The Nick Bare Podcast - 140: All Things Recovery and Protocols I Use

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

I break down the recovery protocols fueling my peak Ironman Arizona build—from sleep and nutrition to sauna, cold plunge, and red-light therapy. I share lessons, stress-balance tactics, and family moments that keep me grounded. Whether you’re training hard or seeking better daily recovery, this episode delivers practical tools to optimize performance and prevent injury.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Overview04:44 Training and Recovery Challenges08:53 Understanding Stress and Recovery21:41 Balancing the Nervous System28:41 Tracking Recovery Metrics32:23 Prioritizing Sleep for Optimal Recovery40:32 The Game-Changing Sleep Tool46:42 The Role of Nutrition in Recovery54:16 Sauna and Cold Plunge Benefits01:03:48 Exploring Red Light Therapy01:12:28 Compression Boots and Massage Guns01:15:19 The Importance of Physical TherapyORDER MY BOOK HERE:https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210FOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFEhttps://bpn.team/memberIG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today, I am talking all things, recovery. And to be honest, I get questions all the time. I've been getting questions for years all about what I do for recovery. And when I was younger, I didn't do much for recovery. I slept, I ate, I trained, and I recovered well. Now as I'm getting older, I'm 35 years old now, still young, but I'm getting older, I find that I don't recover as efficiently as I used to. So I have to incorporate more devices, protocols, just different things that I want to share with you guys today all of what I incorporate into my daily or weekly routine. to optimize my recovery, especially in a high volume prep right now, such as my Ironman prep. We are about eight weeks out from Ironman, Arizona, which is November 16th, full Ironman. So I'm deep into training right now.

And I'll share what my recovery routine and protocols are throughout this, this episode. But a few notes to share prior jumping in. story time. Moral of the story is that I have written down right here, recovery and injury prevention aren't just for athletic performance related activities. It is for life. So this past weekend, me and the family, myself, Steph, Charlie, Nico, we went to Austin to a coffee shop.

It was called Mozart's Coffee. So it's a great coffee shop over, off of Enfield, downtown all-fifold. downtown Alfton, Austin, near the Terrytown neighborhood right off of Lake Austin. Great spot. Good coffee, good food, live music. So we're sitting at this picnic table, watching this live music being played in front of us. Charlie's eating a croissant. Steph and I are sipping on coffee. Niko's sitting on the top of the picnic table. We're about to leave and I've been fairly injury-free this entire prep. I mean, there's been a few things that have flared up, tight calves, hamstrings, back,

just small stuff from mainly over-training or over-use injury. But we're about getting up from this coffee shop, this picking table. as I'm standing, I reach over and pick up Charlie, she's on my left simultaneously. And as I'm picking Charlie up and getting out of this picnic table and move

her from my left side to my right side to put her on my hip to carry her back to the truck, I can feel this slip in my lower back and just the, ugh. You're like when everything just seizes up, and you try to catch your breath, and you can feel you strain something.

Lower back strain. I was feeling that the rest of the day and the two days after, it feels pretty decent now. So that happened Sunday. It's now Wednesday. It feels better. But of the many times that I have, I should say not many, of the few times that I've been injured in my life, majority of those times aren't from athletic or performance related activities. It's just from living life.

So the reason I share that is because a lot of these recovery practices that I'm going to share don't just have to be applicable to when you're doing high volume training or you're in a prep or a build or you're training for an Iron Man like I am right now. It can be beneficial for all aspects of life, all injuries, injury prevention, but also injury, maintenance, and repair. So I had to incorporate some of these practices after I threw my back out at Mozart's coffee this past weekend. Something else to share, which might be unrelated, but I feel obligated to share because I just got off of a 90-minute bike ride. So this morning, I had an eight-mile-mile.

run, then a 90-minute bike ride, and in this afternoon I have a one-hour swim, which I'll do about 3,000 yards. Tomorrow is a big day. I got a 20-mile run in the morning, and then a one-hour swim in the afternoon. And two days ago, Monday, I had a five-hour training day. I had a nine-mile run in the morning, four-hour bike ride in the afternoon. Training volume is high right now. My body is recovering and adapting quite well, but something that is not adapting and recovering quite well right now. And I think this is mainly because I've lost significant weight in this prep so far. I'm down to 185 pounds, which I haven't seen 185 pounds on the scale since post-ranger school in 2014, to be honest. but I'm leaner right now,

which means I've lost fat and muscle along the way, but I've lost some tissue in my butt cheeks. My butt isn't as padded as it used to be. So as I'm doing some of these big rides on my bike, I am feeling the seat a whole lot more, if you will. And after Monday's ride, which Monday wasn't my longest ride in this, this prep yet. I've done a bunch of rides. I do a big ride every week, but I don't know what

happened Monday. It was a four-hour ride, and I got extremely chafed, like chafed where the back of the thigh meets the butt cheek, and it tore me up, tore me up. I got in the shower Monday night, and I could just feel every part of that chafage. I'm almost even afraid to look. I haven't looked yet. I kind of want to go get in the mirror and just bend over and see what's going on down there because it doesn't feel pretty and I'm sure it doesn't look pretty. But today on the bike, the 90-minute bike ride I had today, it was an endurance ride and an endurance aerobic build. It was painful. So I share that for a few reasons. One, I just wanted to share. I felt obligated. when I was on the bike, I thought to myself,

I'm going to share this on the podcast. Secondly, there's some stuff you can do for recovery for stuff like this, but mainly it's more padding, maybe some extra, like, loob down there for a hop on the bike. But if anyone spent a lot of time riding during Iron Man prep, you've probably experienced saddle soreness. So this week, for example, see, Monday, four hours,

Wednesday, 90 minutes, it's five and a half hours. And then I'm not going to ride tomorrow. I'll ride Friday for two hours. It's five and a half, six and a half, seven and a half. This week will be eight and a half hours on the bike. It's about a 20.5 hour training week for Iron Man Prep.

Okay, that's all the stories that I wanted to share and get out of the way to kick off this podcast. That was too much information. I'm sorry, but I felt like that's context that I have to share that I wanted to share. Next, recovery. Let's talk about stress. The body, our body responds and adapts,

sometimes efficiently, sometimes inefficiently, to all kinds of stress. The body has a hard time differentiating between different types of stress. What I mean by that, there is physical stress. You know, when you do a workout, that is stress on the body. When you don't sleep well, that is stress on the body.

So there's physical stress. There's mental stress. There's emotional stress. All these different stressors that we experience on a daily basis, they tax our body. And our body has to find ways to recover. from that stress and or adapt to that stress. And that's something that's very important to recognize. If you have a big, big, big training day

and you're also going through a very stressful time in your personal life and or work, maybe something is going on with your relationship, your marriage, someone in your family, sick, you just got some bad medical news. All of this stuff, all of these stressors in life, they compound and they will affect the way that you can recover, the way that you adapt, the way that you perform, the way you think. So you have to be mindful of not stacking too many stressors on top of each other in a given time. And this does require some intentional

proactive planning and thinking of maybe, hey, I'm going through a lot of mental and emotional stress right now. Maybe the best thing for me not to do is this 20 mile run I have tomorrow. Maybe I should dial that back. Maybe I should take an off day. Let my body recover. Let this other or these other stressors

stress my body. and I can recover from that. And then when I am ready and more prepared, I can go knock out this big workout. So it's just being mindful of not stacking too many stressors on top of each other because what happens when we do this over a long period of time is we experience chronic stress response, which I'll talk about here in a little bit.

Something else to be mindful of in terms of how our body responds and adapts to all the things. these kind of stresses. I believe that a lot of people when we think of recovery from working out in particular, think of muscular stress. I just went into the gym. I destroyed my body in this big workout. My muscles are wrecked. Or you went and ran a marathon and your body, your muscles are wrecked. You did a big bike workout. Your body, your muscles are wrecked. The muscular system does get damaged and then through recovery it repairs. That is a big stressor to the body that our bodies itself have to recover from.

But there's also central nervous system stress. And I believe that we oftentimes don't think of the work that we're doing, the effort, and how it affects our central nervous system. and these are both impacted in different ways and the way our body responds might be differently. You know, if you've ever had, say, say for example, you did a big workout one day or you ran a marathon, you did a race, the next morning you wake up and your body's trashed. I mean, you can barely walk. an ultra marathon, you wake up, your feet hurt, your legs hurt, your back hurts, your eyes hurt, your hair hurts, like everything hurts after a hundred mile race. You wake up the next morning,

getting out of bed is a painful process. But you've also taxed your central nervous system where you might have extreme fatigue and brain fog. you might be irritable and cranky and moody and you're not a good person to be around and you can't shake it and you can't figure out why your nervous system has to also recover from some of these workouts, some of these efforts. I have found that my central nervous system gets taxed specifically with really big efforts or higher intensity, longer duration.

Like my central nervous system is more impacted and it gets more heavily taxed after, say, a tempo workout compared to an easy run. After a big tempo workout, I feel fatigued. I am tired, not just, from a muscular standpoint, but whole body energy. My brain is foggy.

I don't have clear thoughts. My memory lacks. All these things occur and you experience because of central nervous system stress and being taxed. Now our body responds and like I said, adapts to all kinds of stressors. And the reason I keep saying adapts is because when we put our body through stress, our body will respond in multiple ways.

It wants to maintain homeostasis. Our body wants to facilitate recovery and repair. and when we apply stress to our body in appropriate amounts at appropriate frequencies, we feed it stress a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, a little bit there, and we add more stress over time. Our body then can efficiently adapt that stress, become more resilient, and improve, and get better. It's like an immune system. You know, you always hear one of the best ways to build a really strong immune system

is by exposing it to micro doses of illness or exposure to some pathogens, maybe bacteria in your immune system responds and it adapts and it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger over time. well, the body does the same thing. Now, there's different types of responses to stress. Two that I want to focus on. There is a hormonal response and there is a chronic response. A hormonal response, we can view as good, beneficial, and adaptive.

A chronic response to stress is typically, in my opinion, viewed as negative. And we have to make some sort of change. So a hormonal response to stress, it's short term. There's a rapid release of hormones that react to a stimulus. We might experience increased heart rate and blood pressure. We might experience increased blood glucose levels for more energy. There's heightened mental activity and muscle strength.

So our body experiences stress. there's a hormonal response that we go in fight, we prepare for the stressor that we're experiencing in real time. And then when that stressor decreases or stops, hormones go back to normal, body responds, baseline is regained. Then there's a chronic response to stress. This is when there is long-term exposure.

we have elevated stress hormones over a long period of time, and this can actually disrupt many bodily processes when cortisol levels remain elevated for long durations in time. And this is what happens when there's widespread health problems, such as metabolic issues, cardiovascular problems, mental health concerns, immune system issues, a chronic response to stress is when we don't balance

these stressors and then recovery and repair. Stressers, recovery, and repair. And if you stay in an elevated state of stress over long periods of time, which I'm about to get into, you can start experiencing these chronic issues, which can be and can result in disease. So it's really important that we balance and we try to balance,

stress in our life, coming from physical, mental, and emotional patterns and practices, and then with rest, relaxation, recovery, and repair. Because if you don't prioritize recovery and repair, you end up in this chronic state.

So the things that I'm going to share are what I like to consider a recovery toolkit. that you can choose from. These are some things that I personally choose from daily, frequently, weekly. But you don't have to, and I don't use all of these things every single day. I just choose some of these tools from my recovery toolkit

for what is applicable for when I need it. And when I have time, when I can fit it around my schedule. Like I said in the beginning of this podcast, I didn't actually realize getting older was going to require more recovery tools. I know it sounds like common sense, but when you're younger, you don't, at least I didn't need all of these things. I probably still don't need a lot of these things,

but I like having them because they help me feel better. I'm prepared for upcoming workouts, sleep more efficiently, and just show up stronger day in and day out. So there's more recovery tools and practices that I incorporate now than I actually realized as I started listing and writing them out. Going back to talking about how the body response is stress from a hormonal response and what could end up being a chronic response

if not treated and if you're not aware of keeping your body in an elevated level of stress in a cortisol producing state goes into my next point before I start sharing some of these tools. I think it's important that we learn and recognize that it is our responsibility to balance both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system, this is what is oftentimes considered the fight or flight response. And when we're in the sympathetic or our sympathetic nervous system is activated,

this mobilizes the body's resources for immediate high energy demands. Like I said, it is considered the fight or flight response. Your heart rate increases, blood pressure increases, breathing increases, and digestion slows down. So you get hit with something, something's thrown in your face, or it can be as little as you wake up, you pick up your phone, you go to social media, you start scrolling, something grabs your attention, and you don't like it, it makes you angry. it throws you off, this will instantly put you in or activate your sympathetic nervous system. It is a stressor. It's high stress. It's cortisol producing.

Some people live with an activated sympathetic nervous system. And I've gone through periods of my life, high stress periods of my life, where I've had a highly active sympathetic nervous system. and then there's a parasympathetic nervous system. This is often called the rest and digest system. This promotes the body's recovery and conservation of energy. It is when you're resting and digesting. You are calm. In this state, when it's activated, you have a decreased heart rate.

Digestion is stimulated. and your body conserves energy. Before you go to bed at night, for example, you want to have an activated parasympathetic nervous system. When you're eating a meal and after eating a meal, you want to be in the parasympathetic or you want to have an activated parasympathetic nervous system. Your body can rest and digest.

This is why it potentially could be a problem if you have a really busy day and say you give yourself a 10-minute window in between meetings to eat lunch, you finish a meeting, you go, you scarf down your lunch really fast. You're eating it stressed out because you're trying to eat within a 10-minute window

to get to your next meeting. You get to your next meeting, and this is a high-stress, cortisol-producing, energetic meeting where people are yelling and screaming, and screaming and there's all this stress involved, your body is going to inefficiently digest that food.

Inefficiently, because it has deprioritized digestion. It is slowed digestion. Now, it is our responsibility to try to balance out the activation of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. The balance of these two systems is actually reflected in heart rate variability, HRV, which is a measure of the variation in time between your heartbeats.

A higher HRV indicates a balanced nervous system, while a lower HRV suggests dominance by one system over the other. So we want a high HRV. Again, what is HRV? variability measures the slight variations in time between consecutive heartbeats, reflecting the balance between your sympathetic, your fight or flight, and parasympathetic, your rest and digest, nervous systems. A higher HRV generally indicates better adaptability, a more resilient body, and healthier habits, while a lower HRV can signal increased stress, illness, or

poor sleep. Measuring HRV often with a wearable device can provide insights into your stress levels and overall health. Side note, there's a book that I highly recommend reading. I am rereading it right now for my second time ever. It is called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. highly recommend it. And I think this is applicable to setting up your life in a way that promotes

both the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, but also the parasympathetic nervous system. We live in a very fast-paced digital age life. And if we don't create boundaries, if we don't establish practices and routines, we will live in a activated state of the sympathetic nervous system with a low HRV and high cortisol. And this is what produces a state of chronic stress that leads to disease and destruction, horrible sleep,

brain fog, lack of performance, all the things that we don't want. So I would argue that it's really important. It's really, really, really important that we find ways and we build in routines to rest and digest. And I believe a great way and a great place to get started is by reading John Mark Comer's the ruthless elimination of hurry. Like I said, I'm reading it for my second time right now, and I personally love it.

I really enjoy it. It's one that I recommend to everyone. It's probably one that I'll read every year, to be honest. Now, what are some ways that I track recovery? So, objectively, I am tracking through heart rate variability, HRV, resting heart rate and some sleep data,

which I'll get into here in a little bit. And the wearables that I have, so I'm wearing an aura ring right now. I've been wearing my aura ring for about two weeks now. I have my garment on my wrist. I pull data from my garment. And then we use the eight sleep on our bed, which I'll talk about here

more soon. And the eight Eight sleep actually provides a lot of data, sleep data as well in recovery data, which I really enjoy. So objectively, I'm measuring it through HRV resting heart rate and sleep data. Subjectively, I'm tracking recovery just based off of how I feel. How's my energy? What's my fatigue like? Do I have brain fog?

How's my mood? Am I irritable? if I'm moody and the irritable, this can sometimes tell me that my central nervous system is taxed and fatigued. After a big workout, the day or two afterwards, I can tell when my central nervous system is taxed and not recovered well,

because I'm just a little moodyer, a little bit more irritable. After every ultramarathon that I've done for about the week afterwards, because my central nervous system is extremely taxed. Hormones are all out of whack. I'm always really

in a bad mood for like a week after an ultra. It's one of those things you just can't shake. You're just in this funk. And then as I start to recover and feel better and it kind of dissipates and goes away. But I think there's also, you know, we have to have an awareness

when we're training for a big race or competition or event. You know, right now, like I've said, I'm in an Iron Man prep. And during a large training block, recovery will most likely not be optimal. You know, we can do our best to try and recover and set up workouts and structure them appropriately around life to try to recover as well as possible.

And there's ways that we can improve and maximize recovery. but there's many days where you're just going to be under recovered and you still have to show up and train because being able to train on tired legs and a fatigued body, that adaptation itself, that stressor allows us to improve and grow and get better. So there's time and place, but I think I wanted to share there's also just like a level of awareness to have that when you're in a big training block and you're working towards. a big, ambitious goal, it becomes challenging to recover effectively. And you might not always show up the next day,

fully recovered. So we can't talk about any of the cool stuff. We can't talk about the sauna, the cold plunge, the red light therapy, compression boots, PT work, training delodes, without talking about sleep and nutrition. and for a lot of people, this is myself included for a long time.

I didn't want to hear about sleep because that was one thing I was not willing to negotiate or try to improve. But now I'm in the headspace in the mindset that sleep has to be prioritized. That is the best way to recover. there is nothing, no recovery device in my opinion, that will work better than good sleep. Now, even as I say that, I have committed to try to get more sleep recently.

And I've been trying to sleep until 6 a.m. I'll be very honest. It's not happening every day just because life, you know, two young kids right now, a three-year-old, a one-year-old balancing, raising kids, and training and work, and my family and following Jesus and, you know, being in the scripture, reading my Bible, all of those things. It's a lot to try to time manage. And I sometimes, more frequently than I'd like to admit,

will sacrifice my sleep in order to get these other things done. With that being said, after this Iron Man prep is over, I am committing to sleeping in until 6 a.m. so I can get eight hours of sleep a night. Now there will of course be nights where this doesn't happen. Our youngest, our son Nico, who like I said is one year old right now, the last two, three weeks he's been going through a sleep regression where he wakes up at like 1.30 a.m.

And we give him a bottle and he tosses and he turns until sometimes 3.3.30 a.m. Crying and screaming and we're trying to get him back down. so either Steph or I or both of us are up for a few hours in the middle of the night. And that is just the season and chapter of life that we're in right now. But hopefully when Nico is out of this sleep progression and this Iron Man prep is over, we're in bed by 9.30, 10 p.m. And then waking up together at 6 a.m. That is the goal.

That is where I'm trying to get to. It's baby steps to get there. what I've also found after years of waking up at 4.4.30 a.m., your body becomes accustomed to a certain sleep routine, sleep in wake cycle, your circadian rhythm. And after waking up at 4.4.30 a.m. for years, for the last couple years, I would set an alarm. And I set an alarm. And I set an alarm. every night, but I would usually wake up right before that along clock went off because my body was so routine and that circadian rhythm was so just synced up that I didn't need the alarm clock to wake me up. So deciding to sleep until 6 a.m., my body is still on that time clock. it is still accustomed to that sleep in wake cycle.

So I know it's going to take actually more time than I anticipated to actually break that cycle and build a new routine in where my body naturally then wakes up at six. But it's not there yet. But like I said, post-iron man, that is the goal. That's what we're working towards Nigo. Let's get through this sleep progression and give mom and dad some more sleep. That'd be much, much appreciated.

I love you, man. I love you. All right, sleep. When I think about sleep and I look at my data from the night prior, like I said, I'll open up the next day my aura ring app. I'll check the eight sleep app, and I'll also check the Garmin app, and I'll compare the data from my sleep scores. So I'll look at total sleep, the hours of sleep that I get.

Each one of these devices gives a different sleep score analysis. And I'll look at REM sleep, deep sleep, and awake time. And I just look for trends over time. And I'm also looking at heart rate variability, like I've talked about earlier. The reason I look at it awake time, because sometimes when one of the kids wakes up in the middle of night and we put them back down, sometimes it's hard to fall back asleep. I'll lay there for a significant time trying to fall back to sleep. And if I have a lot of awake time where I have a hard time falling back to sleep afterwards

in the middle of the night, I like to track that because I like to look at trends. and reasons of what I did the previous day of why that might have happened. Was it a big training day? Was there a lot of stress? Did I eat a meal too late? Did I not eat enough that day prior? I just like to look at the trends of the data and then try to use that data to make better informed decisions

to keep improving my sleep, my performance, my recovery, the way that I feel. I'm not necessarily trying to hit certain metric points, but I like to use the data just to reflect and learn from and make more informed decisions in the future. So I've talked about a few different wearables in tech and devices so far. The oral ring I've only been wearing for a few weeks. I'm still getting used to it.

It's still calibrating a lot of the metrics within the app. because I haven't been wearing it long enough yet to provide me all the data. I've been wearing a garment for years now, and I'm very used to that data that it provides me. I'd say they're all pretty comparable, but I wanted to highlight one device that Steph and I both love. And for all the things that I talk about here, all the products, all the, uh, the recommendations,

the tech, the wearables, the devices. I'm not paid to promote any of these things. These are items. These are tools. These are resources that we actually buy, use our friends with the company. I'm talking about these devices or products because I believe they are actually beneficial.

Eight sleep is one that I highly recommend. to everyone. This is a game changer. So the eight sleep is essentially think of it as a mattress pad topper that cools your bed temperature. So there's this water tank you put next to your bed. It connects

to these tubes onto this mattress cover. You put the mattress cover over your bed. And within the app, I can control my side of the bed and Steph can control her side of the bed. So we can set different temperatures of our bed based off of our sleep preferences. We know that the human body sleeps better more efficiently in a cold environment. So if you don't want to buy a device like this, just crank your AC down at night and make your room cold. And you actually sleep better.

You will sleep better in a colder environment. but the eight sleep is this device where it cools your bed temperature down and it will actually auto-regulate the temperature throughout the night based off of your sleep performance. I think it's called like autopilot. So I put my own autopilot and it will adjust the temperature of my bed based off of how well I'm sleeping. And then it provides really good sleep data and analysis. the next morning. I don't know how exactly it does it. It's pretty wild. It measures

HRV, heart rate, all of these things, all the things that my oar ring and my garment give me based off of this pad that I'm sleeping on. It's quite wild. But we have found that both Steph and I, we sleep much better with the eight sleep, but we also just sleep better in a cooler environment. Minimal clothing, cooler environment. That's part of our sleep hygiene or sleep practices, if you will.

Some other things that I do to promote better sleep, I wear blue light blocking glasses at night because I don't want the blue light to be disturbing my sleep performance and sleep quality. So I will wear blue light blocking glasses. I wear a sleep mask now.

This is only as of the last couple weeks, but I'm a big fan of the sleep mask. I make sure I'm not on my phone. Within that last hour of going to bed, I will lay in bed, really try to just relax, digest, stimulate that parasympathetic state.

I'll read a book for the last 30 minutes to an hour while laying in bed with my blue light blocking glasses. I want to try to reduce high energy and or high cortisol producing activity. This is one of the reasons I stay off my phone. And I'm reading a book, I'm just relaxing, winding down, getting ready to go to sleep. And this is obviously after taking peak sleep. Peak sleep is

It's hour being BPN's sleep supplement. It's a gummy formula. No melatonin. So it's non-habit forming. And I take a serving of peak sleep about 45 minutes before I go to sleep every single night. Helps you just wind down very gently, wind down, relax, fall into

a more restful, just feeling, and it helps me fall asleep faster. My sleep data and performance is stronger, and I wake up feeling more refreshed. So I take a serving of peak sleep every single night. And I don't actually even like to talk about peak sleep in terms of being a sleep supplement. I like to talk about peak sleep in terms of being a recovery supplement. one of the reasons we didn't add melatonin to it. Some people I found have positive reactions to melatonin. Some people have negative experiences with melatonin.

I personally have negative experiences with melatonin. I just get extremely groggy. And it's been a few years actually since I've used melatonin, but two weeks ago, it was a Saturday night, it was after a long run. I decided to experiment with three milligrams of melatonin. I was like, let me just, it's been a few years since I've tried it. Let me add some melatonin to my nighttime routine.

And I will say, it hit me like a bag of bricks. I fell asleep so hard and so fast. But the next day, I felt horrible, horrible. I was so groggy. I was so fatigued the entire day. It was a waste of a day. Like that whole Sunday, I was,

nothing could bring me back to life. No amount of caffeine, no workout. Like, I felt horrible. So that would be my last time trying melatonin ever again.

It made me feel absolutely horrible. So I'm not a person of a fan of melatonin. You may be, you might not be, but I've found that it just makes me extremely groggy the next day.

And that's why we haven't and didn't, incorporated into the peak sleep formula. And then second to sleep, we have to talk about nutrition. If your nutrition is not dialed in and prioritized, then this doesn't go just for athletes or someone in a prep or preparing for an Ironman triathlon. This is applicable to everyone. In order for your body to respond well to stress,

physical, mental, emotional, for it to be able to adapt and grow and develop and improve and respond. Our diet, our nutrition, the foods that we are consuming on a regular basis, they will make the biggest difference and it can be a make or break it situation. So total calories. if we are in a chloric deficit, that puts us at a disadvantage to recover well. So having calories at maintenance or in surplus are going to ensure that we are recovering effectively. If you're trying to lose weight, obviously you're going to be in a chloric deficit. So that's even more reason to be hyper aware of the stressors that you're putting on your body. because a chloric deficit is a stressor on the body.

So if we're now loading on physical stress and emotional stress and mental stress that are cortisol producing, it could put you in a compromised position. So I'm not saying chloric deficits are bad by any means. You need to be in a chloric deficit to lose weight, to lose body fat. But that is a stressor on the body. So when you go into a big fitness prep, for example, and you're going after a large goal, it's really important to be monitoring calories and making sure you're at maintenance or in a surplus. And it's looking at your macronutrient breakdown of, are you consuming enough high quality protein that helps and assist in the rebuild and repair of muscle breakdown?

are we consuming enough of dietary fat? Dietary fat is involved in many bodily processes, primarily and especially hormone production and regulation, and then carbohydrates. Are we consuming enough carbohydrates to fuel our performance, but also replenish the glycogen that we're burning through during exercise, training, and life? glycogen replenishment is absolutely critical when you're in a big training block. You know, me being in an Ironman traf on training block right now, I'm consuming at the minimum 700 grams of carbs a day.

On some of these days, it's over 1,000 grams a day. And that's to fuel my training, but also to replenish glycogen and glycogen. is the way that the body stores carbohydrates in the muscles and the liver, more of a long-term or longer-term carbohydrate storage compartment or capacity. Keeping glycogen replenished is extremely important. And then just some supplements I have listed here that we offer here at BPN that I believe are essential for maximizing your recovery is our multivitamin, strong multivitamin, ensuring that you have all of your vitamins and minerals covered for a daily basis

where you might have gaps in your diet. You know, prioritizing micronutrients, not just macronutrients. Strong joints is a great product that we have that helps maintain and build joint, health beneficial for not just endurance athletes and runners, but strength athletes as well. Strong joints is honestly probably one of my favorite products that we have to offer. More of a low-key sleeper of a product that isn't as sexy, if you will, as GUNM Sport Plus, or the GoGELs or Go Bar, but strong joints is one you don't want to sleep on. protein powder

just to help ensure that you get enough protein in your diet outside of having to consume whole natural food sources. Creatine. And then we have an essential amino acid product called Recover, which is very applicable for what we're talking about today.

Recover is EAA's essential amino acids and BCA's branch chain amino acids with some other ingredients in there to benefit and optimize your recovery. The last thing I want to talk about in terms of nutrition, which isn't necessarily something to add, but potentially remove or limit and subtract,

is alcohol. Alcohol could be considered the fourth maconutrient. It provides 70, not 70, sorry, 7 calories per gram. Protein is four calories per gram, fat is nine calories per gram, carbohydrates, four calories per gram. Alcohol is seven calories per gram. Alcohol has an effect on the body that can delay or inhibit your body's ability to recover, primarily from impacting negatively your sleep. So if you're consuming alcohol, even in a moderate amount,

I have at least found that it does negatively, significantly affect recovery. So right now in this Iron Man prep, I'm not consuming any alcohol. If at all it's, you know, know, a small glass of wine every two to three weeks. We're not big drinkers in our family anyways. It is maybe a drink or two with dinner or with friends a week of a glass of red or even white wine. But for me, in a big prep where there's a lot of demands and stress of my body,

it just has no positive. It's only going to inhibit and hurt my body's ability. It's only going to inhibit and hurt my body's ability to recover. Okay, now the fun stuff. Let's talk about sauna and cold plunge. Now, I do the sauna and cold plunge daily. I like to do it either midday or the evening. And the way that I do it, I'll get in the sauna for 15 minutes

at about 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and I'll go directly into the cold plunge. for three minutes at about 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, I've been doing this consistently throughout this entire prep so far. I'm actually finding that in the beginning of this prep, you know, before that, I've never been really consistent with the cold plunge. I've been consistent with Asana for a few years now, but I always hated the cold plunge.

now I'm addicted to the cold plunge. Sana for 15 minutes and then cold plunge for three minutes. That is my daily ritual. That is my go-to. And in the beginning of the prep, getting in the cold plunge was mentally and physically challenging. Now I, I itch for it. I can't wait to get in.

And the initial shock of getting in that water isn't nearly as bad as it was eight weeks ago. And I actually can relax really well within 15, 20 seconds. And the three minutes goes by so fast. And I think that I could actually start to lower the temperature if I wanted. Because getting in, especially after the sauna at 45 degrees Fahrenheit, is not hard for me any longer. my body has adapted to the stress that I was providing it.

But I love the sauna cold plunge combination, and I do it daily. I try not to do it too close to workouts. I'll do it when I leave work some days before heading home. But I really like doing it at night. You know, after we eat dinner, we put the kids down. And the night's winding down, sauna and then plunge. Initially, I was afraid the cold plunge would wake me up too much and stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. But I've actually found that it does the opposite.

I was listening to a Huberman podcast all about sauna and cold plunging a few days ago. And the guest that he had on the podcast was talking about how. cold water immersion, cold plunging, actually activates both the sympathetic and then the parasympathetic nervous systems. And I found that by bringing my body temperature down at night before getting to bed, I actually fall into a deeper sleep much faster. It doesn't keep me up. I'm definitely cold when I get out and I still get into bed, I'm still cold. But I fall asleep so easily when I cold plunge in the evening. So that has been my go-to as of recently.

That's how I use the sauna and cold plunge, often, you know, daily, once a day. And the way that the sauna and cold plunge, they both help with recovery is by reducing inflammation and really the blood flow benefits you get from hot and cold. Contrast therapy. Contrast therapy is hot and cold. It's sauna, cold plunge. With the sauna, there's similar effects on the body as a light cardiovascular workout. Your heart rate is elevated. Breathing is elevated, you start sweating. I mean, you can get your heart rate up to, when I look at my watch sometimes at the peak of that session, it might be 100, 110 times 120 beats per minute, depending on how hot it gets.

When you're in the sauna and it starts getting warm, your blood vessels widen, your heart rate increases and blood circulates more efficiently. That blood flow is going to help promote recovery. You'll see a common denominator in theme with a lot of these recovery devices and protocols that I'm recommending and that I incorporate, it's all about blood flow and circulation. Now, the cool plunge obviously does the opposite.

It's vaso-constriction, but it also increases circulation. So when I go from getting in the sauna, it's hot, blood vessels open up, blood starts pumping, then I jump right into the cold, and the blood vessels tighten up, they constrict, and they're not pumping as much, and then when I get out of the cold and they open back up, there's more circulation going around. Cold plunge can actually help reduce doms. Two, Dom's is delayed onset muscle soreness.

I experience this often. I experienced it this morning and you might be able to relate. So after a big workout, the day afterwards, I oftentimes don't feel that trashed or fatigued. But two days afterwards, I feel worse than the previous day. That's delayed onset muscle soreness. So Monday, I had a five-hour workout. Tuesday, which was yesterday,

I actually didn't feel that bad. Central nervous system-wise, I felt taxed, but muscles felt okay. Like my run felt great in the morning. Today, being Wednesday, two days post-big workout, central nervous system felt pretty good. Muscles felt more fatigued. But cold plunging can help reduce doms.

There's also an enhanced mental recovery aspect that comes with cold plunging. And something that I want to point out that I heard on that same Andrew Heberman podcast in regards to the cold plunge that I found very interesting that I wanted to share. There's this thing called the after drop when you get out of the cold plunge, which I found extremely interesting. And after hearing this, I then went in cold plunge and witnessed what they were describing.

I experienced it. The after drop is when your core body temperature continues to drop even after getting out of the cold water because blood flow starts to recirculate. So the way that Huberman and his guest described the after drop on their episode is that when you get into cold water, all of your blood vessels, they constrict.

and then when you get out and your body starts naturally warming up on its own again, because you always want to end on the cold when you're doing contrast therapy. So if you start with the sauna, you can go sauna, cold plunge, sauna, cold plunge, sauna, you want to end with the cold plunge. You don't want to end with the sauna. Allow your body temperature to come back to baseline on its own. when you get out of the cold and your blood vessels were constricted, as they start to warm up again and open up,

that blood starts recirculating and it goes to your extremities that are colder, and then when it recirculates, it's bringing cold blood back in, which can cause your core body temperature to decrease more than it was while you were in the water, which I found very interesting. But overall, contrast therapy, the sauna and the cold plunge, they both have great benefits on their own.

But together, really powerful in terms of blood circulation and optimizing recovery by getting more movement, more circulation, more circulation, more blood flow, more oxygen, going to the damaged muscles that need recovered, that need repaired. So it's part of my daily recovery protocol right now. The next thing that I want to talk about is red light therapy. A few years ago, I had a red light panel at my house, and I would use it, but I used it infrequently, and I would only ever do it at night. But what I found by using red light for recovery purposes, I remember a few years ago when I was doing it,

I would do 10 to 15 minute sessions before going to bed, and I could always tell it helped me fall asleep faster and better. And then I stopped using the panels for a while, ended up getting rid of them. And about two weeks ago, as I was doing more research, I decided to invest in a red light panel again. So we have a big full-size body panel in our closet. We went with this brand called mito-redlight.

Red light therapy, also known as photo-bio-modulation, it's not just red light bulbs. It is specific light wavelengths that benefit the body in very unique in specific ways. now we know that light plays a vital role in our health and in today's day and age we get less of it than we ever had before we are for most people working indoors under fluorescent artificial light we're not outdoors and it significantly influences so many aspects of it. of our life, our energy, our mood, our sleep, our circadian rhythm. So you don't have to, by any

means, invest in red light therapy. You can get all of this for free by spending more time outdoors in the sun. You can get all these benefits by just being in the sun. You know, one of the things that everyone always tells you is one of the best ways to wake up, wake up, go outside right way, let that sunlight just hit your body. Stand in your grass, barefoot, ground yourself, and then you soak in some natural sunlight. And that will do exactly what this red light therapy can do. Now for me, most days I wake up before the sun rises. And when I get to the point where I'm sleeping in consistently until 6 a.m. Most likely my kids are waking up shortly after me and the day get started.

So I've invested in red light therapy because it is a convenience for me in all honesty. It can be used for increased cellular energy in the way it does this by stimulating mitochondrial energy production. so energy at the cellular level, increase blood flow, reduce inflammation, better sleep, which I can attest to. And the way it helps with better sleep is

it actually produces naturally melatonin that has a positive effect on your circadian rhythm. Now, this red light therapy, I said it's not just red light bulbs. So if you've never seen

red light panels, or panel at home, it's probably five feet tall, two feet wide. It's on the stand. And I do it right now, 10 to 20 minute sessions as soon as I wake up. And I'll do about a 10 minute session before I go to sleep. So what I get from it personally so far, and it's only been a few weeks, I have found that right when I wake up, I go into my clock. and I do a 10 to 20 minute session, I just stand butt naked in front of the red light panel. I can feel myself waking up significantly faster while I'm standing in front of this red light panel. I'm dead serious.

I can feel myself waking up. And then during my morning run, I feel more natural energy. And throughout the day, I feel since using the red light panel, the morning significantly better. My mood is better. My energy is better. I'm not grabbing for coffee or caffeine or an energy drink. No lie. I have experienced significant benefits from using it right when I wake up. And then I will do another 10-minute session at night right before getting into bed. And I found that it really helps me fall into that sleep a whole lot. faster and easier. So I do it in the morning right now and at night. There's some days where it just

doesn't work out, but I'm trying to do it every morning, every night. Now, as I said, these red light panels are not just red light bulbs. It's two specific types of light. It is red light and it is near infrared light. And what makes these two lights very unique is the wavelength, and it's measured in nanometers. So red light is 6 to 700 nanometers based off this panel that I have.

Near infrared light is 700 to 1,200 nanometers. And it's the wavelength of these lights that allow it to penetrate beyond the skin to activate.

to activate energy at the cellular level. Also to help naturally produce melatonin. What makes it different from the sunlight, for example, is with the sun, you're also getting UV light, which is why you get a sunburn, and you have to wear a sunscreen when you're in the light for extended periods of time. There's no UV light primarily coming from these red light panels.

It is red light and near infrared light, And what makes a difference, like I said, is the wavelength of the light. Now, if you do it in the morning, as I've already mentioned, immediately after waking up, it simulates natural light. It helps you wake up by regulating your circadian rhythm, signaling that it's time to be alert and supports your body's internal clock for a productive day. In the evening, right before bed, it produces a warm, calming effect from the moment. the wavelengths that signal to your brain that it's night time, promoting the production of melatonin, which is the sleep hormone. You can't stand in front of a red light, one of these red light panels

with clothes on because it won't go past your clothes. So it has to go directly onto the skin, which is one of the reasons I'm naked in front of this full length, full body panel. but I'm a big fan of red light therapy for, you know, as long as I've been doing it. And as I've mentioned, if you don't want to invest in a red light panel, you can just spend more time in the sun. And that also will help regulate your circadian rhythm. It'll help you wake up and also help you sleep better. And then some of the other devices that we keep in our house, these are from hypercadian rhythm.

Hyperice, we have the Norma Tech compression boots, and then the Hyperice massage gun. So I use the compression boots when I'm laying in bed at night. I do a 30-minute session. It's like I just want to paint a picture for what my night looks like. Typically, it's like get the kids down to sleep, get everything prepped for the next day, do my sauna and cold plunge session, get a shower, stand in front of the red light panel, get into bed. I have my blue light blocking glasses on. I'm reading my Bible.

I have the compression boots on and I'm preparing to just wind down after taking my peak sleep. And then once the compression boot session is done, put my book down, put my sleep mask on, my eight sleep is rocking and rolling, and I'm falling asleep.

Compression boots enhance muscle. recover by using rhythmic air pressure control to improve circulation, flush metabolic waste like lactic acid for muscles, and reduce swelling and inflammation. The blood and lymphatic fluid flow from the compression boots delivers more oxygen and nutrients to damaged tissue, speeding up the repair process, and alleviating soreness. Like I said, I like to do it at night as I'm laying in bed while I'm reading before calling it a night. And then the hyper-race massage gun, it works similar to compression boots, but the percussive pulses allow for a more targeted application to specific muscles.

So I use a massage gun specifically in the morning before I go run. So when I go into the garage, put my running shoes on, I do some stretches. And then I hit my quads, my hamstrings, and my calves with the massage gun. And I can tell a big

difference from when I use a massage gun versus when I don't. Just from the first quarter mile. I feel fresher. My legs feel better. Not as just cinder blocky.

tight, heavy. That's when I use a massage gun. It's primarily on my lower body, quads, hamstrings, and calves every morning before my run. And the last thing I want to talk about, which is certainly not the

least important, but might be harder for some people to build in and access. Now, I am very grateful here at BPN every Tuesday we have Dr. Jordan Tittle from Helix Sports Medicine,

who's at BPN all day, Tuesday, working on our team. And he provides soft tissue work, cupping, scraping, chiropractic, dry needling. This brings our team back to life. And especially for me, when I'm in a big prep, it brings me back to life. I have a one-hour session with him once a week. He's a PT. And things that are either bothering me, we'll do some preventative maintenance,

but then it will be more proactive, working on things that are bothering me. A few weeks ago, I had a calf strain that was bothering me, and he did a lot of work on my calf. He did some scraping, he did some cupping, some soft tissue work. And after a few sessions, it felt significantly better. this might be one of the bigger investments in times of financial resources and time,

but I believe has the maybe greatest return, you know, working with a PT. I do it once a week, and it makes the biggest difference. And my performance in my recovery, especially staying on top of injuries that I'm experiencing or working through. But I would put that maybe at the top of my list, even though I listed it last. Physical therapy work. Man, sometimes I'm like, I don't know what I do without Dr. Jordan Tittle,

because he keeps me alive and well, especially when training volume is 20 to 20 plus hours per week. But I love some PT work. I love it and I highly recommend it. So those are my recovery practices and protocols that I'm incorporating regularly, not necessarily every day. A lot of these things, most of these things,

are every day built into my routine to stay on top of recovery and promote prevention, but also being proactive, on things that hurt, things that don't feel right, you know, really balancing out that sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. So I hope this is beneficial.

Really hope you guys enjoyed this episode. But as I'm getting older, I take recovery more serious, not necessarily because I want to, but because I have to. And this is what I do. So thank you guys. I appreciate you.

I love you and we'll see you in the next episode.