. In the early 80s the Americans were yeah we were definitely like even in weightlifting there's so many stories about like the uh the Olympians from back then what they took versus you know comparing them to us nowadays is like ridiculous because they had no restrictions. Yeah well what's funny is there was uh the guy who was kind of the architect of the doping program in the USSR way back when he presented at one of the central Virginia sports Reformment Seminars that gets put on and he kind of talked about as he, it was literally the guy that oversaw the whole thing. And the funniest part was he's

like, we learned about doping from you guys in the US and like the 50s or 60s or whatever it was. Like we first learned about these medications and these drugs from the United States and then we took them and obviously made it way more effective and systemized it and organized it and did it in a more cohesive way. But like we were the ones who kind of started the whole, the whole ball rolling that game. They just beat us at it. I know. I remember I actually, when I got my masters, we had a class and on the whole thing about

the pharmaceuticals and like how we introduced it to them. It's crazy. But just they had better system set up for they could study it and perfect it. Yeah, we were just like, you know, we were just gangsters. Just, you know, try this. Yeah, no, we also understand, like they beat us despite being at a disadvantage from just a diversity standpoint. So what's interesting is so so Val, aside from coaching, he would basically for a period of time, he was going into schools in the USSR, and he was selecting the athletes that would get elevated up into their different athlete programs.

And he said he would go into like an average Russian elementary school, and he would find maybe one to two, maybe three kids who would be selected to the next level based on their athleticism. And they're just, you know, he'd test them and all kinds of stuff and say these dude these two kids like bring them up and so he said when he started coming to the US and he was a teacher actually for a while in the US a PE teacher he said like half the kids in the class would have qualified in the USSR because we just have so much better genetics so much better genetic diversity in our population and so much bigger yeah so much bigger yeah exactly our population is so much more genetically diverse it's so much bigger. Yeah, exactly. Our population is so much more genetically diverse. It's so much bigger. You know, we just have a much better gene pool than the old Soviet Union did.

And they were still beating us, right? Like they were still beating us. He was like half of the sixth grade class I would select and in Russia it would be two. So it's just we have so many advantages over here and yet they still kicked our ass. If we would just do that, you know, and like, you know, a lot, obviously this is not the first time someone said this. If we would just do better as selection of we would, our athletes, plus you would, you would have people in the right direction because,

you know, so many times you'll have the, like me, I'm five, seven, white kid trying to play college football, which I did, but could I have spent my time, you know, somewhere else better, you know, but oh, well, what sport, what sport would you have played? I mean, I probably would have just done weightlifting from the Ruby or wrestling. You know, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, only lift weights. That's it. Wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, or gymnastics. You know, that's Olympic sport. You. Or wrestler. Or wrestler. Or gymnastics.

You know. That's Olympic sport. I bet you would have been no fun to try and wrap up in jujitsu. I mean. Big old barrel body of yours. It would have been much better for me than to beat my head against the wall,

playing, you know, trying to play Division I college football. Which I did, but my God. Like, it was just having to work so much harder than everyone was, you know, if I had focused on something where I was more designed for, it would probably have been a much better route. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I think the problem with today is kids get selected into a sport, they choose a sport or whatever, and they're just way overdoing it, you know? You get volleyball players who are, every sport is year round. It's one sport and it's year round from like elementary kids do you get sucked into that no no no didn't get sucked in I saw enough kids coming

through the gym they decided not to do that I mean I just watched every time I hear a parent talk about it, I go, do you think LeBron had any issues? No, exactly. He just went and did. He just was the best. That's kind of how it happens. You're just the best. You'll know you're the best at like six. Yeah. Yeah.

You'll find your way. Yeah, it was eye opening just watching the different youth athletes come in to the training programs they put together. And you'd see these parents, they drive their girls like three hours to come to one strength fishing session for volleyball. I'm like, that's how into it parents were. Same with us.

We're a big volleyball population. We had the number one boy in the whole country last year and we had some of the best girls. It's a big facility here in North Carolina, but it's the same. They drive, I mean, from two states over. I'm like, yeah. I joke about it, but I was a product of all of it too.

Oh yeah, from hockey, that's right. Hockey. 14 and my dad actually built in the back of a minivan, a bed and a desk so my sister could do her homework, driving from Virginia Beach, Northern Virginia. It just depends on what the goal. If you're trying to teach your child to like for goal setting, to set your mind to something

and finish this one thing, you know, which, you know, this last past weekend, I spent a lot of time with a parent and that's exactly what they're doing. They don't care. It's not like they're trying to get the scholarship. They're trying to teach their son to go all in and to commit and to do all these things. That's awesome. That's a great idea. But if it's, if you're just trying to get a scholarship for your child, think about how much money you're spending. What if you save that money, you would have the scholarship. I mean, do the math, think about it.

Like when they, you know, what's they started started at if you're doing it like seven it's not you're not doing anything if it's 15 and you have to go find the biggest pond with the best swimmers you got to go do it that's it's it's it's the the time I have one of my one of my best friends I I was like an eight year old that's playing like travel coach pitch baseball. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? You could do this in your backyard, man. You are the coach. Yeah, the funny thing I found is a lot of the athletes that got scholarships, the ones who didn't need the scholarships because their parents had so much money that they devote their whole lives for kids getting a scholarship, which they didn't actually

need. Yeah. And the ones who got it were gonna get it no matter what. The other side of that, the ones who didn't have the money, who did get the scholarship, they were gonna get it regardless, you know. LeBron was getting a scholarship. Yeah, LeBron was getting it. Yeah, oh yeah, never mind. He skipped college. He was straight in the NBA. That's how they built the Rise Endorsed Fort, though, man. Rise Endorsed Fort is, 50,000 square foot facility for one reason. 150,000, yeah.

150,000 square feet. Yeah. That was huge. Monster. And there was, I went up, when was that seminar? Year ago? About a year ago, yeah. There was more basketball players in that place than I had ever seen in my entire life.

We had some ballers. It was insane, there must've been 10,000 basketball players in there. At that time. I see some crazy basketball every day. We're starting an academy at Rise and it's just gonna be just for basketball, but you know, cause they travel so much. You just can't go to school like normal people.

So they're gonna, we're starting an academy there. I see some crazy stuff. The skills these kids have nowadays. It's like, it's different, different level. I mean, yo fellas, before we dig in too much of that, we only got about eight minutes here. I want to dig back on some of the topics from earlier in the show. One of the things that you've been really instrumental in popularizing is zone two cardio and all the benefits associated there specifically

related to HRV which we've already talked about and to you know heart health and potentially warding off heart attacks like how does cardio and specifically zone two cardio play into HRV and heart health? Yeah good question I mean it's funny because zone two has been around for literally ever right I mean it's just funny because zone two has been around for literally ever, right? I mean, it's just long flow distance or low intensity or whatever, zone two just a little bit more specific way to look at it. And overall, we know that cardiovascular training

in general and having a VO2 max does give us the single best tool to help slow down or prevent age-related diseases like cardiovascular disease and stroke and all those things. So again, I don't want my message to be like, no matter what you do, you're screwed because again, I don't have to have stents put in. I have every other marker looking much better than it would be if I wasn't fit or didn't take care of myself.

But we know in general, higher VO2 maxes are associated with longevity. The biggest thing is because it trains what are called the mitochondria, which we don't have to go into a super long discussion. I'm sure trains what are called the mitochondria, which we don't want to go into super long discussion. I'm sure you guys have talked about mitochondria. They're super important for a whole range of reasons. Number one, because they're producing all the energy your body lives on and they coordinate with the nucleus of the cell, how to regulate all your metabolic functions. So if we can build our metabolic health, we can build our VO2 max,

so we can improve our mitochondrial function. Our risk of all these things goes down and that's the primary role of cardiovascular fitness. Strength training, and this is actually an important discussion here. I love strength training, I've strength trained my whole life. Strength training is really good at playing a some role in metabolic health,

because it makes you more insulin sensitive, or insulin sensitive to all those things, it develops bone density, develops strength, you don't fall when you're older. It is not the best tool for heart health. It's just not what it's designed for. Like yes, you don't fall when you're older, it is not the best tool for heart health. It's just not what it's designed for. Like yes, you are increasing your heart rate when you lift weights, but you're doing it because you're driving up blood pressure because you're contracting all those fast-wit muscle fibers in the process and you have to have arterial resistance and stiffness

for that. So you're causing the arterial walls to get a bit stiffer and thicker and resist higher blood pressures and you're causing the heart to do some of those same things. When we're doing lower intensity, lower blood pressure, cardiovascular work, we're training the heart to be more like a balloon and we're stretching it. We're causing that left ventricle to get bigger. We're training more of the slow tris muscle fibers to get better at burning fat. That's really what zone two cardio is about. It's about the heart itself becoming more elastic, becoming more fit,

becoming more capable of pumping out more blood with each beat, we're building the vascular network, we're increasing our ability to burn fat as a primary fuel source, and those are a ton of benefits that we want. But we don't see those benefits just from lifting weights, even though our heart rates might get into that same zone as part of the rest period or whatever.

And it's common sense, like lifting weights is not the same as doing endurance training, that's not rocket science. But we tend to have a lot of people in lifting community want to resist doing any form of cardio and say, oh, I don't need to do cardio because my heart rate is in cardio zones when I'm lifting weights. Okay, sure, but that's the recovery period and that's not driven by demand for O2,

it's driven by the sympathetic system cranking up, adrenaline and noradrenaline and blood pressure increasing, all these things. So they're just very different tools. You need strength training to build strong, healthy muscles and bones and not fall over when you get older and move around and do all that cool shit. But you can't use that as a reason to not build your cardiovascular side too, because you need that

for all the reasons I just mentioned. So it's not- You just destroyed like the ages of 22 to 32 of CrossFit for me. Yeah, well, I mean, again, I'm not saying that's easy to be destroyed. doses. But yeah, there's just different tools for different things. Right, right. Right. And too many people, too many

people are out there saying these things that like, that if I just work out, if I lift weights in like a circuit, that I will do that. He's right. The test is simple. Like take someone who lifts weights all the time, a power lifter, an Olympic weight lifter, a bodybuilder, and have them go run a mile and watch what happens. We all know it's not going to go particularly well.

So if they're going to walk a mile, number one, they're going to walk a mile. Exactly. If doing those things, built your cardiovascular system and built your VO2 max, we'd see them particularly well, so if they're gonna walk a mile, number one, they're gonna walk. Yeah, exactly. If doing those things built your cardiovascular system and built your VO2 max, we'd see them go out and do things that people have VO2 maxes can do, but they can't because it's developing things in a very different manner. Like, it shouldn't be controversial to say

lifting weights causes different changes in the body than doing cardio, and you need both, but somehow we like to convince ourselves that if you lift weights, your heart rate's up, that's cardio. It's, it's not, it's it's training the cardiovascular system, but it's doing very different things to it than if you're actually training the cardiovascular system to increase VO two. You know how many power there is? I know, or used to know that a dad, you know,

early, you know, think about it is just such a small population. Number one, cause you know, like, uh, I, like most of the people who would be considered some of the best of all time. And I mean, I could I could I could rattle off 20 easily. They're dead. So like if it was like a cardiovascular sport, like I wouldn't be able to say that, man. It's just like it's the opposite. It's the opposite.

It makes it makes your ventricle walls you know thicker all right but not exactly the same way not bigger but thicker thicker yeah less you can get less blood in there yeah it's super interesting i have a friend that does a lot of cadaver work and they actually bring people from japan to us to show them cadavers and i was asking them like have you ever actually seen it because you know i want to know like have you have seen a heart change and the problem is they're like well most people we get in cadavers. And I was asking them, like, have you ever actually seen it? Because, you know, I want to know, like, have you ever seen a heart change? And the problem is they're like, well, most people we get in cadavers are just kind of average

people, but they, he said that we, one time they did actually get a dude who was obviously a serious lifter, a dude was jacked. And they said, sure enough, like, you'd see a very thick left ventricle wall. I said, it looked totally different than someone who doesn't lift. So again, lifting weights is a good thing.

You need to do it, but when you take it to extremes or it's all you do, you know, you can't expect that to be the sole source of your fitness because you're going to be lacking in the VO2 and the cardiovascular side, the things that is hugely important. 100%, I agree. Cardiovascular is by far my number one focus right now.

Like I love lifting weights, it's so easy to me, but being strong is easy. So like it's fun to do something different that it's totally not so it's easier for me to see gangs Like I'm never gonna set a PR in the squat, you know, it's those days are over I can't do it, but I can set a PR in my mind because I've never ran one. So like yeah Yeah, it's funny. It's funny too You take lifelong lifters are like I hate cardio and you like you just kind of convinced I'm like just start doing a little bit like a little bit to under like, actually, I kind even notice it. It's awesome, you know? And like, I remember that not too long ago,

I remember being in Miami with you guys like, uh, gosh, when was that? When did we all go to Miami? Um, it was like during COVID. Oh, yeah. Right out of it. Everybody, everybody got sick. I remember getting so pissed.

We were walking around and deep down, I'm like, I hate this shit walking, you know. Not now now man. When we went to Arkansas too and went bike riding, that was when I got real pissed. Cause I couldn't keep up. So then when I got home I went to work. And so since then I've been at it.

And so yeah, so much fun. You know, like who cares that I can squat, whatever. Take home messages. I gotta turn into a dad here. I got a we got to shut this down man We got to have you back on here so we can feel like we we just started getting into all the good stuff here Let him give his final message. He's about to go Yeah, I'll say close your marks Do do your cardio lift your weights and get a CT angiogram if you're I'd say Do your cardio, lift your weights and get a CT angiogram if you're I would say late 30s and earlier if you have cardiovascular disease and your family or stroke.

That's my take home message and somebody out there is going to do that and they're going to email you or DM you or whatever and say, holy shit, I found something that I would never have found and then I'm going to feel even better. So go do it. I'm scared to do it but I'm going to. I dread the results. You got to do it. It's probably like you're about to die.

Well, if you, if you, if the number of people I've sent her that have found nothing is zero. So chances are most people that get checked, you're going to get find something. It's just a matter of making sure you catch it. Where is this, where is she at? She's in the Seattle area, Washington. So like I said, in the next few months,

we are going to put together a group of people that can come out and get scanned. And she is the best to work with and has the latest machines. So I'll put it out to you guys, if you wanna share with the audience when we do that, I'd be happy to make sure. Oh yeah, I would like to be one of those people, for sure.

Awesome. Where can people find you, man? 8weeksout.com, easiest way to find me. Just number 8weeksout.com. And I'm happy to come on the icon anytime and talk more about it, but it was awesome to be on today. Absolutely. Travis.

Machelet.com. We've got a brand new website coming out. It's going to be dropping probably within the next week. It's going to look super sick, but I'm going to get your Morpheus too, by the way. I looked it up while we're talking. I can't reach mine, but it's just on, on it's like four hands hands away Four arm lengths away from me right now Awesome. Well, thank you for being on this is a great show. I appreciate it You bet you can find me on Instagram Douglas C. Larson Joel still have you back on the show again

You're on 10 10 plus years. Thank you. Here's I Have you just you sure it on over here. I've been a big fan of MMA essentially my entire life So you're on my radar fairly early, but I've got a lot of respect for you. I appreciate you coming on and I'm gonna take everything that you said today very seriously. So more cardio coming my way. Appreciate it.

I'll have to come back on before next 10 years. So for sure. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged to make sure you get over to ritalab.com. That is we're gonna learn about all the life lab, lifestyle, performance, analysis, testing. Maybe if you're really cool,

you can work with Coach Travis Match over here and you can get your jacked. You can access all of that over at aratelab.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.