 You're listening to barbell logic brought to you by barbell logic online coaching where each week We take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship Hey there, welcome back to the barbell logic podcast brought to you from Grace deal strength and conditioning in Farmington Hills, Michigan. I'm Jonathan Sullivan your guest co-host I'm the co-author of the barbell prescription with Andy Baker and I'm joined once again by my co-co-host and Producer Noah Hayden my associate coach here at Grace deal strength and conditioning. He's also a barbell logic online coach Hey Noah, howdy and our guest once again for the second time is nurse and bizarre and thanks for coming back in and So we've covered a lot of ground already in this series on the barbell prescription We talked about the sick aging phenotype and the barbell prescription talked about exercise selection and modification for masters We talked with Ann's daughter Laura Welcher about programming considerations for masters We just in previous episode finished discussion with my client Debbie Rotslowski about The barbell prescription for female masters and today we're going to talk about the often neglected but critical central issue of recovery in Training the most important aspects of training you think you know in many ways it is I I view maybe Behind consistency. Yeah, but consistent recovery. I mean, you know, it's it's I view it as the fulcrum of the training program You know, it's you know, the old saying I think it's very wise. You don't get stronger from lifting weights You get stronger from recovering Right from lifting weights So I really see it as sort of the linchpin of the entire thing and even more to the point So I've said this many times in the past. So I'm going to say it again You know if you exercise like you go to like I go to Pilates twice a week or I do aerobics three times a week or whatever Right, so you exercise and that's good. That's all good. It's better to exercise than to not exercise But when you train training being the rational systematic manipulation of training variables for progressive improvements in fitness attributes and physiology and body composition when you train Recovery is central you have to pay attention to your nutrition your sleep your active rest and all of that and so You know, we say that exercise is Part of a healthy lifestyle but training because of the central importance and the specific attention to recovery variables training is a Healthy lifestyle training is a way of life because it brings in Everything right not just what you're doing in the gym. It's like those old serial commercials from the 80s It's part of a healthy diet, you know, that's it's part of a healthy lifestyle That has to be an integral part It is a healthy lifestyle to be an athlete of aging is to follow a way of life To be an athlete is to follow a way of life and so yeah I see recovery as the linchpin and that Expansive part of training that works its way into all the things that we do in life Outside of the gym, right even in the way we work, right? So we're going to we're going to manage our schedule better. We're not going to if we have that option We're not going to overwork ourselves. We're gonna sit up straighter at our desk Maybe we'll get a standing desk We're going to pay attention to what we eat at lunchtime. We're not going to get overly stressed about What happens to us on our job? We're going to increasingly learn to put things into perspective because that stress is going to interfere with our ability To adapt to the stress that we have to absorb here in the gym and so I see recovery as this pivot and Also as the sort of all-encompassing training variable that makes training into a lifestyle and being an athlete and an athlete of aging as a way of life Mm-hmm So you can't overemphasize recovery if someone is fully committed to training and fully committed to putting in all the effort That is needed all the mental effort especially that's needed to succeed and progress with strength training It's always surprising to me when you have lifters that show up every time they don't miss sessions They train hard they put in all that effort and they skip meals and just can't figure out How to quite get more than six hours of sleep a night, you know They just can't find the time and really short change themselves So they're dedicated in the gym just won't eat the protein, but you have to be dedicated outside Yeah, all of that stuff, right? But when it comes to masters We face some unique challenges that are not confronted by our younger and less deserving counterparts I think I think that recovery is more critical for older athletes. Yeah, but also more difficult. Yep. Yeah, right So we have greater emotional stressors in our lives than you know Some kid who still lives with his parents and like doesn't have to worry about a mortgage and exactly, you know and his and his cholesterol or whatever and Sleep is tougher getting the necessary, you know protein and can be tougher for us Active rest can be a little bit tougher. So that's why we've dedicated a whole issue to this, you know, often neglected issue of recovery What are the components of? Recovery Noah for the for the athlete in general and the athlete of aging in particular. Well, the biggest one is sleep Interesting, I guess we could talk about that first. I think a lot of people would say the biggest one would be nutrition So people tend to think about nutrition first And if you look at the fitness culture out there like on YouTube and Instagram and the blogs and all that kind of stuff You see lots of attention devoted to nutrition. You should eat this or you work out. Yeah pre-workout Multivitamins, you know keto all the way fast all the way you got to eat paleo No, you can still you should eat vegan for a better world and all this kind of stuff, right? So, but you don't see any blogs dedicated to sleep Right, you don't see the sleep channel on YouTube. Maybe there is such a thing, but I don't know But it's not it just doesn't have this big role in the fitness conversation and why because you know, it's hard to get real religious about it and I don't I think it's beyond contention that you you have to get your sleep But we face challenges and and we were just talking about this before we before we began recording It's not always easy for our master. No, no some nights I'll wake up quite frequently And then you're exhausted the next day and that affects your nutrition and whether or not you want to get out and go for a walk Or and your performance under the bar I can have you know, if you have a if you have a great night's sleep You get your eight hours or you're seven and a half hours And you don't have to wake up six times to pee and you know And you just wake up and you feel completely restored and refreshed because you got a good night's sleep You know, maybe you'll still hit your targets if you don't get a good night's sleep But it's a lot more enjoyable when you're rested and and recovered You know the best sleep that I've had in the last 10 years When I got intubated when I had my hernia surgery I know that's not really sleep and sort of oh my god was that so awesome I woke up and it was the first time that I had no body pains So let me ask you I was so comfortable. What was the induction agent that they used? I have no idea So I've got to ask but it was kind of nice. It was relaxing. How long you had a hernia surgery, right? I don't know if they use ketamine for something like that, but an open an open double On one side. It wasn't bilateral, but I had two hernias ketamine although ketamine is getting used Not ketamine propofol Propofol is wonderful for pre-up. Yeah I've had it just for They might have given you propofol because that's an almost universal report That we hear when people get inducted with propofol they wake up. It's like god. That's the best sleep I ever had people you felt so at rest Yeah, you wake up after milk of amnesia if you remember right if they used propofol You would have seen this big bag of milk Hanging on an iv and that's what they were it's it's like that's what they call it milk of amnesia Because it's white It's white and so yeah, that was the whole michael jackson thing He he wanted to sleep and so this like a crazy doctor would come around and give him Propofol which you'll sleep and you'll sleep really well probably not a good idea to do all the time But I definitely enjoyed it and I look back on it fondly not the days that followed So when I tried to get out of bed, but so I suppose that this juncture It's incumbent upon us to say no We do not consider propofol To be a part of a rational program of training for masters. So no not a good sleep agent not recommended In fact, you know, we'll probably talk about sleep agents here pretty quick So what kind of strategies do you use for sleep if any and to to try and optimize your your sleep? I try to keep a regular schedule. I'm usually critical in bed by 10. I usually wake up by 6 a.m. Six Usually 6 a.m. That's eight hours. It's my good time and I might wake up once or twice sometimes I have a bad night where I'm awake more than I'm asleep. But I mean that doesn't always happen I don't take any agents. I try to cut off my coffee by Five six o'clock smart. Yeah, so you're hitting you're hitting all the high points So this is the area that we call like sleep hygiene, right? So and consistency Is you know, that's the theme that runs through it. So you want a consistent bedtime? Ideally you would sleep in the same bed Every night and under the same conditions you want a nice dark relatively cool environment, right that's comfortable and So consistency in timing and space and the conditions in which you sleep for masters I think cutting off the fluid intake and particularly the caffeinated fluid intake Well before bedtime is critical because for me The most common cause of not getting a good night's sleep is I keep drinking or I keep drinking coffee when I fall down on the job and my sleep hygiene That's what it is I drink too much coffee Or I drink too much fluid too soon before bedtime and you know, and if I have to get up like four or five six times And I have to pee then you know, I'm just I'm screwed You know the next day and that happens with enough frequency that I probably should be better about it You probably also want to limit your intake of food Well before bedtime, especially if you're a master and you have the common problem of reflux All right, or if you get a lot of bloating and stuff like that because I can interfere With your sleep alcohol before bedtime is a big no-no. Yeah, it will help you fall asleep faster But we will interfere with your ability to remain asleep Those are the big ones is you want to you want to maintain consistency in your sleep schedule And then the other thing for masters is because some Middle of the night reawakening is Inevitable So what I have found has been helpful to me and I've started doing this over the last year Is to have a return to sleep strategy I have to get up and have to go pee and I have to come back to bed and I get back in bed And a lot of times what happens is is you're not able to fall back to sleep Right, so Ann knows I do tai chi a lot And and we actually have a little tai chi program here at gravesteel for masters That is growing what I'll do is I'll close my eyes and I'll start to do The yang form in my head, right? And my brain gets bored with that pretty quick my brain is like, oh god, he's going to do that You know and like I'll just switch off and I'm out Right. I almost never get through the whole form. I hardly ever even get halfway through the form But if I just lay there and think oh man, I had to get it in pee I really should be better about my fluid and tomorrow I got a coach and I'm going to be tired and like Right, so that's part one of a return to sleep strategy have something like that It doesn't have to be obviously what I do But some sort of like sort of sequence or set series of thoughts That you have to go through in your mind And that you do the same way every time and your brain just kind of gets bored and will switch you off I think it's a mistake to go to bed and try to read And part two of the strategy is is if you're laying there And you can't fall asleep no matter what you're doing and you're 25 minutes in my rule is if it gets to be 25 minutes And I can't fall back to sleep. I get up I get up and then I go to a book like a chemistry book is ideal Right, just go. I'm going to go do a little chemistry review Or I have a book on emergency medicine that I keep close by I just go down and like, you know review cardiogenic shock or something like that and I get sleepy Sounds engaging. Yeah, and then I'm usually able that that's usually able to put me back to sleep But what you don't want to do Is get into a situation where you're laying in bed and you can't fall asleep and you're tossing and turning And suddenly you're not changing the stimulus. You're not changing the stimulus And you're also programming yourself as like, well, this is fine. You know, I'm laying in bed and I can't fall asleep So That's my two-part strategy for going back to sleep have something in your mind that you will go through the same way every time And that will over time that won't work at first But it will eventually program your brain that it's time to go back to sleep And then the second thing is is if you can't fall back to sleep and this has been looked at right The best thing to do is to get up And go do something not too engaging right like reading a chemistry book Until you're sleepy again, and you know, you can fall back to sleep and then try that sequence again I use numbers. I will start with a hundred and Pick number maybe No subtract sevens. Oh, I've done that. Yeah. Yeah count back my sevens Yeah, right. I finally that's an IQ test for prospective presidents now I find that my mind tends to just race and race and race and so the thing that's worked for me When I'm having trouble falling asleep is more like meditation. It's trying to actively clear your mind Of any thoughts and I always start that by trying to relax the muscles in my face And in my throat and my neck and then I slowly go down my body and with every exhale I try to relax that focus area more and more And you kind of get bored after you've gotten down to your stomach or something You know by the time you actually get through the head and neck and shoulders and arms That seems to work fairly well for me just trying to become more and more of a fossil more and more of a low energy state I think that's not unlike like doing something like if you have like a tai chi sequence or a dance sequence or something like that That you can go through in your mind where you're like physically You know Feeling yourself doing it and you're breathing the way you would do if you were doing it Especially tai chi which is something like supposedly a relaxed kind of thing. It's actually not as relaxed people think it is and But just having something like that that you program Yourself to do the important thing is to like if counting by sevens works for you That's what you should do every single time Right And then you know, there's a whole bunch of ancillary issues like sleep posture Like what's the best sleep posture for you? As i've gotten older I find that like the astronaut position is the one that works for me where i've got Pillows under my knees and i've got like a nice neck pillow under my head And maybe like pillows under my arms So i'm in that position like when you see the astronauts and they're asleep on the space station and they're floating and all their Joints are in the neutral position and you're just sort of like you're floating And that's what works for me. I used to sleep in left lateral decubitus And i've been able to do that for many years every now and then i'll Like i'll feel like i have to roll on on my left side and that lasts for about two minutes and and i'm back on my back And then you know, finally I think For people who find that sleep is a challenge It's a really challenging part of the recovery strategy. Sleep diary is really good Trying to identify those factors in your diet and your stress and your Presleep stimuli and what's waking you up and what's keeping you awake Trying to identify factors and patterns that you can potentially correct. Oh and one more thing You've got to turn off the tech Right You've got to turn off the tech like an hour or two before bedtime. That means That means no tv no video games no computers no kindle You know people say well, I've got the blue shade on my canvas like I don't care turn it off, right? Right sleep is a disengagement From that part of your life So you've got to begin that disengagement and I think it goes without saying that it's a capital error to take Your work to bed to take the computer to bed to take You know even a book to bed to take food to bed. Oh my god the horror, right? They taking food to bed, you know all that stuff if you're doing that stuff You're just not serious, right? So you're not serious about your sleep and sleep is huge I have had restless leg syndrome most of my life and it's actually gotten worse as I've gotten older and now it's in all of my limbs and That's a real struggle So what I have found works best for that though is what you originally said and that you have to have a sleep schedule so What was that the stage coach that turns back into a pumpkin in midnight if I push it and I Get to bed an hour or so later than normal That really starts to kick in around that time And then it's almost impossible for me to have a good night's sleep And I just have to be more vigilant about my schedule It's kind of horrible for you But also there's a silver lining which is that it enforces really good sleep hygiene and consistency on Yeah, you get punished if you don't do your job The other thing that um, I found is that I have to wear your plugs if I'm gonna get a good night's sleep Interesting and I don't know I had to go there. I don't know when that started But I think it was in my late 20s or early 30s I can be in the deepest sleep and I hear a tiny little noise and I instantly wake up I don't know if it's from having children Anyway, I have to have your plugs in now or I can't sleep. So I think where all this points to is something that is Actually useful in the larger context of living life, but for me Going to bed is kind of like a tea ceremony. You know, it's it's like this it's like this ritual It's a ritual. It's a it's a tea ceremony So I try to do the same sequence of events in the same order every single time and to do them all well And to be like present in that moment of like now I'm getting ready for bed, right now I'm brushing my teeth and Now I'm putting on like the hand lotion because if I go to bed my hands are dry and itchy I can't sleep and you know and And just following that same sequence of events every time Like a chano you like a tea ceremony of going to bed that just puts you there And a flip side of that is is that when I have to sleep under average circumstances Like I have to stay up late because I have a project that I'm trying to finish On a deadline or something is screwed up about my sleep ritual It's very disruptive. So, you know, that's the flip side of that But since most of the time I'm able to follow that sleep ritual at a particular time and do things in a particular way You program your body to fall asleep quickly And then if you combine that with a good falling back to sleep strategy as a master because you're going to need it right You're going to usually be able to get the restorative sleep that you need the most anabolic substance known to man Right is sleep. That's when the muscle grows And so that's what we need and that's also Not just musculoskeletal health and metabolic health. It's synaptic health, right? We're increasingly aware that good sleep is important for good cognitive function into aging and good cognitive health and brain health As we get older. So, you know, if you're that guy like me And you're in your 40s and you're like getting five hours of sleep a night because you're oh so productive, you know And you know, you're such a hard work and all that. Well, you're really doing yourself and your family into service because There's emerging evidence. It's not strong. It's contentious But it's out there, you know, this issue of You know, you might be putting yourself at greater risk for cognitive decline in your later years And you know, that might turn out not to be as big a risk factor as some people are saying it is now But since the alternative is to just get your good sleep Why wouldn't you just get your good sleep? Keep it simple. Yeah, keep it simple So here's something I wanted to ask you sully. What about taking melatonin? So I take melatonin How does that work for you? It seems to work pretty well. Is it placebo effect? I don't know But it's part of my chano you now. It's part of my sleep ritual, right? So to take my melatonin and my other supplements as well before bedtime I like to take my other supplements as well before bedtime with a little sip of water I'm pretty good at taking that with a minimal amount of fluid And that includes melatonin now for a while I was actually taking benadryl As well to go to sleep and I found that benadryl and melatonin would put me to sleep And I would actually stay asleep better. I would get a more complete night's sleep And the reason for that is is that benadryl as you know Ann is I mean that was a standard, you know, patient needs to sleep a sleep aid And then the doctor would write for benadryl, right? Correct. Yeah, so It is an anti-cholinergic. It has a soporific effect But because it's an anti-cholinergic it also has the effect of you don't have to pee as much, right? So it tends to keep you from having to wake up to pee six times and I and that's beneficial Then I started to think well, yeah, that's a drug. That's a sleep aid And it's more of a of a strong really pharmacologic sleep aid than melatonin And there is some indication again. It's not strong. It's not a proven association It's just sort of out there and people are looking at it This idea that your total lifetime anti-cholinergic load might represent an independent might represent an independent risk factor for developing various forms of dementia And cognitive decline later on in life. Now, is there anything there? I don't know But I find that I'm able to get pretty good sleep now without the benefit of benadryl Two or three times a year. I'll take it in sort of desperation if I'm having a particularly bad night But in terms of sleep aids the only one I use is melatonin. Some people use valerian root I think that's been a little bit debunked though the effect of valerian root is not that great and in truth The evidence for melatonin is not that strong either I tried melatonin before it worked really well the first night. I took it and Went out like a light it worked great and then about three days in it didn't do anything Sounds like placebo sounds like placebo effect and a lot of people think the effect of melatonin is a little bit of a placebo for me, it's just part of what I do and if you think about it that whole bedtime Tea ceremony that I'm doing the whole thing's a placebo right the whole thing is a signal to your signal Right, yeah, so let it be and But that does bring us to the issue of sleep aids. Do you ever have to I don't want to be too personal But do you ever have to use sleep aids? No, I haven't in the past tried benadryl But it has an opposite effect on me makes me very jittery and keeps me awake It's known to have a paradoxical effect like that in a certain proportion of the population Sometimes it sounds kind of silly, but I'll just have maybe four ounces of yogurt And eat that Especially if I wake up in the night and I can't get back to sleep Because I don't have any other I'll try some yogurt. I don't know. Maybe I'm hungry because I do the intermittent fasting Or maybe you're just giving yourself a little insulin boost, right? So because the yogurt usually has sugar in it, right? I use the plain non-fat. Oh Well, and I don't know Insulin is Right you so when you eat a big dose of carbs and you get sleepy afterwards. That's why insulin is basically telling your body, okay You're fed Ghosts sit under a tree right and metabolize, right? But um, well, there would be some carbohydrate in it. Yeah, there would be So, um, so maybe that's what's going on there in terms of stronger sleep aids things like ambien and I don't know Lunesta Please don't take ambien. It wasn't even it wasn't even developed as a sleep aid That's right. However, I will say I have had ambien Like I was I was hospitalized about four or five years ago And for ambien related event. No, no, okay. I didn't know where this was going. What was I hospitalized for? your Disequilibrium. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was for the disequilibrium and I was getting worked up for a cerebellar stroke And I had to have an MRI the next day But I couldn't sleep and I was on the 3t unit the observation unit ever receiving a hospital my old stomping grounds And my uh, my friend and colleague philawaske said here take this ambien. You'll sleep and boy Did I ever like and it took no time at all and I I slept But that is not something that needs to be part of your lifestyle, right? please If you have trouble sleeping the answer is not to go straight to a sleeping A pharmacological sleeping adjunct The answer is to go to your doctor Get a sleep study because if you can't sleep And you've done all of this other stuff and you've maintained a sleep diary and you've eliminated fluids before a bedtime And you're following a ceremony And you know, you're doing everything right And you still can't sleep and you find that you're tired the next day There may be something else going on, right? Maybe you have sleep apnea. Maybe you have obstructive sleep apnea or maybe there's something else going on And you'll never get good sleep if that's not a dress sleep and your underlying issue will remain undiagnosed, right? if you just Put a band-aid on it and just like nuke yourself into oblivion instead of finding out what's actually going on So that's when it's time to go see your doctor and get a sleep study So I think that's pretty much what we have to say about sleep. Do you have anything to add to that? Not that I can think of Well, this does go into the next point very well though that I know that I always sleep a lot better If I'm pretty exhausted from a lot of activity that I've done that day Either training or active rest, right? So active rest active rest, right? It's important that you know, we talk about well, you have training days and you have recovery days So you train three times a week That doesn't mean that you sort of devolve into a state of torpor like on the other It's a rest day. So it's a rest day. So I'm gonna like moving so no Exactly And I don't know how widespread that particular error is but let's just correct it right now That is not the answer. So you need to be engaged in some sort of physical activity Every single day of your life, right? And that can mean going for a walk It can mean doing yoga or tai chi or maybe Part of the reason that you're in strength training is that you have a sport or some other physical Avocation that you enjoy. Maybe you're a martial artist Maybe you like to play baseball or tennis or swim or something like that. Well, then you need to be doing that Right, but every day needs to have some sort of physical activity in it. That isn't training That's it's an active lifestyle. It's exercise and an active lifestyle. That's the active rest component So take your strength training on those days were like for example The day after a heavy, you know, a heavy day on heavy light medium and you go and you swim some laps Or you go and you you go to martial arts class or something like that You're still getting through a cover because that's part of your baseline now That's part of your baseline physical activity. You're not moving heavy sets of five You know, you're not at the very end of the bioenergy spectrum. The intensity isn't high So you need to be doing that. That's your active rest and Noah is absolutely right. That's going to help with your sleep It's going to help burn off those extra calories. It's going to help you incorporate that protein into muscle It's going to help keep those joints mobile and supple and alive and ready for action So that is an absolutely critical component and I know you do that and you're very active outside the gym I am I try to be but when I get up in the morning It doesn't matter what I've done the day before if I have a workout day or It's just a routine day or like this week when we've not had training I'm very stiff. I'm very very stiff when I get up during the club and I usually Just after a hot shower, we'll get up and just, you know, walk around the house move Maybe practice some tai chi And then every evening I try to do a two mile walk that I have figured out a loop in the area I adopted a dog recently and it's the best thing that I ever did. I can imagine for active rest Because now I feel bad and she's mad at me if we don't go for a walk twice a day Which turns out to be about four miles a day that we have to walk And if I didn't have her I would just keep working Working on my laptop or reading a book or whatever and she's a total pain in the ass sometimes but But it's great, right? It gives some structure to your life So that, you know, that has to be there. So, you know, it kind of goes back to that old aphorism lift weights and play your sport Well, maybe your sport is, you know, walking around the park or going for a walk with your dog or Tai chi, you know, the tai chi thing keeps kind of keeps coming up It sounds kind of like cute and flu-feated people I imagine But for somebody like you or me like I wake up stiff, right? And that early morning just doing that quick 10 form that I'm teaching you guys It's not even the short form. It's just a really really short 10 form It takes what the whole form takes maybe two minutes to perform And then you add that to a little bit of a little bit of stretching and you know, maybe Some squats and some ankle rules and stretching your shoulders out The whole thing takes five minutes and all of a sudden, you know, it opens everything up But you have to have something like that. You have to have the active rest So there has to be something beyond training. You have to bring your strength To something, right? You have to use it So find something like that and as long as it doesn't interfere with your training, you're you're good to go And what's next now? Well, the biggest thing besides sleep in the room is nutrition. Yeah nutrition Some of you are probably what we call our pogs the patrons of gray steel people who like, you know Send us, you know as little as a dollar a month on Patreon we have a private facebook community called patrons of gray steel and We have a pog vlog Where, you know, Noah and I mostly Noah make videos For our patrons and you recently made an excellent excellent sort of summation Of nutrition. Maybe you'll go over that for our barbell logic listeners. Do you think so? Yeah, just like like quickly like and you know, I mean you thought the video was good. Oh, yeah Are you kidding? Was it was it outstanding? Am I right? Yeah, your videos are all good. Yeah, they're very good Everyone's talked about nutrition so much the biggest thing that I will say is your body's composition Is the result of your lifestyle's composition? I think that's the main thing that people need to remember and that can be a uncomfortable mirror to look in Oh, yeah, your lifestyle composition is what you do Obviously and the materials you put in your mouth and I know that's a weird name for food But I've started referring to it this way because otherwise people fall back on It's food contextual. Yeah contextual Unhelpful terminology like health food and junk food which all have negative connotations Both of them are bad in their own ways, right? You're supposed to eat healthy food But it tastes terrible. It sucks. Yeah, and junk food is all the color in life And you should feel guilty for it's eating a closet while you're crying, you know crying tears of guilt puritanical Nutritional outlook. Yeah, none of that is helpful, right? So they're both negative terms so I try to think of food in terms of The spectrum of quality Depending on the purpose for eating it. I think that's key because the same food could be a high quality source For one purpose and a low quality source for another exactly like beans Let's say not really a great source of protein when you're talking about high quality protein sources It wouldn't be the first thing on my list, but not a bad source for carbohydrates. Yeah, not a bad Not a bad fiber in it. You know, it's yeah, it could work especially if you're working out alone, right? So Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that's why it might work for some people and not for others So if you think about your ideal body's composition think about what materials that's made of It's going to be for everybody probably Water a lot of protein a lot of meat, right makes up a body like that a lot of water makes up a body like that You're probably going to have a lot of fiber in your colon Right if you want to have a healthy intestinal tract Not a lot of fat but enough to be healthy and to have normal hormone production, right? Right strong dense bones Minerals and vitamins a whole lot of the thick tendons and ligaments Protein again, right? What else? Well, that's about it carbohydrates So in enough carbohydrates and fats to support that enough carbohydrates And carbohydrates are actually structural material in one sense. So your cell membranes Incorporate carbohydrates, you know carbohydrates are actually important Structural molecules as well, but you have to have a pretty low carbohydrate diet You know zero carbohydrate diet to have any problem getting enough carbohydrates for the structural components The reason we eat carbohydrates is as fuel Which actually brings us to this issue of eating to fuel the workout But before we get to that, you know, one of the things that you talked about in that pog log video That I thought was really really cool You tied it into what to do when you're hungry. What I really liked was this sort of like Hierarchy of eating Yeah, that you propose like, you know, when you're hungry, maybe you're not hungry. Maybe you're thirsty, right? Right. So the first thing you do is you drink some water, right? And then if you're still hungry The way you presented was like your go-to is protein, right? Not carbs not fat, right? But protein and a relatively pure protein like, you know chicken breast, you know Slice turkey as low fat as you can afford essentially And then you're going to work your way down this right the next thing that you should eat is fiber Fibers carbs not starchy carbs. And I would say fiber should mean to you green leafy vegetables Exactly, right not an apple not all the other options for vegetables, which are really starchy tubers like Potatoes and yams and everything else or green leafy vegetables or fiber in case sugar juice, right, right? It's not bad, but it shouldn't be your next choice on that on that hierarchy And if you get through all of that eat some carbs and some fats And most likely by the time you get there You will eat the correct amount of those foods and be satisfied Instead of starting with potato chips or cookies or fast food or whatever else people eat Ever fill the hole right until you actually get sick, right? You can eat that stuff until you're still hungry and you're still hungry Yeah, horrible. So um, it's a dysfunctional list of priorities, you know with food like that So that brings us to the issue of fueling workouts and the pre-workout and again There's a lot of quasi religious positions on this, you know a lot of fanaticism about it But I really think it's very very simple when we're under the bar We're working primarily in an anaerobic energy system We need high power outputs And that means only one thing as far as I'm concerned Means carbohydrate, right the power signature for carbohydrate metabolism Far outstrips the power signature for fat metabolism. Now if you're You know, if you're an aerobic athlete, you're a total expert at oxidizing triglyceride But if you are training under the bar, you're training with the prowler Or even if you're doing something high power like judo, right or martial arts and you try to do that without carbohydrates You're simply not going to have the performance that you need So for me the pre-workout is carbohydrate and a little bit of high quality protein to provide You know alanine and those carbon skeletons that will help support the anaerobic training now What do you do for pre-workout and usually oatmeal and yogurt? Yeah, I'm totally behind that oatmeal is oatmeal is my go-to steel cut oats because they tend to leak the glucose a little bit slower And a scoop away and then a little bit of granola because crunching yum not because they're really needed And uh, no, what do you do? I eat two bagels and uh, and a little bit of protein, but not much simple And that's about 100 grams or more of carbs But that's about all the carbs I eat for the whole day and I do that on purpose I cram it all in an hour hour and a half before I work out I guess about an hour and I don't eat it the rest of the day because I don't really need it the rest of the day I'm fine. That brings us to this issue of bracketing. So you're going to have a certain, you know Unless you're one of these ultra low carb people, right? And if you are you're probably not training here, right? um, but um That brings us to this idea of bracketing. You have a certain carbohydrate budget in your macro nutrient allocation And you're gonna you're going to tend to consume most of that starchy carbohydrate around workouts, right around physical physical activity now there is, you know, a lot of Talk about the ketogenic diet Which is an ultra low carbohydrate diet that forces us into the production of ketone bodies as part of fat Ketogenic diet has its utility and people clearly lose weight on it They become more insulin sensitive on it and a lot of people don't know this It also has a pretty significant anti convulsant effect. In fact, that's where its initial medical use began was as an anti convulsant nutritional strategy to prevent people who had intractable seizures from having seizures But as a nutritional strategy for a high powered strength training I think it's a loser And you know people say well, you know, you'll become fat adapted and you'll move your crossover point to the right And that's true But no matter how far over you your crossover point is the point in which you start preferentially You know, you increase your power output to the point where you have to Preferentially burn carbohydrate instead of fat If you push that to the right then you're able to do more and more high power work With fat oxidation Then before but no matter how far you push that crossover point to the right You'll never get the same power output From fat oxidation that you will from carbohydrate metabolism that will never ever happen. It's just biochemistry So I actually don't allow my athletes To do the ketogenic diet and do heavy training I have allowed athletes to you know, it's that well, I really want to do the ketogenic diet I really want to lose this weight and they're really committed to it I'll let them do it, but I won't let them do it under full loading Like I just won't put the full load on their bar And what you see when people do that is they Tap out pretty quick, right? So pretty hard difficult pretty quickly They'll go back to carbohydrates before they train So I'm sorry. I had to get that off my chest and you know, I um I talked to Robert Santana Sort of our you know the nutritional guru in our strength community about this I'm like, am I wrong? Have you changed your mind about this? Am I wrong about you? But he's like, no, it's crazy You know high powered strength training means carbohydrates. So, you know, just get used to it um, it doesn't mean that you have to You know Eat donuts all the time, but sure, you know, we're still going to be moderate about it So that's that's part of nutrition You have anything to add the nutrition aside from you know, you got to get your protein You need a little bit of fat enough for you know For hormone health and fat soluble vitamins and I don't really want to go down the rabbit hole of supplements But I guess I'll just briefly say I take creatine and I think that's all it's really necessary and creatine is Meat it's a meat component. Sure, right? That's all it is And you just give yourself a little bit of an edge with a little bit more and you know And we know that it's safe It probably helps a little bit on the margins for most people. I feel like it does it's not transformative But you know, it helps you get that extra one or two reps, you know in a volume workout It extends your capacity in the anaerobic energy system just a little bit And so I take it too You you take creatine. I do not yeah, I did once but maybe you feel like it made a difference No, yeah, it doesn't for everybody. Maybe it did and I didn't know it So And yeah, I'm the same way. No, I'm not a big fan of supplements You know people take all kinds of you know L carnitine and Well, hold on a minute though because you are a big fan of caffeine Caffeine's not a supplement. I know but I'm saying it's another macro nutrient. Okay, there you go I knew I knew we were going somewhere. Yeah, it's the elixir of life. No, it's true I do use I use caffeine throughout the day and I would not dream Of coming into the gym to work out without a full tumbler of fresh hot delicious coffee That would never happen And I do take a like one of these like pre-workout supplements It's got a little bit of of creatine a little bit of beta alanine and it how much does it help? I don't know Um, but mostly I just take that sort of like as a kind of a tasty hydration before I get under the bar I take my creatine at night. I don't get bloated per se But it just upsets my stomach a little bit So part of what I eat before I work out part of the reason why it's just two bagels And a little bit of liquid is that otherwise I feel just like I'm kind of Sloshing around and my performance suffers. That's a commonly reported. Yeah sort of side effect of that But the beauty of that is that any benefit that creatine is giving you is Having elevated levels in your body over the long term. That's right And so it's important to understand that like if you take creatine like let's say that you're working on your side You're going to try creatine and you take creatine right before a workout. That's not going to help you Yeah, I didn't do anything. That's not going to do anything for you It's basically loading your muscles with creatine over time. So I actually have a very simple approach to creatine I just take a little of it every day right and supplement and I eat plenty of meat So I know I have plenty of creatine in my total intake and it builds up in my muscles over time Reaches a steady state and because I train my muscles all the time A lot of that muscle creatine is going to be in the form of Bosphore creatine which is what I need it to be and so it's there for me when I need it But the idea that creatine is a pre-workout supplement is completely wrong-headed It's not that at all. It's something that you that you take every day So I think that message is clear that you know what you really need to be doing is attending to your sleep and nutrition Supplements for the most part, you know Even something like creatine it helps on the margins a little bit other supplements There's just not good data for them And and the other thing that you always have good marketing for them But there's good marketing for them and the other thing that you have to have in the back of your mind at all times is Here in north america in the united states We don't regulate these supplements like they do in other parts of the world Because freedom and you know You're not really sure what you're getting a lot of the time so caveat emptor buyer beware And you know most of these things are not going to help you do far better Just making sure that you get your sleep your nutrition And and other stuff like that. So that covers a pretty broad range of recovery factors. What else? We have anything else on our list here? Ann may not be on your list, but I think with females we have a lot more trouble getting adequate protein In our diet, right and we promised you we would talk about that a little bit So not just females a lot of people report they have enough trouble getting You know their target amount of protein So tell us a little bit about the challenges that you face there In order to get enough protein I have to have way shakes Yeah, I do as well. So it's not just a master's Problem. No, it's difficult to get enough protein It can't it can be and I hate to call it a supplement because a way shake is is a meal It's food, right? It's basically a milk product and we shouldn't call it a way shake We should call it a protein shake because way is not the only Protein supplement nowadays. There's a lot of options. Yeah, you can get casein Albumin and those kinds of things as well I take about four ounces of yogurt plain yogurt put it in a Shaker I put a scoop and a half away on top of that Put in some fresh frozen berries. They aren't fresh if they're frozen, I guess But frozen berries to give it some thickness Fill it up to the line with milk and put it on my ninja mixer and 51 grams of protein, which is a pretty good slug of protein And that probably gets you a long way I always have it want to get home from a workout and not one time during the day That's my strategy as well And some people have called that into questions You know the idea that I got in my early days of lifting was like you have carbohydrates before and you have protein after You fuel the workout And then you provide your body with the building blocks. It needs to adapt to the workout That's been called into question by recent research. I don't care. I do it anyway It seems to work for me and for my clients You should probably be eating protein regularly through the day Sure And after you finish working out is a great time to have a meal And so you really can't go wrong Yeah, right. I have to get the protein in someplace The other thing that we that comes up and every now and then somebody will come online Well, yeah, it's been shown that like one gram per pound a body weight for protein is too much and you're you know You're not going to use all of that. Well, first of all, I've seen that literature I'm not sure that I buy into it. I have some methodological problems with it They didn't look at what happened to pro to muscle protein accretion over the long term And then the other thing is there's also the practical considerations. So any protein target can be a little bit difficult to hit I find that if I tell people to aim for one gram per pound of body weight per day, sometimes they'll hit it often they won't And so I like for my athletes to aim high when it comes to their to their protein macronutrient target And then I find that, you know, they're going to do better Also, masters have an anabolic resistance. They have a harder time Turning on protein synthesis and one of the best ways to do that is with more protein So I don't make any apologies for having my masters aim high when it comes to protein So I'm sticking with one gram per pound of body weight per day in my practice Um, so recovery it's essential Learn it love it live it What else have we got? I think that's I think we pretty much hit the high points there Yeah And anything to add? No, I think we covered it. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode and the previous one I enjoyed it. Yeah, and that all being said This is Jonathan Sullivan with barbell logic coming to you from gravestill strength and conditioning with our barbell prescription series of barbell logic podcast Noah, thanks. Once again My pleasure. We'll talk to you all next time. Bye for now