WHOOP Podcast - Brian Mazza, creator of The Ainsworth & founder of High Performance Lifestyle Training, on the similarities between hospitality and fitness and applying the lessons he's learned from each.

Episode Date: June 19, 2019

The Ainsworth creator and HPLT founder Brian Mazza discusses High-Performance Lifestyle Training (3:19), how he got his start in the food & beverage industry (7:46), the secret to his success (10:45), where The Ainsworth came from (13:04), 24-karat gold wings (14:08), the ethos of HPLT (18:00), intermittent fasting (22:46), meditation and gratitude (23:01), getting on WHOOP (28:55), his favorite measures of fitness (34:46), the Empire State Building race (37:11), similarities between hospitality and fitness (40:48), and the benefits of CBD water (52:43). Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We discovered that there were secrets that your body was trying to tell you that could really help you optimize performance, but no one could monitor those things. And that's when we set out to build the technology that we thought could really change the world. Welcome to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. Having recorded about 25 episodes on the WOOP podcast, I can truly say it's a great lens into understanding how high performers, top performers, do what they do. At WOOP, our clients range from the best professional athletes in the world to Navy SEALs,

to fitness enthusiasts, to Fortune 500 CEOs and executives. The common thread among WOOP members is a passion to improve. What does it take to optimize performance for athletes, for humans, really anyone? And now that we've just launched all-new whoop strap 3.0 featuring Woop Live, which takes real-time training and recovery analysis to the next level, you're going to hear how many of these users are optimizing their body with WOOP and with other things in their life. On this podcast, we dig deeper, we interview experts, we interview industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. How can you use data to improve? your body? What should you change about your life? My hope is that you'll leave these conversations with some new ideas and a greater passion for performance. With that in mind, I welcome you

to the Whoop podcast. I believe everyone is born a high-performer. I think the human body's a high-performing machine. Whatever happens between birth and whatever sometimes is out of people's control and in their control sometimes. And they use it in a positive way or negative way. I tell everyone who reaches out to me on Instagram or the young kids that reach out to me about what do they want to do with their career, they have no clue. I just say, do things you really don't want to do, and you'll figure it out. Hello, folks. Today on the podcast, I'm chatting with Brian Mazza.

Brian is a former D-1 soccer player who rose the ranks through the New York City restaurant industry to create the extremely successful brand of high-end sports bars, the Ainsworth. He's also the founder of high-performance lifestyle training and has been featured on the cover of men's health magazine. Brian and I talk about lessons he's learned in business and how he applies them to health and fitness, his tips for better nutrition and hydration, as well as various supplements he finds useful, trends he sees in the wellness industry, and also what goes into those famous 24-carat gold wings served at the Ainsworth? I think Brian is a great entrepreneur and a real hustler, not to mention someone who lives a high performance lifestyle. So without further ado, I think you'll all enjoy this. Brian, thanks for coming

on. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So we got to meet a few weeks ago through your work at HPLT. You've had a fascinating career. I know we're going to dive into it. But tell me, first of all, what is HPLT and why did you create it? So HPLT stands for high performance lifestyle training. and I created it because I really wanted to build a very strong community, a real community in not just group fitness, but just surrounding myself with people that are going to make me better selfishly. And, you know, that's another good reason why we did it. But I really wanted to just build a community of people that just want to achieve greatness and continue to grow in every aspect of their life. And I figured by me being able to create a big foundation and a big

crew of people through the retreat business it was a good way to really just launch HPLT and I got to speak briefly at the inaugural HPLT event well you guys are an amazing sponsor and we thank you for that it was yeah it was fun everyone loved the technology and everyone loved to hear you speak and yeah I mean for us so much of what we do at whoop is working with like-minded people and people who are trying to inspire behavior change or positive fitness development or really you name it and so you know when we got connected, I was excited to do something together. Tell me a little bit about your background and fitness and health. You're a super fit guy. You're former D-1 soccer player. So I played soccer

at the University of Rhode Island, but I just was an athlete my whole life in many different sports and played all of them really competitively. But, you know, if you want to pick and choose kind of which route you want to go, if you want to try to go pro, you need to, you can't do what Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders didn't probably do it. sports right so we figured um soccer was probably the best sport for me to see if i could take it as far as i could go so i played soccer in westchester for fc westchester and that was a you know premier club number one in the country at one point one national championship and then you know got a scholarship to go to the university of rhode island where i'd come up to boston and play some

northeastern and b u and bc um so playing soccer there and i really didn't have that good of an experience and I think a lot of the decisions now in my career and things I like to get after and things I like to do really go back to my college career where I made a really selfish and childish decision to quit my senior year of playing soccer where why'd you quit you just weren't enjoying I was a punk and I was young um to be honest and I'm not ashamed to say it but you know I talk about this a lot and I you know I really bring up that I don't like to live with regret but I live within that regret not to make decisions like I did emotionally then in anything I do going forward in my life.

So I didn't get along with my coach. I just, I didn't want to work hard. Everything came super easy to me as an athlete before school. So you weren't training properly? I wasn't training properly. You're going out a lot. I was drinking. I wasn't eating the right way.

I mean, our program didn't even know then how to eat properly. The problem is I think a lot of these programs are so strong. for cash as well that your pre-game meals are like at the country buffet or I remember we would you know travel on the bus and we'd go to McDonald's because we'd only have like six dollars per person right right and you're talking about like the 16th team in the nation d-1 yeah right so it's pretty wild and I think that probably still goes on to some degree in a lot of these programs that don't have well college athletes should make money I was thought and especially you know Duke basketball or fill in the blank school that's generating tens of millions of dollars, right?

I mean, that's why you don't blame them when they go, you know, play one and then they leave. Yeah. So, yeah, I, you know, played soccer and I quit and made a really bad decision. And I wasn't recovering the right way. Didn't even know what recovery was. I mean, recovery was, who's getting the six-pack of beer and the next morning is like, who's getting the bagels? Yeah, right.

So didn't hydrate properly. They didn't do anything the right way. But that wasn't the reason why I quit. the reason why I quit is that I was just a punk and a kid and I didn't get along with my coach and we didn't see eye to eye so I said you know what I don't even want to play soccer anymore I don't want to even try to go pro I want to go party and have fun and I made that decision but it led me to many other really cool things in my life I think but I learned a very valuable lesson there so now that is a good bridge so from college sports you end up

getting into like the whole club nightlife promotion scene. Yeah, so I graduate in 2006 and it was like what's next, right? I graduated with a communications degree. And the great thing about going to the University of Rhode Island or I feel like any northeast school, if you live in New York, and if you come back to New York, is everybody who usually goes to those schools are from the tri-state area. So your network is huge. So when you come back home, usually everyone else is coming back home.

So I would guest bartend in the summers at these bars in New York City. And I'd bring 100 people, 200 people. And I didn't even realize that I would eventually get into hospitality. So I graduate. I'm doing some, you know, jobs here and there, working for a fashion company, merchandising at Sacks, Barneys and Bloomingdale, I was making like $27,000 a year thinking I was the richest man in the world at the time, making that, lives in a rent control apartment on the Upper East Side for, you know, I moved to New York City with $400 in my pocket,

so I was like, I really have to figure this out. So I would guess bartend, and I enjoyed it. My sister at the time was a very prominent hair colorist in New York City, and her client was Rachel Yucatel. Oh, known for all the Tiger Woods stuff. Correct. Awesome. And a bunch of other things, but primarily the Tiger Woods.

Primarily that, but prior to all of that, she was kind of like a hospitality maven in the nightlife scene. Totally. So she worked outside as the door girl at this club called Dune in South Hampton, which my partner who I started, the Ainsworth with, owned it. So she went to my sister's says, hey, I know you have a younger brother. Would he want to be my assistant in work in the Hamptons? And my sister's like, fuck yeah, I'll sign him up.

Yeah, right. So, you know, back to making $27,000 a year to making $1,000 a night cash, I thought, you know, I really hit the home run. And then, you know, work with Rachel, who, was really beautiful and it was super awesome and then meet this guy Matt who was going to be part of my life for a while after that with the Ainsworth things kind of fell into place um and she really you know my sister and Rachel really introduced me to this world that I was totally blown away by and enamored by with the celebrities and the girls and the guys spending 10 20 30 thousand dollars a

night right going to these clubs I like is this real life that's craziness um but I loved it and I enjoyed it and I really, I just love being around. I love the scene of it. I loved the scene and I just loved being around all these people. So I did that for three summers. And by the way, what was your, like, you're a super health focused person today, right? Yes. What was your routine in working for those clubs? Like, you're probably staying up until, what, four or five a.m.? Yep. And I was drinking and it was partying. So there was no really health routine there or recovery again. And at this point in your life, were you like out of shape? No, I was always still working out. Okay, so you've always been addicted to exercise.

Always been addicted to exercise. Yeah, we share that in common. Yeah, but it's like anyone could be amazing in the gym for one hour, right? And everyone talks about this. But whatever you do, the next 23, what's going to determine how you're going to be, right? So I didn't know that or realize that or didn't care to even think about that stuff, right? I was 22.

I was having the time of my life. I was making great money. So, you know, I did that, and I learned everything. And I'm so thankful that I took that job. with Rachel because I saw such an opportunity for myself to build a career and I said I'm going to do everything that nobody wants to do so you'll be it's a great attitude for anything right and I don't know why I had that attitude you know I just was like wow I can really do something here so I would get everyone's laundry I would get everyone's dry cleaning I would get everyone's

breakfast in the morning I'd whoever wanted coffee I'd run out and get it whoever wanted work out I'd go work out with a ball tennis I was always like that guy like the poor boy running a hustle The house, right? And I was in shape, and I thought I was in shape, and people started to gravitate towards me because I was becoming really reliable and loyalty for getting shit done. For getting shit done. Yeah.

So then people started to take notice of that. And my partner at the time now was just like, like, who are you, basically? And why do you like doing this? This is Matt. This is Matt. He's like, you're always on time. You're really reliable for me. You know, what are you going to do at the end of the summer?

Because this is just the summer gig. And I said to him, I was like, listen, I just actually quit my fashion gig, so you have to hire me. And we figured it out, and he really wanted to teach me everything from barback to busboy to just learn everything about the business. So he had this bar on 14th between 7th and 8th in New York called Honey, and he's like, I'm going to teach you everything. And I said, I'm down to learn everything, but I just want to let you know, I could probably bring you like 2 to 300 people in night at this place, just because of my network. from college and everything and any bar owner wants to hear that so he gave me a shot and i really started to knock it out of the water with bringing all these people and kind of promoting it kind of being a promoter in a sense yeah you know i think anyone who owns a business just like you you're

you're the biggest promoter of your business right if you need to get out there and sell it you need to be the face of it you need to be that guy so everyone's a promoter in in that in that sense right so we did that for a while and then we had this event space on 20 um 26 between 6 and 7th And it was just a blank event space. And we would throw just parties for companies and whatever. And then the market crashed in the economy. No one was doing really big corporate events anymore. This is like 2008-2009.

2008-2009. So the market crash, and we saw that people weren't really spending money. So we're like, what are we going to do here? So another summer came around, and then it was time for us to figure out if we're going to renew this lease or go find a new space to create something. So we stuck with it there, and we created the Ainsworth, which, in my opinion, and a lot of other people's opinions, probably the most successful sports bar created. We started the first Sunday Sunday. It's an awesome spot.

Started the first Sunday funding. Thank you. Yeah. And it was, we were really the pioneers in sports in upscale and sophisticated sports bars. And, I mean, it's been a huge success. And now you've got it in the Ainsworth's also in Nashville and Kansas City. Correct. Yeah. So we expanded it. So we have four New York, two New Jersey and two in what you just mentioned. Who came up with the famous 24K gold wings? So, yeah, so I'm friendly with Jonathan Chevin. And about two years ago, wow, I can't believe it's two years already, a year and a half. He wanted to see my son Leo, so we were in the city and we linked up with him.

And I saw what he was doing with Grutman with the, you know, a commodo with the dessert. And I said, why don't we try to do something together? And explain the dessert. So he does something with, he has like this, I don't even know what it really is anymore. He just has this really crazy over-the-top dessert with Grubman at Komoto. So, food god loves wings. Okay. He's known for that.

So he said, why don't, you know, we put our minds together and said, why don't we try to create gold wings? So we really have 24-carat edible gold wings at the Ainsworth. What do they cost? So you can get a 50 pack for a thousand, which is obnoxious. But you get a gold bottle, ACE to Spades, with that. And then you can get, you know, a 10. pack for 45 and a 20 pack for 90 but I've never you know and I built this brand really successfully

and we're in so many different markets for over 10 years but I've never seen anything explode like this in my life I mean every single outlet picked it up everyone was talking about it the backlash we were getting you know regarding using gold with food totally it just totally went crazy but it was the best thing it ever could have happened for our brain it's marketing gold I mean, they're pun intended. Yeah. I mean, like, Casey Nistat texted me one day and was like, hey, can I come film? I mean, to get a text from like the biggest and best YouTuber ever was nuts.

So just to see, yeah, it was reaching so many different people and so quickly was awesome. No, well, it's fascinating. And so from all of that, you then got into Maza sport, which is athletic clothing. Yeah, so I have an amazing relationship with a brand called Layer 8. They're really supportive Which is what you're wearing right now It's pretty dope by the way. They're a very, very cool brand

And we just have a really strong relationship together So they really get behind everything that I try to do And they support me So we created a brain called Mazza Sport And we still have it And it's great And we might be doing some more collapse down the line But we did that with Type 1 Diabetes Foundation

So some of the portions of the sales went to that foundation because my dad's the diabetic. So we figured it would be a good way to tie that in together. And the line was super successful. But we kind of just moved that to the side right now because HVLT is the main focus and the brand that we believe has the most legs. Well, what's fascinating for me

and just kind of going over your career is you've been a serial entrepreneur of sorts. I mean, you've been the entrepreneur of your own life in a lot of ways to require all these skills. And then you're now turning into starting different businesses. I'm sure the Ainsworth benefited from the fact that you spent a couple years learning how to be a bus boy or a promoter or all these things. I mean, you have to, as a leader and you know this, you have to be able to do everything in your business. You can't

lead and you can't have people respect you and you can't have people follow you in your business if you can't do every single thing. And I really believe that. And I feel like once the leader stops doing some of those things in the business, it's only going to fail. But it's also a super healthy mindset when you're in the act of doing something that maybe you don't want to do or appreciate you know there's times where when you're if you're being a bus boy you're like fuck I don't want to do this for sure but the reality is hey the you doing this is going to make you better at the inevitable leadership job you'll get down the road yeah I mean I tell everyone who reaches out to me on Instagram or the young kids that reach out to me about what do they want to

do with their career they have no clue I just say do things you really don't want to do and you'll figure it out quickly So, HPLT, let's talk about what the goal is there and how you're trying to improve people. So it's three-day retreat. Yeah, so the first one is a three-day retreat. Not all of them, they might not be three-day retreats. It depends on which city we go to or how we break it up. But the ethos of the brand is I'm a firm believer, and I said this at our dinner and everything,

that everybody, I believe everyone is born a high performer. I think the human body is a high-performing machine. Whatever happens between birth and whatever sometimes is out of people's control and in their control sometimes. And they use it in a positive way or negative way. So what we try to do is we combine people that are high performers and we sharpen their tools through fitness and through the lifestyle choices that we make. And we really love to find people that are on the cusp of becoming high performers or people that have no clue what they're trying to do.

And we blend them together. And the success from our first retreat was pretty unbelievable and outstanding just to have, have these 30 like-minded individuals, and there were some people that have done Iron Man's before, and some people that never ran over one mile. And that after, during that Saturday, when they did a six-mile run with David Goggins, 1,200 jumpy jacks, 700 push-ups,

the person who only ran one mile did everything. And the person did the Iron Man, had a really awesome time doing it. And I'm not saying it was enjoyable for everybody, but by the end of it, it was super enjoyable because they realized what they just were able to accomplish. not only training with the hardest man in the world, basically. Yeah, Goggins is an animal.

The point is that the body's a high-performance machine. You can do anything you put your mind to. Your body will go, but you have to obviously, through technology that you guys are providing, learn how to recover and learn how to do all these things. Totally. So what we're really trying to do is just put all these people together and put them through different, you know, circumstances,

different events, different experiences, and see how they react, and see how they can use each other in a team environment to build a community. Now, from this past weekend, just to talk from the weekend, the first retreat, we're running, so I'm tasking everyone, so what we're going to do is after every retreat, we're going to pick a new location, and after that new location, we're going to see what the mileage is from there and back, and we're going to see and task everyone to see if they can run that mileage as a team, not literally, but in a Google Doc, and we're all logging our mileage.

Oh, that's cool. So all of us are, you know, keeping in touch with each other. We're all using each other for businesses. We're all just talking back and forth and networking. So everyone this weekend, we're in half marathons, the weekend before, everyone's putting 10 miles together. We should put everyone on a whoop team together. Yeah, I know.

We're talking about it. But it's just building a really strong community, and there's no ego, which is amazing, and people are just trying to get better. I'm impressed that you were able to get a group of people that, from a fitness standpoint, we're that far apart, right? having done an Ironman and having not run more than a mile. But it teaches both of them, both of those two categories, so many different things, right?

It teaches, you know, the Iron Man person, whoever or the elite fitness person, have empathy a little bit towards a person who doesn't know what they're doing or doesn't want to train. And it teaches this person, wow, I look up this person, look what they're doing. Maybe I want to be like that. Maybe I don't want to be like that.

And you start to figure things out. And once you put them together and then they're having team dinners, together and they're having meetings together and they're just stuck together for three days really awesome stuff starts to happen and what are some like what's a day in the life for you from a health standpoint like when you wake up in the morning what are the first things that you're doing

so um I'm a parent and I'm about to be a have another baby in about three years ago thank you so um about three and a half four years ago I stopped drinking just because just for fitness and I really hated having a hangover just to be totally honest so which is a pivot from your promotion

oh my god it's like a huge like a big pivot yeah um but a day in the life so i'm up around 4 430 every morning and you know any advice for new dads out there or dads out there i love to get up way before my kid gets up or not kids about to yeah right for me because i like to have my selfish time and it's my time to do everything i want to do my time to get all my emails done if i need to work out even though i don't always work out at the time i rarely do but just to get everything done. And it's important for me to be on that schedule and that regiment because I feel like I set my kids up for success when I do that. Everything's ready for him. His food's ready. His bottle's ready. I'm prepared. I'm not tired. I'm not grog. I'm already have two hours up getting

everything done before he gets up. So I like to intermittent fast. So I don't really eat until one o'clock or noon. But I'll have coffee in the morning, maybe one or two cups, usually black. And then I don't really consume anything until one o'clock. Do you any kind of meditation, anything like that? I do that when I first get up. So I do that for like 10 to 15 minutes. And what kind of meditation you like to do? I just, you know, so I have my dog in the morning, so she comes down with me, and that's

just our time, and we just, she goes out to go to the bathroom, comes back in, we sit on the sofa, and we just chill. No phone, no TV, obviously, and it's just quiet in the dark. And I just, you know, things I'm grateful for, things I want to do, things I don't want to do, and just get in the moment and really just set my day out. I've been amazed by how powerful gratitude is. I mean, I've been trying to get into it more myself in terms of just creating self-reflection around gratitude.

But so many people I've interviewed on this podcast and so many successful athletes that I've met or people who just generally seem happy, they always talk about how gratefulness creates that anchor. I think he's a huge catalyst for human growth and personal growth. Yeah, I think you're right. You know, on Saturday, so this past week I said, I'm going to run a half marathon. I've never run a half marathon before.

I don't know about you or run marathons. I've run a marathon. I've never done it. Yeah. It's always scared the shit out of me, to be honest. Like the weekend before, I've never ran more than six miles, so I said, I'm going to run 10. So my wife thinks I'm a lunatic. And I'm like, I'm going to run a half marathon this weekend.

She's like, well, did you sign up for? I'm like, no, I'm just going to go run 13.1 miles. Sure. She's like, well, when are you going to do it? We have X, Y, and Z to do it. like throughout the weekend we have to prepare for the new baby we have stuff to do with leo like i was like i'm just going to get up at 4 a.m and run it and i'll be home before both of you guys wake up and i'm my half marathon will be done for nice so i get up at 345 get all excited go run a

half marathon and out of curiosity you didn't eat anything before the marathon no i just had a cup of coffee a cup of coffee and then went for and did you take any energy gels or anything like that you got just do it but when you're in a routine like that of constantly getting up at that time and preparing and taking care of yourself, life becomes a lot. And when did you eat dinner the night before? I probably ended at like eight. Okay.

Yeah. So I get up, I run it, you know, run in an hour and 50, which was cool. But the whole time I was running, it was like an emotional roller coaster for myself. And then we talked about gratitude and everything. And I was just running and thinking about my family and thinking about how amazing my wife is and how hard she works and my parents, how great they are, my brother and my sister, thinking about this trip and going to Rebubon. and going to Miami and I'm just like wow life is so awesome

and I'm so thankful for all the people that came into my life and thankful for the people the bad people that came into my life that have been able to you know shape me in ways that I'm just I think I don't want or things I want to go attack and be happy for and things just get the negativity out of my life so I'm on this run and I'm just like this is fucking awesome this can end tomorrow and I want to you know really live in the moment and be happy happy. So many people have these negative thoughts in their mind for no reason sometimes. And I feel

like that is what is keeping them off their path for happiness and success. Well, I like how you just reframed having negative influences in your life too, right? And the fact that, you know, you talk about people that, you know, may not have been good influences for sure. And being grateful for them too. I think that kind of reframing is pretty powerful, right? Because it also makes you try to do that in other aspects. Okay, these failures or these rejections or whatever, these have helped shape me positively. Yep. And I think my whole life I've, you know, fought that off. And I've seen a lot of people in my life come and go for many different reasons. But, you know, always being a strong athlete and, you know, likeability is a huge factor in your life and in success as well.

And a lot of people don't like people that are liked sometimes. And I think that makes them feel insecure and it makes them feel inferior to other people. So I think I've always, my whole life dealt with people that liked to see me win but loved to see me lose also yeah so you know when i started hplt that was a huge factor that i knew would be like the fire under my ass to make this successful and that's why i reached out to brands like you guys to you know definitely put the stamp on that this is legit and this is for real because you know you when you build a business as you know your reputation's on the line your face is on the line your family's on the line that the name on the back your jerseys on the line.

So it's really important to understand that. And it's really important to be thankful for the people that like to see you lose and love to see you lose. Because if you don't have them sometimes, you might not be as motivated as you want to be. I have a mental list of every investor who passed on investing in Woop,

and I think about them all the time. And by the way, it's motivating. For sure. But you use it as a negative thing, right? And it might not be negative that they passed. Maybe it wasn't the right time for them or whatever, but they're going to be not. knocking on your door because they're going to be like, fuck, dude, I should have been involved

with... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, in the back of your mind, you're like, yeah, that's how many multiples you'd be up, but it's like, you know, you have to keep marching forwards, it's the bottom line. I mean, there was this guy, I remember, I don't want to say his name, but I remember when I was first graduated school, I received a job offer to work for this denim company, and we spoke so many times on the phone, and he gave me the job over the phone, so I was like okay great I remember I went to the office to start my first day and he acted like he never

told me I had a job so could you picture your first job ever out of school and you go there on day one and you didn't have a job it's tough so I have this guy's face in the back of my head just for many different reasons too well also it gives you a strong contrast for what you never want to create for someone else exactly and I think those experiences are great that you never want to treat employees that way and everyone treat people who look up to you or are excited about things to do it with you in that way. That's a great point. So let's talk about your experience on whoop so far. You've been on whoop for what a couple months now? Two months now. And how have you been using it? So I've never experienced anything like this in terms of recovery and recovery and

always been my downfall with injuries. I tore my Achilles two years ago. Oh wow. Definitely wear and tear and not listening to my body. And the biggest thing for me, with whoop is the sleep factor in a recovery thing of when not to over train and when to get after it. So I've just been blown away and I know that the HPLT members and everyone who has it just been blown away by how certain people are performing at their peak and why they're performing at their peak and they attribute to a lot of it just in the technology of how they're able to really align how to get after things. If you don't know your sleep or the inconsistencies or how many times you're getting up or just the, you know, if you're on your screen time before bed

or if you're sharing your bed and it's really crazy. So during the last month of my wife's pregnancy now, she's super uncomfortable. And, you know, me sometimes tossing and turning or her being uncomfortable keeps us both up. So there are some nights where I'll go sleep on the sofa downstairs. Sure. And tracking that with sharing a bed or not sharing a bed. It's pretty interesting. It's so interesting.

It's really, really cool. Well, I like to say you can only really manage what you. measure, right? And so if you don't have data assigned to, hey, am I actually sleeping well tonight or not? Am I actually recovering properly? It's very hard to manage against it. Totally. And in a lot of ways, you're kind of the animal I was targeting in the earliest days of founding whoop because you're someone who's going to overtrain or overdo it without something that tells you, hey, take a rest or something to hold you back. So what have been moments for you Are you like, you know, have you had low recoveries?

And then all of a sudden said, okay, maybe today I'm not going to run a half marathon or, you know, whatever crazy work on your now. Yeah. I really let it judge my training regimen now. Yeah. I'm going to do a half Iron Man in December. Great. I'm just announcing it right now. So.

Nice. It's pretty, just decided this weekend that I'm going to have to step it up because I feel like I'm missing something in my life that I could be super. Are you a good swimmer? I'm not. So that's where people get in trouble. So that's why I'm excited for that. And I'm excited to tackle. I'm not a, I hate running.

I don't like swimming. And I really don't care to bike. So I feel like just that sounds like you're dialed. Back to doing things other people don't want to do. Right? And when I was working at the nightclub and stuff as the assistant, I'm using that mentality with this half Iron Man. Is that I'm going to do it because the things I'm horrible at,

I need to get good at. So it's just going to motivate me to work on a lot of these skills that I'm not really good at. Well, that'll be interesting on WOOP too, because you'll see which of those three workouts has higher strains, too. Sure. You know, it may turn out for you. So, like, swimming typically during an Iron Man will have a lower strain than the cycling. We'll have a lower strain than the running. but if you're like super inefficient at say swimming it might be higher

and then one thing you'll want to track personally is over time as you do swims every day and you get better at the form okay if you swim 50 or 100 laps does the strain start to go down even though maybe the time is getting faster sure right my strain is always higher when I run yeah it's like significantly higher than if I'm doing some cross-fit workouts or on the assault like a rowing or and sometimes that's due to the fact that it's just easier to get your heart rate elevated when you're running because you can get into

an all out sprint pretty quickly with CrossFit it is pretty easy to get your heart rate jacked but a lot of the time you might be more focused on your form or the weights right then it's really awesome when I still play soccer competitively now I love seeing how it's tracked during when I play

what position you play? I play striker nice so I play in a soccer league nothing like your level but I play center midfield and it's just like unbelievable how exhausting a soccer game is. So when I track it on the graph, it's like sprint, then it comes down and sprint, it's just like grr, it's so nuts. But I'm assuming with being center midfielder is probably more consistent. Oh yeah, my heart rate's just at like 175 for 90 minutes.

I mean, it's crazy. So mine is drastically jumping up and down. Yeah, yeah, that's the type of training I usually do. way. I think center midfielder, I mean, center forwards are very consistent with like hit workout. Yeah, totally. You know, because you're walking, talking, talking shit, maybe here and there and sprinting coming back. So I'm going to be very curious to see when I start training for the Ironman how this is going to play out. And with other workouts, so it sounds like you do CrossFit. So I wouldn't say CrossFit fully because I don't really do a lot of bar work in terms of snatches

and stuff, deadlifts and squats, but I'm getting after it every single day. I'm doing something every single day. Right. But I just have to be careful now. I'm going to have to redesign how I'm training probably in the next two months getting ready for the Iron Man. But I would say every day some type of hit workout. Like yesterday. The cycling and the running is going to make your sprinting slower. Sure. Because it's like you're going from fast switch muscles to slow Twitch. But like yes, so I ran the half marathon on Saturday. And then yesterday I only had 20 minutes for a workout. So I did 100 K cows on the bike, 200 pushups every 10 K cows, and then 800 meter run. So I'm going to have to morph everything together. That's just what's going to work for me because

I think I'll be bored if I'm just swimming, running, and biking. What's something that you do to tell how fit you are? Like, do you have any fitness tests in your mind? Like, do you, like, you know, some people say, okay, if they're predominantly a runner, they'll be. like, yeah, what's the fastest one mile I can run? I'll go out and run a one mile and see how fast it is. Other people will say, you know, they want to be able to do something like the MRF. You familiar with the MRF? Yeah, I do the MRF every year.

Yeah. I love the MRF. So the MRF for those listening is you run a mile and then you do in any order, typically speaking, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 squats. With a 20-pound vest. Yeah, with a 20-pound vest and then you run another mile. That's definitely a good challenge. So that's like a good challenge to see.

I think what I like to do is... There's a real-2 max test. The 70K-Cal assault bike, one-mile run for time. All right, so unpack that. What is that? So you have the assault bike, which I think is the hardest machine in fitness. Because it just doesn't ever get easier. And that's what the arms too.

That's arms and legs, right? So you're just beasting that for 70 calories for time. So how fast can you burn 70 calories? So 70K cows, you'd like to try to do that in like four-something. four minutes something that's intense that's really intense um but there's been days i've done in like six yeah just you know fatigue and whatever and then you immediately hop off that bike off the bike and then run a mile so your legs are just shot you literally like don't know how to run you look really awkward when you're running it's like a little dangerous yeah you know it's like the guy

from men in black the sugar and water guy that's that guy is walking down the street that's how you start off and then you finally become more human and then you can get after it it, but... So that's a good test? I never heard that before. It's a great test. It's a really, really great test. Or 80 burpees and a 4K row for time.

Interesting. So I think like the V-O-2 as well, it's seeing how much you can deplete yourself and keep going. Yeah. So yeah, those are really good. The MRF is great, but the MRF you can kind of like take a break a little bit. I mean, you probably shouldn't, but you can pace it if you have to. these other things you really can't well I mean look

we're talking about all different levels of fitness too right like for some people just finishing a MRF is a sign of fitness right and then for other people it's like okay can you get from doing it in 40 minutes to 25 minutes or whatever right well like I just did the Empire State Building race okay that was by far the hardest cardiovascular thing I've ever done in my life wow

and am I even embarrassed to say this I was on floor like 65 and a 70 year old woman passed me And she was like, are you okay? And I said, no. And what does it consist of, just broad strokes? You start in the bottom. You just run to the top.

Go to the top and figure it out. How many stairs is it? It's 86 flights. 86 flights. How many steps of flight? I have enough, dude. I don't even want to think about it. Mark, pull up how many steps there are and then first step over the way.

I don't even want to think about it. I don't even want to talk about it. It was the fucking worst experience of my life. I got my ass handed to me. So I did it with my partner, Rob, Pinell. Yeah. You guys know Rob. Yeah, yeah.

Great lacrosse player. The best, the goat. 1,576 stairs. 1,576. I'm always chasing Rob in all of our workouts because he's just a savage. Yeah. So I'm always chasing him. And he's good to keep around for me because he's younger than me.

It keeps me cool. And he's just an animal. So me and him are talking to him, we're like, we're not going to sprint this. We're going to like. Yeah, right. We're not going to sprint in the beginning, dude, because we're going to die. You know, his legs, they're so strong and jacked. I'm not like that at all.

I got little, like, little lady legs. So he just takes off, and he just flies up, so I'm chasing him the whole time. By, like, Flight 30, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My heart was flying out of, I've never been that out of breath, and I've never been that fatigued where I was disoriented in a sense, where I just was like, I can't run this anymore. But it's like, right? So that's like running a stadium where you never have the break of coming down.

Oh, yeah, you never have the break of coming down. So that's exhaust. But you can also use your arms because the stairways are very, very narrow. So you could pull yourself up. So you were doing that. Doing that. So I did in 1810. The guy who won it did it in 10 minutes.

Wow. That's so fast. So fast. It's from Poland. He's the world of record. I've never, it's, it's really fascinating this race. Ten minutes. The most fascinating thing was when the woman passed me,

who started way behind me, caught up, and asked me. So how fast did she end up running it? I don't know, but I don't even want to know her time because I'm going to jump out of the window right now. She was like, you good, bro? And I was like, this is fucking crazy. Yeah, right. And I thought I was so fit.

And then I had to walk to the train to get Metro North and that escalator was broken and I had to walk more steps. And I just wanted to end it that night. Yeah, that's it. But it was a really cool experience. And the whoop was kind of interesting to see the heart rate and everything that was going on, the calories. I don't remember what I burned on that, but it was very, very interesting. Yeah.

Do you do any other events like the Empire State Building one? That's pretty cool. I was lucky enough to do that. No, I really don't do many other events. I've done a Spartan race once. But the next thing is, I guess, the Iron Man. And, you know, I think my wife might do it with me, which would be really awesome. So she's about to give birth?

About to give birth. So that would be, that'd be an intense turnaround. Yeah, but if anyone could do it, she could do it. She's just, we call her the savage. Oh, nice. So she's pretty fit too? No, she's not like she doesn't get after it like we do. But, you know, she, her mentality and the way her work ethic and the way she is as a person,

she'll be able to crush this. So like I said, we all call her the savage in the circle and for many different reasons. What is something that people aren't talking about in the workout community right now that you think is important? That they're not talking about? Yeah, like what's something underrated? What's a secret? Oh, I don't know about secret. I wasn't going to talk about that.

I was just going to talk about how I feel like a lot of these group fitness studios and a lot of these group fitness instructors and teachers and whatever, they're not as true to the beliefs in the systems as they should be. Okay. I feel like they alienate a lot of people sometimes. Interesting. And they're not using their platform and their social media platform to help really, really help people. So give an example of that. I just feel like, you know, they're not really trying to help people become better.

They're really not trying to work as a team. It's really just using it for different reasons. But at the end of the day, like you said before, fitness levels are all different. and fitness means something different to everybody. And it's not just about becoming number one and many different things. It's just about building this community the right way. And I think by blending all these people together,

like what we're doing at HPLT, is the right way to build a strong community. I feel like if you don't do it that way, people will buy in for a little bit, and then they'll realize that it's not genuine. I think I imagine the hard thing for anyone who's managing one of those classes where literally anyone can walk in on.

the street is just the profound difference in fitness level and knowing how hard to push someone too and I feel like I've been on both ends of that spectrum so

there's a fine line of being able to do that like I've gone to Bickram yoga classes where and I'm not good at yoga that's like horrible like pretty bad and and the heat

and just the poses and pushing myself you know and I'm like the guy in the corner who's kind of like trying to recollect him his thoughts and like regrouped. I'm always in the back.

And, you know, and I've had an instructor kind of like yelling at me. Like, you know, hey, you need to get back into the poses. You need to get back poses. And it was,

on some level it was a turnoff because, you know, I'm trying to do my best. I agree. And you know. You're paying for that. Right. Right.

So just because it's fitness, it doesn't mean you can treat people a certain way, right? Like, it's a business. It's just like going to buy a hamburger at a place.

Like, the person behind the counter or your waitress or your server needs to be nice and show hospitality. Yeah, it's tricky. Hospitality and fitness are very similar. So if you're paying $30 for a class

and your instructor is being a dick, if your instructor's being rude, if your instructor's not knowing how to push you, they're failing. And that person's not going to come back. No, I get it. And by the way, I don't go back to Bikram Yoga that often. On the flip side of it, though,

like I've been in like a Barry's class, where, you know, I'm pretty comfortable running. And I've heard the instructor be like, you know, you're close to the end and the instructor being like, and if you need a break, you can take it down a notch. And I'm thinking of myself, no, no, don't say that. Like, I don't want to fucking break. But, you know, there she is talking to a different population in that class.

So I just get that it's hard. It's very difficult. I'm not saying it's easy. But I think the best studios and the best businesses in group fitness and just fitness in general know how to, playing that fine line and I actually tell people when they ask me about

what's my favorite you know what are my favorite classes or whatever I feel like you just want to find an instructor you like I think it's a

and the instructor is almost just as important as whatever just like you go to the bar because you like your favorite bartender yeah everything is very very similar

in that sense with hospitality and fitness and that's why I'm happy I did hospitality first and now turning my focus yeah I think that's smart I think that's a smart frame

too. How about from a recovery standpoint? Like what are some things that people have no clue and what you guys are doing is amazing. So you guys are definitely like helping the world. People have no clue. There's, you know, there's, there's not enough information. There's not enough education out there for people to understand. And I don't fully do it 100% like I should. I don't stretch as much as I should. Um, people are definitely going to start stretching when you train for this hour. Oh, my God. You're not going to have a choice. I'm not going to have a choice.

I'm not going to be, oh, I'll get hurt. But people don't like, sometimes don't like to do the other things that are necessary in order to become better at what they're trying to do, right? So recovery is such a huge part of that, that I don't know why there's not enough education going around about the importance of it. There is, but it needs to be more mainstream. Yeah, I've been thinking about recovery for like eight to ten years. And I can say that I think in the past, call it like 12 months, there's been a movement around it. All of a sudden it's a buzzword.

Sleep, it feels like it's the new steps. Like, everyone's talking about sleep. So I think in the next few years, you'll see some profound shifts. How many hours of sleep are you getting? I try to spend between seven and eight hours in bed, which means that I'll typically get between six and seven hours of quality sleep. And that works for you. And it works for me. Yeah. Now, if I'm run down at all, if I am traveling, that's when I'll try to spend more time in bed, if I've got like a board meeting or something that I want to be really dialed for.

Yeah. But the biggest thing I've come to realize is that consistency is more important than anything else. In all aspects, right? Really in all aspects of life, but especially with sleep. And that's why in the Woop app, we actually give you coaching feedback on how to go to bed and wake up. at a similar time to what you've been doing previously. And so rather than oscillate from getting like five hours and nine hours, which, you know, I think there was a phase in my life I would do.

You know, you're just doing the minimum. You're doing the minimum. And it's like, oh, fuck, you got to catch up. Now I just try to always get, like, you know, an adequate, solid amount of sleep. And, you know, that for me seems to be working. I definitely have innovated a lot and I'm interested to hear your thoughts just around the sleep routine. I've got a night mask now

That I wear when I go to bed You feel like that helps? 100% Definitely helps Yeah, you should definitely do it I'm still figuring out what my favorite Sleep mask is I probably own 15 of them at this point

Do you have any pets? I don't So our dog sleeps with us And I've noticed that She is great Did you share your bed with a dog Yeah, that too And

But she creeps on my side a lot more now. I don't know if it has anything to do with my wife being pregnant, but I noticed that like I'm not getting good sleep because of my dog and it's starting to weigh on me

like should we, you know, we had discussions like we love her to death, should we put her on the ground, is she going to be upset? Like, yeah, right, what are we talking about here, right? Yeah, that's probably a good idea.

I've noticed like sometimes I wake up and my body's all like awkward because the way my dog is sleeping. So. Yeah, I'd look into that. Yeah, definitely. But with the Woop app, last week, there was like three nights where my sleep was really screwed up. And the news it was telling me about how much I needed to catch up.

It was kind of gross in the sense that it's kind of scary. Like, oh, my God, I need to adjust and figure something out. And what do you do before bed, anything? So we like to go to bed between, you know, we try to be in bed by 8, 15, 8.30 every night. Luckily, our son goes to sleep really early. This is all going to totally change, though, in a couple weeks with the day. We'll usually try to do it. So we try to get to bed or get in bed by 8, 8.15 and just have limited screen time on our phones,

but we'll put the TV on for a little bit. And that only lasts for just a little bit because I could fall asleep pretty quickly. And my wife, the same thing. So we just watch TV for a little bit, and then we just try to knock out. So it's really nothing crazy. It's just, you know, really we're not eating in bed or bringing food up or whatever. or we have our water or whatever. There's really no routine.

I've started experimenting with these blue light blocking glasses. They're a little goofy. They're like red tints, and they're supposed to block all the blue light that comes in. And I'll wear probably about an hour or two before bed, sometimes as much as three hours. And I've noticed it makes me a lot sleepier before I get into bed. When do you turn your phone off? Well, that's the other thing.

That's probably one aspect that I'm not as dialed on as I should be. Like, I know I'm still too addicted to work, and so I'll look at my phone pretty close up until going to bed. But by wearing these glasses, I don't find that the light of the phone really affects me. The biggest thing that will affect me is reading some email that I probably shouldn't read right before I go to bed, right? Because that's not going to do you any good. So I know that it's not fully optimal in that standpoint.

But wearing these glasses, I think, is helping deal with the blue light in a big way, and it's stopping the effect of screens. Because my wife and I both like watching television before bed or staying up, you know, watching sports. I think I'm catching up on billions, right? So it gets me all fired up. So the transition of these glasses to the sleep mask, there's something magical there. I like that. And the other thing that I did recently is I was in an airport where I had to take a red eye.

And it was a shitty red eye. It was a red eye from San Jose. And so it's like a six-hour flight, and you can't get horizontal at all on that flight. And so I started wearing the glasses like three or four hours before the flight. So I'm in the airport. I look a little ridiculous with these glasses, but whatever. And I've, you know, maybe only got two hours of sleep on the plane,

but I woke up with a yellow recovery. So that's pretty good, you know. So it's things like that that I think are interesting. Do you drink before going to sleep, like do you have a glass of water or when you stop? I drink an enormous amount of water. Throughout the day. Throughout the whole day. So in general, you know, that's the closest thing I would say to a diet life hack that I have.

You know, alcohol, you know, I don't drink that much anymore. I'll probably have weekends or I'll see friends or maybe I'll, like, indulge too much. but it's rare that I'll have more than a drink on a, like, a work night. You know, it just doesn't happen that often anymore. I'm trying not to have anything, I don't drink, but not have any water before bed because then I'm up, like, I feel like I have to pee all night. Yeah, I haven't had that problem, although I think that's smart, like, if it affects you like that. Now, I was reading, actually, that you've got a special water that you like to drink,

and I wanted to ask you about this. It is, Mark, what was the special water that we were talking about? Hemphidrate? Yeah, the hemiphydrate is part of your brand, but then also there was another one. There's some kind of molecular infused water, which tells us. Yes, yeah. So tell us about some.

So I don't consume that anymore, but I did for a while. So tell me about it. So Trucci, just a molecular hydrogen, basically on recovery. So it's supposed to help you with soreness, help you. And did it work or not? It did for a while, but I think. feel like with everything else it just kind of ran its course and then I just phase in phase out but I'm a partner in hepatrate and it's a CBD water oh interesting

yeah I consume that every day and when do you drink it I drink it just like I'm drinking a regular water and what are the benefits of CBD according to you well we actually it's really funny you said that because we created a CBD menu actually at the Ainsworth oh funny so we had a CBD burger and CBD wings um but just think you know throughout this transition of kind of taking a different route at getting out of hospitality and getting to just focus mainly on fitness as a business there was a bit a bit of anxiety there of leaving something you'd be doing for such a long time and focusing on something else so for me CBD is great for anxiety um also for sleep it relaxes me calms me inflammation um i feel like i'm always broken my body

just from being an athlete overuse for years um so those are the benefits that i have seen in my body And have you noticed any difference between CBD that you've consumed orally versus, say, like, there's a lot of CBD ointments and stuff. I've never used CBO ointment, stuff like that, never used it. So I just, with. We get asked actually a lot about CBD. Well, that's a huge movement as well. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of these, especially in the NFL.

Yeah, I mean, and a lot of them smoke, too. I mean, there's some science out there that supports that marijuana can help. uh reduced pain and inflammation what else what else Brian it's basically it thank you for having me here this is yeah it's been amazing having you um you know we're so thankful that we were able to link up and that you guys were such great partners for us and we hope to do more things with you guys and i know the community is just loving the recovery and everyone's sending each other their photos of their their strain and how much they're accomplishing and their calories and it's super cool so no it's great man well congrats on your career and

and for inspiring people. And thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much. Thanks again to Brian for coming on the show. He was a blast to talk to, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation as much as I did. If you're not already a whoop member, you can join our community for as low as $30 to begin.

We provide you with 24-7 access to your biometric data, as well as analytics across strain, sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, and more. The membership comes with a free whoopstrap 3.0. We offer 6, 12, and 18-month memberships. The more you sign up for, the more you save. If you enter the code Will Ahmed at checkout, that's W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D, will give you $30 off a membership, just for listening to this podcast.

For our European customers, the code is Will Ahmed E-U, and that will give you 30 euros off. when you join and for our current members you can upgrade to the whoop strap 3.0 and get access to all the new whoop live features by following the link in your whoop app if you're out of contract you'll literally get the 3.0 for free when you commit to another six months check out whoop.com slash the locker for show notes and more including links to relevant topics from this conversation and others make sure to subscribe rate and review the whoop podcast on iTunes, Google, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

We'd love to hear your feedback. You can find me online at Will Ahmed. I try to respond to everyone who reaches out. And you can also follow at Whoop on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can email The Locker at Whoop.com with any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions you may have. Thank you again to all our listeners, to all our Whoop members. We love you.