WHOOP Podcast - Jennifer Jacobs shares tips and tricks for at-home workouts, improving recovery, and getting results

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Jennifer Jacobs is one of the world's most recognizable personal trainers. She is the founder of J Method Fitness, spent 3 years as an instructor for Peloton, and has been training people virtually for more than a decade. She discusses how she got into the digital space (2:09), the keys to leading a successful workout (5:06), her training philosophy (6:37), why home is the optimal place to workout (11:22), how boxing is a great workout (14:26), her approach to nutrition (16:54), why she's against counting macronutrients (19:51), the buy-in needed to reach your fitness goals (21:50), how COVID-19 has changed her motherhood experience and how she gets her kids to get moving indoors (27:33), the importance of mental health (29:26), and her recovery tips and tricks (31:50). 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

Hey there, Woop crew, Kristen Homes here. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during these unprecedented times. Here at Woop, we have had a lot of discussion whether we should release a podcast this week with all that's going on in the country. We ultimately decided to go ahead, but with the understanding that what is going on in our world is deeply upsetting on so many levels. Our stance here at Woop is very clear. Now is the time to listen, reflect, and act.

It's time to end injustice, unequal treatment, and violence for union. racism. We all share that goal from the top down here at Woop. The reason you're not hearing from Will is because he is on location. We have a big time guest coming up on next week's podcast that we are all super excited about. All we can tell you is that Will is sitting down right now with one of the top athletes in the world. So make sure to stay tuned. This week, we're sharing Will's discussion with Jennifer Jacobs. You may know her from her time at Peloton. She was one of the most popular instructors on the platform and is the founder of J Method Fitness. Will and Jennifer discussed her experience at Peloton, how at-home fitness has evolved over the years and

during COVID-19, her tips and tricks for recovery, and how she's balancing being a mom and managing her business at the same time. She shares some great tips on how to get kids moving around the house. I think you'll enjoy this episode, and as a reminder, our podcast listeners get a special discount on loop memberships. Use the code Will Ahmed for 15% off. Here's Will and Jennifer. Jennifer, welcome to the Woof podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Will. What a pleasure. I'm such a big fan of your podcast to begin with.

Oh, thank you. You know, I used to do your Peloton classes. Like, you were my favorite instructor. Thank you so much. Yes, I was with Peloton for about three and a half years and some of the best times that I've ever spent on a bike. So I appreciate you being a writer. You've got a very good way of engaging an audience in that format.

I have a feeling that. people who are good at giving classes in person don't always end up becoming people who are great at that kind of a video format. Is that true? I've heard that to be true, but I've actually been on digital devices for over a decade. That's how I've been training most of my clients for years now. Before FaceTime, before it was cool, before Zoom, I was doing it over Skype. Really? So what led you to doing that so early on? Well, I had established a client-based when I was attending college. That's when I started my own personal training company. And from there, my life took me to France. I married a Frenchman and I spent 10 years living in France. So a lot of

my clients wanted to stay in touch and keep training with me. I actually lived with a client, a couple for eight weeks in New York City, my first experience in New York. And after that, they had the idea that I would continue to train them online via Skype. So that's how it started. And then word got around that I was doing this and getting the results that I achieved with my clients and that's how I built up my client bait. What led you to actually getting into digital fitness? Like, was it just obvious to you that these worlds were colliding? Like, if you could teach a personal instruction over Skype, the sky's the limit from there? Pretty much. I actually say the sky is not the limit. It's just the view and truly believe that because it allows you to see things from different height

and gain new perspective. And one of the things I was seeing is, yes, I'm able to connect to people one-on-one train them effectively. How can I reach more people? And my overarching goal is to reach more people, build my brand. And I wasn't going to do that with the 12 clients I had while I'm living in the south of France. So I knew the future of fitness is somewhere. I had somebody tell me about the company Peloton. I looked into it. I looked into other companies. And I knew that that was the one that was going to lead the way. So I simply presented myself to the company and said, this is what I can do for you. I can not only teach the group instruction on the bike, but I can also take you from off the bike to strength training.

So that's what I came to Peloton and that's what I did. Yeah, no, you were great at it. And I'm sure you're still great at all the instruction that you do. What made it obvious to you that Peloton was going to be successful? Because by the way, a lot of investors passed on that business. It's now a $13 billion business. But, I mean, I know a lot of smart investors who passed on that company. I was at first glance skeptical as well.

I went to the studio myself in 2015. I took a class, underwhelmed. Over the summer, I watched a segment on Bloomberg with CEO John Foley and what he said about his potential and what he wanted to do in terms of global fitness, just that word said a lot to me. And I thought, you know, there's something there. It's not apparent to everybody else, but I think there's something there because it's not,

it can be more than just cycling. So that's what spiked my interest was hearing him speak and knowing that I could bring something to the table. And for you, what was your philosophy, or what is your philosophy in general of leading a great class? Do you go in with a very clear formula for what the class is going to be? Or are you feeling it out at all in the moment? I think it's really important to go in with a plan. Think about it if you and I will were to go riding in Central Park here in New York. And I said, Will, follow me. And you just followed me.

You didn't know where we were going. You didn't know how to prepare. But if I said, Will, listen, we're going to go around the park. There's going to be two hills. There's going to be an intense set of efforts right here in about five-minute mark. And then we're going to turn around and we'll be done with this ride. You'd actually know how to prepare yourself. You'd still have fun along the way.

but yeah I think going into it it's extremely important to have a plan in anything you do train with a purpose have a purpose and then make it fun if you think about if you compare that to how you handle individual instruction um or so you did individual instruction right before peloton do you still do some of that today i did that actually during my time at peloton as well and i still do it to today i have far fewer clients right now as i'm really focusing on expanding my brand but i do the same exact thing. When I take on a client, they need to come to me with a purpose. What is their reason? A big goal. Doesn't have to be a big goal like running a marathon, but a lot of times people will come to me for weight loss goals. Underlying that, there's something else there to give

them some sort of reason to push towards that. I'd call that an aesthetic goal. But if you can give me a performance-based goal, that's going to help us along the way. So the same thing with my clients, train with a purpose. That's going to make each session more productive. I have a big belief in actually training less and gaining more, so dedicating less time to the training aspect and at the same time getting the results. Yeah, that's kind of a whoop mindset too, where you can often get ahead by doing less or, you know, sometimes people need to take a step back or recover more or sleep more to actually meet the needs of their goals. Yeah, eat well, rest often. It's a big, big key that most people miss when they're trying to

achieve a goal. Now, when you meet with a new client or you're going through this goal, goal phase, I always find this interesting. How do you evaluate whether it's the right goal? Like, for example, if someone comes to you and they, you know, they say they want to lose 20 pounds, like do you just accept that that's the goal? You pressure test that? Do you, How would you work through that? Well, I usually ask why. If you were to lose 20 pounds, what would change for you? What would improve for you?

To have somebody say the words, what their meaning is, what their why is, makes it more meaningful for them, makes them able to stay more consistent towards the goal. I would never say to anybody who came to me, oh, that goal is so out of reach or that goal doesn't make sense. because there's a reason the person has a goal. Most of the time with clients who maybe have a weight loss goal such as that, along the way, they'll say, you know what I realized? It's less important what I weigh on the scale. The scale is not what matters.

It's how I'm feeling, how I'm performing. Those are bigger indicators. And along the way, you start to see the aesthetic results. Your result is more than a number on a scale. And it sounds like you believe that personally. Like, if I were to ask you what your goals are, what are they today? My goal is to train to be ready, to stay ready, give you a bit of perspective about that. I want to be able to be in a position where someone says, Jennifer, let's do a grandfondo.

Okay, I'm ready. I might need a little more training underneath me, but I'm physically ready, mentally ready. If someone says, you want to participate in this race, I'm going to be ready. So I'm training to be ready. and I think it's really training for life. So you don't necessarily, it sounds like you're more of a systems person than a goals person, if you know what I mean. Like a system is creating a process that ultimately is helping you grow day over day,

but there's not necessarily a specific outcome for that. A goal is saying you want to lose 20 pounds and every day you're looking at the scale to see if you've lost that much weight. Correct. More of a systems. I also just recently put myself to the challenge of trying to achieve a cycling P.R. And the cycling PR was trying to achieve 1,000 total watts for one hour of cycling. For me personally, so out of reach in terms of my functional threshold power. But I knew that setting the bar high

would push me mentally to excel. And I did achieve it in the end. And how did you build towards that? I had participated in another challenge with Ventim Racing called Train Like a Pro. So I had quite a bit of hours already underneath me. And with that momentum, I thought, why not just go for it? You never can train optimally for specific events, such as 1,000 total watts in 60 minutes. You could be training for years to try to increase your functional threshold power and to increase other aspects of your cycling performance.

It's all mental. Once you have that buildup and you have that momentum going, that's the moment to push for the PR. What's something you understand about fitness today that you didn't understand when you were, you know, right out of college, getting, you know, becoming a fitness instructor? I think one of the things I didn't realize is that everyone is different and not just physically different, but their needs, their stresses in life are different.

And not everyone is the same. You can't train everyone the same. But when I first started it out, that's what everyone around me did. You trained each client the same way. This is the killer circuit. I'm going to put every client through it. They'll do great. I learned that's not optimal for each individual.

individual. You have to understand their lifestyle. Some people don't have a lot of time. So if you're going to program something for someone who doesn't have the time to achieve it, they're not going to be able to work towards the goal. Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. How do you feel like in this environment today where people are now spending more time at home because of COVID-19, people should be rethinking their fitness goals or their lifestyle? I just wrote a viewpoint piece about this. I think the optimal place to get your training done is at your home because you don't have to drive to the gym. You don't have to plan out what's going to happen on Wednesday, book a class here and schedule that there. Our lives are already so full of so much, especially if you're a parent.

We have kids. Now with COVID-19, you're at home with the kids trying to homeschool them, get your work done, hold office hours, and train. So for me, and since I've done this for years. I train people in their homes virtually via a mobile device, and I've done it at the company I worked for as well. At-home training has always been there pre-COVID-19. It just changes. The trends change. But I think if you can create a little bit of space, I'll dedicate a little bit of time, you can get an effective workout at home. Is it as appealing as going to a gym and being surrounded by other people, no, those are the things that are lacking. But there's so many resources that help you and keep you encouraged and engaged. So someone listening to this who can buy three

things for their home to bolster their, you know, at-home fitness experience. What should the three things be, according to Jennifer Jacobs? Well, first start with what you have, which is your body weight. And even household items, a broom, a chair to be able to hover over and try to squat down into you need to be able to move your body to be able to sit to be able to stand to be able to push to be able to pull but then you're going to need some things because not all of us can do pull-ups or push-ups so the first thing I would suggest is a set of resistance bands some sort of way it's an great entry level for everyone it's safer to use than dumbbells you don't need to rack them so resistance second from that some sort of recovery tool to help

you. In my travel size gym, I offer recovery ball. So that's one of the things I use on a daily basis in terms of self-miophascial release. And then the third thing would be a piece of equipment to help you with your cardiovascular endurance. And I lend myself towards a jump rope because it's easy to put into a closet, into the corner, doesn't take up a lot of space. I love jumping rope personally. Like when I learned how to jump rope, it was such a breakthrough for me as an athlete. Well, it's one of the aspects of boxing that I enjoy the most is the jump roping, either pre or post boxing session. The way that it allows you to get your heart rate up or not, it's very low impact on the joints,

which is something that people don't really think is. The case, you're lightly bouncing through the balls of your feet. It's great for your rhythm. It's great for your coordination. It's great for everything. Yeah, I find it fun. And I actually learned how to jump rope as well when I got into it. to boxing. I started doing boxing classes in Manhattan when I was working in Manhattan

as an undergrad in the summers. And so I would go to this boxing gym and they taught me to jump rope, you know, prop. I mean, I think everyone sort of thinks they know how to jump rope, but to actually jump rope the way boxers jump rope, there's actually a little bit of technique. And boxing, by the way, is an unbelievable workout. So you box personally. I use boxing as a way to challenge myself. So I will work with a trainer out in Gleason, out in Brooklyn at Gleason's boxing gym. And I'll also just put myself through shadow boxing. You know, I'll take 10 minutes, maybe even 20 of just moving my body as if I were in the ring, shadow boxing. And that is an effective cardio workout with absolutely nothing. And it's got an interesting, like boxing has a pretty,

what's the best to describe it? Boxing has like this sort of simple user interface in some regards. There's like, you know, five or six things that you need to be able to do. But then the magic comes when you learn how to piece them all together in these different combinations. Yeah, yeah. And it's such a beautiful. I would encourage anyone listening to to learn at a box. Yeah, it's really a dance. I look at it as a dance.

I'm not, I have two left feet. So dancing is not in my repertoire. But boxing is. It's something about it. It lets out the aggression you need. But it's also very calming. This future of fitness that is, sort of self-owned, right? It doesn't require a gym. What's a good way to think about seeing

improvements if you're operating in this sort of more at-home gym mindset, right? Like, so for example, for me, when I was working out with my trainer at a gym, I would think of improvement as, okay, well, I can now, like, squat more, or I can now bench more or I can do more pull-ups. What do you think is the appropriate way to think about improvement in this at-home setting? I think the same exact way. Same way. You can still measure your progress in terms of repetition sets weight. Maybe if you don't have a weight stack or you don't have a rack and a set of dumbbells to use like you did at a gym, you can use resistance to achieve the same thing. Yes, your progress is going to be differently measured because of the resistance bands.

But I think that there's other ways to measure it. It's how you're feeling. How am I feeling how well rested am I so that when I'm doing X, Y, or Z, I'm performing at my best. What do you make of, I don't necessarily want to call them trends, but there's a lot of diets out there and a lot of sort of different points of view on nutrition. Do you have a strong point of view on nutrition? My point of view is to eat well. I don't subscribe to any diet, any weight loss plan, and I never have. I think that's the problem in the industry is there's too much noise. There's too many options, programs, diets, magic pills that confuse something that is so basic. It really is. The industry has decided to make it as most complex as it possibly

can be. But what I have a real hard time with people at the beginning is getting them to just let me know how they're eating. What choices are you making? And one of the most effective ways I found to do that is through a photo food log. Rather than them writing it down, I want to visually see what you are eating, what you are putting into your body, which makes the person far more accountable for the decisions that they're making and actually creates more awareness. I like that. I mean, if I were really focused on trying to understand my diet, that would seem like a

very thoughtful way to handle it. It's also a faster mechanism than writing it down. So if someone's listening to this and they're trying to get more thoughtful about their diet, would you recommend that they start doing this and then sort of do a self-diagnostic? Well, I think that it's helpful to become accountable because one of the things that happens and why people don't experience weight loss or getting towards their goal if it is even a gain is that they are underreporting what they're taking in in terms of food, in terms of nutrition, and they're overreporting their activity level.

So if you can create a way for you to become more in tune with what you're putting into your body, not only, okay, yeah, I eat rather healthy, but you could eat the most healthiest of things, but your portions are out of control. Yeah. So it helps with portion control. It helps with mindfulness of what you're eating, what you're consuming. Because if you show me a photo food log and everything is just beige, Every picture is on the beige gradient.

That doesn't look too nutrient dense to me. That doesn't look like there's a lot of minerals and vitamins. Now, if I see someone's photo food log, purple, dark leafy greens, a little bit of red, then I'm thinking, wow, they're getting a lot of nutrients in on this diet. Then it's easier to tweak from there. First, just establish a base. So for anyone who's trying to become more accountable towards their food intake and towards their nutrition to achieve a certain goal,

first become accountable. And I think the photo food log is the way to go. I like that. Now, you mentioned mindfulness. How does someone become more mindful in your book? A lot of people come to me and they're like, well, what does a nutrient dense food mean? Well, in my book, a nutrient dense food is one that is full of minerals, vitamins, macronutrients that are going to fuel your body. But I tried to skew my clients away from counting macros because it can drive you absolutely nuts. It's only a Another thing that you're going to add that's going to stress you out, which stress is in a good thing. Chronic stress is not a good thing. It's not going to help your performance. It's definitely not going to help your recovery. How do you evaluate whether a new client, maybe it's a new client, you know, who comes to you, they've got some goal?

How do you evaluate whether or not they might have an unhealthy amount of stress in their life? Well, first I'm going to ask them what kind of, you know, anytime I take on a client, it's they usually go through a questionnaire and another form of learning more. about their lifestyle and knowing what kind of job they have, what their commute is like, what their family situation is, their support system. That helps give me a better picture, a better understanding of what level of stress they might be dealing with, and then just asking on a level of 1 to 10, how much stress do you experience on a daily basis? Most people won't be able to answer that, but being asked the question is always an important factor. What are some red flags that you might hear in someone's lifestyle where you think

think to yourself, okay, gosh, we're going to have to address this lifestyle component if we want to see performance gains. Well, I think if someone says to me, well, I wake up, I wake up early, I'm right on my emails. First thing I do is I look at CSBN, you know, CNBC. I'm looking at the markets. Then I go to the office, nonstop. I don't know if I eat lunch. I get home. I try to play with the kids, and then I get to bed very late at night. That's telling me already, oh, wow, there's not a lot of room in your life to allow for recovery, to rest, and then let alone train. So in that case, how do you approach that? Because it sounds like there might be some other issues going on there. The person has to prioritize based on their goal. How bad do you want your

goal? Right. So how badly do you want something that you're going to make time for it and that you're going to prioritize not only your fitness but your health. It's all about your desire. If you have a strong enough desire, you will make the changes. If you don't and you don't really care, then you won't. I mean, you must have had these clients before that sort of say they want, but you can tell they're not taking some of those steps that they need to. What do you do in those cases? I usually don't continue training them, to be completely honest with you. I actually had a client like this. He was owned a hedge fund, a very, very busy, and really at some point realized I didn't know what he was training for. He didn't know what he was training for.

And the training session just became something to check off of his day that I trained today. So those are typically not the clients that I take on. So when I do take clients on, it's usually, you know, once every quarter, I'll take a new client on. And it's because they have a strong desire to reach their goal and I'm going to help them do it. So it seems like you also want to get some fulfillment out of the experiences as well, right? For you, it's not just punching the clock, but it's seeing if you can have an impact. Oh, 100%. My goal, you know, their goal becomes my goal. Right. I want it just as much as they do. And so if they don't really have a goal or you don't feel like they're chasing it, it's underwhelming for you or it's demotivational.

Well, I just think there are other people who want it more and I'm going to be well suited for them. I think that people who just, you know, I'm not the coach for somebody who just wants to check it off. I train today. I'm definitely not that coach. Yeah. Now, for you personally, what are some of your routines that make you have a healthy lifestyle? What do you do first thing in the morning? Let's kind of go through the routine. First thing I do in the morning, I'll wake up And I'm definitely a night owl. So sleep is a real hard one for me. I try to make sure I get at least seven hours of sleep.

And that's about what I achieve. I set an alarm to wake myself up because I'm not going to just jump out of bed. It's usually a song that gets me excited. It's usually an 80 song. And I have about three that I alternate with. Like this morning, I woke up to George Michael's faith. From there, I might grab the book that I'm currently reading, read the chapter. I'll wake up. I mean, I'll get up out of bed actually. Make the bed, rinse my face off, and put some eye patches on, which are things you put underneath your eyes to kind of reduce the puffiness. I'll go into the kitchen and I will force myself to drink eight ounces of water. And the way I do it is I create a cocktail. Like this is a cocktail, quarter of a lemon juiced into there because it enhances the flavor, also vitamin C. And I'll add some grated Himalayan Peak salt.

uh pink salt why graded because i feel like i'm doing something that's an electrolyte so i'll add that i'll drink that and then the best part of my morning is making my macha it's like a ritual which is a matcha green tea it is actually also my pre-workout so when anyone asked me what's your pre-workout i said i have macha so if it's cycling boxing you name it i'm drinking macha so you have to drink this thing before you exercise or at least you'd like to i have to drink this thing before I get moving. And then from there, I try to drink it like near a window, some light, maybe outside on my balcony. And then from there, I'll go into some mobility drills after I practice some self-maiofascial release. So I'm kind of like laying on the floor on my

recovery ball, easing into the day, a couple mobility drills. Very quick, very easy. And then I might get some movement in, which is typically either jump rope or I call it my wake-up bounce. kind of bouncing around through the balls of my feet could be imaginary jump rope or dancing around and that really helps my lymphatic system helps my body wake up and that's why I start my day sounds nice now what you didn't say what you didn't say is uh I haven't heard anything about your phone I haven't heard anything about like your computer or email I've been trying not to go on the phone check the email or Instagram or any other social media until I I've done those things.

And they don't take a long time. I know it sounded like a long moment that I'm having. But if I'm currently reading a book, try to knock out a chapter, I do something that makes me feel better, eye patches. I hydrate myself with the water. The matcha wakes me up. No matter where I'm at, I'm having this macha,

even in a hotel room, having the macha. And then I try to move. It's so good for all aspects of your health, but it gets me started. Once I check those things off, it might take me, let's say, tops with the myofascial release and the mobility, it might take me total 15 minutes. Yeah, I mean, it sounded like a nice routine, but it also sounded like you could move through it.

And the movement, it's not exercise per se. It's more like get the blood flowing. Get the blood flowing. So I know jump roping might seem a little extreme, and I don't want to do that every single day, but maybe three, four times a day I'm going to jump rope five to ten minutes, depending on how I'm feeling. If I'm not feeling that great, I might put one of my mini-bands on around my, you know, my legs, start dancing around to Madonna, some friends.

Now, do you do breakfast or no breakfast? After the movement, after all that's said and done, then I'll have the breakfast. So typically for breakfast, it'll be two soft-boiled eggs and then a bowl of oatmeal, steel-cut oats. Sounds healthy. Protein cards. Okay, now what are you doing after breakfast? Well, currently I have my kids with me who are, they go to school in France. So now that they're with me, I'm actually become a French teacher as I'm homeschooling them.

Oh, that's cool. Imagine an American teaching French children how to speak French already. It sounds like a sitcom, actually. Well, let alone just teaching your own kids in your native language, it's already challenging. But from there, I mean, the one, the one subject I exactly. sell at is PE, physical education. So before lunch, I'll make sure I've run them through a workout. I try to make it as fun as possible. I mean, with my son, he's seven years old. I'll tie a resistance band around his hips. I'll hold him from behind and I'll challenge him to grab certain things

around the living room. Like he's running to go get the television control or he's running to touch the lamp. So that makes it fun. That makes it engaging. And then I'll train myself at some point. I you usually train in the afternoon. And I don't train every day of the week. I'll train about three times a week strength training, depending on my goals at that certain moment. I might add in isolation exercises on the other days and some cardio, but not too much of that either. And then I'll finish the day, either working on my own business or training another client. And then I'll have a nice dinner and try to relax. It sounds like a very nice lifestyle you've got. And you also strike me as someone who's happy. Is that a fair characterization?

Yes. Yes, I am happy. I'm happy and I'm very excited for the future. Well, look, I know a lot of successful people who I wouldn't necessarily care as happy. So, you know, that in itself is its own mission. I definitely believe that. I'm very in tune with my emotional state because I went to school as a psych and social behavior major. And I feel like it's very important because your mental state your well-being dictates your health. It's not just your physical being, right? So it's not just what you physically can do in terms of fitness, but it's how you are emotionally and how you are with others. Do you have any specific habits that drive towards your happiness

specifically? I would say music. Music helps improve my mood. If I'm feeling a certain way, if I play you know I put on a certain playlist depending on the mood it really helps it helps improve also become you know allowing yourself to become creative and giving yourself the freedom to try to create something recently I you know I share sharing with others actually helps with my happiness when I can share the knowledge I have in a fun way that makes me happy people are learning people are being entertained so whenever ever have the opportunity to do that or create the opportunity if you don't have the ability. So is it fair to say that you have a healthy relationship with social media? Like do you get a lot of pleasure in sharing, I don't know, videos on Instagram that show

someone how to do a workout or something? Or do you also find yourself getting pulled into sort of the darker side of social media, which is like likes and follows and all that sort of stuff? Well, it's definitely easy to be pulled into that direction. I try to look at social media. as more of like a business card. So this is my business card or calling card to other brands or other companies or other individuals that are in my field that I'm going to display who I am as best as I can. And, you know, there's limits in social media, how much you can truly show someone, especially on Instagram when the picture is static.

And so that's why I'm really trying to explore other platforms, Facebook, get more into that, being live with people, letting them hear what I have to say, or YouTube. I'm learning a lot about YouTube before I launch my channel. And what is your channel going to entail? The channel's going to entail not only workouts, no workouts that I think that everyone should have access to, but also nutrition and recovery, the three big keys to one's success. And recovery, I mean, that's a big phenomenon for whoop and especially our listeners. What are some of your great tips on recovery?

Well, recovery is something you should practice. every day. And when I say that, people are like, but hold on, does that mean every day's a rest day? You know, a rest day is different than a recovery day. And there needs to be a little more education for the public to understand this, that you can't go hard every single day. And it's simply being a rest day doesn't mean you need to do absolutely nothing. So by implementing recovery methods on a daily basis, we'll put you ahead of being ever in pain. We'll help you move optimally feel at your best. So that is the key when it comes to recovery. And then you have to find what works for you. If someone said to me, foam rolling is the best way to do it. I would say

I don't want to do that. It feels like a big waste of time to me personally. But if, you know, you have to find a method that works for you. Right. So that's the most important part of recovery. And how do you feel about some various hot, cold therapies? Do you like, stuff like sauna, steam, do you believe in cold showers, cold baths, ice? Well, at the height of cryotherapy, I tried it for a consecutive month on a daily basis, and I saw no difference, no difference in how I felt. So you're skeptical of cryotherapy? I'm skeptical of cryotherapy.

It's not the same as being immersed in a tub full of ice because it only lasts for three minutes, and it's different. your body's not completely immersed. I am a big believer in heat therapy, a huge believer. And if I had a sauna in my own home, I'd be in it every single day. But what I do to replicate that is I take a daily bath and a hot bath, like a 102 degree bath. Wow. And when I say daily, it doesn't have to happen at night.

It could be 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I'm going to hop in the bath before I go on a two-hour cycling ride. Wow, interesting. And you don't find that makes your muscle. was lethargic? Not at all, especially what I add to the bath. Like if I add an essential oil that might, you know, make me feel a little more energetic, then that mood, my feeling is different than if I were to put lavender in the bath or Epson salt or some sort of oil. Like that would make me a little more calm, a little more at ease. You know, it's also the amount of time you spend

in the heat. So if I'm going to do something a little quick just to loosen my muscles, it might be 10 minutes in the bath, then I'm out, then I'm on the bike. And again, I'm not going for my optimal performance on the bike. It's just to get some mileage in at a like a nice easy intensity. Now, do you find when you're lying in a bath that you're actively trying to engage your mind or is it the opposite where it's almost like a meditation and you're trying to sort of have this moment of peace? I wish I was one of those people who could just zen and just meditate. I find taking the bath is the optimal time to listen to a podcast. Oh, interesting. So I'll be in the bath, listening to the podcast for an hour. Oh, cool. That's my podcast moment. And will you go the other end?

Will you go cold or you don't like cold? Nope, not a big fan. I tried the cold shower. You know, after all the talk of everyone taking the cold shower, tried it. I just don't enjoy it. So it goes back to if you don't enjoy something, it's not going to become a habit, which will not turn into a routine? I actually kind of persevered through that though because I didn't really like cold showers and I just kept doing them and then this weird thing happened where psychologically I felt like I sort of became addicted to them and then I realized they were making me really happy like right afterwards I felt really good after them. Wow. So yeah so that's a bit of a counterpoint but I actually I do believe in the cold. I get that not everyone likes them and so you can't necessarily get

into it, but I would encourage people to try to get it to it. But it also kind of reminds me of the thing when you get a deep tissue massage and it's quite painful, right? And those endorphins of enlightenment happen during that. Same thing with the cold. It's like for some people, it's painful. It's a thing that they don't want to put their body under, but the endorphins kick in and they make you feel a certain way. Absolutely. It's like pain pleasure. Yeah. And so it sounds like you believe in massage therapy. Do you also like the hyper-ice there-gun type things? I do. I call it, it scratches the surface, and meaning it doesn't really penetrate deep down into the fascia, which is that

connected tissue that covers every part of our body. It doesn't allow enough of a release, but it is definitely something I might do when I'm watching billions on the couch and just using the hyper-ice gun on my legs. It's kind of a passive, a passive activity. But when I really want to get into it. I'll use my recovery ball from my travel size gym or I'll use some metal instruments that are seen at fiscal therapists. They usually use them their instrument assisted soft tissue release tools. I'll use that for certain specific parts of my body. What are those instruments? It's a company called hot grips that supplies them to physical therapists and people like ourselves. Yeah. And you will definitely want to educate yourself before.

you start using them because you could do a little bit of damage. But for the most part, they're very safe to use. Yeah, I like it. What are you hoping to accomplish in the next, you know, five years if you think about where you want to be? Is a lot of it just getting a little better every day? Or are you setting some milestones for yourself that you want to accomplish over the next few years? Well, in terms of fitness, like I said in the beginning, training to always be ready, taking on new challenges. Yep, be ready. Taking on new challenges as they come in terms of fitness. I want to educate people on a grand scheme. I really want to reach people as many as I possibly can, so that I'm going to be trying to achieve by growing my own brand as well. Just to make

fitness simple, simplify fitness, because for some people, it's way too complex to even get started. And where can people find you? People can find me on my website, the jaymethad.com. I'm on social media, Facebook, Jennifer Jacobs, Instagram at J-Methit. I'll have a YouTube channel, Jennifer Jacobs. That's where people can find me. Awesome. Well, we're going to include all of that stuff in the show notes. Jennifer, thank you for spending time with us today and imparting all your wisdom. And I feel a little healthier already. Thank you so much. Thank you.