Barbell Shrugged - Why Strength Training Makes You Smarter and the Brain Protein Responsible for it All w/ Dr. John Ratey, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #514

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

This week only, save 20% on the “Boulders for Shoulders” for functional fitness athletes using the code “boulders” at checkout. Sale ends Friday.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   How did fitness get linked to brain development? Why does intense exercise help develop intelligence? I strength training more optimal than cardio for brain development What is BDNF and how does it connect the different parts of the brain. How does exercise help fight ADHD, Alzheimers, Addiction, and Depression   Dr. John Ratey on Twitter Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   This week only, save 20% on the “Boulders for Shoulders” for functional fitness athletes using the code “boulders” at checkout. Sale ends Friday.   ————————————————   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa ———————————————— Please Support Our Sponsors   Fittogether - Fitness ONLY Social Media App   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shrugged family, on today's episode of Barbell Shrugged, we have one of the coolest guests of all time, Dr. John Rady, who wrote the book Spark. And the reason this book is so cool is Coach Travis Smash sent me a link to this book. We talked about it a couple times on shows. We're talking about just brain development and how movement, exercise, strength training all plays into building not just bigger muscles, but a bigger brain, making you think better, getting you out of depression, and it's linked to ADHD, which is incredibly important, because if we can figure out a way to start dealing with mental health and emotional health through physical health, we're going to be tapping into some really cool stuff in the future in overall health and how we can really start to help people. This conversation took us months to

get a hold of because he's written seven or eight books. He's a professor at Harvard Medical School and you could say he's one of the most sought after people in this industry and wrote the book on how fitness transforms your brain and really just fitness and movement are the building blocks to having a brain that is capable of being a high performer as well as your body being high performer. So very cool conversation. We're very grateful for Dr. Rady for coming on to the podcast and talking to us. I can't wait for you to listen.

And before we get into the show, I want to tell you to get over to barbell shrug.com forward slash store. It's like we're celebrating the fact that my shoulder is coming back into my arm for everybody that's been around and seen everything on Instagram, my shoulder got dislocated two weeks ago down at, man, it got dislocated down in Bentonville, Arkansas as we were going to launch and do all of the promotional stuff for our Walmart products. And holy crap, has it been a process to getting my arm back over my head. I've been following boulders for shoulders, doing a lot of the exercises in there and if you have shoulder issues, make sure you get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash store. You can use the coupon code Boulders, B-O-U-L-D-E-R-S.

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You can use the coupon code code boulders and save 20%. Let's get into the show. Welcome to barbell shrug. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, coach Travis mash, Dr. Gabriel.

I'm going to botch your last name. Valid villain. No way. What is it? Bill real, not a doctor. No cancer. There it is. Dr. Not a doctor. Villarreal. Professional counselor.

There it is. It's Dr. John Rady. He's in LA, but he's a professor at Harvard Medical School. And I just listened to your entire book on a gigantic road trip throughout the East Coast because Coach Travis Mash told me that I needed to go read it. And we've been discussing it on shows and your work just in movement and how neuroplasticity gets like forms your brain and we're incredibly excited to have you on here just to kind of kick things off and a little bit of your background how do where did you begin this process and connecting movement and exercise to the brain?

Well, I, in medical school, when in medical school, we, we had just had our first two antidepressants. Okay. And there was a, which were miracle drugs at that point I mean they were really miracle I mean people don't recognize what a big step that was and that was an I mean imipramine and

that really changed psychopharmacology etc but there was this hospital in Sweden that were taking depressed patients in and either offering them antidepressants or an exercise program. And they were getting the same results. So that I explored that, followed that. And we had known that exercise helps mood, but they were showing it in a very big way. And then I followed it all the way through my career.

And one of my very first patients was a professor at MIT and Harvard, very famous guy. I had one of his books early in the early 80s. And he came to me because I was talking about attention deficit disorder at the time. And said, look, I have adult onset ADD. And he's this fantastically productive guy, who was also a marathoner, and had to stop running because he hurt his knee. And all of a sudden, he had all the symptoms of attention deficit disorder, which he had never had before. Procrastinating, getting angry, not being able to pay attention, not finishing things,

all the stigmata of ADHD. So I treated him for his ADHD and followed him around a little bit. And he came back to me, you know, every month or so. And then about six months after he had rehabbed his knee, was back running. He said, look, I really don't need this medicine anymore. And he continued. He was one of the first marathoners in the Boston area with the BAA which was a big deal then and so anyway that that led me to two careers two additional careers working with attention deficit disorder and also with exercise. And in our, now our fourth book that we've written on ADHD, we always emphasize exercise. In this current book, we have a whole chapter on exercise

and its effect on ADD, as well as on the cerebellum, on balance and rhythm and, and ADHD, both areas that are new in a sense, old but new, new in understanding that this is one way that our attention system has to be regulated. And you can do it with physical exercise. So that's why I stayed interested. You can do it with physical exercise. That's why I stayed interested. One of the things that comes up in the book, Spark, over and over and over again is BDNF.

I don't think that we're going to even be able to have the full show without really understanding what is BDNF and why is it so important to putting together movement and kind of, I think there's a couple of times you mentioned how it's the connector between upstairs and downstairs in the brain and how our brain was developed and why BDNF is so important. Well, BDNF was discovered in the 80s, 1980s, right? That's recent for me. And all kinds of studies were looking at BDNF because BDNF was seen as sort of brain fertilizer. It kept the brain young and perky. And we had evidence early on that when you move, you make more of this BDNF. And we now know because it's been researched up and down, incredible throughout the world and so many studies showing that BDNF increases dramatically when you exercise. And it does that because when you're exercising, when you're moving, you are using more brain cells than in any other activity, human activity, except a seizure. And then you get all kinds of stuff going on. But anything that we do or act, exercise is a champ because so much of the brain was

developed and evolved to help us be the best movers that we could be, which led us to be what we call the evolutionary victors. We won. And we were the group that stayed with it. And BDNF was a very important part of that story because it helped us learn. That's what BDNF does. And amongst many other things, it's sort of the queen of brain growth factors. And we make it every time we fire a nerve cell. We release it, and then we get feedback into that same nerve cell to make more of it. And why is that so important? Because that then leads to our brain cells growing, and this is the only way we learn.

The only way we learn information is to grow the information into our brain cells, into the connections that are there. So that's why it's so important. Subsequent to those early findings, we learned that BDNF the new antidepressant drugs these days, they're looking at what raises BDNF levels. Okay, that's as pristine as I can put it. So that, you know, the industry has gotten on to it and they won't try to market a drug that doesn't have an effect on raising the BDNF level. However, exercise is still the champ. It still raises BDNF better than all the other things that we try, learning, meditation. All those are good, by the way. I mean, let's put them down, but exercise is a champ because when we're exercising, we're using more brain cells because we evolve them to help

us move better. I got a question. So when you say exercise, are you talking about cardiovascular or does it matter? Everything. Just to train everything. Everything. Oh, that just changes everything. Yes. Mash, I actually want to add on to that because that was exactly what I wanted to say. In the book, Spark, multiple times you mentioned getting your heart rate into that 70% to 85% range. And strength training, there is a piece in the book in which you talk about strength training having a very different effect than a 20 to 30 minute cardio piece or cardiovascular run, walk, where you just have an elevated heart rate. And I'd love for you to dig into just what are the differences as far as like developing BDNF and how do you, is there a better or worse okay we i wrote the book in 2007 2000 came out in 2000 we're slow we're we were just beginning to to measure in a big way what uh

what what strength training did you know because first all, we didn't have animal models. See, that was important. We have animal models for aerobic exercise, but not for strength training. However, we have them now. We have rats climbing up a ladder, putting a weight on their tail. So, no, seriously. Jack rats. Jack rats. Seriously. Yep. Before, we had rat treadmills. We, you know, we have...

Rat sled pushes. Exercise wheels, you know, and stuff. But, and we hadn't gotten to the point, but now we do. And also, because you really want, you really want animal studies because you want to see what's really going on with the brain to unpack it. But we also know from clinical studies, meaning human studies, that certainly most of the studies early on were on aerobic exercise, but also on strength training. Okay.

And I'll use that rather than weight training, strength training, that it had an effect. But in most of the studies, it doesn't reach to the pinnacle of changes in the brain that aerobic exercise does, you know, but think about this. Today, when people are doing strength training, their heart rate is in the 70 to 90 percentile, right, of your maximum heart rate. It's up there. So you're getting, and you keep it up there, you know, most of the people, you know, certainly if you're doing the circuit in the gym or you're doing one exercise after another,

you're not taking the four-minute break usually unless you're really, really trying to, you know, build huge muscles or so. So you're getting the – it's really false to think of it as not aerobic, because it is. And aerobic just means you're using a lot of energy to do what you're doing. And you're having your heart rate up. And what did that mean? That's a measure of how active your brain is working. You see, that's what we're talking about. Right. A very large percentage of our audience are CrossFitters, and they do a lot of metabolic resistance training, so lifting weights, very short rest intervals, etc., etc.,

so they're getting kind of the aerobic and the anaerobic at the same time without really prioritizing one over the other. Do you see any dose response relationship between the amount of training you do and the amount of, say, BDNF released or just the amount of antidepressant effect you see or anything similar? Yeah, I mean, I think modern, what we know today is if you go over an hour and a half, going over an hour and a half, you're going to start to spill cortisol. And you all know what cortisol is. Cortisol is a stress hormone.

Even the Tour de France riders, at an hour and a half of training, they're spilling cortisol. And then you sort of don't want to do that when you're training, because that's catabolic. It tears apart your muscles and tears apart things. I mean, a little bit is fine, but if you start really spilling it, like marathon when they train they're not going they're going an hour hour 15 minutes usually and then every now and then they go to marathon length but when they do that two hour training or two hour to two hour 20 minutes or two hour 50 minutes marathon what happens they get a lot of cortisol what happens that reduces their their their immune response what happens they get sick right this this is it in training they never get sick right they never they never get a cold or a flu but afterwards

bingo so and and that shows you that it has such a big effect on the immune response. So my counsel is please keep it below an hour and a half of steady work if you're, you know, whatever you're doing. Now, and a lot of them, a lot of exercise programs have breaks built in and all that. But, you know, this is what we know today. I'm curious, you know, cause in your book, it appears, and it sounds like you're saying the same thing, like, you know, an hour and a half of steady state cardiovascular work is really going to hit the hippocampus, create BDNF, allow you to learn.

But there's also the part you talked about, complex movement, say martial arts, or for us, Olympic weightlifting, or gymnastics, something that's very complex, helping other areas of the brain. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Oh, yeah. Don't get focused on one area or another. I mean, it's nice that the hippocampus gets built

because that's where we make new brain cells. But every area is always involved. And cerebellum is involved in everything, okay? Everything that we do because it's the most active part of the brain always clicking away. So whatever you're doing, you're challenging the whole brain. I mean, really, you're challenging the whole brain to be active, to monitor, to do, to change, to evaluate, to move forward. But complex movements are better. Like, for instance, they've done studies looking at kids, bright kids in Germany running on a treadmill, testing them before and after. Afterwards, their scores were better than they were before.

However, in a 10-minute on a treadmill, if they did another 10 minutes, getting their heart rates up to the same area, but they had to kick two soccer balls or dribble different size balls, you know, challenges while they were getting their heart rate up. They were even better. There was even a better delta in terms of their performance on tests because the more brain you use and challenge, the better it is for everything in your brain. Because it's like our muscles.

And that's the way we think of the brain today. The muscle, the more we stress it in reason and with breaks and with recovery time, the better it gets. So when you're doing complex activities with your heart rate up, and martial arts is one, and dance and gymnastics, those are the most complex movements, right? Why? Because your heart rate's up, your muscles are being engaged, and you're having to do things very precisely. And the precision is brain power.

Okay, I got to hold it this way before I move on or before I interact. And then with martial arts and with dance, you have another person involved. Okay. And that's a whole other range of brain activity to deal with that. Does that suggest that reactive sports are potentially more beneficial than sports where you know the path? Like if you're going to do a gymnastics routine, you've done a hundred times or a weightlifting movement, you've done a hundred thousand times versus, you know Like if you're going to do a gymnastics routine you've done a hundred times or a weightlifting movement you've done a hundred thousand times versus, you know, if you're in a fight, you're just reacting the whole time. You don't really know what's going to happen next. So you have to be on your toes.

You have to be thinking very, very quickly. You have to be reacting very quickly. Sure. And, you know, even boxing, okay? You know, training for boxing, right? And upper body aerobics, that's the worst kind of aerobic. I mean, that's the best kind of aerobics, but it really tires one out because we don't use that a lot. You know, and that's in your boxing. You learn to use that.

However, when you get to a point where you're comfortable and it gets more automatic and then your trainer will be moving targets you know i mean and and why and that then it changes everything up you know and with the partner in in martial arts and muay thai or whatever it's it throws in a different element so yes it's more reactive and yes it's more change i mean that's why basketball and soccer are better for building the brain than just running on a treadmill yeah i've actually wondered if there's like a survival mechanism that kicks it in the brain that forces it to a to grow faster because of these like you take a reactive sport like MMA or boxing. And then I've many times thought this about activities like CrossFit in which these people come in and they have never

felt metabolic conditioning and lifting weights at the same time. And now they're at 95% of their max heart rate. They're getting dizzy. They need to stop doing what they're doing. But it's because these mechanisms kick in that say, hey, you might die. You've gone too far. But we also see the fastest results from high-intensity stimuluses like that. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I write about high-intensity interval training in my last chapter, and that's continued to take off. Yeah.

You know, Tabata and all the other stuff that CrossFit does it, you know, in a big way. And that's great. It's great. However, you know, when you guys are interested also in neuroplasticity and making us smarter and making our immune system better, HIIT will reduce our immune response until we recover. But it's a good way to train it. But you're more susceptible for infection because you're in that high degree of peak exercise. However, in a way, that's what you want. If you're not going to get infected after

for the next couple of hours, you're going to have a rest. But then your system is built up, just like for cardiovascular. You guys know that, right? You know, the best way to train your cardiovascular system is this high intensity interval training because it challenges, then you recover. And you guys are all about recovery too, although CrossFit, I worked with Reebok for five years, so I have CrossFit experience all over the place, right? And every time I'd go to do the CrossFit gym, oh, my God, I'd end up going to the orthopedic guy, you know? I mean, because there is, you know, we know. When you're a rookie, relative rookie, you know, because I was busy,

you know, anyway, you get, because I was busy, you know, anyway. You get pushed by the crowd. You get pushed by the group, you know, and not anybody's pushing you. You push yourself, as you guys know, you know, and then you push yourself beyond what you should be doing. The whiteboard's dangerous. That's right. You talk about how stress, what you've kind of mentioned already is exactly what you you do want in proper doses and that you know like for example

being in a caloric deficit seems to um accentuate almost all the learning process can you talk about that a little bit sure well the big thing today is fasting, right? You know, planned fasting, which is, it gives you all the benefits of stress without giving you more stress products that we have to combat. And I'm talking about nerve cell now in the brain, okay, looking at the brain. And so it gives you sort of a mild but prolonged stress. Friends, we are going to take a quick break to talk about my friends over at Bioptimizers. If there's one thing you should be worried about not getting enough of, it is enzymes. Enzymes are the workhorses of digestion. They break your food down into usable macro and micronutrients nearly everyone lacks the digestive enzymes and that's why we suffer from digestive

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forward slash shrugged. Get after it. We're going to talk more conjugate. Thanks for hanging out. Listen to all this craziness. We got to pay the bills, friends. Let's going to talk more conjugate. Thanks for hanging out. Listen to all this craziness. We got to pay the bills, friends. Let's get back to the show. And so it gives you sort of a mild but prolonged stress. And so it turns on the response of our stress system or anti-stress system that builds antioxidants, that builds all these proteins within the cell that I call my janitorial service, that helps clean up the products that we make because we're heating it up. We're using our mitochondria that burns glucose or ketones that we use to energize, to have them clicking away.

And so we build that up. And when you stress it, you build up more than you need. So that's why you have healthier. It's just like the muscle. You have a healthier muscle going on. You have a healthier brain cell going on. And so it's ready to respond to the next real, real stress,

which is, you know, stress is, we get stressed when there's an environmental challenge. Right. You know, and when that stress goes too far, we often,

I mean, this is a massive theme and just humans today is anxiety, depression and all these things. But I was also super interested in, you know, we come in a way from this like holistic way of like we can exercise through it. But you talk a lot about combining the medicines with exercise and seeing even a better result than if you just had exercise alone to, to deal with some of these issues, um, is that still the case? Do you, do you still feel that, you know, having Prozac combined with a running regimen is, is the best route for many people?

Well, it depends on how, in how much pain they're in. Yeah. Now, if, if, if, you know, cause you're talking seriously depressed people, it's hard for them to get running, you know, unless they have a spouse or a friend who's going to take them out. And anyway, and so, yeah, and you want to, you know, make their life a little better or better. And so you start them on medicine and have them then feel a little energized and then start the exercise program. But it depends.

Sometimes they understand it enough to just start to walk and do yoga or do Zumba or whatever it is that will get them moving initially. And you want them coming back. I mean, that's the big thing. That's the beauty of CrossFit, by the way, there, there you have, and you know, it's like, it's like the bicycle groups, the running groups, the dance teams, you know, spinning, you know, I mean, that was a big thing, what, 30 years ago, and then SoulCycle again, but because you form an alliance with the team, right, with your group,

with your, what do they call it in CrossFit? Community. Your community, yeah, your specific community, right? And that pulls you into it and keeps you at it. Well, depressed people generally don't have a community like that, or they're, they're, just think, they're reluctant to join that. Yeah. You know, and it's harder. So, so you use the medicine to make them feel a little, to reduce the pain of their depression, whatever it is, or their anxiety.

And then they can maybe begin to perform and change and do something different. Yeah. One of the medication pulls them out of a hole and now they're out of the hole. They have the, the motivation and mental ability to actually pursue something that's, that's challenging. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and, and it's hard to, you know, I mean, all the evidence, I mean, we have incredible evidence to show, for instance, with depressed people, they stay very depressed people. I'm talking, you know, in bed or on the couch, not moving. And, but if you get them moving just for 20 minutes on a treadmill, just walking. At the end, all their scores will be better. Everything. Wow. Mood, motivation, less anxiety, less feeling tormented, less aggressive. You know, all those scores change.

Just with 20 minutes of on the, just walking. Yeah. But it's hard for them to go back to it you know i mean it's like in hippocrates said this 300 years bc in our first medical textbook what's the treatment for depression walk go for a long walk what happens if they come back and they're still depressed keep walking so on a similar note if someone like one of us like we're already in in decent shape if i have like a either a big study session i'm in college or whatever it is or i have like a big exam coming up the next day or a presentation or whatever happens to be what does the research show

regarding whether you work out like right before that session versus the day before or like you know five or six hours before that that type of thing well you guys are all really in shape and workout and your workout is going to be an hour you know 40 minutes yeah i you won't want to do that at least a couple hours before you take the exam but if you're talking about just getting your heart rate up, like five minutes of jump rope, terrific way to get you ready for an exam. Terrific. And that's what I use for the ADD people as well, very much to help them get focused. I mean, jump rope is amazing. It's one of the best because heart rate, coordination, balance, all the stuff that turns your brain on.

Yeah. You mentioned the piece about the community. And when I was listening to the book, I drew a couple parallels, and I'd love to know just a little bit more about the human interaction side of brain development in that you mentioned there was a physical education class or a school that implemented dancing classes into their PE program. Yeah, which not only got the kids dancing or like moving and interacting, but it forced this relationship where a guy had to talk to a girl and learn how to dance with her. And it wasn't awkward because everybody was doing it. So you develop these skills very passively and in a group setting of, well, this is how you dance with a girl.

This is how you build confidence around a girl. And a lot of that, I think also happens inside a CrossFit class, like the ability to go share a squat rack with somebody. Nobody really knows how to do that. You're not born with that skill. And what is just a little bit of the brain development of in building confidence, because you're moving and getting stronger, and you're interacting with people? And can, have you found a way to measure, I guess, the idea of confidence? No, you're hitting on all the things that are very important, and we don't have those measures, you know.

But it's really true. And just a word about Naperville and the brilliant teacher who came up with this. He noticed that even with this dance thing, which was four weeks out of the year, the boys weren't interacting with the girls, you know, and they wouldn't be talking to them. So he decided, he gave them scripts.

This is what you say the first time you meet somebody, you're introduced to somebody. This is the second thing you say. And they gave him 10 scripts. Eventually, they got through. And part of your grade was for you to be introduced to somebody brand new, a new dance partner, and then report on six or eight things about that person. So you taught him how to score. That's what you're person. So you taught them how to score.

That's what you're saying. Yeah, taught them how to score. But you also, a big thing was having them look in their eyes. Oh, yeah. Which is really terrifying. Yeah. And so think, and when I presented this to my psychologists and other psychiatrists,

they said, oh, my God, that's social skills training. Yeah. Yes, it is. It is. And, boy, for a lot of our autistic and Asperger's kids, that's so important. You're giving away all my secrets. Like, I was not able to, you know, get girls because of my looks. I'm not the best looking.

That's why we have a radio show, bro. Don't sell yourself short. Hold on. We lost you, Mash. Oh, you're muted, buddy. Okay. All right. There you go.

You're back, Mash. Can I just jump in real quick yeah go ahead gabriel no go ahead what i was gonna say uh to to andrew's point about confidence i shared this story in your podcast about the the um kids that are autistic that i train on one-to-one and one of the things that that mom said after we after we did a couple months of training was, I have to look at my son in the eye. I can look at my son in the eyes now because when we started training, he was hunched. He walked down. And then now after training, he's looking at her in the eyes and how broad he is.

And even to that point, as he was leaving, one of my coaches passed in and he said, hello. And his mom was like, what is going on? Like that's never happened before. And I, and I said, this is to your point, social skills training. And we tried really, really hard, but we failed to get reimbursement through insurance because it was, we, we we helped his social skills. And when last we talked, they were thinking about getting him a job, which is not something that mom thought he'd ever be able to do. Yeah. No, that's a good example. Yeah. No, it comes through the interaction. And like you

initially said, this happened in ninth grade and everybody was doing it right it's so everybody's doing it makes it less toxic you know i mean it's less less traumatic traumatic for each individual kid uh and especially the boys are a little bit slow you know on the the social skills and don't like to talk. And, you know, we're like, we're different than girls. They'd be talking away and have an easier time of it. But we have a harder time doing that. And this was, it broke the ice and really helped the kids in so many different ways.

I have a question, a very selfish question. And it's, you know, as I, you know, pursue my PhD, one of the things I want to develop is like the, you know, I don't know if you can say perfect, but as optimal as possible of a system of learning. So like, you know, for ADHD mainly. So like in your view, how would that look? What would the day look like to optimize learning for an ADHD kid? And adult. Potentially me. Potentially me, yeah.

Well, I think you start with a good exercise session in the morning uh some balanced training right away uh whether you know maybe it depends on the grade of course but uh getting their heart rate up, doing push-ups, doing squats, doing jump rope, doing the hated burpees, you know, still hate that. Me too. Me too. But, you know, but everybody's doing it. So, you know, you get people in that kind of collection. And then throughout the day, when kids need it, they can take a time in, which is different than a time

out. Kids that are really ADD and they really are starting to get antsy, they go either to go out to one part of the room, jump on a balance board, on a BOSU ball, do five minutes of jump rope or get on a stationary bike for five minutes and then come back. And then they learn when they need that. You see, that's the beauty. They learn when they need that because then they will self-regulate. That's what we really want with kids growing up, but certainly ADD kids. How do they self-regulate? Keep them away from marijuana.

Keep them away from the video games. Keep them away from alcohol. You know, and using that as the regulator. That's what they use to self-regulate today. You know, Doug, isn't that crazy? Like you told me about how you set up shop in the CrossFit gym where you would, as a standing desk, and like every few minutes you would go do some pull-ups or you would go do some exercise and it helped you stay focused on your work oh yeah doing doing a quick set and then doing five minutes of work i'm not really working out when i'm doing that but i am you know

like five five pull-ups and then and then doing you know checking my email for five minutes something that's like not a super complicated creative task you know whenever i'm getting monkey work done you know uh all the urgent things that are kind of the day-to-day administrative stuff i love doing some some squats or deadlifts or whatever, like sporadically while I'm getting all of my busy work done. That's awesome. I've got a one mile loop around my neighborhood. It makes you feel so happy. I just get up and go. So simple. John, I saw a chart. I can't remember exactly where I saw it. It might've been in your book. I read that many, many years ago, or maybe your TED Talk, where you showed there was three different grades, I want to say like grade five, grade seven, grade nine type of thing. And based on the number of

physical skills that they had developed, they could learn math more quickly or something along those lines. Can you talk about that? I mean, we have all kinds of evidence like that, but California has been testing a million kids a year since Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. They were testing them on their fitness gram, which is six different targets. The big one is the shuttle run or the whatever it's called, but evaluates their endurance. Okay, but all of them were measured. And the more area,

the more targets you hit, the higher your test scores. So in other words, the more fit you were, the higher your math and your reading scores were. And that was in grades five, seven, and nine. So we have evidence like that. There's all kinds of evidence. That's just a million kids a year every year it looks the same was that test interdependent on uh learning disabilities or adhd

they didn't they didn't separate that out at all okay okay they're all they're all part of the mix when you get a million kids you sort of that, that regulates it all. They're in there. Yeah. Yeah, but we have all kinds of tests. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff showing exercise for, and that's what our chapter in our new book is on exercise is going to talk about. And exactly what in SPARK I talk about ADHD. There's a whole chapter there.

But in our new book, it's going to focus on exercise and the cerebellum, a whole chapter on the cerebellum and how important that is. And one of the great things that I like about CrossFit a lot is without making a big deal about it, they really work on your cerebellum. Yeah. But no one makes a big deal. You know, it's not like, okay, we're going to do balance and coordination training now.

No, it's wrapped into what CrossFit is. So that's a big thing. And rather than just muscle building or whatever, you know. When you're, I mean, when we talk to people about strength conditioning or fitness and getting them in shape it's the conversation always goes to how do i lose fat and gain muscle so i look better uh i see you've rolled your eyes already why'd you roll your eyes that's the bigger question because in after 23 years of doing this i'm way more interested in what you write about than being able to control my macros up and down or doing another deadlift in my life. But, you know, how do we get this message out in a larger capacity to get people to think about longevity or the ability to stay sharp?

Well, the University of Michigan has been looking at this for the past 20 years how to keep motivation there because you know what happens January they join the gym February they're going every now and then March they don't go at all but they pay for the whole year but you know

why it just it just dwindles away. Well, what you have to get them to focus on is how they feel after exercising. That day. Okay? The reason why CrossFit is so great, because you have everybody at the end is you know exhausted tired recovering and they feel good so then they knit up easier just like your uh Gabriel your your

kid there you know leaving leaving the gym hi you know it's probably autistic like kid or asperger and his mom said what the hell is this you know because he's feeling all the all the chemical changes that have happened and also the confidence that happens when you're when you're completed it so there's there's a that day you have this you have an appreciation for what you've done and how you've changed your inner world. You have self-confidence, self-regulation, motivated, I can do it. All those things are operative when you've done a bout of exercise. That's a big psychological add-on. And I wish we could measure this, but it's, you know,

the scales are not great. I'm so with you. Yeah, you know, too much is like focused on weight. When people join in January, all they care about or think about is weight gain, and they're missing the whole picture. There's so many other benefits that are out there, like cardiovascular. Your cardiovascular system can get stronger without necessarily losing weight. So there's an improvement, the way your ability to learn, to communicate. These are the skills, and this is why I want to join our shows, because this is the message we've got to get out to people if we want to make real change in the world. Right. No, exactly.

And you get them focused on how they feel differently. Don't look at it as a long-term project. They're looking ahead. Okay, I'm going to be buff. I'm going to lose 20 pounds or 10 pounds or whatever it is. And you say, so what? What you're doing, we want you to feel good this today. You're going to be smarter. You're going to be more focused. You're going to be calmer. You're going to be able to deal with the stresses of COVID and all. And by the way, one thing before we're ending here about COVID. A recent study out of the University of Virginia that came out right as COVID was hitting, this guy had been looking at strength training and its effect on lung disease, infections in the lung. he identified he said well we we make when we when we move our muscles when we strengthen

you're changing and acting on our muscles we make a lot of this antioxidant that i never heard of uh extracellular uh dimotas superoxide dimotas don't ask me anyway this works best in the lung and in the kidney to prevent the virus from binding binding. Okay. This got me so excited. I mean, I did a PowerPoint around it because there's other actions on the ACE or the angiotensin binding site. It's also a big, that's where the COVID binds. Exercise helps regulate that. So for two additional reasons, exercise has a very anti-COVID activity, action. Because the last place you want it is in the lungs, right? That's when you die, you know, and you really get impaired. And so there's this additional benefit.

Of course, all the other stuff, you know, making you less stressed, making you more resilient, making you more gritful, making you more positive, all that comes with exercise in general. But these are specific additive things for the benefit in our COVID world. I have one more question. I mean, in your book, you mentioned the medulla oblongata and how the medulla, it's like where you store how to what am i doing telling you this but like i read it from you yeah your automatic response like say like riding a bicycle or whatever so but like um what does the medulla have to do with like you know exercise learning or or am i once again separating a piece of brain i shouldn't be yeah no. No, you've got to look at the brain as a whole thing.

You know, it's never – there's one section here, one section there, hippocampus there, you know, and frontal cortex. But they're all related. You know, I mean, the big thing was now in the past 30 years is realizing that the cerebellum is very involved with the frontal cortex, which is learning and deciding and mood and relationships. The cerebellum was way down in the back of the brain. And it is all these pathways up that they just, I mean, had really begun to identify and see that how important

that is so balance and coordination training is is for physical skills but also for our higher brain functions and that's what's what what the big news is so you know but that's because of the connection between the two you know medalla has connections you know and it's it's it's not that it's the only thing working when you're riding a bike but that's where the programs might be stored so yeah i actually mentioned you mentioned walking before oh look at his face he's like oh you took it from me that was the best question walking walking before as Oh, look at his face. He's like, oh, you took it from me. That was the best question ever. You mentioned walking before as a low-intensity activity that has many benefits regarding depression and potentially BDMF and whatever else. So maybe I already know the answer to this question.

But what about things like other low-intensity activities like light yoga or stretching, that type of thing? Stretching, I don't know but yoga where you you really well stretching the same way where you're really trying to get into the i mean you know really trying to get in the right pose and everything uh it has more of a flow you know you get your heart rate up a little bit but it's really balance and coordination right i mean uh tony horton does yoga in his p90x which is really a challenge you know i mean it's it's challenging um we did a my wife and i did a a paragon p90x with him last year with ninja training. Yeah.

Oh, my God. I was a great observer in the last one standing, so that was good. Yeah. Good. Anyway, I'm going to have to stop, guys, soon. All right. Yeah. Okay.

The last question. I notice everything you talk about in your book, but since I'm already in shape and I don't have to worry about getting out of kind of like depression and anxiety because of fitness and everything that goes into it. My question for you is we always kind of want to get people from a place of sick to wellness and health, but we rarely study or hear about people that were in great shape and then start to regress backwards. Have you done any studies on that? Because anytime I take a week off, I start to notice everything you talk about in the book, but backwards in which I start to get really like in my own head. I feel like I'm not strong anymore.

I feel like I've put on weight i get really insecure and are there any studies or anything working backwards in this sure sure it it it takes about what is it i i there are studies looking at people who are very fit and to keep them from exercising. Okay, they did this. They all got anxious. They all got stressed. At the end of a week, they were more anxious, they were panicking, some of them, and that's

the only thing they measured. But it, yeah. So, yeah. It does go away very fast. And as you age, your muscles go away really fast. Yeah. I'm trying to prevent that, but yeah. Yeah, got to stay on it.

Stay on those deadlifts. Where can people find you? What's the next book? How do we tell everybody that they need to be listening to you? Then, okay. Two places to find me. The best one is, I'm antiquated here, Facebook. John Rady, MD on Facebook, because every day we have a new article that's put up on exercise and the brain usually, and it does all kinds of stuff, you know, everything, yoga, meditation, but mainly exercise, walking, running, jumping, biking, strength training, everything. It depends on what has hit the popular press, Forbes or Wall Street Journal or, you know, someplace.

So that's where they could stay with it. And my website, johnrady.com, another place, but it's not very active. It's more of a passive kind of thing. Awesome. Gabriel. How did I find you?

You're here. You can send it off to GabrielV underscore LPC is my Instagram. Uh, if you have questions, uh, specifically for me,

um, Gabriel at clinically informed coach.com. Get out to Roanoke, Virginia, go lift the weights. Okay. Coach Travis mash. Good.

Bye guys. Bye. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Appreciate it, John. Thanks,

Bob. Go to mash delete.com and, uh, buy this man's you. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Appreciate it, John. Thanks, Bob. Go to mashdelete.com and buy this man's book. It's amazing. It was awesome. Spark, by the way. And thank you, Gabriel, for took me a year to read it, but thank you

for suggesting. No problem. Doug Larson. Find me on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. Yo, everyone hanging out with us on the barbell life right now thanks for hanging out I'm like waving to the people as if we're all talking to you and everyone on barbell shrugs

get over to barbell shrug.com forward slash store programs nutrition mobility and ebooks make it strong people stronger I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner we're barbell shrug at barbell underscore Shrugged. And then everyone hanging out from Barbell Shrugged, get over to Match Elite. Go hang out with Coach.

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