Barbell Shrugged - Should You Go Hard, Easy, or Rest Today? w/ Brian Mackenzie of CrossFit Endurance

Episode Date: May 6, 2015

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview founder of CrossFit Endurance, Brian McKenzie. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe. Standing here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore. You can see T.P. behind the camera. And we're here at Paleo FX in Austin, Texas, the coolest conference around in regards to strength conditioning,

nutrition, fitness, health, all that mess. We're standing here with Brian McKenzie. Hello. Welcome back, dude. Yes. Good to be back, dude. And what are you most well-known for? We've got CrossFit Endurance.

CrossFit Endurance. That's probably it. That cool tattooed guy who does the running. Yeah, the really tattooed guy. Yeah. The Three Fuel shirt on. I've got Three Fuel representing. Representing, homie.

And we're hanging out in Caveman Coffee and getting caffeinated. Getting highly caffeinated. Highly, highly caffeinated. We were talking earlier. Well, before we do that, go to barbellstrug.com. Sign up for the newsletter. Yes. All right.

All kinds of secrets will make their way to your inbox. You will become the coolest guy in your gym and also the strongest and most handsome. What about for the ladies? What are they going to get? The exact opposite things that women want most in life. They get those things so we're talking about uh you've been looking at athletes recently in the functional fitness space yes that uh aerobic capacity may not be maybe underdeveloped and it's hurting them in the gym it's hurting them in competition it's hurting them in life yeah i i think it you, it's hurting them in life. Yeah, I think it, you know, it's something I've actually looked at for quite a while. You know, and coming from my background, having endurance

training in it, you know, there's always been this, oh, well, you know, you know, you came in to CrossFit with this aerobic base and it's like, well, I came in to CrossFit actually doing high intensity work, a lot of it, but it was actually done in a manner that, you know, we were observing everything so that we weren't falling apart. And it's not that there's any problem with CrossFit in that manner. It's the fact that I think people gravitate largely in this world or even in the CrossFit endurance realm where they see an interval popped up on the, on the site, you know, twice a week and then a longer run. And it's like, I'm just going to blast out these things. And it's like, like well there's actually reason to doing these things and and they're they're they have a their substance to more substance to them than just blasting something out um and so we you

know in in doing a lot of the testing that we've done and a lot of research we've seen a ton of problems with aerobic capacity and this just so happens to be you know followed with i fucking hate running too and it's like well that's weird so how are you defining aerobic capacity and what does having problems with it mean well i i think having an aerobic uh ability so that that allowing you to you know within a testing spectrum like let's just say we did a VO2 max test and you're watching the VO2 test and the heart rate's jumping up and down and all over the place as it goes through what should be your aerobic threshold. That being said, once we get into something like your anaerobic threshold or past it, it's just being completely redlined at that point. And you just muscle your way through everything. Um, this, what, what I think, what I've seen is that largely not even doing a, a VO2 test, but more or less looking at something like a

deflection test and, and seeing the deflection markers actually of where the heart is actually changing, where you're seeing some cardiovascular changes that are happening in the body. And for people who've spent enough time in this, they know and they feel these things. Like the breathing changes through your aerobic threshold. The breathing then changes through your lactate threshold. The breathing then can change through going upwards of that. What does that breathing look like? You say it changes, but what's it change from? Desperation and business. I'm dying.

So you go from like belly breathing to chest breathing? Well, that depends. See, there's where we're starting to see mechanical problems is when we see people who actually even start running and don't even have, like they have mechanical issues to start. Let's just say somebody who's overextended who's got an anterior pelvic tilt they're not even using their diaphragm they're just using the rib cage they're just using the lungs to breathe so they're missing something so we know there's a mechanical issue um this can happen when you hit a threshold point as well where you'll just start to see and you'll nail if you've seen enough like and you guys are pretty damn educated so it's like you've done this stuff in school where you will see when somebody

hits that lactate threshold mechanics start to change into something else because i gotta get fucking comfortable because it's starting to get uncomfortable right that said it's you take in when you when you observe heart rate in that manner You're watching how this marker is moving through these places. And when it makes big jumps or does these deltas, it's like, whoa. And then it drops out again. And then we see another delta. And it's another high delta. Okay, there it is again.

And yet we haven't even, like, we're 140 beats in. Like, not anywhere near somebody's max. And then they take their heart rate up to 190. And it's like, oh, shit. Like, there's a problem there. Like, you know, you could actually be pushing yourself a lot further along if you actually had this aerobic capacity to handle that type of. They're probably at, like, 80%, and they're starting to dig into a different energy system. Oh, yeah.

So they're digging into a, you're getting off of the aerobic base that could take you even further, which just means that your workout is going to be, you're going to do, if you're doing it for time, it's going to take you a lot longer. Yes. And you're just going to hit walls where it's like, and we've all seen it. We've all probably been there. Hey, I start going hard, and then I have to stop, and my hands are on my knees, and then I start again, and then my hand's on knees.

And I'm like, fuck, I just can't get i i'm just i'm a mess right now so you're suggesting that people can't fix that problem of going hard during a metcon you got to stop take a break put your hands on knees and then jump back on the pull-up bar or whatever they can't fix that by just doing more metcons they have to do something that's more more specific or what are you saying not necessarily you actually probably could but let's think let's just take you know in one of the great analogies I like to use is Rich. Like, Rich understood this stuff from the get-go. Rich doesn't start off, like, in the blaze of glory.

No, he's like, where are you going? He's like, okay. Okay. I would say astonishingly reserved at the start. There you go. Almost like, what's going on? Yeah. He's too calm, eerily calm.

Like, I remember a couple years ago at regionals that it was like muscle-ups started everything. It was like something like 10 or something muscle ups That started this big huge chipper Or 20 muscle ups And Rich started everybody's just blasting through And he's just like one Two and the guys are like on five or six And I'm like

Dude these guys are going to fall apart They're peaking and then they're falling He's just even the whole time And then as it gets to the end he's's maxing out, but he's able to continue going. And this is what a lot of people don't understand. So back to your question or your point is, look, you can still do a Metcon, but if you're willing to take the time to understand where you need to pace this and how you need to pace this, that way you're not blasting through those levels or those ceilings and stopping or misunderstanding where you should be.

Right. You should never be anywhere close to redlining until like the last 30 seconds. Yeah, unless, of course, it's like something like, you know, a one-minute effort. Right. Hey. Where being reserved is not really part of the equation. It's just not part of the equation, dude. You know, most workouts, including something like Fran, which is being done in under two minutes by some of these top guys, it does require some, you can't just out of the gun go.

I think 15.5 was the greatest representation of what CrossFit actually is in a couplet. It's a push and it's a pull and it's the most classic thing that's ever been devised with inside that realm because people could it's like i'm gonna go run a mile you can get good at running a mile but if you're gonna do a mile but it's like reversed half a quarter of the way in and then you're gonna go back and then you're gonna go back and you're gonna go back that's where this thing tested fitness and we saw more people puking in 15.5 than we have in three or four years like we've heard it was 27 21 15 9 reps for time of rowing for calories and thrusters you know devastating right it's nasty. But getting people

like some of my athletes to understand we went over for the game plan. Dude, you start at about 80-85%. Start on that erg at 80-85% and maintain that so that you're not stopping and having to put the bar down.

Hitting failure is usually the worst idea during competition. If you're hitting failure, even if it's handstand push-ups, maybe it's not even an aerobic thing, you're hitting failure and then that time to recovery is going to be so much longer. Yeah, and I think the handstand push-up is a great analogy of where people blow it. Like, I'm just going to max out my handstand push-ups right now in this first round, and it's over. Like, I'm just going to max out my handstand pushups right now in this first round, and it's over. Like, I'm not going back up again now.

Yeah. Well. Gravity wins. Yeah, gravity won on that one. But, you know, I... Sure, sure. I was going to say, as we evolve and competition gets heavier and heavier and heavier, strength becomes more and more

and more of a focus. I was going to say, for you, do you get a lot of resistance with suggesting that aerobic capacity is really where people should be focusing? Do they come to you and say, well, of course you think that. You're the endurance guy. Of course you're going to tell me that. What do people say to you? I don't know that I – I've really – I know I've been saying for a long time. I'm like, look, if you can have men and women at fairly high levels on a national level for weightlifting in CrossFit,

but you've got 11 or 12-year-olds beating them in 5K and 10K times. And that's for real. Top-level junior high and even high school runners are blasting. And sure, they're incredibly specialized. I get it. But the fact is... both sides yeah but you're going to need to have that endurance capacity and we're finally starting to see that now where it's like look you're gonna have to get that to catch up and you know i'm even seeing with a lot of the athlete danielle haran who i've been working with for the last three years she is now finally really putting down an endurance

program where she's thoughtfully, okay, I need to do this and hold this specific marker versus I'm just going to go do this. What's a thoughtfully thought out program look like for endurance for like the functional fitness athlete, the CrossFitter? Depending on what they can handle, um, it's anywhere from three to five or six, even six days of endurance work. Now, what that entails is dependent upon the athlete, really. I, um, where I see the holes or where we see the this, you know, glycolytic state that doesn't, you know, she can't recover or he can't recover after some of these intervals? Or is it something more towards the lactate threshold? What is their even, what does their capacity even look like? Where are their deflection markers at? And these are things that, like, I like to test for, like, every four to six weeks. Hey, you're going through a test again.

Fuck. No. Come on, coach. No. What do these tests look like? A deflection test is simply just doing something on, like, let's just take a treadmill, for instance. We just take it, start it at, like, three, three and a half miles an hour

and bring it up half a mile an hour every minute and record the heart rate at the top of each minute. And you go until you can't go anymore. And then watch when things visibly break down, the wheels come off. And watch when you fall off the treadmill. You see what's happening there? The wheels are coming off. Yeah, we need to take a picture of the face at each one, too.

Minute one, minute two. Deflection face syndrome. It's always like, hey, just so you know, the first six or seven minutes of this is going to be pretty easy, but after that, shit's going to change. And that's exactly what happens is we just start to see things changing. And that's where we pick up those markers and go, Hey, here's where you're deficient right now. This is, we need to close the gap, you know, on your aerobic and anaerobic

thresholds here. Like when we have aerobic thresholds that are in the one twenties, and then you've got a lactate threshold at 140 and a max heart rate you know i'm just kind of tossing out there beats per minute heart rate yeah beats per minute heart rate and then you've got a max heart rate at 182 like that's a fucking problem it sounds like this could be as obvious as some people just rounding over during front squats i mean if you are that bad compared to what is considered good for aerobic base it's the easiest low lowest hanging fruit to make the biggest bang on your training. Yes, this is the physiology of, you know, basically front squatting

or whatever you want to talk about. Yeah, exactly. You can't be that far off what is considered good for just the run-of-the-mill person who's just running. Yes. Oh, God. Were those real numbers you just threw out there? No, but I mean, okay, so one of my athletes who we tested

probably uh four or five months ago we threw him in there and his his aerobic threshold was at uh 125 i think and lactate threshold was at 148, I believe. And he maxed. Did you test max heart rate on him too? We maxed him out right there. So we just kept going until he quit. And we maxed him out at about 185-ish. How old is he? Well, that's the thing is he wasn't recovered enough.

And that's the other thing is it's like what we're seeing with a lot of these athletes is it's like, hey, take a day off. Okay. They take a day off. Okay. They take a day off. They come in and they test. And it's like they can't. They're in the 90th percentile of their max heart rate, which is like, well, you can't even max right now. And you took a day off. Yeah.

And that is also indicative of I just want to train, train, train, train, train versus I want to absorb and train. They're training a lot in maybe the wrong energy system. And they probably need to spend a little more time in aerobic and then spend some more time in recovery. And a lot of this stuff has really been talked about in the past with other people where it's like, oh, you're just going to see all this burnout and all this stuff. And it's like, well, that's, yes, and that's what we are seeing. But I don't think that's ever been the intention of what CrossFit is.

And, in fact, we've seen high-level CrossFitters who get it and don't literally stay in that world of, I'm just going to lift heavy all week and not run, but I want to be a CrossFit athlete. And it's like, unfortunately, that's not going to work out with you the way you want to do it. But with that even said, it's like we could even take a powerlifter and even put him through something like this and go, look. You that even said, it's like we could even take a power lifter and even give him

like put him through something like this and go look. You point at me like it's going to happen. This is not going to happen. I've been talked into enough silly shit on this show. Okay. Hey. Hey. Now you're smiling which means the park is going to end up doing it.

You moved. You're in San Diego now. So it's like. Yeah. You know. But the fact is, is it's like, look, we're hearing things from guys like john wellborn and like a lot of these heavy lifting guys that are like fuck i'm now doing a little bit of cardio and i'm actually not only feel better but i'm lifting more what what is your official on that

point now i'm curious because like okay how much do i have to do this guy's talking my language if you promise to make me stronger i I guess my primate response is, okay, coach, tell me what to do. But where would you start with your best recommendation for a guy who's like, look, you have a big gap here. You can stand to work on this, but you can't just jump all the way in. You can't jump all the way in all the time. Yeah, I got you.

20 minutes on a stationary bike, just cruising. So I don't have to go anywhere. You don't have to go anywhere. Or get on your beach cruiser. 20 minutes, just easy peasy lemon squeezy. I'm just pedaling. And work that up every couple of weeks. Add another 20.

But here's one of the things we like to do, though. Recover between the 20-minute efforts. So stop, recover, get your heart rate down, low, start back up again. That way you're actually moving yourself through recovery and understanding if you are recovering quickly from this stuff. It's good to measure things so you know how it feels. Like some of the top athletes, they're so tuned in their bodies, they know when they need to take a day off.

They know when they need to not take it past 90% effort. They know all these things. But that's from, a lot of times, from pure experience. But also, you can get there quicker if you've measured at some point. That's kind of what you're talking about. Like, all right, we're going to measure the heart rate. This is what it feels like. You're like, oh.

So, like, a year later, you've been doing this. You don't have to look at the heart rate monitor to see, oh, I feel recovered or I know I need to settle down. If you've done enough of your homework and you've actually experimented enough, you start to understand what that feeling is when you're moving through these places and understanding, hey, how hard I need to go or how fast I actually go on these things. Go ahead. I'll just say, does that level of awareness really, once you get there, that's how you

know you're really developing to the next stage of being an athlete? Because you talked about Rich rich i think rich never consciously thinks about any of these things going on but he definitely has a genius of feeling exactly when to turn up or turn down i think that's ultimately the difference between an elite level athlete and the rest of us is their ability to feel they understand what that feeling is not being put on things intuitively knowing when the doll up yeah down. And that's like my wife, who absolutely knows when she can go hard and absolutely knows when she shouldn't and absolutely knows when she needs a day off. And she'll do more extra stuff than anybody.

And she's an okay athlete, right? She's decent. She's fair average. She's trained for the Olympics. She's fair average. And everybody knows she's trained for the Olympics. A big part of that is ego as well. She got one of those yellow medals.

So it's like... It's like the reason they can be so in tune is because they don't have ego masking that. A lot of times ego keeps you from being able to tune in your body because you're not having to live up to other people's expectations or your perceived expectations. Or your own limitations. I honestly think ego is the thing that will either stop you from being a better, higher-level athlete, and it will actually end a career, versus like, hey, I'm going to check myself right now. It's like anything. It's business. It's life.

It's your relationships with your significant others. It's like, dude, what are you trying to get out of this? You're suggesting we should check ourselves before we wreck ourselves? That's right. How do you know when things are out of balance and when you're doing things the wrong way? Where would you start? I think progression is ultimately the biggest key. Like, am I progressing?

But it's also like, okay, how well am I progressing? And am I just doing this just to do it or am I doing this to understand it? Is the progression sustainable and will it take me where I want to go? Exactly. And there's no reason why somebody shouldn't go follow some sort of a strength cycle to understand it and not it it it requires humility to understand hey i need to rest even though i really really want to try is an important thing i need to not based on what that guy's doing learning what is going to work for you because the book everything you read in the book might be the best case for most people most time like yeah 70 about the time

these what you can see but ultimately you have to be aware of what's going on with you exactly it takes time yeah absolutely and i think most of us aren't willing to look at that sometimes we're just not there you think it's tougher for uh to kind of feel that uh i guess that ceiling that you're you're hitting with endurance versus strength because strength's like i just can't put any more plates on the bar. It's very objective. And I've hit failures. It moved or didn't. It's like, you know, and then like me personally,

I can tell a huge difference in strength. I'm like very tuned into that. And then when it comes to more like aerobic activities, I'm a dummy. I think something like a linear strength program is a very easy thing to do, but so isn't a linear strength program is a very easy thing to do, but so isn't a linear endurance program. Now, how long did it take you to figure out how to utilize something like conjugate system? Well, yeah, I mean, it was 10 or 15 years of doing things

in a very linear, everyday being the same kind of workout thing. Then, yeah, it's when you're 20s. Now I'm close to 30, I think. That's when kind of you figure out, okay, here's how I can unlock what I need most. So quite a bit to get from linear here's what works for everybody squat press this 5x5 to

highly complex or at least novel combinations of things that seem to work better and that you won't find in a book anywhere no you will not find that and I think that's ultimately the goal in my opinion that is ultimately the goal of any athlete is to get to a point to understand that that doesn't any athlete is to get to a point to

understand that that doesn't mean you need to go squat a thousand pounds like Chris, but that does mean that if you are actually training, you should take a enough, uh, love for what it is you're doing to actually understand it to that degree. And if you're not, what the fuck, why are you doing it? Like, what's the point? You've only got a lifetime. You might as well make the journey enjoyable to understand why you're doing the things. Just one. Just one lifetime.

That's the biggest problem I run into is it's like, look, I deal with a shit ton of elite level athletes right now. That's great. That's fine and dandy. They've got ideal goals set in place that we're looking forward to in this next year. The rest of them, the whole lot of everybody has a life they're looking to live. And it's like, yeah. You look at yourself in the mirror when you're shaving. What you're chasing every day, is it really satisfying?

Are you really immersed in it as much as you could be? What are you getting out? It's like having a... If you're not going to do what you're saying in the gym, it's like having a job you're committing to for 30 years where every day you're showing up you're not really giving a shit you're just like well i got to the end of the day again boom yeah show up to the gym and i finished the workout going home now yeah there's only so much you can get out of that and i you're exactly right i think and we all fall into that to a degree because it's like hey

you know i i would think everybody's sitting this table right now or standing at this table right now is like hey we use training as a means for living a healthy lifestyle to deal with a lot of the day-to-day crap that we deal with. I was just on the phone yesterday with a good friend and somebody who I program for. And she's like, look, she runs a business. She has two kids. And I mean, she is type A hauling ass, like pedal to the metal. She's like, yeah, I was up. My resting heart rate's at 50 this morning.

She's like, it's usually low 40s. And I was coughing last night, like all night. Do you think I should train hard today? No, I don't. She knew the answer before she gave you the question. Absolutely. You know the answer. She goes, well, do you think my resting heart rate has anything to do

with me needing? I'm like, look, your heart resting heart rate is just a byproduct of what the fuck's really going on. That's all it is. It's just telling me that if you actually communicate with me, Hey, my resting heart rate's at 50, it's typically in the low forties. Yeah. That's an issue. We need to back off a little bit instead of going high intensity today, you should probably think about going lower intensity and cruising and feeling better versus just going out and slamming it just to get it done so that you think you can feel better about yourself.

So if someone was to track their heart rate, how much over their normal resting heart rate would you consider them to be fatigued or stressed or however you want to phrase it to where they should probably back off for that day. It's interesting to bring that up. We're kind of devising a little device to monitor people, and we're categorizing them into three different categories.

Let's take a break real quick, and we'll find out those three categories. Oh, cliffhanger. I wonder what category I'm in. Oh, God. This is Tim Ferriss, and you are listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Barbell Shrugged is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrugged.com and sign up for the newsletter.

And we're back with Brian McKenzie. And we're just about to get into these three categories. Let's not cover them. Let's talk about something else. No problem. What do you want to go? So three categories. Let's not cover them. Let's talk about something else. No problem. Where do you want to go? So three categories that we've basically found is you're either somebody who recovers incredibly well.

This would be Rich Froning. This would also be my wife, Erin, who literally goes to bed and wakes up and she can literally peg it, right, just every day. Then there's somebody who doesn't recover so well. You made eye contact with me, by the way. No, no, no. Then there's people like, you know. Not even. Anybody who's spotted as much as you have has to have some phenomenal ability, okay? That's not just somebody something somebody does at any rate it the the

other two categories are you're not responding as well you're somebody who's going to have an up and down heart rate and a more you know throughout the week even though the stressors aren't really changing and you've adapted to that and then you've got somebody who responds who's really poorly and this is somebody who's not going to be able to handle as much load or work all the time. And so the variables change for each athlete. And based on those scores, literally we'll deal with resting heart rate, SpO2, a tap test for your central nervous system. For women, we're looking at menstrual cycles because we do know that right around day 15, between day 10 and 15, we have great performances.

And then about day 18, things start to get a little cray-cray. What a political way of putting it. I've actually adjusted volume based on the cycle. Absolutely. It's like an automatic way to periodize. Absolutely. It just takes more work on the coach.

You can't plan as far out. Yes. I guess girls could probably use the app to trackize. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It just takes more work on the coach. You can't plan as far out. Yes. And I guess girls could probably use the app to track that with pretty good consistency. You know exactly how to build a training. We have stuff set up within our stuff where it's like, that's just part of the deal. It's like when they enter it,

it's like once it hits that day 18, guess what? The marker's dropping. But somebody like Aaron, that marker doesn't drop it as much. But somebody like, you know, if we had another athlete who isn't another athlete who's a poor responder,

it's like, boom, that's a five-point drop. So whatever we had to have them do today, it's like, okay, we may need to back her off just a tad. But the central nervous system, we actually have people doing the tap test, which between that and mood, those are the biggest changers. I think mood is actually the number one predictor of anything. the tap test, which between that and mood, those are the biggest changers. I think mood is actually the number one predictor of anything. So on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best mood. It's telling you where your mind's at.

Yeah. Hard to quantify. You just ask them how you feel? It's on the thing. It's like from a scale of 1 to 10, where are you at with your mood when you wake up in Well, it's okay if it's qualitative because whatever they're telling you is where their mind's at. Exactly.

First seven days, we get an average of qualitative because whatever they're telling you is where their mind's at. Exactly. For seven days, we get an average of what it is they're at. We understand where they're at and the system's learning off of that, including the coach. Speaking of heart rate indicating recovery, you mentioned a minute ago, you gave an example like 20 minutes on a stationary bike and then you can add 20 minutes

at some point, but you wanted or suggested that we recover between the 20- sessions you guys track how how fast you can get your heart rate from you know from 160 down to 120 or whatever it is yep um and then actually part two to this question is you can answer both at the same time i know like 10 years ago used to be really popular popular for people to do intervals say i'm running 200 meter sprints or 400 meter sprints and then instead of saying you're going to rest three minutes or you're going to do it every, every six minutes on six minutes or whatever. Do you,

yeah. Do you wait until your heart rate monitor says you're back at one 20 before you run your next interval? You guys ever experimented with that? I have, I have. Well, uh, what was the first part?

Uh, the first part was just, do you, do you use, um, heart rate recovering as an indicator of that actually parlays right into even the recovery stuff that we're doing on a daily basis to where we want to track how long

it's taking them to recover. I have specific standard workouts for the week that we'll have with athletes where I'm having them actually time their recovery just like we're timing whatever distance or something they're doing. Because I want to see those... It's like they have to compete against themselves. It's like there's a race for them.

Oh, dude, this is all like... Mark Devine's really moved into this world, especially with a lot of the stuff he's doing. You guys have done a lot with that. It's amazing. He's spot on. And we literally, getting the athlete to understand this allows them to really deal with the heart rate variability

shit that people are smoked on. And when they really get into that state of i just need to relax right now and control this like and they can't they start to learn that process whatever that whatever they have to go through internally in order to do that but that really plays into the recovery stuff is because the one two or three score the person who's taking the longest to recover from specific intervals versus the person who's a one, it's like the person who's a one, that heart rate just drops. Like McGill and Doreen, who's arguably one of the greatest cyclists who's ever rode, when he would do the Tour de France, there was these rumors that floated around that he would go and do something like the Alpe d'Huez or whatever climb he did, pegged, just literally maxed out climbing. He'd get off his bike, and within a minute, his heart was down at 50.

Whoa. It's just an amazing recoverability process. And Aaron's a lot like that, and I would assume, I only know because I coach and still work with Aaron, but I would assume Rich is exactly that same way too. You look at the personality personality how they deal with stuff that is very like any person

that's the archetype can you give us an example of you know you get your heart rate up to like 170 what are you measuring what's good

how long should it take what's a good score I guess to get back down under 100 what's the different heart rate you're looking at

and then what's a good time? So I've been working with Starrett. He's going to do the Molokai to Oahu. He's 235. He's 235 pounds. Oh, he's a big boy. He's a big boy.

Doing a race that's 32 miles across the Hawaiian Ocean is no fucking joke. So starting him on a lot of this stuff, it's like he gets his heart rate up to 160, 170. How long does it take you to get your heart rate down? Well, it just kind of sticks at 115, bro. It won't go. And that's the reality of people who tend to be bigger and they bring themselves up like that. It's like, no, we need to actually develop you cardiovascularly more

so that you can actually get that recoverability going. He responds really well to endurance training, doesn't he? Oh, yeah. He's an aerobic responder. Yeah, and he's having phenomenal results. He has a huge base with that kind of training. Absolutely. Let's talk about that whole thing when we get done with this.

Yeah. So we actually, with Kelly, and I'll just use him as an example, it's like, look, we started him using 120 as the marker versus I've got athletes like Aaron, we're 99. The moment you hit 99, you go again. Aaron can hit 99 quicker than most athletes that I work with, you know, that hit 120. It's just a dropout and she's ready to go and we go again. And that's just telling me she's basically 100% ready to go recovered for the the next interval, versus, oh, we're just going to wait three minutes. There's a variable difference.

Now, for general type programming, we would give a number, like, hey, we'll start with a three-to-one. We'll go to three-to-one, or we'll go to a six-to-one. It's generalizing, and that works for the average person. But if you're wanting to compete at an elite level, now you've got to whip out the heart rate monitor. Yes, sir. Well, I don't even know necessarily that there's too much heart rate monitor yes sir yeah well i i don't even know

necessarily that there's too much heart rate monitoring that has to happen with elite level athletes once we've got once you've gotten them to understand these things where i actually think if you actually care enough about what it is you're doing as just a general athlete or somebody who's training to keep themselves healthy it would behoove you to actually use a heart rate monitor for a little while so that you actually have an understanding to correlate a feeling with, oh, this is what maxed out is. And once you're seeing the number, you're focusing more there. Then once your focus is on what your heart is doing, then you're paying attention to

how you feel. And then all of a sudden, you're more aware of what the hell is going on. Then pretty soon, you can ditch that thing. This is true. And then the flip side of that, unfortunately, and this is one of the problems I was running into early on within developing CrossFit Endurance was glued to the heart rate monitor. I can't go any harder because I'm going to max out. This is my 90%.

And it's like, dude, if you were going to fucking max out, you wouldn't be talking to me right now. It reminds me of if you're lifting weights and you say, I was supposed to do this number. So regardless of how I feel, I'm sticking with that. Exactly. Well,

today's an opportunity to maybe do more. Oh no, you can't be glued to whatever the paper said. Yeah, exactly. You're here now.

All right, so what does it mean to be an aerobic responder? So interestingly enough, in bringing up Starrett being an aerobic responder, here's a guy who's 235 pounds who used to weigh 170 and was a world-class kayaker.

Like literally the guy was like – Wow. I didn't know that. I didn't know he was that light. Oh, yeah. I think he has a lot of poofy hair in the 80s or 90s. Yeah. A lot of Van Halen playing in the rowing training center.

And he got himself up to about a 600-pound squat. I mean he was legit. Yep. I mean he could lift heavy. He still can. He still – and he was legit uh yep i mean he was he lifted heavy he could lift heavy he still can he's still and he was a big big proponent of it but he was like dude i just had my genes tested uh that was like the next thing i want to bring up yeah he's like uh i'm an aerobic responder i'm like makes sense he's like what the fuck how am i where am i how have i progressed the way i have and i'm well, because you actually removed anything aerobic

and stuck with everything that would be based on anaerobic, which is why you've also found it hard. But now it's like, this is also why you did well as a world-class water guy. This was what you were really good at. So you're actually, with the aerobic response, somebody like Kelly, he can get a lot more aerobic training and he will maximize his VO2 potential. Whatever that VO2 potential means, it doesn't really matter to me. What matters is performance. You can do a bunch of cardio and get really good at cardio way easier than I can.

Exactly. Where if you're a power endurance or a power endurance responder, you're somebody who's going to do real well at high intensity intervals with big recoveries or even little recoveries and taking more time off to bounce back. You're going to maximize your potential that way. So literally you're going to have. Profoundly changes your approach to training. Yeah. God. Be like a good hockey player. You got it. Yep. Like 45 seconds, hard as you can come off, recover,

go back out hard as you can. Again, you can keep doing that all day long. I am a power responder and I, I've known this my whole life though. It's like I swam competitively for roughly 20 years, you know, and it was, I cheated every practice because there was no way I was swimming the entire practice for like two hours. No, I go underwater. I'm going back and smoking a cigarette folks. And yet I was usually the fastest guy on the team. I was the top sprinter on the team. And, and it's like, well, how do you do that? And it's like, well, because you are resting in your response, you know, that's what happens. I'm not advising, that's what we all do, but it's like, you can pick up on these things if you actually pay attention enough.

What are they testing in this test again? Where can someone get genetically tested for this? The company that I use is called DNA Fit, and there's one more, I can't remember the name of it, but that was the one star I used, but I used DNA Fit, and I actually had mine, and they give you, you can get

a nutrition gene tested,, you can get a nutrition genes tested and you can get your fitness genes tested. You swab your cheek or something and send it? Yeah, you swab your cheek, send it in, and they test it and send it back. These are your genes. These aren't going to change much, right? You are stuck with your genes. We're all stuck with our genes, unfortunately.

And there's a way to maximize it. Not everybody's going to. That doesn't mean you need to just go train aerobically. It's like it would benefit me based on these markers to train 60% of the time within a power endurance place versus 40% at just typical aerobic work. It's important to know because if you don't know this key bit of information or you're not reading the, maybe you don't have to have the test,

but maybe you can recognize these cues pretty quickly because you go, okay, that sounds like me. Then now you have an explanation for why you feel like you're continuously going against this invisible wall

and training like this well-reasoned plan. Why am I not responding like this guy? Yes, but it's also why a guy like you who might just be an aerobic responder like us well look look could it be not not just everybody then my inner fat kid gets that's not the reality that can't be true but somebody like starrett who lifted heavy enough and that's what he was doing and he's like this is this is my world this is where i believe this is where i live this is what i am and it's like wait a. Why have I found it hard breathing?

So, you know, like he could have added potentially more aerobic or cardiovascular work into his training and he would have benefited more. Might have gotten stronger. Might have gotten stronger. When you say the heart rate kind of is stalled coming down, is that like in the highest level sense? Your body is being very alarmed by the increased aerobic man. Yeah, stressor, I believe. You know, from my understanding, it's just stressors.

The body's unable to let go and really... It's like in your case, your wife, she's highly skilled at recognizing, ah, here we go again. Effort's over. Cool. Throw down the engines. She's this highly efficient skill

for like coming back down. Yeah, she's a freak because Aaron's way of dealing with stress is to sleep. If she's upset, if there's something emotionally going on, I'm not joking. Sometimes you're talking over dinner,

she'll just get up and go to bed like, oh, I'm out. I'm out. And she's like, no. But it's like, I mean, there would be times like when we were training for London, it was like things got rough. Things got brutal with training.

And it's like, you know, the littlest things would set her off. And it was like things got rough. Things got brutal with training. And it's like the littlest things would set her off. And it was like things got emotional. And it's just like, I'm going to bed. And she would literally be asleep in five minutes. Because her body, you know, training is the only thing she's thinking about. Most people do the opposite. They're like, I can't sleep. I'm stressed out.

That's what I am. And so I'm not that type one where it's like we've got that. I'm more like that two, three where I'm a type A, going 100 miles an hour, got 100 things going on, and it's like, oh yeah, this is why my heart rate won't drop or I'm having trouble keeping my fucking, like my resting heart rate should be a little bit lower,

but it's not. Are there any techniques people can use to try to move from three, two, one? Yeah. Quite honestly, I think and I brought up the Mark Devine thing and that's probably been

the biggest influencer on me in the last year is more or less meditation and breathing. I do a specific breathing protocol that Laird and I really have gotten into in the last, so I've been hanging Laird Hamilton and I have been really doing a lot. famous surfer the famous surfer and uh little bit of a hero it's been just a revolutionary thing that we've really like for us in in really developing as

like that's been the biggest thing i've done in the last year and i've been training just the same and I've seen my heart rate go from low 60s to high 40s and I'm not doing much different like other than the breathing and meditation and that's and the way I'm dealing with things too is like I take it in and I'm like oh I don't need to really react to that right now I need to absorb that and think about it versus like, bam, bam, bam. What do you think is the simplest breathing and meditation practice

a common athlete could implement in their training? I think that box, the stuff that Mark does, I actually use that. The box breathing? Yeah,

I actually use that when I'm trying to recover between intervals because if you guys haven't put a heart rate monitor on when you do that, when you hold the breath and then exhale,

I can feel it. Bro, your heart rate goes like this. Well, your consciousness changes too. You get a calming, overwhelming sense of clarity like, oh, I know exactly what I should do now when I open my eyes again. That's a really powerful effect. Yeah, the stuff that I'm doing is more of a kind of a CO2 scrubbing

where we're actually drawing in a very deep breath and then getting it all out and then repeating that all out and then repeating that over about 30 to 40 breaths and then going into an exhale and breath holding for anywhere between you know 90 seconds to three or four minutes and on an exhale on an exhale yeah the first time i did this i held my breath for about 56 seconds and then i've gotten the best i've done is about four four minutes and three seconds. But you know, if you try to hold your breath, and you instantly go into panic,

what do you think's happening all the time when you even get any kind of stress in life, but also obviously in a gym? Yeah. What do you think's crushing your performance? It's not like your periodization approach. No. It's the fact you're freaking out.

Yeah. Panic breathing and whatever. It's literally your breathing. And this is also, ironically, what we've been really looking into from a mechanical standpoint. Like I brought up in the beginning about, Oh, we've got a runner who's got an anterior tilt. So they're overextended and then they're trying to run and they just continue to run. But yet they don't even know how their diaphragm works because the diaphragm does not work in that position. Oh, guess what?

You don't know how to breathe. Let me show you something, which is also why I gravitated towards that training mask. You know, it's like, dude, I literally, we put that thing on and it was like, people were like. Darth Vader. Yes, they look like Darth Vader. But the fact is, is it's forcing that diaphragm to get into position. So you change positionally. It'll change you mechanically.

You're just changing that mechanic. I never thought about it like that. Never was. Does it change the drawing harder and this changes your behaviors around breathing? Yeah, because. So what you're saying is all connected. It's totally connected. But even it's like we do this mobility work and it's like, oh, I can't breathe in this position where I'm trying to mobilize.

And it's like, no, why? Because your breath is restricted because you're not in a biomechanical position to be doing that. So you need to figure out how to get your breathing involved and do that. I've noticed a big difference. I've been using Jill Miller's yoga tune-up balls. Yep. And just light smashing. Yeah, first thing in the morning, getting that purple, courageous ball and breathing into that.

I mean, just the simple thing of breaking up the diaphragm. You go, I'll roll up my thighs, but never think about your internal organs getting nasty and affecting your breathing or whatnot. Never consider chest mechanics. You think weightlifting mechanics or running mechanics, pose. I feel like I can get a lot more air in after doing that. It was shocking after the first time I was like,

I feel more open. Yeah. I will use this training mask. We'll do interval work, After the first time, I was like, feel more open. Yeah. Yeah. I will use this training mask. Like, we'll do interval work, but I don't have people using it when they're running or they're working. They throw it on when they're recovering. Oh. And we're seeing speedier times through recovery because you're automatically forcing a deeper breath to draw that diaphragm in. You hyperventilate.

You freak out with that thing. Exactly. Yeah, but it is a bit of a freak out when you that diaphragm in. You hyperventilate. You freak out with that thing on, I guess. Yeah, but it is a bit of a freak out when you first start using it because you're like, oh, shit, I can't get air in. And it's like, well, yeah, you're going to need to really draw that in. And it's chill out, bro. So you have to forcefully inhale and forcefully exhale? Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah. Is that similar to Boss Rutan has that O2 trainer? Is it similar to that? Very, yeah. Well, I know that he was saying when he was on the show a year, year and a half ago, like the difference with

what he was doing was for like asthmatics and people that actually have deconditioned muscles, diaphragm included, they would actually be trained because you were forcefully bringing it in

and forcefully breathing it out, which was subtly different than some of the other masks on the market. I'm not an expert in that category at all, but how is the mask that you're using? I just posted, I reposted the gal on my Instagram feed who was very skeptical, who followed our stuff, but very skeptical, and she's an asthmatic. And she literally finally went out and bought it because I had talked about the breathing mechanics and she had asked,

do you think this would help me with my asthma? And I said, I'm not going to tell you it's going to help you with your asthma, but I'll tell you what, if you're not willing to fucking experiment with this, you're never going to know. She went out and bought it and was like, dude, I can breathe.

Nice. And that's just, that's what I think the beauty of this training mask actually is. Where people are like literally using it for everything and going out on these really long runs or working out all day in it. And it's like, okay,

but really just get your breathing mechanics. The mechanic. A tool for treating breathing dysfunction is less than a super cool novel thing you can add to make your endurance training more intense. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's a profoundly different way of looking at it.

That's also what's happening with inside the spectrum of we're pushing too hard or I'm going like a bat out of hell and I don't understand pacing. Oh, let's throw this mask on. This will slow you down. It's funny how one of the most important things you can add to your training is a tool not to speed you up but to slow you down.

Starrett and I recently just did we had to redo our level ones and so we did the level one and there's a workout that typically happens they do now do the burpee thruster workout and our goal with each other was so he counted my reps and i counted his he's like here's the deal you can only breathe through your nose the entire time that's it and so that was the goal. And I was easily nowhere near being one of the fittest people in that room. There were 60 people, right?

And we did it, and I literally finished, I think, third in that workout by breathing through my nose. And that's just a testament to, oh, if I'm actually breathing and I'm not blowing it out and having to stop and understand, just pace it. I'm not the fittest. I'm going to try that on trail runs. I do a trail run,

like a 45-minute to an hour trail run once a week right now, and I think I'm going to try the breathing just through my nose on my next trail run to see how it goes. I'll send you guys a mask. I'll tape your mouth shut. I'll send you guys a mask. I'll tape your mouth shut.

I'm videoing him passing out on the trail. It's working. Podcast host who passes out falls into a cliff while doing trail run.

Yeah. I did a handstand next to a cliff in Peru a couple days ago. I saw a picture of that. Freaked out everyone

that was there. Just seeing people running from him like they were going to get hurt. Yeah, people were like, like they were going to get hurt. Yeah, people were like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's me.

Why are you guys panicking? Look, everybody, I'm so fit. Relax. Come on. Can't you see these abs? Yeah. Look at them. They're so defined.

Uncle D can go on these abs. Wow. All right. Let's wrap this up. Ryan, where can people find you? Instagram and Twitter at IamUnscared. Athletesell.com, CrossFitEndurance.com, and, of course, 3Fuel. TraceFuel.

We've talked about that before. TraceFuel, TraceL. Yes. Look in the show notes on barbellshort.com for all the links, folks. Yes. Thank you. Good being here. Thanks for coming on the show.

Cheers, man. All right, awesome.