 Welcome everybody then to the very first session, our first guest of the School of Calisthenics podcast live and if you've got any questions for Brian Keane who is going to be the first guest then put them in the comments below. I'm going to get him on now. Here he is, my man. How are you absolutely buzzing for this and for you to kick things off for us. We've got a lot of people signing in saying hello and waving hello. I'm going to try and do a decent job of keeping an eye on comments for questions. The idea about the podcast live is that we want as much interaction with give people the chance to bring the podcast to life. So if people have got specific questions for Brian put them in the comments and we will try and get through obviously as many of those as possible. When we do the podcast itself obviously that is an interview and a conversation with the guests but we don't get to or the listeners don't get to see us and they don't get to ask you those questions on the who for on the fly but that's the opportunity for people today. So Brian, firstly thank you for joining us. My pleasure. I was listening to you and Tim there earlier before you came on. I'm like oh my background is so boring compared to years. You've got this beautiful character in the background and Tim's got this little magic thing going on in the background. I'm like oh man my books are so boring. So one shout out to do is Red Light Rising. They sponsor our podcast and they're sponsoring the podcast live event today. So that Red Light that is in the corner that's Red Light Therapy and those guys are sponsoring the podcast. Thank you to them for obviously sponsoring making those. Bridget, you two look like brothers. Yeah you've got the memo about the hat. I know yeah that's it the hat. We've been talking about beers for those that are watching them like we've been doing our beer teams. I tried to tidy up a little bit for you Brian. I didn't dimension and I'm like oh I'll do it tomorrow. I'm like locked out I forgot. But yes it's so far we're getting comments about the beer rather than necessarily... That's it I just the power of us talking about beers. I wanted to just firstly then for just really sort of really really quickly your little like your back up to very short snippet background of you like you know you're an author you've written a few books and you've done some amazing challenges and stuff as well. You're what I wanted to sort of get into a little bit is the mindset stuff and then a little bit around the sort of fitness and nutrition. There's some questions I've got for you personally. But yeah give us a little bit of a background on to just a little bit of a listen in. Yeah so just a super good background. Former primary school teacher turned personal trainer, fitness person and then over the space of oh the last six years I've gone from being one of those. I'm still one of those selfie Instagram twats but I'm less of so one of those. You're a TikTok mom now. Now I'm like I'm like all about the shirtless selfies on TikTok. I'm like let's throw this TikTok. But yeah so over the last few years I went from competing in bodybuilding professional fitness modeling traveling around into ultra endurance so now I do things like marathon to sob. I ran to the Arctic last year. I ran 100 mile ultra marathon in February and I was training for Ironman Triathlon before the lockdown and before everything got cancelled and over the last few years I moved my business online and now I work with people to get in shape in either GEA which is the sport specific in Ireland, health and fitness normal weight loss muscle building or consulting people on their fitness business online and over the couple of years I wrote a few books and yeah and now I just chill out really and train and work out and like try and do handstand put like stuff when I can and like oh I need to do more of what the labs are doing but that's that's another story for another day or I'm like right human flag human flag that's that's what I said. I said after the Arctic I feel so bad like because I said after the Arctic I'm like right human flag I'm like I'm going to fucking pick from Tim I'm open I'm allowed to wear it's Instagram live and that's yeah so I was like Tim and Jack I'm going to pick the brain give human flag and I'm like I went to the shiny object thing over here and I went do something else so I'm coming back to it. When you were on the podcast it was before you'd done the Arctic I think and you were going to you were going to come to Nottingham for the event that we were going to do today that was before Corona sort of put that to bed or made us take it online and yes we talked about the human flag we made we'll we will we will hook that up for sure because you know Ben Shepard from Good Morning TV and Ninja Warrior yeah he came to one of our first he came to one of our early workshops a couple of years ago and he loves like with the ninja warrior stuff he loves it and he's got handstand human flag on his radar as well and I was like look we need to we need to like we need to like hook these things up and actually one thing would be great would be like showing that sort of journey and doing some I've done some with Will Greenwood you know the um England will be Will Greenwood yeah I saw that I saw that we do some Instagram live women like just doing some like coaching on the hoove actually yeah it's cool for people to see but also like it's interesting to see that that journey and how that goes on it's such an ego thing though isn't it I'm like I'm like this serves no function in my life I run ultra marathons I do triathlon I'm like it serves no purpose but I'm like I still want to be able to do it and just be like going up to the side of the bar and just flaking up on the side so um yeah well but from from a mindset perspective I want to talk to you one of the things I want to talk to you about first is um we've got and we've got some questions about ultra running which is good but one of the things is that for you to go right I'm gonna you've done all these amazing things and then go right I'm gonna do I'm gonna try to human flag but from a mindset perspective when you first try and do it you're gonna feel horrible you're gonna feel terrible you're gonna feel weak it's gonna like reduce you to like going from I'm good at training I'm strong and I can do this and then you go into this position it's like oh man that feels impossible if you think of um Ross Endsley we did we did this like we did that we did a session with him um and he's a beast so actually 45 minutes later he held a human flag for himself but when we first the first thing we showed him he was like man this was for him nails like he reduced him initially until his body figured it out it reduced him to a normal person he was just like me and you but then 45 minutes later but that's because he's that's because he's a beast so it will it will be good to um we always we talk about it like calisthenics when you test when you try something out that you've never done before it definitely like humbles you and you learn I think you learn a lot about yourself during those phases of going like I'm gonna try this thing that feels impossible the whole redefining possible for us and and go in I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of expose myself to that feeling of weakness but it's not just physical but it's also mental um and then challenge up and then go through that so from a you know you've you've done a number of challenges just from this mindset perspective and um what are the titles of your um of your books on mindset so uh the fitness mindset was the first one and then rewire your mindset was the last one the latest one that the rewire your mindset is is all about mindset uh the fitness element obviously to it as well um but yeah the rewire your mindset feedback on that one particularly even though the first book was a multi-time bestseller for because it just did really well this book on a lot deeper so the people that have read it have been like oh my god um so the feedback's been incredible but again I've lived a lot of it so I think I've documenting that down in a book has probably been the reason that it's helped people yeah yeah so from a um from a mindset perspective how would you like what some of the things that you've learned the most from some of those challenges and things that you've done um well similar to what you're there Jacko like it's funny because I see a couple of questions coming in ultra running questions below but like I'm very vocal on my channel how much I hate running um like like I hate it I don't enjoy it at all um but it's not the reason why I do it so like people that don't put anyone that's on here I generally don't look like an ultra runner for the most part you know and I'm probably putting that lightly in terms of how tall are you five eight like I'm five eight and yeah yeah yeah I feel like a hobbit like little short arms but like you know yeah yeah I'm like turn this side make seven figures five look tall wear up platforms um but yeah so I'm not built like an ultra runner so I don't find running easy at all so when even when you're saying about the human flag I still don't find running easy um as even as I get better with it it's still not easy apparently because I don't enjoy it at all um like I love weight training I love calisthenics work body weight work I love crossfit workouts I love anything in that realm but I don't enjoy running so what I get so much from either the challenges and to be honest jack go as big as they marathon the sob was which is six back-to-back marathons through the sahara desert self-sufficient for anyone unfamiliar with it or the air take which was 230 kilometers through the air take they were difficult for obvious reasons but the training was just as difficult because it's mind numbing to jump on a treadmill for 30 kilometers on a training day like it just it just sucks your soul like but because of that you mindset wise and mentally it makes everything else feel so much easier and the reason it's funny because the reason I sign up for say for example marathon to solve 2018 air take was just 2019 and around 100 mile ultra marathon in february of this year and the reason I signed up to those three is because I wasn't sure if I could complete all three like before I signed up like I don't know if I can run six back-to-back marathons and then I said I don't know if I can run through the air take and then I had the hundred miler I'm like I don't know if I can run 100 mile it took me 26 and a half hours I was trying to do it in 24 it wasn't going that way when I did it it was like right no you're not making this in 24 and so I probably ended up going back and doing 100 miler and trying to do it in 24 hours but it was because I have to set a big goal as I can't get motivated to train like I won't train for a marathon I won't like I know I can run a marathon so I want to train first so I have to set a goal that scares me a little bit and forces me to train because I'm like well it particularly with the Sahara in the air take but this is relative to anybody I'm like if I don't train I could die in these places you know I'm not going to die doing 100 miles but I also had to set a goal for myself and I wanted to finish it so the mindset side of that alone breaks down into everything because like what you set a goal and what I love about ultra endurance more so than I used to do bodybuilding of course is the goal is so big in terms of the physical distance you have to cover so for example six back-to-back marathons is 250 kilometers you know and you have to chunk that down in order to be able to hit that target at all I'm like you can't I pyramid prioritization I was like there was no point worrying about running I by the way when I signed up for marathons I never ran a marathon I never ran it was the first marathon I signed up for and so when I started to break it down I'm like well I need to be able to run one marathon I'm like if I can't run one there's no point worrying about six so it forces you to break down goals into smaller component parts and what that does is it makes everything else so much easier so when you're faced with a business goal or a life goal or relationship goal it allows you to kind of break it down into smaller component parts and kind of what you need to do right now it also is really making you focus on the present moments like you know focus what can I do now that's going to help me hit the same goal and then you just do that and you just do that repeatedly until you know whatever tag you set for yourself and it doesn't have to be you know we spoke about this the last time I was on it doesn't have to be marathon to sob that's somebody else's 10k run or that's somebody else's handstand you know handstand you know it's relevant to the person and I think that is what it gave me and then all I do then my channels and my books etc is like break that down and show what how it's applicable for for my audience which is more weight loss fat loss toning up building muscle etc even though I'm a bit of an endurance audience it's not pure calisthenics it's just people that enjoy fitness and I'm like it's the same thing the same clues for success are applicable whether you're running six back-to-back marathon in the Sahara or whether you're trying to do a handstand push-up it's it's the same thing you take the hold and you down to the smaller component parts I know you do this really well you know when you're teaching in the school like it's this is what you need to be able to do in order to do this and it's that same thing and then you go and set yourself yeah I think that gives you a what what those what that does it gives you a process that you can then and a roadmap that you can then follow and that you know that you've got and that gives us confidence to go I mean what you've you've gone through that I just want to unpack a few of the things you went you went through there and that there's so much there's so much in that and one thing I wanted to say at the start was I remember we went the first time we ever met I was like this guy like the energy that you bring into just like your your life you're there you're just how you your demeanor um yeah I find infectious and I I'm like I'd always I'd love to I'd love like a webcam on you I want to see what I'm like sunday night and nine o'clock what are you like are you still are you still I'm in bed sunday at nine o'clock day I go I'm one of those people I'm like I'm up at four or five Monday morning I'm in bed at nine that'd be the most boring webcam of all time it's like one of those big brother green screens on my bed yeah that makes me feel a little bit that makes me I'd love to be um I don't know I guess some people depending on how much like I have I'm sometimes like super like but then other times I'm like anyway but um I've got a question later that to ask you in a second but um for that mindset side of things like I think it the fact that you said then it was like your first ever marathon was the first one of the like you can't you need to you need a goal that like scares you a little bit like that tells that tells you something about yourself your personality your mindset and I think that by that you've got a very good awareness like self-awareness of what that's like and therefore you can then choose the right goals and things um for you and you said it very well that like for a lot of people their goal or their thing that scares them might be just like the first pull-up or whatever it matter and I like the fact that you talk about um these things that you learn from a fitness perspective about yourself and your mindset that you can apply them to your business like you with the stuff of your or but that could go into family life or relationship or whatever it may may be as well there's so much to be learned from the tool of fitness training whatever you want to call it but how that then teaches us stuff about ourselves our mindset and how we can use that to be positive in lots of other areas um of life I think that that's that they're they're such good messages for people to hear time and time and time um again and the fact that you're talking about breaking those things down as I said like forming that into a place I think that is that is a takeaway message like a little bit of gold that people can can take straight away but just play devil's advocate on that as well jackal because sometimes when I say that like one of the things that normally I won't say connects with people but definitely people notice similar to what you said there is that I set goals that are big for myself because it motivates me and the reason I do that is down to a character flaw that I identified because when I talk about this in the book I talk about this in my podcast is I regularly signed up for things and and I had to use that well why was I signing up to this marathon or this show or this thing over here and I wasn't doing it and what I found was I unless I got excited or into that point where I was afraid to do something I wasn't motivated enough to train for it or to do it in general so that's actually a character flaw based on I can't sign up for 10k train for get motivated I struggled with motivation on site if the goal is too small for me so that's everyone falls somewhere different on that spectrum I never hear me and think oh I need to set a big massive goal that I'm afraid of I'm like that might work for you but you might be just as motivated setting a goal that is something you'd like to do so everyone falls slightly different on that spectrum and it's worth knowing that because I never able to hear me and go well that's what I need to do because you might fall somewhere else on that spectrum so yeah me and me and Tim had a really good chat like each so we tend to be like a bit of a like what was the at the end of the year like a podcast about like goals and that sort of stuff like what you did had set for the year or this that the other and there was it was last year for Tim he was like he'd set stuff before that actually was stressing him out when he wasn't achieving them and it was actually it was actually being detrimental but that's just part of that process of going that's then I see that as a positive thing you go during that you've learned that this applies to you and I think that one of the things that people don't do enough is to like sit down like with your notebook your school class notebook but sit down and take some time out of your day to like actually self-reflect around like what is what works for you what things do you like and what like you said what motivates you and what what doesn't and use the things trying to I've done a few podcasts recently where talking about things not necessarily being like good or bad like just going that was an experience what did I learn from it and what did I learn from it about myself and it's not about being selfish it's like we need to do a little bit of that because if you start to understand yourself better you can apply yourself better in this world then you're going to be more a better positive effect on other people and I just think that in this I it's every you're I'm sure you'll be the same I've seen you know every spare minute now you're crushing it on TikTok but it's so easy to fill your whole day from 4 a.m when you get up to 8 o'clock at night when you go to bed that with we can fill that if we want to constantly with having had zero time spent thinking about how am I doing and that's also better um so just just an encouragement to people I want to but whilst you were talking about the ultra stuff I wanted to get we've got some questions so George uh pitty gal I'm terrible at pronouncing it all the worse that I hate pronouncing names I'm like I'm like Irish accent is fine so I'll stick with George I think I'm pretty sure I know George I think he's um is a member in our virtual customers gone on my membership with us so um obviously we'll answer we'll ask his question no no no no um there's no prejudice here so um how do you combine your training for endurance along with your conditioning weight training work is it more about periodizing for certain goals or do you try to keep on top of all of it great question great question um yeah it's a combination of both so in when I'm training I don't I normally have one or two events of our training for a per year and they're like the main focal points of my training so for example prior to COVID it was the 100 mile in February and then it was Ironman in June which was supposed to be the end of this month um like next weekend so that was supposed to be that that that kind of the split on the training meaning that all my conditioning and gym work I I still do all my normal weight training all my normal body weight work all my normal split and then if I'm training for an event I just add it on top which means that I need to really go to my nutrition and my recovery because my training volume goes way way up so so you didn't cut back on any of that any of your other uh unless I listen to my body I'll do it very intuitively like if I'm doing say like you know 100 kilometer a week or 150 kilometer a week where I'm doing a lot of running and my body's really sore I'll scale back a little bit just to kind of give myself the time um but no generally like I I do a lot of high focused runs so probably one of the mistakes I made for the last 100 miler was I didn't do enough distance like I for 80 miles jackal I was fucking flying like I finished in the top 10 in that race and like I was I was flying yeah yeah so I did really well for a while for a while and also you took twice as many steps as anybody else but that's it like I'm like I'm like this little like on my little short legs my little hobbit legs but you see the what happened to me was at 80 miles I was like flying I was perfect at 80 miles how long how long was that to 80 miles so at 80 miles roughly in terms of the this in terms of duration well that that would be 80 miles I mean so I mean yeah time yeah so the time uh what was that 80 miles I was asked oh I was on track to make 24 hours so it must have been around 20 hours um it must have been around 20 hours I can't remember it off the top of my head but I'm stopping doing that and so what I did was I so the course I did was a 2.2 mile loop so it was you just go for 2.2 miles for 100 miles and I what I did was every 25 miles I took a 25 minute break to eat and then I went again but you see where I picked up time is on 100 milers some people would sleep or I don't sleep I just keep going straight through and so that's where I picked up the time and so I was in like 30 place 30 first or 30 second on mile 50 and then I jumped up to the top 10 from that time because I was just going at the same pace my mile 5 pace was the same as my mile 75 pace but once I hit 80 miles my body just broke like everything like my knees my hips everything so I think one of the mistakes of my training to bring it back to the question was I did a lot of high focus training so a lot of 10 kilometer runs a lot of 20 kilometer runs fast so I was doing them quickly so I was quite good up to 80 miles but then my body just broke it literally just went like so I think on feedback from that if I was preparing for another 100 miler I would do some more longer runs I don't like doing junk miles you know a lot of ultra marathon runners do a lot of junk miles whether just you know hitting the miles just to get them done I think was that junk yeah junk yeah junk miles yeah so like junk miles where I don't do a lot of that like I could I could do a 50 mile week but it's very high quality it's interval it's sprint it's fast and that's the way I train so that's also one of the reasons I kind of keep a lot of my size and also my calories go up like I'll put my calories right up if I'm training a lot so I don't really lose that much size when I'm preparing for an ultra so how my training will look is if I'm training for an ultra I'm running every training day and if I'm not I back right off like well like in the in the Arctic I you know I was off for six months I tore my Achilles so I couldn't run for six months anyway so but even structurally I'll stop running for a month six weeks after completely partly for my head because I hate running and I don't the target and hit the goal but also from body it kind of gives me that periodization of backing off and then I'll do more strength work and more bodybuilding work that I enjoy or more body weight work that I enjoy and that just keeps me kind of mentally fresh like I train because I love it and then I run because I have an event that I'm training for so it's kind of like trying to find that sweet spot between the two that's what I do what I advise the dog with what I do by the way so what I do is similar to what you say you know it depends on the person what's your start yeah what goal what you enjoy but that's what I personally yeah you've worked you've what it goes back to that same cup point it's a really nice point to come back to you've worked out what works for you both physically but also they're both and mentally like it's what you like and what keeps you fresh and what you can manage but at the same time you're being sensible in that you said that you you do listen to your body and listening to your body may be changing the amount of volume that you do and tweaking that week and also changing your nutritional strategy so that you are fueling for that so rather than just going more is like because there's junk miles like more is not always more no just when you say when you say like fast what's your just a bit of context of like if you're doing like so I for me like a five and 10k time what's what's like it what's fast for you well I would it would vary I wouldn't do that many five k's but my 10k I would always run like 150 minutes and so 45 and 50 minutes depending on the day and what's your what's your like PB for 10k oh 45 something yeah 45 it's fine like it's not there's way faster runners than me and I'm not a gifted runner by any stretch like if you can keep that going yes and the thing is those will be in consecutive days I do a lot of consecutive runs so I could do I could do 10 or 20 kilometers five days in a row so that's that's how my training yeah yeah I'm thinking on Thursday we went out for a walk in the Peak District for my wife's birthday and I was sore as anything like we were out for four and we did like one little peak we're out for four and a half hours and like the next day I'm sore as anything like I couldn't even didn't even want to do like a body weight squat or anything else and like I've done a like I could I think the furthest I've done a half marathon not as an organized event like just actually just did one and it just that that that total volume of work just like ruined my body for like as in you know like you're sending hips your knees and everything and like being able to like I think I think I've done a 42 minute 10k but I'm like and I'm done for a week yeah the the ability to be able to back those things up I think is very very very interesting um and it's an interesting as you said like your but the thing is it's an adaptive adaptation you know this with calisthenics like your body adapts like as you one of the things I always tell people as it becomes your new normal like and never to jump into what I do or what somebody else does like when I'm training for an event I'm training for it and my entire week is structured around doing five sessions or six sessions with this amount of speed for this distance and your body becomes accustomed you didn't jump there overnight it's the same as going right here's your human flag it's like that's not that no one ever like it takes the progression of building up and so it's always worth keeping in mind that when you know just because I know there's a couple of volts runners are coming here always have your baseline as your starting point and then build upon that because the reason you'd be so after going fast for 10k but that's a fast 10k is your body hasn't adapted to it either like if I go out and run you know 30 kilometers after not having ran for six weeks I can't walk for two days so you know and it's just your your body will adapt to it but you have to kind of gradually build as well yeah there was so there was a question when you were talking about your training there's a question um talking about what does your leg work what's your leg training look like as an ultra runner it's probably two it sounds like there's potentially two parts because you've got your what you would just do as you say normally and then do you do anything different for your legs for I think that's something about like pistol squats yeah the only if I don't do I don't do pistol squats I do a lot of unilateral work though if I'm training for um if I'm training for an event or I've got an ultra marathon coming up I'll do a lot of single leg work so um not so much pistol squats but I'll do work off of one leg so that I'll do um jumps from one side or off a box on a single leg more because depending on the course like I'll always reverse my training based on the course so because the last one was relatively flat it was in Nevada desert but it was relatively flat I did a little bit of work on stability just because it'd be rocks and gravel but it wasn't too bad whereas when I did say marathon to solve which was six back to back marathons I did massive volume on my legs like I was doing 300 400 five rep workouts on squats and lunges and then I would go run because I had to condition my legs to be able to do multi-day work so the strategy was there when I when I'm training for the air take I did loads of stuff on lunges I didn't go so many lunges because when you're running through the ice or running through the snow you can drop off very fast and that can lead to injury so I've got a lot of work that requires a movement path that were lunges overhead normal weighted body weight the whole lot and so I'll always on the course or based on what I'm training for I will reverse like you know my my background strength and conditioning code yeah I'll reverse my strength and conditioning program based on whatever it is that I'm training for so that's kind of what those last three events look like yeah and those because one of the questions that he asked the follow-up question as an ultra runner about pistol squats versus bar squats but just to if I paraphrase that based on what he said a little bit or tweak it a little bit of going is that I like the concept of you being quite specific about the terrain and then like making that applicable and building up like what I said like backing running sessions up day after day but almost using like your low body work to back to allow yourself to do that so I probably wouldn't at the moment if I've done pistol squats or some shrimp squats or done some low body work on like Monday I wouldn't think about backing that up on Tuesday because I'm thinking more about like just adaptation come back when I'm fresher rather than rather than if it was because I'm not training for not ultimatum but what I'm hearing is that actually you can use some of your low body training to actually help with what you're trying to achieve from your ultra run scenario is the is the work that you're doing to set versus bar squats is it like quite high volume high reps no weight or depends on the phase and it depends on the phase so I right now like prior to lockdown because I was training for Ironman I was doing a lot of overhead squats and so my whole program was based on overhead squats just because I was trying to keep the range of motion obviously for the swim a lot of different stuff that would have potentially helped and but it still keeps the conditioning in my legs so I'll change it based on some of it by feel if I'm being honest like sometimes I'm like I'm by feel where I'm like I need to do some strength work I felt really weak on these runs all week I actually need to do some strength work here and or conditioning like you know where I'm like my legs where my mind is good my body is good but my legs just aren't conditioned enough I'm like right I need more high volume work so I'll listen to my body based on that and then I'll tweak my training whether I'm doing you know single leg squats pistol squats barbell front squats whatever it is the rep ranges the volume the rest it will all tweak based on how I'm feeling and based on what I'm trying to do based on what it is that I'm training for and then so if it lunges like just take lunges as an example if you were wanting to do like if you wanted to classify that as like high volume because you wanted more of that conditioning work what how high what would high you know for some people more than 10 reps is high volume you know I would do probably 25 reps I would do like four sets of 25 which would be like a hundred reps set um like 100 reps over four sets yeah so that would be for me would be relatively moderate to high like I can go higher than that and I have gone higher than that um but that would be kind of um kind of where I'd have that sweet spot in terms of what I would consider high volume do um is there much much plyometric work done um I know for like when I played rugby we did a lot but more for sort of um sprinting but just the idea of getting that that contact time really really efficient with the ankle like is that and maybe low level stuff or not if I wasn't bringing any treating injuries or background in I would do loads of plyometric um but my body can't handle it like I've had three knee surgeries so my body isn't good with plyometrics like my knee still flares up if I do box jumps and I'll stick back to them in but I I can't do a day of box jumps even three or four sets unless I have deep tissue booked in for later today because my knee will just swell um so I don't even though I recommend it to a lot of people who are in similar boat but I don't do it myself for you know pre-existing injuries yeah let's um last couple of um whilst we're on the ultras there's some of those say Donald Rogers how long out from ultras do you start training uh depends on the ultra like depends on the ultra 100% like um if I was training for example for anything 50 miles or under a couple of few weeks um and anything that's 100 miles or over or consecutive days I would give myself at least three months um ideally six just so that I can ease in so I don't have to like ramp things up too fast cool um and again comes back to knowing what some of that's going to be based on your training background now like that's we think one of the things with like questions is we ask we ask like me is like if I was asking your question I ask you a question that's very specific to me and you need to know you give like the answer in the context of yourself and the the wider thing is yours it's like it depends because yeah yeah your background you know someone else might be able to do less than that someone might need more than that and so it comes back around to knowing where we're ourselves um oh well so in the end is your training for ultras is it your main aim just to complete complete it for self-satisfaction or to be genuinely competitive he was top 10 right here after 80 miles it's a good question um completion is normally my goal um and that 100 miler I didn't care at all about the results it was all about finishing the 100 miles and ideally I was trying to do in the 24 hours um but that didn't happen it just didn't go that way you know it's that the nature of the beast with an ultramarathon uh it depends like the thing is when I started them they're all about completion but as you get better your your bar moves higher you know this like you know when you go from rugby to calisthenics you're like oh I'm good at these I can get better at this and then you're like well I wanted to be able to do this move so as you get more confident and do it more your goals change so when I did marathon to stop I was like I just need to not die I just need to finish this you know um but now when I'm looking at the 100 miler I'm like right like my plan I have a couple of things depends on how Kobe goes but if I do 100 miler again I'm like I want to do it in 24 hours now if that places me in the top five great but my goal I'm never going to work to a place I'm like I know control over placing but I can't work to I want to hit it within 24 hours which is still a goal of mine um because it just didn't happen on the first go round so I'll go back and I'll attempt it again so it depends like at the beginning that's what it was for self satisfaction but then as you get better your bar moves yeah yeah oh I think that depending on trending on mindset in person I think of um it's interesting you're saying about like running you know when you said about running on a treadmill just being like mind numbingly boring when I like I retired from rugby in 2013 with a head injury and it took me a year to be able to run without getting a headache um and when I could get back to running I wanted to be able to run but I was so bad at running at that point I remember um my wife was uh she used to play football and she was pretty she's she's a good runner and so it was even more depressed it's nothing worse than just getting beaten by your wife everything isn't it so that was I had that to deal with as well but um I remember going on the treadmill I was never a big fan of treadmills anyway but I tried to do 5k on the treadmill and I stopped after about 30 seconds because just I just couldn't deal with it mentally um but when I got to the point of like I um it just makes me think of going to go into park run do my 30d first park where you're like okay yeah this is for next one I'm at the front I'm like yeah yeah completely you're just yells the the band over your head you're like oh if I regardless of whether this is a little bit stupid but this is what I know what I'm like regardless of whether I've trained for it or not if I randomly go and turn up at park run I'm there for a pb yeah that's yeah but um there was a question about just this is and they were just in some mindset stuff so there's a question from um splonking whoosh um that's a great handle if you hate running what do you do to distract yourself while you're doing it I've got and I've got a question that I want to sort of mix in with this that um I put out a post yesterday about um I just finished training and I was feeling I was I was I was feeling really good about myself I was feeling it physically feeling good mentally feeling good and I was being very grateful practicing some gratitude of I'm just appreciating that and my mind moved to a place of like how do I create how do I create this feeling when I'm not feeling good that makes sense like my challenge to myself was how do I when I'm when things in life are not going well and when I'm not feeling happy how do I still manage to like appreciate and get into that type of of headspace so it's a it's a mindset question around like when you're not feeling it where do we go with our mindsets try in and flip that on its head um the same with that so that like that specific example like you're running and you're not feeling it like how do you how do you got any tips for people on that I'm going to give you the answer and then I'm going to dissect it because the answer is you just do it like that that's that's the answer um but I am I am going to dissect that because it's not as straightforward that it's as simple as that but it's not as easy it's not as easy as that um one of the course I live by is like one of my mentors used to always tell me that successful people do what they have to do whether they feel like it or not I'm like that that's been tattooed on my brain and when I think of running I've never and I can say this wholeheartedly Jacko I've never had a day that I've looked forward to running ever like I just don't enjoy it so that's why I get so much from it because every day I run it forces me to do something I don't want to do so what I do is I call them like the anchors of self-discipline so they're in the book I talk about them on the podcast for free the whole lot so I do two things every day that I don't want to do one is I get up early I'm not a morning person right we joked earlier I'm not I'm a nice out by nature if you just left me to my default I like I get up every day at four or five a.m. and I would be closer going to bed at that time like if you just if you left me to my own devices I'm way closer to a nice out so I force myself to get up I'm loving even more right I'm loving even more I'm loving even more I love it yeah yes it's it's it's the gods honest truth and it's the same as running so I try and anchor my day in both of those things so it forces me to do things that I don't want to do so when you get into that habit it makes everything else so much easier like difficult conversations work tasks everything is so much easier because you're like right I have to do this thing over here I don't fucking care how I feel I just have to go do it and you're conditioning yourself by doing that every day like it's like the analogy I use is like laying bricks know when you're building a wall like anytime I ever get overwhelmed by a goal and I'm like well the great wall of China started with a brick on top of another brick on top of another brick until there's a great wall of China so it's talking about we did said earlier you're breaking things down and if you're trying to get better at doing things that you know you have to do you break that down you do what can I do today that's going to help me build a little bit of self-discipline so I do the things I have to do whether I feel like it or not so to tie it back to the running for example what I do on runs is I do a little bit of mindset tricks on it so I anchor two things either side of something I hate it's like a shit sandwich like for the lack of a better term where I do the thing that I fucking hate in the middle but I have two things I really like either side of it so what I do is I do my weight training first because I can get out of bed at four or five a.m. to weight train I love weight training but I'm not getting out of four or five a.m. to run like I can't do those two things and never in my whole life have I jumped out of bed to go for a run I'm like I don't like doing either of those things I want to stay in my bed and I don't want to run but I will get off to weight train so I'll get up I do my weight training and then I normally have my favorite meal whatever it is I love having as my post workout meal the saddest meal ever it's like vegetables and salmon and salt what's the favorite meal it's a saddest meal it's literally like mixed vegetables salmon and pink Himalayan salt but like it's my favorite what time would that be uh I normally eat it depends on my training day either eight nine or ten and breakfast this is interesting yeah well I don't really have a breakfast per se because I time I do I eat all my food in like a timer-sticted window so I eat everything within an eight ten hour window um but yeah that's what I have and it's like salmon's my favorite food like you know like I love it like I eat mostly plants but like salmon is my staple it's my favorite food so that helps me with the run in the middle and then when I'm actually doing it for the boredom I save podcasts like you know I'm subscribed to your podcast like yeah but that's it like and it's one comes up like if I see a podcast come up I'm like oh I really like the looks of that I'll save it and then I'll save it for my run so that makes it makes me kind of look forward to it so I have a couple of staple podcasts years are in there and Joe Rogan's are in there um a couple of business ones I listen to and if I see an episode pop up I'll just save it and then I'll keep it for my run and that makes the actual run not as boring and so that's kind of my process to it um from kind of top to bottom but the answer to like doing things that you don't want to do is just do it but that's it unpacked a little bit yeah nice really really um yeah really helpful um helpful advice for people I'm you're challenging me on my um on my alarm get up when you say four or five o'clock those two times are very different to me like uh that as you know what they're the same because they're both focused super early like I when I think of four or five how do you decide if it's going to be four or five or something not a combination on how much I slept the night before and what I have to do the following day so if I have a super long run and say for example if I'm writing you know like I'm writing the new book at the minute so I write in the morning block so when the gyms are open the gym doesn't open till six so I would drive to the gym and then I have an hour an hour to get to write and I would just write in my car or I would do my emails or I would do my messages or whatever it was before the gym um so depends on how much I had like if I have because I batch my podcast as well so when I'm recording podcasts I try and do several in a day so if I've got one of those days but I'm like right I need to write in the morning or I need to get my emails done or I need to reply to my messages I'll get up at four so that I can do that and that's normally how I'll make the decision on it but five is like my staple um like Monday to Friday five is the time I get up and then four based on exactly yeah or if I have a super long workout like if I have a three hour long workout scheduled because I'm close to an event I get up before because like it's I you know same as everybody like I've got my daughter I've got my family I've got my friends I've got my business I'm like I don't want to be spending at least by nine o'clock I've got most of my day out of the way because I've been up for five hours you know so when everybody else is getting up and about it you know it's perfect so I can meet my mum for lunch I can bring colleagues to the playground I can do all these other things so my doing that is just getting up earlier so that it's done and then I can kind of do all the other things that I want to do in my life not the things I don't want to do in the morning but they're they're done then and I can kind of prioritize on other areas of my life it's probably a better wording for that yeah cool no I like it and we're starting to run out of time I could talk to you all day Brian but I've got a couple of other little things to finish on did want to ask and someone's asked a question about uh sit up with more of a body comfort question which you know you obviously help a lot of people with um yourself with um with your stuff so uh but the question so from Rowan Perry was um he really enjoys cardio but doesn't want to lose too much muscle any advice and I'd actually say there's there's a little bit of mindset in there around like we talk about um and this is a body composition question is probably way bigger than this but um we talk about being more trying to get into a mindset place just because it's a it's a positive way to look at ourselves of being more interested in what we can do with our body than getting obsessed with how it looks I imagine when uh you would do it when you've done fitness modeling that that you're getting rated on how you look plays probably tricks with your mind but um you feel like a poodle on stage like if you've ever seen any dog shows I'm like that's how you feel I'm like oh little chop lassie chop Brian sorry that's not the question yeah um so I mean so uh Rowan Perry it was about like um well I bit of interest to know your thoughts on your thoughts on that like getting like getting into a place where you're obsessing about how you look even though you wanted to change your body comp and then also like his his specific one of um not trying to lose too much muscle when he's doing his running even though he enjoys running if you enjoy running I would say do some running yeah I completely agree well I'm going to approach that slightly from two angles Jacko because because there is the answer there's the actual answer that he probably wants and then there's the mindset side which you've asked on the mindset side I always think of body composition and it's funny because we've talked about emotional endurance here I don't prep anybody's emotional endurance all my people I work with their body because that's my area of expertise I'm like endurance is just something I do over here because I have time and I like doing it you know in terms of challenging myself body composition is you know sports nutrition is my background nutritious personal trainer etc so what I generally tell people when it comes to obsessing on body and I love your message on this it's very similar to mine is I'm all about getting to great shape but don't think that all your happiness and confidence is in the this in the thing and that's the thing you know I call it in my book that I'll be happy when fallacy you know I'll be happy when I hit this weight I'll be happy when I build this muscle I'll be happy when I do this thing and I think it's really important to identify and understand that that's not where it comes from so if that's where you're at and you're like when I look this way I'm going to feel this thing I'm like that might not happen so just be mindful of that in the front end now we can unpick that that's a whole other podcast but the actual answer in terms of that the physiology and the response of if you enjoy running as Jaco said run like I couldn't I couldn't be a bigger believer in doing something that you enjoy especially in physical fitness purely because it's what you're going to be able to stick to is it better than swimming I don't know but if you enjoy running you should run like yeah if you enjoy it if you don't enjoy spinning it's better than spinning it's couldn't agree but like perfect like that's exactly it but when it comes in to say what was the question maintaining muscle uh yeah it doesn't want to lose too much muscle man yeah so well two things there one is there's a massive amount of it's going to be your nutrition that's going to determine that like one of the things that surprises people I'll use myself because I'm a good example in this scenario is when I don't lose any size running 100 miles a week people are like how the fuck haven't you shrank I'm like well a couple of things one I'm not I'm not built to be skinny like I couldn't be skinny even if I ran 600 miles a week I couldn't do it it just doesn't shrink there's a hobbit built so that's one so there's a genetic component and a muscle memory component but to my nutrition goes up as in my calories go way up if I'm running 100 miles a week on top of my training I'll double my calories like I could be eating 5000 calories a day like comfortably and so that will go up so you don't lose that size so it's a nutritional thing and people will say look I'm taking a run in 20 miles a week will I lose all my size I'm like well not if you lose you're not if you dial in your nutrition I'm like that's not a massive amount of mileage I'm like you could run a marathon every single week and not lose any muscle if your nutrition was in alignment with that output like it's calories in calories out so you eat your calories back in but provided you do that you'll have no problem but what I'd also say there is like what I do in my training and this might be helpful for the person that asked the question is a MED on resistance training which is a minimum effective dose for size so you don't actually have to do that much whether it's hypertrophy, body weight calisthenics if you've got good genetics for that or a cross fit side workouts whatever it is you're doing a minimum effective dose on weight training resistance training in some form is going to preserve all that muscle you have again context is key there's genetic components some people are going to lose weight faster some people are going to gain weight faster there's lots of other things there but that's the actual answer but as Jaco as you said the mindset side is such a big key as well to not think that I'll be happy to look the certain way because that's not the case in a lot of instances with people yeah I think you'll be happy when you eat when we start accepting ourselves it goes a bit back to that question or that thing that I mentioned around going like how can I be how can it's almost like how can I be happy when I'm sad in a weird way like that's where it's which I think is that's then the question of like contentment that's the whole another we'll go we'll go miles off but yeah that's I like that yeah I like that approach I think that there's some some stuff around feeling good because like you know when we look good it does help us feel good but it just needs to be understood in that context of like what's actually good for you for you mentally if you're that's what I was going to say if you're stressing like literally stressing getting stressed about worrying about losing muscle when you're running that's probably going to be the thing that will make you lose muscle more so than the actual running if you like say if you've got your nutrition on um if you give your body the when you're talking about minimum effective this if we give the body a reason to maintain that muscle mass like that small amount of stimulation it's much more it's likely to want to to keep it I'm going to add one more point there as well that comes up a lot of my chance which might be helpful because you made a great point muscle maintenance not the same as muscle building yeah so maintaining muscle is significantly easier with an increase in running or training volume than building muscle is like if you're trying to run a marathon and you're trying to build muscle it's not that you can't do both because those goals are pulling from opposite sides you can it's just harder whereas maintaining muscle and running for a marathon or our ultra isn't super difficult because you can adjust things so not to confuse the two as well because muscle maintenance and what you have versus muscle building are two different things yeah yeah brilliant right Brian we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up there we've gone we're supposed to be especially 30 minutes to 45 minutes we're up to 55 yes yeah I guess yeah the next party is totally my fault the next guest Ollie uh Ollie Frost is up with uh Tim in literally four minutes time so we're gonna jump off but um thank you so much for coming on um you've gained one new someone has said written I'm going to have to follow right now as you've got one new follower it was I'll take it welcome to my bitch if you don't follow me if you're signing in for the first time and this is your first experience of Brian where have you been um to go make sure you do go over and give him a follow um thank you everyone for for watching keep up we've got another 11 amazing guests coming up for the rest of the day uh Brian we need to get you on to the podcast again because I think there's a load more stuff that we get that we can talk to back on mine as well but we'll double it over yeah yeah yeah let's let's talk about and I will let I'll get I'll personally get in touch with you about sorting out your human flag doing it yeah love it love it Jack well thank you so much again man have a killer day and enjoy guys thanks very much guys and brother see you guys bye