WHOOP Podcast - Jeremy Powers, 4-Time Cyclocross National Champion, talks retirement, gratitude, coming back from injuries, and how he made the most of his career despite never being the most talented rider.

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

Four-time cyclocross national champ Jeremy Powers discusses his recent retirement (3:28), what cyclocross is exactly (5:40), his path to becoming a pro (7:47), tracking nutrition (12:49), competing with a team vs as an individual (22:15), meditation (25:49), seeing a sports psychologist at the age of 17 (27:08), music as a training tool (28:44), "the momentum loop" of gratitude and positivity (34:14), battling back from a potentially fatal case of valley fever (35:49), how he discovered WHOOP (41:33), getting out of the red and into the green (44:23), sleep and recovery tips (47:37), who he's influenced and inspired by (58:34), and the Jam Fund he co-created to support aspiring young cyclists (103:34).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. At WOOP, we measure the body 24-7 and provide analytics to our members to help improve performance. This includes strain, recovery, and sleep. Our clients range for 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? We're launching a podcast today. deeper. We'll interview experts and industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. 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 call it the Momentum Loop. It's all about positive momentum. If you've got

great results happening, you've got good friends around, you've got, you know, whatever those things are. Music, food, girlfriend, boyfriend, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Like, as long as all those things are positive, because truly you become a product of your friends in the environment that you roll with. What's up, folks? My guest today is four-time cyclocross national champion Jeremy Powers. Jeremy is considered by many to be the godfather of cyclocross in the United States. Cyclocross, for those who are unfamiliar, is a lot like mountain biking, but it's pretty innovative. They do it in the cold. You have to carry your bike at various points, and it requires a ton of athleticism. Jeremy just recently made the decision to retire at age 35, having spent the past

two decades racing at the very top of the sport. We talk about his decision to retire. We talk about his decision to tire, his ability to come back from serious illness and injury at various points in his career. At one point, he actually had a collapsed lung, so we talked about how he came back from that. It was really inspiring. The mental side of racing, how his positive attitude helped him succeed. This was my big takeaway from meeting Jeremy. He's a guy who's incredibly positive and appreciative, and I think that contributed enormously to his success.

And then we also get into the best nutrition and recovery tips he's discovered through a long career of self-experimentation. Lastly, one of my favorite topics, he talks about using music as a training tool. This is like a cross between visualization and meditation and it involves music. Really, really interesting. So without further ado, here's Jeremy, an incredibly grateful, appreciative athlete who you can learn from. Jeremy, thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. And it's a beautiful view of Boston. I've never been up this high, so I'm excited to be here. Yeah, we're sitting here in the brand room of Woop Office, overlooking Fenway Park. And 10 days ago, you just retired, or at least maybe semi-retirement, from cyclocross, which is the sport you've dominated for the past 15 years or so. So talk to me about what it was like to make that decision.

Yeah, it's a crazy decision. It took a long time, but over the last couple of years, I had started to sort of gently, these out to interviews and people that I was close with that, you know, I think I could see that the end was coming. There were some really great years where I had a lot of success and I was able to win a bunch of races and really do all the things that I thought were important in the sport and take a real, kind of like a lead on growing the sport in the United States because cycling in general is such a European sport. So retiring was not an easy decision. It wasn't one that I took lightly. I, you know, I got into, I got, I did a lot of soul work, I would call it, before

I got to that place where I was going to officially announce that I was going to retire. So a lot. So over 90 UCI victories, four cyclocross national championships, 2015 Pan American Championship, most cyclocross race is won by any American male. I mean, it sounds like that's as good of a career as you can possibly have. Not to mention here in my notes, I'm told that you're considered the godfather of the sport. Those are very flattering. It's a pretty good run, man.

Yeah, no, it was. It was. We had some great years. And, you know, I, I loved it. I think that's kind of the number one thing. It's like anything in life. It's, you got to pick something and be really good at it. And I, I, I, there were a lot of things that I would have loved to have put a ton of energy into over the years. I love music. I love business. I love, you know, learning. I love so many things. And I felt like I made a decision somewhere in my early mid-20s where I was like, I'm going to stop going to school. I'm going to focus 100%. I'm going to go to. I'm going to go to. of Europe. I'm going to learn from the best riders. I'm going to try to really become a student of this sport and just kind of get everything I could out of my body. And I never was the most talented rider for a fact. I had a lot of drive and a lot of determination to get the most out of myself. And I think, you know, we did some stuff with all that. Well, yeah. So describe for our audience, like what exactly is cyclocross and how does that compare to, say, cycling or mountain biking? Right. So, So cycling is, you know, a road bike ride, right?

So like a Tour de France-France-style rider would be a road bike. Someone like Kate Courtney, you know, who you had on the show recently, would be a mountain biker, right, off-road. Those races could be, well, the road races could be anywhere to five, six, seven hours sometimes. Mountain bike race is usually around two hours. Cyclecross race is one hour. So it's faster pace. Way faster. I like to say it's the difference between chess and checkers.

It happens really, really quickly. And so for me, that always was, I always looked to that because, you know, I feel like it's a lot of people call it disability, but I call it my, like, my strength, you know, my short attention span, my ability to sort of memorize things quickly and then forget about them. I felt like cycle cross was the discipline of cycling that suited me best. So I loved it. From the first time I did it, I loved it.

The races, when you're a junior, they're 45 minutes long. It matched my personality perfectly. And as, you know, you age up. become an hour long. But everything about it, the laps are six to seven minutes long. They have tons of little obstacles. It's raced on a road-style bike. Basically, if you kind of blended a road bike and a mountain bike, that's what it looks like. And yeah, I just really fell in love with everything about it. All the little details and all the little things that you can sort of master within it. Yeah, it's not just doing 400 watts up a big climb. It's doing

knowing how to get the tire pressure right and memorizing this part of the track and then executing this obstacle perfectly and practicing that. So all those things. Fascinating. Well, I've always been drawn to people that are broadly speaking into biking and cycling and cyclocross and mountain biking because I think it's like you guys are so technical in the way that you talk about everything. Sure. And especially like from a data standpoint too so I'm curious how how did you go about your training like early in your career and then let's talk about how that potentially shifted over the course of your career well I think when I was young you know something like a power meter was like a big deal you're getting a

power meter I always when I was young because I was doing it as a way to get to get out to get exercise to kind of get all my energy out I think it just started really I didn't have a coach I just road a lot and then you know as you start to do it more and more you get a coach and then they give you some structure and then you get to that point where you're really starting to talk about like power and mapping out a schedule and sort of planning these things i'm doing a really quick rip through but yeah you know it's everything sort of with with a little bit of success kind of starts to take a little bit more seriously it's i want to have a different coach i want to travel to this race i want to focus on my diet i want to try to

improve this thing that I know is a weakness of mine whatever it is and you know and in the last years it's in the last years of my career it was you know diet recovery gym these were things that I wasn't doing in the early phase of my career that really helped me later considerably and so huge question but but definitely all of everything that a professional athlete would do is all literally I tried to find every single small increment that I could to improve my performance. So let's talk about a day in the life of Jeremy, like at your peak of training. Yeah. You wake up in the morning.

What's the first thing you're doing? You know, in the last, probably in the last years, a glass of water with some... Start with water. With some lemon. I try to jump out of bed as quickly as I can. I try not to sit in bed. I try not to look at my phone or start. my day without kind of getting out and getting some sun. I like to just get sun on my face.

I like to just be, you know, alive right away as quickly as I can. Yeah, a glass of water with lemon is always a good start. And then in the last two years, you know, it's kind of hanging with my son and getting things going. But in the peak of my career, I really would, I would focus on a nice breakfast. So whether that was kind of like as much nutrient dense food as I could, and then I'd plan my day. Everything that I could, I'd kind of go through and write back any quick emails that I needed to because I owned and ran my own program.

It's not a team sport. Yeah, right. So I would do a lot of quick bookwork, and then I'd try to be on my bike by 10, 11 o'clock at the latest. And then I'd focus my entire day around my ride and my training, and sometimes it would be one session, sometimes it would be a second session, maybe a run or gym work in the afternoon.

Again, what you would expect. And then it kind of turns to recovery and how much fuel you burned and what fuel you're going to put back in. And so those are all things that I think were, yeah, you learn a lot about yourself from doing it. So let's go back to breakfast. So what did you like to eat for breakfast? Yeah. I always have eggs with breakfast.

I'm a big eggs guy too. Yeah, I love eggs. I think there was a time when I really loved a high carbohydrate breakfast. And as I started to age up, I'm 35 years old. So in my early 20s, I think. I was really, really high carb. I loved, yeah, everything was carbohydrate-based. And as I got older, I really started to shift more towards, you know, fats, healthy fats,

protein, and then a smaller amount of carbohydrate, especially in the morning. I just felt like the blood sugar was something that I was really fighting with. I felt like I'd get a lot of highs and lows. And so I was trying to, yeah, I was trying to really keep my blood sugar consistent throughout the day, so I wouldn't have these huge peaks in valleys. I don't know if that's just me or if that was kind of an effect of dieting probably pretty hard in my early 20s from all the racing and trying to be at like a peak weight for a really long time.

But definitely in my mid-20s, I started to get some pretty good glucose fluctuations after eating breakfast and I felt like I need to really start to dial it. And how did you know you had a high glucose fluctuation? I could just feel. You could feel it. Yeah. I could feel like the bonkiness after breakfast. Like I'd feel like I would do, I'd go out and I'd just, I'd immediately.

feel really down and I but I had just eaten a bunch of fuel right so I feel like I chased that pretty hard as well I went and saw some people that were endocrinologists and doctors and things just so that I could make sure that I was obviously healthy and things were going well and it really just came down to kind of being one doctor called it like a super pancreas where my body would secrete a lot of insulin when it would it was just very sensitive you know so when I would eat food I would get a lot and then but then I would level back out and I'd be great but that seemed those those variances seemed to really have

happen in the mornings, particularly after I'd wake up and I'd be in like, let's say, you know, didn't eat anything from 9 o'clock at night, and then I didn't start my day until 8 a.m. You know, it would be almost 12 hours. So I think those were when we would see those big fluctuations. But changing my diet and in turn learning a lot. So using, you know, a tracking app and like really learning about macronutrients and what did you use from a tracking standpoint on nutrition? I guess it would be like, is it not? My fitness pal. Yeah, my fitness pal.

So, yeah, so I used my fitness pal. That was kind of the first one that we knew about scanning all the labels. But that was a beautiful process because you really did learn like, okay, I can't do less than 200 grams of carbohydrates. I really need to, you know, up my fat. So I don't want to just take in so much protein. That led me down to a ketogenic diet, which I tried for about two months and was really fun for me.

I learned a lot about just during that whole period. I mean, I did this for over a year, but the ketogenic stuff I did for about two months. And most of our, most of our audience is probably familiar with keto, but just describe it briefly for people who are. Super high fat. Yeah. Everything, yeah, you're eating, you're like eating a stick of butter in the morning. You're like, yeah, this seems weird, but somehow this is the right thing I should be doing. Yeah, just a lot of avocados, a lot of, you know, whole fat milks and just heavy creams and things like that, just really fat, just straight fat. And you're not eating carbs and you're not eating a lot of carbohydrates.

Which was cool, except for forcing a pathway. My sport is a very high glycolytic effort. And during the phase that I did that in was like a base training phase, so it was really low intensity. Super fun to play with and manipulate your diet to that extent really changes things. And there's a bit of a euphoric sense. I don't know if you've ever done the ketogenic diet at all, but it's... I haven't gone keto. I did paleo for maybe six months, which is the closest thing I can relate to it.

Super clean. Yeah. Really. And it is restrictive. Yeah, so paleo for those unfamiliar is like you're eating like a caveman. Yeah. It's like meat and vegetables pretty much. And sure, fat to the extent that you can get it.

But it's certainly like there's no dairy, no bread, no pasta, things of that nature. So there's some overlaps between keto and paleo. I think paleo is a little more restrictive. Keto is a little bit more fat-heavy or a lot more fat-heavy. And pretty restrictive. There's not a ton of food. Yeah, they're both pretty anti-alcohol. I mean, both are pretty anti-alcohol.

Yeah. What else am I forgetting? Yeah. Well, I think it's just that. I think it's just all fat. So it's, you know, macadamia nuts. Yeah, nuts are really big in both. It's all of those things.

It's anything that it does, you know, if it doesn't grow in the forest, right, then it's probably not, at least in the paleo side. And then on the keto side, it's really, if it doesn't have a ton of fat, then it's probably not going to fit in. But when you're exercising a ton, I think you can start to play with the numbers a little bit like, okay, I could probably eat 100 grams of carbohydrate and still stay within the ketosis spectrum. But anywho, getting back to the original point, my day would start out with later in my career quite a bit of fat. And so I would start out with eggs, avocado, and then a small portion

of carbohydrate with it. But on the keto front, so you did it for two months. Yes. Like how did how differently did you feel and is this something that you recommend to other people now? I would say, you know, intermittently, like you should try it, right? You should try it, but don't, I wouldn't say for, you know, years of your life. I think, or if you're going to do that, that's awesome. You should totally do it if it works for you, but you should definitely have someone looking over your blood values and, like, making sure you're healthy with it. Because I've known some people whose cholesterol has gone up, you know, 400, 500, I'm not a diet.

But I'm just saying, you know, it's super, super high. And I think that you've got to be careful with any, like, diet that's so, extreme and so close I felt like towards the end of it I was starting to get some sensitivities like if I you know I'm eating three four avocados a day for a month it's like it's a lot but that was the amount of fuel I needed because I was riding also for four or five hours I think it's especially hard for for an athlete of your level to be pure ketogenic I think so yeah because it's just like it's pretty unnatural for your body right but here's the cool thing right all those uh glucose all that went away yeah so that's kind of how we could isolate so okay yeah so it is absolutely carbohydrate where

where you know that's that's what's giving me this this spike right it's it's some of it's so you dialed down yeah because there's no when you came off keto yeah in keto right there is not a lot of insulin being secreted so so that's what we we kind of ided it through just process of elimination like well let's take these things away yeah and let's do some food sensitivity testing and so we did a lot of great stuff and I think I learned a lot about my body in that probably that year that I was doing all that testing. Yeah the people like the feedback I've given people

on having gone paleo is that it does make you feel I felt very clear minded when I was on it. Right. But the reality was I wasn't on it 100% of the time over that period and it made me feel so weird when I

when I didn't follow when I didn't perfect. Like if I had a turkey sandwich I felt horrible. Like really bad, you know? The guilt factor. And so my takeaway was like, do I actually want my body to feel this, like, unresilient to any other things out of this clean population? And I don't know, as someone who travels a lot and who's certainly not a professional athlete,

it just seemed like an inconvenient way to live life. So I don't regret, like, trying it and doing it. In general, I think it's cool to try these things and kind of shock your body. I just, it's hard for me to believe any of these diets are, the right thing for you to do for a really long period of time. Right. That's exactly what I was going to say. I think everything is all things in moderation.

Yeah. If you said to me, hey, I'm going to drink 30 bottles of Gatorade because I think that's what I should do, I'd tell you that that's not a good idea, right? If you said I was going to eat, you know, 30 avocados a day, that's also, even though that, you know, even 30 bananas, like let's just keep going. I mean, any of those things are kind of, you know, everything in moderation. And I think, too, you know, you know when you're eating healthy. when you put a salad with like nice you know everything looks really pretty and it's bright and there's good stuff

you know that feels good like that that's what we should be eating it's good to vary from that you know have a burger have some fries have a beer whatever you got you want to live too that's a beautiful there's a lot of beautiful places to eat it's right so you want to you want to indulge in that but you also I think you know it's where you're it's where the main you know the meat and the potatoes of everything is is like right in the center and you just want to kind of be healthy with I think all your choices So, okay, so you have breakfast. We've talked about how your diet's evolved. Yeah.

Over the course then of the morning, are you now exercising, or it sounds like you do a little bit of work? Yeah, I mean, now these days I'm waking up and I'm, you know, getting my son ready for his day. I have a two-year-old son, and so that's, that has changed a lot in the last two years because, yeah, we need to be able to, I want to spend time with him, A, but B, I also want to make sure that I'm, you know, getting him out the door on the right foot. And so then I come back, and that's usually around 9 a.m. get my day going yeah and then at that point I try to start to shift you know if I need to kind of tap out some quick morning emails or work things there has to be time for that at some point then I start to shift if it's raining you know it rains a lot here in New England that's where we're at I'll go to the gym I'll start by day

with a with a gym workout and if it's if it's gonna rain or snow all day then I'll then I'll pivot towards another type of exercise whether that's a trail run or like the fat bike or you know some skiing or who knows what you know you Pick an exercise, just some cardio. But yeah, and if it's nice out, then I'll probably just get out on the bike. And I'll try to focus a lot of my work on the bike, whether that's low cadence work to simulate some gym stuff or that's interval training or, yeah, whatever we kind of have picked or ID is a thing. Maybe a naive question, but the bike that you're using, is that going to be the same bike as what you're going to compete in for a cyclocross? Or are you sometimes riding on different types of bikes just from a train?

training standpoint. Exactly, yeah. So I'll ride mountain bikes, I'll ride cyclocross bikes. Okay, cool. So you will turn back. Yep. That makes sense. Yeah, all the time. Yeah, we get tons of different bikes. So yeah, I try to I try to make sure that I have a road bike always running and nowadays we've got gravel bikes. Oh, cool. Yeah, like road bikes but with huge

mountain bike tires different than cyclocross. These are very grayish areas but they're all pretty similar. But basically it's a road bike that can kind of go anywhere. Now, do you feel like if you just jumped into one of these other forms of biking as a sport that you would be pretty competitive with top people? Yeah, I raced on the road for 10 years as a pro, so I definitely did my time racing on the road. Yeah, but it was more of a out of necessity. Road racing was going through the roof at that time, and it was just so popular. There were great races, and I was lucky enough to do some of the fantastic North American races, stage races that are still some of the, some of

like Tor, California are still really prominent. So I really, I loved that time of my life. I loved being a teammate. I loved having friends and kind of doing, you know, doing work as a unit versus just a single person because as an individual athlete like mountain bike or cycle cross, it's really just you, you know, the strongest person wins. But in the team side, where it's the road,

there are so many people that are just kind of working towards one goal or for one person, which I didn't, yeah, I loved that. That was fun. It's a lot less pressure. Because you all, like, it's just as good. if one of your teammates wins as it is if you win? Yeah, yeah, and I felt like there was a side of me that when I was racing on the road

was excited for someone else to do well. I was happy to work for a teammate because during the winter and the fall and winter months, that was cyclocross season, and spring and the summer is road season. So I'd do that work for the team in the spring and summer, and we'd do all these great races and do a bunch of traveling, and road is so much different than cyclocross,

and then cyclocross would come around, and it would be more focused on me and what I needed and everything went towards that. So, but there's a lot more pressure that comes with that. Describe how you actually help a teammate win. You sit in the wind. A lot of it's like drafting, like setting yourself up. Looking out for them, bringing them, you know, a bottle, just trying to let them conserve

energy, essentially. So if they, if it's going to rain, you go back and you get their rain jacket from the car or you get some, you know, an extra bottle so that they have more hydration. If they need food, a specific type of food, you can go back to the car. Basically, if they need to go to the bathroom, you can push them. a long while they go. I mean, little things, like tiny. We're talking, you know, just such.

But all of that adds up. But yeah, but this person's been weighing their food for the last two, three months to get ready for this race. So you're like, every little bit really helps when you're in a road race. Okay, cool. So, okay, so we're going back now. You've done your first workout, right? You've done some kind of cardio. Yep.

What do you like to do immediately? Are you big on stretching? Yeah. Yeah. I usually do quite a bit of, I do quite a bit of stretching. I've been told I'm very, very flexible, so I do love... You look flexible. Yeah, okay, fair not.

You know, like, I mean, I don't know why I just feel that, but I get a sense that you're, like, pretty nimble. Yeah, okay, so, so, yes, I can stretch. I have some specific stretches that I love to do. If it's a day where I haven't, where I felt like it was really just centered around, like, cardio, and stuff like that, I do maybe 20, 30 minutes of core, just some small exercises while I was listening to the news or, yeah, listening to, who knows what, there's a podcast or something, just kind of after, but usually right after my ride, it would be

a protein shake, and then it would be, you know, a meal, like a pretty heavy carbohydrate meal. And then there's kind of that, that down period after that. There's, when you eat a big meal, it's kind of relax. Yeah, it's probably like an hour where you're just kind of, you're tired, you know. And is that meal, that meals a lot of carbs, you said obviously. Usually, yeah, usually for me. Yeah, I've been gluten-free for about two years. Okay. So it's really, I think it was gluten-free too, I like that. Yeah, yeah. I think for cyclists, I think the lack of inflammation, even if there's a small bit, you feel it.

That's one thing about cycling is that you learn so much about your body from doing it. You know, you just feel like there's something. There's something more to get out of your day. And so then if there's a little bit of control there too, you can manipulate your, like, oh, if I don't eat gluten and I feel just a little bit better. You know, and that's kind of all these small incremental things are what you look for. So gluten, so to answer your question again, rice was a big one. Kinoa, you know, yeah, we, I mean, there's so many gluten-free pastas now. Bread.

I mean, there's all types. I mean, really, it's pretty simple. Whatever, as long as it's gluten-free. That's right. Cool. And, okay, so you have this big meal. You've stretched a little bit. Yep.

Now you're chilling for an hour. Yeah, and then at that time, I'll either catch back up on emails or, you know, I'll do some kind of some bodywork. I'll either write a little bit or I'll do some meditation. I try to, when my days are a little bit more crazy, I actually try to meditate later in the day. I know that's something that you, I've heard you talk about in your podcast, but kind of my whole thing has been about my energy level and like more, like I said a little earlier, it's like soul work. You know, my stuff is not necessarily based in like a specific type or anything like that. The specific practice of meditation. It's more about, you know, I started out with headspace really simply.

I just got on headspace and I was like, hey, I need to start somewhere and, you know, with therapy and all these things. Really, everything revolves around my ability to say no to something. Yeah. And in my ability to kind of take less on. I want to do it all and I want to do three things at once. I kind of encompass it by saying the mind-body connection. So you kind of get into this, I'll call it a flow state when you're doing these exercises. You're doing them, you don't really know why.

You're doing intervals. And if you just think about how much they hurt, that's not the way to do it. Yeah, you need to pull your body out of that. Yeah, you need to be really clear. And so I feel like I was doing a lot of meditation. And people get to that place from a lot of different ways, you know, and some people do drugs. Some people, you know, people free their mind from all types of ways. but for me exercise was the way and I feel like I first like I'd said my mom was really big on getting me in with a sports psychologist I don't know if she read it in a magazine or whatever but we found one in the area and he was he was super cool and so how old are you when you're seeing this person I'm probably like 17 or 18 you know like my last year of high school and what kind of things were you doing with him yeah we would because of my love of music and the music that I really was like pumping me up and using those things to sort of turn on and then all the

little things that you have thought about with the track, whether that this rock is here or there's this pothole over here, those things because you've already gone through your pre-ride and you've studied the track in theory or you've raced it a year before, many years before, you know these things. And those things are sort of concrete, those things you know and your body's ready to just do them like second nature. I think for me that was at that time when I was a 17-year-old young man really scattered with a lot, way more energy. Dude, that doesn't sound scattered. That sounds dialed.

No, it was. It helped me so much. And that's actually when I started to have some success was after I started to work there and just really started. And I think, so that mind, body, flow state, all of that really has been a big part. I mean, again, I even go, some people, you know, it's spiritual. How do you get there? There's not just one size fits all. It's not meditation.

There's so many different ways to get there. but definitely in sport and in my life it's been huge to be able to get to be able to get to that place. So I want to understand the music component. So when you're racing, you're not allowed to listen to anything, right? No. Okay. So, but for you, music is a big piece of your training. Yeah.

It sounds like a big piece of your life. Yeah. And the sports scientists actually worked with you on how you could memorize a song and play it in your head while you were exercising or while you were competing. Yeah. I mean. Or, you know, if you're. Play that out. Yeah, if you're, you know, if you've got whatever, Lady Gaga stuck in your head and you're just, you know, and you're just singing, you know, Lady Gaga over and over, it, the thing that I think is really was beneficial for me is, is his advice was, if you have a song that really, like, motivates you or makes you feel a certain way, emotionally, don't listen to that song until it's go time.

And so I felt like that was, that was huge. By the way, a lot of athletes do the opposite of that. Right. Right. Like in pregame, they're listening to the song that's getting them super hype. Yeah. Or if you look, like, I know a lot of NFL players that will listen to, you know, really intense music, probably three or four hours before the game. Yeah. Well, so here's the thing, though, about someone that's, you know, high energy really kind of all over the place is that, do you want to be pumped up before you're already pumped up? Yeah, right. No, actually, you want to be chilled out. Well, we've actually seen this in whoop data, too. Like, again, back to the NFL example, we've had guys that, like, are registering activities.

three hours before the games. That's right. And they're starting to realize, like, wait, maybe I should do a chiller warm-up. Yeah, you know? Yeah, I think I actually listen to music that's less. That, you know, I wouldn't say classical music, but I listen to music. What are some examples of music? Like, kind of slower techno, like, trancy type stuff.

Just like things that are just way, way, like, I'm not motivated by them at all. They're just... So it's just background noise. That's right. Yeah. It blocks that other noise. Exactly. Yeah.

Or just take my mind completely away from it and have a conversation with someone about something that I'm passionate about. Or, you know, it just depends. So this would be like you'd listen to that kind of techno type music maybe two hours before the race. Yeah. And I think just not going overboard in your emotional output. So, you know, it's like if you think about it like a red line on a car, you know, it's like 9,000 is a tachometer. You want to be in that like middle range. You don't want to be at 9,000.

thousand three hours before like the guy you're talking about you know i think there's something to it where you're um you really do want to be mindful on how much energy you put out i remember listening to the the kate cordon podcast and really drawing some similarities with myself about you get to a race that energy is coming from somewhere yeah you know you have to find that somewhere and it's and it does there's a huge part that uplift you and pushes you up but it's also there's no question that it drains and so i mean you you come back from something and you're just you know like any entertainer, you know, going back to rock and roll or from, you know, modern day now, you're exhausted when you're done. There's no question. And how do you manage all of that? And I

think, you know, for me, I just learned that being too stimulated was a, was a detriment to my success. And all of these things I'm talking about controlling, whether it's diet or mind-body or anything, they all came back to, there's no question that we have a full tank of energy. Like I, at some point, realize I go to bed, excited about the next day, and I realize that everyone doesn't do that. Yeah. Like, I legitimately, just a couple days ago, we're building a fence at my yard, and the contractor came over, and I was like, waiting. And he's like, man, what's up? I was like, I didn't sleep good last night.

I was so excited to get up and to finish this fence, like this yard project. Yeah, you seem like you got a good attitude on life. Yeah. So I think that's, you know, that's just me. And I think I just, everything that I've learned about myself, has been revolving around how to kind of... How to find that balance, it sounds like. Or something where you're not expending as much energy,

but you're still delivering on, you know, being you and being with fans. I look forward to the outcome. Yeah. I know that that's, I think a lot about other people and how it would make them feel if I was in that. I'm a fan of so many things too. Yeah. Right?

You know, it's a pleasure to meet you. Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate that. You know, so I look forward to that. But I also know that, you know, it's going to make someone's day better if they get that photograph or they've watched a piece of my content or they've found something that they that they took away from it that made them more motivated to have a better day I want to make sure that I try to put that up you know put that on top of my day and it's

and then I also look forward to what's coming up whether that's a nice meal or that my wife and family are there to watch me the opportunity to win in what that would feel like so I actually futureize quite a bit for better or for worse right that can get bad if you have a lot in your plate and you're futureizing it can be very is that actually a thing what you just said futureize maybe is that just make that up i don't know i think i've heard the word before yeah i must have picked it up from someone i don't think i made up i like that as a category right of things to address so i mean yeah i think that that's that's so much of it is just i think that you can go into a really negative place with that type of mindset but i think if you know how to utilize it and

really look forward to it. You know, I'm here signing autographs with these people, and my next task, which is really where a lot of meditation stuff comes in, I know what my next task is, which is to get prepared for my race and have lunch and look at the track, and then we kind of close that door and we open this new door. So you're actually thinking about where you're going next. For me, has been, that's definitely the late 20s, early 30s, Jeremy Bowers. Well, you sound like someone who's got a lot of gratitude in your life.

That's everything. Yeah. Everything is about gratitude. Yeah, I'm, again, not to keep doing this, but I'm grateful to be here. No, I appreciate that a lot and likewise. I mean, it's, I don't know, it's been a thread for me recently, and in part maybe it's from doing some of these podcasts, but it's like that to me keeps coming up is like the importance of gratefulness, the importance of kind of documenting in your mind these few things.

They could even be very little things. Oh, I really enjoyed my coffee this morning. Sure. And somehow that just starts to create a shift in your mind of the way you're approaching the world. Definitely. Yeah. With the riders that I've had the ability to work with or mentor or hang with, you know, I call it, I call it the momentum loop. I like that a lot. You know, it's it really is. Momentum loop. It's all about, it's all about positive momentum. You know, you have to have, if you're, if you've got great results happening, you've got good friends around, you've got, you know,

whatever those things are, music, food, you know, girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Like, as long as all those things are positive, you know, I've, you know, I've, ended a lot of podcasts with what's the one thing you'd say? And I always say, surround yourself with the most positive people and positive environment that you can't because truly you become a product of your friends and the environment that you roll with. So I think that that is, for me, that's just been a huge part of it. I try to get negativity or people that bring me down. I don't try to get them out of my life. I just, I just limit, you know, it's important because it's for me. I know that it has a negative effect on me.

My Harvard squash coach used to say happy athletes run fast. True. You know, I think there's a lot, too, that this idea that the way that you frame who you are in your mindset can also, in any form of performance, really shape a better performance. You know, the fact that you're so optimistic, the fact that you're so grateful, I imagine that contributed enormously to your success. Yeah, I think, too. I mean, I felt like there was not to get too deep, but I felt like there were some things that meant. made it that way. Yeah, there were, like, things in my life that, yeah, I got really sick one year,

training in Tucson, I ended up in the ICU. It was this thing called Valley Fever. Doctor came in was like, hey, you've either got AIDS, cancer, or the worst case of Valley Fever. Holy shit. And I felt like, boom, okay, we're dead. So we're going to come back from that. So, yeah, so I mean, I think things like that, you know, there's probably everyone has one,

right? I'm sure you have a story that's not maybe that, you know, but for me, everything after that moment is like you can find the happiness you can find happiness in just about anything and it doesn't take something like that I mean it takes you know a family member passing away I mean you know a child being born to see kind of to see the light and and I think for me it was always I guess at that moment I always it made me feel like I might die yeah the way the doctor told me I didn't I didn't know and what was the outcome of that like had you come out of that yeah I crawled around on the floor for like three months

really yeah it was terrible so for three Three months, you thought you might have one of these things? No. Or it got narrowed down. No, it got narrowed down. They found out that I had gotten this fungus. Again, it was kind of wild because I was training in Tucson, Arizona, and I had just come off a big stage race, a big road stage race.

How old do you? It was 2006, so... So 12 years ago, you were like 23. Yeah. But I saw some guys get stuck on the side of the road in their car. And, of course, I was on training ride, and I thought, oh, these guys need some help. So I got out and I helped push them. But the dust is what the fungus grows in.

And I got it all in my lungs and it collapsed my lung. So partially clasped my lung. And that's why I ended up kind of just really beat down. And all the skin peeled off my body. I lost a considerable amount of weight. I was really weak. Speaking about heart rate stuff, you know, my heart rate, even just to get up to get to go to the bathroom was like 200. Oh my gosh.

So yeah. And a lot of people don't, when it's that bad, there are cases where people don't recover. And I think that was kind of the dramatic part of it, where there's something here where you may not recover from it. So we don't know. But, you know, basically they do nothing for you, essentially. That's what they want your body to create the antibodies to fight this off naturally. But having not been from that area, not being exposed to it, and having a really high training load for the six weeks before, combined with a ton of dust in my face. It's like the perfect storm.

really was and but just that experience you know i think too um you just figure out that it is fragile it's special this is a life that's to be lived you know all those things come full face and i think you just have to i think that's where the gratitude comes from you know you just you not not just that's not just the one experience that's not that's not just the one experience but it's a combination of things like that totally i mean it makes you you know think about everything in your life and how important it is yeah you're also fragile it is yeah you're grateful to be alive yeah totally You know, I mean, you know, whether that's like falling through a roof or something. I mean, there's like, everyone has a story, but, you know, sometimes things happen and you just, yeah, you can make reason for it.

You just say, yeah, it happened and it made me a better person and you move on from it. But definitely, that one experience for me was like really, uh, it definitely changed my mindset. And I feel like, I feel like I could find the good in anything, you know, even like, yeah, yeah, literally. I can, I just, that's kind of how I'm at all the way too about a lot of things. Yeah. Like, so much, I think, of finding success in anything is trying to create a framework of momentum, like a framework of positivity that keeps you moving forwards. Momentum circle.

Yeah, there you go, momentum loop. I used your word. There you go. Well, that's amazing, man. And congratulations on coming back from all of that. I mean, when you were, like, 20, so you're now, like, 24, you know, maybe like a year out after that experience. Was it obvious to you that you're going to be able to get back to being a professional? Yeah, I think that I had, yeah, I just had that resiliency.

I really wanted to do well. I wanted to make it. I feel like after I stopped going to school was maybe 2006 around there, and I'd signed a pretty good contract. I was racing on the road. I was racing cyclocross. I was making a good living. And I just felt like there was this moment where cycle lacrosse was really starting to grow.

I had all the tools to be able to make it happen. I had good coaches, I had good, you know, I had a lot of people that were willing to help, and I just took that leap, and I kind of went all in on it. I had said that to you before. There were a lot of things that I would have loved to have done. I would have loved to have been a DJ. I would have loved to have, you know, been, like, studied, you know, how to cook and how to, like, make great food. I would have liked to have, you know, taking classes on things that I was really interested.

There were a ton of things, but I felt like cycling, I'm going to go 10,000 percent for this. everything that I have is going to go into cycling. And that's, after that, it was like 2007. I got signed to the best cyclopross team in the United States, at least in my opinion. Yeah, it's only a few years later. Yeah, and then I feel like everything from there just was the launch pad to all those accolades. Oh, that's amazing. And now, how did you hear about whoop?

I was doing a cold ride. Pretty, you know, we, I said that we had our son. two years ago almost, and I was out on a ride in Massachusetts, and I met someone that worked here. And we started talking, and immediately we hit it off. I think as friends, like, oh, man. And is this Sullivan? Yeah. So John Sullivan, Rvupin, RVP of Marketing.

Yeah. But I had no idea that he was, that John, like, I thought maybe he, like, was an intern here. I really didn't know. We were out on a, we were out on a, it was snowing. It was like 25 degrees, and it was in the middle of nowhere. So, yeah, when we were riding road bikes around, standing next to a fire, and I think we just got to talk in. And then afterwards, we had some food, and he was like, I'll send you one out. And I didn't really think much of it.

I was like, I can't see myself wearing that. I've never worn a watch my whole life. Never, ever. So we had to overcome that. Yeah. And I felt like the analytics, the data, and just the things that it taught me, as you can tell it, I definitely care about how much I'm putting out into the world. you know like I feel like this for me has really helped me gauge that but also it's helped me understand how so it's 930 now and I say okay I need to get ready for bed because I understand

that that's the best time for me to get into bed yeah whereas before I'd be like now you know what I'm going to go to 1130 I'm going to like finish all these emails up I'm going to do all this extra work I'm going to prepare you know I'm going to prepare like breakfast for tomorrow and get this thing going and I realize so much more that if I'm actually in bed at 10 and I get up at I'm a better person to the world. Totally. Yeah. And for you in using the product, like, how did it kind of weave throughout your day?

Was it something that you'd look at throughout the day? Is it something that you would check in sort of once a day? Yeah. You start with sleep and recovery in the morning. Yeah, definitely sleep and recovery. I think if there's a day that sort of goes, you know, everyone has one where it kind of goes off the rails. You know, like, you had a plan, and then it goes in a totally different direction.

And then you've got that guilt or that idea that you didn't do a lot. And then you look down and you see that you pull the 20, not even doing any exercise. You're like, okay, well, I'm forgiven. I guess I guess that there's that, that, that, whoops the little guy on the shoulder, just like, you did a good job, man, you know. I love it. I love it from that angle, too. You know, you have a lot of people that give you great advice, whether that's a coach

or a nutritionist or, you know, a therapist or whoever. And you, but you second guess often. And I feel like, you know, for me, whoop has really allowed me to have that opinion, that other kind of non there's it's not a person right but there is something that's scientific there that's telling you hey you're actually you're smoked today or you're actually really good you got the green light like go for it and i love i love that because it is um and it's how it just helped me considerably and how i manage my energy output and are you someone who um will go through periods of time where you're in the red or you've kind of always yellow and green recovery high flying

Right. Well, we just did a video showcasing when I was in the red. I actually got another weird thing in my... Yeah, this is a good plug for that video. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, it's on all of these, all the channels. Yeah, this is pretty cool, actually. My social media, but I got to... We don't know if it came from my son, from wherever he was hanging out or whatever, but I got a thing called a retroferengal cellulitis in my throat at the beginning of the cycloplostecent. Which just doesn't sound good. No, basically my throat closed up for like a week and I was sipping on I was sipping on shakes, trying to kind of get through this terrible period of not being able to open my mouth, really. Yeah, and luckily, they didn't have to take my tonsils out or anything crazy. They didn't have to do any major surgeries. But I was in the red for almost a month.

Oh, my God. Yeah, and it was real. I felt terrible, and it was telling me that I was doing terrible. Oh, man. So, yeah, I think that was... Look, from my standpoint, it's really cool that we immediately pick up on things like that. But obviously it's not great news to be in the red for a month. No, but...

It's also pretty hard to be in the red for a month. Oh, man. Like, if you were trying to be in the red for a month, you would have trouble with that. No, it was heinous. It went from bad to worse to just horrendous. And I was looking for everything that I could do to get out of it. But, you know, when your body's down, I think I was pushing it and training again. And this is one of the reasons that I did retire is I felt like my ability to con

con myself into pushing harder than I maybe could. or trying to just listen to my body. You know, I'm trying to listen to my body. I'm not a spring chicken. I'm 35. I'm racing against guys that are 20. Yeah. But that, but kind of knowing that I was pushing it,

that I was really, really pushing my body past its limit of what it was willing to take on as was one of the reasons that I decided that I think I needed to slow down. And on the positive side of that, because I like to go there, you know, since I've decided to retire and gone that, I think I've had the longest string of green days. Not, I mean, not. It's a good sign. Yeah, no, but for a month now, I've been in the green. Wow.

And I felt awesome. You know, so I feel like this secret or not secret, but just this thing that had been kind of on my shoulders about this, my mind being like, should you retire? And then I made that decision. And I was, okay, I'm going forward with this. This is it. I've just had fantastic days. And I've, you know, not been training also four or five hours a day or doing double workouts. I've obviously brought that down.

I'm still fit and I still really am doing, you know, 12 to 15 hours of exercise a week. But it's not my entire day. It's revolved around it. And that has just been fantastic for me. I feel awesome. Maybe if I've had a big day, then I'll do some stretching or I'll take a bath with some Epsom salts or something like that to kind of decompress. That's another theme I've been hearing recently.

I think that's a bit of a secret. I don't know a lot of athletes that do that, but I'm starting to hear more and more. Yeah. I think it's about the magnesium. I think it's probably there's something. You know, it just makes you, again, going to, back to when you're in tune with your body so much you know that you notice the smallest thing it just makes you feel a little better i think i heard on one of your podcasts you said that

you did cold showers too i'd still do them yeah like i end now 100% of my showers and cold yes mine i wouldn't say cold i feel like the cold but i definitely i do not i don't first off i don't take a hot shower anymore oh interesting so i don't like go really really hot i actually kind of keep it in the middle and then i'll end with like the last 30 seconds to be colder but i feel like just ice cold this doesn't it's not my jam yeah i have a slightly different point of view on this which is i think more on the extreme side of the spectrum right like i've gotten really into um like i'll take a normally hot shower yeah and then i'll just flip the switch at some point and just go as cold as possible and and you know in massachusetts it's a cold shower it's pretty down cold we have a

well man it is like freezing yeah and um and it's fascinating over time i've only only gotten better at it, where now I think I could stay in there for 10 minutes or whatever. Yeah. And I never do, I never go that long. Yeah. But I find that the way, one, I feel amazing right when I get out. So, and there's something to be said for just doing things that make you happy. Right. Natural things that make you happy. I think, like, it's a good thing. And then, you know, I've noticed other benefits, like, not that I was trying to lose weight, but it, It made my percent body fat drop pretty dramatically, which I think's fine. And it also, I find, has made me a little bit more, like, focused for some period of time

right after doing it. Now, some of this could be placebo, too, but focus is a placebo thing. Yeah, we're into placebo, especially when it works. So I like cold showers. I also have gotten into doing, like, contrast therapy where you go from. Love that. Yeah. So you go like sauna or steam room and then go straight into like freezing cold and then back and then back.

Yes. So what kind of stuff have you done like that? Yeah. From a performance standpoint, I always, if I did a hot race where I was like where I know that like I cooked the caboose, right? Like I'm just, I'm just absolutely fried. I'm so hot. I'm dehydrated. I've got salt stains all over me.

It's just been brutal. An ice bath with a lot of fluid is just taking down that catabolic state where you just kind of shut. everything down and you get the muscles to like be frozen so ice bath has been absolutely and when would you do that throughout your day uh i'm just saying like after a hard workout like yeah if it's just super super hot where you where you know that you're gas like you're not breathing your breathing's like for me this and the signs are pretty clear it's like i'm my skin's like thin i feel like a certain way i'm exhausted like my if i take a deep breath and it's shallow like i there's just a combo of things where I'm like I'm super dehydrated and I've gotten to my body's gotten too hot like

the radiator didn't have anymore in it yeah I was not putting enough fluid in so I think I think that that if I'm feeling that then I know immediately like hey I need to get into an ice bath or a cold shower or whatever I can or sit in a river you know it doesn't matter just as long as it's bringing down your core body temperature psychologically what do you think's harder an ice bath or a cold shower man the ice baths are brutal I that's I think why I've been doing those for a long time I think that's actually why I don't like the cold shower. And I've raced in some heinous conditions. Yeah, but you've raced in horrible conditions.

Yeah, with a winter sport, you're just always cold. Yeah. And I think that that might be part of it, too. I think it is. I think that's why I'm not looking to add any more pain to my day. Or you might just be naturally getting it from, you know, exercising outside. Yes. Right?

Yeah. I've bought into this concept that it's good for your body to be cold for periods of the day. Yeah. And so maybe you're already getting that naturally. I think, too, one of the things is that I've learned from WOOP, not to tie it back too much, but the temperature I sleep. Oh, yeah, that's huge. 63 to 64 degrees for me is kind of like optimal.

We have to be mindful. And by the way, that's probably 10 degrees colder than the average athlete. Yeah. Which, you know, a lot of people, first of all, don't realize that you need your room cold. Yeah. And then I think I've found that over time, athletes tend to go colder and colder as they start to realize the benefits of it being a colder environment. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, a simple fix for me was just if I was in an intense training period, I'd go sleep in the basement. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's really, it's quite a bit cooler down there, and it doesn't affect my son's room. You know, he's not freezing because I want to, like, sleep in a cold. But especially in with really, really hot days when you're training in the summer and you are dehydrated and you've done all those things, definitely not being, not being really hot

in the sheets and, like, trying to sleep in that, that for sure is, there's a lot. to that that body temperature piece is really big at least for me it was have you already done anything with eye masks oh yeah i'm a believer in the eye mask i wear an eye mask every day yeah me too even when it's a dark room like i'll probably still have my eye mask yeah especially if you travel a lot yeah there is so important yeah i know and there's yeah yes i have a lot of different eye masks do you have a good one by the way no okay no i know i know i heard you talk about this too no i don't have a good one No, I remember I listened to Ferris podcast one time, and he promoted one. I have a handful of those, but I don't think they're any different than the one you can buy at Walgreens.

I think they're all kind of like little neoprene with like some stuff. We may secretly be doing a little bit of R&D move on this. We need to do this. I want to design the best sleep mask in the world. It's important. Yeah. It's the most important. I think that, and I travel with wax earplugs too, you know, the ones that you would swim with.

That's huge for me because I think sometimes... I haven't gone to your plugs. That could be another level for me. Yeah, but it's, again, if you're traveling somewhere foreign and you know, and you don't know where you are and you're, and then you come into a situation and you're on the road, you're on the front of a busy road and that's where the hotel is and you're like, okay, this is where I am. It happens to me all the time when I'm in Manhattan. Yeah, yeah. I mean, boom, you will not, like, you know, things can happen and you would not know. And to be clear, what kind of earbuds are you using?

No, earplugs. That's what I meant. Yeah, sorry. Ear plugs. Just wax, like whatever the ones that you can buy at your local, you know, they're, I think they're for swimming as originally. And they're disposable. Yeah. Okay.

So, yeah, earplugs, eye mask, a little malitone every once in a while. Do you take the dissolvable one? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think that's better. Yeah. I don't need much. I've got enough data on this to now believe that dissolves also just better. Okay, yeah.

I don't know the exact brand that I use, but it's a little mint. I only need one milligram. That is a low dose. I really, that's all I need, though. That's almost like a placebo level of dose. No, it's lights out, though, for me. Yeah. I don't know what it is.

But you exercise so much that, you know, your body, is probably exhausted enough to just pass that. Yeah. Because melatonin typically is considered better for sleep latency, which is like the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep. Yeah. Versus, say, keeping you asleep. Here's the thing that I know about myself.

This works for me is that if I'm, again, this probably should be every night, but if I turn off all the lights and I'm just laying there in darkness and then I put the tab in versus I'm doing something or I take it, it doesn't work like that. It's not like Tylenol or ibuprofen where you're like, oh, you take it, and then you kind of get on with your day. It's like if I'm in a place that's quiet and I have my eyes closed and I take it,

then I notice that after 15 or 20 minutes, it's just, it's out. You know, just the monkey mind stops, right? I'm not thinking about a thousand things and I'm able to just pass right out. Yeah, it's helped me a lot, especially with European travel and being on the road a lot. Any other supplements you take? In the winter, I'll take vitamin D. But not really. I mean, when I was kind of going through all that, you know, that testing and stuff that I did where I was just trying to find out what was going on my blood sugar, I learned a lot more about myself, but it's really, I think for me it's been about diet. I'm not a big, I don't like to take a lot of supplements. I never took a lot of Tylenol or ibuprofen in my career. I didn't do anything, really, literally nothing. Unfortunately, unfortunately, malotin is one that I did, you know, when I was traveling, I would use. And then if I got a bad injury, I'd use a little bit of ibuprofen here and there. But really, nothing.

that's anything outstanding or cool. I'm not really a biohacker. The ketogenic thing was a big deal for me. I did that completely naturally. I didn't like use any supplements to get in or out. So yeah, I guess, you know, I kind of, I believe in that. I believe in just kind of listening. And we talked about cold showers and ice baths,

but were there other forms of recovery that you like to do? I mean, obviously meditation's a big one, but. Yeah, my big. Massage therapy. yeah totally yeah massage um stretching uh you know using like the roller the foam rollers you know the foam rollers huge uh have you used one of the vibrating foam rollers it's the new rage i'm still a little bit old school i i haven't fully converted i don't my friends have them and so i use them when i'm there but i haven't bought one yet because i'm afraid i just yeah

they really do they're wild have a couple extra ones around here if you all right yeah maybe before i lead but I don't want one because I feel like that's going to be like you know are you talking about the ball or the actual foam roller the foam roller yeah yeah we've got both of those that vibrate I don't know there's something about the old school one that I kind of like yeah all those things are amazing I travel with a tennis ball so that I can kind of put it behind me if I'm in if I'm going to sit somewhere for a long time and I want to have good posture what are some of your influences like when you when you've been forming some of these different habits like how How have you come about them?

Just educating myself, I think, from, you know, I think there's, when you're, when you make a living from sport or from being an athlete, your, your whole day revolves around trying to find the best people. So whether that's from a nutrition standpoint or a coaching standpoint or, you know, a new way to recover. I mean, that's, I think really it is a lot of it's self-taught and a lot of it's just surrounding yourself with the people that you can, find that are best I always tell people to get a coach yeah you know if you if you can see where your biggest gain can be made is by improving your diet because you eat McDonald's every day or whatever the bad thing that you eat is then then you should put your you should put time and energy into that if you don't know anything about training but you know everything about nutrition which isn't classic but you know or if you haven't taken a look at you know your hydration or your

blood work or whatever well then you should like do all these things to find out if you're you know if you don't have any B12 or if you have a zero vitamin D or these are there are certain things out there that I think you you can you can look at and know that they're big grabs and I just tried to kind of do all of those things over over time but I really did take the time to educate myself through books podcasts we're living in such a beautiful time when there's so much information at your fingertips and you can just if you're doing a five hour bike ride you can listen to it oh that's another great point is you've got five hours potentially to listen to podcasts yeah I listen to for economics. I listened to Ferris for a really long time. I listened to a lot of entrepreneurial ones over the years. I had a stint with Gary Vee for a bit. Not like physically, but like listening to him. Yeah, yeah. I think he's an inspiring guy. He's very inspiring. I met him like a month ago. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean, probably the same ones that a lot of people listen to. I think a lot of the functional medicine doctors that are out there I found to be really interesting. Ronda Patrick I'll listen to like select Joe Rogan

podcast if it's someone that I find to be really interesting but definitely like the functional medicine side Chris Cressler I think it's nourish balance thrive a bunch of a bunch of people like that that are kind of really thinking about you know the body in a different way and how we how we kind of approach

illness or whatever there was a time when I listened to a lot of the Dominique Duggestino stuff because it was the ketogenic there was like a period there in 2015 where he was going around and talking a lot peter tia all things i think about all guys all people that i listen to and and i find there are some really great talents out there people that are just so smart at what they're doing and you just kind of like blown away by it yeah i mean one of the things i love so much about about whoop is that i naturally get to meet people like yourself sure other people who are somehow connected

to performance or improving the body. Yeah. You just try to pick up things along the way. Tony Robbins too. I don't love Tony's podcast, but I like, I think he's really, if you talk about like someone that you can find that's like really positive, man, that guy. Yeah, that guy's just got like, you know, I don't know. I think he blows everyone out of the water with positivity.

I'm sure he goes home and has to take 10 for himself, but, you know, things like that, I think are. No, I do like that, too. Yeah, positivity for sure. Not that there's a lot of negative podcast, but I'm not listening to things that don't, bring me something that I feel really energized by what are some uh who are some athletes that inspire you man in any sport yeah um tough one yeah tough one i think in cycling it was you know there were there were a handful of people that i looked up to that then ended up not to be people that

you should be looking up to so it's it's tough um that is tough right i mean just how tainted some of those stars turned out to be yeah um what's your takeaway from that like is it You know, like, a guy like Lance Armstrong, right? There's sort of like two lens to look at this guy. Yeah. One way he was this huge inspiration, he raised a ton of money for cancer research. Yeah.

He was competing at a sport that, to be fair, was dirty. He just happened to be the best at it. Yeah. On the other side of it, it's like he was a very dirty athlete. He betrayed a lot of people. Yeah, I think I'm a fan of like the humans. You know, I like want people to be happy and be outgoing towards other people. I think, um, I wish, you know, I wish him well.

I hope he's happy. I hope he's doing what he wants to do. I don't, you know, having been in a handful of races with him and also knowing a lot of people that he's interacted with, it's, yeah, maybe I have a different view of it. You know, the sport did gain an incredible amount of success from him and from his reign from the time that he's spent racing. So I think he's definitely not someone that I, like, go around. I'm not, I don't hate on. You're not bad mountains. No.

I think that there's a ton of athletes that I get inspired by. I mean, truthfully, like, I think that it's incredible. like Kate Courtney is an awesome athlete I don't look up to Kate Courtney I don't like follow every move she makes but I'm inspired by people's ability to focus on one thing and I really I think the thing that across the board

I love super talented people so people that have insane talent and whatever it is I think I just I'm like genuinely whether DJ AM was someone that I was I don't know if anyone here will even know who DJ AM was but he was really like the beginning of a DJ that could

mix genres beyond like what a normal person would be able to do. He could go from rock and roll to country back to hip hop and then and then kind of all around and his ability to be, can it use both hands and mix and use the tools that he had in his day to be able to kind of motivate and move a crowd and change the perception of what a DJ could do with music and how he could influence, you know, popular culture. I think that for me is someone that I was, that I always looked at. up to and was like, man, that's, that's, that's a miracle. That's someone that was given a gift, you know? So I think things like that are people that I, I definitely emulate or look up to

or try to take a bit of and then make my own. Well, it's great, man. I mean, congratulations on everything you've accomplished in your career. And it's been awesome having you on Woop. I know you're now working on the Jam Fund. Yeah, that's our nonprofit. You want to talk about that for a sec? Yeah, it's a nonprofit that I started with my friends. Basically, we did it to make it easier. You know, cycling's a tough sport. Jam is an acronym for Jeremy, Alec, and Makunda. Those are my friends that I started it with. And those guys are a couple years older than me. They gave me a lot of, my parents gave me a lot. They helped me, but those guys kind of like rounded it out for me, is what I'd like to say. And yeah, so we raise money and by design. And, and by design, and, and,

We have events and programs that we are able to raise money through, and then we give the money that we raise to a racing program that takes riders around that are trying to turn pro. We've had quite a few riders turn pro and make a living from it and still continue to live in the community that we're in in Western Massachusetts, which has been really fun part for all of us to be able to see that come through. And then we give grants. So we tailor out grants, and we try to just give to riders that are in our local area

that are, you know, I want to, they write us, you know, I'm 12 years old from Putney, Vermont, and I want to do six races this year, and I want $300 to do it, or I'm asking for $300 to do it. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, so we would do something like that, and then it goes kind of from there, it goes up, you know, so a rider, but really everything's geographically based, so we can see the riders occasionally and stay in touch with them and give them feedback, but we want to, we feel like we can make an impact. It's a, we don't have a huge budget. We do it. It's a very modest budget, but really it's all about doing what we can locally. So it's not a national or international organization giving grants all over the place.

We really try to stay focused locally and build up our community. Well, it sounds like an amazing cause. And even if you're helping one person accomplish their dreams, we've made a huge difference. We have. Yeah, it's been really fulfilling and super fun. And I think it has helped a lot of people out. And I know it has. So I love doing it.

That's going to continue on. even though I'm retiring, Jam Fun will continue on. And if people want to learn more, donate, or can they... Yeah, it's jam, j-a-m-cycling.org. Okay, cool, and we'll put that in the show notes and make sure people can find it. Definitely. Come out to our ride.

It's in July. It's July 13th in Southampton, Massachusetts. It's a gravel ride. Oh, I'm there. Yeah, that would be fun. You don't need to come. If you're not... How much do you ride?

I don't ride. So, yeah, so that's not going to be the right ride for you. Oh, okay. Well, so maybe that's too hardcore. Yeah, yeah. You can come and have the... barbecue though it's a pretty sweet barbecue okay all right or don't we're gonna plug it here though so people will come hopefully yeah well i thought you're inviting me so you should come

we'd love to have you no no no just see Jeremy awesome having you on the podcast thank you thank you for having me and and thanks for being on whoop yeah thank you for having me thank you for making whoop so that we can all have a little bit better brighter easier well-recovered days so thank you for having me oh well said man thanks for coming on the show, and congratulations, man, on your amazing career and your retirement. If you're not already a member, you can join the WOOP community now for as low as $18 a month. We'll provide you a 24-7 access to your biometric data as well as analytics across strain, sleep, recovery, and more. The membership comes with a free Woop Strap 2.0.

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