WHOOP Podcast - Joe Holder, Master Trainer and Health & Wellness Consultant talks about the similarities between training supermodels and pro athletes, as well as everything he does to stay "in the green."

Episode Date: February 19, 2019

Joe Holder, Health & Wellness Consultant and trainer to some of the most beautiful women in the world discusses how a football injury in college put him on his career path (8:01), the power of mindfulness (12:23), training supermodels vs. NFL players (23:43), what he looks for in the first session with a new client (27:57), why men should train more like women and women should train more like men (29:57), the importance of the other 22 hours in the day (32:09), what it means to be part of the "plant based gang" (33:46), supplements he takes (40:04), his amazing WHOOP data and what he's learned from it (41:38), as well as how WHOOP helps him better understand his clients (46:44), and the advice he'd give to someone looking to pick a trainer (47:43).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We discovered that there were secrets that your body was trying to tell you that could really help you optimize performance, but no one could monitor those things. And that's when we set out to build the technology that we thought could really change the world. Welcome to the 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. It gives me a lot of insight into actual strain. I'm putting on my body,

I also find it very insightful to our conception of strain versus what actually is strain because there are times that I'm either doing work or just trying to answer emails or running around briefly. And my heart rate is off the charts. And oftentimes I think we forget to take the time to check in with ourselves during the day. My guest today is Joe Holder. Joe is a performance and health consultant Nike Master Trainer, founder of the OJJJTHA. system, and probably best known for training many victorious secret models and celebrities. This includes Georgia Fowler, Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid, Sadie Newman, designers like Virgil Ablo, Derek

Blasberg. He also works with professional athletes. So some of the most beautiful people in the world, some top performers, and we talk about his background and how he got into fitness, coaching techniques, recovery methods, the plant-based diet that he follows is pretty unique. Joe also has very interesting whoop data, so we talk about some of his habits. I think there's a lot here that our regular listeners can relate to, and I hope you enjoy, kicking it over to Joe. Joe, thanks for doing this. Yeah, man. Of course, thanks for having me. Appreciate you well. You know, there's a lot of interesting things to talk about with you. For one,

you train some really fascinating people, beautiful clients of yours, Victoria's Secret models, you name it. They are beautiful. They are beautiful. We've done some work together with whoop, and that's technology that you use. But first, I really want to start by talking about you and your background. Like, if you're at a dinner party and someone says, hey, Joe, what do you do? Like, how do you describe yourself? I don't answer it, to be honest. That's like, I mean, especially in New York or L.A. or wherever you go, like, that's often a question that's let off with, and I can't stand it.

So I typically, like, deflect, I guess, which I'm trying to do now. But I guess just general characterization of what I do is kind of hard to describe. So I just basically tell people I'm a health and wellness consultant and I kind of just break down to various projects and initiatives that I work on. So I think kind of just to say that I'm a trainer doesn't really give the full gamut of what it is that I do. And to be honestly, I don't really get full insight into half of the things that I'm working on. So me, it's just mainly I just have a skill set that I can apply to a whole bunch of different

areas and it's typically within the health and wellness realm and I just consult on various projects whether that's helping people figure out their individual health goals whether that's companies or brands building out um you know their wellness or fitness strategies wherever may be um so that's a decent characterization I guess and what like what does a day in the life look like for you I've actually pivoted a bit into changing my day because I was the past three months I was traveling like crazy now what I've been doing I'm in very sure at making sure my mornings and nights can't be touched by anybody but me so and what time frame is that time frame typically is like so I'm I'm trying to go to bed by 11 sometimes

hopefully by 9 or 10 I'm up by 5 or 6 to give myself a couple hours not even just to do work just to really get ready for the day even if it is to prep even if it is to get simple stuff done if it doesn't till work that's fine I'll try to get that done and then probably see my first I'm openly admit I'm not a morning I'm not a morning person so I have to keep the morning for me I probably see my first client around 839 um from there I'm probably working until about one or two I'll take meetings probably from two to four two to five or get admin stuff done and I'm probably working again from you know five to eight um then I'm home and get a little bit more working for maybe an hour to two hours and then and then I'm sleep my thing these days is

I'm a fan of that principle of like Parkinson's law. It's basically like work expands to fulfill the amount of time that you give it. And oftentimes we give work too much time to get done. Just think in college, like we would get papers done in a night, even though we have months to do it. So not that kind of extreme, but can I condense the amount of time that I provide to work so not that I could be more efficient but still do high quality and be able to rest, recover, get other important stuff done.

Because I'm just working on too many things right now just to, you know, only spend time in a gym or only spend time in a laptop so I'm trying to be more strategic these days and when you say you go home and do work like what does that look like for you is that research is that I mean it's a mix of stuff so it's like I haven't I don't I don't touch I don't really get push notifications like because it just disrupts me so like I can't really touch emails during the day I barely can touch text during the day unless they're super urgent so at night is really like catching up on typically any loose ends it may have been done need tied up that day um doing a little bit of research and catching up on readings

prepping for tomorrow really prepping for the morning so i can like go to sleep a little bit with an easier mind and then wake up yeah and then wake up and then kind of attack attack the next day with that time frame that i have in the morning but i used to just hop out of bed and sometimes try to go right to work which was it's disruptive because like then you're just playing catch up and then you're kind of upset the rest of the day then you're staying up too late and then next thing you know, you sleep at four or five hours and you're just in the red, you know?

That's true. That's true. And so if you're thinking about, like, over the course of a month, how often will you be traveling out of New York? You know, we're recording this right now in Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, for the past three months, it hasn't been.

I mean, past three months, I probably slept more in hotel beds than I did in my own. I know that feeling, by the way. Yeah, it's crazy. And it's just like, especially when there's a wear and tear associated with what it is that you do. I mean, I'm traveling, uh, on average.

I'm probably traveling once or twice a month. And you're traveling all around the world, mostly fashion destination cities, you tell me. I mean, like, I do take part of the fashion circuit. But that's just simply because, like, you know, the stuff that Nike has going on for me and send me out to, you know, train people in different locations. Sure.

But it's typically, yeah, simply Nike projects, sometimes speaking engagements or brand partnerships. So, you know, it's like L.A. or London or, you know, Atlanta. A lot of the travel is domestic. But, I mean, internationally, the past few months, I've been to, I don't know, where I was, I was Mexico and Paris, London, Canada. But, yeah, I mean, it's just like, if you ask me to do something and everything lines up, I'll go do it. So you're there.

So why not? And for you, like, did you always know that you wanted to go down a career path like this? You know, I know that you were a phenomenal athlete, right, at Penn. Yeah. You played football there. You're a Harvard guy, but I guess we're still friends. Yeah, we're still friends. Growing up, you did a lot of track and field, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you had that athletic background. What got you more interested in sort of the, I guess, the education behind training and athleticism? Well, that's a little bit of a complex. I mean, I thought it was going to be two things. I thought it was going to be a professional athlete or a doctor. My dad's a doctor. It didn't really level out for me on either of those grounds.

but basically I was just dealing with kind of injuries in college and my strength and conditioning coach at the time wasn't the best and there just had to be a better way for me to train so I just wanted to delve into something that I've been doing my entire life but not really knowing the nuances of it so I just wanted to figure out my injuries I was just like I was fed up with the strength and conditioning coach

my body wasn't responding my nutrition was probably off So, you know, it had to take a pretty drastic injury for me to take a step back and be like, okay, Joe, like, you really need to figure this out. You're in a high-pressure environment. You're dealing with an injury. Like, it's either figured out or flop. So that got me digging into the nuances of training. And then what was super influential was that I studied sociology with the health, concentration, health, and medicine in a minor in consumer psychology, which is like psychology and marketing while at Penn. What fascinated me was just the human behavior aspects associated with health on a macro level.

And then that made me kind of study it more on a micro individual level when it came to training. And then it was just like augmentation of human behavioral strategies for best results. It's just super fascinating to me that most of our decisions really aren't ours. So my deal was like how can I manipulate for the better other people's decisions to create positive health outcomes, both on an individual and hopefully a bigger level. So combining, like, football with schooling, that just had me just dig in. Like, I just love, I love reading, I love learning,

I love figuring out, you know, the self-correcting aspect of science. And then it just kind of grew from there. I don't, I don't, health and wellness is a very intense field, but I think within fitness, a lot of that isn't strategically applied for outcomes similar into the performance world. It's really only applied a lot of times in the fitness world for like show. So I think I've had some success there, but it was really me just trying to heal an injury. I hurt my ankle, doctor's going to tell me if I'd be able to play again.

I worked back with my dad. Luckily, I was able to fix it. And, of course, with the training staff at Penn, I broke my leg again, my fifth year, my senior year. Jeez. Yeah, it was the worst. I got hit low. One guy hit me low, another guy hit me high. My leg kind of popped.

I thought I'd be able to be okay, but then I tried to run on it, and it just wasn't happening. Right. But then I worked back with my dad, and I was like, I called my shot. I was like, I'll be back in four weeks, and the doctor was like, there's no way. This one, Twitter was still super big, so I was putting out on Twitter, and I was still blogging at the time about my recovery process, and I came back. So, and that was just really by doing research. So you came back faster than you were expected to.

Yeah, I was supposed to be out for the year. So I broke my leg week four. I was, uh, they told me I'd be done for the year. I wanted to come back and then play at least. I was hoping to play two, come back for at least one. I was able to come back and play that last one, and I was able to come back and start practicing sooner than everybody thought I would. So it was a mix of contemporary and alternative strategies,

but I just took a step back and learned from what happened with my previous ankle injury. I attacked it head on. I used mindfulness strategies, nutritional strategies, and of course, like just contemporary medicine, and it worked. And it was really all just based off a research and luckily having a team around me. especially with my family that was able to enable me to figure things out very quickly. So I was like, why, like, why aren't more people just trying to take really control of their health? But at the same time, not totally renounce kind of, you know, evidence-based medicine,

but amplify it with, you know, either alternative strategies or stuff that naturally enhances the body's healing process. So the things that resonated for you that were a little bit different, right? It sounds like mindfulness was a big component. Talk about that. Like, what were you doing? You started meditating. Yeah, I mean, my parents are super esoteric. I was always around it my entire life, but I wasn't necessarily fully committed to it.

But I took a course that kind of grounded mindfulness with empiricism while at UPenn was basically was positive psychology. So positive psychology was basically founded at Penn. And Marty Selgman, who was one of the big guys within that field, his, the class was taught by Angela Duckworth, who people probably know her as the author of grit. But that book wasn't out at the time. She was basically workshopping that book, like during our class. So a lot of those strategies she was talking about, it also just connected back with me on a more like spiritual level with some of the other things that I had been introduced to at a very young age. And so

I was, so and then being in a high stress environment such as UPennant, you just saw how much your mind, the impact your mind had on everything it was that you were doing. So that's what I really got into mindfulness and then when dealing with the injuries you know i basically i mean you could whatever however you feel about meditation or not like i basically would just sit down every night and just i would do of course mindfulness check in with myself but i would also just focus on the broken leg focus on the injury focus on the injury like not not accept the pain for what it was for the bodily sensation that it was and then just focus on my body healing and then trying to you know mitigate the pain response by just changing my perception about how I felt about the pain because I knew if I was

going to try to play, it was going to happen there anyway, and I knew my body was trying its best to heal itself. So I just wanted to be more in a mental mindset that would hopefully be a catalyst towards that healing. Have you ever read the book, Art of Learning by Josh Whiteskin? I haven't, but I'll pick it up. Yeah, so what's interesting is, so Josh was the prodigy in searching for Bobby Fisher. Oh, yeah. The chess prodigy. So he's that kid. But then he's a kid. But then he also goes on to be a Brazilian black belt world champion. So you would never expect, like, this chess prodigy to be juditsu-level Brazilian black belt. But his whole point was that he, like, really mastered the art of learning, and he wasn't a

prodigy at either thing. And one of the things he talks about in the book is breaking his left arm, like, weeks before a competition and still needing to compete. And so he would go to the weight room, and when he lifted weight on his other arm, he would just think about the blood flowing to his broken arm yeah and and sure enough when he came back uh he he the the muscle levels were the same yeah yeah that's like totally blown away by that so you have you seen that in other people well that's real so that's well there's two things that you hit on there one is uh if you actually think about a lot of the times about something working when you're exercising it increases

whatever the activation or likelihood of that engaging but it's also called the nobody really knows why but it's also called the crossover effect so um strength uh you can keep some strength in an injured limb if you work out the other side because from like a like from a neurological perspective like there's something that it really just happens that the body fit doesn't necessarily think both sides are working but it has a crossover effect where the positive benefits seem by working one side exists almost like it needs to compensate for the other side it's like yeah it's like so it like keeps his strength up so it's uh he took advantage both both of the crossover effect and then just really just being mindful and plugging in during

his training sessions. The body has a memory, which we often are like, you know, forget about. There's literally a memory for muscle attenuation. So, no, that's pretty fascinating, though. I didn't know. I've never heard that story. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. And so you're now a graduate of Penn, right?

You realize, okay, I've learned things about my own body that I think are interesting, profound. Like, what's the next step for you? How are you about to break into this world of, of, training, you know, Bella Hadid and all these your famous models and whatnot. What was the journey for you

in those building blocks? I mean, I had no roadmap for anywhere, to be honest. I mean, I was cutting chia bars in old foods, bro. I was out of, I came out of school.

I was on a, you know, gentlemen's agreement, handshake deal. I'm working for my, you know, my mentors company called Health Warriors. they sell chia bars and chia seeds. It taught me a lot about, this was like when wellness was really bubbling up and now within the CPG world.

What's the time frame roughly for hours? So I graduated in 2013, four weeks after I graduated, I started working because I went to an alumni football flag tournament. I linked up with him, this guy, Nick Morris. We just talked about our, I guess, relatable passions. He, you know, he works at a hedge fund, but he had this, you know,

chia bar company on the side was doing really well now and i just i was probably employee number four or five there so i start and uh but basically you know how that goes it's like working out of a we work but having a lug you know tables around new york city to pop up in whole foods or whatever these independent markets to sell these bars because at the end of day if they weren't moving units then you know the company's out of business uh but it taught me a lot about what people are looking for when they make health decisions and then there's just the aspect of being personable when it comes to when it comes to having success from there but so food was is super fitness adjacent so I was being and I was still on the side you know doing my training stuff

blogging about it just kind of just have fun just your personal training right yeah so just my training just training I'm not testing stuff out on some of my buddies like I'm sneaking in to like blink fitness and you know training some of my friends or you know having them come along come along with me to train and you know this is when instagram was still kind of young so showing that on instagram and um but just basically like researching some remote clients you know i've definitely failed more than i succeeded uh but having remote clients are just testing strategies on them while also just diving super deep into the internet to to see what was out there and you know getting the proper certifications that you need to

to train um and then you know the health worry i was probably at health warrior for a year or two and i you know i move up to community manager but i wasn't really that happy but i made some great um i made some great relationships while i mean i met hana bronfman there who you know is big in wellness and does hp fit and all that but i was just meeting people in the industry and kind of sticking my foot in but i had no real desire i had no real like objective to break in but Hannah had introduced me to the owner of a gym called S-10 where I'm no longer at but I had started just training there which was a lucky break too but kind of like before work and again this is you just working out yourself personally yeah and I had a few

limited yeah I had a few limited clients clients here and there so that's this is probably in like 2014 2015 I you know start working at the gym and then really out of luck I I'm still at Health Warrior full time, and then Nike finds me because I was covering a class for somebody, a smallest in my private class. I was covering the class, and people from Nike came and had scouted the class. Like, I wasn't even supposed to be teaching it. And then after, I didn't know they were from Nike, and then after that was done, they approached me and asked me if I would like to be part, to be part of this new initiative that Nike was about to start, which was this kind of like Nike trainer program for this spot called 45 grand, which was. like an exclusive kind of kind of like neighborhood members only spot for training um i never heard from them i thought i was like yeah i'm down i didn't hear from him and then like uh a month

or two later i get an email i was about to i had i was funny enough i was going to harvard to give a talk okay but i get an email and they're like yo joe can you come in today we've been trying to get in contact with you didda can you come in uh for an interview and i'm like i got to catch a train in an hour and a half like is there any other time i could do this first they say yes and they're like no you got to come today it will like fit you in so I'm like so I rush in there to the Nike NYC headquarters at the time and then whatever it was a quick audition they fit me in very quickly and you know then luckily I got bought into the Nike trainer network and then from I was lucky to knock a few early opportunities out the park and then

it just really it just grew from there and my thing was a few takeaways from that are like it never just happens at one moment. It's a cumulative effort that took place over years about me throwing myself out there. It was always saying more things yes to than no. And then it was just taking chances. I left my health warrior job and just said, I'm going to pursue this full time after that happened. And it was, and now somehow I'm here.

Well, good for you, man. I mean, there's a lot of things that I think, you know, to learn from that. I mean, one obviously is just how hard you have to work, right? I think even the process that you were describing with the chia bars, like I remember for me in the early days of whoop, like having to run around Harvard campus convincing college athletes to wear chest straps because I wanted to try to get data off them, you know? And all that stuff's a grind, but people only see you, you know,

in this successful moment, they don't realize sometimes the accumulation of stress and shit that you have to go through to get there. Yeah, that's facts. Yeah, it's too bad. A lot of times people don't see the complete journey. But, yeah, I mean, I won't sugarcoat it. You know, it's a lot of late nights. It's a lot of, which I'm sure people have heard those stories.

But it's really, it really is just a lot of moments of intense self-doubt that you, coupled with exhilarating moments of home runs. But, you know, you've got to deal with the highs and lows. So let's talk a little bit about your training methodology. I mean, I'm looking at an article here. Celebrity clients include Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid, Derek Blasberg, Virgil Ablo. I mean, you've got a really interesting list of, like another Victoria's Secret Model. I'm going to screw up her name, so I'm not going to read it.

So, like, what are you doing when you're training a Victoria's Secret model versus, say, a professional athlete? Because I know you also work with players in the NFL. Yeah, they're the same. as weird as it sounds is that there's still a strategic infrastructure in which I relate to them the same because there's nobody in my opinion within the common population that has to use their bodies as much relies on their body for their livelihood works if they're really serious about it works out in that particular volume and you know has their life literally structured around how their body looks and feels so it's actually professional athletes and models yeah

Yeah, true. Yeah. It's like, I know it sounds weird, and at first I get weird looks for this, but in the same manner in which an NFL player or a high-end model will come in, there's still the base level stuff. It's still you have to evaluate them. You have to understand what their goals are. And now my deal is, especially because these models are often so beautiful, is that nobody really takes the time to understand how they move on just a base level.

It's really just like, oh, wow, I have this, you know, famous. person I'm working with is just put them through a good workout and then just try to please them in any possible way instead of really saying all right let me look at this individual holistically let me go kind of like macro to micro which you do with pro athletes as well and then to build back up again so my deal is is like a lot of the times you look at all these like spot treatments when it comes to the models right but my philosophy is if I can treat if I could make them more athletic if I could treat them like a true true athlete in which their whole body integration just works and it's more fluid than everything else that they'll do outside the gym when they go to these

classes when they you know they'll they'll move better feel more comfortable so my deal really when I'm working with them is understanding how to treat the whole person to then make them move better overall when they're not with me so that the right muscles that should be working well there's a lack of compensation and a lack of pain which is the same thing that you want with a pro athlete and then whatever environment that they're in, whether for an athlete, that's the game field, whether for the model, that's whatever, the next workout class you have to go to, or whether that's the shoot that they have to do, because they have to do some crazy moves often a lot of the times during these shoots, is that they'll be okay. Instead of it simply being a situation of, oh, I want

to work on my butt today, oh, I want to work on my, whatever, my abs today, et cetera, all that stuff will come together if you make them overall holistic athlete. So the same way in which athletes are trained along a spectrum, which is basically kind of, you know, that general acumen that they need, whether that be from their conditioning or base movement patterns, I apply those same things to, you know, these model clients, and then you see how quickly, how much better they become, but also how much less pain they have, because people just don't want to be fit, they want to feel good. Those are two totally different things. So they're a lot more similar than I think people

realize, and it's a lot more fun to sometimes work with models because, um, the amount that they have to work out is not one and done it's not like one-off sessions so a lot of the times it's a longitudinal journey a very similar to professional athletes you can track to an extent you know what's actually working and what is it and then kind of uh and then kind of move along from there so yeah i mean i think they're athletes i treat them like such um and to them it's really an empowering experience because a lot of the times uh they're either treated very harshly or coddled and my thing is is more of kind of uh more balanced yeah it's a little bit more of a balance and making them feel more empowered and making the gym really be a safe space for them where they can, you know, actualize these goals a bit better. And then they typically, you know, have more fun, I guess, when they got to show skin. Well, it makes sense. I mean, how do you, how do you evaluate someone like that up front? I mean, there's a few things that you can just look at off the jump. It's just like simple eye test. It's like how they're standing, how they do base movements, whether, you know, some people love using FMS, some people, whatever

whatever your screening system is that you have to go through by all means do it I have my own personal one that's a mix of both movements and kind of like performance markers So when a client comes to you New model

She says hey Joe I want to I want to take things to the next level Yeah What will you do in that first hour with her Or is it a much longer process And that like how do you think about Just okay I need to figure out Where this woman's at

Before I start you know Having her doing certain exercises Yeah yeah I'll sit, first thing, I'll sit down and just talk to them because there's a certain level of vulnerability that's associated with wanting to, especially when your body's on a world stage, wanting to make it better in whatever sense that means for them. So I need to understand that more than simply just, I want this to look different. I need to, I need to know a little bit more about your background. I need to know about your emotional state. I need to know about any health issues that you previously may have had. Like what do you want, right? That's a good story. Yeah, it's like what do you want? But, it's also more so about the why. So it's like you've got to dig a little bit deeper and oftentimes it's cathartic for them. I've had people cry. It's just that like you have to get them a little bit vulnerable because what I'm about to ask them to do in certain things that I'm going to ask them to engage in both in the gym and outside of the gym is going to be hard. So it has to be

an initial trust that's created there for best results. So that first 30 minutes really is like just getting to know each other and understanding their goals a little bit more and data aggregation. and then from there you get a little bit more into seeing how they move like every even with there's a little bit of a formal screen while have them do certain movements but then from there even through the first few workouts

every movement is really a screen without them knowing because you don't want like the researchers bias where they know they're being watched or they'll try to change what it is exactly that they're doing you actually want them a little bit tired to then see how their body moves under duress because they'll be more in a fatigue state often than not during workouts

or doing whatever hard sessions that they have going on. So that's kind of the process that I take it through. And then just asking them for their feedback. So it's like externally I see one thing, but internally, like, what exactly is that is going on? And some of the stuff that you hear is just crazy. And I don't think enough people take the time to actually listen.

It's like, whatever. If their glute supposed to be the main driver for an exercise, sometimes some people feel it in their calf. And it's just like, if I don't know that, if I don't ask, then there's nothing that I could do to hopefully rewire this slightly. to make it to like make it better um so that's how i kind of build up it's a it's a really open relationship that i have with them that allows best results well i mean it sounds like you've built an incredible program and obviously that's that's a credit to you and also all the clients who

continue to work with you um i read that you you said men should train more like women and women should train like men and i got a kick out of that actually because as i've gotten um older i've started stretching a lot more i've worried more about like things like pliability flexibility Yeah, yeah. Like, what does that mean to you? We unpack that. I mean, my thing is that it's just simply more that there should be a gender-agnostic approach to fitness and training. It seems, whether it's yoga or Pilates or stretching routines, that just simply seems to drive to a more feminine crowd. But then when it comes to, you know, whatever, the weightlifting or the more, I guess, industrious, for lack of a better term work, that seems to drive more masculine instead of really taking, you know, from a, I guess, this is a little bit oversized.

simplified, but from a biomotor skill approach, whether that's, you know, flexibility, endurance, strength, coordination, et cetera, you're taking more just a value system approach and understanding in evaluating from there and seeing how things mixed together to produce best results. And my deal is, is that, at least in my opinion, then if more, if we were to take that approach and then more women were to introduce activities that are seen oftentimes as more masculine, and for one, it's like weightlifting or getting stronger. everybody that I deal with lifts weights and you would think and I get

the thing is oftentimes on Instagram I often get comments from people are like oh do these girls even eat or do they do this or do they do that and it's crazy because they're often a lot stronger than people realize because you know I make sure of that but also of course yes they do eat

but just much the same way that athletes are different from the general pops so are they and then the same with men like men don't really take the time to think about the maintenance that comes associated with their bodies, whether that's, you know, whatever, not necessarily getting massages, but whatever, doing the yoga, doing the Pilates, doing more, doing just breathing drills, doing just more controlled, you know, supple-based work that could then come together

to make, you know, your strength or endurance or conditioning exercises a bit better. So it's just more of a gender-agnostic integrative approach that doesn't put people within specific domains based upon simply their sex, but instead based upon what it is they need to work on how much for you with training is it also like you know thinking about the other 22 hours of the day when you're not with them like talking about things like nutrition sleep hygiene all that stuff yeah yeah i mean that's the biggest thing to me my deal is is like how can i subconsciously prime them during the time that they spend with me to just be more concerned about their overall well-being and to feel more accountable not just to me but to themselves so the deal is is like you know

they come in i want to i want to you know i want to know how they're weak is going because the emotional toll of living in New York, an emotional just condition of the athlete is very important, you know, for the session. And then, you know, want to know how they're eating, want to know how they're sleeping, because that also has an effect on the workout. So that, the workout is another added stress. Like, I'm not trying to add stress on top of more stress. I'm trying to add a dose of eustress, which is basically a positive stress and an adaptation that will come from that, okay, to mitigate any sort of dish. stress. So I don't want a situation where they're basically living in distress. They see their

workout basically as cathartic, but there's nothing more than just another added stressor. And then they're cascading down a hole to where they're not actually feeling good or doing anything good. So the other 22, whatever hours are definitely more important, in my opinion, than the workout themselves for overall wellness. But the workout is a catalyst. I had a Harvard squash coach who would say happy athletes run fast. You know, it's kind of what you're talking about with the stress levels. So if you think about nutrition for your clients, right? Like, well, first of all, describe your diet because I know it's a little unique.

Yeah, I'm plant-based, plant-based gang, I like to say. Yeah, I don't eat meat. I cut it out a little bit starting towards the end of my college career and then after school, just kind of low-key accidentally. And then I got sucked in, so I was in too deep. But it was just, I just wanted, my thing is, it's like, there's a few ways about it. body just felt better but to me it was a mindful practice that's kind of grounded in like a low-key like asceticism that's basically I'm introducing a little bit of an added

stress because there's certain foods that I can't eat and I want to include more of others you say a mental stress yeah like a little bit of like it's a renunciation of sorts it's a little bit of like a I think when you become more mindful really is about anything one of those things is what you put into your body and to an extent it's that I don't want to put especially in a and a food system that exists like that is in America now I'm not talking about if you grow if I was the I would maybe I had a different eating strategy if I was a grow my cultivate my own kind of cattle or goats or whatever when it is a food system that is America's my deal is like I'm not trying to put those those things into my body so then

I'm more mindfully eating and I'm just trying to be more mindful about everyday habits. And it's a little bit, yeah, it's like a controlled renunciation to say, like, I'm going to take a step back out of this environment that doesn't take health and wellness into my own best interest, and I'm going to recapture my autonomy. And one of those daily reminders for me is my abstaining from, you know, is abstaining from meat. But I also just generally feel better and it's just, you know, more nutrient-dense foods. I won't say it is for anybody, but my, for everybody, but my concept of plant-based, gang is essentially that you a lot of people don't realize like you still eat meat and be part

of the gang like you're just in a different tier so my thing is it's more of an inclusion rather than exclusion so you can be all you could also be vegetarian or vegan and not be plant-based gang because you eat such a poor quality diet that does exclude meat but it's still processed unnatural foods you know that you know that aren't the best for you so my more is this situation of okay let's look at food is basically data and feedback for yourselves. I'm living this relatively high-stress lifestyle, and I'm also, you know, I need to be a vehicle for what it is that I preach. So every data point, for the most part, that I'm putting into my body

to get feedback to myself should be beneficial. And a lot of the times I've found is that a lot of those for me just happen to be more plant-based foods. And so, like, you know, you're a very fit guy. I think, like, at first impression, another dude who's athletic who eats a lot of meat would never guess that you don't have meat at all in your life. So walk me through, like, in the, you know, over the course of one day, what are you going to put into your body?

What I do? I mean, I typically wake up. I typically have, like, I just drink copious amounts of water. So I drink a couple bottles of water in the morning. It's so important. Yeah, it's crazy. Like, a lot of people just don't drink water. And then I try to do things to stimulate my digestion.

So, you know, whatever. I maybe have, like, a lemon ginger tea or I'll make some sort of fresh, press juice in my crib and then an hour or two later I'll probably have like a shake that I kind of make as well and then you're fairly light on caffeine yeah I try I've cut back caffeine a lot not that there's a lot of there are some health benefits to it and but sometimes there is like a don't complete me quote on this but some there's a there's a there's a little bit of a conflicting response for performance benefits sometimes I I think when it comes to creatine usage and caffeine usage.

So I cycle caffeine usage because I just wanted to often have best results when it comes to my performance endeavors. And then also because I don't want to have to rely on that to have energy throughout the day. I feel like I should be able to... Should have energy without caffeine. Yeah, I should be able to extrapolate food. Nutrients out of my food, literally calories, which are I just energy. And you were saying you take creatine or you just mean natural creatine?

No, I take creatine. I take, but not... I take like just maintenance levels. So it's just like one or two grams a day because it's, it is still an important, you know, substrate. And for lunch, I typically just have like a bowl of sorts. I have a whole bunch of vegetables in it, like a curry bowl or something. So some kind of a salad, vegetables, maybe some rice or...

Yeah, I don't abstain from... I don't abstain for it. I need a lot of calories. Yeah, carbs treat me very well. So I don't stay away from carbohydrates at all. And you burn a lot of calories in day, right? Yeah. I feel like on your whoop date, you've got a lot of calories to day.

Yeah, my daily strain and calcium. calories are high i mean sometimes they'll get up to like four or five thousand and that's not even and then if i have a long run or something that day which you'll add a thousand to two thousand calories extra calories burn and you're exercising almost every day well no because just the amount that i'm moving throughout the day half the time everything thinks i'm exercising when i'm not like if i because you're just so biking yeah or if i'm walking around so but you'll you'll bike from destination to destination yeah because i'm i'm just impatient to to be honest.

Like, I don't like walking at all. I mean, I'll do it, but it's like I just want to be able to go. Go, go, go. Yeah. Which I'm working on. Okay, so you've had launch anything like mid-afternoon snack or bars to do any of that stuff? No, I don't really do bars. I mean, I'll probably have like a chia pudding or something.

Chia seems very in these days. Yeah. It sounds like you were there early. Yeah, I got it at the ground floor. Yeah, I got it at the ground floor of chia. I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, I think seeds and probably mushrooms. mushrooms are super in right now, medicinal mushrooms. But yeah, and then from there, you know, I just have a standard dinner.

I'll probably get, you know, whatever, sweet potatoes, some sort of, you know, or some sort of rice or something. A lot of vegetables, dark leafy greens, making sure to chew my food, may have another shake in here and there. But yeah, I just keep it simple and just do my best to, like, a lot of times we just don't even eat enough, which is hard. So my deal is is just making sure I'm really getting enough. calories in throughout the day and do you take any supplements do you take any vitamins yeah i take supplements um i'm always toying around with new stuff i mean i've been taking corticeps as of late because it has some correlation of endurance and i'm training for this marathon um b12 zinc what else do i take i take so i take like you know i take vitamin c i take small doses of

copper hair in there for my for my joint and ligament now We've talked about this a little bit. You don't necessarily just take it every day forever. You'll cycle sometimes on and off. Yeah. The more active you are sometimes, the higher you are for kind of micronutrient deficiencies. So I'll make sure during higher phases of intense work that there's certain things that I'm taking. But yeah, I cycle on and off because I don't want my body to be, one, for any level to get out of whack.

Also, for my body to have to rely on these. supplements for the overall intake of them. How about for sleep? Do you ever take like magnesium, melatonin? You travel out, you ever take a drug like Ambien? I don't, I haven't take Ambien. I do, for sleep, I typically, I'm a fan of this CBD oil from mineral health that I take. I take magnesium bisglycinate.

Yeah. But I typically sleep, I'd sleep pretty well, which is good. Yeah, I think the key with the sleep stuff is to be, if you're going to take it, like definitely cycle. on and all because you don't want to build up with dependence on that i talked to all my guests about uh about sleep supplements um now let's talk for a minute about your whoop data yeah so you've been on whoop for what's been about a year or so yeah yeah yeah and one thing that's fascinating uh to me about your data is how consistently green you are like you have you have like an incredible rate of recovery which is something that we look at as a as a marker for fitness yeah so talk

about you know how you've used whoop to date and yeah for sure sometimes i'm surprised i'm typically fairly consistent in the yellow and green even with my crazy schedules uh my body as of late i think is adapting adapting adapting to my changes in sleep and me getting more hours which i think is actually throwing me off a little bit but um because your body's now even more rested yeah but i think it's just a little confused but i need to spend but i but i need to do it like i have to sleep i mean the other day i got i got a nine i got a 91 and this is the high I got I got a night and I think honestly because I was sleeping and I was relieved that I was back on 91% sleep performance I got a 9 no recovery I got a 91 and 97 wow with all three days

my HIV was 200 plus Jesus I was like feeling pretty good but uh people are gonna drool over your your whoops I tried to um I mean yeah I use the data just basically to to one it gives me a lot of insight into actual strain I'm putting on my body yeah um I I also find it very insightful to our conception of strain versus what actually is strain because there are times that I'm either doing work or just trying to answer emails or running around briefly and my heart rate is off the charts and oftentimes I think we forget to take the time to check in with ourselves during the day and there's some days I'm like I'm always getting to analyzing elevated heart rate notification even though I'm not doing a workout.

Yeah. And I think that's a little bit sometimes and there's still, like, you know, whatever, certain hormones and bodily responses that are released during these times of, you know, an exacerbated state. So I find that fascinating. And it often reminds me to put in, my dad will always tell me, he'd like, and it'll always boggle my mind, even from a young age, because I was a relatively anxious kid. I'm probably still a little anxious. But he's like, you have to find, even if it's just 10 minutes, you have to find 10 minutes every day just to sit down and just relax. Sit down and relax. He's always told me that. And it seems that, you know, he

knew what he was talking about with, you know, my whoop data. And then it helps me track my workout, see how long it takes from certain runs to be able to bounce back. I use it as well if I'm doing, you know, sometimes doing the track workouts to see, you know, my heart rate reserve and how the heart rate spikes are looking during, you know, post-workout, you know, between each rest period. And yeah, it just really just keeps me, it keeps me on top of myself. It lets me see how certain changes in my environment are affecting me, especially when I'm traveling through different time zones. So I always like to say, you know,

never be hindered by data, but just let it amplify the efforts it is that you're doing, but also use it to just to be more mindful about, you know, what it is and what you're doing. And whoops definitely, definitely help me in that way. And it's, you know, it's woken me up just to the science behind everything, but also just the importance of taking a holistic view of your day and not just looking at the workouts,

but, you know, looking at your sleep, looking at your disturbances during, seeing what your different cycles are, I've started to dream again, which is nice. Because I was sleeping so little, I wasn't dreaming. So I'm finally dreaming again. But yeah. For our audience, talk about that phenomenon because...

Yeah, so it's like... It's interesting. Yeah, it's like basically a difference between REM and kind of slow wave sleep. Nobody completely knows, I guess, what REM is. So slow wave is a little bit... That's basically where your body... That's where you get that big hit. I'm pretty sure of, like, your growth hormone, right?

So that's where your body recovers. But my mind, some think like REM is when you dream, but also your brain can consolidate thoughts a little bit better. It kind of flushes out. So I wasn't really hitting REM sleep. So maybe it was a situation of like just my mind wasn't recovering as best as it could be and the impact that it possibly could be having on my nervous system. I typically do see when I have what I have REM sleep, higher REM sleep or higher recovery, it's typically when I haven't, when I've gotten enough sleep. I haven't eaten too soon before bed because there's a weird relationship that I've been looking at between like your stomach digestion and HRV which is actually very very interesting and then yeah when I typically get more REM sleep I typically feel a bit better which is which is so I've been really been working on that but sometimes the time that I says that I need in bed I'm like I get it because every day I probably have a daily strain of like 20 it's like your daily strain today is higher than that. than most whoop users, I'm like, thanks, guys, I know. But yeah, I mean, I'm just being focused on getting more sleep, really setting that bedtime, you know, tracking my daddy here and there, and just doing anything that I can

and to really see how I can improve my HRV. And for you working with other clients, has whoop been beneficial there at all? Yeah, I mean, I've seen basically, sometimes you just basically want to create workouts based upon the whoop data, which I've been able to do with a couple runners that I've worked with. But it also gets them just more aware of, even if they were only wearing it for like three to five days just so they can get insight,

it gets them just more aware of certain strategies that they could put in their day and how much strain they're actually putting on their body, which is important. You know, one thing we always wanted to do is develop this effectively data platform where coaches and trainers could just interact more effectively with individuals. and this idea that, you know, a lot of what you describe in working with models or pro athletes

where, you know, you're not just with them for an hour, but you're trying to build like an overall lifestyle or point of view. Yeah. We're trying to do that from a data standpoint as well where you're connecting those dots. You're creating those bridges. Generally speaking, how would you, what advice, excuse me, would you give to people who are about to go, you know, find a trainer to do personal training? Like, how does someone evaluate whether or not they,

got a good personal trainer yeah it's a good question um at the end of day are you comfortable with them are they helping you meet your health goals um are they are they accountable are you accountable um and then it's just like i guess you can check their references you really but it's really if you feel comfortable like are they are they in the service of you because it's a service industry so if they're really if they're really all about and they're just giving you cookie cutter stuff and they're not really invested in you long term then they may not be they may not be best for you but it's really somebody that's constantly updating evaluating and creating benchmarks for you to make best success and also that you feel

comfortable with and that you're seeing other benefits into your daily life as well where can where can people find you if they want to reach out to you and Instagram's always the easiest it's just at Ocho system you know Joeholder info will be up very soon as well have a newsletter coming out but if you just want to keep up with me. I try to answer as many questions I can over on Instagram. Joe, thanks for doing this. Yeah, this is fun. Appreciate you.

Thanks to Joe for coming on. You can expect to see a lot more of him in the weeks ahead in our in the green feature across whoop.com and our social media channels. If you're not already a member, you can join the whoop community now for as low as $18 a month. We'll provide you with 24-7 access to your biometric data as well as

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