Good Job, Brain! - 91: Let's Get Physical

Episode Date: December 18, 2013

Lace up your shoes and strap on that shiny leotard because it's time to sweat. Trivia and origin stories of things, people, and places that keep yourself fit. Take the atheletic brand quiz and find out where the names like Reebok and Adidas came from. Karen admits to some very candid and personal issues people go through when engaging in endurance sports. Find out why people hit the gym, and where the concept of "the gym" originate from. Do you know your infomercial fitness products and the celebrities who endorse them?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, formation of flawless flash bulbs, flaunting, flavorful flair. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and off-be trivia podcast. This is episode 91. And of course, I am your humble host, Karen, and we are, your platoon planning for pleasures and plethora of plantains. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. This is episode 91. We're on the road to episode 100. The long death march. We haven't really planned what to do for our 100th episode yet. We're actually scheduling our recordings and planning some mini episodes so that the 100th episode of Good Job Brain will publish. Exactly on the day of our two-year anniversary. Oh.

Yeah. It just kind of fits that way. Nice. Happy accident. What day is that? The first episode came out on March 4th, 2012. And we're hoping that our 100th episode will come out on the same date in 2014. All right.

So, uh, folks, if you have any ideas or suggestions about what we should do in our 100th episode, let us know. And furthermore, we are inviting you, listeners, for a chance to be on the show. We want to get some audience participation for our 100th episodes. So one idea I had is like maybe record your lovely voice using your computer or voice recorder or even just your voice memo function from your phone. And you can tell us your favorite moments, why you like good job brain, or let us know how you listen to the show or who you listen to show with. And you can write songs or jingles or have your cats meow. I don't know. We just want some like cool audio bits.

So state your name and what city you're in and you can email us the audio file. Oh, neat. Video files will not be honored. All audio files become the property of good job, brain. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz Hot Shot. I have, I'm going to combine some trivial pursuit cards here, random from the box.

You guys have your barnyard buzzards. There's one with a picture. There's one with a picture. Oh, okay. We're going to mash it up. All right, here we go. Blue Wedge for Geography, French Village, French Castle. French Prince, but who's the only major character in Disney's film Beauty and the Beast

with a French accent? Dana. It's the candlestick. What's his name? Lumiere. Yes. Lumier, the candlestick, voiced by... Jerry Orbach.

Yes. Jerry Orbach from Law and Order. And also, who put Baby in the Corner. All right. Pink Wedge, pop culture. What kind of vehicle does... Travis Bickle Drive. Oh, Chris.

A taxi cab. Correct. A taximeter cabriolet. It is Robert De Niro plays Bickle, the title character in the film, Taxi Driver. All right. Yellow Wedge. Who pleaded for calm in Los Angeles on May 1st, 1992, asking, can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids? I'm going to guess that's Rodney King.

Yes, Rodney King. said this right after, can we all get along? All right. Purple Wedge. Whoa. Andy Warhol played himself on the 200th episode of what Aaron Spelling series. Interesting. Colling.

The Love Boat? Yeah. Oh, okay. The Love Boat says here, Marian Ross played a housewife trying to hide her past as a Warhol superstar from her husband, played by Tom Bosley. Okay. Okay. All right.

Green Wedge for Sondi. Science, the citraline and watermelon can imitate the effects of what pharmaceutical. Hmm. Really? Citraline and watermelon can imitate the effects of what pharmaceutical? Pharmaceutical. Chris. The morning after pill.

Incorrect. If only. I have no, no. I don't know, like some anti-smoking patch or something. It is Viagra. What? It says here, but you need to eat about six cups of watermelon. Hot summer nights.

Wow. That's okay. Six cups of watermelon. That's not that much. It's not that much. It's not six watermelons. You can make a pretty normal-sized smoothie out of six cups of watermelon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A good old watermelon smoothie. Yeah. It's a lot of watermelon. You're going to be, you're going to, your stomach's going to be pretty full. Hey, honey, I'll eat both these watermelons tonight. I might They're off on you Yeah, you have to stop and go pee every five seconds

Yeah, geez Oh, my God Okay Well, that said Orange Wedge last question What grain must make up at least 51% of the fermented mash From which bourbon whiskey is made Talked about this on the show

That is corn Yes, good all American corn. There you go. Good job, Brains. Not bad. I think everybody's still processing the water. I'm still thinking about it. Wow.

Wow. All right. We are approaching the new year. And here I have a top 10 commonly broken New Year's resolution. Oh. I want to see if you can guess some of these. Okay. There's five main ones.

Lose weight. Yeah, lose weight, work out more. Uh-huh. Stop smoking. Stop smoking as one. Stop drinking. Stop drinking as one. Okay, so smoking, drinking, lose weight.

Workout. Save money. Yes. Oh. One last one. Smoking, drinking, lose weight, save. All the things people don't do. Right, right.

So, hence, yeah, this isn't the top most common or popular. These are top 10 commonly broken. Right, right. And the last one is spend more time with family. I was going to say that. Oh, I thought it would be too sad. Yeah. I know.

It's broken. Definitely, number one is lose weight and get fit. Yeah. So. In the spirit of that, today's episode, this week, we decided to talk about fitness and exercise, wacky stories, trivia, and quizzes about fitness, whether or not you want to have that as a new year's resolution or not. We're not joking. This is just fun trivia stuff. So this week, let's get physical.

Let's get physical. I want to get physical. Let's get physical. Let me find it talk. Well, I'll start us off here with a quiz for you guys about famous athletic brands. And I would say in particular, athletic shoe manufacturers. Although these days, if you're an athletic shoe brand, you make all sorts of clothing and equipment. It's fashion.

Yes, it's true. It is a lifestyle. Fashion sneaker. Yeah, lifestyle sneaker. Right, right. All right. So a lot of these will have to do with names, origins. symbols. Here we go. Let's pick it off.

That's my favorite. So I know that you guys know the Nike Corporation takes its name from the Greek goddess of the same name. I know you guys know this. Yes. The Greeks to actually pronounce it a little bit differently. The Greeks would say Nike. Yeah. Nike. Yeah. And further, you probably even know that she was the goddess of victory. Indeed. That's right. Winged, winged victory.

Winged goddess of victory. She didn't have a head. Wait, really? No. The very famous statue in the Louvre of the wing victory. She does not have a head, unfortunately. But that is of a Niki. That is her.

That is her. Yeah. Okay. Yes. As you guys know, the gods and goddesses have Greek and Roman equivalents. So tell me who. Who is the Roman equivalent of Niki? Is it a common name?

It is a common name today. It is a common girl's name even today. We took a real circular. This path to that question. Interesting. The Roman goddess of victory. This is a common girl's name today. Common girl's name today.

I'll give you a little hint. It's directly related to her sphere of influence. Karen. Victoria. Victoria. Yes. Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. Man, we did take a circuitous.

I thought you were going to ask, what was the original name of Nike's company? What was it? What was it? Blue Ribbon Sports. Oh, right. Oh, okay. I think I have heard that before. That's not as good.

Who, what, or where Is Reebok named after? Oh, my God, I know. Isn't it, it's an animal, right? It is an animal, yes. Like a, Springbok. It is an antelope, yes, in fact, yes, and Reebok, springbok, yeah, similar name. Antelope, not antler.

Yeah, I was like spelling it in my mind, yeah. A gray Reebok or rebuck sometimes spelled is a type of anelope. The Reebok that we're talking about, we spelled it in English, R-H-E-B-O-K. So the R-E-E-B-O-K was not some sort of intentionally stylized, you know, so they could copyright it or trademark or anything like that. The company that we call Reebok was founded a long time ago. It was J.W. Foster & Sons Shoe Company, going back to 1895 in England. The Reebok name didn't come along until the late 50s, early 60s. They changed their athletic apparel line to Reebok.

At that time, J.W. Foster's grandsons were running the company. They chose the name out of a dictionary. And they kind of liked the sound, thought it sort of fit well for athletic shoes. But here's the fun part. It was a South African edition of the dictionary. And R.E.E. B.K. is how you spell Reebok in Afrikaans. That's right. And so they just took it from there. And hence, Rebock.

The lore also goes, I guess, that the dictionary was won in a race by one of the grandsons. So it had also the extra connotation of Bebock. being won in a foot race. This is a winning dictionary. What a weird prize. Frappo prize. Yeah. It sounds a little too pat to me, I have to say.

Here's your South African dictionary. I don't want a book. Here's your dictionary nerd. Yeah. What is the historical connection between the Adidas and the Puma shoe companies? Karen. They are founded by rival brothers. They are indeed.

Founded by rival brothers. Yes, brothers who hated each other. Yeah. This is just a bitter, this rivalry consumed, not just the brothers, but their wives, their families. It ended up, I mean, even consuming the town to an extent. When did it start? Well, so they started, the Dossler brothers, let's back up here. The Dossler brothers, Adolf Dossler and Rudolph Dossler, started to shoot company.

They even had cutesy matching names. In Germany in the 1920s. And it was going pretty well. but they just, they're, the rifts between them started to grow. And after World War II, they ended up splitting essentially into two rival companies. And so Adolf Dossler founded Adidas. His nickname was Adi for Adolf. Adesler, Adolf, Adesler.

And that's where Adidas comes from. It's a portmanteau of his name. Whoa. Adidas. Rudolph founded, we call it Puma now. When he founded it, he called it Ruda. From Rudolph Dossler. Wow.

Wow. Someone, yeah, I think someone convinced him maybe that Puma was a little bit more marketable. Rudda. Yeah. So, Adidas and Puma, yes, and were fierce rivals marketing soccer shoes. The story goes that Adidas really became the one that took off the most, partly due to an argument that Rudolf had with the head coach of the German national soccer team. So the story goes that he had some argument with the coach of the team and Adidas, Adi's company, eventually ended up getting the contract to supply the way. West German team. In 1954, they ended up winning the World Cup. I mean, like, as underdogs.

And just from there, they're like, great. All right, you won the World Cup wearing Adidas, and all of a sudden, boom, just took off from there. Ha. It's funny. So he's just in a fight with his brother. He's in a fight with the German coach guy. If everybody in the world's a jerk, I don't know. The two companies are still successful. They are still successful today. It did take Puma a long time to kind of catch up to the level of where Adidas is. All right, we'll close it out here with a good trivia slash story question for you guys. I don't know. So for a lot of people, I can definitely say for myself, the absolute, just most iconic athletic shoe is... All-stars. The Converse All-Star. The Chuck Taylor's. Yeah. I mean... Visually. Yeah. If you're an artist or,

you know, you need to just convey athletic shoe, it's just, yep, that classic high top shape, the rubber toe cap, the little circle with a star on the inner ankle. Yeah, just classic. Bonafide, classic. Do you know they used to wear those, like, actual athletic. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's not really good for you, right? Because they have no support whatsoever. No, but that was like the athletic show of the old days. Who was? Chuck Taylor. Karen, quickly. Chuck Taylor was actually a basketball player. And he, he was professional. And he, I think, was a consultant for the Converse company was naturally a really good salesman and started kind of evangelizing the sport of basketball and the shoe. Yeah. He helped develop. Yeah. That's that is that is all correct. And the only

part these questions are within my wheel. Yeah, you were just on it with the shoes. No, all of that is correct. And then the only other bit to add is he was indeed a professional basketball player. It was non-traditional, a sense of today, you know, we think of Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan sponsoring shoes coming from professional. He became a professional. He became a professional. basketball player playing for a Converse-created, Converse-sponsored kind of barnstorming-style team. So this is so interesting to me. The Converse All-Star was introduced in 1917. So it's an old shoe.

And this was basically there way of getting into the basketball market. Like up until that time, Spalding had to making basketball athletic shoes without a lot of serious competition. They make the balls, right? And Converse started making their All-Star shoes. At the time, Chuck Taylor was in high school. a high school player he started wearing them loved them he was in indiana and uh people in indiana take their basketball very seriously he went to the converse company in 1921 basically saying i want a job helping to sell your shoes and they just they loved his moxies so much that they're like all right kid

we will we will we will create a position for you as our leading evangelist so they cannot do that today just show up at the company and be escorted out by security like hey nikey i love Love your shoes. Give me a job. Give me a job. No. So he would travel the country, putting on basketball clinics, and literally selling shoes out of his car. He wasn't on commission.

He didn't have a salary. But he loved the game, wanted to grow the game, was just a passionate teacher. He actually made the suggestion of putting that patch on the ankle. That was his idea. And it was originally supposed to be protective. Yeah, it's like strengthening. It would protect that. Yeah.

But, you know, these days, I think it's just screen printed on. It's not even a real patch. Right, right, right. So, yeah, Chuck Taylor, absolute solid legend in the world of basketball. I read his biography. Lots of people talking about how, yes, he was very good at his job, but he also liked to spend a lot of companies money. Yeah, I've heard that as well. I've read that as well.

A lot of expenses and stuff. Well, he wanted that job for a reason. Yeah, that's true. Well, speaking of a fitness product evangelist, let me ask you this. For people roughly our age, when you hear the name, Jack, What is the first thing that pops into your head? Oh, okay. For me, old man doing aerobics.

Old man doing aerobics. And a juicer. Juicers. That's what I was going to say. For me, it's like my first, the first time I ever saw Jackalane, and really the only experience that I ever had with, you know, with him was turning on an infomercial when I was a kid and watching himself, The Juice Tiger on amazing discoveries, you know, that show that feigned pretense of being like a news magazine show but it was just infomercials the guy was always British wow yeah that's amazing um you know and uh so jack belaine would be on there selling uh

the tiger the juice tiger the juice which which which which was later recalled because parts of it would go flying and kill people but um like a like a real tiger yeah yeah yeah didn't you never know when it's gonna ball you yeah they didn't call the juice kitten um but then but then jack Lelaine's power juicer, which significantly fewer injuries is now still on the market today. So I did not really know that much about Jack Laine, but he is the founder of the fitness movement. If you, if you like go to the gym after work, you do that because Jack Lillane put that idea in your head many years ago. So here are some trivia about Jack Lillane, Godfather of fitness. Henri Francois La Lain

Is his actual His actual name His brothers His brothers for some reason Nicknamed him Jack When he was a kid I don't know He was born in 1914

Here in San Francisco To French immigrants Obviously As a teenager He kind of started getting interested In health and the body And exercise and stuff like that And when he was 21

He opened up What he says is And what seems to be Basically the first modern health club Like what we would call a, you know, the gym. Now, there had been, like, gymnasiums, you know, all over the place in Europe and whatever. And gymnasium, by the way, is Greek for... Body.

Nude exercising. All it means is a place to be naked. That is what gymnasium means. Gymnophobia. Gymnophobia is the fear of being naked. Jimno is just nudity because they exercise naked. That's no one never nude. It's a gymnipotian.

So there's no... There's no, as far as I can tell there is no exercise or anything like that in the word gymnasium. It just means like, naked place. Naked place. So, you know, kids go to your high school gym, take all their clothes off and run around, and they can't do anything because that's what it's what it is. It's the naked place. On the podcast, I heard that was okay. So, like, you could go to the YMCA at this time.

This is in the 30s in America. And you could, you know, they had weights and you could lift weights if you wanted to. But, like, there was no sense of, like, as a regular thing, exercise daily just to maintain a. state of health and fitness. Like you did that if you were like an athlete or a bodybuilder. Regular building. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Basically, Layne had this vision of you'd go there after work or in the morning or whatever and you'd have a personal trainer who at that time was Jack La Lane, you know, and fitness goals and all that. He had a juice bar in there. This is in 1936 in Oakland, California, downtown Oakland. Had a health food restaurant, you know, downstairs and he opened it up and nobody went there.

Nobody went there. Ahead of his time. There was no movement. Super ahead of his time. He was the person who, you know, made it this way in the first place. And nobody went in. And he ends up, he gave massages for a while because he was trained. He went to school for chiropractic.

Chiropractic? Yeah. Chiropractic? Chiropractic. Chiropractic medicine. He went to school for that. So he gave massages. He gave massages to Trader Vic.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Open. The Mikai. Yeah.

That diverger on. Yep. So we'd give him massages, and that's how he was making money, and he was just trying to convince people to come in. And he is the way, this is the way that Jack Layne did it. He went and he had a presentation at a high school. Now, at this point, people kind of knew who he was, like, in Oakland because, like, you know, he was, he was pretty ripped, which at the time people didn't really get that ripped.

You know, he had been, like, a high school athlete, and he had been, you know, he had done, like, bodybuilding kind of stuff. So he went and he did a presentation on, like, health and fitness and everything. Also, I could also imagine that just seeing his energy at age 80, I can imagine what he was like at age... When he was 21 when he opened this health club, he was super young. Went to a local high school, did a presentation about fitness, and all the kids just made fun of him. Because they knew that he did not... At this point, he didn't eat much meat almost at all.

He didn't eat bread. He was just eating meat and vegetables and very little meat. He didn't drink Coca-Cola, nectar of the gods. You were weirdo in 1936 if you didn't do those things. no sense of like why you wouldn't put that in your body like who cares it's all delicious you know um and they were making making fun of them they were teasing him like they were asking him to comb his hair because of this belief that that if you got big and mussely you you you would lose the flexibility of being able to like reach your hand over your head like that stereotype you see

in the cartoons of the big muscle guy walking down the street and can't move that's what they thought it was like if you had big muscles and they thought that like that's what they were going to become. So, but he, so the kids all make fun of them. And he's like, you know what, forget it. He goes up. He says, I go up to the fattest kids in this high school and the skinniest kids in this high school, little scrawny kids. And he gets their home address from them. And he goes to their homes in the evening. And he talks to their parents. And he says to the parents, I'm going to, I'm going to get, I'm going to have your kid. He's going to lose, you know, 20 pounds in the first three weeks, or I'm going to give you double your money back. And he goes to the skinny

kids. I'm going to put muscle on your kids. So he has the parents sign the high school kids up for his fitness center. And that's how he got the bodies in the door. And then, and then in his telling. He's aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, he had to be, you know, but then they start seeing results. Then he says, then the parents started calling me. And the parents, he said, they were just like, now don't tell anybody I'm coming in. Like, can you slot me in in the morning and don't tell anybody? Because it was, doctors were telling their patients, do not. And go to this thing that Jack Lillane is doing because

if you lift weights you are going to get hemorrhoids and you are going to have lowered sex drive and you are going to give yourself you're going to give yourself a heart attack lifting all those weights. I imagine that's what doctors were saying. Smoking while getting this advice. Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. So what did they do when they got there? Well, they had all the equipment machines like the leg extension machines and the weight selectors because Jack the lane invented those. Jack LaLane invented those machines, and he worked with blacksmiths and machinists and had them custom build those machines. Wow. Yep.

A lot of the stuff that's still on you today, he just invented it. That's so weird that at some point in time, like, there's no concept of... No concept of exercising for everybody as something you should do to live a better life. To maintain, as you said, to maintain fitness. Yeah. It's like you're either an athlete competing in a sport. Or it or you don't exercise. Yeah.

So we operates this gym for 15 years or so. It gets very popular. Next big thing is TV show, the Jack Lillane show, which was started out local to the San Francisco market, went national a few years later. He did exercise routines at home and tried to just get everybody to exercise along with him. He wore ballet slippers because sneakers were not a thing at this point. Like, you know, as we kind of know, after, you know, listening to Colin here, nobody

just wore sneakers around the house or anything like that. So he wore ballet slippers on TV. Once it went National, they actually, they brought a dog onto the show. Originally, it was like his dog, and then they brought in another dog. And this is great for good job brain listeners. You guys would love this. He had a contest to name the dog. And the winning entry that was submitted by a viewer, he named the dog Walter, which is short for,

we all love to exercise regular. Wow. Yes. That is... Yes. And so, yeah, I mean, he basically was just, at that point, you know, just a national sort of name and would, you know, sell all kinds of exercise-related products. If you name it, if it's related to health and fitness, he put his name on it. You know, he was a pitch man.

He was great at being a salesman. As he got older, you probably heard about these things, too. He would start to do, like, crazy feats, like newsmaking feats. 154 when he was 40 He swam the length of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge Underwater with air tanks Like not holding his breath But with like 140 pounds of equipment on him

1974 when he turned 60 He swam from Alcatraz to Fisherman's War Which is the thing they say you're not supposed to be able to do Because they're sharks Sure Probably other reasons It's far It's really fun

But he was also a handcuffed shackled and towing a thousand-pound boat As he was swimming. Wow, just like doing like a dog-y? You do a dog paddle. His hands were together and his legs were together. Wow. 1984 at the age of 70, he was handcuffed, shackled, and fighting, this is directly

off of his website. So, you know, you can. Sure. A little bit flare. Yeah. And fighting strong winds and currents. He towed 70 boats with 70 people from the Queens Way, bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the

Queen Mary, one and a half miles. So he was hooked up to 70 boats and towed them all. And he was 70 years old. He was 70 years old. It's like, let's take this old man and throw him in a while. See, we can drag the boats. Whoa, he's dragging the boats.

Uh-oh. Oh, crap. Yes. Yeah, this is the Jackal Lane that I remember from my childhood. Is like, the the TV show, I guess, was still running and him just doing these crazy feats of strength. Yeah. Old man, old man doing strength stuff. When Johann Rawl received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later.

Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was, was a warning, delivered to the Hessian Colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Rawl lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pockets. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is the Constant, a history of getting things wrong.

I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at Constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. There are really many reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science. It's kind of a challenge to summarize them all, Molly. Okay, here's a reason to listen to our show, Big Picture Science, because you love to be surprised by science news.

We love to be surprised by science news. So, for instance, I learned on our own show that I had been driving around with precious metals in my truck before it was stolen. That was brought up in our show about precious metals and also rare metals, like most of the things. and your catalytic converter, I was surprised to learn that we may begin naming heat waves, like we do hurricanes, you know, prepare yourself for heatwave Lucifer. I don't think I can prepare myself for that.

Look, we like surprising our listeners. We like surprising ourselves by reporting new developments in science, and while asking the big picture questions about why they matter and how they will affect our lives today and in the future. Well, we can't affect lives in the past, right? Oh, I guess that's a point. So the podcast is called Big Picture Science, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. We are the host.

Seth is a scientist. I'm a science journalist, and we talk to people smarter than us. We hope you'll take a listen. So I have a quiz for you guys. It's about celebrity endorsements for fitness products. Okay. And these are celebrities that you know, and their products also that you know. And all of them, let's say, they don't really work.

That's the other thing with them. But like they work-ish, like ish. We'll kick it off with a product that was recently proven not to help wearers exercise more intensely burn more calories or improve muscle strength and tone. These are shape-up shoes. Oh, Skechers. Yes, Skechers. Which reality star endorsed Skechers? Who is the spokesperson?

It is Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian. Along with many other like, Brooke Burke was one. I think, I think weird. Weirdly, Joe Montana also endorsed these. That was my follow-up question. Which Hall of Fame quarterback also endorsed Skechers. They don't do anything, though?

No, no. Those were the ones with the weird, rounded bottoms. So you constantly have to be balancing yourself when you're on them. But not really. It feels like you're walking on sand. So it feels like, oh, I'm working my legs more, but I think it might be negligible. But also, it's like a lot of people who have these shoes are like, oh, I should walk more. now that I have these special shoes.

This is like going to the gym. No. It's not. No. Kemp Kardashian also endorsed which weight loss supplement. And I'll give you a selection. That's Xantax, QuickTrim, or Hydroxicut. X-Lax.

No. I think it's Quick-Trim. Quick-Trim. Yeah. Here's a softball for you guys. Which celebrity endorsed the thigh master? Suzanne Summer. The Thymaster was developed by Joshua Reynolds, who was a mastermind behind what fad of the 70s and 80s.

Paul. Pet Rock. Very close. She a pet. No. I was going to guess Pet Rock. It's the mood ring. Oh.

See, that makes me doubt the legitimacy of the Thymaster. Yeah. It's like it works-ish. Just the way a mood ring works-ish. I like that he chose Suzanne Summers, also big in the 70s. She's fit, though. She, hey, right. Indubitably.

This reality star endorsed Dr. Siegel's cookie diet, where you have one meal and six cookies a day. So it does work if you're just eating one meal and six cookies in a day. Well, yeah. Sure. But these are, like, cookies loaded with fiber. Oh, yeah. They're poop cookies, yes.

They're poop cookies. Oh, okay. Oh, the poop cookie diet. I've only seen these ads for. the cookie diet on like sky mall you know like I've never really seen it advertised I'll give you this this celebrity lost a lot of weight after she had her baby

oh I know um I know she had her baby like 30 years ago well I don't know what this I don't know who thing was Kate Goslin no oh that was good it's Snucky

Snokey Snokey Snokey Snokey cookie cookie Snooky has the cookies Oh man You know what I would

would buy poop cookie before I would buy snooky cookie. This conservative talk show host stars in an infomercial promoting the pro-form ab glider. It's a swinging, swiveling contraption that promises to burn twice the calories of other similar machines. But personal trainers say you're not going to get an eight-pack, a six-pack, a four-pack. You're not going to get toned using this. Not even a three-pack. Well, I can't imagine, like, Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh doing anything. fitness related.

It's a... Oh, oh. Is it Ted Nugent? No. I don't know. What is it? It's a radio.

It's a conservative talk show host. Conservative talk show host. Mm-hmm. It's a woman. And... Who is it? No. Is it Laura Ingram?

No. Sarah Palet. No. No. It's Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Oh. Yeah. That makes sense.

That makes sense. That's right. That's right. She's not on the view anymore. Mm-hmm. But she has her own show on Fox. That's true. Yeah, of course.

Reality star and conservative talk show. Yeah, that's true. She was on Survivor first. That was her claim to fame. Did she win Survivor? She did, did she win Survivor? I thought she was runner up that year. I think she might have been runner up.

Yeah. I'm not positive. I don't know. Okay. To date, he has his own abs workout DVD, a line of G&C chewable supplements, and reportedly scored $400,000 to endorse the protein-infused devotion vodka. This is a reality star. Vodka?

Yeah, that's a good way to do it. Okay. Is it the situation? Yes. There we go. I'm like vodka and abs. Oh, yeah, yes. Protein infused vodka.

Yeah. It only has like two grams of protein in it. It's not like an egg. Oh, so it's not a fitness. It's not a fitness vodka. It's a fitness. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's how they're marketed.

It's a, fitness vodka. This actress is the spokesperson for Trop 15. Tropican has reduced sugar and calorie line of juices. In her best known role, she played a character who tried bizarre crash diets like the Japanese Pornstar diet, which involves eating only paper. Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. As Jenna Maroni eating only paper to lose weight. And finally, this reality star launched a line of skinny. Girl branded Supplements, Margaritas, and Shapewear. Karen.

Bethany forgot what's her last name, but she was from Real Housewives of New York. Yes. Franklin. Bethany Franklin. Oh, man. Those are everywhere. A lot of reality stars. Yeah, this quiz.

Good job. Karen, I think you suggested this topic so you get all the questions right. No, Colin suggested this. Oh, okay. You subliminally planted it in his head by whispering and while you sleep. Or that. Collins are a sports guy, but Karen's our fitness girl. That's right. That's right. Fitness whiz. Fitwis. Fitwis.

All right. Well, my turn. And I have a story. My point is not to gross anybody out. Like, there is science behind it. But I just want to give you that disclaimer. But you're going to do it anyway. You were attracted to it because it was gross. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I know you. Yeah. Yeah. So earlier this year in 2013, I ran a race called the Golden Gate Relay. And it's 200 miles across 36 different cities. And it's a relay race. What you're supposed to do is you have a team of people. And then you, I was on a team. And then you run different legs or different assigned distances. And it's all day, all night. You can take turns sleeping when you're not running in the car. But your team is always running. Your team is always running.

Most teams have 12 people We had seven Which meant we had to do double duty And we had to run more per person To try to cover those 200 miles I think it was maybe during my second leg My second distance I had to run It was in the middle of nowhere

It was like in the rural kind of areas of through Napa It was 94 degrees outside It was super hot And I realized that I had had my, my female monthly gift hit me. Oh, the story. And it hit, and it hit, and it hit me hard. Oh, no.

And the thing is with these races, with a lot of endurance sports, you, you can't really do anything about it. Like, I mean, I'm, well, you choose not to do anything about it. I was in the middle of nowhere. Like, there's no, there's no aid stop. If I were to stop, like, okay. There's some grass. I don't know.

I get McGiver. We're going to figure this out now. I had twigs and mud. I had six miles to go. Oh, no. I did it. I ran the whole way. You go, girl.

Keep in mind my teammates were all dudes. So when I had to, you know, stop at the exchange point where I gave them the relay thing. Right, yeah, yeah. All the guys were like, oh, I was like. It's not a big deal. It's okay. I took him out.

It's fine. I was so, I mean, this is really traumatic. I was really embarrassed. It's so embarrassing. It's okay. I was like I was mortified. I was completely mortified. But like, what could I do?

I mean, what can you do? If I had to pee, I can stop and just go pee. Like this, I could not really control or do anything. So I was like, Like, oh, my God, this is going to be the most embarrassing moment of the trip, of the whole race. It's like, me dripping blood everywhere. It wasn't. It wasn't the worst, most embarrassing moment because the next person...

All you have to do is to be the second most embarrassing story. They'll forget about it. So it was my teammates turn to run. And I think this was a couple miles in. He had eight miles to go. It's also under heat. It was during the daytime. he

I mean pooped his pants I was going to say there's only one thing he could really he accidentally or or however it happened he pooped his pants

like that accidentally or ended so so he pooped his pants and he ran like that for the rest of the way

and he had to change and good thing we had you know extra shorts or whatever but I was like good no one's going to remember my story. Everybody just, everybody just remembers the guy who pooped his pants. Anyways, is that

true? So, okay. This in a lot of either triathlons, cycling, running, marathoning, ultramarathon, when you have endurance sports, this is a problem. The pooping her pants, why is this? So, I don't know if you guys know Paula Radcliffe, very, very famous, very famous marathoner. She, she's a British distance runner. And she currently holds the women's world record for marathon. And she infamously, infamously in, I think, maybe the London Marathon, she was suffering some sort of GI gastrointestinal issues, I think, around mile 22. Keep in mind, this is like a couple of years ago. So everything was televised. Like people, you know, their cameras following runners.

And she is, she's one of the fastest. And so so quickly, she just squatted down and pulled down her running briefs and pooped. and pulled her shorts back up and ran again. And it was all caught on television. Like you see her squat. So that's how you do a, that's how a pro does it. That's not like, she does it. Right.

She does it in, it's less than two seconds. Like when you watch, you can go on YouTube and watch this clip. It's like you need. Oh, can I? Yeah. Yeah, let me just, let me just do that. Do that, load it right up right now. And guess what?

She still won. She still won that. And so it is. So that's, so that's, so. So that does make sense. It's like, look, if you think you have to poop, you might as well just like, you know, just, no, I mean, not just go, but like, stop. And then go. Because it's like, it's like two seconds of embarrassment versus like.

Now you're going to carry it around for the whole run. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. In a 2008 study of almost 1,300 runners found that at least 45% complained that there are GI issues related to, you know, during the race. Huh. And it's the GI tract is really sensitive to stress. and running and anticipation, the anxiety, it's really stressful. And also, I mean, when you run, your intestines, they jostle.

Yeah, they jostle and all the blood in your body is being rerouted to your vital organs or to your muscles from your legs. So the balance of your body is kind of off. And so your GI tract will act up. You know, there's also dehydration, a bunch of these factors working against you as you're doing endurance sports, and a lot of people will want. to poop. However, there is a hypothesis. It's

a theory. I don't know if it's true or not. Probably not. But this is and of course, music lovers and concert go is probably are, know this phenomenon. It's called the brown note. And what the theory is. This is not true. This is not true. I've heard this, but this is not.

The theory is, the theory of the brown note is that there is some sort of frequency that once it, the natural frequency of your, you know, intestines or of your body, then you have resonance and you will lose control of your muscles and poop will come out. It's like an opera singer who like can shatter a glass because they're not, exactly, exactly like that. They can match the note that opens, like shatters your. A lot of, there's theory that because you're running at a regular pace somehow, maybe sometimes it will match the natural frequency and resonate and.

and, you know, you lose control of... Cursepolish. Yeah. They did test this on Mythbusters, the brown note. More of, like, in a concert angle, like, so they had, like, people surrounded by different... Just try different notes. Different frequencies. It didn't happen.

It's like, tur. Crossed it off the list, yeah. They look at their butts. Anything? No. No. No. All right.

Next frequency. This is going to be good. I really thought it was going to be that one. They did not find a brown note in their experiment. I can assure you that if there were such a thing as a brown note, the nation's teenage boys would be playing it at large but high volume in every neighborhood around the country. Just for kicks. So there you go.

Cool story, bro. It's scientific. It does happen. It does happen. Yeah. But it's probably not related to the mysterious brown note or it's the elusive. It's mostly, most likely just due to intense stress to your body. I mean, like, also like famous.

Runners, friends. Well, Tour de France. Tour de France cycle. They sometimes just have to go. You, when you're on the move in a race, it's, yep, you got to keep moving. Or triathletes, they just pee in the water. Like, I mean, what are you supposed to do? Like, you can't.

What I like about this podcast. Wait a minute. I'm not a triathlete, and I pee in the water. Don't swim with Chris That's just normal Technically if you're out in open waters You're swimming with like fish pee and poo all the time Yeah yeah totally

Yeah I'm just adding to the vibrant ecosystem What I like about this podcast is we're not afraid To take on the taboos subject Personal Taboo subject We keep it super real Everybody Get to Toronto's main venues

Like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network, and the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. well i have absolutely no idea how to follow that up so let me ask you guys a question

awkward i feel like we've shared so much we shared so much already well you know i'll take the transition from peeing in the water how about that i'll i'll find i'll find a way to i'll force a segue here all right what would you say if i told you guys that in order to graduate from college. You had to be able to swim 50 yards in under a minute and then tread water continuously for five minutes. Is that like a fitness test? Yeah, this is not some requirement from a hundred years ago or like, this is today at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. They are one of many schools that still have swimming requirements for students. I like it. I had not heard of these swimming requirements. I was just talking with my mom over Thanksgiving, and she mentioned that when

she was at the University of Washington, she had to pass a swim test for graduation. And we got to talking, and it interested me enough that I did a little bit of research. There was at one time, as as late as the 1970s, almost half of the colleges and universities in America had some sort of sort of swimming requirement. Really? To graduate. Yes, and this is so fascinating. There are not that many left today, but here are samples of some of the requirements.

At Cornell, you have to swim three lengths in the pool, at least one on the front and one on the back. At MIT, you have to swim 100 yards. At Bryn-Mar, you have to swim continuously for 10 minutes. That's a lot. Float on your back for one minute, and then tread water for one minute. And, you know, these go on and on. Some schools have time restrictions, some days.

don't, uh, as if, as if showing up at, at school for as a freshman is not stressful enough. Yeah. And getting it with a swimsuit. And fraught with enough potential for embarrassment. Yeah, I want you to imagine you show up as a freshman. You've got to get the swimsuit, line up, and then exhibit your swimming prowess or lack of prowess in front of your fellow incoming students. So what if you go to college and you don't know how to swim? So these schools that, that have the requirements, if you, if you cannot pass the freshman incoming swimming test, or you just say, I am not a swimmer, I'm going to drown if you put me in there, you must take a swimming class. At schools that have these requirements, there are often local

legends about where did this come from? And, you know, one of the most common ones is, oh, there's a wealthy benefactor. And as a condition of a donation, you know, he or she required that all students take a swimming test because they had a son that drowned tragically and they want to ensure this never happens again. This is actually the similar to the story that's told at Harvard. At Harvard, it is told that there's a woman who is a widow due to the Titanic, and she wanted to ensure, as a condition of her contribution for the Harry Elkins-Widner Library, that they establish a freshman swimming test. You have to swim in ice-cold water. Yeah. Throw them into iceberg-gladed water and then see how they did.

I particularly like the origin story told at Columbia. Apparently, one story is told that the swimming test dates back to a requirement that students could swim across the Hudson to New Jersey, in the event of an attack. And this time... That I believe. Really? You believe that? Really?

What is interesting is no one is 100% sure why school started administering or started requiring swim tests. It seems to date back to shortly after World War I, though. And it is true that after World War I, the Red Cross was really making a big push to increase swimming abilities. I mean, tragically, there are stories that a lot of soldiers died. They couldn't. They drown by not being able to reach shore, you know, especially with equipment on, you know, in a landing.

But it really seems to have come about between World War I and World War II as kind of just a general public safety measure. I believe it. Like, I think it's weird for people our generation who still don't know how to swim. Just in case, like, that's a skill I want to have. It seems like there's a cultural bias, though. Like if you weren't raised in a place near water, you didn't have access to pools all the time. Now you have to learn how to swim as an adult. and, like, you're not going to graduate from college if you can't figure it out or you don't want to.

Right. Well, at least they're willing to give you the instruction to learn how. Yeah. But if you're like, I don't want to. Thank you. Yep. Well, hey, then don't go to that school. Do they actually fail people if they don't pass this?

Like, you don't get your diploma if you do. Yes. I'm sure they work with you quite a bit if it seems like you're not going to get your diploma because of the swim. There is one funny anecdote. I came across in a couple of places. A very well-known, successful PhD from Columbia, who, was denied his diploma, apparently. And he wrote in 60 years later saying, basically, hey, I've learned how to swim in the meantime.

Can I have my diploma? Oh, my God. And they did officially. Hey, you don't get diplomas if you don't return library books like me. You didn't get your diploma? I remember that. That's right. They would hold it.

Yeah. But you still graduated. I still graduated. I just didn't get a paper. Oh, I did. I was like, whatever. Jokes on that. I lost the book.

I don't know. What do you want from me? Money? Oh, I guess you do. All right, and that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys listeners for listening and hope you learn a lot about fitness and pooping your pants and Jack LaLane and celebrity endorsements and basketball and various other sport brands.

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