In this episode 97 protocols
▶ 14:48 Low-Level Movement for Soreness Behaviors “There is a bit more effective principle based on exactly that which is this is we don't generally why low-level movement is effective at reducing acute soreness because that's low-level contraction of the muscles and you're gonna anti-stretch and get tissue out and you can get fluid out. ... doing some quote-unquote lighter cardio or some Low impact work the next day ... can alleviate soreness more quickly than if one were to simply lie around” ▷ 33:35 Avoid Anti-Inflammatories When Prioritizing Long-Term Adaptation Behaviors “You could do something like take an anti-inflammatory, whether this is a supplementation or a drug, or maybe this is ice. Oh, cool. That's great. That will enhance your recovery in this moment. That'll make you feel better today, probably tomorrow. But what we know is that blocks the signal for adaptation.” ▷ 34:29 Avoid Vitamin C and Vitamin E Around Training if Adaptation/Hypertrophy Is the Goal Supplements “there's evidence that a combination of vitamin C and vitamin E will blunt hypertrophic adaptations because they're anti-inflammatory, they're antioxidants, right?” ▷ 42:22 Reduced Training Volume Taper Before Competition Behaviors “typically what we see happen is prior to a competition, individuals will do what we call a taper, which is a reduced training volume for some short period of time.” ▷ 45:26 Pay Attention to Volume and Intensity Progression Behaviors “If you're getting significantly more damage or fatigue in a workout, you probably have increased your volume too quickly... or you've violated one of our principles of increasing intensity and volume sort of too quickly.” ▷ 45:40 Warm Up Sufficiently Behaviors “Generally, this is a problem of training. You either didn't warm up sufficiently, your fueling strategy is off... or you've violated one of our principles” ▷ 53:35 Start Recovery Immediately After the Workout Behaviors “I strongly suggest you start this recovery process immediately after the workout. ... you need that extremely high peak, but then you have to be met with an extremely sharp recovery back down.” ▷ 54:27 Listen to Slow-Paced Music After Training Behaviors “Number one is actually listening to slow-paced music. There's evidence that suggests fast-paced music may slow down your recovery and slow-paced would actually enhance it.” ▷ 54:48 Down-Regulation Breathing After Training Behaviors “you can also use what we call down-regulation breathing. You could do them in conjunction or one or the other, whichever is up to you.” ▷ 55:20 Box Breathing Post-Workout Behaviors “An easy example is just box breathing. So... inhale for somewhere between like three to eight seconds... let's say you chose to do a five-second inhale... a five-second hold... a five-second exhale... And then a five-second hold.” ▷ 55:55 Triangle Breathing Post-Workout Behaviors “You could do a triangle version of that where you do an inhale, hold, exhale, and then go right back into your inhale.” ▷ 57:03 Cyclic Sighing Behaviors “cyclic sighing, so two inhales followed by an extended exhale to lungs empty. Ideally, the inhales are done through the nose. The exhales are done through the mouth” ▷ 1:04:42 Compression Gear Tools “You can actually wear compression gear. That will help a little bit. There's a decent amount of evidence suggesting if you just were to, you know, put some tighter fitting clothes on... that that can actually prevent a little bit of soreness from occurring.” ▷ 1:05:06 Wear Compression Gear Immediately After an Overly Hard Workout Behaviors “You can immediately put on compression gear and wear that really for as long as possible.” ▷ 1:08:43 Pneumatic Compression Boots Tools “you can also use things like compression boots or garments. And these are pneumatic devices that will pump air outside you and compress back and forth.” ▷ 1:08:55 Massage and Body Work Behaviors “You can also use the physical hand. So this would be massage and body work. They're all really working... on the same mechanisms, which are effectively moving fluid in and out of the tissue” ▷ 1:09:38 Avoid Ice Immediately Post-Exercise for Hypertrophy Behaviors “Immediately post-exercise, which would be getting into cold water or an ice bath, if you're trying to grow muscle mass. Having said that, there is good evidence showing that cold water immersion specifically is effective at reducing muscle soreness.” ▷ 1:09:44 Cold Water Immersion Behaviors “there is good evidence showing that cold water immersion specifically is effective at reducing muscle soreness. ... you really do want to be either in moderately cold, this is maybe 40 to 50 degree water for probably north of 15 minutes, or you can be in sub-40 for as little as maybe five minutes” ▷ 1:10:23 Ice Bath Tools “then an ice bath might be a great choice. ... you would probably be willing to give up some small percentage of eventual muscle growth after a single session to get out of pain.” ▷ 1:13:09 Contrast Therapy Behaviors “There is not nearly as much evidence, but there is some on contrast stuff. So this is when you go cold, hot, and sort of back and forth. There are no really good rules in terms of how much should you go, how many rounds, how long in cold, how long in hot.” ▷ 1:13:40 Heat for Recovery Behaviors “Hot is good for recovery. ... I personally really like hot for recovery. I will feel maybe not great in that moment, but the next day I tend to feel really, really good.” ▷ 1:14:20 Sauna Tools “The studies of Dr. Susanna Soberg... the values that she has come up with... 57 minutes per week total of uncomfortable but safe heat, in that case sauna” ▷ 1:15:05 57 Minutes Per Week of Sauna Behaviors “it ends up being 57 minutes per week total of uncomfortable but safe heat, in that case sauna, and that can be all in one session or breaking it up into a couple of sessions on the same day or different days” ▷ 1:15:18 11 Minutes Per Week of Cold Exposure Behaviors “and then 11 minutes per week of cold, either in one single session or multiple sessions.” ▷ 1:16:01 Use Thermal Protocols Subjectively if They Work for You Behaviors “if you don't feel like they work for you, they won't work. If you feel like they work fantastic, they do. ... Some love it, some don't care for it, and everything in between.” ▷ 1:18:22 Cold Bath Behaviors “I would say cold shower is probably doing very little... So maybe you could try a cold bath and so you'd at least get some surface area coverage.” ▷ 1:18:40 Cold Shower for General Cold Exposure Benefits Behaviors “if you want to use cold shower for all the other awesome reasons, the cold shower, that's totally great. But if you're trying to use that to recover your low back and glutes... it's probably not going to do much.” ▷ 1:19:34 Avoid Hot Tub When Trying to Conceive Behaviors “Males, if you are looking to conceive in the 60 days following sauna or hot tub, do realize that both those approaches do severely limit the number of motile sperm” ▷ 1:19:34 Jacuzzi Tools “Jacuzzis can work pretty well.” ▷ 1:20:04 Ice Pack Tools “some people bring an ice pack and put it on the groin or near the groin when they go in” ▷ 1:23:09 Combine Breathwork With Another Recovery Modality Behaviors “I generally look for some physical approach and then some holistic approach of the breathwork, basically.” ▷ 1:27:52 Track a Performance Metric Behaviors “Number one, we're going to look for some sort of performance metric, right? So this could be your times are going down, your squat numbers, your power is going down” ▷ 1:28:05 Track a Physiological Metric Behaviors “Number two, some sort of physiology. And so I want to see something happening with resting heart rate, some biomarkers moving, heart rate variability” ▷ 1:29:02 Track Symptomology Behaviors “you want to look at our third category as well, which is some sort of symptomology. And so am I having a symptom of overreaching?” ▷ 1:29:13 Monitor Recovery Using Multiple Markers Behaviors “If you see all three of these popping up, you have reason to believe you've reached some overreaching.” ▷ 1:52:02 Use Rhodiola Strategically, Not as a General Cortisol-Lowering Prophylactic Supplements “I've been using rhodiola for probably six or more years... using it with the individual we work with. You do need to be a little bit careful. I wouldn't say that it blunts cortisol. It is probably more appropriately described as a cortisol modulator” ▷ 1:56:41 Morning Bright Light Exposure Behaviors “Viewing bright light, ideally from sunlight, but other forms of bright light early in the day actually can lead to a 50%, five zero percent increase in that cortisol spike, which is a good thing.” ▷ 1:57:54 Exercise Early in the Day to Support Cortisol Rhythm Behaviors “rise cortisol with light, bright light with exercise, with caffeine. These things will all increase cortisol.” ▷ 1:58:02 Use Breathing Methods to Downregulate Stress Later in the Day Behaviors “it's normal for cortisol to spike, but then to use some of the downregulation methods that you described in particular the breathing methods” ▷ 1:58:11 Pay Attention to Psychological and Physical Stress in the 6-8 Hours Before Sleep Behaviors “to really pay attention to how much psychological and physical stress is occurring in the six hours or so or eight hours prior to sleep” ▷ 1:59:06 Avoid Using Ashwagandha as a General Cortisol-Lowering Supplement, Especially Before Training Supplements “going back to your ashwagandha and rhodiola issue, I think it would be very short-sighted for people to do that as this is a prophylactic.” ▷ 2:01:24 Starchy Carbohydrates at Night Diet “I've heard it said that carbohydrates, in particular starchy carbohydrates, can inhibit cortisol. Definitely.” ▷ 2:15:38 Use Physical Movement as an Acute State Shifter Behaviors “You can pull out, first of all, physical movement will do it. You'd be stunned how just doing some yoga, moving around, doing some jumping jacks, starting your workout.” ▷ 2:17:14 Use Up-Regulation Breathing on Low-Readiness Days Behaviors “Absolutely breathing. Any sort of up-regulation breathing. So we talked a lot about down-regulation breathing. Just do the opposite. And so this is when hyperventilation strategies can work.” ▷ 2:18:42 Avoid Stacking Stimulants and High-Arousal Inputs Every Workout Behaviors “The phrase that comes to mind is signal the noise.” ▷ 2:21:04 Use Caffeine Strategically as an Occasional Acute Performance Aid, Not Every Workout Supplements “if you're not using them consistently and you're having a rough day and all of a sudden you throw down 200 milligrams of caffeine it's going to change real fast. That's a strong performance enhancing effect.” ▷ 2:21:21 Eat Food as an Acute State Shifter Behaviors “food, more calories just eating some food.” ▷ 2:21:24 Comfort Foods Diet “Sometimes we'll give people what we call comfort foods. So this is just like hey, you're from Georgia and we know you love grits so we're having grits for breakfast.” ▷ 2:21:39 Use Bright Light to Shift State Behaviors “The other couple of tricks here are light. So if we know that maybe say multiple people are struggling that day maybe we'll put on the lights extra bright.” ▷ 2:22:53 Avoid Changing Music Mid-Workout on Your Phone Behaviors “if people are using their phone to play music during their workout they're not going to deviate from that playlist prior to initiating the workout and then not deviate from that playlist as opposed to changing it in the middle” ▷ 2:24:14 Brain Games Before Training Behaviors “what we call brain games or puzzles... whether this is a crossword puzzle or something where you actually lose your thought of self for a second” ▷ 2:26:38 Use Mirrors for Hypertrophy Training Behaviors “if you're training for say muscle hypertrophy there's emerging evidence that suggests actually looking at yourself in the mirror... can actually be advantageous or can augment muscle gains.” ▷ 2:27:13 Avoid Mirrors for Explosive/Fast Movement Learning Behaviors “if you're doing an exercise that is explosive and fast it's probably not the best thing to be looking into a mirror” ▷ 2:29:16 Watch HRV Carefully if It Stays Low for Several Days Behaviors “I'm gonna still ignore it just like I did if it was a single bad day but I'm gonna start watching it very carefully. I may actually now introduce some other tests” ▷ 2:30:07 Use Cold Exposure as a Chronic State Shifter Behaviors “if your recovery score is in the tanks and you walk outside and you jump in your 35 degree water... your HRV score immediately afterwards... is going to be significantly compromised... however... about 30 minutes on most people... that score will be improved for several hours afterwards.” ▷ 2:31:26 Improve Sleep if Recovery Metrics and Sleep Are Compromised Behaviors “if your sleep is getting compromised then we're going to start going into and making sure we're improving our sleep” ▷ 2:31:50 Journaling Behaviors “you can do things like journaling or meditation and those have an acute effect as well as a chronic effect” ▷ 2:31:50 Meditation Behaviors “you can do things like journaling or meditation and those have an acute effect as well as a chronic effect” ▷ 2:32:27 Reduce Training to About 50% When Needed to Recover Behaviors “we're probably going to either completely remove training or drop it to like 50% or so until we start rebounding back to baseline” ▷ 2:39:15 Practice Breathwork Regularly Behaviors “we will often say breath work is a practice that's exactly what we're talking about right so you're practicing getting better at these things” ▷ 2:42:55 Pick One or Two Recovery Metrics Per Category Behaviors “I would recommend people do is not use everything I said you want to pick one or two things per category that are most important to you” ▷ 2:43:50 Use One Subjective and One Objective Recovery Measure Behaviors “I generally recommend one subjective measure... what's your mood? how do you feel today? ... and one objective measure HRV resting heart rate” ▷ 2:44:36 Measure HRV Daily or Most Days Behaviors “to start off I would recommend taking something like HRV every day or most days” ▷ 2:44:42 CO2 Tolerance Test Behaviors “if you don't have a device like that you could also use honestly the CO2 tolerance test... and that has actually been in our coaching experience... this tends to track extremely closely with HRV and other metrics of recovery.” ▷ 2:45:58 DALDA Questionnaire Behaviors “you can use an actual a pretty old commonly used survey called a DALDA... it is a fairly lengthy questionnaire... You would not want to do that every day.” ▷ 2:46:32 Track Motivation Daily Behaviors “if you wanted to take some subjective measures every day we typically stick with like I said mood, motivation” ▷ 2:46:32 Track Mood Daily Behaviors “if you wanted to take some subjective measures every day we typically stick with like I said mood, motivation” ▷ 2:47:11 Measure Body Fat Monthly or Quarterly Behaviors “another kind of sneaky helpful one is simply body fat... you can measure that monthly or even really quarterly” ▷ 2:47:50 Measure Cortisol Quarterly Behaviors “I would probably do this you're going to have to do these ones through serum so this is blood work cortisol like we talked about... you can do those quarterly” ▷ 2:47:55 Measure Testosterone to Cortisol Ratio Quarterly Behaviors “this is blood work cortisol like we talked about in testosterone and then of course testosterone to cortisol ratio... you can do those quarterly” ▷ 2:47:55 Measure Testosterone Quarterly Behaviors “this is blood work cortisol like we talked about in testosterone and then of course testosterone to cortisol ratio... you can do those quarterly” ▷ 2:48:46 Measure Glutamine to Glutamate Ratio Behaviors “you can look at actually more like semi-annually in plasma like glutamine and glutamine to glutamate ratio” ▷ 2:48:46 Measure Glutamine Behaviors “you can look at actually more like semi-annually in plasma like glutamine” ▷ 2:48:56 Measure TNF-Alpha Behaviors “we always look at something from the oxidative stress thing so this could be something like TNF alpha” ▷ 2:49:02 Measure Interleukin-6 Behaviors “or interleukin 6 something like that” ▷ 2:49:07 Measure Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio Behaviors “another sneaky actually one that I love to look at is the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio... you could look at that like fairly quarterly” ▷ 2:49:40 Get a CBC Behaviors “if you have a great physician and you can get insurance to cover that and you just go in and ask for a CBC and CMP” ▷ 2:49:40 Get a CMP Behaviors “if you have a great physician and you can get insurance to cover that and you just go in and ask for a CBC and CMP” ▷ 2:50:48 Track Libido Behaviors “we haven't mentioned libido but that's another assessment that people also tend to have a pretty good grip on and they know what feels normal” ▷ 2:53:14 Get Testosterone Measured Before Assuming You Need TRT Behaviors “make sure that if you're going to take that step that you actually get testosterone measured and you're working with a qualified person to guide you through that process” ▷ 2:53:20 Avoid Assuming Low Libido Means Low Testosterone Behaviors “don't just assume because you're having low energy or your libido is a little bit down... it could be simply training related it could be sleep related it could be any number of things” ▷ 2:55:00 Avoid Estrogen Blockers if They Harm Libido Supplements “people who take estrogen or aromatase blockers... experience severe deficits in libido because of estrogen being too low” ▷ 2:55:24 Avoid High-Dose Turmeric if It Lowers Your Libido Supplements “dihydrotestosterone DHT is among the more powerful androgens for power output... but also for libido and DHT is strongly inhibited by certain things like turmeric. So a lot of people who are taking high doses of turmeric can experience drops in libido” ▷ 2:55:53 Avoid Finasteride or Similar Hair-Loss Compounds if They Harm Libido Supplements “there's a whole catalog of things that can reduce libido... it can be DHT related... and who are taking various compounds to prevent hair loss things like finasteride” ▷ 2:57:11 Avoid Prophylactic Antioxidant Supplementation Supplements “I strongly discourage people from just walking around taking supplementation of antioxidants especially powerful ones for no reason” ▷ 2:58:14 Get Antioxidants From Food Rather Than High-Dose Supplements Diet “antioxidant rich foods are generally fine... what we're talking about here is pharmaceuticals and supplementation where you can take orders of magnitude higher dosages” ▷ 3:00:22 Grip Strength Testing Behaviors “another couple of ones you can do are grip strength testing... you can actually just test that every day” ▷ 3:00:28 Hand Grip Dynamometer Tools “if you can buy a fairly cheap hand grip dynamometer... these are typically able to be purchased for $20 to $40” ▷ 3:01:05 Vertical Jump Test Behaviors “I like a vertical jump test” ▷ 3:01:08 Force Plate Tools “if you have access to a force plate that's great and then you can get more in depth characteristics of the force velocity curve” ▷ 3:01:38 Force Transducer Tools “You can also use tools like force transducer and do a standard movement... and measure the velocity” ▷ 3:01:42 Use a Standard Load for Daily Velocity Testing Behaviors “do a standard movement... and just compare that day to day of a standard load so you do it every single time with the same load” ▷ 3:01:54 Medicine Ball Throw Test Behaviors “Similar thing could be done with like a medicine ball or a throw so you have the same ball you throw the same thing” ▷ 3:02:03 Standardize Warm-Up Before Testing Behaviors “You want to do a little bit of warm up but not excessive here... and you don't want to influence it by the veracity of the warm up every single day because that alone can change it.” ▷ 3:02:12 Keep Stretching Standardized Before Testing Behaviors “same thing with stretching acute static stretching directly influences power production so you don't want to go out there and one day do a 20 minute stretch before and then the other day you didn't stretch at all” ▷ 3:02:39 Track Your Own Normal Variation and Standard Deviation Behaviors “you just want to figure out first and foremost what those normal variations are for you so you have your normal number you have your standard deviation” ▷ 3:03:10 Take Action Only After Consistent Deviations for 3-5+ Days Behaviors “when you see numbers that are consistently or more than three to five days in a row... then you maybe have some cause for action”