Barbell Shrugged - The Science of Sleep and Recovery w/ Dr. Allison Brager, Anders Varner, Travis Mash and Doug Larson #821

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

In this episode, neuroscientist and U.S. Army sleep expert Dr. Allison Brager joins Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash to explore the real science behind sleep, recovery, and wearable technology. They discuss which devices actually deliver useful data, such as the Oura Ring for sleep tracking and Garmin for cardiovascular measurements, and why being consistent with one tool is more important than chasing perfect accuracy. Dr. Brager explains how wearables are now being used in place of sleep labs in both clinical and military settings to help athletes and operators make better recovery decisions. The conversation dives into practical ways to improve sleep and recovery for anyone pushing performance limits. Dr. Brager describes how sleep apnea can affect even lean, muscular athletes, with studies showing that more than half of Division I football players meet criteria for sleep apnea or insomnia. Just three nights of only five hours of sleep can cut testosterone levels in half. The group also discusses how vagus nerve stimulation, infrared light therapy, and temperature-controlled mattresses such as Eight Sleep can help the body relax, lower stress, and improve sleep quality, especially when used before bed or after long travel. They close by breaking down real-world strategies for recovery and training. Short 20- to 30-minute naps during the afternoon improve alertness, and caffeine can be used strategically during travel to reduce fatigue. Training is most effective when aligned with the body's circadian rhythm, with evening workouts often producing better strength results, while morning training can work after a few months of adjustment. Whether you are a soldier, athlete, or business leader, this episode is about using data, structure, and recovery habits to perform better and stay healthy over the long term. Outside of the laboratory, Allison was a two-time CrossFit Games (team) athlete, a two-time CrossFit Regionals (individual) athlete, and a four-year varsity NCAA Division I athlete in track and field. Dr. Brager has an Sc.B. in Psychology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Physiology from Kent State University Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Dr. Allison Brager on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Welcome to Bob Elstrug. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Dr. Allison Brigger. She's got an aura ring right there. We're going to be talking about neurotechnology, brain and science, all the things, all in one. Plus, I'm holding my aura ring. I'm sure this thing's going to tell me. You're a sleep doc up at West Point. Do you want to hear my weirdest thing why I haven't charged my or ring in at least three months? Because I really believe, God, audience is going to love this. I have a real belief that it what you see on your screen is like 4% of what eight sleep and aura and Fitbit and all these things are actually tracking what I think is actually tracking is they have the most global or at least national database of like human sex lives like all of these like really weird things that

like nobody talks about. But you could go to any of these companies and be like, well, that guy's heart rate got really weird there for like eight seconds. But there was no one next to him in bed. Now we know a lot of things about that person. There's an enormous amount of data that like nobody talks about and isn't on your dashboard, but they know. Oh, they know. I think Woop has, though. I remember seeing a post on Woop. It was like five or six months ago about, right, their user data of like having sex or I don't know if they like logged it into their journal or not but then they looked at like you know post-coital sleep after after sex and how it was better. They don't publish that. If I remember correctly, I could be wrong by this.

But I think they said after sex, people slept better. But after masturbation, they didn't. It was something like that. There was some unique nuance there that I was like, oh, this is this is kind of this is great data. Well, I mean, that makes sense psychologically too. right like everyone wants a real thing you know i'm just saying yeah oh mash is coming in at the at the perfect time here oh mash you you're here at the perfect time buddy we're we're talking about sex and masturbation there you go that's my favorite topics i can't sleep you wear an aura ring do you wear an

or a ring i don't i know i don't i wear that's the garment i i open this just thinking about how many weird how much weird data you could get on a person's life by constantly tracking them with one of these rings that like isn't on the dashboard like your HRV no one's worth kidding that's not deep data deep data is like what goes on in your bedroom from 10 o'clock to 3 a.m or 6 a.m or whatever that's that's the weird stuff that that they know disturbing shit if you could give you some my bedroom are you actually are you actually worried that they have that data on you or you I mean it's it's funny it's all jokes for the show but like do you actually have some concern that they have your your sex like data or

or any other data that, I'm like eliminating all of it. Like I find zero value in them telling me that I got another 83 sleep score. And my HRV is exactly the same as it always is. Well, you have one in a million then. Huh? Not everybody's got that lucky to have the same HRV. Yeah.

Yeah. You're actually, you're going to be a thousand. Actually, I hear, I'm throwing this to Allison right now. like so I don't have any any um wearables on me at the moment but I do have an aura and a whoop and have an eight sleep and I sleep on a sleep number mattress and so it's like at times and I've had more than that in the past like at times I have like three or four or five different ways to measure often the same things. HRV and heart rate and sleep time and time of sleep and whatever else like and the numbers

never match like nope. Yeah. We can definitely talk about that and why that is. Yeah. Talk through that. Yeah. So we actually, to be honest, I don't wear anything anymore either because I feel like I've tried each and everyone enough that at the end of today, like my own conscientiousness of my behavior and my mood and energy at the beginning of the day has been able to match like what these values are provided by garment or a whoop, etc. but we actually in the government did head-to-head comparisons of all the commercial wearables,

mostly so we could select the best one for sleep and the best one for cardiovascular fitness. And so basically we roll these devices up into a kit and there's this whole program now that's funded through Congress to essentially use wearables to help soldiers, sailors, airmen, et cetera, make decisions based on physiological data and then also Space Force. Instead of doing a PT test, which I'm going to, you know, personal opinion I do have issues with. I think you should have a PT test. But in lieu of a PT test, they're basically looking at your weekly strain on a whoop or

a garment, et cetera. So that's why we did head-to-head comparisons. And it turns out, like, if you want to compare sleep data to a gold standard sleep study, the device that has been shown time to time again to produce the best validity is the aura ring. And then for cardiovascular fitness, like compared to the gold standard of having right the polar chest strap, it's the Garmin watch or the polar watch. And again, there are still variations in the. those compared to traditional sleep study or say, you know, you did a full eight lead EKG.

But to your point, like I can tell you between eight sleep, Garmin, aura, whoop, Fitbit, even your Apple Watch, there's going to be a huge spectrum of variation. Does it really matter that much as long as they're consistent day to day? If all you're really trying to figure out is if you're if you're unrecovered or or you need more sleep or whatever it is, as long as it's consistent day to day for you to make decisions, does it matter if it's 5% less accurate than the gold standard, whatever that is? From a practical standpoint? Most of them are pretty good about that reliability, right, that day-to-day consistency.

So that is a fair point. But if you want something, because they're even going into these devices now for like clinical reasons, like instead of putting people in a sleep clinic because a lot of sleep clinics are oversaturated, which, right, that's a great first world problem to have. Like, people are, like, actually legitimately concerned about their sleep now. But instead, sometimes people are just going home with these devices in lieu of a sleep study. So it depends, like, yeah, if you want it for, like, your own performance, into individual performance changes, right?

I don't think the device matters, as long as you use it consistently in the same way every night, right you always keep it on the same finger or the same wrist um but if you want like actual clinical measures especially for people who are interested in doing blood work and other more comprehensive things around longevity then you want something that's more clinically accurate in my opinion yeah it's our understanding that or is generally the most accurate which is why we have everyone at rapid use oras and then we do do sleep size with people whenever we feel that they're needed but yeah but i was also wondering for anyone out that this already has these other devices if It's kind of like having a scale that's off by four pounds.

It still tells you if you're gaining a losing weight, and that's kind of really why you want the scale in the first place. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the Artei program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garland and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives,

and frankly, anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best. Arte is not a normal coaching performance. program. It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre-imposed pictures. Arta is something completely different. Arate is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchors, and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person, but rather a full team of elite professionals, each with their own special expertise to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan. Artee isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about

unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best, physically and mentally, when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit Arteelab.com. That's a R-E-T-E-Lab.com. Now, back to the show. You mentioned the sleep studies. Like, when does somebody need an actual sleep study versus just wearing a wearable and that's good enough? So really like the major issue is you try to do all these things, right? You get yourself wearable. You try to implement a sleep schedule. You, right, invest in an eight sleep or a sleep number.

You do all these things to work on your sleep hygiene and it's still not enough. And you still are having issues. When you wake up in the morning, you do not feel refreshed. Like even if you're getting seven, eight hours, nine hours of sleep and you still feel exhausted like you haven't slept, then that's the tell-toll side that, okay, it's probably time for a sleep study. And normally, in that case, it's along the lines of sleep apnea, insomnia, or a combination of the two. Of course, just like in the military, in medicine, we came up with a fancy term for that. It's called comisca, so comorbid sleep apnea and insomnia. That's a majority

of what we see actually in athletes, not just in like military personnel, but athletes. And a lot of it has to do with like anthropometric structural features, right? We carry so much muscle around our neck and our chest that, of course, it's going to make it more difficult to breathe that night. And if you don't have the complementary strong diaphragm to take those deep breaths, then you're going to have issues when you sleep. I mostly associate sleep apnea with being with being overweight or like obese, et cetera. But if you're just big in general, regardless of muscle mass versus fat, like if you're a big

bodybuilder and you're lean, you still have sleep apnea issues just because you're physically bigger regardless where it's coming from. Yeah. So that's what we've been finding. So about 10 years ago, this paper came out in the journal Strength and Conditioning Research. We did a comprehensive assessment of risk for sleep disorders in Division I football players. This is mostly in like the D.C. Maryland area. And we found that like greater than 60% of Division I football players, right?

So they're very extremely healthy, strong, healthy men between 18 and 22 years old. Greater than 60% of them already fit the diagnosis for sleep apnea and or insomnia just because of their sheer size. And I'm sure it's the same in the weightlifting community too, right? of the anthropometric benefits of having that mass for moving late. Right now, I'm super lean, but I can tell that I'm starting to have, like, you know, sleeping issues again, you know, a little bit. So not snoring as bad as, you know, like, when I'm too, when I was at my peak in power the thing, when I'm way 240, like, it was, it was a big deal. And so, but now I'm going to in the hypertrophy phase. so I'm 220 and it's definitely

it's definitely affecting me now. So I'm going to work again and a sleep study before the end of the year. Okay. Just a sec, check it out. Well, I appreciate that, Travis. I mean, when I saw you last at Summer Strong,

you look good. Oh, thanks. That looks really good. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to look like... Don't I mean. Don't you dare qualify yourself. Work hard. You look great, man.

I've been working super hard, but now I really want to push this field to make. and like just to get the last little bit. So they follow this Dr. Adia guy, this guy who's like the guru dude for longevity. Anyway. Atia? Atia.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was just on 60 minutes doing a rock workout or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like that's what you, I feel like at Rabbit is what we're basically doing.

All this stuff. Yeah. He said we don't charge, you know, he charges even more. Yeah. He's pretty generous, though, too. I said he's pretty generous with his time, though, too, even though if he charges a lot. Yeah. If I charge $100,000, I'd be generous, too. I think it's more than that.

It is more than that. He said, it is more than that. Oh, is it? Yeah. It's it's up there. You, before we were on the show, you pulled up some new, cool device. I'd love to understand any of the, like, new, technology that's coming out. And specifically, what were you holding that looks super, super cool? Oh, so this is, where is it?

I put it away. Oh, God, something else to buy. So this is some stuff that's been coming out. I'll show you all my cool tech that we've been getting. And this stuff is like commercially available too. So one thing that's come out is Vegas nerve stimulation. Have you ever heard of those devices? So like they've been using those.

in more tactical training situations, right? Because if you think about jumping out of the airplane, especially free fall, right? You're repeatedly doing this, especially in a training environment or even doing like recon stuff, anything of, you know, flavor, special operations or tactical training.

It helps just quickly ramp down your sympathetic nervous system tone to a more parasympathetic state. So there is a device where, you put it like right here and it stimulates it right for about two minutes and you do that a few times a day. But then there's other devices like this. This one's from Canada. It's the same concept. You put it around here, right, get it close to the vagus nerve. And it also is integrated with infrared light. So this idea of reducing inflammation, but then also driving down your sympathetic tone. And then there's other things. Where do you?

do I buy something like that. Yeah. You can buy this that's commercially available. So, yeah, what's it called? So this company, this is out of Canada. This company, it's called V-Lite. There you go. V-I-E-Lite.

Cool. Yeah, but one of the other companies we've been working with in the past, they have an FDA device that's used for like things like anxiety and depression, but then they also have this tactical device. It's called TAC-STIM. It's pretty cool. their company logo is, I think, very impressive. So wait, again, cycle back to the beginning here.

Like, why are we talking about this? What's the benefit of these devices? Why would you want to use these or look them, look further into them, rather? Why is the matter? You're worried about his vagus nerve. I know, but the audience doesn't know what a vagus nerve is. What is all that? Yeah, we got high level there really quickly, right?

So the Vegas nerve is the rest recovery response of the nervous system. So it's the opposite of fight or flight. And the vagus nerve, like the main bulbous note of it is like right behind the skin right here, sort of near your carotid. So if you're stimulating the vagus nerve, it's going to elicit a rapid rest and recovery response in the body. So think about like the benefits of a cold plunge or meditation or mindfulness, like all those recovery, obviously sleep, right? using this device over time to ramp down sympathetic tone will as a second order effect

increase and improve your sleep time and sleep quality because of being in a more parasympathetic rest recovery state. So you would want to use these directly? That's all right. So you don't want to use these directly before going to bed as an example? So you can because if you think about someone who, right, goes on. on and on throughout their day doesn't really take time to mentally reset and just jumps right into bed, right? They don't have a sleep hygiene routine. They just jump right into bed. Something like

this could be the difference between a great night of sleep and a poor night of sleep. So that's one of the use cases for it outside of like using it during like, you know, high intensity training situations. So if someone can't sleep and or they're, just under recovered for whatever reason or they have high anxiety these are all potential reasons to to buy one of those units the light or others no i think uh absolutely you know i know right we've talked a lot about like contrast therapy as like you know the new uh i guess tactic of the sleep revolution but um you have to be careful with doing things like contrast therapy before bed because you don't want to be overly jacking up or ramping down your poor body temperature quickly.

But something like this where you're coaxing the nervous system into a rest state is different than changing your core body temperature, right? Because changing your core body temperature takes time and there's a compensatory physiological response, whereas just ramping down your nervous system, right? it's just going to ramp it down. Wait, so are you a fan of, you know, hot shower, hot bath, sauna, that type of thing, like raising body temperature intentionally to get that compensatory response prior to bedtime. That way your body temperature comes down and then you fall into a state of sleep. Yeah, so I am, but to an extent, right? You don't want to like take it as an opportunity to do a 45 minutes sauna session, right?

like I would keep it at 15 to 20 minutes because of the compensatory cooling effect when you get into bed, just like eight sleep, how it has the cooling function. It's a quick biohack to help get your core body temp down. And same with the shower, right? A five to seven minutes hot shower is better than, you know, being in the shower for like 15 minutes or so unless you're doing other things in this shower that, you know, your aura ring is like picking up and stuff. But, you know, that's different.

that elevated heart rate, it's going to get you. Actually, so here on the compensatory response piece again, I've wondered about this. I can make an argument for this either way. With eight sleep, which I love and I use every day, like I like to go to bed with it on a pretty dang cold. I'm like a, it's like a scale one to ten for coldness.

I'm like a negative five, negative seven sometimes, which is pretty cold. My wife, you know, she's the opposite. She wants it to be like a plus two. Yeah. Do you get a compensatory response with that? if I'm laying on a cold mattress, is my body then trying to heat itself up and that causes a problem? Or my body just is cold regardless of where the cold's coming from. And so now I'm cold and

so it's easier to fall asleep. So I feel like you're what I feel like Darcy's doing it right? Because yeah, like it. So by keeping it cold, well, there's a sweep spot, right? If you have it too cold, what's going to happen? Your body's going to want to warm up. If you have it. have it too hot, your body's going to want to cool down. So if you have it right at a at a neutral level, then it's going to keep it stable. But who knows, maybe you run hot when you sleep. I do. If it's on plus two, I'm just sweating and I get to kick all the blankets off me and there's no way I'm falling asleep. So I guess the negative five or whatever for me, like, I don't know, I don't know the rationale, but it is my sweet spot. That's like that's where I feel

most comfortable on it and I fall asleep the best so I just I just fall in real world I just keep it there but I will say between men and women like women we tend to like not run as hot as men which makes sense right you're going to have a higher basal metabolic rate so you're going to produce more heat if anything there's just less fighting over the thermostat and that's well worth the purchase oh yeah for sure like all these things are definitely yeah I totally understand You said before the show that you've slept in like 84 different countries in the last couple years? I've done 84 trips to here in the U.S. and different countries. Yes, I have slept in a lot of hotels on Navy Air Force Army bases.

A few times I've gotten asleep in places that aren't on base. But yes, I am the, you know, the queen of sleep hacking because. I've had like in sure, I know all these principles and practices from over like 15, 20 years of research, but until you actually are forced to implement them, so you can continue to function with your job, especially if you have a job working for an important person and you don't want to mess up, like it matters. Yeah. I'd love to understand whatever strategies you put into place to,

not completely crash. Like that sounds, I'm at the age of me going to California right now. It's like a three day. It's like, I sat down and drank like a case of beer. Like, I'm just out. There's just,

I'm not coming back. And that's the one thing you have to like be mindful of to avoid. Catch me on Wednesday. Like, I'm no good. And the less I travel, the more it hurts. And I never thought I would get to that point because I used to take red eyes and it'd be like,

no big deal. And now, man, this is going to hurt. We're going to the West Coast. International. But what, I guess, going into a trip where you're going to be international and you're looking at seven to 10 hours in time. Like, what's the strategy going into that? So I usually pack a few things that I travel.

I'm just full of like show and tell today. That happens to be. Yeah, you've got all the toys. Well, these are actually things. Like we make these little kits now and like give them to the, you know, the guys and gals that are going out the door. So they aren't atypical. But first off, like when I'm on the plane, I always have a pair of these, right? The blue light blocking glasses.

I mean, I try not to work on the plane. I try to like use that time to like read or maybe catch up on the show. But I still like wear these a whole plane. and then through the airport, right? I know I look like a creeper in them, but. And you don't, honestly, you don't have to get like the expensive $180 roka ones that are out there. I didn't realize how expensive they are,

but these are like 10 bucks on Amazon. They work just as well. So that's like what I do on the plane. And then at the hotel, like I or wherever I'm staying on base, like either have earplugs and or my iPhone. I just play that background noise. setting and I always sleep with an eye mask. Like I travel with a ton of eye mask because I try not to forget those.

I also like when it comes to the curtains like complete blackout. So sometimes I've even taken the coat hangers inside the closet and have clipped the curtain shut, right? Because of course, right, military accommodations are not like, they're like, Yeah, hold on. When you travel, are you in the back? of the cargo. Like I've seen, I know nothing about the military. So anytime I travel commercial. Like that's all. When I, I've seen videos where they're like, people like hang a hammock in the back

of a cargo plane and I'm like, no way. Yeah. Imagine like when they're going over. Desert and a hammock. I'm just swinging back and forth with all your friends. You're your commercial though. You got it made. You're living a high life. Well, we're commercial. but of course, like, our seats are always in the back, like, next to the bathroom. The military seats. Yeah, if people are getting their heart rate up in the bathroom, you know, I have to hear it all. That's actually never happened, though. No.

No, it hasn't. Yeah. I will say, because, you know, we, like, we have certain seats that are reserved for government employees. I don't know. It's whatever the contract fairs. I will say I have met sitting in those seats and traveling as much as I do, like some senators, like I do respect that, right?

That even like some of our public service officials are willing to like sit in the back of the seat of the plane with the rest of us. Like Senator Jack Reed, I think he was the former or he might be the current chairman of that Armed Forces Committee. I sat next to him once like in the back near the bathroom. But we do travel commercial. That makes a difference, I will say, for as often as we were traveling. Senator sits in the back too. who it's cool to see it's cool that a senator is sitting in the back of a plane as well yeah there's some of them some of them so the ones that haven't gotten enough stock tips to get

private get the g6 yeah um as far as uh you being at west point you're like working with a bunch i'm just going to call them kids now that i'm old yeah they are kids It's a very, I would imagine, different group than working in the special ops with Donna Bragg. Are you doing all of your research on students? So actually, most of my research is still back with the community back at Bragg. Because these are like long-term projects working with like outside entities. But with the cadets, right, I try to bring all those tools that we use, like the wearable stuff. We're trying to get some wearables and smartwatches on these cadets so that they can be more aware of,

oh, if I pull this all-nighter, I'm only getting three to four hours to sleep during the week, like, I'm just not going to perform. I mean, they're so young that they're still kind of invincible or feel like they're invincible. So things like this really do work for them because the numbers don't lie, right? no matter how valid the device is, the numbers don't lie. And I think that's the only way you're going to really get change out of these kids. Because they will feel. Are they interested in it?

Are they interested in the data? Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, even today, today I was talking about, like, stress and health. And I actually took them through like a meditation exercise protocol at the end, which I'm sure, like pretty much all of them fell asleep for. But they all have smart watches and they all said that they use them to like monitor their sleep. But it's just these little things. You know, they can get away with a lot, but only for so long.

And it's also about habits and intention setting, right? If they're able to get away with these bad habits now and continue throughout the rest of their career, that's fine until they hit 30 and then 35. And then the, you know, the wheels on the bus just completely come off. As we all know, you know, I'm going to be forward on next week. And it's, I have to care. When testosterone falls a little bit, you start using a different brain and you get smarter, make much better decisions. Yes.

Like the better early, picking up with the sun. Like, it's a much easier problem to solve. No, totally. I mean, that's what I tried it to tell them is like, yeah, if there is a way to like through wearables and maybe there will be someday with the speed at the tech. is moving to like look at circulating levels of free floating testosterone or something. Like I will tell you they will care. You know, like when I give my sleep lecture, I intentionally talk about the study that was

done in the college students from the University of Chicago where after three days of only sleep in five hours, they're circulating testosterone was at 50%. Or I'll show them the data like we collected from Rangers showing when they switch over to nighttime operations, they're essentially not secreting testosterone until they get sleep again. So, you know, I do try to use some things here or there to get them to not be so invincible. And, you know, that will get their attention. They'll certainly get the attention of the younger guys in the group or just guys in general. But what about like leadership?

Has the has like the culture around sleep changed over like the last 10 years as as kind of all this is pushing into the mainstream? Oh, 100%. I, you know, I feel like having come from the special operations community where everyone was about, right, longevity and the like the emphasis on recovery just as much, if not even to a greater extent as performance, right? If they're doing it, then everyone else doesn't have an excuse, right? They should be doing it. And I would say at like every level from like, basically. basic training level all the way now to like senior leadership. All of last year, actually, I was going down to the place where basically anyone who wants to command like a very large unit. So battalion, brigade and higher than that. So you're talking thousands of soldiers that they're directly responsible for. I was giving like a sleep and fatigue management lecture to these commanders. And it is crazy that like for most of them, this is the first time in their career where they ever heard that like sleeping and napping were a good thing and not some you know thing of the devil

that they would just do when they would retire but um i think the cultures changed immensely and honestly i have to like praise a lot of this technology because it's uh it's unavoidable so like with the nap like you know i've heard mixed reviews of late some people say that maybe they're not so good some people say that they're real good. Like, what is the latest data on DAPS? And like, qualify it. Is there, is there too much, too little? Great question, Travis. So really what we find from the literature is 20 to 30 minutes is the sweet spot. So if you're a shift worker, it's different, right? You have to, like, the first responder community. If you're constantly in a chronically sleep deprived environment, like sleeping for a full sleep cycle, which is 90 minutes is perfectly fine.

For the average person who maybe is getting like five or six hours, which certainly isn't enough, 20 to 30 minutes is the sweet spot because you're going to get some of the like recovery benefits of paying off your sleep debt. But then also you're not going to stress your circadian rhythm and it's not going to prevent you from getting to sleep that night because that's the thing. If you like, right, take a 20-minute nap too late in at night, then by the time you actually get to go to bed, it might interfere your sleep.

But right in the middle of the afternoon, we all get sleepy. There's that natural dip in our circadian rhythm. That's the perfect opportunity to take like a 20 or 30-minute nap. I just blast through that with another 20 ounces of fresh coffee. Right. I mean, that works too. I'm a fast metabolizer of caffeine. Natural CS to come in my way.

Just, another Yeti coffee down. So you're a fast metabolizer of, are there some people who are not like, it wouldn't be so good to do that? Yeah, there are. So like a lot of that's related to your genetics. You're right, a few years ago,

I did the whole gene sequencing thing through 23ME, which I heard is not actually around anymore. And I'm a fast metabolizer. Yeah, same. I feel like a lot of cultures have embraced that kind of natural cycle. It's like you go eat lunch, and then you go a little sleepy, take a 20 minute power nap,

and then you're back on to the day. And then they eat dinner like 9 o'clock also, which maybe those things play together. I'm not sure. But yeah, a lot of cultures like have that afternoon nap. And it's like just like a part of what everybody does. Yep.

Yeah. And I think, you know, that's the thing. It goes back to like high performing cultures, they embrace a nap too, outside of like just the cultural differences between America and everyone else. But, right, our operators are professional athletes.

Like you hear all the time about pro sports athletes like swearing by their nap. Yeah. Well, they're second shift performers. I think that's a really tricky situation. I think I'd actually love to hear your opinion on. because I would imagine if you're working with special operations people, like it doesn't really matter what they're, like they're not going out and doing things at like noon.

Yeah, that is true. They operate better at night. They're not trying to be seen with the naked eye. Having those guys peaked and ready to go at probably 10, 2 a.m., like creepy times when no one's supposed to be outside, that's that's a tricky battle to to have somebody um i would imagine even in like a in a place i don't know what i don't even know what they sleep in when uh what the barracks look like and it depends you know it's probably not pretty nature's land uh yeah exactly like they're just

wherever they can rest their head on a helmet or something is from all the movies i've seen because i have zero experience um it doesn't look very comfortable but you've got to be able to keep and how long is like a normal mission like three four days they got to go out sleep out sleep out wherever they can and still somehow be the baddest people on the planet yeah that's true the normal you're i get your point like the second shift people like they need that or uh like even you can make the argument with uh basketball players football players right last night what time did that baseball game and it ended at like 5.15 in the morning. Our time on the east coast. 18 innings. 18 innings. That's not actually heard about this yet. Really?

18? Yeah. I couldn't imagine. We're boring 18 innings of athleticism. Yeah. It was like seven hours and 15 minutes or something. But yeah. The whole birthday. 18 innings. The Dodgers won six to five. Oh my gosh. Thank gosh. I forgot about baseball a long time we thought i would have to i would have had to have watched that's terrible in the mornings when it ended yeah east coast time so 21 west coast because they played at uh l a they're playing at 2 15 a i'd be so mad i'd be like all right come on you i'll bet you i'm bribut you i'll bet you're i'll be out i'm lobbed it here we'll catch it in game for i thought they were in toronto uh i think yeah maybe it was i yeah maybe it was like 515 in the

Then it really was 5 o'clock in the morning. I'd be so pissed. Yeah. What percentage of the fans were still there? Yeah, that's what I want to wonder, right? I mean, I feel like though, if your team goes to a World Series, you're saying no matter what, like, well, I'm a Cleveland fan. So, like, right?

If Cleveland even ever in my lifetime makes it through a World Series again, I'm going and I'm staying the whole time. Is this the World Series? That's how little I know. Like, I don't watch baseball games. This is the World Series right now? Yep. Yeah.

God. I didn't even know it. That's sad. I'm a dad though. Dude, I got an excuse. Yeah. So what is like the recovery period? Obviously, we're just, because those people are going to go to bed at seven in the morning.

Yeah. And they naturally are going to sleep. Like, this is the thing that I've really noticed with kind of like the circadian rhythm side. It's like when I was younger me, I could go to bed at whatever hour. And then I would just sleep until eight. hours later. But now I feel like the circadian rhythm thing matters significantly more in my life, where it's like, I wake up at 545 every day. And then if I go to bed at two, I'm going to wake up at like 6.30. There's no just extending out eight hours, and I'm just going to sleep that long. One, is that normal?

But two, like, how would how would you work with a bunch of athletes that go to bed at 7 o'clock, and they're just naturally going to wake up at 10. No, that's a fair point. So that's where, like, you know, and you've talked about this before, and in the military, we've done those strategic caffeine dosing protocols. Like, it's never going to be a perfect world

in these high-performing arenas. And that's true for, like, executives too, right? You're going to get just like any military person who's getting a phone call at zero dark 30. It can be the same case with an executive of a company, company where there's multi-millions of dollars on the line. In those cases, like that's where things like strategic caffeine dosing, where you're taking 200 milligrams of caffeine at any given time and taking that every four to six hours

that next day when you know you haven't gotten good sleep, like it's better to do that and then to get back on your rhythm than just to your point, like trying to stay in bed for eight hours because you're not going to sleep. And you're just feel worse off. And then, you know, you're still going to have anxiety because you basically like wasted four or five hours of your day just rolling around in bed instead of being active. Yeah. I can't do it.

I, the regimen of going to bed at a certain, like, I can't believe how good it feels actually like going to bed early, being aligned with the sun, waking up early. like training moving first thing in the morning it took me uh like almost two whole months maybe even like going into the third month before my HRV when I switched from afternoon training to morning training to actually get back to the numbers uh of like basically like flipping my whole body to becoming a morning person it was a it was significantly longer than I was anticipating yeah well I get it I mean if you were to be honest to you I don't train well in the morning either.

Well, I mean, if I did, I would have to, like, it would take me a while like you. Because I was a gymnast growing up and then even with CrossFit now, like I choose to go after my workday instead of before. Yeah. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. Well, there is those studies too. Like there was a study that was done. I think it was like 12 years ago with Olympic weightlifters and looking at their circadian rhythm.

and lifting. So like lifters naturally lift better in the evening versus the morning because you're capitalizing on that peak of noropenephrine and cortisol. Whereas in the morning, the only way to possibly get them to nighttime levels is through taking high doses of caffeine if they aren't already tolerant to it. And Travis, I'm sure you know this really well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very familiar with that study.

Like, even with me lately, I've had to, what I've done, because I'm forced to down to trade earlier, it just works better for my schedule is I get up at 5 o'clock and I do like my first workout. And it really is just more of a cardio, it's a movement. It's just really to get my body awake and then, you know, I have breakfast and then I trade like at 8.30. And so that really is just so that 8.30, I'm awake, you know, because if I just get up and I just get up and that's my first session. It's terrible. But now that I'm used to, I get every single day, it starts at 5 a.m. I do my early morning workout. So, like, now I've got it to where, like, I just had a really good 830 sessions.

So. But I had to get up early. The blood flow, like the conditioning work in the morning is really nice. Yeah, it is. It makes you feel so good. Oh, yeah. Just, I don't even know all the physiology, behind it but I like uh in my brain tell myself that was just like practicing really quality blood flow

to start your day just really makes a difference on energy uh and being able to sustain it's like coming and sitting down and then back doing it later so much better because of that too like you know because i do a lot of sled work in the morning like tons and tons of slid i have a there's every day has like a theme so some days i go all out and i'm trying to see the total volume um that I'm doing the sled. And some days I'm looking at like overall, like, what am I getting done? But anyway, it just keeps it fun. Really, the only reason I'm doing that is it's not so boring.

It's like, I know that I'm not trying, you know, I'm not trying to beat every single day by the end. I can't, you know, obviously that ends. But I can do it once a week. I can go all out. Yeah. Well, you're an animal, Travis. I love it that, you know, you're an example of like age doesn't matter, right?

Just a number. right. Shit's mattering to me. It's definitely harder, but you know, like you can still get it done, you know. Yep.

You definitely get it done. Just so you guys know, I only have like 10 more minutes because I got to teach the kiddos at 210. Hold on. Yeah. Last question. I just want to know, what are you doing for your training these days?

So I still do CrossFit, but, you know, it's one of the things like five years ago. I know. Well, here's the thing. So I've gone a little bit back to my first love, right, which was outside of gymnastics, right? I was a pole vault during college, try to make the Olympic team never did. So I still like compete in master's track and field, you know, qualify. Like my goal there is to qualify for indoor, outdoor, master's nationals, which sounds impressive, but really like how many people do you think are still pole vaulting in their 40s, right? You know what I mean? Or doing 400 meters. easy to be the best in the country. National champion.

One of one. Yeah. That tells me all I need to do. I don't know that you're pulled. Track and field is the coolest sport in my brain right now. Like gymnastics is awesome, but there's like nowhere to go to do it. But people that are just running fast,

jumping high, doing, it's, there's like some, some, uh, something about, out like here's a start line and there's the end line and we're going to race.

Yep. And being able to do that. Like to go upside down that far in the air, there's got to be something wrong with you. I love that. Oh, there is. Yeah. I'm low aware, Travis. Yeah.

That makes me appreciate an astronaut, right? I just hate this world so much. I want to leave it. Yeah. Like my roommate was a polvester in college at App State. And that dude was crazy. It's so like, like, yeah. Yeah. Now that tells me all I need to know is that's all you need to know about me.

Yeah. It makes me like you more. Yeah. You're crazy. I appreciate that. Yeah. But even with you met like CrossFit too, like and honestly, I feel like it took getting injured, not actually through CrossFit. I have tore my ad doctor doing the new Army's ACFT two summers ago because it's a trap bar deadlift. And the thing they emphasize there for grading purposes is like, a gentle set down, not like a slam down. And I think I was just being too gentle with the set down with like over 200 pounds on. And my ad doctor just went. Oh, my down during the eccentric force that went. Oh, wow. And so after that, I was like, you know, I'm going to integrate a lot more gymnastics

and body weight, like abdominal stuff into my crossfit routine. And I will tell you like in the last two years since doing that, right, I feel better. I actually am more fit. Sometimes, like, just having an injury or setback can do wonders. And so, yeah, I still do, like, general programming CrossFit. So we follow CrossFit HQ's program, which honestly is, like, the methodology still works. And I do, right, like a 15, 20 minute workout a day. And then between all the freaking steps I get here going, walking up and down steps and hills and being on my feet, like eight hours a day teaching.

like it gets the job done. I can tell you. You definitely fit. Well, thank you. I try. All right. Go teach the kids. Where can people learn more about you, your research, all of it? So I still have my book.

I don't really make much money on it, but the purpose of the book was not to make money. It was to show the benefits of exercise for brain health. And also just understand like as you mature as an athlete. some of the changes that happen in your brain. So that's called Meathead unraveling the athletic brain. And then you can also find Maston on Instagram, Doc, Jock, Z, Z, Z. Lots of posts about, like, training, and then also eating decadent treats, having maybe, you know, a glass of bourbon or beer or two.

Like, I do take great pride in living, like, a balanced life as much as I can. Travis Mash. Tell us about how balanced you are. Yeah. Right now, I'm going crazy. But nationally.com. So we got a new ebook. Explosions.

Okay. I'll check it out. Almost a decade. But like, yeah, it's all about power, you know, power where it relates to whatever specific to you. So power's too broad. So the book breaks it down to what it means to you. So it's good.

There's a program that goes with it too. So yeah. Okay. I'll check it out. Thank you. Coach Travis, or, or. Doug.

I already did him. you're going to get double shoutouts. Doug Larson. Times two. I'm on Instagram, Douglasie Larson. Dude, we got next week, Springbok is coming on.

Tell me what you got cooked up with them. Yeah, we do have Matt Brown coming on from Springbok. So for those of you who don't know, Springbok has a very cool muscle analytics program that they do. They do MRI scans and they can see your total muscle mass, muscle mass percentage, as well as very detailed.

the hyper-specific analytics on muscle size side-to-side as an example. You can see if your left lower trap is 4% bigger than your right lower trap. And just the level of detail and nuance that they have with their analytics over at Springboket is very impressive. And we've partnered with them and we have physical therapists and sport physiologists and strength conditioning coaches on our team. They have the analytics. They're a pure analytics company. They don't tell you what to do with that data. But they partnered with us to take all that data and analyze it and find out where you have muscular imbalance.

and efficiencies, movement patterns that could potentially predispose you for future injury and that maybe are holding you back from performing at your best. We analyze it all, find your issues and tell you what to do about them. And that is called Optima Muscle. We're launching that here very soon. You can go to OptimaMussel.com to check it out. O-P-T-I-M-A-Musel.com. There you go.

I'm Anders-Varner at Anders-Varner and make sure if you want to see the deep dive to everything that goes on at Rapid Health Optimization, get over to Rapid Health Report. That's where Dan Garner, Dr. Randy Galpin, are doing a free lab, lifestyle, performance analysis. You can access that at rapid health report.com. Friends, see you guys next week.