 Obstacle course races the good the bad and the ugly watch this our next caller is Tracy from Maine. Hey, Tracy. How can we help you? Hi guys First of all, I just wanted to say thank you guys so much for putting out such amazing No BS content. I've had a particularly tough year and have suffered a tremendous amount of loss in a short period of time And I really fell all fell off the fitness train I found your podcast and you guys truly reignited my passion for all things fitness And I quite literally you helped me out of a pretty dark spot. So thank you so much for that. Well, thank you So I'll just kind of read off what I said you guys I added a couple things So I'm 30 years old. I'm a certified personal trainer of nine years Much like you guys have stated. I do struggle to take my own advice sometimes. I started running OCRs obstacle course races for anyone who doesn't know back in 2014 I Immediately got hooked and since then have ran over 50 races mostly Spartan races, but also 16 and have podiumed in place in top three for female top five for age group and top 50 overall All my races sin Wow I've ran all over the country including all of New England, Colorado, Texas, Arizona Plus many other states. I competed at the Spartan race World Championships at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe And I was also asked to run the World Toughest Mudder race Which is it by invite only but conflicted with a Spartan race. I had to do had to run I took a couple years off for a mix of reasons one having my son in April of 2020 But also due to pandemic races obviously weren't happening And now I'm finally getting back to my passion of racing the summer I am 5 8 am all of my height is in my legs And I've always struggled to put muscle on all over but especially my legs But since taking a break from racing I've been able to roll my legs significantly and focus solely on building muscle and strength and repairing my Metabolism that I've wrecked with the amount of cardio I did for race training Another thing I'll know is that I've suffered from eating disorders and bodies dysmorphia up until just a few years ago So the fact that I'm happy to be eating in the surplus and putting on size is a huge deal for me My question is is since the majority of my training is running and I'm talking 10 plus miles a day Sometimes four to five days a week in season. I'm afraid I'm gonna go back To being you know quote-unquote a string beam And lose all my gains I've made in my legs and all of my strength So one do you think it's possible to maintain my stamina if I cut back on my amount of running? It does a number of my body and as a mom to a one-year-old the luxury of going on runs as often as I'd like Is it really here right now and two is the possible to maintain muscle size when doing so much cardio even a thing? Obviously what I do for training from races works and leads me to podiums But with the amount of running I didn't know if it was even possible to keep any sort of mass and also not destroy my metabolism again Okay, Tracy. Do you want us to tell you what you want to hear or do you want us to tell you what you need to hear? You need to tell me what I need to hear, you know, okay I'm gonna give you a short answer, but then I'm gonna ask you a couple more questions if that's okay Okay, so the short answer is can you maintain your stamina with less running? Yes, and I'm basing that on the fact that you're Expressing that your body's feeling broken down. So it sounds and feels to me like you're doing as well as you do in spite of Overtraining what you see oftentimes with elite athletes that they they are they do as well as they do in spite of the fact that they overdo it Can you maintain? the amount of muscle that you have With lots and lots of running no may probably not but you know We do more than what you did before maybe with a change in programming So that's the short answer, but I want I have a couple questions for you if that's okay You said you just had your son and earlier and you know, you can say you don't have to answer this if you don't want to But earlier you said You've had a lot happen a lot of challenging things happen in a short period of time Are you is it okay if you kind of go into that? I'd like to know what we're dealing with before I give you some advice sure sure yeah in January of last year or let's see. Let's go back all the way to one. I think it was a July of 20 I lost my aunt and then six months later. I lost my grandmother and then six months later I lost my father. Wow All very to them were pretty sudden. My father in particular was particularly rough. It was very unexpected and tragic So a lot of that I was just dealing with a lot of grief a lot of stress didn't really have a whole lot of motivation to do anything as far as a Fitness goes and eating well. I was was kind of hard on myself dealt with some guilt stuff So other than that, that's that's what I'm talking about when I say I had a pretty pretty significantly tough year and in the mix of all that Because of the pandemic my husband's job was literally evaporated So he had to change careers. Obviously I was going through postpartum Stuff I dealt with some postpartum depression. It's a it's been a it's been quite the couple years That's a hell of a ride. Yeah, that's really that's really really tough and I appreciate you being so open So thank you very much. I can hear in the way you're talking about it and because it's so recent There's still a lot of challenge and pain surrounding all of that So here's a deal with with people like us because I'm gonna put myself in this category people who love to exercise As much as we do we tend to use exercise like a bit of a drug. It's a great way to escape Maybe distract ourselves now. There's some positives that can be to come from exercise during those those times of challenge and grief Obviously if it's used in the right way, it can help you stay healthy It can help you be present, you know, which is can be really really hard when you're dealing with challenging moments And you know gives you a little bit of time to take care of yourself Which you know, I'm sure you've heard the term that you can't pour from an empty cup Now considering all of that Okay, considering all those challenges and that you're still in it You're still in it. It was recent and I can hear the way you're talking that you're still Dealing with some of it and the fact that you've said that you've had or struggled with body image issues and and food in the past I don't think it's wise. Okay, so I don't think it's wise for you To sign up for another race or train like you're gonna compete at that level. I think Objectively speaking and I'm sure and what I want you to try it right now Tracy is to Use the I guess the objective side of you So got to maybe put aside maybe some attachments that you may have to exercise or you know How it makes you feel in the in the temporary moment. Let's put that aside for now Objectively speaking it's a Training for an event or training that hard was a great way to push you over the edge Which it sounds like you're already there. You're on the edge Holding things together. Luckily you probably went into this with a good amount of fitness and discipline. So that probably helped but I think training for a race and training that hard or like you're gonna do a race is Is gonna push you in the wrong direction. I don't think it's gonna be very helpful So my my the real advice that I'm gonna give you because I did answer your question about the muscle mass and the running Yes, you can maintain your stamina with less running, especially if it's more appropriate Can you have more muscle mass than you did before if you train? appropriately, yes, you can I do think exercise is a phenomenal Tool I think it's not the only tool there's a lot of things that need to be combined here But I do think it's an awesome tool to help you heal and maintain your sanity and your health But not when you're training that hard I think you're just throwing stress on top of a stressful situation the way if I had complete control over you I would have you use exercise as a way to take care of yourself right now Purely from that standpoint forget performance Forget strength forget, you know, how you look in the aesthetics and all that stuff I would think to myself restorative Yeah, how what can I do today to take care of me because right now all this other stuff is just It's big and it's hard to deal with and there's other priorities at the moment So I need to take care of me now I'm gonna be honest with you Tracy sometimes that means you go on a 10 mile run right sometimes it means You go and you run and you go run real hard and maybe you cry at the end of it. I've done that You know, I used exercise in that way, but most of the time it probably means You're gonna do things that are taking care of your body probably slower paced probably more gentle probably more mobility and Stretching and you know classes can be really good for this Tracy a good yoga class Where you have to listen to an instructor where they're telling you, you know, this is this is your practice and not about competing I mean a good one can definitely work wonders. That's just one example, but that's the direction. I think you should go I don't think you should right now at least Train like your like you were before I don't think that's a good idea Tracy That was a long Sensitive answer from Sal I'd be a little more blunt if you were my client I wouldn't let you do it just that simple if I if I cared about you I loved you you trusted me as as the person to guide you and we had a relationship that I'd hope we'd have if you were a client of Mine I would say no, no, I don't want you to do this What I want you to do is to trust me for a while and let me lead what I think is best for you And what I think that looks like is a maps anabolic type of a routine two to three times of straightening and then the other Days are mobility or yoga classes So and when you have that desire to go hammer your body for 50 or 10 miles I actually wouldn't want you to do it. I'd say hey, let's go take a yoga class Let's go let's go look inward and and be quiet and alone by yourself and work through those things and not Go hammer yourself and in a workout program. So that would be that it That's and I would want us to do that for some time until we worked and processed all the stuff that you I mean You're going through a fucking lot a lot a lot and I would want you to process that First and feel like we've we've moved beyond that and we're in a very healthy Place both with your relationship with exercise and food and then maybe down the road We talk about you know signing up for a Spartan race and doing that But for the time being where you're currently at right now, I wouldn't let you I would just say no No matter how much you think you love it and want to do it I don't think it's I don't think it's a good place where you're at. Yeah agreed I mean just and that doesn't mean it's off the table completely, right? That's something that could be revisited But you know spending that extra time to really focus on you know building your body up and and getting that kind of mental Clarity again and being restorative about it. I think we'll do you a lot of good Yeah, well, you don't want to do Tracy and you might be noticing this now is You might be getting signals from your body That's saying hey, that's it's too much right now And what happens if you ignore that is that those signals get louder and louder and You might you know cause a really bad injury You might be you know what you don't want to do is you want you don't want to be forced To not move anymore because something because your body just rebelled, right? So And so this is gonna be a bit of a struggle I mean, I think and I don't know if you're already doing this But I think a very wise investment would be to work with a therapist Specifically about this around exercise and how do I use it and here's what's happening in my life? And I'd like to make myself healthy and not use exercise as a way to distract myself or beat myself up But you know and look you you are a trainer. You know how you would train other people If you have any if that clarity starts to set in when you're starting to feel a particular way Separate yourself from it and say what would I tell my client? And then that's probably the advice that you should take and it's way easier said than done I know I'm saying this like you know like oh here's the answer. It's a piece cake Yeah, this is gonna be a big this is gonna be a big challenge. It's gonna be a bit of a struggle So I come I'm completely aware of that. So I hope that helps you out If you don't have maps and a ball it will send that to you because I do think that's probably the best program to run If you're gonna run a program I'm also gonna send you maps Prime Pro that's because I think Correctional exercise is something you can practice throughout the day So if you really need to do something correctional exercise is lots of benefit and it's unlikely That it's going to push your body over the edge. You're gonna get some physical benefits from it as well You'll be improving, you know mobility in ways that maybe you haven't in the past that it can be used as a very restorative Program so we'll send that over to you and then finally Tracy. I'd love to have you are you in our forum by any chance I'm not no, I'd like you in the forum now the forum people post up all the time It could be all over the place, but here's the real value the value is in the forum You have direct connection to us whenever you're feeling challenged or whatever Tag us and post your question or whatever you need feedback on You know, we typically will get back to people within 24 hours So because I'd like to follow up with you I'd like to you know I don't think this is something that I could just we can just give you an answer and then let you go If you haven't yet Tracy look up the Prime Pro webinar Have you have you followed the free webinar that I did? No, so I and so this week like I'll go back to my prescription to you I would actually have you just follow that to keep it easy like I would say I want you doing anabolic on your other days I want you to literally follow that video So if you go to primeprowebinar.com, right Doug, correct primeprowebinar.com. It's absolutely free And it's about 50 minutes long and I walk you through like a full 50 minute You know mobility session from head to toe basically I think that's a perfect thing for you to just work on throw it on your phone put it on the TV and You know spend 50 minutes doing that on the days that you're not strength training Okay, well, thank you guys so much. No problem. Thanks for calling in Tracy. Oh Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye Yeah, you know this is One of the reasons why I value talking to people live is because had we not talked to her and we just saw the question Then it would have been like here's your workout. Here's what you do for performance or whatever Here's your nutrition plan. Oh, that's yeah, but without knowing like the real content which makes all the difference in the world and that's why I asked those questions because Without knowing I had to know that in order to give her the right the right advice And I don't obviously not a good idea to push yourself when you're already being pushed so hard I want to say something and hopefully Tracy you're listening to the the after part of this stuff later on is This is actually and I wanted to tell her this very common And so we get a lot of heat sometimes for talking about, you know The negative things of running and marathon runners and the ocean enough for the competition But let me tell you in my experience doing this for quite some time now A lot of people that get addicted to or fall in love with these types of races And this includes marathon and long runs and ultra marathons a lot of them are are using it as a way to Distract them from other stuff that they need to work on extremely common That does that mean you can't you can have a lit you could totally have a healthy relationship with Spartan races and be Bad-ass at it. It's totally fine, but in my experience 50-50 I'd say it's a it's a 50-50 shot if I get somebody like this who's like because she's like hardcore, right? You know 50 something races like 10 miles a day. She's she's she's a killer, right? So I'm not talking about the person who does Spartan race once a year. I'm not talking about that But I'm talking about somebody who trains like this all the time, right? 50-50 that person a lot of times is just like somebody who is medicating with a drug or something else They just using exercise instead and I have to work through that with them and so For the listener who can't relate with that because they're not that this is where you need to understand where we come from Sometimes when we talk about running because there's a lot of people that use that as as therapy or a way to medicate themselves Instead of drugs and yeah, I do believe it's a lesser evil, you know, I'd much I'd much like can it be damaging Yeah, but it can it could be very damaging and hard to see because it's it's healthy quote-unquote, right? So that's where we're coming from a lot of times when we're talking about The people that are kind of obsessed with running an exercise like that. This is actually more common than you would actually think Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe