WHOOP Podcast - Ebenezer Samuel, Fitness Director at Men's Health Magazine, talks learning about training and recovery from pro athletes, keeping up with all the latest workout trends in Manhattan, and putting them to the test through self-experimentation.

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

Men's Health Fitness Director Ebenezer Samuel discusses the start to his career in journalism (3:59), unwritten rules for interviewing a star athlete (8:14), learning about fitness from the New York Giants (9:29), coming back from an ACL injury (10:55), his biggest message when it comes to exercise and training (18:10), strategies for putting on muscle (19:59), his favorite gyms and classes in NYC (28:25), getting on WHOOP and #BeYourOwnLabRat (34:56) the afterburn effect (36:58), fitness goals and tests he likes (42:44), why his workouts are great for women too (51:56), the benefits of yoga (54:09), using resistance bands like Tom Brady (58:55), and what he does for physical and mental recovery (1:01:03).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 WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. 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 Woopstrap 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 whoop 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 feel like there are a lot of silos in fitness. There's like there are crossfitters and there are bodybuilders and then there are athletes sprinters and we don't always play together or realize like how our training can kind of, we're all kind of doing the same thing and we can all play well together. And so the one thing I try really, really hard to do is merge different ideas. Hello, folks. Today, my guest is Ebenezer Samuel, the fitness director at Men's Health Magazine. Eb is a certified strength and conditioning specialist with a degree in journalism

from Syracuse University. He began his career as a sports reporter for the New York Daily News, where he learned a great deal from the athletes he covered about fitness, training, and recovering from injury. He used to work out with all of the New York Giants players, and we talk a lot about that. And Ebb has been a WOOP member for the past two years, so we get into his data. Other topics we cover, what it's like to interview pro athletes and how he's used that to improve his own fitness. We even get into interviews with Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Eb's biggest message when it comes to smart and healthy training and the various gyms and classes he visits in New York City to keep up with all the latest trends. How he likes to put these theories to test through self-rengths. experimentation and using whoop data to quantify the effect they have on his body. As a journalist and a trainer who's also the fitness director of one of the world's premier health and lifestyle magazines, I think Ebb has a unique perspective that athletes and fitness enthusiasts of all levels can learn from. Without further ado, here's Ebb. Thanks for coming on. No problem, man. So you've had a pretty fascinating career around health and

fitness. I think just to start, like, did you always know that you were going to end up doing something in health and fitness? I think on some level I knew that was like where I wanted to go eventually. I kind of took a circuitous route to get there. Like I wasn't really, I wasn't actually super athletic when I was like in college, high school. It took me a while to grow into my body and figure out that stuff. So I actually wound up not anywhere near health and fitness up until like three or four years ago. But I was always like training, gymnastics. going to the gym. The fact that I've been able to kind of get it as a career now is I'm super psyched and I'm in love with it. Now you studied journalism at Syracuse. Yeah. So you kind of knew

you were going to go down that path to some degree, right? Yeah, yeah. I think the way I saw it, I wasn't a great athlete and I didn't like naturally understand that stuff. So the closest I could get to it was, hey, let me cover great athletes. So I wound up like, I studied journalism solely so that I could, you know, write for ESPN, write for Sports Illustrated, and kind of be around those guys and learn from them. So yeah, it was kind of, it was a weird way to get where I am now. Well, in a lot of ways, it makes sense. So you graduate from Syracuse 1, 2005, 2006, around that. And then you start working for the Daily News. Yeah. So talk about that experience. So that was, I mean, it's, it's really cool because journalism, the way it is now, they throw you right

into the fire. It's like I showed up, I showed up for an internship, and the next day they're like, hey, go cover Derek Jeter in the Yankees. And it's like, oh, wow, really? Okay, cool. Was that literally your first interview? Yeah, no, Derek Jeter was like my third interview. And I remember, I remember, it's pretty cool, right? Yeah, except you're so green, right? And you have no idea how to talk to these athletes. And I think it was, it was his birthday or something like that. And you also don't know, like, all these unwritten rules of the locker room. It's like you're only supposed to talk to certain players at certain times and stuff like that and you know i just walk up to him because i'm like hey i'm in the locker room i need to talk to this guy and i think i asked him about his birthday and i asked him if

he felt old or something like that apparently though that's like a very bad way to start an interview never ask an athlete if he feels old yeah and never do that if he has especially like big name athletes i guess you you have to have some kind of rapport with them these are things i'm literally like 20 21 years old and i don't really understand that stuff right so i'm like i'm just you know i'm half fan blowing half trying to do a job and the next day my the editor the sports editor the daily news calls me into his office and he's like he's like what is this i heard like you pissed off to eric jeter and i was like so this is like a week or two into the job not even it was literally it was literally like i think i filled out paperwork the first day

that was two days into the office and then they needed somebody to go out there for like a sidebar or something like that and i was the guy so it was like three days in it was kind of um kind of a wild way to get started and have you always been a new york sports fan from that role it's funny I actually wasn't, I can't stand New York sports. Oh, interesting. Don't, don't say that too loud, I guess. I moved around a lot when I was a kid. So I wound up kind of, I think there was some point in like,

we moved to like a different high school or something like that. And all the kids were like, you can't be a fan of this team because it's my team. You can't be a fan of this team because it's my team. So I wound up with the Seattle Mariners, the New England Patriots and like the Lakers, which wasn't too bad. But I just kind of, I was like, you know what? I'll own it and stick with it. And now I'm like a proud Patriots fan.

now did that affect your writing at all like so i've i've always enjoyed reading bill simmons for example big boss and sports writer and it clearly like influences everything he writes in one way or another but he he sort of acknowledges it and i feel like you can either choose to go down that path where you acknowledge that you're a biased sports fan or you just pretend like you have no allegiance and it's just as objective as possible yeah i think it it wound up when i got here because i wound up covering the Giants very heavily. That was like my beat, my beat job. And what I wound up doing partly maybe because I closet hated the Giants because they beat the Patriots, but a lot because I wanted to kind of be as balanced as unbiased as I could be is I probably was one of the more

like critical beat writers, which is interesting too because I got to be really close to, like they had Steve Weatherford at the time. Oh yeah. Like we, we still talk all the time. I love that guy. Yeah, sure. That's Steve. Whoop user. Yeah, exactly. He loves that. He loves you guys. But, you know, I got to be really close to, like, Victor Cruz. And so I got to be friends with those guys. But I was like, okay, I'm friends with them. But let me work really hard to not let that show in my writing that I'm very tight with these guys. Sure. So I try to be pretty, pretty objective. But every so often, I would be like, I would go home and, you know, talk to my wife. And I'd be like, yeah, I mean, Steve Weatherford are lifting this money. You know, it's freaking awesome. Yeah. So you focused on the Giants, you botched this interview with Jeter. What are some of the unwritten rules of interviewing a famous professional athlete? It's just a question of like there are certain times in the locker room where you can approach them and you can't.

And a lot of those guys will only talk on certain days, which is it's kind of, I guess, the privilege. And I understood it a little bit because in the NFL, like, you want, you know, the press would be in the locker room from Monday through Friday. But there's really only a game on Sunday. So from Monday through Friday, a lot of players would tell me this, like, when we were just kind of talking about ourselves. They're like, you guys are asking, the press is asking the same exact questions every day in different ways because we have to come up with stories, right? Yeah. And so what it winds up being is, like, certain guys, like, if you have a rapport with a guy, you won't, it's like almost like you have to strike up like a conversation with them about something else. And they'd be like, hey, listen, oh, by the way, I have a job to do.

Yeah. So can I sneak in like a couple of questions for my. job and yes and then and different guys get along with with different guys like one cool thing for me is because I you know the average sports writer isn't like going to the gym all the time and stuff like that but I mean I would I loved the gym and fitness even then like for me like covering the giants the beauty of that is like I could be like yo Victor how do you get fast you know and he would be like I do this and this and this I had a really good relationship with another guy um Brandon Lloyd from he played for the Patriots for a little bit yeah and I would like

I would be like, what do I do for my vertical leap? And he would be like, this is like my exact work I'm doing. So just do that, you know? Oh, cool. And you're doing that almost more for your personal benefit than even for the... Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I love that stuff, you know? It's like, to me, it's like after a while, you can only, like, write so many stories

about how the Giants offensive line needs work, you know? And you ask the same questions, and you know that's what the fans get out. New Yorkers listening to this, that you just hit a sensitive spot. exactly right well the new yorkers know their whole team needs work right now i gotta watch myself right now yeah but like asking those guys about like i used to christney um was another guy who i got pretty tight with offensive lineman and he could like bench an entire planet super strong guy super strong guy yeah and we would talk a lot but he had you know some injury stuff here and there too and we would talk a lot about like hip mobility you know and so just being around those guys

and asked, like, I learned so much about fitness and health. I remember, like, the one, there was one year, like, six giants, literally all toward their ACLs in training camp, which is, was nuts, right? And talking to those guys about, I had torn my ACL in college and talking to those guys about, like, what they were thinking during their rehab or, like, you know, just even like, you know, it's like, you tear your ACL and it can be fully recovered, but how do you regain your confidence to make that crazy cut? So what are some things that you learned specifically on that example?

Like, how did they regain their confidence? What kind of opened my eyes, I remember, because I did a story on that, and it was like one of the stories I was really excited about. And what a lot of those guys said is it's like, it's their job, you know? So it's like they have to go out there and do it. Like, versus like you or me, it's like, I tear my ACL, I rehab it, and I may come back and play a basketball game, and it feels a little funky. So I just don't go play for two weeks, right?

But I remember talking to the Giants had a receiver at the time named Dominic Hickson. And he was crazy because he had torn his ACL, come back like the next year was having this great training camp. And then he tore his ACL again. And it was like the most, it was a strange thing because like he caught a pass in his own. And it didn't even look like a big, you know how some guys, it's like they get carded off? Yeah. Like it didn't even look like a major injury. He thought it was just tweaked and it wound up torn again.

He had to have the surgery again. And I was like, dude, like, that's got to be, you know, mentally, mentally, like, disturbing, you know, like the next year when he came back. And he's like, yeah, but I, like, this is how I pay my bills. So I have to go out there and figure it out, you know. Right. And it's crazy because, like, on some level, obviously, I feel like when you're in, it's almost like being a pro athlete. That's, like, the challenge. It's like, you get hurt and you have to figure it out versus, like, if you're like you and me, we can kind of take our time and come back from things and come back.

to, like, a lot of those guys have to rush back from injuries where it's like, it takes like a nine-month rehab, but they have to be back in seven or eight months so they can prove they're healthy, you know, and then get their contract. It's tough. It's really tough. I mean, I've always been amazed by how fast some of these guys can come back. And there's definitely learnings in that for general society, don't you think? Yeah, I think the one thing they do, so I tore my left layroom too. And I remember talking. Dude, you're getting injured. Huh? You're getting injured for someone who's not playing sports.

Yeah. And how did you hurt your ACL? How did you hurt your labor? Well, the ACL was one of those never play the one wisdom I hope people get from this podcast. Never play basketball with people who totally like don't know what they're doing. I think I think pick up basketball and pick up soccer are like the two highest likelihood like injury risk activities. Yeah, or like random, random playground rugby somewhere. Yeah, oh, that's, yeah.

Yeah. That's next level. Yeah, some guy, I was like, it was playing around a ball, and some guy, it was at Syracuse, and it was one that I had actually just gotten done lifting, and some guy just, like, totally, like, crashed into my knee. Oh, man. Yeah.

And did you know immediately? I had a hunch. It's crazy because, you know, tough guy and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, I'm going to finish this game. Then I stand up, and I'm like, this doesn't feel right. I think I'm going home. It was kind of an interesting situation because obviously tests and stuff like that and it was like finals and stuff. So I actually didn't get it checked out legitimately until like a week later.

That's the crazy thing about the ACL is that you can actually function somewhat well. I remember, I think it was Rajan Rondo. Yeah. Torr's ACL and he played the rest of the game. I didn't even know. Yeah, it depends on like the severity of the terror. Yeah, of course. It's actually the same with the labor.

like so many people have like laboral tears rotator cuff tears and stuff like that and they don't even they don't eat they say that you only really need to address that if um if it's symptomatic you know because so like so many people just have not have issues in that area but they have so you build especially if you like do crossfit or if you train or if you train smart and you build so much just stability in that joint and then you don't have to worry about so much the thing I think you know that with ACLs is you notice it when people change direction that's when like if you're just running straight ahead you can kind of get away with it but the moment you want to go like if you want to play a hockey game on the torn ACL I mean forget it yeah okay so you spend a lot of time

with athletes you're at the daily news very successful there and what what makes you think okay maybe I should I should be focusing more on on the health side of this and and then transitioning ultimately of men's health? A couple of things. So for me, it's crazy if my, if the, if the sports editor of the Daily News hears this, he may kill me. I had never, I was not like a newspaper guy because I was very, I was like young and dumb, you know what I mean? Which I feel like it's kind of normal. I remember like I was at Syracuse and you have to finish their, that journalism program within the internship. And so I was looking for one. And men's health actually came and interviewed, right? And so I was like, oh, I like men's health. I'm into fitness. Let me do the interview with them. But

again like to me it's like like ESPN the magazine in Sports Illustrated those were ESPN the magazine Sports Illustrated and men's health were the magazines I grew up with but ESPN and Sports Illustrated always look cooler and those were like it's like I want to do that so I go into this men's health interview and the lady's like you know so what's your favorite magazine and stuff like that and I'm like the trick question yeah totally blew this totally oblivious to this I'm like ESPN the magazine because this is this and this and it's so awesome and like I'd love to write for them and she's like like so why are you here again? I was like oh crap yeah but again I was always kind of just into fitness and I'd done the sports thing and after a while again I was I'd been to Super Bowls and I had a lot of fun with it but what was missing for me is just like kind of being able to like like when you just write like it's kind of like sports writing I was writing stuff but I wasn't really getting a chance to like actively impact people and I felt like I had kind of gained all this fitness knowledge through so many different ways, through, like, talking to these athletes, through talking to, like, doctors and physical therapists. And I was kind of

in that space anyway, right? Because I was literally, like, Friday nights, like, or Saturday nights when all the other writers, when we would get to a location, or when we would get to whatever site the Giants were playing at, they would all go out, like, eating and stuff like that. And that would be like, let me find, like, a really cool gym to go train at, you know? So I was a weird guy doing that. And I was kind of training people off to the side and doing all that. And I was like, I'm more into this sometimes than I am, like, you know, covering the team, you know. So men's health had an opening.

And I had actually talked to some people at a different publication, too, just like where, again, there was some fitness going on there. Men's health had an opening. And I was like, let me look into it. And it just kind of wound up working out really well. That's amazing. And so you've been a fitness director for men's health since 2017. Yeah. Your content's awesome. I've watched a lot of your videos and stuff too. Have you done any of them? I haven't done them yet, but we're going to talk about some of this. So what would you say if you had to like quickly summarize what it is that you like to project or influence around health? What would you say it is?

I feel like there are a lot of silos in fitness. You know, there's like there are crossfitters and there are bodybuilders and then there are kind of like, you know, athletes, sprinters. And they don't, we don't, we don't, always like play together or realize like how our training can kind of um how like different pieces you can like we're all kind of doing the same thing and we can all play well together and so the one thing i try really really hard to do is um is merge different ideas you know it's like even if that as a concept yeah even if you're like a bodybuilder it's like if you bodybuilders doing yoga is like it's good for them you know like me i come from i came from originally like a very bodybuilding school but like blending that with like some crossfit ideas and learning like crossfit teaches intensity and how to like go hard better than any kind of fitness this one out

there you know at the same time crossfit can learn from from bodybuilding and kind of more traditional strength training in terms of you know introducing some of those more like fundamental movements it's like let's do a dumbbell row before we do a clean or a snatch let's learn how to pull that way first. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, so I just like merging all of that into one kind of big ball of fitness that, like, everybody can get something out of it because I think then you wind up, you wind up producing like a better all-around athlete, a better all-around person, and like somebody who has more longevity, too. I think a lot of this also just comes back to what your goals are for fitness. Let's say, for example, that your goal is to put on

muscle. Yeah. You're comfortable with, you know, your waist size or whatever, but you're someone who just wants to look bigger and stronger. You want more muscle, right? What would you say is the best strategy for that? The best strategy for that is probably something maybe a little bit more, like that to me, I always go back to pull push legs. You know, that to me is like the ideal split for somebody who wants to put on muscle. It's something kind of nice and safe. Pull push legs. Yeah, pull push legs to me so that's like day one um you're doing all your pulling motions that's like your back exercises and your bicep exercises day two you're going to do all your pushing motions that's going to be kind of your chest exercise like your bench press um your triceps exercises where you're

again pushing stuff away kind of straightening that elbow if you want like your shoulder exercises day three is going to be all your lower body exercises and you hit it hard um and that's a huge and very important like day just for kind of like like a lot of growth stimulus happens because you're going to go heavier on that day than you're going to go on any other day. So to me, that's kind of like the ideal way to set up a workout. How you piece out the movements in there is, and that's where it gets interesting. And that's where I try to merge some different pieces than some other people do. Because, you know, like if you take, if you take that pull day, we're going to do like a dumbbell row or some kind of barbell row to start out and cue like

really good scapular retraction. Then we'll probably do a pull up. And then we kind of maybe get into like then maybe we introduce some like more cross-fist style motions like a dumbbell snatch or you know a dumbbell or you can use kettlebells or that kind of stuff too I think that's the ideal way for people to put on muscle because then also you get to move at different velocities too like when we're doing that road that's you're going to lift a heavier weight you're going to try to be explosive with it but you can only it's only going to go up so quickly right versus like when you get down to the tail end of the workout maybe or even when you when you're on the pull up maybe you're being a little more explosive

and you can be a little more powerful because it's a little lighter than when you get to like that that clean that snatch that's like a very fast movement so then you get to move your body a different rate of speed now I imagine there's people listening to this and I think I'm one of them who like when I go lift weights I often am doing pushing and pulling and legs all in the same workout yeah what are the well I guess what are the disadvantages to doing that or you know what what are the advantages to spreading that over three different days um the advantage of the advantage of to me, especially if you want to put on, if you want to put on targeted muscle, too, like in certain areas, the advantage to me is that you can hit it a little bit harder, you know, and you can also get in more variety of movements versus if I'm doing, like, a total body day. If I'm hitting everything, I'm probably going to, you're going to get one bench press style movement, right?

That's going to be your pushing movement. You'll get one pulling style movement, maybe two, right? Right. And maybe you get two leg motions in. So you wind up with very fundamental pieces. And that's not bad, you know. But you want, you know, that's like, so you have a bench press, a dumbbell row, a deadlift, and a squat. That's your, that's maybe your full body day, right? Versus like, I can, I can attack my body from in a lot of different directions and kind of along a lot of different planes if I'm trained, if I'm really hammering one muscle. So like on a leg. day, I can get in my squat and my deadlift. And those are my two starter motions. But then I can get into something where I'm moving laterally and I can build strength in that plane. And then I can get in something where I'm a little more rotational, like something where I'm like using like a landmine and maybe doing like kind of like a road to like a rotational clean or something like that. So I can work in different planes. I can work at different velocities, really hammer that muscle

and then come back a couple days later and do the same thing. And there's nothing wrong with full body days. But I just think when you try to get a little more, when you try to get a little more nuanced with emotions, because then like if you're doing a full body day and you want to do, say, one thing I'm being into is it's called like a TRX reach

row where you kind of like hold the Tarex reach down to the ground and reach all the way up around the TRX. I don't know if you've seen me doing that before. But that's like a cool rotational move and it has a lot of value. But if I'm doing that as my back move in a full body day,

then I'm kind of sacrificing a fundamental back move that I should have been doing first. So that's one reason I'm not as crazy about full body days. Got it. So let's say that over the course of three days, we both do the same exact total number of exercises. But I do over three days, total body, total body, total body. You do over three days, push, pull legs, or just to simplify it. You think that by being more focused on each day, you're effectively able to target that specific muscle from more different angles, and I guess in some ways be less fatigue doing it, or how would you summarize that? Yeah, I would say you can target that muscle from different angles, and I can target smaller muscles that relate to it a little bit better than I can on a full body day.

the other thing I feel like if you're doing if you're doing like a hard full body day three days in a row you're probably going to wind up more fatigued than I am right so that's another way of looking at it is what's your recovery time from all these things yeah like if I were doing

if I were doing full body workouts I would probably and again I'm kind of thinking of this off the top of my head I'd have to I'd have to program it out a little bit better but if I were doing if I were doing full body workouts body workouts i would probably be doing like three or four days of training a week which isn't bad you know like i know don salino train he has some splits where he'll go full body for a little bit yeah we just had don on the podcast too yeah and i know you guys are buddies yeah we're pretty

close um his his workouts kill me sometimes yeah but by the way all the stuff that ebb's talking about he's got videos on on his instagram so you guys should check that out what tell everyone your instagram handle uh it's my full name so ebenezer samuel 23 well we'll put that in the show notes and stuff too because it is interesting to see some of the different movements you're describing but anyway go ahead yeah i just think um oh i lost my if i were doing a full body workout i would probably train like full body rest full body rest like i would yeah so you're describing actually when you say day one day two day three you mean like literally back to back to back to back days exactly yeah so that's another thing i feel like i'm probably doing a full

body twice a week, right? Whereas maybe I could get more benefit if I were just doing, you know, one specific area, one specific area, one specific area, one specific area. Like, how often do you go to the gym? Well, see, that, that's a question that I spend way too much time at the gym. But the gym is kind of like my bar. Like some people go out to drink and, you know, on Friday nights, I'm like, hey, let's go to Transform Fitness. That's the gym I go to most of the time. Yeah. But so I'll go typically like five or six days a week. Okay. The one thing, and I'm probably training for like an hour and a half, an hour, 45 minutes there.

Okay, so that's a pretty long time. Yeah, I sometimes don't leave, like, right away, but that's because I tend to, to me, the gym is about play, too. So I'll get done with, like, whatever I'm training. And then every so often there will be, like, a friend there, and it'll be like, hey, let's see, let's see if we can do this. Yeah, exactly. Let's just do random stuff, you know, and then random stuff and then, oh, crap, it's 10.30 at night or it's 11 o'clock. Wow, so you can get carried away, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so I'd say like five or six days a week. And then a lot, again, some of it's like a responsibility's thing too. So in the city, obviously there's a lot of group fitness. And it's part of my job is to know that group fitness. Totally. So I'll do a lot of like, you know, morning workouts, like, you know, morning yoga. This morning I went to Brick, yeah, Brick Grand Central. It's a pretty cool crosswood box.

tone house stuff like that just checking out different gyms and being aware of what's going on so that's a good i've got a bunch of different questions for you but so let's talk about the the class scene in new york because that's really been exploding for the last 10 years and i think it's still climbing yeah what are some of your favorite group classes in manhattan uh favorite group classes in manhattan well i really i actually brick does a really cool class called bx which is actually not it's kind of like their um quote unquote low tier class in terms of it's not the CrossFit offering. It's not the classic strength offering, but it's a lot, it's very good kind of, it's very good quality, very well programmed conditioning. The thing I really like about it is

you get a chance to, again, for my purposes around my training, I'm moving a lot of weight in the gym and moving it not always at the highest rate of speed. So Brick offers a chance for me to move light weights at a very high velocity, which I really like. So I like that. I'm actually a big fan of core power yoga um cool yeah because i've done core power love it right it's good yeah it's good i you know it's funny with yoga though i don't do it as much as i wish i did it yeah because i find every time i do it i get very competitive with myself and i kind of over push every position and it makes me not enjoy it and i need to i think i need to have a better mindset with yoga where you go in and you kind of it needs to be i think more meditative for me and instead i always get a little too amped up

It's funny because I think I'm the same way. I'll go in and they're like push your butt back and try to stretch your hands out. And I'm like, okay, I'm really going to stretch your mouth. Yeah. Yeah. But I've actually gone back and forth on that a lot because I'll go to core power and I'll be like, and I'll put in that kind of effort and I'll be like, you know what? My body feels great after it.

And I'm like, every so often I'm like, maybe everybody else is just doing it wrong and you and I are doing it right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I'm doing it right. necessarily but I hear where you're coming from on that okay so so core power yoga what else you got um I like have you been to everybody fights I haven't although I've heard great things about it yeah everybody fights to me is probably the the best kind of most well-rounded boxing experience in this and if you're a beginner would you enjoy it or do you need to be decent at boxing no that well that that's what so I I'm pretty sure I'm like a mess

when it comes to anything boxing related you kind of you've got the upper body of a boxer actually like you're cut and you got big muscles like i bet i bet you'd be good at boxing oh i looked the part but i don't move the part yeah um yeah but they they have two often they have like a train 360 class that's really cool where it's kind of like it's kind of hidish but then they let you in the ring which is for one station oh that's fun and that it what what blew me away was the first time i got in that ring it's like a two minute 30 second station isn't it amazing how long two minutes and 30 seconds feels like when you're boxing exactly and how fatigue like 45 seconds of punching and you're like is it over yet oh totally I so I boxed from the ages of like 19 to 22 I had internships in

Manhattan and I would go to this this place called Mendez I think it's on 25th and you know a bit of a rundown spot but they had the best trainers there and it just really made me appreciate one how hard boxing is and how technical it is. Two, I think how everyone's default punch is a ridiculous thing. You know, you're you're kind of punching from behind your ear, right? Yeah. Like your natural punch is a disaster. It's like straight out of a bar fight and looks terrible. Yeah. And actually there's a lot of, there's really a lot of technique to it in a way that I think you wouldn't appreciate if you just watched boxing on television for the first time. Yeah. And, and then the other thing is just the conditioning you know i remember it was like go warm up once you do 20 minutes straight on the

jump rope yeah that's i mean that's not easy for anyone to just do yeah it's i feel like it's very boxing the way those guys train is so different from um like everything we've been taught about high intensity interval training is is like 40 seconds on 20 seconds off and you get these mini breaks and those guys just go those guys i mean because what they're prepping for is what two minutes 30 seconds on, a minute off or something like that. And so it's like they, they, it's a different quality of, um, of work that they put in. Yeah, it's, it's a longer period of really high intensity, which is what I think what makes it so hard. Yeah. Your point is right. Like other high intensity workouts tend to be 40 seconds or a minute and then you stop. Boxing's like three

minutes and then you stop. Yeah. And you, but you have to find a way to, because I feel like if you give somebody a if you give somebody a three minutes on one minute off workout they're going to just naturally go hard for like 90 seconds of that three minutes versus a boxer has to find a way to stay mentally and physically in it for all three minutes because if they don't that 15 seconds where they're not in it is where they get knocked out well that's the other thing there's an enormous mental fatigue too because you have to be so focused for that period of time which in turn is also elevating your heart rate. So to bring it back to a whoop concept, that's just elevating your strain as we calculated on whoop for a longer period of time. Yeah. Okay, so boxing class,

everybody fights. What else you got in the city? Um, geez, now I got to think a little bit. Um, I do like Tonehouse. Have you been to Tone House? Have you been to Tone House? I haven't been. We've got a bunch of whoop users on Tonehouse. I have a lot of respect for those guys. I haven't, I haven't been yet, but. Yeah, the thing I love about Tone House is they get you moving and actually going somewhere versus when you go to any of these other classes even the ones I love you're kind of in one spot and that's your spot and you do your exercise in that spot at tone house it's run down to one end sprint back the other and so you have that movement that quality of locomotion that you just don't get in any other workout in the city the the challenge of tone house is you talk about a

workout where you have to be like mentally in it if you don't bring your a game that's like don't to show up. Yeah, it's one of the hardest workouts in the city, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's legitimately, like, it's legitimately hard. It's the only workout in the city where I kind of, it's like, it's like, I'm like, okay, I'm going there. I have to be covered. I have to be focused. Let me make sure I got my sleep that night before. Everything else, I'll just show up. Yeah, you want to have a high recovery on WOOP before you go into Tone House. Exactly. Yeah, I want to be like 85 there. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you've been on Woop for how long now? I actually um I actually I was I want to say like like I think you guys reached out to me shortly after um I got to men's health so probably about two years oh cool yeah I was on it and I instantly loved it I actually got off of it for a while um and then I've been back on it now for probably like the last like like I'm one to say maybe four or five months pretty hardcore oh good yeah and for you what are some of the things that you use whoop for

Um, I'm actually, I'm going to, I'm going to try to coin this hashtag at some point. It's going to be be your own lab rat. Um, and that's because the thing I love about whoop, I mean, I love the recovery data. Um, and I, to me, it's like what the way you guys present the data is what makes it special because I appreciate that, you know, other devices can do HRV and calculate your heart rate, but you guys are presenting me stuff that like, as, as an athlete as somebody who's in love with fitness, you guys are presenting it in a way that like I enjoy like I love like going to workouts and looking at just the graph of what my heart rate did yeah totally it's it's crazy too because you can go to a hit class and you can you can almost tell like see each session yeah yeah and how they're different you know like if you if I go to like something where it was like like like like an every minute or every two minutes on the minute right yeah it's going to be I'm going to get a really jagged graph versus like if if it was something today's was it was like you do you run like a half You run like 50 meters.

You get off, you do something. Then you run 100 meters, get off to do something. And so it was a count up, and I'm always working. And my graph was just like constant hell. So I like the way you guys presented that. But what I've really found interesting, cool, and fun is just being able to kind of experiment, like listen to theories and hear theories on fitness and then see how they're true from my body and just how my body responds to stuff.

So, like, I mean, you've probably heard about, like, the afterburn effect and just this whole idea that if you do high-intensity interval training, your heart rate's going to stay up afterwards. So one of the cool things I do is I'll go to, say, a fitness class or even if I do, like, my own hit circuit somewhere else, I'll kind of, I'll log that workout, and then I'll also log, like, the 15 minutes after it just to see, like, what my heart is doing afterwards and how high it stays up. And that's been kind of fun for me to do.

a couple weeks ago I took it to to a cryotherapy session. Oh nice. Yeah and it was just interesting to see like because you hear again you hear so much different stuff but I'm a big believer in everybody reacts

a little bit differently for so many. Totally agree with that. Yeah and whoop lets you see like okay this is what it says on the internet about what's supposed to happen to my body when I do cryotherapy and how I'm supposed to burn all these calories and and that the other thing.

But especially when you guys introduced the whoop snap feature. So I went to this cryout thing and I had my friend literally just like take video of me because it's only three minutes anyway. And all these calories are supposed to burn. My heart rate like went and part of this because like I also get like freaked out of the cold. And my heart rate just went like it was up around like 110. And then all of a sudden like midway through she's like, yo, you got to see this. Your heart rate is like at like 60.

Oh wow. And it's because she has like started talking to me. and so like that had gotten me like not thinking about it and then all of a sudden she's like oh you have 30 more seconds and suddenly my heart goes back but it was really cool because it's like oh my god like my mind and my mentality has so much effect on how on what my heart is doing and just being able to like test it in different situations even like like yesterday i did this for the first time um i tested it on like a like a 500 meter row just set set up the whoop snap just so I could see my heart rate data afterwards.

I mailed in, and I kind of knew I did, because I was, I was tired and I was coming off of legs, but I mailed in, like, the last, like, 100 meters or whatever. The time was still decent, so I was happy with it. But when I checked the whoop data, I could tell, like, oh, wow, like, it's crazy how my slow split, like, totally coincided with when I basically decided, okay, you know what, I'm going to finish under 129 anyway, so I'll be happy with that, and so I'm just not going go hard and literally like my heart rate just starts diving and i mean so it's just interesting to do it in in ways like that so i love using it for workout stuff that's awesome and the uh and i like what you

said by the way about you know being your own lab rat because that's a lot of what i think having having data on your body allows you to do is you can see how all these different things are affecting your body right and you can sort of ab test different supplements or different workouts or different behaviors and see how they affect your body exactly one thing so i don't sleep a lot and that's the one and again like that's one thing that whoop has kind of revealed to me showing me a little bit is like initially i mean we all kind of hear this thing like you need eight hours of sleep and this is not me telling anybody to not get your eight hours of sleep in night but um what i found is like if i if i get four three or four hours four hours of sleep but it's like good quality sleep like i recover better

the next day than I do if like I got like eight hours of sleep but I left the TV on and like my wife was like up you know the low quality yeah exactly and so the quality of sleep is so relevant yeah and by the way whoop really focuses on that so we will measure the amount of time you're in slow wave and REM sleep yeah and if you can get a lot of slow wave and REM sleep the rest doesn't actually matter as much yeah You know, because the light periods and the periods where you're awake, your body isn't getting that much benefit from it. So four hours to me still sounds pretty low that you're managing the function on that. There is like a percentage of the population that can function on less sleep. Everyone sort of thinks they are that person and they're not.

But given that you're the fitness level that you're at, you may actually be that. Yeah. Let's hope. Yeah. now what about your your bedtime routine do you do you have any hacks around sleep or anything that you're trying to optimize around no i'm i'm almost like honestly i spend way too much time not sleeping yeah though i do try to because so for me i'm getting back from the gym again around like 10 10 15 10 30 every night which is late yeah that's late i mean that's i feel like that kind of goes with the with the new york territory um yeah yeah i Yeah, Manhattan's a little amped up. Yeah. It is.

I mean, that's not a normal thing. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, get home around 10, 1015, 10.30, I always kind of, so that's also my post-lift meal. So what I try to do is I'll try to graze on my post-lift meal. And then, again, there's always, like, a ton of volume of work, too. So I'll graze on my post-lift meal. Go through emails or whatever else I have to do. I've been trying to do more Instagram Q&As for people.

So I'd love if people check that out. Sure. but I'll get around to that about that time and then I kind of wind and then I kind of wind down from there one thing I do and I don't know if this is necessarily good or not but it kind of works for me is like like I don't try to force myself to go to bed at a particular time like you get to that point I feel like where your eyes get heavy and you're just like okay I'm ready to sleep and so that's the time when like I just go to bed got it yeah and talk let's talk a little bit about diet what do you think's right for you what are your goals first of all what are your goals right now are you trying to get bigger and stronger are you trying to get leaner um right now right now i'm trying to get um i'm trying to get a little bit leaner um and how do you think about lean is that percent body fat or what is lean to you um lean to me is just like it's just like tapering at the abs and kind of having like more cut yeah just having more cut i mean i try to i i i would let it's it's I have a variety of goals. Some of them are aesthetic. Like, I'd like my arms to grow a little bit more. And I'd like to get just a little more definition in my abs in a couple,

a couple, like, really picky spots. And then I have a lot, I actually have a lot of performing. Like, right now, I've been obsessed with the 500 meter row for probably, like, the last six months. So you have these little tests that you're trying to do. Yeah, exactly. Oh, cool. And I think, I feel like you need them because if you don't, then you don't have, like, a guide for your fitness.

But so right now my goal. is like I want like a 124 500 meter row so that strikes me this fast yeah it is 120 126 is my best and it's hell yeah so I'm trying to work you were tried to do a 2k a 2k row um I don't know have you familiar with this guy Bobby maximus I'm not sure it sounds familiar he's a he's a trainer up in Utah and he has benchmarks for all that stuff yeah well the funny thing is that I mean serious rowers. I went to St. Paul's, which had an incredible rowing program, and a bunch of guys from there went to row in college. And then we also now work with really high-level rowers. There's a guy on our team at Woop, Mike Lombardi, who's a really talented rower. And their numbers

for a 2K are crazy. Like, I think they can get sub-6. That's insane. Which, if you think about it, crazy right or like very close to sex but and that is by the way that is like the most excruciating six minutes of your life yeah as you know yeah well that that's why i keep it to the five the 500 is like a pure sprint yeah so that's maybe a little more muscle even too right yeah well it's crazy because i think the guy who owns i think the 500 meter row record is something like 119 and it's owned by it's owned by like one of those strong men type guys yeah yeah it's not a rower yeah and the reason is because uh the row is what like a deadlift to to a barbell row and so he can deadlift a ton of weight he can deadlift more than you know most of us combined so he can he can turn that

into he turns that into what he wants it to be what are some of your other tests for me that's a big one i'm pretty careful with it because like for shoulder longevity it's not great but i try I like to test my 2nd25 bench and my 185 bench. So how many reps you can do? Yeah, yeah. I'm usually around like 16 or 17 when I'm right. For 185, 225. Yeah.

And that's what they do with the combine, isn't it? Yeah. So what do those guys throw up for 225? What's interesting. I bet it varies a lot. I was going to say there's a lot, there's a ton of variance. Like law offensive linemen and defensive line. And again, that's actually where.

So literally, and this is how much I was in a fitness one I was in college like um that's probably how you got into this test oh yeah yeah because you'd go to the NFL convine and figure it out well yeah well I would actually um I would actually I remember when I was in college like every time the combine came around I would I would look because they because they would put up those guys numbers and I would be like I beat that guy and that guy yeah I like but I do that and I like I don't test the times as much for me it's almost more about like feeling fast and maybe that's my excuse because I'm really slow um yeah but I like to go out to the track and do like 100 meter work

Okay, cool. Do you find, well, so then let's go back to the diet for a second. What are you eating to try to achieve those goals? I try to eat clean. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. To me, it's about, like, my goal is to be as create as anti-inflammatory and environment in my body as possible. And I try to achieve that by, I drink a lot of water, have a lot of fish, a lot of good fats, a lot of green vegetables. and I'm kind of one of those people who eats all the time. So I'll eat. I kind of have like a plan that I stick to and I try to have something in me like every

two and a half hours. It's generally... So you're like the opposite of intermittent fasting. Exactly. I think to me, so intermittent fasting I think works for people who want to like more lose weight or if you don't have time to eat all the time. But I come from the school that, again, I'm always looking at it from like a muscle building perspective too because I want to...

Yeah, that comes back to your goals. Yeah, exactly. And it works for me, so I want a constant supply of protein as much protein as I can metabolize. I can metabolize, you know, protein every two and a half-ish hours. So I try to eat and get protein in my system every two and a half-ish hours. Got it. And do you, are you someone who takes supplements or anything like that? I don't because I, it's crazy because I actually, I remember like when I-

You probably get sent them all the time. Oh, yeah. There's a whole, if y'all want them, they're at the office. I used to, when I was in college, right? It's like GNC, you figure it's like, oh, this will solve all my problems, right? Yeah. So I used to like, I would literally, there was a G. I remember, like, the one time I took Wake Garner, because I was super skinny in college.

And the one time I took Wake Gander, it was a disaster. I feel like I can't really describe it to your audience in a way that would make them want to keep listening. But I would literally, like, buy everything from there. So you were into it. Yeah, but then, and then I remember I wasn't, like, maybe like, like five or six years ago, maybe a little bit longer than that, I wasn't really getting the results I wanted in the gym. Like, I was putting in all this time, but I wasn't kind of getting size or definition or strength. So I was going to a gym at the time called Star Fitness

in the Bronx. Like a lot of bodybuilders go there, like competitive guys. And I was like, dude, why am I not growing them? And he's like, yeah, it's kind of weird because you do work pretty hard. You're here for like way too long in the first place. And he's like, how to your diet? And I'm like, well, I'm on this and I'm on this and I'm on creatine and this and and the other thing. And he's like, well, there's your problem because I was relying on all these supplements and not real food, right? And so much of what the guys who know what they're doing, whether it's like athletes or bodybuilders or whatever, the more real food, the more nutrition you can get from real food, the better. So, you know, I'm always pushing myself to like have

chicken, fish, broccoli. And I have like, I do have one or two shakes a day, mostly because I'm getting out of like a workout in the morning and it's easy for me to get in. But then the rest of the day, it'll be like, I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to have like six ounces of the salmon, like three ounces of brown rice, and maybe some kind of vegetable from our, from the Hearst building. Nice. I think that's an interesting shift because I've definitely talked to other athletes, other high performers who have, who've had a similar experience where they went from being into supplements and not taking stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's tricky because like so much of the fitness industry is about almost like, you know,

can or so much of the fitness industry you know you think you have to be on that stuff but the guys who get results um and the best path to results is just net if you know if you're getting if you have enough fish enough broccoli enough um you know enough chicken in your diet then you might not need like some amino acid supplement you know if you have enough fish and avocado and yeah almond butter in your diet do you really need to take a fish oil pill you're probably covered so it's kind of like If you can, it, it's a funny thing and the thing I've always found interesting is like that good food winds up costing more than say, you know, the Oreos that I might much prefer to eat. That good food does cost more, but it's so much better for me. Yeah, that's true.

I mean, that's great advice. And how about vitamins or anything related to sleep? I don't, I don't take anything for either those. Got it. So all clean. Yeah, I'm kind of boring like that. Sorry. I mean, I'm generally the same way.

I take melatonin sometimes for sleep. I'll take magnesium sometimes for sleep. But otherwise, I'm not taking anything. Yeah. I do have melatonin around. And if I'm ever having trouble sleeping, I'll take that. But again, like, I generally, I wind up awake so much that by the time, like, midnight rolls around, I'm like, I just knock out. And what are some things that you're working on right now with men's health?

We have a lot of cool stuff going on. One of the cooler things we're doing is called the all-out app right now. And that's just, we, we have this, we have this giant library of fitness just across a variety of brands, men's health, women's health, prevention. And we have all this fitness video. And we kind of put that all in an app now. And so that's really, that's probably like my, my coolest project right now because I have, I have a workout in there. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

Mine is muscle. So you're focused on the muscle side of things. Yeah. Now, for the women listening to this, do you think they'll get the same value out of the work? workouts that you're describing? Yeah, in fact, it's kind of interesting because I actually get a lot of DMs from women on Instagram and they're like, they're like, will your workouts work for me or will I put on too much bulk? And that's something like I'm actually, women should be strong, you know, and they shouldn't be afraid to get strong. Totally. And the workouts, you know,

whether it's my workout or Don Saladino's workout or anything, they can do the same workout weekend. And it's going to kind of like, I don't think they need to worry about that at all. Like, they're going to, the only way they're going to, if I know a lot of women, it feels like they worry about bulking up too much. The only way that's going to happen is if like they're going in there trying to deadlift, you know, 600 pounds or something like that. But they should feel, like my workouts are great for women. I feel like strength for women has become very popular and like just pop culture generally. Do you agree with that? Like, are you seeing that?

Yeah, I think more of that, I think for a long time there was kind of this, and there is still a little bit of this stigma that a woman's workout and a man's workout, quote unquote, are different. Sure. But I think you're definitely seeing that change more and more. That's actually one of the things that me and Liz Placer, the women's health editor-in-chief, have kind of been doing. And it's kind of just to show people that you can do, like whether men or woman, you can do this. the same workout you know i go to the gym with with or when i go to these group fitness classes there are guys who who need to modify moves down as much as women there's not like they're the same workouts and they can be the same workouts the weights kind of take care of themselves you know

if i want to bulk up i'm going to i'm going to make a more concerted effort to say row that 120 pound dumbbell you know i could then like liz if she wants to get a little more a little bit of a different effect out of it, she's just going to row the 30 or 40 pound dumbbell. So I feel like it takes care of itself. And I feel like women are starting to realize that they can and they can get strong and that it's worth doing that. It's funny. It does seem like men are starting to train a little bit more like women and women are starting to train a little more like men. Well, that's the whole yoga craze right there too. Yeah, exactly, right? Yoga classes used to be 99% women. Now they're probably 65% women. Yeah. And yoga is like so, if you do all this,

other training. It's interesting, like, I have a couple of bodybuilding friends who are kind of experimenting with yoga or adding it to their routines, and they struggle at it at first because they don't have that build-in flexibility. But as they get better at it, they're feeling more mobile. And for me, like even, you feel a little bit unnerved. I feel like the first time as a guy that you go to a yoga class because of that stigma. But then once you're into it, the quality is for my body, the way I move and just being able, like, I feel like yoga to some extent contributed to making me more explosive just because I have that much more length in my muscles to explode over.

When I, it's, this is a, this is probably another thing, it's not a test, but it's a goal of mine. I like doing randomly insane Superman push-ups and just seeing like how I can string them together. And if I, when I go to yoga consistently, this is purely anecdotal, but when I go to yoga consistently, I'm much more capable of pulling those off easily. And when I don't go to yoga for, like, say, a month, or I don't do any flexibility work for a month, even on my own, those moves, I can still do them, but I can feel like my body is kind of laboring through it instead of just having like that natural like just mobility that it should yeah i mean the times that i've done a lot of yoga i found

that it helps a lot with my balance you know it feels like there's a lot of little muscles around your ankle and your feet and even your cav area that get kind of dialed in from yoga i'm sure a bodybuilder's going to get more advantage from it from their upper body but i've always been fairly nimble on my upper body just from playing racket sports and whatnot so i get more benefit the lower body. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many benefits from yoga in general, I think. Who are some of your influences when it comes to health and fitness? Honestly, it's probably a lot of athletes. I remember the first time I read somewhere that Michael Jordan, that was the other reason I was on to bench 225, because I read

somewhere that Michael Jordan got in his 225 pound bench every day. And who knows if it was true or not. But that kind of got me into the bench press. Arnold was big for me, the Terminator. It's amazing what he did to commercialize weightlifting. Oh, yeah, he made it cool. He really did. And that movie, Pumping Iron. Yeah.

Well, and for me, the big one was Terminator 2. Oh, interesting. Like, that was like, that was like, okay, I want to, I think I cut my hair. I was like, every time we would go to the, to get a haircut after that, my mom would be like, how do you want your hair? I'll be like, I want the Terminator. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the hairdresser just thought it was, like, weird. but um yeah but Arnold was big I got to interview him last year that was super it was only over um it was over facetime and I remember like his people were like he only does interviews over face time I was like

okay it's kind of weird but okay and then getting beginning to do that like getting to see like I kind of there are three people who I've ever interviewed who I kind of I almost lost like that general you know you have to you kind of have to find out back in yeah yeah or you know even as you're doing the interview it's like you're being a journalist but at the same time you're oh my god I'm interviewing this guy one was uh Michael Jordan one was Tom Brady and then the other one was Arnold like after I got off that I was like I was like that was like that was a lot of fun so let's talk about those three people because they've been incredibly influential let's start with Jordan who's maybe my favorite athlete of all time really good call one or

too. What was the story for and how did it come about? So that was only like a 30 second interview. Did you meet him in person? Yes. And that was like 30 seconds. I saw a tape recorder up, but I was like, that's Michael Jordan. Okay. So then let's talk about Tom Brady. It's interesting because Brady, obviously whatever Brady's doing is working for him. It's pretty controversial, right? Like some of his thoughts on diet, I think, are controversial. Yeah, the, the The diet stuff, I've kind of consistently wondered, like the electrolyte stuff and some of it seems a little weird. I've focused more on the training stuff. Okay, so let's talk about that.

The interesting, because I know he pushes the idea of resistance bands a lot. It's funny because we actually, we just posted something on this at men's health because he's obviously, he's our cover guy. Yeah, totally. But we just poses some. And resistance bands are great. There's a lot that... It's interesting because I feel like especially in Middle America right now, there's still kind of like a, oh, you have to lift, you have to lift skill.

You got to have dumbbells, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of merit to training with resistance bands because they... So I actually did the story on this, but they create this unique variable resistance that can, if you use it right, really stimulate. your abs and your core in a different way and help you get a really, really good squeeze on muscles if you're using them correctly.

Interesting. Yeah, so I feel like there's some stigma around them, but if you actually look at a lot of my workouts, especially for chest, I'll use them for, again, we talk about, so I start with maybe a fundamental motion like a bench press and I've got an incline press. And then my third or fourth motion, a lot of times will be resistance band-based.

And it's, a lot of people ask me, can I do that exercise on a cable crossover machine if I don't have resistance bands? And I'll tell them, yes, you can. But the impact you're going to get from resistance spans, the ability to really squeeze and kind of stimulate the middle of your chest is actually better with the resistance band, even though you might not expect it to be. So I know he takes a lot of heat for that, but it's actually, it's actually fairly useful. Yeah, that's interesting. And what did you enjoy about interviewing him? Well, so I interviewed him, actually not for this. I interviewed him for, you remember, there was that whole business of the deflated footballs?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who could forget that? If you lived in Boston, that was all people talked about. Yeah. Deflate gate. Exactly, yeah. I was trying to not use the word, but, yeah, I was dispatched to New England for that whole odyssey.

I guess last, what are things that you like to do to recover? To me, it's about a couple of things. It's about physical recovery and mental recovery. Because the one thing I do in my workouts is I try to be really, really focused on counts, on not missing reps, on not getting any, like a lot of people near the end of their sets. Like, you kind of get sloppier with your reps as you go. And I want to mentally make sure that my first rep, my last rep is as good as my first rep. So that almost, in a strange way, takes a lot out of me mentally.

So to me, the mental side of that is big. Saturdays are kind of my recovery days from my mind. And it sounds dumb or it sounds maybe oversimplified. But I literally just like, I try not to go hard. I'll get in like an arm workout early that day because arms are more fun training. And then I'll just, you know, play video games, watch movies, and do everything I can to distance myself for the rest of the day from the gym. Because then I can just kind of help recalibrate myself because then Sundays, Sunday mornings are a big leg day for me.

So I think the mental recovery is kind of underrated and important. And I also try to, like Sunday, obviously we've talked a little bit about my very bad sleep habits. And the fact that I don't get a lot of it on Saturday nights, I'll spend a lot more time trying to sleep. in terms of kind of more like active physical recovery I try I've I try to spend I try to get that yoga class in I think that really helps me if I don't get that in I'll kind of go through like I'll spend either Saturday or Sunday afternoon after I've I've done legs like I'll go back to the gym or I'll just do it at home I'll kind of work through some kind of flow stuff just by myself kind of specifically addressing things that like I know get tight on me I'm not

big into like just kind of full body stretch. I want to kind of stretch with a plan or create mobility with the plan. So for me it's like I know my pecs get tight. So it's like I know I need to stretch my hip flexors get tight. So I know I need to adjust those where I'm probably not going to stretch say or work as hard to like gain mobility throughout my glutes. So that's big. I'll do I'm big into e-stem. So I'll interesting. Yeah, I'll do that especially I'll do that for shoulders a lot. I try to do that at least three days a week. And that's usually that stuff I'll do like when I get back from the gym when I'm eating. It's really easy to just like set up. Do that for like 20, 25 minutes. I'll do that shoulders. Anything kind of like where I might feel anything. Usually it's

shoulders. If I don't feel anything anywhere else, I'll do shoulders. Sometimes it's forearms a little bit. Sometimes I'll get it like a little bit on my peck. So I'll do that. And I'm very big into the Norma Tech recovery stuff. Yeah, good product. Yeah, I love that. Boston-based company. Yeah. You guys with all the recovery stuff up there.

Yeah. No one to New England's so healthy. After every leg workout, that's my half hour. I set up in that for a half hour, play mad. You'll do it right after. Yeah, I mean, a little bit after. You know, I try, what I actually try to, ideally. With the same day.

Yeah, ideally I try to get it like right after. Sometimes, you know, I get back from the legs in the middle of the day. My wife is like, no. so I go out I go out do whatever she wants first and then but then try to end the day with that but I'm really being into that kind of stuff well cool man well this has been really a pleasure if people want to find you where can they where can they reach out to you and connect mainly Instagram Ebenezer Samuel 23 I'm always happy to I try to return every DM I don't get around to it all the time because sometimes it doesn't work but I try to get back to people on there well dude thanks for coming on this is It was really fun. No problem. Thanks again to Ebb for coming on the podcast. He is a total pleasure to talk to.

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